G-Saviour

G-Saviour (G (ジー)セイバー, Jī-Seibā) is a 2000 Canadian live-action television film created as part of the Gundam franchise, produced by Polestar Entertainment and distributed by Bandai Visual.

G-Saviour
G-Saviour poster and DVD cover
GenreMilitary science fiction
Based onMobile Suit Gundam
by Yoshiyuki Tomino
& Hajime Yatate
Screenplay byMark Amato
Stephanie Pena-Sy
Story byStephanie Pena-Sy
Directed byGraeme Campbell
StarringBrennan Elliott
Enuka Okuma
Catharina Conti
David Lovgren
Theme music composerJohn Debney
Louis Febre
Country of originCanada
Japan
Original language(s)English
Production
Producer(s)Chris Dobbs
CinematographyJoel Ransom
Editor(s)Rick Martin
Running time93 minutes
Production company(s)Polestar Entertainment
DistributorBandai Visual
Budget$5 million
Release
Original networkTV Asahi
Original release
  • December 29, 2000 (2000-12-29)

The film was produced as part of the "Gundam Big Bang Project", which was a series of works made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Gundam franchise. Set in the Universal Century timeline,[1][2] G-Saviour was produced as a joint effort between the animation studio and creator of Gundam, Sunrise, and an independent film production company, Polestar Entertainment. The film was first broadcast in Japan on December 29, 2000 from 16:00 to 17:25 on TV Asahi and its affiliate ANN stations.

Plot

The year is Universal Century 0223. The former Earth Federation has collapsed, and the space colonies have shaken off their colonial pasts and now refer to themselves as independent space "Settlements". In this new power scheme two factions have emerged: the Congress of Settlement Nations (CONSENT), which is largely made up of the former Earth Federation government and Sides 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and the Settlement Freedom League, composed of Sides 1, 4, and the Lunar Cities.

Mark Curran is an ex-CONSENT pilot who now works for Hydro-Gen, an independent research facility located at the Deep Face Trench. While out on a harvesting run, Mark saves CONSENT lieutenant Tim Holloway. Shortly after the lieutenant is saved, the lab is commandeered by the Congressional Armed Forces, led by Mark's former superior, Jack Halle. As the facility's security system is triggered, Mark goes off to investigate. Mark saves one of the intruders, Cynthia Graves, from Jack's firing squad after she surrenders, while another intruder is killed by the gunfire.

The CONSENT is in the midst of a global food shortage, with its military leaders threatening force to take over the neutral Side 8 Settlement of Gaea. General Garneuax asks Mark to interrogate Cynthia, who is revealed to be a Gaean rebel. Mark helps Cynthia escape, who shows him an enzyme that allows food to grow underwater, which can solve the food shortage. The two meet up with Cynthia's interns, Franz Dieter and Kobi, and the group escape into space along with Mark's fiancée Mimi Devere. Meanwhile, Jack frames Mark for the murder of a CONSENT soldier, whom Jack had killed himself. The group arrives at the Side 4 Settlement of New Manhattan, meeting with Philippe San Simeone, an old acquaintance of Mark, and a member of the Illuminati, a private paramilitary organization. Philippe entrusts Mark with a new prototype mobile suit, the G-Saviour, but he refuses to pilot it. Mark changes his mind to help clear a path through a debris field on the way to Gaea.

Arriving at Gaea, Mark and Cynthia meet with Chief Councilor Graves, Cynthia's father. Graves tell them that a Congressional Armed Forces fleet is on its way to Gaea, looking to apprehend the two and the enzyme sample. After seeing Mark and Cynthia share a kiss, Mimi hacks into Gaea's defense system, causing debris clearing guns to fire at a CONSENT ship. After Mark concludes that a mobile suit carrier is on its way to attack Gaea, Cynthia asks Mark to lead Gaea's mobile suit force against the approaching CONSENT forces. Both sides launch their mobile suit forces, with CONSENT greatly outmatching Gaea's obsolete RGM-196 Freedom mobile suits. Jack sorties out in the CAMS-13 MS-Rai, with Mark engaging him in battle with the G-Saviour. Congressional Armed Forces enter Gaea, with Kobi being critically wounded while trying to protect the enzyme sample. After retrieving the sample, Garneuax reveals his true intentions to destroy the sample and implement a policy of selective starvation across the CONSENT. With Gaea's forces dwindling, Philippe and the Illuminati's forces arrive and push back the CONSENT attack. Jack is defeated by Mark and the G-Saviour, who enter Gaea to disable the remaining CONSENT forces.

Garneuax and his forces, along with Mimi, escape from the Settlement in a Gaean space shuttle. Mimi reveals that she switched out the enzyme sample, which is back in the possession of Cynthia, as the shuttle is shot down by CONSENT forces. With Garneuax dead and Jack incapacitated, the Congressional Armed Forces withdraw from Gaea. Councilor Graves gives a speech stating that Side 8 will stay independent, while Mark returns to Earth with Cynthia.

Cast
Character Japanese English
Mark Curran Masato Hagiwara Brennan Elliott
Cynthia Graves Ryoko Shinohara Enuka Okuma
Mimi Devere Yumi Takada Catarina Conti
Lieutenant Colonel Jack Halle Takaya Hashi David Lovgren
General Garneaux Russell Ishii Kenneth Welsh
Franz Dieter Takayasu Komiya Alfonso Quijada
Kobi Rei Sakuma Taayla Markell
Chief Councilor Graves Kenji Utsumi Blu Mankuma
Philippe San Simeone Toshihiko Kojima Hrothgar Mathews
Simmons Kenichi Ono Brendan Beiser
Dagget Emi Shinohara Marlowe Dawn
Lieutenant Tim Holloway Naoki Bandō Peter Williams
Barkeep Kiyoyuki Yanada Christopher Shyer

Production

In October 1995, work began on the G-Saviour multimedia project, beginning with the production of a promotional trailer to pitch the film to Sunrise. This promotional trailer was completed in March 1997.

