Seto Kaiba

Nah, a big outfit like Sony Pictures has a veritable battalion of top-flight attorneys specializing in contract and IP law. If Sony Pictures didn't know what it was buying because Harmony Gold misrepresented things, the story we'd be reading wouldn't be "Harmony Gold bends the knee to Big West". It would be "Sony Pictures sues Harmony Gold into oblivion for contract fraud". Where the disconnect between the news that Sony, like WB before them, acquired a Robotech movie license is the misguided belief that studios only buy the rights to properties when they're absolutely going to use those rights to make a movie. Which isn't the case, obviously. Most of the licenses these studios acquire never see the light of day and expire without the studio taking any kind of action at all. Often, rights to related properties get snapped up if a rival studio has success with a particular story... and that's what got Robotech picked up. It's a product of Paramount's success with Transformers, not any actual belief that Robotech is viable. Sony would, I'm sure, be much happier with the prospects of a live-action Macross movie in partnership with Big West than a Robotech movie given the massive difference in the level of brand awareness between the two... but I doubt they'd be particularly confident even in Macross because of how poorly anime adaptations do in general. Even beloved titles which were cultural icons in the 90's like Ghost in the Shell failed to break even. Basically, Sony might see Macross as worth taking a risk on but I don't think they'd find the kind of massive budget they'd need to do the job right. Robotech, on the other hand, well... let's just say it's not an accident this movie proposal has been kicking around for 14 years without even a single iota of forward movement.

Big West tossed the idea around back in the mid-90's in cooperation with Galaxy Films, but nothing ever came of it except a rough script. IMO, it'd be f*cking hilarious if Big West hijacked Harmony Gold's live action Robotech movie proposal and got Sony to make a Macross movie instead.

So I'm a Spider, So What? is back after a brief hiatus. The story's finally at the point where Things Actually Happen, so I'm keen to see if it becomes less of a slog. My Hero Academia's fifth season has started airing. Endeavour's finally getting some character development after becoming the No.1 Hero and getting b*tchslapped around by a high spec Nomu. Quite excited for the return of Zombie Land Saga in its seconds season, titled Zombie Land Saga Revenge. The first season was excellent, so I have very high hopes for this one. Bleh-tier isekai continues to be shoveled into the release schedule. How Not To Summon a Demon Lord Omega and I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level both just started airing. Still fumbling my way though Ben-to. If this show had an actual plot to connect to I get the feeling I'd be a lot more interest in it, but if there is one it's so well hidden that it feels like everything in the five episodes I've seen so far is just random unconnected events.

We all know already.

Or, really, Star Trek as a whole. I have no idea why Kurtzman et. al. are so determined to make Gene Roddenberry's optimistic spacefuture into yet another Star Wars-y dystopian space hellscape. It just doesn't work. It doesn't let these new shows hit any of the sweet spots that make Star Trek enjoyable. If we wanted to watch poorly-constructed misery porn all we'd have to do is turn on any network news broadcast... and we don't even have to pay for those. IMO, even with Picard in it, it would've been harmless crap or potentially even almost watchable if Patrick Stewart were actually in character at any point. The Jean-Luc Picard we know and love is the man who repeatedly stood up to the Starfleet brass on sentient rights issues, who stood by his principles to the bitter end every time they were challenged, and who wasn't at all afraid to say "Screw the rules, we're doing what's right". I don't know who this other character Patrick Stewart is playing in Star Trek: Picard is... but it's not Jean-Luc. It's some sniveling Pakled doing a very poor Jean-Luc Picard impersonation.

