Special Edition I, Celestial Being

As promised, here's a summary of SE1 as I watched through. Since we're all familiar with the material, the format will be different from my old episode threads.

Prologue

-The battle in Krugis goes pretty much the same as it did in episode 1, until Soran's savior arrives. Amusingly, a fairly ominous BGM now plays for the 0 Gundam's debut. A new scene begins, stepping inside the cockpit to see Ribbons' thoughts on their fateful meeting. After working in the Soran/0 scene from S2's first opening, Ribbons spares the future Meister.

-Setsuna, in Exia and approaching his first target, helpfully breaks the story flow to explain the basic idea of the plot and 00's world. I don't think he adds anything different than the anime's standard intro though. As it comes to a conclusion, Gundam Exia violently interrupts the demonstration of the new model AEU Enact.

Celestial Being

-Aeolia's infamous speech plays over heavily edited versions of the four Gundams debuting in episode 1.
--Exia rips the Enact apart, without any dialogue from Patrick.
--Lockon snipes Hellions, recycling footage from his supporting Exia at the elevator.
--Kyrios and Virtue destroy the terrorist Hellions, without context on the involved situation.

-Amusingly, they pull a rapid fire character introduction in reaction to the speech. Kinue, Saji, Louise, Sergei, Liumei, Marina, Shirin, Billy, Graham, Sumeragi, Lasse, Litchy, Christina, and Feldt all appear with their names helpfully labeling them for your convenience.

-Daybreak's Bell starts up as the Gundams launch into a heavily edited version of the Ceylon battle. None of the involved character interaction occurs, so enjoy your Gundams doing cool poses while they break stuff. The new Kyrios transformation scene is here, as I've previously mentioned. After Tieria sinks the ship, we immediately transition to...

-Setsuna vs Graham. It goes more or less as usual, but Graham doesn't get to chatter as long since Exia almost immediately knocks his plasma sword away. When Graham retreats, we jump straight to Sergei's attack on Exia without context. Again, its edited for time but mostly intact.

-We get a small scene introducing Eifman, and then its time for a new scene. Setsuna hangs out with Saji and Louise, and they discuss current events. Elsewhere, the Ptolemy crew head out to one of Liumei's mansions since its time for...

-The battle of Moralia. The new Dynames and Exia scenes are placed within some of the original scenes, plus Patrick finally appears onscreen just to be immediately shot down. Setsuna vs Ali plays out in full, complete with the out-of-cockpit confrontation and Lockon stepping in.

-The Gundams wrecking everything in front of Moralia HQ is gone though, transitioning straight to Setsuna's disciplinary session. Afterwards, we jump ahead to Sergei prepping Choubu for the Gundam Capture Operation. Its here where Soma is introduced and assigned to Sergei. Things fast forward through the scenario, to the battle itself.

-Things go roughly the same, until Kyrios is captured. Sergei, with the group, has the unresponsive Gundam tied up, but as Soma approaches, Hallelujah wakes up. In a slightly new scene, while cackling about Marie he breaks free and beats down the Taozi. Sergei orders a withdrawal, and even though Ming didn't die Alle still cries.

-We jump to Setsuna explaining the whole Super Soldier thing for us. Alle breaks into the colony to attack the Super Soldier facility, but his conversation with Halle is pretty much cut entirely. Nothing else from the ep made it in.

Azadistan

-Some of the La Edenra stuff makes it in, to facilitate Setsuna's meeting with Marina. Wacky car chases and gunfights ensue, and then enough of their conversation is intact for Setsuna to blow his cover. Then we jump to the drama of eps 12 and 13, with Massoud being kidnapped.

-Setsuna beats up some Anfs, but fails to become Gundam. We get a mix of scenes, including Setsuna's face to face encounter with Graham. Next we jump to Setsuna's second fight with Ali, which again plays out in full. Next is Setsuna returning Massoud, and becoming Gundam.

-The eagerly anticipated new scene! In their hotel room, clad in very little, Alejandro and Ribbons have a conversation and drinks. Following this is Saji and Louise looking at the now infamous rings, and Kinue finally getting to speak. Most thrilling segment of the movie right here, guys.

