Seto Kaiba

Okay, yeah... you're making it really hard for me to keep insisting you're not a troll. Before your delusional fantasies get any further out of hand, let me spell it out for you in plain language. There is absolutely no chance of you accomplishing anything by continuing to do this. No sane lawyer is going to be a big enough idiot to get involved in your fool's errand, because you have no grounds for taking Big West or Harmony Gold USA to court, and neither company has any reason to even give you the time of day because you obviously don't even understand the real problem here. Do yourself (and us) a favor and just stop already.

Survey says... "No". Just for giggles, I consulted a friend of mine who is the proprietor of a comic/hobby shop in town and asked him what he thought the old Robotech comics would be worth. He weighed in on it, saying that in his opinion the old Robotech comics are all but worthless to anyone who isn't a Robotech fan, and that in good condition the majority aren't worth more than maybe $3 an issue. He did say that Robotech: Mordecai and its ill fated continuation Robotech: Clone could command a higher price due to rarity, and that the new limited edition comics could command a slightly higher price as well due to forced scarcity... at least until they get collected into graphic novels and tank the price again. Near as I can tell, he was actually reasonably honest about the origins of Robotech and the degree to which it'd been changed from the source material early on. It wasn't until later that he started saying troll-like things like how he'd improved the flawed originals and that Macross sequels were emulating Robotech by de-emphasizing the importance of music. (Note that he said that less than 3 years after Macross Dynamite 7) Macek trolled a lot of people in his later years...

Yup... no surprises there. These days, it's pretty much standard procedure for the robotech.com moderators to treat anything explicitly or implicitly critical of the Robotech "creative team" as a personal insult and issue bannings accordingly. Even if you make your critical remarks on another site, it's no guarantee certain robotech.com moderators won't read it and mark you for a ban anyway. It wasn't always this bad. I think it was right around the time they started showing production materials from what was known as Robotech: Shadow Force, and people started saying the CG model samples they were showing around looked cheap and amateurish. Still... in your case, it was inevitable that you would get banned. You don't self-censor, and the average tone of your posts is like an angry Fred Reed. Fear not, brother Keith... despite having never been banned, our legends will live forever in the psychological damage khyron_prime apparently suffered at our hands. I'm actually amazed you never managed to get banned... same with USN Hornet Pilot.

Nah, I didn't actually need to know... but I am sorry for your loss. Indeed it is... like I said, I remember the original remark as being credible and from a reliable source, otherwise there's no way I would've reiterated it. If it wasn't, I would've treated it with the same skepticism that almost drove Basara up a tree over some anecdotes from Wayne Smith (editor of the Rifter) about Harmony Gold and the extent of their involvement in the original Robotech RPG that he couldn't substantiate. Yeah, it was a point of interest for me too when it was mentioned to me... though on digging into it, I think it was, in all likelihood, a misremembered account of how Macek wanted to push Macross as a straight dub, and was pushed to combine it with other shows to get it up to syndication length so networks wouldn't turn their noses up at it as being too short... something referenced in the cited portion of Robotech Art 1.

Eh... unless the original creators of a property are involved, the only thing separating fan fiction from "expanded universe" materials at the end of the day is whether the author collects a paycheck upon completion.

It was never not a throwaway remark... you're the one who made a big deal out of it, and you're still bent out of shape about it even after a few people said I had a point. Just let it go. You're were already toeing the line when you started insulting me and Robelwell202, and now you're basically into full-blown flame baiting. Eh... that's not really that big of a loss, IMO. I wonder if they'll publish any future comics or collections through DC Comics. It'd be coming full circle for them in a way... since it was way back in 1984 that Revell had that miniseries Robotech Defenders published by DC to promote the model line they had at the time. About the only nice thing I can say for the new comics is they don't completely contradict the story of the animated series and/or each other. 's it your plan to pop up once every four weeks and ask this? Y'ever heard of e-mail? I know you've got my MSN too... you could've sped this up immensely by helping a bit. Going through three big artbooks and twenty years worth of comic books takes a bit of doing. In any event, I think I have an answer for you. It's not quite the answer I would've hoped for, but take it for what it's worth. Back when you first asked, I told you I was reasonably certain that I'd initially heard it from a generally reliable old-time fan. I have this nagging feeling it was something Basara549 related to me in a chat over on CRT about Carl Macek's career and role in the Robotech production process, but to be honest I don't recall who it was. I do, however, think I've found the origins of the statement back in Robotech Art 1. It was executive meddling that combined the shows, all right... but on the part of Revell, who pushed for Macross to be expanded to a length that would allow first-run syndication instead of trying to pitch a straight-up dub to networks or continuing to release it directly to video. (RT Art 1, pp242-3)

