HG and Robotech Debates

[Seto Kaiba]

If HG could, they probably would have made every person who appeared on screen important enough for a story to generate content, especially these days when they really can't do anything new animation-wise.

Oh, trust me... they tried.

On several occasions, the old comics attempted to take marginally interesting one-shot characters from Robotech's TV series and expand their stories in much the same way that Star Wars's expanded universe did to everyone who appeared in the original trilogy. Tommy Yune continued that fine absurd tradition by having Robotech: From the Stars yammer on about Roy's backstory and show the origins of Vince Grant, Jan Morris, and a bunch of other people that nobody with their head screwed on straight gives a toss about. Similarly, Robotech: Invasion delves into the backstory of Lancer with heavy-handed retcons, expanding the character of the girl who rescued him from his crashed fighter, and tacking on an arbitrary Jonathan Wolfe-esque betrayal story, while also packaging a story about the demise of Karl Riber as a mini-comic.

But at least Colonel Jonathan was central in the one episode he appeared in. Look at Dr. Lang, whose role in the original was merely to show up and say, "Uh, the fold system has disappeared" and "Oh, hey guys! Look what we made! Find three girls who can play Centipede, and we're in business!"

And from those humble beginnings, he got spun out into the GREATEST MIND OF HIS GENERATION, WHO CAN COMMUNE WITH THE PROTOCULTURE!!!

If you boiled it down to the actual thought processes behind their choice to use those characters and expand on them, it ultimately comes out as "they have almost no backstory, therefore we can do whatever we want with them and it won't cock up the story of the TV series". "Dr. Lang" was made into a super-genius scientist who discovered (and instinctively understands) protoculture because he spends most of the show out of the spotlight and has no character development whatsoever. Similarly Jonathan Wolfe's backstory is simply "he was a bigshot at the REF that Scott looked up to, he came to Earth, and did some stuff, then betrayed his friends", leaving his REF days wide open for exploitation as part of the Robotech II: the Sentinels story.

So what made Wolfe so important in the first place? Ignore the future plans HG had for the character and etc., only consider when the show was first going on.

In Mospeada, he was something of a hero to the Mars Colony people after his exploits in the minor conflicts between colonies. In Robotech, he was a big hero in the Expeditionary Forces who Scott looked up to and idolized, so his "fall from grace" was all the more painful for Scott.

I got an e-mail from our good friend, Doug Bendo-ver, screaming about how I'm responsible for his sudden boost in ratings...

And he think we care about his six ACTUAL "lessoners" why?

He's checked my profile here once at least twice this week. Maybe he's planning some kind of major offensive...?

He does the same to me... usually once every week or two he checks my profile here.

I didn't even want to comment on the stupidity, or just sheer ignorance of that. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just say that they are ignorant when it comes to the difference between Robotech and Macross.

Most of them are just too farting stupid to use Wikipedia... and the rest usually buy into Harmony Gold's stance that there's nothing worth looking into in Macross and assume that Robotech.com is the center of the Macross fandom as well.

Edited March 7, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[Ginrai]

Sorry, allow me to clarify.

I'm entirely aware of the huge popularity of Super Sentai and the likes of Kamen Rider. What I meant to say is niche in places like America, Australia and the UK. The popularity of those types of shows in the west pretty much began and ended with the boom they experienced at the height of the popularity of Power Rangers. Asides from Power Rangers (the future of which is now uncertain) and last year's Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight (which, as I understand it, pretty much bombed), the toku genre is largely dead in those places.

And like I said, Power Rangers is still a million times more popular in America than Robotech or Macross has ever been. Even if the future of Power Rangers is "now uncertain", it still has a TV show airing right now (a silly re-edit of the original show) and that's still 15 years of unbroken TV which is way more than Robotech or Macross can claim in any country.

[Funkenstein]

Its too bad then that the anime industry doesn't fart out a new transforming mecha series every year. At least that would give Harmony Gold a chance to relabel something as Robotech.

