Reviving this thread because I started watching the OG Gundam recently after enjoying The Origin manga a few years ago and Witch from Mercury more recently.
Knowing how thoroughly the series has been merchandised, I went in expecting the series to feel like a 40-year-old toy commercial, and be a product of its time in various ways. Though the production vales show their age, I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy a confident and exciting sci fi story with some decent thematic weight and solid worldbuilding behind it.
(I wrote about my experience with Gundam 79 in more depth here).
Zeta Gundam turned out to be more of the same - excellent sci fi with interesting characters and a serious war story to tell. It's a worthy sequel, absolutely on par with the first series.
Which brings me to where I am now.
Gundam ZZ, in its first ten episodes at least, is everything I was afraid the original series would be. This is the one that feels like a 40-year-old toy commercial, with Team Rocket villain plans and slapstick fights instead of themes of war and conflict. This is the one that feels like it was made in an era where a lack to streaming made it risky to overly serialise your story so producers made seasons of roundabout esoteric filler that wouldn't hurt viewers who missed an episode too badly. After two series with multiple well-developed female crew members and pilots, it hurts to see Fa seem to literally forget how to pilot her mobile suit so she can be sidelined to give Judau spotlight moments, making the show feel like the product of an era of media production where no one questioned a choice to only have male main characters. For the first time, I'm feeling Gundam's age in something other than the visuals.
Gundam 79 and Zeta, I would say confidently you could do an episode-for-episode remake of today and it would find new, genuine fans who would come to love them. They would not have to change much if at all to be accepted by and meet the expectations of modern fan cultures. I don't think Gundam ZZ could find a footing if it was done the same way. I don't hate the ideas it has to set up its new cast, but the pacing of them, and the way they play out on screen would need to be rebuilt from the ground up.
I've read that ZZ is meant to get a lot better after the halfway point, and I plan to stick it out for that, but jesus christ the whiplash of tone and quality is hurting me now. I can't even speedwatch the stupid thing by listening to the dialogue while doing other stuff because the dub is actual lost media, leaving only subs. Is this dumb robot show actually cursed?