G-Saviour

G-Saviour
G-Saviour poster and DVD cover
Genre	Military science fiction
Based on	Mobile Suit Gundam by Yoshiyuki Tomino & Hajime Yatate
Screenplay by	Mark Amato Stephanie Pena-Sy
Story by	Stephanie Pena-Sy
Directed by	Graeme Campbell
Starring	Brennan Elliott Enuka Okuma Catharina Conti David Lovgren
Theme music composer	John Debney Louis Febre
Country of origin	Canada
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Chris Dobbs
Cinematography	Joel Ransom
Editor(s)	Rick Martin
Running time	93 minutes
Production company(s)	Polestar Entertainment
Distributor	Bandai Visual
Budget	$5 million
Release
Original network	TV Asahi
Original release	December 29, 2000 (2000-12-29)

G-Saviour (Ｇセイバー, Jī-Seibā) is a radio drama, video game and Canadian live-action television film created as part of the Gundam franchise. Taking place late in the Universal Century timeline, 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 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 Earth Federation has collapsed, and autonomy has been restored to the various territories under the Earth Federation's control. The Space Colonies have shaken off their colonial past and now consider themselves independent "Settlements". In this new power scheme two sides have emerged: the Congress of Settlement Nations (CONSENT), which is largely made up of former Earth Federation members and encompasses Sides 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and their Earth-bound parent nations, 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 the underwater harvesting corporation Hydro-Gen, stationed at the Deep Face Trench sea lab. While out on a harvesting run, Mark saves CONSENT lieutenant Tim Holloway. Shortly after the lieutenant is saved, the lab is commandeered by a Congressional task force, led by Mark's former superior, Jack Halle. As the lab'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 is killed.

CONSENT is in the midst of food shortage, with its leaders threatening military force to take over the neutral Side 8 colony 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 will solve the food crisis. The two meet up with Cynthia's interns, Dieter and Kobi, and the four escape into space along with Mark's fiancée Mimi. Meanwhile, Jack frames Mark for the murder of a CONSENT soldier, whom he killed himself. The group arrives at the Side 4 settlement of New Manhattan, meeting with Philippe San Simeone, an old acquaintance of Mark. Philippe entrusts Mark with a new prototype mobile weapon, the G-Saviour, but he refuses at first; Mark comes around to piloting the suit to help clear a debris field on the way to Gaea.

Arriving at Gaea, Mark and Cynthia meet Chief Councilor Graves, Cynthia's father. Graves tell them that a Congressional space fleet is on its way to Gaea, looking to apprehend the two. After seeing Mark and Cynthia share a kiss, Mimi hacks into Gaea's defense system, causing multiple destroyer missiles to fire at a CONSENT ship. After Mark concludes that a mobile suit carrier is on its way to attack the colony, Cynthia asks Mark to lead Gaea's mobile suit force against the attack. Both sides launch their mobile suit forces, with CONSENT greatly outmatching Gaea's forces. Jack sorties out in his CAMS-13 MS-Rai, with Mark engaging him in battle with the G-Saviour. Congressional forces enter the colony, 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. With Gaea's forces dwindling, Philippe and the Illuminati's forces arrive and push back the Congressional attack.

As Mark and the G-Saviour enter Gaea to disable the remaining CONSENT forces, Garneuax and Mimi escape from the settlement in a Gaean space shuttle. Mimi reveals that she switched out the enzyme and that is back in the possession of Cynthia, as the shuttle is shot down by CONSENT forces. With Garneuax dead and Jack incapacitated, the Congressional forces withdraw from Gaea. Councilor Graves gives a speech stating that Side 8 will stay independent, while Mark returns to Earth with Cynthia.

Cast

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

Production

Mobile suit pilot Mark Curran (Brennan Elliott) in G-Saviour.

The project's actors are predominantly from Canada, and the Japanese language version has Japanese dubbed into the movie. It was released in 2000 and intended, along with the Turn-A Gundam television series, to be the centerpiece of Sunrise's "Big Bang Project," its 20th anniversary celebration for the popular Gundam metaseries.

Its story time frame of Universal Century 0223 is the last known year of the Universal Century calendar. However, the animated short Ring of Gundam takes place in an unknown time in UC's future, and the show Gundam Reconguista in G takes place in the calendar era after UC, Regild Century.

G-Saviour is unique among Gundam animated and live-action properties in that the word "Gundam" is not in the title, or actually used at all throughout the movie'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^[1]).

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.^[2]

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.^[3]

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.^[4]

A three part manga was serialised in Famitsu which elaborated upon the story during the first two stages of the game. This manga has subsequently not been collected in any compilation volume.^[5]

Music

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"^[6] while MAHQ, a dedicated mecha website, was critical of the "extremely clichéd Hollywood-style writing".^[7] 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".^[8] However, in a more positive review, praise has been given to its Mobile Suit designs, stating "it's still well worth checking out the design work on all of the Mobile Suits created for this project, as they are right up there with Okawara's other Gundam creations" and that "G-Saviour is seriously way better than its reputation gives it".^[9]

Other appearances

A G-Saviour Gunpla appears in episode 8 of Gundam Build Fighters, but is quickly destroyed by Nils Nielsen's Hyaku Shiki.

References

External links

• Official G-Saviour website at the Wayback Machine (archived October 16, 2002)
• Gundam Perfect Web's G-Saviour DVD page (in Japanese)
• Bandai Visual's G-Saviour DVD page (in Japanese)
• G-Saviour (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• G-Saviour on IMDb