HG and Robotech Debates

[Moly_Sigang]

whoopie-do double post

Edit: whoa, NotMemo and NotDoug in a cat fight

Edited December 25, 2009 by Moly_Sigang

[taksraven]

Pete

OK, I will admit that I am stupid. Its the second time that robot has turned up in this thread in the last few weeks, whats it from??

Taksraven

[Aladdin Sane]

OK, I will admit that I am stupid. Its the second time that robot has turned up in this thread in the last few weeks, whats it from??

Taksraven

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

It's pretty much the best thing since the best thing since sliced bread.

[MastaEgg]

That's on my next to watch anime list after I finish zeta gundam.

Edited December 25, 2009 by MastaEgg

[VFTF1]

VTVF1 how imagine I find you here!!!!!!!

VTFT1 I'm going to be as plain as I can about this. you are know where near the awesomeness that I am and all you do is cry cry cry. I hasve over 9000 lessoners and who are you no one thats who. So before you cry about it to your exparts like Seto and jasnoc think about who great I am and how you are nothing more then a joke. So I might get banded for saying this I don't care. I don't need Macross groupys when I've got my 9000 lessoners how many lissoners do you have! oh wait you don't have a podcast. I bet you feed in formation to jt like jasnic does, any whey he is the official podcaster of the I wanna say Macross Porists. Not you. Not Seto. So he is the number one macorss purist.

As for your robotech III I really doing the problem is what you have been trying to do from Harmony Gold as it is some much from the fact that the anime you show has really frat wording all over the place.

FTTV1 the fact is you cant shut up. Thats no my option that's fact. Keep in mind you cant stop me in how retarted I can and have already mad macros look.

May bee you want to be a guess on my podcast? You can talk about macorss and ill mak you look like the joke you are. and that's the turthe.

that was sweet!

Pete

[Jasonc]

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

It's pretty much the best thing since the best thing since sliced bread.

Mmmmm, Yoko. She's fan service with a big @ss gun. My kinda woman!!! LOL

[VF5SS]

Apparently Steve Harrison knows everything that ever happened in the anime import industry. blog link

wow, well, I find a need to offer some corrections, based on first hand knowledge.

first up, you've got the Japanese relationships a bit off. In the '80s, Sunrise was an independent company. How a show came into being varied from self generated (and then shopped to potential sponsors) to sponsor produced i.e. a company would come to them with a design in hand and say "hey, we want to make a toy (or model) of this and want you to make a show around it. It has these features".

Often a license would be spread out. For Gundam Bandai had the plastic kit licence, while Clover had the toy license. This relationship continued thru Dunbine and Xabungle.

Takara and Bandai were locked in mortal combat, struggling to top each other. When Macross came out in '82, a group of smaller plastic kit makers (and a toy company) bonded together in a consortium (Takatoku Toys, Imai, Arii, Nitto mainly. L/S and Nichimo joined in for Orguss and Southern Cross) to challenge the 'Majors' and Galvion killed many of them.

(to complete the Robotech stuff, Mospeader was picked up by Gakken, a book publisher, dipped its toe into toy making, while L/S handled the plamo chores. As you know, the L/S kits ended up as Gobots model kits from Monogram)

In the early '80s TCI was doing a good job of being a 'one stop' for anime kits, selling successfully to many hobby shops. Keep in mind the Dollar/Yen exchange rate made this a very profitable operation.

TCI even went into the licensing business for a time, brokering a deal between Westchester Films and Bandai to produce Star Blazers plamo. I happened to be the person (with my friend) who produced the correct Star Blazers 'transliteration' names for everything.

FASA, with Battledroids in pre-production, approached TCI to supply small kits of various robots (the Nitto 1/200 scale 'Pitaban' kits, Takara's 1/144 Dougram line sublicensed to Doyusha. Then the Lucasfilms trouble hit over the use 'droid' and the game was renamed Battletech.