Team Trinity

-The set up for the desert battle is quickly outlined in a montage of scenes. Howard, Daryl, and Katie are finally shown to exist, but don't get to speak. An extremely edited...well, montage of the whole encounter follows. It quickly skips ahead to the Meisters being incapacitated by their respective foes, and...

-Nena, Michael, and Johann show up to save the day pretty much as in the anime. Without pause, we transition into a montage of some Trinity interventions as Ribbons narrates for us. Eifman's assassination, the attack on Iris co, and the wedding attack all get a few seconds but receive very little context.

-Wana rather inappropriately plays during the wedding attack, and the whole Saji/Louise scene in her hospital room. Howard's death, Graham's vow on his grave, and the resulting battle with Johann are cut entirely, but Eins is still missing an arm when Setsuna provokes a fight with the Trinity.

-The fight is really cut for time, but they did add a new Ribbons scene when the Trial system is forcibly deactivated. The whole KPSA drama between Lockon and Setsuna is still in, of course, in full. Meanwhile we have the other Saji/Louise hospital scene, without the anime's song.

Operation: Angel Down

-Meanwhile, Alejandro and Ribbons converse as their gift of 30 GN Drives is received. There's a new scene of the GN-X being present, and the other new Ribbons and Alejandro scene. Ribbons looks so disgusted when Alejandro hugs him, hahahaha. Team Trinity attacks an HRL base, but...

-The HRL GN-X team arrives! But not to the awesome "Possibility", instead its to the GN Flag's remix of "Union". The scene is otherwise exactly the same as the anime's. We then jump to a new scene, of Regene watching the GN-X's debut. He talks, but I assume it is as worthless as every scene of his is.

-Next we jump to the GN-X attacking the Ptolemy. It is a very time edited version of the battle, plus enemy characters like Patrick and Daryl are basically non-existent. The interesting change is that Virtue is the only one to lose Veda's backup, forcing Lockon to defend him as normal.

--For a bit of poor editing; they removed the exchange where Lockon blows off Patrick's arm and Patrick responds by blowing up his sniper rifle. They didn't change the following footage to match though, so Patrick's GN-X spontaneously loses an arm when attacking Virtue.

--The GN Arms' debut is also removed, so it is just magically...there in the montage of Meisters watching the GN-X retreat.

-We see Alejandro and Ribbons at Veda, and then literally transition to Ali having already killed Michael. Zwei vs Eins/Drei and Zwei vs Exia are both completely chopped up for time, but Alejandro shooting Aeolia is fine. Prototype inexplicably plays for Trans Am Exia. There's an added bit of smug Ribbons monologue on the topic.

-A tiny bit of the Setsuna/Lasse convo people liked made it in. What follows is a very edited version of the episode 23 engagement; Halle's dialogue is cut, so Alle apparently just shrugs off the headache and Trans Ams. Lockon activates Trans Am to attack the UN ships, but Ali prevents him from destroying the third regardless.

-Dynames vs Zwei was torn to pieces. The entire first half is gone, much of the dialogue is cut, and there's a terrible bit of editing. Daryl does not kamikaze, but Dynames' right arm magically vanishes after he cuts off Zwei's arm. The following sniping scene is intact, but the added music spoils the mood.

-Lockon's death is shortened, plus they added the scene of his dead body floating away, from Gundam Meisters. Most of the following drama on the Ptolemy is gone, as we jump straight to the battle from episode 24. Alvatore blasts the ship, but no mention of Moreno is made.

-The Ptolemy gets taken out pretty fast. Litchy doesn't even get his death scene, it just goes right to Christina's last message. Kyrios and Nadleeh get maimed in rapid succession, and their last battle scenes are stripped down and taken care of here. Meanwhile, Setsuna forms GN Armor Type-E.

-Note that the same generic battle theme plays for the entirety of this paragraph. The GN Armor attacks Alvatore, and is blown away in literally seconds. Setsuna goes ballistic on the Alvatore, and as he tries to help Lasse the Alvaaron appears. After bickering with Alejandro a while, he just goes Trans Am and tears the Alvaaron apart. No Lockon flashback.

-Ribbons informs Alejandro what a wonderful clown he was, in an edited version of that conversation. With no prior foreshadowing, the GN Flag appears and attacks Exia. They tear each other up as usual, but Graham's last words are cut since Howard and Daryl pretty much didn't exist.

