Seto Kaiba
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Uh... since Macross tends to imitate the tri-service fighter designations, VF-4A-0 would be shorthand for "VF-4A Block 0", which fits neatly with its status as the trial production model. The VF-4A-0 is just a pre-mass production VF-4A. In all likelihood, the VF-4B, -C, and -D came from the same place as the VF-4S, given that the VF-4S is supposedly a derivative of the VF-4D, and we know the VF-4S is a valid variant twice over thanks to Macross: Eternal Love Song (DYRLverse) and Macross the Ride (main timeline).
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Seriously? The VF-4A's first appearance was in the Macross: Flashback 2012 OVA. AFAIK, the VF-4B, -C, and -D types fall into that same "mentioned, but never appears" category as the VF-1B. The Macross Chronicle mechanic sheet for the VF-4A alludes to the existence of the atmospheric variants by mentioning that the upper nacelle block with the beam guns can be removed, but I think it comes from an older source since I've found mention of them going back at least as far as 2005.
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Nah, the debate might've ended long ago... but this thread exists for two reasons: 1. Robotech might be dead as a series, but its fans say and do so many breathtakingly stupid things that commentary on it is virtually inevitable. This is a container for that so it doesn't leak out onto the rest of the boards. 2. Even now and then, a Robotech fan or someone who's listened to one and taken his "views" on the legal matter seriously comes here and has questions, which should be answered for their own good. Besides, the commentary is amusing.
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Yet, we've got some Robotech fans who are seriously insisting that Robotech needs an injection of racist, jingoistic, US protectionist mentality to make it more "realistic" by adding "modern references"... and what they mean by "modern references" is kinda terrifying in a way. They're suggesting that Robotech would be much improved by the addition of an evil communist empire in a similar vein to the Eastern Bloc Soviet Independent States faction that Palladium invented for the old RPG, but made up of the Chinese and Koreans.
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Hm... thanks for that, very informative! I guess that explains how they were able to produce the movie so cheaply, and still have a budget to hire Mark Hamill and the former Robotech cast to do the voice acting. True... and that's a rather apt comparison. I just wish someone would make a move on it already, and cut Harmony Gold's BS off at the source. Just the other day I was subjected to a copy of the Robotech role-playing game 2nd Ed. "Macross Saga sourcebook", and it provoked a mixture of facepalming and depression when I realized that there were people who were actually GLAD to get the book.
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Not actually an opening theme, mind you... but this is one of my favorites. Yoko Nagayama's "So Far Away in the Eye", the theme song of the Five Star Stories movie. I couldn't find anything for it except for the theatrical trailer, which has the blabbering narrator, so I found a fan-made video for it instead.
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Because, for all practical purposes, it's the only way to guarantee the revocation of Harmony Gold's licensed rights to the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series. Keith's suggestion for an amicable resolution to Harmony Gold's virtual embargo on everything Macross was to have Kawamori help them replace the disputed section of Robotech with something else that doesn't cause conflicts in exchange for the return of the distribution and merchandising rights, ending the "embargo" without the need for lawsuits and one side (Harmony Gold) getting completely screwed. After all, it's not like Tatsunoko can actually do anything with their rights to the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series. Their licensee, Harmony Gold USA, has done very little with the license apart from letting it languish behind the Robotech name or just going off the deep end and using it to start a costly legal battle between Tatsunoko and their former business partners (Big West). Since their licensee is a do-nothing nitwit and the law says they can't make their own Macross shows, there's really no reason for Tatsunoko to want to retain the license except for the small stream it royalties. Heh... that wouldn't be at all difficult, since Tommy Yune alleges that the Shadow Chronicles movie had a total budget of under $1 million USD. Mind you, I've heard from various people who've had tiffs of the legal sort with Harmony Gold that they don't have any kind of in-house legal staff, and generate everything (including their Cease and Desist notices) using one of those cheap internet legal document generation services.
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Kawamori has had an interest in the U.S. market for awhile. The problem is that there seems to be too many other cooks in the kitchen, and there isn't much he can do about it. [...] Eh... really, I think there's a more immediate problem with Keith's idea than that, and I'm not talking about convincing Tatsunoko to relinquish their rights to Macross. As far as new productions go, Robotech is so hilariously failure-prone that no sane network would ever give Harmony Gold an episode commitment for a new or remade series. Even McKeever will readily admit that unless they're given an episode commitment by a network, there's no way management will move on any kind of new series. Confidence in the Robotech brand is SO low that even Harmony Gold itself is unwilling to invest more than pocket change in any new Robotech title, so it's profoundly unlikely they would ever find a sponsor. As is stands, Harmony Gold (and by extension, Tatsunoko) are never gonna give up their rights to the original Macross series since that's the only part of Robotech that actually brings in the money. Giving it up would spell the end of the Robotech franchise, both commercially and the collapse of the fanbase. The active Robotech fans are fanatically loyal to the "original 85", and any change to them is invariably received poorly... even on a small level. This ain't a small change, so the fans would almost certainly reject the idea out of hand.
