Forgive me for thinking a visual entertainment medium should have appealing aesthetics.
One, appealing is in the eye of the beholder, and two, traditional 2D animation
went out outside of a handful of projects for
very good reasons. And not because corpos are cheap bastards. People here forget that
one tiny mistake
will set you back
weeks at best. Even with Disney -being the mad fucking genius of animation he was- working his damnest to make the process cheaper (basically
inventing image layering), traditional animation costs
mundo bucks (as in time, manpower, and materials), especially in the 'high detail' (which, all in all, only happened in a handful of times) shots.
As an artist I follow, Jollyjack, demonstrates:
Hell, CGI has made an artist's job
easier because he can do things like save backup versions and
control + z the problem away (and let me tell you, that function saved me a
lot of grief over the years).
You've been consumed by the damnable meme of 'all CGI is bad'. The reality is a lot more complex than that Luddite meme.
I mean, we wouldn't have a Gundam series
past Gundam X (or, really,
any anime) without CGI. Traditional animation was literally on its way to the trash heap no matter what you spout.
Thoughts on these videos? I haven't started on Seed yet?
Largely a GATTACA retread of UC Gundam for the first quarter before starting to diverge into its own thing. Also, questionable decisions done by the head writer. Also, prepare for flashback episodes, especially in Destiny.
Also, from what I've heard, there was some serious theatrics behind the scenes that caused the VA of Cagali to
perma-quit any future SEED projects.
You could do a decent Gundam live action.
At its heart the original Gundam and its sequels are war story. It would be easy to keep the general story without chnagi g much for it to he accepted in a wide market outside anime fans. Unlike Ghost in the Shell which deal with more existential topics like what what makes you human Gundam focus on the horrors of war and fighting for what you believe is right. Much easier topics to convey in a movie format without scenes that may fall flat.
The big problem is that you would need Blockbuster money or at least Games of Thrones money. Just look at the Pacific Rim or Transfromers. You can have nice looking gaint robots fights and Gundam is about the robots as much as it is about the war.
That means big action scenes that cost money. Anime live actions are generally a risk and have seen poor returns. After Ghost in the Shell I expect it will be a while before a large Amercian production company takes a chance on a anime again. While the live action adaptations from Japan lack the special effect and budgets I think to do Gundam justice.
Also, please note that G-Savior didn't do live-action any favors, even though it's an actual endpoint of what was set up (i.e. Gundam V basically made the Federation a literal house of cards that could be easily blown over, and it would certainly
will due to the setting, especially after it's general
inaction during most of the series).