No Love for Southern Cross?

[sh9000]

https://www.meptoys.com/product-page/dana-sterling

[tekering]

Geez, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.  It's been 30 years since Matchbox, guys...

"Slightly better than what we had in the '80s" just isn't gonna cut it.

And why is she so much taller than Rick...?  

[Mazinger]

5 minutes ago, tekering said:

Geez, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.  It's been 30 years since Matchbox, guys...

"Slightly better than what we had in the '80s" just isn't gonna cut it.

And why is she so much taller than Rick...?  

Jean always had a tall hairdo. Adds a foot.

[tekering]

15 minutes ago, Mazinger said:

Jean always had a tall hairdo. Adds a foot.

And Rick's adds 18 inches.  

[Convectuoso]

I'm skipping the Dana figure. Kitz Concept's prototype, even unpainted, looks way better 

[sh9000]

Same here.  I might get the KC version or just not have a figure of her.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, tekering said:

Geez, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.  It's been 30 years since Matchbox, guys...

"Slightly better than what we had in the '80s" just isn't gonna cut it.

"Slightly better than what we had in the 80's" is all we can fairly expect from Robotech-branded merchandise... the franchise hasn't really progressed since '86 anyway.

[RavenHawk]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

"Slightly better than what we had in the 80's" is all we can fairly expect from Robotech-branded merchandise... the franchise hasn't really progressed since '86 anyway.

Frankly, if we want to go by how the franchise has "progressed" since Tommy took over, I'd say it's more of "regressed", and I'd be inclined to expect "drastically worse than what we has in the 80s or 90s".

[Roy Focker]

38 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

Frankly, if we want to go by how the franchise has "progressed" since Tommy took over, I'd say it's more of "regressed", and I'd be inclined to expect "drastically worse than what we has in the 80s or 90s".

Pretty sure the movie deal killed the franchise's progression.   When someone buys the rights to the movie it can put a freeze on most things.

[RavenHawk]

7 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

Pretty sure the movie deal killed the franchise's progression.   When someone buys the rights to the movie it can put a freeze on most things.

I was more referring to Shadow Chronicles, which I don't think could lay any blame on the movie deal.

[Big s]

Damn she’s ugly.

[slide]

1 hour ago, RavenHawk said:

Frankly, if we want to go by how the franchise has "progressed" since Tommy took over, I'd say it's more of "regressed", and I'd be inclined to expect "drastically worse than what we has in the 80s or 90s".

32 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

Pretty sure the movie deal killed the franchise's progression.   When someone buys the rights to the movie it can put a freeze on most things.

24 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

I was more referring to Shadow Chronicles, which I don't think could lay any blame on the movie deal.

 

I guess the movie-deal will be officially sunk in 2021 when HG loses their rights? [on the logic of: if they don't hold the rights, they can't sub-let them to a third-party]

[RavenHawk]

1 minute ago, slide said:

 

I guess the movie-deal will be officially sunk in 2021 when HG loses their rights? [on the logic of: if they don't hold the rights, they can't sub-let them to a third-party]

Well, they can license whatever they own, which at that point will presumably just be whatever they would argue they have added as original creative content not present in the original series, and the name itself (which I believe may be the only trademark they'll retain). So... something, but not much. Sort of like what you'd have left from Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles if you removed all the MOSPEADA mecha.

[slide]

1 hour ago, RavenHawk said:

So... something, but not much. Sort of like what you'd have left from Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles if you removed all the MOSPEADA mecha.

... One assumes it's certainly not enough to make a movie out of... but then again BattleShip happened

[jenius]

There seems to be confusion here, losing their rights in 2021 to the  footage from the original shows has nothing to do with the movie deal since the movie deal is already isolated to the parts of the story they own AND the parts of the story(ies) that are sufficiently generic. That last part is the bigger deal since the vast majority of the scifi war with space aliens story is pretty generic at this point. 

The only way this would have had a big impact on the movie is if the movie was planned to be very close to Mospeada (we know it was never going to be very similar to Southern Cross). If that were the case, the movie studio could try to acquire the rights to Mospeada directly from Tatsunoko in 2021.... 

[slide]

23 minutes ago, jenius said:

There seems to be confusion here, losing their rights in 2021 to the  footage from the original shows has nothing to do with the movie deal since the movie deal is already isolated to the parts of the story they own AND the parts of the story(ies) that are sufficiently generic. That last part is the bigger deal since the vast majority of the scifi war with space aliens story is pretty generic at this point. 

The only way this would have had a big impact on the movie is if the movie was planned to be very close to Mospeada (we know it was never going to be very similar to Southern Cross). If that were the case, the movie studio could try to acquire the rights to Mospeada directly from Tatsunoko in 2021.... 

Thanks for clarifying

[JetJockey]

16 hours ago, tekering said:

Geez, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.  It's been 30 years since Matchbox, guys...

"Slightly better than what we had in the '80s" just isn't gonna cut it.

And why is she so much taller than Rick...?  

Yeah those are rough looking figures for current time period. Those will only appeal to nostalgic people that want the figure in the card and that's it. I've seen a few re-releases of old figures like the Universal Monsters. But that stuff isn't for me.

[Lorindor]

I want to remind people that Meptoys is a new independant one-man-show AND these small action figures are clearly meant to be retro style. They are not meant to be of the same quality as KitzConcept's offerings. With that in mind, I think they are way better than Toynami's recent retro-style action figures. And Meptoys are actually doing The Masters Saga stuff, which Toynami has never even thought to do.

By the way, I got a reply to my PM to MAAS Toys on Facebook. HG has indeed not approved their Kickstarter plan and MAAS are waiting for more information from HG. The line is clearly not abandoned. 

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, RavenHawk said:

Frankly, if we want to go by how the franchise has "progressed" since Tommy took over, I'd say it's more of "regressed", and I'd be inclined to expect "drastically worse than what we has in the 80s or 90s".

And yet, Tommy achieved more concrete success in the first few years of his tenure than Macek ever did and had a much higher average quality level...

Folks romanticize the "good old days" until they look back without the rose-tinted glasses and realize that Macek was the man with the reverse-Midas touch and virtually all of what came out before 2001 was of comically poor quality.

 

2 hours ago, Lorindor said:

I want to remind people that Meptoys is a new independant one-man-show AND these small action figures are clearly meant to be retro style.

Somehow, deliberately producing poor-quality products strikes me as an extra-risky strategy for a brand that was already known for the poor quality of its... everything.

 

[Mazinger]

I like the cut of MEP Toys jib.  If they can produce 'em, I'll buy 'em.  The price is right for me and they look better than the recent Robotech figs that came out.  I mean Dana looks like Dana - can't say the same about any of those other figs recently.

If there were Figma or SH Figuarts versions I'm sure they'd be awesome, and cost 2 or 3x's as much.  I might go for that, but those are unannounced vaporware at the moment. So go MEP Toys go!

[RavenHawk]

10 hours ago, slide said:

... One assumes it's certainly not enough to make a movie out of... but then again BattleShip happened

I'll deny it in person, but I actually kind of enjoy that movie. Not in a "this is a good movie" way, but more of a mindlessly-entertaining-but-if-it's-on-tv-I'll-watch-it way.

 

10 hours ago, jenius said:

There seems to be confusion here, losing their rights in 2021 to the  footage from the original shows has nothing to do with the movie deal since the movie deal is already isolated to the parts of the story they own AND the parts of the story(ies) that are sufficiently generic. That last part is the bigger deal since the vast majority of the scifi war with space aliens story is pretty generic at this point. 

The only way this would have had a big impact on the movie is if the movie was planned to be very close to Mospeada (we know it was never going to be very similar to Southern Cross). If that were the case, the movie studio could try to acquire the rights to Mospeada directly from Tatsunoko in 2021.... 

Absolutely no disrespect, but I don't think that I completely agree with you here. As I understand it (and I may be wrong), they lose their rights to the all of the copyrights associated with the original animation, artwork, and designs, as well as the trademarks to "Macross", related logos, etc. That means mecha and ships (including the SDF-1) will have to look significantly different (as opposed to being derivative works) and no logos that are associated with the classic series. While scifi wars with space aliens are pretty generic, as you said, and much of the story would fall under scene a fair, I don't know if that would apply to the key elements. Let's look at the current comic, at its fundamental: alien ship crashes on Earth, humans reverse engineer the tech (so far still generic), aliens come to retrieve the ship (probably still generic), humans use the rebuilt ship to fight them, space fold to the edge of the solar system, and then make the journey back to Earth, fighting them along the way. That last bit I think is unlikely to be considered generic, in my opinion, and seems key to what I would imagine would be taking place in the movie.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

And yet, Tommy achieved more concrete success in the first few years of his tenure than Macek ever did and had a much higher average quality level...

Folks romanticize the "good old days" until they look back without the rose-tinted glasses and realize that Macek was the man with the reverse-Midas touch and virtually all of what came out before 2001 was of comically poor quality.

 

What successes of Tommy's are you referring to? Shadow Chronicles, the Toynami licensed figures, or the Wildstorm comics license? I agree that he may have done a decent job of bringing it back into the spotlight.

