Seto Kaiba

Yeah, but the point is, they still wanted to use force to do it...

Okay, take your time and write properly. Let's see some proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It'll make it a lot easier to understand what you're trying to say. In fact, I DID answer your question, and my response was essentially the same as David Hingtgen's... that what you're asking for is Robotech, not Macross. Macross has always been about love stories and music. The mecha, wars, and all the rest are just a backdrop upon which the love story can play out. Macross's writers can write new, compelling characters and settings, so they don't need to fall back on Robotech cop-outs like having apocalyptic war after apocalyptic war, each one with "new" mecha to disguise weak or absent characterization and plot development. Nobody's here to debate your bizarre views on humanity, and you're entitled to your opinion about what you'd like to see in a future Macross series. What we're telling you is that you've missed the entire point Macross, which is NOT war or giant fighting robots, but rather the love stories, the music, and often the futility of war.

Clearly there aren't many people left who still do... particularly on the investor side of things. Just look at how Harmony Gold put the brakes on Shadow Rising while they wait for Warner to improve the franchise's reputation so they can land more favorable sponsorship deals.

Unsurprisingly, it's a pretty common error for people new to Macross... don't let it get'cha down, though you may want to pop on over to Anime & Sci-Fi and read that thread about the differences between Macross and Robotech 'fore you continue. Honestly, I think this alone is grounds to say "no, they haven't". After all, the Protoculture left the Birdhuman behind to make absolutely certain humanity wouldn't repeat their mistakes and venture into space before settling their internal differences and putting aside their self-destructive impulses. Some fifty years after dodging the bullet with the Birdhuman, humanity's still very factionalized, with lots of different groups pursuing their own self-advancement, occasionally by downright hostile means (Vindirance, Macross Galaxy, all the wars and revolts that Isamu fought in, etc.). Humanity might be rapidly approaching being on par with the Protoculture, but at the very least there's still that last big hurdle to be overcome, and they haven't even gotten a start on it.

Because unlike Robotech, Macross has writers who can actually write? Let's not confuse Robotech with Macross please... the love stories and music are what really matters most of the time... the mecha and explosions are mainly just windowdressing to sell the love story and the music.

That's not from any live-action Macross movie... that's from an ad for a Macross pachinko game.

You meant "reaction" weapons, right? "Reaction weapons" isn't applied to beam weapons like "reflex weapons" is to beam weapons in Robotech. In Macross, it initially refers to the weapons application of thermonuclear reaction technology (reaction weapons are to reaction engines what fusion bombs are to fusion reactors), and later also came to include pair-annihilation (antimatter) warheads.

Okay, first off, the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series and the absolutely craptacular rewrite called the "Macross saga" of Robotech are NOT interchangeable. If you want to know more about the harebrained changes Harmony Gold made, there's a pinned thread about that. The rest of Macross is not related to Robotech in any way, shape, or form. Nominally, the majority of the Macross shows are organized into a single universe and continuity centered around the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series, though it also includes several canon video games and manga titles. The main Macross continuity stretches from 1999 to 2059, and includes Macross Zero, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Macross: Flashback 2012, Macross Plus, Macross 7, Macross 7: the Galaxy is Calling Me!, Macross Dynamite 7, Macross Frontier (and its movie), the video games Macross M3, Macross Digital Mission VF-X, and Macross VF-X2, and the manga series Macross 7 Trash and Macross Dynamite 7: Mylene Beat. Additionally, the movie Macross: Do You Remember Love? is technically part of the continuity, but is a "movie within the universe" that debuted in 2031. There is also an alternate universe continuity which is comprised of titles produced before Macross co-creator Shoji Kawamori's return to the franchise, which was the original ongoing continuity prior to the release of Macross Plus in 1994. The alternate universe continuity consists of the movie Macross: Do You Remember Love? (which is treated as the canon version of Space War 1), the 6-episode OVA Macross II: Lovers Again, and two canon video games... Macross 2036 and Macross: Eternal Love Song. You may find this guide to the differences between Macross and Robotech helpful for the rest of your inquiries: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=228 In Macross, the Protoculture is the name of the galaxy's first sentient species, who established a sizable interstellar republic some 500,000 years ago, invented most of the advanced overtechnologies seen in the series, and created the Zentradi, the Meltrandi (AU only), the Protodeviln (main continuity only), and humanity for various reasons. Their whole civilization collapsed hundreds of thousands of years ago due to civil war and other causes (varies depending on which timeline you're talking about) and they're believed to be largely extinct. In Robotech, "protoculture" is a borderline magical substance that makes no sense and obeys no physical law that is processed from an equally-inexplicable flower, and is used as fuel, food, and to plug the grievous plot holes left by trying to combine three unrelated anime shows (Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada) into a single series. The mecha and ships of Macross are powered by thermonuclear reaction powerplants, a technology similar to nuclear fusion, but much more efficient and somewhat safer. It's one of many technologies reverse-engineered from the alien spaceship that crashed on South Ataria Island in 1999 (whether that's a Supervision Army gun destroyer or a Meltrandi gun destroyer depends on whether you're talking main timeline or alternate universe). Exactly what fuel they use is never specified, though it is mentioned that the fuel doesn't necessarily have to be nuclear material so presumably there are a multitude of fuels that can be used to run a thermonuclear reaction system.

