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Yeah.

Start with a self contained series like 08th. It's free on the Internet Archive (if you don't mind copied from a shifty VHS tape quality).

There's some other series that I can recommend that are shorter and don't require an encyclopedic knowledge of the Gundam universe to get some joy out-of.

Do not watch G-Saviour. It's a live action Gundam movie that looks like it was filmed in an afternoon by some extras who were bored between takes on SeaQuest DSV.

Hathaway is tough because it's a deep cut. The main character is a side character in the sequel series to the original series that's the son of characters from that series. A lot of the Universal Century stuff is very "war history nerd" coded, and while that's definitely part of the charm, it means starting with it without seeing the original series is very tough.

I'll second 08th MS Team though. That is both one of the best stories in the franchise, part of the Universal Century, and one of the few that isn't dependent on seeing the original show.

Umm.... I think Netflix used to have the original three so maybe start there?

I'm sure it's all out of order, but my son absolutely loved Gquuux, and came at it without much background.

He found the modern animation more approachable than most of the older ones. Unicorn worked quite well too, and is certainly more true to Gundam's usual feel than Iron Blooded Orphans.

Although he has come away thinking that Zeon are the good guys.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


However UK Netflix has Requiem for Vengence and Hathaway.

Are they any good? Will I get a fair impression of the property from those two?

Neither are good entries to the franchise. Requiem is kind of bad, and Hathaway would only make sense if you'd seen Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, and Char's Counterattack.

The best entry points are the alt-timelines because they don't have baggage and all of them are self-contained stories.

-Mobile Report Gundam Wing
-Mobile Suit Gundam Seed and it's sequel series Seed Destiny
-Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (00 is very approachable for anyone who lived through the 00s given the show is very very based in that period of history)
-Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans
-Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

There are several good series based in prior shows that stand well on their own because they don't hinge on prior knowledge of the franchise

-Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team
-Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt
-Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

And then if you want to be really wacky;

-Mobile Fighter G Gundam the Gundam series made on crack cocaine and meth


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 Gitzbitah wrote:
Although he has come away thinking that Zeon are the good guys.

Unfortunately even Japan has habitually struggled to remember Zeon are a Nazi Germany analogue. Zeon has frequently become the subject of 'Imperial Japan did nothing wrong.'

Bereft as I am of proper internet for a few days?

I’m plundering my DVD collection. Up next?

Doctor Terrible’s House Of Horrible

Early 2000’s Steven Coogan show, spoofing the 60’s and 70’s British Horror films I so adore.

The spoofs are gentle. Basically they take the archetypes of those films, and gently prod them into the absurd. So not taking a rise or punching down, so much as love letters celebrating the underlying silliness.

Sadly a one season wonder, as whilst this well made and entertaining, it didn’t finds its audience. But, perhaps that’s for the best, as it’s always possible a second series would find itself short of new material and jokes.

Absolutely worth tracking down on home media.

Edit: Whoops! Wrong Thread!

Anyone else watch some preseason football last night? Apparently viewership is up... from 27 people to 34.

Legion

Someone mentioned this show in the Alien Earth thread, and I was fairly sure I had seen it but jumped over to Disney+ to confirm... and it turns out there were three seasons and I somehow only watched the first one. Maybe they only put up the first season initially, or something, because it seems weird that I wouldn't have finished it. But that seemed like a good excuse to go back and check it out again.

2 episodes in so far and my word it's good.

It's definitely one you need to watch, rather than streaming in the background, so will be confined to lunchtime and evening viewing, I think... but this show is fabulously put together. The whole thing constantly jumping around, back and forth in time, with no way of knowing what's real, what's just in David's head, and what's... something else entirely should be annoying and difficult to follow, but somehow they managed to cobble this together into a coherent (if deliberately muddled) story that leaves you needing to know what the hell is going on.

It's beautifully made, and a nice example that everything inspired by a comic book doesn't have to fit neatly into a single canon.

Watched Peacemaker S2E1. Fun to see the little reshoots done to tie it into the current DCEU under Gunn.



No enough Eagley in the episode.

 insaniak wrote:
Legion

Someone mentioned this show in the Alien Earth thread, and I was fairly sure I had seen it but jumped over to Disney+ to confirm... and it turns out there were three seasons and I somehow only watched the first one. Maybe they only put up the first season initially, or something, because it seems weird that I wouldn't have finished it. But that seemed like a good excuse to go back and check it out again.

2 episodes in so far and my word it's good.

It's definitely one you need to watch, rather than streaming in the background, so will be confined to lunchtime and evening viewing, I think... but this show is fabulously put together. The whole thing constantly jumping around, back and forth in time, with no way of knowing what's real, what's just in David's head, and what's... something else entirely should be annoying and difficult to follow, but somehow they managed to cobble this together into a coherent (if deliberately muddled) story that leaves you needing to know what the hell is going on.