[Einherjar]

Its too bad then that the anime industry doesn't fart out a new transforming mecha series every year. At least that would give Harmony Gold a chance to relabel something as Robotech.

Not necessarily, as a guy called ROBOTECHFANPLUS tried to do, anything can be edited to become Robotech. There are a lot of shows from the 80s that people forgot about or don't care enough that HG could put the same effort as before to make it part of the franchise. How people would react to it , however, is a different story.

[Aladdin Sane]

And like I said, Power Rangers is still a million times more popular in America than Robotech or Macross has ever been. Even if the future of Power Rangers is "now uncertain", it still has a TV show airing right now (a silly re-edit of the original show) and that's still 15 years of unbroken TV which is way more than Robotech or Macross can claim in any country.

I've just checked my original post and my wording was rather poor, so I seem to have failed in conveying my point. I didn't mean to say that Robotech or Macross themselves are more popular than Power Rangers and its ilk (such an assertion would of course be very silly; Robotech has been a shambling corpse for more than a decade and Macross has been kept out of those markets since Plus).

As a whole, mecha anime has more mainstream appeal to western audiences than Japanese toku shows or American adaptations of them.

Edited March 8, 2010 by Aladdin Sane

[Seto Kaiba]

Its too bad then that the anime industry doesn't fart out a new transforming mecha series every year. At least that would give Harmony Gold a chance to relabel something as Robotech.

Eh... even if Harmony Gold did fall back on their original practice of rewriting existing shows as a means of expanding the Robotech universe, I don't think it would go over well. That might've been considered an acceptable practice back in the 1980s, but ever since the public decided it wanted the same viewing experience the original audience got the practice of rewriting and "Americanizing" shows has been considered almost insulting. Yes, Harmony Gold could import new shows and rebrand them as Robotech... but they'd get torn a new apeface for it by the viewers and the industry in general.

Not necessarily, as a guy called ROBOTECHFANPLUS tried to do, anything can be edited to become Robotech. There are a lot of shows from the 80s that people forgot about or don't care enough that HG could put the same effort as before to make it part of the franchise. How people would react to it , however, is a different story.

Let's remember that ROBOTECHFANPLUS also admitted that he didn't actually mean any of what he was doing, and that he was just trolling for yuks.

[HappyPenguins]

http://www.robotech.com/community/forum/re...&forumid=24

*facepalm*

http://www.robotech.com/community/forum/re...5&forumid=9

*more facepalm*

lmao wow...

why the hell do they think macross zero came first?

oh because of the zero part, or the flashbacks of Roy?

I mean come on

[Gubaba]

lmao wow...

why the hell do they think macross zero came first?

oh because of the zero part, or the flashbacks of Roy?

I mean come on

Well...it DOES happen before the main story of the first Macross series...but only a fool would watch it first.

[taksraven]

I think I've either asked this or have heard this before, but did HG ever plan to add any other shows to the mangled Robotech mix? (Orguss, for example)

Taksraven

[Einherjar]

Let's remember that ROBOTECHFANPLUS also admitted that he didn't actually mean any of what he was doing, and that he was just trolling for yuks.

But as time goes on, it's probably going to become a more legitimate and cost effective decision by Harmony Gold's standards, won't it?

[Gubaba]

I think I've either asked this or have heard this before, but did HG ever plan to add any other shows to the mangled Robotech mix? (Orguss, for example)

Taksraven

I've heard rumors about Orguss, but I don't think they've ever been verified. As far as I know, Macross, Southern Cross, Mospeada, and Megazone 23 are the only lucky, lucky shows to have Macek's Robotech genius slathered all over them.

[Moly_Sigang]

Let's remember that ROBOTECHFANPLUS also admitted that he didn't actually mean any of what he was doing, and that he was just trolling for yuks.

Obviously, he's not finish on trolling Macross fans, he just made an alternate account, 'ROBOTECHTEHBEST', and continued uploading videos of Macross shows and retitling them as Robotech.

