Hmm, I'm not the biggest fan of older animation styles but a good story will more than make up for it. I'll try out 0079 and see how it goes, thanks guys
Plus it will be nice going into the newer ones with a bit of background.
Don't watch the original series, just watch the compiled movie trilogy instead. The reason is when Tomino was getting sponsorship to produce the original MSG tv series, he had to suck up to toy sponsors and was riding the era of the colorful 'Super robots anime' like Mazinger Z and Voltron, therefore even tho it was among the first of the 'real robot' shows, many of the mecha were just plain stupid and ugly and meant solely to sell plastic kits and toy merchandise. Tomino hated it but had to do it to get the show made. Once the series was cancelled/ended, it received a lot of late fan interest a la Firefly and then Tomino scammed his way into getting a movie studio to fund and create his Movie Trilogy which he declared was the 'true creators vision' of the original MSG storyline. A lot of key animation was redone, a ton of goofy/cartoony crap was cut out and basically the core story was told in the movies without any filler. You can watch the original MSG tv series for history's sake, but its old, silly and painful. Just watch the movie trilogy which is easily available on netflix/DVD and then move onto the later series. You get the important bits without having to put up with the silly 70s super robot bits.
After that watch Zeta Gundam, the series, very deep, serious, political, a lot of cool mecha, but the animation is a bit older and rough too, but a fantastic story thru n thru. Gundam ZZ, you can't find in the US anyway and are better off reading summaries on wiki to catch up. Gundam Char's Counterattack shouldn't be watched until you see the original film trilogy and Zeta. Gundam 0080 and 0083 side story OVAs don't need to be seen but are good in their own right.
I found the story weak in SEED and a lot of characters to hate. A problem with SEED's writing I think is quite a bit was done by the director's wife...who's not a good writer. SEED Destiny...I thought was rubbish, all the flaws of SEED plus more, director's wife had even more input where apparently some of the staff wrote on their blogs about it...only to take them down shortly after. Gundam 00...much better than SEED, this is my second choice of the AU Gundam series it sort of mixes real world modern politics into a Gundam story.
I agree with you about the Seed Franchise, it took the elements from the original UC storyline and gave it a bit of 'Extreme Mtn Dew' flash with an overabundance of angsty teen drama and overly moe character designs. Didn't help the writing was a bit weak like you said and GSD was terrible. Especially as that story starts off on a interesting note, and then drops every ball that could have turned the story into a great one, and the writers either didn't know what they were doing or lost control of the plot and somehow let the main character get relegated into a 'loser villain' type background character and the show gets hijacked by the cast of the previous series.
With the Gundam 00 series. I quite liked it. Fans will love or hate that show for many reasons, but after the bad taste left in my mouth from the Seed Franchise ( I recently rewatched Seed and like it even less now), Gundam 00 was the best possible followup to help ppl forget about Seed. However 00 is a bit fantastic and over the top in many ways and while it was handled well from start to finish IMHO, I think the next series needs to play things in a different direction.
and for god sake, no more 'every major cast character piloting a Gundam' garbage. That crap started with Wing and the Seed franchise took it too far. 00 was almost as bad. I know why Bandai does it, it helps push toys.