Originally I didn’t intend on making a review for the Hathaway’s Flash movie as I try to keep this blog focused on summaries and plot synopsis, but thought I would use this as an opportunity to give my very brief thoughts on the movie as well as the movie series going forward.
There will be spoilers for this movie and the book series as a whole! 
First of all I would like to say a big thank you to all the comments and emails I have received for the Hathaway’s Flash book summaries. I wrote them of course because there was very little information/incorrect information online about them but also as something I could do to kill time during the 2 month COVID lockdown. I had no idea they would turn out to be my most read blog posts by far. So again, thank you everyone.
Very brief thoughts on the movie.
The comments expressed here are of course my personal opinion and you may feel free to disagree with them, but the Hathaway’s Flash movie is the most impressive Gundam movie to date and quite honestly the most engaging Gundam product we have had in a very long while. Similar to the books, the movie focuses on the human drama between Hathaway, Gigi and Kenneth and puts more of an emphasis on the human loss of war and terrorism. I am thinking specifically of a few scenes like the graphic Haunzen hijack execution and the Davao hotel attack where the scenes focus more of the civilians being killed by the stray shots and debris than the actual battle itself. It’s not until about an hour into the movie until we first see the Penelope Gundam.
It also seems as though far more effort was put into the cinematography and visual composition of the film compared to previous Gundam works. The way characters seamlessly interact with the lifelike backgrounds, the way the camera focuses on character sweat to convey atmosphere, the way they manage to convey the dread of gigantic mobile suits through structural damage. These tiny details are what separate a good film from a great film.
On the topic of visuals one complaint I do have is towards the end of the film where the Xi Gundam and Penelope are engaged in battle. Unfortunately the lighting is WAAY to dark to fully appreciate the battle. The battle happens at night but there are lighting techniques that could have been used to better represent what was happening on screen. I have seen this complaint a lot from some Japanese reviewers so I don’t think it was just my screening.
Although I enjoyed the Gundam Unicorn series and to a much lesser extent Gundam Narrative, I was pleased to see that none of the story elements or characters were mentioned. This movie acts as a direct sequel to the Char’s counterattack movie. Which brings up another point; going into this movie my biggest question was how they would deal with Hathaway killing Chan, which is of course very different to how it played out in the Beltorchika’s Children novel where Hathaway’s kills Quess which gets him a pardon. Unfortunately this isn’t addressed much at all in the movie. Similarly to the HF books, in the movie it is mentioned that Hathaway stole and piloted a mobile suit but that he was given a pardon because he was able to “get a kill”. In the CCA movie while he does shoot down a random Geara doga just after stealing the Jegan, he also shoots down his ally Chan, unprovoked. I’m sure the blackbox in the Jegan must have recorded that kill too, so what were the consequences for his actions? It is not mentioned at all in the movie and I can only speculate that the writers of the movie were not interested in this tackling this seeing as this wasn’t an issue in the books to begin with.
Generally speaking, the movie is very faithful to the books, so much so that there would be no point in making a separate blog post about the differences between the movie and the book. Most of the changes that do occur are aesthetic such as Hathaway, Mitsuda and Mihersha gathering in and exploring the gorgeous Davao tourist attractions instead of a parked car. Or things that were changed to cut down the run time of the movie like removing character monologues that served as a recap for the one year war, Char’s rebellion etc.
All the characters have undergone redesigns from their book and video game counterparts and the voice cast has been almost completely replaced, most notably Nozomu Sasaki who had voiced Hathaway in Char’s Counterattack and various other video games. Interestingly Nozomu does have a cameo in the film voicing the police inspector that interviews Hathaway after the Haunzen incident.
As for the redesigns, although it’s difficult for me to say I prefer one over the other as they are both representative of different styles, I will say that Gauman’s Ali Al Saachez-like redesign in the movie is far closer to what I imagined based on his description in the book. Kenneth’s redesign also captures his playboy charm whilst at the same time portraying his darker and more ruthless side when fighting Mafty.
