VFTF1

Oh wow! A post about Robotech with substance! Allow me to reply... If the SDF-1 being "ZOR'S FORTRESS!!!" instead of "some tiny gun boat" is what gives Americans a kick, then, to paraphrase Obi Wan "Well then they are Lost!!!" beause that's just a cheap stunt. "It's Zor's fortress!!" who cares. It could be a flying Dildo from Venus for all I care as long as the plot is good. And the overall plot of Macross is superior to Robotech, for reasons I've elaborated on in prior posts and will summerize here in the following sentence: Macross is a story about how a beautiful singer used the power of love and song to restore culture to an alien race that was robbed of its' humanity by the excesses of science, and to alert humanity to the need to preserve culture in order to save humanity from a similar fate to that of the aliens while Robotech was about Rick Hunter shooting aliens and a big war. The diffference in favor of Macross is so clear in my mind, that one would really have to be little more than a FANATICAL mecha-war-lover to prefer Robotech. As to: 1) I agree that the basic concept of the Sentinels is sound. I always LOVED the RPG; the cover was so evocative and the idea of taking the adventure into outerspace and exploring an alien planet - going "off-Earth" - is a good idea. The problem is that the story falls apart later. I read McKinney's Planet Killers which concludes Sentinels and it just gets progressively worse as the story goes along. There's too much of a rush to a final epic battle. It's almost TOO stereotypical in terms of how the story progresses, and by making it so operetic, they sacrifice the tragic element. Still - the general concepts are decent. 2) Harmony Gold seem incapable of "making nice" with anybody. As for all of those ideas of "Robotech: DYRL" and "Robotech: Frontier" ... You know.... To my mind NO successful western anime license has raped the product that it is bringing over from Japan. In fact, no successful FORIEGN FILM of ANY kind has ever been brought to the USA and radically altered from its' original form. I understand the specifics of the 80s and syndication and why they did it then...but... In these times - why don't they just bring it over and sell it as MACROSS. With subs. And THAT'S ALL. ?? I agree about Gubaba sounding sore. But can you blame him? Put yourself in his position. He knows Japanese, he buisies himself translating Macross books and episodes. He does it all for free. And he has encyclopedic knowledge of stuff which lots of us don't even know EXISTS, let alone stuff we remotely understand. I'm not saying he deserves to be worshiped by fiat - nobody does. But if you get to know him a little bit, I think any remotely sane, let alone semi-intelligent person, would immediately develop an immense respect and affection for him, rather than call him a Nazi or a son-of-a-hoe or whatever else it was you called him. I'm not saying this to put you down Pizza - and I for one appreciate what you wrote here, because it is a decent way of proceeding "hey, forget the past, let's have peace." Ultimately it is true that the memory of some harm done will always remain and if people are going to live in peace then they MUST forget the past... That said... I don't think you fully understand how "sore" Gubaba could be if you called him out. And yeah, if he wrote bad PMs to you - then that sucks too - that doesn't help... But it also means you must really have pushed his buttons the wrong way, because the guy is not only a fountain of wisdom - but also very VERY generous and a really nice guy. Very helpful and nice. I honestly can't imagine him being mean to anybody or writing in anger to anybody (although I guess it happens to all of us). In any event - hope you guys work out your differences in your PMs. I'm always in favor of burrying hatchets. Wow. This is all really interesting to read Seto. They actually went after people who referenced the novels? WTF?! That would be like if Beast Wars fans tried to purge G1 fans or if Movie fans tried to purse Animated fans... Do they realize that this is the INTERNET and that it's possible - on an internet forum - to have various dedicated threads? Like..."Classic Robotech" thread and "Modern Robotech Thread" - I mean - I would understand it if this was a fan website with die-hard Shadow Chronicles lovers or die-hard ..whatever... but...Harmony Gold should know it has an interest in perpetuating the ENTIRE Robotech mythology...not just some part of it... And yeah - it does sound like somebody just pulled the wool over people's eyes in warner..."look transformers...money...make Robotech..." I don't think it'll happen though. Transformers capitalized mainly on doing something that's never been done before in terms of the CGI robots. To the extent that they captured such a large crowd thanks to those effects - those people are NOT going to pay as much to see Robotech doing the same thing basically. Robotech LAM could ONLY sell well if it had a powerful and moving story - like Macross. But I always believed that some stories are just best told in ANIME and not live action. I dunno...we'll see. Huh? Pete

