Mobile Suit Gundam - A very breif history

Sup,

Space colonies, masked antagonists, evolved humans and giant mechs. This is where it begins. My review of Gundam. Come on, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Back in 2001 I was intorduced to the Gundam universe when New Mobile Report: Gundam Wing was aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami. I watched all 49 episodes with friends and i've been hooked ever since. I went mental for Gundam Wing. I bought model kits, collected trading cards, graphic novels and even wrote my own fanfics... which were shockingly bad. And no, they'll never be read ever again.

Now, eight years and god knows how many viewings later, I think I can safely call myself a verteran Gundam fan. And for the record, G-Wing is one of my least favorite series.

Now with me being a massive Gundam fan, and with the 30th aniversary being this year, i've decided to do a breif recap / review / sumary of some of the Gundam series to date. I might get round to doing them all if I can be bothered, but there are rather alot. I might just do my favorite ones, who knows, depends what I feel like :P This post will just be a brief history and introduction to the series.

There are so many different series in the Gundam universe that they are not all set in the same timeline. The original, and most popular is the Universal Century (UC) timeline. The UC timeline is the home to 14 different series, including the 2009 movie Gundam Unicorn.
The other timelines are:

• Future Century - G Gundam
  
• After War - Gundam X
  
• After Colony - Gundam Wing, Endless Waltz
  
• Cosmic Era - Gundam SeeD, SeeD Destiny, SeeD Stargazer
• Correct Century - Turn A Gundam
• Anno Domini - Gundam 00

Gundam was created way back in 1979 by Yoshiyuki Tomino. Before Gundam he was already well known as a director on numerous other anime's including Astro Boy. Tomino went on to write a further 4 full length Gundam series and 7 movies. A full list of his work can be found here.

Gundam has always been a story centering around politics and the effect that war has on the world. Generally every series involves a group of youths who get drawn into a war against their will, and one character will always ends up being the 'accidental' Gundam pilot. This is known among fans as 'The Gundam cliche'.

The concept of 'the evolution of humanity' or 'humanities next evolutionary steps' is a strong theme that plays out in every every series. Whether they are called Newtypes, Co-ordinators, or Innovators, these 'evolved' humans have abilities beyond those of a regular human. As well as telekenesis, hightened spacial awareness and response times, these abilities work in a similar way to 'the force' is Star Wars.

As well as this, there are always space colonies, a virtually indestructable battleship, a huge space laser, stupidly powerfull mid-season mobile suit upgrades, and a masked villan.

Right, I know thats a pretty breif introduction to Gundam, but in a round about way it's all you really need to know. The first series review i'm going to do will be the original Mobile Suit Gundam: UC 0079. The series that started it all. Should be fun.

See you then, cheers for reading.

BenGP02

Apparently it's not a movie, but it is in 2009 :D

Sup,

Today's been pretty cool. We had our first Bruegel rehearsal since god know when, and I found out a few awesome things.

The Bruegel rehearsals, i thought, went really well to say that we hadn't seen each other or even thought about the damn thing since way before easter. Alex decided to live stream bits of the second run through, videos of which you can see here - keep an eye out for Paul running away from Abi, it's genius.

Now even though I'm compleatly broke and can barely afford to eat - infact, forget that - I can't afford to eat properly. Seriously, I'm down to like one meal a day, if i'm lucky. MEGA HUNGRY 24/7. Anyways, even though I have no cash what so ever, this week the sequal to a fantastic 'hack and slash' game is released. That's right folks, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 is out on friday. America saw its release today and my tweetdeck has been buzzin all day with folks shouting about how awesome it is. I can't wait. I loved the first one, I know i'm love this. Shame i'll have to wait untill payday... no Gundam fanatic should be put through this :(

More Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 Info

Anyways, placing Gundam to oneside... for now, Fox have released a 3rd and final trailer for X-Men: Origins -Wolverine. I think it looks awesome, but why wouldn't I? I am an X-Men fan. A high-res trailer can be found here.

Ok, back to Gundam. Way back before i'd been born, or even thought of, in 1979 the first Mobile Suit: Gundam TV series was aired in Japan. It was canceled before its mammoth 50 episode run finished. The series was cut down to make three movies a few years later. Now, 18 series, 14 movies, a silly amount of graphic novels and thousands of model kits later we find ourselves in 2009 celebrating the 30th aniversary of MS:Gundam.
Because of this, the folks at Bandai have decided to do something special to celebrate. Already this year we've seen the epic ending to Gundam 00 the latest seires, a PS3 exclusive game for autum, and an 18 meter life size Statue of the original Gundam to be erected in Tokyo have been anounced.
2 weeks ago, a Bandai press conferance held in Spain announced that a movie based on the 'more than awesome' Gundam Unicorn graphic novel series was being 'discused'. Today we got confirmation. ZOMGSPLOSION!!!!!
However the Gundam Unicorn movie will not be a movie. It will either be a fully fledged 50 episode epic, like Zeta, First or Victory, or a shorter OVA series such as 0080: War in the Pocket or 0083: Stardust Memory.

