Gundam (In All Its Incarnations) Mk. II

[The Killer of Heroes]

Just watch whatever sounds interesting to you. If you want to watch Wing, watch Wing. If you want to watch Turn A, watch Turn A. If you want to watch something else, watch something else. Life's too short to faffle about in uncertainty forever.

[Blockio]

Life's too short to faffle about in uncertainty forever.

^ that, yeah. Most of the reason why I'm so outspoken against Wing is because I have seen people who tried to watch it first and found it so awful that they were turned away from Gundam entirely because of it. It's a pretty good saturday morning cartoon, no question there; however a serious war drama it is not.

Which show is the best entry point for you very much depends on what you personally look for in a show. I wrote up a giant wall of text on that for a friend looking to get into Gundam a while ago, I'll copypaste it here;

SPOILER: Show

There's some people who swear by release order, but after having a distinctly awful experience doing that when I went in blind, wouldn't recommend.
Chronological order is generally a good idea, however seriously complicated by the fact that there is some twelve timelines that have nothing to do with each other for the sake of watching them there's some metaverse connection stuff going on, but that's deeplore and barely relevant even for that
I personally advise for "just go with whatever sounds cool to you", although there's some pitfalls

If you want to start with Universal Century (Main timeline, where the first four shows were set in), the general consensus is to start with the movie trilogy for the original (aka the only time the compilation movies are not distinctly worse than the tv show), since it fixes the rather.... egregious pacing issues the TV version has at times, at the cost of dropping a few less important arcs; from there Zeta, ZZ (has a bad reputation, but the second half is supposedly pretty good), Char's Counterattack.
And now for the shows that I have actually watched and not just relaying secondhand knowledge and lots of clips and excerpts put together into a semi-coherent whole:
If you want more UC, you can watch [Unicorn, Narrative, the upcoming Hathaway's Flash movies] and [F91, Victory] (the thing in square brackets are blocks that are in this order chronologically, but can easily be swapped around since the first was made after the second and as such is not a required watch by any means). Unicorn is fine, a bit too much on a high horse about rather obvious things at times; Narrative is just kind of a fever dream, same with F91. Hathaway I have not yet seen for reasons obvious, Victory I am currently watching and it is not exactly... great.
Alternatively, Thunderbolt, which is more of a spinoff timeline that cosplays as UC, but really fun to watch is also a good entry point. There's also a really boring live action movie called G-Saviour.

Iron-Blooded Orphans, Turn A and After War Gundam X are my three personal favorites; the first is among the most hype the franchise has ever been, last two are slower in pacing after an extremely strong opening arc, but all three tell a really nice and self-contained story with some very strong character writing; on top of that, each has a very nice and unique way of defying the tropes that have become custom to the franchise and are often shoehorned in somewhat, highly recommend.

Wing and its sequel OVA Endless Waltz are extremely well liked because a lot of people grew up with it since it was the first Gundam show to air in the west, but if I'm being honest, the writing kinda sucks most of the time and the motivations for a concerningly large amount of the cast starts and ends at "my Gundam told me to do it, so I did". It's visually pretty and definitely works as a "wow cool robot" saturday morning cartoon, but if you're looking for a war drama, you're pretty much in the wrong place

00 and Seed both fall in the same boat of "second half is really good if you survive the dreadful first half", but depending on how tolerant you are to some things that might just be easier said than done; I actually dropped the former for half a year before I got back into it, but since I stopped right as it was about to get good, I had an absolute blast with the rest of it; for both, it's probably best to go in after you've already seen another Gundam show, so you have a better idea what to look forward to
00 has a sequel movie which is complete and utter nonsense, but fun to watch; Seed has a sequel in Destiny, which is pretty painful for the most part, with some fun fights towards the end, but those in my opinion don't justify sitting through everything before it; it also has a ton of spinoff, which apart from the Stargazer OVA are all pretty terrible to be honest, but have very vocal fans regardless

Age and Reconguista in G both aimed for the stars and missed; they are extremely weird, and while they have good moments, most of the time you'll probably go "wtf is this garbage"; that being said, on its own, Age-2 (arc from Ep 16 - 28) is a good story

Lastly, G Gundam is a martial arts tournament show; probably the most atypical Gundam out there, but a really fun watch with some nice character arcs

There's also the build series, of which I have only seen Build Divers Re:Rise, which was very good, and the positively awful (but thankfully not required to enjoy ReRise!) predecessor Build Divers that I dropped after two episodes.
Gunpla Builders Beginning G is supposedly fun, if somewhat inconsequential; Fighter is supposedly very good, Fighters Try not to much. The various spoinoff OVAs I have no idea.

