Mightyblue’s Corner

Point one: Redux is a Latin word, more precisely an infinitive paired with the particle re-. Re- essentially adds the idea of going back to whatever word it’s stuck on to. See: Return, refund, rebate, etc. Dux is an infinitive of the verb “to lead”, and when you pair it with “re-” you get “to lead back,” or something approximating that given the wide field of meaning Latin has.
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Point two: I wanted to get some use out of those two years of Latin I took in college, so suffer with my nerdy tendencies please.
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Point three: After watching most of the first half of Gundam 00 over the last few months, I started wondering to myself how the SEED series stacked up to it. That lead to watching both SEED series over again (third time for SEED, second time for Destiny) and this time actually watching SEED Destiny Final Plus (Basically the Death and Rebirth of G SEED Destiny). I think 00 is technically better than both SEED series, but mostly from a technical standpoint (ha). 00 obviously had far more time and money invested in it than either SEED series, but the characterizations in the SEED series (along with the music, as I love Toshihiko Sahashi’s work) seem less one-dimensional in comparison to 00. They aren’t, really, but the relatively more focused development in SEED’s casts lends it a more personalized aspect than 00’s so far. Since 00 is only half over, it’s a bit unfair I suppose, but the Gundam series need more kotetsu ojous like Lacus from SEED, and the current lack of one in 00 is hurting it for me.
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Destiny in particular is a bit of a thorny subject, since it almost jumps the shark a few times in the second half, narrowly avoiding so by the thinnest of plot and character developments. Maybe it was intentional, or maybe the then current Hajime Yatate group was sleeping at the wheel. It wouldn’t be quite so irritating if it didn’t take me the second watch through to get all of the connections and other crap that justified the second half’s plot twists, and if the damned series didn’t end about ten minutes too soon. Destiny’s biggest problem wasn’t the narrative snafus, but rather the fact that it had an end but no ending. It literally ends with the final misguidedly evil guy going down with his overpowered space fortress and the defeated heroes-turned-villains watching in horror as their boss bites a flaming big one.
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That wouldn’t be a problem if it was a mere season break, since cliffhangers are a time honored way of getting your audience back come next season, but if you end a flipping series on that note you get the torch and pitchfork crew coming after you. Destiny does it even more incompetently by cramming a barrel full of plot and character developments into three or four of the last ten episodes just to barely justify the second season’s plot by utterly ruining its pacing and concentrating all of two seasons’ plots into a large chunk of the final season. It then proceeds to leave all of the loose ends loose with its “end,” and it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. Apparently Sunrise realized this and released Final Plus, a sort of Director’s Cut of the last two episodes with a new 10 minute epilogue tacked onto the end to actually “end” Destiny. It also added numerous retcons and changes to fix a number of really irritating plot holes and OOC moments, and it’s generally what you should watch instead of the last two TV episodes of Destiny. Too bad Shinn’s still a whiny chump at the end though.