[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

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

Hathaway the MC is a terrorist & Kenneth the antagonist is a horndog EF commander. If anything, all 3 main characters in this movie are terrible people in one way or another. And yet it is Gigi who has the highest moral among them. Gigi is written as a character who was trapped outside of her elements (terrorist act, murder & MS battle) so she can only rely on those who are good within those elements for help. What’s wrong with that? Are you also going to go around telling people that The Godfather is a bad mafia movie coz the wives characters only contribute little action in said movie? Was Ghostbusters a bad sci-fi/horror/comedy just beause the Ghostbusters were all males and Sigourney Weaver was just a love interest? Sheesh, why not see the movie for the kind of story it’s trying to tell instead of fixating on “females must have big roles in every story!”

Also, the newest Gundam generation in this story is rare cutting-edge technology that’s only reserved for MC and the pilot-antagonist coz they are the ones who have the skills to pilot it (regardless of gender). Emeralda “not skilled enough to pilot a Gundam” doesn’t mean she’s not a good pilot. Pretty much other pilots not-named “Hathaway” or “Lane” are not skilled enough to pilot the Gundams. Why are you so mad that Emeralda is being written as equal to all the other male pilots except for the MC & antagonist? You know, equality and all that. If anything, Emeralda actually saved Hathaway's life by guiding him to a safer place during the raid even though it was outside of their original plan. It was also hinted that Emeralda was the one that came up with a backup plan of picking up Hathaway on the sea (which was also a jab for his phobia of sea due to the incident involving him in Zeta Gundam).

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

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.

Gundam Hathaway is the story continuation of the larger UC timeline. This movie expects the audience to know exactly what the EF has done in the past. Spoon-feeding you EF past crime will only halt the flow of the movie for something that fans already know really well. This movie is not an entry point after all.

Still, I don’t think “Killing corrupt EF bigwigs”-part of the Mafty manifesto is ridiculous considering the numbers of corrupt ministers that they have assassinated. It proved to be successful and can be done. A lot of citizens also support that specific part of Mafty’s policy as represented by the people Hathaway talked to in the market or even the taxi driver himself. Nobody likes those corrupt EF ministers except for people from their EF circle. And speaking of assassination, did you know that the EF bigwigs actually use the ECOAS (space equivalent of EF Manhunter on Earth) as their own private assassination force sometimes as has been portrayed in Gundam Unicorn? So Mafty doing assassination on the EF bigwigs is actually a deserving retaliation.


Also, here’s the thing: The EF has grown too powerful to the point where there are no diplomatic/legal channels left to put them in check. And with the defeat of Zeon, the EF grew even more powerful than before by absorbing the Zeon technology onto the EF forces. So the EF detractors actually ran out of peaceful options to stop the EF oppression. The people who are opposing EF for their crimes don’t have the luxury of the UN or allied nations when dealing with the Nazi. Instead, pocket resistance is all they can afford. We don’t have IRL equivalent of EF which is the super-governing body that rules the entirety of Earth and space colonies.

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

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 the people you killed are dead? 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.

There’s a difference between a movie “portraying terrorist in a morally neutral terms” and “letting the audience to decide”. Just look at the recent popular show House of the Dragon (HOTD). The characters in HOTD that we follow are various flavors of terrible people. The show didn’t portray them in morally neutral terms. Just like in Gundam Hathaway, HOTD characters did what they think is the best course of action for their goals (good or bad). HOTD characters did bad things just like GH characters did bad things. And then both GH & HOTD let the audience to decide for themselves what they think of the characters or which characters to (not)invest.

Gawman also does not live in our world. Our world doesn’t have a corrupt super-government that controls the entirety of Earth and have lenient policy for its officers to the point where an eccentric commander like Kenneth can decide to use Gawman as bait for terrorist to fish out Mafty willy nilly. Don’t be mad if Hathaway exploited that against the EF to rescue one of his people. And believe it or not, there are loyalty & camaraderie even among IRL terrorist orgs like Al-Qaeda (not applicable to all members but they exist). You talk as if they are aliens who don’t understand human emotions or values among themselves. Also, unlike Al-Qaeda, Mafty is not extreme-religion-driven. That’s partly why they are reasonable outside of their big goals. They don’t kill innocent civilians just because they are different. They don’t blast a building just because many people are in it. Mafty is not that kind of terrorist. They’re specifically targeting & killing corrupt EF officials (+ collateral damage) like the assassins they are. The collateral damage of innocent people’s lives that Mafty caused is the same principle as the collateral damage that Lelouch caused during his rebellion in Code Geass.

Again, whether or not Mafty’s goal is righteous, the movie let the audience to decide. Heck, the movie itself already provided an ample argument against Mafty during the Taxi-Convo scene.