Gundam SEED Destiny - 50 (END) October 1
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Summary:
In the final battle, there are several matchups that immediately develop: Rey vs. Kira, Athrun vs. Shinn, and the ArchAngel vs. the Minerva. In the SF vs. Legend fight, Kira and Rey trade Newtype reactions while dodging the other’s DRAGOONs. After Kira starts to see Rau Le Creuset in Rey from the way he fights, Rey actually comes out and says that he is Rau Le Creuset. Rey flashes back to a few years ago after Rau died when Gilbert tells him that it is his destiny to be Rau. Kira refutes this by saying that their lives are different, and then he uses a full salvo to disable Legend. In the Shinn and Athrun fight, Athrun actually starts by battling with Lunamaria a bit before Shinn intervenes. Athrun tries to convince Shinn that he’s fighting for the wrong cause, one that will kill the future. Shinn flashes back to Stellar and his sister, but he lunges anyway at Athrun. Lunamaria gets in the way to stop him, but Shinn doesn’t slow down, so Athrun pulls out his SEED mode and shields the attack. Since talking time is over, Athrun uses his beam sabers to cut off Destiny’s arms and leg, sending it crashing into the moon. Meanwhile, the ArchAngel situates itself directly above the Minerva and fires down, destroying the latter ship’s cannons. Athrun then uses the IF’s backpack to destroy the Minerva’s engines. The heavy damage forces the Minerva also to crashes onto the surface of the moon. Gilbert, seeing his forces fall, orders the firing of the Neo-GENESIS at the ORB forces. But because of Yzak’s warning, all of the important ships are able to dodge the shot (which actually destroys several of ZAFT’s own ships). Gilbert then readies to fire his other super weapon, the Requiem. The Akatsuki and the IF rush there and destroy the cannon just as it is about to fire. Shinn has a moment where he sees Stella calling out to him. She is happy to see him, and keeps emphasizing “tomorrow” as she fades away. Shinn wakes up in Lunamaria’s arms, and the two of them weep as explosions rock the Requiem. At the Messiah, Kira uses the METEOR platform to wreck the place, and then enters it on foot to confront Gilbert. Gilbert tries to tell Kira that history will only repeat itself, but Kira replies that they don’t want a world that doesn’t change. Rey and Talia both arrive during the two’s exchange. They ready their guns to fire, and Gilbert is shot. Kira turns around surprised to see that Rey pulled the trigger. Explosions rip through the room as Talia rushes over and puts Gilbert’s head onto her lap. Rey apologizes, and then trails off talking about tomorrow. After Kira leaves at Talia’s request, Gilbert also apologizes, but Talia says that it’s their fate. She calls for Rey, so he comes over to hug her and identifies her as his mother just as the room explodes. The Messiah crashes onto the lunar surface as Shinn and Luna watch on while Athrun and Kira stoically survey all the destruction.
The last episode of GSD gives us some good battle sequences and concludes the series, but fails on several important levels. I didn’t have much of a problem with the story itself: we’ve all heard it before, it’s the stuff they’ve been spouting the entire series. What I didn’t like was that the old cast (Kira, Athrun, etc) were all-powerful and made it out pretty much unscathed. I admit that as a fan of the original SEED, I wanted them to survive, but having them beat all of their opponents so easily to win the day just ruins the excitement. Never mind that the ZAFT grunts are useless, even Shinn and Rey aren’t able to significantly damage Athrun and Kira. And everyone shows up in that ending shot gathered around in their still shiny mobile suits and ships. So I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that the conflict is fairly weak. The elements of Kira, Athrun, Lacus, etc vs. Shinn, Rey, Gilbert could have been used to make a far stronger story revolving around what is right and what is wrong (as opposed to Kira always being right).
And of course, Shinn doesn’t really get a satisfactory ending (yes, I consider death a satisfactory ending for him). Actually, it’s not the conclusion of his story that I wasn’t happy with; it’s the lack of closure in general. After the battle is over, the credits just roll. The story is left just hanging there, without a proper epilogue. I guess you could argue that this leaves the series open to a sequel, but I’m sure there are better ways of doing that. I was hoping at least to see a bit more of Murrue & Mwu and also the reunification of Lunamaria & Meyrin. And a scene that shows that Shinn has actually come out of all this having learned something would be nice.
Final Thoughts: Gundam SEED Destiny is the sequel to Gundam SEED that everyone was looking forward to. Who wouldn’t want to see our old friends flying their Gundams and blowing stuff up? But at the end of the series, we’re left to think that perhaps it would have been better for them not to be there, or maybe for Shinn and company not to be there. Because as it stands, GSD suffers from having too many characters. The original SEED cast was already quite big, with Kira, Athrun, and all of their friends on both sides. Add in another group (Shinn, Rey, etc), and we’ve got too many people to play with and lots of lost potential. Initially, there were good developing stories on both sides. We had a brash young ace, a returning character in the teacher role, and several supporting characters. But the inherent problem is that by the end of the series, they didn’t get enough development to significantly change. Or if they were greatly affected, we didn’t get to see the results (which goes back to the lack of closure I mentioned before).
All in all, this series is at best mediocre, not quite as good as the original (which I admit wasn’t perfect either). I would recommend it to fans of Gundam SEED, but probably no one else. I’ll probably feel better once I see the special episode coming with the last DVD due to be released in February of next year. (see Gunota)
megazero at 9:33 am on October 1st, 2005
I’ve noticed that one of the scenes is similar to Flay and Kira in SEED, and in EP 50 as well.
