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

[azrael]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It wasn't until the White Knight of the Black Wing manga that they actually developed them as characters to a point where it was clear that there were actual REASONS for their fanatical hatred of the New UN Government and they became as sympathetic as the Zentradi or the Protodeviln.  ...

And that's a problem. It should not take side-material to explain it to me. If it could be, then it should be done within the context of the show. I should not have to rely on side material to explain it to me. Those wasted TV episodes could have done this but they choose not to and wasted time.

[SMS007]

Haha, during Delta's run, a Windermere apologist on AnimeSuki tried to claim that the manga was sufficient justification to make the Windermereans sympathetic, and flat-out refused to acknowledge when everyone else pointed out that the manga was an ancillary production not known to most of the TV audience. 

[Podtastic]

7 hours ago, RealJayDee said:

Macross zero...  I loved it,  and maybe is my favorite episode in the whole macross series. 

Why? 

It was really focused on pew pew pew and swooshing. 

It was like 'hey fans! This is a short short story (its 6 ep long, some slack is granted) of how you went from f 14s to VFs

We will put some love triangle here,  and protoculture there (that goes nowhere...)   

It was a honest story... No idols,  no macross cities, no colonies... precious vf0s and sv51s flying over the ocean, just because. 

Pew pew pew and swooshing is what it's ultimately all about.

 

[Dangard Ace]

Hey guys, chill with the politics.  That's all.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, SuperDimensionalDave said:

No I don't want the next Macross to be dominated by men that look like women and act like women.

There are no men who act like women in Delta, you're not presenting a valid criticism... just doing something that looks more and more like politically-motivated trolling.  As politics is not a permissible subject on the boards, I would strongly encourage you to find a different way to frame your argument.

(Believe me, I can understand and sympathize with your disappointment in the show... but this ain't the way to express it.)

 

Quote

Yes I liked Zero and I disagree that it was duller and more poorly written than Delta. My opinion buddy. Yes it was convoluted but at least they put thought into it.

But almost nobody here citing Zero's writing as better than Delta's can seem to actually summarize the plot or its significance to the rest of Macross, and most missed the point of the OVA's ending entirely.  You can't exactly argue that a story almost nobody understood is well-written.  

I mean, how many of you out there actually noticed Zero's got basically the same audience rebuke Aesop that came at the end of the Gundam 0080 OVA?  Be honest.

 

Quote

Dullta could have been written by High school kids. In fact I believe it was. I think they scanned the internet for fanfics and pulled the outline for the "plot" off of that. My opinions my man.

No, there's a fair amount of evidence they were just copying from Macross Frontier's homework.  (Like literally the entire last two episodes.)

 

Quote

Feel free to disagree but you can stop accusing me of having narrow views on sexuality and masculinity. That's simply your opinion. My views are simply oldschool and traditional and outdated by these liberal new generation standards. Too bad. Deal with it. If I have to deal with Mr./Mrs. Bruce Jenner getting a sex change and being voted Woman of the Year then you have to deal with me saying that I want my male characters to look and act like just that. Men!

Y'see, this right here is why people keep reading your argument and thinking this is about YOUR sexuality.  You're making it overtly political in reference to AMERICAN politics even though this is a strictly Japanese show, for all intents and purposes they're in two totally different worlds.  You keep coming back to how it offends you because it differs from your views of what masculinity ought to be.  Now you're trying to tie in specific examples of real-world of gender politics issues that made you uncomfortable.  If you're not keen on the character designs that's fine, and nobody gives a flying f*ck what anyone here's views on gender politics are.  The way you keep trying to make it political and about your standards for masculinity only diminishes the validity of your opinions of the story and character designs and gives everyone the distinct impression you're projecting your discomfort with the real world onto Delta.

 

 

 

9 hours ago, RealJayDee said:

It was really focused on pew pew pew and swooshing. 

It was like 'hey fans! This is a short short story (its 6 ep long, some slack is granted) of how you went from f 14s to VFs

We will put some love triangle here,  and protoculture there (that goes nowhere...)   

It was a honest story... No idols,  no macross cities, no colonies... precious vf0s and sv51s flying over the ocean, just because. 

... I don't mean to sound rude, but the stuff about the mecha is almost completely irrelevant to the story.  

It was so badly written that the story is so totally overwhelmed by the action scenes that almost nobody knows what the story even is!  Beautifully choreographed, TERRIBLY written.

 

2 hours ago, Podtastic said:

Pew pew pew and swooshing is what it's ultimately all about.

*sigh* Case in point...

