Zinjo

Well the M3 design could be considered a "finished" design as opposed to the other sketch. The M3 design is heavily influenced by the VF-4 design.

Wasn't the Super Dimension Energy Cannon called the "Buster Cannon"? Or was that just a pre-production term for the main gun on the Macross?

You have the Japanese discs?? I'm SO jealous...

Possibly. There were no actual images of the Alus as far as we know, therefore it is conceivable that it is a representation of the legendary ship based on speculation or Ishtar's imagination as to what the ship would look like based on her personal experience. The show did not run long enough to explain the discrepancies of the image to the ship... I believe at that point she hadn't seen the Macross yet.

Good question! Considering at the time it was the only new Macross on the block after nearly a decade and there didn't seem to be any interest by SK or Studio Nue to continue the franchise at that point, so it was most likely meant to be "the second" back in 1992. Granted it was based heavily on DYRL, probably because SK was quoted as saying that the actual story of Macross was a cross between the events of SDFM and DYRL in a previous interview about the story discrepancies between the two. Then when Mac Plus and 7 went into production in 1994, it appears to have become relegated to "2" and then ultimately to an "alternate universe" for the sake of Studio Nue's story continuity.

I suspect the "rethink in business strategies" has already arrived! Prior to the 21st Century we didn't have any japanese based distributors in North America, now we have Bandai USA, Geneon and now Bandai Visual USA. All of these distributors have direct distribution rights for many popular titles here and in the era of the Bluray region coding which combines Regions 1 & 2, it opens the market up for direct distribution by these already positioned Japanese companies. It wouldn't surprise me if in the near future some of the smaller American dubbing houses are eventually bought by these large Japanese companies. With the success of the GIS movies and the Appleseed movies here, the Japanese producers must be taking notice of the potential revenue of the Western markets (they did it with Home Electronics and Cars!) particularly when they examine the sales figures of the Toho Studios "Appleseed" selling 3 times as many DVDs in the US alone as compared to domestically. I suspect this is one of the reasons why Sony's Bluray now has regions 1&2 in the same region code. I have a month ago, but no response so far. Actually Plus was not as well received domestically as compared to internationally. HG was not involved in the release of Mac Plus here, that was entirely Manga Entertainment. At that point their RT property was essentially dead in the market and HG wesn't interested in anime at that time. Which is why their claims over ownership of the Macross trademark are erroneous and would not survive a serious court challenge. The most interesting "side step" coming up will be the Japanese distributors exercising their domestic rights by releasing their titles on Bluray. I suspect before that becomes an issue, either American distributors will be bought out or the stream of anime licensing will dry up and the Japanese will distribute their titles here directly. Well Bandai Visual who has the domestic distribution rights for Macross has already stated that they will only be subbing the shows for Western markets. At this time no plans for dubbing existing properties is planned, according to an interview I've read online. ( http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/10937.html ) Thus the ability to English subtitle domestic releases may be in the pipeline for them, particulary with Bluray releases, but they aren't revealing their strategy. With they being the principal distributor for Macross productions, it may allow us to see Mac 7, Mac Zero and Mac 25 without HG being able to obstruct anything or prohibitive music re-licensing costs.

NICE!

If it were of the same quality of Last Exile, I'd be very happy... The CG elements are very well blended with the animation in that show...

WOW, do you have those in larger resolutions?

Why would the Zentreadi go to Varuata if they could simply intercept incoming fleets instead? Then there is the aspect that Zentreadi fleets tend to number in the thousands not the limited numbers sent out in Human/Zentreadi emigration fleets. Their fear is certainly a factor, but there are two reactions to fear= fight / flight. If you have several fleets numbering in the thousands and even half of them choose to fight, the armies of the VA, SA and the PD themselves would be in a tough battle. The initial success of the PD was the element of surprise and their ability to mind control a large number of forces before the already splintered PC were aware that they were under attack by a new foe and not each other (remember they were using existing PC equipment during the war). With forces aware of their tactics the battles would be much more difficult. In such a scenario, with a limited number of PD awakened and facing the prospect of having to deplete much of their forces' spiritia just to wake up, tactically it would be a bad call to rally any SA forces (assuming they believed any existed) at Varuata. Actually they would have knowledge of some SA survivors as they would have learned that from the micronized Zentreadi under their control from the Megaroad 13 fleet, which somewhat supports my theory that they felt it was tactically unwise to rally those old forces. The real challenge would be how to keep the rest of the PD "contained" considering Gepelnich (?) could essentially turn himself into a black hole and swallow everyone. To kill the awakened PD before they do too much damage or gain control over new forces other than the Varuata army they created. The Macross fleets really didn't stand much of a chance against the the PD once Grabil was awakened. Pretty tough to take on a super agile buster cannon with the ability to do physical damage to a capital ship's hull... Then you add Sivil's ability to destroy ships merely by punching holes in the fuselages and bulkheads, its a fairly lethal combination for a fleet of maybe a dozen or so ships, composed of about 2/3 civilians.