Nah... as I've said many a time, you're selling yourself short when you say things like that. I don't really wanna be put on a pedestal as some kind of towering intellect either. I'm just an academically-oriented guy who has a good memory for detail and better-than-average access to information. Well, okay... you've got us on a technicality. All the same, I wouldn't be so quick to point to the Robotech comics and novelizations as evidence of success. True, the Robotech novelizations by "Jack McKinney" did a reasonably brisk trade initially, but they weren't exactly what you'd call well-received. The same goes for the comics, which didn't exactly do so good on average... quite a few got canceled, and those that didn't weren't much to look at. No... it was a throwaway remark about how, unlike some of its contemporaries, Robotech has largely faded from the public consciousness. You're the one who blew it all out of proportion, "creatively reinterpreted" what other people said, and made a great big fuss. If you wanted attention, all you had to do was say "Hi". Yeah... that's a pretty big dick move when you think about it. Still... it probably was the only real way to go about unf*cking the Robotech continuity. The old novelizations and comic books departed from the setting and conventions of the animated Robotech universe that it would've been all but impossible to impose any kind of coherency on the continuity. The old comic books were particularly awful in this regard. It wasn't at all unusual for the comics to contradict the Robotech animated series and each other, and on a few occasions they even contradicted themselves on an issue-to-issue basis. It's honestly so bad that they defy organization into anything like a collection of universes unless you assume that each and every comic series is a separate universe. It would've been a nightmare trying to work within the bounds of that mutually contradictory mess while creating new material, so brooming the lot makes a lot of sense.

Ah... now, that's you injecting your own interpretation onto what was actually said. It was never a matter of us making Voltron out to be a wildly popular show. It's always been a comparison between a corny failure that the general audience vaguely remembers (Voltron) and a corny failure they don't remember (Robotech). Actually, wasn't Voltron back on the air a few years ago as part of the late night [adult swim] block for a while? Yeah... I guess in terms of the amount of success they've had with sequels, Voltron stands head and shoulders above Robotech in terms of duration and originality, if nothing else. Quality... well... there's a dead heat if ever I saw one.

Well, Keith's made a pretty good case for the numbers... as has the sheer volume of references in semi-recent popular culture. He's even turned up one unambiguous Robotech pop culture reference! A 100% gain over the previous position! So far, with about five minutes and Google, I've turned up 16 distinct references to Voltron in music alone, plus another 5 in comics, and 18 in television... plus about a dozen more that're harder to classify, including quotations from a New York Giants linebacker by the name of Lavar Arrington. Huh... I'm not sure if I should take that as an insult directed at me, Robelwell202, or both. Either way, it seems like you'd much rather attack people than address what they have to say. Gee... what could I possibly have said to that a few posts ago by way of clarification that you seem to have conspicuously ignored for the sake of pointing fingers? Oh yeah, this: Two or three times, actually... I know they've done at least one for Lion Force Voltron and one for Vehicle Voltron... and that's if you don't count the nine episodes of Titan Maximum as a parody of Voltron, which it pretty much is.

