Seto Kaiba
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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.
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Granted, there are those few horribly stilted and false-feeling "romance" moments in Shadow Chronicles... but unlike the romances from the "original" series, they have nothing to do with the plot. Maia's supposed attraction to Marcus screams "obligatory romantic interest for the main character", and Louie might as well be romantically linked with a ham radio set for all it matters to the story. It's like whoever wrote Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles had only the vaguest idea how men and women interact, and contrived to just toss a romance in to tick off another box on a "obligatory Robotech cliches" checklist.
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Ah, thank you. (At some point I really should knuckle down and buy a copy of This is Animation: Macross Plus, for completeness's sake)
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Yeah, that's the thing... if you take the statements made by Harmony Gold's representatives at face value, the whole reason Warner Bros acquired the live-action movie rights to Robotech was to capitalize on the success of Paramount's Transformers and the 80's revival trend. Putting it off for ~10 years would completely defeat the point of having acquired the rights to compete with the Michael Bay Transformers movies... Robotech will be even more of a nonentity then than it is now, and the bubble they were hoping to ride with it will have burst long ago. The longer they sit on it without doing anything, the greater the chances are they they never will do anything with the rights. Goodness... my heartfelt apologies. I'm sure having to watch that film was traumatic for you. (I was lucky enough to have avoided Starship Troopers 3: Marauder altogether, by the simple expedient of avoiding anyone who was likely to give me a copy as a well-intentioned gift) Assuming, of course, that the "capacity to love" part makes it through the adaptation process intact. Robotech fans seem to think Carl Macek's post-facto arse-covering is practically holy scripture, so they're likely to want to pursue his final position on the show, which was basically that "music and all that wasn't important to the story, Robotech is about humans shooting evil aliens".
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Eh... the VF-1B wouldn't have been included in the pre-Wiki Macross Compendium's coverage of the VF-1 Valkyrie if there wasn't at least some mention of it in official sources. Like the VF-X-2, the VF-1B seems to be a part of the Valkyrie's development history that came along later on... it's not listed in the books that came out around the same time as the series (the 3 This is Animation: Super Dimension Fortress Macross volumes and Macross Perfect Memory), nor is it listed or mentioned in the DYRLverse development history from B-Club Magazine Vol.79. Since I don't own a copy of This is Animation Special: Macross Plus, I asked my friend Talos to dig his copy out and check, and he found mention of a "B-type" in the VF-1 Valkyrie section on page 56. Also worth noting, even though the book it comes from isn't a canon resource, the second volume of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie ("Wings of Space") also mentions the VF-1B in a roundabout fashion via a mockup of a flight manual cover for the Block 4 VF-1 on pages 51 and 52. There's virtually no info on the VF-1B aside from its basic description, so I wouldn't expect to find it mentioned in many sources.
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Yeah, it is on the long side... roughly six months seems to be the average turnaround time for going from theatrical release to home video. I don't know if it was ever confirmed, but there was some speculation that the 11 month turnaround time for Macross Frontier: Itsuwari no Utahime was because of the "Hybrid Pack" that also included the Playstation 3 game Macross Trial Frontier. If that's the case, then Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa might come out on BD/DVD sooner rather than later if it's not also packaged with a video game. There were some folks here who were able to catch the movie in theaters, the thread for which is kicking around somewhere in this part of the forums.
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Well... for starters, the Tornado Pack is a lot more streamlined than the Super or Armored packs and a good part of it is usable wing surface. The more traditional Super pack is a huge rocket booster with a missile launcher on the end which attaches directly to the VF-25's wings. I'm not sure about its mass, since I haven't been able to turn up a source that actually lists the mass of the Tornado packs, but I would be hesitant to trust the numbers printed on the display stands for the 1/250 Macross Fighter Collection. They do occasionally contain errors... IIRC, the 1/250 VF-2SS Valkyrie II's display base listed the fighter as being larger and heavier than its official stats indicate. To a certain extent, I would guess that you're getting a less-than-accurate picture of the Tornado packs since the one in the Macross Fighter Collection #4 is kitted out for space use. The version equipped for atmosphere is a bit more streamlined since it lacks the large underwing missile pods and the pods on the front of the rotary engine mounts. This is what it looks like when equipped for atmospheric use. None that I'm aware of... but if they stick to the pattern, it'll come out about a year after the movie hit theaters. Since movie two made its debut in February, I would expect to see it in either December 2011 or January 2012.
