New Macross TV Series in 20xx (sometime this decade)

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

Um, to use a real world parallel, The US Coast Guard doesn't have huge ships.

Granted, but the New UN Spacy isn't a space law enforcement or regulatory branch... it's the space warfare branch of the New UN Forces, and among its jobs is the space equivalent of sea control for protecting colonized worlds and fleets.  They have no reason to be shy about using the big ships... and we know they had to have several.

 

Quote

Its also a fact that the Macross-verse still uses some form of economy and currency that we recognize. Which means that mobilizing the massive ships would be costly.

... I'm pretty sure, in the final analysis, cost becomes a non-issue if the alternative to mobilizing the fleet is being conquered and having your democracy overthrown by an alien monarchy that takes a dim view of humanity in general, openly uses mind control to carry out terrorist attacks and control civilians and soldiers alike, and is widely suspected of having ended their last war with the New UN Gov't by committing a huge friendly fire incident with banned WMDs.

 

Quote

It's also probable that the NUNS, in its arrogance, didn't consider the conflict a big enough threat to warrant.

The federal New UN Forces, maybe... but the local boys were shown to be taking Windermere IV's threat to the rest of the cluster quite seriously, especially after they conquered the first couple of planets.  (Near the end, they were serious enough about it to order the destruction of the whole goddamn planet with a dimensional warhead.)

 

Quote

Also, a real world parallel, when the US started to remove guns from fighter designs because missiles were the future, and the Nuke-centric nature of the cold war made force on force engagements a costly proposition. 

This is nothing like that, though... Windermere IV was so hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with any kind of actual counterattack in force that Macross Delta is less real-world Cold War and more The Mouse that Roared.  Even the handful of local NUNS troops who escaped mind control were able to wreck Windermere's sh*t so badly they were begging their homeworld for reinforcements all across the cluster.

The only reason the show didn't end around Ep7 with Walkure and a huge NUNS flotilla showing up over Windermere to say "We heard you were talking sh*t" was because the writers had to inflict an enormous amount of author-induced stupidity on the cast to make the plot work and enable Xaos's crew from the Island of Misfit Soldiers to play at being heroes.

 

I'd like to see a standard of writing in the new series that is at least good enough that we don't have a plot that depends on literally everyone being either suicidally insane or inexplicably on holiday as a way of making an otherwise laughable antagonist intimidating.

 

Edit: Y'know, I like that comparison enough I'll likely start calling Windermere "The Duchy of Grand Windwick" from now on...

Edited September 6, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[Valkyrie Driver]

Welp, I t looks like I need to rewatch delta, because I' apparently not remembering some things. 

I'd also like to see a standard of writing that respects the audience at least a little bit more. I'd like to see some nods to earlier mecha, maybe some good ship to ship combat. Say what you will about frontier's story and protagonists, it had some really great visuals and robot fights...

[Podtastic]

On ‎2017‎/‎09‎/‎06 at 3:43 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Retrofitting something that big with zero-time fold system clusters would require an astonishingly huge amount of fold quartz.  L.A.I. only managed to harvest enough to build a couple super fold boosters and one YF-29 during the Vajra conflict.

Given that energy requirements for a space fold grow exponentially as distance increases, and it's implied they grow linearly with the volume of space to be exchanged, the maximum range of any fold system is limited chiefly by the ship's ability to generate large amounts of energy quickly and store that energy for long periods of time.  I'd assume it'd probably be capable of jumps of up to ~1,000ly either way, though with a zero-time fold system network it'd probably be able to make much more efficient use of that 1,000ly range.  (It'd also get there a LOT faster, since they say a zero-time fold system reduces travel times to a tenth of what they were with conventional space fold systems.)

So basically the current Macross fold system is really only good for intra-galactic jumps, not for crossing truly cosmic distances like those between Galactic Walls.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 9/6/2017 at 10:14 PM, Valkyrie Driver said:

I'd also like to see a standard of writing that respects the audience at least a little bit more. I'd like to see some nods to earlier mecha, maybe some good ship to ship combat.

An increase in the standard of writing is a must... Macross Delta was so weak and scattered on that front that the music was practically all that was propping the series up by the end.  Lucky for them it's good music.

Nods to earlier mecha, sometimes retroactive, are so standard there's no fear of not getting that... every bloody Macross series and OVA since the original has thrown in at least a few.  Some of 'em are admittedly obscure or hidden-in-plain-sight like the nod to the VF-4 in Macross II, since almost nobody remembers that before it was named "Lightning III" it was named "Siren".  The 90's did a LOT of "remember the new guy" nods, where they'd introduce a mecha as old, and then go back decades and show what it was like when it was new (e.g. VF-5000, Variable Glaug, VF-14).

