Zinjo

I'm kinda surprised they didn't take advantage of the F-14 egg plane kit, toss in some Macross decals and call it Shin's F-14 from Macross Zero!! Talk about maximizing a mold. Hasegawa are masters at it!!! I am so totally getting several of these. I've been waiting for Hasegawa to do Macross egg planes for years!

Probably on 4chan. I know it's fanart.

I like it. Unfortunately the background hides most of your work...

The patches are mine to do with as I please, so that's a reality that doesn't bother me one bit. It strikes me as a bit disingenuous to include a Gundam patch in a Macross competition, regardless how few the entries there are, but hey that's just my opinion....

No referendce to Code Geass at all (I haven't watched it yet... ) Essentially I figured that with 25+ emigration fleets that the squadron numbers would be in the thousands by 2059. So I made up a Pegasus Squadron based on the NMCV Brittania New Macross carrier. I am most proud of the "Macross Zero - Feel the Burn" patch. Mac Zero established that the Skull squadron must have started out as an VX squadron (aka Naval Test and Evaluation squadron). So I gave it the designation of SVX-100 since most of the earlier numbers were spoken for by real life VX squadrons. Typically a squadron patch has some sort of saying on it, which became particularly popular during the F-14 Tomcat era. It is unfortunate that a "gundam" patch would be leading in a Macross contest.

Gotta give AX props, they are ballsy bringing singing pop stars from a Macross show to HG's back yard...

It could be a combination of both systems, where the UNG would retain ownership of the equipment and lease out its capabilities to recoup any costs associated with securing and / or restoring the satellite. I highly doubt the UNG would "sell" (even temporarily) such a valued and potentially dangerous asset to a private firm. The government itself would not run the construction operations, but through private contracts have influence over the activities in the facilities. The last thing anyone would want is for a multi-systemic corporation like General Galaxy to "own" their very own factory satellite. That kind of power could destabilize whole regions of the colonized galaxy.

If you compare the coloring on the VF-1A in the back row on the right side to the VF-25A on the left side of the back row, you get an idea of the color difference. Then you can also compare the VF-25A to the green VF-27B just below and to the left of it in the second row.

Well Bandai is a big company and getting it to move in any direction is like turning an oil tanker. It will turn, it just takes a long time....

I wouldn't be too sure Bandai won't put out a VF-25A kit. As for the coloring, the 1/250 scale fighters show it to be more of a German Desert Tan, which is quite a bit lighter than the VF-1A brown.

I've watched bits of the cam-release and the VF-171's were treated with a bit more respect in "False Diva" than in the series (IMO). Yeah they got owned by the Vajra, but in the film they were shown actually putting up a respectable fight considering they were outmatched by creatures with self generating DEWs and missiles, the ability to fly through space without any propulsion and to space fold at will. Now the VF-25 fighter line had returned to higher caliber gun pod rounds and were loaded out with additional armaments in the FAST packs and Armor Pack. So naturally they'd show up the standard issue VF-171. It would be the equivalent of dog fighting in an F-14 vs an F-35. Both are capable fighters, but the Lightning II has the newest technologies and advancements that the F-14 doesn't, giving it a substantial edge over the Tomcat.

The Amazon.jp link: http://www.amazon.co.jp/天神英貴WORKS―-HIDETAKA-TENJIN-DENGEKI-HOBBY/dp/404868521X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274040730&sr=8-1

Any links to the books on Amazon or HMV?

I'm getting one!!! It's about time someone revisited the "Joke Machine" toyline!

That amused me Keith... I really don't think HG and Macek really liked each other as much as their marketing team want everyone to believe. All props to what Macek did after RT, but when you listen to him talk about his experience working on the show, you realize this guy was a marketing hack who slapped the show together in 5 months based on watching the episodes "MUTED"! RT was not Macek's finest hour in the entertainment industry and ironically it will be the one thing he'll always be remembered for, good or bad...

