HG and Robotech Debates

[HappyPenguins]

Using Wilt Chamberlain could have explained why all of yune's female character are built like strippers.

yune should have blamed the protoculture instead

[JB0]

We tried SO hard to forget... and you had to go and remind us.

Seriously though, even the Gamma Fighter isn't an original design either. True to form, Tommy took an existing design from the original shows, modified it a bit, and tried to pass it off as something original. In the case of the VF-13 Gamma fighter, it's just a transforming version of the non-transformable Mars Colony AF-03 Combat fighter from the original Genesis Climber Mospeada. Like pretty much all of the other "new" stuff he's come up with during his tenure, it's something old that's been tarted up as though it was new and original... a process that's been Robotech's stock in trade since 1985.

But it's a ripoff of a ripoff, which takes it to a whole new level!

Seriously, my first thought was "he ripped off the VF-4?"

Obviously, the battroid is different, but still!

So... it's based on a MOSPEADA design that is itself (apparently) based on a Macross design... this is making my head hurt.

[Seto Kaiba]

So... it's based on a MOSPEADA design that is itself (apparently) based on a Macross design... this is making my head hurt.

Ripoffs ripping off ripoffs... damn, it's almost Zen in a way...

Who's the bigger douche? The plagiarist, or the guy who plagiarizes the plagiarist?

[BeyondTheGrave]

Ripoffs ripping off ripoffs... damn, it's almost Zen in a way...

Who's the bigger douche? The plagiarist, or the guy who plagiarizes the plagiarist?

The guy who says the fake is Superior in all ways. Then creates a fubar list of explanations why it is.

[Keith]

To be fair, a lot of legit Macross fans think Kawamori is a useless hippie who can't do anything without Ohnogi/Ishiguro/Itano/Mikimoto/etc.

He's the George Lucas of anime.

And yet, Kawamori has done far more for anime in the past 30 years than all of the above. I think people expected a recapture of that glory when Tytania was announced, but look what happened there. Me, I'll hedge my bets with Kawamori.

[Gubaba]

And yet, Kawamori has done far more for anime in the past 30 years than all of the above. I think people expected a recapture of that glory when Tytania was announced, but look what happened there. Me, I'll hedge my bets with Kawamori.

Enh...I wouldn't go THAT far. Ohnogi's racked up some pretty important writing credits, Ishiguro directed LoGH (which alone is enough to cement him in awesomeness), Mikimoto is still a stunning artist with some pretty important manga work to his name as well as a lot of character designs...and Itano...well, it's the circus, isn't it? It's STILL influential, and as Macross Zero proved, he's still a pretty amazing dogfight choreographer.

[Keith]

And yet, Plus, 7, Zero, Frontier, Escaflowne, & various design works including assiting in Cowboy Bebop & Eureka Seven, Kawamori has had (IMO) a more varied & colorful career in the past 3 decades.

[VF5SS]

Ummm...yeah... How could I forget that...?

i'm just pointing the big contrast between the fanfiction official spinoffs and the actual content of robotech

this is a thread all about hemming and hawing over it after all

[hulagu]

And yet, Kawamori has done far more for anime in the past 30 years than all of the above. I think people expected a recapture of that glory when Tytania was announced, but look what happened there. Me, I'll hedge my bets with Kawamori.

To be fair, his character work for Tytania did look good. It's just that the adapted story is rather dull and doesn't compare to the epicness of its spiritual predecessor LOGH in any way.

OT)H, Macross 7 Trash which he did write also had fantastic art and weak plot. Hopefully, Macross the First does turns out better.

Edited June 2, 2010 by hulagu

[Einherjar]

Because Macek was making some real HARDCORE SCI-FI with Xeno killin' rip-snorting dudes in power suits and jets like in those Tim Eldred comics.

Just ignore the moe girls in Mospeada and the doofy protagonists.

I'm surprised he was able to pull it off with the work of a guy who turned out to be a hippie.

But yeah, that touchy feely crap stage is probably over for Robotech, never to be addressed again in sequels and reboots. Like I said before, if they reboot it, Minmei will be the first to go, killed or derailed further.

[Seto Kaiba]

The guy who says the fake is Superior in all ways. Then creates a fubar list of explanations why it is.

