HG and Robotech Debates

[taksraven]

Before the new Star Wars trilogy, I guess we could've called this sort of thing "Boba Fett syndrome", where fans are compelled to try and make every minor character with a handful of lines into a sophisticated character with an immense backstory.

Absolutely correct. (Although I like it how in ROTJ they make Fett look like an absolute blubbering idiot who cannot fight.)

Taksraven

[Aladdin Sane]

Before the new Star Wars trilogy, I guess we could've called this sort of thing "Boba Fett syndrome", where fans are compelled to try and make every minor character with a handful of lines into a sophisticated character with an immense backstory.

Two words that pretty much sum up "Boba Fett syndrome" in Robotech to a tee: Jonathon Wolfe.

[taksraven]

In a crazy sort of way, I think it's like songs about drugs. You hear something like "Crystal Ship" by the Doors and you like it, but you ave no idea what it's about. And then your high school buddy tells you, "It's about heroin," and then it all makes sense.

When I tell most people what that horrible U2 c*ck rock song "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" is about and the sexual act it describes, a lot flat out disbelieve me.

This is how it was with me and Robotech in some areas ("Wait a sec...if little Jason is Minmei's cousin, does she have another Aunt and Uncle living on Macross Island? Oh wait...Yot-chan is just the neighbors' kid, not related to Minmay at all. That makes a lot more sense!"), and this how I *think* it is among Star Blazers (or BotP, or DBZ, or Sailor Moon, or Pokemon...) fandom. I would like to think that if a Robotech fan asks, "What the hell was up with the SDF-2?" then someone would answer, "Uh, yeah, that. They threw it in to explain the third mound in Southern Cross. It wasn't there in the original." And then the RT fan, curiosity satisfied, would say, "Oh," and kind of forget about it. Not come up with daffy theories about the SDF-2 being behind the SDF-1, or under the SDF-1, or flying around somewhere else. But clearly, that's not the case.

I dunno. Most of the edits in other shows are done with the explicit intention of hiding "adult material" (like drinking, or death, or sex) from kids, so learning about those edits is fun and can be a part of growing up. Certainly, when I first discovered that Dr. Sane was drunk, like, ALL the time, I thought it was funny in itself, and funny that the editors tried to hide that from me when I was a kid. (I also liked finding the dirty jokes in Shakespeare.)

The British dub of Monkey had a lot of censorship going on as well for various reasons. Most of the time it did not detract from the show too much and you were often left with some idea that something had been cut.

But most of the weird edits in Robotech are NOT there to shield kids from things adults don't want them to see (although certainly, there's some of that present)...most of them are done to try to weld the three series together, and that ties them to Robotech's identity as a seperate series from the originals. So then, figuring out where the SDF-2 is, or why Zor Prime is wearing a Southern Cross uniform in his flashbacks, or the musings on Protoculture...well, that becomes important. Because without clear answers, you have to admit that Robotech doesn't hold together as a coherent story.

That's how I see it, at any rate. Certainly, I can't think of any OTHER reason why there'd be a massive, massive thread at RT.com debating about the SDF-2.

Absolutely correct and makes absolute sense, which is why when the likes of Memo and bendo turn up here and tell us that we are all talking through our arses I get annoyed.

Taksraven

[Seto Kaiba]

With this in mind, You could have had a longer time period between sagas (chapters, really), which would allow for the magical hand-wave, giving way to a more solid continuity, and the ability to address certain inconsitencies between these chapters with a more graceful and reliable method.

They tried that stunt in the Macross universe with Macross II and in the Robotech universe with Robotech 3000.

