Just finished watching A New Translation (the Zeta Gundam recap movies released a few years back) and I must say I'm reasonably impressed.
Heir to the Stars was a pretty mediocre way to kick it off, rushes through the first six or so episodes at a breakneck pace wasting no time to actually introduce us to our central cast and hopping straight into all the explosions. The new animation (which Wikipedia alleges is most prominent in this one) is very poorly implemented and used in the oddest of scenes (stock footage will be used to show a character being punched in the face, but the following shot of said character falling over will suddenly be brand new).
Lovers manages to make up for this by being almost entirely new animation and sticking as close as possible to the show's pace, but then in the last act it perplexingly skips ahead around a dozen episodes and consequently loses some of the most memorable scenes from the TV series.
The direly titled Love is the Pulse of the Stars is about a 50/50 split of new and old visuals, but it implements the new work far better than the other films and despite yet more plot alterations, it manages to survive due to a fantastic balance of dialogue and action scenes. The ending is entirely different, opting to end on an oddly happy note as opposed to the soul-crushing TV finale, but it leaves many unanswered questions that will probably never be addressed.
While better than most compilation films, this trilogy isn't on quite the same par as the show, but if you're a fan dying to see how the new story plays out and how the look of the characters and mecha has improved, it is a must-watch. For newcomers to Gundam, it also makes for a decent bite-sized version of a lengthy series.