So my brother loves the Gundam Wing series and he really wants me to watch with him the movie “Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway”.
However, I have never really watched the Gundam series as - I was never really into Mecha besides a few animes.
Thus my question is: Can I watch the Hathaway movie without knowing anything about the anime series?
A lot of the stuff in the Universal Century (UC) timeline of Gundam will make a lot more sense if you've seen the first three shows and movie:
Mobile Suit Gundam (some people will recommend the compilation movies - the show is much better imo)
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (some people recommend skipping this one - they're wrong)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack
The Hathaway movies serve as a direct sequel to Char's Counterattack (they're based on a novel written by the series original creator), and CCA builds on events in the three TV anime preceding it. I know it's hard to recommend ~150 episodes of a cartoon and a different movie, but you'll probably enjoy the Hathaway movie more.
If you do the homework or not, it's a pretty cool movie with some good visual set pieces. Enjoy!