Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway

It's good movie for fans who have already watched the prequel series. If you haven't, it may get pretty boring because you don't have prior knowledge of what's happening throughout the movie, so keep that in mind. And also, don't bother reading any more reviews as they will affect your viewing experience.

Having seen only a few of the Gundam Series, this didn't make much sense straight out. You make out a couple of names, and references to Char Aznable.. so the context is set, and you can place your self in a timeline.

But this movie works more as a "First episode" anyway, with a story that is somewhat easy to follow. The writing is one that presents eloquent characters in a "smart setting".. that is to say it takes the viewer seriously. As a Gundam piece of content, it doesn't scratch any itch, but as a character study and setting, it is intriguing. Watch for Gigi's gorgeous animations, and every visual and design in general, if nothing else! And for the little bit of action it presents!

The difference between a series episode and a movie is that, even if they are connected, the film attempts to provide a standalone story that anyone can enjoy. If you are a fan of the series you will enjoy the parallel story and the hidden gems, if you are not you might like the film and try the series. Unfortunately, Hathaway is not that.

I don't enjoy Mechas that much and the only reason I watched this was that I thought some of the Mecha stories were good stories. I can't complain about the story too much, other than it was filled with hard to believe coincidences just in order to keep the same characters in focus, but without being familiar with the stories you won't get what this film was about. Characters pop up, complete with names and former connections to existing characters, and you are supposed to know who they are. The world is not developed at all. Everything stands on your ability to have seen, liked and remembered the preexisting content. And to top it off, there are two battles in total involving Mechas, one of them seen from the standpoint of civilians running around dodging debris.

The animation was good, without being exceptional, the acting was OK, but I didn't get anything out of the story, didn't empathise with any character and I do not feel the need so see what happens next. All in all it was pretty boring.

Hathaway is perhaps my favourite entry in this franchise yet, with its emphasis on the moments between big fights. The big robot battles are fun, all the more so when I care a lot about the characters in the cockpits. The visuals are the best I've seen in this timeline so far. Brilliant lighting, shot composition and a greater sense of scale really sell the weight of the events and the mechs.

It does suffer from a little too much exposition, especially towards the start, but that's sort of a staple of the franchise at this point. It also feels really disconnected to Unicorn and Narrative, but they're adapting a novel that was written before those existed. I'll give it a pass, for now. I'm very excited for the sequels that are supposedly on their way.

First of all the animation, cinematography and atmosphere is incredible. World design is 10/10 and pretty decent writing and storyline. The night scenes were amazing and having to see mecha fights from perspective of people on the ground was very cool and you really feel the scale of it

Clearly only for gundam fans if you're new to gundam you'll probably be scratching your head.

I really enjoyed this movie but it has one major problem, the gundam fights and designs. Unfortunately you can barely see the gundams the director chose to keep them off camera for most of the movie and then in the end when they are fighting it's all happening in a flash, the gundam design actually looks horrible, possibly the worst gundams design so far, they took a very unusual route with the design making them look with big spikes and dragon like but it was poorly executed. And it's like they don't even want you to see them because the camera is mostly zoomed out and the fight is happening all in flashes , at some point you can't even tell which is which. This is very unfortunate as something gundam series is good at is showcasing the awesomeness of the gundams but we never get that opportunity here.