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gullwingdoors... While we're all here posting, I think it's important we reveal this news. This one's a little... longer, for our normal posts, I guess.
We're talking about Gundam SEED Destiny and Freedom here, obviously, and our thoughts on it.
... So.
The thing about SEED Destiny is, the first... six to seven tenths are highly flawed but still genuinely pretty good despite it, in a way most of Gundam SEED before it just... isn't. Even though the show struggles deeply with intense stock sequence reuse and repeated flashbacks and two genuinely comedically dogshit clipshow episodes, even though it handles one of the better characters of the original terribly... it really does manage to nail something down that's pretty good, and even decently interesting. Athrun Zala remains the heart of the series being good, Chairman Durandal is the guy who's obviously going to turn evil but is also very charismatic, Shinn Asuka is a professional hater with a fair bit of complexity by subfranchise standards.
Hell, it even manages to keep away from the Space Eugenics elements of the major conflict of the SEED universe (which is 'The Guys That Come From Space Eugenics vs. The Guys Who Are Horribly Racist To The Guys That Come From Space Eugenics'), and for a precious thirty-six or so episodes you can pretend the conflict is instead the much more classical The Guys Living In Space vs. The Guys Who Are Horribly Racist To The Guys That Live In Space. Even when Kira Yamato returns, he plays a much smaller part, and when he does start to get more active he is set against Athrun and Shinn in an interesting way, putting him in much more of a quasi-antagonistic role.
And then Kira Yamato tanks another explosion that should have by all rights killed him.
It... starts setting in before that, bit by bit, this rot that plagues the back half or so of Destiny, but little by little the show slowly starts shifting back to Kira and the returning crew of the Archangel, which... they're fine, glad to see them, I guess. But you can just... feel the quality drop. Things start to fall apart a little more, make a little less sense step by step, and the gears start falling out of alignment. It's hard to place what they're doing, but you can tell it's all setting up for something - something that becomes plainly evident when Durandal's evil scheme was revealed to be bogus nonsense genetics bullshit and the same kind of fuckoff space laser from LAST series returns to play.
And then the series pulls perhaps its most jokerfying twist:
Let me repeat that. All of this setup, slowly making the show worse and worse, all these strings being pulled - it's all in service of ffffucking THROWING AWAY MOST OF THE SERIES AND JUST DOING A MULLIGAN ON SEED'S ENDING. And the funny thing is, it doesn't even do it right - it just copies all the beats but *worse*, *flimsier*. It's such an impossibly contrived, deeply groan-inducing last arc with only a couple flecks of 'this could have been good in literally any other ending', including... the actual very last chunk of ending, Shinn finally moving past his anger toward the Freedom and his puppeting at the hands of ZAFT's command, meeting Kira for real at the grave marker they'd first encountered each other, choosing to fight for something new and different to him. It could have been a good moment, had the entire rest of the ending not only just been Not Bad, but not been So Bad It Feels Like It Retroactively Poisons The Entire Rest Of The Fucking Series.
It's... god, I don't fucking know how to fully express the SEED Destiny experience. It's much better than Seed OG for most of it, but when it gets bad - when it gets BAD - IT GETS ALMOST UNWATCHABLY BAD. Genuinely the only reason the friend we watch shows with was able to *re*watch that last chunk (he's already seen it before) was because we are always riffing on the shows we watch, as part of the experience.
(SEED as a franchise is incredible group watch material, by the way - it's a lot of fun to riff through the dogshit bad times both in direct quality and overall concepts, and balk at how pretty enjoyable it is when it actually gets good.)
... And, speaking of 'actually gets good', uh.
