Gundam cliches you could do without?

[Janx_Dolaris]

What if we like, had a Gundam series where, like, the Gundam was just another war machine? You know, like U.C, A.W (kinda) and even C.E? Putting so much importance on Gundams as a concept (Wing, 00 and AGE. G not really, because that wasn't a war story) never really jived with me. I mean, I know why they do it. Purely from a story telling stand point it's easy to explain why the main character is piloting a giant robot that the show is named after, and why the audience should care. U.C and C.E did the approach I prefer, where they were prototypes (albeit overpowered) for a future mass production line. After War did it in a different way, that still worked for me (being a super weapon built in desperation) but they still feel into that trap of other A.U's were they were always sought after just on the premise of being Gundams.

So a cliche I could do without is putting so much importance of Gundams as a concept in their own universe. It makes it more believable when you have 18 Gundams.

Thats one thing that really bugged me about Gundam Legilis in AGE, its supposed to have been made using data stolen from the AGE-3 Orbital, yet beyond perhaps under the hood changes, the suit seems more like a direct upgrade to Zeheart's previous 2 suits but with a gundam paintjob. It also apparently got some form of X-rounder upgrade for zeheart. The only thing about the Legilis that feels borrowed from the AGE-3 is being "a gundam".

The AGE-3 Orbital wasnt even that impressive of a suit to borrow data from anyway, as it was outclassed by existing vagan suits.

Also C.E. did do the "gundam is super" approach, or else Freedom, Justice, Providence, and all the Destiny ZAFT prototypes wouldnt have been called and looked like gundams. It just wasn't as pronounced.

[ShadowCell]

pretty much every Gundam show, including most UC shows, do that too. it's the whole reason why they build Gundams in the first place. 00 and AGE have been the only ones recently that have explicitly called attention to it.

[Kei Katsuragi]

To ultra simplify what I'm saying: Don't make Gudams anything more than a giant super weapon. C.E did the Gundams are super, but that isn't my problem. Gundams don't even exist in SEED. That's a nickname for those mobile weapons in C.E. All Gundams do in SEED is blow shit up. They don't represent anything more than that.

[lgcsc]

I would actually go for a more prequel vibe, maybe set on UC but really it could be aplied to almost any alternate universe.

For example, what if there wasn't an earth federation but several Earth based sides with space facilities? And that the conflict between said sides led to the formation on an independent Space State, thus giving an ending with a potential for a sequel while keeping the theme of human vs human.

And/Or have the gundams, rather than belonging to a specific side (or their own side), be a group of mercenaries that initially fight for profit/no alternative/because they enjoy it and gradually start to care about the world around them and take sides to influence the outcome, as well as uncovering some shocking secrets. This would allow for a more balanced, expanded perspective as well as more liberty for the plot development while still making the gundams special, customized machines.

Or even having a masked character as the rival for the main character, until after several instances of almost meeting it's revealed that the char is actually a split personality created due to repressed wishes. (representing the view that the char is merely an escapist character), and thus the rivalry would be one of desires and ideals.

Just some ideas.

[Kuruni]

Again, this is not wish list. We're suppose to talk about "I have enough of A, they should stop using it", not "I wish they add A.".

[lgcsc]

I was trying to demonstrate how you could convert gundam trademarks into something different from the norm, to refute the argument "without them it wouldn't be gundam". Although I should have explicitly referred to the masked rival, protagonists side is good and there is only a fight between two sides as cliches I could do without.

[YazanGable]

For example, what if there wasn't an earth federation but several Earth based sides with space facilities?

00 s1 already did it, technically.

And/Or have the gundams, rather than belonging to a specific side (or their own side), be a group of mercenaries that initially fight for profit/no alternative/because they enjoy it and gradually start to care about the world around them and take sides to influence the outcome, as well as uncovering some shocking secrets. This would allow for a more balanced, expanded perspective as well as more liberty for the plot development while still making the gundams special, customized machines.

So...you don't want them to be their own side, but you want them to be their own faction? That doesn't really make much sense. Also, the idea of people having advanced MS that they use for no real reason beyond the sheer Hell of it...that's kind of a lot to buy right out of the gate. I mean, someone's got to pay for and build those advanced weapons, and unless it's an eccentric billionaire who just hands them out in a twisted 'some men just want to watch the world burn' mentality, it's hard to really justify them simply being in the hands of a group who owes loyalty to no one and has no real goal beyond 'Let's tear some s--- up!'