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There's one at the bottom of Dengeki Hobby's Macross R website... http://hobby.dengeki.com/macross_r/index.html
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's no problem, we aim to please. Heh... synonyms nothing, that's a covert musical reference. Sheik Yerbouti was a 1979 studio album by comical rocker and serial weirdo Frank Zappa.
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As I pointed out in the other thread, the black text in the timeline on sketchley's site is plot material from role-playing game sessions held on macrossroleplay.org. Only the green text is canon, while the steel blue text is "Expanded Universe" material apparently gleaned from Master File.
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I would, but really... sketchley already did. As you can see, the green text is canon, the steel blue text is Master File stuff, and black text is plot material from role-playing game sessions. It's material from the games run on MacrossRoleplay.org's forums. EDIT: Clever, sketchley... was that Frank Zappa reference your doing? I LOVE Zappa.
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Nah, from start to finish it only took Harmony Gold about two years to produce Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles... this "sidequel" thing they're working on is supposed to be even more of an amateur-hour mess than its predecessor, so it ought to be ready soonish. IIRC, didn't they say that the sidequel's animation would be completed this year, and that it'd be ready to roll next year? Since the closing of Wildstorm put the kibosh on their "let's endlessly re-release trade paperbacks of comics from ten years ago" routine, having nothing to show for 2011 would certainly explain why Tommy's suddenly so interested in having Palladium get its act in gear and finish the New Generation RPG sourcebook. Business as usual, then?
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Yes, it does appear that he did... though it's worth nothing that he wasn't the only Macross mechanical designer to do so. There's a sketch of what appears to be a VF-4 w/ Super Packs in the line art that was released with the 1/72 Musasiya VF-4 resin kit, which is included in M3's coverage of the VF-4. Macross II's mechanical designers also created a set of Super Packs for their version of the VF-4, which appeared in the Macross II prequel game Macross: Eternal Love Song. The DYRLverse VF-4 Siren had a VF-1-esque transformation and a set of super packs that mounted on the wing between the nacelles and the airframe spine, which contained missile launchers and (depending on the mission) funnels. (Yes, funnels... like in Gundam) EDIT: Got ninja'd by sketchley, tho the art for the Kawamori VF-4 Super Packs on M3 is somewhat larger and cleaner. Other than that, just corrections/detail for the VF-4S Siren's gear from Macross: Eternal Love Song.
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Oh, you mean the one that won't be ready for release until 2012? Yeah, that's a healthy reaction... there's a LOT that's cringe-worthy about Robotech and the people who make it.
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At least, until you notice that every "informative" post of his is just rephrasing something someone else said... often with a few errors slipped in in the process.
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The most likely (and painfully obvious) candidate to be hacking Ranka's website would be Grace O'Connor, since she was Sheryl's manager and had an ulterior motive to keep Sheryl active for the sake of her plot. We see several times that Grace has some fairly advanced computer skills courtesy of her cybernetics. Does it matter? The series never suggests that she lost due to foul play, and what motivation would Leon have had to keep Ranka from winning when her significance as "Q1" wasn't confirmed by Grace until later in the show. Leon would only have known Ranka as a survivor of the 117th Research Fleet. Maybe Leon just marks to high standards, since Ranka fell over at the end of her performance. Grace's main ally in the Frontier Government was the president's chief of staff and a highly placed officer in the NUNS... he would have been able to come up with a convincing cover story, especially since he'd already covered for her and for Galaxy when the VF-27 came to light and he wrote it off as a foo fighter. Considering that we see Brera hand it to her, and we also see him playing it at several points throughout the series while he was outside his VF-27... it's definitely real. It was presumably the medium Grace was using to manipulate Ranka, since the harmonica had the same design on it as Brera's hairpin, which was the mechanism that let Grace control him, and it broke when Ranka was able to snap out of her depression... presumably as the result of a catastrophic mechanical failure. When Brera's hairpin broke, it damn near took out his eye.