Well considering Max and Millia spent most of their adult life in space where the natural aging agents (solar radiation, enviromental conditions, etc...) were not readily apparent, they would naturally retain their youthful appearance. They actually addressed that in ST:TNG with the Starfleet captains getting their commissions at later ages due to the longevity of life for people who live in space. It could have been better if it were attributed to a wearing out of cloning equipment and the lack of means to properly build new ones. This would substantially curtail any new clones in an effort to maintain the remaining cloning machines for future use. However the producers didn't take that approach.

Then you are giving them the attributes of machines rather than living beings? Only a machine could retain ALL the knowledge you ascribe to them. Spirtia collection devices would be a given as it's like mankind knowing how to gather food. Their capital ships were fairly formidable, however we didn't see them with substantially more of a tech level than that of the Spacy forces under Max's command, they were merely different. As for the Fz series of fighters, it was discussed in another thread and their is no definitive recorded evidence that they were "developed" VF's as opposed to "adapted" VFs from existing equipment-the wording of the compedium is not clear on this subject. As I've argued before, tactically that would have been a foolish move considering: - Not all the PD were awake - It would have surely alerted any Zentreadi fleet monitoring for a broadband "call to arms" message eminating from Varuata, thus alerting the PC forces (as far as they knew) to their active state. - They had no idea if any of their original army had survived after they were imprisoned and as it appeared they didn't care to find out, since they had new cannon fodder to play with. However, the question as to the lifespan of a PC and the procreation of the SA are very interesting indeed... "Alive" is a relative term. Alive, but a vegetable without a pilot is one form, Alive, but with the instinctual intelligence of a dog, is another. Then their is sentient life like the Zentreadi and ultimately the Evil Series. The AFOS had self generating superior firepower, but apparently no independant / autonomous ability, hence the need for a pilot. As for the SA harvesting spiritia, why? I could see such a thing if they knew where the PD were and were attempting to revive or feed them, but until that point, why waste the resources. If the Zentreadi did indeed outnumber them, they would need every weapon at their disposal to keep from being overrun. As for Natter Valgo, you are complimenting my point. Had the PD been rejoined with the SA it may have been possible to grow an new Valgo body IF they still possessed the facilities to grow it (or if the Zentreadi allowed them to build new ones - assuming they could), however the question is whether the spiritia entity of Valgo still existed or was destoryed with the original body (I don't recall that from the show).

The last "useful" FPs I recall were fitted to the VF-11 series and had a traditional purpose in combat operations. Additional sensors, firepower and speed during space combat engagements. The rest of the FPs for the other fighters are purely for "coolness factor" IMHO. Similar to how Battle 7 didn't need to transform, but did because it was "cool"! The only exception were the sound boosters, but speakers in space is another matter entirely...

Not necessarily. We've only seen two wrecked gunships from SDFM and the Varuata ships themselves were recontructed Megaroad 13 ships, not grown. The facilities to "grow" bio-tech equipment may have long sinice been destroyed and without actual PC engineers' knowledge to draw upon (which would have been found among the SA ranks) it would improbable for them to be able to reconstruct the facilities themselves and with the limited knowledge and abilities of the Human/Zentreadi populations they had to work with. Now we also know some technologies had been "lost", either possibly due to conflict, a degradation of knowledge over the generations or from lack of use (preference of beam weapons over reaction missiles). This doesn't mean that the SA didn't possess bio-weaponry like the AFOS, just that from what we know the PD from Mac 7 did not possess the ability to grow weapons when they were encountered. As March has stated, if they are limited in knowlege and rely on their subjects to provide the expertise for advanced weaponry, they would be limited by the level of personal understanding of the tech as well as the tech levels of their subjects.