The plan was, TCI would pay for production runs of the various small scale robot kits which would be sold under Battletech names, perfectly legal. TCI had also bought the rights to use the 'key ad art' for the same, again sans original show names.

Then Testors saw what Revell was doing and decided to jump in, and they licensed the Nitto Pitaban line of Macross kits, which was a doublecross on TCI, and they were legally locked out of selling those kits. Some say it was payback for not making the SF3D line a big hit in the US as was expected.

But TCI still had their license for the ad art, a valid, legal license, so they sub-licensed THAT to FASA to be used as cardboard counters for Battletech.

This was all first hand from one of the guys at TCI, before they shut down the company. Of course it wasn't just this that killed them, it was the weakening Dollar/Yen rate. Kits were costing more. but that whole thing is an essay by itself.

And by that time it was 1985, HG had gotten Matchbox signed on for Robotech toys, and everything pretty much went from there.

whew. Nothing like being there, huh? I wager Wiki doesn't know a quarter of that.

so yeah, FASA never had character rights, just "Key ad art" and model kits.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Seems like it applies a lot to why Hg is so up tight about a new MechWarrior game.

[VF5SS]

It just confirmed a lot of my own assumptions about the nature of FASA's license. The key ad art bit is especially evident when most of the early Battletech artwork is clearly traced right off of Nichimo boxart.

Now HG has no character or derivative rights, but they have merchandising rights. It's a bit of a mess since the Mechwarrior stuff isn't technically Macross merchandise but it is close enough even with the various redesigns to give some pause to any sponsor or publisher.

[Einherjar]

Who's Steve Harrison?

[D.D. Ivanov]

Gubaba, you gave Macross too many "s''s. Clearly, from the fact that he types it repeatedly, it's "macros"

[Gubaba]

Gubaba, you gave Macross too many "s''s. Clearly, from the fact that he types it repeatedly, it's "macros"

Witch looks more retarted to you. Macros or Macross or macrosss. You can spell it with as manny s as you like I dont care. It doesn't chang the fact that I have over 9000 lessoners and you are just a petofile who likes looking at naked 12 years old!

Oh but FVFT1 said its okay becaus its a cartoon!!!!

The turthe is you guise are just sick.

[D.D. Ivanov]

[Einherjar]

Eh, here you go. It's probably on macrossshare.com is anyone's interested.

http://www.colonydrop.com/index.php/2009/1...ch-art-1?blog=1

Steve Harrison commented on it too.

[VFTF1]

Who's Steve Harrison?

Obi Wan never told you what happened to your father...

Witch looks more retarted to you. Macros or Macross or macrosss. You can spell it with as manny s as you like I dont care. It doesn't chang the fact that I have over 9000 lessoners and you are just a petofile who likes looking at naked 12 years old!

Oh but FVFT1 said its okay becaus its a cartoon!!!!

The turthe is you guise are just sick.

I must admit that Doug's writing style has a poetic beauty to it... to paraphrase a quote from the end of Spinal Tap:

Robotech.com is lucky to have two visionaries writing for it. They're like ice and water really. Like Byron and Shelly. Doug and Memo seem to have very different styles and different approaches, but each one of them complements the other so well.

Pete

[VF5SS]

Who's Steve Harrison?

Just an old school fan who has been everywhere and done everything. Most notably he produced some Space Battleship Yamato fanzines back in the day.

[Einherjar]

Just an old school fan who has been everywhere and done everything. Most notably he produced some Space Battleship Yamato fanzines back in the day.

Hmm:

I do think some context is in order. NOBODY who worked on Robotech felt it was 'something special' or 'different' when it was in production during late '84 into '85. They showed up, clocked in, did the work and clocked out. It was a job.

All the 'magical time' bull**** is pandering to the fanbase, to make them feel like they're part of something wonderful.

