Forum - View topicREVIEW: Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe Anime Film Review
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Deacon Blues
Posts: 463 Location: Albuquerque, NM |
|
|||||||||||
Yes.
The same applies here. You'll get your full glory battle in the final film. If people actually read the novel (or more importantly staff interviews on the production of the film) they'd understand why all this happens at night.
Dunno if you actually read the novels, but dinging the story because it doesn't have rampant mecha action that Gundam is known for across it comes off as a bit tone deaf. Hathaway isn't a mecha-focused story, it's all character-driven, so yes, this entire second film, exactly like the second novel, delves entirely into the characters. That's why the last fifteen minutes were the "plus alpha" new material we were told about years ago to satiate the fans desire for more battles. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
Rowri8
 Posts: 79 Location: Japan |
|
|||||||||||
I agree with you here. I noticed similar "complaints" in the Doan's review, where the reviewer wanted more "Robots battling each other" rather than a character-driven plot. Literally no one expects a glorified Transformers anime going into a Tomino/UC Gundam written story of all things, and that expecation been there since forever, especially here in Japan. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
tintor2
 Posts: 2697 |
|
|||||||||||
|
It's insane how long it took us to learn the definitive ending of Char's Counterattack. Imagine if Double Zeta was delayed for years and we all ended wondering whatever happened to Kamille, Char and Haman after the Zeta cliffhanger.
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
RacingManiac
Posts: 67 |
|
|||||||||||
|
Man I hope Bandai will just announce the dates already for US release....can't wait to see this film on big screen...
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
penguintruth
 Posts: 8627 Location: Penguinopolis |
|
|||||||||||
|
I wouldn't mind simply streaming it on Netflix, like the first one.
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Deacon Blues
Posts: 463 Location: Albuquerque, NM |
|
|||||||||||
How do you figure? Literally every promotional spread for the film in Japan spelled out what was going to happen at the end. There was no question about what became of the two. Thinking otherwise is just foolish. spoiler[They're dead and gone. They were never "missing."]
Part of me wonders if he even went and saw the actual film. I mean, we have a brand new mobile suit in this film, and if you flub it so badly and label it as the Penelope when it's very clearly not that, well... I feel like these reviews are just "work" for them half the time and they can't even process or enjoy what they're reviewing in the first place. Seems to be a bit of a trend lately. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Richard Eisenbeis
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 134 |
|
|||||||||||
I am so confused by your comments. You seem to be arguing with your own constructed strawman rather than what is actually written in the review. Literally the first line of the review comments on how the film is character driven--and no where is that implied it's a bad thing. (It's not. I love character driven fiction.) Moreover, I didn't "Ding the story because it doesn't have rampant mecha action"--like are you sure you're not thinking of someone else's review? I ranted for over 500 words about how much I love the characters and their exploration. Never once did I say anything about it needing more mecha fights. My only complaint with the mecha was being unable to see what was going on do to a mixture of darkness and dust. Anime is a visual medium: I like to be able to see it. Is that really so odd?
This is a dumb mistake. When writing the review, my brain thought "silly chicken head" and my fingers wrote Penelope. Thanks for pointing it out--truly. If I am wrong about something, I want to know and it has been fixed in the review proper. That said, I'm still surprised at the hate and attacks on my integrity I'm getting for an incredibly positive review. I liked the film a lot and felt that I conveyed what was good about it in the review. But I guess any review that doesn't call it a perfect film is a negative one... and I find that viewpoint kind of sad. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Deacon Blues
Posts: 463 Location: Albuquerque, NM |
|
|||||||||||
Because that's exactly how your negative comment on the film reads. And again, I circle back around to my comment about failing to understand the source material. Yes, this film is a setup for the final one, that's the entire point.
Again, yes. Again. Read what the director said above. If you're expecting that from this, find a different Gundam. The entire team has been incredibly forthcoming in their interviews on how all of this has been made and why it has been done as such (not to mention all that darkness is a major part of the plot people seem to keep ignoring).
