OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)Five years ago, during the One Year War, Lieutenant Commander Char Aznable and his team infiltrate Side 6 and find the Gundam, an experimental Mobile Suit made for the Earth Federation. Char makes off with it, paints it red, and uses it to turn the tide for Zeon. However, in one of the war’s last battles, Char and the Gundam mysteriously disappear. Zeon wins the war in the end, but Chalia Bull, Char’s subordinate, holds out hope that he will return.OUR TAKEAs mentioned in last week’s review, the contents of this episode were actually put first in the compilation movie covering the first three episodes that came out a few months ago, likely based on chronological order. Also because it was likely that anyone going to see that movie would be a pre-existing Gundam fan and be familiar with the plot of the original 0079 series, thus being able to appreciate the divergence in the story. But we can’t let all that footage go to waste just for a movie (although they actually leave out a substantial amount that was in the movie), so here it is as the second episode of the main show, which is really only relevant for giving more context for the Red Gundam that Machu will be likely facing in battle at least a few times and more pathos for Chalia, who was a minor character in the original series but is a more principal character here. But yeah, despite the clear design change (that frankly makes it more like an EVA Unit), the Red Gundam is in fact the original RX-78-2 Gundam if original protagonist Amuro Ray had never taken it upon himself to pilot it and face Zeon in the war.I’m not gonna lie and say I DIDN’T have a good time watching this AS a fan of that original series, and I liked all the small nods and shot for shot remakes of classic scenes, down to even having “pew pew pew” noise at the title card and the “SHA!” in the eyecatch. Clearly Anno, who partially storyboarded this episode, wanted to pay tribute to one of the most influential anime out there, just like has done so recently with Shin Godzilla, Ultraman, and Kamen Rider films that he either directed or wrote. I suppose my main gripe about it is that, as a AU story about the original Universal Century timeline, I wish we had gotten way more, and as a backstory episode for this series specifically, I’m not sure what it adds except regarding the Red Gundam and Chalia Bull. And who knows, maybe we’ll see more altered versions of original UC characters that survived the war, but they’ll still have to have unique relationships to characters made for this show to really work. But with that, we return to the present next episode and see how Machu gets herself out of this crazy situation, so hopefully the pause in the action won’t be too jarring.