Ship to ship combat would definitely be nice... that was something that really ought to have been present in Macross Delta but wasn't, presumably because the writers would've had to find ways to get around the fact that Windermere's not actually equipped all that well and is working with what could charitably be called a monstrous numerical disadvantage.

 

 

4 hours ago, Podtastic said:

So basically the current Macross fold system is really only good for intra-galactic jumps, not for crossing truly cosmic distances like those between Galactic Walls.

Essentially, yes... and as the available fold technology in humanity's possession is implicitly limited to fold jumps of at most a few thousand light years at a time by the exponential increase in the energy required, the New UN Government had to take a decentralized approach to governance and defense because it can take years of fold travel to reach its furthest flung colonies.  

It took over a decade for the Megaroad-04 fleet to reach Windermere IV from Earth, for instance.

[Gerli]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

It took over a decade for the Megaroad-04 fleet to reach Windermere IV from Earth, for instance.

I suppose that a DIRECT route from Earth to Windermere is not gonna take that long...

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, Gerli said:

I suppose that a DIRECT route from Earth to Windermere is not gonna take that long...

Maybe, maybe not.  Kawamori did say in his Otona Anime #9 interview that a trip from Earth to the most distant emigrant fleets would take ten years.  Presumably that's accounting for the navigation problems inherent in traversing regions with either significant fold fault activity or impassible faults.

I admit, I think the problems that fold faults cause for interstellar communication and travel make a good set of obstacles for writers to work with.  It prevents the writers from falling back on many of sci-fi's lamer cliches for SF war stories... especially the tendency to have the same group of heroes charge to the rescue in EVERY interstellar crisis (I'm lookin' at YOU, Star Wars Expanded Universe).

[Zinjo]

On 9/6/2017 at 2:12 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Granted, but the New UN Spacy isn't a space law enforcement or regulatory branch... it's the space warfare branch of the New UN Forces, and among its jobs is the space equivalent of sea control for protecting colonized worlds and fleets.  They have no reason to be shy about using the big ships... and we know they had to have several.

 

... I'm pretty sure, in the final analysis, cost becomes a non-issue if the alternative to mobilizing the fleet is being conquered and having your democracy overthrown by an alien monarchy that takes a dim view of humanity in general, openly uses mind control to carry out terrorist attacks and control civilians and soldiers alike, and is widely suspected of having ended their last war with the New UN Gov't by committing a huge friendly fire incident with banned WMDs.

 

The federal New UN Forces, maybe... but the local boys were shown to be taking Windermere IV's threat to the rest of the cluster quite seriously, especially after they conquered the first couple of planets.  (Near the end, they were serious enough about it to order the destruction of the whole goddamn planet with a dimensional warhead.)

 

This is nothing like that, though... Windermere IV was so hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with any kind of actual counterattack in force that Macross Delta is less real-world Cold War and more The Mouse that Roared.  Even the handful of local NUNS troops who escaped mind control were able to wreck Windermere's sh*t so badly they were begging their homeworld for reinforcements all across the cluster.

The only reason the show didn't end around Ep7 with Walkure and a huge NUNS flotilla showing up over Windermere to say "We heard you were talking sh*t" was because the writers had to inflict an enormous amount of author-induced stupidity on the cast to make the plot work and enable Xaos's crew from the Island of Misfit Soldiers to play at being heroes.

 

I'd like to see a standard of writing in the new series that is at least good enough that we don't have a plot that depends on literally everyone being either suicidally insane or inexplicably on holiday as a way of making an otherwise laughable antagonist intimidating.

 

Edit: Y'know, I like that comparison enough I'll likely start calling Windermere "The Duchy of Grand Windwick" from now on...

Well put.  Also keep in mind that the Federal Forces have a big swath of galaxy to patrol by this time and unlike the PC who had millions of ships at their disposal, have to commit their comparatively limited resources to areas they feel need their direct intervention most.  Being reliant on PMC's can also limit how much real information is being sent to high command. Hence the deployment of a task force of destroyers and frigates with no additional Macross type carriers or warships to confront a PC era capital ship with exotic weaponry.

