I'm not sure how it's convoluted as a collection of series or as a whole. The first series is a conflict between the Earth government and a space colony (Zeon) that wants its independence from a far off entity incapable or unwilling to be sympathetic to its grievances (a parallel of the British Crown and the US colonies; they're named space colonies, even).
Zeta is a look at the corruption of the Earth/Federal government and those who fight that corruption (juxtaposing the 'good guys' in the first series as bad guys and giving credence to Zeon's dissatisfaction with their treatment) and the re-emergence of Zeon.
ZZ is just a continuation of the re-emergence of Zeon introduced in Zeta.
A lot of the ovas, novels, and the rest tend to, simply, fill out the rest of the Gundam universe by showing what happened elsewhere or with other battle/war fronts. 0080 shows a, relatively, minor conflict stemming from a covert Zeon commando team infiltrating a space colony shortly before and shortly after the One Year War. 0083 fills in the space between the One Year War and the AEUG/Titans conflict by illustrating how the Titans rose to prominence and the 08th MS Team/Squad covers the Southeast Asia theater during the One Year War.
Sure, it's got a lot of complex character relationships and themes (tragedy of war, improvements in science/technology incorporated into the mobile suits, parallels with the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWII and newtypes as an evolutionary step in humanity), but I'm not sure that it's all that convoluted. I suppose when compared to, like, DBZ, maybe...
I'm not sure how it's convoluted as a collection of series or as a whole. The first series is a conflict between the Earth government and a space colony (Zeon) that wants its independence from a far off entity incapable or unwilling to be sympathetic to its grievances (a parallel of the British Crown and the US colonies; they're named space colonies, even).
Zeta is a look at the corruption of the Earth/Federal government and those who fight that corruption (juxtaposing the 'good guys' in the first series as bad guys and giving credence to Zeon's dissatisfaction with their treatment) and the re-emergence of Zeon.
ZZ is just a continuation of the re-emergence of Zeon introduced in Zeta.
A lot of the ovas, novels, and the rest tend to, simply, fill out the rest of the Gundam universe by showing what happened elsewhere or with other battle/war fronts. 0080 shows a, relatively, minor conflict stemming from a covert Zeon commando team infiltrating a space colony shortly before and shortly after the One Year War. 0083 fills in the space between the One Year War and the AEUG/Titans conflict by illustrating how the Titans rose to prominence and the 08th MS Team/Squad covers the Southeast Asia theater during the One Year War.
Sure, it's got a lot of complex character relationships and themes (tragedy of war, improvements in science/technology incorporated into the mobile suits, parallels with the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWII and newtypes as an evolutionary step in humanity), but I'm not sure that it's all that convoluted. I suppose when compared to, like, DBZ, maybe...
-J
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