No Love for Southern Cross?

[Smut Peddler]

Cool. That's going to help me once I do my 1/72 versions.

you mean 1/48 ?

[EXO]

you mean 1/48 ?

1/48 afterwards.

[Smut Peddler]

1/48 afterwards.

Awesome

[Mommar]

The more I read this thread the more I keep feeling that I would love to see Southern Cross rebooted as a new series. Same characters, Mecha and hopefully the story ending the way it was originally supposed to vs. the rushed ending it was given.

Great excuse for new toys & kits!

What was the ending supposed to be?

[Hoptimus]

this fanart looks better than robotech academy art. they should've got these fans to draw for HG.

Funny you say that. These guys are friends with Tom Bateman who use to work for HG. HG fired the only person there that actually knew WTF he was doing with Robotech.

[505thAirborne]

What was the ending supposed to be?

Not really sure, from what I've always ready online is that due to its low ratings in Japan Southern Cross was cut short by about 5-6 episodes (might be wrong there) and the ending was kind of a rush job. And I've always felt both as the original story & RT universe ending was so-so. Knowing they cut it short has always had me wondering & curious what could have been.

From Wikipedia: "Southern Cross was the least successful installment of the Super Dimension brand, and was ultimately canceled due to low ratings, forcing the scriptwriters to hastily conclude the series."

[yui1107]

Satoshi_Tsujimura_(The professional figure/doll sculpter),his new Jeanne Francaix fanart in October 14 2014: 600 x 894 pixels image

The professional figure/doll sculpter_"Satoshi_Tsujimura"'s blog

Edited October 14, 2014 by yui1107

[yui1107]

[Devil 505]

Satoshi_Tsujimura_(The professional figure/doll sculpter),his new Jeanne Francaix fanart in October 14 2014: 600 x 894 pixels image

The professional figure/doll sculpter_"Satoshi_Tsujimura"'s blog

Okay, this one made me laugh.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

hahaha

[yui1107]

The detail image archive Krauss-Maffei Technologies GmbH VHT-04 " SPARTUS-II "

Edited October 17, 2014 by yui1107

[yui1107]

New detail image and writings to the shoulder panel "For Law Enforcement only,

Edited October 17, 2014 by yui1107

[grapetang]

Satoshi_Tsujimura_(The professional figure/doll sculpter),his new Jeanne Francaix fanart in October 14 2014: 600 x 894 pixels image

The professional figure/doll sculpter_"Satoshi_Tsujimura"'s blog

Thanks for posting that pic of Jeanne/Dana. That's a very nice find! I really should work on modding my hovertank...

[yui1107]

Studio MMG drawings about Dana and Nova...

Edited October 17, 2014 by yui1107

[yui1107]

Miriya, Dana & Maia Commission by AlexKnight on deviantART

[mechaban]

Can anyone confirm what publication this page is from? Is it This is Animation # 10?

Also, Who is this bad mofo? And what branch is that uniform for?

I wish I could translate the text.

[Castel]

Speaking of, i watched it recently. (original version)

And honestly i found it to be quite a decent show. The only real problems are the music, who's terrible, and the poor use they make sometimes of humor, often killing the mood of some moments who are supposed to be intense. Like when they rescue Bowie for example, Jeanne talking like a dumbass and winking in the silliest way and at the silliest moments don't exactly help taking the situation seriously. I'm all for humor, but the timing is important.

But the rest is not bad at all. Even the designs of vehicles and stuff, i like it fine. The spartas is a pretty cool tank, most of the Zor stuff is good and even the personal armors, the only questionable thing about that is sometimes the helmet. Well, Jeanne's helmet is really over the top but the others are cool enough.

It's no Macross and it certainly never reach the quality of a Zeta Gundam but it's watchable. But it totally could be remade into something great. You add some decent music, you tune down the silly, you edit a bit some designs and you have yourself a quite interesting alien invasion story with good characters. And the end is great, love sometimes a no happy ending.

[505thAirborne]

Speaking of, i watched it recently. (original version)

And honestly i found it to be quite a decent show. The only real problems are the music, who's terrible, and the poor use they make sometimes of humor, often killing the mood of some moments who are supposed to be intense. Like when they rescue Bowie for example, Jeanne talking like a dumbass and winking in the silliest way and at the silliest moments don't exactly help taking the situation seriously. I'm all for humor, but the timing is important.

But the rest is not bad at all. Even the designs of vehicles and stuff, i like it fine. The spartas is a pretty cool tank, most of the Zor stuff is good and even the personal armors, the only questionable thing about that is sometimes the helmet. Well, Jeanne's helmet is really over the top but the others are cool enough.