Macross Zero was an OVA about the origins of humanity in the Macross universe, the ancient Protoculture's heel realization, how the people are what's really important, "an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind", and a standard Macross Aesop about the power of love and communication.  

All that zoom-y woosh crikey VF fun?  Almost completely irrelevant to the actual story until the very end.  The whole climax and the ending is a Gundam 0080-style audience rebuke about how all that exciting fight choreography doesn't solve a thing, and it's only when people put down the weapons and start talking that things actually happen, that when you put the weapons before the people you just hurt more people, and when you put the people before the weapons you actually start solving something.  That's also Shin's whole character arc in a nutshell, the realization that the desire for revenge that drove him to war became utterly unimportant once he started to connect with the people.  Nora, his counterpart, puts revenge before being able to connect with other people, and it ultimately kills her.

Then again, that's basically true for all of Macross.  Per Kawamori, Macross is and always has been a love story first and foremost, and all that crap about space warfare is an expensive and detailed framing device to facilitate it.

 

3 hours ago, SMS007 said:

Haha, during Delta's run, a Windermere apologist on AnimeSuki tried to claim that the manga was sufficient justification to make the Windermereans sympathetic, and flat-out refused to acknowledge when everyone else pointed out that the manga was an ancillary production not known to most of the TV audience. 

Didn't see that one, but then, I seldom go on AnimeSuki anymore.

To be fair, anyone who's read the Macross Delta: the White Knight of the Black Wing gaiden manga would agree that just what's in that manga is sufficient to make the Aerial Knights one of Macross's MOST sympathetic villains.  They're the broken children who grew up after having a front-row seat to a largely unnecessary war over resources launched using high-minded ideals about liberty as a tissue paper thin excuse, who had a front row seat to all the unnecessary and sometimes accidental death and destruction a war like that causes, as well as the (accidentally committed) worst act of genocide in their world's history.

But yeah, because it wasn't in the show it doesn't do a lot of good.  To those who've read it, it turns the characterization of them and their war on its ear.  To those who haven't, the audience has no clue that they're not just making sh*t up when they claim that they'd suffered under a profoundly unequal treaty and been massacred... esp. since for most of the show, we only see the New UN Gov't's side of the argument that contends that Windermere bombed its own people.  It was promoted on the official website and, IIRC, in some of the commercial breaks and mid-episode crawls, but that's not enough to reach the whole audience... not by a long shot.

It only works if the story is a single, cohesive whole... and since it's not, it doesn't.

Edited February 17, 2018 by Seto Kaiba

[SuperDimensionalDave]

Ok guys. I appreciate all the attention. I guess I'm just not used to it on here. It's rare that anyone even notices one of my posts or comments on one. I apparently struck a few peeps nerves here. I hated Dullta. That's it. I liked Zero. Appraently I "got it" more than you guys did. My advice to you, put down the pitchforks and drop the accusatory fingers. I'll talk about something else now. Back to the toy side of the forum. Macross is about love. I love you all ❤ lol. 

Edited February 17, 2018 by SuperDimensionalDave

[treatment]

2 hours ago, Podtastic said:

Pew pew pew and swooshing is what it's ultimately all about.

 

and Roy Focker.

[Sanity is Optional]

5 minutes ago, treatment said:

and Roy Focker.

With a drink poured on his head.

[RealJayDee]

11 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... I don't mean to sound rude, but the stuff about the mecha is almost completely irrelevant to the story.  

It was so badly written that the story is so totally overwhelmed by the action scenes that almost nobody knows what the story even is!  Beautifully choreographed, TERRIBLY written.

 

*sigh* Case in point...

Macross Zero was an OVA about the origins of humanity in the Macross universe, the ancient Protoculture's heel realization, how the people are what's really important, "an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind", and a standard Macross Aesop about the power of love and communication.  

All that zoom-y woosh crikey VF fun?  Almost completely irrelevant to the actual story until the very end.  The whole climax and the ending is a Gundam 0080-style audience rebuke about how all that exciting fight choreography doesn't solve a thing, and it's only when people put down the weapons and start talking that things actually happen, that when you put the weapons before the people you just hurt more people, and when you put the people before the weapons you actually start solving something.  That's also Shin's whole character arc in a nutshell, the realization that the desire for revenge that drove him to war became utterly unimportant once he started to connect with the people.  Nora, his counterpart, puts revenge before being able to connect with other people, and it ultimately kills her.

