ewilen

I think what Nanashi is saying is that the RHE warheads might just work in a different way from what we might expect, which could justify Shin's saying that the island will be harmed by "radiation". (Of course, what does Shin know about RHE weaponry, anyway?) If you read the link I posted earlier along with http://macross.anime.net/story/encyclopedi...tion/index.html you get some hint as to how the reaction warhead works. Basically, while a conventional H-bomb uses a fission (uranium or plutonium) bomb to start the fusion reaction, the RHE uses super dimension technology to initiate the reaction. E.g., by warping space in a small area, you create pressure/temperature similar to the core of a star.

You mean Myung singing "Voices" and Isamu waking up? Ambiguous, although I'd have to refresh my memory. That kind of thing appears in a lot of movies--e.g., a woman falls down when her husband or son gets hurt or killed somewhere on the other side of the world. Is that magical? Dramatic license? Religious/superstitious "static"? I'm not sure we'd be having this conversation if M7 and M0 didn't contain things that are clearly, explicitly supernatural. Come on, that's one of the oldest SF tropes around. The idea of the mind as an epiphenomenon of the brain, which is a biological computer, so when the "program" is transferred from an organic brain to an electronic one, the feelings get transferred, too. See: Lem, Stanislaw; Dick, Phillip K.; "What Are Little Girls Made Of" episode from the original Star Trek, etc., etc., etc.

Look in my signature.

Shin: Klaatu barata nikto!

Roy: Do you like gladiator movies, Shin? <pause> Roy: Have you ever seen Yukikaze, Shin?

For reference: Magic and Technology in Macross thread.

We need to clarify what's planned. There are three options that have been mentioned: a) Just the endoskeleton (which means you could make 2 destroids if you have a kit) b) Endoskeleton plus extra parts (lets you make 3 destroids if you have a kit) c) Complete recast I'm mainly interested in (b).

Interesting discussion but does it belong in the license debates thread?

Because we already know that pleasing images, and images not-so-pleasing, have a noticable effect on the brainwaves and other biological signs of people. We also know that music that is pleasing to the ear can also affect brainwaves, not to mention the mood of the listener. We also know that hypnotism, while not "scientific" in nature, can and does work and its primary medium is sound. While its application in Macross Plus is definitily the realm of science fiction, it's not too much of leap of imagination to see something like that happening in the real world. Blah-blah. This argument appeared to disprove Spiritia as magic and prove Sharon's music as non-magic. Remember that spiritia and song energy were also scientifically explained in the show (M7). This is something I think we touched on in a thread about "magic" in Macross a while back. Spiritia in M7 isn't really explained scientifically--Dr. Chiba just shows us some graphs, tells us it's scientific, and later builds some machinery that somehow focuses "sound energy". It might as well be ectoplasm from Ghostbusters, or chi, or The Force. Whatever rules govern it are completely unmoored from real science. Hypnotism (suggestion/manipulation of perceptions), holography, and artificial intelligence all have a basis in current scientific knowledge. At the present time, some people can be incapacitated by a pattern of flashing lights. I don't know why we need to be sidetracked by "if machines can do it, so can biological" creatures. Of course they can. It isn't what is doing it--it's how they do it. M+ is comprehensible without appeals to magic; like SDF Macross, the only major leap of faith is the hyperspace fold--but that has a strong tradition in SF, and it's even touched on in serious science discussions from time to time. M0 shows us stuff that looks like magic, but even more than M7, it invites us to interpret it as "psychic powers" or supertechnology relying on principles that are either unknown or at the extreme edge of scientific speculation. In this respect M0 continues the trend introduced by M7--a break from the world as presented in SDF/DYRL/M+, all of which could be interpreted by the audience as hard SF (or close to it).

We've had a little discussion about reaction weaponry and the somewhat related real-world concept of antimatter bombs recently. Apparently, a pure fusion bomb will still emit a flash of gamma rays, but unlike current fission-fusion thermonuclear weapons, it wouldn't produce radioactive fallout. Either Kawamori is unaware of this, or he doesn't care, or he's decided that reaction weapons do produce fallout for whatever reason, or the "radiation" Shin refers to is just the flash and hard gamma rays that would probably kill everything on the ground without necessarily leaving the islands uninhabitable.