Actually, I think you could easily argue that, with few exceptions, the entire animated Macross continuity uses this particular concept with fairly good results... the Macross II: Lovers Again OVA is just the most extreme case. The gaps of a decade or so between most major Macross titles allows for a bit of low-key handwavery to justify pretty much any universe developments necessary to the story the show's creators want to tell. It works because the gap is large enough to accommodate some fairly major changes, but not so large that you lose everything of the established setting. One of the problems that sank Robotech 3000 was that the show's story took place so far into the future that nothing of the setting was recognizable... for all practical purposes it was a completely different universe from the Robotech the fans knew, and as such might as well have been a different universe altogether.

Absolutely correct. (Although I like it how in ROTJ they make Fett look like an absolute blubbering idiot who cannot fight.)

What'd he have, overall, like five lines counting his death scream in the entire original trilogy?

Two words that pretty much sum up "Boba Fett syndrome" in Robotech to a tee: Jonathon Wolfe.

Oh god yes, Jonathan Wolfe and Thomas Riley "T.R." Edwards are by far the worst cases of "Boba Fett syndrome" in Robotech... ironically enough, the chief sufferer of that tragic syndrome used "Colonel Jonathan Wolff" as his handle on the Robotech.com message boards.

[Aladdin Sane]

Oh god yes, Jonathan Wolfe and Thomas Riley "T.R." Edwards are by far the worst cases of "Boba Fett syndrome" in Robotech... ironically enough, the chief sufferer of that tragic syndrome used "Colonel Jonathan Wolff" as his handle on the Robotech.com message boards.

Robotech's "expanded universe" also seems to be prone to the "coincidentally, everyone important in the story knew everyone else beforehand" kind of thing. I read the Love & War miniseries for the first time the other week (my first proper foray into Robotech comics outside of PtTSC) and we learn there that Max and Ben were, of course, the best of childhood friends before the events of the series and when they enlisted in the RDF they happened to be instructed by none other than the aforementioned Mr. Wolfe.

Edited December 28, 2009 by Aladdin Sane

[Seto Kaiba]

Robotech's "expanded universe" also seems to be prone to the "coincidentally, everyone important in the story knew everyone else beforehand" kind of thing.

Oh totally... and if anything the "new" comics written under the supervision of Tommy Yune are even worse offenders than the old comics were. In the span of only five issues they establish that before the events of the "Macross Saga", that all of the following characters had met and knew each other prior to the start of the Macross Saga:

• Roy Fokker
• Henry Gloval
• Eli Leonard
• T.R. Edwards
• Bowie Grant
• Claudia Grant
• Janice Merin
• Donald Hayes
• Jack Archer

And to think they establish all that in like the first two issues.

They also went to great pains to establish that Donald Hayes, Roy Fokker, Henry Gloval, and a handful of others were within eyeshot of the crash of the SDF-1 in 1999... symptomatic of their other problem "every character must have been present at every major event, even ones we just came up with".

Edited December 28, 2009 by Seto Kaiba

[VF5SS]

What about Dr. Lang the magical protoculture medicine man?

In Macross he has no name outside of "Hakase."

[hulagu]

What about Dr. Lang the magical protoculture medicine man?

I wonder if they inserted that one Macross Quarter operator just to take the piss at how Robotech made such a big deal out of his badly drawn eyes. (He was accidentally bitten by exposed to the Protoculture Matrix when exploring the ASS-1 wreck with the initial expedition, which gave him the weird eyes and super-genius powers).

Dr. Lang, Dr. Lang, does whatever a Doctor can...

Edited December 28, 2009 by hulagu

[Moly_Sigang]

Oh totally... and if anything the "new" comics written under the supervision of Tommy Yune are even worse offenders than the old comics were. In the span of only five issues they establish that before the events of the "Macross Saga", that all of the following characters had met and knew each other prior to the start of the Macross Saga:

• Roy Fokker
• Henry Gloval
• Eli Leonard
• T.R. Edwards
• Bowie Grant
• Claudia Grant
• Janice Merin
• Donald Hayes
• Jack Archer

And to think they establish all that in like the first two issues.

