Ask John: Will Hollywood Ever Make a Gundam Movie?

Question:
With a movie like Transformers, which has giant robots, do you think they will ever do a feature film on Gundam?

Answer:
Any time I answer a question of this variety I feel obligated to initially state that I can’t accurately predict the future, nor am I involved in the Hollywood film industry. I can only provide my own opinion based on my own observation and knowledge. That said, I don’t anticipate ever seeing a serious futuristic American giant robot movie. The Gundam franchise is tremendously popular and successful in Japan, and spawned the G-Saviour TV movie, an English language live action film shot in Canada. That Japanese produced feature may be the closest American fans will ever get to a home-grown live action Gundam movie because not only Gundam, but serious giant robots themselves aren’t nearly as audience friendly in America as they are in Japan. Transformers 2 has been massively successful in America, but there’s a big difference between a loud, dumb action spectacle featuring humanized giant robots and a dramatic military action film that uses giant robots as tools instead of characters.

American moviegoers are willing to embrace mechanical characters. Hollywood gave the world R2-D2 & C-3PO, the Terminator, and the Bay/Spielberg Transformers. Machines with human personality, like Knight Rider’s K.I.T.T. also seem to go over well with Americans. However, strictly military mecha has never fared as well. Low budget films like Robot Jox and Crash & Burn were low budget because they couldn’t support anything more ambitious. Blue Thunder and Airwolf are cult classics, but their very cult status signifies that they’ve never attained significant mainstream popularity. District 9 included a lengthy mecha action sequence, but I don’t have any reason to believe that specific sequence significantly contributed to the film’s domestic success. A robotic suit featured prominently in director James Cameron’s Aliens, and look to reappear in his upcoming film Avatar. But mecha wasn’t prominent in Aliens, and I don’t expect power armor to be prominent in Avatar. Despite power armor being prominent in Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers novel, they were entirely removed from the big budget theatrical film adaptation. There’s been talk of American Evangelion, Voltron, and Robotech movies, yet none have materialized.

The consistent characteristic of “real robots” is that they’re fundamental bipedal tanks. Mecha otaku may love them, but to average, mainstream American viewers, they have no personality, no character. Americans are willing to watch an adventure film revolving around characters and sleek cars, like the Fast & Furious franchise, because Americans relate to and appreciate cars. So Americans instinctively apply their own sense of character on the cars in driving movies. And Americans are willing to overlook a lack of character from the cars themselves because no one seriously expects an automobile to have a human personality. But Americans don’t transfer that same generosity from cars to giant robots. Realistic giant robots are simply too foreign to Americans to accept outside of brief background appearances.

Relatively self-contained Gundam movies like Char’s Counterattack and F-91 demonstrate that’s it’s possible to make a Gundam movie in 90 minutes. Contemporary movie visual effects are undoubtedly advanced enough to create a Hollywood funded Gundam movie. So it’s not practical hurdles that are preventing the creation of such a film; it’s lack of interest. I don’t believe that mainstream American movie viewers are interested in watching a socio-political conflict movie in which opposing forces utilize biped tanks or giant robots. Anime stories like Patlabor, Gasaraki, Flag, Votoms, and Gundam aren’t culturally tied to Asia. Hollywood studios certainly have the technology and expertise to film these stories. However, I think that realistic giant robots are simply so far removed from the psyche of average Americans that American moviegoers can’t relate to them or accept them. Even though giant robots are scientifically possible and may indeed await in our future, average Americans can’t conceive of giant robots naturally enough to perceive of them as entertaining to watch. Transformers are big mechanical characters. Even Voltron and Robotech robots are likely to be perceived as extensions of their human pilots, thus, they’re characters as much as they are giant robots. Gundam would be the equivalent of Star Trek, except the spaceships would be robots. Even after 40 years American moviegoers still have a difficult time accepting Star Trek. Something like Star Trek but even more foreign and outlandish would strictly appeal to only a small niche of American viewers. Hollywood studios won’t want to invest heavily in a feature with such a narrow audience appeal, and it’s likely that Sunrise/Bandai won’t grant American permission to develop a live action Gundam movie unless it’s a big budget “event” picture that lives up to Japanese perception of the status of the Gundam franchise.