Hey geeks, I've brought in a guest to talk about Gundam because he is the biggest Gundam fanatic I know! Please welcome MS09R2!
~Big Eyes
The Hollywood Reporter has dropped a colony-sized news bulletin: Legendary Pictures has a Mobile Suit Gundam movie in the works. It's currently being headed by producer Cale Boyter on behalf of Legendary Pictures and the Sunrise creative team. It's going to be set in the original series' timeline of the Universal Century, and everything they've said is pointing to the One Year War being the focus. The first fans had heard of this was Thursday at the 2018 Anime Expo in Los Angeles.
A bunch of old school mecha otaku just clutched their little hand-painted plastic models close to their chest and cried tears of joy at the news. This is going to be a full film, not just that tease of a scene in Ready Player One! And it's the Universal Century timeline, the best timeline, the ORIGINAL timeline for the series! It's about humanity going into space and connecting with each other and the dangers of space Nazis, which are numerous! It's military sci-fi! It's gonna be great!
And then there's a handful of others, also clutching their gunpla to their chest and shaking with fear, pointing quietly at the non-canon trainwreck that is G-Saviour: western cinema's first attempt at making a Mobile Suit Gundam movie. But to be fair it was the year 2000 and that meant costumes and sets were still of that particular brand of cheese that somehow makes futuristic stuff look dated as hell as soon as it's put in front of a camera. We've grown, aesthetically speaking, beyond that as a sci-fi consuming culture. Maybe this time it actually will be great?
Riding the sci-fi and 80's nostalgia wave thats permeating pop culture, now might actually be the time to have a go at this film...the name "Gundam" reminds 20-somethings of late night Toonami broadcasts. Maybe Legendary Pictures just feels more keen to hop back into a mech cockpit after releasing their second Pacific Rim film?
Cale Boyter's own resume is pretty broad: there's fellow Japanese property Detective Pikachu which is wrapping production, the insane ballet of violence that is Shoot Em Up, and Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny because why not? Maybe Mr. Boyter will be able to see what the right balance of military drama, science fiction, and anime style needs to be for this to work.
In Ready Player One, the titular Gundam crammed one of it's iconic but dated poses from it's 38 year old parent anime into its brief appearance. But do we really need another film full of contrived "spot the reference" scenes taking up the whole running time? And if the film tries to throw off it's anime heritage, will it run too far in the other direction and turn into another sci-fi bargain bin movie like the block of cheese that is G-Saviour? Will Newtypes be an actual thing on-screen (a jarring addition to what is otherwise hard military sci-fi), and are you prepared with the inevitable "Force User vs. Newtype" arguments that will happen across the internet? Will nerds ever be happy with reboots of properties?
Either way, someone better tell Legendary Pictures that Andrew W.K. already finished their soundtrack for them years ago.
- MS09R2
