Live-action Robotech Movie

[TangledThorns]

Yeah, looks like ROBOTECH which is the most I've ever seen yet production wise.

[Bolt]

The giant space looking ship in the background , does suggest it could have been the Robo find Waldo movie..Those fighter jets , i can imagine as Bayformers, too. 

[jenius]

I woulda watched it.

[Old_Nash_II]

Only remember aborted Evangelion movie, what some years late became Pacific Rim

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Very sorry to ressurect this zombie, but Col Price posted some conept art from "huge movie that unfortunately got pulled" that very much might have been the LARTM

Almost certainly not.

Concept art is development material.  As far as any reliable source can prove, the proposed Robotech live action movie never got any farther than being a proposal.  They paid out of pocket for a handful of story treatments in order to pretend that their writers were attached to write the movie itself, but those and all the other announcements of people being attached to write/direct/produce so far have all proven to be verifiably false.  They're not at the point where they'd be producing concept art.

There are a lot of other properties this could be from... the cancelled sequel for Edge of Tomorrow, any of a number of cancelled Transformers sequels and spinoffs, a cancelled G.I. Joe movie, etc.  Nobody could call a Robotech movie "huge" with a straight face, which is one of the many reasons it's been in preapproval development hell for *checks* nearly 15 and a half years at time of writing.

 

[TehPW]

So they think a plane, with 2 small engines, a 1 single main engine...

No, that looks like someone was drunk & stoned with access to a DCS F-35 model and tried to improve it...

[azrael]

17 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Very sorry to ressurect this zombie, but Col Price posted some conept art from "huge movie that unfortunately got pulled" that very much might have been the LARTM

"huge movie that unfortunately got pulled" could mean LITERALLY ANYTHING. He can't say cuz it's still under NDA? Until it can be proven it was for this thing *points at this thread*, still in production hell, sorry back into dormancy you go.

[electric indigo]

Another post from Col Price, this time he confirmed the RT background.

 

[kajnrig]

UN Spacy? Not Robotech Defense Force?

And Lockheed and Grumman logos as well. I wonder if that was just mocked up in the hopes of getting their sponsorship or if it was included BECAUSE they got an early promise of a sponsorship.

Anyway, it's always a treat whenever this decrepit thread gets dug back up.

[TangledThorns]

The veritechs look like they are wearing shoes 🤣

[Thom]

2 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

The veritechs look like they are wearing shoes 🤣

Except for that, they look kinda good. Different. 

But clearly the only thing that will ever come out this 'movie'  will be concept art.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Thom

[Shawn]

I'd love to see some real concept art, but that looks like AI Generated weirdness..like whatever this snake plane is doing.
You could not present this quality of work to Sony as concept art

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Another post from Col Price, this time he confirmed the RT background.

 

I have a REALLY hard time believing that claim.

Not just because this looks like the output of an AI art generator that scraped the #macross tag on DeviantArt and a few hundred bargain bin sci-fi novel covers, but because that first image is so blatantly and obviously derivative of Big West's copyrighted Macross IP that Harmony Gold can't use or authorize the use of that this would be a smoking gun for ANY potential copyright infringement lawsuit against the film if it got made.

Harmony Gold has been extremely conscious of the limitations of their license for the last twenty-three years and have diligently adhered to them.  If this were real, professional concept art commissioned for a movie pitch, the artist would've been given clear direction that they absolutely cannot base their work on Big West's IP the way this stuff obviously is for easily understood "We don't want to get sued" reasons.  There's no way in hell this would have got past anyone's legal department.

If this were real, this project wasn't merely asking for a lawsuit... it was down on all fours pleading for one in a disturbingly undignified, profoundly upsetting, and possibly sexual manner.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[jenius]

What was the most recent agreement relating to the live action movie? I thought when HG backed off the "all Macross" claim they got some sort of a pass on the live action movie. Regardless, I agree, lots of stuff that would be taboo in those images and they very much seem like an AI renditions of "Show me what a live action Macross movie would look like."

[Big s]

Didn’t they already show those images a while back? I could swear I’ve already seen them, but can’t remember where.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

What was the most recent agreement relating to the live action movie? I thought when HG backed off the "all Macross" claim they got some sort of a pass on the live action movie.

There's nothing in the announcements of the new distribution agreement from two years ago that suggests that Harmony Gold would be allowed to use the Macross IP in any way its existing licenses didn't already permit.

All they mention is that Big West will now have "a say" in Robotech and that they've agreed to not obstruct worldwide distribution of a Robotech movie if/when one gets made.

Of course, per Harmony Gold, the whole point of the (proposed) live action movie was/is to make a fresh start for the franchise with a reimagined and all-original Robotech story they could build on without any of the legal hurdles and restrictions of using secondhand IP.  Trying to pitch it with concept art blatantly ripping off Macross would've been counter to the movie's entire purpose.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

Didn’t they already show those images a while back? I could swear I’ve already seen them, but can’t remember where.

They shared some others back in January.

Spoiler

 

 

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

They shared some others back in January.

  Hide contents

 

 

I think it’s the alien ships that looked familiar to me

[CoryHolmes]

I love the sense of scale the SDF-1 has in these pics.