They also went to great pains to establish that Donald Hayes, Roy Fokker, Henry Gloval, and a handful of others were within eyeshot of the crash of the SDF-1 in 1999... symptomatic of their other problem "every character must have been present at every major event, even ones we just came up with".

So in Robotech, everyone and their mother knew each other. That reminds me in the Academy Blues where Lisa, Claudia and the bunnies were in the same academy and knew of each other.

[VFTF1]

I wonder if they inserted that one Macross Quarter operator just to take the piss at how Robotech made such a big deal out of his badly drawn eyes.

Didn't even notice this. Screen grab?

Pete

[hulagu]

Didn't even notice this. Screen grab?

Pete

Mina Roshan. The purple haired one with the eyes drawn differently from everyone else. Her pupils are so big you can hardly see the whites of her eyes.

Hm...that's stretching it.

The fact is that the eyes of "Dr. Lang" were also at various times shown on numerous characters in SDFM TV ad other anime. It wasn't an animation mistake, but rather an art style I think.

Pete

It's a character background plot device, though, in Robotech.

Edited December 28, 2009 by hulagu

[VFTF1]

Hm...that's stretching it.

The fact is that the eyes of "Dr. Lang" were also at various times shown on numerous characters in SDFM TV ad other anime. It wasn't an animation mistake, but rather an art style I think.

Pete

[Wanzerfan]

As far as I know, in the other examples I mentioned, it's never been an issue. Dr. Sane in Star Blazers LOOKS like a drunk and ACTS like a drunk, so the fans just talk about the "spring water" with a knowing wink-wink. I believe it's generally acknowledged among Star Blazers fans that saying that the alcohol in his bottle was water was a necessary change to get the show aired in America, but no one takes it seriously.

I'd imagine it would be the same with Battle of the Planets or Dragonball Z (or Sailor Moon, or Naruto, or Bleach, or Pokemon) fans...as soon as they learn what the REAL deal is, they kind of smirk at the edits introduced into the American versions.

In a crazy sort of way, I think it's like songs about drugs. You hear something like "Crystal Ship" by the Doors and you like it, but you ave no idea what it's about. And then your high school buddy tells you, "It's about heroin," and then it all makes sense.

This is how it was with me and Robotech in some areas ("Wait a sec...if little Jason is Minmei's cousin, does she have another Aunt and Uncle living on Macross Island? Oh wait...Yot-chan is just the neighbors' kid, not related to Minmay at all. That makes a lot more sense!"), and this how I *think* it is among Star Blazers (or BotP, or DBZ, or Sailor Moon, or Pokemon...) fandom. I would like to think that if a Robotech fan asks, "What the hell was up with the SDF-2?" then someone would answer, "Uh, yeah, that. They threw it in to explain the third mound in Southern Cross. It wasn't there in the original." And then the RT fan, curiosity satisfied, would say, "Oh," and kind of forget about it. Not come up with daffy theories about the SDF-2 being behind the SDF-1, or under the SDF-1, or flying around somewhere else. But clearly, that's not the case.

I dunno. Most of the edits in other shows are done with the explicit intention of hiding "adult material" (like drinking, or death, or sex) from kids, so learning about those edits is fun and can be a part of growing up. Certainly, when I first discovered that Dr. Sane was drunk, like, ALL the time, I thought it was funny in itself, and funny that the editors tried to hide that from me when I was a kid. (I also liked finding the dirty jokes in Shakespeare.)

But most of the weird edits in Robotech are NOT there to shield kids from things adults don't want them to see (although certainly, there's some of that present)...most of them are done to try to weld the three series together, and that ties them to Robotech's identity as a seperate series from the originals. So then, figuring out where the SDF-2 is, or why Zor Prime is wearing a Southern Cross uniform in his flashbacks, or the musings on Protoculture...well, that becomes important. Because without clear answers, you have to admit that Robotech doesn't hold together as a coherent story.

That's how I see it, at any rate. Certainly, I can't think of any OTHER reason why there'd be a massive, massive thread at RT.com debating about the SDF-2.