His video uploads include:

All That Veritech (All That VF)

Robotech Zero (Macross Zero)

Robotech F (Macross Frontier)

[taksraven]

the only lucky, lucky shows to have Macek's Robotech genius slathered all over them.

Good, but I think that to say "the only lucky, lucky shows to have Macek's Robotech genius vomited all over them." sounds better.

Taksraven

[HappyPenguins]

Obviously, he's not finish on trolling Macross fans, he just made an alternate account, 'ROBOTECHTEHBEST', and continued uploading videos of Macross shows and retitling them as Robotech.

His video uploads include:

All That Veritech (All That VF)

Robotech Zero (Macross Zero)

Robotech F (Macross Frontier)

that guy is a riot

[taksraven]

Obviously, he's not finish on trolling Macross fans, he just made an alternate account, 'ROBOTECHTEHBEST', and continued uploading videos of Macross shows and retitling them as Robotech.

His video uploads include:

All That Veritech (All That VF)

Robotech Zero (Macross Zero)

Robotech F (Macross Frontier)

He fecking wishes it was Robotech. Can't troll me by trying to pull that crap. Just makes himself look like an idiot.

Taksraven

[Aladdin Sane]

Misappropriating Macross material as Robotech is pretty much submitting to the fact that one franchise is still putting out quality new material while the other is, well, Robotech.

[Black Valkyrie]

Obviously, he's not finish on trolling Macross fans, he just made an alternate account, 'ROBOTECHTEHBEST', and continued uploading videos of Macross shows and retitling them as Robotech.

His video uploads include:

All That Veritech (All That VF)

Robotech Zero (Macross Zero)

Robotech F (Macross Frontier)

Zeta ?! are they insane. When will this ever stop.

[RedWolf]

I think I've either asked this or have heard this before, but did HG ever plan to add any other shows to the mangled Robotech mix? (Orguss, for example)

I've heard rumors about Orguss, but I don't think they've ever been verified. As far as I know, Macross, Southern Cross, Mospeada, and Megazone 23 are the only lucky, lucky shows to have Macek's Robotech genius slathered all over them.

That's pretty simple though.

HG can't touch Orguss for the simple fact Tatsunoko was not involved in it.

ROBOTECHTEHBEST

I remember this guy in Animesuki and 4chan. In Animesuki I pretty much ignore his couple of posts. 4chan's /m/ are like sharks smelling blood in the water when he posts Robotech there.

[Seto Kaiba]

I think I've either asked this or have heard this before, but did HG ever plan to add any other shows to the mangled Robotech mix? (Orguss, for example)

While there are plenty of rumors to that effect circulating among the fans, I don't think there's ever been anything on that note coming from Harmony Gold itself. After the relative success of the Robotech TV series, Harmony Gold only tried one more rewrite (Megazone 23 Part I) before jumping into developing original animation using characters and set pieces from Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada... and the resulting quagmire is where they've been stuck ever since. Since Tommy seems dead-set on trying to make Robotech "his" show, I can't see him giving the go-ahead to rewrite an existing show... particularly not now that the first example of what he fondly believes is his genius is out there on the market and "going gangbusters", according to McKeever.

Misappropriating Macross material as Robotech is pretty much submitting to the fact that one franchise is still putting out quality new material while the other is, well, Robotech.

Under the present circumstances, Robotech fans who "misappropriate" material from Macross and other mecha shows are usually doing so for one of three reasons:

1. Ignorance of the distinction between Macross and Robotech.
2. The desire to expand the Robotech universe in the absence of new official material from Harmony Gold.
3. To troll Macross fans.