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Variable Fighter Master File VF-25 Messiah
Seto Kaiba replied to Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0's topic in Movies and TV Series
Dunno... but it's still listed as in stock and shipping within 24 hours at HMV. -
Sounds about right... Still... realistically speaking, the only way that the live-action Robotech movie is likely to see the light of day is if it comes out as one of those horrid direct-to-video, shoestring budget, amateur-hour embarrassments like Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation. The management at Warner Bros clearly doesn't see Robotech as the guaranteed blockbuster Harmony Gold (or rather, the Tommy Yune stooge squad) occupies itself by telling the fans it is. If they did, they would've moved on it by now instead of dragging their heels for over four years. Robotech is not a deep or complex story... evil aliens attack Earth to get back their magic flower fuel, humanity fights back, both sides massacre each other, lather-rinse-repeat. This should be the kind of script that any halfway-competent writer would find deeply insulting, and any hack could fart out over a single pizza-and-beer-fueled weekend.
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It would probably be more accurate to say that Robotech fans shouldn't expect ANYTHING, lest they end up headed for a big disappointment.
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Well, there's an impending Newbie Question thread merge coming, so I'll be brief... there's not a lot of information about the VF-25's Tornado packs. You can find what little information exists in the Macross Compendium wiki's VF-25 Messiah article. There's likely a bit more information in Great Mechanics.DX 11, but I don't happen to have a copy of that one. Aesthetic, not so much... the Tornado packs are an all-regime set of FAST packs, designed for use in atmosphere and space, so those big wings are for functional purposes. The large pods on the wingtips are actually engines, on rotary mounts that allow the engines to turn for maneuvering and braking purposes. The "giant tail" you refer to (the large rod coming off the back of the plane) would be the beam turret's FED-115R power capacitor and refrigeration unit (its cooling system). The large pods mounted under the wings would be micro-missile pods added for space use. Not quite sure what you mean by "four long under-and-over-wing pods" though... EDIT: On consideration, I'm betting you mean the sections that fit over the VF-25's wing gloves, which are where the Tornado pack connects to the VF-25's wing, and also contains verniers and presumably fuel tanks for same.
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Honestly, at this rate I'd be surprised if Palladium managed to get the New Generation sourcebook finished and printed before the end of summer. On Palladium's own website, the general mood of the populace seems to be that we'll be lucky if the book comes out before year's end. Getting as many as four books written, edited, and into print before year's end is absolutely impossible with Palladium's resources even if they didn't have to contend with Tommy's editorial veto power over their contents. I'm sure any marketeers among us will resent me saying this, but deception (lying) is a fundamental part of marketing. The mark of a good marketeer is that they can tell a convincing, plausible-sounding fib to the customer to promote your products or at least to do a passable job of covering your arse when things go pear-shaped. Kevin is, as you know, not a very good marketeer. The man just doesn't have a clue how to tell a convincing lie. I'm not sure if he's just afraid of accidentally offending the few companies which are still willing to do business with Harmony Gold, or he's just a complete idiot, but either way he does more harm than good whenever he opens his mouth. As far as the market for RPGs goes... Palladium's Robotech RPG doesn't appear to have ever really been a strong seller. Before I was banned from Robotech.com, the most common reason I found that Robotech fans were buying the RPG books had nothing to do with actually playing it. Most of them used it as a kind of tech manual and encyclopedia for the Robotech universe, since there's never been much in the way of printed reference material for Robotech. Out here, I have yet to find a hobby shop that stocks any of the new Robotech RPG books at all... and if the devoted hobbyists on Palladium's own forums are anything to go by, they fans are generally dissatisfied with the new books. In particular, printing the books "manga-size" (which means far fewer pictures) is really loathed by the hobbyists. Yeah, he's actually kinda creepy in that regard... ever since he got banhammered for ineptly trying to troll me in this thread, he's been creeping my profile page here (and those of a few of my friends) to see what I'm posting. After the last spate of bannings, I think he's trying to 1.) intimidate me, and 2.) see if I'm posting on robotech.com under an alias or something.
