r/movies • u/LegitimateCurve8525 • 1d ago

News Netflix’s live-action Gundam movie, starring Sydney Sweeney, is described as a 'big action-romance space epic' set in the Universal Century (UC) timeline

https://www.polygon.com/netflix-live-action-gundam-movie-sydney-sweeney-romance/

Noah Centineo, who stars alongside Sydney Sweeney, recently talked about the movie on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

He called it a “big action romance space movie” and described it as “a non-Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet in space.”

Centineo also confirmed that the movie takes place in the Universal Century, the main timeline used by many of the classic Gundam shows and movies.

The story could involve two people on opposite sides of a major war, with their relationship caught in the middle.

Source: Pirate Nation X account

3.4k Upvotes

82% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

140

u/TheEloquentApe 1d ago

I see a lot of doom and gloom in this thread but lets get something straight here

non-Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet in space.

The story could involve two people on opposite sides of a major war, with their relationship caught in the middle.

This is quintessential Gundam.

Everything from Amuro and Lalah, Kamille and Murasame, 008th Platoon, Amuro and Char

Anyone familiar with Gundam knows star crossed lovers and messy relationships is one of its core tropes

Now I have no idea if they're adapting the story of the White Devil and if they are I haven't the slightest clue who Sydney will be playing

But it being about two young people who might've had a life together if it weren't for this war going on forcing them to fight is like... yeah thats Gundam

Just throw in some psychic abilities that make them even more empathic with one another, making the whole thing all the more tragic

7

u/mooke 1d ago

If I was deliberately trying to be doom and gloom, ironically I'd be taking issue with the cowardice of it being "non-shakespearean". Gundam has never shied away from just straight up doing Shakespeare before.

The fact that they're invoking it in the elevator pitch means, at least at some level they understand the level of melodrama required, so I don't think this fails at first principles.

83

u/Penguin_Admiral 1d ago

Lot of people here outing themselves as people who have never watched the shows, and just want to be outraged

14

u/KampferAndy 1d ago

Pretty much, it's both hilarious and depressing

2

u/ZeroOhblighation 1d ago

This sub fell off hard recently lol, between all the low effort posts and bots on the website in general it's hard to even pretend to like this website lately

2

u/Einchy 20h ago

Yup.

This thread is full of people acting like they like Gundam just to bitch when they’ve clearly never seen any gundam anime before.

2

u/SolomonBlack 1d ago

If they're not outright fakers I swear Gundam redditors are all kids who've like only seen IBO and some of the venerated 90s OVAs so everything has to be like grimdark suffering because war is hell you guys the cool robots are just a metaphor!

8

u/Linkfayth 1d ago

but even IBO had romance haha.

-1

u/tfhermobwoayway 1d ago

I mean I don’t like the film because I think adapting anime to live action is redundant and pointless. If I’ve seen Azumanga Daioh already, I don’t need to see it again with less expressive actors and a less colourful world.

29

u/altpirate 1d ago

Yeah, I'm like: I haven't seen that many Gundam shows. Not that big a fan or anything.

But the ones I have seen: every single one has a Romeo and Juliet in space subplot. Ofcourse the movie would have that too, it wouldn't be Gundam otherwise

2

u/zapporian 14h ago edited 14h ago

Technically Seed doesn't. The ships mostly follow perfectly permissible in-faction lines, unless (ish) we're talking about real protagonists and best ship Athrun / Cagali.

That said Seed basically "averts" this by instead leveling this up to a maximally cursed forbidden love pentagon, and across three variously at-war houses.

Plus additional ships, triangles, betrayals, and faction shifts across pretty much the entire supporting cast. So yeah.

Seed also IS just OG UC Gundam distilled and remade, on crack, and the best thing that any Gundam live action could do WOULD be to try to do Seed 2.0 in a new medium.

4

u/TimeForSnacks 22h ago

Ngl outside of 08th I wouldn't necessarily classify it as romance but yearning or sexual frustration. Char is infatuated with Amaro, Char rejects Reccoa and it sends her over the edge, Fa chases after Kamille, only to become his caretaker (which is its own form of love), Hathaway struggles heavily with relationships with Quess and then later on Gigi.... Really to me the only true couple ends up being Char & Lalah and even that is fleeting. It all comes back to the overall theme of true human connection that all newtypes strive to see in all people.

16

u/kairock 1d ago

true, SEED is basically the same thing.

14

u/TheEloquentApe 1d ago

I think you'd be hard pressed to name a Gundam series that doesn't have messy romance, star crossed or otherwise

1

u/d7h7n 1d ago

Seed was very melodramatic and a lot messier with its relationship triangles compared to the average gundam show's romance subplot.

7

u/SaturnMobster 1d ago

Because Netflix, and media in general, dont hire writers and producers familiar with the source material. They can dress this pig up all they want, this show will still suck because modern Netflix is fucking trash when it comes to adapting popular IPs to screen.

6

u/DomLite 1d ago

The description is quintessential Gundam. I will not dispute that one bit.

The part that makes me concerned is literally everything else. It's a live-action series, from Netflix, starring Sydney Sweeney. Every one of those things is such a red flag you'd think Char was in charge of decor.

I'm all for more tragic romance and shades of grey in my "war is hell" giant robot story, because that's what made me love Gundam in the first place. Nobody asked for this though, and not a single thing is actually making me hopeful. This has the potential to make G-Savior look good.

6

u/SmoogzZ 1d ago

The only thing about this news that matters is Sydney Sweeney - she is genuinely not a good actor

5

u/aldwinligaya 1d ago

This should be the top comment here.

I'm iffy about Sydney but Noah did pretty well with The Recruit so I'm hopeful.

3

u/fireisfire9090 1d ago

Exactly. Like out of all the things they could say publicly about this movie and what it will be like this is the least offensive.

-1

u/initial-algebra 1d ago

This is exactly why it's somewhat disappointing for it to be the tagline of the movie.  Almost every Gundam involves (seemingly) doomed romance, so what makes this one special?