Darkwater

I'm not even going to click that link because I don't have enough bleach on hand for my eyes (I used it all the last time I saw those pics). But, if you want conspiracy theories, take the pics above, add the fact that he's homophobic as hell as on his podcast, while at the same time he constantly references anal sex and male-on-male fellatio... I think 6,000 lessoners might not be the only thing he's fooling himself about. Wow, I'm being mean today. Edit: spelling

Now I've always been a fan of Robotech, but there are some full-on loons in the fandom. We can't forget the guy who spent literally his last dollar on a trip to Anime Expo to pie Tommy in the face. Then there was a guy on the RDF HQ message board who was convinced that Tommy's portrayal of Vince Grant in the Shadow Chronicles was Tommy's way of getting back a the African-Americans who looted Korean owned stores during the LA Riots in the early 90's. And let's not forget the fan who was so obsessed that he BS'ed that he was a producer and worked so hard to land a job at Harmony Gold, that he could have been a real entertainment professional had he put in half the effort. Back when I had my old blog years ago, I got some whacky emails from people with long-winded theories about crap I didn't even understand. My only guess is that Robotech attracts the crazies because it's the type of story that one has to analyze and theorize about in order to make sense, since it was cobbled together from three unrelated sources and had a lot of holes in its stories. 99% of people would just shrug that kind of thing off and enjoy it, while the 1% of whackos would obsess about it. But to be honest, one of the reasons I was posting about Bendo and the whackiness that ensues for the past few days was because I know he reads this board and would probably do a show about it, which he records every Friday. So yeah, while I was offering an honest analysis, I was also trolling the troll. I'll knock it off now.

I think it's more self-denial than anything. He sounds pretty confident on his show that he actually has that amount of lessoners, but he probably doesn't want to think too hard about the fact that almost no one actually listens live, nor does he get a pouring in of emails. It's like a when someone suspects their spouse of cheating, but pretends everything is a-ok.

I think the fact that Bendo believed that Jason created the Robotech Alto print ad, with the sole purpose of converting Robotech fans into Macross fans so that he could win his imaginary war was proof enough. But Bendo is an all out nut, looking for any and every reason behind everything. For example: -When he asked me why I didn't blog about Robotech anymore, I told him that I gave it up because I'm too busy going out, meeting women, and having fun. He somehow morphed that and started to refer to me on his podcast as a mid-40's guy who has an alcohol problem who consistently date-rapes women. I'm being serious. Later, it was stated that I was attempting to get him to stand down from being the king of Robotech and that I was attempting regain my old glory, after telling him not to take this stuff too seriously. He saw me post on some message boards and created a scenario in his head. -When he asked Tom Bateman about the leaked Shadow Rising outline, Tom took the high road and didn't talk about it. Suddenly Tom and Jason were the one who wrote it and released it based solely on the fact that a) Tom never denied writing it (which he did) and b) It sounded too much like a Macross story, thus they wrote it. I think he did a two and a half hour show about it that. -And going back to the Alto ad - as soon as that got out there, Bendo did a podcast on it, and how Macross fans were secretly trying to infiltrate Robotech fans. Thinking it was the most f*cked up thing I had ever heard from him, I called Jason to laugh about it. Jason then said he'd mess with him by posting that he did it, but did it rather sarcastically. Bendo THEN did ANOTHER show about this, talking about how he was right, and how Jason's sarcasm was his way of fearing legal repercussions. These are just a few examples. Bendo doesn't have a whole lot going for him in life (I know, I've looked into it). This imaginary war between Macross and Robotech fans is all he really has. He has to bend and contort everything that he sees into something really, really serious to give it meaning - to basically give his real life some meaning. The fact that he really believes that he has 6,000 lessoners only intensifies his delusions. So to answer your question, yes. Bendo is the king of conspiracies. And yes, he is a fan of Glenn Beck.

Don't you see it? There's a conspiracy here. You actually went to Japan and brought Robotech items over there, telling everyone there that they were actually Macross items from the US, in hopes of making the Macross fandom even bigger over there. You then photoshopped the Robotech ad with Alto, gave it to Jason who flew to Canada to display it up at FanExpo, in the hopes of converting recently emigrated Japanese-Canadians to Macross, since that's all they'll have known because of you. Why you won't go on his show to admit that is beyond me.