Gundam SEED Freedom is... genuinely pretty good. For the kind of person that laughed through the bad times and rolled with the good times in a full cramming of Gundam SEED/Destiny, Freedom is like finding a fucking oasis of quality. The animation is pretty solid, the intentional reanimation of iconic stock sequences and footage feels like a loving homage, the same old SEED plot beats that Worse Destiny dredged back up come back but played the correct amount of self-awarely to be absolutely hilarious rule-of-three type shit, the returning characters are genuinely pretty interesting overall... hell, I enjoy the main villain being a big fucking baby when he gets rejected and his plans start falling apart really badly, it's a lot of fun.
Plus, they actually finally - FINALLY - put in literally any fucking legwork to make Lacus x Kira somewhat believable as a couple, as the franchise's ostensible *primary* couple, even. It's like they finally realized 'wait, they have no chemistry' twenty years later and decided to finally give them literally anything, and thus it's been elevated from 'complete nonsense' to '... well, I guess I can see them as part of the broader Athrun-Kira polycule'. Kira has two hands, I guess. And, hell, they finally get Kira to say shit that feels like he was probably thinking during Destiny, about being the only one worth taking shit on and the only really capable pilot, and Athrun rightly fucking DESTROYS him in a gay fistfight for it - the only shot Kira gets is on poor poor puppyboy Shinn Asuka, who wanted to intervene but got rejected. (Athrun continues to be as good as ever, of course.)
And, of course, they finally make the Strike Freedom cool - and Kira also pretty cool - by having it and him genuinely take literally any fucking hits, a thing he did exactly zero of in Gundam SEED outside Shinn offing the original Freedom. Seeing his robot bleed and suffer makes him feel a whole lot less invincible. (He still has the same old Kira 'Jesus' Yamato plot armor, but I honestly don't mind it this time - it's one of the rule-of-threes'd plot beats that become incredibly enjoyable, since Literally Nobody In The Main Cast (except the bad guys) really believes he and the Archangel crew could've actually possibly died, and they don't even try to play at making it ambiguous.) Oh, and, also important, they uh.
They finally out-and-out reject the returning Space Eugenics Bullshit.
In fact, they do it with an incredibly stock power-of-love-and-unity message, but... genuinely, for the kind of tone me and my friend have been watching through SEED with, it works wonders. I am a sucker for a good power of love message, even if it seems like it should be stupid in this context it kind of works to cut through the bizarre layer cake that are the politics of SEED. Really, that's what I love about SEED Freedom: it's Classic SEED Nonsense Bullshit, except critically they decided to do it good this time, given the distance to reflect on what's good, what's funny and what sucks.
I do think Lacus's pilot suit fucking sucks, though. Her best outfit is consistently her command-bridge getup, her important-business outfit, no matter which SEED you're watching, and I wish her other outfits took after that.
Gundam SEEEEEEED (core entries). I... really don't know if it's worth watching alone. The original SEED has an incredibly bad start, before it gets alright halfway through, and then dives into the completely bonkers insane territory that will drive you mad. Then, Destiny is majority-good until it goes back to a worse copy of the completely bonkers insane territory that will drive you even more mad. Freedom's good, though, and I guess it can all even out into 'pretty okay, but wildly fluctuating'. Maybe if someone releases a recut of the franchise focused around Athrun Zala, around whom the show is inexplicably pretty good consistently even in the show's worst dregs.
But... together. With someone you enjoy the company of, someone you bounce off of well, someone you have a good enough media rapport with... SEED is transformed into maybe one of the most incredibly enjoyable Gundam watching experiences as a whole, whether it's balking and pointing and laughing at the animation oddities and the hyper-inconsistent 'remaster' and frequently baffling-dogshit politicking and frustrating plot and character beats, the hooting and hollering at the incredibly hype moments and the occasionally really solid character drama, the singing along with the genuinely really good openings and endings. I don't think the original SEED is overall good, I think SEED Destiny has an ending that ruins the entire series, and I think Freedom is incredibly stupid (affectionate) - but... well, I'm not exactly the system smiler, but it all brings a big smile to our collective face just thinking back on it.
That's got to be worth something, in recommendation weight, right.