As for the Delta series, I had an open mind, wasn't too keen on the M7 premise, but gave it a chance.  With the exception of several golden moments, the series was really quite poor in terms of story.  They had an idea and a few great plot points and then tried to build a 25 episode series around that.  It didn't help that the sponsors took the plan of a 1 season show with movie and stretched it to two seasons.  This created a similar situation that M7 suffered.  More episodes than story and the filler became pointless and distracting to the drama of the core.  I suspect I would have enjoyed Delta more had the original plan been adhered to, just like I believe I would enjoy M7 at all, if that series were only 25 episodes long.

Edited September 9, 2017 by Zinjo

[Kyp Durron]

So, we still have no idea what this new series story line is about?

[Mommar]

On 9/22/2017 at 3:54 AM, Kyp Durron said:

So, we still have no idea what this new series story line is about?

They might not know either!

[Marzan]

19 minutes ago, Mommar said:

They might not know either!

Haha, so true!

[Graham]

17 pages in and still no news

 

[Valkyrie Driver]

I'm guessing they might be wanting to play their cards close to the vest in light of how panned Delta has been by the fanbase. Delta got tons of Hype, and turned off mediocre. Delta wasn't the worst entry so far, nor was it the best, it just... was. 

I can only hope for some cool new designs, good flight sequences, good fight sequences, some ship to ship combat, and oh, yeah, a story that isn't flimsy. 

Delta had a cool premise (magical girl shenanigans notwithstanding), and a cool setting, but they didn't do enough with it in the time they had allotted.

[kajnrig]

16 minutes ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

I'm guessing they might be wanting to play their cards close to the vest in light of how panned Delta has been by the fanbase.

Was it, though? I know a bunch of us here don't like it for one reason(s) or another, but what's been the reaction from the actual audience in Japan? Seems people like it a lot, especially as a vehicle for introducing them to Walkure. I'd like to see some numbers before writing the series off as a complete failure. Walkure seems maybe slightly less popular than the Nakajima/May'n pair, but that could just be my Kanno bias showing.

[Graham]

I actually still wouldn't mind a Delta sequel, if handled by a competent director backed up with some better writing and more action scenes.

I really would like to see more of the VF-31 and Sv-262 in action, I just felt we didn't really get to see them enough.

I've actually been thinking what if the Aerial Knights were forced to team up with Walkure and Delta Squad to fight against a common enemy. That could be kinda interesting.

 

 

[Graham]

Delta is a perfectly fine show as long as you just watch episodes 1-13 and 25-26 and just skip the rest

[Sir Galahad®]

Can somebody Verify the Numbers here?

https://animesamurai.xyz/why-macross-delta-frontier/

[Valkyrie Driver]

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Was it, though? I know a bunch of us here don't like it for one reason(s) or another, but what's been the reaction from the actual audience in Japan? 

I mean, that's fair. Granted that Japan is the primary target audience, and the producers don't much care what the rest of us think, I still feel that the fanbase outside of Japan is at least the size of the Japanese fanbase if not a wee bit larger. So, maybe that's where I'm drawing my conclusion from.

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Seems people like it a lot, especially as a vehicle for introducing them to Walkure.

But if that's the primary metric for success, why do the show? The show itself was a bit lacking in terms of story and character quality. Then again Most Macross Shows haven't had such a large primary cast of characters, so, maybe it was a decent job for a first attempt at a large ensemble cast?

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

I'd like to see some numbers before writing the series off as a complete failure. Walkure seems maybe slightly less popular than the Nakajima/May'n pair, but that could just be my Kanno bias showing.

I didn't say the show was a complete failure, just panned. There have been plenty of successful media productions that were successful but also panned by critics and/or the fanbase (metallica's st. anger album comes to mind, financially successful, but universally hated by fans). 

Let's also be honest, Yoko Kanno is like the hand of God when it comes to Anime music. 

1 hour ago, Graham said:

I actually still wouldn't mind a Delta sequel, if handled by a competent director backed up with some better writing and more action scenes.

Agreed.

1 hour ago, Graham said:

I really would like to see more of the VF-31 and Sv-262 in action, I just felt we didn't really get to see them enough.

That was the big disappointment. Not enough of what we came for. Normally with Macross, I come for the Mecha battles, and I stay for the music and story. Delta... Didn't deliver enough of what I came for, or what I usually stick around for.

1 hour ago, Graham said:

I've actually been thinking what if the Aerial Knights were forced to team up with Walkure and Delta Squad to fight against a common enemy. That could be kinda interesting.

That would be an excellent follow up, because it would give us the resolution we really wanted.

1 hour ago, Graham said:

Delta is a perfectly fine show as long as you just watch episodes 1-13 and 25-26 and just skip the rest

I'd have preferred a bit more character development happening in episodes 1-13, and then we could have had a bit more robot battles and plot development in episodes 14-24. Episodes 14-24 just seemed to crawl along barely doing anything to advance the plot, but then I should re-watch it to really see what I can see.

