Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway Ending Explained

The latest entry in the venerable Gundam franchise is the Netflix movie Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway, the ending of which includes a surprise twist and a high-octane mecha battle. The results of the battle raise the stakes in the rebel group Mafty’s battle against the Earth government. The film’s conclusion leaves many plot threads unresolved, setting up future movies in this new branch of Gundam‘s Universal Century timeline.

Hathaway is based on a series of novels written by original Mobile Suit Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino in the 1990s titled Hathaway’s Flash. The movie is part of Gundam studio Sunrise’s “UC NexT 0100” project, which is a series of interconnected titles that continue the Universal Century timeline that the original Mobile Suit Gundam series began. The project is akin to the recent Star Wars sequels and interconnected Disney streaming series, and also includes the 2018 Gundam Narrative movie. Hathaway is intended to be the first in a trilogy of movies with a unified plot.

The film stars the eponymous Hathaway Noa, the son of Bright Noa from the original series and Zeta Gundam, and Mirai Noa. It begins with Hathaway on a spaceship meeting Gigi Andalucia, a mysterious woman with a seemingly supernatural ability to see through lies. Hathaway then teams up with Earth Federation Forces colonel Kenneth Sleg to foil an attempted hijacking by men who claim to be working for the terrorist Mafty Nauve Erin.

After the plane lands, Gigi confronts Noa, claiming that she knows that he is the real Mafty, a masked figure like Gundam‘s Char Aznable or V for Vendetta‘s heroic terrorist V.  Hathaway stages an attack on his hotel in an attempt to help deflect suspicion. However, Kenneth eventually realizes the truth and begins pursuing Noa and the Mafty organization.

The True Identity of Mafty

Hathaway reveals fairly early on that its seemingly straight-laced protagonist is involved with Mafty, but the extent of his role in the organization only gradually emerges. Hathaway is the leader of the rebel group, which he claims numbers over 30,000, mostly concentrated in Oenbelli in northern Australia. The figure of Mafty Nauve Erin is a fictitious person designed to be a composite of the group, but Hathaway’s central role causes him to personally identify with the persona, eventually saying “I am Mafty.“

Mafty’s goal is to assassinate government cabinet members with the goal of disrupting Earth’s government. In another movie or TV series like 24, this plan would make Mafty the villains of the story, but in Hathaway, the terrorists are depicted sympathetically. They are aggrieved by government corruption, environmental damage, and the policy of using “Man Hunters” to forcibly send civilians to space colonies. Their methods raise one of the philosophical questions that have been addressed in many Gundam series, that of whether it is acceptable to use violence to address injustice.

The movie reveals many of Hathaway’s subordinates in Mafty, including Emerelda Zubin, Gawman Nobil, and Iram Masam. While Hathaway has a central role, the group seems to be loosely organized, with the “1rst Mafty Army” in Oenbelli acting autonomously like the hacker groups featured in Mr. Robot. The conflict on Earth forces Hathaway to realize his mistake in assuming he could maintain two separate identities. Hathaway travels to the base, but they are discovered by the Circe Unit led by Kenneth, who believes that someone else is pulling the strings behind Hathaway. This leads the base to launch their secret payload, containing the key to the movie’s climactic action scene: the Xi Gundam.

The Significance of the Xi Gundam

The Xi Gundam is Hathaway’s personal mecha and the signature mobile suit of the series, having already been released in toy form and appearing in the Super Robot Wars video game series alongside mecha from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Martian Successor Nadesico, and several other Gundam series. The powerful Xi unit has a Beam Barrier system that is uniquely able to counteract the attack power of the Penelope unit piloted by Lane Aim.

The climactic scene in Hathaway is a race between the titular protagonist’s attempts to retrieve the Xi Gundam as it descends from orbit and Kenneth’s attempts to destroy it. Hathaway is able to boot up the Gundam and launch it even as the surrounding Cargo Pisa is burnt up in the atmosphere. The Xi and Penelope battle to a stalemate. During the battle, there is a curious moment as Lane drops the captured Gawman out of the Penelope and allows the Xi to catch him, showing that there is a sense of honor and respect between the opposing pilots like that between martial artists in Mortal Kombat.

The Penelope is downed, but Lane wrongly believes that he shot down the Xi Gundam in the crossfire. In reality, Hathaway threw the Xi Gundam’s rifle into the air at the end of the battle, allowing it to absorb the damage instead of the mobile suit. Capturing the Xi is crucial, as it provides a powerful weapon that will allow Mafty to continue the fight against the EFF with a mecha that can counter the powerful Penelope.

How Hathaway Sets Up Future Gundam Movies

Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway concludes with Hathaway and the other core members of Mafty escaping on their ship the Valiant. The closing scene also offers us a glimpse of Gigi and Kenneth together on Earth, with Gigi deciding to stay with him for the near future. However, Gigi still seems sympathetic to Hathaway and Mafty’s cause, which could cause conflict in the future Hathaway sci-fi movies released on Netflix and in Japanese theaters.

The conflict between Mafty and the Earth Federation is far from over, with the underlying issues that caused Hathaway’s rebellion still unresolved. Future movies will likely see further conflicts between Kenneth’s Circe Knights and Hathaway’s Mafty. The final moments of the movie show a bloody conflict in Oenbelli that could lead to future conflicts between the central characters.

Sunrise is also looking to launch a variety of Universal Century TV shows and movies that could spin off of or tie into the Hathaway movies. While the action of this movie is largely confined to Earth, future movies could deal with the Gundam universe’s off-world colonies and the psychic sub-race Newtypes, which are briefly mentioned in Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway. Fans of old-school Gundam could soon have a lot of mecha action coming their way.

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