Jump to content

HG and Robotech Debates


azrael

Recommended Posts

I thought a majority of the music was composed by Yoko Kanno? Except for a handful of fire bomber songs. I don't think it'd be that expensive to pay for the use of less than 5 songs.

Don't forget the Minmay songs. Unfortunately though, we'll never know until the HG's trademark of Macross goes away.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, technically you shouldn't get sued unless there was more than just name and genre resemblence. That is to say - IF you Harrry Pottter story was drastically different from Hary Potter.

I mean - it's the same reason why Hasbro can't sue the people who made Gobots cartoons, or why anime with transforming super robot mecha can't generally sue eachother even though - let's be frank - it's all pretty much the same.

I mean - to a lay person- beyond the name and specific designs -what is the big difference between Glendizer, Getter Robo, Gurren Lagann, Optimus Prime and any other big red robot with vaguely horn like things on its' head that turns into something and generally runs around the cosmos doing stuff?

Of course, they ARE different - very different stories.

And so could a story about Harrry Pootteeerr and Harry Potter.

The thing is - the name would be similar enough that you might have to defend yourself. But if the story were very VERY different - you could probably get away with it. You might have to justify the name though - but one way to do it would be to have everybody else in the story have names like that. So, you'd have JOOOhhhn and BoooB and pEEEEEttteeer and Riiiccchhhhaaard. Why? Well - you could explain it to be because they all live in a world where there is a constant echo - so that is how they hear their names.

After all - why do we "hear" HARRY as HARRY and not "HAAARRRYY" - well - because of the physical construction of the the universe and our biological construction and the specifics of physics on earth and where we usually are listening to sounds.

But if we all lived in echo prone caves and never came into close contact with one another and only communicated by calling out to one another in under ground caves - then all we'd hear would be HAAARRRYY etc. And therefore we'd write the names as we hear them - thus HAAARY etc.

And if this was your story - then you'd probably have a case for your trademark. They COULD ask you why the name wasn't say JEEEEBBB SMMIIITH - but really - there's no way I think that they could trade mark the sound...I dunno..

But the real problem would be finding a publisher willing to go through with it.

And I'm not even talking about willing to publish your wizard story - I'm talking about willing to go through the hassel of winning a court case on the HAARRY Poottteeer subject.

More likely the publisher would say "this could delay publication and cost tons of money. So either justify to me that keeping the name HARRY Poootteer is going to make a couple million dollars difference during sales or change the name."

You COULD vageuly argue that the similarity to Harry Potter would make the difference - but you might also argue that it would damage your book because people will not buy it thinking it's a crappy bootleg/rip off and missing out on the great story you've weaved.

It could work either way.

Point is...

Wait - what thread am I in?

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now now :) Don't be like Gubaba from the Rivera episode of Macross 7, who runs in the opposite direction only to make Mylene pay more attention to him :) Although, that particular episode DOES show us that Gubaba has LEGS...which usually remain unseen throughout the series...

Um... anyways...

Behave please and continue being an upstanding example to all us folks :)

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now now :) Don't be like Gubaba from the Rivera episode of Macross 7, who runs in the opposite direction only to make Mylene pay more attention to him :) Although, that particular episode DOES show us that Gubaba has LEGS...which usually remain unseen throughout the series...

Um... anyways...

Behave please and continue being an upstanding example to all us folks :)

Pete

"I'm gonna need a PRINCESS CRUISE SHIP to get over that OCEAN OF SARCASM that I just encountered!" :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wouldn't the songs be under intellectual properties seeing as how they were created for the series itself?

Where's Seto when you need him?!

Not always. Witness the U.S. Zeta Gundam set, in which the BGM was part of the rights, but the opening and ending songs weren't...so they were removed.

Which is a little annoying, but not a deal-breaker, really. But Macross F (or 7) without the songs...well...who wants that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not always. Witness the U.S. Zeta Gundam set, in which the BGM was part of the rights, but the opening and ending songs weren't...so they were removed.

Which is a little annoying, but not a deal-breaker, really. But Macross F (or 7) without the songs...well...who wants that?

HG

So they can get Yune and McKeever and some random VA that can sing drunk (again) and cut an album. Then milk that for 20+ years.

Heck beat them to the punch and do it yourself. Step One in creating your Anime company.