Not so much that, it's a common theme on the site. Y'all are in such a hurry to post stuff you don't actually sit and review the review you're writing. Yeah, mistakes happen, but they're turning into hyper click bait articles at this point in an attempt to be first. And I'm not expecting a perfect review, but when people review stuff and are ignorant of material it's based on or don't bother paying attention to long-existing staff commentary that gets old. This seems to be a rampant problem all around as of late. Witch commentary suffered from it as did GQX. It's getting old and tiresome. But then again, I'm getting old and tired so 
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 5965 |
|
|||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Richard Eisenbeis
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 134 |
|
|||||||||||
Ahhhh. I see now. We have a fundamental disagreement about how art--namely art adapted from a different medium--should be viewed and interpreted. I believe that, in general, an adapted work should stand on it's own. I don't believe anyone needs to read Hathaway's Flash to enjoy the Hathaway anime. I don't believe anyone needs to delve into staff interviews to have an opinion on the films. I don't think that only a super-fan--someone who has fully engaged with all possible supplemental material--is the only one qualified to review a piece of art. And I think it's insane to hold anyone to that standard. Now, do I think that reading the source material and staff interviews enhances the experience? Often, yes. Do I think a fan who has watched every UC Gundam ever, read the books and manga, and has looked over every interview ever published on the subject will get more out of the film? Almost certainly. Personally, I find such additional information fascinating. But do I believe it required to review an entirely separate piece of media? No. In the end, I am reviewing the film--the thing I watched on screen. I'm not reviewing the books and if there is something the creators wanted to convey to me, they should do so through their art not their words in a different medium. Now, you're free to believe the way you do. I won't even say you're wrong. But I will say that we will never agree. *Edited for typos Last edited by Richard Eisenbeis on Mon Feb 02, 2026 4:53 pm; edited 2 times in total |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
kgw
 Posts: 1536 Location: Spain, EU |
|
|||||||||||
A hundred time yes. As someone said: the book does not matter. If you need to read the novel, the comic or play Fornite to understand a movie, the adaptation is a failure. If you can't see the MS fighting because of the animation, then it's bad done. etc. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
tintor2
Posts: 2697 |
|
|||||||||||
Honestly, that's one of my biggest problems with Char's Counterattack and everything that happened between Zeta and the film. We never see the transition of Quattro Bajeena to Char unless we see some sort of short that reveals Char's corruption following his fight with Haman about his genocide plan to create more Newtypes. As soon as we start Counterattack, we just have to accept Char is a monster and the weirdest part is that the sacrifice he wants to make was foreshadowed in Zeta when taking a drink with Amuro. The deepest part of the biggest relationship from UC that was even parodied by the voice actors in a manga was foreshadowing. Okay, I'm kinda offtopic. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Deacon Blues
Posts: 463 Location: Albuquerque, NM |
|
|||||||||||
It stands perfectly fine on its own. Obviously it does if it's been a box office success to boot. Heck, half the fun from both sides has been double-checking what's been kept and what's been cut. There's a very interesting scene between Gigi and Mace that everyone is dying to know whether it stays in the script. The novels were long dumped into the category of "impossible" to adapt, and they've certainly done a phenomenal job of adapting them for the screen. You don't have to read the novels to understand the films, but if you're going to attempt to put the film on blast for depicting battles in the dead of night or early pre-dawn hours, you're just going to look silly doing so. Even the most basic of summaries of the novels highlight these facts. When it comes to staff interviews, yes, they are bonus material, but between those and the literal after-the-film stage talks, their interaction with the fandom explains a lot of creative choices made before people try to put things on blast. They don't have to do this, but it's really no different than the press tours for Hollywood films. How many times have reviewers looked like fools complaining about something when the director explains the obvious? Sure, I don't have access to those stage events live aside from notes, but they're easily documented. Obviously, they wouldn't hold them without reason. If you've followed Gundam for any amount of time, how many times have people had hot takes on Tomino until he says something?
