Seto Kaiba
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As if... it'd be generous indeed to even suggest that Maverick_LSC and MEMO1DOMINION's desperate delusions about Warner's plans for a Robotech live action movie had even the most tenuous basis in reality. All that garbage about how Paramount must be quaking in their collective boots and that they rushed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen out for fear of having to compete with the Robotech live action movie is just that... garbage. If Paramount ever actually saw the crap they're saying, they'd laugh themselves sick! Sure thing... I can take a stab at it. I wouldn't recommend even talking to MEMO if you can help it, any debate would be you having a battle of wits with an unarmed man, and that's just not fair. Y'see, for some reason MEMO doesn't understand that copyrights are respected worldwide under international laws and treaties, which leads him to take something Alan Letz said about the early rounds of the legal tiff between Big West and Tatsunoko having essentially no bearing on Harmony Gold's Robotech franchise and their licensed rights to the original Macross series. MEMO is "creatively misinterpreting" Mr. Letz's factual statement to mean that the disputed copyrights on the Macross source material were somehow only valid in Japan, and that Harmony Gold had somehow copyrighted those designs in the Americas. As you can tell, that's an idea with more holes than a colander. He also appears to be claiming that it was Tatsunoko who sponsored the show during its development, that it was Studio Nue who contracted with Tatsunoko to make the series, and that as such Tatsunoko is owner and author of the original Macross series and everything it contains. This, of course, is patently untrue as even a glance at Wikipedia could tell you... it was Big West who picked the series up after its original sponsor (Wiz) went under, bankrolled it, and contracted with Tatsunoko AFTER production of the series had already started, which is why Big West is the owner of the Macross franchise as a whole. He's also making a false claim that nobody knows any details of the contracts between Big West and Tatsunoko, or Tatsunoko and Harmony Gold, and that the substance of his previous claims are the reasons why Tatsunoko has the distribution rights to the SDF Macross series outside of Japan and Big West doesn't. The whole thing is complete crap, and just goes to prove that ignorant short-bus seatwarmers that robotech.com made moderators have never, EVER known what they're talking about.
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Yup! By the look of things, it didn't take Maguire Entertainment long to figure out that Robotech is a property with extremely limited niche appeal and put the project on the back burner in favor of films with broader appeal and better prospects. I doubt it... I'm more inclined to suspect that Warner Bros bought the live-action Robotech movie rights just to keep them out of Paramount's hands.
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's just the facts of life... Mass Effect is a competently-managed property and Robotech is not. I'd hazard a guess that it's probably not helping that the continuation of Robotech's animated series is on indefinite hold pending progress on a live-action movie that's been stuck in development hell since it was announced because its producer keeps finding better things to do (like four other movies, at last count).
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I haven't exactly been keeping up with it (since my copies haven't arrived yet and the blasted plugin doesn't like my system's security setup), but I would imagine the YF-25 probably isn't participating in the race... they also mention military-service Valkyries and NUN Spacy special forces in the descriptions for other fighters (VF-19EF), so I would assume that the YF-25 is probably filling the role it's been described in in the past... that of a test machine-turned-EX-Gear training plane. At the very least, according to the timeline the YF-25 ought to have had its first flight the year before.
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I believe it's on his character sheet... to be honest, I haven't translated the blasted thing myself since I too have been focusing on the mechanical and technology sheets rather than character sheets, but when I fielded this exact same question a couple pages ago with the information from 2059:Memories, Gubaba helpfully chimed in with that tidbit.
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Macross Chronicle says he's part-Zentradi with some Zolan ancestry as well.
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Almost certainly not... at least, the majority of Robotech fans aren't likely to notice or care that there are no new New Generation toys coming out this year. I'm sure there will be some pissing and moaning among those fans who are deep enough in denial to believe that the Masters Saga and New Generation actually matter to Robotech.
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Eh... I'm definitely with Jasonc on this one, why isn't there a third option for those of us who'd find either option acutely unpleasant? It's the same pathetic low-budget "Yuney Tunes" faux-anime either way, so you're not really even offering us a choice here. All we get to choose in this poll is whether we want an embarrassingly bad Mospeada knockoff to be set before or after the series. What about an option for those of us who don't want to see another B-movie quality Robotech sequel with all the originality of Space Gundam V? Where's the option to take Robotech out behind the shed and finish it off, Old Yeller-style, so it can finally be safe from the depredations of Tommy Yune while it finishes its long slide into oblivion?