So, the moral of the story is that the vocal Robotech fans are the biggest douches of all? I've lost count of the number of crackpot arguments for why Robotech is better... almost all of which either boil down to nostalgia, bloody-minded ignorance, or both.

But yeah, that touchy feely crap stage is probably over for Robotech, never to be addressed again in sequels and reboots. Like I said before, if they reboot it, Minmei will be the first to go, killed or derailed further.

Of course... the Robotech story has always had all the depth of a teaspoon. Take away its basic nature as a story assembled from three unrelated stories, and you've got yourself a generic sci-fi action story about a pack of gormless soldiers fending off an invading force of evil aliens bent on humanity's destruction and/or the capture of some non-specific macguffin with giant fighting robots. (I just realized I've described what Avatar would be if the teams changed jerseys)

[areaseven]

The RT fans' sense of logic never fails to amuse me. Read the comments on this video:

[Keith]

The RT fans' sense of logic never fails to amuse me. Read the comments on this video:

Of all the things to "borrow," really HG, really?

[Jasonc]

The RT fans' sense of logic never fails to amuse me. Read the comments on this video:

Sounds like some people's complaint of us.

[Legioss]

The RT fans' sense of logic never fails to amuse me. Read the comments on this video:

They could both be referencing one thing, but TFTM was out in August 1986. Since earlier that year from what I've read, negotiations continued with Matchbox to restart Sentinels. Then it was determined it was too late to resume production. Macek says in RA3 they were in negotiations throughout 1986. but it seems weird to me that it would go on for that many months and then HG doesn't do the rewritten video until after August so it could be syndicated with the other movies and then go to home video in 1987. If it was after August, then I guess it looks like Ardwight went to see TFTM. Ron Friedman couldn't have seen Sentinels because it wasn't even out yet.

edit: I just remembered that a month before TFTM came out, Robotech The Movie used the scrolling crawl of text effect from Star Wars in its credits. It would not be out of the ordinary for HG to copy things from other movies.

Edited June 3, 2010 by Legioss

[areaseven]

edit: I just remembered that a month before TFTM came out, Robotech The Movie used the scrolling crawl of text effect from Star Wars in its credits. It would not be out of the ordinary for HG to copy things from other movies.

Actually, George Lucas ripped off the opening crawl from the old 1930s Flash Gordon serials. Just about every other sci-fi film released after Star Wars did the same.

[terry the lone wolf]

Well to be fair TFTM was a complete ripoff of Star Wars. Even a lightsaber battle on spaceship was heavily influenced by SW.

[areaseven]

Well to be fair TFTM was a complete ripoff of Star Wars. Even a lightsaber battle on spaceship was heavily influenced by SW.

True, but remember that while Star Wars became the almighty sci-fi epic that it is, it ripped off Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress and numerous other titles in the process.

And don't get me started with Avatar.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

Blast from the past, the VF-13 Gamma pre-production art that Tommy Yune had been pimping since 2002 before it got the axe & replaced by Super Alpha fighter (Legioss with Super Pack.

Clearly shows why Yune resorted to create more 'original' mecha in RTSC / PTTSC by copying existing Macross / Mospeada / Southern Cross designs - YF-1R (based on animation error of VF-1A), Bioroid Interceptor (based on Invid Fighter Bioroid), Super Shadow Alpha (Legioss with FAST pack) & VR-057 Super Cyclone (based on unused MOSPEADA pre-production art).

The only original mecha designed by Yune is VML-9 Silverback .... the design that only available in comic, but not the animation ...

Is it me or Yune can't even designed an original, decent transformable mecha?

I don't know if it's only me. But I get the feeling that the Gamma would be the end result, if a Alpha ever raped a VF-4 Lighting.

[Seto Kaiba]

Of all the things to "borrow," really HG, really?

Of course... Robotech's creative process is based entirely on finding something relatively popular and either license it for rewriting or just steal parts of it in the faint hope that by assembling a "new" story from bits and pieces of stuff that don't suck and have nothing to do with each other, nobody will notice and the end result won't suck too terribly either.

As I've said many a time, the only thing that changed over 25+ years for Robotech was the name of the show they were ripping off. It started with Sentinels trying desperately to combine parts of Macross and Star Trek: the Next Generation into something vaguely watchable. For Robotech 3000 they were ripping off the old Roughnecks: the Starship Troopers Chronicles CG series and Terminator (or possibly The Matrix). Now, in the 21st century, we've got Shadow Chronicles making a shamelessly transparent attempt to ape the story and tone of the Battlestar Galactica remake with some vague references to Macross.

