NEW MACROSS TV SERIES ANNOUNCED!

[Mr March]

7 years ago WB bought an option on the RT property that HG owns, it has seen several writers and nothing has materialized most likely because HG has no IP rights to Macross, the one series that everyone in the RT community wants to see. It is debatable whether WB has even renewed that original option, since the fervor over Transformers is beginning to cool.

The reason why so many fans are talking about Macross is because it's worst iteration is still better than what HG has put out so far.

The other reason is that the brass at HG are allowing their fanbase believe that somehow HG has the IP rights to Macross outside of Japan, which is untrue. HG has dubious ownership of the trademark of Macross, the international copyright to SDFM animation and international merchandizing rights to SDFM animation, which they own by virtue or their relationship with Tatsunoko.

Absolutely bizarre. Your description appears to me as if this Robotech franchise is in a perpetual limbo, one that is marginally sustained economically but is never successful enough that HG could fund a production with any modern legitimacy. A small company that sells comics, toys and re-releases of an old show to turn a small profit from a small niche consumer base. Such a strange little bubble this franchise occupies. One could almost make a documentary about it.

Thanks for the sentiment, it's appreciated! =) It's always nice being able to come here after all of these years and still talk Macross (among other things) with you guys.

More than anything I just want to see something daring from the next Macross series. Everyone knows I love my mecha porn, but I love good dramatic/emotional story telling far more. It just enhances the mecha porn to even greater heights

[big F]

I'd like to see a Macross representation of the HG offices get stomped by a Zentran in Armor, as a nod towards the true believers.

Edited May 22, 2014 by big F

[Zinjo]

Absolutely bizarre. Your description appears to me as if this Robotech franchise is in a perpetual limbo, one that is marginally sustained economically but is never successful enough that HG could fund a production with any modern legitimacy. A small company that sells comics, toys and re-releases of an old show to turn a small profit from a small niche consumer base. Such a strange little bubble this franchise occupies. One could almost make a documentary about it.

The thing is that RT is not the main focus of HG.

HG has been in the business of licensing international TV and Movies for the US Market for decades. Anime is only a small division of their business and RT appears to be the only remaining property in that division. The Agrama family has had a white knuckle death grip on the Macross property in the West for over a decade now thanks to their uncontested trademarking of a Big West property name back in 2003, called "Macross".

They keep flogging RT to Hollywood in hopes of getting a movie deal, but without the IP rights to Macross they have a non-starter. The closest they've ever come is an Option deal with WB about 7 years ago. Every RT and Macross fan wants to see a LAM of Macross, the numbers drop considerably when Macross in not included. The only ones who don't know it are the rabid fans and those who allow themselves into being duped into believing a Live Action Movie is still coming.

I suspect the Agrama's believe every time a new Macross production is released in japan that BW will come and pay them royalties to distribute it in the West, but that has never and will never happen. Finally, BW is getting smart and releasing "International" versions of their shows with foreign subtitles (English, French, Spanish, etc...) for export. There are no laws prohibiting importing of foreign made anime. So long as the anime industry keeps subtitling or even dubbing their own shows for export, we can import Macross without fear and Harmony Gold will never see a penny from any new Macross productions.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Zinjo

[Einherjar]

A small company that sells comics, toys and re-releases of an old show to turn a small profit from a small niche consumer base. Such a strange little bubble this franchise occupies. One could almost make a documentary about it.

You do know that they've actually released at least one documentary, right?

I suspect the Agrama's believe every time a new Macross production is released in japan that BW will come and pay them royalties to distribute it in the West, but that has never and will never happen. Finally, BW is getting smart and releasing "International" versions of their shows with foreign subtitles (English, French, Spanish, etc...) for export. There are no laws prohibiting importing of foreign made anime. So long as the anime industry keeps subtitling or even dubbing their own shows for export, we can import Macross without fear and Harmony Gold will never see a penny from any new Macross productions.

There are more appropriate places to talk about where 30 year old anachronisms are going... including ranting on Facebook, apparently. But don't let it ruin news like this, because the last thing we need is it to be all about that thing.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Einherjar

[Zinjo]

You do know that they've actually released at least one documentary, right?

There are more appropriate places to talk about where 30 year old anachronisms are going... including ranting on Facebook, apparently. But don't let it ruin news like this, because the last thing we need is it to be all about that thing.

Just filling in the blanks.

A more comprehensive list is here if one is to be a completeist:

http://www.imdb.com/company/co0004023/?ref_=tt_dt_co

Now back to the empty void that is the new series announcement...

Edited May 15, 2014 by Zinjo

[Flaming Guantlet]

The thing is that RT is not the main focus of HG.