The reason why the Macross segment seemed more 'true' to the Japanese origin show is because it was already mostly DONE when the word came down to find a way to expand it to the supposedly desired minimum episodes. Harmony Gold had been planning on selling the show as a 'direct to video' thing and the translating and scripting was mostly finished. Note how awkward the lead-in to Southern Cross is.

And Southern Cross...MAN what a screw up, editing the show to make it seem like it's on Earth when given how Mospeada starts it would have worked BETTER as an alien planet. So, look, NOT MUCH FORETHOUGHT AFTER ALL, huh?

And I've never bought any of the excuses for the Captain Harlock/Queen of trainwreck. I think Macek was full of himself, thought he was a GENIUS thanks to Robotech and figured he could 'do it right' with these shows. Which he didn't.

Macek always had a problem trusting the shows to tell their stories. Remember, Dave, that one A-Kon he was at? How PROUD he was for ripping out the music and effects and song for the Bable II OAV, how much he crowed about improving it because the Japanese just didn't UNDERSTAND how to use audio? Mannnnn. I think we laughed for an hour after that.

And I know, second hand, some things about the production of this book. It's not a pretty sight. Hint: Kay Reynolds was NOT a nice person.

Makes sense.

[VFTF1]

The things that guy writes sadly do make a lot of sense. I am particularly disgusted with Macek's approach - if what is written above is true.

I can respect when they change around the original anime story for money. Making a cheap buck is one thing. But if Macek at some point seriously developed the delusion that his "version" of the anime was better ... that's pitiful.

First of all - it would make it necessary for him to seperate, in his mind, the animation and the story. To somehow love the animation but hate the story. The treat the two as though the animation was made in a vaccum, without any sequencing or thought about what story the animation was telling - just a kind of blank slate... a brilliant blank slate upon which the stupid Japanese wrought a terrible story that only the Genius Macek could correct with his amazing prose and imagination.

I have nothing against what Harmony Gold did back then - it was making a buck and doing so by bringing us all something that we otherwise would never have gotten a chance to see - in ANY form (most of us at least). It was, for its' time, a true gateway into the world of Japanese anime. Fine.

But if these guys have truly become so delusional as to think that their crappy chop job is a work of art and that somehow the animation for Robotech the Macross Saga is this thing that was made perfectly seperate from the plot... that just boggles the mind.

More than anything - I think the line about the "magical time" BS is correct.

And this is another thing I really think HG and Robotech fans have going against them.

When Bob Budiansky gets interviewed about his work CREATING the Transformers mythos from scratch - which he did - he openly says "I didn't give a fcuk. Nobody else would do the stupid thing, Hasbro liked my stuff, so I just kept spewing it out without much thought."

And when fans ask him about their favorite characters or stories his usual response was "I don't really remember. I just came up with these kind of on the fly and it wasn't important enough to think about."

And somehow Transformers fans can live with that - with that honest truth. And still love Bob Budiansky's stories (which I do - I adore them).

Because you know - everyone understands the dynamic here - it was a toy company that decided to market toys via comics and cartoons and people with a literary or artistic vein were handed these things and thought "ok - this is a toy comic. It's not serious" and just went at it.

Only later did Transformers and the rest of 80s lore grow into something bigger and the rest is history.

The fact that Robotech/HG fans have to build up this bullshit fantasy like they were any different is pathetic.

Hell - even with all our love for Macross, we all admit the flaws too - the bad animation in some of SDFM TV, and the whole thing about how originally it was meant to be a parody, the ship was going to be called Macbeth, etc etc etc.

It is a classical masterpiece that has inspired other stories - but I've never heard so much hyperbole about Macross as I hear about Robotech... and for what?

Sheesh.

What a bunch of loosers.

Pete

[Gubaba]

The things that guy writes sadly do make a lot of sense. I am particularly disgusted with Macek's approach - if what is written above is true.

I can respect when they change around the original anime story for money. Making a cheap buck is one thing. But if Macek at some point seriously developed the delusion that his "version" of the anime was better ... that's pitiful.

