[Wesley84]

Originally Posted by Dean_the_Young

Six of one, half a dozen of another, I know. Destiny made much more of an impression on me than Seed (not least because I saw them in reverse order after I got sick of the Seed dub when it came out, and only watched the sub later), with the dozens of flight MS that kindly just hovered there, not really aiming, waiting for the latest cool-dramatic-pose attack (tm). For 00, short but better is a relief from Destiny, which is a very simple reason for liking it.

Also there's the absense of sponateously combusting MSes. That's something else that I like about Gundam OO over Gundam Seed/Destiny. Though, I won't say every battle in OO has been enjoyable or interesting. The animation might be better compared to Seed, but I don't think we've had a defining fight in OO yet.

I wouldn't use that term myself, but it looks like Ali gets his own action next episode. For the moment, his moments have all been with Setsuna, with only snipits of him out of the cockpit.

I just hope it's not simply to make us hate Ali more. It'd be a shame for him to simply shoot Kinue between the eyes and drive off for the lulz. I really want him to be likeable and interesting in his own right, but I said the same thing about the Thrones who haven't measured up.

True, and I admit I was talking more of Destiny than Seed (though Destiny largely magnified the overlookable parts of Seed). Seed had some interesting political dynamics, such as a Eurasia-AF rivalry, South America and Australia declaring for ZAFT, etc., but the series was more about following the travel of Kira and Co, and the politics was reserved for sidestories until jetissioned in Destiny.

If CE excels at anything, it's creating side-stories. Not that I've read them myself, but there's alot of them and they're not really even connected to Kira and company, except for the odd piece of named gear.

(Though why, why, did they feel compelled to make a blatant political statement of genocidal American religious fanatics? Could you be any less subtle?)
Pretty much, though I'd say Seed's biggest point was of Kira getting all the girls, including Cagelli, while trying to survive.

I'm pleased they aren't making the United States into religious fanatics in OO, but I feel for the Middle East, especially after this last episode. I don't really buy into being able to use religion to override people's better judgement. If they can be placated into murdering people en masse simply by invoking the "G" word, there's something wrong with them, not their necessarily their religion.

And Kira's harem wasn't as blatant and silly as Athrun's that's for sure.

And that, my friend, is the marvel of good directing. The staff has been making the Powers be so attractive, and have been steadily increasing the tempo of the drive inter-power cooperation since the beginning, wanting us to anticipate the shear awsomeness of all of them in the same room. That is what directing should do; I remember how people kept waiting for Kira to meet some of the other ZAFT pilots, and BAM meeting Dearka was a good moment. Compare that to a throw-away meeting between Shinn and Kira in Destiny, which served no purpose later on...

I've spent most of the series anticipacting the Meisters' deaths. Just goes to show that no matter who the director is you can't please everyone.

Hm? It's pretty clear that most of the Meisters have pretty basic beliefs, albeit too uniform. Setsuna believes in Gundam as opposed to God, and wants to become the Gundam (and by extension, the manifestation of Schenberg's ideals). Lockon wants to prevent any terrorist attacks from happening in the future, after paying the cost now. Allelujah doesn't want there to be a need for any more kids like him. They are all manifestly anti-war from personal experiences, not from some deep driving philosophy.

Tieria is Veda's love slave, likely born and raised in CB like Felt.

I know their experiences have defined their actions, but that doesn't satisfy me. They're essentionally dragging the world through the mud because they got a bad lot in life. And I suppose that is enough as far as motiviation is concerned, but they recieve far too much screentime for their pasts to carry them.

Hopefully 19 marks the beginning of the end of the Meister's tunnel-vision and selfishness. Either that or the start of their beautiful friendships.

Really, it's the rest of the Ptolemy crew that doesn't have a clear motivation. Sumeragi has a mystery reason for leaving the Union military, but not joining CB. I'd be more interested with her in the Union with a dark past, like Graham, rather than in CB. (As a matter of fact, I even wrote a drabble based on that WI, though it was extremely mediocre.)

Actually Sumeragi joining CB is more interesting than her leaving the Union. Presumably she screwed up horribly. It could be anything, but let's give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it was something where alot of people died. Something so traumatic she quit her job. Or was fired. And she took up drinking and became somewhat suicidal in her outlook on life.

Why's she with CB doing the same line of work? How does she justify taking on an even greater responsiblity that betrays her nation at the same time?

She doesn't seem to care, but at the same time she seems to care too much.

I don't really like her, since she's inconsistent and is a bit of a drama queen that likes to feel sorry for herself. She should know better than to be doing what she's doing, but she's doing it anyway.

This is a taste judgement, more than a ability judgement. Louise's scene was good because it masterfully combined tricks such as proper application of background movement, sound effects, the shaking camera with ominous music when Saji was racing through the hospital, and the like. Setsuna's scene was supposed to give us an inkling as to why he suddenly gets such an out-of-(established)-character reaction when seeing Ali. Different mechanics, different purpose.
It's a testament to the director's ability to not only direct the show, but to at the same time direct audience who is the just as involved in a presentation as any character. If you are resistant to such techniques, fine and good, so am I. But I can still appreciate the meistro-finese involved; Neena went from adored to hated in an episode and a half, Setsuna had almost everyone's support to beat the Thrones hard (even if few actually expected him to), Mason's death directly led to more than a few people cheering when Graham sliced off the arm of those evil, ominous Thrones...

Gundam OO seems to be popular, despite myself. I nitpick OO quite a bit, so I know when they're simply insulting the intelligence or presuming forgiveness on the part of the audience. "I will have Michael kill Mason now in defiance of Johan, but a couple episodes later Michael will barely defend himself without Johan's direction." It's not consistent and thing's of that nature happen too frequently in OO.

That's why I'm really hoping it'll all come full-circle by the end. I can't see the big picture and have a hard time believeing there is going to be one that will make sense. I will be very disappointed if everything so far was based on a whim.

You might not personally like that style, but that doesn't make it any worse in regards to quality. I personally detest art, but I can still appreciate the fine strokes and subtle hues of a DiVinci painting, even if I can't name it. I can still appreciate a good action-thriller, even though those aren't my kind of book. A 00 weakness may be its main character characterization, but it's also balanced out by the rival characters, who have gotten much more focus thus far. (For example: compare Graham's lines for the first five episodes, and then the lines of all the Meisters combined out of their suits. It's telling.)

I don't know if it's really balanced out. Certainly the show's progress has been painful for me, who loathes the pace at which Celestial Being presents itself, while living the high life. I can't help but think they could have crammed everything we've seen so far into ten episodes, compared to the twenty we've had, without losing anything besides advertising in the process.

Considering how 00 has had so few in-series flashback films at this point (the clipshow episode, which at the same time gave new information as to CB's makeup) and just last episode with the Saji-Louise flashback (which actually gave us a new one as to how they met), it's not really fair to say that. By episode 18, Destiny had had a lot, lot more, and most of those were much longer in duration and really didn't put any new info in. Compare the most common flashback of 00, of Setsuna shooting his mother, to Shinn and his family's death. Or the battle stock footage, including the overly intricate Impulse launch twirling sequence.

With any luck, episode 19 marked the end of the Flashbacks. Their pasts are out in the open, now, let's all go kill Ali so we can have some closure. Sound good?