New Macross Animation Announced, to be animated by Sunrise

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, Xenon said:

The core elements of the franchise (love triangle, conflict, singers/idols) need to be re-balanced badly, especially the singers/idols. I'm not suggesting we get rid of the concept entirely, but we need to focus less on it. SDFM/DYRL got the balance mostly right; M+ got the balance beautifully (and also completely subverted it, which was a pro move); M7 balanced it mostly okay, but the writing was on the wall; M0 skipped the idol concept (but not the music concept) entirely, and was perhaps too gritty; MF and MΔ just went way, way, way too far in idol territory. I would very much like to back to a proper space opera again with a well-rounded approach to what makes Macross what it is, is what I'm saying.

As noted on several previous posts, pronouncements like this tend to be very much at odds with the vast majority of the Macross fandom's views... and what the creators have had to say about what makes Macross what it is.

In fact, it's Macross Frontier that the vast majority of fans hold up as Macross's finest hour and Macross 7 is frequently considered the essence of what Macross is and the second highest rated series behind Frontier.  If they're aiming to satisfy the Japanese audience first, a new series is going to take a lot more from Frontier, 7, and Delta than it ever will from Plus or Zero.

 

7 hours ago, Xenon said:

• On the back of the above, and related to it, I'd be keen to have a bit more of a 'mature' Macross on the next pass, and less tweeny-goofy — though not necessarily gritty, Gundam-stylee. M0 went in that direction, and it was a bit too heavy at times. That scene during the bombardment of the village, where the crying child is holding their dead parent's hand as everything explodes and burns around them? Yeah, that was a gut-punch I didn't need.

It might be worth noting at this point that Macross has always tried to be on the lighthearted side, and the primary audience is teenagers.

 

7 hours ago, Xenon said:

• What I would like to see, though, is a story that focusses on the adventures of Megaroad-01. It's been the biggest elephant in the room since Flashback 2012 (an elephant of Studio Nue's own creation, given they were adamant Macross was done after FB2012. This is on them), going largely un-addressed until MΔ, except in vague allusions. It's only in MΔ:AL that we started getting a bit more concrete info. At the same time, I also got the feeling MΔ:AL was kind of setting that story up, somehow. So, let's do it. Let's go back to 2012, and see what Misa, Hikaru, Minmei & Co got up to. And, to me, it makes sense to tell this story: without it, M+, M7, MF, MΔ (and, to some extent, M0, but for different reasons) wouldn't exist. If they play their cards right, the story could span the time from their launch all the way to MΔ:AL. It'd be a great opportunity for addtional, new world-building, too. I know Hikaru's voice actor sadly passed away years ago, but I'd be absolutely OK with re-casting him.

Now we know for a fact that we're not going to get that for a couple different reasons.

Some folks who grew up with The Show That Must Not Be Named are hung up on Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay... but in Macross, their story ended with Flash Back 2012.  They sailed off into the metaphorical sunset.  After that point, the Megaroad-01 is nothing more than a footnote in the history of mankind's subsequent emigration into space and has no real bearing on, or relevance to, any subsequent event until Absolute Live!!!!!!... and even that's only alleged.  The Megaroad-01 sailed for four uneventful years before contact was lost abruptly in 2016 and she was never heard from again.  The New UN Government wrote her off as destroyed in a fold accident.  In-story, it's one of those minor mysteries that the occasional odd bird gets obsessed with but the general public couldn't care less about.  The main reason Minmay's still a pop culture icon is because her story has been twisted and exaggerated by fifty years of pop fiction dramatizations after her disappearance.

There's no story to tell there, because it's four years of uneventfully cruising the void between fold jumps before...

Spoiler

... getting stuck in a fold fault for fifty-two years and counting.

There must be some time shenanigans going on there, because they should probably all be long dead after running out of food, water, and fuel.  Even now, they're probably at the point where the recycled water is starting to taste a bit too much like Dutch lager.  

But they're also not going to tell the story because, as part of their distribution agreement with a certain US-based firm, they've agreed not to include the original series characters in future works.  Odds are they'll sweep the whole "Lady M" thing under the rug or it'll turn out to be someone coincidentally using the same frequency.

 

7 hours ago, Xenon said:

• Now, listen: I love Max and Milia. You love Max and Milia. Everyone loves Max and Milia. But, I really don't need them or their various progeny to turn up everywhere. So, unless there's a very good reason for the Jenius clan to turn up (I could see them having a part to play in a Megaroad-01 story, for example), I'm more than happy to move on from them.