Yeah, and there are other shows that used mecha with wheeled feet out right around the time development started on Macross Zero... like Blue Gender. If they've fallen back on just harvesting data from the old artbooks, I wouldn't expect any. Still, I'll take what I can get.

Yeah, it is a bit of an interesting coincidence that Macross II's mechanical designers were the first in Macross to mount wheels in the feet of the destroids to give them a faster and more efficient means of getting around than having to walk everywhere. Probably a lot easier on the pavement too. I'd honestly hesitate to draw a link between the wheels in the feet of the Macross II destroids and Kawamori's use of wheeled feet in the Cheyenne I and II. I'd also hesitate to call the Giant Monster a proper destroid, since it's essentially incapable of walking, and depending on circumstances has to get around either by being airlifted by two VTOL carrier jets, and then by a mixture of gravity control and hovercraft tech, and gets around in space with a linear propulsion system. It's really more along the lines of an extravagantly large self-propelled gun platform. Here's hoping they'll confirm that designation for its beam cannon as well... Ah, they must be tapping either B-Club 79 or Entertainment Bible 51 then. I wonder what, if anything, they intend to do about the GERWALKroid, since it's neither a proper Valkyrie nor a proper destroid. Disappointing... but not at all surprising.

So, now that 36 is out, can I get a yea or nay as to whether the "destroids" mechanic sheet was Macross II stuff?

Crap... makes me glad I got my 4th and 5th binders when I got issue 35... there're a couple up for sale on eBay from a well-regarded seller in case anyone's desperate.

The original Transformers movie, actually... It's generally held that Robotech: the Movie was killed by a number of extraordinarily bad decisions made by its editors (I refuse to call them "creators"), and circumstances in the industry. Namely, the choice to splice together the footage from Megazone 23 and Southern Cross, letting Canon Films meddle in the production process and demand changes to the plot, The Idol Co.'s new ending, the story's tenuous links to the TV series, the "mature content" found in Megazone 23 causing parents to take their kids out of the theater during the test run, a lack of decent advertising (reportedly the only timeslot they could get for the ads was at ~5am), and stiff competition from the Transformers movie. Isn't it amusing that a Transformers movie is probably going to be the death of another Robotech movie?

Hopefully the B sheet will also cover a bit about the auto-attack bits. Eh? You mean the VF-2JA Icarus, right? The "GERWALKroid" is probably going to fall under the header of "destroids".

So far, the only answer Harmony Gold has offered for why they never went back and finished Sentinels was because it'd already exhausted its product cycle in the comic and novel run. Use of the character designs was a non-issue, as they knew full well going into the thing that they couldn't use the Mikimoto designs for Hikaru, Misa, Max, and Minmay, so they created their own that had only a passing resemblance to the originals (Carl Macek said as much in a pre-Robocon 10 interview published in the August '95 comics issues).

Not here... you'd want to check the more reputable fansub torrent sites for something like that, though I doubt you'll have much luck finding the movie in AVI format. Nowadays, Matroska seems to be the container of choice among most fansub groups, since it supports multiple audio and subtitle tracks.

That's what fansubs are for, chief. It's certainly no secret that discovering what became of Rick Hunter and the SDF-3 was one of the major selling points for the Shadow Chronicles movie and figured prominently in the pre-release hype. Likewise the old, failed Robotech II: the Sentinels series was advertised as the "continuing adventures" of the Macross Saga cast. Even Carl Macek admits that a lack of tie-ins to the story of the "original series" was a major factor in the failures of Robotech: the Untold Story and Robotech 3000. So, yes... I think it's quite accurate to say that they're deathly afraid of parting ways with the last few Macross characters. Every time they've tried, the project has gone down in flames and joined the ranks of Robotech shows so bad even the Robotech fans hate them. I can definitely see there being a few Robotech fans who don't want to make the switch because Macross doesn't give every last detail of Hikaru Ichijyo's married life, but those are the sort of people who've been obsessively following Star Wars expanded universe to find out what flavor of toothpaste Luke Skywalker uses or whatever passes for plot there these days. I'd wager that most of them will just be happy to have a show that doesn't keep jerking them around as part of a neverending game of bait-and-switch.