Two scenes in the uncut version come to mind (mind you, it was when CN aired the uncut version), both involving Recoome. One scene where he flips Son Goku off, and another after Son Goku mops the floor with him, his bare ass is exposed to the air (until Vegeta literally sends him to Hell, that is). Another brilliant censoring move for the series (no sarcasm here, folks) was changing the name of Hell to "Home For Infinite Losers".

[Gubaba]

Two scenes in the uncut version come to mind (mind you, it was when CN aired the uncut version), both involving Recoome. One scene where he flips Son Goku off, and another after Son Goku mops the floor with him, his bare ass is exposed to the air (until Vegeta literally sends him to Hell, that is). Another brilliant censoring move for the series (no sarcasm here, folks) was changing the name of Hell to "Home For Infinite Losers".

So? Back me up or tear me down here. How do the American fans react to those edits. Does anyone try to justify them and explain them away, or do they all ignore them when they find out the truth?

[VF5SS]

That SDF-2 thread is hilarious. Some guy keeps saying, "if we want the Robotech story to be coherent we have to work through this!" He doesn't even let the idea of the story being incoherent enter his mind.

[Gubaba]

That SDF-2 thread is hilarious. Some guy keeps saying, "if we want the Robotech story to be coherent we have to work through this!" He doesn't even let the idea of the story being incoherent enter his mind.

Of course not, dammit! BECAUSE ROBOTECH! IS! THE NEW! AMERICANA!!!!!

[VFTF1]

I'm going to go out on a ledge and offer a convoluted psychological theory to explain all of this. I'm sorry if it hurts anybody's feelings. I realize I'm writing abstractly and in general and I don't even know any Robotech fans personally, I haven't conducted research, interviews, nor have I thought this through - so...having said that...here goes:

Childhood is a precious and important time in most human lives, especially in the lives of people who I will generally call "people like us" - that is, people who not so much can't let go as they don't want to let go, because childhood was full of adventure, it was a period of life where the world was interesting and magical.

Because of all of this - traumatic events linked to childhood usually stay with us longer than things that happened to us as adults, they color our lives and emotions.

One generally accepted aspect of moving from childhood to adulthood is the sad process of disillusionment - of letting go and accepting a grimmer or more mundane comportment towards life.

MOST of the time, insofar as cartoons and comics are concerned, this is not necessary in the full sense. Oh sure, we might not longer be satisfied by cartoons and comics at the same level as when we were kids - but then again we will always demand a level of cartoonishness in our cartoons and a level of comicy-ness in our comics. We don't want them to be more than they are because they play a special role - they are a magical gateway to a time that seems happy and that we never want to loose.

Unfortunately - some people picked the wrong cartoon to grow up on.

And this is where the trouble begins.

When you think about a Robotech fan and when people like Gubaba wonder aloud the following:

Does anyone try to justify them and explain them away, or do they all ignore them when they find out the truth?

... you must remember just who you're asking.

You're not asking this of an adult. Or - to be more exact - Robotech fans are nominally adults, but when it comes to Robotech - they are kids. Worse still, if they haven't seriously gotten into Japanese anime, but rather are just general sci-fi fans who like a couple of shows - say Transformers, Robotech and something or other...Star Wars... - then really...when they're thinking about Robotech -they're thinking about it in a narrow context.

That context is: "My Childhood."

And in "My Childhood" - there was no Hikaru Ichijo and there was no "original Macross."

All there was were characters who - in the world of a little boy - are REAL.

And if you come up to the little boy and say - sorry kid, didn't ya know? Your mom's a psycho!

....

f$ck!! Terminator 2 flashback...sorry...sorry... back up...

....

And if you come up to the little boy and say - sorry kid, didn't ya know? Rick Hunter is actually Hikaru Ichijo ad Scott Bernard is named Stick and he doesn't even know what the SDF-1 or 3 or whatever is. He doesn't care. He doesn't even live in the same universe--- then you are traumatizing that boy.

