Star Wars x Gundam

>>15727585
Well it always bothers me when people call Gundam the "star trek" of Japan just because I always thought that Gundam was more comparable to Star Wars while if your going to compare anything to Star Trek it's ultraman. The whole young protagonist thing is really just a story trope that make it easier to develop a character and teach the themes to the viewer. But there are some things that stick out, both have an iconic villain that has so many clones in other media, both have a huge expanded universe with canon debate, one thing they do have a lot in common is the force and newtype thing. A very mystical element in a science fiction setting.

>>15727616
the Trek parallels are in the idea that it floundered in its initial run but subsequent reruns and movies cemented it as a staple

File: charth vader.jpg (257KB, 768x1155px) Image search: [Google]

257KB, 768x1155px

>>15727585
Something about Star Wars being almost exactly the archetypal hero's journey and so it naturally sharing similarities with pretty much everything that follows the same outline
The similarities are fairly superficial anyway. Jedi are the super secret club for wizards in tune with nature/the universe, Newtypes are a higher form of life altogether in tune with other similarly evolved people, even if both have some supernatural powers. Char and Vader both have masks and are somewhat disloyal to their empires, but Vader's disloyalty only comes up at the end, whereas Char was scheming against the Zabis from day one. Degwin and the Emepror are both wrinkly fuckers, but completely the opposite personality-wise, Degwin is introspective and ultimately chooses morality over victory, the Emperor is a personification of dark forces. The Empire ARE evil, the Rebels ARE good, whereas with Gundam Zeon and the Feddies are a mixed bag of incompetence, malice, heroism and honesty. Leia is actual space monarchy and everyone knows it, Sayla is more the 'Anastasia in hiding' type of princess.
I'm sure there are other similarities, but those are all the ones I can remember seeing brought up off the top of my head.

>>15727642
Okay that's fair but Star Trek did get a full three season. I just think that while Star Trek stuff is there I think it's impact on it industry is more comparable to Star Wars.

>>15727673
Trek struggled heavily and only got renewed when the creator had his cronies astroturf letter writing campaigns each year.

File: 6a6416a46c6b5d05db9675f348504c18.jpg (185KB, 630x1000px)

185KB, 630x1000px

>>15727616

You could probably argue just as much that Space Battleship Yamato is as much the "Star Trek" of anime. Though the analogy of Star Wars as a fantastical, even mystical representation of the war between the Allied and Axis Powers (punctuated by very obvious things like WWII dogfighting in Outer Space), and SBY's own very clear connotations about the last months of Japan's naval empire (and the early years of Japan's part in the Cold War after its World War defeat) are worth noting too. Even Star Trek borrows elements from the American naval warfare experience in a less consistent fashion, including the name of the Enterprise itself.

There's no perfect analogy. The United States had Star Wars and Star Trek (and other stuff), Japan had Mobile Suit Gundam, Space Battleship Yamato, and other stuff (both in anime and novel form). There's nothing that demands perfect counterparts on either side. And of course, they're equally exploitable (in the commercial sense) for reinterpretations and retellings (disclaimer: I enjoy SBY2199 so far).

>>15727735
Well I think we all agree they share one major thing in common.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgRFQJCHcPw

Tomino has stated in interviews available in English that Star Wars was an influence on 0079, but never said how. Personally I think the influence was fairly esoteric and more in regards to making the plot of 0079 somewhat of a space opera with long lost siblings, revenge for a destroyed family and so on, but it's probably responsible for superficial things like beam sabers too. I definitely wouldn't be calling it a rip off.

I also wouldn't see any of the similarities between Zeta and the Force Awakens as anything more than generic sequel elements meant to build on the popular stuff while establishing a new cast with some connection to the old one.

>>15727616

Star Wars may have been why Lucas considered something like newtypes and a mystical energy of some kind at all. It's not even remotely definite as the case, since pseudo scientific psycho energy of the kind was popular through that period, but it's plausible as what made him consider using it within a show at least.