Kidou Senshi Gundam: Senkou no Hathaway

Thanks to the sacrifices of war heroes like Amuro Ray, the Universal Century's 105th year sees an era of hard-won but short-lived peace. The Earth Federation keeps a militaristic hold on the planet and its surrounding space colonies. Although Char Aznable's rebellion against the neglectful Federation met its ultimate failure, his revolutionary philosophy of true freedom for all human beings lives on.

Despite being the son of a famous Federation commander, Hathaway Noa embodies both the undying loyalty of soldier Amuro Ray and the militant passion of rebel leader Char Aznable. Haunted by memories of Char's Rebellion, Hathaway leads a dissident faction of his own known as Mafty. He adopts the alias "Mafty Navue Erin" and commits acts of violence in revolt against the growing tyranny of the Federation.

After thwarting the hostile takeover of a plane by a terrorist group fraudulently claiming to be Mafty, Hathaway's secret identity is discovered by a young woman named Gigi Andalucia. Hathaway befriends both Gigi and Federation colonel Kenneth Sleg, but his double life endangers them as the armed conflict between Mafty and the Federation comes to a head.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Noa, Hathaway Main

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Andalucia, Gigi Main

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Sleg, Kenneth Main

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Ray, Amuro Supporting

Furuya, Toru Japanese

Aim, Lane Supporting

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Nobile, Gawman Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Paraya, Quess Supporting

Kawamura, Maria Japanese

Flower, Mace Supporting

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Yeoksan, Hundley Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Mitsuda, Kenji Supporting

Sawashiro, Chiharu Japanese

Kikukawa, Hiroyuki Producer

Murase, Shukou Director, Storyboard

Kimura, Eriko Sound Director

Kasamatsu, Kouji Sound Director

Reviews

Dec 25, 2023

whiteflame55

Recommended

This movie does an amazing job with the cinematography, very deliberately choosing specific angles, in-camera focus, and lighting to draw watchers’ attentions. Maybe it’s just that this is a movie and therefore has more budget and time put into it, but much as other entries have looked pretty great before (Unicorn, The Origin, and IBO in particular), this is the first modern incarnation of the series to do more than just make a bunch of exceptional fight scenes with some pretty good general animation. I’ve had my issues with the human-centric work done on the recent Godzilla films, for example, but this is a very ... different beast. It’s war, and though other series have done a great job setting the stakes as high as they can, it depersonalizes the experience to the point that it’s hard to care about anyone on the ground. We get the occasional scenes like pre-colony drop in The Origin and the ending of Pocket that stand out in this regard, and still I think this does better. The scale and weight of battles feels far more present here. I love that we get to see so much of this from a ground level instead of focusing on the cockpit or some grand battle. Fighting over a city has consequences, and the helplessness of the characters on the ground is excellently portrayed.

All that being said, I can’t praise this movie too much. The animation is a combination of 2D and CGI, which is usually fine (even great in many instances), but has some jank to the latter. The actual mobile suit fights are not nearly as good as those in many of the other Gundam series – they just feel a lot stiffer here, and since there aren’t many suits fighting, the brutality that we’ve seen from previous series just isn’t here. That’s not necessarily a big problem – the deaths of nameless, faceless pilots always rang a little hollow, even if it made for some pretty incredible fight scenes. In fact, this movie seems to make it a point to step away from the usual Universal Century BS, involving Newtypes only in a minor capacity and largely stepping away from the broader world and, therefore, context. It’s there, but with a whole lot less homework involved.

Still, I felt this was a little lackluster. I do come to Gundam with certain expectations, and this just didn’t have the oomph that we see from other entries, with all the fights ending bloodlessly and only a hint at greater dangers. It’s intriguing to see where the story took the various plot threads from Unicorn and other prior entries, but this feels like such a minor piece in that puzzle, setup to something much larger. I look forward to the next two entries, which I believe will up the ante significantly.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jul 29, 2021

I_Dunno65

Mixed Feelings

My problems with the movies are that girl and the fact that Hathaway would never have been perceived as a “horn dog” in the novel, (which I person I talked to considered Hathaway to be) and that’s what the movie is missing, it has this
$€xual tension but not enough tension coming from danger and the precarious situation he’s in

Then the novel had extra unanimated scenes, inner monologues, and scene narration that provided important context and engagement that explained future and current decisions made by Hathaway, the contents of those scenes were not well represented in the movie at all, leading to this over saturation ... of what seems like and can only really be explained by Hathaway not being very mature, being a horn dog, and falling for a adult/more skilled version of quess and then suddenly and conveniently closing himself off from her only to rinse and repeat few hours later

