Seto Kaiba

More likely she's giggling about the overall shitty quality of even the best-made Robotech merch. I've got a few friends who own Masterpiece Collection VF-1s of various colors, and those damn things scream "shoddy construction!"... though not as much as the MPC Alphas. Any clue how they'll finish their cyclone series, since (if memory serves) the Beagle ride armor line got pulled?

If Rambo needed a Valkyrie, this would be the one he would probably ask for.

One last acknowledgment of the RAAAAAGE provoked by the mere suggestion that Kawamori and/or Big West might actually dare to acknowledge Macross II at some point: It's not exactly a hard joke to make, and the similarities are there, and they're pretty bloody obvious. Sounds more like you're butthurt over the idea of Macross II being acknowledged in any way, however briefly. Eh... no. Valkyrie II, yes. Super Armed Pack... no. Go back and look at the lineart for it, not the goddamn awful toy from the 90's. The Super Armed Pack hugs the fighter's hull closely (except the wings are folded instead of inside the pack) the big honking gun that extends past the canopy, the blocks on the end of the wings, the lack of big, effing backpack boosters. Far more similarities than differences. Getting back to the whole Catalyst/Piranha/HG thing... I got in touch with a buddy of mine who's really big into both the Battletech tabletop game and MechWarrior, and according to him, there's been nothing on the matter from either company since Catalyst's retraction of the disputed art and IGN's removal of the game's trailer. At least, nothing that's been made public. Whether Piranha bowed to pressure from Harmony Gold, or they're still in talks, nobody's saying. The developer is supposedly declining to comment whenever asked about the situation. That, combined with the fact that Harmony Gold's reps have pretty much gone silent certainly is certainly cause to suspect that something's afoot.

Since the initial batch of cease & desist notifications were sent to IGN and a few other sites, there haven't been any new developments in the MechWarrior situation between Harmony Gold and Piranha Games. It looks like Harmony Gold's trying to keep the whole thing quiet, since they failed spectacularly when they tried to hush up the situation with Catalyst Game Labs. Information requests sent to Harmony Gold on this and a variety of other subjects over a month ago haven't received any responses at all, not even a "we decline to comment". Unfortunately, I think if someone's going to stand up to Harmony Gold on the issue of Macross rights, it's not going to be the Battletech/MechWarrior franchise owners. Catalyst caved to Harmony Gold's demands pretty quick, and I'd expect Piranha is going to follow suit soon if they haven't already. It's all bad press for Harmony Gold in the end, so if they do get their way again, it's still going to hurt them in the long run.

In that case, how is that any different from Macross Zero and Macross Frontier then, both of which do the exact same thing for the VF-0 and VF-25 respectively? Take a time out, stop making unfounded claims that Kawamori hates Macross II and fixating on a Macross show where the only qualification to be a pilot is the be able to five star every song on expert in Guitar Hero... then realize the super parts look very much like the Super Armed Pack on the VF-2SS Valkyrie II. Then stop and consider that Kawamori has never shown any qualms about using material from Macross II before (see ~85% of Macross 7's BGM), or having it used in official publications or new merchandise (see Macross Chronicle, VF-100 line, etc.). Isn't that what the live-action movie ultimately is? The Macross equivalent of Coke Zero? Everything they think you love about the original, but with none of the potentially problematic stuff, ultimately turning out to be something that resembles the original in name only?