I mean, would a reporter report on something without conducting basic research for their article? I would assume that someone reviewing a particular medium would do the same, no? Then again, given how clickbait news reporting has been across the web nowadays, I'm not surprised. Take for example, as an aside, Deadline keeps trying to peddle the Legendary Gundam film as the first live-action jaunt for Gundam. Aside from blatantly ignoring G-Saviour entirely, they even erroneously label G-Saviour as a Canadian telefilm. But, ya know, gotta "break the news fast." That's why I say the review comes off as "gotta review it fast" here. You don't have to be a super fan. Simple, cursory searches can bring up a myriad of information. I'm going to sound crass saying this (gotta love textual mediums getting misunderstood all around!), but the same thing happens when news is reported on this very site. Look back at the whole Furuya scandal. Y'all had to post that so lightning-fast, and you STILL haven't redacted the grossly inaccurate information about it; instead, you've kept doubling down in subsequent news posts despite being called out. There's that urgency to post so damn quickly that the simplest of things get bungled. Yes, I say you here as you work for ANN, but not you specifically as the reporter. Then again, there's also a different mindset/audience when it comes to these films. The Japanese audiences are obviously going into these with a much better padded experience than anything the English-speaking community will ever have, legally, of course. No, that's not me speaking for my activities, just really bad ball drops by Bandai and co. Then again, their marketing to prepare for this film is also on another level compared to the ENG side, so there's that too.
I mean, it's cute if you're trying to make a dig at me for supposedly being in that category, but I'm gonna put a full stop on that and clarify with an "lol, no." It's not just that, though. There's a vastly different takeaway overall from the films from the Japanese market and those outside. Yeah, there was the typical chuckling about the darkness, but it was never as big an issue as the ENG sphere has been fixating on it. Reading every little thing doesn't always enhance the experience, mind you. However, if you have a better understanding of the creative vision going into things, it does frame things better. I mean, wouldn't you want a more rounded opinion on something?
I never claimed you were reviewing the books. However, if this were an entirely new entry for the Universal Century, then a lot of the complaints surrounding lack of visibility/lack of mecha action would be justified, but given that they're an adaptation of existing material (albeit closer to anything Unicorn attempted), it's utterly tone deaf to complain about darkness and whatnot; that's my point. As I said, it's a major part of the plot and a theme that everyone seems to keep missing. Maybe everything will click by the third film for the fandom and the fog of misunderstanding will dissipate. As an aside, all things considered with the reviewing, if animation errors appear on screen, which is the result of a back-end technical issue that cannot be corrected, and it's later explained, does that still give you the right as a reviewer to put it on blast?
*SEED FREEDOM has entered the chat*
This is where the ENG fandom loses out on not having supplemental mixed media available. Char's transformation was also explained in marketing material before the film came out in theaters. Plus, there was the notion that Gundam was done with CCA, so there was no real reason to fill in any gaps. Honestly, not having that stated outright allowed for material that followed over the years to fill in a much better gap than Tomino ever could've given. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
kgw
Posts: 1536 Location: Spain, EU |
|
|||||||||||
1. A movie review it is a review of a movie, not a research on external material. For the simple reason that most of us viewers -the ones who read this kind of reviews- usually sit on their seats and watch the movie. 2. Yes, other Gundam series have an awful animation. It is not a excuse. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Key
Moderator
 Posts: 19138 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
|||||||||||
As someone who knows more than most about what goes on behind the scenes, you're flat-out wrong on this. ANN has always prided itself on reliability and journalistic integrity, and so doesn't post anything in terms of news or interest articles without checking sources; sources recognized as speculative aren't used. That doesn't mean that errors won't occasionally creep through, but I've seen plenty of occasions when ANN has made updates to correct errors. As for other matters in other posts, characterizing Richard's comments about the visuals as being "on blast" is a gross exaggeration. It's mentioned briefly in the review and reiterated in the summary of negatives at the end, and that's it. He's not ranting about the point. And you're welcome to disagree that it's a fair criticism, but just because it's that way as a conscious artistic choice doesn't necessarily mean it's a good one. If the creators are trying to heighten a sense of mystery by doing the scene that way then you'd have more of an argument, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. And of course western audiences are going to respond differently than Japanese audiences to a title, especially if the latter have more access to supplementary materials. There's nothing wrong with a review emphasizing the non-Japanese take on the movie. If reviewers miss crucial understandings because of not having easy access to those materials, well, threads like this exist so that superfans can point that out - as long as they're polite and respectful about it. (Please do consider that last part a Moderator caution.) |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group