Not to mention my peeves with the style, the scene/camera angles, the lighting, the sound design, the scene design, choreography, and timing, that all contributed to my dissatisfaction in the movie, including that the movie is something that can’t really be enjoyed as much if you’re a newbie, and the fact that I had to pause the movie to think about what I heard or what just happened

(To those who question my rating, I have vowed to never rate something 10/10 unless it’s near absolutely perfect, so my rating is more of a 7/10 not 6/10 in the traditional sense, and yes- I copied and pasted my own comment from YouTube and modified it for this review)

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 27, 2021

Tykylo

Not Recommended

(Spoilers for CCA, F91, Unicorn, and Hathaway)

You know that feeling when your favorite franchise gets a continuation of its main story, and despite enjoying the new narrative on its own merits, you feel as though its flaws hold it back, and in general get the vibe that all of it is unnecessary as shit?

A couple franchises are like this for me. For Star Wars it's the Sequel Trilogy, specifically the two movies that came after The Force Awakens, for Halo it's everything that came after Halo 4, and for Dragon Pilot: Hisone to Masotan, there is...literally nothing. Seriously. there's no second season or even an ... OVA or movie, like COME ON IT WASNT EVEN THAT BAD THE CHARACTERS WERE AWESOME THEY DESERVE AT LEAST A SLICE OF LIFE SERIES.

And in the case of Universal Century Gundam, I have nothing but raw, burning hatred for literally almost everything that came after Char's Counterattack that was released between 2010 and 2020.

To be fair, I haven't watched Unicorn, but I read the plot synopsis and it goes like this: Char comes back in a stitched-together Newtype clone body, he fights the Federation because what else is he going to do with his time, and then Amuro's ghost appears and politely asks the reborn Char to stop his rampage, to which Char replies "Oh...okay."

It's not the worst thing I've ever experienced, but my main issue is...why? Why does Char's story need to be continued? It was resolved perfectly fine in CCA. Another issue is that (and this is a pretty obvious reason) Unicorn kinda shits all over Amuro's sacrifice to show humanity the light of the human heart, to overcome Char's evil and darkness, by just...having Char show up again. After he and Amuro have been dead for three years.

Now onto the main topic of this review, Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway. ....dear God..

I will give the movie this: for better or worse, it completely ignores Unicorn's existence, though I would argue that its own take on the post-Axis Shock period is far, far worse. The Axis Shock in Char's Counterattack was meant to symbolize humanity uniting to save the Earth from their own destructive arrogance. Both the Federation and Zeon were at fault, and both overcame their differences and rivalries to help save the cradle of humanity. This even gets explored in Gundam F91, where Earth's entire former population has completely migrated to the Sides for 30 years to let the planet heal from years of war and pollution.

Hathaway decides to completely shit all over those themes of unity, then throws them out of the window in favor of generic "edgy" Hollywood movie themes, where the Federation hasn't learned a damn thing from the past three Zeon Wars and continues to pollute the Earth and abuse its population. The ecchi is also really cringy and essentially symbolizes all the issues I have with modern anime in general.

I don't even want to talk about what they did to mah boi Hathaway Noa. He went from a scared but idealistic and brave kid in CCA to a complete psychopath who allows his forces to target civilians, and he and Char are portrayed as the good guys...?! What in the actual goddamn fuck.

The side characters are kind of just...there.

The female characters are hot.
That's about it. They don't get much else aside from that.

Okay so maybe I was wrong, modern UC Gundam is nothing like the Sequel Trilogy or the new Halo games. Aside from Advent of the Red Comet and Thunderbolt I legitimately hate everything about what they've done to Universal Century, and I've lost all hope for that franchise unless Sunrise can get their heads out of their asses.

To conclude, Hathaway is not even trying to be UC Gundam, or even a good anime movie. It's trying to be a by-the-numbers, bog standard, Hollywood movie, and good Lord does it show. With Double Zeta I could at least laugh at how stupid it got. In Hathaway there is just...nothing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	UC is over? LegionOne - Apr 28, 2023	15 replies	by Fail_Man_X »» May 14, 12:49 PM
	Poll: Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) EasyGo-er - Jun 13, 2021	79 replies	by Ten »» Apr 27, 12:15 PM
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	What to watch before this? Spektrum9 - Jun 10, 2021	48 replies	by DivineLion »» Jul 15, 2023 12:54 PM
	Did I ruin anything Reshiram_IX - Jan 15, 2023	2 replies	by Reshiram_IX »» Jan 16, 2023 11:12 AM