[brightman]

Originally Posted by Rawinder

If the writers are inconsistent with tone and characterization, then I would call that bad writing.

Inconsistent with tone over two shows is not bad writing. As for inconsistent characterization, I disagree, as already pointed out.

I refer back to my "parachuting with a jacket" example.

Uso did something similar in Victory. Is he crazy?

A 21-year-old woman interested in a 14-year-old boy? Like I said, totally unrealistic.

Newtypes are not realistic, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Of course ZZ is meant to be a continuation of Zeta. It involves and builds off the same characters, same plot points, and same setting left at the end of Zeta. The first episode is a recap of Zeta. The second episode picks up immediately where Zeta left off. Hell, "Zeta" is even in the name of the show!

It features a new cast, concerns a totally different conflict and by all intents have a totally different plotline. It has different writers, a different character designer, different mecha designers, etc., and most of all, its NOT "Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Season 2", so its a different show.

Of course, you can say the same exact thing about Zeta being a continuation of MSG too. But Zeta is not MSG, Season 2 either, even though its also got a totally different tone from it. Its noticably darker and overly serious, and in fact, that was a big complaint of TV viewers back then, and a big reason why it wasn't as popular with viewers as the first MSG (according to Tomino)

And as jonli pointed out, I don't think your example works. Char is still fighting against the Earth on the behalf of spacenoids; the only people he double-crossed were the Zabis, who are all dead; and he's still quite the badass.

Right, but there was a change in how he was depicted, just like Haman and Yazan and so on. Again, I don't think their personalities or what they stood for have changed either. I was directly addressing your criticism that their change in depictions have somehow "disrespected" them.

Originally Posted by 4Tran

The most likely reason was that the creators got the go-ahead for Char's Counterattack, and so they scrapped the plans for what they had originally intended for the ZZ ending and went with something new. The other side of the equation is that the early Gundam shows weren't particularly planned out to begin with. If we go by Zeta, ZZ and even Victory, it looks like the creators just build bare skeletons of what the plot will sort of be like, and then just make sure that the episodic content doesn't conflict with that skeleton too much. Mobile Suit Gundam is the exception to this as it seems to have some real progression planned out from the beginning.

That's not true though. The shift in tone in ZZ was planned from the beginning, and Tomino's original planned story for it doesn't vary much until way past the supposed "shift" to the more Zeta-like tone...

IMO there was really not much of a Zeta-like atmosphere in the show anyway. Characters were still resorting to slapstick. A lot of sneaking around and playful antics that were noticably more light-hearted. The Tigerbaum arc was anything but Zeta-like. Just because there was a noticibly darker tone, doesn't mean they were trying to recreate Zeta. In fact, Tomino already said one of the reasons why ZZ isn't more like Zeta was because he didn't like that it was way too depressing for people.