Oh my... first it was a counterargument based on fallacious assumptions, and now you're taking my remarks out of context to put words in my mouth. I've half a mind to ask if you're running for public office this term, but that'd probably be dangerously close to political commentary wouldn't it? (in case someone comes over with a bad case of serious, this is a joke) In all seriousness, at no point did I intend to assert that Voltron belonged to the same part of what you called the "popularity scale" GI Joe and Transformers... just that, given Joe Average off the street, the odds of such a person recognizing Voltron are far better than the odds of them recognizing Robotech. This is a common sense observation based on the recent references to Voltron in popular media as opposed to the lack of same where Robotech is concerned. It feels like you can't think of a way to refute the actual point I'm making, and so you're raising a fuss about trivial wordings. Being an observant chap, Robelwell202 seems to have gotten my point straightaway with no difficulties... yes, people remember Robotech (at least in mecha circles), but it's not all fond remembrances. In fact, a lot of it isn't fond remembrances if the average Robotech thread on 4chan and the various rousing denunciations and all the usual scorn directed towards the franchise here are anything to go by. Indeed. 'kay... yeah, I don't think I'll ever understand what some people see in the old Robotech novelizations and comic books. Granted, some of the later ones were about as close to originality as Robotech has ever gotten, but that isn't necessarily any guarantee of quality. In terms of the art and writing, most of them run the gambit between mediocre and awful. I do think trying to mix it up was a good idea, but I'm not sure what to say about what the results became. IMO, the Robotech novelizations by Jack McKinney and the comic book adaptation of Robotech II: the Sentinels were probably the best of it... but the novels were just WEIRD and the Sentinels comics tried and failed to be gritty and mature. Can't imagine why they would've yanked your posting privileges for saying they'd pitched the non-canon stuff... since McKeever spent a good long time saying basically the same thing during an appearance on Space Station Liberty. Yep... that was actually something I related in one of this thread's predecessors a while back. It was after I'd gotten into a discussion about how (ironically) Robotech is regarded these days. Partway through a discussion about the dwindling of the online fanbase and negative opinions of Robotech seen on 4chan and elsewhere, it was Maverick_LSC who put the kibosh on it, claiming that Harmony Gold wanted to put its best foot forward and show Warner Bros a united, controversy-free fanbase. Actually... to add another scoop of irony to this, I'm pretty sure the guy I was talking to at the time was Pizza the Hutt, back before he changed his screen name from Wraith_Knight. Eh... that might be a bit of a stretch. Yes, there are plenty of people in mecha circles who have fond memories of Robotech. I'm one of them. The are a fair few in there who are creative individuals that work on fan projects. The kicker is that there are plenty in that crowd whose fond memories of Robotech are eclipsed or at least colored by antipathy towards Harmony Gold for their handling of the franchise, their attempts to stop the importation of Macross shows, and other asinine behavior. There are plenty of examples of that right here in this thread. I would agree, Voltron is usually remembered for yuks. Still the point I was tilting at before we landed on this tangent was that the Voltron name and story still have some resonance with the general public... to the point where people understand references to the show made in popular culture. We just don't see any evidence of that for Robotech... due in no small part to the conspicuous absence of anything like a pop culture reference to Robotech.

No, not quite... but you're doing a sterling job of putting words in my mouth. I'm making a few logical inferences here that you're taking exception to. To be precise, what I'm saying is that the repeated pop culture references to Voltron imply that people will (and do) remember the show's name and the salient bits of the story. Likewise, the absence of any pop culture references to Robotech implies that the "general audience" can't be expected to remember what Robotech is or the salient parts of the story and/or that the creators of the shows making all of these pop culture references don't remember Robotech either. The two shows have markedly similar production track records of failure... so tell me, why is it Voltron is referenced frequently and Robotech not at all? Please, if you've got an alternate plausible explanation then don't keep it to yourself! Now, the problem with your counterargument here is that you're operating under the premise that Voltron and Robotech must have had a common audience because they were on at around the same time, and that anyone who remembers one must also remember the other equally well. It just doesn't work that way. I'm not denying that it's plausible there was overlap in their respective audiences, but to suggest that if someone watched one then they had to have watched the other is fallacious in the extreme. Likewise, even if they did watch both, it's no guarantee they would remember both equally well. If they liked one and disliked the other, it's likely they'd remember the one they liked much more clearly than the one they didn't. Glad you liked it, I'm really enjoying your fallacious premise.