[Shamsiel-kun]

You missed 0083, which is also quite good (OVA better than movie), if rather cynical.

[BusterMachine4]

Well, I finally decided to watch the first two episodes of X.

I thought it was pretty good so far. A bit dark (from what I understand, it’s one of the darkest Gundam series), but I found the action enjoyable and the main protagonist likable. I think I’ll keep watching X for now.

[The Killer of Heroes]

X has a dark backstory but honestly the show itself is probably one of the more optimistic Gundams. That actually kind of threw me off about it at first, because I went in expecting some post-apocalyptic "Fallout 3/Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome/whatever with Gundams" type of thing and instead I got a post-post-apocalypse story.

[Blockio]

Yeah, X is all in all one of the most light-hearted ones. The backstory is grim and it has its share of deaths, of course, but it's still a quite happy show at the end of the day, certainly no Zeta, IBO or Victory

[The Killer of Heroes]

I might not commit to this fully if I think it out more, but I think I'd honestly say even despite how overtly goofy and silly it is even G Gundam is more pessimistic about humanity than Gundam X is.

SPOILER: Show

Depending on how cynically you read the "See You Next Gundam Fight" in the final episode anyways.

[Blockio]

Despite better judgement I went ahead and gave Victory Gundam a watch. I am now a quarter of the way through, and man. this is the most bland ass show I have ever watched. The fight choreographies are good, but the structure is functionally the same every time, the things that are supposed to be sad just come off as stilted and out of place at best and the show went from "usual pathetic attempt of Tomino at writing women" to unapologetic sexism and "IT IS SECOND NATURE FOR WOMEN TO BE BACKSTABBING AND DECEIVING". I think I have lost all respect for that man.
Absolute fucking horseshit, I had more fun with G-Saviour than with this. I'll still finish it at some point, if nothing else to have it over with, but man this show sucks.

[The Killer of Heroes]

I think Victory is my pick for the worst Gundam series. OG Build Divers got pretty close at times, but even that had an episode or two I actively liked. Victory has nothing.

[Blockio]

Yeah, I'm starting to feel that way as well. At this point it's a matter of spite and nerd honor that I finish it, but I know for a fact that it will be a hatewatch

[Justacrazyguy]

As someone that likes Victory (the only person here, it seems), I look forward with pain and curiosity to see what you will think of it at the end Blockio.

[The Killer of Heroes]

Blockio have you managed to finish Standing Up to the Victory yet?

[Blockio]

Not yet, didn't have a ton of time to sit down and watch shows recently, but I do plan on getting back to it some time this week

[Gus Hanson]

I know how Blockio feels about Seed's recap episodes and scenes including Flay but I am doing a bit of a rewind concerning the Seed episodes him and me watched together including those and so far up to the first recap where it's mostly Le Creuset narrating and it did make me appreciate the whole seething hatred that comes from Naturals towards Coordinators when George Glenn, a character I hadn't seen before, revealed on his Jupiter trip that he pretty much cheated his way through life by not revealing till then that he was one and well, he wasn't expecting such a big reaction from Naturals but he had to expect A reaction!

[Gus Hanson]

Today, Blockio and I watched all of episode 25 and I commented to him that I preferred Vivian or Kazuma's "Moment" as an opening theme song over TM Revolution's "Invoke". Also the fact that I was sick and tired of the same old ending song for 25 episodes straight!

As for developments, we both felt it was about time that Cagalli reveal her true identity as the princess of Orb, it was an open secret that dragged on too long. We skipped the clip episode 26 and are so far four minutes into 27 and to Blockio, yeah the mom on the phone is named Erica Simmons.

[Blockio]

Ah yeah, Erica Simmons was her name. I'm pretty sure she also shows up in the odd sidestory

[Gus Hanson]

The best Heero Yuy related April Fools joke ever! Had me laughing my ass off from start to finish.

[cyharding]

There is some news regarding the live action Gundam movie.

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— twitter-user (@username) date

I don't know who Jordan Vogt-Roberts is as a director as I've never seen any of his movies. Is he any good?

[movieartman]

There is some news regarding the live action Gundam movie.

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— twitter-user (@username) date

I don't know who Jordan Vogt-Roberts is as a director as I've never seen any of his movies. Is he any good?

Yes I would say so.
Kong Skull Island is very good.

I am more concerned about it being on Netflix. I can't imagine it will get the budget it needs.

[Blockio]

I wouldn't worry about the platform too much. I can hardly imagine Legendary would be in on this if they didn't have enough budget to make it decent