Harmony Gold suing Tatsunoko

[pengbuzz]

Let's face it: HG is in trouble and has been for some time. RT has stagnated because they painted themselves into a licensing barrel with the whole HG/ Tatsunoko/Big West steaming mess. "New material" isn't really forthcoming because anything HG devises isn't going to match level of the original, and they've played out what they had to work with long ago.

I personally think HG is playing a "waiting game", hoping desperately that if they can just keep a death grip on what they have long enough, everyone else will give up and they can finally do as they like. JMO, for what it's worth.

 

[jenius]

You know what Harmony Gold should do? Find the rights holders to ExoSquad and pitch a reboot that combines aspects of both shows. Instead of JT Marsh it would be Rick Hunter. Instead of Zentraedi they're fighting Neosapiens. Instead of those awful e-frames they could hire a few talented mechanical designers to make sexy transforming space fighters. 

What's more likely is that Tatsunoko will let them have the rights to Mospeada and Southern Cross still but pull the Macross deal (maybe sell it back to BW) and Robotech will continue in vain just focusing on the less popular stories and building from them. Now, fortunately, Mospeada was where they left off so building on Mospeada is logical.

[JB0]

Haven't MOSPEADA fans suffered enough at HG's hands already? No one deserves Shadow Chronicles.

Edited June 15, 2019 by JB0

[slide]

Just now, JB0 said:

Haven't MOSPEADA fans suffered enough at HG's hands already? No one deserves Shadow Chronicles.

People who work for HG do... they should be subjected to it Clockwork Orange style

Edited June 15, 2019 by slide

[Keith]

Why not just reboot Exosquad instead? 

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Let's face it: HG is in trouble and has been for some time. RT has stagnated because they painted themselves into a licensing barrel with the whole HG/ Tatsunoko/Big West steaming mess.

Robotech was stagnating for well upwards of a decade before it ever got to that point.  It's been a stagnant property ever since the plans for a sequel series (Robotech II: the Sentinels) and a movie (Robotech: the Untold Story) fell through in '86-87.  The old comic books and novels were cheap, lazy, quick-and-dirty attempts to shake a nostalgic fanbase down for a quick buck with nothing like an orchestrating intent or creative direction.

(I still maintain that the novels were Luceno and Daley C.S. Goto-ing them by swapping proper nouns out in rejected Star Wars manuscripts.)

 

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

"New material" isn't really forthcoming because anything HG devises isn't going to match level of the original, and they've played out what they had to work with long ago.

New material isn't forthcoming because every attempt to create new material is a failure... and it's happened so often that nobody wants to put their money in Robotech anymore.

After Robotech 3000 spun in so badly that it bankrupted its principal sponsor and animation studio Netter Digital, nobody outside Harmony Gold was willing to finance a Robotech production.  After Shadow Chronicles failed to achieve its promised revival of the franchise's fortunes and attract external sponsorship,, Harmony Gold's own management was no longer willing to finance its new developments.  Then came Robotech Academy, where the hilarious mixture of naive incompetence, monumental arrogance, and good old fashioned crap quality combined to ensure that even the fans were unwilling to finance new Robotech development.

 

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I personally think HG is playing a "waiting game", hoping desperately that if they can just keep a death grip on what they have long enough, everyone else will give up and they can finally do as they like. JMO, for what it's worth.

They are playing a waiting game, but it's not THAT waiting game.

They're waiting, and wishing, and hoping, and praying for some Hollywood studio to decide to actually make a Robotech movie, so they can simply sit back and collect royalty checks instead of developing material themselves.

That was, by their own admission, the Plan B after Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles met such a negative reception.  They wanted to use the movie to attract new sponsors to the animated series, and even that was eventually abandoned.

 

8 hours ago, jenius said:

You know what Harmony Gold should do? Find the rights holders to ExoSquad and pitch a reboot that combines aspects of both shows.

What did ExoSquad do to deserve such a horrible fate?

 

8 hours ago, jenius said:

Instead of those awful e-frames they could hire a few talented mechanical designers to make sexy transforming space fighters. 

Hiring mechanical designers, talented or otherwise, takes money... at this point NOBODY wants to put money into Robotech.

 

8 hours ago, jenius said:

What's more likely is that Tatsunoko will let them have the rights to Mospeada and Southern Cross still but pull the Macross deal (maybe sell it back to BW) and Robotech will continue in vain just focusing on the less popular stories and building from them. Now, fortunately, Mospeada was where they left off so building on Mospeada is logical.