Eh... it's not nearly the overstatement you're making it out to be. However, since you've questioned it, it would be remiss of me not to clarify things somewhat. Now, putting aside the question of mecha anime enthusiasts... when was the last time you saw a Robotech pop culture reference? I'm not talking about how some Robotech fans point to Macross and Mospeada references they find in legitimate anime and assume are references to Robotech... I mean an honest-to-goodness, unambiguous reference to Robotech in popular culture? I don't think I've ever actually seen one. Let's compare that to Voltron, which has been referenced or parodied in Robot Chicken, Titan Maximum, Sealab 2021, Lost, Home Movies, Megas XLR, Family Guy, and South Park... and that's just in reasonably recent television. It's also been referenced in the lyrics of songs by artists including P. Diddy, Eminem, Busta Rhymes, and Edan. Hell, they've even referenced it in the web series Red vs Blue and in commercials for Sprite. Who references Robotech? Nobody, that's who. Yes, I don't deny that people in mecha circles are going to remember what Robotech is. For the longest time, it was practically an article of faith that anyone who posted about Robotech on 4chan's /m/ was trolling. They're going to know about it because they might've watched it at some point, or at least have heard about all of the controversy surrounding the way its owners block Macross licensing and screwed over the recent MechWarrior game. Ask the average schmuck off the street, and the odds are he'll remember, or at least have heard of, shows like Voltron, GI Joe, and Transformers... but Robotech? Good luck. I wouldn't call it a gap in popularity so much as a colossal gap in name recognition.

True... but you have to remember that it's actually pretty rare for Steve to wade in himself to mete out a ban for some offense, and usually when he does it's something that's actually against the rules. This more recent trend of revoking a person's posting privileges for various flimsy and contrived reasons is just something a pair of bad eggs on the moderator staff do to suck up to Harmony Gold for the sake of personal advancement. What those two hope to gain is more or less common knowledge... Maverick_LSC wants to be an "insider" fan because he thinks that having an inside track on future Robotech productions will earn him the respect and admiration of his fellow fans that his mod status doesn't get him, and MEMO1DOMINION is hoping that if he kisses enough ass he'll be offered a job at Harmony Gold the same way Kevin McKeever was. Eh... you wouldn't have a lot to fear as far as getting flamed for criticizing Shadow Chronicles by pointing out the plot holes. You might lose a couple DAYS counting them all, but about the worst you can expect is for one of the aforementioned moderators to swiftly remove your posting privileges for "attacking" Tommy Yune. It'd sound a lot more impressive to say that "Don't criticize Shadow Chronicles" is an unspoken rule... but we can't really say it's unspoken since Maverick_LSC and MEMO1DOMINION have been quite clear that criticizing Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles is verboten. Of course you're going to hear something like that from Kevin McKeever... it's literally his job. He's the marketing coordinator for the Robotech franchise, despite the fact that his behavior reads like a list of marketing and public relations cardinal sins, and most any corporate cynic will tell you marketing is "the use of fraud and deception to sell trash to idiots". 'course, it doesn't look like the movie is even offered on hulu anymore, so make of that what you will. I'd say it's probably because vague promises of future success are about all Robotech fans have had to cling to over the past nine or more years. The reason they don't want to let it go is because it's literally all they've got going for them. At least people remember Voltron... almost nobody remembers Robotech. At least... not fondly anyway...

Easy... the difference between a troll and a person who posts ignorant things is a question of intent. Put simply, what separates people like yui1107 and wanzerfan from the trolls is that there doesn't seem to be any malice behind their actions... just good ol' fashioned ignorance.

Not really... if she were doing it just to annoy the piss out of us, then I'd say she fit the classic definition of a "troll". So far, she seems to think her goals are actually achievable...

'kay... I don't have the energy to do this right now, so let's just pretend I posted another diatribe about how it's wrong to label people as trolls just because they speak/act without all the facts. Or don't. 's all good. I'm just too worn out to care. Given the content of her average post, I would guess that her problem is about 50% language barrier and 50% obfuscating stupidity. She knows she was given incorrect information, but she doesn't seem to want to accept that her decision to take drastic action was asinine.

