Jump to content

Seto Kaiba

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    13849

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Seto Kaiba

  1. Seto Kaiba
    They kept the original blue-white coloration that was chosen back in the days when Gundam's animation was hand-drawn. It was chosen because a pure white makes it harder to draw light effects. 'course, the whole "White Gundam" thing goes back to the original series where the Gundam was called the "White Guy" or "White Devil" by Zeon for its white paintjob... and Tomino's desire to have the whole thing just be flat white before getting overruled by marketing.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    This is the early days of the Rebellion, after all. The Rebel Alliance hasn't been founded yet at this point in the timeline. Luthen et. al. are maintaining and supporting a network of independent rebel groups as best they can, but each group is still a separate entity with its own chain of command and its own agenda and priorities. There's no central command. No official training regimen. Each rebel cell has to make do with the volunteers they can find and whatever teachable skills they bring with them. For every elite rebel group like Luthen's, Hera's, or Saw's that has had actual military training, prior combat experience, significant technical skills, and/or the benefit of plot haxx like Jedi and Mandalorians, there are dozens like the Ghorman Front or Maya Pei Brigade that are made up of normal people whose only real qualifications are being angry enough with the Empire to pick up a blaster and shoot someone over it. The ones with good leadership, discipline, planning, and luck will last long enough to gain experience and grow more effective as insurgents. The ones who don't... well... you've seen what happened to the Maya Pei Brigade. That's why Mon Mothma's call for a Rebel Alliance is such a game-changer. Consolidating the individual rebel movements into a single cohesive organization allowed the rebels with critical skills and experience to train the inexperienced civilian volunteers into effective spies and soldiers for their war with the Empire.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    That's the same color scheme those two units have had for 40+ years now... and basically every main Gundam has the color scheme on the left.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    My watch group finished up the new batch of Andor episodes last night. I'm pretty satisfied with the story thus far. They didn't... the Ghorman Massacre hasn't happened yet. Apparently, as something of an olive branch to the Legacy fans, they decided to keep the pre-Disney version as a separate but less-severe event as a way of establishing the rising tensions on Ghorman. The series'll be headed back to Ghorman in future episodes, since the massacre is a pivotal event that directly gives rise to the Rebel Alliance. Yeah, Saw is... a unique personality. He was never the most stable person in the galaxy. When we first see him in The Clone Wars about 17 in-universe years before these Andor episodes, he was already a bitter and violent man fighting in a guerilla resistance movement against the Separatist occupation of his homeworld Onderon. Then the Republic sent Jedi and clones to train the Onderon resistance, which only made them better at guerilla warfare. He became even more unstable when his sister was killed fighting the Separatist droid army... and it's basically been all downhill from there. 20 years of nonstop guerilla warfare against the Separatists, and then the Empire, with the accompanying stress and paranoia has not done great things for his mental state and he's going to get even worse in the next few years until he dies on Jedha in Rogue One. It's not surprising Luthen is still willing to work with him, since Saw's partisans are basically the oldest and most experienced rebel faction out there and the ones with the fewest qualms about their goal of burning the Empire down. Once Mon Mothma forms the Rebel Alliance, his lot refuse to join because most rebels think he goes too far and Saw thinks every other rebel group doesn't go too far enough.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Maybe, but there's been no indication of that thus far. Based on the last episode, it sounds like the One Year War didn't so much end as go on indefinite hiatus because neither side was able to gain a definitive advantage. Zeon "won" because the technological advantage they gained from the successful capture of the Pegasus and Gundam was just enough to offset the Federation's superior logistics and vast manpower advantage long enough for both sides to give up. Side 6 seems to be developing its own weapons despite being neutral, there are hints of a Zeon civil war, and there's maybe-rogue-maybe-not Federation pilots trying to destroy the Red Gundam. It seems like a cold war that's about to go hot again. Thus far, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that defense contractors are running Clan Battles for secret testing. All the machines we've seen or heard them mention are old ones from the war. Most competitors are using Zaku IIs. One team is apparently using Doms. That Side 6 PMC that let the Witch and another Federation pilot swap in fielded its Gelgoogs instead of Guncannons, but they're still OYW machines. The only categorically NEW hardware in play thus far is the GQuuuuuuX and that's technically stolen. With the tension that high, I'd imagine neither the Federation or Zeon would want to tip their hand so readily.