Edited by BeyondTheGrave
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recently showed Robotech: TSC to a friend of mine who isn't really into anime but liked the 1985 Robotech episodes back in the day. Here's what he had to say:

About the theme: "WTF? It's the Superman theme!"

About the women: "Seven of Nine is conservative by comparison." "Don't they have back problems?"

About the men: "It looks like they start every morning with a heaping bowl of anabolic protoculture."

About the story: "It's a bunch of stupid crap happening to a bunch of stupid people I've never seen before and don't give a crap about."

About the CG: "I would've said the CG was okay if you hadn't show me those CG clips [from Macross Frontier] earlier.

About the black hole escape: "WTF is this? Robotechnobabble? Sounds even worse than Treknobabble!"

About the Haydonites: "I thought you were f***ing kidding when you said they were just a floating head and shoulders with an empty cape." "They talk like a bunch of WIC Sith."

About Rick Hunter: "That's not Rick Hunter."

About the limited theatrical release: "They played this in theaters? People paid money to see this?"

About the DVD: "Don't you f***ing leave that thing in my house."

:lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It really is a converging of technologies that's making this happen. Harmony Gold stands to enter a new era and be at the forefront when all this will happen, and it'll happen soon.

I'm trying to figure out what exactly he means by being "at the forefront". ...This will benefit Robotech...how, exactly?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm trying to figure out what exactly he means by being "at the forefront". ...This will benefit Robotech...how, exactly?

If I didn't know WB was making a Robotech movie, I wouldn't understand the connection either. Sounds like the shameless association game again. Thanks to only the LAM, progress made by WB counts as progress for HG and Robotech, even though nothing is happening with the project and their partnership only surrounds the movie. It's just like how some fans associated Frontier as progress for Robotech because of very loose connections.

The mods are distracting people with info with little or nothing to do with the show to keep up interest and relevance. I expect more in the future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I didn't know WB was making a Robotech movie, I wouldn't understand the connection either. Sounds like the shameless association game again. Thanks to only the LAM, progress made by WB counts as progress for HG and Robotech, even though nothing is happening with the project and their partnership only surrounds the movie. It's just like how some fans associated Frontier as progress for Robotech because of very loose connections.

The mods are distracting people with info with little or nothing to do with the show to keep up interest and relevance. I expect more in the future.

Too bad for them that so many of us are seeing right through their bullshit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wouldn't the songs be under intellectual properties seeing as how they were created for the series itself?

It all depends on how the agreement for the vocal songs was written. Considering Yoko Kanno's status in Japan, my guess is that whoever would want to release Frontier in the West would probably have to pay a seperate licensing fee to her music label. Given how popular the Frontier vocal songs are, they probably won't come cheap.

Edited by TheLoneWolf
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Too bad for them that so many of us are seeing right through their bullshit.

I don't know, stuff like this tends to keep people going for weeks to months until people ask what's going on again. I've officially been here for a year now, and the patterns are easier to see.

Edited by Einherjar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, whaddya know? VFTF1 and Maverick_LSC found something they can agree on!

Robotech at the forefront of a new era in online entertainment.

I'd ask what's wrong with them, but that's too easy of an answer. I don't think Maverick and co are on some big conspiracy to try to keep the fans interested in something so unrelated to Robotech. I think they're just over-zealous RT elitists, who want to tie everything that's good in the world to Robotech. It's naive, lame, devoid of any intelligence, flat out stupid, but whatever, it makes them happy thinking about it. While the news is cool, no doubt about that, I don't see what talks about the decade to come, and the change in television programming has to do with a franchise that isn't even planning to air their future productions on it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd ask what's wrong with them, but that's too easy of an answer. I don't think Maverick and co are on some big conspiracy to try to keep the fans interested in something so unrelated to Robotech. I think they're just over-zealous RT elitists, who want to tie everything that's good in the world to Robotech. It's naive, lame, devoid of any intelligence, flat out stupid, but whatever, it makes them happy thinking about it. While the news is cool, no doubt about that, I don't see what talks about the decade to come, and the change in television programming has to do with a franchise that isn't even planning to air their future productions on it.

I'll admit it: I used to check out RT.com only rarely, and I always found it more annoying than anything else. But lately, I've been heading over there every few days to see what's going on in the Production Forum. Most days it's nothing, and then every once in a while, I find something like the bit I quoted above, or the bit I quoted last week.