Thanks for the back story Seto - I particularly didn't know about the history with regard to the 2001 reboot, and how people think everything between 87 and 2001 is crap or "not Robotech." It sounds a bit like what went on in the Transformers fandom - I remember when Beast Wars came out there were rumblings of dissaffection - but Beast Wars turned out to be so well woven into the original "G1" fabric, that by its' end, I think the nay-saying Raksha was pretty much alone in her hatred of BW, and anybody who'd had any doubts about "Trukk not Munky" accepted Beast Wars as a brilliant continuation of the original stories - plus we got CGI rendered Optimus Prime, the Ark, Megatron (all in original G1 design too!)...Prowl... it was great back then. Like a dream come true. The real problem started with Armada and the Unicron Trilogy - but I guess Hasbro (correctly) guessed that little kids needed a new cartoon - and while there were easter egg homages to placate die hard fans like me... the Trilogy was..well...extremely...extremely new... The rest, as they say, is history, what with the Movie changing EVERYTHING just about...Animated... But all along Transformers has been given a multi-verse explanation - something called the Unified Theory or something like that...multiple dimmensions - the only CONSTANT is Unicron - the giant transforming planet - and he goes from dimmension to dimmension eating them. This is why you have a hundred zillion possible versions of Optimus Prime and NONE of the different shows contradict eachother (even though they seem to) - it's because each time line is in a seperate dimmension - and only Unicron has access to all of them (although sometimes TFs will travel from one dimmension to another--- like in the Dreamwave comic written by Furman "Worlds Collide"). Now - take it or leave it, love it or hate it - there's a generally coherent story arc there. My biggest beef with the TFs is that while I accept that the story is coherent - I no longer find it compelling. I would much prefer to leave all these flat one dimmensional characters behind and follow up on grand adventures in ONE time line (the original one).... And I also have come to find the toys irredeemably ugly... Anyways.... With Robotech --- it is kind of strange ...because...after 1987...the closer we get to the 90s....well...by the time the internet showed up - wouldn't more and more people have discovered that Robotech was actually comprised of three seperate anime? I mean - I assume this information was not readily available for all? Or - well..ok - technically it was - for those who read the Robtoech Art books, and maybe it was mentioned in the RPGs... but back then nobody watched Japanese anime except for Gubaba, who as we know doesn't count because he's from the planet Utap, part of an intellectual elite plotting to take over Pluto... I vaguely remember Keith linking to some old usenet group posts where people would tear into him for stating the obvious about Macross/Robotech... As for Genesis - heh. Yeah... ok - I didn't realize they were anti-Shadow Chronicles ... but... so what? There's plenty of Star Wars fans who hate the prequils - I'm sure lots of them make fanfiction that for them is more "true" to the original trilogy -- Lucas doesn't seem to get involved in fan wars and fan politics. He doesn't go after people who hate Phantom Menace and make a fan film about Boba Fett. This is the real problem with HG. I mean - fans will be fans. You're never going to get a fanbase that just stands there saying "WE LOVE YOU! GIVE US MORE!" no matter what. Fans are always going to be quarreling and changing their minds. Corporate strategy needs to be above that and look to just sell a product and make it interesting and accessable. Keep it faithful to the source material makes sense if the source material generates enough fan interest to make it profitable. This is true (IMO) in the case of GI joe, Transformers and ESPECIALLY Star Wars - the fanbase is not marginal - they are very very vocal. Hell- I would go to the length of saying that the success of the first Bay Transformers movie is - in large part - owed to the fanbase and to Don Murphey's intelligent gamble of opening his website up to the public. Don Murphy built HUGE suspence - and news of the film being made spread over time through word of mouth... the internet played a really big part. HG seems incapable of using the internet. For them - the internet is full of pirates, Macross purists who don't respect their trade mark, and competitors. I dunno... This is why I find it bizarre that there is ANY talk of a LAM and Warner Bros and Tobey Macguire. Robotech is dead. Nobody remembers it. Why would anybody want to make a movie of this thing? Because there's a fanbase that will pay to see it? Who? Memo and Doug Bendo? Doug's "9 thousand lessoners." 9 thousand people times 20 bucks a ticket is 180 thousand USD. 180 thousand USD might pay for half an hour of filming on a professional movie set. Who is going to see this movie? Teenage mutant Ninja Turtles has a bigger fanbase than Robotech - at least that's the impression I get... Oh - and finally... Why isn't there an inter-active RPG on robotech.com? I mean - you'd think Paladium and HG would be smart enough to create some kind of innovative web based role playing game or something... Or is there one? (yes - I am too lazy to go check...) Pete