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's just par for the course. By their usual standards for technology-related Robotech news, this is actually pretty big. Time was they'd make a huge fuss every time robotech.com's ancient server started to bog down and Steve had to call the tech support guy to have it band-aided back into operation, and that was practically a biweekly occurrence. When they finally knuckled down and replaced that damn thing after like four years of problems, it was front-page news and easily the biggest news item for Robotech that year (2005).
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IMHO, that's probably just an aesthetic touch included to make the pack more streamlined, and probably doesn't serve any useful purpose beyond looking cool in action. Nah, the Valkyrie II's attack bits are too large to physically attach to the fighter... each one is roughly the size of the fighter's cockpit block, and they're deployed with it in groups of five. In the very first episode of Macross II, we see that the attack bits are launched from the carrier a second or two after the fighter, and just catch up to it and take up station around it in flight. Presumably they get "assigned" to a fighter before launch, and link up with it after launch as shown in the series. Almost certainly an idea inspired by Gundam... given that both of Macross II's lead mechanical designers had previously worked on Gundam shows, and certainly took some stylistic pointers from their past experience with Gundam when making Macross II and its prequels. In a couple of places, they even indulged in some fairly blatant references to the original Mobile Suit Gundam series and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Kazumi Fujita had previously worked on Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ, and Koichi Ohata worked on the mechanical designs for Char's Counterattack.
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Jack squat, to be precise... at least, since a lack of news and blatant jackassery from the idiot brigade on robotech.com is hardly a new development. Granted, the Macross fandom enjoys a wide variety of ways to get around Harmony Gold's attempts to keep Macross out of the west, though it still hacks off those of us who'd like to see proper English-language releases of these books and magazines for everyone to enjoy instead of just those of us who can read Japanese.
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Exactly, and I don't imagine repairing/maintaining the Super Armed Pack is all that hectic since it's basically just verniers, fuel tanks, weaponry, and a communications pod. It doesn't have any big booster engine systems in it.
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No problem. Ah, yes... but still comparatively downtuned from their application in the VF-19 (661.95kN vs 774.24kN), apparently because the VF-171 wasn't designed for the extremes of performance that made the VF-19 and VF-22 such problematic aircraft. Yeah, I do seem to pop up when my name is mentioned, like some kind of extremely Macross-themed take on Beetlejuice. Yup, pretty much... but there are indications in B-Club v.79 and elsewhere that the Valkyrie II can carry its medium-scale railgun on occasions when it's not equipping the Super Armed Pack. The thing to remember is that the VF-2SS is a dedicated space valkyrie, and its Super Armed Packs are essentially permanent equipment rather than optional gear for special missions. The VF-2SS isn't going to be sent into combat without it, because it further enhances the already space-optimized Valkyrie II's performance in space, and it packs a lot more firepower into a much smaller package than equipping the plane with a set of conventional and disposable super parts would. Short answer... for easy maintenance, since keeping the externally-mounted hardware modular means it's that much easier to get the stuff off of and onto the airframe when you're performing maintenance and repairs. Mind you, there's no indication that the SAP system can be ejected in the field the way conventional super parts are in Macross's main continuity. The main Macross continuity's VF-11 is a product of a different design philosophy altogether, being that it's an all-regime plane with an apparent focus on atmospheric performance. Its laser is essentially useless unless the enemy is behind it, and it doesn't have any forward-facing beam weapons like its contemporaries do, so its ONLY offensive option is its gun pod in that case, and that can run out of ammo fairly swiftly. DEFINITELY not the auto-attack bits... those are about as big as the Valkyrie II's cockpit block, so there's no way they're going to fit into its right forearm pack. Exactly what's done with the storage compartment in the right forearm pack is unclear. IMO, the pack is probably either left empty to counterbalance the mass of the enormous railgun barrel above it, or stores a second medium railgun, since carrying two gun pods isn't exactly unheard-of in Macross II.
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Exactly. Continuing to belabor the point will only make them feel gratified when they finally drop the banhammer on you for "heresy", so the best thing you can do is to rob them of their fun by refusing to rise to their bait. Robotech isn't worth it, and it never will be. Shameless plug is shameless. Because the truth hurts, and Steve and Tommy's feelings are particularly delicate. Robotech's creative process being what it is, it's the only way they have to feel like they're in charge and in the right. Kinda hard to take pride in being a leech, subsisting for decades by clinging to the coattails of Macross's creators.