I don't think they'll bother.  Virtually all Robotech merchandising is built on Macross.  If they can't renew the Macross license, they'll fold rather than trying to continue on in vain because there's only a minimal market for imitation-brand MOSPEADA merchandise and virtually no market for Southern Cross.

 

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

Haven't MOSPEADA fans suffered enough at HG's hands already? No one deserves Shadow Chronicles.

But Pinhead!McKeever has such sights to show you...

[pengbuzz]

9 hours ago, jenius said:

You know what Harmony Gold should do? Find the rights holders to ExoSquad and pitch a reboot that combines aspects of both shows. Instead of JT Marsh it would be Rick Hunter. Instead of Zentraedi they're fighting Neosapiens. Instead of those awful e-frames they could hire a few talented mechanical designers to make sexy transforming space fighters.

What'd ExoSquad ever do wrong to you?! rofl!

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

Haven't MOSPEADA fans suffered enough at HG's hands already? No one deserves Shadow Chronicles.

"Shadow Chronicles" should be part of the bad dream Hikaru had when he was in his coma following the Daedalus attack on Earth that took out his fighter.

 

[jenius]

I like Exosquad but it's dead and we know it's creators played nice with HG; seems like a good fit to get both licenses moving while giving RT the reboot it desperately needs. 

[pengbuzz]

5 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Robotech was stagnating for well upwards of a decade before it ever got to that point.  It's been a stagnant property ever since the plans for a sequel series (Robotech II: the Sentinels) and a movie (Robotech: the Untold Story) fell through in '86-87.  The old comic books and novels were cheap, lazy, quick-and-dirty attempts to shake a nostalgic fanbase down for a quick buck with nothing like an orchestrating intent or creative direction.

(I still maintain that the novels were Luceno and Daley C.S. Goto-ing them by swapping proper nouns out in rejected Star Wars manuscripts.)

So basically, it's been stagnating since after it's initial popularity wore off in the 80's then. HG is truly the necrotizing fascitiis of robot anime, if not outright gangrene.

 

5 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

New material isn't forthcoming because every attempt to create new material is a failure... and it's happened so often that nobody wants to put their money in Robotech anymore.

After Robotech 3000 spun in so badly that it bankrupted its principal sponsor and animation studio Netter Digital, nobody outside Harmony Gold was willing to finance a Robotech production.  After Shadow Chronicles failed to achieve its promised revival of the franchise's fortunes and attract external sponsorship,, Harmony Gold's own management was no longer willing to finance its new developments.  Then came Robotech Academy, where the hilarious mixture of naive incompetence, monumental arrogance, and good old fashioned crap quality combined to ensure that even the fans were unwilling to finance new Robotech development.

That's something along my original thoughts on this: the material they devise sucks, and cannot match the quality of the original in any way. HG simply doesn't get what makes a good anime (or anything else for that matter), nor do they care.

5 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

They are playing a waiting game, but it's not THAT waiting game.

They're waiting, and wishing, and hoping, and praying for some Hollywood studio to decide to actually make a Robotech movie, so they can simply sit back and collect royalty checks instead of developing material themselves.

That was, by their own admission, the Plan B after Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles met such a negative reception.  They wanted to use the movie to attract new sponsors to the animated series, and even that was eventually abandoned. 

Considering that no one wants anything to do with RT after the mess they've made of it, that's essentially waiting for the rights to run out.

The only thing "Shallow Chronicles" could attract is a bad case of dysentery.

[Seto Kaiba]

34 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

So basically, it's been stagnating since after it's initial popularity wore off in the 80's then.

Yeah, it was pretty much dead on arrival if we're being honest.

Ratings-wise, Robotech was an unremarkable middle-of-the-pack performer in its original broadcast run and its merchandise line was nothing to write home about either.  Most companies would probably not have tried for a sequel series or a feature film with that kind of performance, but Harmony Gold did and once both efforts ended in failure they more or less abandoned it until 1999 and their ill-conceived attempt to revive the brand with Robotech 3000. 

 

34 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

That's something along my original thoughts on this: the material they devise sucks, and cannot match the quality of the original in any way. HG simply doesn't get what makes a good anime (or anything else for that matter), nor do they care.

Well, yeah... Carl Macek mistook the borrowed quality of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA for his own cleverness, and spent the rest of his life trying to take credit for the work of the original creators while simultaneously badmouthing them.  He didn't have a freaking clue what Robotech's audience wanted or even who they were which, combined with his arrogant belief that he knew better than the industry professionals who created the material he was taking credit for, led him to fly three Robotech sequel projects into the ground.