HG has been in the business of licensing international TV and Movies for the US Market for decades. Anime is only a small division of their business and RT appears to be the only remaining property in that division.

You forgot to add real estsate( ) in there.

http://www.harmonygoldproperties.com/

Now back to our regularly scheduled waiting game.

Edited May 16, 2014 by Flaming Guantlet

[Saruta]

From what I could find out, the controversial, but actually interesting parts of Robotech (basically, a linking of several stories into a darker tragic "ultimately bound to fail" series, and the expansion on that line) have originated with the controversial figure of Karl Macek. And died with Karl Macek. The current team are a small band of copyright trolls. Quite apart from their relationship with the Macross fandom, they're not too kind to the Robotech one, what with shutting down an attempt at a fanmade series.

I wonder what would happen to Macross if Kawamori were to die. I hope not to learn for a while, though. I definitely hope he is around for all of this new series, whatever it is.

[Vepariga]

I think until we know something other then that its coming all this argument and debating is pretty pointless but it burns the time I guess.

So,Destroid action ftw.

[Gerli]

What about a prequel? lets say.... in the times of the Stellar Republic? that would be awesome... the rise and fall of the protoculture; a lot of thinks can be done there: new mechs, new enemy.... the possibilities are almost unlimited.

[Nekko Basara]

Moe harem prequel, with a shy and awkward Bruno Global as its high school age protagonist.

[Dynaman]

Moe harem prequel, with a shy and awkward Bruno Global as its high school age protagonist.

I'm almost tempted to actually want to see that...

[Saruta]

Moe harem prequel, with a shy and awkward Bruno Global as its high school age protagonist.

http://macross.anime.net/wiki/Bruno_J._Global

He's 46 in 2009. So he was 16 in 1979. He's of Italian lineage but born in Eastern Europe, so Yugoslavia is the likely setting.

Lada and Yugo cars. Death of Tito in 1980, school reaction to it as a plot point. Action in Afghanistan prompting young Bruno to develop an interest in the military, with one potential love interest, a Croatian girl, an eager militant Red and another a shy Serbian girl who is a decent singer and dreams of participating in one of a number of pop music festivals that emerged in Yugoslavia by that time.

This might be a nice one

[Nekko Basara]

I love you people.

[VF-15 Banshee]

http://macross.anime.net/wiki/Bruno_J._Global

He's 46 in 2009. So he was 16 in 1979. He's of Italian lineage but born in Eastern Europe, so Yugoslavia is the likely setting.

Lada and Yugo cars. Death of Tito in 1980, school reaction to it as a plot point. Action in Afghanistan prompting young Bruno to develop an interest in the military, with one potential love interest, a Croatian girl, an eager militant Red and another a shy Serbian girl who is a decent singer and dreams of participating in one of a number of pop music festivals that emerged in Yugoslavia by that time.

This might be a nice one

No Valkyries dude! Can't sell it without Valkyries!

[Nekko Basara]

Transforming SOKO Orao = saddest valk ever.

[Mr March]

You do know that they've actually released at least one documentary, right?

Oh, no doubt they'd have made one themselves, but I meant a third party doc that covers the dirty stories. Like that Enron documentary

http://macross.anime.net/wiki/Bruno_J._Global

He's 46 in 2009. So he was 16 in 1979. He's of Italian lineage but born in Eastern Europe, so Yugoslavia is the likely setting.

Lada and Yugo cars. Death of Tito in 1980, school reaction to it as a plot point. Action in Afghanistan prompting young Bruno to develop an interest in the military, with one potential love interest, a Croatian girl, an eager militant Red and another a shy Serbian girl who is a decent singer and dreams of participating in one of a number of pop music festivals that emerged in Yugoslavia by that time.

This might be a nice one

It practically writes itself!

[Zinjo]

http://macross.anime.net/wiki/Bruno_J._Global

He's 46 in 2009. So he was 16 in 1979. He's of Italian lineage but born in Eastern Europe, so Yugoslavia is the likely setting.

Lada and Yugo cars. Death of Tito in 1980, school reaction to it as a plot point. Action in Afghanistan prompting young Bruno to develop an interest in the military, with one potential love interest, a Croatian girl, an eager militant Red and another a shy Serbian girl who is a decent singer and dreams of participating in one of a number of pop music festivals that emerged in Yugoslavia by that time.

This might be a nice one

His surname just bugs me... There is no Italian on the planet named "Global"!! One of the few areas where I agree with Macek when they changed him to a Russian named Gloval... There I said it, kill me...

Edited May 16, 2014 by Zinjo

[Gubaba]

His surname just bugs me... There is no Italian on the planet named "Global"!! One of the few areas where I agree with Macek when they changed him to a Russian named Gloval... There I said it, kill me...

Is "Gloval" a Russian name?

