Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Jemnite
Hathaway's Flash is simultaneously a true joy for any UC enthusiast while being nigh impenetrable for people with it as their first Gundam experience. This is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The culmination of all of the early UC narratives, it serves as both a continuation of the dialogue raised in Gundam Unicorn as well as a dismal rebuttal- proving that the corrupt nature of institutions can not be changed with dreams alone.
Cinematically Hathaway's Flash is a true joy to watch. The animators have done brilliantly, the entire sequence of action scenes in Davao City are some of the best animated and choreographed scenes to date. It carries on with the modernization of Gundam aesthetics that has been plodding forward with the advancement of real life technologies, y…
Read at the sourcek-0da
I mean it's alright. Watching Hathaway compared from CCA to now was interesting. seeing his demeanor switch after experiencing char and amuros divorce movie was nice. hathaway is the best part of the movie, but unfortunately that's not saying a lot. the action is ok. most of it takes place in the pitch black night so i cant see shit. the choreo isnt too memorable either. this movie just felt like a whole bunch of set up to the sequels. cant say it was terrible, but DO NOT let it be your first foray into gundam. also, had a hard time grasping what made gigi tic, but ill chock that up to my own stupidity. I would like to see where this story goes next, if that means anything.
Read at the sourceChykla
This is a setup movie.
NOTE: If you have never seen any Gundam media, this movie is still enjoyable for the action and story. If this got you into Gundam then I recommend going back to watch the 0079 compilation movie and its continuity up until Char's Counter Attack before rewatching Hathaway's Flash
This is a very late review. I've watched this movie countless times over the past year even getting my friends into 0079 Gundam and having them watch everything from Zeta, to ZZ, to CCA, everything in between just so they can experience Hathaway's Flash in its full entirety. (I did try to make them read Beltorchika's Children CCA and to note that Hathaway is based off of the novel/manga version and not the movie CCA)
This movie, in my very honest and harsh opinion, cannot be enjoyed unless…
Read at the sourceTykylo
(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 noth…
Read at the sourceGabranth
Loved this movie so much. Right up there next to Unicorn in terms of quality and content. As a long time Gundam fan, I've actually rewatched this movie more than any other Gundam movie. I just wanted to rewatch all the awesome scenes and catch the little things I missed. Everything from the characters, story, music, sound effects, voice acting, animation is top tier. The voice actors did a stellar job, especially Reina Ueda doing the flirty wildcard girl Gigi. I was really intrigued by Hathaway and Gigi and how their ideals could change the course of the world. Where Gigi is a wildcard that can affect Hathaway's plans positively or negatively. The movie was good enough make me desperate to learn more about them.
If you want non-stop mech action, this isn't for you (go watch Gundam Wing).…
Read at the sourceI_Dunno65
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 su…
Read at the sourcelethargilistic
Mmmm, it's a no from me. The soundtrack is OK (even if the theme music is terrible). I enjoyed the world-building they did to fill in some things between this and "Char's Counterattack." (I have not seen "Victory Gundam".) There were also a few enjoyable, chaotic moments that marked the story as a Tomino joint. But, other than that?
...What else is there other than that? Not much.
The most obvious (I hesitate to say) "change" is the art style, which is modern and follows in the footsteps of "Gundam Unicorn" and "Narrative". I seriously don't think it should have. This should have been more of a throwback to the style of the original Gundam movies, or at least "Char's Counterattack" because the original purpose of this story was to end all of that. That world-building I praised doesn't ev…
Read at the sourceshenaNickans
10/10 - Not only a great Gundam movie, but a great film in general. Gundam Hathaway does so many things well.
VISUALS/ANIMATION (9/10) Visually, it is extremely appealing and I thought the animators did very well...including the usage of CGI. I know some people have griped about how dark the movie was, but I didn't seem to have that issue. There were a few moments that looked mildly awkward, but I did not think those moments detracted from the movie's quality enough for me to dock points there all too much. There is so much attention to detail throughout the entire movie. Backgrounds look fantastic. Character designs are great. The combat looked phenomenal.