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Really, I doubt it... witht the "sidequel" supposedly delayed until next year and nothing else on the horizon for Robotech, this should be exactly like every other convention tour they've ever done. They'll talk a big game and make lots of extravagant claims about how influential and important Robotech is, and they probably won't STFU about China, but in the end it's just going through the motions... an utterly pointless exercise to distract the stupid and spendthrift in the fanbase from their lack of measurable achievements. Mind you, after MEMO reported that the preview was anticlimactic, that was a pretty clear sign that nobody with even a tiny bit of objectivity was going to jump at the chance to plug it online. Y'know, I half-expect that one day it'll come out that this whole convention tour business was a clandestine and poorly thought-out experiment in non-linear time. Spot on... word from Palladium is that Kevin Siembieda had a sitdown with Tommy Yune not too long ago, and that Tommy wants them to get 2-4 new Robotech books out before year's end. Considering Palladium's track record with release dates, particularly with Robotech books, this is pretty much an impossible request. They've been working on the New Generation source book for something like two years now (or so I'm told), and there's still no sign of an imminent release. The same goes for the supposed "UEEF Marines" book, and the "Spaceships" book was canned after Palladium fired the writer assigned to the project. There's a rather substantial amount of discussion about it on Palladium's website, where a fair few people are suggesting the reason that Palladium's Robotech line has been delayed so often and so badly is that Harmony Gold is insisting on major changes to those books AND/OR that Palladium responded to it by putting Robotech books on a lower priority than their own original content. Sounds to me like Tommy Yune is trying to get Palladium to cover his arse by churning out a few Robotech releases so he'll have something to show for 2011, in the absence of new animation for the sidequel and progress on Shadow Rising and the allegedly not-yet-dead live-action movie.
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Something I've been saying for years... it's kind of weird seeing it come from someone who was actually involved with the movie at one point though. It was a given that the Shadow Chronicles movie OVA overlong intro cinematic was going to sell, at least with the existing fanbase, being that it was the first new Robotech animation to be released since Harmony Gold tried to salvage the crash-and-burn failure of Robotech II: the Sentinels by selling the wreckage to Robotech fans as that same kind of "movie". At the time it came out, Shadow Chronicles was virtually guaranteed to get a pass regardless of quality just because it was something new with the Robotech name on it. Honestly, I don't think Kevin expects anyone apart from the "Robotech faithful" to take the things he says seriously. He's an idiot, but by now even he has to have noticed that his job is less to do with marketing Robotech to anime enthusiasts who haven't seen it yet than reassuring the existing fanbase that they aren't wasting their time on a dead franchise. McKeever's behavior on Robotech.com shows that he knows it's easier by far to just get rid of the inconveniently sharp people who don't buy his garbage instead of trying to convince them.
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That is a tough question... I've checked the earliest Macross publications in my collection, the three This is Animation books from the series (1983) and Macross Perfect Memory (1984), and I've come up dry. The chronology over on the Macross Compendium lists its development as starting in 2003, but timeline printed in Macross Perfect Memory doesn't include it in the 2003 entry. The VF-X-2 isn't listed in the "VF-History" article in June 1992's B-Club Magazine Vol.79 either, but that may or may not be a result of the article having the DYRLverse development history of the VF-1 in it instead. Sadly, I don't have a specific answer for you... but hopefully that'll narrow the field a bit for someone with a less-specialized collection than mine.
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If it has, then it's fairly likely that McKeever was the one who turned up his nose at it. After all, he was the one who scorned using the website for promotional material, and insists on doing ALL of their advertising on the convention tour.
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Eh... actually, the Robotech universe got a lot better in that respect after Tommy Yune rebooted the continuity. The problem is that there are too many older Robotech fans who, either because of a nostalgic attachment to a particular adaptation or because they resent Tommy for taking over Carl's position, refuse to acknowledge the new canon and carry on the bickering over what sources are/aren't official canon. As I've said (and a surprising number of people have added to their signatures on other sites), Harmony Gold's public position on canon basically amounts to a "Schrodinger's Continuity" in which anything can be canon provided that it doesn't conflict with the series is an attempt to appease those old-time fanboys. In interviews and discussions in the forums, the Harmony Gold staffers invariably identify the canon as comprising only the "original 85", the new comics, and Shadow Chronicles. In all fairness, Robotech is probably going to be put to bed for that long anyway... despite the efforts of Harmony Gold. They just CANNOT stick to a release schedule. I'd really prefer to see Robotech put to bed permanently, but I suppose I shouldn't get my hopes up.