If we're being fair, they've only technically turned up three times in animation... and even Max's inclusion in Absolute Live!!!!!! was a substitution for the character they wanted to have but couldn't becuase the voice actor passed away between films and was thus demoted to "permanently offscreen" along with his ship.

That said, it's not surprising Max's descendants would be cropping up in places.  He raised eight kids (seven his, one adopted) and most or all of them have had children of their own by 2068... one of whom is Mirage.  With all the emigrant ships flying every which way and so many kids and grandkids in play, it's likely there's a Jenius for every corner of the galaxy and the family IS kind of military royalty.

 

7 hours ago, Xenon said:

• Also, whilst we're talking about story, let's lower the stakes. Not everything needs to be about world/universe-ending badness. So, so, so much of modern sci-fi and fantasy is about something cataclysmic, from Marvel to Star Trek: Discovery (spit) to Macross, and beyond. It's exhausting. Stop it. Magnificent, epic stories can be told even when the stakes are much lower (why, hello there, Macross Plus).

I'm with you on that one, believe me... but Macross doesn't typically do that either.  The original series had the end of A world and 7 did threaten the galaxy... but by in large the stakes are much lower in the other titles.  The closest we've really gotten outside of those is the prospect of societal change to adopt a human hive mind that will theoretically free humanity from internal conflict and create the harmonious existence the Protoculture desired.  They did that one TWICE (Frontier and Delta).  

 

 

5 hours ago, TG Remix said:

You know different (and scathing takes) aside, I'm not sure why so many people think just because Sunrise is going to make the new series that means its going to be more like Gundam (Whatever that means at this point, there's been nearly 4 and a half decades worth of the franchise and I've learned the name means completely different things to other people.)

TBH, it's a running joke in the fan community.

There's always That Guy in threads like this who wants a dark, gritty, action-focused war story about Destroids fighting a ground war.  If you think about it, a dark, gritty, depressing land war story featuring exclusively ground-bound mecha is a description fit for most any Gundam series.

 

5 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Also the last time Macross became more "Gundam" we got Macross II, which other then the occasional reference and inclusion in the Macross Chronicle books has never been that referential in Kawamori's stuff. And for all you can say about 7, Frontier, and Delta's writing they certainly weren't boring compared to II.

There are easter eggs referencing it here and there... but they're subtle, unless it's Mikimoto's work where he hangs them out for all to see.

[talonlm]

On 8/10/2023 at 6:41 AM, pengbuzz said:

Guess Metamucil only goes so far...

That and high-G maneuvers will cause their own, non-age-related physiological problems . . . 💩

[Vepariga]

SDF Macross is undoubtedly a foundation for many and I love it dearly but in all honesty, Frontier took it all to another level and balanced very well and basically revived Macross to the forefront for years. Still to this day one of my all time favourite episodes is from Frontier.

If Sunrise take the DNA of Frontier then I think we are all on track for a good run.

[Raikkonen]

On 8/16/2023 at 8:25 AM, Vepariga said:

SDF Macross is undoubtedly a foundation for many and I love it dearly but in all honesty, Frontier took it all to another level and balanced very well and basically revived Macross to the forefront for years. Still to this day one of my all time favourite episodes is from Frontier.

If Sunrise take the DNA of Frontier then I think we are all on track for a good run.

Frontier had good aspects to it albeit some cringy moments, but please, no more bugs as the cannon antagonist, scale down the over the top finales, and no more SDF's types surfing into battle (like in the second movie version). 

 

[kajnrig]

11 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

please ... no more SDF's types surfing into battle (like in the second movie version). 

Why even live then?

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

[...] scale down the over the top finales, and no more SDF's types surfing into battle (like in the second movie version). 

Hell no, this is Macross... when a series ends, it should end as stylishly as possible.

And the Macross Quarter surfing a fragment of Island-1's armored shell down into the Vajra planet's atmosphere was ****ing awesome, how dare you. 😛 

[SebastianP]

On 8/15/2023 at 12:31 PM, Xenon said:

Uff. I'm really not sure what to think about Sunrise doing the next Macross. I was really, really very late to the Gundam party (it didn't broadcast in eastern Canada, where I grew up, so I missed it then), and actually didn't start watching it until this year. Without wanting to turn this into a Gundam slag-fest ... it's definitely not for me. The original series is a really tough, meandering slog that doesn't believe in good pacing or character development, and Zeta Gundam didn't improve this in the least. I ended up bailing out on it three quarters of the way through Zeta.

My point being that if Sunrise adopt Gundam-style storytelling for Macross, then we're in trouble. Well, not us, but the Macross franchise certainly would be. It's just not a good fit, in my opinion.