It's no Macross and it certainly never reach the quality of a Zeta Gundam but it's watchable. But it totally could be remade into something great. You add some decent music, you tune down the silly, you edit a bit some designs and you have yourself a quite interesting alien invasion story with good characters. And the end is great, love sometimes a no happy ending.

If someone, whoever that might ever be wanted to do a re-imagined-updated version of Southern Cross, it would be a fantastic series. as you very well stated, it's a decent borderline good series but not without its faults. Modern animation, better story with a clear finale and quality music score and you could have a real winner. I think and it's just my opinion why so many of us watch, yet can't wait to critique the hell out of it. It could have been a superb series... maybe some day.

[Ignacio Ocamica]

I'm currently watching SDF Macross but after that it's Southern Cross again

I think it's been more than five years since the last time rewatching Southern Cross.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Ignacio Ocamica

[Keith]

DEJA-VU!

[Gubaba]

Speaking of, i watched it recently. (original version)

And honestly i found it to be quite a decent show. The only real problems are the music, who's terrible, and the poor use they make sometimes of humor, often killing the mood of some moments who are supposed to be intense. Like when they rescue Bowie for example, Jeanne talking like a dumbass and winking in the silliest way and at the silliest moments don't exactly help taking the situation seriously. I'm all for humor, but the timing is important.

But the rest is not bad at all. Even the designs of vehicles and stuff, i like it fine. The spartas is a pretty cool tank, most of the Zor stuff is good and even the personal armors, the only questionable thing about that is sometimes the helmet. Well, Jeanne's helmet is really over the top but the others are cool enough.

It's no Macross and it certainly never reach the quality of a Zeta Gundam but it's watchable. But it totally could be remade into something great. You add some decent music, you tune down the silly, you edit a bit some designs and you have yourself a quite interesting alien invasion story with good characters. And the end is great, love sometimes a no happy ending.

It was a mostly happy ending... I mean, Seifriet died, but he was kind of a tool, anyway.

[tekering]

On 2015-05-27 at 0:01 AM, mechaban said:

Can anyone confirm what publication this page is from? Is it This is Animation # 10?

Having recently acquired This is Animation #10 myself, I can confirm that it isn't.  I don't know who those characters are or where the images come from.

There's a lot of terrific Southern Cross artwork in the book, however, much of which has never been published anywhere else.  This piece is one of my favorites:

The sketch in the book is rather monochromatic, so I added a lot of color overlays in Photoshop to create the image you see here.

Hope you like it! 

 

Edited June 12, 2017 by tekering

[Convectuoso]

You have some outstanding coloring skills there 

[Chet]

This is a series that could be interesting with a proper reimagining/reboot.  Just toss out the whole Gloire/Liberte/Zor story and keep the awesome armor designs.  Then revive the original "feudal japan in the future or post-apocalypse" setting.  Could be fun!

[tekering]

4 hours ago, Chet said:

 Just toss out the whole Gloire/Liberte/Zor story and keep the awesome armor designs.  Then revive the original "feudal japan in the future or post-apocalypse" setting.

Sure, change the setting to Earth -- say, 15 years after an apocalyptic war with giant aliens has decimated the population...

Turn those weird tri-petaled alien flowers into some kind of poorly-defined energy source...  

Make the enemy pilots "cloned androids" instead of human POWs...

 

Heck, we could even make it a sequel to Macross!  

[Mazinger]

I think this would be a good candidate for a reboot, if HG didn't fight selling the rights to someone like Netflix, but I doubt that would happen since something tells me Sony has rights to it now.

Regardless, I like the story and the characters, just wish it had had a proper ending.  In that regards, it's inclusion in RT at least added weight to it.

[JetJockey]

I've probably said it once but I'll say it again. When I was a kid I had zero problems with Robotech. To this day, I still don't. I know the series aren't really like that and are separate but it worked in Robotech. It was this giant cartoon adventure and we don't seem to get anything close to that in America anymore. Out of the three I think I liked the New Generation or Mospeada segment the most for the adventure and traveling through the ruins of Earth aspect. But I did like Southern Cross as well for the mech designs and characters. It's funny how both Southern Cross and Mospeada are the ones I still want merchandise for. I have my VF-1S but nothing from the other two series. I hope next month we'll see Mospeada toy updates and perhaps something from Southern Cross.

[Big s]

Southern cross unfortunately is the one least liked out of robotech here and when it originally aired overseas got the axe, so I don't know if good merch will ever get released, but I loved the show. I would kill for the armors done as sh figuarts by bandai or even figmas would be great. I liked the armor suits more than the mecha, but I'd still be in for the mecha if done correctly.

[CoryHolmes]

Honestly I think I prefer the new RPG's expanded vision of the setting more than what I saw in the actual show itself.  I know, I know; I'm a double heathen now.  I wear the badge with pride!

[JetJockey]

2 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

Honestly I think I prefer the new RPG's expanded vision of the setting more than what I saw in the actual show itself.  I know, I know; I'm a double heathen now.  I wear the badge with pride!

What did they add to the story?

[CoryHolmes]

18 minutes ago, JetJockey said:

What did they add to the story?

They expanded on the idea that single, unified world government just wasn't working after the Zentradi Rain of Death.  More and more nations, new and old, began breaking away and squabbling amongst themselves.  After the RoD, securing tomorrow's food is probably a better use of time and money than preparing for another alien invasion.

 

The "world government" is more of a United Nations deal, a political forum for the nations to deal with each other as opposed to a singular government.  The armed forces work the same way, where the individual nations contribute money, materiel, or troops to a pan-national, non-interventionist military who's stated goal is the protection of Earth from alien threats.  So it's entirely possible for two hovertank troopers to be from different, competing nations.  While there is a Prime Minster, most of the real power resides with Supreme Commander Leonard.

 

The GMP is a policing body as well as a clandestine investigation group.  They keep eyes on their own as well as anyone looking towards Robotechnology for their own purposes.  The various branches of the military are seen as a good way for someone to serve, with the gift of fertile land a promise upon retirement (amongst other perks).  Given the state of the planet after the RoD, that's not an insignificant promise.  The desert squads in particular are made up of former criminals and wasteland bandits looking to go straight and get some legitimacy.

 

So not much has changed, and very little affecting the actual cartoon (for better or for worse) but I like seeing the expanded world.

[Seto Kaiba]

40 minutes ago, JetJockey said:

What did they add to the story?

Very little of actual substance, really... the weird part is it's kind of written in two minds.  On the one hand, the RPG's chronology section tries to throw the adaptation's version of the Southern Cross Army a bone by attributing the pacification of post-bombardment Earth during Macross's timeskip to an ad hoc force of survivors that became the Army later.  On the other hand, it also throws the modern Southern Cross Army of the adaptation under a bus in truly spectacular fashion.  In the RPG's version, the government is a de facto military dictatorship that uses a civilian parliament as a sockpuppet to keep the proles in line by rubber-stamping military decrees, the military leadership is monstrously incompetent and hilariously petty pack of morons, and caps it by explicitly establishing the Southern Cross Army's hardware is inferior-grade gear because their leadership decided the SCA should develop its own mecha because Leon/Leonard was upset that his force was a low priority for resources.

 

It's not quite the calculated insult that the comic books delivered by rewriting Leonard's [Leon's] backstory into being a traitor and spy who tried and failed to sabotage the VF-1's development, orchestrated the hijacking of an ARMD and an ersatz-nuclear strike on multiple key military bases, etc..

Edited July 5, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[CoryHolmes]

On ‎7‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 8:53 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Very little of actual substance, really... the weird part is it's kind of written in two minds.  On the one hand, the RPG's chronology section tries to throw the adaptation's version of the Southern Cross Army a bone by attributing the pacification of post-bombardment Earth during Macross's timeskip to an ad hoc force of survivors that became the Army later.  On the other hand, it also throws the modern Southern Cross Army of the adaptation under a bus in truly spectacular fashion.  In the RPG's version, the government is a de facto military dictatorship that uses a civilian parliament as a sockpuppet to keep the proles in line by rubber-stamping military decrees, the military leadership is monstrously incompetent and hilariously petty pack of morons, and caps it by explicitly establishing the Southern Cross Army's hardware is inferior-grade gear because their leadership decided the SCA should develop its own mecha because Leon/Leonard was upset that his force was a low priority for resources.

 

It's not quite the calculated insult that the comic books delivered by rewriting Leonard's [Leon's] backstory into being a traitor and spy who tried and failed to sabotage the VF-1's development, orchestrated the hijacking of an ARMD and an ersatz-nuclear strike on multiple key military bases, etc..

I always liked the way it was a de facto military dictatorship.  Hell, they even pointed that out in the first episode by explicitly telling us that it was a more feudal society than what had been before.  Warriors trading service for a gift of land and a noble title?  Warring factions of stylishly armoured warriors?  Sounds medieval to me, and not that far removed from the feudal Japan roots that the original anime was aiming for.

 

As for the weaker hardware, I handwave it away by saying that Earth of the mid-to-late 2020s just doesn't have the massive industrial base it used to have, and the Expeditionary Forces took the damaged factory satellite with them (along with the lion's share of mecha and development time).  So the Southern Cross had to make do and devoted a lot of resources into things like cheaper non-transformable battloids, a greater emphasis on energy weapons instead of missiles, and so on.  Besides, the Armies of the Southern Cross were more or less intended to deal with rogue Zentradi and other malcontents, which their mecha should've been more than adequate for. 