And so they build a fantasy world and isolate themselves off.

This is kind of cute - because it's a way to keep alive the feelings and epic amazement they had as a child.

But it is actually also deranged because - as I myself have discovered - sometimes you need to let go and move forward in order to move back.

What do I mean?

Well - look... I'm sure most of us have nostalgically wished to return to that feeling of amazement and awesomeness that we had as kids - and for the longest time I wouldn't let go of some things I deeply cherished as a child - for instance Transformers. I would keep on collecting and collecting every single figure from every single line that was released. And even though there came a point where I knew the stories were getting worse and worse and I was loosing interest - I felt duty bound to the little Pete that would have just loved to have hundreds of TFs on his shelf and a whole universe of TFs to play with.

And I would swear up and down without even looking into it that there was nothing better ever made than Transformers. Childhood is a powerful thing - and it blinds us. But when I took the blinders off - I suddenly discovered a whole slew of anime I never even knew existed or only vaguely recall having kind of run into briefly somewhere...at some point...

and I also discovered that today -right now - in this day and age - there is stuff worth watching being made -- and it's not the stuff I was watching as a kid.

I didn't have to totally burry my childhood - but one MUST change and accept novelty. And by this I don't mean reboots of Transformers - I mean stepping off one train and getting on a completely different one - don't become a drone-fan.

Macross has this one great benefit that since it only comes out once a million years - it's not possible to be a drone fan. I am really happy about this. It would suck to have a new season of Macross out every year and new toys all the time.

Heck - I even remember when in the early 90s there was no more Transformers in the USA (there were still TFs coming out in Europe) --- and you know? It was kind of sad - but on the other hand ---damn there was so much awesome fanfiction, fan comics... I don't know if you guys know that Nick Roche, who now does IDW, was just a regular fan who made some Beast Wars comics in the UK - they were TOTALLY AWESOME. Then again, I think that Guido dude and the other guy was also just a fan...making posters and stuff for Botcon...

Anyways - that's a bit of my personal backstory seeping in there -- but it's kind of the point - everyone has their backstory - their evolution as a lover of this cultural phenomena known as...anime? Sci-fi? Cartoons? Comics? Whatever you wanna call it...pop culture? ...beats me...hard to pin it down...

But Robotech fans...man... if you were a HARDCORE Robotech fan in the 80s - then it must be rough. It must be rough to learn that there was no plot.

It's not just a matter of a couple of cosmetic changes. No. It's literally a matter of NO SUCH THING EXISTS. I mean - it's just not there.

This is why they are mentally anguished and stick to Robotech and don't allow for explanations like "because this was changed so it could be syndicated" - nope. They need to find an "in fiction" or "in story" narrative that explains something.

It's the natural impulse of all reall fans of anything to explain away "plot holes" with "in story" explanations. I mean - come on. Nobody likes to just explain something as "that's an animation error" or "the plot twist here was thought up on the fly by the author who was busy doing something else then."

"Real" fans - of any genre - love to build elaborate explanations for why what seems like an error is actually something far more.

The problem is - in the case of Robotech - ALL OF IT IS AN ERROR.

See - MOST anime and cartoons do have some sort of INTENTION behind them - intention of story arc, character development etc. And over that intentional development, errors are made and plot holes occur - and that's where diehard fans go to work fixing things.

But Robotech - as a story - NEVER had any such intention. It didn't. It was all made on the fly -slaped together from three anime with no thought whatsoever put into it. At all.

The only exception to this were the novels - which have been retconned out of existence anyways and which the die-hard Robotech fans ironically do not latch on to as much as they should - and they really really should because instead of trying to figure out why the animation of a show that has nothing to do with Robotech shows something that is not in accordance with the plot of Robotech - they should just be fans of the novels.