Others have already pointed most of this out, but - the early stuff made in the 70s and 80s are a tiny fraction of the whole, and Gundam is a far vaster franchise that went in a lot more directions than "easily depressed director tries to make serious war story while sponsors try to milk it for as many toy robot sales a possible". Mostly by replacing the easily depressed director. If you want the *creator's* definitive version of Gundam and Zeta Gundam, try the compilation movies. They're a much shorter time investment because they cut so much sponsor-mandated filler.

With regard to rebalancing the triangle - remember that the OVAs (Macross+ and Macross0) are niche content in Japan, while all the shows aired on TV and saw a much broader audience. The TV shows are what Macross *is*. And rebalancing the formula to de-prioritize the music and the singers is never in a bazillion years happening, because the music is where the sponsors make their money. 

Neither an SDF remake nor a Megaroad-01 story are really on the table, because Kawamori is against recasting characters because their voice actors are dead, and several of the original Macross cast are gone. (The games have recast some of them, but that's a different thing.)

And the reason we see so much of Max is because his voice actor *really* likes his role, and is very likely good friends with Kawamori, given how much they *have* worked together on that character. Hence why the family featured heavily in two TV shows, had one game to themselves, were again featured heavily in a second video game, and now Max is headlining a third game after jumping in as a substitute in Zettai Live. 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Others have already pointed most of this out, but - the early stuff made in the 70s and 80s are a tiny fraction of the whole, and Gundam is a far vaster franchise that went in a lot more directions than "easily depressed director tries to make serious war story while sponsors try to milk it for as many toy robot sales a possible". Mostly by replacing the easily depressed director.

Even so, the Gundam franchise is thematically pessimistic where Macross is optimistic and as a result of its particular pessimistic bent all but a select few of its installments tend to be significantly darker.  So much so that quite a few (even post-Tomino) could unjokingly be referred to as "misery porn".  

That, of course, being the reason that the traditional response to the occasional wish for a "dark, gritty Macross" is "Gundam already exists".

 

2 hours ago, SebastianP said:

With regard to rebalancing the triangle - remember that the OVAs (Macross+ and Macross0) are niche content in Japan, while all the shows aired on TV and saw a much broader audience. The TV shows are what Macross *is*. And rebalancing the formula to de-prioritize the music and the singers is never in a bazillion years happening, because the music is where the sponsors make their money. 

Not just that, but the whole concept of music as communication being what saves the day is one of Macross's most central themes to the extent that Macross is "the one with the idols".  They're unlikely to de-emphasize one of the franchise's signature traits.  The same for the obligatory love triangle.  If there's one aspect they've been willing to shed, it's the space warfare angle... as in Macross Plus and Macross the Musiculture.

 

2 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Neither an SDF remake nor a Megaroad-01 story are really on the table, because Kawamori is against recasting characters because their voice actors are dead, and several of the original Macross cast are gone. (The games have recast some of them, but that's a different thing.)

Not just that, but also it's apparently a stipulation of the global distribution agreement that they put the OG Macross characters behind them in future works.

[pengbuzz]

If they want "dark and gritty", they can always imagine being a survivor of the orbital bombardment that devastated the earth in SFDM.

[DownIsUp]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Even so, the Gundam franchise is thematically pessimistic where Macross is optimistic and as a result of its particular pessimistic bent all but a select few of its installments tend to be significantly darker.  So much so that quite a few (even post-Tomino) could unjokingly be referred to as "misery porn".  

While I do think that Macross is a much more overtly optimistic story and probably is in large part a response to the kind of storytelling the spawned from Gundam, I feel like reducing Gundam to pessimistic misery pounds is a bit reductive. For all that Tomino is known by his kill-em-all nickname, he's never ever lost sight of the hope and need for a better future. Hell even Ideon, the story that ends with literally the entire universe dying, ends on a hopeful note of future rebuilding. It's why I think Gundam and Macross compliment each other so well. Macross is the fulfillment of every Gundam show's hope for a better future. Instead of the dream constantly fighting against being smothered by the machine of war and society, Macross exists in a world where we get to see that dream fulfilled. Sorry if this is a little tangential, I just think both series complement each other really well.

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, DownIsUp said:

While I do think that Macross is a much more overtly optimistic story and probably is in large part a response to the kind of storytelling the spawned from Gundam, I feel like reducing Gundam to pessimistic misery pounds is a bit reductive. For all that Tomino is known by his kill-em-all nickname, he's never ever lost sight of the hope and need for a better future. [...] Macross is the fulfillment of every Gundam show's hope for a better future. Instead of the dream constantly fighting against being smothered by the machine of war and society, Macross exists in a world where we get to see that dream fulfilled.

