Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway The Sorcery of Nymph Circe (second movie) review
note i saw this movie in theaters the other day and i do think i have a little more trouble telling what's going on when in theaters, which means i might get some details wrong!
alright my overall opinion is : better than the first movie!
i had fun with it, at least much more fun than the first movie, in general it does have a lot of the same issues (fan service, lame gundam fights, probably could've been shorter, etc.) but it did mostly fix its nothing happens issue, so there's that!
without any spoilers i'd say it's biggest issue was probably that it was just quite confusing, they don't explain things well at all, and i don't think it answers a single question from the previous movie. also btw do NOT watch either movie but especially this one if you haven't watched at least OG Gundam and CCA, like they just throw all that shit at you no info this is not for Gundam newcomers HEJDKFJD
full thoughts (heavy spoilers) under the cut
Gigi continues to be the most interesting character, aaand continues to disappoint me. her backstory and the stuff with "The Count" seems very interesting, The Count seems like he's got weird stuff going on, and she seems to know about it. not to mention how she even got in that situation, but they just never get into any of that. she's better in this movie, but they still use her for tons of fan service, and everything she does is just about/for men. like for example, leaving her whole life behind cause she wants to see Hathaway, which could be romantic but i did not get nearly enough actually cute moments between the two of them to ship them at all.
the fan service in this movie was better, but not good. LOTS of Gigi, several scenes of her in just underwear, several scenes of her in swimsuits, one of which had a super quick but very obvious shot of just her ass while she's getting out of the pool, can't fully remember which one but there was a pool scene that i had mixed feeling about, because i felt like they were trying to convey a feeling, but with the way they've been handling her i just couldn't not get the ick when they kept showing the same shots of her legs, then her whole body but mostly her boobs from basically her POV.
there was another scene that could have been a fun scene but just gave me the ick, which was that there was a somewhat young looking girl in Mafty who was helping Hathaway with something in the cockpit of the Gundam, but she was basically shirtless, with just a hanging piece of cloth over her front, there's a close up shot of her boobs that Hathaway catches a glimpse of, then he says something like "didn't i tell you to wear a shirt" but he doesn't stop at that, he also says something like
"[smth smth] protect those great tits of yours"???? like ew??? and she responds with "why do guys get to be shirtless but girls don't?" and then proceeds to throw the cloth off in front of a bunch of people. for extra context the captain(?), a man, has been shirtless since the start and will continue to be until the end of the movie. i feel like this could have been a fun (empowering? there's a word i'm looking for) moment with this lady, but it just ends up feeling gross,,, like why'd he say that thing about her boobs?? plus the whole scene is completely unnecessary, it leads to nothing, the lady shows up several more times and there's nothing about it, she's always shown still wearing clothes, the captain doesn't put a shirt on, nothing. it was just about showing that lady's boobs.
i don't know if this is what they want me to think or not, but all i'm learning from these movies is that Hathaway is a creepy asshole. he's super shitty to Gigi in the first movie (says he wants them to be able to relax but then basically slut shames her, YELLING at her as she runs to her room embarrassed and undressed.) and continues to suck in this movie. he apparently had a gf (now ex) who i'll talk more about later but he was pretty mean to her the whole time, and that comment about that lady's boobs was super icky.
if they wanted me to give a shit about Hathaways ex gf, i needed to know ANYTHING about her. she needed to be a way bigger part of the first movie, the most i learned about her was when she was leaving Mafty and Hathaway was thinking about their relationship, which fyi, had no dialogue. i seriously know nothing about this woman, which means i do not care they're breaking/broken up, and i do not care she's leaving, goodbye random woman, sorry about your shitty ex?