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Yeah, and it gets even weirder and more contrived when you realize that Scott's attitude towards Ariel/Marlene goes from "I can't be with you because you're a green-blooded space lobster in a human suit." to "We're the perfect couple!" in the space of about a day and a half. It's almost like the poor guy has bipolar disorder. After basically a lifetime of hating the Invid, he reverses himself and starts knowingly protecting (and then romancing) his hated enemy without ever explaining his sudden and dramatic change of heart... Isn't that the justification for about 80-90% of what's in Shadow Chronicles anyway? As if the Shadow Chronicles movie didn't already completely torpedo the ending of "Symphony of Light" already... To be honest, having him be picked up by a carrier along the way is one of the few parts of the movie that actually makes sense... he's not gonna get very far in a relatively slow and clunky fighter with no faster-than-light capability, unless our boy Admiral Hunter was just having a siesta just outside of lunar orbit. ... and that is the second most horrifying mental image I've had today...
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Your favorite in-game/movie/anime universe
Seto Kaiba replied to Ghost Train's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Hm... for me, it would probably be Mamoru Nagano's Five Star Stories. The "universe" of FSS might be geographically on the small side, but the stories cover a MASSIVE span of time in the Joker Galaxy even without counting the way Lachesis plays merry hell with space-time for part of the story. Because of that, and its sizable cast, the story can cover entire lifetimes of characters and have a lot of variety in themes and tone. It keeps the setting from getting stale, and it makes the universe feel absolutely massive even though the story is focused almost entirely on five planetary systems in close proximity to each other. Aside from having some of the most grammatically-torturous names this side of J.R.R. Tolkien, the cast is really engaging and relateable... even though fairly half of the lot are the descendants of genetically engineered supersoldiers or bio-androids. It's kind of a dark story, on the whole, but the way the characters interact and the way they occasionally throw in some knockabout comedy really helps break it up... (and the scene where one of the less sane characters brutally beats the stupid out of one of the galaxy's most dangerous knights with a chef's knife and a fairly sizable fish will stay with me forever...) -
I'm pretty sure that's actually a positive trait... As a rule... if a particular aspect of the Robotech series is actually tolerable, then it's practically guaranteed to have been a holdover from the original three shows rather than the invention of Carl Macek and/or Tommy Yune.
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Rollin' it back to your unanswered question... we have an answer now, courtesy of Talos. Yes, the MK-82 LDGB conventional bombs on the VF-1 are from This is Animation Special: Macross Plus p57.
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Bubble-bursting time... that's not an error, at least not on the Compendium's part. The VF-1 Valkyrie is 14.23 meters long in fighter mode, with a wingspan (at full extension) measuring 14.78 meters across. sketchley's translation of This is Animation Special: Macross Plus (link) says: ... which is entirely correct and matches perfectly with what's said in the Macross Compendium's old and new VF-1 entries, and on the following Macross Chronicle mechanic sheets: SDF:M UN Spacy #02A (VF-1J Valkyrie) SDF:M UN Spacy #03A (VF-1S Valkyrie) SDF:M UN Spacy #04A (VF-1A Valkyrie) SDF:M UN Spacy #05A (VF-1D Valkyrie - a different length is cited, probably a typo, same wingspan though) DYRL UN Spacy #02A (VF-1S Valkyrie) DYRL UN Spacy #03A (VF-1A Valkyrie)
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Okay, you've got me there... that is an error, albeit a relatively minor one. It's an understandable mistake to make, either as a simple transposition error or confusing Macross VF-X2's Eden 3 with Macross Plus's Eden. Since you brought it to my attention, I checked it against the Macross VF-X2 Official Visual Guide and made the appropriate correction. Still, that's an error in the Macross Compendium Wiki, which is maintained and updated by fans... not the original Compendium that was written by Egan Loo. The Mk-82 bombs are mentioned in the VF-1 article in the original Compendium as well, which means the info came from some kind of official printed source. Anyway, we'll do our best to find an answer for you.
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Could you give an example of an error in the Macross Compendium? (When I see Talos later today, I'll ask him to look in TIA M+ for you regarding those Mk.82 bombs)
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Eh... if you don't mind my asking, what prompted this sudden desire to find sources for all of the aspects of the VF-1 that aren't from the animation? Egan Loo didn't just make stuff up, everything that's in there comes from some kind of official source. Some aspects might have been amended since the time of writing, but that information came from somewhere. Getting back to the actual meat of the question, the bit about Mk.82 LDGB conventional bombs definitely came from some kind of an official source, since it's cited in the first volume of the Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie as part of the loadings charts for the VF-1's weaponry. Its original source would appear to be, as you conjectured, one of the later Macross publications to cover the VF-1. I wouldn't have expected the Macross Chronicle to mention it, since its coverage tends to be broad rather than deep in the mechanic sheets.