But they're not because when they were kids - they saw the cartoons and those cartons are what they've got in their heads and hearts. And to suggest that it's crap is to suggest that their beautiful childhood was a big fat lie and that they need to throw it all away.

Well - yes - I suggest that their childhood was an HG sponsored lie and they need to throw it away.

Because there's a whole wealth of super cool stuff out there that isn't a lie and that - if you just open yourself up to it - will enhance your present life and give you a second childhood of sorts - far coole than the original one because you'll be living it consciously - knowing what you're getting, where it's from and what it's about.

But Robotech fans might not want to do this because they aren't ready for it yet.

Wonder if they ever will be.

Pete

[RedWolf]

Yeah chances are Robotech fans are general Sci-fi fans rather than anime fans.

This is evident in Space Battles forum where there is an equal mix of Robotech and Macross fans.

I even partially read a fic (much to my initial confusion at the end of the thread) where Macross 7 got stranded in the Robotech universe. Yeah inter-dimensional hijinks.

[terry the lone wolf]

Oh totally... and if anything the "new" comics written under the supervision of Tommy Yune are even worse offenders than the old comics were. In the span of only five issues they establish that before the events of the "Macross Saga", that all of the following characters had met and knew each other prior to the start of the Macross Saga:

• Roy Fokker
• Henry Gloval
• Eli Leonard
• T.R. Edwards
• Bowie Grant
• Claudia Grant
• Janice Merin
• Donald Hayes
• Jack Archer

And to think they establish all that in like the first two issues.

They also went to great pains to establish that Donald Hayes, Roy Fokker, Henry Gloval, and a handful of others were within eyeshot of the crash of the SDF-1 in 1999... symptomatic of their other problem "every character must have been present at every major event, even ones we just came up with".

You're wrong Seto; Claudia's brother Vince Grant was in "From the Stars" and the "Love & War" comics and not his son Bowie. This was to set up Vince as a Macross era character (and not just a Sentinels one) and to explain his appearance as a high ranking member of Hunter's Earth Reclamation forces.

I thought it was Anatole Leonard; I've never heard of Eli.

[Gubaba]

I thought it was Anatole Leonard; I've never heard of Eli.

You're both wrong. It's Claude Leon.

[MastaEgg]

So in Robotech, everyone and their mother knew each other. That reminds me in the Academy Blues where Lisa, Claudia and the bunnies were in the same academy and knew of each other.

Which makes you wonder why she didn't shed a tear when they like, all died in the end of Macross Saga. Which didn't make sense anyway because:

1. We were never shown an escape capsule in the bridge... ever.

2. Why would there be room for only person? At least you should accommodate everyone except the captain, because the captain ALWAYS goes down with his ship.

3. Kyron's ship only destroyed the daedalus, it didn't even touch the bridge.

4. Why kill them off anyway? It's not like you see any macross characters in the show ever again.

[eugimon]

Which makes you wonder why she didn't shed a tear when they like, all died in the end of Macross Saga. Which didn't make sense anyway because:

1. We were never shown an escape capsule in the bridge... ever.

2. Why would there be room for only person? At least you should accommodate everyone except the captain, because the captain ALWAYS goes down with his ship.

3. Kyron's ship only destroyed the daedalus, it didn't even touch the bridge.

4. Why kill them off anyway? It's not like you see any macross characters in the show ever again.

because it was supposed to be tragic and by being tragic, elevate Rick and Lisa's romance into something mythic and sacrificially heroic rather than what it actually was meant to be.

[VFTF1]

Isn't that a bit anti-climactic - since Hikaru and Misa's romance really starts in ernest during the last episode... and even then - given how the series did 180s before...it could have technically done another 180 in the near future...

This is the thing...Hikaru and Misa's love was not EPIC ... it was "just an old love story" to paraphrase DYRL Misa... really... just like the song in DYRL was just a pop song, so the love in Macross was not earth shattering.

You see - the only people who view it as mythic and epic are...the Zendradi... at least until a year later when they'd gotten used to culture and sort of grown past that.

I'm not trying to diminish Misa and Hikaru's love - but actually...just like the character of Hikaru Ichijo is enduring because he is mundane, so to the love story is enduring because it is tender - it's not over done.

And in its' details - it's very very average...undecisive guy...hysterical girls... like most fits of love - there are bursts of passion and then there is the every day grind and a good bit of distance to it all...

A really nice balance.

This is really why I hate Robotech as a story - come to think of it. EVERY TIME I see, hear or read Rick and Lisa together - I cringe because just like they made Rick Hunter into GI Joe riding in Transformers and therefore ruined the Ichijo character, they also took this very realistic portrayal of a love story (by which I mean down to earth) and turned it into really bad pathos. I mean like finger nails on a chalk board bad...

Rick and Lisa are always and everywhere deeply in love and all they do is stay in love and eternally fly around in the SDF-3 or something... their dialogue is full of faux love crap. Pussy cat! Sweety! Oh Rick, I love you! ...

It's just terrible bile.

I prefer the subtle and demure nature of the original love story and the fact that even at that climactic ending... Minmey asks if she can come on Misa's space ship...

You KNOW that opens the door for the love triangle to last - you can say that Hikaru didn't really "chose" either of them - and the two of them stopped hating eachother and shook hands (although they were never close enough in proximity to hate eachother...)

Anyways - point is - it's a lovely wrap up to a lovely story.

Pete

Edited December 28, 2009 by VFTF1

[Aladdin Sane]

How do the American fans react to those edits. Does anyone try to justify them and explain them away, or do they all ignore them when they find out the truth?

They joke about it, complain about edits made in the dub, etc. Though, at the risk of sounding like someone trying to justify them, they're not really comparable to Robotech and stuff like the SDF-2; they're euphamizing things that "aren't suitable for children's television", not adding extraneously to the plot or contradicting the original story.

Actually, better examples from the Dragonball Z dub could include Vegeta telling Goku that his father was "a brilliant scientist", Tenshinhan saying he can regrow the arm he loses in the battle against Nappa, or Tao Pai Pai being a General in the Red Ribbon Army. They're all the subject of jokes and/or ridicule by fandom, nobody treats them seriously or tries to defend them.

[VFTF1]

Congratulations on asking the question that must certainly rank amongst the most important issues for Robotech fans:

http://www.robotech.com/community/forum/re...7&forumid=9

Pete

[Gubaba]

Congratulations on asking the question that must certainly rank amongst the most important issues for Robotech fans:

http://www.robotech.com/community/forum/re...7&forumid=9

Pete

Who'll love Aladdin Sane?

Battle cries and champagne

Just in time for sunrise

Who'll love Aladdin Sane?

And yes, I'm glad SOMEONE is asking the big, important questions.

Now all we need to do is figure out what Dolzaa meant when he saw Rick and Lisa kissing and exclaimed, "This must be the result of Protoculture!" And whether Jonathan Wolff was on the SDF-1 or in Albuquerque (I have no idea what this controversy is about, but it must be important, since it's apparently what made Wanzerfan swear off Robotech comics for good, and made him realize that the current staff at HG don't know what they're doing).

[VFTF1]

Actually - I was pleasantly surprised by THIS thread - it looks like there are actually people with brains, who can write, and who I can learn from at Robotech.com!

http://www.robotech.com/community/forum/re...0&forumid=9

There's one dude who tries to explain it away by referencing McKinney "saying" that "Protoculture" was responsible - which gave me a chuckle...

But overall it's a very interesting discussion.

The one thing missing is some theoretical chatter about the nature of Fold bubbles....

But overall - not a bad thread.

Pete

[MastaEgg]

Send it to Mythbusters!

[Aladdin Sane]

Now all we need to do is figure out what Dolzaa meant when he saw Rick and Lisa kissing and exclaimed, "This must be the result of Protoculture!"

