Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom
Japanese poster of the movie
Directed by	Mitsuo Fukuda
Screenplay by	Chiaki Morosawa Mitsuo Fukuda
Based on	Mobile Suit Gundam SEED by Mitsuo Fukuda & Chiaki Morosawa Gundam by Yoshiyuki Tomino & Hajime Yatate
Starring	Sōichirō Hoshi Rie Tanaka Akira Ishida Nanako Mori Kenichi Suzumura Maaya Sakamoto
Music by	Toshihiko Sahashi
Production companies	Sunrise Bandai Namco Filmworks
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release date	January 26, 2024 (2024-01-26)
Running time	124 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Box office	US$28.91 million[1]

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom (

The film was in development since 2006, but production was postponed due to main writer Chiaki Morosawa's health condition. A few years after Morosawa's death in 2016, the film's production started and it was released on January 26, 2024. The film grossed over US$28.9 million, becoming the highest grossing film in the Gundam franchise.

Plot

In C.E.75, one year after the end of the second alliance-PLANT war, independent movements led by Blue Cosmos remnants continued to attack other nations using leftover mobile suits from the war. In one such attack in Africa, COMPASS Mobile suit leader Kira Yamato leads his team consisting of Shinn Asuka, Lunamaria Hawke and Agnes Gibenrath from the newly built battleship Millennium to cease the attack, which ended in the retreat of the remnants. Meanwhile, at the PLANTs, COMPASS president Lacus Clyne holds a meeting with the leaders of PLANT, which she hoped to bring down the remnants. Lacus however wishes to free Kira from the effects of the war, as he continued to suffer from the nightmares by the words of the late PLANT council Chairman Durandal.

An emerging country, led by its government Foundation proposed a joint operation with Compass against Blue Cosmos. Lacus confides in Kira and both of them agreed to meet the government of Foundation to accept the operation. The Millennium descends to Earth and lands with the battleship Archangel, commanded by Murrue Ramius and arrives in the country near Eurasia. Prime minister Orphee Lam Tao greets the members and shakes Lacus' hand. Unknowingly to Kira, she felt a psychic power connection before proceeding to the royal palace to meet Queen Aura, the leader of Foundation. The group soon notices it's mobile suit squad, the Black Knights. As they belittle Kira for his only ability to fight as a weak swordsman, Shinn steps in to defend Kira, only to lose against Black Knight member Shura.

Foundation meanwhile proposes an operation with the Earth Alliance and COMPASS to bring down the leader of the Blue Cosmos remnant, Micheal. The two factions accept. Meanwhile on the Millennium, Agnes attempts to hit on Kira openly, only for Lacus to overhear and run away. Kira soon notices and follows her, only to be stopped by Orphee who mocks him for only knowing how to fight and that Lacus was unworthy to be with him.

During the operation to destroy Blue Cosmos, Foundation soon reveals its true colors. To use Lacus to implement a variation of the Destiny plan, which was left unfinished by the late Chairman Durandal. Orphee uses his psychic power to get the Black Knights to draw Kira away. Kira's mind overtakes him, and goes after Micheal, while breaking through the borders of Eurasia. After being branded as a traitor, Kira gets overwhelmed by the Knights and his mobile suit, the Rising Freedom was destroyed, after Agnes arrives and betrays COMPASS. The Knights also attacks the Archangel as well launch nuclear missiles from a hijacked base to destroy the country and Foundation's headquarters. Compass loses the battle with the Rising Freedom, Immortal Justice, Gyan Stroms, and the Archangel completely destroyed, and Lacus was taken hostage after evacuating with Foundation, but thanks to Athrun Zala and Mu la Flaga, the members survive.

Athrun holds a meeting to reveal Foundation's true objectives and a goal to get Lacus out before they use her name to start a war. Foundation meanwhile uses the repaired Requiem and destroys Eurasia for the framed nuclear attack and declares war on anyone who defies them, be it the PLANTs or Earth. Kira breaks down, and Athrun convinces him to rejoin the fight, which he accepts. COMPASS then receives it's upgraded specs of their past mobile suits from orb; Kira's Strike Freedom, Shinn's Destiny and Lunamaria's Impulse, and they launch into space with the Millennium.

Orphee meanwhile attempts to advance on Lacus with his powers, but she breaks free and continues to be held hostage. ZAFT and Earth Alliance soon wage war on each other once again, on the fear that Foundation will destroy them if they were not to heed their ultimatum. ZAFT members Yzak Joule and Dearka Elsman breaks from ZAFT once more and joins the Eternal to stop ZAFT in their mobile suits, Duel Blitz and Lightning Buster.

