G-Saviour: The Movie
By C. Demetrius Morgan
Fans of mecha rejoice for I have discovered the Gone With the Wind of mecha movies. A movie destined to join the ranks of such laudable, if virtually unknown, genre efforts as Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy and Space Rangers. A movie that actually makes those Sci-Fi channel "original" movies look like low budget Shakespeare in the park. A movie that you can share with your RPG group and those few people in the world who don't like anime. A B-movie that is even suitable for bad movie night.
That movie is. . .
A mobile suit crashes into the ocean where Mark Curran, Ex-mobile suit pilot, is working deep down under the sea in his mining mech. Of course he comes to the rescue, this is the hero of the movie after all, but what's the story about?
Hunger. Or rather the need to find a way to feed humanity. The work going on under the sea has to do with aquaculture (is that even a word?) and genetics and. . . Anyway the mobile suit that crashed is from the space colony Gaia. Soon after soldiers from, I kid you not, CONSENT (Congress of Settlement Nations), storm the deep-sea facility and take it over. That's right the mobile suit crash was all just a diversion.
The rest of the movie is the usual story of political maneuvering for control of the McGuffin followed by massive fighting between government and rebel forces for possession of the McGuffin which results in the McGuffin being chased around until, finally, the McGuffin is either used to save the day or destroyed.
Before I found the DVD in, of all places, a Big Lots I'd never heard of this movie. What's even more astonishing is that the movie actually has CGI that, while perhaps a bit dated by current standards, looks absolutely remarkable.
We're talking almost theatrical quality CGI for circa 1999. There was great potential here for a classic on par with Star Wars. Alas there is the pacing..
Words cannot express just how bad this feature is in that regard. It's not the acting or even the dialogue so much as the pacing that is likely to aggravate the viewer. The movie starts out as (more or less) a romantic drama then, mid-way through, attempts to become an action movie but sadly fails to deliver the goods in either genre.
As a romance movie G-Saviour falls flat. It's a valiant effort and the actors deliver their lines well but the characters lack that spark, that sense of passion, that makes the involvement seem real. Too, while the CGI effects look great, most familiar with the anime series on which this was based will complain the "suits" were not utilized as well as they might have been. To play a bit of Devil's Advocate it looks like the CGI was the first run through for the company creating it, thus the lack of polish.
This is really sad because had this movie been just a bit better it might have led to a series of movies that would have allowed the SFX company to develop their technique and create far better looking mecha. Yet, for the time, it's a very good effort.
There's really not much in the way of extras (there's a gallery with barely half a dozen pictures and trailers for various Gundam anime) on this DVD but the picture, at least, is crisp and clear. You can also choose between playing the movie in English or Japanese. G-Saviour is an anomaly recommended for fans of the genre and the curious.
Copyright © C. Demetrius Morgan