Then again, that's basically true for all of Macross.  Per Kawamori, Macross is and always has been a love story first and foremost, and all that crap about space warfare is an expensive and detailed framing device to facilitate it.

Dont worry,  i always take comments positively here, Its fun to express ourselves and hearing from each other. 

I totally agree on the writing for zero, but it isnt the narrative what I liked. There are some points here and there that make it interesting. 

The idea of having a vf prototype hybrid with current and new tech totally blew my mind. 

When the bird thingy asked if mankind was still fighting and confirmed,  it chose to destroy us. It knew space exploration was almost at hand, but being still belic we were mostly a danger for the universe. As is we failed the protoculture and as a species

Shin being an ace is arrogant and his view of life is him talking the baddies down. He is realized.  But little by little the "protectors"  of protoculture on earth teach him a wider perception passed on to them about the universe.

Also,  he questioned himself when learning that his side isnt totally legit. The unified government that sponsors 20XX space exploration started as a not totally honest enterpise. After that Shin fought to protect the Mayans (maybe hikaru, basara, alto and hayate are fighting for the wrong team, but still do it to protect loved ones... Justified?) 

To end,  if it wasnt for two individuals chosing to love each other, there would not be any sdf,  7, frontier,  delta... Just earth with mankind gone. Beautiful! 

Well thats my thinking... I wont try to convince anybody how amaaazing it should be. There are just interesting points, poorly addressed, that make me enjoy it so much. Hope now there is a chance youll start liking it a little

One final thing: swooshing and pewpewpew on media and fiction is life. And there i will do my best to convince yall xD

 

 

[Sandman]

All this talk of Zero makes me want to watch it again.

[Master Dex]

2 hours ago, Sandman said:

All this talk of Zero makes me want to watch it again.

I think most are interested in watching the first and last episode.. where all the pew pew splodey action is.

I never really thought it over so much but yeah, Zero is not well written. I didn't understand what the point was first time I saw it. Later I did but it took a few tries and Seto has the best summary of the theme, which is war begets more war and love and peace is the answer. In that sense it is ironic that most people enjoy Zero for the action in it. I mean we all enjoy Macross in part for that action but every single story has always led to the same point that the fighting is not what wins the day (and it isn't necessarily the music either, the music is just the most accessible vehicle to spreading the message of peace, love, and communication). Still it somehow seems more ironic that Zero is considered well liked for the action compared to any of the other stories since it went even harder on that message. That's a textbook example of what happens when your writing is such a convoluted mess.

And since I'm there, I'm going to say as well, a story or plot being complex and convoluted doesn't make it smart or clever and certainly doesn't mean more thought was put into it. If anything it means less thought was put into it or it'd actually make some sense.

I'm not touching the gender roles debate... I really don't think that belongs here, but it is definitely not even a thing in any Macross series. If anything what is being perceived as a "feminization" of male characters in the show is really just how Japanese males are more predominately these days compared to.. say.. American males.... but that is an ENTIRELY different subject that isn't relevant here (and I'm already kinda unfairly generalizing as it is).

[SuperDimensionalDave]

3 hours ago, Master Dex said:

And since I'm there, I'm going to say as well, a story or plot being complex and convoluted doesn't make it smart or clever and certainly doesn't mean more thought was put into it. If anything it means less thought was put into it or it'd actually make some sense.

I agree that just because Zero is complex or convoluted doesn't mean is it's smart and clever. And I did not find Zero to be particularly very much of either one of those things. But I do think it was a convoluted mess due to trying to accomplish and say too many things all at once.  Like 7 different people all talking about 7 different relatively interesting things in a small room talking all at once At same volume.  You can't really follow any one conversation. But if you break each one down later and look at it it makes at least a little sense and might be worth thinking about. But at the time everyone was speaking you were like WTF?  I think it was well done overall despite that. At least it gives you a lot to think about afterwards. 

Edited February 18, 2018 by SuperDimensionalDave

[kajnrig]

19 hours ago, treatment said:

Nope.

I think you're somehow really overstretching something that ain't there...

You might be right. It was mostly for argument's sake, though I DO think Zero is easily down the rung there with Delta.

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I don't mean to sound rude, but the stuff about the mecha is almost completely irrelevant to the story.

It was so badly written that the story is so totally overwhelmed by the action scenes that almost nobody knows what the story even is!  Beautifully choreographed, TERRIBLY written.

I wouldn't say that good execution of mecha and the things surrounding them CAN'T make up for a bad story, and in the process make the work better overall, and be the reason to sit through something. I'm sure everyone has their own example. Zero is close to being it for me. Pacific Rim, too.