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    I'd assume that, as in the real UC, Mobile Suits in this bad future alternate UC were developed as weapons from the start rather than as construction equipment. (It's only in the Gundam AUs that Mobile Suits were developed as nonmilitary hardware first.) Given that MS's like the Zaku are still military hardware even in alternate UC 0085, it seems unlikely that they would be in civilian hands as industrial machinery... and they're also be astonishingly expensive, making it unlikely a civilian construction firm would risk totaling one (or more) on illegal underground fights. The idea that a handful of broke refugees are able to acquire, repair, maintain, and arm something like a Zaku is pretty silly on its own. It's even worse with Shuji and the Red Gundam, since he's seemingly doing it all himself in a cramped airlock space that the Gundam doesn't even fit in. Just Anno's usual sloppy writing. Well... yeah? That's what it is. The Beginnings pamphlet from the movie suggests that Zeon cancelled the original MS-14 Gelgoog program after Char captured the RX-78 Gundam. It seems that Zeonic simply reused the cancelled program's name for their mass produced Gundam they reverse-engineered from the RX-78, making the Gelgoog literally a Zeon GM.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    The main problem with the Clan Battles is that they don't make sense in the context of the setting the way Duels in The Witch from Mercury do. G-Witch's Duels were mock battles with detuned weapons held as a way for the Benerit Group's various defense companies to demonstrate their latest products in combat and benchmark their rivals latest developments. Junking a few MS's in a student pissing match or for sport is small potatoes for companies who control the economy of the entire solar system. GQuuuuuuX's Clan Battles... well... the Pomaranians and some other clans are refugees living in illegal tenaments in Side 6, who nevertheless somehow have the kind of money necessary to buy the equivalent of a fighter jet on the black market and keep it fully fueled, armed, and operational. It's an illegal sport, and even with the illegal gambling on the events it doesn't quite make sense how civilian randos can manage that. The lack of a story hook is perhaps its biggest weakness. It's leaning real hard on its "What if?" storyline, but that's not enough to make it interesting.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Once Upon a Witch's Death and Catch Me at The Ballpark are pretty unremarkable again this week. The Apothecary Diaries is heating up, though, so there's that.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Another Tuesday, another painfully mediocre episode of GQuuuuuuX. It looks like we're going to be seeing a fair amount of recycled no-background zooming and twirling from the titular Gundam going forward. We get to see a very quick Clan Battle with recycled footage, and then people protesting against the Sodon's presence in Side 6. There's a second clan battle against a team sponsored by a PMC that normally uses Federation MS's. It's still pretty dull stuff. The Federation ace is a one-trick pony who lasts a couple minutes but never manages to land a real hit on either Gundam... Like a Newtype ghost, it's all flash and no substance.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Same. I would consider it one of the finest, if not THE finest, stories Star Wars has ever produced.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    How hard the Star Wars fandom has to reach to find something in the series to complain about, and how petty those complaints are, is truly a ringing testimonial to the quality of the series. Other shows in the franchise like The Acolyte or Ahsoka are so flawed that the fans have no end of legitimate significant narrative problems to chew on. In Andor, they're reduced to picking nits about the dancing at the wedding reception, the dance mixes of the in-universe popular music, or that they have brick buildings on Ferrix. 🤣
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Adults might enjoy that, but I suspect Disney might find an attraction all but guaranteed to make children cry a little off-brand for their family-friendly amusement parks. Hell, I remember the Alien part of the Great Hollywood ride scared the beejezus out of me as a kid of ~6.🤣
  13. Seto Kaiba
