Zinjo

My point is that if it is so much more expensive and time consuming woudn't it be abandoned by the TV industry as being too expensive for animation budgets? Entertainment is all about making a profit, if the production costs too much, changes will be made to make it cheaper or it will be cancelled (cut short if it's a Japanese production). With regards to "old models" and "new technology", unless a show is on for enough time to necessitate the need for new technology, then I can see your point. However, most production houses are not going to spend a large portion of their FX budgets on new software and the potential labor intensive necessity to rebuild existing models if the old ones are doing the job just fine. They'd be more inclined to buy faster computers to allow the rendering to be done faster and thus cheaper.

Actually the PD were developed AFTER SDFM. The SA were a mysterious enemy of the Zentreadi that we are led to believe are an enemy of giants as well (judging by the SDF-1's airlocks). That was an odd choice by the producers to shy away from SA references. Ironically the way the Marduk "handle" their Zentreadi warriors is very similar to how the PD tended to handle "their" warriors (mind control) and then we find that they are the ones who initially controlled the SA during the civil war. I have always subscribed to the notion that the SA were equipped similarly to the Marduk in that the microns ran the show but the giants did the grunt work. Their weaponry was more advanced and powerful than the Zents but their numbers were smaller and that they didn't posses the cloning abilities that their enemy had. True, there is even a Meltrandi version of the Macross in the Gold Book that was never filmed (AFAIK). It may be that the because the producers based Mac II on DYRL more so than SDFM they didn't feel a need to connect the new show with the original series (not a wise move IMO). Actually it is only 70 years, the year is 2080 in Mac II. Macross II didn't have mass cloning like in the Studio Nue version of Macross, so there wasn't the same instant population explosion that occured in the Mac Plus timeline, which contributed to a fantastic rebuilding rate on the Earth and in it's system. In Mac II the defence of the system was performed by integrated fleets of Zentreadi and Human capital ships. Not having the "mass cloning" going on left the system's population to grow at a normal birth rate. Thus the labor to build up forces like in Mac Plus was not available, so you get the sense that the VF-1 was upgraded to it's very limits until the new VF-2 series was developed. By the time of the show the fighters we see could have been 2nd or 3rd generation VF-2 fighter craft, upgraded and improved over the last generation. They had also developed more role specific craft. The VF-2JA was an atmospheric fighter while the VF-2SS was the space fighter, unlike the multi-role fighters of the Studio Nue universe.

Umm, no! At the time of Mac Plus (in the chronology) it is implied that Spacy headquarters was based out of the old SDF-1. In Macross II, Spacy was based out of a man made island off the coast about 10 kilometers out, connected by bridges, the production did a very poor job of showing the actual landscape of the post SW1 earth. Essentially it was a network of cities built upon the remnants of old Zentreadi cruisers. The Macross and culture park were about 10 klicks away from any major center in what appeared to be a crater lake area. As for using the ARMD carriers and the legs as part of the buster cannon, I always felt that was cheesy, but in a pure speculative sense, it was not outside of the realm of possibility for the known universe of the day. The principle differences between Studio Nue's Macross and Macross II is what happened after the war. The differences that immediately come to mind are: Mac II: - Humanity rebuilds with the surviving populations of the system and the micronized Zentreadi. - They use Zent battlecruisers as the foundations of new cities on post war Earth. - The SDF-1 becomes a relic of the past and a historical "Culture Park" is built around it eventually (it is not mentioned if it was ever used as a base of operations for the military, however the upgrades seem to imply it). - Spacy builds a massive fortified island off the coast and establishes the military industrial complex on it as well as Spacy headquarters and the main military base of the Earth. It also serves as a space port for the military fleet. - Apollo moon base appears to have been converted to a semi-civilian colony as well as a Spacy base. - No mention of the emigration fleets announced by Global in SDFM. - The Human and Zentreadi fleets are completely integrated Mac Plus (Studio Nue): - Humanity rebuilds it's population through mass cloning of humanity and zentreadi, this is what helps to populate the emigration ships. - The Earth is rebuilt is less than 30 years complete with sophisticated cities and oribiting defence platforms. - The SDF-1 appears to be the base of operations for Spacy. - A base has been established on Europa. - There are 6 known colonized worlds. - The human and Zentreadi fleets appear to be segregated racially. Studio Nue then expounded on their differences with Mac 7 to the good or the bad of the franchise (depending on your point of view... )

I was not aware of the Vignette "Macross a Future Chronicle", now I'd love to see it! Or maybe, it was a good song and nothing more? OK, you need to argue your points from a real life production history, not show chronology. Mac II pre-dates Mac Plus by a year, thus all it's speculative future was based on established history in the universe at the time, with the exception of the conspicuously absent emigration programs. Specifics please, I don't see much of any story elements taken from Southern Cross...