Don't get me wrong, you're making a good point here... but there are some recurring themes and plot points that undermine it a bit.

Despite frequently using wars and minor armed conflicts as a backdrop for its stories, Macross is a fundamentally upbeat and optimistic series.  In Macross, there are no real "bad guys".  That is to say, both sides of any given conflict in Macross are typically good people doing what they believe is right and necessary and the conflict stems from the failure to communicate and understand each other.  That failure to communicate is always ultimately transcended (typically by music) and in the end the two sides come out of the conflict ready to pursue a lasting peace instead.  None of the antagonists are "evil" or hurting people for the lulz... they're motivated by fear (Zentradi, Mardook), desperation (Protodeviln), the anxiety of a rapidly-changing world (Anti-Unification Alliance), the desire to protect their own kind (the Vajra), trauma (Havamal, Windermere), or a desire to save as many lives as possible and uplift all of humanity (Galaxy, Heimdall).  When the dust settles, yesterday's enemy is usually tomorrow's friend.  Macross, essentially, is an argument that war is unnecessary.

The reason we joke that "if you want a dark and gritty Macross, go watch Gundam" is that Gundam is fundamentally a depressing and pessimistic series.  With the exception of the toy-centric Gundam Build series, Gundam's "War is Hell" message ultimately means that in most stories there are no "good guys".  The leadership on both sides is all but inevitably thoroughly infested with complete arseholes motivated by the various "-isms": racism, classism, nationalism, and so on.  It varies, but the war in any given Gundam series typically borders on unprovoked aggression or just outright revenge for some past slight (whether real or imagined).  The protaginists are typically associated with the side that is callous, but at least pretends to care about its people, while the antagonists vary from punch clock villains to murderous psychopaths to genocidal madmen.  But what REALLY makes it misery porn is that Gundam makes no bones about the fact that humanity learns no lasting lessons from any of the wars and that history will continue to repeat itself even after their genocidal despot du jour is defeated.  Not just in terms of tediously fighting the same war with the same people forevermore like in the UC, but in broader terms too.  That's the essence of Gundam's Black History:

Spoiler

That most, if not all, of the franchise's eras belong to a single timeline where humanity advances into space, wages endless wars with itself, then some jerk unearths a MS with the Moonlight Butterfly and sends civilization back to the stone age so humanity can do it all over again a few thousand years later.  No matter how happy the ending is, there's a happy ending override just waiting in the wings either in the form of a sequel or just the inevitable reset of history.  The only ones who don't have to go through that are the handful of humans who've fled from the solar system in generation ships (like Judau Ashta) and maybe the people of the Reguild Century if it truly takes place after the Correct Century.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Don't get me wrong, you're making a good point here... but there are some recurring themes and plot points that undermine it a bit.

Despite frequently using wars and minor armed conflicts as a backdrop for its stories, Macross is a fundamentally upbeat and optimistic series.  In Macross, there are no real "bad guys".  That is to say, both sides of any given conflict in Macross are typically good people doing what they believe is right and necessary and the conflict stems from the failure to communicate and understand each other.  That failure to communicate is always ultimately transcended (typically by music) and in the end the two sides come out of the conflict ready to pursue a lasting peace instead.  None of the antagonists are "evil" or hurting people for the lulz... they're motivated by fear (Zentradi, Mardook), desperation (Protodeviln), the anxiety of a rapidly-changing world (Anti-Unification Alliance), the desire to protect their own kind (the Vajra), trauma (Havamal, Windermere), or a desire to save as many lives as possible and uplift all of humanity (Galaxy, Heimdall).  When the dust settles, yesterday's enemy is usually tomorrow's friend.  Macross, essentially, is an argument that war is unnecessary.

The reason we joke that "if you want a dark and gritty Macross, go watch Gundam" is that Gundam is fundamentally a depressing and pessimistic series.  With the exception of the toy-centric Gundam Build series, Gundam's "War is Hell" message ultimately means that in most stories there are no "good guys".  The leadership on both sides is all but inevitably thoroughly infested with complete arseholes motivated by the various "-isms": racism, classism, nationalism, and so on.  It varies, but the war in any given Gundam series typically borders on unprovoked aggression or just outright revenge for some past slight (whether real or imagined).  The protaginists are typically associated with the side that is callous, but at least pretends to care about its people, while the antagonists vary from punch clock villains to murderous psychopaths to genocidal madmen.  But what REALLY makes it misery porn is that Gundam makes no bones about the fact that humanity learns no lasting lessons from any of the wars and that history will continue to repeat itself even after their genocidal despot du jour is defeated.  Not just in terms of tediously fighting the same war with the same people forevermore like in the UC, but in broader terms too.  That's the essence of Gundam's Black History:

  Hide contents

That most, if not all, of the franchise's eras belong to a single timeline where humanity advances into space, wages endless wars with itself, then some jerk unearths a MS with the Moonlight Butterfly and sends civilization back to the stone age so humanity can do it all over again a few thousand years later.  No matter how happy the ending is, there's a happy ending override just waiting in the wings either in the form of a sequel or just the inevitable reset of history.  The only ones who don't have to go through that are the handful of humans who've fled from the solar system in generation ships (like Judau Ashta) and maybe the people of the Reguild Century if it truly takes place after the Correct Century.

So basically, Macross is Just Miscommunication and Gundam is Bleep You, Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Right?

[JB0]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

With the exception of the toy-centric Gundam Build series,

And also G Gundam! War can be ended with a suitably-impressive martial arts tournament!

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

So basically, Macross is Just Miscommunication and Gundam is Bleep You, Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Right?

Yeah, conflicts in Macross typically end with the realization that the fighting was unnecessary and a move towards peace... or at least mutual tolerance.  Even the Unification Wars, which were the closest Macross has come to a Gundam-style civil war, ended not with the destruction of the Anti-Unification Alliance or the imprisonment of its leadership... but in a "This isn't what we're fighting for" Heel Realization by the Alliance's backers after the Alliance soldiers perpetrated several notorious massacres.  Macross believes that people... even when they're space kaiju, giant bugs, or tentacle-headed feudalists... are inherently good.

Conflicts in Gundam typically end with one side being effectively wiped out, the survivors either resorting to terrorism or being imprisoned for treating the Geneva Conventions like a war crimes checklist, and a restoration of the inevitably horrid sociopolitical status quo ante replete with discrimination and overt bigotry because humanity never ****ing learns anything ever.  Gundam believes that people are inherently arseholes.

There's so much dark, depressing fiction out there that I'm really glad that Macross continues to take the high road and believe in a better, more hopeful future.  We need more of that in our media these days.  Hopefully Sunrise won't dilute that any.   

 

1 hour ago, JB0 said:

And also G Gundam! War can be ended with a suitably-impressive martial arts tournament!

It's easy to forget becuase it's tarted up with cheesy national stereotypes and over-the-top martial arts nonsense... but the Future Century is nearly as hellish as many of Gundam's other eras.

Spoiler

Future Century Earth is a massive ghetto inhabited by the people who either can't afford to, or aren't wanted in, the colonies.  For their part, the colonies hate each other so much that democracy and diplomacy are all but impossible and instead they fight a year-long proxy war called the Gundam Fight every four years to determine which of the colonies is going to rule all the others for four years until the next proxy war.  The Gundam Fight causes huge amounts of property damage and as well as a fair number of personal injuries and deaths, but because it's Earth the colonies don't have to pay any kind of reparations or take any kind of responsibility.  There are no rules prohibiting fighting in populated areas or endangering civilians, and local authorities are completely powerless to stop them. 

Bear in mind, this was the less horrible option that the colonies agreed to because the alternative was unrestricted space warfare... and despite the "happy" ending from the series, it didn't stop after Domon Kasshu's win in the 13th Gundam Fight.  They held another one 4 years later, and presumably more after that, continuing to destroy Earth's environment and make the lives of its inhabitants hell in a quadrennial spacenoid dick-measuring contest.

 

Edited August 20, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[DownIsUp]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Gundam believes that people are inherently arseholes.

I'd make the distinction that Gundam recognizes it's not the people who are bad, but the systems they belong to are rotten to the core. Especially when it comes to the UC which goes out of its way to show that while there's a-holes on both sides there's just as much good, with frequent examples of Zeon characters just being general stand up guys when they're not trying to kill our protagonists.

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

There's so much dark, depressing fiction out there that I'm really glad that Macross continues to take the high road and believe in a better, more hopeful future.

Again though, I'll concede that Macross approaches that on a fundamentally different level. With the exception of Grace/the Galaxy gang Macross doesn't really have villains in the same vein as the super-fascists that Gundam usually falls back on. That the most evil Macross villain is a cyborg Verizon saleswoman come abusive manager, while the most evil Gundam villain is space napolehitler says something. I think the biggest difference is Macross believes in a better future for humanity as a whole, while Gundam believes that people will always be good, even if we don't always understand each other. Thanks for the discussion, all this talk about Gundam and Macross makes me wanna rewatch 0079 and SDF. It also makes me super excited for the future of the franchise. Can't wait for the discussions everyone's gonna have when the new show comes out.

[SebastianP]

55 minutes ago, DownIsUp said:

Again though, I'll concede that Macross approaches that on a fundamentally different level. With the exception of Grace/the Galaxy gang Macross doesn't really have villains in the same vein as the super-fascists that Gundam usually falls back on. That the most evil Macross villain is a cyborg Verizon saleswoman come abusive manager, while the most evil Gundam villain is space napolehitler says something. I think the biggest difference is Macross believes in a better future for humanity as a whole, while Gundam believes that people will always be good, even if we don't always understand each other. Thanks for the discussion, all this talk about Gundam and Macross makes me wanna rewatch 0079 and SDF. It also makes me super excited for the future of the franchise. Can't wait for the discussions everyone's gonna have when the new show comes out.

Wasn't Macross basically written as a reaction to Gundam and Yamato? There's a bunch of elements to the original Macross story which kind of feel like big "take that!" moments aimed at both Gundam and Yamato. 

Like, in Gundam you *could* say "Amuro wins because superior robot to anyone else", at least in the beginning. The Gundam is special - not to the point of a Super Robot, but it's certainly not standard issue, and Gundam was supposed to be a "serious war story", not a Super Robot show. In Macross, the only thing truly special about Fokker's VF-1S is the paint job, it does not explicitly have better performance than the rest (also, Max is the superior pilot.)

Also, Yamato's crew had one named female character, and she's shown being a nurse, doing laundry, cooking, and what have you (and she's the only one doing those things, IIRC). Macross has five women out of six named characters on the bridge, and they're all giving orders. (one of the *major* changes to SBY2199 was the inclusion of many more female characters in different roles, including combat roles.). 

[Xenon]

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

[...] in Gundam you *could* say "Amuro wins because superior robot to anyone else", at least in the beginning.

I think I have to disagree with you a bit, here. To me, it was always clear from the beginning that "Amuro always wins, because Amuro is the archetypical precocious, mopey teenager who can inexplicably master advanced military hardware like it's no-one's business.*" And, wouldn't you know it, he turns out to be a rare example of an evolved human with heightened abilities.

Although, in connection with your central contention that Macross was written to be some sort of reaction to Gundam and Yamato (was it really? Source?), one could most certainly argue that Hikaru was almost everything Amuro wasn't. He wasn't particularly mopey, no especially remarkable natural 'talents' (except getting himself into trouble, largely thanks to his big mouth), and certainly was not precocious by any means — indeed, he made a real dog's dinner of his first (involuntary) sortie in the VF-1D, hardly telegraphing his future creditable standing as a UN Spacy pilot.

And, actually, it's an interesting dynamic in SDFM that the main hero of the story (Hikaru) isn't all that special at what he does — unlike his supporting-character subordinate Max, who pretty much shows up his boss every time he sits in his bird.

 

*As much as I really like Frontier, this was my big gripe with it. We don't just have one precocious teenager, no. We've got three of them! They should have re-named their unit Mary Sue Squadron. Also, do Child Protection Services not exist in anime? Seriously, this just shows bad frakking parenting is absolutely endemic in mecha anime.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Xenon

[Xenon]

On 8/18/2023 at 11:20 AM, Raikkonen said:

no more SDF's types surfing into battle

Amen.

Should we change the expression 'jumped the shark' accordingly?

[JB0]

49 minutes ago, Xenon said:

indeed, he made a real dog's dinner of his first (involuntary) sortie in the VF-1D, hardly telegraphing his future creditable standing as a UN Spacy pilot.

Well, yeah. Amuro read the instruction manual first, Hikaru didn't have one.

[Xenon]

52 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Well, yeah. Amuro read the instruction manual first, Hikaru didn't have one.

True, that!

[Bolt]

4 hours ago, JB0 said:

Well, yeah. Amuro read the instruction manual first, Hikaru didn't have one.

Loll. Ya, but Hikaru was at least a pilot already.  Granted, he wasn't familiar with a machine with so many options.  Though it's obvious that learning to control a Gerwalk or battroid wasn't intuitive for Hikaru. I'd say Amuro's newtypeness allowed him to rapidly understand and control his Gundam. Luckily it's armor coating and advancements kept him alive long enough to master it. 

Edited August 20, 2023 by Bolt

[Master Dex]

7 hours ago, Xenon said:

Amen.

Should we change the expression 'jumped the shark' accordingly?

Hardly, lol. I love that moment so much and the franchise certainly is no worse for it.

Honestly the best part of that scene, besides that it's just really f-ing cool and fun, is the fact it's an established and named maneuver for the Quarter's crew to perform and they react to the Captain calling for it so nonchalantly that clearly they've done this before.