[no3Ljm]

1 hour ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

I mean, that's fair. Granted that Japan is the primary target audience, and the producers don't much care what the rest of us think, I still feel that the fanbase outside of Japan is at least the size of the Japanese fanbase if not a wee bit larger. So, maybe that's where I'm drawing my conclusion from.

But if that's the primary metric for success, why do the show? The show itself was a bit lacking in terms of story and character quality. Then again Most Macross Shows haven't had such a large primary cast of characters, so, maybe it was a decent job for a first attempt at a large ensemble cast?

I didn't say the show was a complete failure, just panned. There have been plenty of successful media productions that were successful but also panned by critics and/or the fanbase (metallica's st. anger album comes to mind, financially successful, but universally hated by fans). 

Let's also be honest, Yoko Kanno is like the hand of God when it comes to Anime music. 

Agreed.

That was the big disappointment. Not enough of what we came for. Normally with Macross, I come for the Mecha battles, and I stay for the music and story. Delta... Didn't deliver enough of what I came for, or what I usually stick around for.

That would be an excellent follow up, because it would give us the resolution we really wanted.

I'd have preferred a bit more character development happening in episodes 1-13, and then we could have had a bit more robot battles and plot development in episodes 14-24. Episodes 14-24 just seemed to crawl along barely doing anything to advance the plot, but then I should re-watch it to really see what I can see.

Agreed. It's funny that we all somehow share the same sentiments towards Delta. And for that, I got labeled as a cranky old guy. Hahaha!

 

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

I'm guessing they might be wanting to play their cards close to the vest in light of how panned Delta has been by the fanbase. Delta got tons of Hype, and turned off mediocre. Delta wasn't the worst entry so far, nor was it the best, it just... was. 

Um... very slight problem with your premise here.

Macross Delta WASN'T panned.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  The series was very well-received in the Japanese domestic market, and Walkure in particular has done EXTREMELY well for itself as a result of the show's popularity.  Its following isn't quite as strong as Frontier's was, but that was a success beyond any rational prediction.  Outside of Kawamori's whimsy, if anything is going to set the tone for the next series, it'd be the audience's reception of Delta... a broadly positive one even with the show's flaws.  (If you're going to build a show around the music, and the music ends up carrying the show... well, that's just "Mission Accomplished" I guess.)

All told, the overwhelming majority of the discontent with Delta comes from the fans in the show's periphery demographic, who've never taken Macross's more lighthearted installations all that well, and seem to keep hoping for something similar to Macross Plus even though you could argue that one was the one that was actually panned in Japan.  (The audience has shown more favor to the OVA years after the fact, but when it was new it didn't do so hot there.)

So, it's basically up in the air what the next show will be like because for all Delta's success it was not quite the show Kawamori wanted to make... so his reaction is going to be less predictable, if they're still letting him call all the shots.

 

6 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Agreed. It's funny that we all somehow share the same sentiments towards Delta. And for that, I got labeled as a cranky old guy. Hahaha!

So you're a cranky young guy instead?  

[Valkyrie Driver]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross Delta WASN'T panned.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  The series was very well-received in the Japanese domestic market, and Walkure in particular has done EXTREMELY well for itself as a result of the show's popularity.  Its following isn't quite as strong as Frontier's was, but that was a success beyond any rational prediction.  Outside of Kawamori's whimsy, if anything is going to set the tone for the next series, it'd be the audience's reception of Delta... a broadly positive one even with the show's flaws.  (If you're going to build a show around the music, and the music ends up carrying the show... well, that's just "Mission Accomplished" I guess.)

Welp... I Stand Corrected.

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

All told, the overwhelming majority of the discontent with Delta comes from the fans in the show's periphery demographic, who've never taken Macross's more lighthearted installations all that well, and seem to keep hoping for something similar to Macross Plus even though you could argue that one was the one that was actually panned in Japan.  (The audience has shown more favor to the OVA years after the fact, but when it was new it didn't do so hot there.)

Is it just that Western Audiences tend to want more seriousness? I mean, I liked Plus (it's the one I show people to get them interested, also the animation has stood the test of time well), but I also liked SDFM, DYRL, and Frontier. M0 was wierd, Delta was more mediocre (It was ambitious like Frontier, but it fell a bit short of expectations), and M7 was poorly focused, but still I liked them all. Maybe I'm just strange...

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

So, it's basically up in the air what the next show will be like because for all Delta's success it was not quite the show Kawamori wanted to make... so his reaction is going to be less predictable, if they're still letting him call all the shots.

I hope they do. The only thing we could compare non-Kawamori Macross to would be M2, and M2 was... I don't know. It doesn't quite look like Macross, and it doesn't quite feel like Macross. But at the same time it has enough Macross elements to make you think it is. I mean it would be like MGS without Kojima. 

[no3Ljm]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Um... very slight problem with your premise here.

Macross Delta WASN'T panned.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  The series was very well-received in the Japanese domestic market, and Walkure in particular has done EXTREMELY well for itself as a result of the show's popularity.  Its following isn't quite as strong as Frontier's was, but that was a success beyond any rational prediction.  Outside of Kawamori's whimsy, if anything is going to set the tone for the next series, it'd be the audience's reception of Delta... a broadly positive one even with the show's flaws.  (If you're going to build a show around the music, and the music ends up carrying the show... well, that's just "Mission Accomplished" I guess.)

All told, the overwhelming majority of the discontent with Delta comes from the fans in the show's periphery demographic, who've never taken Macross's more lighthearted installations all that well, and seem to keep hoping for something similar to Macross Plus even though you could argue that one was the one that was actually panned in Japan.  (The audience has shown more favor to the OVA years after the fact, but when it was new it didn't do so hot there.)

So, it's basically up in the air what the next show will be like because for all Delta's success it was not quite the show Kawamori wanted to make... so his reaction is going to be less predictable, if they're still letting him call all the shots.

 

So you're a cranky young guy instead?  

Hahaha!   Nah. I don't deny that I'm a 40+ year old guy who still like his Macross. It's just that even though I didn't like the direction that Delta took, I still respected and accepted the changes for this new generation since my only care about is the Valkyrie action. And that's the same reason ever since when I started watching this from 1983. But being called a cranky old guy just because I didn't like the whole premise of that show it doesn't mean I don't like the rest of it, right? Valkyries especially.  

 

[Mommar]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

So, it's basically up in the air what the next show will be like because for all Delta's success it was not quite the show Kawamori wanted to make... so his reaction is going to be less predictable, if they're still letting him call all the shots.

What was the show Kawamori wanted to make?  Or are you inferring that because he didn't want the love triangle stuff but he was ordered to change that anyway?

[kajnrig]

12 hours ago, Graham said:

Delta is a perfectly fine show as long as you just watch episodes 1-13 and 25-26 and just skip the rest

Wait... which episode did Messer die in? Because I could watch that episode--no, just that scene is enough--I could watch that on loop for the rest of my life and be content. 

11 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

But if that's the primary metric for success, why do the show? The show itself was a bit lacking in terms of story and character quality. Then again Most Macross Shows haven't had such a large primary cast of characters, so, maybe it was a decent job for a first attempt at a large ensemble cast?

Why do it? Well, when you boil it down, these productions are basically just expensive advertisements for toys for the kids to beg their parents to get them. From a purely business perspective, if you can get comparative merchandise results without the additional monetary investment in a good story and good characters, then it's a great business decision. I mean, it's done wonders for Transformers and Gundam...

1 hour ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

Is it just that Western Audiences tend to want more seriousness? I mean, I liked Plus (it's the one I show people to get them interested, also the animation has stood the test of time well), but I also liked SDFM, DYRL, and Frontier. M0 was wierd, Delta was more mediocre (It was ambitious like Frontier, but it fell a bit short of expectations), and M7 was poorly focused, but still I liked them all. Maybe I'm just strange... 

I wouldn't equate "serious" with "good," although I'd agree to an extent that Western audiences tend to do this. Delta just stretched itself too thin. Notice how Plus was all about the competition, all about the love triangle(s), with very little extraneous material. (Maybe more in the OVA than the movie, but even then...) Zero has a similarly "serious" overall tone, but it tries to cram a world war and an alien world destroyer into the plot, both of which are better suited to long-form media like a traditional multi-episode series. Delta retreads much of the same plot as Frontier, but it tries to cover over a dozen unique characters, all with complex, intersecting relationships, and that's just on the protagonists' side. The Windermereans nearly match that.

EDIT:

25 minutes ago, Mommar said:

What was the show Kawamori wanted to make?  Or are you inferring that because he didn't want the love triangle stuff but he was ordered to change that anyway?

I seem to recall "no love triangle" being part of his original idea, as well as competing air shows/idol groups. Much smaller scale, certainly nothing on the level of intergalactic war.