Compass heads into the battle, launching its mobile suits, which they successfully tricked Foundation and rescued Lacus. Enraged, Orphee sorties with Ingrid in his mobile suit to confront and overwhelm Kira, but Athrun saves him in his upgraded Infinite Justice, hidden within the destroyed Z'gok shell. Lacus arrives in the Proud Defender to form the Mighty Strike Freedom and assists Kira in destroying all of foundation's mobile suits and ships, with Shinn destroying the Black Knights, Lunamaria disabling Agnes's Gyan, and Athrun defeating Shura. Convinced by Lacus and Kira's beliefs about the conflict finally, Orphee and Ingrid are defeated by the Freedom and the war ends once more.

Lacus and Kira descend to Earth in a beach where they strip naked from their pilot suits, finally share a kiss.

Cast

Production

In promoting the movie, a statue of the Freedom Gundam from Kira Yamato was made while examples of Honda Gold Wing as references to Kira and Lacus' hobbies they share.

Fukuda said the development team of the movie is composed of both several returning staff members as well as new ones, aiming to create new technology together. Despite pressure of the success of the two SEED series, the director looks forward to create a product that is able to match its predecessors.[14] Fukuda apologized to the fans for the long development hell the film took as it originally meant to come shortly after Destiny. He reflected such series left unfinished drama to the protagonists of Kira Yamato, Athrun Zala and Shinn Asuka and thus wanted to explore such possibilities with Freedom. With the long development, Fukuda also looked forward to use more 3D and facial expressions.^[15]

In promoting the movie, there was a collaboration with Dune: Part Two in the form of similar posters starring Kira and Lacus imitating Paul Atreides and Chani.^[16] Additionally, inside the Honda booth, the motorcycle "Gold Wing" and "Hawk 11" were on display at the Honda booth at the 2024 Motorcycle Show.^[17][18] Regarding the reason for choosing a motorcycle as the vehicle for the two of them rather than a four-wheeled car, director Fukuda said, cars feel like they move on a single axis or in a flat manner, but motorcycles also have roll movements, so it's more free-flowing. This fits Kira and Lacus, as it symbolizes the freedom that they crave.^[19]

Animation

As in previous works, the mecha were created by Kunio Okawara with the mechanical animation director being Satoshi Shigeta and Fujita Shinmu the 3DCG production desk. Looking back, Fujita found the two new Rising Freedom Gundam and Immortal Justice Gundam together challenging in the first place. He remade the Immortal Justice over several times. A the beginning of production, it was planned that the MS used to create the CG model would only be used for the first half if the movie where the Archangel sink but as the production of cuts and models progressed, director Fukuda's confidence in CG increased, and even more so for the second half. It was decided that many CG models would be created. Including mobile suits with "breaks", nearly 60 were created. Regarding Zaku Phantom, Fujita only has blaze equipment, but for fun, he added gunner equipment as well. However, it did not really show up. Regarding Akatsuki, At first, it was planned that everything would be drawn, and the CG of Zeus silhouette would follow the drawn Akatsuki. However, three to four weeks before delivery, the staff said feared time limitation and hurriedly created a model for Akatsuki. Archangel took just over a year. Millennium took 1 year and 8 months.^[20]

Among the many effects, they put particular effort into the wings of Destiny Gundam and Strike Freedom Gundam and water landing. Director Fukuda was very particular about the visuals, and Fujita worked on the production passionate. Gouf was halfway through making the CG model. Destiny Impulse Gundam was also scheduled to appear, but the director pointed out that "It would overlap with Destiny," so Impulse was further improved into Impulse Gundam Spec II. M1 Astray was also planned to be made with CG, but it was canceled because there would be no homeland defense this time.^[20] Fukuda was inspired by his own youth to animate bikes as he relates them with superheroes like Bari Bari Densetsu. Due to economic reasons, Fukuda could not buy cars so he saved money for bikes. Though not major in the movie, the bikes Kira and Lacus ride together were hard to animate but Fukuda still personally drew scene. In regards to how they work, the Gold Wing that Kira is riding is a reciprocating engine.^[21]

When it comes to special effects, Fukuda cited Top Gun and the Star Wars series as influences. In particular, for cuts that required expressiveness, such as highlights in the play, the CG image was printed frame by frame on paper, and Shigeta directly corrected it before recreating the CG, and so on. A major animation scene that was remade several times was the transformation sequence of the Rising Freedom as the director wanted it to give its own unique feel when compared with previous incarnations of Kira's mecha. Shigeta cited a transformation scene from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam with Fujita expressing relief in retrospect as they could use several colors. The launch of the Destiny Gundam Spec II to the shooting down of the battleship was the work of several visual effects created by the staff together.^[22]