 

It's a giant ship and should look like it.  On the outside at least, since it does suffer greatly from Hammerspace and Tardis-like interiors.

[JB0]

1 minute ago, CoryHolmes said:

I love the sense of scale the SDF-1 has in these pics.

 

It's a giant ship and should look like it.  On the outside at least, since it does suffer greatly from Hammerspace and Tardis-like interiors.

Same. There's few shots out there that really emphasize how utterly MASSIVE the dang thing is.

[Shawn]

Yeah-want to jump back in and 'de-snarkify' my previous comment a bit...might have come of just a BIT too judgmental.
The art is amazing, and sometimes very weird (f18 nozzles backwards, or the gerwalks having odd shoes examples)
I could never do anything remotely like that in a million years, just didn't initially think it was actually used for the project-I would have thunk things like what I noted would not be there...or maybe it was used as a base image, where then the artist took over and cleaned up/fixed the items.
The twitter user links to a what seems to be a real studio, so who the heck knows

 

[twich]

the very obvious F-35 image with the main engine and 2 sub engines is an interesting take......I do not know of any variable fighter that has 3 engines....but I guess they were going for a "sci-fi" look.  Interesting aircraft carrier with tattoo's, ala the Mandalorian captured capital ship as part of their fleet in the Mandalorian show.

While the original Macross and all of its derivates will always be quintessential transforming robot show for me, I am one who always loves to see different designs, and if it means more transforming toys, that might possibly be of good/high quality, then I believe everybody wins in that scenario.  Just my $.02

Twich

[Thom]

Let us just imagine what Harmony Gold could have done decades ago if they had just used their money and resources to make an original sci fi series or movie. They didn't have to run Robotech into the ground with a sledgehammer but instead could have used it as a spring board for a multitude of other projects not related to Robocross at all! Could have had transforming fighters, a massive hero ship with an ancient legacy, rampaging aliens and a heart-wrenching love... but they just decided to keep trying to suck from the Macross teat. 

[Chronocidal]

Me, every time this thread resurfaces:

 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

Let us just imagine what Harmony Gold could have done decades ago if they had just used their money and resources to make an original sci fi series or movie.

I mean, we've seen what they can do when they try and it's pretty damned cringeworthy...

Spoiler

 

But IMO it's unlikely they'd have done any better with original animation as they managed to do with Robotech.  Not only is Macross a tough act to follow, as the creators of Genesis Climber MOSPEADA and Southern Cross learned the hard way, but if the Italian court system is correct failure was Harmony Gold's objective.  Prosecutors in Italy alleged that HG was one of several companies set up as part of a tax evasion scheme involving trading film rights between shell companies at inflated prices.  They prosecuted Frank Agrama for it twice, and actually got a conviction the first time. 

 

1 hour ago, Thom said:

They didn't have to run Robotech into the ground with a sledgehammer but instead could have used it as a spring board for a multitude of other projects not related to Robocross at all! Could have had transforming fighters, a massive hero ship with an ancient legacy, rampaging aliens and a heart-wrenching love... but they just decided to keep trying to suck from the Macross teat. 

If it were hugely successful, sure... but it wasn't.  It was a middle of the pack performer that did just well enough to consider a movie and a new season, but not well enough to fund either project properly or hire outside talent to develop new material.  Even for those, they were trying to build on the one part of the series their audience overwhelming preferred (Macross) until Tatsunoko told them "You can't do that".  The talent and the money were just never there.

[Thom]

@Seto Kaiba Even more reason not to care about anything concerning Harmony Gold.

[pengbuzz]

On 6/11/2023 at 8:21 AM, electric indigo said:

Another post from Col Price, this time he confirmed the RT background.

 

With all the times this has popped back up then gone away, would it be fair to say that "the RT movie" now qualifies more as zombie apocalypse horror than it would sci-fi/ anime?

[Big s]

56 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

With all the times this has popped back up then gone away, would it be fair to say that "the RT movie" now qualifies more as zombie apocalypse horror than it would sci-fi/ anime?

Yes

[electric indigo]

Col Price released more art:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OGPg3b

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/vDm04A

[gmoney]

Here are some concept work from Sony regarding their "Robotech"/Macross movie that was canceled.
What could have been...
https://kotaku.com/robotech-macross-movie-canceled-concept-art-live-action-1850546078

[jenius]

So Sony must have been convinced they could get BW to buy-in somehow because that definitely looks more like "live action Macross" than it has any business in doing. Honestly, I'm sure Sony could have, they certainly have the means. Maybe release it in Japan as TLA Macross via the reverse Robotech treatment. 

[Mommar]

The balance in shapes on those fighters is terrible.

[TangledThorns]

I'm wondering if all the artwork is based on a script?? If so, I'd love to read whats in it!

[azrael]

3 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

I'm wondering if all the artwork is based on a script?? If so, I'd love to read whats in it!

It's likely based of a treatment (essentially a summary of the film with all the key plots, character descriptions, etc. which is usually the first step in a screenplay, or when pitching to a studio for funding).

[Knight26]

None of this artwork feels real to me.  The SDF-1 is always at some odd angle, bits blended together and it is never shown in robot mode, then the fighters, just terrible, again no battroid mode and the fighters are horrid kitbashes.  It stinks of AI art or bad fan art.