 

I also appreciate how they undid that pathetic Leonard story from the comics.  There was no need for that, other than the authors didn't like him maybe?

[Seto Kaiba]

22 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

I always liked the way it was a de facto military dictatorship.  Hell, they even pointed that out in the first episode by explicitly telling us that it was a more feudal society than what had been before.  Warriors trading service for a gift of land and a noble title?  Warring factions of stylishly armoured warriors?  Sounds medieval to me, and not that far removed from the feudal Japan roots that the original anime was aiming for.

Didn't care for it, myself... but then, I've always been somewhat put off by the way The Show That Must Not Be Named keeps coming over a bit Warhammer 40,000 by turning xenophobia and blind obedience to a military-run authoritarian regime into virtues.  Kind of seems insulting toward the original works, all of which were shooting for themes of understanding.

The feudal thing never made any sense in the context of the show either, since we're clearly shown a modern capitalist economy rather than anything in line with a feudal society.  I tend to ignore it given that the writers of the adaptation were just throwing whatever at the wall regardless of whether or not it stuck, and frequently used words they didn't truly understand simply because they thought it sounded cool.

 

 

22 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

As for the weaker hardware, I handwave it away by saying that Earth of the mid-to-late 2020s just doesn't have the massive industrial base it used to have, and the Expeditionary Forces took the damaged factory satellite with them (along with the lion's share of mecha and development time).  So the Southern Cross had to make do and devoted a lot of resources into things like cheaper non-transformable battloids, a greater emphasis on energy weapons instead of missiles, and so on.  Besides, the Armies of the Southern Cross were more or less intended to deal with rogue Zentradi and other malcontents, which their mecha should've been more than adequate for. 

I've seen similar efforts to handwave it before, but they never quite work in the face of the operational factory satellite we're shown seven years before the events of the adaptation version.  If they're so resource-strapped, why did they develop separate models of robot for each specialist group inside the army?

The hybridized story of the adaptation was always going to cause a certain amount of mental calisthenics to attempt to explain away why each installment had totally separate mechanical designs, but the adaptation of Southern Cross really took it on the chin as the least technically-advanced of the three, the most obviously flawed of the three, and the only show out of the three to have its own creators identify the mecha in the show as poorly designed or inadequate.  (I was rather surprised when I found that last bit while working on a translation for a fan of Southern Cross on another forum.  It wasn't exactly scathing, but having the Logan's effectiveness compared to a mosquito wasn't exactly flattering either.)

 

 

22 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

I also appreciate how they undid that pathetic Leonard story from the comics.  There was no need for that, other than the authors didn't like him maybe?

To be frank, I'm fairly certain that "undoing" of Leonard's backstory from the canon comics was entirely unintentional.

At best, Palladium Books has only ever bothered to do the most cursory background research before writing a licensed book... and even that is only because Harmony Gold forced them to actually do research this time instead of just skimming the back of the video box twenty minutes before the book went to the printers.  They probably didn't even notice the comic book in question exists.

Pretty sure the comics made him into the villain because he was already a total bastard in the TV show, and most of the adaptation's fandom actively dislikes him.

[Sandman]

On 2017-07-07 at 4:27 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Didn't care for it, myself... but then, I've always been somewhat put off by the way The Show That Must Not Be Named keeps coming over a bit Warhammer 40,000 by turning xenophobia and blind obedience to a military-run authoritarian regime into virtues.  Kind of seems insulting toward the original works, all of which were shooting for themes of understanding.

The feudal thing never made any sense in the context of the show either, since we're clearly shown a modern capitalist economy rather than anything in line with a feudal society.  I tend to ignore it given that the writers of the adaptation were just throwing whatever at the wall regardless of whether or not it stuck, and frequently used words they didn't truly understand simply because they thought it sounded cool.

 

 

I've seen similar efforts to handwave it before, but they never quite work in the face of the operational factory satellite we're shown seven years before the events of the adaptation version.  If they're so resource-strapped, why did they develop separate models of robot for each specialist group inside the army?

The hybridized story of the adaptation was always going to cause a certain amount of mental calisthenics to attempt to explain away why each installment had totally separate mechanical designs, but the adaptation of Southern Cross really took it on the chin as the least technically-advanced of the three, the most obviously flawed of the three, and the only show out of the three to have its own creators identify the mecha in the show as poorly designed or inadequate.  (I was rather surprised when I found that last bit while working on a translation for a fan of Southern Cross on another forum.  It wasn't exactly scathing, but having the Logan's effectiveness compared to a mosquito wasn't exactly flattering either.)

I'm interested to hear more about this. What exactly was said exactly? Was there more said?