there was this one girl in Mafty i found interesting, not sure how her name is spelled but it sounded something like "Hall-ah" (said together) i think? i liked her design, it reminded me of Quess a little bit (pigtails with blueish streaks in her hair), which i was kinda surprised they didn't do anything with, i liked her vibe, and she had her own little symbol or something on her mobile suit. unfortunately she died, and in the lamest way possible. like straight up they showed some dots flying around in the sky, and a lot of them got taken out, and then a fire started on the ground, and one dot flew away, and Hathaway went to check on the fire and they were like "oh that's halla's(?) mobile suit, damn guess all our buddies died" AND THAT WAS LIKE IT!!! of course the one new girl i like🤦♀️🤦♀️
i didn't really talk about Kenneth in my last review, but i do quite like Kenneth, he's also a creep for liking 19 year old Gigi, but tbf i don't like 25 year old Hathaway going for her much either, also just something i find interesting, Kenneth doesn't seem to have a canon age other than "middle aged"? even though the other two do? anyways my point is, he's a creep, but that's kinda just a trend in Gundam, and i think he's funny HEJKDFJK, i like that he's so chill about Gigi, she wants to go hang out with Hathaway instead of him? yeah sure he don't mind he'll go hang out with this other lady, Gigi wants to go with him on this important and far away military trip? sure why the hell not! Gigi gets bad vibes? absolutely listen to her leave the area immediately. i wish they didn't have an annoying age gap because it's totally unnecessary, he could have just been a surprisingly young,,, whatever he is! that happens all the time in Gundam! and Kenneth and Gigi are way cuter than Gigi and Hathaway, Hathaway's just too mean to her.
oh and another character i liked is Lane Aim, he's just so funny to me, like he sucks at being a Gundam pilot, everyone bullies him, he's lost both fights with Hathaway, he refuses to believe Gigi, his name literally sounds like "Lame", i mean come on.
while they did mostly fix the nothing happens issue, it's not completely fixed. because now, while there are definitely events occurring, i have no idea if they're DOING anything, like yeah okay Gundam fights things, or ships are attacked, but like,, is this affecting anything? has anything Mafty has done actually affected anything? i have no clue, the movie says nothing about that, for all i know all we've done is lose Mafty members. (and yes i know they said a few important government people died, but i haven't heard about anything changing because of that.)
the mobile suit fights still suck SO BAD. THEY'RE ALL AT NIGHT !!! I CANNOT SEE A THING!! ,,,, but you know what? they did have one fight that switched to morning during it, and one in space, and it confirmed my suspicions, the reason they have all the MS fights at night is because,🥁 ,,the models are ugly as shit. they so look so bad dude, like no wonder you didn't want me seeing them 😭 they look so bad in that morning scene when they're moving, it's honestly tragic.
though i will say, even though i HATE the Gundam designs in these movies, and i especially hate Lane Aim's new one,,, his new one without all that junk on it is actually really nice?? why can't i just buy that one?? and why doesn't it look like that all the time???
this movie didn't have the same time issue as the first movie, but they had a new time issue, which is that they spend almost all their time on the wrong things. like for example, they spend several minutes on Gigi moving in and renovating her new apartment (house?), there's a whole montage, which i actually found kinda fun, except for the fact she immediately abandons it to run off and find Hathaway. like why the fuck did we spend all that time on it??? instead of, i don't know, all the interesting newtype shit going on with her and Hathaway?? like there's this scene i found super interesting, where Gigi was looking in a mirror, either removing or putting on a swimsuit(?), and she's reminded of when Hathaway saw her in the hotel in the first movie, then later, can't remember exact context, but Hathaway, in his head, sees Gigi, either removing or putting on a swimsuit(?), but it's not when he saw her in the hotel, it's her currently, he's seeing her, what she's doing right then, from a completely different location. but no, its house flipper time.
this kinda leads into another problem i had with this movie (and the first one as well) which is, are they not fucking allowed to say newtype?? what the hell is going on????? Gigi is the most obvious fucking newtype, but no no no she's a lucky charm, she is luck, she has luck, she's a fortune teller! like what the fuck are you guys talking about??? i could have sworn people knew about newtypes, even if they are being taught they're not real??? Hathaway also never gets called a newtype, but at least he's not as obvious i guess?
by far the best part of this movie was the CCA flashbacks/ghosts though, that was awesome, Quess, Char, AND Amuro? we're winning!!! thank you to Hathaway's PTSD/newtype shit that was great
i do feel like the movie failed it in one way though, which was that its completely unclear if Quess and Amuro are actually real, and they're ghosts, or if Hathaway is just losing his shit. especially because they clearly show Hathaway is supposed to be taking meds, but never say if they helped with Quess appearing or not, all we know it that he's not taking them, which could totally mean all of that was just in his head.
also R.I.P to Bright and/or Hathaway next movie, they're so cooked.
