G-Saviour: The Movie (DVD, 2002, No English Subtitles; English Dub, Japanese)

Being the only live action piece of Gundam ever released has placed a rather substantial wight on the shoulders of G-Saviour, and let me tell each and every one of you out there considering getting a copy. Do so, whilst you can, the film is a great dedication to the true spirit of what Gundam is, or more precisely, what The Universal Century is all about. The story is great, the characters are (albeit at times a little stereotypical) really, really believable and the adversities faced by everyone in the film is stunningly well presented.

The cast is right on the money, each on of them performs really well and you can definitely see the chemistry between all of them.

G-Saviour, truly is a wonderful film which deserves a far greater chance than it has currently been given.

My reasoning for purchasing this product was quite simply put, my love of its anime counterpart and my loving of live-action anime adaptation (Death Note a prime example of this).

I would like to thank Dbmaster514 for allowing me the privilege of viewing this Gundam masterpiece, because that is truly what it is, a masterpiece of Gundam theater.

In closing, I hate getting repetitive but, please give this feature a chance, you will not be disappointed and you will have spent wisely.

movie was ok, didnt expect the live action parts, would of been better as all CGI. descent buy for 5 bucks.

Back in 1999, the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise had reached it's 20th Anniversary. One thing done to celebrate it's 20 years of animated works was to make another show, made by the first show's creator, called Turn-A Gundam. Another item was this movie: the live action movie G-Saviour. Stamped with the 20th Anniversary logo and proudly proclaiming that it's a project of said anniversary, G-Saviour is something rather different from the animated works that create the franchise of Gundam.
Taking place in the 223rd year of the Universal Century timeline, the world is ruled by the Congress of Settlement Nation (also known as CONCSENT). They often rule Earth and most of the hundreds of space colonies orbiting the planet with an iron fist, despite the food crisis currently threatening the collapse of civilization as Humanity knows it. A group of scientists have discovered a way to increase agricultural processes by an astronomical number, but CONCENT doesn't want this secret to become public. Mark Curran, former officer of CONCENT and current underwater explorer, is dragged into this problem - and it's up to him and the scientists to find out a way to get this information up to the space colonies and survive in the process. Along the way, Mark will try to enlist the help of the Illumnati and stumble across a top-secret mobile suit: the G-Saviour!

When it comes down to the movie itself, it's not that bad. The writing is solid and doesn't need heavy explaining to those who aren't fans of the franchise, and the acting is also pretty enjoyable. In fact, the voice actress for Lady Une of Gundam Wing (Enuka Okuma) has a starring role in this feature - and has a great chemistry alongside Mark Curran (Brennan Elliott). The CGI effects are more than a little underwhelming, but this comes from the fact that the movie was made before The Matrix essentially made CGI inexpensive and easy to do. Some scenes are almost breathtaking for the era (particularly the asteroid belt sequence), but other sequences are grainy and a little hard to make out.
The mech design, as to be expected from Gundam, is solid. The units are a little on the slim side for most (except the bulky RGM-96, seen defending Gaia), but work well for space-based mecha. A personal favorite of mine is the land-based form of the G-Saviour, but it's only seen for a minute at most.

The rest of this DVD release, though, is almost completely disappointing. There's a Japanese audio feature (obviously, this was meant initially for release in Japan), yet there is a complete lack of English subtitles. Even most modern DVDs contain subtitles in some form, but this just feels lazy. There's also a 5.1 mix in English, and the remainder of extras are just trailers for other Gundam animated works that happen to be in America.
That's it.

The movie itself is great for what it is, but the lack of bonuses drag the whole affair down overall. The movie itself seems to be out-of-print these days, so if you're into Gundam and you can find it, I'd recommend grabbing the thing as soon as you can. At the very least, the movie contains several interesting elements that other Gundam shows have yet to bother touching yet.