Not per se. I know several people in the industry and am an aspiring screenwriter (aka unproduced screenwriter). So I know a little bit. True, but if you read his script it is mentioned, unfortunately it's a throw away line in the movie that most people miss. All flashbacks carry equal weight with the active narrative of the story, as they are supposed to contribute to the story as a whole. The flashbacks need to be relevant to what is currently going on with the protagonist, otherwise it's just a gimmick that dilutes the potency of the dramatic narrative. Showing parallels in flashbacks can work, but the key is that they must tell something about the protagonist's character that is relevant or insightful to what he is experiencing or how he is able to cope with his current situation (in this case his flight mission). Otherwise it would have been better to do two separate films instead of trying to shoehorn two separate, unrelated stories into one. Focus on the "now" and what pushes the story forward. I suspect this is why Hollywood really avoids flashbacks these days. It had become a lazy way to tell stories as opposed to forcing writers and directors to stay current with the situations in the film and using events or dialog to explain past situations. Avoid gimmicks. There are enough big name Hollywood directors using gimmicks these days and their films may make money, but will never be considered "classic" cinema in 50 years!

I'm sorry the script and the actor both made Roy sound like a jarhead Marine, not a Navy pilot with a lot of combat experience. Pilots are a cocky, arrogant bunch, but nothing like Roy was portrayed in the ADV dub! ADV made him into a characature, rather than a serious squadron commander. Yeah, the ADV dub was a waste of money, even on the three discs I bought before I became totally disgusted with the release. Had ADV shown the same respect for the material that they had on Evangelion, it could have been the definitive English dub of Macross, but of course they didn't.

I keep expecting another Mecha Design works from Kawamori. The one thing most conspicuously absent from the book releases for Frontier is mecha line art. We know Hideki Tenjin is releasing a new art book soon (though a sequel to Valkyries would have been preferred considering how much artwork he did for the Chronicle series!) so I am hoping to see a book by Kawamori either this year or shortly after the second Frontier movie comes out.

I liked the personal nature of the story. Something SF writers seem to forget about and the necessary tether that keeps audiences engaged in any story. The story was disjointed, but not in an effective way. When doing a story relying on multiple flashbacks, its a good idea to purposefully plot them out instead of "inserting" them at various points. A flashback must have a trigger and often we never saw the triggers for the pilot's flashbacks, so they came without any warning and thus left us either confused or jolted. I liked the low budget way you simulated the battle. The sequence was effective and didn't need any fancy FX to pull it off. Most importantly, the same result was achieved for the audience; we knew what had just happened without ever seeing it. I question the plausibility of a pilot taking off his helmet in deep space. That stretched reality to Macross 7 levels, IMO! I would have been equally satisfied with close ups of the face behind the sheild showing the emotions the pilot was going through. I realize the RT series relied heavily on voice overs, but in real film, you want to use it only when absolutely necessary. If you have to tell the audience the hero is scared, your actor is doing a poor job... It is very much like George Lucas insisting that his Oscar nominated actress, Natalie Portman, say the words, "Anakin, you're breaking my heart", when the audience can clearly see it on her face... It diminishes the dramatic impact of a scene. Voice overs can be redundant to the visuals if one isn't careful. One general screewriting maxim is: "Don't say it, when you can show it" The Voice over became the writer telling the audience the story, where I'd rather it had been the audience's window into the pilot's mind during his screen time. Almost like the viewers are eaves dropping on an internal conversation the pilot was having in his head. I would have found that an enhancement to the intimacy already presented in the visual narrative of the film.

I don't know where you got your information from, but DJ is from California.

HG is only out for money... WOW! Ask any sincere old school RT fan and you'll hear that in spades! Now lets take this in perspective, the Agrama family has made a very very comfortable living buying licenses for other companys' work and selling it to distributors in the US. Creative integrity was never a consideration, only what would sell to whoever would buy it. When you have that business philosophy you don't see any merit in crossover monetary gains or any long term business strategy. Cooperation is not an option. I'd expect that this lack of strategy is why RT sat largely dormant for over a decade. So long as obsequious toadies like Memo and his type continue to exist, HG will continue to sell recycled products over and over to the ravenously hungry masses in the RT fanbase.