[Zinjo]

I wonder what would happen to Macross if Kawamori were to die. I hope not to learn for a while, though. I definitely hope he is around for all of this new series, whatever it is.

This obsession that anything Macross must be written by Kawamori has always worried me. No successor is being trained or even considered. I look at what Berman did to the Star Trek franchise after Roddenberry died and his behavior is what ultimately beached that whale! The fanbase didn't help either as they refused to allow the show runners any latitude in story telling. Franchise canon was god and must be worshiped with mindless obedience. I suspect that is why Moore played it a bit fast and loose on BSG from time to time. The story was more important than the minutia of the details and he said as much.

Kawamori subscribes to a similar idea. All Macross productions are not historical records but dramatizations of Macross history, and a lot more latitude is available to the producers as a result. When we get into debates over canon it drives me a bit nuts sometimes since the topic can change at any time. All it takes is an new official retcon and that's it! I remember the debates about the SDF-4 Global on these boards and how fantastic the mental gymnastics were to reconcile how the SDF-1 could appear on Galia IV. The obvious idea that more than one SDF Warship was built was treated as heresy at the time... It turned out to be true after all...

Canon has its place, but it should not be THE PLACE...

Edited May 16, 2014 by Zinjo

[Mr March]

Go easy on us Zinjudgement

I will say that as a Macross fan that likes the idea of canon (even though there really is no such "policy" for the Macross franchise) I don't want folks to misunderstand me or denegrate me as an enclyclopedia nazi. In fact I'd like to think I'm far more open-minded than most about what a Macross production could be, as the contrarian replies to my thoughts of the new Macross series can attest. I only want to say that I eat up minutiae and trivia because I want to understand the breadth and depth of the Macross universe perhaps more than other fans. Delving into the fiction also gets my imagination going, allowing me to enjoy Macross even more. I don't care if a Macross anime is an epic, large-scope war story, with tragic characters, a love triangle and pop music or if Macross is a small little side story about mentally ill test pilots without a war in sight, so long as it's good Macross. But I would like the fiction to make sense and adhere to at least some semblance of continuity. I want the VF-25 Messiah to be faster, more maneuverable and have better weapons than the VF-1 Valkyrie because that's what makes sense. If the wonderful Macross creators can please write weights, Mach speeds and weapon muzzle velocities to desribe that, I can fangasm along the way. See, some of us aren't so bad

And for the record, I didn't understand the SDF-4 debate either. Not only did the original fiction always tell us another ship was being built (the SDF-2), but why would a real robot show like Macross ever have only one of a class of anything? The whole point of the real robot genre was to treat their military hardware like a real military, one that builds hundreds or thousands of what they need and can afford. Like the Valkyries themselves.

[Zinjo]

Dude, I would not even count you near the individuals who would populate the "encyclopedia nazi" ranks on these boards..

Being a stats fiend is totally different from having a closed mind to new or the possibility of new aspects of a vast universe like Macross.

Logical extrapolations are not "sin" they are exactly what they are, educated guesses based upon the information (or lack thereof) at hand.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Zinjo

[Gubaba]

This obsession that anything Macross must be written by Kawamori has always worried me.

This... THIS! I don't get this. Talent doesn't reproduce (which is why there's no Martin Chuzzlewit Part 2).

How many auteurs train a successor? Who's Kubrick's succesor? Or (heck, even) Spielberg's?

Just look at the Dune "sequels," by Frank Herbert's son and New York Times Bestselling Author Kevin J. Anderson™.

NO. When the creator dies, the world dies with him or her. And that's okay.

[Saruta]

Is "Gloval" a Russian name?

No, it is not. Nor is Henry a name used in Russia. So, Russian is my native language and I often wonder what name that could really be.

Gennady Goloval (or Golovar) is the best I could come up with so far.

[Gubaba]

No, it is not. Nor is Henry a name used in Russia. So, Russian is my native language and I often wonder what name that could really be.

Gennady Goloval (or Golovar) is the best I could come up with so far.

Or... the creators just didn't know or care...?

[Saruta]

No Valkyries dude! Can't sell it without Valkyries!

Good point - so the young Bruno and his Serbian peace-loving girlfriend wander far into the hills and discover, by accodent, the test flight of a secret Warsaw Pact project hidden in the midst of Bosnia. To counteract the Stingers used by Afghan Mujahideen, they are developing a jet that can transform by moving its jets and land vertically on an uneven surface using two legs, move around and start again. That's GERWALK for you so it makes a VF.

A German spy by the name of Fokker infiltrates the town to steal the design of the prototype. He ends up stealing the Croatian girl instead, with initial mutual hatred going into something else. There's a well animated knife battle between Global and Fokker, sighs of relief are heard from those who stil remember the one between Max and Milia. Fokker will end up without the designs, but with the girl, and their son is named Roy.