First of all - it would make it necessary for him to seperate, in his mind, the animation and the story. To somehow love the animation but hate the story. The treat the two as though the animation was made in a vaccum, without any sequencing or thought about what story the animation was telling - just a kind of blank slate... a brilliant blank slate upon which the stupid Japanese wrought a terrible story that only the Genius Macek could correct with his amazing prose and imagination.

I have nothing against what Harmony Gold did back then - it was making a buck and doing so by bringing us all something that we otherwise would never have gotten a chance to see - in ANY form (most of us at least). It was, for its' time, a true gateway into the world of Japanese anime. Fine.

But if these guys have truly become so delusional as to think that their crappy chop job is a work of art and that somehow the animation for Robotech the Macross Saga is this thing that was made perfectly seperate from the plot... that just boggles the mind.

More than anything - I think the line about the "magical time" BS is correct.

And this is another thing I really think HG and Robotech fans have going against them.

When Bob Budiansky gets interviewed about his work CREATING the Transformers mythos from scratch - which he did - he openly says "I didn't give a fcuk. Nobody else would do the stupid thing, Hasbro liked my stuff, so I just kept spewing it out without much thought."

And when fans ask him about their favorite characters or stories his usual response was "I don't really remember. I just came up with these kind of on the fly and it wasn't important enough to think about."

And somehow Transformers fans can live with that - with that honest truth. And still love Bob Budiansky's stories (which I do - I adore them).

Because you know - everyone understands the dynamic here - it was a toy company that decided to market toys via comics and cartoons and people with a literary or artistic vein were handed these things and thought "ok - this is a toy comic. It's not serious" and just went at it.

Only later did Transformers and the rest of 80s lore grow into something bigger and the rest is history.

The fact that Robotech/HG fans have to build up this bullshit fantasy like they were any different is pathetic.

Hell - even with all our love for Macross, we all admit the flaws too - the bad animation in some of SDFM TV, and the whole thing about how originally it was meant to be a parody, the ship was going to be called Macbeth, etc etc etc.

It is a classical masterpiece that has inspired other stories - but I've never heard so much hyperbole about Macross as I hear about Robotech... and for what?

Sheesh.

What a bunch of loosers.

Pete

I don't think you're being entirely fair to Macek. He likes Macross. He likes it enough that he tried to get get it brought over by itself direct-to-VHS in '84 (I have that tape. It's weird. Macross music, Robotech voice actors, and for some reason everyone pronounces "Gerwalk" with a soft "G": "Jer-walk").

But he ALSO thought he could "improve" the story...by trimming some things (even in the aforementioned VHS tape, a few scenes are cut for no apparent reason, like Hikaru's biplane daydream in episode 1), and changing some things. Which...well, lets face it. Macross isn't perfect. If any of us were given carte-blanche to go in and tinker around without it, there are things we would change. It all comes down to taste and discretion.

My suspicion (wholly speculative) is that the Carl Macek who went in to the Macross project was very different from the Carl Macek that came out the other side, with the completed Robotech. The "original 85" are not terrible. I don't like it, but it's not terrible. But then came the planning for the Sentinels, and Robotech the Movie, and the novels, and the comics...

VF5SS bringing up Robotech Art 1 makes a useful marker. I had that book, bought it when it came out. And it made no bones about what Robotech was. I wished it had contained more information about the three original series (it gives a lot of background on the creation of Macross, some on Mospeada, nothing on Southern Cross, and IIRC, they never explain what "Protoculture" ACTUALLY is), but it gave a pretty honest picture about where Robotech came from and what it was.