They never had much money for development because Robotech was never all that successful.  Quality costs money.  They had assistance from several extremely talented people early on, but Macek succeeded in driving them away during the development of Robotech II: the Sentinels.  Without Tatsunoko to foot the bill for talent, they were on their own and the budget wouldn't stretch enough to allow them to engage the services of talented creators (not that Macek would've allowed it) or to produce high-quality animation.  By the time they finally got rid of Macek and were trying to reinvent Robotech as a mainstream anime title, all of the damage Macek had done was too much for them to get a proper budget so they had to make Shadow Chronicles on a budget of less than $1 million provided by HG itself... which had to stretch REALLY far to cover development and production, especially in light of hiring big-name voice talent for bit parts like Mark Hamill.

I know for a fact that Tom Bateman cared about the quality of the work they were doing, and I'm pretty sure Tommy Yune did too.  There are limits to what you can do with such a limited budget when you're also splurging on voice actors who demand to be paid SAG rates.

 

34 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Considering that no one wants anything to do with RT after the mess they've made of it, that's essentially waiting for the rights to run out.

Pretty much, but it's the only Hail Mary that's really left open to them after Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles didn't deliver on all the promises Tommy made to his bosses and Robotech Academy became an embarrassing public failure.

 

34 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

The only thing "Shallow Chronicles" could attract is a bad case of dysentery.

Yeah, it really was a poorly conceived attempt to make the franchise relevant.

Shadow Chronicles was supposed to appeal to anime fans who'd never heard of Robotech, but the only way they could seem to think of to make it appeal was... well... drawing every woman to look like Shay Laren in a neoprene body stocking.  Fanservice sells... but it was a rather cynical attempt to make Robotech marketable that didn't really draw anyone's attention.

It did attract some hilarious comments when Harmony Gold made it available on Hulu Plus though.

[Bolt]

“Supposedly” RT is still going to be some kind of movie. Right?

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, it was pretty much dead on arrival if we're being honest.

Ratings-wise, Robotech was an unremarkable middle-of-the-pack performer in its original broadcast run and its merchandise line was nothing to write home about either.  Most companies would probably not have tried for a sequel series or a feature film with that kind of performance, but Harmony Gold did and once both efforts ended in failure they more or less abandoned it until 1999 and their ill-conceived attempt to revive the brand with Robotech 3000. 

 

Well, yeah... Carl Macek mistook the borrowed quality of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA for his own cleverness, and spent the rest of his life trying to take credit for the work of the original creators while simultaneously badmouthing them.  He didn't have a freaking clue what Robotech's audience wanted or even who they were which, combined with his arrogant belief that he knew better than the industry professionals who created the material he was taking credit for, led him to fly three Robotech sequel projects into the ground.

They never had much money for development because Robotech was never all that successful.  Quality costs money.  They had assistance from several extremely talented people early on, but Macek succeeded in driving them away during the development of Robotech II: the Sentinels.  Without Tatsunoko to foot the bill for talent, they were on their own and the budget wouldn't stretch enough to allow them to engage the services of talented creators (not that Macek would've allowed it) or to produce high-quality animation.  By the time they finally got rid of Macek and were trying to reinvent Robotech as a mainstream anime title, all of the damage Macek had done was too much for them to get a proper budget so they had to make Shadow Chronicles on a budget of less than $1 million provided by HG itself... which had to stretch REALLY far to cover development and production, especially in light of hiring big-name voice talent for bit parts like Mark Hamill.

I know for a fact that Tom Bateman cared about the quality of the work they were doing, and I'm pretty sure Tommy Yune did too.  There are limits to what you can do with such a limited budget when you're also splurging on voice actors who demand to be paid SAG rates.

 

Pretty much, but it's the only Hail Mary that's really left open to them after Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles didn't deliver on all the promises Tommy made to his bosses and Robotech Academy became an embarrassing public failure.

 

Yeah, it really was a poorly conceived attempt to make the franchise relevant.

Shadow Chronicles was supposed to appeal to anime fans who'd never heard of Robotech, but the only way they could seem to think of to make it appeal was... well... drawing every woman to look like Shay Laren in a neoprene body stocking.  Fanservice sells... but it was a rather cynical attempt to make Robotech marketable that didn't really draw anyone's attention.

It did attract some hilarious comments when Harmony Gold made it available on Hulu Plus though.

Carl Macek... don't get me started on him.