I find it all very bizarre, and a little unsettling. There have always been some nutjobs over there (as there are nutjobs over here), but usually the nutobs are contributors, not moderators. Again, I'm not telling them how to run their site, and if they see value in the moderators they have, who am I to disagree? But to make such strange claims as Robotech being on the forefront of entertainment technology, or the producers of Transformers 2 being scared because the Robotech movie might come out soon...it's weird.

Robotech is a "niche" product. I like a lot of "niche" stuff...Macross, James Branch Cabell, Throwing Muses...I know these have smallish audiences, and that's fine. Why pretend that any of these things are more popular than they actually are? What does one gain from doing that?

It just seems silly and unnecessary, and it makes me kind of sad that a bunch of people are going along with it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While the news is cool, no doubt about that, I don't see what talks about the decade to come, and the change in television programming has to do with a franchise that isn't even planning to air their future productions on it.

Yeah, what he said. I do of course agree with Maverick LSC about the future of television - but it's a pretty big leap from there to "Harmony Gold will be at the forefront" with Robotech...

Actually - step back a second.

THINK Maverick LSC. You yourself (correctly IMO) write:

Television is undergoing a substaintial change in terms that they will offer the audience at their leisure a variety of programming choices without the hassles of a predetermined schedule to follow, without the need of a television set. You can use your cellphone, netbook, portable game system or computer to watch what you want to watch and when to watch it.

Good.

But then you write:

Harmony Gold stands to enter a new era and be at the forefront when all this will happen, and it'll happen soon.

Bad.

Why?

No - it has nothing to do with my dislike of Robotech or Harmony Gold - that's beside the point.

The point is, by your own admission of the future of entertainment, it will be impossible for there to be any forefront!

That is to say - in a world where people can choose at liesure what to watch and when, and the corporations no longer fight for "prime time" scheduling slots and advertisers no longer pay more for those slots than others - the whole concept of forefront or prime time goes away.

What you will have is entertainment that is more niche on every front and tailored to specific groups - and those groups will not be based in one country or one demographic or one region - they might as well be scattered across the globe. It would, in fact, be IMPOSSIBLE to plan a schedule for them "in prime time" or in any other EXCEPT THEIR liesure time.

This is because if your fans are scattered across the globe, then all the more reason why capturing a "prime time" slot on television is totally USELESS. Half your potential viewers are going to be asleep anyways, the other half might be at work or school etc.

In any event - THIS is precisely what the true benefit of making something available to watch on the internet is for companies themselves. It cost a lot of money to get a prime time slot and yet it appears that the benefits from prime time slots are small - and will become smaller as the internet broadens in temrs of being able to provide entertainment.

Thus, it is wrong to say that HG or any other company for that matter will be "at the forefront."

The forefront is going to be ABOLISHED along with the rest of the dinosaur media.

We will have a multi-polar front. A front that reflects the natural diversity and variety of tastes already present in the market, which are compelled into regimentation as a matter of economic expedience - but it is becoming less and less economical to regiment them in this way, when you can just put everything on the internet.

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, since all the lemings are walking off a cliff...

Gubaba is a little brown furry space alien animal that appears in the production Macross 7.

But I don't know what a Wanzerfan is...

More so - I have NO CLUE what a "VF-TF-1" is... if anything, now that I'm not a TF fan...the name is so terrible that, as you can see from my sig and from the fact that I sign my posts "Pete" - I do everything possible to escape that name... but I can't. It's stuck to me like a big fat scarlet A!! the horror!! waah!

and Robotech still sucks.

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seriously, are we done yet ... with RT thingies?

I find Mac 7 discussion far more stimulating than average RT thread which somehow get repetitive.

Perhaps a new round of RT-fan witch-hunt would do the trick! Pick-up the pitchfork!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, since all the lemings are walking off a cliff...

Gubaba is a little brown furry space alien animal that appears in the production Macross 7.

But I don't know what a Wanzerfan is...

More so - I have NO CLUE what a "VF-TF-1" is... if anything, now that I'm not a TF fan...the name is so terrible that, as you can see from my sig and from the fact that I sign my posts "Pete" - I do everything possible to escape that name... but I can't. It's stuck to me like a big fat scarlet A!! the horror!! waah!

and Robotech still sucks.

Pete

I first came up with the screename around the same time I got Front Mission 3 for my birthday. A Wanzer is what they call mecha in the game series.

And you're right, Robotch sucks, well it sucked when they started the new comic line.

