Moment Highlight: Mobile Suit Gundam III Encounters In Space – Char Towed My Car!

(I have to apologize for the lack of screenshots, I watched this on DVD and my comp’s drive is broken, so bear with me and try remembering~)

So, I finally saw Encounters in Space today, having watched the first movie twice in the past year or so and only 2 weeks ago managed to finally get to Soldiers of Sorrow. Anyway, the film was great, and had probably one of the greatest endings in movie history, but since I’m sure enough has been said about it (and really, if you’ve seen it, you understand), I want to talk about another of my favorite scenes from the film.

Relatively early in the movie, the White Base is docked on the neutral colony Side 6 where a number of important people are located, such as Amuro’s father who we haven’t seen since the first film and has since become a raving fucking lunatic. Amuro also meets Lalah Sune whom he doesn’t really see for very long, but is captivated by. While driving down the road, (I believe on his way back to the base?) Amuro hits a crack in the road and gets his car stuck. Finding himself unable to move it, he gives up and tries to thumb a passing car that proceeds to speed by and splash him.

We can clearly see (if we are attentive) that Char Aznable and Lalah Sune are in this car, and such is revealed when it stops and the two get out to apologize. Amuro instantly recognizes Char (who the fuck wouldn’t?!) and s ready to shit himself, but Char is pretty cool about the whole thing.

What makes this scene so great is Char and Lalah’s attitudes in contrast to Amuro’s. Char completely ignores the fact that Amuro is a Federation soldier, seeing as there’s nothing he could do about it in this neutral ground anyway. He even helps tow Amuro’s car! I mean sure, this kind of courtesy makes sense in a logical way, but if you consider the way two enemy soldiers would probably act towards each-other in the real world, Char’s constitution become more impressive and Amuro’s more believable. Char is just showing his chill, rational style, and if anything were to happen anyway, I’m sure he’s confident that he could beat the shit out of Amuro no problem.

The whole time, Amuro is sweating bullets, but not just for an enemy soldier – leaving behind the intense fear that Char would probably strike in any man, this is also a man he’s fought many times before – there could be animosity between them, and with Amuro being the pilot of the most powerful mech, Char could also say ‘fuck all’ and kill him if he knew what an important threat he was. And then there’s the matter of Lalah Sune, whom Amuro is interested in, and the matter of what the hell she’s doing here.

Let’s not forget as well that all three of them are newtypes, and we will later learn that there’s a certain psychic pressure shared by newtypes who encounter one another, so it’s quite possible that an incredible but then-unexplainable psychic pressure was bearing down on Amuro’s head throughout the encounter, further terrifying him.

Char tows Amuro’s car away from the crack and then he and Lalah take off, all happy and wavy-like. Char is a little off-put by Amuro’s stiffness, but Lalah shrugs it off as Amuro knowing who he was – of course, they don’t realize that he knew all too well. I think it’s a barrel of fun to think of how much of a flighty little excursion this was to Char and Lalah, whereas for Amuro this was an intense experience that probably had his hair standing on end for an hour afterward. Good stuff, man.