Very hard for me to muster much excitement for this. It's likely going to be watered down and Hollywoodized, like every other anime adaptation lately. It'll probably be unsatisfying to classic 0079 superfans and alienating/confusing to casual fans, whos' only exposure to Gundam was the alternate-universe Wing back in the old days of Toonami. For better or worse, Wing is still the American mainstream's image of Gundam.
The risky and bold thing to do would be to take the war-is-hell and generational friction themes of Gundam and use them to tell a self-contained, new story. Gundam, as a franchise, has a tradition of AUs that began with G Gundam back in 1994. It strikes me as a bit irresponsible to ignore this possibility when shopping a live action film in the franchise.
I'd be more curious about this film if they weren't trying to translate 0079 to the screen -- they should totally tell an alternate Gundam story within a totally new continuity. Now THAT would be cool - it'd be something new for existing fans, wouldn't upset purists with the shortfalls of an adaptation, and would be something fresh for the mainstream audience that isn't bound by existing works.
Edit: Their press-release description of the basic premise of the original Gundam is also so incredibly stripped-bare and bland that I'm not getting good vibes. I realize it's probably written to pitch to general audiences, but god, does it seem lacking in any detail or nuance.
The original Gundam series is set in the Universal Century, an era in which humanity’s growing population has led people to emigrate to space colonies. Eventually, the people living in the colonies seek their autonomy, and launch a war of independence against the people living on Earth. Through the tragedies and discord arising from this human conflict, not only the maturation of the main character, but also the intentions of enemies and the surrounding people are sensitively depicted.