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Really, how do you talk about the general lack of news about new Robotech productions and how pointless it is to make all of the promotional materials convention-exclusive without involving McKeever and his inevitably childish and unprofessional behavior. I honestly don't see how it can be done, since he's the mook in charge of marketing for Robotech. I'm not sure whether I should admire your optimism or pity you for your naivete here dude... you ought to know from long experience that there was no way you were going to get anything like a rational and mature discussion of the issue from those people. It's just not how they do things, and it hasn't been for a very long time. For McKeever, it's easier by far to pretend that the fans who are vocal about their concerns and complaints are just troublemakers trying to troll a perfect system. Honestly though, I don't think McKeever would be sharp enough to know that badmouthing people in person is a bad idea... sure, he's an internet tough guy who likes his ability to smite anyone who disagrees with his views, but he's not that quick on the uptake either. In the end, you're really better off taking your disposable income and your business elsewhere. From what I've heard, MEMO's perfectly literate in person... he just types like a loon because he's lazy. I admit, I still have trouble believing it, but I kinda have to take people who've met him at their word on this one. I would if I were you. There's nothing to be gained by continuing this farce with MEMO and McKeever, except that they might feel they won a bigger victory if you made more of a fuss beforehand. Better to just ignore them and let them enjoy the Robotech franchise's slow slide into oblivion together.
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Hm... I'll second that emotion. If they're not the worst fandom ever, they're certainly in the running for it. He's probably still bitter about being banned from here years ago. Welcome to the club... I'm amazed you even bothered to try a reasoned appeal. Harmony Gold isn't exactly known for listening to its fans.
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I'd wager a fair bit of the disparity there is the plot armor that Gamlin and company brought with them when they boarded the VF-17's, since the VF-171 spends most of the series as the exclusive domain of the unnamed grunts who don't enjoy protection-by-plot. Tossing them an upgrade and a named character pilot improves their lot in the series considerably. Uh... well, I don't believe the VF-171 uses the "Stage II" reaction engines, it's using a normal pair of FF-2110's rated at 45,469kgf to the VF-17's 55,000kgf FF-2100's, though it seems that the disparity is more downtuning than an actual reduction in design limits, since that'd reduce wear on the engine and reduce the maintenance costs needed to keep it in service. Exactly how the "Stage II" reaction engines used on the YF-24/VF-25/VF-27 differ from the reaction engines used by other planes, I honestly have no idea. Given some of the attributes ascribed to the planes that use them, I can only assume they provide greater thrust and better power generation characteristics, since the above-mentioned VFs all have enormous thrust-to-weight ratios and can even operate their energy converting armor (and in the VF-27's case, its pinpoint barrier) in fighter mode in a limited fashion.
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Well, right off the bat I'd say the VF-171 does qualify as an improvement on the VF-17 by being a plane that even average pilots can operate well in multiple roles. Being easier to manufacture and less expensive to produce and maintain is an improvement too, if you're looking at it from an operating costs perspective. It's also mentioned that the VF-171 had improvements made to its canopy field-of-view, aerodynamics, maneuverability, avionics, and operational versatility without sacrificing the payload capabilities or the durability of the original VF-17. The production model in service at the end of the 2050s is explicitly described as surpassing the original VF-17... Admittedly, there's something to be said for that, since the VF-171 isn't especially high-performance... at least, not compared to the VF-19, VF-22, and YF-24 derivatives. Based on the "VF Evolutionary Theory" piece in Great Mechanics.DX 9, it would appear that the VF-171 was adopted in part because the UNS/NUNS didn't see the need for a super high-performance fighter until the Vajra threat materialized, and that the YF-24 and its derivatives were pushed ahead because of the (apparently justifiable) fear that the combat performance of the Vajra would exceed even that of the VF-19. So, on balance, it's not so much that the Nightmare Plus is an under-capable plane as it is that excessively high-performance VFs are necessary to match the capabilities of the Vajra. Given what's said about the VF-171 in Chronicle and elsewhere, I'd expect a 2059-model VF-171's performance to exceed that of the original VF-17 in at least some respects... not in acceleration or top speed though, given that the VF-17 is lighter and has marginally more powerful engines.
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Oh, granted... there's something deeply wrong with the Robotech fans who are willing to defend a corporate toady who abuses and insults them on a regular basis, but I'd expect nothing less from the Robotech die-hards. After all, the minute magna_mozz69 said Robotech would need the support of the casual fans and Macross fans to thrive, it was pretty much inevitable that the fanatics would be coming out of the woodwork to decry it as madness and heresy. The fanatics see themselves as Robotech's "one true fandom", and would naturally resent the idea that their support isn't enough for Robotech to be successful. Defending McKeever is more like collateral damage from the process of defending Robotech from the idea that it's not doing as well as Harmony Gold claims it is.