Ah. But you still have "Bird's Man". Compare (from this page) "apato no biru", "apartment building", not "building of apartment", or "apartment's building".

By the way, stretching my knowledge of Japanese to the breaking point, I think you can replace "Bird of Man" with "Birdman" or "Bird-man". Based on the fact that in My Neighbor Totoro, "Neko no Basu" is translated as "Cat bus", not "bus of cat".

Actually these are different. These appear to be projectile shells (Reaction High Explosive (or Reaction High Energy-? --- not the Valkyrie-use RMS-1 large-type reaction anti-ship missile system), which have casings that are fired out of the HWR-00-Mk.I Monster Destroid Initial Prototype's 50cm Linear Cannons, which, after fired at certain point ignite their own rocket/engines until they reach their target. Fired over 160km.... holy...! Interesting stuf fif I must say so myself. I'm not saying it's the same weapon, just that the warhead uses the same technology. For which, everyone really needs to look at the link I posted, then proceed from there with speculation.

Reaction weapons, same general type as was used in the opening of SDF Macross (thus impressing Britai and Exedore) and in Love Drifts Away. http://macross.anime.net/story/encyclopedi...apon/index.html

Whatever parts, if any, that explain what is really going on, i.e., the big questions that everyone has been asking. Thanks for the synopsis, which filled in some points of confusion, but since you haven't gotten to the end yet, I'm still pretty much in the dark. Which isn't to say that the ending will be any clearer with a perfect translation. (In very broad terms, it's clear what's going on, and it will be familiar to anyone who's seen/read enough sci-fi, but at that level of abstraction it's pretty unsatisfying to a Macross fan.) In the meantime, I've tried over there to fill in what I remember from the ending, but I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out and misremembering other stuff.

I'll continue, but be warned that I don't know Japanese or Chinese, and I've only seen the thing once, so all that follows is in glorious Error-Vision. First, though, the flying ships and subs--some people have said it was because they had antigrav generators like those on the Macross. I saw some animation like the generators, but regardless of that, I assumed that the reason everything started floating was because of an effect from the birdman. Maybe they did have antigrav generators (or some kind of superdimension machinery based on overtechnology), but the birdman activated them? Anyway, Shin makes a leap of faith and jettisons all of the weapons on his VF-0 (but people have pointed out that his leg fastpacks reappear magically later), flies over to the AFOS's "cockpit" and awakens Sara. Around this time, the UN forces trot out a Monster on the aircraft carrier. It looks a lot like the MAC II, but the arms then open up to reveal the "claws" (see Nanashi's Monster thread), and it turns out that the claws are used to anchor the Monster to some sort of stays embedded in the deck while it prepares to fire. The Monster fires at the AFOS...and frankly, I don't remember what happens here. I think maybe the AFOS activates a shield or something, and the Monster's round is supposed to be a reaction shell or missile. The AFOS survives with Sara on board and folds out. Shin's VF has been badly damaged (I think by the AFOS while he was approaching it), and takes a nose dive toward the Ocean. He tries to pull out, and it looks like he's going to make it. But then, just as he's about horizontal a few dozen feet above the surface, the VF-0 plunks straight down into the water. Mao and Edgar watch in horror from the deck of the aircraft carrier. After a long while, though, the VF-0 flies out of the water and folds out. Aries and Roy are left on the shore somewhere. Some dialog occurs, and Aries dies. The End. Or something like that.

Not sure if I liked it or not. I'm going to be vague and general here, to avoid even a hint of a spoiler. (If anyone wants to argue with my points, please don't use spoilers. Let's keep this thread spoiler-free at least for a while after the fansubs start to appear.) Also, I don't know Japanese or Chinese (there's a Chinese subbed version out there already). Some people have complained about the exposition early in the episode. I can see where they're coming from, and I agree the show "cheats" a little bit in terms of setting up certain dramatic expectations without really paying them off, but I don't think it's hard to understand what happened. The dogfight scenes are great. Super aviation-porn. I wasn't so keen on how the Monster was handled. See the Nanashi's Monster thread for more, but of course there will be spoilers. The "magical" stuff doesn't let up, which is no surprise. While I didn't mind that in principle (if Scanners is science fiction, not to mention Akira then so is M0), I thought the portrayal was out of control at some points. It was almost on the level of Princess Mononoke, whereas up to this point, it was only the level of, say, Laputa. Unfortunately, the end of the episode is really hard to interpret without understanding the dialog. On the basis of what's been said by people who do understand, I'm not too crazy about it. This might be partly due to my expectations from the rest of the Macross continuity (not just SDF/DYRL but M7 as well)--which is to say, if somone came at this without any knowledge of Macross, they might like it better. Once the subs come out, I'll rewatch the whole OAV...maybe it'll hang together better. Or as many have suggested, maybe there'll be a movie version which will offer a second take, and which will be more to my tastes. At the moment, it's a minor let-down.

