This one was actually fun to watch; its such a mess I just couldn't keep a smile off my face. If you can only see one Special Edition, make it this one.
How Much Can We Cut?
-We start off with the flashback to the circumstances surrounding Holly's death. It continues as normal into her funeral, with Andrei's narration, and wraps up with returning to the present day. Surprisingly, we're now up into the coup effort; Pang's speech is playing, as we see the coup members taking control of the elevator and jump to Sergei's reaction before he's contacted for his secret mission.
-Next up is the Ptolemy crew, who are already on earth. Setsuna is with them, though he has no lines and literally looks photoshopped in. Up in the elevator, the coup are made aware of Sergei's arrival in the Taozi. He and Pang have their discussion as usual, and are interrupted by news that all the ESF MS blockading the elevator are suddenly pulling back. Momento Mori prepares to fire, as Lockon/Allelujah/Tieria head towards the elevator.
-Setsuna preps the 00 Raiser for launch, as various characters react to the revelation of a second Momento Mori. Ribbons, on his comfy couch, talks about Setsuna as the 00 Raiser makes its desperate bid to stop the satellite weapon. Hey, they
didn't cut Devine; he tags 00 Raiser with the Egner Whips, and gets ripped apart by the Raiser Sword shot. The attack is effective as always; cue the elevator plates falling.
-Sumeragi makes her broadcast, everybody joins up to stop the disaster. The aftermath and Sergei's death go about the same, though Louise's part is removed. They skip over the third Momento Mori battle, Marina narrating over scenes of stuff like Al and Soma's relationship issues and Anew giving Lyle a drink. Tieria stares out a window, Saji mopes in a corner, and Setsuna...stares at the 00. Some things never change.
Wrapping Up Loose Ends
-Four months later, the Federation president gives his speech and Louise finds out Andrei had daddy issues. Meanwhile, the Ptolemy crew decides to retrieve Veda while Lyle and Anew lay fully clothed in bed. Revive and Hiling have their apparent flirting scene, and Lyle allows Anew's security breach to continue unreported. Elsewhere, Regene gives Liu Mei the coordinates to Veda. A-Laws launch, and Lyle flashes back to a new Lyle/Anew scene.
-They cut some of the hilarious launch scene out, but "...Veda" "...Gundam" is thankfully still in. The subsequent battle is oddly set to "Prototype" for...some reason. Revive and Tieria rumble, but the former isn't shown captured. 00 Raiser still does its "spewing particles" thing, but the big Saji/Louise scene is indeed cut entirely. Andrei is still a total badass and drives Trans Am Raiser off with his Ahead, and Saji still scolds CB for being a bunch of bloodthirsty idiots.
-Setsuna narrates on how Anew revealed herself an Innovator and ran off in the shuttle. Revive doesn't seem to be mentioned as captured, but later 00 Raiser still seems to launch late. At any rate, they cover a pretty good portion of the post-escape scenes before the Innovator team arrives to rumble. Lyle vs Anew plays out pretty much in full, with the other half of the battle primarily offscreen.
-"Trust You" does
not play for Anew's death, and Lyle beating the tar out of Setsuna is gone. Instead, we jump straight to the "Setsuna has glowy eyes" scene, and then go to what seems to be a new Graham and Billy scene. Billy mentions Ribbons, and Graham angrily cuts him off before heading to the Susanowo. Then we jump all the way to Setsuna returning to 00 Raiser with Veda's coordinates, and Graham's mentally ill rant.
-Except they actually cut most of it, and jump straight into the fight. Nena makes the first appearance I can recall since SEI, and kills Liu Mei. They then cut Ribbons mocking her, jumping straight to Louise ripping her apart and killing her. Louise's meltdown is cut, replaced by an extreme close up of her face while she chuckles and tears stream down her face. Setsuna and Graham's fight then wraps up, omitting their GN Radio scene.
-The Ptolemy is receiving their final battle supplies. We get the motivational CB scene, and Ribbons his clone army. Feldt gives Setsuna the flower, and everybody launches. You can tell they didn't give a damn about the A-Laws; the battle is rushed to the max. Instead of Setsuna cutting ships, an anti-beam cloud just rolls in after a few seconds. CB struggles for a few seconds, then Katharon and Kati arrive. This literally takes about two minutes.
-Now its time for Regene's desperate attempt to be relevant; humorously, they cut his maniacal laugh as Ribbons reappears almost instantly. They skip over Goodman's death, and there's maybe another 40 seconds of A-Laws combat before the GN Laser chimes in and wraps that sad chapter up. The allied forces move through the debris field, and approach the unveiled
Celestial Being.
