Gundam cliches you could do without?

[T0-burnth1sHeart]

Well, I wasn't trying to cause trouble with you or anyoone else either. This is also a large part of the reason why I am wary of such debates. It seems that any such topic concerning a series with a large fandom can devolve rapidly at the drop of a hat, may my generalized tone be forgiven.

[Xenosynth]

Nah, don't worry about it. No trouble at all. Technically, this debate still isn't worse than I've seen in many other places xD At least people here don't regularly devolve into flame wars.

Anyway, on topic, I guess for me there isn't really any cliche I would say I could do without except maybe the masked Char rival. Hell, I don't mind the Char rival, just the mask. I guess that's the only thing that bothers me, except in the case of Carozzo Ronah.

[ShadowCell]

oooooookay guys seriously how about we try getting back to the actual topic

here i'll start. Gundam cliche i wouldn't mind seeing subverted once in a while? dysfunctional home life. AGE kind of sort of slightly goes in that direction, in that Flit isn't, like, abusive or cheating on his wife or whatever, but i wouldn't mind seeing Gundam try out its themes and messages on someone who isn't all maladjusted because of their douchebag parents.

[T0-burnth1sHeart]

True, Zeheart's mask was kinda a poor excuse. I mean, if they could make a helmet to control and amplify X-Rounder power, surely they could do something else. Since he wasn't doing things like Kamille's super wave motion beam saber or hearing other people's thoughts, the justification was greatly weakened.
And on ShadowCell's comment, I do like what you are suggesting a lot. This is a war series, so angst and such is unavoidable, but I would like if most of that angst originated from the war, not from abusive and/or ignorant parents. This annoyed me a lot in Zeta, and I was glad Flit was good enough of a parent (at least initially) that Asemu didn't turn out like that.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

I'll agree with Shadow on subverting the dysfunctional home and I'll reiterate losing the masked, blond ace for one or two shows.

[YazanGable]

oooooookay guys seriously how about we try getting back to the actual topic

here i'll start. Gundam cliche i wouldn't mind seeing subverted once in a while? dysfunctional home life. AGE kind of sort of slightly goes in that direction, in that Flit isn't, like, abusive or cheating on his wife or whatever, but i wouldn't mind seeing Gundam try out its themes and messages on someone who isn't all maladjusted because of their douchebag parents.

Well, unless you talk to those fanboys that insisted Flit and Emily had a loveless marriage and he only got with her to make children through which he could avenge Yurin, who he was still in love with.

I wish I was joking with you on this.

[Kuruni]

I can live without yaoi ship tease. Although, I will be more happy if they choose to leave it as it is, but counter the mood with (you guess) more loli. :p

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Unfortunately fangirls (in a negative context) see yaoi everywhere, so even if they're trying not to put that in a show, it'll show up in doujins anyway.

[HellCat]

Zeheart won't listen to Asemu's mischief.

[GX9900-Gundam-X]

My biggest problem is the whole Lead has the blue white gundam I would love to see a Lead gundam with a new color scheme

[Kuruni]

My biggest problem is the whole Lead has the blue white gundam I would love to see a Lead gundam with a new color scheme

(humming theme of Unicorn)

I guess your biggest problem is resolved, since the days of CCA, conglatulation.

[kayone73]

The one cliche i'd like to see broken is finally moving a Gundam story far out of the earth sphere or our solar system.

And also move it well beyond the 23-24th century time frame (which was done in Turn A)

[ShadowCell]

what would that change?

[YazanGable]

The expansion or time?

Expansion I could see a case for, as it would potentially alter the nature of the conflicts (...granted, it may then just turn into colony vs colony...but then, there's only so many different approaches to conflict you can pull with giant mecha as a major element.)

[ShadowCell]

well, if you want conflicts taking place in more or less the same sort of timeframe as they do in the likes of Zeta and SEED, you'd have to have some way of getting people around the solar system quickly. but if people can do that, what's the point of expanding the map to include the rest of the solar system? it's not as though distance would help the space colonies of Jupiter or whatever be very independent from Earth, or from anyone else, because they'd be able to get there quickly enough to negate it. hence, what you get isn't really all that different from the Earth Sphere; it's just got different background scenery. so i guess watching Gundams fight each other amid the ice volcanoes of Triton or whatever would be cool, but it also sounds kinda gimmicky--a superficial change touted as something more than it is.

or you could go the same route as AGE and tell a long-term story over multiple generations. AGE isn't inspiring a whole lot of confidence in the workability of such a story, though.

[bullethead]