I don't think anyone here would disagree with you when you say that Robotech will probably never actually finish a story. It's not just that they're too bloody inept to actually make new material on their own, but they're deathly afraid of having a situation where they can't sell the sequel on the basis of tie-ins to Macross, because they know that that's about all that's keeping what's left of their fanbase watching. Of late, it's become so obvious that Harmony Gold will likely never finish the Shadow Chronicles that even the rank and file Robotech fans have started to take notice and have begun to ask uncomfortable questions. If anything, the strangest part of this whole situation is what despite all of Kevin McKeever's protestations that it's a great time to be a Robotech fan, and that the franchise is "going gangbusters", other Harmony Gold representatives have made it no secret that they're short of money and having a great deal of trouble finding people willing to invest in a new animated Robotech feature. Tommy Yune himself has gone on the record at convention panels to say that Harmony Gold put the brakes on Shadow Rising in the hope that the live-action movie would raise Robotech's profile enough to net them some better sponsorship deals for Shadow Rising. It's not hard to see why they have to pin all their hopes for the future on the live-action movie... any potential investor who isn't a complete buffoon is going to take a good long look at the current state of affairs in the Robotech franchise and Harmony Gold's track record, and laugh themselves sick before politely declining and walking away.

Eh... I'm no expert on coloring books, but that seems like the sort of thing that would be probably be a fairly common gimmick in that particular medium. After all, there are only so many permutations of "color in this picture" when you're working to create a licensed product like that. It's probably indicative of nothing more than Robotech following a well-established industry trend in the production of their licensed merchandise, rather than malicious or lazy copying.

Just mulling that prospect over, my answer would be an emphatic "no". He was already a personality-less cybernetic stoic, but he seems to have watched The Matrix and come over a little bit Neo between episode 25 and the movie. Do we really want to watch him bullet-time around the place or scratch his ass while he's remote-controlling his VF-27?

Shhh... it has parkinson's... you'll embarrass it!

Honestly, between Bendo's borderline-Freudian obsession with bringing up his penis in conversation and the delusions fans of Robotech have about its popularity and influence in the industry, there's enough psychological issues in Robotech fanbase to keep the entire American Psychiatric Association on the gravy train for life. Since they're such a noisy lot, maybe MEMO's counting each one as several people because they're loud enough to be?

It worked in Zone of the Enders.

Is that a challenge? In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only a blue man with a green mullet and red underpants... Yeah... it doesn't scan very well, but hey, I'll fire up Photoshop and we'll see about selling that one.

But that raises the question... is more necessarily better? Macross allows the main characters of its original series to gracefully leave the stage... Misa, Hikaru, and Minmay sail off into the proverbial sunset aboard the Megaroad-01 to spread humanity's culture across the stars. It lets them leave the stage on a high note, and with their dignity intact... and while it was not intended at the time, it leaves the door open for future generations of characters. Robotech never gives its characters the luxury of a "happily ever after" or even the dignified rest of an old soldier whose duty is done. Instead, they kick artistic integrity to the curb and drag the most popular characters back time and time again, essentially making the entire Robotech universe revolve around them. Those characters end up forced into changes in characterization that don't line up with their original incarnations at all, and dragged into central roles in new stories in hopes that their presence will conceal or at the very least distract people from weak writing. We have to watch them grow old, decrepit, and eventually end up being marginalized by the gradual introduction of new characters or killed off in a pathetic attempt to provide some pathos for a boring story. Just look at what Robotech did with the Shadow Chronicles... they dragged back a bunch of characters from the Macross Saga as the core selling point of the series, but they're all old, washed-up, and changes in appearance and characterization left them feeling unfamiliar and unwelcome, like a stranger sneaking into your house thinly disguised as your best friend. Then they proceeded to reduce Rick Hunter to a witless stooge, turn Lisa into a sniveling whiner who gets incapacitated after three panels, turn Minmei into a brain-dead bimbo princess who needs the hero to rescue her (which he doesn't bother doing for like, a year... lol), leaving Exedore and Breetai as doddering old men (with male pattern baldness no less) who get killed for no reason other than to demonstrate the gravity (pun very much intended) of the Haydonite threat.