Cast

In contrast to Destiny where most of the plot focused around Athrun Zala, Fukuda decided that the protagonist of the film would be Kira, leading to the new subtitle Freedom which serves as one of the main themes of the trilogy and contrasted Gilbert Durandal's Destiny Plan used in the climax of the previous series. Fukuda finds it challenging to pinpoint what exactly those origins are, but over the course of a year, he has been mulling over how to create a piece that resonates with what they achieved with SEED and Destiny. In that sense, it was a return to their roots in terms of evoking those elements. Finding the concept of staying true to the routes of SEED gave the director major pressure. The CG team is striving to emulate Satoshi Shigeta's artwork. He has also major inspirations about the handling of Shinn and whether or not the audience be appealed by him. He felt that the voice actors Kenichi Suzumura, Akira Ishida among others expanded their ranges, improving the characters.^[23]

Regarding the character he played at the time, Hoshi said he had just played the grown-up Kira in the movie version, so it felt strange. Kira's growth from repeating Destiny to his visionary appearance in end was appealing, he said, looking back on Kira's growth. Hoshi said, there may be people who have been waiting for a long time, and there are people who have recently learned about SEED and have already arrived at the movie version, but they were also able to finally complete the dubbing. Hoshi was excited that the movie version is finally nearing completion. Hoshi said, he had done a lot of lines from SEED and DESTINY so far, but was really happy to see Kira's new lines set two years later. The actor looks forward to seeing what kind of great lines will come out.^[24] Fukuda recounts that his wife, late writer Chiaki Morosawa, wanted to do two things in the movie: have a character, more specifically Athrun, punch Kira due to lack of violence outside mobile suit fights as well as sink the Archangel. Morowasa did not believe that the story could end properly until the Archangel sank.^[25] For the movie, Hoshi played Kira who is now obsessed with fighting. Across the twenty years he has been voicing the character, he finds him relatable. Meanwhile, Tanaka described Lacus "as at first coming across as floaty, untouchable, and unreadable". For the movie, she decided compared her with the character of Meer Campbell as both strive to be perfect. Hoshi was nervous in regards to whether or not the movie would be canceled until the official announcement as he was glad he would voice Kira again. Tanaka teased an emotional happy ending that would make the audience cry.^[26] Tanaka also expressed a desire to make movie enjoyable to watch.^[27]

On the other hand, Suzumura said his character was cheerful. The director and him talked to him before recording this Freedom, saying that although Shin is actually a bright person, the scenes depicted in the story suppress that and he cannot release it. Suzumura was talking about Destiny being a story about the state of things. When looking back on the fact that Shinn's cheerfulness turned into that when he became involved in the war, the actor think he was brave, or rather he was trying his best. Furthermore, when recording with Takehito Koyasu, who plays Mu La Flaga, he said, "Even though I'm a senior, I was really happy when a certain Mr. Koyasu complimented me".^[24] Among newcomers, Win Morisaki was glad of being selected to voice a character due to how much he likes Gundam.^[28] Fukuda said that while Destiny portrays Shinn in a negative light, he is far more lighthearted in the movie thanks returning to his original kind persona thanks to his good relationship with Kira, is former enemy now turned into his friendly superior while working in Compass. Meanwhile, Fukuda says that while Kira often comes across as a "mess", his personality was also nice, similar to the current Shinn.^[25]

Songs

The main music theme of the film is "Freedom" by Nishikawa and Tetsuya Komuro. Komuro was pleased to be with working with Nishikawa for the first time especially since he had not done music for a Gundam series since Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack.^[29] The single release of the song was on January 24, 2024. The ending theme is "Sarigiwa no Romantics" (去り際のロマンティクス, lit. "Romantics Upon Parting") by See-Saw.^[30] In addition to using an original illustration drawn by the anime on the jacket, the first production comes in a premium package. Fukuda expressed pleasure when working with See-Saw again as in Seed and Seed Destiny saying the new song is a emotionally moving melody line, world-building arrangement, and words that connect the characters' feelings.^[31] Chiaki Ishikawa had contacted Fukuda when being chosen to make the ending song which gave her confidence since the director informed her about the cast's feelings and how she would be able to create a theme. Yuki Kajiura wrote the lyrics.^[32]

Reception

Following three days of its release, Gundam SEED Freedom sold 630,000 tickets and earned 1.06 Billion Yen (about US$7.20 million), the highest three-day opening ever for a Gundam movie.

Anime News Network scored it a "B+" overall praising the handling of Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne's characterizations while acknowledging the animation especially when mobile suits fight. However, the reviewer criticized the fan service to come across as divisive and not fitting previous television series.^[36] Film Ink praised the focus on romantic relationships despite being primarily a mecha series to the point of addressing what is ideal love and how it reflects the relationship of both the director Fukuda and his late wife, the writer Morosawa. While addressing that the film was primarily made for fans, the reviewer still found it to be enjoyable for a casual's perspective.^[37]

References

External links

• Official site (in Japanese)