If anything, that's putting it rather mildly. Practically every piece of news about the proposed Robotech live-action movie has turned out to be massively exaggerated or entirely fake. Over the years, Harmony Gold has claimed that Lawrence Kasdan1, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar2, and Tom Rob Smith3 were attached to write the film. None of them are. They'd only written story treatments for a modest (and we're talking "a few grand" modest) fee and had no idea their names were being used to promote the project. Every director who's been allegedly tapped to direct it - Sylvain White4, Nic Mathieu5, James Wan6, and Andy Muschietti7 - turned out to have only been "approached" about the film informally and did not make any commitment to it as they'd already been signed by other, bigger-name productions. The closest any of them got to actually saying anything about it was when Andy Muschietti said the film was going to be extremely difficult to get funded because of Robotech's lack of popularity and the need for an excessively high budget to do it justice. 1. Most famous for writing Star Wars: the Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. 2. Most famous for co-creating the long-running DC Superman TV series Smallville. 3. A small-time, incredibly niche author whose bizarrely specialized practice consists almost exclusively of writing murder mysteries set in Stalinist Russia. 4. Best known for Stomp the Yard and I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. 5. A virgin director who'd only done TV commercials. 6. Best known for Saw, The Conjuring, and the 2018 Aquaman film. 7. Best known for Stephen King's It.

Personally, I think you've got your character sheets backwards my good chap. The lifelong and die-hard Trekkies are the ones I've seen most dissatisfied with Star Trek's current direction. They're the ones who walked away en masse when Star Trek: Discovery's first season laid a massive egg and who CBS was trying to entice to come back with the promise of Christopher Pike, Number One, and Spock in season two. Star Trek: Picard was a further unsuccessful attempt to drag those fans back which met with further ridicule. Now Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is ViacomCBS's latest try at standing on the fanbase's lawn with a boombox blaring "Baby Come Back". Y'know, using the word "millennial" makes almost any argument that much harder to take seriously. Just saying. It's weird, but there's a strong statistical correlation between the people who complain about millennials and blissful unawareness of the actual problem. Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are shows very definitely crafted around the wants and needs of the memetic and strictly-imaginary "millennial" viewer. You know the type I mean. You can almost see the writer's room is full of doddering old executives and painfully out-of-touch Hollywood writers asking themselves "What do the youth like?", with an incredibly unrealistic and jaundiced eye view developed mainly from the most ridiculous trending Twitter topics like "is it sexist to only drink milk from female cows?". They developed Discovery and Picard for an audience that flat-out doesn't exist. Not for Star Trek fans, or even casual Star Trek viewers. The only one that's really developed with Trek fans in mind is Lower Decks. Not quite how the showrunners explained it... not that their explanation was any better. As they had it, Picard was a "privileged white male" who had to be "humbled" to really be an ally to minorities... even though it's a plot point in the show itself that he sacrificed his whole Starfleet career, his life and livelihood, to help the Romulans. Kind of an insult to literally everything the man did in-universe in his Starfleet career, but whatever. Yeah, probably. But they needed Picard to try and draw the Star Trek fans back to watch the adventures of the show's pretense of aracially and sexually-diverse new cast who were quickly revealed to be built on an assortment of shallow racist tropes from the 60's that make the show almost as cringeworthy as "Code of Honor".

Robotech routinely tries to present re-releases of decades-old material as "new"... and markets their releases of decades-old material as "never before seen" like putting the cut footage back in Robotech Remastered or the MOSPEADA: Love Live Alive OVA. Mind you, that's not the point. The point is that Big West has Harmony Gold's Robotech franchise by the bollocks thanks to those trademarks, so what little Harmony Gold can bring to market RIGHT NOW (the Robotech TV series and its mostly-Macross merchandise line) is under Big West's thumb. They signed away their future freedom to be allowed to keep doing business in the here and now. I doubt it. Robotech is extremely obscure everywhere except South America, and most of the people who are aware it exists have little if nothing nice to say about it. That's been the case since the nineties, when even advertisements for Macross II got on the bandwagon of "Robotech is old and busted, Macross is the new hotness". I'd expect, if they can get Big West's consent, the live action movie would be rebranded Macross worldwide.