It wasn't until later, when anime started getting brought over here uncut, but HG and others were still trying to coax some cash out of Robotech's name, that everything got really screwy, and layers and layers of added material tried to bond the three "generations" together in ways that were never intended. And even then, Macek himself authorized the Robotech Perfect Collection (two episodes of each original series on each VHS tape, followed by the same two episodes from Robotech). It's a pity that that series was never completed (although the subs over all weren't very good) to become the definitive release of Robotech, because it would've opened a lot of people's eyes.

But again, generally, it's the Robotech fans who hail Macek as a visionary, and whether he believes it or not, he kind of plays into that. But to say he hated Macross...that's flatly false. Saying, "Y'know, if THIS had happened here instead of THAT, the show would be a lot better" doesn't mean you hate the show. I Macek's case, it just meant he was trying to SELL it, and didn't have quite enough confidence in the show as it stood. You can fault him for that, you can fault him for working out the Sentinels and Robotech the Movie, but I don't think you can say he hates Macross.

[VFTF1]

Maybe I misunderstood that blog quote - but it looked like it said Macek authentically believed he was a great writer and wonderfully creative for coming up with the changes. That's different to coming up with the changes in order to sell a product more smoothely.

Although -

Hindsight is always 20/20 BUT I am and always have generally been of the opinion that all works should stand or fall on their own merits. It's actually not good business to alter original works in the vein hope of trying to get them to "sell better." That actually never sells well because people like to think they're getting a good idea and good execution rather than something that is tailored to what some marketer figured would sell.

And this is evident in the fact that Macross is more popular the world over than Robotech even though Macross hasn't "officially" been released in most of the world and certainly hasn't been "packaged" to fit whatever "markets" are out there.

But yeah - sure - I understand in the 80s the general idea was "Bring Japanese show over, tinker around to make translation workable and spend 1 minute talking about changes because we don't care and need to get this on the boob tube."

What bugs me is - if the blog post is accurate - this notion that Macek had that he somehow produced a superior story.

It not only bugs me because the story is patently worse than the original Macross story, but it bugs me to no end that someone could conceptually accept animation abstracted from the original story...

That is to say - what is animation? Animation is just the story we HEAR presented in PICTURES. Turn the sound off on SDFM TV and what we see is the visual version of what we would hear were the sound on.

The pictures did not arise ex nihilo. They were drawn on the basis of a story. Sure, from what you have shown of something like My Fair Minmey, Kawamorii/the writers would often leave the director a lot of leeway in terms of how he wanted to structure a scene, and I do understand that the process from script to story board to actual animation is varied.

Nevertheless, the story was always the basis of it all and whatever got changed - it got changed around by the creative team making the final story.

For Macek to just take that art work - the animation - and super impose his own story and think his own story somehow "fit" the art work better is just...it's crazy.

It's like - if his story was that great - he needs to make his own art work for it and actually - his story can't even be called original because the framework was built by the original artwork - it had to be...

Pete

Edited December 26, 2009 by VFTF1

[RedWolf]

Bob Budiansky the guy who wrote that Transformers evolved from "Natural occuring gears, levers and pulleys.".

Then "Mr. Hi then Die" Simon Furman took over and put the creator and destroyer mythology into Transformers. Primus the creator of the Transformer race and Unicron the chaos bringer who will eat the universe.

Speaking of Transformers Jetfire as he would have looked like if HG did not interfere with Hasbro.

Though I imagine today Hasbro can and will eat HG alive if they pulled that again. (Hey they absorbed Gobot making rival Tonka) Which is the reason we haven't heard a peep when the Universe/Classics Jetfire toy came. HG preys on the weak. Which is why they send that C&D involving Mechwarrior 5.

Edited December 26, 2009 by RedWolf

[Gubaba]

Maybe I misunderstood that blog quote - but it looked like it said Macek authentically believed he was a great writer and wonderfully creative for coming up with the changes.

Oh, he definitely does...now (check out this interview for more. Lots of facepalming should ensue). But I don't think he WENT INTO the production thinking, "All right! I'm a genius and I can make this crappy story into something great and wonderful." I think all the "visionary" stuff came later. Again, it's all speculation on my part, but I think he made the show, it was moderately successful, and it went to his head. But then, he tried to do the same thing again and again, and it never jelled a second time, even when the name Robotech was attached to it.

And all that said, Streamline did make some good adaptations, as well. Their version of Laputa pales in comparison to the Disney dub, but it's eminently presentable. They also did a good job with Twlight of the Cockroaches, Totoro, and a handful of others. Personally, *I* never liked Streamline because they never made subbed versions of their shows available (except for the Robotech Perfect Collection and Akira), but as far as anime companies went, they weren't bad.

So yeah...he's got more of an ego than he should, and he made some a lot of decisions that I believe were wrong-headed at best and idiotic at worst, but he's not a monster.

[Moly_Sigang]

I believe the reason Robotech was successful is because of the OSM, the animation and story that was already there, and not Carl Macek's magical editing skills. This is why all their attempts to continue Robotech, by creating new animations to match with their story, have been abysmal. HG has no creativity whatsoever. All they are good at is editing other peoples works and gloat at how superior their version is (or send cease and desist orders). But when it comes to creating original content, they simply can't deliver.

Edited December 26, 2009 by Moly_Sigang

[taksraven]

Like Byron and Shelly. Doug and Memo seem to have very different styles and different approaches, but each one of them complements the other so well.

Pete

Like Laurel and Hardy. Or Hitler and Mussolini.

Taksraven

(Godwin all the way)

[taksraven]

Eh, here you go. It's probably on macrossshare.com is anyone's interested.

http://www.colonydrop.com/index.php/2009/1...ch-art-1?blog=1

Steve Harrison commented on it too.

A lot of the comments are Macross fan-bashing.

Taksraven

[Gubaba]

I believe the reason Robotech was successful is because of the OSM, the animation and story that was already there, and not Carl Macek's magical editing skills. This is why all their attempts to continue Robotech, by creating new animations to match with their story, have been abysmal. HG has no creativity whatsoever. All they are good at is editing other peoples works and gloat at how superior their version is (or send cease and desist orders). But when it comes to creating original content, they simply can't deliver.

Indeed. My big question to anyone who likes Robotech better (especially the Macross Saga) is, is "Force of Arms" (to take just one example) so good because of the rewritten dialogue and English Minmei songs? Or is it good because it's a cracking great finale to begin with?

Now, I *did* come across a reviewer at IMDB who was slagging the original Mospeada because, in his view, the Robotech version was superior by virtue of being the grand climax to a larger story. This, in my view, is utter nonsense. First, Mospeada has a definitive ending: the Inbit leave earth, and all the personal stories of the cast are worked out, for better (Yellow, Ray, and Houquet) or worse (Stick and Aisha). Anyway, the threads are wrapped up, the story is finished. The New Generation, on the other hand, by adding Admiral Hunter as a no-show (and having Scott decide to search for him), is definitely NOT a climax and practically BEGS for a continuation. Second, if a climax is meant to tie together everything that came previously, New Generation also doesn't count as a climax, since NO characters (and mecha, and...well everything) from previous sagas make an appearance at all. (For the record, I don't think anyone was TRYING to make New Generation into a grand climax to anything, I just think it's kind of silly that some people seem to view it that way).

[taksraven]

Indeed. My big question to anyone who likes Robotech better (especially the Macross Saga) is, is "Force of Arms" (to take just one example) so good because of the rewritten dialogue and English Minmei songs? Or is it good because it's a cracking great finale to begin with?

Its easy, the episode was animated in nearly motion-picture quality and is simply stunning.

Taksraven

[Gubaba]

Its easy, the episode was animated in nearly motion-picture quality and is simply stunning.

Taksraven

No, it's because of all the extra dialogue Macek added it, and Reba's West's stunningly moving vocals on "We Will Win."

[taksraven]

But if these guys have truly become so delusional as to think that their crappy chop job is a work of art and that somehow the animation for Robotech the Macross Saga is this thing that was made perfectly seperate from the plot... that just boggles the mind.

More than anything - I think the line about the "magical time" BS is correct.

Welcome to the entertainment industry. Its an industry where "delusion" and "vanity" is the absolute name of the game and most of the general public are suckers to fall for it.

Whenever you hear actors, writers, producers or directors claiming that they knew they were working on a project that was "special" and "close to their heart", its BS. With actors in particular, they usually just memorise their lines so when it comes time for them to say them, they can, quite often with little or no analysis of what they are saying or doing. Thats why its acting. Most of the general public confuse actors with the persona's that they play, and as a result get quite astonished when they see them acting like the rest of us when they are not in films or TV shows.

Taksraven

[taksraven]

No, it's because of all the extra dialogue Macek added it, and Reba's West's stunningly moving vocals on "We Will Win."

If its possible for there to have been a high point for the Robotech novels, its when the SDF-1 comes crashing into Dolza's flagship, and as it prepares to fire the Reflex missiles, Dolza realises that the Zentradi should not be fighting the humans, because they have the guts and ingenuity to have fought the massive Zentradi Fleet and be winning, but instead the Zentradi should ally with them against the Robotech Masters. He faces his blazing death screaming "Wait!"

It indicates that a little flash of intelligence on the part of some western writers had the potential to at least add some more little interesting bits to an already great show.

Taksraven

[VF5SS]

It indicates that a little flash of intelligence on the part of some western writers had the potential to at least add some more little interesting bits to an already great show.

You see, that's one thing that sounds good on paper (see what I did there) but really that's the kind of shitty hamfisted writing that drags down most western sci-fi.

"wait we need to fight against the unknown enemy we didn't mention before now"

call me when they start fighting the Vhong from Star Wars

[Gubaba]

You see, that's one thing that sounds good on paper (see what I did there) but really that's the kind of shitty hamfisted writing that drags down most western sci-fi.

"wait we need to fight against the unknown enemy we didn't mention before now"

call me when they start fighting the Vhong from Star Wars

Heh. Did you ever read the Lesnman books? At the end of each one (barring the first two "prologue" books), the hero brings down the evil space pirate syndicate. And then, at the beginning of the next book, they almost immediately find out that the syndicate they toppled was just a mere branch of an even larger syndicate of evil space pirates!!!

I'm sure it seemed cheesy even in the 1920s.

[AcroRay]

Dolza realises that the Zentradi should not be fighting the humans, because they have the guts and ingenuity to have fought the massive Zentradi Fleet and be winning, but instead the Zentradi should ally with them against the Robotech Masters. He faces his blazing death screaming "Wait!"

It indicates that a little flash of intelligence on the part of some western writers had the potential to at least add some more little interesting bits to an already great show.

"I'm not your enemy, Ming is! Let's all team up and fight him!"

Besides - Even that novel element is a retcon. The Robotech novels might as well be fanfics, really. Its a neat little bit added in, but its soooo removed from the orginal concepts and creators at that point that just about anything could be written in between the original lines.

Edited December 27, 2009 by AcroRay

[AcroRay]

Witch looks more retarted to you. Macros or Macross or macrosss. You can spell it with as manny s as you like I dont care.

I now your'e rong! It'ss MACRES ! It says so on on of my toyss! (Wiht "real seal')

[Einherjar]

Robotech is better only because it was the first version people we're introduced to, and at a very young age to make that version stick, and it's in English. Double standards or ethnocentrism maybe; HG's version doesn't feel as foreign or wierd just because it's in English and stripped of it's soul. Those Japanese are so crazy with their cartoons that having it manhandled by Americans is totally acceptable, at least for Robotech and a select few IN THE YEAR 2009/2010!

Language barriers and culture shock are still significant these days.

Edited December 27, 2009 by Einherjar