It's beautifully made, and a nice example that everything inspired by a comic book doesn't have to fit neatly into a single canon.

I did the same thing a little while ago, went back and watched the whole thing because I had only seen the first season for some reason.

Unfortunately, I felt that the show kinda went downhill after that amazing first season, which was disappointing.

Chimera

Another one from my DVD archives, and one I’d completely forgot I had.

A 1991 short tv series about a human/chimpanzee hybrid (not to be confused with the similar First Born from the same rough period) and why mucking about with genetics often ends with people getting their faces kicked in, the natural state of any such genetically engineered hybrid beasty being, not unreasonably, Really Rather Miffed At The Whole Thing.

Like the original run of Dr Who? The plot and acting are fine, but you have to be willing to overlook the budget limited effects and makeup. It’s not that they’re bad, just kind of basic.


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Been so long since I’ve saw this, I didn’t realise Roy from out of off off Coronation Street, and the late Paul O’Grady starred!

I saw that! The big thing I remember is that it pulled that trick in the first episode where you think the protagonist is one person but then they die at the end of Part One. Oh and the end where the evil government (who wanted to carry on the experiments) thought the best way to covertly bump off the survivors was to [i]blow their house up[/!].

But the most important thing about this is that it taught me the correct way to pronounce Chimera, and I will spend the rest of my life correcting those who say "Shimmerer".

MarkNorfolk wrote:
I saw that! The big thing I remember is that it pulled that trick in the first episode where you think the protagonist is one person but then they die at the end of Part One. Oh and the end where the evil government (who wanted to carry on the experiments) thought the best way to covertly bump off the survivors was to [i]blow their house up[/!].

But the most important thing about this is that it taught me the correct way to pronounce Chimera, and I will spend the rest of my life correcting those who say "Shimmerer".

Same way to pronounce Chasm (K-asm), Christmas (K-rist-mas) or Church (K-ur-k).

I’m Scottish. That is how church is pronounced

Aye-men t’that ye scunner!

12 years too late and I am watching Elementary I was expecting a bit of a boring police procedural, but instead it is a re-imagining of Holmes and Watson in modern day.... ish..... so far I am entertained but I think it might get old really fast.

Normally I hate police procedurals, much preferring detective and underworld focused small screen stories.

I've not seen it but my big issue with a lot of Holmes interpretations is that they tend to lean heavily into "he's just godly right all the time because he's Holmes".

They kind of lose track that the original was smart, but also backed up by a lot of things like forensics, reference books (several his own creations of course) and so on and often explained them out.



Granted its tricky because part of original Holmes was "I'm doing forensics before everyone else" so if you re-interpret in the modern day its kinda hard to stand out because forensics are a normal every day part of policework. If anything it kind of shows that the character concept works better going backward instead of forward in time

 Easy E wrote:
12 years too late and I am watching Elementary I was expecting a bit of a boring police procedural, but instead it is a re-imagining of Holmes and Watson in modern day.... ish..... so far I am entertained but I think it might get old really fast.

Normally I hate police procedurals, much preferring detective and underworld focused small screen stories.

Yeah, it starts out fun, but Holmes gradually becomes increasingly annoying as the novelty wears off and his abrasiveness becomes less amusing.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Aye-men t’that ye scunner!

Another thing to blame on France...

The Scots language was influenced by Norman and later Parisian French due to the Auld Alliance, contributing to vocabulary and grammatical structures.

Well, so far Holmes has been wrong several times and had to go and re-work his theories. He is very fallible in the show.... so far.

I imagine be part of the writing room for a weekly show like this is very taxing.

We're watching the BBC Sherlock series at the moment, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in it. Think my wife and I saw some of it when it first aired, but definitely didn't see all of it, and introducing the kids to it for the first time. Only a couple of episodes in so far but it's very good.

I'm putting Star Trek Voyager on hold, now that I'm firmly into Season 5, and can see the light at the end if the tunnel...

So I decided to switch gears and watch something from my youth that I remembered fondly... and now am starting to believe that I suffered a traumatic brain injury sometime during my life.

Transformers... the generation 1 cartoon is fething horrible.

I would rather watch all the Kazon episodes of Star Trek Voyager followed by a chaser of Klingon inanery on Star Trek Discovery.

My brain had concocted some wonderful memories of watching Transformers as a youngling... these were apparently conjured by a wizard and replaced the poor acting, animation, and "storylines" of the American commercial known as Transformers.

I challenge you to strip away the nostalgia and attempt to watch all of Season 1 of Transformers... if you dare!

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

I challenge you to strip away the nostalgia and attempt to watch all of Season 1 of Transformers... if you dare!

The trick is to watch it with kids.