Well in the novelisations, dried petals of the Flower of Life are used as an intoxicant. I guess he just figured Rick and Lisa must've been hopped up on Protoculture leaves in order to do such a thing.

[Gubaba]

Actually - I was pleasantly surprised by THIS thread - it looks like there are actually people with brains, who can write, and who I can learn from at Robotech.com!

http://www.robotech.com/community/forum/re...0&forumid=9

Yep...don't like something in Robotech? Find that it doesn't hold up to scientific analysis? Do what those guys do, and blame it on the Japanese creators!

Meanwhile, all the GOOD stuff in Robotech is purely due to the genius of Carl Macek, of course.

[Einherjar]

Yep...don't like something in Robotech? Find that it doesn't hold up to scientific analysis? Do what those guys do, and blame it on the Japanese creators!

Meanwhile, all the GOOD stuff in Robotech is purely due to the genius of Carl Macek, of course.

Those people and Carl Macek wouldn't be around today if not for those crazy Japanese creators.

They must really like the stuff he made on his own once it went further with the material than was out there. Space Amazons with chariots, scary robot torsos.

And I have no idea who Seto is talking about in those Wildstorm comics. T R Edwards? You mean the cameo made by Guile from Street Fighter, right?

Edited December 29, 2009 by Einherjar

[Jasonc]

Mina Roshan. The purple haired one with the eyes drawn differently from everyone else. Her pupils are so big you can hardly see the whites of her eyes.

Going by Robotech M.O. She's a granddaughter of Dr. Lang. The problem with Robotech, is that they are so tightly bound to the characters, they don't want to move from them. It doesn't make sense that out of all the characters that interact, they are either all related, or tied together somehow. Look at shadow Chronicles (you can do this with any character just about). Vince Grant is related to Claudia Grant, who was Lisa's friend. Because of the family tie, Vince meets Rick Hunter and takes off to do the Sentinel's. There he gains rank to get his own ship, and who of all people becomes his "science officer"? Louie Nichols, once part of the 15th ATAC. His commanding officer was Dana Sterling, who ended up falling in love with Zor in Southern Cross. Zor was the creator of protoculture as an energy source, and the reason why the SDF-1 came to earth in the first damn place. Dana jus so happens to have a sister named Maia that's part of the same Skull Squadron Rick Hunter, Roy Focker, were part of. Maia is also daughter to Max and Miriya, who takes an early love interest in Marcus Rush, which happens to be the younger brother of Marlene Rush, fiance to Scott Bernard. Scott Bernard, during his easily calculated meeting with all these people, is also the same Scott Bernard that Met up with Jonathan Wolfe, the supposed savior of the Sentinel's series, who had a love interest in Minmay, who was the first Miss Macross winner, and the one who helped the SDF-1 conquer the Zentraedi.

I can go on and on, but this kinda crap is what makes the Robotech world so small and fake. Supposedly, it's supposed to be clever, but it's really just stupid. Can anyone not be related to someone, somehow???

[taksraven]

Of course not, dammit! BECAUSE! ROBOTECH! IS! THE! NEW! AMERICANA!!!!!

Adjusted it cause you forgot the exclamation marks after BECAUSE! and THE!

Taksraven

[taksraven]

Mina Roshan. The purple haired one with the eyes drawn differently from everyone else. Her pupils are so big you can hardly see the whites of her eyes.

It's a character background plot device, though, in Robotech.

Pointed out this character during the original broadcast and was howled down and essentially told to STFU.

Taksraven

[hulagu]

I can go on and on, but this kinda crap is what makes the Robotech world so small and fake. Supposedly, it's supposed to be clever, but it's really just stupid. Can anyone not be related to someone, somehow???

Yeah, well, Basara Nekki is _so_ the love child of Hikaru and Minmay.

Edited December 29, 2009 by hulagu