Resurrecting this thread because the topic's come up in the "I just got sniped" thread. If it doesn't cost too much, you can put me down for an endo-skeleton plus whatever extra parts would be needed to make three whole destroids at once. Personally, I'd rather see a kit like that than a complete recast of the whole set, even though I don't have one myself yet.

I think I saw a Mig-29, but I didn't make out any Flankers. Things were moving very fast, though. Changing gears, as nice as it was to see Shin and Nora pull Cobras, why not just do a Gerwalk brake instead? For that matter, Nora used conversion to battroid in ep. 1 for essentially the same purpose.

Just because it's official doesn't mean it's great. Personally, it's not my cup of tea. The claws strike me as neither practical, necessary, nor esthetically pleasing. The whole "clawed Monster" phenomenon seems like a joke--first they show the pictures, creating a lot of buzz about WTF is going on, then they give us a nice ultra-detailed mecha-porn sequence showing them being deployed...only to have it turn out that the Monster uses them to brace against recoil. It reminds me slightly of the coat hanger scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Messages crossed in the mail, as it were. Yes, that all makes sense, Nanashi. Thanks.

In particular, we see the QF-2001 launching from a carrier in episode three. http://macross.anime.net/mecha/united_nati...2001/index.html And the QF-3000E is shown in SDF Macross, episode 1. Although I don't think they're actually shown on screen after that episode, there is a reference to them in "Miss Macross", I believe. It's implied (or stated) that Hikaru's patrol mission, in which he encounters the Quel-Quallie, involves leading/controlling/escorting some Ghosts. Edit: I may be misremembering about the reference to Ghosts in "Miss Macross". At least, I've seen a comment elsewhere on the net that a Ghost appears in episode 24 ("Good-Bye Girl").

Most of this is just your interpretation. Was Sharon "magical" or some combination of holograph and mind control? I'm agnostic. Keith, I'm curious--what order did you see the various Macrosses in? Yes, for those who can't stomach it, that's too bad. As far as the continuity is concerned, I'm not crazy about the direction taken in M7 and M0 (though it's hard to say until a translation of ep. 5 comes out); OTOH, I've found both quite enjoyable in and of themselves. Was SDF Macross/DYRL a hard war story? Perhaps not--"music conquers all" isn't a hard war theme (although "culture shock" isn't alient to hard SF). Did it always have Spiritia--I doubt it, and I'd be surprised to find more than a handful of people who agreed with you on that point.

Major Jonathan asked in the non-spoiler thread if there's a VF-0B, so... I didn't see one. If there was one, it featured far less prominently than any VF-1 variant I've ever seen (except possibly the VEFR). BTW, I don't even think the VF-0B is listed at macross.anime.net. So, is Hasegawa definitely making it or not?

In spite of the thread title, the one at the top of the thread is (apparently) the Chinese subtitled one. Other links I've seen: ed2k://|file|[a9][macross_zero][005][jap_chn][1200k][ac3].avi|426782720|E2EB32B5F5C54EB716384BC8D160E2D4|h=QY4XXFTNIKKPAJT23MOIZ263WAIYTPXJ|/ (I think this is the Chinese sub. Same file is also on Gnutella.) http://bt1.greedland.net/download.php?btId=107900 (Chinese sub) The truly raw one with WMV3 encoding is available on eDonkey with various names, e.g. [dvd raw][ova][macross zero][005][wmv9][704x396 5.1 ch AC3][450mb].avi The Chinese one is 407 mb; the raw one is 450.2 mb. If mods have a problem with the content of this post please change or delete whatever needs to go.