Edited September 25, 2017 by kajnrig

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

Is it just that Western Audiences tend to want more seriousness? I mean, I liked Plus (it's the one I show people to get them interested, also the animation has stood the test of time well), but I also liked SDFM, DYRL, and Frontier. M0 was wierd, Delta was more mediocre (It was ambitious like Frontier, but it fell a bit short of expectations), and M7 was poorly focused, but still I liked them all. Maybe I'm just strange...

A lot of western fans hold Plus up as the example of the kind of Macross they want... which is odd to say the least, since that series is pretty much the un-Macross.  I think the fact that the two Macross sequels to actually make it out of Japan were both more dark and serious than is typical for Macross probably did a lot to skew people's expectations of future developments in the metaseries.  It's rather ironic that western fans blast Macross 7 and Macross Delta while singing Kawamori's praises, when both of those are much closer to the ideal Kawamori was talking about when he identified the love story aspect as the most important, and the space warfare part as merely a backdrop for it.

 

1 hour ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

I hope they do. The only thing we could compare non-Kawamori Macross to would be M2, and M2 was... I don't know. It doesn't quite look like Macross, and it doesn't quite feel like Macross. But at the same time it has enough Macross elements to make you think it is. I mean it would be like MGS without Kojima. 

Another thing a lot of western fans do is dramatically overestimate Shoji Kawamori's direct involvement in the creation of Macross stories.  He's mainly confined his contributions to series concept and storyboarding in the last several titles.

Macross II was a story that followed religiously in DYRL?'s footsteps, the thing that made it seem so out of place was that it was made darker and grittier, and they even hired staff from the Gundam franchise to make it so.  It is, essentially, exactly what all the people who want Macross to be more of a gritty war story are asking for, but they don't realize that fact.  It is, in a largely literal sense, Macross viewed through the filter of Universal Century Gundam.

 

 

1 hour ago, no3Ljm said:

Hahaha!   Nah. I don't deny that I'm a 40+ year old guy who still like his Macross. It's just that even though I didn't like the direction that Delta took, I still respected and accepted the changes for this new generation since my only care about is the Valkyrie action. And that's the same reason ever since when I started watching this from 1983. But being called a cranky old guy just because I didn't like the whole premise of that show it doesn't mean I don't like the rest of it, right? Valkyries especially.  

 

From a mecha standpoint, Delta definitely disappointed... but it was pretty evident that they were expecting Walkure to carry the show from a very early stage, so at least they hit the nail on the head.

 

 

46 minutes ago, Mommar said:

What was the show Kawamori wanted to make?  Or are you inferring that because he didn't want the love triangle stuff but he was ordered to change that anyway?

From what's been said on the subject, he wanted to do a series about competing flight demonstration teams... essentially a Macross series without a big space war.

 

 

21 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Wait... which episode did Messer die in? Because I could watch that episode--no, just that scene is enough--I could watch that on loop for the rest of my life and be content. 

"In life, each man gets what he deserves!"

(Admittedly, plaintext lacks a lot of the punch compared to hearing that line delivered by BRIAN BLESSED! in Blackadder.)

 

21 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Why do it? Well, when you boil it down, these productions are basically just expensive advertisements for toys for the kids to beg their parents to get them. From a purely business perspective, if you can get comparative merchandise results without the additional monetary investment in a good story and good characters, then it's a great business decision. I mean, it's done wonders for Transformers and Gundam...

This ain't Gundam... Macross is an expensive advertisement for MUSIC, and Delta blatantly so.

[Focslain]

3 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Wait... which episode did Messer die in? Because I could watch that episode--no, just that scene is enough--I could watch that on loop for the rest of my life and be content. 

If you want, it's the scene if you complete the fighter section of the AXIA song in Uta Macross. Seriously, the scene ends just before the cockpit glass breaks.

[Chronocidal]

I really need to sit down and watch through the entire thing again, just so I remember enough to competently discuss the good and bad points.

There's a part of me that really wants to see a fan re-cut/abridged version of it.. not as a parody, but similar to what the Macross Plus movie did with the OVA, rearranging key scenes and dialogue to make a more coherent story.  I think a lot of content could actually be shifted around in the timeline, and you'd never actually notice.

[Valkyrie Driver]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

A lot of western fans hold Plus up as the example of the kind of Macross they want... which is odd to say the least, since that series is pretty much the un-Macross.  I think the fact that the two Macross sequels to actually make it out of Japan were both more dark and serious than is typical for Macross probably did a lot to skew people's expectations of future developments in the metaseries.  It's rather ironic that western fans blast Macross 7 and Macross Delta while singing Kawamori's praises, when both of those are much closer to the ideal Kawamori was talking about when he identified the love story aspect as the most important, and the space warfare part as merely a backdrop for it.