"Did you resign yet?" said Mirai, Bright's wife, "Yes, i just sent it in, this is just one last assignment." said Bright, "Maybe you'll even get to see Hathaway. (their son)" said Mirai, kissing Bright goodbye. (lines are not exact this is from complete memory) ,,,, IT WAS HIS LAST JOB!!!! HE WAS THIS CLOSE TO RETIREMENT!!!!!!!! (bonus points if Hathaway kills him, or they kill each other.)
it's so over.
anyways i had fun with it!! at least it was better than the first one!!!
gundam girls generation cagalli update!!! she's looking good!!! i'm glad they didn't put her in an annoying sexualized pose like they do for almost all the other girls i was pretty worried about that
ok i just watched MSG Hathaway (first movie to be clear) for the first time and my opinion is : meh?
like, it was fine, but it really didn't do much for me. i felt like almost nothing happened, it felt more like a prologue or at most first episode of a show, it all felt like set up, which did NOT need to be an hour and 30 minutes.
full thoughts (heavy spoilers) under the cut
i liked Gigi, but i felt like they didn't do nearly enough with her, like she mostly stood there and looked pretty. while she seemed like she had interesting things going on personally, the movie mostly just treated her as a plot device rather than a character, she gets Hathaway to beat up those not Mafty guys, then she reveals Hathaway is Mafty, then she gets Hathaway to stay with her during the attack which gets him where he needs to be for plot reasons and somewhat affects his character, but seems to do nothing for hers by the end, then she's mostly unimportant for the rest of the film (other than Hathaway being worried she'll expose him, but she's not really there for any of that either.)
not to mention she's like 85% fan service, which i don't mind if done alright, but this was just annoying. there must have been at least 5 different upskirt shots of her when her and Hathaway get to their room for the first time. like i get it dude. i know what under her skirt looks like now. i really don't need to see it that many fucking times. then of course her being in a swimsuit(?) with the top off, having to just use her hands to cover herself, and then her being in nothing but a robe for the whole attack scene.
i also found Hathaway to just be kinda boring? i was hoping his Mafty thing would be more interesting but it really wasn't. i also thought maybe they were trying to set up for him questioning the Mafty thing more, or maybe wanting to change around how they do things (not even talking about if i thought they should, i just thought that was where his character was going) but no, by the end he's basically the exact same but with a gundam now.
maybe they'll do something more with it in future but within this movie all the Char references just felt like Char for the sake of Char, like saying Mafty is the third coming of Char basically, or that Char's ghost might really be Mafty. i don't know it just felt like throwing some Char in so people will keep paying attention.
i found the gundam fights really lame, they were like all at night, which made it super hard to see them, and in the actual gundam on gundam fight they barely even showed the fronts of the gundams. i also just don't like the gundams designs in this but you know what? i'd never have been able to tell that just from watching the movie!! the only reason i know what i dislike about these gundam designs is from the model kits, and i hate like everything except from the heads!! that's how little of those gundams i could see in the movie!!
anyways for several reasons one of them being the end of unicorn, i hope it's revealed that its not Char's ghost who's the real Mafty, but that it's the ghost of Quess. still haunting Hathaway, still in complete control of his life. i would also take insane Hathaway who thinks the ghost of Quess is the real Mafty, but its actually just all him, he's just nuts. ghost Quess is off hangin' out with ghost Char and ghost Lalah, and ghost Amuro if he's with them.
overall the movie was fine, nothing amazing but it wasn't horrible or anything, just wish it had a little more going on. hope the next ones better! going to see it in theaters!!
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