I'm listening to this right now - it's mind-blowing how far the conspiracies have gone in his head. When I heard the first podcast stating his conspiracy theory, I thought it was far-fetched even for him. But by fanning the flame like you did, it's like he's reached the tipping point of sanity. He honestly believes your backpeddling was out of fear of legal repercussions. Btw, it's a 45 minute podcast, and it took 33 minutes to get to the point. There's plenty of homoerotic references as usual.

This is one Youtube video from one person, not an entire continent. Everything's been fansubbed in Spanish, and South American Robotech fans can get extremely hardcore, so I'm sure they're well aware of the differences.

They weren't even hired by A&E probably - they're a small time operation in Canada who's more than likely just repackaging A&E's DVDs, and is so disconnected from HG that that they probably gave no thought to it. Then again, it could very well be an attempt by Macross purists as as clever ruse to recruit new Robotech fans to join the Macross cause. I mean, when people see this poster, especially new fans, they’re going to get really interested in seeing the series. They’re going to watch all 85 episodes, and they’ll be looking for Alto, which they’ll never find. Once they realize that Alto is in Macross and not Robotech, they’ll all head to Macross instead, thus be tricked into watching Macross rather than Robotech. I think it's time someone fessed up.

I agree. As someone who knows this business, someone dun goofed and if they cyber police can backtrace it back to Jason, consequences will never be the same.

It's practically obsessive compulsive at this point that he'd make references on Robotech.com to this day on a single post I made back in 2005, all to a group of people who have absolutely no idea what the hell he's talking about. And as far as my old blog (for those unaware, Kevin took the domain name of my blog a couple of years after I shut it down), it's entirely inconsequential when you look at the traffic stats. Here's what I pulled a little while back: Kevin as the webmaster - 11/9/10 - 7/18/11 *26 Visits *17 Absolute Unique Visitors *77 Pageviews *2.96 Average Pageviews *00:02:42 Time on Site *57.69% Bounce Rate *19.23% New Visits Me as the webmaster 7/1/06 - 3/9/07 *108,986 Visits *20,997 Absolute Unique Visitors *200,866 Pageviews *1.84 Average Pageviews *00:01:26 Time on Site *47.50% Bounce Rate *18.61% New Visits Funny that Google Analytics still gives me access to the stats.

They'll just probably tell them to pull all of these ads ASAP, possibly with a cease & desist. This obviously didn't get run past anyone and HG could probably use this example to demand final approval for all of their future print ads. Normally, a distributor might might scoff and think "We have a crapload of titles to promote, you're just a small production company pushing a 26 year old product," but in this case HG could say "Yeah, and you're violating international copyright law" I've been critical of HG's marketing efforts for years, but even they wouldn't have put out a hack-job like this. First, it's not a "all-new Remastered version," it's the same remastered version they've had for years. Second, there's no copyright symbol next to the Robotech logo. Third, the redundancy of "Robotech: The First Robotech War, Robotech: The Second Robotech War.. etc" is just horrible copy.

This is what happens when graphic designers rely on a Google Image search. I can see panic button being hit at the Harmony Gold HQ as soon as this got out.

I used Sony Vegas 11. It's pretty intuitive. The handheld-camera effect was one of the add-ons that came free when I bought the retail version.

Thanks, in case anyone's wondering the process (and if you're not, don't read! ) -Shoot of the street with a tripod -Shoot the Valkyrie in front of a green screen (piece of cardboard), recording it's movements frame by frame with a digital camera -Lay the frames of the Valkyrie into the editing software to animate it. -Use an image stabilizing filter on the animated clip (they do tend to move a little frame to frame) -Superimpose the animated Valkyrie onto the shot of the street (Valkyrie will be in front of the buildings), make another clip of that. -Take a frame grab from that clip, and Photoshop a green "matte" covering everything you want the Valkyrie to stand behind (buidlings, road, etc,). Insert the matte over make a new clip of that. -From THAT clip, superimpose it over the original shot of the street from the first step. Now the Valkyrie is animated behind the building. -Find an animated explosion on Youtube, superimpose that onto the clip. Use a wipe effect to create a crude laser and add sound effects. Make clip. -Take that clip, add the handheld camera filter and zoom in and out. Make another clip from that. -Photoshop the old videocamera graphic, filter the video to look like television, Make the final clip from that. -????? -Profit!