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's also Shin's whole character arc in a nutshell, the realization that the desire for revenge that drove him to war became utterly unimportant once he started to connect with the people.  Nora, his counterpart, puts revenge before being able to connect with other people, and it ultimately kills her.

This, if true, completely passed me by. I never really got the sense that revenge (for... his parents' deaths?) was his motivator, he just seemed cartoonishly simple-minded. Nora as well... if there was a backstory for her, I didn't see it. She just seemed like she really liked fighting.

5 hours ago, treatment said:

and Roy Focker.

When I first saw Zero, I hated that they put him in. I thought it undermined what we knew of him in SDFM/DYRL. Certainly I didn't like that they gave him a generic tragic love story, one that only brought unfavorable comparisons to the one he shared with Claudia. I've mellowed out about him since, but I still feel like they didn't really do anything substantial with him... though they didn't really do anything with any of the characters, so...

5 hours ago, RealJayDee said:

The idea of having a vf prototype hybrid with current and new tech totally blew my mind.

I remember hating both VFs on first glance. "Boy, they're really frakking lazy, they're just remaking the VF-1, and the SV-51 is such a try-hard what a loser."

Since then I've shed that dumb attitude, and I feel like if they ever remade SDFM, they'd probably redesign the VF-1 to more closely follow the VF-0... But of course, then Macross the First came out. /shrug

And then a couple years later Frontier came out and my first thought was, "Boy, they're really frakking lazy, they're just remaking the VF-1, and the VF-27 is such a try-hard what a loser."... /double shrug

5 hours ago, Sandman said:

All this talk of Zero makes me want to watch it again.

Same, despite what I think of it. Maybe it's time for a rewatch to get back up to pace.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, RealJayDee said:

I totally agree on the writing for zero, but it isnt the narrative what I liked. There are some points here and there that make it interesting. 

I don't think anybody here would argue that the mecha in Zero aren't cool (and if there are, I'll fight them), but the story's the part that's supposed to draw the audience in.

 

6 hours ago, RealJayDee said:

Also,  he questioned himself when learning that his side isnt totally legit. The unified government that sponsors 20XX space exploration started as a not totally honest enterpise. After that Shin fought to protect the Mayans (maybe hikaru, basara, alto and hayate are fighting for the wrong team, but still do it to protect loved ones... Justified?) 

Thing is, the writing in Zero did a very poor job of exploring the whole conflict between the Earth Unification Government and Anti-Unification Alliance... no government is perfect, which kind of left the whole "well the UN Government aren't saints" thing in the kind of territory where it's amazing Shin's answer wasn't to roll his eyes and say "Duh."  That isn't helped by the official publications also explaining that several of Nora and D.D. claims about the UN Government's misdeeds are either Obi-Wan style "certain point of view" things or outright false.¹

 

6 hours ago, RealJayDee said:

One final thing: swooshing and pewpewpew on media and fiction is life. And there i will do my best to convince yall xD

Heh, I'm still hosting and occasionally translating for the Mecha Manual... you don't have to try to convince me that the mecha are awesome.  

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Master Dex said:

I never really thought it over so much but yeah, Zero is not well written. I didn't understand what the point was first time I saw it. Later I did but it took a few tries and Seto has the best summary of the theme, which is war begets more war and love and peace is the answer. In that sense it is ironic that most people enjoy Zero for the action in it. I mean we all enjoy Macross in part for that action but every single story has always led to the same point that the fighting is not what wins the day (and it isn't necessarily the music either, the music is just the most accessible vehicle to spreading the message of peace, love, and communication). Still it somehow seems more ironic that Zero is considered well liked for the action compared to any of the other stories since it went even harder on that message. That's a textbook example of what happens when your writing is such a convoluted mess.

Both Macross Zero and Macross Delta had the same general problem in that their writing was painfully unbalanced.

Zero was hyper-focused on one thing at a time, so the end result was that the action and the actual story were almost in two separate rooms communicating by sliding notes under the door.  Until the very end, they're almost two totally different shows running side by side and it changed gears with the kind of audible clunk that lets you know your mechanic's about to find his kid's college fund under the hood.

Delta's problem was that it was so obsessed with promoting the real world idol group Walkure and the story mechanics that integrated them into the Macross setting that it often forgot that there were other parts of the Macross equation.  They put tons of effort into that, and almost nothing into developing the relationships between the characters and/or the antagonist's motivations, and totally ignored most of the action staples of the Macross series.  Then, when the time came to actually tell stories that weren't centered entirely around Freyja's career and Walkure singing, they were left rummaging around in their toybox for something to show us and we got stuck with a flashback episodes that made no contextual sense and a lot of tedious exposition that should've been done in the first half.  As a result, it finished with a lot of loose ends that were allegedly of vital import (like a discussion of Lady M's identity, Mikumo's origin, etc.) that were just sort of forgotten.  Even the huge reveal that Hayate's dad committed the genocide that's got the Windermere natives so mad ends up with little impact because even Hayate's forced out of focus by Freyja and Walkure.

7 was an example of doing the kind of show Delta was trying to be, but doing it right.  It was slow-paced in the beginning to allow the show to build up the important action set-pieces slowly while focusing on promoting the band and the interactions of its members, and in so doing allowed it to also give equal time to the mecha and the supporting cast.

Frontier really was about the closest we've had to a truly balanced, exceptional Macross series.  It was well-paced, there was a great mix of music and mecha without having to have them in the same place (like that great first episode concert sequence), and it gave almost everything equal time so the audience knew what was going on AND had been given enough exposure to the cast to care about the characters.

 

What we need, and what'll satisfy most of the fans who were unhappy with Delta, is that same balance between the love story, the music, and the mecha that we had in Frontier.

 

 

15 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

This, if true, completely passed me by. I never really got the sense that revenge (for... his parents' deaths?) was his motivator, he just seemed cartoonishly simple-minded. Nora as well... if there was a backstory for her, I didn't see it. She just seemed like she really liked fighting.

Shin's just sort of a dead-to-the-world sort of burned out veteran, but the first thing he establishes about himself is that he's in the war for revenge.  Near the end, Nora explains she's in the war for the same reason, revenge for some nonspecific trauma that left her with that bigass scar.  Shin can let it go because he's discovered how to reconnect with people, so he gets to live.  Nora's desire for revenge drives her to be an axe-crazy blood knight and she's so focused on killing UN Forces soldiers that she completely misses the thing that kills her.  It's done with Kawamori's trademark complete lack of subtlety, but good luck hacking through the Shin-Sara kudzu plot long enough to notice.

 

1. Most notably, Nora's assertion that the UN Government stole the technology behind variable fighters from her homeland.  The technology was actually freely shared with the other UN Government member nations under the UN Government's technology and research sharing agreements.  The put the cherry on her BS sundae, the Sv-51 was developed using research materials that D.D. Ivanov stole from the VF-0 program when he defected.

[ScrambledValkyrie]

So, I've never seen 7 or Delta (partly due to opinions I've read here on MW) but I will say that I think Zero is the weakest of the ones I have seen, save maybe Macross II. The main things that make Zero interesting for me are the connections back to SDFM (and now forward to Frontier) meaning it doesn't hold as much value on its own. And the psychic/supernatural elements in Zero got a little far out there for me. If a new series comes anywhere close to Frontier (which honestly owes a lot to SDFM) then I'll be very interested.

[Sandman]

4 hours ago, ScrambledValkyrie said:

So, I've never seen 7 or Delta (partly due to opinions I've read here on MW) but I will say that I think Zero is the weakest of the ones I have seen, save maybe Macross II. The main things that make Zero interesting for me are the connections back to SDFM (and now forward to Frontier) meaning it doesn't hold as much value on its own. And the psychic/supernatural elements in Zero got a little far out there for me. If a new series comes anywhere close to Frontier (which honestly owes a lot to SDFM) then I'll be very interested.

You shouldn't let other people's opinions (OPP - LOL) stop you from watching 7 or Delta. Even if both have problems they are still Macross series and still worth a watch. There will be stuff in there that you like guaranteed. Personally, i love 7. The only thing that really bugs me about it now is that 90s flat colored animation style. It hasn't aged well. The early episodes of Macross 2 looks better IMO.

With a first heard news reports on what zero was going to be about i was super excited. Especially that Roy was going to be in it. I always wanted to see more stories about him. Unfortunately, they dropped the ball with him. He really wasn't that interesting in it. Between that and his changed character design he seemed like a different character. They also supremely dropped the ball by not including Global. It would've made a lot of sense to use him. He's another character we didn't see enough of.

[dizman]

On 2/18/2018 at 3:05 AM, Sandman said:

You shouldn't let other people's opinions (OPP - LOL) stop you from watching 7 or Delta. Even if both have problems they are still Macross series and still worth a watch. There will be stuff in there that you like guaranteed. Personally, i love 7. The only thing that really bugs me about it now is that 90s flat colored animation style. It hasn't aged well. The early episodes of Macross 2 looks better IMO.