Where I lived, Robotech was pretty popular in the 80's (New England); it was everywhere back then. Now trying to get an SDF-1 will cost you a vital organ or two! lol

As for Bateman and Yune: they deserved better than the crap HG dished them IMO.

Here's hoping that 2021 is the year HG finally loses their grip on Macross.

[Dynaman]

2 hours ago, Bolt said:

“Supposedly” RT is still going to be some kind of movie. Right?

In the time since that has been announced and today there has been nothing more done then a few scripts passed around to keep the option open AND in the meantime a Banana Splits HORROR movie has been made (or at least has a trailer out)...

[AN/ALQ128]

2 hours ago, Bolt said:

“Supposedly” RT is still going to be some kind of movie. Right?

Not even Sony Entertainment is dumb enough to start production on a movie that's based on a franchise that is this embroiled in legal issues.

 

[Keith]

8 hours ago, jenius said:

I like Exosquad but it's dead and we know it's creators played nice with HG; seems like a good fit to get both licenses moving while giving RT the reboot it desperately needs. 

Exosquad seems ripe for a Netflix redo. And let's be honest, Netflix's Voltron sniped everythinh "Robotech" without actually being Robotech, easily outshining The Shadow Chronicles.

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, Dynaman said:

Banana Splits

I don't know what that is.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

I don't know what that is.

A kind of ice cream, I think.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, Bolt said:

“Supposedly” RT is still going to be some kind of movie. Right?

Nah, all that's actually happened with it in over eleven years is that they paid out of pocket for a handful of Hollywood writers to do rough story treatments for a movie so they could misrepresent those writers as actually involved in production (and to have some fake tangible "proof" that it was actually being worked on).

Like Warner Bros before them, Sony Pictures has zero inclination to actually make a Robotech movie.  They only picked up the rights because it was a contemporary series to the Transformers series that Paramount is still making bank on.

 

4 hours ago, AN/ALQ128 said:

Not even Sony Entertainment is dumb enough to start production on a movie that's based on a franchise that is this embroiled in legal issues.

Considering virtually none of the IP from the animation is usable for such a film, no studio was ever going to even seriously consider making it.

[Dynaman]

Darn Kids!  Get off my internet!

The Opening Credits for the Banana Splits.

It was four guys in animal costumes on a cheap set used as filler in between cartoons (also done cheaply)

[JB0]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Considering virtually none of the IP from the animation is usable for such a film, no studio was ever going to even seriously consider making it.

In fairness, they don't usually want to use more than names in the movie adaptations anyways. Better to attach familiar names to unrelated nonsense and then sell it as an adaptation of a beloved franchise. (I'm still a little surprised that Bay's "Optimus Prime" turned into a truck.)

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

In fairness, they don't usually want to use more than names in the movie adaptations anyways. Better to attach familiar names to unrelated nonsense and then sell it as an adaptation of a beloved franchise. (I'm still a little surprised that Bay's "Optimus Prime" turned into a truck.)

Normally, a studio adapting an existing work wants to have at least some visual connection to the original if at all possible... which just isn't possible with Robotech, and is likely a large part of why nobody's willing to touch it.  That and not being able to actually adapt the story of the TV series.

[TehPW]

29 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Normally, a studio adapting an existing work wants to have at least some visual connection to the original if at all possible... which just isn't possible with Robotech, and is likely a large part of why nobody's willing to touch it.  That and not being able to actually adapt the story of the TV series.

Do you think that the Studios, like us, are waiting for 2021 before going directly to Japan to discuss the possibility of doing a Live Action Macross platform in the US? That assumes that the suits even think there's a market for it...?

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, TehPW said:

Do you think that the Studios, like us, are waiting for 2021 before going directly to Japan to discuss the possibility of doing a Live Action Macross platform in the US? That assumes that the suits even think there's a market for it...?

My educated guess would be that they're not.

Adapting popular anime properties into live-action films in the West has historically been an almost foolproof recipe for an embarrassing box office flop.  Even the relatively mainstream anime properties like Dragon Ball Z or Ghost in the Shell either failed to break even or went out as box office bombs.  Alita: Battle Angel is the closest anime adaptations have come to a true box office success and even then industry analysts and studio insiders suggest the film was only marginally profitable and may have only just managed to break even.

I would assume that studios will still only be looking at anime properties with the best levels of name recognition in the US.  Titles like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Gundam, etc.  If Macross's do-over debut in 2021 produces some serious public awareness for the brand then they might start considering it for a live action adaptation.  I suspect it'll still not happen, since it has some aspects that just don't translate well to live action... like the role of music in the story.