-Tieria ejects Nadleeh's GN Drive, while Alle has his last conversation with Halle. Marina reads Setsuna's letter, while Setsuna narrates it for us. Four years later, Tieria is present when Ian shows Liumei the 0 Gundam and we're given a peek at the 00. Another Gundam Meisters scene is used, of Setsuna on earth.

-A new song plays over the credits, while we're treated to a random montage of S2 scenes. Interestingly, 00's debut battle now has two GN-XIII engaging it simultaneously when it activates the GN Field.

Sigh. Sounds completely crap aside from new footage.

Oh! Oh! I missed one! Exia loses its left arm even though GN Flag never cuts it off. Due to the way they edited the scenes (Can't have Graham vowing revenge for people that didn't exist~), Exia's arm magically disappears between GN Flag arriving and the first attack. Worse, Exia briefly regrows the arm during a scene in Graham's cockpit from an earlier part of the fight.

I will say that 00 is very pretty on BluRay; things are very crisp and defined. The trail of red particles even looks like more than a red smear behind the MS.

So it's a 00 Abridged, only without the (intentional) lulz.

.....Boo!

Much like the Code Geass compilations, 25 episodes in 90 minutes just doesn't work. It would have been better if they'd released it as a full length 2 hour movie like back in the 70s and 90s.

Seriously?I loved that song but such a.............peculiar choice for the hot blooded debut of the Trans-Am System.

Does this mean that we never saw the other three lose Veda's backup [IE they go around and shoot stuff normally with no abnormalities whatsoever] or that the backup loss and the system restart was scenes were eliminated [but still sort of happened]?

If its the former,then does that mean that wouldn't that be bad for future edition since the other 3 GN-Drives are sort of........still connected to Veda.

Maybe their like the arm cuts......>_>,makes no sense from a scenic point of view.

Virtue is the only one to lose Veda's backup, period. The other three are fine, and react to Tieria shutting down. You know how Virtue is still having problems after the Ptolemy crew reactivates the Gundams, in episode 21? That is revamped into Virtue being the only one to lose Veda in the battle.

For another random bit, they removed Graham's "Beam saber?!" reaction in his first brawl with Setsuna.

Sigh......I was afraid of that.I don't know how this is going to affect the entire viewpoint of the Veda/Drive connection in the canocity [or "Official" as the Japanese call it] department,not to mention Veda's backup in general.

On another note,it may makes things a bit more sense now that I think about it,since Gadessa and Garazzo was able to move mostly fine with Tiera being in control of Veda later on,prior to this I've assumed that they had a backup standalone just in case.Perhaps their setting this up so these 2 scenes will be more coherant in the future?

The only guess that I can make is that Tiera directly uses Veda's backup as assistance somehow because his an Innovedo and that the loss of it made Virtue not work but the others loss their Veda backup,but without de-activation since the suits don't have that sort of programming [or need] attached like in the TV series,but may lose some performance point due to the lack of Veda helping their MS function,except that it was happening queitly and unoticably.

Not that there was any noticable visual difference in ther battle performance without Veda's backup anyway,only stated loss of performance and strain on the pilot.

I guess I may get a better picture once I watch it for myself.

You said it, too much editing to adjust for time, and to include gratuitous shonen ai scenes among the baddies. Apparently there is a whole 00 fangirl section that is getting a hat tip, here. And here I thought there would definitely be a special segment for the fanatical Tieria's Guard!

I am sure the blu-ray version looks pretty as Homeless has said, and it will be interesting to watch at least once. But I dunno if I am completist enought o go for this mishmash of a condensation. It wouldn't be a very good "short version", unlike the Original Gundam movies.

Final judgment really should be withheld until one watches it for themselves, I suppose. Aside from the obvious fact that I could've been inaccurate at points (Due to writing it over the course of two hours while watching), my cynical notes fail to cover every single inch of the release and I made little effort to follow the added points of narration from characters like Setsuna and Ribbons. At least one group has claimed they'll sub it, so there's that to look forward to.

Of course, with the raw alone at 3.48 GBs, I'm not sure how many of you will want to take the plunge.

The 15m Hellions don't look shorter than the 18m Gundams at all in the new fight scenes, we even see Setsuna duck and slash one of them.

They should have deleted Patrick's appearance altogether in Moralia and use that time to add back some frames in later battles.