Vintage Fanboy Posted May 2, 2023 Posted May 2, 2023 .. currently i'm following SDF (one eps., each night) and as i've been delved into it, this curioisity emerged; what Harmony Gold gonna do from here (as the IP dispute is (totally) resolved).. are they gonna "adopt" the rest of Macross series from SDF onward; making tremendous changes within each series? (character names, mechanical names, etc.) And are they gonna mix each series with another (totally) different IP to fit into particular target audiences too? (Let's say, maybe, mixing Macross Plus with Evangelion or this or that, and thus change the entire IP main line),.. .. the way i see, Harmony Gold did to is so pretty screwed up, unfixable, and it's very understandable if some (if not many) fans were getting so annoyed with.. it's as if they adopted Spider-Man and changed (almost the entire character names) and mix the IP with, let's say, Pacific Rim or .. 😂 for whatever reasons.. Honestly, i was born in the early 90's, and my very first is ZERO, for many, it's not even among the best, but however, it is part of my growing up and left me with permanent impressions that would last my lifetime. And yeah, will be felt pretty screw up if Harmony Gold adopt it into Robotech Zero, making many changes, and (especially if) mix it with another totally different IP.. i know that for many, "Robotech" is also part of their growing up, well ok, .. but i personally felt like with "Robotech" they disrespected / dishonored the SDF IP creators, fairly speaking.. No offense to anyone here,..
sketchley Posted May 2, 2023 Posted May 2, 2023 18 minutes ago, Vintage Fanboy said: .. currently i'm following SDF (one eps., each night) and as i've been delved into it, this curioisity emerged; what Harmony Gold gonna do from here (as the IP dispute is (totally) resolved).. are they gonna "adopt" the rest of Macross series from SDF onward; making tremendous changes within each series? (character names, mechanical names, etc.) (...) I'm not fully privy to all the details (I don't think anyone is outside of the people who actually signed the contract), but my understanding is that HG has the distribution rights of Macross outside of Japan solely for the SDFM TV series. If they want to deal with any of the other parts of Macross, they have to negotiate a separate contract. At the present time, it looks like Big West is directly selling to the international (= outside of Japan) market.
Seto Kaiba Posted May 2, 2023 Posted May 2, 2023 9 hours ago, Vintage Fanboy said: .. currently i'm following SDF (one eps., each night) and as i've been delved into it, this curioisity emerged; what Harmony Gold gonna do from here (as the IP dispute is (totally) resolved).. are they gonna "adopt" the rest of Macross series from SDF onward; making tremendous changes within each series? (character names, mechanical names, etc.) And are they gonna mix each series with another (totally) different IP to fit into particular target audiences too? (Let's say, maybe, mixing Macross Plus with Evangelion or this or that, and thus change the entire IP main line),.. Almost certainly not. We have a pretty good idea what's in Harmony Gold USA's license agreement with Tatsunoko Production Co. Ltd. thanks to that license being the cornerstone of SO MANY lawsuits and threats of same against companies like FASA, Catalyst Game Labs, and Hasbro. All they have is the film distribution and merchandising rights to the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series (excl. Japan), and the merchandising rights to Macross: Do You Remember Love? (excl. Japan) but not the distribution rights. In order to do the kind of thing you talked about here, they would need to secure licenses to every title they intended to use and for that specific purpose. Mind you, the main reason they don't do dubs like Robotech's anymore is because it's WAY more expensive than just doing a normal dub and exponentially more expensive than just doing accurate subtitles. The only reason it got a pass back then was because, for a time, it was believed that audiences would find Japanese cultural references offensively foreign. The practice was already being abandoned by a lot of the distribution industry around the time Robotech was made, and was largely a bad memory by the early 90's. Nowadays, that kind of dubbing is considered something like a crime... Cost aside, it's also very safe bet they're not going to do that because Harmony Gold USA gave up on further development of the Robotech animated series back in 2007. Creative director Tommy Yune had to make a lot of promises to get the ~$1M budget to make Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, and one of those promises he made was that subsequent installments would be funded by investors attracted by the OVA's pilot. The pilot episode was an unqualified disaster, not only failing to make Robotech relevant to modern anime viewers but bombing miserably with Robotech fans too. The promised investors never materialized, and Harmony Gold USA has since been basically refusing to fund any further development themselves. They tried to get fans to do it with a Kickstarter for a new series pilot in 2014, but the tasteless marketing and poor quality of the pitch and the teasers they put together saw them hastily cancel the campaign a few days early to save face when it became clear that the campaign was going to fail with not even 40% of its pledge goal. In 2019, Harmony Gold USA licensed control of the Robotech animated series to Funimation... effectively abandoning it. What Harmony Gold USA's own staff have had to say about the plans for the franchise's future is that those plans revolve pretty much exclusively around the proposed live action movie. Initially, the claim was that they were waiting for the live action movie in order to crosspromote it with Shadow Chronicles, but after they admitted that RTSC got cancelled back in '07 the focus has been 100% on the live action movie. The goal is simple: a hard reboot of Robotech as a whole using the proposed live action movie as the starting point for a new Robotech universe and story unhindered by the legal baggage dogging the old animated series. Whether they intend to outright abandon the animation after that or the animated series will continue to stagnate into infinity so they can hang onto the trademark on the word "Macross" in order to collect a trickle of revenue from Big West's worldwide releases of Macross sequels is unclear.