[mikeszekely]

Well, Gundam is getting a live action Hollywood treatment from Legendary pictures. I'd imagine that anyone thinking about doing Macross would at least wait and see how Gundam does.

[AN/ALQ128]

38 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

My educated guess would be that they're not.

Adapting popular anime properties into live-action films in the West has historically been an almost foolproof recipe for an embarrassing box office flop.  Even the relatively mainstream anime properties like Dragon Ball Z or Ghost in the Shell either failed to break even or went out as box office bombs.  Alita: Battle Angel is the closest anime adaptations have come to a true box office success and even then industry analysts and studio insiders suggest the film was only marginally profitable and may have only just managed to break even.

I would assume that studios will still only be looking at anime properties with the best levels of name recognition in the US.  Titles like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Gundam, etc.  If Macross's do-over debut in 2021 produces some serious public awareness for the brand then they might start considering it for a live action adaptation.  I suspect it'll still not happen, since it has some aspects that just don't translate well to live action... like the role of music in the story.

I think Hollywood might be more willing to forge ahead with anime adaptations now that comic book flicks are losing their novelty. The Marvel universe is finally starting to lose a bit of its steam, and the DC universe was basically stillborn from incompetence. When it comes to Hollywood, the suits will always prefer adapting an existing property rather than trying to make something new and original, and a lot of the younger generation (teens and adults in their 20's) are much more familiar with anime/manga than older people.

What Hollywood needs to make a successful anime adaptation is to get experienced big screen directors, and to get writers who've at least experienced the source material and understands what its about.

[Chronocidal]

If anyone was to approach a single Macross title for western adaptation, I'd think Macross Plus probably has the best chance of success.  It's probably had the most exposure of the franchise due to HG's leaky practices then, and it already feels like the most "western" of Macross material, between the Top Gun comparisons, minimal necessary exposition, and the unique role music played in that particular story.

[Sanity is Optional]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

If anyone was to approach a single Macross title for western adaptation, I'd think Macross Plus probably has the best chance of success.  It's probably had the most exposure of the franchise due to HG's leaky practices then, and it already feels like the most "western" of Macross material, between the Top Gun comparisons, minimal necessary exposition, and the unique role music played in that particular story.

Plus it needs very little backstory, just remove the Zentradi backstory from the movie entirely and just say Guld has anger management issues.

[TehPW]

47 minutes ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Plus it needs very little backstory, just remove the Zentradi backstory from the movie entirely and just say Guld has anger management issues.

THAT would piss me the F up.... but sadly I think you're right... :/

[TheLoneWolf]

3 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

If anyone was to approach a single Macross title for western adaptation, I'd think Macross Plus probably has the best chance of success.  It's probably had the most exposure of the franchise due to HG's leaky practices then, and it already feels like the most "western" of Macross material, between the Top Gun comparisons, minimal necessary exposition, and the unique role music played in that particular story.

I think someone else had a similar idea.

[pengbuzz]

4 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

If anyone was to approach a single Macross title for western adaptation, I'd think Macross Plus probably has the best chance of success.  It's probably had the most exposure of the franchise due to HG's leaky practices then, and it already feels like the most "western" of Macross material, between the Top Gun comparisons, minimal necessary exposition, and the unique role music played in that particular story.

If anyone wants to do an RT movie as far as HG is concerned, it should be a documentary about how HG got the rights and pretty much bungled everything up and made Macross fans' lives a living hell for 3 decades.

[Roy Focker]

We don't talk about that movie here.

[Gerli]

1 hour ago, TheLoneWolf said:

I think someone else had a similar idea.

At least Kawamori was cool with that...

 

(Just kiding, bad Photoshop is bad)

[kajnrig]

Actually, for all the problems that movie has, I do kind of love it expressly because of its similarities to M+. Its heart is in the right place, it just was never going to be able to execute as successfully as M+.

[Chronocidal]

I don't see why they'd have to remove the Zentraedi references at all.  If you keep the intro of Isamu being the reckless hotshot against the rogue band in the beginning, there's your introduction to them.

But yeah... I hesitate to put any hope in there being a -good- adaptation of it, but it's probably the best candidate.

[JetJockey]

2 hours ago, TheLoneWolf said:

I think someone else had a similar idea.

This movie is a shockingly bad piece of crap. I think Jessica Biel bouncing up and down on that workout ball was the best part and we all know why that scene was included.