Synopsis:

U.C. 0123. After a generation of peace, the Earth Federation has begun to build new space colonies to house humanity's growing population. But a new force, the aristocratic Crossbone Vanguard, plans to seize the colonies of the newly constructed Frontier Side for itself. As their home becomes a battlefield, a handful of young civilians struggle to escape the conflict. To save his friends and family, the reluctant warrior Seabook Arno becomes the pilot of a new Gundam which bears the code name F91.
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Review:

Tomino ended the main UC story with Char's Counterattack, a few years later in 1991 he makes a new Gundam that takes place many years later, a new story & a new war. This movie was originally planned to be a 52 episode TV series. This movie is epic & is far too short & rushed; it really should have been made into a TV series instead. The movie even feels incomplete since it said at the end that it wasn't the end....Yet we never saw anymore, pretty sad.

The main character is Seabook, an engineer student living on one of the Federation's Frontier colonies. After the Crossbone Vanguard attacks & takes over the Frontier colonies he & his friends are in a battle of survival. Seabook is a very weird name, but Tomino said in an interview that he loves to use weird names for some reason. Cecily Fairchild is another main character, a friend of Seabook who during the invasion of Frontier IV is taken by the Crossbone Vanguard since she is a Ronah. The Ronah's are the leaders of the Crossbone Vanguard. Cecily's real name is Berah Ronah, her father Carozzo & her grandfather are the leaders. Cecily's father Carozzo is also known as Iron Mask, he wears a mask since he is ashamed of himself & it "puts his emotion in check". I'd say he is the villain of this movie; he is very cruel & does things behind everyone’s back.  Cecily's grandfather is a nice old man who only wants to free space from the tyrant Earth Federation, Iron Mask ideals is very different however... There is a HUGE cast of characters in this movie & I can't even began to explain them all. While in some movies with a huge cast of characters might not work well it does work just fine here. They all seem important & don't seem like they need more time in the movie even though this movie is so rushed. Pretty good characters, especially Iron Mask, but a lot of the characters are far from original.

The story starts with the Federation's Frontier colony IV; everything seems like a nice day, people are having fun with a beauty contest. But then out of nowhere the Crossbone Vanguard attacks the colony to invade & take it over. Federation & Crossbone Vanguard battle it out is urban cities while all the civilians are running away trying to survive. Seeing helpless civilians die was very sad, death is random in war & nobody is favored. One scene shows a flying bullet shell from a Federation Mobile Suit hit a woman holding her baby & it killed her. Another scene shows one of the side characters yelling about a dead little kid at her feet. One of Seabooks friends dies & the Federation tries to use Seabook & his friends as living shields. It truly was a chaotic survival for these innocent kids. They escape to resistance fighters that are fighting the Crossbone Vanguard to free their colony.  Seabook finds himself in control of a new Mobile Suit that his mother helped create; he is forced into piloting it to help defend his friends & most of all his sister. The Mobile Suit is the Formula 91, which they codename Gundam F91...And the war is only just beginning for these young souls. I won't get into anymore detail as I’ve skipped a lot as it is.

The music is great symphony of music, although some people have complained about how a few scores sound like rip-off from Star wars, lol. Its not one of my favorite music from Gundam but still great, especially during the action, the music really helps & gives you a rush. There are a few vocal songs in the movie and they really fit the scenes & sound nice.

I only watched this movie English dubbed since it’s in 5.1 audio. I think the dub is one of the best Gundam dubs. Abe Lasser as Iron Mask is my favorite of the entire dub cast, a very powerful strong voice. It’s a very unique voice & well acted. Steve Cannon voices Seabook, which is odd since this is the 2nd main character in a Gundam he voiced, before this he voiced Shiro in Gundam the 08th MS Team. He does pretty well; he really has that main hero young adult voice. Michelle Ruff who is another favorite VA of mine voices Cecily, I think it really fits her well. I can't think of any voice that annoyed me & that I didn’t like, even all the side characters are well acted & the scenes of when the civilians in terror sound very realistic.

Animation is stunning, its so detailed. It’s a work of art even compared to today’s anime. They don't make anime like they used to & I always prefer well detailed cell animation more than CGI.  Character art is great, every character even the side characters look great and with great cloths & uniforms. I love the classic character designs by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko who also did the character designs in many of the past Gundam's. The mecha battles are very smooth & very well animated. The mecha designs are very detailed &
some are pretty original, mainly the Crossbone Vanguard's Mobile Suits.

The problem with this movie is this movie is SUPER fast. It being a planned long running TV series turned into a movie hurt it. It’s filled with time gaps. But its full of intense action, a great deal of interesting drama & character interaction. An epic war story that I wished was longer but it was cut short. It’s a shame but I still very much enjoyed this movie in what it did with so little time.

Rating: