Mospeada Podcast

[eugimon]

Which is exactly what I said. It is a pale Macross imitation because it tries to have Macross' love triangle and fails miserably at it.

--space war - and? so now macross and mospeada are a rip-off of star wars?

Don't be pedantic. Non-sequitor.

How is that pedantic? Or a non sequitor, you're the one who said that merely borrowing ideas from previous shows in the same genre constituted a ripp off. It's widly known that after star wars, many japanese creators emulated and borrowed ideas from star wars.

--aliens that wind up being basically human - uhm, I missed the part in SDFM where the zentradi were larval stages of a giant energy based life form

Like I said, Kakinuma and Aramaki had good intentions, but Tatsunoko perverted it so we were right back to Macross.

Again, how are the zentradi larval forms of sentient energy beings? Just because they're humanoid space aliens doesn't mean they're rip offs.

--idol singers that win over the aliens - minmei = shock and awe psychological weapon. Yellow falls in love with a particular slug and reasons with the refles to leave earth. Yellow is also soldier, minmei is annoying teenage girl who whines a lot.

There is a lot more going on than just shock and awe with Minmay. Miria's behavior is an excellent example of how the aliens were won over by Minmay and human culture in general. That is not the same thing as being astonished long enough for a pilot to shoot you with a missile. Humanity survived because of mass defections in the Zentradi fleet, not because of "shock". Now in Mospeada they again do it on a much smaller, weaker scale. Aisha and Sorji both "defect". Her daughters being won over is what convinces the Refless to leave (by Yellow and Stick), not just Yellow arguing with her.

In love drifts away, minmei starts singing, kisses kaifun and causes bodolza's fleet to stand there while the macross and alies attack. Exodol even calls it a psychological attack. Yes, later on the love angle continues to be developed and it's used primarily, but it's not like humans and zentradi live peacfully ever after. They continue to fight and bicker and even in macross plus and 7, we continue to see human/zentradi tensions. In mospeda, they simply leave the planet.

--You really might as well say that macross is a rip-off of star wars if you're going to say that merely having similar themes is enought to constitute a rip-off.

hi-karu/luke, young naive pilots who are suddenly thrust into a much larger world and war, become pivotal pilots. Both suffer great tragedies that force them away from what they know.

Roy/Ben - older and wiser gurus who have looked after the protagonist, who teach them the skills necessary to survive, both die tragically.

zentradi/empire - huge space empire bent on domination, large capital ships capable of destroying worlds.

This is also a non-sequitor. Star Wars is NOT a love triangle, it is not about transforming three mode jets, it is not about aliens initially monstrous in aspect that become humans by the end. Young naive hero thing is a standard heroic story trope, not something that comes from Star Wars, and space wars with giant alien fleets and captial ships go back a lot further than Star Wars. Obviously there is Star Trek, but also Forbidden Planet and a host of other movies that came before that, not to mention Buck Rogers and everything. Mospeada is not a ripoff because it is also about robots in space, it is a ripoff because it contains most of Macross' central themes and visuals, whereas Macross only shares a couple of themes and visuals with Gundam, just as Gundam only shares a couple of themes and visuals with Yamato and so on.

Furthermore, Star Wars cribs liberally from Yamato, Lensman, Dune, The Hidden Fortress, and The Dambusters. But once again, I think Star Wars is a non-sequitor, because clearly Macross owes much more to Gundam and Yamato than it does to Star Wars..

Really? Star Wars didn't have a love triangle? I must have been imagining the whole luke - leia - han thing.

And going back to your earlier post where you said ray = hikaru, if as you say, young naive hero is a common story type, what makes them the same?

Story similarities: Hikaru/luke get captured and escape from zentradi/empire and learn vaulable military secrets along the way.

Oh please. The hero getting captured is another standard heroic story trope that occurs in almost all stories of that style. Placing the hero or his loved ones in peril is the stuff of action/adventure drama.

--Hikaru/Luke place faith in an intangible force to secure victory against impossible odds - hikaru- love / luke - the force.

You are really stretching here. He does not put his faith in an intangible force, he puts his faith in massive enemy defections and the technology of the reaction missile and barrior overload.

--Mecha/machine similarities: x-wing / valkyries: out numbered but technologically superior to their counterparts, and have multiple modes/ configurations.

Man, this Star Wars thing is getting ridiculous. Again the hero being outnumbered is a standard heroic story trope and multiple modes? Please. The X Wing has wings like a Tomcat, two positions, up and down. The Valkyrie TRANSFORMS INTO A HUMANOID ROBOT. That is not remotely analgous.

--pods/tie fighter: cheap war machine with limited abilities but mass produced, primarily fight by overwhelming the enemy with numbers.

Once again, villains out numbering the heroes is a standard story trope.

This is my point exactly. Macross and mospeada use common story elements found in action/adventure type stories. The fact that they share similarities doesn't make it a rip off, any more than macross ripped off star wars, or star wars ripped off king arthur.

--millenium falcon/ SDF Macross: main ship of series, plagued by technical issues, constantly on the run from pursuing forces. Pilots/bridge crew use ingenious and counter intuitive plans to survive.

Oh come on. The SDF is a gigantic fortress with an incredibly power cannon capable of destroying enemy ships outright, the centerpiece of the human fleet, and salvaged from alien technology. The Millennium Falcon is an obsolete, stumpy little five person smugger's ship plauged by technical issues. The Macross is not plagued by technical issues, it is plauged by humans who don't know how to use it properly. This is not analgous either.

So, it's not a mechanical problem when the anti-grav generators rip out of their mounts? Or when the gizmo that makes gun shoot disapears? Who's arguing semantics now?

--so did macross rip-off star wars? no more than lucas ripped off kurosawa's seven samurai. The various ingredients are similar but the end product is sufficiently unique and worthy of existing in it's own right.

Lucas ripped off The Hidden Fortress, not Seven Samurai. Get it right.

vader's look was taken from seven samurai main villain's helmet. visual rip-off... geez, speaking of pedantic.

Edited July 19, 2007 by eugimon

[The Shade]

Not that I'm trying to change the direction this thread's been going (nah, I'm lying , I really am trying to change this thread's direction), I just want to start out by saying: nice podcast. I listened to your Southern Cross podcast last week, and now your Mospeada one this week.

The first thing I noticed is how many details you guys know. Is all this info straight out of your heads, or do you do a lot of research beforehand? What I noticed is the wealth of details on the pre-production phase: what the shows' creators' intentions were, the character designs, and so forth.

The second part I noticed and liked is you guys' humor. I particularly laughed at the part where you were talking about Yellow revealing he's really a man.

One other thing: like I said, I've only listened to two of your podcasts. Both were around 40-45 minutes long. Is that a standard running time with all your shows? I'm only saying this because I've listened to some other podcasts that just seem to be too long (over an hour, two in some cases) and the announcers just seem to ramble on just to fill in some time. But at 45 minutes, yours seem just right.

Here's an idea for a future podcast (if you take requests that is): do a show on the original series that comprised Voltron: Go Lion and Dairugger XV.

Good job, and keep up the good work.

Edited July 19, 2007 by The Shade

[VF5SS]

Thank you for your feedback, the Shade.

We tend to run around 26-45 minutes on average. I don't think we've ever gotten close to an hour.

Most of our background info is from staff interviews contained in the DVD sets. Also Jeremy has talked to Tommy Yune on several occasions and he's a wealth of information on Mospeada, Southern Cross, and some of the design studios like Artland.

[Ginrai]

Mostly I picked Tommy Yune's brain about Megazone because I am obsessed with it. Almost all of the background material for both Southern Cross and Mospeada came from the booktlets that came with the DVD set and staff interviews. However, I did confirm some Tatsunoko staff members and such with Tommy Yune. Thanks for the feedback! Some podcasts can get reallllly long, just not ours. I listened to an episode of Anime World Order that was three hours long!

I would really like to do Go Lion (possibly Dairugger XV), but I only have about three Go Lion episodes and they are all straight Japanese. I know Media Blasters is planning on releasing a Go Lion boxset with English subs sometime in the future, and I will probably pick that up when it comes out, but I'm not going to do it based on three grainy episodes totally in Japanese. So be patient, but thanks!

Edited July 19, 2007 by Ginrai

[eugimon]

Thank you for your feedback, the Shade.

We tend to run around 26-45 minutes on average. I don't think we've ever gotten close to an hour.

Most of our background info is from staff interviews contained in the DVD sets. Also Jeremy has talked to Tommy Yune on several occasions and he's a wealth of information on Mospeada, Southern Cross, and some of the design studios like Artland.

the sidetrack aside, I think you guys do good work as well. I have no idea why this got so heated, I certainly don't hold mospeada up as any sort of great work of anime.

[Ginrai]

What do you mean by the sidetrack?

Well, yeah, I'm not sure why people defend Mospeada so sincerely. It's OKAY. I LIKE it. But it's not the greatest ever, and it's not that original.

[The Shade]

Hey Ginrai, I've noticed something about your podcasts that seems a bit weird to me: the bit rates are 256kb/s. I find it weird since there's only dialog going on, not real music to speak of. Of course, this creates a larger file. Is there a reason you're going for such a high bit rate? I'm just saying that reducing your bit rate would probably substantially reduce your bandwidth costs, and should not affect the podcast's quality (I think).

P.S. Your Battlestar Galactica podcast was hilarious.

[Ginrai]

I started using a higher bitrate lately because there was this weird tinny echo thing in earlier podcasts with a lower bitrate that was driving me nuts. I'm not really an mp3 compression guru, do you have any suggestions? Maybe 128k can be made to work without sounding all tinny?

Glad you liked the Galactica podcast! Can you tell me which parts specifically you thought were funny? It's always helpful to hear what worked and what didn't.

[The Shade]

I started using a higher bitrate lately because there was this weird tinny echo thing in earlier podcasts with a lower bitrate that was driving me nuts. I'm not really an mp3 compression guru, do you have any suggestions? Maybe 128k can be made to work without sounding all tinny?

Glad you liked the Galactica podcast! Can you tell me which parts specifically you thought were funny? It's always helpful to hear what worked and what didn't.

Echo? Weird. I'm not really a tech wizard. The only, only thing I can think of is your playback software set incorrectly.

I liked the Galactica podcast because it was different than the other 2 I listened (mospeada & southern cross). It was short. You introduced it with a tone of voice that was kind of like "we're gonna talk about stuff, and if you don't like it, bite me". That started it off well for me. I'm not sure the way you started there would have worked for your longer podcasts, but for a short one, it was good. The rest of it was just you guys giving off some topic information and putting in a smart ass comment here & there. I also like how you keep the swearing & cussing to a minimum and only use it for emphasis on some subject you feel strongly about.

[Phyrox]

But it's not the greatest ever, and it's not that original.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that. "not original" isn't the same as "rip off," that's all anyone has been saying.