Things I could do without in the next shows (somewhat in order of how much they annoy me):
-Shoving story relevant material into side story manga, magazines, novelizations, etc... A show should be able to stand by itself as a whole story, so putting that stuff in the other media not only weakens the show by opening plot holes, but reinforces the impression that Bandai is incompetent that has been gathering steam lately.
-Any form of transhumanism that involves psychedelic mental communication. Why? Because the evolution of humanity to survive in space could be done in any number of interesting ways and this approach is fairly overused in the franchise as is.
-Repeating story beats from the various UC series (kid hops into Gundam in colony, winds up on Earth, crosses desert, etc...) in pretty much the exact same way as other shows. It really feels like Gundam has been stuck hitting the same beats and themes for 30 years while the world has moved on, so I think that bringing in more modern themes and putting new twists on old ideas would be nice.
-No black and white conflict where there's no redeeming elements to the bad guys and/or the writers keep trying to make the good guys look bad despite the bad guys being evil. If you're going to try for ambiguity, do it properly by having both sides have valid points and some decency when it comes to acts of war (and no, having decent guys on the bad guy side doesn't count).
-Any characters below the age of 18 on the main cast. This is something that could be applied to anime as a whole, but shows like Gundam with a military setting should really follow this rule (although there's more leeway if the show is not strictly military like G Gundam or X or there's a decent explanation for an underage character's presence that isn't "I fell into the cockpit").
-Earth vs Colonies conflict #50328928. G, X, Turn A, and 00 were breaths of fresh air because they weren't the stereotypical conflicts that have characterized most of the UC and AU works. (This also falls under the not repeating UC story beats thing too, but I thought it deserved to be pointed out).
-Females who pilot Gundams either winding up as secondary characters and/or dead. I don't need a female main character, I'd gladly settle for one female Gundam pilot in a group of four or whatever that manages to go from start to finish of the show in a Gundam and doesn't wind up dead.
-Over the top pacifism. It's okay to have pacifists and what not, but they shouldn't be in the cockpits of the military hardware designed to kill people and they should not be allowed to spout their ideals in the middle of a battle where other military personnel are dieing.
-People dying and not staying dead. It's one thing if it's Patrick Colasour (a joke character with a history of not dying), but if it's someone who obviously should be dead (MS blows up and there's a shot of them in the cockpit where white light floods the frame), leave them dead.
-No masked man, especially if he's blonde. It's been done to death and is just ridiculous now.
-Sticking to the near Earth setting. I think it's safe to say that it's overdone and the franchise could use some variety to open up some new ideas and approaches to old ideas.
-The traditional Gundam color scheme. Maybe use the RX-78-1 colors for the lead Gundam just once, because those make any good guy suit look about 100x cooler. The regular Gundam colors are good, but they've become bland because every main suit uses them.

I've probably got some more rattling around in the back of my mind, but I can't remember them right now.

[YazanGable]

-Any characters below the age of 18 on the main cast. This is something that could be applied to anime as a whole, but shows like Gundam with a military setting should really follow this rule (although there's more leeway if the show is not strictly military like G Gundam or X or there's a decent explanation for an underage character's presence that isn't "I fell into the cockpit").

To be fair, Gundam at least somewhat acknowledged this wasn't the norm. At least, in the initial runs.

In 0079, the fact the cast were so young was basically a reflection of how bad the war had gotten that, with over half the population dead, these young kids would have to be fighting on the front lines. Plus, the idea that the battlefield is changing is further reflected in this 'transition of old guard and new' theme. Moments like Bright and Tem's conversation in the first ep, and the entire episode with Gadem further drive this home.

Zeta mostly managed to roll with it decently in that the AEUG weren't a proper standing army, and Yazan even berated them for having kids in their ranks.

ZZ, again, it became a matter of necessity. Most of the AEUG's frontline troops were dead. Bright saw some kids with potential and he took a chance because...well...he didn't really have any other options to fall back on.

From there, the problem isn't really that prevalent again until SEED (the Wing kids were all trained and assigned their Gundams and while Loran fell into the Turn A's cockpit, the militia was pretty ragtag by nature, so it kind of works.)

...then again, most things I notice people complain about in the franchise aren't exactly as bad as they get talked up to be, so maybe this is just me splitting hairs.

[HellCat]

Totally agree on the sidestory issue. If they want to do a comic that runs alongside the main story, fits in and explains a few extra things that's fine. But since SEED we've increasingly seen major Gundam releases be networks of a full TV series supported by 2-3 side works and reference books, little to none of which got brought over internationally with the shows. 00 in particular had this problem. Want to know what happened to the Observers, where Trinity came from or the relation between Nena and Mina? Then you better hope you can track someone down who has read the Japanese books. Questions raised in the show should be answered there, guidebooks should be for things like tech specs.

[Andrew_Graruru]

what would that change?

New locales; new story possibilities if its an intergalactic war. Something like LOGH has somewhat similar factions to Gundam, but its vast setting allowed a very different feel, especially with widespread terraforming and the struggle over those individual planets.

[bullethead]

From there, the problem isn't really that prevalent again until SEED (the Wing kids were all trained and assigned their Gundams and while Loran fell into the Turn A's cockpit, the militia was pretty ragtag by nature, so it kind of works.)

...then again, most things I notice people complain about in the franchise aren't exactly as bad as they get talked up to be, so maybe this is just me splitting hairs.

I think the thing is that people are looking at the Gundam formula as a whole and identifying parts that don't work for them and might not work in a modern context unless you've only seen one show. The risk with long running franchises is that they tend to stick with the same sets of ideas, plots, etc... because they worked before, but the problem is that the audience is constantly changing (growing older, new people coming in used to more modern storytelling techniques, etc...), so formulas that worked in the 80s don't necessarily work now. Star Trek and Stargate are pretty good Western examples of what happens if you stick to a formula too long and don't execute change fast enough and/or competently enough.

Totally agree on the sidestory issue. If they want to do a comic that runs alongside the main story, fits in and explains a few extra things that's fine. But since SEED we've increasingly seen major Gundam releases be networks of a full TV series supported by 2-3 side works and reference books, little to none of which got brought over internationally with the shows. 00 in particular had this problem. Want to know what happened to the Observers, where Trinity came from or the relation between Nena and Mina? Then you better hope you can track someone down who has read the Japanese books. Questions raised in the show should be answered there, guidebooks should be for things like tech specs.

I think Bandai/Sunrise realized that too, because there's been like three AGE sidestories total (do any of those MSV things count as sidestories?) and only one of them is plot relevant, but the show managed to gloss over it well. The thing that worries me is that franchises over here are starting to do the same thing and while some of them manage to do it like AGE did, most of them are doing it in the "leave gaping plot holes everywhere" manner that the 00 and SEED sidestories did.