So, when Tommy first announced it last year, he said "this time next year," but now it won't come out until a year and half later? Considering Shadow Chronicles was supposed to be out in 2004 but ended up coming out in 2007, that's a vast improvement, I guess...

Just thought I'd share... I was creating a test for practical effects and decided to use a Valkyrie, which makes this technically Macross-relevant. Enjoy...

That's funny, but I present to you the real fate of Rick Hunter

I would say that the reasoning behind the buildup to Admiral Hunter was the same reason Dana was Max and Miriya's daughter in Southern Cross. There had to be a connection in order to connect the three series. That said, when Shadow Chronicles decided to have Rick Hunter show up only to be drop off of the face of the earth, that's a trap that a lot of producer's fall into these days, and what seemed to happen back in the 1980's. When a TV show is low-rated and it looks like it's going to get cancelled, producers and writers throw in a cliffhanger because they think it'll get the show renewed for another season (after all, artistically, why would you want to leave a story not finished?) But the truth is that $$$ speak over everything, and if it doesn't make economical sense to continue the story, it won't get made. So, rather than a complete story that generations of fans can enjoy later on, you get a half-told story that makes people think "eh, why would I want to watch that again when I it doesn't have a real ending?"

Well, speaking of Tony Oliver, I have this nice piece of evidence that shows the original voice actors on Robotech had a little fun with their jobs by adding a little extra dialogue. First, watch this Macross clip for about, oh, 20 seconds. (yes, you have to sit through the ad) Next, LISTEN, and don't watch to this exact same scene in Robotech. (again, another ad) You sick puppies

In this day and age of Google image searches, lazy/underpaid designers will often just type what they need just copy the prettiest image they have into Photoshop. If you look at the streaming site Jaman, they use a picture of Macross 7 in place of Macross II on their thumbnail http://www.jaman.com/search/?query=macross

Techincally, fansubs are full-on piracy. Even going as far to buying a ticket to Japan for the sole purpose of buying the Macross DVD's and bringing them back is a gray area. I once read the laws on piracy, and it was ridiculously vague, saying things like you can't bring a DVD into a country if it hasn't been released there, but is intended to be. So, all of those UK DVD's I buy from Amazon's UK site are technically illegal (but often cheater than their US counterparts). It's all just legal crap written to cover people's asses

In my blog days, I used to hear things I would say addressed directly at conventions. They'd say things like "Fans on the internet have been saying..." and it was something only I was saying. Then there were times a fan would ask a question at convention and the answer would be something I said almost verbatim in a forum or on my blog. And while I can be an egotist, this was also confirmed to me by other people who would say "isn't that what you said last week on the forums?" But yes, they focus VERY heavily on what people in the forums are saying, and they spend a lot of time patrolling them.

A part of me understands the delays on all of their products, but you have to wonder why exactly they continue to go to convention after convention hyping stuff that's still in development. They been doing it for what, 9 years now? I read about the Voltron panel this year at Comic-Con, and it was their FIRST. Voltron's had just about as much in development over the last few years as Robotech (more or less), but a lot of it has either fallen through or is still in development, just like Robotech. The difference was, while you did hear of their new stuff from time to time, they didn't hype it up as "this will happen at this time" because they were never sure themselves. It'd be nicer for a Robotech fan to actually not know of all of the things in development and just get a nice surprise here and there. But going convention after convention, there's only so much you can say and you then have to hype up anything and everything that's crossed your desk. Making a re-release of the DVD sets a "big" announcement is the perfect example of that. I'm willing to bet that more than 50% of that audience at Comic-Con was unaware that there wasn't a current company releasing the DVD's.

Don't you know that this stuff is IMPORTANT?? You can't just make a hobby out of something like a.... cartoon! It has to be political, backstabbing and full of all sorts of drama!!! Otherwise, you're just not doing it right. Each message board as to be on a side of a battle, and everyone posting there has to be on one side or other of that message board's side. And every post has explain your side, if not, it will default that side. I'm joking.

If you owned a company that had a Robotech license, why on earth would invest in anything that would be projected to lose money? HG is/was certainly in no place to force a licensee to say "you can make these Macross & New Gen products, as long as you make these Southern Cross products, as well."