Over the Rainbow, Out of Their Minds

So. Gundam Unicorn. It's been a long time coming, but it's finally over. Now, if you are a fan of Unicorn, I'd like to just ask a simple question: why? It has a laundry list of problems and outside of production values (and Marida's character) I haven't seen much to praise in it. Now, it isn't like it doesn't have good ideas. In fact, with more time to flesh things out (and if the writer showed some restraint) then it could've been great. However, instead, we get a ham-handed, preachy, downright embarrassing story that is probably the most overrated Gundam series I've seen - even more overrated than Zeta or Wing. Oh, and before anybody says anything about "well, did you read the novels?" I will say, "No, but I shouldn't HAVE to. It should stand on its own merits." But this isn't what I'm here to post about, no, this isn't a "review" by any means so much as me just sort of jotting down my impressions about the finale, "Over the To-" uhm, "Over the Rainbow." Spoilers ahoy.

I'll get the good stuff out of the way first. The animation is stunning as ever and the soundtrack, even if it consists entirely of remixes, is probably the best that Unicorn's offered. Action scenes are good - well, at least most of them. I'll get to that later. But the first scenes are actually really hype. You see a lot of small skirmishes between grunt units which really makes it feel like a war's going on. Not to mention, using so many obscure Mobile Suits helps give it a real visual flair. The actors give incredibly good performances, most notably Namikawa's Riddhe. I think that the director knew how butt-ugly the Full Armor Unicorn was, since the cluster-fuck of gear is gone in the first twenty minutes. And nothing of value was lost.

Anyway, that's pretty much the extent to which I can praise this finale, since everything outside of superficial treats for the senses is almost insulting. Where to begin?

Well, for starters, there's the usual problem of character development being completely inorganic. This time, they even point out how forced and stupid it is when Riddhe freaks the hell out over killing someone, when he flat-out says he didn't even know Marida's name. Oh, but my mistake, Newtype magic made it hit home. And yeah, I'm usually one of the first guys who would say "Newtypes aren't magic," but Gundam Unicorn has taken any semblance of realism or restraint shown by Tomino and Gundam in regards to Newtypes and thrown it out the window. Even Victory Gundam didn't do half the absurd shit that Unicorn did with Newtype magic, and that literally had Queen Maria healing people's wounds with Newtype powers.

Anyway, Marida's death. I would've probably felt a lot more intensely about it had Marida not just stood still in front of the Banshee for about two minutes. Don't even say she was pulling an Obi Wan, since they were apparently getting through to Riddhe as it was, she just sort of made a dumb move and died for no reason other than to up the body count.

While I'm still talking about the first half hour or so of the movie, congratulations, Unicorn. You introduced rose bits. Now I can take your mecha design as seriously as the robots in G Gundam (I'm aware that the Psycho Jammer has been around for a while, it's just that they stuck those things front and center on the screen for a few seconds so it was hard to NOT notice now). Also, Angelo is so nucking futs that he destroys his own Mobile Suit because he's hallucinating of how he wants Full Frontal to give him a full behind. So he's confirmed to be comic relief by now, I think.

Also, while I'm nitpicking: how does the Destroy Mode even activate? Sometimes the armor expands from bottom to top, sometimes from top to bottom, sometimes it starts from the middle and works its way out. It's a machine, isn't it? Doesn't that mean it has programming? Unless they added a line of code to make the Destroy Mode activation change based on... I don't know, whatever angle the camera's looking at it from?

So, that about covers the fight scene, which was all crammed into the first thirty minutes of the movie. From now on, things slow down and then when they speed up, they get really dumb.

Anyway, next half an hour or so is spent just explaining what the hell is in Laplace's Box, and it's... A sentence saying essentially that Newtypes should be represented in the government. That's it. I'm not even downplaying it for the sake of being negative, that's pretty much the extent that this big secret that we've been chasing for the whole series is. I don't even see what the big deal is, it isn't like it would change anything. The idea presented is that just having the Feddies sweep it under the rug would brew dissent, but, well, here's the thing: they still don't have any proof that the charter is real. Way near the end of the film, Martha points out, "We could just say it's a fabrication," and she is given no counterpoint, which means that could very well happen. It'd be a dick move, yes, but no less dickish than the Feddies keeping it secret for nearly 100 years. All things considered, the entire Laplace incident seems like it was a snipe hunt. Yet it's still treated like it's the most important thing to happen in the Universal Century since the One Year War. No side got anything out of the whole deal other than a couple of kids shouting "Possiblity!" (and sometimes, "Prayer!") at them.

But, you know, the charter itself isn't as dumb as it gets. No, that comes in the so-called "final battle," if it even can be called a battle. Even with his absurd Neo Zeong, Full Frontal never stood a chance. I mean, that's REALLY saying something. Let's think about all the crazy crap that the Neo Zeong can do. It not only is a comedically large Mobile Armor which is armed to the teeth with every sort of projectile weapon imaginable, it also has six massive arms that look like they could crush Mobile Suits like paper cups, and it has some weird God Gundam-looking ability which just makes things explode for... Some reason. But no matter what it tries, the Neo Zeong gets completely no-selled by both RX-0 units. They could literally have just stood still and tanked everything Frontal was throwing at them until the Neo Zeong ran out of energy. The Unicorn ended that fight without as much as a single scratch on it. Oh, and before I forget: Banagher summoned the Unicorn by shouting its name. I'm not even kidding. We have gone full-on Super Robot here.

