>>23365162Interesting. Emma always struck me as one that they just didn't know what to do with going forwards, since having her around as a good pilot and competent military officer would complicate the whole 'Bright resorting to a gang of troublesome teams to be AEUG's front line' thing. They already had to shaft Fa to make it happen.
The discussion of the difference in reception and metrics as Zeta was airing versus the way the show's come to be remembered and appreciated by fans is interesting too. Today it's every bit as defining as the original and arguably more important in defining the shape of future entries, but at the time it was 'the sequel to Gundam'.
>>23365008It's not quite the same but in 0080 it's made pretty clear that Chris is a capable oldtype pilot and struggles to tame the Alex, which was specifically developed to better keep up with a newtype's reflexes and tuned for Amuro.
He's not going to be that good in the Gundam yet and it won't be able to move like the Alex anyway, but it still supports the idea that a machine can be tuned for a more advance operator in a way that makes it more difficult for others to manage. It's possible her sim time was with defaults that didn't even reflect how the machine was configured at the time, or development data not fully accurate to the mobile suit as produced, or both.
Even with motion rigs sim time can't fully prepare you for the feeling of actually operating a piece of equipment, too. It's no replacement for real stick or wheel time in modern use and it's probably true of mobile suits in the late UC 70s too.