    's all right, once really was enough for that stinker. Not really... I've played several of those songs back in my music days, and they really aren't anything particularly unusual. The Mon Mothma we've seen in Andor, in Rogue One, Rebels, and Ahsoka is a very stiff and formal person... and in this case, she's also the host of the party. Given her personality and her day job, you'd expect her to be doing the rounds and chatting up the various members of Chandrila's Great and Good. That she's drunk and dancing instead is itself a conspicuous out-of-character moment. (She pounded three shots in thirty seconds, which is definitely out of character given that previous episodes show she's very good at moderating her alcohol intake at parties.) She's also visibly upset where everyone else is smiling and laughing and generally having a good time. And we can say with certainty that it was conspicuous, because we can see characters in-story notice that something is wrong. Perrin is initially seen dancing happily with the guests, but once he catches sight of Mon we see him stop dead to look at her with a very concerned expression.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    This is a very odd thing to get hung up on, IMO. Typically, the only thing alien about the "alien" music in Star Wars is the performers. The Mos Eisley cantina band is playing swing. The band at Jabba's palace was playing a very 80's funk piece in the original '83 theatrical cut and was updated to a horn-heavy 90's pop-rock piece in the '97 special edition. It doesn't strike me as out of place at all that there would be techno/EDM popular music in a setting with so many sentient androids. It's a big galaxy, I'd assume there's room for a lot of different musical tastes and genres. They went with a club/rave mix of the song because, hey, they're playing it at a wedding reception for guests to dance to. (Two other mixes of the same song have showed up back in season one.) (The only reason Kirk's infatuation with the Beastie Boys in the Abrams Star Trek trilogy seems so odd and out of place is that Star Trek habitually stuck with self-composed and public-domain music for cost reasons, meaning most of the diegetic music in Trek is classical by default.) Her drinking and dancing is supposed to be conspicuous and off-putting. She's so distressed that she's doing something wildly out of character in a sort of silent cry for help. She can't confide in anyone there besides Luthen without making them Luthen's next target, and Luthen is not exactly a sympathetic ear. Either that or they felt it would come off as sexist if she ran off to cry inconsolably. I'd assume they're probably trying to set something up between her and her husband Perrin, since he clearly notices her out-of-character behavior towards the end of the episode... he might not have noticed if she'd just left the party since he is a party boy.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    So, I don't know how it is where you live... but in the Americas, Western Europe, etc. this would not even register as unusual to a lot of people. All it is, is a traditional wedding ceremony followed by a modern wedding reception. The pomp and solemn ceremony of centuries-old religious tradition immediately followed by an unrestrained party where the wedding guests get absolutely stinko at the open bar and dance badly to the set list of a DJ with questionable taste. A fair description of my own younger brother's wedding, TBH. The scene works just fine. It's an alien wedding on an alien planet with an alien culture... and even then, the wedding itself is noted to be abnormal because it's driven by the wants of a bridezilla who overcompensates in establishing her own cultural identity while living abroad by fetishizing her people's traditions.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    My read of her character from Andor and other related titles is that it's at least as much other characters like Luthen made a concerted effort to keep her out of that world for their own sanity as much as hers. She wasn't prepared to deal with the mental or emotional toll of having people kill and die on her orders, and they didn't have the time or energy to be entertaining her protests about every decision and consequence involved in running an armed insurgency. We saw a bit of this in season one when Mon was deeply upset at the prospect of a post-Aldhani Imperial crackdown causing widespread suffering, and Luthen having to rather coldly explain that that was a good thing for the cause and run the op without her knowledge or involvement. For Mon Mothma, Tay Kolma is the moment the war finally came home and became real. Yup. It's A Long Time Ago... in a Galaxy Far Far Away. Musical tastes can be different. Mind you, it's not a rave either. It's a bunch of upper class rich folks drunk dancing to popular music at the reception after a three day long stifling traditional wedding ceremony. It's not meant to be a coordinated Bollywood musical number. From what I've read, the song playing at the reception is a remix of the same (presumably popular) song playing on that resort planet Cassian hides out on after Aldhani.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    That's kind of the point, though. She's taking advantage of two vices freely available at a wedding reception - excessive consumption of alcohol and uninhibited dancing - as a way to dissociate in a public setting so she won't have to immediately deal with the emotional toll from the events of the day. Her dancing is clearly meant to show that she is emphatically NOT OK... something that other characters are also meant to notice (e.g. Perrin, who clearly notices she's in distress at the end of the episode).