How true is that, I wonder? I have yet to actually encounter a Robotech fan. Seriously. I'm not talking about a "oh yeah I like Robotech too" fan - that would be about 50% or more of this website. I'm talking about someone who is a Robotech fan like I was a Transformers fan. I notice in the Transformers thread lots of people are like "who is Straxus?" and "what is Darkmount?" - for me, who grew up with the original Marvel Comics - it's just amazing to read that...it's like..huh? I sold off my collection, but I still remember...have I really been around that long? Despite my ire at Transformers right now, I am confident that I would know EVERYTHING - or pretty damn near everything about even the smallest details of the stories from the marvel comics and a fair amount from the cartoons. Diddo for the toys - since I have owned pretty much EVERY Transformer ever made. Nowadays, whenever the subject of Transformers comes up - I complain - sure - but if you engaged me in a discussion of the positive aspects of Transformers and a debate over the literary merits and demerits of the Marvel comics - I would be game. I would have something relevent to communicate. Where are the Robotech fans who are like that? I seriously don't see ANY. The extent of commentary regarding Shadow Chronicles that I've seen from Robotech fans is "it's great" combined with criticism of Macross Frontier for being porn. Previously - in the earlier incarnations of this thread, I begged for the appearance of a Robotech fan who would explain to me what is so great about Robotech. Captain Donovan came along and said that Robotech is great because he's Rosa Parks. Doug Bendo came along and said Robotech is great because I'm a liberal who sleeps with 12 year old girls. Memo came along and said sorry to Seto. Pizza came along and said he couldn't believe how he'd been screwed. NOBODY has come along to even once exhibit the slightest bit of real honest to gosh ENTHUSIASM for Roboech. So...where are these mythical Robotech fans? What part of the internet do they inhabit? I guess if Robotech Genesis actually came to fruition - we'd see some bona fied Robotech fans - since Genesis would not doubt have been a comentary to the actual series in some way.... But..generally...I don't see them anywhere. Robotech.com seems to be filled primarily with total newbies, people who vaguely remember Robotech from when they were kids 25 years ago, and people who work for Harmony Gold. Fans? Can't find 'em. Pete

Nag, nag nag. All you ever do is complain about Robotech. They put Carl Macek in a thong - and it's still just "nag nag nag!" No wonder Memo banned you! Pete

Knowing them, you'd have reports at the last minute from first-time customers that it was just Carl Macek in a thong waiting for them. Pete

While she's at it - she could perform in my backyard I'll make an open fire and we can grill sausages on sticks and eat them with ketchup, mustard and lots of beer! She'll love my dogs! Pete

Nah. If they had imagination they'd convert the apartment chain into an anime-themed Macross girls whore house. I mean - if they're going to be THAT anal about having exclussive rights to the show -then they could at LEAST use it for something. They obviously can't make good movies, they will never get a decent tv series out. So just dress some babes up as Minmey, Misa and the Bridge Bunnies and at least put that real estate to good use. But nooo... The only thing they seem to be expert at is writing C&D and banning people from their website Pete

And no one else has a hyperdrive califrabulator I can tell you THAT! So HAH! Pete ... what are we talking about again?