Somehow, it really comes at no surprise that Harmony Gold would attempt to rip off some parts of Transformers: the Movie. The popularity of the movie is one factor that Macek identifies as a cause of Robotech: the Movie's failure. Since it was quite popular, of course they'd attempt to steal what they could from it in hopes that they'd get away with using someone else's better-written material to disguise their own weak efforts.

[anime52k8]

I don't know if it's only me. But I get the feeling that the Gamma would be the end result, if a Alpha ever raped a VF-4 Lighting.

no, it's what would happen if a VF-4 went to a bar, got REALLY drunk, and then hand sex with an alpha.

[Keith]

Of course... Robotech's creative process is based entirely on finding something relatively popular and either license it for rewriting or just steal parts of it in the faint hope that by assembling a "new" story from bits and pieces of stuff that don't suck and have nothing to do with each other, nobody will notice and the end result won't suck too terribly either.

As I've said many a time, the only thing that changed over 25+ years for Robotech was the name of the show they were ripping off. It started with Sentinels trying desperately to combine parts of Macross and Star Trek: the Next Generation into something vaguely watchable. For Robotech 3000 they were ripping off the old Roughnecks: the Starship Troopers Chronicles CG series and Terminator (or possibly The Matrix). Now, in the 21st century, we've got Shadow Chronicles making a shamelessly transparent attempt to ape the story and tone of the Battlestar Galactica remake with some vague references to Macross.

Somehow, it really comes at no surprise that Harmony Gold would attempt to rip off some parts of Transformers: the Movie. The popularity of the movie is one factor that Macek identifies as a cause of Robotech: the Movie's failure. Since it was quite popular, of course they'd attempt to steal what they could from it in hopes that they'd get away with using someone else's better-written material to disguise their own weak efforts.

And yet, if "you" were a smalltimer looking to rip something off of the big animated production in town, wouldn't you go for something with a little more flash, like the scene where the Decepticons bust into the audio-bot shuttle, and tear them an new a-hole. Or the scene where Unicron comes across the dying Megatron and reforms him into Galva...hey wait a minute, I seem to recall a scene where those crackly robot cat thingies were shown in purple wire-frame with a skin effect going over them too in "Sentinels," hmm.

[Seto Kaiba]

And yet, if "you" were a smalltimer looking to rip something off of the big animated production in town, wouldn't you go for something with a little more flash, like the scene where the Decepticons bust into the audio-bot shuttle, and tear them an new a-hole. Or the scene where Unicron comes across the dying Megatron and reforms him into Galva...hey wait a minute, I seem to recall a scene where those crackly robot cat thingies were shown in purple wire-frame with a skin effect going over them too in "Sentinels," hmm.

If the project hadn't met its conveniently untimely end thanks to the exchange rate crash, Matchbox bailing out, and Macek's ineptitude, who knows how much they might've ripped off? Obviously they couldn't be TOO obvious about it, since that'd invite a lawsuit.

On an unrelated note, I've received a few e-mails from a Robotech fan who's got it into his head that the old (1st Ed.) Palladium Robotech RPG books are the last word on what is and is not canon. As a result, I got to hear one of the craziest conspiracy Robotech fanboy conspiracy theories of all time...

This bloke (who I won't name) told me that the RPG is the last word because Macek said once that all the stuff made for RT was official, and that all the material in official publications like the Infopedia and AoTSC book should be ignored because it was all the result of the insidious influence of the Trekkies, who he thinks have essentially taken over Robotech.com. This guy is 7 1/2 beers short of a six pack, easy.

[Keith]

Ah the great ST/RT war of 2000, man a fanboy were lost that day, but the Trekkies successfully raided the Protoculture Matrix for all of the Flowers of Life to replace their dwindling Dlithium Crystal resources.

It's said that Geordi could be seen drinking out of Dr. Lang's hollowed out skull to absorb all his knowledge. And just a few decks away, Worf dined on the entrails of Wolf during the wedding of Picard & Lisa Hayes Hunter. As per usual, Rick Hunter was lost in a Jeffrey's tube while on the way to intervene, and has never been heard from again.