I'd like to see that article myself as I've never read anything like that. SK had essentially divorced himself from Macross, (untill I see the article where SK states he was approached by Big West, I'll consider that conjecture) and was not "coaxed" back into the franchise, essentially he was coerced back in after the disappointing results of Macross II. (IMO the show was poorly executed and took far too long to hook the audience as opposed to the Studio Nue productions. Thus wasting any of the anticipatory excitement it had prior to release.) He had a test pilot story idea that he was peddling around to the different studios and Big West offered to fund it IF it were a Macross title (I have little doubt that part of the deal was for him to agree to develop Mac 7 too). So if he ever wanted to his show to see the light of day he had to compormise. I believe it is apparent why we got a new Macross production every decade, it is not what he wants to be doing. He has already stated that it takes him 3 years to develop a story, so you do the math... Keith, I'd love to see these sales figures you like to enigamtically quote... As for Mac II not falling into "what they wanted to do" is erroneous! SK and Studio Nue were off on other projects and it is correctly stated that they were not interested in revisiting the franchise. Mac II's only real deviation from SDFM was the lack of an emigration program announced by Global at the end of the show. Everything else was a reasonably probable outcome of what happened after SW1 considering the show pre-dates Macross Plus by a year. In Mac Plus, Studio Nue made a very deliberate effort to divorce their version of the post SW1 Earth from the Mac II version. It was at that point that Mac II slipped into Alternate Universe status. Since Big West recognizes all the Macross shows as Macross properties it was the fans who made the distinction between the two. As far as I know no one from Studio Nue has officially commented on the show, which makes sense that you don't p*ss off the company funding your projects....

I never stated that any magic was involved, I pointed out that computers offer more automated animation abilities that manual animation doesn't offer. I won't comment on Live action films since their budgets and deadlines are much larger and more flexible than TV series or OVA productions. The ease of lack thereof of animating CG is often based on what software package is being used, Maxon or Maya would have better animation coding that 3DSMax, however you often have to sacrifice something else to get that ability. AFAIK Pixar didn't have to rebulid the entire meshes for the characters, as much as they re-textured them and added other advanced elements to the animation. Again, motion picture production to OVA/TV is another instance of apples to oranges. You may wish to recheck your notes, it is cost prohibitive to regularly rebuild models for TV production. Re-texturing is common but a TV producer is not going to spend his SPFX budget on re-inventing the wheel when all it needs is a bit of new paint. If the digital FX department built a poor model to begin with they won't be in the business for very long. Very true, however you take the number of hours worked on a project and multiply that by number of people working on a project and the costs add up very fast. The reality is that 3D animation is cheaper than traditional otherwise why would animation houses even bother with it if there wasn't a cost benefit. Similar to how the grunt work of animation has been exported to Korea for cost savings, the argument for using CG over manual animation must be similar. Otherwise the 2D animation series' would benefit from higher profits and thus be much more attractive to producers and the only time CG would be seen would be in motion pictures where the budgets can accomodate it. My basic point is simply that CG has to be cost effective (if done right) otherwise it isn't profitable and therefore not worth the effort to employ it in anime.

Only if you are trying to do it in-house as opposed to farming that work out to a studio that works in that medium already. They aren't going to charge for equipment they already own. Yes the models have to be built, but they only have to be built once. The scene is then choreographed according to the storyboard and the input of the director, tweaked to the director's vision and then rendered in 24 frames per second or whatever the film speed is (a day of downtime for a couple of computers is cheaper than a days wages of two animators producing the same scene). Once the scene is completely rendered it is transfered to film. Now the process may be a bit more direct if HD cameras are being used for the animation (I'd have to check with my buddy in the film industry). I can't say why Jackson chose that method, however Lucas chose that method because he didn't believe CG could render a photorealistic static image well enough to be believable, so he opted to stick with miniatures and allow CG to provide "add-on" elements to create a sense of realism to the miniatures. Now to create photorealistic CG is very expensive (King Kong anyone?), even the high end CG done in Appleseed and Final Fantasy VII is expensive, but Mac Zero was not at that level because efforts were made to allow it to better mesh with the character animation which was much less sophisticated. If that is indeed how they did it, then yes it would cost a lot more, however that would be the most inefficient way to CG animate anything and I highly doubt it was done that way. If they animated on a episode by episode basis, you may be right. As a matter of fact, considering how long it was between episodes they probably actually did indeed stop production between episodes... In that case BigWest would have to commit itself to producing the show as a whole and continue the work right through episode releases to maintain reasonable release dates for the audience. If they can do photorealistic CGI on episodic shows like BSG on a weekly basis , there is no reason why they can't do the same for a series of OVA's on a non weekly basis. Star Wars had the budget to do "Photorealistic" CG not anime CGI. Mac Zero CG was not nearly the same quality of CG animation as SW or King Kong, so a comparison between them is erroneous. What makes you think any CG animation house like "Satelight" would employ only two animators on a major project?? Just like any studio they'd have 3d artists, animators, SPFX, etc... It isn't some ad hoc basement studio run by a couple of college kids during the summer break... If any hand drawn work was done to compensate for CGI it would have been due to poor production planning, not the CGI work. "Satelight" was contracted for a certain amount to do certain work in a certain amount of time and that is what they were paid, any changes to the contract would be re-negotiated. Motion capture would help, but only in the sense that the character movements would be more lifelike. Again, a company like "Satelight" would have it's own hardware, software and staff and wouldn't charge the production for it unless something new, that they didn't already have, was "required" for that specific show. Rendertime can be easily compared to the costs of paying artists and the material costs of creating the thousands of individual animation cells for the production. The major differences is that when the CG models and enviroments are done, they don't require re-creation for the next scene or even the next production. That is where CGI really pays for itself.