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Well, that was certainly a fever dream...
  19. Seto Kaiba
    The Gorilla God's Go-To Girl is a bit of a weak offering this week. Mostly just high school mean girl shenanigans.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    After a bit of wiki-surfing, it looks like that's what happened in the non-canon pre-Disney version of the Ghorman massacre. I don't think we've seen anything teasing an appearance by Tarkin for Andor's second season, so the actual events of the massacre may be rather different. Unfortunately, the subsequent death of Bail Organa on Alderaan leaves her the de facto leader of the Rebel Alliance's Republic government-in-exile. That, in turn, sets her up to become the Supreme Chancellor of the New Republic where her desire to return to the status quo ante rather than make meaningful reforms to fix the Republic's broken system ultimately paves the way for the rise of the First Order and the subsequent overthrow of the New Republic a few years after her retirement. That's hardly her fault. After all, the whole reason she's trying to lose herself in alcohol and dancing at the wedding reception to avoid dwelling on the knowledge that Luthen is presently... It seems like Mon Mothma has finally hit the point where she can no longer avert her eyes from the fact that people are killing, and/or dying, for the cause. The YouTube channel Generation Tech has a thoughtful analysis of the situation. I originally linked it below, but in hindsight because it uses real world political references I am removing the link out of concern that it may be of issue WRT the forum rules.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    It may be a different event from what was previously described in terms of what happens, but they've been setting it up since the first season of Andor. It is essentially the key moment that sets up the formation of the Rebel Alliance, so it's a natural inclusion in a series like this about the early rebellion. I'm guessing we'll learn that Cassian was part of the detail that helped extract her from Coruscant.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    I'm not seeing it, TBH. There's no meaningful conflict in Mon Mothma's part in Andor. The few problems facing her are all solved for her by other people... whether it's Cassian and Luthen robbing the Imperial payroll, Tay and Davo doctoring her bank ledgers, or Luthen disposing of her would-be blackmailer. She hasn't learned anything or grown as a result of these events, to Luthen's considerable dismay in S2 E3. We're not seeing a character on a journey. We're seeing a character in a holding pattern waiting for the one specific event that they are a vital participant in. For Mon Mothma, that event is...
  23. Seto Kaiba
    With this many teasers, it kind of feels like the studio lacks confidence in the series and are concerned it'll be overshadowed by other high-profile streaming titles coming out this year.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Her scenes so far are just filler. It's a shame, really. Genevieve O'Reilly is wasted on this show and on Star Wars in general. If her character actually lived up to the promise of that speech she gives to Tay Kolma about having learned from Palpatine's methods and so on, she'd have been an amazing addition to the story. Instead she's stuck playing the role of the sheltered political idealist who can only clutch her pearls at the prospect of violence from the safety of her (sometimes literal) ivory tower while everyone around her just gets increasingly exasperated by how incredibly out-of-touch she is. Whether it's her own daughter, her friend and banker, or Luthen. This version of Mon Mothma feels like a Star Trek character who wandered into Star Wars by mistake.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, if they were going that route they'd have to title it something Star Wars: Not Fanwank For Once or Competent Writing: a Rare Star Wars Story. The other Disney+ Star Wars showrunners must be a bit embarrassed by how easily Tony Gilroy et. al. make their work look like high-budget fan films in comparison.
×
×
  • Create New...