Becauze my Robotech fanfic "The Return from the Black Hole of Rick Hunter" is very impotent! I will has Doug Bedno teling his 9,00.0 lessoners about i t! Pete

I CANT TELL MORE BECAUSE OF LAM HEHEHEHEHEHEHE. BUT SOON I WILL MAKE IMPOTENT ANNOUNCEMENT! PETE

Dere Harmoneygold, My naim iz Petar. I layk robotech. Hear iz may fan fiksion submersion: Once upon a day, Rick Hunter said "Oh no." Lisa said "what is wrong?" Rick said "Fire!" Lisa went. He said no and they came back to the brige. "Transform!" And it transformed. When they went it was fires a lazer to the place where wrong. "I love you!" she was screaming but Rick . The Zntders was bigger than him went right and she ran. Fire! Fire! I said again was not the way home in the black hole! TITLE: Return of Rick Hunter from the Black Hole Going away from the black was big. Then there is a battle and they die. But where did they go? They went against the Invid who were hiding there on Haydon 15. I am "Rick Hunter!" he "said." "So?" "So yes!" "Where do you goi?" "I am RICK HUNTER! he said" Oh ok. I love you and Lisa was there because when that was going he was flying here again and SF-1D transfor!m Transform! Boom! Boom! "What is that?" John said. John was running but Rick Hunter "i am RICK HUNTER!! He said and John said "oh." John was Minmey's cousin. "My second cousin, Minmey said, is john." Vicyory! Can yo ufeel to take it! You can not fake it! You will make it! Singing was so beautifull and that touched for John's "I am Rick HUNTER! and the sound was made again he said it like it meant for loving something. " To Be Continyoud. Kan I please make publishing movie-film this HG? Non profit for fan! I LOV ROBOTEC!! PLEASE HG LET ME CONTINUE MY FAN PROJECT! NEXT WILL DRAW Comic books! No homos or pedos! Pete

Oh -on a more serious note - a big time contender should be Wong-Kar-Wei's 2046. I generally love this movie, like all of this director's movies. It should be a top contender! Pete

Dag. You guys won't believe it...but the snow started majorly melting today. I mean - I'm talkin' Hawaian Bahamas Beach Party....Well...ok...that's an exageration - but it wasn't cold, let alone freezing. I still had to wear a winter coat, but one didn't feel that "brrr!! poo!! fast fast! get inside!!" feeling - not even that "ahh! Brisk lovely frosty winter day!" feeling. It was just like...dag.. everything is melting... Anyways - as a result...I'm slowly warming to the idea of building something. I think, however, that I should really build the 1/72 Alto. I've got 1/72 Ozma standing around and he could use a friend... will follow that up with Hi-Nu... And I do need to build Guntank... And I really like Victory Gundam too... oh my... ok...it's just a matter of time now... I always loved building when the sun was shinning and I could open my windows, and the birds were chirping and the air was...um...being...err...there - like...you know...as in...like...no cold but actually nice... Amazing...I remember yearning for winter - now I want it to be spring... dag... amazing....I feel like such a slurmt! Seriously... I'm such an unfaithful slurmt! It's like - I want one season...and next thing I know I want a DIFFERENT season! I'm so ashamed. Pete

Well... does that mean Cobra Commander will wear blue? Or will we see him in a battle suit? A silver metalic face mask? The one he put on in the movie was kind of uninspiring. I mean...it was a face mask - ok. And it showed his eyes. Ok... but... I dunno... I guess it wasn't THAT bad. It was ok... just not what I was used to... Oh! Oh! I know!! Tomax and Xamot! They could introduce the twins for sure!! Bettin' they will do just that!! And Dread Knocks!! Pete not even a GI Joe fan

Does Scarface with Al Pacino count as sci-fi? There is that one scene where Omar says "Don't you think we could have gotten some other space cadet to hit Rebingo? Cheaper than you! 50 bucks!" ? Pete

If you want a different hobby - my suggestion would be to collect hot anime girls from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya! Pete

Oh - I don't think she takes the petitions THAT seriously And I generally agree with you. But Macross fans need to have their fun -and it's fun to worship her for her Macross songs...although...I didn't understand that part... I'll admit I didn't really read the post - I just looked at her pretty picture! YAY MARI!! And ok - I'll buy her album. But for now I'm waiting on the Gundam Compilation Movies I-III which are shipping to me! Woo! Eventually I'll get Marii too - she'll make for good listening in my car I'm sure! Pete

I find it odd that I don't own a DVD of blade runner. Yet I own "Warriors of the Land of Zu." WTF is up with that?! Pete