Bah... and take all the fun out of rifling madly through the LA Times and other newsprint in search of answers? Huh... now, I distinctly remember Maverick_LSC and MEMO1DOMINION running off at the mouth (or perhaps "at the fingers") about how Robotech was destined to be Warner's tentpole sci-fi franchise, but I don't seem to recall them having ever mentioned Harry Potter in connection with all this. After all, there are still two movies to go yet in the movie adaptation of Harry Potter... that'll have 'em for at least a few years yet. Now that might be a little over-optimistic... after all, we don't know what they're going to do after they finish up Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye. It'll be getting kind of close to the 30th anniversary by that point, so I'd guess they'll go for another OVA if they can swing it. I wouldn't mind seeing an adaptation of Macross: the First. In a way, it's kind of sad that the realistic outlook on Robotech's future could be pithily summed up with a simple "It's dead, Jim." Back in the day, when rewrites weren't considered raping the source material, Robotech sort of accomplished the goal Carl Macek set down for it... introducing America to Macross. It's a disappointment that it eventually became something that ran counter to the original intentions of its "creator" and is stuck floundering around under the crushing weight of Harmony Gold's ineptitude. If there is new Robotech in the future, it will be the same kind of low-quality fanwank that Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was.

Eh... as I don't have a whole lot of use for Michael Bay as a director and I never was that big a Transformers fan, any news about the production of Loud Noises 2 Junkyard Sculpture 2 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen slipped right under my radar. It appears that the official reason Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was rushed out was that, at the time, both the Directors Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild were making rumbling about going on strike and the 2007-8 Writers Guild of America strike. Now, as Gubaba already said... that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was rushed out because the producers were afraid it would be competing with the live action Robotech movie is a crackpot theory put forward by a pair of robotech.com moderators (Maverick_LSC and MEMO1DOMINION). They used it a lot as "proof" Hollywood was taking Robotech seriously and that the movie was going to be the next big thing. Their boasts about it just kept getting bigger, and after a while they were preaching that the live action Robotech movie was going to be some kind of epic, genre-defying masterpiece fit to rival or surpass Star Wars and Star Trek. As you can see, it's pretty much just wishful thinking on the part of the lunatic fringe.

Ah, thanks for taking the time to translate that for us. It certainly makes it a bit easier to understand just what yui1107 thinks she's going to accomplish. Huh... well, that's pretty much par for the course where the Robotech fanbase's knowledge of the Macross legal disputes is concerned. 's not entirely their fault, considering the great pains that Harmony Gold's staff and their volunteer forum moderators have taken to keep the information out of the hands of Robotech fans. 'kay then... here I was, hoping that I'd somehow misread her intentions and wrongfully concluded that she was completely out to lunch. As much as I would like to say that I find her idealistic desire to combat the plight of the Macross fans outside of Japan, she comes across as having a rather tenuous grip on reality. If she actually does start her own company to intervene in this, the only thing she'll accomplish is wasting a lot of her own time and money trying in vain to browbeat several corporations that have absolutely no reason to listen to what she has to say. It's not like she can even take them to court over it, since she doesn't have any stake in the matter and thus no grounds for a lawsuit. It's odds-on that they've already concluded she's a crazy old lady without a clue, and I don't imagine any attempts on her part to force Big West and Harmony Gold to reach a settlement will do anything to disabuse them of that notion. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to see a fan who wants to change things for the better... it's just irritating to see that she's wasting her energy on an unrealistic and unachievable goal. And y'know what... they're better off for it.

Ah... really, the way the mouthier Robotech die-hards badmouth Macross shows they demonstrably know nothing about and have never seen reminds me a lot of the way that some console gamers who found they'd backed the weaker console of that particular hardware generation would invent nonsensical grievances with the competing console(s) just so they'd have something to complain about. I've never been a moderator, but in the last couple years I spent on Robotech.com it wasn't at all unusual for it to take Steve or, really, any moderator days or even weeks to take notice of a problematic thread and take action on it even with multiple people reporting the thread. The majority of the Robotech.com moderators just don't come to the site anymore, and the few that do usually only pay attention to one or two specific forums unless drawn by a crisis.