Edited June 3, 2010 by Keith

[azrael]

On an unrelated note, I've received a few e-mails from a Robotech fan who's got it into his head that the old (1st Ed.) Palladium Robotech RPG books are the last word on what is and is not canon. As a result, I got to hear one of the craziest conspiracy Robotech fanboy conspiracy theories of all time...

This bloke (who I won't name) told me that the RPG is the last word because Macek said once that all the stuff made for RT was official, and that all the material in official publications like the Infopedia and AoTSC book should be ignored because it was all the result of the insidious influence of the Trekkies, who he thinks have essentially taken over Robotech.com. This guy is 7 1/2 beers short of a six pack, easy.

"Canon" is whatever the rights holders want it to be. And IIRC, Kevin Siembieda was the one who wrote the RPGs...not Macek.

[Penguin]

On an unrelated note, I've received a few e-mails from a Robotech fan who's got it into his head that the old (1st Ed.) Palladium Robotech RPG books are the last word on what is and is not canon. As a result, I got to hear one of the craziest conspiracy Robotech fanboy conspiracy theories of all time...

This bloke (who I won't name) told me that the RPG is the last word because Macek said once that all the stuff made for RT was official, and that all the material in official publications like the Infopedia and AoTSC book should be ignored because it was all the result of the insidious influence of the Trekkies, who he thinks have essentially taken over Robotech.com. This guy is 7 1/2 beers short of a six pack, easy.

Now that's funny.

You get to meet all the best people...

[Legioss]

They might as well have in the last Robotech movie, when Scott finally finds Rick Hunter, he points and says "Look, there's Rick!" and we see the music video of Never Gonna Give You Up to the final end credits of Robotech. Harmony Gold ends their USA operation later that year after insisting the ending is canon.

[Einherjar]

Ah the great ST/RT war of 2000, man a fanboy were lost that day, but the Trekkies successfully raided the Protoculture Matrix for all of the Flowers of Life to replace their dwindling Dlithium Crystal resources.

It's said that Geordi could be seen drinking out of Dr. Lang's hollowed out skull to absorb all his knowledge. And just a few decks away, Worf dined on the entrails of Wolf during the wedding of Picard & Lisa Hayes Hunter. As per usual, Rick Hunter was lost in a Jeffrey's tube while on the way to intervene, and has never been heard from again.

Mmmm, cellular peptide cake, with mmmmmint frosting.

But Shadow Chronicles did rely on techno babble, so the raid was truly a success.

[Seto Kaiba]

"Canon" is whatever the rights holders want it to be. And IIRC, Kevin Siembieda was the one who wrote the RPGs...not Macek.

Indeed... but the poor sod in question just doesn't want to accept that Harmony Gold has essentially disowned everything produced before 2001 except the "original" series. What he's been falling back on is some remark attributed to Carl Macek that says that all of Robotech's licensed materials are canon. Whether or not Macek actually said that remains to be seen. He's so desperate to convince me of this that he called Palladium's offices in Taylor to try and get them to back him up... which is kind of disturbing on several levels.

As far as the actual authorship of the RPGs, that'd be Kevin Siembieda's handiwork. The info in the old edition was, according to him, a mixture of stuff translated out of the few art books they were able to get their hands on and wild guesses based on many long sessions of freeze-framing recordings of the episodes that were airing at the time. The old edition is so wildly inaccurate nobody could possibly mistake it for canon. The new edition is supposed to be better since it's allegedly being vetted by Tommy Yune before release, but even then a LOT of mistakes slip by.

Now that's funny.

You get to meet all the best people...

Tell ya what... let's trade places. You can deal with these fruit loops in my place for a while and enjoy all of their entertaining idiocy. I'm pretty miffed with the whole lot of them right now. One of the handful of RT fans I thought was actually an OK guy is acting like a complete bellend... throwing a goddamn hissy fit because he lost his admin powers on RDF-HQ.

They might as well have in the last Robotech movie, when Scott finally finds Rick Hunter, he points and says "Look, there's Rick!" and we see the music video of Never Gonna Give You Up to the final end credits of Robotech. Harmony Gold ends their USA operation later that year after insisting the ending is canon.

I have just two words to say to this:

FUND IT.

But Shadow Chronicles did rely on techno babble, so the raid was truly a success.