It must be admitted that, among Robotech fans, people who simply don't understand the distinction between the original Macross and the westernized derivative version in Robotech are much more common than we're all comfortable with. At least part of it is Harmony Gold's repeated attempts to write off Macross as an inferior series whose sole redeeming factor was its use in Robotech, and that none of the rest of the franchise is even worth the trouble of investigating. Of course, the Robotech fans who take this to heart then get all confused when they see Macross shows that're infinitely better than Robotech (in short, any of them) and can't understand how it all fits together because, in their worldview, Macross = Robotech. During my six years on Robotech.com, it was business as usual to get one or two questions a month with some idiot asking how a Macross show he saw clips from over on YouTube (usually Macross Zero) fit with the rest of Robotech. They'd usually take the title and assume it was "Robotech Zero" and ask when it was coming out in the US, only to be told that it had nothing at all to do with Robotech and never would.

Now, as you're all already well aware... the principal idiots responsible for misappropriating material from Macross and attempting to shoehorn it into Robotech are the guys who run Robotech RPGs. Fortunately, this particular brand of idiot is a rapidly dying breed, and the overall piss-poor quality of Palladium's new Robotech RPG has done nothing to reverse that trend. Back in the days when there hadn't been anything new on the Robotech radar since 1987, Robotech fans turned to adapting mecha from other shows into their RPGs to expand their games and add interest... a practice encouraged by Palladium and its RIFTS system, which put (mis)information about the mecha from Macross II: Lovers Again right at the fingertips of the Robotech gamers. The rest of Macross (up thru Macross 7) was simply pillaged because the fans think Robotech and Macross are interchangeable, and the mecha are similar enough to the ones they're familiar with in Robotech to be easily adapted to the game. They occasionally pillaged other shows, like Gundam, and L-Gaim, and Orguss, and Megazone 23... but Macross was most frequently victimized by this behavior because of its status as Robotech's "nearest neighbor".

The trolls don't really bear speaking about, so I'll spare you my usual diatribe on that.

Edited March 8, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[taksraven]

The trolls don't really bear speaking about, so I'll spare you my usual diatribe on that.

Oh come on. We love to hear about them.

Taksraven

[Einherjar]

But, but, but, people are still waiting for Shadow Rising and Hollywood.

Harmony Gold, you're regularly taking their money for inferior products anyway, throw these people a bone or something. They continue to humiliate themselves and piss people off for your benefit.

Edited March 8, 2010 by Einherjar

[Ginrai]

As a whole, mecha anime has more mainstream appeal to western audiences than Japanese toku shows or American adaptations of them.

Maybe I am still not getting what you are saying, but mecha anime has not ever sold anywhere near as well as Power Rangers in the United States, ever. Yes, Transformers tops Power Rangers in long term popularity but that's not mecha anime.

[Aladdin Sane]

Maybe I am still not getting what you are saying, but mecha anime has not ever sold anywhere near as well as Power Rangers in the United States, ever. Yes, Transformers tops Power Rangers in long term popularity but that's not mecha anime.

Power Rangers is the exception though, not the rule.

[Wanzerfan]

So what made Wolfe so important in the first place? Ignore the future plans HG had for the character and etc., only consider when the show was first going on.

He was an important figure, along with both Maximillian and Miriya Sterling when the sh*t hit the fan in Cavern City during the Malcontent Uprisings. That, and Ron Bartley (Rook's father) was his Centaur hovertank platoon's second in command.

[Ginrai]

Power Rangers is the exception though, not the rule.

Exactly WHICH mecha anime shows have set the mainstream American population afire?

[Seto Kaiba]

Oh come on. We love to hear about them.

Bah... it's not like there's anything worth saying about that bizarre compulsion some die-hard Robotech fans suffer from that forces them to make asses of themselves in public by trying to "defend" Robotech by trolling Macross fans. They're sad, sorry little attention whores who desperately need to take a good hard look at what's really going on in the Robotech franchise. Usually once they realize they're defending a franchise that hasn't produced anything of any real value in 25 years of trying, and is run by a company that tells them nothing and insults them for asking questions, they wise up pretty quickly and feel very foolish. Some, of course, just act even more juvenile as the truth nags at them and makes them question whether they really enjoy Robotech as much as they're trying to convince themselves they do.

But, but, but, people are still waiting for Shadow Rising and Hollywood.

