Zinjo

I'm of the opinion that Frank Agrama is waiting / hoping Warner Brothers buys the RT franchise from him outright. All new RT projects are on hold, with the exception of the movie. You wouldn't want to take on new debt or be in the middle of a new production if you wanted to be bought out! Despite all the rhetoric on the various sites and on the SC dvd, Frank doesn 't care about RT. It was an unexpected cash cow for a couple of years in the 80s and then made him more money early in the new century. Agrama is all about buying low and selling high, with very little in house investment in between. RT has cost him money. TSC cost him a 1M, and I doubt with the distribution deal with Funimation that it made enough profit to be compelling sequel material. If that were the case, the second animated movie would be in the can by now. Instead, the "creative staff" (I used the term loosely) has been on hiatus for the past two years following WB's option of the RT property. Certainly seems like someone is waiting for something to happen, doesn't it? The RT movie is largely handcuffed for a narrative without the ability to use the Macross material. The HG staffers are fully aware that a Macross based film is their linchpin for the franchise and BW has effectively shut down that possibility. HG knows that their fans want to see a Macross film. I have to agree with other posters, that to publicly admit HG can't use the Macross IP in new productions would effectively kill the franchise fandom or effective reduce its number. Then there's the other risk of admission. Without a strong fanbase, the RT property no longer has any value and thus Agrama can't hope to unload or sell it for a profit. If Agrama has sold / given shares to his top brass, then they stand to profit from any sale as well. So keeping the fans loyal by any means necessary would be required by all involved.

Hmm. maybe that's how I managed to get banned from RT... I must have p1ssed off the powers that be and old Kevy in particular. Olde Mckeever wasn't too impressed with me when I showed up at an RT panel at my local anime convention and I never missed an opportunity to point out what was "actually" Macross and NOT Robotech. A few uncomfortable legal questions were tossed out there and by the end of the panel I was getting glaring looks from the former movie theater chain manager...

Me too, but the problem I had with that conclusion was that I knew the Stryker was a much smaller vehicle than the Beatrice was shown to be.

Preach it brotha...

Yes, Reboot Mac 7, reduce it by half in episode count with scary looking PD, not the Hanna Barbara types we already saw. Then we'll get a tight compelling story, not a 49 episode J-Pop commercial.

That may simply be a favor NUNS did for Briler, we really don't know the particulars of that flight. Again, we don't know if the VF-25 would have been purchased / licensed by any fleet other than Frontier. Possibly, but unknown. As I said, Kawamori has stated that the government of 2059 is much less centralized and thus a centralized "Federal" force would probably not be as large as UNS was back in the 40's. Therefore, the idea that a general dissemination of one particular design by LAI is rather unlikely. I'd be more inclined to believe the federal forces of the UNG would use a VF-24 as a general purpose fighter, rather than Frontier's VF-25 or even Galaxy's VF-27... We can be reasonably confident that all the Macross 13 fleets are directly under UNG control, whereas the rest of the NUNS fleets are "assigned" as escorts to various fleets and on "other" missions. Shinsei and GG are hedging nothing, IMO. They were paid to deliver a next gen variable fighter airframe and they did just that in the YF-24. What individual UNG colonies do with that airframe design is entirely their decision, so long as they have the licensing rights from S and GG. One could argue that the Galaxy VF-27 wasn't licensed, therefore not known to be in development. Some may build a VF-24 others may decide to modify the design like Frontier and Galaxy's development corps did.

I suspect Bandai really doesn't know what to do with the VF100 line. They have these molds they've paid for and they probably want to make a profit on them but aren't sure how. Particularly with the VF-HiMetal line seemingly being better received by the market. Personally I think they should convert the VF100 line to a fighter only line, keep the Robot Tamashii line as a battroid line and use the VF-HiMetal line for transformable valks. The first two can be sold for less due to the lack of engineering involved in both, while the HiMetal line is the DX of 1/100 scale models...

I wouldn't be so sure about the VF-25 becoming the mainline fighter of all of NUNS. Kawamori has already stated that the "new norm" in 2059 is for the Earth based contractors to develop next gen fighters and that colony worlds have every opportunity to adapt them as they see fit. The YF-24 is the airframe that all next gen fighters will be built upon, but not necessarily constructed as per spec. Keep in mind that the old days of a centralized government is all but gone and that the UNG is mainly a federation of automomous planetary and colonial fleet states. So a single design to be adopted by all colonies and fleets for a particular role, is no longer the norm. I get the impression that LAI worked in concert with Shinsei to develop the Messiah. Much like how some business software designers provide technical support to customers who desire to customize their program. The customer has purchased the software and by the virtue of their license are able to customize it to their own requirements. They are not required to use it the way it is out of the box if it doesn't suit their purposes. It seems that the Frontier government felt that the YF-24 didn't suit their purposes and chose to customize the design. So all NUNS forces under the Fontier government may ultimately switch over to the Messiahs. It is an assumption to believe all fleets and colonies will adopt the VF-25 into their fleets.

Damn! I better get a pre-order in on that puppy!