As far as I know the AFOS was not powered by spiritia.... You said yourself that it appeared to be activated by a genetic connection, which is very reasonable. Since the SA were composed of PC citizens, it is possible for them to operate an AFOS device, I suspect they had a few of their own. Could it have been an SA AFOS? Likely not, as the OVA story doesn't support such a thing, however I tend to believe the SA did possess such equipment, though it is doubtful they had as many as the PC would.

Interesting. If that were the case would not they be compelled to attack the Earth as some sort of outpost of the PC or Zents? Yet another speculation, did the PC leave the AFOS behind or did the SA leave it for the same reasons speculated about the PC, to eliminate any potential future threats or allies to the PC? The legend of the pilot could still apply, just a different faction would be responsible... The mind boggles...

AMAZING! Would it be possible to get some angled shots. like from the top right and left and underneath left and right, etc...? Such beautiful work!

If the tanks were filled with pure oxygen (why I don't know?) that would produce a spectacular explosion.

Actually there is room for speculation on both positions. At the time of the gene-splicing on Earth the republic had already split in two, but there was no indication that the republic was facing a catastrophic end like it was by 2875 PC. The EVIL Series did not go online until 2871 PC and by then the records of Earth had been lost. The cascading affects of the spiritia possession was quickly becoming clear to the PC and within a year the republic was reduced to a shell of its former self. Was the AFOS a bio-weapon that predated or postdated the PD? Either way, one could speculate it was a "guardian" left by the survey ship or a "doomsday weapon" left behind by a remnant group of PC (though only a surviving bridge officer of the survey ship could rechart the course back). It has also been argued in another thread that it may have been a doomsday weapon designed to keep any "lesser" races from becoming a threat to the PC regime... that is another POV... However if it was a guardian that could be affected by the emotional state of it's pilot, then it was powerful enough to become a doomsday weapon, considering how powerful the PD were and they were made with the same tech as the AFOS.

Well as we know, the parts of communication are expression and understanding. It is entirely possible that the creators have a different understanding of what "Supervision" means as compared to the general English speaking world. It may be inaccurate as you understand it, but they adamantly believe that the term, as they understand it, best fits with the Japanese term as they understand that. As you've already noted with the "Bubble Economy" analogy, this is one of the issues with language translation..

Good points, I see how that could have been the idea behind it. It also the supports how such a vast civilization could implode so competely as well. If one were to include the remnant PC (via the AFOS) as part of that cultural conflict that would definitely bring things to a grander scale in the finale. However, I am not sure what "brainwashing" he'd be concerned about, not staying up to date with current Japanese domestic issues. How that fits into the story of Mac Zero is also lost on me.

Exactly why I balk at the doomsday programming if the AFOS. It was far too human for a race that achieved such an advanced and a galactic society to lower themselves to "destroy it all, if it doesn't pass our final exam- Oh by the way we won't teach you how to pass before hand"... Though Azrael makes a good point. Their first attempt at passing the torch with Mac II fell flat (mostly because of poor execution in the early episodes, not to mention that the series pigeon holed the franchise too far into the future to make it even acceptable as a peice of movie fiction within the Studio Nue chronology) and that vision was much different from what SK then came up with a couple years later with Mac Plus.

That is actually a misnomer, there is an atmosphere in space, albeit extremely thin and not friendly to human life, since it is composed of various spacial gases floating about...

THAT has always puzzled me. How is it in space, where is it on average 2 K which is pretty damn cold, that the engines would have a tendency to overheat? Granted their is very little atmosphere, however there is some (not enough for human existence) that would serve to cool the reaction in the near absolute cold of space. If anything, the engines should be able to run at near capacity. As for vernier thrust, that would not utilze nearly as much reactant as the main engines, since all those thrusters do is adjust attitude, pitch and yaw. Once the fighter is oriented in the new direction, the pilot hits his main engines and the fighter travels in the new direction. BSG does a fairly good representation of space fighter combat, which woud be similar to how the VF pilots would need to fight.

Probably because the A+ was the predominate version of the Tomcat. There were only 37 "D"'s build before Chaney terminated the project back in 1990 (prolly due to the development of the F-18 Super Hornet as the new naval carrier fighter).