What the hell is this thing? The more I look at it, the more I start to suspect this is a homage to the VF-2SS Valkyrie II... the airframe-hugging super parts, the long, dorsally-mounted cannon(s) that look suspiciously like they'd fold down 90 degrees in battroid mode, the bits on the end of the wings that look like the Super Armed Pack's missile pods... Where precisely did you find this? Bloody bastard hell, that's some new set of super parts for the VF-25F in the movie... it's in the latest trailer. There's no doubt, after seeing it in the trailer, this is a homage to the VF-2SS Valkyrie II and its Super Armed Pack. I'm not sure whether I should find this amusing or insulting. It's not that Harmony Gold is too lazy to introduce new mecha... it's that they're too inexperienced or inept to design one that doesn't look like poo. Even when they were just designing a transforming version of that non-transformable fighter from Genesis Climber Mospeada, the end result was still uglier than a week of bad weather, and never even made it past the lineart stage. The "Super Cyclone" and "Super Shadow Fighter" don't count, since they're just existing designs with even more chunky bits stapled on, which leaves the only new design they've ever come up with being the "Silverback" transforming jeep, which is hideous and the transformation makes no bloody sense.

I have it from no less a person than JT himself that his next podcast will be up soon, and that he's apparently going to be taking a number of different people to task, including MEMO1DOMINION, Maverick_LSC, and possibly dougbendo or Pizza the Hutt. It seems they've been giving him some crap about the content and format of his podcast.

Of course... dougbendo may be an ass, but he's also one of those delusional Robotech fanboys who hates Macross with a passion and thinks Robotech is superior to it in every way. Zen72/JT, on the other hand, is not afraid to openly criticize Robotech and Harmony Gold's management of it, so the host of RDF Underground treats it like a second-class podcast.

Certainly a polite assessment, though not necessarily an accurate one. Space Station Liberty is, for all practical purposes, the unofficial propaganda mouthpiece of Harmony Gold. They follow Harmony Gold's company line almost obsessively, heaping praise on every little thing Harmony Gold does, and are firmly convinced that everything Kevin McKeever says is the unimpeachable truth. RDF Underground is a bit more fan-oriented, but still firmly toes the "Harmony Gold is wonderful, Robotech is the best thing since sliced bread" line. Of late, it also seems that RDF Underground isn't above taking cheap shots at the owners of other blogs and podcasts that don't always give a heavily rose-tinted view of Robotech... particularly newcomer The Protoculture Times.

The budget was so low they couldn't afford to animate the rest of its body. As they're all robots, can't they just build another one?

Secrets of Robotech revealed... the Haydonites are the author-insertion fantasy personas for the Harmony Gold marketing department.

Because Harmony Gold's writers don't know how to write a compelling, or even mildly interesting, story. Most of what they've written is stilted, awkward, and boring, to such a degree that if they didn't obviously intend for the whole thing to be taken seriously, you'd think the whole plot was a deliberately campy parody. Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles is truly Plan 9 from Harmony Gold. Of course, one could also adopt the obvious answer that if the Haydonites acted with a modicum of common sense and just destroyed the REF forces and Earth on their own instead of engaging in elaborate shadow play (pun intended), they could've accomplished their goal quickly and easily, leaving the terminally-inept protagonists high and dry. That is, of course, not really the best of options to fit with Robotech, since Robotech is generally about humanity holding the moral and cultural high ground stomping out whole alien civilizations. Honestly, Robotech's United Earth Forces are exactly the sort of human-o-centric evil empire that most sci-fi stories have the protagonists fighting against, and when you view it in that light, McKinney's portrayal of the REF as being the (unintentional) root of all evils really is lulzy in the extreme. (and if they really ARE just adapting McKinney's EOTC stuff, doesn't that ultimately make the Haydonites the good guys, since they're trying to kill off the cause of all the suffering, oppression, and evil in the universe by destroying the stable time loop?) I could also be brutally frank and point out that the retcons which established the Haydonites as the current Big Bad are, first and foremost, a weak attempt to shift the blame for the narrowly-averted genocide in the last episode of the New Generation somewhere other than Rick Hunter, the darling of the die-hard fans.

So... wait... if Minmei is the mother of the Zentradi and Tirolan races...and her songs are like lullabies for them, doesn't that mean she's the mother of a bunch of alien masochists?