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Ah, yeah... that explains it. Yes, Carl Macek did leave the Robotech franchise (presumably involuntarily) after the failure of the all-CG Robotech 3000 series concept in 2000 and his subsequent attempt to salvage it by turning it into a traditional animated series with Tatsunoko's help. He was replaced as Robotech's creative director by Tommy Yune in 2001, and didn't return to the franchise until the 25th Anniversary in 2010.
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Yes, he was Robotech 3000's writer and director... which really says a lot about his creative abilities. Not sure why you're asking if Carl lived after Robotech 3000 fell through... you know he did. Robotech 3000 was canceled in 2000, and he later worked as a script writer for Viz's dubs of Naruto and Bleach before being invited back in an advisory capacity as some kind of grandiose gesture for the 25th Anniversary in 2010. Tommy claims that the side-story project was Carl's brainchild, but that may or may not actually be true...
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Hm... not sure where you heard that, but I remember seeing someone ask Tommy how much Harmony Gold lost when Robotech 3000 went under, and he said that it was about half what they spent on Shadow Chronicles. That much is true... under Carl Macek's direction, Harmony Gold tried to salvage the Robotech 3000 concept after Netter Digital declared bankruptcy by partnering with Tatsunoko to produce the series by traditional means. The project got as far as a couple pieces of concept art before senior management pulled the plug, dismissed those responsible, and brought in Tommy Yune as creative director to reboot the franchise. If you take what Tommy and co. have said at face value, they won't sink more money into Robotech because they don't see it as a safe investment. They were probably a lot more optimistic about their chances during development of Robotech 3000, since Robotech had been airing on Cartoon Network's Toonami block... though CN dropped it before reaching the New Generation. Nobody wants to invest in a property that has failed THAT many times in a row, so they're having difficulty raising the money to exceed the shoddy level of quality presented by Shadow Chronicles, and they won't make a series because no network is willing to give them an episode commitment.
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According to Tommy Yune, the total budget for Shadow Chronicles was less than $1 million USD... and it seems like a fair bit of that went to the voice actor budget, being that most of the original Robotech cast now belongs to the Screen Actors Guild and hiring Mark Hamill can't have been cheap either.
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Quite understandable... it was quite disconcerting how frequently the character animation ended up being off-model, and it only got more obvious once I had the AoTSC book to refer to. Given what we know of the Shadow Chronicles film's circumstances, the most likely explanation for all the spotty and off-model animation in Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles is that the film's minuscule budget didn't permit the third-string bush-league animators working on it enough leeway to do the job right and forced them to cut a LOT of corners along the way. The character animation wasn't the only area where they had problems and cut corners either... the Alphas and ships had a lot of issues too. Really, I suspect the reason for their sudden interest in China is a lot simpler... they saw Astro Plan and realized that China was a country that didn't see anything wrong with a ripoff, and resolved to peddle their ripoff products there in the hopes of making an easy buck. Oh, they can try... I doubt they would bother, after the reaction Canada's equivalent of Syfy (SPACE) had to running Robotech. They dumped the show in a time slot that virtually guaranteed nobody would watch it.
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Yeah, I know... and the weird bit is that you almost always want to go into it expecting something better than what you actually get in Jason and John Waltrip's Sentinels series because so many Robotech fans hold those up as pretty much THE BEST title out of all pre-reboot Robotech comics. On the whole, it's pretty dreadful stuff, but since the first issue of Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles is just a scene-for-scene repeat of the last issue before the Sentinels comics were canceled, you can go right from that to Shadow Chronicles if you actually wanted to.
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Shoehorned? It was abrupt and felt out of place, I'll give you that... but I don't think it counts as being shoehorned in when they had clearly marked the guy for death from the word "go". Hell, I think the reason his character design dropped around 100lb was so his role as the spiky-haired ersatz-Kakizaki death-bait wouldn't be quite so transparent. I liked Alex more than the rest of the cast, because I was hoping they'd all kick the bucket and he was the only one who obliged...