Which, in practical terms, means that people are waiting for something that will probably never happen...

Business as usual... Harmony Gold is stringing the fans along and trotting out a handful of increasingly expensive toys of rapidly deteriorating quality, all while mouthing the same tired lies and vague, empty promises of continuing the Robotech story at some undefined point in the future.

Harmony Gold, you're regularly taking their money for inferior products anyway, throw these people a bone or something. They continue to humiliate themselves and piss people off for your benefit.

Honestly, I think that's what Harmony Gold wants... they want a legion of militant fanboys who will blindly accept any low quality product they happen to produce, even at ludicrous prices, because they feel that they're the chosen... the elect... the true Robotech fans. In short, they want clueless cattle who can be milked for as much money as Harmony Gold things they can get away with on a year-to-year basis.

He was an important figure, along with both Maximillian and Miriya Sterling when the sh*t hit the fan in Cavern City during the Malcontent Uprisings. That, and Ron Bartley (Rook's father) was his Centaur hovertank platoon's second in command.

Sooooooooo... you're getting up in arms over Tommy Yune deviating from the events of a story that was only ever ambiguously canon when it came out, and was non-canon for years before Tommy decided to do something else? I'm really not seeing just cause for ire here.

Insofar as the old comics go, I think it's probably a good thing that the only one that's still even ambiguously canon is the Robotech II: the Sentinels comic by Jason and John Waltrip. Sure, it was a crummy low-quality book drawn by two men who had serious difficulties with staying on model, and nobody denies that the story was written so poorly it could've given the original Star Trek a run for its money in terms of sheer campyness... but it's still the best of the original Robotech comics and the only one that had a halfway decent run. Unlike the others, it also had a purpose, whereas the rest were just created to wring a few more precious dollars out of the almost completely forgotten Robotech name. All the rest of the crap, like the Malcontent Uprisings and all of Robotech's attempts to imitate other, far more popular shows, are best forgotten... relics of a bygone age when Harmony Gold didn't give a poo and actually allowed its licensees some degree of creative latitude.

[Aladdin Sane]

Exactly WHICH mecha anime shows have set the mainstream American population afire?

I'm not saying any have. I didn't say mecha anime was some mainstream sensation. How many toku shows though, outside of Power Rangers, have sustained any level of fandom in the west compared to something like Gundam (or, indeed, Robotech and Macross)?

Mecha anime is a niche interest, toku shows moreso. Power Rangers was absolutely massive and still has a dedicated following, I'm not trying to deny that. But it's a significant outlier and not really representative of western interest in the genre.

[Gubaba]

He was an important figure, along with both Maximillian and Miriya Sterling when the sh*t hit the fan in Cavern City during the Malcontent Uprisings. That, and Ron Bartley (Rook's father) was his Centaur hovertank platoon's second in command.

I'm with Seto, here. Having be on the SDF-1 instead of Albuquerque Base seems like an innocuous enough change...especially in a series like Robotech which isn't noted for the coherence of it's "expanded universe" stories.

Sounds like a classic case of straining at a gnat, but swallowing the camel whole.

[Seto Kaiba]

especially in a series like Robotech which isn't noted for the coherence of it's "expanded universe" stories.

Now that's one hell of an understatement... saying Robotech's "expanded universe" stories lack coherency is rather like calling a town that's just been carpet-bombed "slightly untidy". In the past, I've seen several fans attempt to sort the old comics into continuities, and it rarely ends well. Usually, the poor sods involved argue for a few months before giving the whole thing up as a bad job. On the rare occasion that they actually produce results, the usual breakdown is around seven or eight more-or-less self-contained continuities and a bunch of individual stories classified as "stand-alone" only because they don't seem to actually fit with any of the other comics or the animated series.

In short, the old Robotech comics are a mess... which is probably one of the first things Tommy Yune did as part of his continuity reboot was to declare the whole confused mess non-canon. On balance, I think the Robotech universe is better off without them. True, they sustained the franchise during the release doldrums of the 90s, but many of them were exactly what they look like... shameless attempts to wring a few more bucks out of the rose-tinted memories of the dwindling, loyal, nostalgia-blinded Robotech fanbase.