I guess M+, being one of my first real intro's to Macross is kinda what my impression of it was. I liked SDFM (I actually saw the ADV dub on DVD in best buy and recognized it, so I started buying them). I knew that Robotech used Macross as part of it, and I loved Robotech: Battlecry, so the recognition was there. After that I started to watch everything Macross I could get my hands on, and well here I am. I feel like my review of M7 was pretty fair, and I don't know if a Japanese fan would disagree with it, or at the very least understand why i didn't like the things I didn't like. I'm not saying that Delta was bad, just that it wasn't as strong as some of the others in the franchise. 

 

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Another thing a lot of western fans do is dramatically overestimate Shoji Kawamori's direct involvement in the creation of Macross stories.  He's mainly confined his contributions to series concept and storyboarding in the last several titles.

I mean, I didn't expect that he did the whole thing. The man has talents but they can only go so far...

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross II was a story that followed religiously in DYRL?'s footsteps, the thing that made it seem so out of place was that it was made darker and grittier, and they even hired staff from the Gundam franchise to make it so.  It is, essentially, exactly what all the people who want Macross to be more of a gritty war story are asking for, but they don't realize that fact.  It is, in a largely literal sense, Macross viewed through the filter of Universal Century Gundam.

Now, that, makes sense. DYRL had a bit darker feel to it too, IIRC. I guess that makes sense then. I'll have my Macross with a side of optimism thank you. If I want the crushing moral weight of a war story with mechs I'll watch Gundam... Or read a Battletech novel.

[Seto Kaiba]

17 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

I guess M+, being one of my first real intro's to Macross is kinda what my impression of it was. I liked SDFM (I actually saw the ADV dub on DVD in best buy and recognized it, so I started buying them). I knew that Robotech used Macross as part of it, and I loved Robotech: Battlecry, so the recognition was there. After that I started to watch everything Macross I could get my hands on, and well here I am. I feel like my review of M7 was pretty fair, and I don't know if a Japanese fan would disagree with it, or at the very least understand why i didn't like the things I didn't like. I'm not saying that Delta was bad, just that it wasn't as strong as some of the others in the franchise. 

Given the success it'd had in Japan, I'd say you'd probably find a fair number of folks who'd argue that Macross Delta is one of the stronger installments... though it definitely favored the music over the actual plot.  Still, I think that's more down to different tastes and different introductions to the Macross franchise.  Frontier and Delta have brought a LOT of new blood into the fandom, so their expectations are built on those shows rather than the older stuff.

 

 

17 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

I mean, I didn't expect that he did the whole thing. The man has talents but they can only go so far...

I know, but it's this weird thing people do where there's this automatic assumption that a creator of a story is somehow responsible for everything in the final version... as if it'd sprung from his (or her) mind fully-developed and in its final form.  It's something we see a lot with Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas, both of whom were great idea men but whose ideas needed a lot of filtering and no small amount of revision and rework before they became something watchable.

(The Star Wars prequel trilogy and the first season of Star Trek: the Next Generation are the kind of thing that happens when you let that kind of person have more creative control with less oversight.)

 

17 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

Now, that, makes sense. DYRL had a bit darker feel to it too, IIRC. I guess that makes sense then. I'll have my Macross with a side of optimism thank you. If I want the crushing moral weight of a war story with mechs I'll watch Gundam... Or read a Battletech novel.

I'm not sure if DYRL? was necessarily darker than the original SDF Macross series... it dwells on the dark bits for a little longer than the TV series did in Ep1-27, but it also skips over a bunch of darker moments from the TV series like Kakizaki's drawn out death sequence and actually seeing Earth get pasted.  It also plays the optimism card a bit more strongly too, what with the temporary truce that Earth gets with the Zentradi, etc.

Macross is always going to be a relatively light and soft war story.  Power of love and all that jazz.  Even at its darkest, it'll never get anywhere near the kind of soul-shredding, I-need-a-stiff-drink depression of Tomino-style Gundam.

[Valkyrie Driver]

12 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Given the success it'd had in Japan, I'd say you'd probably find a fair number of folks who'd argue that Macross Delta is one of the stronger installments... though it definitely favored the music over the actual plot.  Still, I think that's more down to different tastes and different introductions to the Macross franchise.  Frontier and Delta have brought a LOT of new blood into the fandom, so their expectations are built on those shows rather than the older stuff.