I think Kawamori settling into a role of a supervising producer is a natural progression. He's apparently run out of stories in the universe (or is tired of it) and his last show was not as well received as Big West and Bandai had hoped. They may be going with fresh talent in hopes of resurrecting the popularity of SDFM again...

"Production Supervisor" can mean many things form a consultant role to actual hands on involvement. I suspect the former is the case during the actual production. Whereby the director calls upon him to clarify any questions regarding abilities of races, technology, etc.... I am glad SK is staying involved in the franchise. He doesn't need to write every story or direct every show to be involved. Many "creators" will retain a producer's credit or consultant role on franchises they started to maintain their influence. The franchise needs new blood and fresh new stories to keep it alive and I don't believe SK has any new stories to tell in that universe anymore.

Hmm, sounds like BW is planning to resurrect the franchise in a big way... What exactly that means is anyone's guess.

BW will do whatever makes money, they aren't quite as snobish as Kawamori. If they believe the fans want more of the their favorite characters they will deliver them with or without SK. ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~` I like to believe the Megaroad met up with a remnant of the PC's and ended up simily staying with them. In order to preserve the world's anonymity they stopped communicating with Earth. It's a pet theory of mine.

True, further character development of familiar characters is always welcome, worked for Max and Millia on Mac 7. If there needs to be a love triangle there are several hundered thousand on the Megaroad to choose from...

If you are only interested in the content, then that is true. However, collectors will want the "authentic" Japanese printing, be it first or second printing. I got a brand new copy of the second printing back in the 80's and well it's been loved a long time...

Nah! MAc 7 doesn't have the depth to pull it off, despite what it's fans want to believe... The biggest cost in any production is "labor"! If you have a army of animators toiling away drawing cells over and over again, it is more expensive than building a 3D CG model once and then animating it. Similarly with CG the 2D animation doesn't require every single cell to be animated when a computer can animate a portion of the movement. Granted CG is limited by the ability of the software rendering and animating it (thus less anime magic), but machines don't require salaries or benefits, don't call in sick, etc.... The initial outlay can be expensive, but the fact that the models and such created for a show can be stored and re-used at a future date at no extra cost to the production company. Thus, potentially BigWest could produce another show with the Mac Zero elements in that era of the timeline for much less than what it cost them to produce Macross Zero, potentially allowing for an extending of the number of episodes for the new show costing the same as the first.

Well their lack of legal challenge to Manga Ent. weakened their legal position quite a bit and left a hole by which other Macross titles could slide through, however that requires the the will and the financial commitment to actually pursue. With the SC show finally out and the fact HG chose to do a Mospeada based sequel to RT is another telling sign. I don't think HG is really interested in taking on a financially draining legal battle that they could potentially loose (even partially) in light of recent legal rulings in Japan. Not to mention the fact that they have most of their money tied up in the SC show and are persuing that avenue of their franchise without any outside sponsors which is a very risky maneuver.

I thought it was about a battle Global fought on the Earth, not space...????

LOL, easy now.... I'm suggesting the idea of Miyataki and Kawamori authored updates....

Actually, primarily only Mac 7 had the whole "magic" bits, the rest of the series' were fairly plausible in a SciFi genre. Macross (SDF, Plus, Zero, DYRL & even II), Gundam, Eureka 7, etc... are more Scifi and less "Magic" fantasy. Anyway.... Connection stories between Mac 0 and SDFM, stories between 2030 and 2045, Stories post 2045, SA stories, story about the fate of Megaroad, all would be welcome! Hell, even a re-animation of SDFM would be welcome with new mecha and character designs to allow BigWest to get around some of the international rights problems with Tatsunoko... I agree that less emphasis on music and more on the dramatic, like Mac Zero was doing. I doubt cell animation will be used or will be coming back anytime soon, since the cheaper, faster and most flexible way to animate now is via cgi. I'd expect only movies would have the budgets to afforde traditional cell animation these days.

Wow a fake, huh? How could one tell?

I don't think there is any doubt about the existence of a Macross project, however I tend to believe it will only be a new CD and/or a new Game. SK is involved in his own project right now, so if it is new animation, he won't be directly involved in it.

I concur, that is a good list for any core collection. Miyatake's design works is another one I'd add for mechawhores like me.... Then the TIA Select Macross Plus Movie Book because it has stuff that isn't in the other Mac Plus book. All the books listed will run you a minimum of $30 to start, except the Mac 2 book which tends to average about the $20.00 starting range. The Gold book because it is a hardcover book tends to start much higher.

OK, passionate magic music beams...

The best I got it for was $120.00 total cost from Japan. I had a crack at another one for the same price I initially paid, but hesistated and lost it in a "buy it now" situation...

If they are indeed an actual product of the PC then this "godlike" race would become as tired as the whole magic music beams theme of recent years...

THAT sir is an incredibly rare cost and a major score!