Even if you went the mercenary route, it still seems a bit bizarre that the rest of the world would be OK with a few people having these machines advanced beyond their own with their loyalties only owed to a paycheck. It would only be a matter of time before someone just opted to blow in and take them by force (unless the mercs are going to be pushing the plausibility in terms of security or on-foot fighting skill as well.)

[ShadowCell]

after eight pages of this thread and how every time someone says there's some new cliche they want to see instead of an old one, only to be shown a counterexample where Gundam actually does what it is they say they want, i kind of have to conclude that Gundam doesn't really have any tiresome, overdone cliches and the idea that it does is yet another narrative that began with a kernel of truth which it left behind long ago

[Fritz Ashlyn]

And/Or have the gundams, rather than belonging to a specific side (or their own side), be a group of mercenaries that initially fight for profit/no alternative/because they enjoy it and gradually start to care about the world around them and take sides to influence the outcome, as well as uncovering some shocking secrets. This would allow for a more balanced, expanded perspective as well as more liberty for the plot development while still making the gundams special, customized machines.

I'm sorry but having an arbitrary "mercenary" group within a story is so creatively bankrupt within the Gundam fandom that it's a cliche all its own - particularly within Gundam-based RPGs. I'm seriously not trying to be insulting to you and this is not a personal attack, I'm just saying I literally chuckled to myself when I saw mercenaries come up as a suggestion for something different because it's practically an in-joke with the RPG section mods here.

[Vent Noir]

Not sure if it counts as a "cliche", but I'm tired of One Year War stories. There's basically nothing left to explore in that era, and Zeta and beyond are far more interesting.

[Newtype87]

Not sure if it counts as a "cliche", but I'm tired of One Year War stories. There's basically nothing left to explore in that era, and Zeta and beyond are far more interesting.

Are you kidding? I'm sure there's a whole hour of material that can to be explored in some random town in the Philippines that was in some way vitally essential to both Zeon's war effort and the Gundam's prototypes.

In all seriousness, it's not just One Year War stories I'm getting tired of, it's the Universal Century in general. How many more prototypes and epic world-shaking story lines can we crowbar in before the whole thing collapses under its own weight? I guess as long as it remains popular and still sells models, DVDs, and random articles of clothing like hotcakes.

One of my personal pet peeves though is how the hero's Gundam always seems to have this melee edge to it, no pun intended. It's one thing to have a melee weapon, it's another thing when a lot of them seem to rarely use their ranged capabilities. I'm okay with Exia, because they actually demonstrated the strategic weaknesses of a mobile suit with one proper ranged weapon, and then corrected that in its successor units. And in general, overly dramatic melee duels while people scream their aspirations and goals and what they had for breakfast this morning is also getting boring. I'd kind of like to see the hero piloting something like the Dynames or the Buster, where it's mostly designed for long-range battle with melee capabilities thrown in as a backup plan.

[Commander 598]

In all seriousness, it's not just One Year War stories I'm getting tired of, it's the Universal Century in general.

Considering that there hasn't actually been a UC series since the mid 90s that wasn't a short OVA released over a period of years (Of which there have been a grand total of three counting Unicorn), I think that statement is a bit silly.

I'd kind of like to see the hero piloting something like the Dynames or the Buster, where it's mostly designed for long-range battle with melee capabilities thrown in as a backup plan.

FA Unicorn?

[HellCat]

after eight pages of this thread and how every time someone says there's some new cliche they want to see instead of an old one, only to be shown a counterexample where Gundam actually does what it is they say they want, i kind of have to conclude that Gundam doesn't really have any tiresome, overdone cliches and the idea that it does is yet another narrative that began with a kernel of truth which it left behind long ago

I think that's kind of stretching the truth a bit. The thread might be frequently veering off course but I think it offers evidence then are some over used ideas that need to be at the very least retired for a spell.

[Vent Noir]

In all seriousness, it's not just One Year War stories I'm getting tired of, it's the Universal Century in general.

Considering that there hasn't actually been a UC series since the mid 90s that wasn't a short OVA released over a period of years (Of which there have been a grand total of three counting Unicorn), I think that statement is a bit silly.

There are still a heap of manga and video games, though, aren't there?

[Xenosynth]

In all seriousness, it's not just One Year War stories I'm getting tired of, it's the Universal Century in general.

Considering that there hasn't actually been a UC series since the mid 90s that wasn't a short OVA released over a period of years (Of which there have been a grand total of three counting Unicorn), I think that statement is a bit silly.