Raid nothing... Harmony Gold's staff just don't have a clue how to write. I've heard some noise about Tom Bateman having written a slightly less suck-ass story treatment for the movie, and that it was axed due to Tommy's massive ego. (alarmingly plausible cause of death, no?)

[Wanzerfan]

If the project hadn't met its conveniently untimely end thanks to the exchange rate crash, Matchbox bailing out, and Macek's ineptitude, who knows how much they might've ripped off? Obviously they couldn't be TOO obvious about it, since that'd invite a lawsuit.

On an unrelated note, I've received a few e-mails from a Robotech fan who's got it into his head that the old (1st Ed.) Palladium Robotech RPG books are the last word on what is and is not canon. As a result, I got to hear one of the craziest conspiracy Robotech fanboy conspiracy theories of all time...

This bloke (who I won't name) told me that the RPG is the last word because Macek said once that all the stuff made for RT was official, and that all the material in official publications like the Infopedia and AoTSC book should be ignored because it was all the result of the insidious influence of the Trekkies, who he thinks have essentially taken over Robotech.com. This guy is 7 1/2 beers short of a six pack, easy.

I have most of the old Robotech RPG's (Lancer's Rockers is really bad; I have yet to get Ghost Ship), as well as the Macross II core book (which, by the way, does have a few errors in it). Let me tell you all, the combat system totally sucks donkey dicks. It's not as bad as Synnabarr's (god, you need a feaking scientific calculator to play the freaking thing), but it's nasty enough.

I also have the trifecta of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, Ninjas and Superspies, and the 1st Edition of Heroes Unlimited. I even have a few 2nd. Edition books of the Palladium RPG. I bought them when I was running some Palladium system games. Well at least the books weren't as expensive as the ones from f*cking Wizards of the Coast.

[Keith]

I have most of the old Robotech RPG's (Lancer's Rockers is really bad; I have yet to get Ghost Ship), as well as the Macross II core book (which, by the way, does have a few errors in it). Let me tell you all, the combat system totally sucks donkey dicks. It's not as bad as Synnabarr's (god, you need a feaking scientific calculator to play the freaking thing), but it's nasty enough.

I also have the trifecta of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, Ninjas and Superspies, and the 1st Edition of Heroes Unlimited. I even have a few 2nd. Edition books of the Palladium RPG. I bought them when I was running some Palladium system games. Well at least the books weren't as expensive as the ones from f*cking Wizards of the Coast.

I've got a pocket full of miracles!

[Renato]

Regarding the HG-branded Revoltech releases... I can't help but feel that Kaiyodo is trying to get rid of overstock that they can't sell because everyone in Japan has now caught on to the fact that they suck so badly. It seems to me like a case of "crap, can't get rid of these... 'ere, Tommy, you want some?" Works out well for everyone..?

[Seto Kaiba]

I have most of the old Robotech RPG's (Lancer's Rockers is really bad; I have yet to get Ghost Ship), as well as the Macross II core book (which, by the way, does have a few errors in it). Let me tell you all, the combat system totally sucks [...]

No, the "Lancer's Rockers" sourcebook for the old Palladium Robotech RPG wasn't a bad book... it was a hilariously awful book. I laughed myself sick at the pictures of all the musicians trying to look "gritty" and "awesome" while wearing their goofy-ass Mars Colony uniforms and rocking out on 60's retro-futuristic musical instruments so silly and dated looking they could almost be rejected props from the original Star Trek TV series.

Also... saying that Palladium's Macross II RPG has a few errors in it is truly a masterpiece of understatement. It's no exaggeration to say that there's more wrong than right in the core book, and the subsequent publications don't do the job any better. To be honest, I'm not sure what my favorite screw-up in those books is... but getting the year the OVA's set in wrong and representing the Macross Cannons at 1/12th actual size are definitely strong contenders... but that's more a function of them not having much access to the information, and then ignoring most of what they DID have.

[Legioss]

Ippei Kuri (Yoshida Toyoharu) is the creator of Robotech and his name is in the credits of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. I don't like Shadow Chronicles, but if you're going for officially canon there it is.

[taksraven]

yune should have blamed the protoculture instead

What would be the effects of a protoculture overdose. Insanely inflated self opinion?? Delusions of originality??

Taksraven