However, my intent in my statement the other day was about quality level. I think that the things which he personally touched (i.e. the stories that he wrote or "directed") were very low quality. I think that there was better quality writing going on in the early '90s, and I say that as someone who recently re-read a chunk of that material.

[Podtastic]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Somehow, deliberately producing poor-quality products strikes me as an extra-risky strategy for a brand that was already known for the poor quality of its... everything.

 

At least they are producing characters figs that I am actually willing to purchase, unlike that endless parade of "idols" which I wouldn't spend a dime on.

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

22 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

As I understand it (and I may be wrong), they lose their rights to the all of the copyrights associated with the original animation, artwork, and designs, as well as the trademarks to "Macross", related logos, etc. That means mecha and ships (including the SDF-1) will have to look significantly different (as opposed to being derivative works) and no logos that are associated with the classic series.

Your understanding is correct.

 

22 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

While scifi wars with space aliens are pretty generic, as you said, and much of the story would fall under scene a fair, I don't know if that would apply to the key elements. Let's look at the current comic, at its fundamental: alien ship crashes on Earth, humans reverse engineer the tech (so far still generic), aliens come to retrieve the ship (probably still generic), humans use the rebuilt ship to fight them, space fold to the edge of the solar system, and then make the journey back to Earth, fighting them along the way. That last bit I think is unlikely to be considered generic, in my opinion, and seems key to what I would imagine would be taking place in the movie.  

Please take care to note that the (hilariously awful) comic from Titan Comics is an adaptation gone off the rails, where the live action movie proposal that Warner Bros and now Sony Pictures have been studiously ignoring for over a decade now is for a rebooted-from-the-ground-up reimagining of Robotech.  "Robotech in name only", if you will.  It's something of an apples and oranges comparison.

 

22 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

What successes of Tommy's are you referring to? Shadow Chronicles, the Toynami licensed figures, or the Wildstorm comics license? I agree that he may have done a decent job of bringing it back into the spotlight.

However, my intent in my statement the other day was about quality level. I think that the things which he personally touched (i.e. the stories that he wrote or "directed") were very low quality. I think that there was better quality writing going on in the early '90s, and I say that as someone who recently re-read a chunk of that material.

All of the above, really.

Granted, quality-wise the difference between pre-Yune Robotech and post-Yune Robotech in overall quality is the difference between laying down in an overflowing septic tank and standing up in that same overflowing septic tank... but gains are gains.  The quality of the writing in the 90's was so bad even Harmony Gold couldn't stomach it, and we know that their standards set the bar for quality so low it's a trip hazard in Satan's sub-basement.  (When the licensees weren't committing serial copyright infringement, anyway...)

 

1 minute ago, Podtastic said:

At least they are producing characters figs that I am actually willing to purchase, unlike that endless parade of "idols" which I wouldn't spend a dime on.

As we've noted before, your tastes are... well... "atypical and highly specialized" might be a polite way to put it.

That's kind of why nobody has tried making Southern Cross merch for Robotech before.  The professional toy companies took one look at the estimated return on investment from such a small area of interest and wrote it off as a bad job.  It's only now that they've whittled down the licensee pool to naught but little indie outfits that someone is finally willing to gamble on it, with the decline in quality you'd expect in switching from pros to grey marketeers and "one guy in a garage" outfits.

If Harmony Gold is looking to convince Tatsunoko their brand is still viable enough to justify a license renewal, making toys that look like they were salvaged from the Matchbox era probably isn't the way to do it.

[jenius]

1 hour ago, RavenHawk said:

Absolutely no disrespect, but I don't think that I completely agree with you here. As I understand it (and I may be wrong), they lose their rights to the all of the copyrights associated with the original animation, artwork, and designs, as well as the trademarks to "Macross", related logos, etc. That means mecha and ships (including the SDF-1) will have to look significantly different (as opposed to being derivative works) and no logos that are associated with the classic series.

Ignoring the copyright point, this is essentially where they and the movie are already at. They don't own the IP to Macross at all so there would be nothing that looks like an SDF-1, VF-1, or any of the story elements you know as Macross. For Macross, all they own is the right to distribute the footage and all associated merchandising. Comics and video games provide a nice area for them to expand upon the story since they're considered merchandise but that's as far as they can go. They can't produce movies or TV shows using the characters, designs, or even story elements from Macross. That's why Maia's parents were "aliens" instead of "Zentraedi" in Shadow Chronicles. This means Robotech: The Live Action Movie will feature mecha that are all brand new designs, right down to the "SDF-1", that will probably be given the generic name of "Space Fortress 1" and be alternatively referred to by the aliens as "Zor's Ship" since that's a classic Robotech-only element. 