For the most part, the original destroids were glorified anti-aircraft guns, so it's no surprise that they haven't really bothered doing much with them since. The only Macross show that really bothered with showing more destroids was Macross II, and those destroids were, like their predecessors, essentially glorified anti-aircraft guns permanently assigned to point defense on ships, or anti-air defense on the ground. Didn't Hikaru briefly use a Spartan?

The most accurate romanization of the name of one of the non-transformable mecha from Macross II. It's basically a GERWALK-pattern destroid toting a shitload of missiles. So far Chronicle has only covered it in the Glossary sheet.

Okay, so he confirmed what anyone with their head screwed the right way 'round concluded the minute they heard the movie was supposed to be a "re-imagining"... that it's going to bear pretty much no resemblance to Macross or the Macross Saga, and that the only familiar things will be a couple of "iconic" names. Isn't that pretty much how everyone with an ounce of common sense still views the movie? As a long-shot that probably will never see release? Probably more towards "thoroughly disappointed", since ignorant blokes like Maverick_LSC and MEMO1DOMINION have been abusing their authority on Robotech.com to make erroneous claims that Harmony Gold can and will use any and all of the intellectual property of Macross as the basis for the movie. They're inadvertently setting the fans up for a major disappointment if and when the movie actually comes out. Considering that, according to Tommy and the various voice actors, the further animated projects are all on hold while they wait on the live-action movie to open up better sponsorship prospects, it seems like they're digging themselves a new grave. If the LAM goes under, we can probably expect another 20 year release drought from Harmony Gold (yay!).

Meh... somehow I can't bring myself to get excited about this one. Too much Macross Dynamite 7 for my tastes.

Legally, they SHOULD be able to... they own the trademark on the name in the US. My guess would be that they're avoiding anything that could potentially provoke Big West into taking legal action against them. If they lose the "Macross" name trademark, they lose their sandbagged wall keeping the rest of Macross out of the United States.

Well, yes... in the alternate universe continuity there are more models of Zentradi and Meltrandi mecha out there, but they're mainly just variations on the basic designs of the Nosjaedul-Ger, Queadluun-Rau, and Glaug. The only times the Zentradi of the alternate universe are known to have designed their own mecha (like Quamzin's Migg Pitt) the renegade cultured Zentradi were involved.

Yeah, when compared to pretty much any competently-run franchise, Robotech really is bereft of news of any importance. Did you see what they had to resort to in order to stir up something for the front page news section? Steve Yun went to Reactor in Chicago to moderate a "which character could beat up which character" open debate. That was the best they could do for a news piece. In a situation like that, I guess it's only natural for the few remaining Robotech fans to make a big deal about every trivial piece of news that comes out. After all, it's the only way they can convince themselves that they're not wasting their time on a dead franchise. I, for one, fully expect the next major news piece will be Warner announcing that they've put the live action movie on indefinite hiatus.

Give it time, we'll come up with some more drama sooner or later. In the mean time, we can all have a chuckle over the horrible art of the old Robotech comics.

Y'know, the thing that bothers me the most about this isn't the half-baked attempt to make Minmei sexier, it's the smile. At the angle it's at, it looks like a goddamn blow-up doll. And that's just terrible.

Y'know, the men in that "swimsuit spectacular" don't horrify me nearly as much as the women. Even the most modestly endowed women look like She-Hulk, and every single one was given a massive set of hooters. Eh, any rage against HG is good rage, I guess.

Now if only that general apathy and indifference extended to ignoring the asinine and often delusional views and claims of the Robotech lunatic fringe, a group that also answers to the name of "the Robotech core fanbase". The majority of the fans aren't bad, but the vocal die-hards really do Robotech's already-poor reputation no favors. Some of them are so unwilling to cope with the reality that Robotech is not original, that it isn't popular, and that Harmony Gold doesn't own its contents, that they prefer to live in a fantasy world where it all isn't true.

If the response from the long-time Battletech/MechWarrior fans is anything to go by, that may not be entirely accurate. Still, very amusing how we all essentially posted the same thing within 20 minutes of each other, starting with me.