We're talking about Gundam SEED Destiny and Freedom here, obviously, and our thoughts on it.
... So.
Gundam SEED Destiny.
The thing about SEED Destiny is, the first... six to seven tenths are highly flawed but still genuinely pretty good despite it, in a way most of Gundam SEED before it just... isn't. Even though the show struggles deeply with intense stock sequence reuse and repeated flashbacks and two genuinely comedically dogshit clipshow episodes, even though it handles one of the better characters of the original terribly... it really does manage to nail something down that's pretty good, and even decently interesting. Athrun Zala remains the heart of the series being good, Chairman Durandal is the guy who's obviously going to turn evil but is also very charismatic, Shinn Asuka is a professional hater with a fair bit of complexity by subfranchise standards.
Hell, it even manages to keep away from the Space Eugenics elements of the major conflict of the SEED universe (which is 'The Guys That Come From Space Eugenics vs. The Guys Who Are Horribly Racist To The Guys That Come From Space Eugenics'), and for a precious thirty-six or so episodes you can pretend the conflict is instead the much more classical The Guys Living In Space vs. The Guys Who Are Horribly Racist To The Guys That Live In Space. Even when Kira Yamato returns, he plays a much smaller part, and when he does start to get more active he is set against Athrun and Shinn in an interesting way, putting him in much more of a quasi-antagonistic role.
And then Kira Yamato tanks another explosion that should have by all rights killed him.
It... starts setting in before that, bit by bit, this rot that plagues the back half or so of Destiny, but little by little the show slowly starts shifting back to Kira and the returning crew of the Archangel, which... they're fine, glad to see them, I guess. But you can just... feel the quality drop. Things start to fall apart a little more, make a little less sense step by step, and the gears start falling out of alignment. It's hard to place what they're doing, but you can tell it's all setting up for something - something that becomes plainly evident when Durandal's evil scheme was revealed to be bogus nonsense genetics bullshit and the same kind of fuckoff space laser from LAST series returns to play.
And then the series pulls perhaps its most jokerfying twist:
it's doing Gundam SEED's ending again.
Let me repeat that. All of this setup, slowly making the show worse and worse, all these strings being pulled - it's all in service of ffffucking THROWING AWAY MOST OF THE SERIES AND JUST DOING A MULLIGAN ON SEED'S ENDING. And the funny thing is, it doesn't even do it right - it just copies all the beats but *worse*, *flimsier*. It's such an impossibly contrived, deeply groan-inducing last arc with only a couple flecks of 'this could have been good in literally any other ending', including... the actual very last chunk of ending, Shinn finally moving past his anger toward the Freedom and his puppeting at the hands of ZAFT's command, meeting Kira for real at the grave marker they'd first encountered each other, choosing to fight for something new and different to him. It could have been a good moment, had the entire rest of the ending not only just been Not Bad, but not been So Bad It Feels Like It Retroactively Poisons The Entire Rest Of The Fucking Series.
It's... god, I don't fucking know how to fully express the SEED Destiny experience. It's much better than Seed OG for most of it, but when it gets bad - when it gets BAD - IT GETS ALMOST UNWATCHABLY BAD. Genuinely the only reason the friend we watch shows with was able to *re*watch that last chunk (he's already seen it before) was because we are always riffing on the shows we watch, as part of the experience.
(SEED as a franchise is incredible group watch material, by the way - it's a lot of fun to riff through the dogshit bad times both in direct quality and overall concepts, and balk at how pretty enjoyable it is when it actually gets good.)
Gundam SEED Freedom.
... And, speaking of 'actually gets good', uh.