I comment because I can and it doesn't contravene the rules. Oh my, being called a name over the internet, I think I'll cry.... I don't take the comments you make personally, I'd recommend you do the same... IMO, I do not like the VF-9 battroid, or the VF-4's. Their fighter modes on the other hand, are very purdy...

You got an official source for that remark?

Was it really a partnership or did LAI sub-contract the work from the developers on behalf of the Frontier fleet? Shinsei and GG are both Earth based government defense contractors. They developed the YF-24 prototype and then farmed out the actual construction projects to various colonies and fleets, to either build the VF-24 to spec or develop their own VFs based on the YF-24 airframe. Frontier and Galaxy opted for the latter, we don't know how many others adapted the YF-24, like Frontier and Galaxy.

Well it appears that Briler moved his corporate offices to Frontier. Possibly to avoid planetary taxation. Which makes one wonder how many other corporations have moved their HQs to colony fleets if that's the case?

I've always figured that by 2059 humanity realized that the emigration fleets were not only for species survival, but an opportunity to exploit new resource hubs, creating new markets with colony worlds as well as the search for Protoculture artifacts and alien technologies to study for corporate exploitation or military application. The galaxy is vast and the PC's Stellar Republic spanned a large portion of it, so the risks for some are out weighed by the potential benefits. The Galaxy fleet used the autonomy of a deep space fleet to experiment with technologies that would have been previously prohibited on member worlds of the Galaxy Network. Then you have the Frontier fleet in who's true purpose was to search of new technologies to benefit the Briler Corporation, while the citizens were allowed to believe they were on an exclusive emigration mission. Essentially Kawamori used the Frontier series to explore the world of multi-national corporations by having the two principal fleets sponsored by Multi-planetary corporations. One a benign corporate entity while the other was not and yet the two businesses were very much aware of each other and what each was doing.

It's called advertising... A way in which to quickly promote both the M0 and MF bluray releases...

I tend to agree with JBO. Destroids are not hero mecha therefore not afforded much of a future in Macross publications. Many believed that destroids were totally discontinued after SW1, but lo and behold, we have Cheyenne IIs in Frontier, so IMO they are deployed differently in the Macross universe than as ship defenses for the Stellar Navy aka UNSpacy, like they were in SW1. Outside of the Deadalus attack they were largely ineffective as ship defenses or offensive units. The destroid evolution would work something like this in "my" universe. Generation 2: = All Models: - VF-1 generation fusion reactors - Lighter Armor, but reinforced with ECA for better mobility - Wheel assisted ground movement for the feet (ala Mac II destroids and the Cheyenne) = Defender 2: - Quad mounted GU-11 guns (proven very effective in fighter combat, eventhough ultimately deemed overpowered for the Valks) - *Although, this series appears to have been ultimately replaced by the Cheyenne series, post SW1 improvements should not be ruled out.* = Tomahawk 2: - Railguns and DEWs in the arms - Better integration of the missile launchers attached to the body (granted the design was heavily influenced by the modern tanks of the day). = Spartan 2: - Give the damn thing a Gu-11 gunpod! (essentially making it the ground equivalent of a battroid) - Shrink the chest area to give it a smaller vertical profile. = Phalanx: - Discontinue the line. The same could be acheived through stationary launcher emplacements. It's largely redundant considering the amount missiles carried by other destroids. Couple that with it's lack of defensive armaments, it is a waste of resources that could be employed elsewhere. = Monster: - Start the VB-X program. The size of the weapons system could lend itself well as a Marine drop ship, then transform into some sort of artillery support platform. Generation 3: - Redesign of all chassis to take advantage of advanced PPB and ECA technologies as well as increasing the mobility of such units. - Upgrades in Fusion powerplants - Upgrades in weaponry and ordinance efficiencies. - Upgrades in sensory and tracking technologies And with each generation, improvements are made over the prior one. Culminating in mission specific "Weapons Packs" similar to how the Valks have evolved. I like to believe the destroids went to the UN Marine and ground based Army units. Where ground warfare is much more common than in the Navy. Valks in Spacy serve a dual function, whereas in a MEU or Army application a lot more ground based slugfests would occur.

Dude, I love ya, but you got some serious keyboard diarrhrea going on here....

The VF100 series shouldn't have transformed at all, (try telling Bandai that ). I have the Tamashi Exclusive VF-25F & S fighters and they are amazing! The sculpts are brilliant for the scale, lightyears ahead of the crap Banpresto is pushing out for their non scale VFs...

There are a couple of resin garage kits beginning to float around but they are mondo expensive! There is a 1/72 version going for nearly 25,000 Yen (=$250.00) right now. Granted its a gorgeous sculpt and probably worth every penny, but not many can afford such a beauty in these economic times...

Most likely. It also allows for plausible transformation with the Armored Pack still attached, which is something he's never done before.

If the VF100 line would have been more successful we probably would have seen one in the pipeline...

I believe it's from the Armor Pack Itashi decal set for the VF-25F. It wasn't included in the kit, but a promotional sheet for the kit. Bandai didn't print enough, so there aren't a lot of them out there...

Yep she be down! The IP address gets you to the old index page.

Yep I stand corrected, on my initial correction....