I believe Big West owns the songs themselves but it's all exclusively distributed through Victor's FlyingDog. As a direct consequence? No. Indirectly? Yes, it very well could. I'm not sure if it's on Spotify to ask for the rights to expand the music's distribution or on Big West and FlyingDog to make it clear it's available now. Yeah, but if there's a small manufacturer that has comeuppance coming it's certainly that one. So, all in all, Big West can freely use anything from any Macross story in new motion picture works (TV, movie, etc.) because they own the copyrights. They don't have to worry about HG's trademark claims in any key markets except the US now that they've effectively overturned HG's trademarks everywhere else that matters. Now that HG is onboard, there are no real obstacles. HG just gets a little piece of the action in exchange for rubber-stamping whatever Big West wants to distribute in the US. Mostly... Harmony Gold actually began applying for trademarks in some areas around the same time they began sending cease and desists to import toy dealers. Their UK filing was made in 1999, two years before their US filing. TBH, I'm not sure the coronavirus thing had any significant role to play in it from Big West's end since Japan wasn't hit nearly as hard (thanks to its culturally-ingrained tendency to wear masks when ill or potentially ill). Harmony Gold probably also wasn't too heavily impacted by it because their audience is tiny and they have nothing going for them outside of print-on-demand home video and streaming. Nothing of theirs required leaving the house. Harmony Gold has never made original Robotech works featuring elements from Macross for copyright reasons, and won't do so in the future either. The reason Harmony Gold had no choice but to partner with Big West is that Big West now owns the trademarks on the Macross name, logos, key art, etc. in markets outside of the United States. Harmony Gold used to own those trademarks themselves, and had used them to prevent Macross's sequels from being distributed outside of Japan. Armed with the trademarks they successfully overturned and took possession of over the last four years, Big West has the legal power to block distribution of the Robotech TV series from most international markets via its "Macross Saga" and to block distribution of the almost exclusively Macross-based Robotech merchandise lines in those markets. That's pretty much the entirety of Robotech's income cut off in one fell swoop. Harmony Gold was left with two options: Reach some kind of mutually acceptable accommodation with Big West. OR Let Robotech's slow decline continue to accelerate towards its terminal conclusion. And they chose Option 1. Nah, they'll just say Remix is non-canon like they did to almost all of the other comics.

It doesn't say that either. And the reason they have to cooperate? Big West owns a lot of the trademarks that used to belong to Harmony Gold, so HG now needs Big West's permission to use certain terms, logos, etc. in most key markets. So IF Harmony Gold ever makes anything Robotech again they'll be cooperating with Big West on distribution out of legal necessity.

Ah, that's a fair point. Western adaptations of anime have pretty uniformly been box office failures and tend to do comparatively worse in Asian markets. I've seen a number of analysis pieces pinning Ghost in the Shell and Alita: Battle Angel's respective failures to break even on lukewarm receptions in China. It's still a potentially-important agreement to reach, which could translate into millions of box office dollars even for a poor performer. Sony might. It's still only a proposal.

There was only so much that they could do with the show's budget and the sheer scale of the thing. It has a fair amount of surface detail in closeups, but from far away those details (realistically) become indistinct on an object as large as it is.

The implausibility of the movie ever being made aside, that would actually be a fairly important point for the hopes Harmony Gold pinned on the proposed film. Japan stands real tall at the box office. Like, outside the US, Japan is #2 behind China in terms of the yearly box office gross according to the Motion Picture Association's annual report. (For 2019. The 2020 numbers are... atypical... for the obvious reason.) When you consider that Big West potentially had the power to lock a Robotech movie out of Japan, China, and the EU? That's the top two non-US markets plus five of the remaining top 20 markets amounting to approximately 2/3 of the global box office earnings.

Have you, perchance, read the leaked plot outline for the remainder of Shadow Chronicles? I suspect you would not have enjoyed it. It did not inspire confidence. If you have not, but are interested, I can assist you in that regard. Depends how hard and fast they hit us. I think we've got at least half a year to sock cash away for Macross goodies while Big West and Harmony Gold sort out distributors and the like.

In the Robotech television series (the so-called "original 85") and in merchandise. Or, put simply, Harmony Gold still has the license to distribute the original SDF Macross series animation and make merchandise based on it.