SOUND (10/10) The sound design in this movie is the best I've ever heard in an anime and some of the best I've heard in media in gen…
Read at the sourceThe_Namer
I was a little underwhelmed by this one, but that may have been down to an incorrect assumption on my part. I know that there are two more movies coming after this, but I was expecting each to be more self-contained. Instead this isn't the first story in a trilogy; it's the first act of one story that will be told across three movies. Consequently, this first chapter doesn't cover much ground, and the plot feels quite loose and insubstantial as a result, lacking the dramatic heft that you would expect from a theatrical release, and so doesn't work well on its own. I suspect my score for the trilogy as a whole might end up being one notch higher than for just this part, once I can see it all in context.
As for characters, they're a mixed bag. I hated Hathaway in Char's Counterattack, but h…
Read at the sourceLadyStardust97
An insipid cash grab fluff piece made to sell model kits with no innate moral integrity.
If you go into this expecting a true follow up to Char's Counterattack, you'll find yourself sorely disappointed. The first in a planned trilogy, it stretches the plot of its respective novel paper thin and chews its scenery in a garishly overproduced fashion. Every single plot point of this film is set up in anticipation of its follow ups; it feels like if you took a rolling pin to a flashy 24 minute episode and rolled it out to feature length.
The character art is gorgeous, sometimes excessively so, and the backgrounds as well. However, the mobile suits are all CGI, and a decent amount of the SFX are as well (during the climactic fight, there were some smoke clouds so poorly rendered I couldn't beli…
Read at the sourceestehtix
First, for the cinematography aspect, the Gundam Hathaway anime movie which will become a trilogy feels very inspired by Christopher Nolan's film in the remaining 1/4 of its duration and for 3/4 of the film it feels like a combination of a Gundam-style James Bond film & something like Hideo Kojima or Ergo Proxy. .
Actually, the problem is that in the story about the relevance of Gigi to the main character, the motivation is not clear, but Gigi Andalucia are a typical trope that is mushrooming in the anime industry, the female trope model "Genki-girl" is a kind of cool girl who usually sticks with the MC.
Gundam Xi & Penelope's design is closed because the fight is mostly night operation, although I don't really like Penelope's design because it's a bit impractical and THICC CHONKY is like…
Read at the sourcelatias1236
As a lover of Gundam Unicorn, Char's Origin, and the Universal Century, I had very high expectations for this movie before it came out. I was so excited to watch it, but was quite disappointed while watching it.
Now don't get me wrong, the art was stunning and colorful and the short sections of fight music were catchy, but I still feel it was lacking. The plot was slow and confusing - it took me most of the movie to determine whether or not Mafty was a Char lookalike (who we never see), an organization, or the main character.
The first half of the movie was basically Hathaway being grumpy and complaining about humans destroying the Earth to anybody who would listen. The first big fight scene happened after half of the movie had already passed and it was at night, in the dark. I could ba…
Read at the sourceHarisrox
Definitely worth the hype for me, I loved every bit of it and Shukou Murase's direction was just the cherry on top, tho the movie had a lot of talking so I still believe that Tomino himself would've nailed it too. One thing I believe to be a clear problem was the lightning during the mobile suit scenes, it was indeed dark (tho not for people with good screens and in cinema).
As for the animation, it was one of the best I've seen in this medium. Gotta give it to Sunrise for mastering the animation of human expressions and emotions which makes the scenes and even small conversations full of life.
And as for the mobile suit actions; there weren't much to them, like there was no proper Gundam-styled fight that you see in other Gundam titles and most of the screentime was used in building Hath…
Read at the sourceMordredEX
*THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW*
As this franchise settled itself, us Gundam fans have had to come to terms with the fact that Universal Century Timeline anime can more often than not be lackluster in audiovisual presentation, which makes them fail to reach their full potential except for a few cases. Hathaway's Flash is one of the blessed children that achieved excellence.
Tomino is a visionary with near unparalelled thematic depth and ambitiously deep concepts, but the actual execution of such ideas properly has often been held back by the plot structure limitations set by Sunrise and Tomino's own flaws, such as his bad storyboarding and trademark stilted dialogue. Sometimes we get amazing looking and sounding Gundam UC shows like NT but without Tomino's vision they end up lacking subst…
Read at the sourceCrosswastaken
This is probably the best Gundam movie ever made at the moment, but that doesn't really say much as Gundam tends to have a lot of difficulty when it comes to movie outings. CCA nd Narrative were pretty ok, Endless Waltz looks good but doesn't make much sense story-wise, F91 was rushed to hell and back, and Awakening of the Trailblazer was again, just pretty ok. So taking an unbiased look and viewing this movie as a standalone work or movie in its own right, how is it?