Hah yeah I thought 7 must be terrible since most people here seem to have such hate for it, boy was I surprised how much I loved it when I finally gave it a chance. 

 

On 2/17/2018 at 10:30 PM, ScrambledValkyrie said:

So, I've never seen 7 or Delta (partly due to opinions I've read here on MW) but I will say that I think Zero is the weakest of the ones I have seen, save maybe Macross II. The main things that make Zero interesting for me are the connections back to SDFM (and now forward to Frontier) meaning it doesn't hold as much value on its own. And the psychic/supernatural elements in Zero got a little far out there for me. If a new series comes anywhere close to Frontier (which honestly owes a lot to SDFM) then I'll be very interested.

I'd say to give at least the first half of Delta a chance, after that you can drop the rest of the show and wait for the movie.

[Graham]

With Delta, watch episodes 1-13 and maybe 25-26. The rest you can skip.

 

[frothymug]

I don't get the hate on Zero. The plot made great sense to me and appealed to me in a way I never thought possible. To me, Zero offers a lot of lore and insight into the Protoculture and the beginnings of the human civilization that no other series has even come close to touching. I was first piqued into this by the scenes aboard the PC ship in DYRL. Just about everything in Zero came around in full circle, except the ultimate fate of Shin and Sara. Some loose ends are left to keep things mysterious. How is that a bad thing? These questions can be answered in later media.

I know this thread is about a new Macross series, but I would love to hear the reasons how you guys think that Zero's writing was sloppy. 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, frothymug said:

I know this thread is about a new Macross series, but I would love to hear the reasons how you guys think that Zero's writing was sloppy. 

Super simple explanation:

By in large, what most of us hope for in a new Macross series is a good balance between all of the key components of the Macross experience... the character drama in and around the love story, the space warfare that frames that character drama, and the music that ties the two together.  It's the Macross triangle, if you will.

When fans find a show unsatisfying, it's usually become one or more legs of the triangle are being neglected in the story.  Macross II: Lovers Again and Macross 7 both tend to get criticized for their character drama, Macross Delta for neglecting all but the music, there was excellent balance in the Macross Frontier series, etc.  Zero's problem was that it kept the character drama and the action in separate rooms and never let them mesh properly. 

 

So, while you had a plot about an ancient alien intervention that created humanity and left a secret history and a mission to a small tribe living out on a remote island and a there's a major conflict on their remote island over an ancient alien macguffin that'll help the victors do... something, nobody ever really says what they'll actually DO with the Birdhuman... the plot is just left feeling vague and unfocused, with half of it strained through Mayan's tribal mysticism and the other half muttered at the audience by a handful of unreliable or halfhearted narrators.  It all falls by the wayside and is quickly forgotten in the face of the expansive all-CG VF dogfights that have no real connection to it until the very end and are, frankly, a LOT more entertaining.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Seto Kaiba

[treatment]

1 hour ago, frothymug said:

I don't get the hate on Zero. The plot made great sense to me and appealed to me in a way I never thought possible. To me, Zero offers a lot of lore and insight into the Protoculture and the beginnings of the human civilization that no other series has even come close to touching. I was first piqued into this by the scenes aboard the PC ship in DYRL. Just about everything in Zero came around in full circle, except the ultimate fate of Shin and Sara. Some loose ends are left to keep things mysterious. How is that a bad thing? These questions can be answered in later media.

I know this thread is about a new Macross series, but I would love to hear the reasons how you guys think that Zero's writing was sloppy. 

I'm rather surprised about the Zero hate, too.

That said, how some people try to use Zero to somehow excuse Delta is bizarro.

Delta's a new story and is really not tied to anything before it, therefore it should not have any hindering parameters to it to be enjoyable on its own.

Zero was a prequel to the TV series and movie most of us grew up with. It has tighter parameters to follow, and it more or less succeeded in being a satisfying prequel story that does not upset the TV/DYRL canon. We just know that Kawamori was smoking some bad weed with that stupid weirdo ending...

 

 

 

 

[jenius]

I love me some mech battles, and Zero scratches that itch, but I get the hate for it. First, it dove headfirst into the "sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic" element that was also used to justify the Sailor Moon act of Delta (although there are certainly elements of Plus and Seven that went there also). Remember, there's a bunch of flying rocks and sorcerer stuff in Zero that was initially a big WTF moment for a lot of fans (particularly fans that were never thrilled with Mac7 who thought they were getting a gritty realistic show or fans that still identified more with Robotech). The story also jumps around... I think I actively searched for the episode between 4 and 5 only to realize it didn't exist. Shin Kudo was also like an Isamu Dyson without charisma. I'll give this to Delta, Hayate isn't nearly as unlikable as some of the other male leads in Macross. 