Production on the film began in June 1998[3] and was intended, along with the Turn-A Gundam television series, to be the centerpiece of the "Gundam Big Bang Project", which was the 20th anniversary celebration for the popular Gundam metaseries. The G-Saviour film is part of the G-Saviour multimedia project, which encompasses several forms of media, including a radio drama, novel, and video game. Gundam co-creator Yoshiyuki Tomino was not involved in this production.

The film's actors are predominantly from Canada, and the Japanese language version has Japanese dubbed into the film. Most of the outdoor set locations, such as the Simon Fraser University Burnaby campus, were located were in British Columbia, Canada.

G-Saviour is unique among Gundam animated and live-action properties in that the word "Gundam" is not in the title, or used at all throughout the film's run. It was the second attempt at producing a live-action Gundam feature, after the 1997 interactive video game Gundam 0079: The War for Earth.[4]

Home Video

The film was released on DVD on January 22, 2002.[5]

Media

Radio Drama

Prior to the television broadcasting, a radio drama series which takes place before the events of the film was broadcast on Japanese FM radio stations. These radio dramas were subsequently released on CD in December 2000 onward as part of a "Sound Cinema" series by Pioneer LDC.[6]

  1. G-Saviour Sound Cinema 01: Red Wings of Icarus
  2. G-Saviour Sound Cinema 02: Before the Mission
  3. G-Saviour Sound Cinema 03: Deep Sea Prometheus

Novelisation

A novelisation of the film's events was released across two volumes as part of the Shueisha D Superdash Bunko series. The novelisation was released in Japan during December 2000 and was written by Yoshie Kawahara with illustrations by Masahisa Suzuki.[7]

Video game

Sunrise Interactive published the G-Saviour video game, an Action Game developed by Atelier Sai, for the PlayStation 2 on September 14, 2000. The game's story takes place after the events of the film with new characters continuing the overall story arc.[8]

A three part manga was serialised in Famitsu which elaborated upon the story during the first two stages of the game. This manga has not subsequently been collected in any compilation volume.[9]

Music
G-Saviour Original Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by
Various
ReleasedJanuary 24, 2001
GenreOrchestral
Length1:14:44
LabelJVC Victor
ProducerSotsu Agency
No.TitleMusicLength
1."G-Saviour Theme"Ikihiro2:37
2."Main Theme"John Debney and Louis Febre3:50
3."Rescue"John Debney and Louis Febre5:35
4."Invader"John Debney and Louis Febre4:56
5."Bio-Luminescence"John Debney and Louis Febre5:23
6."Flight"John Debney and Louis Febre3:11
7."Escape"John Debney and Louis Febre4:29
8."Illuminati"John Debney and Louis Febre3:11
9."G-Saviour"John Debney and Louis Febre1:10
10."Wounded Heart"John Debney and Louis Febre6:17
11."Romance"John Debney and Louis Febre1:27
12."Misfire"John Debney and Louis Febre2:54
13."MS Battle"John Debney and Louis Febre6:36
14."G-Saviour Advance"John Debney and Louis Febre10:57
15."Declaration of Independence"John Debney and Louis Febre2:33
16."To Earth" 1:57
17."New History"John Debney and Louis Febre3:06
18."Orb"Emily4:25
Total length:1:14:44

Reception

G-Saviour has received a mixed reception. An Anime News Network review calls the film "a pleasing mix of both science fiction and adventure"[10] while MAHQ, a dedicated mecha website, was critical of the "extremely clichéd Hollywood-style writing".[11] Criticism has been levelled at the application of the titular mobile suits during the film, with one review stating "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".[12]

gollark: They're all open-source and ship with the kernel, so basically no problems whatsoever.
gollark: Despite Intel's various problems, their drivers are great.
gollark: Just purchase a vacüüöm flask.
gollark: Oh, and if you want UI consider "svelte", it's a JS framework which works as a compiler which generates optimised DOM update code.
gollark: Don't use webpack? I use esbuild and it works fine.

References
  1. McPherson, Mark (May 24, 2019). "G-SAVIOUR: A Japanese TV Special Made In Canada". Film Inquiry. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  2. "Universal Century, Post V Gundam? - Mecha Talk". www.mechatalk.net. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  3. "G-SAVIOUR PROMOTIONAL TRAILER | Zeonic|Scanlations". Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  4. EX.org - Gundam 0079: The War for Earth Archived December 4, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  5. "Bandai Entertainment Announces The Release of Sci-Fi Action Film". Business Wire. Berkshire Hathaway. October 5, 2001. Archived from the original on November 2, 2001. Retrieved June 14, 2019 – via Yahoo.com.
  6. Gundam Master Music List
  7. AbeBooks
  8. ファミ通
  9. Gundam Zushou
  10. ANN G-Saviour DVD Review
  11. MAHQ.net G-Saviour Review
  12. RPG.net Review of G-Saviour: The Movie
Preceded by
Turn A Gundam		 Gundam metaseries (production order)
2000		 Succeeded by
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
Preceded by
Mobile Suit Victory Gundam		 Gundam Universal Century timeline
U.C. 0223		 Succeeded by
N/A
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.