originally posted at https://canmom.tumblr.com/post/696134...
Hi friends! I’m pretty pressed for time this particular Thursday, but I don’t want to miss an Animation Night, so here’s a short one for ya~
Hathaway’s Flash is the first in a trilogy of movies set in Gundam’s Universal Century setting [see: Animation Night 88, Animation Night 94]. Recent Gundams such as Iron Blooded Orphans and the upcoming Witch From Mercury have tended to move away from this meta-setting, but this one’s right back there in Tomino’s original world of Federation and Zeta and newtypes.
The first Hathaway movie comes highly recommended by the usual suspects; kVin describes it in such terms as…
Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway is shaping up to be an excellent film trilogy, a collective effort by creators who approach realism from their own angle coupled with stellar character acting
Narratively, it is placed pretty deep in the Gundam storyline, adapting a series of novels by Tomino himself that follow the events of Char’s Counterattack. But, I am assured, that doesn’t matter: the movie should be accessible even if you don’t know the first thing about Gundam. So to set the scene: two big belligerent factions have made peace after a long and bloody war, and we are following the story of Hathaway, publicly a respected war hero but secretly the leader of the terrorist organisation Mafty. He wants revenge on the Federation leaders for their actions during the war, and the organisation also advocates mass migration into space for ecological reasons - kind of the opposite angle to Planetes, funnily enough.
Anyway, I basically have no time to write anything about this film right now, so if you’d like a fantastic account of the various artists involved in making it and their influences - the stylised film noir leanings of director Shukou Murase, the subtle acting and complex shading of long time animation duo Naoyuki Onda and Shigeki Kuhara (also known for Ergo Proxy), and even the mighty Hiroyuki Okiura of GitS and Akira fame makes an appearance near the end - go read kVin’s article!
…but maybe do that after the film, because we basically gotta start right now. I’ll write up more substantial impressions later this evening. From the sounds of things we can look forward to lots of tension, scary terrorist attacks in the dark, and uncannily photorealistic backgrounds. But we’ll see…
Animation Night 124 will be running over at twitch.tv/canmom - please take your seats and we’ll be starting films promptly in 20 minutes, at 15:45 PDT (23:45 UK time). See you in there
Comments