[treatment]

fwiw, I'm just waiting for the next Macross tv-series to be either:

Sword Art Macross

or

KonSuba-Macross

Tho, a Macross-Dandy series will be most awesome...

 

[kajnrig]

24 minutes ago, treatment said:

That said, how some people try to use Zero to somehow excuse Delta is bizarro.

It was positioned as the diametric opposite of Delta (and, strangely, Frontier), and my only intent was to point out that the two are more similar than perhaps the person would like to admit.

9 minutes ago, jenius said:

I think I actively searched for the episode between 4 and 5 only to realize it didn't exist.

I did this, too. To be fair, the story up 'til then you can sort of keep up with, but you go from "time to FAEB the island" to "everyone's aboard the ships, time for all-out WAR!!!" in the span of a credits sequence.

[Chronocidal]

31 minutes ago, jenius said:

The story also jumps around... I think I actively searched for the episode between 4 and 5 only to realize it didn't exist.

This.. yeah.  The story jump between 4 and 5 felt like someone forgot the clutch.  It was jarring to the story, and the transition at the start of 5 was probably the cheapest animation I've ever seen in a Macross episode.  It just didn't fit.

I definitely enjoyed Zero for what it was though, and could give a bit of a pass to the vagueness of what the governments were after, just because it felt like they were pulling a typical Men In Black plot, with government agents going bonkers over seizing any mysterious thing that might give them an edge in the war.  Even the mystical floating rocks sort of make sense, even if it's only in hindsight after the events of Frontier.

Truly though, the dogfights were the absolute peak of the series, and made up for a lot of the problems just with pure "wow" factor.

[RealJayDee]

25 minutes ago, treatment said:

fwiw, I'm just waiting for the next Macross tv-series to be either:

Sword Art Macross

or

KonSuba-Macross

Tho, a Macross-Dandy series will be most awesome...

 

I want One Punch Mancross!! 

[treatment]

5 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

It was positioned as the diametric opposite of Delta (and, strangely, Frontier), and my only intent was to point out that the two are more similar than perhaps the person would like to admit.

Well, see,  they are not similar at all.

Zero is only 6 episodes vs how many episodes in Delta again?

As such, the central thing that most everybody here are saying about Zero is that:

BOOM! JAWESOME DOGFIGHTS AND MECHA BATTLES!  

With Roy's 0S being at the forefront.

The story on Zero was both interesting and meandering, but were really quite insignificant.  It was just a throwaway little drama about Kawamori going new age/arjuna again.

It's really all about Roy Focker and the UN/Anti-UN valks duking it out before the advent of Space War.

Delta just does not have that overriding WOW-factor (as Chrono puts it) to provide sufficient cover for the lackluster storytelling and stuff.

Wasting Mirage Jenius was just quite an unforgivable shenanigan, afaik...

5 minutes ago, RealJayDee said:

I want One Punch Mancross!! 

OH HECK YEAH!

[Sanity is Optional]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

I love me some mech battles, and Zero scratches that itch, but I get the hate for it. First, it dove headfirst into the "sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic" element that was also used to justify the Sailor Moon act of Delta (although there are certainly elements of Plus and Seven that went there also). Remember, there's a bunch of flying rocks and sorcerer stuff in Zero that was initially a big WTF moment for a lot of fans (particularly fans that were never thrilled with Mac7 who thought they were getting a gritty realistic show or fans that still identified more with Robotech). The story also jumps around... I think I actively searched for the episode between 4 and 5 only to realize it didn't exist. Shin Kudo was also like an Isamu Dyson without charisma. I'll give this to Delta, Hayate isn't nearly as unlikable as some of the other male leads in Macross. 

I'm with you, the amazing action sequences forgive a lot of the lacking areas. Zero still has some of the best, if not the best, action sequences in the entirety of the franchise. The only things that are even close are from Frontier or Plus (and Plus isn't as shiny).

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, treatment said:

That said, how some people try to use Zero to somehow excuse Delta is bizarro.

Nobody's used Zero to excuse Delta.  

It's been cited as an example of another Macross show with similar writing problems to Delta's... how the writing suffers when one part of the Macross equation becomes the sole focus.  We all still love it for its gorgeous dogfight scenes, even if we admit that the writing was a bit dodgy.

