[wissenschaft]

Originally Posted by Tactics

I'm not saying "Should watch CCA first before Hathaway" though but "Watch CCA to understand Hathaway better".

From live chat at premiere itself one can guess the audience ratio roughly 50:50.
Half already knew about UC beforehand, half come from either Hathaway or Unicorn, so its good enough to met balance where some audience willing to explain events before CCA.

Live chat, despite mostly Korean audience, is a blast with memes like lolicon Char or Hathaway and Gyunei treated as example of bad simp (LOL), especially Hathaway after he killed Chen (which shocked several people coming from Hathaway Flash and Unicorn).

Watching CCA again after Hathaway Flash made me wanted to praise HF again as its precision made CCA looks like a prequel movie you never knew you wanted.

I think its important to know that Hataway's flash novels are based on the novel "Beltorchika's Children" which is a novel version of Char's Counterattack with some very key differences. In the novel, during the battle between Amuro and Quess, Hataway fires at her α Azieru presumably to disable it to get her out of the fight. Unfortunately, his shot punches right through her cockpit. Needless to say, Hathaway is traumatized by the fact HE KILLED the girl he loved. The fact that he killed an enemy mobile suit, especially one as big a threat as the α Azieru is why Hathaway is acquitted of charges. This is why we see glimpse of Amuro vs Quess Side in the movie. Note: Chen is replaced with Beltorchika - the spy girl that had a thing for Amuro in Zeta Gundam. Hathaway doesn't encounter Beltorchika in battle. The story just makes more sense within the novels than trying to make HF canon to UC gundam. That said, I am still happy its canon.

As for why Hathaway is using such extreme terrorist methods now, that requires some info that is shown in the movie but not gone into detail.

Spoiler:

In the novel it is explained that its the earth federation’s policy of forcefully moving the Earth population into space (for what basically amounts to forced labor) while leaving the elites and those of high social standing to remain on Earth. As a result, many people try to sneak on to Earth to escape the oppression in the colonies. This led to the earth federation unofficially forming a task force known colloquially as ‘Man Hunters/Hunters’ that would hunt "illegal immigrants" (the victims actual status often being irrelevant) and send them back to space. Which in turn led to anti earth sentiment causing Mafty’s rise to prominence, with the goal of eliminating the very government officials that were responsible for the Hunters. The big Fed meeting that Mafty is trying to stop is where the Fed ministers will enact legislation making the Manhunters a legal official force and enabling them to declare anyone on earth an illegal immigrant (even if they were born on Earth) and forcefully deport them to space for what amounts to indentured servitude.

I hope that gives better context to movie and why Hataway feels the need for such extreme terrorist tactics. I still wouldn't call him a hero or even an anti-Hero. Hes more of an anti-villain at best but hopefully his actions make more sense now. Also, I hope its clear now that the Earth Federation in this movie is A LOT more corrupt and cruel than we've seen before in UC. The Fed by this point has become a lot more oppressive even to those living on Earth.

P.S. I should clarify why Mafty wants humans off the Earth. After the One Year war and all the colony drops on Earth in the UC timeline (I believe 4 in total that were successful), the Earth has been heavily environmentally damage. Despite this the Federation is continuing to heavily pollute the Earth making the planet's recovery unlikely. Its possible in time that the Federation exploitation and abuse of the Earth will render it uninhabitable. Keep in mind that how much damage has been done. Among the vast damage, Australia was devasted and the bread basket midwest of Amercia wiped out all by Colony Drops.