As to the whereabouts and goings-on of Jonathan Wolfe... who cares? In the only stories that actually matter (the "original" Robotech TV series, Sentinels, Shadow Chronicles) the man is a first-class sleazebag. If memory serves, he was cheating on his wife with Minmei during the Pioneer mission, and his one great act was to betray the troops under his command to the enemy in exchange for continuing to appear heroic.

Edited March 9, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[Einherjar]

It's probably better to think of all the characters, already established or originally created in the expanded universe, as either dead, never existed in the first place, or no longer relevant to the story, in the tradition of all previous characters Robotech has gone through. If people loved them, too bad. Until HG has a plan for them, they only exist in "What If" scenarios for the franchise people like, which now only exist for $$$.

It makes you wish for the day when they'll make a story they start stick, let alone finish the damn thing. In other words, move on like everyone else.

EDIT: Characterizations and development were established in the expanded universe? Probably doesn't count either, but they were interesting to observe, weren't they?

Edited March 9, 2010 by Einherjar

[BeyondTheGrave]

How bout we just say its a clone that later died.

[Jasonc]

Since I've had some free time after work, I figured I'd listen to various podcasts. Now that I'm caught up on the he said she said, I noticed lil dougie making the world colonization compared to Robotech argument. Apparently, his understanding is that a base on the moon, and a base on Marse constitutes colonizing a world in the true sense of colonizing. Scott Bernard's quote about the landscape "being as vast as Venus", while they'd all be dead on the planet, to him, seems to indicate that the Robotech universe is colonizing worlds. Am I wrong in thinking that setting up military outposts and bases on moons and uninhabitable m-class planets is not the same as finding a new self sustaining planet as home? Somehow, I couldn't help but chuckle at the idiot, and thought I'd clear that up for him, since he probably needs help in understanding a few things. Colonizing and setting up military outposts are not the same thing. Anybody who would've gone into the atmosphere of Venus, would probably die within minutes at least, from the intense heat and gas. If he would've looked up M class planets, he would've seen a Star Trek reference there, but a planet that more or less can sustain human life.

Again, still supports pretty much what I said before back on page 46

Edited for spelling.

Edited March 10, 2010 by Jasonc

[Saraphys]

Anybody who would've gone into the atmosphere of Venus, would probably dies within minutes at least, from the intense heat and gas. If he would've looked up M class planets, he would've seen a Star Trek reference there, but a planet that more or less can sustain human life.

Psst...

There called "Habitable Planet" and "Goldilocks Zone"

[Seto Kaiba]

EDIT: Characterizations and development were established in the expanded universe? Probably doesn't count either, but they were interesting to observe, weren't they?

Not really, no... about the only comic that actually had character development or a vaguely coherent plot was Robotech II: the Sentinels, and that's the only one that's still even ambiguously canon. Most of the rest are so poorly written it's hard to feel anything for the characters other than mild antipathy or a vague sort of derision. A lot of the new characters created for the comics were the same shallow stocks you'd get in most any sci-fi story, as utterly interchangeable as the redshirts Star Trek made a habit of killing every episode.

[azrael]

Am I wrong in thinking that setting up military outposts and bases on moons and uninhabitable m-class planets is not the same as finding a new self sustaining planet as home? Somehow, I couldn't help but chuckle at the idiot, and thought I'd clear that up for him, since he probably needs help in understanding a few things. Colonizing and setting up military outposts are not the same thing. Anybody who would've gone into the atmosphere of Venus, would probably dies within minutes at least, from the intense heat and gas.

It depends on your definition of colonization.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colonizing

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colony

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/settle

Now yes, setting up a military base is "colonizing" an area. But military bases aren't really permanent establishments. When we think of colonizing, we think more of Macross, Southern Cross, BSG, or Star Trek colonizing. As in leaving our known solar system.