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Hm... well, I can't speak to why they shot it down, but I do remember Tommy mentioning that Harmony Gold had tried to sit down with Big West and hammer out some kind of licensing agreement, and that Big West politely but firmly declined. When it happened, they didn't say, but since they were apparently involved I'm going to guess sometime in the early 00's.
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Macross Official Setting and the Expanded Universe
Seto Kaiba replied to sketchley's topic in Movies and TV Series
But taking this as an absolute directive runs into a fairly glaring problem... specifically, that what Kawamori says about continuity and what he does with it don't line up. The idea that all Macross productions and media are just dramatic interpretations of history fails to hold water when Kawamori-san starts defining certain titles as belonging to "parallel world" continuities, helps pen an official series chronology that links many Macross titles together into a single timeline, or attaches his name to a publication that explicitly states its level of canonicity, etc. The soft details are interesting too, but they don't mean much if you don't have at least a reasonably clear idea of their context, and regardless of his statements about "dramatic interpretations", Kawamori hasn't exactly been a slouch about offering details of continuity. -
I'd agree with you that the legs on the VF-171 Nightmare Plus look a little too slim to accommodate the GU-14B or MC-17C gun pods internally the way the VF-17 Nightmare did. Still, since the VF-171 is a background mecha that doesn't get oodles of screen time, we don't really get a chance to see them using the gun pod in battle more than once or twice prior to the EX upgrade. The stats do say it keeps its gun pod inside the leg, and IIRC the only one we see with a ventrally-mounted gun pod is Alto's VF-171 with the extra armor mounted on the legs (and presumably obscuring the gun pod's loading door).
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Pretty much, yeah... as jasonc said, they don't really have any logical grounds for thinking that's the case, it's just that they're casting about for any excuse they can find to pretend that Robotech still matters. Robotech's die-hard fans aren't exactly known for their logical thought processes. You're right, Robotech's very nature prevents the Legion of Dim at Harmony Gold from distributing it in Japan, so as a result it's a virtual nonentity over there. Some of the Wikipedia articles for Macross mention Robotech, but for the most part Japanese Macross fans don't seem to know what Robotech is. I once tried to explain Robotech to a friend of mine from Japan who was familiar with Macross, and her response was one of bewildered disbelief that anyone would intentionally combine three totally unrelated shows for purposes other than fan-fiction. So, never then? Really, Robotech has precious little that it can call its own. Quite a bit of it is either taken whole cloth from the originals, or "inspired" by whatever shows its creative director happened to be watching at the time.
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Oh, it is... and it wasn't just the fans making absurd claims about Macross imitating Robotech as "proof" that Robotech is relevant and popular. Carl Macek himself fielded an obviously bullsh*t claim that Macross's sequels were all influenced more by Robotech than by the rest of Macross, and that in particular they were de-emphasizing the musical aspect of the franchise to be more like the Robotech series. It just underlines how arrogant and ignorant Macek and Harmony Gold were (and still are) when you notice that when he made those comments the most recent Macross sequels out there were Macross 7 and Macross Dynamite 7.... neither of which is exactly putting less emphasis on the music. Some of the more obtuse Robotech fans have continued making comments in that vein, mostly about Macross Frontier supposedly trying to ape the visual stylings of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles with CG planes, the glowing missile exhaust, and hundreds of other things that're downright ubiquitous these days. As you say, they're just grasping in the dark to make Robotech appear to be exactly the kind of industry-leading masterpiece they've spent 20+ years pretending it is. Heh... so, they're treading old ground again. I'd complain, but that's the status quo for Robotech. Yeah, Soruji (Sera) was only made into a humanoid about halfway through Mospeada/New Gen, so she wouldn't be present in those events. I can only assume that this is being told as a flashback, with Lancer narrating his exploits to a version of Sera who looks like a pencil that's been stuck through two grapes.
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No, it doesn't seem to have one. I've certainly never seen one mentioned in connection with it, or its reaction engine-equipped mass production version (SV-52) either. Macross the Ride gives a name to the heavily customized SV-52γ flown by the Vistula & Oder race team in 2058, which is Oryol (lit. Орёл, the Russian word for "Eagle"), but that may or may not apply to the production model SV-52 of the late 00's. I'm no expert on the Russian military, but from what I've read they don't seem too keen on giving colorful names to their combat aircraft. So, the lack of a nickname fits, given that the SV-51/52 was developed in part by Sukhoi (also IAI and Dorneir).