[Ghostfriendly]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

The movie portrayed one socialite who has a sugar-daddy and one pilot who panicked during one moment and you cry "toxic gender roles"?

Yes, that's what's they are. Do you understand how degrading it is that the lead female character's only visible means of support is having sex with rich geriatrics, rather than leading a country, piloting a Gundam, curing cancer, or anything else she could be doing with her alleged intelligence? That it's degrading to a human being if their essential role is to be a sexual prize for two or three men to compete over, to simper and shriek, and display the 'female intuition' trope which degrades women to the intellectual level of a dog barking at a ghost? I said in as many words that Emerelda is described on the wiki as not skilled enough to pilot a Gundam; these are the kind of female character the writer chose to portray, and they reflect the most toxic gender prejudice. When we have Mikasa Akerman, Kallen Stadtfeld, Riza Hawkeye, Princess Yona, Mother Sarah, Susan 'Fighter' Lei and too few others, this simply is not good enough for a film worthy of being screened.

Also, instead of comparing Mafty to Al-Qaeda, Mafty is actually more comparable to the Rebel from the Andor show. The people here hate EF just as much as the people on Andor hate The Empire. Don't forget that the corruption of the EF goes way back from treating their own Earthnoid subjects like shit from the UC 0079 calendar to being responsible for the TITANS who gassed colonies killing millions which is much worse than what the Nazi did. They then became more or less totalitarian government from around UC 0090s to UC 0105 during Hathaway's event, not only deporting the people they deemed "unworthy of living on Earth" but also killing them when they see fit. Their forces was not named "Manhunter" for nothing. Hence the UC people's hate for EF government has much much much stronger base than Al-Qeda's hate for the "US of A".

It would be another failure of the film that it didn't justify Maftism by describing this extent of EF wrongdoings more than superficially. If they were relevant; no crime they committed could justify terrorism any more than my stomachache would justify amputating my legs. Gassing millions is exactly what the Nazis did (we do agree on that?), and justified all the steps that national governments with a mass mandate took to defeat and destroy Nazism (though not allied war crimes or needless killings). Whatever the EF are, the Maftists are terrorists with an insanely ridiculous political manifesto, supported by no one with any good reason for doing so, killing innocent people for no good end, because no positive change is going to result from political assassination. If the people hate the EF they need to support a movement that's actually working against it; the Maftists might as well be poking the UF bigwigs with soft cushions for all the positive political change their means could ever achieve.

Also, say what you want, but I like that Gundam simply portray "terrorist" organizations like AEUG & Mafty as simply something that exist. They left the judgement for the audience to decide. They just show you the people inside said organizations & how they work. AEUG & Mafty do not kill civillian/non-EF higher-ups willy nilly like Al-Qaeda killing innocent civilians. They killed innocent civillians by way of collateral damage (which they didn't want to happen). Hence, it's more than natural to see members of such organization feeling guilty of said collateral damage and offer them some prayers. That's simply because no rebel effort or revolution can be done without collateral damage to innocent people. That's just the reality of it.

Portraying terrorism in even morally neutral terms is morally insupportable. The Maftists are terrorists, not revolutionaries; they have no rational popular mandate, no sane political program, and by murdering people are doing nothing that could achieve their goals. Portraying the people inside terrorist organisations as honourable and reasonable is another very bad joke, and do I even need to explain the disgusting hypocrisy of feeling sorry that people are dead because you voluntarily killed them? Or of 'keeping collateral damage to a minimum' when none of those killed by the Maftists died for any sensible cause, or by a means that could ever advance any good cause? Nation states may inflict limited collateral damage while pursuing justified aims, and lawfully prosecute their soldiers or police who kill for unjustified aims; terrorists can do neither. Real terrorists, by the by, kill more civilians than world leaders because they don't have the superpower of bad writing on their side; Gawman would have spent the rest of his career in Gitmo, unrescued, in any plausible story. I shouldn't need to explain any of this, but I suppose I need to explain it.