Gundam SEED Freedom is... genuinely pretty good. For the kind of person that laughed through the bad times and rolled with the good times in a full cramming of Gundam SEED/Destiny, Freedom is like finding a fucking oasis of quality. The animation is pretty solid, the intentional reanimation of iconic stock sequences and footage feels like a loving homage, the same old SEED plot beats that Worse Destiny dredged back up come back but played the correct amount of self-awarely to be absolutely hilarious rule-of-three type shit, the returning characters are genuinely pretty interesting overall... hell, I enjoy the main villain being a big fucking baby when he gets rejected and his plans start falling apart really badly, it's a lot of fun.
Plus, they actually finally - FINALLY - put in literally any fucking legwork to make Lacus x Kira somewhat believable as a couple, as the franchise's ostensible *primary* couple, even. It's like they finally realized 'wait, they have no chemistry' twenty years later and decided to finally give them literally anything, and thus it's been elevated from 'complete nonsense' to '... well, I guess I can see them as part of the broader Athrun-Kira polycule'. Kira has two hands, I guess. And, hell, they finally get Kira to say shit that feels like he was probably thinking during Destiny, about being the only one worth taking shit on and the only really capable pilot, and Athrun rightly fucking DESTROYS him in a gay fistfight for it - the only shot Kira gets is on poor poor puppyboy Shinn Asuka, who wanted to intervene but got rejected. (Athrun continues to be as good as ever, of course.)
And, of course, they finally make the Strike Freedom cool - and Kira also pretty cool - by having it and him genuinely take literally any fucking hits, a thing he did exactly zero of in Gundam SEED outside Shinn offing the original Freedom. Seeing his robot bleed and suffer makes him feel a whole lot less invincible. (He still has the same old Kira 'Jesus' Yamato plot armor, but I honestly don't mind it this time - it's one of the rule-of-threes'd plot beats that become incredibly enjoyable, since Literally Nobody In The Main Cast (except the bad guys) really believes he and the Archangel crew could've actually possibly died, and they don't even try to play at making it ambiguous.) Oh, and, also important, they uh.
They finally out-and-out reject the returning Space Eugenics Bullshit.
In fact, they do it with an incredibly stock power-of-love-and-unity message, but... genuinely, for the kind of tone me and my friend have been watching through SEED with, it works wonders. I am a sucker for a good power of love message, even if it seems like it should be stupid in this context it kind of works to cut through the bizarre layer cake that are the politics of SEED. Really, that's what I love about SEED Freedom: it's Classic SEED Nonsense Bullshit, except critically they decided to do it good this time, given the distance to reflect on what's good, what's funny and what sucks.
I do think Lacus's pilot suit fucking sucks, though. Her best outfit is consistently her command-bridge getup, her important-business outfit, no matter which SEED you're watching, and I wish her other outfits took after that.
Overall.
Gundam SEEEEEEED (core entries). I... really don't know if it's worth watching alone. The original SEED has an incredibly bad start, before it gets alright halfway through, and then dives into the completely bonkers insane territory that will drive you mad. Then, Destiny is majority-good until it goes back to a worse copy of the completely bonkers insane territory that will drive you even more mad. Freedom's good, though, and I guess it can all even out into 'pretty okay, but wildly fluctuating'. Maybe if someone releases a recut of the franchise focused around Athrun Zala, around whom the show is inexplicably pretty good consistently even in the show's worst dregs.
But... together. With someone you enjoy the company of, someone you bounce off of well, someone you have a good enough media rapport with... SEED is transformed into maybe one of the most incredibly enjoyable Gundam watching experiences as a whole, whether it's balking and pointing and laughing at the animation oddities and the hyper-inconsistent 'remaster' and frequently baffling-dogshit politicking and frustrating plot and character beats, the hooting and hollering at the incredibly hype moments and the occasionally really solid character drama, the singing along with the genuinely really good openings and endings. I don't think the original SEED is overall good, I think SEED Destiny has an ending that ruins the entire series, and I think Freedom is incredibly stupid (affectionate) - but... well, I'm not exactly the system smiler, but it all brings a big smile to our collective face just thinking back on it.
That's got to be worth something, in recommendation weight, right.