No, I did not. As indicated previously, Harmony Gold has been very clear that the proposed Robotech live action movie is not an adaptation of the TV series. They have indicated it is planned to be a reimagining with a new original story, new original designs, and so on. Nothing in it is going to be derivative of the Japanese animation used in the Robotech TV series, per HG. It isn't, therefore, a derivative work of SDF Macross. The same is effectively true for the Robotech animated sequels. They can't, and therefore don't, use Macross designs in the new animation produced for them. They use legally-distinct replacement designs for the few returning characters, and generally refer to past events from the Macross Saga in generic terms or not at all. (e.g. why Maia Sterling is "half-alien" not "half-Zentradi") They are legally derivative works based on Southern Cross and MOSPEADA given their usage (with permission) of IP from those shows, but not of Macross because the projects don't use the Macross IP or base anything on it. (Comic books, video games, etc. are legally merchandise, rather than derivative works, so it's fair game there.) That's not correct either... for the reasons stated above.

So, the answer here is all down to what's legally considered to be a derivative work vs. what's legally considered to be merchandise. Because Super Dimension Fortress Macross is a TV series - a motion picture - creating another motion picture work like a TV series or movie based on it or its IP would be derivative work and therefore prohibited. By the same token, narrative media in a non-motion picture format like a novelization, comic book, or video game would be considered merchandise and therefore A-OK because HG has the merchandising rights under license. This distinction between what's derivative work vs. what's merchandise is the reason Harmony Gold can use the merchandising rights it licensed to adapt SDF Macross or its Robotech "Macross Saga" into comics, novels, etc. but had to redesign all of the Macross Saga characters for Robotech II: the Sentinels and Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles to avoid a copyright infringement suit for unauthorized use of those designs. What are you talking about? The official statement doesn't mention derivative works at all. It lays out only the following points: The agreement was signed 1 March 2021. Harmony Gold has agreed to get out of the way of Macross distribution worldwide. Big West will not stand in the way of distribution of a Robotech live action movie in Japan if one is made. Harmony Gold's license agreement with Tatsunoko Production, under which they hold the "rest of world" distribution and merchandising rights to SDF Macross excl. Japan is recognized as valid by all parties. Going forward, Big West and Harmony Gold will collaborate on distribution of future Macross and Robotech works. Harmony Gold has NEVER had the ability to make derivative works based on Super Dimension Fortress Macross's IP... because Tatsunoko doesn't have that ability, and all of Harmony Gold's rights were obtained from its licensing agreement with Tatsunoko Production. That's why Rick Hunter et. al. were redesigned for Sentinels, and again for Shadow Chronicles, and why pretty much all their sequel efforts are MOSPEADA-based. Even HG itself has been pretty clear on this. The Robotech live action movie is not a derivative work WRT Super Dimension Fortress Macross. It has always, from the moment it was announced back in 2007, been explicitly indicated to be a reimagining of the Robotech story that has no connection to the Robotech TV series.

I don't think Big West had any expectations on that front. Y'see, Big West gave the international distribution and merchandising rights for the original Macross TV series to Tatsunoko Production as compensation for the assistance Tatsunoko provided in funding production of the series. Tatsunoko then turned around and licensed those rights it'd obtained from Big West to Harmony Gold USA in '84. They didn't need to involve Big West in any way, because those rights belonged to Tatsunoko. Tatsunoko Production itself was likely originally operating under the assumption that Harmony Gold's plan was to dub the series into English under its original title. That was, after all, Harmony Gold's actual plan initially. They were a couple episodes into production of the dub when Revell forced a course change that led to Robotech as we know it. In theory, there would be nothing stopping Harmony Gold from breaking Robotech up and making it an artifact title for an anthology-type presentation... except the Robotech fanbase itself and the misguided hagiography whenever Carl Macek's name comes up. They've already done it to 90% of Robotech's material. What's 10% between friends? Harmony Gold's claim was only half of that... they mistakenly (or so they said after the fact) claimed that their license agreement with Tatsunoko granted them exclusive control of all things Macross outside of Japan. They walked that one back fairly quickly after Tatsunoko got wind of it and corrected them. That's what led to them going after the trademarks on the Macross name, logos, and key art as a way to support their effort to prevent their relaunch of Robotech from having to compete against Macross. That unfounded claim prompted a copyright review - not a dispute - between Big West and Tatsunoko in Japan's courts to make sure that everyone was clear on who owned what and why under the original contract between Big West and Tatsunoko from 1982. One of the major problems with talking about this is that so many people oversimplify things and give folks entirely the wrong idea about what happened. The only parties that have ever genuinely disputed the validity of Harmony Gold's license to the original show have been the folks Harmony Gold has sued for infringement like FASA, Catalyst Game Labs, etc. No, it really doesn't. The statement just says that the existing status quo that was already in place from the very beginning is still in place and that Harmony Gold's existing license is unaffected by this new distribution agreement. Harmony Gold still can't produce derivative works based on Super Dimension Fortress Macross. They can distribute the original animation, edit it for content, and make merch based on it to their heart's content but that's all.