There are still a heap of manga and video games, though, aren't there?

Well, even with the mangas, they are rarely translated >.>

And in terms of videogames, if they are fun, I really don't care if they add more. In terms of One Year War videogames I can't really think of any since the PS2 >.> And in terms of UC-exclusive videogames we have in recent times:

Gundam 0081 (Awesome game)
Gundam Crossfire (Eh)
Gundam Unicorn (Decent)
Gundam Battle Operation

All of them have pretty different gaming styles, so I don't see us being clogged with them. Though I guess you can kinda count 0081 as a OYW type game, since it sticks with MS from the OYW and a few from Stardust Memory. And Crossfire... shouldn't exist. Battle Operation is multiplayer only so I imagine they do it as a OYW thing for balancing reasons, since it probably would be a bit harder to try to do balanced mecha combat in a realistic style with Zeta and onwards mecha.

I will admit though, the plotlines of the manga are becoming a bit dull (understatement) in regards to the OYW. I do wish we had more Zeta-verse onwards side stories if only because the Z/ZZ era MS are my favorite, and I'd like more variations of suits from those, and some new characters xD

[bullethead]

I will admit though, the plotlines of the manga are becoming a bit dull (understatement) in regards to the OYW. I do wish we had more Zeta-verse onwards side stories if only because the Z/ZZ era MS are my favorite, and I'd like more variations of suits from those, and some new characters xD

I'd totally back some Zeta sidestories, especially now that Z Define is ongoing. Probably the most interesting UC sidestory I've come across is Sentinel and that's a great example of what can be done in that era of UC.

[Xenosynth]

I will admit though, the plotlines of the manga are becoming a bit dull (understatement) in regards to the OYW. I do wish we had more Zeta-verse onwards side stories if only because the Z/ZZ era MS are my favorite, and I'd like more variations of suits from those, and some new characters xD

I'd totally back some Zeta sidestories, especially now that Z Define is ongoing. Probably the most interesting UC sidestory I've come across is Sentinel and that's a great example of what can be done in that era of UC.

Yeah >.> Closest we got to having a lot of good variations in it beyond sentinel are the AoZ series which, I love the mecha design, but the story is... lacking IMO. I wish we could have more stuff going on with Zeta Gundam or even ZZ. Even if ZZ is sort of the 'dark horse', the mecha from Axis Zeon were awesome.

I guess I am in agreement with the others about the OYW having a bit too much focus with sideworks.

[Kuruni]

Well, remember that, by Sunrise's policy, you can ignore all manga. So if you add it to your own fanon, and tire of it, then it's your own fault .

[SniperBlade]

Hmm most annoying things.

1]Young main characters: maybe its because I've aged a tad since I first started watching. I started watching when I was 6 or 7 and I'm 19 now. I want a older main character, I'm fine with child soldiers, but not every single one or they fall into a better story behind why.

2] Realism: let me explain this more. While Gundam is more of a Real robot series, I've been longing for a more realistic series Like or even more so realistic than 8th MS team, while I love my super powerful Mobile suits. Going the more realistic, or as much as they can with giant mobile suits would be nice. This includes Space Battleships, and combat tatics.

3]Grunt Combat: This falls under realism I guess, but the trained Soldiers just standing out in the open or not avoiding and getting shot to death, when the main character comes in is beyond annoying. Gundam Unicorn helped with this, when I saw the Stark Jegan take on the Kshatriya's even if it was for a few moments. I lost it, I like jumped out of my chair, yelling "YEAH GO" at my computer.

4] Adult Theme's: Now I know Gundam isn't a younger child's show even though some people make it out to be. I'd like to see it explore some darker themes, go a bit of the risque route. Now this isn't necessarily sexual themes. I've seen it touch on them, like with the Refugee camp massacre in Stargazer, and the destroying of the London(?) But these are usually quickly gone through and over in the show. I mean they could make characters deeper and have the audience feel for them more. A good example of this was in the movie Natural Born Killers, with the sexual abuse the main female character came under from her father. That stirred intense emotions in me personally, absolute fury and rage.

5]Flashbacks: This is more of anime in general thing. Don't need 40 flashbacks in one episode for something that just happened that episode or a episode ago.

Not much more at this moment.

[Kei Katsuragi]

Oh my jeebus, you actually did it. You made the most stock wish list any Western Gundam fan could ask for. Rejoice my friend. I actually chuckled.
'Older pilots!'
'Darker, edgier!'
'Make it an adult show!'