It is the year Universal Century 0079. Over 90 million humans populate the Earth, and many have been
forced to live in space. People now live in large cylinder-like colony clusters called Sides, all
ruled over by the "Earth Federation Space Force" (E.F.S.F.). Around this time, a group of colonies
called Side 3, located near the dark side of the moon, proclaimed themselves independent from the
Earth Federation and made themselves known as the "Principality of Zeon".
Now the war has gone on for eight months and doesn't seem to be ending any time soon. Both factions
are at a stalemate. As a last resort, the Federation attempts to produce a new, stronger force to
fight against the Zeonic armies. They create the White Base and a powerful Mobile Suit called the
"Gundam". However, these suits are piloted by youths...
Years ago, as I was venturing into mecha anime, I took the plunge into _Gundam_ starting with the classic Universal Century timeline. I grew to become a devoted fan of the franchise, especially the Universal Century stuff. Looking back, it's a miracle I did when I made several rookie mistakes. For one, I tried watching in chronological order and crammed all the side stories for the original _Gundam 0079_ between that and its sequel _Zeta Gundam_, which made me quickly see why _Gundam_ fans groan at the announcement of new One Year War side stories. Second, I went from _Zeta Gundam_ to _Char's Counterattack_ on the basis of _Gundam ZZ_ (the direct sequel to _Zeta_) having a divisive status in the fanbase and not having my favorite character Char Aznable, which negatively impacted my experiences with both _Gundam ZZ_ and _Char's Counterattack_ (for what it's worth, I ended up digging _Gundam ZZ_ considerably after rewatching in the proper order). But the most egregious rookie mistake of all was my first one: skipping the _0079_ TV series in favor of the compilation movies. I told myself I wasn't ready for a full 43 episode series from the 1970's yet (before proceeding to watch nearly 100 episodes of _Zeta_ and _Gundam ZZ_ from the 1980's) and that I would just miss out on the filler. After watching the full _0079_ TV series for the first time, I can confidentally say I made the wrong choice back then. Characters and plotlines that seemed underwhelming became fleshed out with additional screen time. The pacing was less rushed. And the "filler" episodes I thought were skippable actually enriched the narrative in the grand scheme. After writing all that, you might think I hate this first compilation movie upon rewatch. You'd be wrong. Despite my preference for the TV version, there are still merits to this compilation movie. For one, there's extra bits of animation that are more polished than the TV version, which looks much rougher compared to its direct sequels. There are a few changes to the story that improve on the original. One is how the concept of Newtypes go from only being introduced at the tail end of the show to being introduced a third of the way into the story, making the plot point less abrupt and better explained than the original. Another welcome change comes from the rearrangement of events from the TV version. In the TV version, Amuro falls into a depressive funk after Icelina dies attempting to kill Amuro to avenge the death of her lover Garma Zabi, while never knowing Icelina or why she wanted to kill him. In the movie, Amuro's depressive episode happens after a reunion with his mother ends with their relationship destroyed beyond repair, which is a more plausible explanation for Amuro's intense feelings of depression and hesitancy to pilot. And while the classic TV music cues aren't used as often, they do get new rearrangements for the movie and sound great. While I believe that the TV series is the optimal way to get into _Gundam_ and/or the Universal Century branch of the franchise, this first compilation movies does have its merits. It captures the basic plot of the first 13 episodes of the show about as well as it can in a feature length format, in addition to some improvements on the technical and (to a lesser extent) narrative fronts. The fact this story managed to draw me in and take a deep dive into _Gundam_ even in compressed form speaks to how well the original _Mobile Suit Gundam_ holds up today (and anyone who says otherwise just because it isn't shiny modern animation is part of a poisonous mentality in anime as a whole, but that's a topic for another day). Regardless of which version of _0079_ you start with, it is worth watching both at some point just to appreciate the differences between the TV and movie version.