Chris Guanche wrote: > same thing over because proven formulas work and generate profits. Tomino > is not that kind of director, and you can see how stories that are seeminly
Yes, to his credit, he keeps trying new ideas within the epic-toy-commercial box. MSG 0079 itself was a product of his experiments. He had commercial success even prior to 1979 and with MSG he went and tried a new idea that flopped (initially). So MSG was a big change from Zambot (?), Z was diff from MSG, ZZ was different again, CCA was different again. F91... hard to say. And V was different yet again (but it had a lot of similarity to MSG), Turn-A... need I say more? > reversals in Zeta. I won't mention ZZ because I see Tomino's involvement in > that series as being peripheral. In Victory, there's a moral question that Hmm I haven't seen anything along that line. What I've seen is he took several oppotunity to explain _HIS_ decision for a comical tone for the first half of ZZ. > comes up many times throughout the series. Although the League Militaire > are ostensibly the "heroes" of the story, there's a question raised about > ... > fascism and religion. But that could be a topic for another thread. In Agreed, except perhaps I would be using diffferent wording and emphasis... The big weakness here is Katejina. There was no explaination for Katejina, not just joining ZE, but being such a hateful person. If Tomino had written her story differently and devoted some episodes to her conversion from sweetheart to Darth Vader, V would have been a much better series. > Turn A, Tomino leaves a central question deliberately unanswered. The > ... > Is the Moonrace justified in ...? > Are the Earth forces justified in ...? > These are the kinds of issues that Tomino > hides underneath the surface of the old "Earth vs space" stories of Gundam. And it's a HUGE question for the viewer why Tomino leaves it unanswered. To (mis)use a Zen metaphor, I think Tomino/Turn-A's proposal is to UNask the question. > justified in wanting to prevent terrorist attacks like that from ocurring > again. However, those honest intentions are perverted by a group of > officers (Jamitov and Bask) who want to use the terrorist attacks as a > pretense for their power grab. At the end of 0083, we see almost all of the > ... > ... there certainly some parallels between the political > climate of 0083/Zeta and the current world situation. Well then, let's NOT discuss "current world situation". Chinese like to say, sort of "the wall has a ear". It's just a recurring theme in both real life and Gundam. Modern politics is not that different from ancient history. The idea that Law and Order can be imposed by force to create permanent peace and prosperity is an extremely attractive idea. The dream of perpetual happiness, perhaps not for myself or even my children, but for my grandchildren and every generations afterward, is irresistable to most mortal beings. Common people, caught up by the dream or "honest intentions", can easily justify drastic measures. "Human destiny is in space" is a perfectly honest intention, but it is frighteningly easy to go from there to a decision to drop an asteroid. Criminals may kill tens or even hundreds of people for temporary selfish gain, but only those who have dream of "making the world better forever" can murder thousands and millions. Common people, just like you and I, can never distinguish "necessary evil" from just plain "evil". It might be INEVITABLE that your supposed "honest intentions" will always be "perverted" by some groups of people. I know this is a controversial statement. Many philosophers greater than I, from Confucius, Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, George Washington, claimed to have some kind of ideal solution to the human situation. I am not that arrogant to say they are all wrong. I am just suggesting that many (or ALL?) Gundam series all shines a dim light on big visions or big "honest intentions". Most Gundam series give the Big Speech with the Big Dream to the bad guys*. The heroes (Amuro, Kou (yuck), Camille, Judoh, Amuro, Usso, Loran, etc) never talk about any big vision or big dream. They react to the here and now, something is wrong NOW (asteroid drop) and they have to do something NOW. They don't fight for the future, they fight to protect the people around them. This line about "protecting my friends and family" (typically meaning only those on the White Base) is repeated by almost every Gundam pilot even up to Seed. It's repeated so many times that the viewers are numbed already. But the viewers don't stop and ask "why?" Why fight only to protect your friends? Shouldn't you fight for Freedom, Justise, Peace and Happiness for Everybody and Forever? * - yes Zeta got tricky in a few spots. [EMAIL PROTECTED] had the biggest speech in the show and the AEUG fired the Colony Laser and destroyed innumerable lives. -- Dr. Core -------------------------------------------------- The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected] Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this in the BODY: help list