Losttek at 9:49 am on October 1st, 2005
Bleh at the reused scenes.. and S-Freedom turning back into Freedom? Lame.
Oh well, at least it’s finally over.
ruinevil at 9:50 am on October 1st, 2005
TO BE CONTINUED?!?
Reiven at 9:52 am on October 1st, 2005
Is Rey actually Talia’s son? @_@ Seems that way!
goldnstarz at 9:52 am on October 1st, 2005
….and the horror continues to live. Joy.
Why couldn’t it bloody end at teh OVA?
Nekki at 9:54 am on October 1st, 2005
The ending was boring I believe…
smooth at 10:42 am on October 1st, 2005
this is the most crapping gundam series i ever watch…..
Reiven at 10:51 am on October 1st, 2005
Just a question I’ve been wondering. What’s up with the producers of SEED and their obsession with naked dead-people, naked not-actually-dead people and dead going-to-die people and just naked people on a whole.
ruinevil at 11:00 am on October 1st, 2005
They really wanted to be an H-anime studio, but failed, and were forced to work for Bandai.
Shun at 11:02 am on October 1st, 2005
Well, Shinn turned out to be the Kamille Bidan on this Crappy Series as expected looking at Luna, it seems that we’ll gonna be seeing them at the next SEED series if possible(Kamille and Fa Yuiri rip-offs)
G3 at 11:08 am on October 1st, 2005
This series doesn’t even compare to Zeta as much as it wants to be… Hell, even SEED’s a hell of a lot better. Oh well, at least it was still mildly entertaining while it lasted. To bad the plot had such potential and Fukuda failed to exploit it.
zathras at 11:39 am on October 1st, 2005
talia might be the surrogate mom for giving birth to the clone of Rau - which we learn that Rey was her son…overall a clone of another defective clone…
Reader at 11:45 am on October 1st, 2005
I have to agree with G3, they’ve completely wasted the potential they had with this Gundam SEED sequel (like Double Zeta wasted the potential for the Zeta sequel). At least SEED didn’t go overboard with their recycled mobile suit battle scenes like SEED Destiny did. Not to mention, this ending was a rush job (emphasis on rushed). It’s like 2-3 episodes being compressed into one. It’s as if they’ve dragged the story and suddenly realised their running out of episodes to finish it and squeezed it all into episode 50.
SEED’s pace and use of episodes was better. And let us not forget SEED Destiny had A LOT of recap episodes. Episodes which could have been used to tell the SEED Destiny storyline better instead of being wasted as recap episodes.
Kiryuu at 12:00 pm on October 1st, 2005
thought the episode was ok.. destiny has had far worse episodes
overall though i think SEED was a much better series.. just means less DVDs to buy i guess ^^;
JeanneChan at 12:00 pm on October 1st, 2005
well, at least athrun did the best job in this episode XD…third series ;_;’, oh god >.>”
Kira Yamato at 12:01 pm on October 1st, 2005
o man… thought this final episode is the most exciting but turns out not thrilling zzzz… Both Kira and Athrun defeated Rey & Shinn so easily?! And no damage to Strike Freedom & Infinite Justice?! Geez… wat the hell… Hope they will create another sequel for this, seems incomplete for this final phase… AND COME ON FUKUDA, U CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!!!!
Phantom Pain at 12:32 pm on October 1st, 2005
Um… The possibility of a sequel that I mentioned in my last comment under Phase-49: Well, I think it’s safe to say that this episode was such a failure as an ending that Bandai/Sunrise will most likely ditch that idea >>. lol. Anyway… On the bright side, Fukuda did surprise me with this one. I figgered the one person most likely to survive out of the new cast was Talia, but I guess I was wrong. Oh well. I think I’ll download this ep in a few days just for a good laugh. Ha.
geddoe at 12:54 pm on October 1st, 2005
did shinn go into seed mode too or just athrun?
Waho at 12:55 pm on October 1st, 2005
Perhaps they might wrap this up with some sort of OVA. TOO many open questions that are left unanswered but I guess thats how Gundam always is. Ya, the ending for SEED and even the last battle was much better compared to such petty battles here. Not even a good fight in the last episode, they were no contests, Kira vs. Rey = expected some sort of HUGE battle where they fight to the death and Athrun vs. Shinn = *yawn wanted someone to die here too.
Where on earth was ORB, or did they even play any significant role in the last episode? The one sided-battles frustrated me. If Kira and Shinn was so powerful, this series should have been over many episodes ago. Just send those two out and destroy Shinn and Rey.
Well, I guess there is some bright side to this series…Kira never cried BUT he also didn’t kill anybody. Common Kira, you didn’t even kill Rey or that other guy (sorry too frustrated right now lol).
There better be some sort of OVA to conclude or some sort of sequel or I’m going back to watch Gundam Wing or Zeta :X
Anza at 12:57 pm on October 1st, 2005
Shinn did SEED and still got his ass kicked, Athrun is still the best MS pilot in this series. Kira can spam but 1on1 he loses to Athrun (remember SEED ^_^)
Are we sure Fukuda was the director of SEED? Seriously I haven’t seen an anime just so badly made in awhile, I mean don’t get me wrong I love GS/GSD but thats just becuase I’m a fanboy GSD was very poorly made.