Finally watched Hathaway Flash and ...
I really have to gave applause to everyone involved with the movie, not because the movie is impeccable but because of its precision.
Every part of the movies is like gear(s) working on a machine, aiming to tell everything possible under responsibility as "introduction" part. Very precise to the point there's so little room for error; this is the first time I ever felt like this when watching an anime movies. As if I'll missed a lot of information if I ever bat an eye out of screen for a moment.
The sound department is great, not as iconic as Unicorn but deliver each scenes pretty well.
I'm not familiar with source material (only followed it through SRW and summaries) but is Gigi always like this? To hear Ueda Reina's A-performance is great but its jarring for me when Kensho Ono (Hathaway) and Junichi Suwabe (Kenneth) talking casually. They surely reminds me of Lelouch, C.C. and Suzaku trio from Code Geass but C.C. response is more natural compare to Gigi.
Animation OTOH is superb but clearly on experimental phase.
You can expected "Oh yeah, the animation gotta be nice here" after so many clean shots but Sunrise decided to play it safe because they acknowledged gap between 2D, 3D also photorealistic delivery. Can't say I hate such decision because audience satisfaction matters and it made future of Gundam movies looks promising.
Now the 'negative' aspect. I felt the same with LoweGear about this movie content.
I'm fine accepting whatever delivered by this movie as I got enough understanding about UC but for people expecting action stuffs like SEED or IBO, it sucks.
Who the hell is Char Aznable? What made Mafty often compared to this Char dude? Why Hathaway stealing MS sounds heroic when in SEED Kira get scolded for taking Strike Gundam? What happened to this Quess that name dropped by Hathaway several times? Who is that rainbow guy telling Hathaway to not die yet? Minovsky Particle, what's that? The list goes on ...
First 15 minutes of movie, I'm amazed by how you can easily notice Mafty already make appearances on screen just by paying attention to everyone body language (which Kenneth and Gigi noticed as well), so I thought maybe we'll get less technical stuff that requires you to have knowledge about UC through show, not tell for everything not related to Char. Turned out nope, can be said no brake to such details. Good for you, UC fans, consider it warning for casuals. LOL.
The fight also disappointing for an understandable reason. The realistic take of MS is amazing, reminds me of SEED Stargazers (no tanks involved though), but fact that the fight is happened at night made it underwhelming as realistic take of overall animation made it like you're expected to see two vehicle crashed in middle of dark night; how do you know what happened without good lighting to provide enough closure? Too bad because Penelope and Xi redesign is pretty cool but Attack on Davao is where the light is up.
It was a nice ride but I agree that Narrative is better movie in delivery of its content compare to this.
I personally expected next movie to upped the narrative and solve that MS fight "issue", or someone maybe can watched it in 4K? To see if it became more visible?
Outside that is minor nitpicking, like, before the music is up maybe some little touch like the pilot turned on MP3 player to make it more enjoyable.
Kinda funny when I noticed Gigi is like using latest iPad but someone in Earth Federation use PC that looks like from Windows 98 era? Damn, corruption is running deep.