The Fabulous Finale
-They entirely skip over things like Ribbons' monologue, opting to cut straight to the battle. They barely spend any time on dealing with the lasers, but thankfully they made sure to keep the humorous "Trans Am!" chorus. There's a tiny bit of new Gaga footage, but I don't think anyone will care. They still depict hundreds of Gaga, frankly. They've cut Gaga destroying the CB support ship, Gaga attacking Kati's ship, and Patrick's "death".
-Ptolemy charges into the hangar without Driveless Trans Am, oddly. Ribbons heads to Veda, Automatons attack Ptolemy, etc. Ali gets a new line and cut-in before he launches the Fangs at Cherudim. After Veda is located by Feldt, we transition into the new Seravee battle scene. It is so goddamn funny I have to describe it in detail.
-The Gadessa and Garazzo approach Seravee from behind, and Trans Am as per the TV series. Seravee Trans Ams and futilely fires on them, but here is where it changes. Trans Am Garazzo cuts off Seravee's right hand, somehow knocking him out of Trans Am. Gadessa, now no longer in Trans Am, flies in and grabs Seravee by the face before punching it repeatedly in the torso. Tieria responds with multiple beam sabers and Cannon spam, but fails to hit and loses the left arm to a Mega Launcher shot. Garazzo, no longer in Trans Am, swoops in and tears Seravee's entire right arm off. Tieria barely gets his GN Field up in time to block a Mega Launcher shot, sending him bouncing like a golf ball into the surface of
Celestial Being.
-The next few scenes go as usual, though I must note they fixed the error of Cherudim having Rifle Bits after already kamikazing them (I presume this is another DVD edit). "Friends" starts up in time for 00 Raiser vs Regnant, lol. It continues on into Tieria confronting Ribbons beneath Veda, but sadly ends seconds before the former gets his brains blown out.
-Speaking of, the scene makes even less sense with both parts back to back. Tieria raises his pistol to fire, only for it to instantly vanish as Ribbons opens fire with a pistol he couldn't have had time to draw. Next is Saji retrieving Louise as Setsuna goes to fight the Innovators. We jump straight into that fight, intermixed with the Sumeragi/Billy confrontation.
-Louise and Saji's scene pretty much goes the same, as does all the Trans Am Burst nonsense. Seraphim is in "Armed Seraphim" mode when Tieria launches it to activate the Trial System, but it makes no difference in the scene. The following reactions and whatnot are the same, including Lyle gunning Ali down.
-Tieria's monologue about Aeolia's plan isn't played out as a flashback this time.
Tactics, my favorite BGM of the series, no longer plays for Reborns' debut. Amusingly, Ribbons now pre-empts that goofy part where they call off their names and machines before fighting by opening fire. Unsurprisingly, the battle itself is drastically cut down and it causes several big errors.
-00 Raiser's right leg vanishes because they cut the scene where it gets blown off. Cherudim no longer saves 00 Raiser, but the Shield Bits are missing anyway. They dropped Reborns hacking into 00 Raiser's right binder, but I'm not sure if you can still see the damage.
-Arios vs Garazzo is cut down; after cutting off Garazzo's arm, Arios immediately goes for the claw attack. Arios still lost the beam rifle, and Garazzo's visor was still damaged. Most of Cherudim vs Gadessa was cut, really only leaving the Trans Am bit. Gadessa is still missing the Mega Launcher anyways.
-They cut the smoke cloud battle, but 00 Raiser and Reborns retain their damage from it. Tieria scolding Ribbons plays out the same, but "Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi" kicks in once the pair Trans Am. They cut 00 Raiser getting its head blown off, so I guess its head falls off in between scenes. Ribbons' Newtype Flash is still in, right as the two cripple one another's machines.
-Without pause, we go straight to Setsuna seeing Exia R2 arrive without any previous foreshadowing. The reason Ribbons has new dialogue that specifies where his GN Drive came from is because next we see him he's already powering the 0 up. Their final battle plays out in full, without Marina's monologue or the children death choir. Following are the new post-battle scenes, showing the recovery of CB characters and machines (Which is where Marina's stuff was moved).
-The epilogue is there pretty much in full, and may or may not have a few added seconds of footage. "Daybreak's Bell" is shockingly left intact, and it appears they've cut everything hinting at the movie. The ending credits feature some stylized character portraits, and the new ED song.