Eh... by the conventionally accepted definition, to say that a series or movie is "on hiatus" at some point in the production process typically means that work on the production has been (temporarily) suspended. The use of "indefinite hiatus" in that same context is basically a statement that work on a production has stopped with no indication of when or if it will resume. I suspect the reason you're getting pushback over your use of "hiatus" to describe the present situation is the result of something Kevin McKeever said and had to retract back around the time they announced that Maguire Entertainment had obtained the rights to make a live action Robotech movie. The first thing Kevin said was that Robotech: Shadow Rising was on hiatus... he then had to issue a retraction after that stirred up a bit of a furor and claimed that, contrary to what it says in the dictionary, hiatus doesn't mean they stopped working on it... just that they're working on different parts of it now. Tommy Yune later came clean on the subject and admitted that Robotech: Shadow Rising is on hold pending progress on the live action movie. Mind you, there's been no announcement that the live action movie is on hiatus... it would be more accurate to say it's stuck in development hell, i.e. they're working on it but they're not getting anywhere. Okay, yeah... there's your problem right there. If the best exemplar of a levelheaded and knowledgeable fan of both Robotech and Macross is rhade, there's a problem with your sample population. In the interest of fairness, rhade knows quite a bit about Robotech and is probably one of the few halfway-knowledgeable fans left on the wretched hive of scum and villainy we know as the robotech.com message boards. The problem is that he's got ambitions of moderator-dom, so he's prone to toeing the pro-HG party line. He also doesn't know a whole lot about Macross, but at least he has enough sense to consult past posts of people who do and rephrase what they wrote so he can look like he does. I very much doubt that he's actually seen Macross Frontier: the False Diva. It sounds more like he's reiterating complaints gleaned from the movie's review thread on these forums. Neither did I... QFT. Still, I would imagine their attitude is motivated less by a jealousy of Macross for having sequels and more by a genuine feeling of disappointment in Robotech's lack of success... a situation highlighted by the inevitable comparisons to the numerous successes Macross has enjoyed over the years. EDIT: Clarity!

Y'know, the real tragedy here is that what you're saying isn't just possible... it's entirely plausible. Hell, there's a pretty good chance that some enterprising Robotech fan blogger or podcaster has already latched onto that as a way of explaining the profound lack of progress on the project thus far. It wouldn't be anything new... the usual suspects on robotech.com have already been telling people Paramount rushed Transformers 2 for fear of having competition from Robotech. From there, it's not much of a stretch. Nah... from what I hear you're far more likely to get Steve. IIRC, when he's not policing the increasingly quiet BBS over on robotech.com, his job is to manage their licensing agreements and whatnot. I could name names... but that might be hitting below the belt.

Anyone for a chorus of Harry Chapin's "Circle"?

Eh... really, that might be overly optimistic. Let's be honest here... once you do away with all of their awkward announcements and empty promises about allegedly forthcoming Robotech works, there's not a whole lot of substance in their convention panels each year. If you take away their flimflam and deceptively worded platitudes, they might as well call the whole convention tour off because they won't have anything to talk about. I'm half-inclined to suspect the real reason Tommy up and announced this new "side story" project was so they'd have something new to make empty promises and awkward announcements about since they've long since exhausted any announcement potential in what little progress has been made on the live action movie.

True... but it'll also be a minor economic stimulus for the hatmaking industry. None whatsoever... at least, as far as I'm aware. IIRC, the last noteworthy mention of the movie was the news that they'd showed the rejected Kasdan story treatment to Sylvain White. By the way... did we ever manage to confirm that the supposed 9/15 "drop dead" date attached to the Robotech live action movie was for real? It's not like there was ever really a chance of it being made, but it'd be nice to see if it's dead or just going to stagnate for a few years before Warner quietly drops the license. Frankly... calling Robotech an "untested" property is probably being a bit too kind. I would guess that they see the DC Comics properties as far safer investments since they generally don't have a track record anything like the proven track record of failure Robotech has had under Harmony Gold.