Quote

While scifi wars with space aliens are pretty generic, as you said, and much of the story would fall under scene a fair, I don't know if that would apply to the key elements. Let's look at the current comic, at its fundamental: alien ship crashes on Earth, humans reverse engineer the tech (so far still generic), aliens come to retrieve the ship (probably still generic), humans use the rebuilt ship to fight them, space fold to the edge of the solar system, and then make the journey back to Earth, fighting them along the way. That last bit I think is unlikely to be considered generic, in my opinion, and seems key to what I would imagine would be taking place in the movie.

Again, comics are merchandise so they can do whatever they want but let's do the exercise of what it would take to make that entire thing a Robotech/generic story and NOT Macross. 
1) Zor's ship is sent to Earth with the secrets of Robotechnology and an infinite power device (let's assume 'protoculture matrix' will be rebadged something better. In Robotech, this event ends WWIII, which would be a safe move since that's different from Macross. They could also choose to do it 100 years ago (or more) and have humans just discovering it now in the modern era in Antartica or Alaska or something. 
2) Aliens: In Robotech the Zentraedi are the warrior race for the Masters. It would be very easy to depict the renamed Zentraedi in this movie as the same size, or maybe slightly larger, humans that then have a problem fighting the humans because the humans look just like their Masters.
3) Whatever they choose to do with the plot, it's not hard to do something like Battlestar Gallactica. Maybe have the movie start with the Space Fortress being a scientific vessel or, even better, a colony ship, with a military escort trying its first fold. The fold works but that's what alerts the aliens to the ship's location and they come, attack, and knock out the fold drive. Now the spaceship has a long track home and no way of knowing if Earth is safe... all generic. The movie ends with the Zent... er... aliens realizing their Masters are no good and that THESE Masters will incorporate them as equals so they switch sides... again, suitably generic. 

So there ya have it, no Macross IP means hard focus on the few Robotech unique story elements and EVERYTHING else being generic. If they wanted to stay tight to the IP they'd have to use MOSPEADA since they have more rights there.

Edited March 4, 2019 by jenius

[RavenHawk]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Please take care to note that the (hilariously awful) comic from Titan Comics is an adaptation gone off the rails, where the live action movie proposal that Warner Bros and now Sony Pictures have been studiously ignoring for over a decade now is for a rebooted-from-the-ground-up reimagining of Robotech.  "Robotech in name only", if you will.  It's something of an apples and oranges comparison.

 

Granted, quality-wise the difference between pre-Yune Robotech and post-Yune Robotech in overall quality is the difference between laying down in an overflowing septic tank and standing up in that same overflowing septic tank... but gains are gains.  The quality of the writing in the 90's was so bad even Harmony Gold couldn't stomach it, and we know that their standards set the bar for quality so low it's a trip hazard in Satan's sub-basement.  (When the licensees weren't committing serial copyright infringement, anyway...)

 

Not great at selectively quoting, so, apologies...

As to your first quoted part here, I have been going with the assumption here that this new comic was sort of an experiment at trying to remove elements of what was licensed and building up a storyline that might be more original to Robotech. My basis for this? Absolutely nothing. Just trying to justify things a bit beyond "Furman!"

As to your second quoted part, I agree that the late '90s comics were an insult to septic tanks, but I think there were some decent ones earlier on.

 

2 hours ago, jenius said:

So there ya have it, no Macross IP means hard focus on the few Robotech unique story elements and EVERYTHING else being generic. If they wanted to stay tight to the IP they'd have to use MOSPEADA since they have more rights there.

Not an argument, just a question: What makes you say that they have more rights to MOSPEADA?

I'm not feeling masochistic enough to go re-read what is publicly available about the licensing, but don't recall there being any real greater granting of rights there.

[jenius]

It goes to Tatsunoko and the rights they have to give HG. They only have distribution and merchandising rights for Macross but, as I understand it, they have full rights to Southern Cross and Mospeada so they, or their sublicenses, can use the characters, mechanical designs, story elements, etc. In derivative works.

[Seto Kaiba]

51 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

Not great at selectively quoting, so, apologies...

If you highlight text in someone else's post and put your mouse over the highlighted section, the forum will offer you a context button that says "Quote text" that will generate a quote block containing only the highlighted text with all the appropriate formatting.

 

51 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

As to your first quoted part here, I have been going with the assumption here that this new comic was sort of an experiment at trying to remove elements of what was licensed and building up a storyline that might be more original to Robotech. My basis for this? Absolutely nothing. Just trying to justify things a bit beyond "Furman!"