Going forward
Given how faithful the adaptation of this first book was, as well as the more adult tone they have taken with the movie, I feel fairly confident that 2nd and 3rd movie will follow the books and keep the execution ending. A change I would like to see going forward however is a more prominent inclusion of the Bright Noa character.
This isn’t a necessarily a criticism of the books, but a personal disappointment I had while reading the novels was how uninvolved his character was to the overarching story. He first appears towards the towards the end of book 2 and only appears sporadically in book 3, having no impact on the story. Essentially his character is used as an emotional weight for Kenneth and Kenneth’s decision to personally carry out Mafty’s execution.
You see, Bright is in a thematically interesting predicament here; his son is the leader of the terror organization that he is fighting, having him come to that realization and depict his inner struggle over his duty to the Earth federation or his family would have been an interesting way to further explore the Bright character that we have been following since the one year war. Instead Tomino(the author of the novels) chose to have the dynamic between Kenneth and Hathaway be the focus of the story and probably wasn’t interested in a Bright and Hathaway confrontation which is why I can’t call it a criticism of the book.
Regardless, I very much look forward to seeing next the few movies and hope they remain consistent in quality and pacing with this one.
Chapter summaries for book 1
Here
Chapter summaries for book 2
Here
Chapter summaries for book 3
Here
PaddyPakku's thought space 
Did Amuro appear in the books like he did in the movie in the final battle?
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he did not. thats why it was so interesting. even his VA was surprised
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That’s correct. He is mentioned a few times in the books, but he doesn’t talk to Hathaway like in the book.
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I hope to God they change the ending of the movie. I hate that Hathaway dies in the book.
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I have stumbled across these while searching for material to show a friend. I have know and read Hathaway’s Flash nearly 20 years ago, so it was a pleasant surprise to know they were finally turning them into an OVA or movie series.
As for Bright Noa, I think there is a lot to understand about this character in relation to the both the UC timeline and Gundam in general. He is the only character to basically span all the major UC stories created or written by Tomino himself. Gundam Unicorn and the Narrative movie sit within an interesting place, but they have reference point here are not realistic as they were created well after these stories and do not address issues with them. All this said, I think there is very powerful and tense moment to the ending of the novel actually. It is written and directed in such a way that while Bright is present to “witness” the execution of Mafty, he never looks down to see who that personal actually is. This combined WITH Kenneth having to do it *knowing* who Mafty is makes it harder for him. In much to the same chagrin as Tomino did with Char’s Counterattack, he leaves this ending ambiguous as if Bright every finds out… much like he never confirmed the death’s of Amuro and Char in CCA (unlike the source novel’s Beltorchika’s Children and/or High Streamer where it is very clear both perish in the end).
To even side step a little bit, there is even the question or intention that Zeta and Double-Zeta are not even canon in relation to Char’s Counterattack and Hathaway’s Flash considering they were not created or released before these stories were. This chain of thought simply matches better when looking at the character develop of and motivations of Char (as Quattro through Z and ZZ) reflect a massive change, and with ZZ ending around UC89/90, it would mean he somehow reverts to his personal beliefs and feelings circa UC80 at the end of the One Year War. Instead, it makes sense that instead of Z and ZZ happening, the Second Zeon War simply is the next war after the One Year War and it’s simply been 13 years of Char building up the Zeon army.
Overall, to get back on point, I think you nailed many things in the review that worked for me too. Tominio has always been a fan of writing his original Gundam series (UC timeline specifically) to focus on all aspects of the effects of war. Now just on the soldiers and officers, but to the support personnel, families, and civilians all at the same time. Hathaway’s transition from Federation family /civilian into an enemy is a long-game evidence of the effects of war on a family that didn’t even see death or demise directly. I anxiously await the next volume which should be 2024 if heard correctly!
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