Bruno will get to fly the shebang, of course. Because you always do cool things in Macross when you're at high school age and a main characters. He will even propose a "full humanoid form" mode but, absent Zentraedi, it will not take hold.

Oh, and THE MUSIC! Vintage late 70s, including a sprinkling of metal?

Edited May 17, 2014 by Saruta

[Gubaba]

Good point - so the young Bruno and his Serbian peace-loving girlfriend wander far into the hills and discover, by accodent, the test flight of a secret Warsaw Pact project hidden in the midst of Bosnia. To counteract the Stingers used by Afghan Mujahideen, they are developing a jet that can transform by moving its jets and land vertically on an uneven surface using two legs, move around and start again. That's GERWALK for you so it makes a VF.

A German spy by the name of Fokker infiltrates the town to steal the design of the prototype. He ends up stealing the Croatian girl instead, with initial mutual hatred going into something else. There's a well animated knife battle between Global and Fokker, sighs of relief are heard from those who stil remember the one between Max and Milia. Fokker will end up without the designs, but with the girl, and their son is named Roy.

Dude... just read the book...

Misa_Hayase_-_White_Reminiscences_sml.pdf

[Saruta]

Skimmed it right now for signs of Bruno Global's backstory, did not find any, except that he ends up unmarried.

Seriously, is *anything* known about his past, apart from that brief sketch about the false flag attack? Anything at all before the ASS crashed?

[Tochiro]

About Global? His wife was unbelievably HOT!

[Gerli]

And he asked specifically for the bridge bunnies to be very young women, right?

[Gubaba]

Skimmed it right now for signs of Bruno Global's backstory, did not find any, except that he ends up unmarried.

Huh? There was an entire wedding scene in the book... His wife's name is Miho.

[Renato]

Yeah, I thought Global's marriage to a Japanese lady was pretty common knowledge, even though it wasn't mentioned in the show, because I figure that people who know he is Italian probably read it on the Compedium, which also mentions his wife Miho.

[Dio]

Prediction: New series is where we see all the new attachments on the VF-30 to replace the missile pod. Yes, I said VF-30.

Possibly more Mina Forte as well, but that's a 50/50 for me at this point.

[Mr March]

Was having a discussion in the VF-2SS thread when an interesting idea struck me about the new Macross series (forgive if this was previously mentioned); what if the new Macross series were a parallel universe story like Macross II? It doesn't need to be set in the Macross II universe or be a sequel to Macross II in anyway; I'm saying the new Macross series could be ANOTHER parallel Macross universe. It's own thing. The new Macross series could be an alternate sequel to SDF Macross/DYRL? without the need to reference anything established after the original series. Or, it could be an alternate telling of the Macross mythos, where the only thing the new Macross series has in common with the original Macross is the SDF-1 and Valkyries. I know a reboot has already been mentioned, so I won't go into that (though a parallel universe could do that too).

I think a new parallel universe for Macross would allow much more creative freedom. It can be a re-evaluation of the franchise using modern sensibilities. In some ways a new Macross parallel universe would allow more possibilites, exploring different stories, different enemies, a different past/future history to describe the world, et cetera.

[VF5SS]

I think a new parallel universe for Macross would allow much more creative freedom. It can be a re-evaluation of the franchise using modern sensibilities. In some ways a new Macross parallel universe would allow more possibilites, exploring different stories, different enemies, a different past/future history to describe the world, et cetera.

Other than the parallel universe aspect that's pretty much what Frontier was. There's enough fluidity with Macross history that each series builds on old elements in different ways and has a unique feel.

I think what you guys really want is just a way to have your macross cake and eat it too. Like somehow putting the shows in the same universe makes you automatically compare them in rather unfair ways. A new universe could be as easily disappointing as Macross II was but I guess having to only judge it against itself would help mitigate the letdown?

To me it seems like maybe you could should just check out some of dozens of other mecha shows both past and present if Macross isn't doing it for you.

[azrael]

Other than the parallel universe aspect that's pretty much what Frontier was. There's enough fluidity with Macross history that each series builds on old elements in different ways and has a unique feel.

I think what you guys really want is just a way to have your macross cake and eat it too. Like somehow putting the shows in the same universe makes you automatically compare them in rather unfair ways. A new universe could be as easily disappointing as Macross II was but I guess having to only judge it against itself would help mitigate the letdown?

To me it seems like maybe you could should just check out some of dozens of other mecha shows both past and present if Macross isn't doing it for you.

Because each Macross show only focuses on one little part of the big universe and since we only have a few shows compared to that other larger mecha franchise, we haven't really explored a lot of the Macross-universe.