IMHO it's a bad choice. I will explain why. Gundam is not about the giant robots fighting. It's about the people inside the robots. It's about the moral conflicts and themes. The best Gundam stories don't have real good guys and bad guys. Everyone is sort of operating in a grey area. Even the protagonists are forced to make ambiguous choices, or they are working for a side that's in the wrong. Or they are forced to do horrible things for the "greater good."
Also, sometimes the stories have outright frustrating or really more ponderous endings that most western audiences would likely hate or reject.
Also, look at Death Note. Death Note had been kicked around for years. WB had it for a while and kept questioning how to do it. They wanted Death Note but they didn't want Death Note. They didn't want the Shinigami, Ryuk etc.
Netflix did Death note, but it was a very watered down, ****ty version of it. Death Note lacked the nuance and ambiguity of Light Yagami as a protagonist. Light Yagami truly believed in his mission and what he was doing. Light Yagami thought he was a god in human flesh and making the world a better place. He thought it was his job to mold the world as he saw fit and would stop at nothing to do it. He outsmarted almost everybody. And Death Note is told mostly from his perspective. What happens when a brilliant teen, genius level teen is granted the power to control who lives and who dies?
The Netflix movie was a POS. It never asked those greater questions. Light basically uses the Death Note to impress a girl and get some play. Also, Ryuk is more or less an afterthought in the film.
The other day, I was listening to a podcast called Screenplay Archeology talk about a couple of the later drafts of Death Note. The first draft, which was supposed to be adapted by Shane Black before he left, while taking place in the US and not a direct adaptation, changes things around in a way that make sense for the story they’re trying to tell while understanding the core and themes of what made the original manga and anime work. Even moments in the final film, like that bizarre chase scene, which originated from this draft, actually works really well and makes so much sense why everyone does what they do.
The last draft, written by Jeremy Slater, described by the podcast host as pretty close to the final film version we got, pretty much throws out all the nuance and retains moments and scenes from the previous draft, like the chase, without understanding what made them work. Whatever involvement Netflix had in actually getting the film made probably had very little to do with all of the creative side of things and had more to do with the financial and distribution side of things.
Yes, Netflix did decide to release the terrible product they did. They do share part of the blame for that. They release a lot of bad stuff. They also release a lot of good, even great, stuff. For better or worse, they’ll release anything if it gets them views and revenue. That still doesn't mean they have carte blanche on everything. Ultimately, the fault of the Death Note movie being terrible lies with the people who made it, the writer of the final draft, the director who filmed and directed the actors and WB, who, let’s be honest, haven't always had the best judgment over the last decade or so when approving and making quality products.
Now, with Legendary and Sunrise overseeing the production, and Brian K. Vaughn, whom I’ve heard is an excellent writer with pretty much everything he’s done, penning the script, does this film have a chance of delivering a good product that understands the core themes of the world of Gundam? I can’t say for sure, but I’d certainly like to hope and think so. This, unlike the 2017 Death Note, actually has quality talent behind it that actually seem to care. That, in my eyes, counts for something.
In the end, I’m going to give the final product a fair chance and judge accordingly, just like every piece of media I consume. Good or bad, I’ll definitely make my opinion known.
P.S.—Also, can people stop bringing up Dragonball Evolution as an example for why anime shouldn’t be made in live action? It’s not 2008 anymore; it’s 2021. We’re way past that now. If you want examples for live-action anime adaptations try Alita: Battle Angel, Bleach or Rurouni Kenshin, which are, frankly, much better examples of films that better reflect their original source material.
