Search - Mobile Suit Gundam: The Movie Box Set on DVD

Now on DVD but all the original sound effects are gone!

James Shultz | Los Angeles, CA | 01/19/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"These movies are required viewing if you are interested in the Gundam canon. It's where the series began and is what revolutionized the big robot anime genre. I never watch dubs, they just can't seem to get the right emotions or tone of the original japanese. Also, about 90 percent of dubs are from Canadian studios, so you get an all Canadian cast accents and all. My biggest gripe of this set is the original sound fx have been replaced with generic explosions and other nondescript sounds. This may sound trivial at first, but imagine if the Star Wars DVD set came out and the TIE fighters sounded like f-16 as they flew by. Or all the laser blasts sounded like electric arcs rather than that familiar ping sound. This is what the all important "5.1" remix did for this set. As someone who watched the movies on tape with the original sound effects before DVD, the whole experience is ruined by this new mix. The studio should have included an alternate audio track with the old mix on it. There is a stereo mix, but it's just the new 5.1 mixed down to 2.0. The same thing happened with Robotech Remastered by the way. If you don't care about the sound effects being different then go ahead and pick it up. I'll be selling my set cheap."

Just one thing

D. Pohlman | gundam wing! | 11/07/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"please realize there is NO ENGLISH besides subtitles along with the japanese audio...it really doesn't disrupt the movies though.
but if you just cant buy a dvd with no english then this isnt for you"

Lies, damn lies and special features claims

NwappMX7 | VA, US | 10/14/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Some may look at this rating of four stars and think, "What? He doesn't think that the Gundam Trilogy is well-nigh perfect? What in Zeon's name is WRONG with him?" But don't worry, I'm not giving the MOVIES four stars (for the record I love these movies - to me they make a better space movie trilogy than Star Wars - let the flaming commence!) Let me clarify:
I'm not going to review the actual movies here (at least, not that much) seeing as how they have already been reviewed in depth by better writers than myself. Rather, I will review this movie set as a *product*. Meaning I am going to review the DVDs themselves.
And the DVDs are perfectly adequate. The video and audio are good (especially for almost-thirty year old films that have been made from a 1979 TV show). Unlike other reviewers I am not completely incensed by the new Dolby 5.1 remix of the movies' soundtracks (apparently these discs have the same audio as the previous collectors edition box set). Except...
That is all that is available. And if that is what was promised (as per the previous release of these titles) I would feel alright. But on the back of the handy-dandy-less-shelf-space-taking case the Features & Extras listed include (and I quote) "Original Japanese Mono Track (Movie II & Movie III)" as well as "Japanese Stereo Audio" for Movie I (Which I'm guessing is different from the 5.1 which is listed separately). Bandai, why do you lie to me? Not to mention the blurb in the box at the bottom which says "English and Japanese Audio." There is no English dub track. Lies, lies, lies (Lies, I tell you!).
The other reason I am docking this one star is a lack of real extras. Come on, not even the original theatrical trailers? Boo, Bandai, boo.

In conclusion, I give the Mobile Suit Gundam trilogy box set four stars because, while it has great actual content (a space war that is a real space WAR - with real people dying real deaths, with real drama and tragedy - and not a video game with cookie-cutter-black&white characters, fantasy physics and faceless minions being slaughtered by the truckload with no feeling whatsoever), it does not include the features that it claimed it would have. For which Bandai should have a space colony dropped on them."