Frankly, I just assumed the Titan Comics staff was either going through a VERY late chuunibyou phase or were so utterly uninterested in making it that literally anything gets a pass when they're brainstorming new material and Googling stock photos to trace.

 

51 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

As to your second quoted part, I agree that the late '90s comics were an insult to septic tanks, but I think there were some decent ones earlier on.

... have you, by chance, recently solved any puzzle boxes leading to dimensions of eternal suffering that would cause you to mistake that schlock for a good time?

 

51 minutes ago, RavenHawk said:

Not an argument, just a question: What makes you say that they have more rights to MOSPEADA?

Tatsunoko Production owns Genesis Climber MOSPEADA free and clear... it was their in-house (failed) attempt to make the Macross lightning strike twice.  

They're believed to have a similarly free hand with the Big West-sponsored Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross due to having funded its development themselves.

If they're going to borrow animated material for a live action movie, they'll use MOSPEADA... Southern Cross is too unpopular with Robotech fans for them to touch it.  That's why the only appearances by Southern Cross stuff in new Robotech material have been taking the piss out of the story (though admittedly some of it coincidentally overlaps to the creators of the animation taking the piss out of their own creation).

[RavenHawk]

16 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... have you, by chance, recently solved any puzzle boxes leading to dimensions of eternal suffering that would cause you to mistake that schlock for a good time?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the first Invid War series was solid (up until the artistic change at the very end) and better than pretty much everything that came after.

*** getting down off my soapbox ***

[Chronocidal]

Wouldn't it be entirely possible for Tatsunoko to even pull their Southern Cross and Mospeada rights from HG once the expiration date passes?  I was under the impression that expiration applied to everything Tatsunoko was licensing to them.  

That's not to say Tatsunoko might choose to let them continue using those properties, but I wonder if their relationship with HG has soured enough to put a complete withdrawal of any licenses on the table.

[jenius]

Yes, and in that case, if there was something there worth mining, I'm sure a studio could spend to get those rights.

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, Chronocidal said:

Wouldn't it be entirely possible for Tatsunoko to even pull their Southern Cross and Mospeada rights from HG once the expiration date passes?  I was under the impression that expiration applied to everything Tatsunoko was licensing to them.  

Yes, that would be consistent with the remarks made by Tatsunoko's counsel in their arbitration over royalties owed with Harmony Gold.

 

Just now, Chronocidal said:

That's not to say Tatsunoko might choose to let them continue using those properties, but I wonder if their relationship with HG has soured enough to put a complete withdrawal of any licenses on the table.

Honestly, it IS all-or-nothing... but from Harmony Gold's end.

If they can't get the rights to Macross back, Robotech is done.  Harmony Gold knows full f*cking well that, for all practical intents and purposes, Macross is Robotech's only real draw.  Its holdover characters are what has kept fans coming back for each of Robotech's failures and false starts, and it's the heart and soul of Robotech's merchandising.  Take it away, and they don't have enough left to keep the lights on.  MOSPEADA's characters and designs aren't well-liked enough to be a viable replacement, and Southern Cross is viewed with a mixture of antipathy and indifference by most fans.  That's why they've invested so much time, money, and energy in maintaining their deathgrip on the Macross rights and doing everything the law permits to keep Macross shows and merchandise out of the west.  Lose Macross, and there's no point in renewing the licenses for the other two... the staff might as well clean out their desks and start looking for new employment elsewhere.

[JB0]

Which is probably why they've not tried to buy MOSPEADA and Southern Cross outright. They could do it, but why bother without Macross?

[jenius]

For the record, I think a pretty awesome Mospeada Live Action Movie could be made. Yes, the plot would need to be reworked pretty thoroughly to cram it into 2 hours. The movie would bookend with massive space battles and feature a Mad Max road trip in between... could be kinda cool. 

[RavenHawk]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

For the record, I think a pretty awesome Mospeada Live Action Movie could be made. Yes, the plot would need to be reworked pretty thoroughly to cram it into 2 hours. The movie would bookend with massive space battles and feature a Mad Max road trip in between... could be kinda cool. 

Trilogy.

[slide]

Just now, jenius said:

1) Zor's ship is sent to Earth with the secrets of Robotechnology and an infinite power device (let's assume 'protoculture matrix' will be rebadged something better. In Robotech, this event ends WWIII, which would be a safe move since that's different from Macross. They could also choose to do it 100 years ago (or more) and have humans just discovering it now in the modern era in Antartica or Alaska or something. 

Didn't the crash of ASS-1, and the UN's subsequent Despotic Assimilation of all national governments in the face of it, kick-off the Unification Wars?

Or was WWIII in-progress when it hit?

Edited March 5, 2019 by slide