I saw the first Gundam movie on Monday, and Char's Counterattack last night. The animation quality of the latter has held up ok; the first one is rather dated--I believe it did feature recycled footage from the TV series. While some of the physics shown in the movie may have been wrong, I did find the action sequences entertaining. I can see why Amuro and Char have been fan favorites, but I found the adolescents Quess and Hathaway rather annoying. As for the death of various characters--I read somewhere (I think it might have been a discussion of BSG) that deaths are important for good drama. Maybe I'm getting a bit more sensitive with age, and that is the reaction one would want to elicit in trying to present an anti-war message. But I did find at least two of the deaths needless, not because 'war is futile,' but because the deaths would have been avoided if certain characters had more sense.

As for the ending, with the enhanced psychic abilities of the Newtypes bolstering the power of the Nu Gundam to prevent the piece of Axis from colliding with Earth... since I don't believe in psychic abilities I found it rather dumb, even if these abilities are the next stage of human evolution in the Gundam universe and emphasize the importance of having humanity, benevolence, etc.

Char's counter attack gundam 0093 commercial preview