 

2 hours ago, treatment said:

fwiw, I'm just waiting for the next Macross tv-series to be either:

Sword Art Macross

That could get pretty dark... I mean, trapped in a MMO?  Macross Galaxy's civilian population is canonically kind of already there.  They're all cyborgs, and even before the Galaxy Executives started mind-controlling them all they were living most of their lives in cyberspace to avoid confronting the utilitarian cyberpunk dystopia the fleet had become after its corporate government legalized implants.  Like if the hallucination in the despair squid episode of Red Dwarf were reality...

 

Quote

Tho, a Macross-Dandy series will be most awesome...

Isn't Macross Dandy basically just a lazy Isamu?

(Heck, Sharon's a big hologram like Admiral Perry, and one of her staffers looks a bit like Dr. Gel.)

 

 

So here's a question.

I don't think anyone here would disagree if I said that Macross Delta didn't really get a lot of use out of its setting, the huge Brisingr Globular Cluster with its twenty-something new colonized planets.  Would you guys be down for another series set in the same locale, but featuring an all-new cast unrelated to the previous one?  Like what Macross the Ride did with being set in the Macross Frontier fleet but having the cast of the series appear only as background characters?

Edited February 21, 2018 by Seto Kaiba

[seti88]

Sigh its such a pain waiting for news on the new series....They should be announcing something soon if they want to air it this year no?

If i recall delta launched in April(?),  and news was out nearer christmas ..

Otherwise new series in 2018 might just mean marketing blitz in 2018...

[treatment]

57 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

So here's a question.

I don't think anyone here would disagree if I said that Macross Delta didn't really get a lot of use out of its setting, the huge Brisingr Globular Cluster with its twenty-something new colonized planets.  Would you guys be down for another series set in the same locale, but featuring an all-new cast unrelated to the previous one?  Like what Macross the Ride did with being set in the Macross Frontier fleet but having the cast of the series appear only as background characters?

First things first, they must hire a completely new production team.

Unless of course, the franchise owners and licensees says NOPE! on the whole new team idea...

22 minutes ago, seti88 said:

Sigh its such a pain waiting for news on the new series....They should be announcing something soon if they want to air it this year no?

If i recall delta launched in April(?),  and news was out nearer christmas ..

Otherwise new series in 2018 might just mean marketing blitz in 2018...

Hey! Maybe they'll announce a Macross anime soon based on the 35th-anniversary theme-colors...

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, seti88 said:

Sigh its such a pain waiting for news on the new series....They should be announcing something soon if they want to air it this year no?

Yeah, it's a bit of a pain... especially since Macross Delta conditioned us all to expect news of new developments every time there's any kind of Walkure live event.

 

8 minutes ago, seti88 said:

If i recall delta launched in April(?),  and news was out nearer christmas ..

Otherwise new series in 2018 might just mean marketing blitz in 2018...

Macross Frontier, IIRC, had the preview version of its first episode a day or two before Christmas, then it ran from April to September of the following year.

Delta, I know, was first announced in September and the teaser screened in Akihabara right before Halloween.  They did their preview edition of the first episode as part of like a five hour special program on the last day of the year before running it April to September.

If they follow the pattern, we'll get our first public confirmation that they're actually working on something in mid-March and the first actual information in September.

This is coming a lot closer on the heels of the previous series though, so they might buck the trend.

 

 

4 minutes ago, treatment said:

First things first, they must hire a completely new production team.

Unless of course, the franchise owners and licensees says NOPE! on the whole new team idea...

Does that include the animators?  Cuz I kinda like the Satelight team's style.

[treatment]

6 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Does that include the animators?  Cuz I kinda like the Satelight team's style.

I think they've gotten stale. Their dogfights have been quite boring now.

BW and Bandai should just hire Makoto Shinkai and his team for the new Macross series...

He'll prolly script and exquisitely animate a bunch of lonesome sentient valks with deep immersive stories about owning a space cat or something.

Why the heck not, eh?

 

[Valkyrie addict]

Sooooo... any news about the new series itself or when can we get any?

[Vifam7]

9 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

Does that include the animators?  Cuz I kinda like the Satelight team's style.

 

 

I don't like Satelight's animation style at all. It just looks dated and cheap. Whereas something like Yamato 2199 looks positively amazing. Even Girls und Panzer looks better.

The dated look would be forgiveable if the action scenes were well done.  But it isn't. It looks like they're trying mimic Itano in places but most of the time it just looks completely uninspired.