Renato Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 As you may know, I'm far more interested in the production background and history of the series than the actual content in most cases.... In fact, knowing how some things came about greatly amplifies my interest in the way the story of each series pans out, as well as how and why certain scenes were composed the way they were. Anyway, I just thought I would put up a few bits of Frontier behind-the-scenes trivia that I hadn't seen mentioned before on these pages. In no particular order: 1) The working title for the series was actually "Macross Quarter". In fact, I did mention this a few years ago in some other discussion. I was first made aware of this in the annotations to some rough Vajra designs seen in Animage Original (I believe it was issue #2). The special MacF feature in that magazine is still one of the best write-ups, and we discussed it quite a bit on the forums. My friend actually wrote it, and he had some really interesting things to say about it. 2) Originally planned to be 26 episodes. Well, this one is no surprise, as a two-arc proposal, 26 is standard. I suppose Kawamori "figured" out that the 25 motif could be used to spare some expense and labour, i.e. cut corners, i.e. be lazy Ah well, we did get two movies (well, one and a half) so who's counting? 3) Target audience: Male & Females, teens to 30s. Well, I don't have the stats but I believe most of Macross World is out of this range. I'm not, though, I'm still hanging in there Go back to watching SDF, gramps! 4) The story is set in 2088. That's 80 years from the original broadcast. Funny, MacII was set 80 years into the future of the setting of the original show.... 5) Brera comes from the "Antares Fleet". In the finished show, he is part of the Antares Squadron, but is from Macross Galaxy fleet. I'm wondering if Sheryl and Brera actually have totally different backgrounds in this, and they decided to make them both originate from Galaxy at a later date. 6) Kazutaka Miyatake's Macross Quarter rough design looks incredible. I want a toy of THIS one! I never liked the real Macross Quarter design. I have nothing against Junya Ishigaki, but I always thought it was a bit too messy, especially that "cruiser" mode. :/ Quote
Loop Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 I also felt weird about the quarter cruiser mode. it's like the arms and the legs are just out there. I find the pic of the fixed wing VF-25 interesting, thanks for the write up. Quote
chrisk Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 Very interesting! What do some of those graphics and flowcharts mean, though? Quote
Gubaba Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 They're the character relationships (which are pretty much the same as they ended up being in the final series). Quote
Renato Posted May 8, 2015 Author Posted May 8, 2015 Yeah, they're pretty standard, mostly used when a series is new for people to understand the dynamics and conflcts forming the basis of the story, at a glance. Quote
chrisk Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 Is there like a reason why Kawamori and his writers set their shows at a particular time/year? The 80 year setting could be a Mac II reference, but why did they decide to set it in 2059? Quote
calubin_175 Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 Miyatake's draft design has a proper bow, just like his Hagane from SRWOG. I was meant to just hold 20 VFs +super parts and 20 destroids. Quote
Renato Posted May 8, 2015 Author Posted May 8, 2015 Oh, I forgot to mention that the main setting is the "Macross 11 Fleet" Quote
charger69 Posted May 18, 2015 Posted May 18, 2015 (edited) I think Bandai shouldn't pass this opportunity! Bandai DX GE-42P VF-25P (Proposal Type) White+Blue with Super Parts and Missiles! Edited May 18, 2015 by charger69 Quote
Zinjo Posted May 21, 2015 Posted May 21, 2015 (edited) I also felt weird about the quarter cruiser mode. it's like the arms and the legs are just out there. I find the pic of the fixed wing VF-25 interesting, thanks for the write up. Kazutaka Miyatake understood that a trans-atmospheric capital ship with too many apendages sticking out would be problematic on re-entry. All of his cap ships are combined units in ship mode. As cool as the Quarter looked, it also looked incredibly impractical for a re-entry vehicle and very expensive to produce considering how much effort it would take to reinforce all those individual components. The fixed wing VF-25 looks very much like a pre-cursor to the YF-24. SK very likely added the variable geometry wings as odes to the VF-1 and YF-19. I wonder if originally setting it on the Mac 11 fleet (An English speaking fleet if I recall correctly) would have been a nod to the Western Macross fans? Edited May 21, 2015 by Zinjo Quote
Marzan Posted May 21, 2015 Posted May 21, 2015 Interesting read. Thanks Renato. I'm glad I'm still part of the target audience Quote
terry the lone wolf Posted May 28, 2015 Posted May 28, 2015 Seven years ago I was in the target audience..Did you know Sheryl was originally supposed to be a minor character? She was a big star that Ranka looked up to for inspiration but all the interplay with the rest of the gang wasn't suppose to happen.. Quote
Gubaba Posted May 28, 2015 Posted May 28, 2015 Seven years ago I was in the target audience..Did you know Sheryl was originally supposed to be a minor character? She was a big star that Ranka looked up to for inspiration but all the interplay with the rest of the gang wasn't suppose to happen.. Wasn't that all part of Shaloom's big hoax? Quote
Renato Posted May 31, 2015 Author Posted May 31, 2015 Yeah, I never read that in any of the official interviews or anything. Uh oh... Quote
Sandman Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Thanks for the info. I also love reading about what goes into the production and history of a show i'm interested in. Unfortunately macross info in this regard is quite scarce. Im interested in the disscussion regarding your friends article. I dont recall seeing it back then. Quote
Renato Posted June 5, 2015 Author Posted June 5, 2015 The feature on MacF can be found in "Animage Original" issue #1. It's very good, and spread across many pages. You can get it for cheap at Amazon now, second hand. I also started a thread on MW about it years ago, but I can't ever find anything with this search function. Quote
Saruta Posted June 21, 2015 Posted June 21, 2015 Oh, I forgot to mention that the main setting is the "Macross 11 Fleet" This sounds interesting because the backstory of "Fire Bomber American" albums have it located on Macross 11 - and the albums, as I understand, were out way before Macros Frontier (then Quarter) planning. So they were going to use the already-established English-language fleet? Quote
Renato Posted June 21, 2015 Author Posted June 21, 2015 Yeah, don't forget that the setting of the show is basically San Francisco, too. I think there are many things in this show that were, in my view, clearly designed for overseas fans. This is evident in the removal of some of the elements that HG copyrighted overseas. For example, this is just my assertion, but the only reason the "New UN Spacy" was introduced and a new UNS kite symbol was designed was to remove the original kite symbol that is owned by HG in other territories. Notice the VF-1 at the top of Mihoshi Gakuen does not have any symbol, and that's rather conspicuous. Also notice that the official Macross Frontier show logo is the first Macross logo to not spell out "Macross" in roman letters. Quote
sketchley Posted June 21, 2015 Posted June 21, 2015 I also started a thread on MW about it years ago, but I can't ever find anything with this search function. I've had better luck using Google to search for things in MW than with MW's own search function. Have you tried that route? Quote
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