Again, it's pretty fricken great!
To start off with, I think special attention must be paid to the art and sound design. The art itself just looks wonderful and is really a sight to behold. The colors really pop, the background design is so photorealistic that it looks like you're actually in Davao, the character designs lo…
Read at the sourceren0080
Hathaway Flash is one of the best movie in 2021. No doubt about it.
The story is amazing, it is tightly paced so it won't bore anyone who watched this. There wasn't any point in the movie where it drags or it was too fast, everything was just naturally paced.
The characters are interesting to say the least. If Gundam has taught me one thing, it's that either all females are thots or all males are manwhore.
The main character, Hathaway Noa, is probably one of the best mc in Gundam. He's a passive character, but he's also not afraid to be the active character. Just an all-around character which is just interesting to see in Gundam.
Though, the other characters are pretty underdeveloped YET, so I won't rate the character category higher than this just yet.
The animation is probably one of…
Read at the sourceZeniatus
In spite of my preconceptions about the film, I'm looking optimistically towards the following films. With good characterizations and a solid setup on differing viewpoints of the world, the directing of the movie seems solid. Minor things in the script were a bit weird if you look at it from a series standpoint, however it's a relief seeing seemingly good execution and presentation after the release of Gundam NT and Re:Rise.
Hathaway definitely feels like a feature film. From the visual budget to the names attached. But it's limited in that capacity to be able to fully adapt the novel. I personally have only read a couple chapters; so there I cannot make any comments. Individually however, it seems to lay the base down for the following films to expand upon. Viewpoints from each side abo…
Read at the sourcepunishedsneed
Hathaway's Flash is meant to be a sequel to Char's Counterattack, the greatest mecha movie ever made (tied with Ideon's Be Invoked and End of Evangelion, in my opinion) so one would expect the movie to try and be like CCA.
Maybe it's trying. I don't know. The music sounds very same-y, it lacks the kind of character that CCA's soundtrack has.
The character redesigns don't feel like they belong in the Universal Century. The action - operator gunplay like you're watching John Wick - also feels out of place.
The CGI works sometimes but other times, not at all.
Is this movie BAD? No - it's leagues above Genocidal Organ, the other movie I've seen by this director. The dialogue here is usually sparse and enjoyable. You can thank Tomino's novel for that, though. The overall plot, the way thing…
Read at the sourceyoyowhatup
A PERECT Gundam Movie
Edit: and also probably the most realistic one
Now I don’t give out 10/10s very often. The only times I have are with the original Legend of the Galactic Heroes, original Gundam, Attack on Titan Season 3 part 2, and only a few other times.
I generally rate Gundam series very harshly, for example I have only given a 10/10 to the original Gundam, and even rated Z 9/10. I gave UC a 7/10 and things like NT, 00, SEED something between 5 to 6 out of 10 because although they were sometimes enjoyable, they were disappointing and somewhat boring on some level.
But I have decided to give Hathaway’s Flash (yes the Japanese title is “Hathaway’s Flash” and not “Hathaway”) a 10/10 for the first time since the original Gundam. (Please note I’m not a boomer who worships the origin…
Read at the source8Kokujin8
I watch this movie yesterday and went bed thinking about it, and yes this is a pretty good Gundam movie.
Art. 9
What can you say about the art or cinematography on a film with this kind of budget on modern times?, they all just look stunning. but art in himself doesn't make a movie a good movie for that you need a good
Story (9) and characters. (8)
A story by Tomino Yoshiyuki make just 32 years ago, This story depict a bleak future in where the Earth Federation is more corrupt than ever making life on earth a hell for any one that speak up against the government, but because of this is that Mafty appears a terroris organisation that targets and kill high rank federation officers led by a man named Mafty Navue Erin, and that is the premise of this story, is not like the past gundam storys…
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