The IP wasn't in dispute. Their IP problem was that Macross, the most popular third of Robotech, was unavailable for use in sequel development because its IP was owned by Big West not Tatsunoko and Tatsunoko therefore couldn't authorize them to use it the way they could stuff from Southern Cross or MOSPEADA. Not that being unable to base sequels on your franchise's most popular installment is any less discouraging to investors. But the biggest part of why they had to self-fund was that the Robotech franchise's track record was abysmal. Every attempt to develop a sequel failed, and several cost the investors significant sums in the process. The current situation doesn't really do anything to change Robotech's ugly history of failure... so I wouldn't count on them finding money to make anything new for it.

Business is business... but copyright infringement is copyright infringement, and all parties involved are pretty aggressive about protecting their rights. It's a just possibility, for now.

Only if Big West pressures Harmony Gold into revoking his license. Otherwise, I suspect they'll run out a few more for Harmony Gold under that license before running out of material.

What they don't have is money. After Shadow Chronicles flopped, Harmony Gold's senior management cut off funding for future Robotech animation development. Tommy Yune had promised them that his Shadow Chronicles OVA was going to be a huge hit that would make Robotech relevant or even mainstream in the anime industry, that it would bring in new fans in droves, and that it would attract investors who would finance all episodes after the first one. That, obviously, did not happen. Harmony Gold's management stuck to the terms they'd set and refused to fund any further development, leading to Shadow Chronicles episodes 2-4 being cancelled, and the only subsequent works being a dub of existing material and a Kickstarter campaign to fund development of a new series pilot. Now that Harmony Gold can make money on animation distribution without having to actually spend their own money to develop new material... you bet your backside they'll drop the non-performing Robotech property in a heartbeat.

Mainly because the official statement mentions it, both in the context of Robotech allegedly having a future and apparently Big West having a say in said future. And, of course, there are folks wondering about the implications... even though the most realistic and likely outcome is, as we've said, Harmony Gold dropping Robotech like a roadkill raccoon to focus on Macross distribution. Except for the MOSPEADA part, that's almost certainly the direction they're headed... and entirely voluntarily at that. Not Harmony Gold. They don't have the money, the talent pool, or the industry clout to pull that off... and they can't do it anyway because the IP is owned by Tatsunoko Production. Tatsunoko Production might take an interest if their Genesis Breaker project is well-received. Mind you, after seeing the quality (or lack thereof) in Tatsunoko's last attempt at mecha anime I would be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY afraid for MOSPEADA if they announced they were going to reboot it. I have neither forgiven nor forgotten the landfill-on-fire that was The Price of Smiles.

That's a fair summation of Macross Delta in general, IMO... in both the positive and negative senses. Questionable pacing, a story that's less serious and kind of threadbare-feeling, repetitive action, but a soundtrack full of absolute bangers.

Except for the "new title" part, that's what it was supposed to be from the outset... a complete departure from any previously existing material. An all-new story with all-new characters and designs, etc. etc. Essentially a completely separate story with the Robotech name hastily slapped onto it. Harmony Gold's plan was for that new, all-original Robotech movie to be a replacement for the failed Robotech animated series and be the new face of the franchise. WB or Sony would do all the work, and Harmony Gold would just sit back and collect the royalties. Which is, yes, why it hasn't been made. There's no advantage in it for WB or Sony to develop an original IP all on their own and then hand over royalties from it to some third party for the use of a name that the film is at-best tangentially related to. They could stick an original name on it and keep all the money for themselves.