Edited by Wanzerfan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Perhaps a new round of RT-fan witch-hunt would do the trick! Pick-up the pitchfork!

The problem with this is that the only reason we hunt the witches is to learn the secret of their magic spells, but when we look under their skirts, there's no magic, just big fat dicks!

Translation of my gross metaphor:

We hunt for Robotech fans because we really want to finally learn the secret as to WHY people bother BEING Robotech fans, but every time we find a Robotech fan, they're usually Robotech fans only because

a) they never saw the original Macross (yet) and they weren't aware that it was a seperate franchise

b) They really like childhood memories and can't be assed to nitpick about it

c) They want to know the size of the SDF-1

You get the point.

We've got Robotech fans in our midst - but none of them are crazy enough to argue that this series is the second coming. On the other hand, the vast majority of us really do love Macross with a passion, and folks are pretty good about giving reasons.

Personally, I find no point in hunting RT fans if we can't have any fun with them.

On RT.com they hunt Macross Purists and ban them because apparently they think banning people is fun.

I don't think it would be fun to hunt RT fans and ban them.

I think it would be funner to engage in discussion - even heated argument - with them.

But last one to show up and give it a try was Capt. Donovan who, I am said to note, never returned.

And it was with his departure that this thread went from interesting to same ol' same ol'....

Well - we CAN also continue to be a kind of running editorial commentary on RT.com.

That's kind of fun. Checking out what they write and then pointing at them and laughing like 3 year olds teasing some poor little kid.

That's always fun.

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We've got Robotech fans in our midst - but none of them are crazy enough to argue that this series is the second coming. On the other hand, the vast majority of us really do love Macross with a passion, and folks are pretty good about giving reasons.

Personally, I find no point in hunting RT fans if we can't have any fun with them.

Awww, I kinda missed the early days when most MWers flayed, skinned & roasted 'em alive during the grande ole hunts .....

Well - we CAN also continue to be a kind of running editorial commentary on RT.com.

That's kind of fun. Checking out what they write and then pointing at them and laughing like 3 year olds teasing some poor little kid.

That's always fun.

That is intellectual kinda fun, but not the adrenaline kinda fun where we flayed 'em & flushed 'em out. Oh well, better that than nuthin' .....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Translation of my gross metaphor:

Couldn't we have foregone the gross metaphor altogether so that those of us who are very visual thinkers didn't have to have that horrifying image scarred into our brains?

We hunt for Robotech fans because we really want to finally learn the secret as to WHY people bother BEING Robotech fans, but every time we find a Robotech fan, they're usually Robotech fans only because

a) they never saw the original Macross (yet) and they weren't aware that it was a seperate franchise

b) They really like childhood memories and can't be assed to nitpick about it

c) They want to know the size of the SDF-1

After several years of trying to find a Robotech fan capable of forming a cogent argument for why anyone should watch Robtoech and meeting with a 100% failure rate, we've got more than enough information to conclude that this grand experiment is a fool's errand. It's not without reason that we've been unable to find a compelling reason to watch Robotech... we've been looking for something that doesn't exist. For something like two decades now, the only things keeping Robotech afloat as a franchise have been the nostalgia and gullibility of a few people who just don't want to let go of a few fond childhood memories.

When you examine the answers we've received to our inquiries so far, it's all variations on the same couple of themes: nostalgia; ignorance; an irrational hatred of subtitles that more often than not seems to stem from borderline illiteracy; and a seething, unfocused hatred of Macross motivated by the fear that if they watch Macross and end up liking it that they'll somehow be tainting their rosy childhood memories of Robotech.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But there must be SOME reason to keep this thread open. I mean - for one thing, it's just way too fun to close for lack of topic. Even if we risk beating a dead horse every day almost - look how much exciting stuff has happened that was totally unexpected. I mean - just look how this thread archives the misadventures of banned RT users such as yourself, the introduction of Cpt. Donovan, my suggestions of the Robotech cast that I'm not allowed to re-post because I'll surely get temp-banned :) ... The point is - this thread is full of silly win :)

So maybe it's good to keep it open. Maybe a Robotech fan will stumble in here in not too long and give us some good kicks?

Maybe they'll write something new at RT.com soon that we'll all be eager to dissect?

Keep the thread open I say - other wise somebody's just gonna start a new topic on one isolated matter when it happens - and where's the fun in that? :)

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...