I was sort of speaking from my own opinion, and also speaking from the perspective of plot. In terms of plot strength, I'd put SDFM, DYRL, MF, M+, at the top in terms of clear and concise plot, and cohesive storyline. That's just my opinion. I'd definitely say the M0, M7 and MD were not the strongest. M0 had a bit too much Deus Ex Machina plot resolution, and M7 was mired in filler, and MD either tried to do too little for too long, or too much for not long enough, and the plot suffered in both cases. In terms of fanbase sure, MD might be one of the stronger installments, and if it's reviving interest in the franchise then fine, I'm happy. Maybe some new fans will go back and watch the stuff that set the stage and appreciate it in a way that nostalgia glasses won't let us older fans.

21 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I know, but it's this weird thing people do where there's this automatic assumption that a creator of a story is somehow responsible for everything in the final version... as if it'd sprung from his (or her) mind fully-developed and in its final form.  It's something we see a lot with Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas, both of whom were great idea men but whose ideas needed a lot of filtering and no small amount of revision and rework before they became something watchable.

(The Star Wars prequel trilogy and the first season of Star Trek: the Next Generation are the kind of thing that happens when you let that kind of person have more creative control with less oversight.)

Right. I think that as long as the creator is still involved it's a balancing act between retread of old material and forgetting what the franchise is about. Neither is preferable. 

27 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm not sure if DYRL? was necessarily darker than the original SDF Macross series... it dwells on the dark bits for a little longer than the TV series did in Ep1-27, but it also skips over a bunch of darker moments from the TV series like Kakizaki's drawn out death sequence and actually seeing Earth get pasted.  It also plays the optimism card a bit more strongly too, what with the temporary truce that Earth gets with the Zentradi, etc.

That's fair. I think the two are very complimentary in that regard. Eh, my memory ain't what it used to be.

31 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross is always going to be a relatively light and soft war story.  Power of love and all that jazz.  Even at its darkest, it'll never get anywhere near the kind of soul-shredding, I-need-a-stiff-drink depression of Tomino-style Gundam.

Very true, and I think that's not a bad thing. Universal Century Gundam makes it very clear that neither side is innocent in the story. It is also very clear that humanity is violent and so driven to division that we will visit atrocity on each other in the name of a particular view. Macross, doesn't have that so much. Probably due to the survival mechanism that's built into the show, what with humanity being driven to the brink of extinction, in the face of an alien foe. I mean if you want to see humans being dickbags while aliens ravage the planet and population, watch Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse. 

[Focslain]

21 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

Very true, and I think that's not a bad thing. Universal Century Gundam makes it very clear that neither side is innocent in the story. It is also very clear that humanity is violent and so driven to division that we will visit atrocity on each other in the name of a particular view. Macross, doesn't have that so much. Probably due to the survival mechanism that's built into the show, what with humanity being driven to the brink of extinction, in the face of an alien foe. I mean if you want to see humans being dickbags while aliens ravage the planet and population, watch Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse. 

Or Blue Gender or Majestic Prince.

Pretty much anytime you have nations still existing is where human being dickbags will show up.

[Valkyrie Driver]

I forgot about Majestic Prince. 

[Mommar]

On 9/27/2017 at 8:06 AM, Focslain said:

Or Blue Gender or Majestic Prince.

Pretty much anytime you have nations still existing is where human being dickbags will show up.

Dickbags exist regardless.

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, Mommar said:

Dickbags exist regardless.

Granted, but whether the show actually capitalizes on it is another matter entirely...

Like how Macross Delta tried to portray the New UN Spacy brass as shady and untrustworthy but it all fell flat when their shady, untrustworthy behavior was nothing more than taking a realistic response to the crisis at hand.  They were supposed to be dickbags just because they were in authority, never mind that they were doing more good than the protagonists...

[Chronocidal]

Until they got deus exploded anyway.

[SMS007]

On 9/29/2017 at 10:06 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Granted, but whether the show actually capitalizes on it is another matter entirely...

Like how Macross Delta tried to portray the New UN Spacy brass as shady and untrustworthy but it all fell flat when their shady, untrustworthy behavior was nothing more than taking a realistic response to the crisis at hand.  They were supposed to be dickbags just because they were in authority, never mind that they were doing more good than the protagonists...

Heh, I'd call Chaos leadership at least as shady as central NUNS for cloning and force-growing a millions-year-old dead person and then deploying her against hostile conquerors who can exert mind control over her without telling her a word about her origins. Minmay or whoever Lady M is can have their ass nailed to a wall for gross lack of ethics.