Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway

Review by Dennis D. McDonald

I recommend watching this while wearing good headphones. The sound design is awesome and helps overcome the muddiness of some of the confusing action later in the film.

Despite all the technical eye candy and world building, one word I would use to describe this film, its story, and its characters, is "grim."

Our “hero” belongs to a terrorist organization that is assassinating world leaders who run a future government that is systematically shipping poor people off-world. The main characters are almost uniformly young and good looking while many older folks are stereotypically overweight or corrupt and overprivileged.

As with many other tales of future conflict I wonder about the questionable finances and supply chain issues associated with supporting the sophisticated technologies employed by both sides in this far-flung war that takes place on water, in the air, and in space.

Politically it’s impossible to escape the message here of what happens when the haves and the have nots are in constant armed struggle and the health and safety of civilian populations caught in the war are almost an afterthought. One might as well read the daily world news for information about such realities.

Review copyright (c) 2022 by Dennis D. McDonald