Marii Ijima is soo beautiful!! I'll support anything that has her name on it!! Pete

Hm. Looking at those screen caps from Robotech Genesis - and judging by the posts from "insiders" from Harmony Gold like Kevin etc on Robotech.com - I surmize that what happened was a classic "Oh my God! Their Dick is nearly as big as ours even though we paid millions for a Korean to inject ours with jumbo-sizing chemicals and all they have is some money from from their mom!" In other words - given that this is a fan work - it's very good. It is lacking in comparisson to "official" studio produced anime - but it's clearly very very good for a no-budget fan flick made not-for-profit. And IF they actually had a GREAT plot to go with this pretty-good animation - it would have been very very VERY good. Because ultimately - as much as one might hate HG/Robotech... let's face it - if they could put together a remotely decent plot - then they might even hold some interest.... Given that people at Robotech.com get banned if a mod mis-hears a fart and interprets it as someone saying "I like Macross" - then obviously it's not surprising that these fans also got a C&D. And of course - good on them for announcing that they're just going to use their talent to make an ORIGINAL show to promote THEIR TALENT and FUQK Harmony Gold and Robotech. Now... Think about this: How many GREAT Fan films are there in the STAR WARS universe. HUNDREDS. Troops is one of the classics of the fan film genre - but there are HUNDREDS. There's Boba Fett Adventures, there's that fanfilm "Conspiracy" - there's TONS AND TONS of excellent films - lots of them using CG and with space battles and loads of awesome stuff. And does this somehow mean that Lucas has less money? That Star Wars toys sell in lower quantities? Or maybe...just maaaybe it means that Star Wars is a cultural icon? Sorry - but it has to be said openly: Harmony Gold are a bunch of low life PRICKS. As they have proven for the up-teenth time. Hell - what if we got an internet role-playing game going - based off of the Paladium books - and we not only had a GM and some players - but a graphic designer and a script writer - and they took our game and decided to make an animated series about it? An extension of the role playing game. Dag - whatever...these guys are hilariously brain dead. It's like... This isn't a company. This is like three stupid little kids who happened to get a hold of a trade mark that a few other people are interested in and basically they are saying "either worship us as Gods or we will excommunicate you." I mean - this is ridiculous. I have no personal stake in this since I'm not a Robotech fan - so I really don't care one way or another if there are new films made or fan films made or whatever... But as someone who has BEEN a big fan of various franchises - I've NEVER heard of ANY company doing something like this. I mean - look at the Hasbro approved TMUK Generation 2 comic books for christ's sake! Nick Roche did work on those and now he's doing IDW. In fact - lots of the artists from Dream Wave through IDW were fan artists who got know at Botcon.... Whatever...these guys are lame. Pete

I disagree. History shows 1 main thing about HG: They always spend more money on court battles than on making a decent product. I mean - look at the past - they have been in tons of court battles to defend their copy right, all while doing nothing to promote, expand or creatively develop it. Besides - they wouldn't have to "fly" to another country. They could get a reputable international law firm like PriceCoopers or something to represent them abroad and sue whoever it is they wanted sued. Pete

Wow. Who would have thought that a disgruntled ex-TF fan who sold off his collection and replaced them with school-girl dolls would give birth to the most exciting event in Transformers history since the first live-action movie. Hyperbolic Pete

The conversion will only be complete when you stop talking about Robotech altogether and start talking about Macross. Going from loving Robotech to hating Robotech still leaves you with Robotech in mind. But it doesn't exist. It's all an illusion. Macross is real - the real show that was actually concieved, thought through and done with care. You can of course still not like it - but then just move on to something totally different. Like Gurren Lagann! IMO it's a total wasteo f time to bitch and moan about Robotech - it's not worth it. Pete

Good! Pete

You guys aren't helping - you painters you! I don't paint my Gundams anyways - and judging from experience - I need to be "in the mood" - and then I usually do about 3 models in a row. Still haven't gotten into "the mood" to say the least... Hmm... Oh well. Whatever...Eventually I'll want to build something. I will probably build Hi-Nu Gundam since I've wanted that for a long time and think it looks awesome anyways. Pete