Fair enough, I stand corrected. However, WHY would BW feel the need to "verify ownership" if they and Tatsunoko were perfectly happy with the initially contracted arrangement for over a decade? Questions had to have been raised by either activity or assertions made against what BW felt was their property. Maybe it was the comments made by HG staffers in the US stating they had the right to do what they wanted with the Macross franchise outside of Japan... As of yet, I am not aware of what the provocation was for the lawsuit in the first place. What I do know is that some very suspicious activity took place in North America after the initial Japanese court decision was made in late 2002. Particularly in the area of the trademark offices in the West with respect to HG.

My suspicion with respect to the acrimony between BW and Tats, is that for two companies who peacefully co-existed and even collaborated on a few projects in the decade following Macross to suddenly go to war smells of outside influence. The Japanese business model is one of "cooperation", not exploitation and domination (that's a Western philosophy! ). Hence the Japanese sincere bafflement at being taken advantage of by Western companies, with respect to anime in particular. It is my suspicion that HG convinced Tatsunoko that more money could be made if "all" the Macross rights were owned by one company, namely Tatsunoko (and by extension HG would get the rights it wanted to further exploit Macross properties). So a court challenge was filed to claim all the rights to the Macross franchise for Tatsunoko. However, Japanese law and the signed contract between Tats and BW was clear who owned what. The Japanese courts confirmed what was already there, with the exception of giving Tatsunoko the right ( outside of Japan) over the "footage" they animated for SDFM. I don't believe for one moment that HG was a spectator in this court case. From 1999 - 2003 HG and BW both tried to trademark the name "Macross" in the US and stalemated each other every time. Then "coincidently". 3 months after the Japanese courts ruled in BW favor, HG secures the trademark over "Macross" in the US and subsequently other Western nations in 2003. Rather an odd maneuver for a company allegedly spectating the court battle in Japan, don't you think? It strikes me more like a razed earth policy. If HG can't profit from new Macross products, NO ONE WILL... A concept foreign to the Japanese business community. Now HG has WB and Tobey Macquire interested in their property. Unfortunately Macquire's most likely candidate of interest is in actuality not available for use - Macross. So WB is trying to make a bad situation work, but it's been down this road before and may simply abandon the property or buy out HG's interest and persue the Macross property directly with BigWest. Right now not much is being said, so if the film is going to be green lit is anyone's guess... They need a coherent, dramatic script to work with and after hiring as many as 5 writers, they still have nothing to report.

Keep in mind that the Galaxy Star Liner was from the Galaxy fleet. An emigration fleet reputed to be producing bleeding edge technologies. So morphing wings on a transport shuttle may not be as inconceivable as some might imagine.

What I gleaned from the convention panel discussion videos posted on RTX I honestly don't think they had a story to begin with. Macek's comments lead me to believe that nothing was in the works in so far as animation was concerned. Yune waffled between suggesting a new anime may be a continuation of the SC or a tie in with the LAM. However as time goes on the film appears to have begun a slow sink into "development hell"... As I've already said, WB must be aware that they're best ROI is with a Macross film and they can't do that with HG dangling from their legs... Yep. In the aforementioned video clips, Macek made no comments regarding collaborating on any new RT productions. Instead he seemed rather frustrated with the current state of the franchise creatively. He's more a figurehead and in charge of producing some sort of content for the RT 25th anniversary. Mckeever has been responding to questions about a new RT series by saying that SC was initially envisioned as a new series, but they required network backing and "that would compromise HG's creative control". Considering no trade publications ever mentioned any negotiations between HG and any network, I'd take that comment with a large brick of salt... So the source of the series notion Seto, is Kevin Mckeever himself during the RT convention tour a few years back.