And then comes the grand daddy of stupid moments: Full Frontal and Banagher time travel. No explanation, no logic, it's just thrown in. Apparently Newtypes can just sort of... Do that. I know it probably is a callback to some of Lalah's lines, but that's a very literal interpretation of a character who was more than likely speaking in metaphors (and possibly not entirely sane), and one that is completely unfitting of a sci-fi story that was originally conceived as being a realistic robot show. And it's just, you know, stupid. If Full Frontal can time travel, and he KNOWS he can time travel, why didn't he time travel in ways that would let him straight-up win? Like, I don't know, maybe traveling back to the start of the whole incident now that he knows where the Box is? Or even further back, to any of the previous Zeon wars. Can ALL Newtypes time travel, or just Frontal? Why? How? I'm fairly certain it wasn't just a hallucination, since they saw very clearly famous scenes from the series which neither Frontal nor Banagher would have known about. The only good thing that might come from this absurd, underline, absurd plot point is that it could theoretically have given at least SOME explanation for the weird ending of Char's Counterattack. Hey, the Nu Gundam couldn't push Axis back, but I think it's not out of the question to say that the RX-0 could do it with one hand tied behind its back, and still have enough time to curb stomp the entire Neo Zeon fleet.

Then, for the cherry on the Neo Zeong's bullshit sundae, after the one-sided beatdown ends... It just disintegrates. For no reason. Unless the Unicorn suddenly got some invisible Moonlight Butterfly (hey, it wouldn't be the first or the last new superpower that Unicorn pulled out of its ass), or that "everything explodes" thing burnt it out or some other silly explanation.

But, wait, all this stupidity is surrounding Full Frontal. We can't give our antagonist stupid new superpowers that tear the continuity a new asshole without giving just as many to the protagonist! Can't we give the Unicorn more God Mode Sue abilities and make it even more ridiculous, creating plot holes in future UC works? We sure can! How about we have two Mobile Suits tank a weapon of mass destruction, even after they spent the past God-knows-how-long doing nothing but fight. This is absolutely unprecedented in any UC work - and it's even unseen in FUTURE UC series. How is it that the RX-0 is apparently more technologically advanced than things like the V2 Gundam, a Mobile Suit which was developed over fifty years after the events of Unicorn? Because if I were a military organization and I saw this thing that can singlehandedly destroy armies, tank weapons that can disintegrate entire space colonies without a second thought, run at maximum capacity indefinitely, blow up grunt units even if it misses them, and gains new powers as the plot demands... Mothballing that design is the LAST thing I'd do.
 I suppose I should just blame it on Tomino? He didn't write Unicorn, but he wrote everything that chronologically came after Unicorn. It's his fault for not making blatant Super Robots, I guess. It's totally not the job of Fukui to take works like F91 and Crossbone into account when he makes his Mobile Sue-t, and if you haven't caught on yet this is sarcasm.

And then we have the Unicorn growing crystals all over its body, sing it with me now ~ for no reason~. This makes, what, a solid half dozen unexplained superpowers that ignore the laws of physics that the Unicorn has pulled off? And for some reason it starts to make Banagher go nuts or something, I don't know, it's not really explained. Though if I were to guess it has something to do with him becoming one with the Getter or something. And then Riddhe threatens to NTR Mineva and Banagher's power of love [for a girl he's known for a grand total of about a week and has done nothing with outside of eating hot dogs and I don't think Banagher even knows her real name] and that gets him to become human again or something.

How did we get here? This is the dumbest, most schlocky thing I've ever seen in a Gundam series. Not even the Wing Gundams were THIS invincible. Not even G Gundam had THIS many Super Robot elements. Not even Kira had THIS much plot convenience to not ever need to betray his ideals. Not even 00 had THIS much derailment in the finale.

Honestly, though? Feel free to like Unicorn if you already do. Regardless of what I'd say about Unicorn, I can see why someone might like it. I don't like love at first sight, but many do. I don't like adding Super Robot elements to Real Robot shows, but (based on how often it happens) many do. I don't think animation and music can be a substitute for a plot, no matter how impressive they may be (and they are very impressive) but many do. I think adaptations should stand on their own, but fans of the original are probably just happy to see their story getting any adaptation. With this many problems (I admit that many of them, like all the BS with the Neo Zeong) are exclusive to the anime. I don't know if I'll ever read the books to see if they are better, but making books required reading to appreciate the plot isn't the mark of a good adaptation. I hate Unicorn, but that's not a reason for anybody else to hate Unicorn.

But that isn't going to change the fact that it's still the most overrated Gundam series in the history of the franchise.