I find that implication so amusing and it says so much about this crew that it breathes life into the setting at the implied existence of other events as crazy as this one. A one off would be silly for sure, but that they made it a repeatable thing just means they are good at crazy stuff and I love that. 

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, DownIsUp said:

I'd make the distinction that Gundam recognizes it's not the people who are bad, but the systems they belong to are rotten to the core.

That'd be pretty inaccurate to what's in the actual stories, though... the systems are rotten to the core because the people in those systems are rotten to the core.

So much so that one of the recurring points in the ending of various Gundam titles is that lasting institutional change is effectively impossible.

Spoiler

This is, in fact, the entire motivation of Hathaway Noa in Hathaway's Flash, and directly acknowledged in the epilogue of The Witch from Mercury.)

Whereas in Macross, the institutions themselves can be and are reformed in ways that prevent a recurrence of the problem.  For instance, the Second Unification War the led to a major reform of the government and armed forces between the events of Macross 7 and Macross Frontier.

That's the kind of difference I'm talking about.  In Macross, things can and do get better.  There's too much grimdark BS floating around as it is... a lot of it coming from Sunrise itself... we need some aspirational good vibes from the next Macross series, which should be as much a breath of fresh air for Sunrise's staff as it is expected for us.  

 

 

13 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Wasn't Macross basically written as a reaction to Gundam and Yamato? There's a bunch of elements to the original Macross story which kind of feel like big "take that!" moments aimed at both Gundam and Yamato.

The co-creators of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series were/are Gundam fans.  The original aim was for a serious space opera, but the project's original sponsor Wiz Corporation (Artmic during a short-lived rebranding attempt) didn't think it would sell and pushed for the project to be a Gundam parody series instead.  The series was briefly developed along those lines until Wiz rebranded back to Artmic and Studio Nue bought the rights back and shopped it around until they found a sponsor willing to develop it as a serious story (Big West).

Kawamori et. al.'s love for Gundam does show up in many places in the original series.  Several of the character designs like Hikaru, Roy, and Quamzin are loosely modeled on the cast of Gundam's original series and various nods to Gundam show up here and there.  The Macross's bridge callsign "Gunsight One" is a nod to the Gundam fanzine published by the Gundam fanclub Kawamori, Mikimoto, and Oonogi belonged to at Keio University, you can see RX-78-2 written on the back of Misa's overhead display, and in one or two shots there's a Haro running around.  It's not a "take that" so much as a "this inspired me, but I'd like to put my own spin on the concept".  

 

 

8 hours ago, Xenon said:

I think I have to disagree with you a bit, here. To me, it was always clear from the beginning that "Amuro always wins, because Amuro is the archetypical precocious, mopey teenager who can inexplicably master advanced military hardware like it's no-one's business.*" And, wouldn't you know it, he turns out to be a rare example of an evolved human with heightened abilities.

The problem is, the series itself would disagree with you there... it's made explicit from the outset that the inexperienced Amuro strikes terror into the Zeon forces because of the specs of the Gundam, not because he's any good.  Far from inexplicably mastering the Gundam, Amuro spends the entirety of his first few battles rummaging around in the suit's operations manual and about the entire first third of the series doing a pretty lackluster job.  It takes him most of the series to come up to the level of a properly trained pilot.

 

8 hours ago, Xenon said:

one could most certainly argue that Hikaru was almost everything Amuro wasn't. He wasn't particularly mopey, no especially remarkable natural 'talents' (except getting himself into trouble, largely thanks to his big mouth), and certainly was not precocious by any means — indeed, he made a real dog's dinner of his first (involuntary) sortie in the VF-1D, hardly telegraphing his future creditable standing as a UN Spacy pilot.

... the series doesn't agree with you there either. It's established right in the first episode that Hikaru is a brilliant stunt pilot and air racer whose skills had won him multiple awards despite being just 16.  He shows up in a custom air racing plane and the first thing he does is steal the show from the UN Spacy's flight demonstration squadron.  What happened on his first outing in a VF-1 is hardly surprising, given that he was a civilian trained for stunt flying in propeller planes being dropped into what is by our standards essentially a 6th Generation jet fighter without any training and then given a flight path directly into an ongoing dogfight.

 

8 hours ago, Xenon said:

And, actually, it's an interesting dynamic in SDFM that the main hero of the story (Hikaru) isn't all that special at what he does — unlike his supporting-character subordinate Max, who pretty much shows up his boss every time he sits in his bird.