Am I psyched? Yes, yes I am.

BenGP02

PANDA Performing Arts Interview...

Sup,

Got my interview today to be a producer with PANDA Performing Arts. I'm all dressed up smart, well, not too smart, kind of smart/ casual. Jeans, chewbacca t-shirt, shirt. Classy.
Just finishing up the portfolio with things I didn't think about putting in yesterday.

Wish me luck!

BenGP02

Asda, Star Trek, and Spinal Tap

Sup,

Well today was kind of exciting. For starters when I woke up this morning I wasn't sure if I had to go to work. I knew I was doing overtime at some point this week but hadn't put it in my diary (i have the worst memory ever, if i don't write it down then i'm doomed). Asda is a depressing place, even more so when you work there... on the checkouts. Anyways, I rang up and ZOMG!!! No checkouts for Benjamino!! Smiles all round. Super good start to the day.

A stop off at the bank and a quick trip to the laundret saw me back at home staring at the looming pile of essays I've still got to do... so what did I do? I hit the xbox for a few hours.

Then something happened in the Twitterverse that I found super awesome. @sizemore tweets that he and @danlight are being the moderators for the live streaming of a Star Trek Q&A session with non other the legendary director JJ.Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield), Chris Pine (Smokin' Aces) who plays Cpt. James T Kirk, and Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heros) who plays Spock, in the new Star Trek film. AWESOME!!!! I felt like I was helping make a tiny bit of Star Trek's gigantasaurus history.



Even though the whole thing was being held virtually in Playstationhome, I was able to view the discusion via Ustream and ask questions through @sizemore via Twitter. Yes, this has been the highlight of my day. @sizemore says he'll let me know when a recording/ podcast/ audio version of the Q&A is avalible so I can stick it on here if your interested. Watch the trailer above and you'll see why i'm excited about seeing this film. It looks mental. Here's a link to @sizemore's site where he has written a good, spoilerless, review of the movie.

Anyhoo, I'm going to finish watching Spinal Tap... again... and then do some work on my script. You know, Spinal Tap is one of the few films that I can keep finding funny everytime I watch it. God bless Christopher Guest.
I'm gonna post the first couple of scenes from my play up for you to have a read off, I'd like some feedback.

BenGP02

Performance and geek realisation

Sup y'all,

Well, i've spent the first half of my day trying to figure out just what exactly a performance portfolio is. Then i spent the second half trying to put one together.

Why am I doing this? It's because on Tuesday i've got an interview for a job with the Manchaester performing arts company 'Panda'. I've applied for the possition of 'incubated producer'. Simply put, if I get the job I get to work with and learn from profesional producers while they assist proffesional theatre companies and artists. Really hoping I impress them, I'd love the job. Would be awesome.

Well, I finally managed to throw together some form of portfolio. Consisting of photos from shows i've recently been in, scripts and monologues i've written, and a dvd with a couple of scenes from the show 'We Will Rock You', which I performed in last year with Stage84 at the Bradford Alhambra theatre. I played two parts during the week, Pop and Galileo. In these clips I'm playing Galileo, the lead. It was awesome. The video below should of uploaded, but click here to see a different clip on youtube.



Anyways, I'm watching American Dad right now and Roger (the alien) just started doing a Kevin Bacon 'Footloose' montage. Comedy genius.

Also, I woke up and finally realised what people have been telling me for years. I am a geek and an anime junkie. Seriously, I didn't realise how mental it was untill today. And while i'm on the subject, new 'Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen' footage. Looks awesome. Can't wait. And @Documentally, this is just for you... it's the only G-Force stuff i've got.

Well, off to bed,

Follow me at BenGP02

Lets start at the very begining, It's a very good place to start.

Sup y'all,

Welcome to my brand spanking sparkly new blog 'third week in chelsea'. Since this is the first time I've done a personal blog i'm going to keep it simple. This is going to be my place where I can write about whatever is on my mind or stuff that I find interesting etc...

Now just to let you know, i've never been to Chelsea nor do I have any connections with the place, but Google has assured me that it hosts a flower show each year... I'm sure its a cracking place.
No, third week in chelsea is one of my all time most awesome tunes of all time by a remarkable 60's group called 'Jefferson Airplane'. Give them a listen. Proper old chill out tunes. Nice.

Just poured a nice glass of wine. Mmmmm.
Just took a sip, it's not that nice...

Anyways, i'm currently writing a short play. It's not by anymeans finished, but if anyone would like a read then let me know. I'll post the odd scene for comments cos I'd appreciate the feedback.

Every now and then i'll drop in a review of either a series, book, film, game or band, as it's something that i've been wanting to do for quite a while.

Anyways, that's it for my first blog post.
Thanks for reading:)

You can follow me at BenGP02