Mobile Suit Gundam: L'éclat de Hathaway

I'm not a a fan of the series, but this movie came into my Netflix recommendation and I thought I'm gonna give it a try. I love it! I enjoyed it a lot.

First, I love the art, it's a classic style with a touch of modern animation technology. I feel like I watched a 80's anime but much better. Second, the ambience, there is a right amount of romance in the air and tbh, reminds me of James Bond's classic movie. There also fan service scenes, thankfully nothing vulgar. Third, the story might more enjoyable if I follow the series but I think it's enough for a non-fan like me. It makes me want to dig more into the series.

This movie was well worth the wait after numerous delays. This is the first in the trilogy of movies based on the novels written by Yoshiyuki Tomino. I love this movie, but I wouldn't recommend this to people who are new to the Gundam series, or specifically if you're new to the Universal Century timeline (Original Series). If you really want to watch Hathaway I highly recommend you to watch Char's Counterattack movie first before going in. You'd get more context of who the characters are and what lead Hathaway down his path. But overall the animation and cinematography in this movie is phenomenal, and the characters themselves feel really human. The Mobile Suit battles were AMAZING! My only gripe with the film was the last fight scene between the Xi and Penelope was a little too short. But overall I can't wait to see what's next in the other two movies.

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.

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.

I am often very critical of movies, especially anime. Gundam movies being some of my most memorable, yet criticized favorites. The animation style in this movie is absolutely gorgeous, the soundtrack amazing, the plot, sometimes predictable, but there is a great mix of action and drama.