Bolt Posted May 2, 2023 Posted May 2, 2023 10 hours ago, Vintage Fanboy said: .. currently i'm following SDF (one eps., each night) and as i've been delved into it, this curioisity emerged; what Harmony Gold gonna do from here (as the IP dispute is (totally) resolved).. are they gonna "adopt" the rest of Macross series from SDF onward; making tremendous changes within each series? (character names, mechanical names, etc.) And are they gonna mix each series with another (totally) different IP to fit into particular target audiences too? (Let's say, maybe, mixing Macross Plus with Evangelion or this or that, and thus change the entire IP main line),.. Don't think there's a future for animation projects there. Especially not cobbled together like RT was originally. I just don't see where the money would come from. Its just a live action dream for HG and the RT fans. That's all that's left. Meanwhile , Macross will continue to grow and produce content and be recognized as a long standing and successful franchise. Personally, I think there's Zero chance ( pun intended) that RT will merge or combine with any other Macross story. Those doors are sealed and welded. 10 hours ago, Vintage Fanboy said: Honestly, i was born in the early 90's, and my very first is ZERO, for many, it's not even among the best, but however, it is part of my growing up and left me with permanent impressions that would last my lifetime. Zero is an awesome OVA , and has some epic mecha action. For some , Zero and Plus are the best. And for some, it's still DYRL?..
jvmacross Posted May 2, 2023 Posted May 2, 2023 HG should just ditch the "Robotech" story and just release it as an anthology....the "Macross Saga" would then just be entirely based on the original story presented in SDFM....perhaps just keeping the "Robotech" character and mecha names....Southern Cross and Mospeada can branch out into their own thing or just die out.... BW says they would not stand in the way of a "Robotech" movie...so would that mean a "Robotech" as we now it...or a rebooted Robotech true to the original Japanese storylines?
Bolt Posted May 2, 2023 Posted May 2, 2023 I can only imagine the movie would only bear some resemblance to Robowreck. But otherwise be very different. And probably be even further from Macross. 🤷 A re-branding of sorts.
jvmacross Posted May 3, 2023 Posted May 3, 2023 32 minutes ago, Thom said: When I want to watch Macross, I just watch Macross... But what if you would like to watch a live-action SDFM...based on SDFM mecha and characters? Perhaps we just wait until someone just creates one via AI-generated visuals for fun...
Bolt Posted May 3, 2023 Posted May 3, 2023 26 minutes ago, jvmacross said: But what if you would like to watch a live-action SDFM...based on SDFM mecha and characters? Perhaps we just wait until someone just creates one via AI-generated visuals for fun... At this rate, inevitable. And not so far off. Otherwise, translating anime to live action is not always great. Still might be cool though..
Thom Posted May 3, 2023 Posted May 3, 2023 57 minutes ago, jvmacross said: But what if you would like to watch a live-action SDFM...based on SDFM mecha and characters? Perhaps we just wait until someone just creates one via AI-generated visuals for fun... What I really want is for the original series to be entirely visually redone. Leave the voices and sound and songs, just update the visuals.
Seto Kaiba Posted May 3, 2023 Posted May 3, 2023 5 hours ago, Bolt said: I can only imagine the movie would only bear some resemblance to Robowreck. But otherwise be very different. And probably be even further from Macross. 🤷 A re-branding of sorts. Per HG, the movie in question was/is intended to be a reimagining of Robotech as a whole... a clean slate with no ties to previous works.
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