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Zeta is my favourite Gundam series, but despite some really exciting new material which works very well for the fight scenes, I find that the modern compilation movie lacks charm, making it a difficult watch that just made me wish I'd rewatched the original series instead.

Granted, the original animation had its problems with quality, but the modern characters, although they look expensive, also look much less aesthetically pleasing than they did in the eighties. I find that the only character who looks better than they did in the original is Paptimus Scirocco, which says a lot about how depressing everyone looks. So many of ... the female characters' fantastic 80s hair now looks flat and boring: they did Rosamia and Beltorchika so dirty by flattening their perms.
Similarly, Lieutenant Quattro used to look like the sunglasses were there because he had leaned into the obnoxious "cool guy" persona. Now he looks like the sunglasses are there to hide how hungover he is. Eighties Quattro made Reccoa's later actions somewhat make sense as he was at least charming and charismatic, but 2005 Quattro makes me think actually, she was really going through it at the time.

The frequent skips between old and new animation styles were jarring and made it almost impossible to feel immersed in the story.
However, I think that the re-entry to Earth fight was compelling and fun to watch. The best combination of old and new in my opinion was when they reused 1980s footage of the pilots inside the cockpit, combined with the smooth and dynamic modern animation for the mobile suits and mobile armours.
I was also really surprised to hear Gackt singing the opening, it was great.

As with many compilation movies, the plot is very difficult to follow if you haven't seen the original. Some skips end up generating what seems like continuity errors unless you can piece the action back together from what you remember of the original series, like how they didn't have time to introduce Kai until we see him in the cell with Reccoa. I don't recommend watching this if you've never seen the original for this reason. If you've seen the original, rewatch that honestly. I tried to watch the second New Translation movie, but they butchered Four's character so badly I couldn't sit through the entire thing.