Although it helps that I went into it remembering that it was pretty awful to begin with... Even as an 11 year old the problems with it were pretty obvious, but it got a pass because Transformers were just so cool.

So I went into it as an adult fully prepared to just laugh at the dodgy bits, and enjoy it through the lens of my daughters' eyes... and they loved it.



Having said that, the same trick did not work for me with Battle of the Planets. Discovering how awful that cartoon actually was, was definitely a bit of a downer.

 insaniak wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

I challenge you to strip away the nostalgia and attempt to watch all of Season 1 of Transformers... if you dare!

The trick is to watch it with kids.

Although it helps that I went into it remembering that it was pretty awful to begin with... Even as an 11 year old the problems with it were pretty obvious, but it got a pass because Transformers were just so cool.

So I went into it as an adult fully prepared to just laugh at the dodgy bits, and enjoy it through the lens of my daughters' eyes... and they loved it.



Having said that, the same trick did not work for me with Battle of the Planets. Discovering how awful that cartoon actually was, was definitely a bit of a downer.

Yeah, kids would probably make a difference.

I'm just afraid that my three other loves as a kid might not hold up as well either...

Voltron, G.I. Joe, and M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand)

They definitely won’t.

One of my friends went all-in on DVD box sets for 80’s cartoon series, and no matter how much he tried, how much we were there to help, we couldn’t get more than a handful of episodes into any of them.

Voltron largely holds up fine because its got a fairly focused narrative. The others definitely suffer from "this is just a toy commercial" syndrome.

That said, its 100% worth remembering that most of these shows were in no way intended to be watched in their totality. You got 20ish minutes a week and if you missed an episode you just waited and caught the next one without needing to know what you missed. Most of them have great individual episodes that are still worth watching, but they're also full of stuff churned out to keep the timeslot. Binging them was not designed to be possible nor enjoyable.

 LunarSol wrote:

That said, its 100% worth remembering that most of these shows were in no way intended to be watched in their totality. You got 20ish minutes a week and if you missed an episode you just waited and caught the next one without needing to know what you missed. Most of them have great individual episodes that are still worth watching, but they're also full of stuff churned out to keep the timeslot. Binging them was not designed to be possible nor enjoyable.

Indeed. For most people, binging them wasn't even something considered possible. Nobody had any idea that we would one day have access to these shows on demand, on hi resolution screens.

That said, some hold up better than others. Transformers is awful, but the movie still rocks (despite also being awful). He-man (My other big love from the time period) is surprisingly watchable - for all of the recycled art, dodgy storylines and general silliness of it all, there's a surprising amount of actual humour in there. And, as with Voltron, the shows that were designed around the story first rather than just as a vehicle to advertise the toys, generally hold up better. At the same time as my friends and I were watching Transformers, MASK and He-man, we were also glued to Robotech (which was really confusing if you missed chunks of it)... and that one holds up quite well. As does Star Blazers, which I was watching around the same time as Battle of the Planets (which doesn't, as I mentioned).

So... if you have an urge to go check out those childhood loves, absolutely go for it, but definitely keep in mind that they may not be what you expect, and be pleasantly surprised when one of them turns out to still be enjoyable.

 insaniak wrote:
Transformers is awful, but the movie still rocks (despite also being awful).

I'm sorry wait WHAT THE HECK NO that's an awesome film!!

Honestly it was the first Transformers thing I ever saw - on VHS a random buy from a car boot sale. I was always sad that whilst the film clearly aimed for high production values, strong animation and a teen market; the cartoon was basically aiming for the pre-teen market in tone/style of writing and animation.

The movie is full of awesome things, but suffers from a disjointed plot and a host of new characters introduced at the expense of existing ones, so that new toys could be sold. As much as I liked that characters were dying and staying dead (something that had always bugged me in the series) it all happened right at the start of the movie just to get the old guard out of the way, and that felt hamfisted and left me with a bunch of characters I didn't know or care about aside from, coincidentally, the characters whose toys sold the best...

As a kid watching it for the first time, I also hated that the entire rest of the galaxy seemed to be inhabited by robots. It always felt to me that Cybertron should have been unique, rather than Earth and its organic life being the apparent exception to life in the universe.

And also, also... I've never been a fan of futuristic vehicle designs in transformers. For me, the whole appeal is that they look like everyday things. Seeing their cybertronian forms in flashbacks in the series was fun, but not something I wanted all the time, and so the movie moving the story into the future and having all of the new characters look like fantasy vehicles just didn't appeal.

Except for Hotrod, because he was cool.

I remember seeing it in the theater as a child and feeling nothing but excitement at the carnage. Don’t think I even shed a tear for Optimus Prime. The novelty of killing main characters outweighed any emotional attachment I had for any of them.


Also, I didn’t have any of their toys. Maybe that had something to do with it.