... I'm not sure being the second or third-best pilot on a ship big enough to be home to three entire carrier airwings counts as "not all that special".  (Never mind being picked to be the next commander of the most celebrated space fighter squadron in the service.)

 

8 hours ago, Xenon said:

*As much as I really like Frontier, this was my big gripe with it. We don't just have one precocious teenager, no. We've got three of them! They should have re-named their unit Mary Sue Squadron. Also, do Child Protection Services not exist in anime? Seriously, this just shows bad frakking parenting is absolutely endemic in mecha anime.

... would now be a bad time to point out that Alto and Michael are a year older at the start of Frontier than Hikaru and Max were for their respective introductions in the original?

Spoiler

They're also legally adults (the age of majority on Frontier being 17, as established by Ozma) and are attending their third and final year of a vocational school's pilot training program that produces certified pilots for commercial space flight and acts as a sort of prep school for the New UN Forces flight school.  Luca is underage, but it's explicitly stated he's there because of clout both to oversee testing of the VF-25 his family's company codeveloped and to sort of spy on Richard Bilra as a sort of in-plain-sight form of corporate espionage.

Hikaru and Max are both 16 when they're introduced, with the oldest member of Vermilion Platoon being 17 year old Hayao Kakizaki.  Hikaru had years of flight experience, but Max and Kakizaki had a couple hundred hours of simulator time to their names and that was it.  They were very much three precocious teenagers themselves.  It's not clear how Max was able to enlist, but Hikaru was able to because Roy was acting as his guardian.

There is also a certain amount of truth in television to it, since it is actually perfectly possible to join the military while underage as long as you have the consent of a parent or guardian and will be legally an adult by the time you complete training.

 

8 hours ago, Xenon said:

Should we change the expression 'jumped the shark' accordingly?

That's not how that term is used... 

But also, this wouldn't qualify since in order to "jump the shark" it has to be a poorly-received significant and out-of-character change that results in a significant decline in, and the ultimate demise of, a long-running series.  That was a completely in-character and extremely well-received moment from one of the highest-rated Macross titles ever made.  It is the polar opposite of "jumping the shark".  

[Raikkonen]

2 hours ago, Master Dex said:

Hardly, lol. I love that moment so much and the franchise certainly is no worse for it.

Honestly the best part of that scene, besides that it's just really f-ing cool and fun, is the fact it's an established and named maneuver for the Quarter's crew to perform and they react to the Captain calling for it so nonchalantly that clearly they've done this before.

I find that implication so amusing and it says so much about this crew that it breathes life into the setting at the implied existence of other events as crazy as this one. A one off would be silly for sure, but that they made it a repeatable thing just means they are good at crazy stuff and I love that. 

Nopelandia. The scene is a massive tone killer. Things got so wonderfully laid out with engrossing tension from where Ranka+Alto get separated from Sheryl + Ozma, to Grace's last stand, and then suddenly goes stupid with a giant robot surfing while the captain gets off it. 

[pengbuzz]

4 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Nopelandia. The scene is a massive tone killer. Things got so wonderfully laid out with engrossing tension from where Ranka+Alto get separated from Sheryl + Ozma, to Grace's last stand, and then suddenly goes stupid with a giant robot surfing while the captain gets off it. 

Hang 10, dude. In a Battle Fortress.

[SebastianP]

20 hours ago, Xenon said:

Although, in connection with your central contention that Macross was written to be some sort of reaction to Gundam and Yamato (was it really? Source?), one could most certainly argue that Hikaru was almost everything Amuro wasn't. He wasn't particularly mopey, no especially remarkable natural 'talents' (except getting himself into trouble, largely thanks to his big mouth), and certainly was not precocious by any means — indeed, he made a real dog's dinner of his first (involuntary) sortie in the VF-1D, hardly telegraphing his future creditable standing as a UN Spacy pilot.

 

I don't know which show you were watching if you think Hikaru didn't have talent and wasn't precocious - he's an air show pilot since his early teens, he's still sixteen at the start of the show, heck he's still sixteen when he gets promoted to flight lead and given Max and Kakizaki as wingmen (his seventeenth birthday is somewhere around when they're captured by the Zentraedi). At the end of Space War 1, he's still seventeen, and effectively CAG of the whole air wing of the Macross. 

The specific "take that" I'm thinking of as such is Macross' treatment of women. Yamato had one significant female crewmember (Yuki Mori) who starts as the nurse, and then becomes the radar operator, the computer operator, the morale officer, and the food procurement officer. All at the same time.

Macross starts out with *five* named female characters *on the bridge*, giving orders. And it's made clear there are others. Sure, we don't see a lot of female combat pilots (only Milia and the other female Zentraedi in the original), but that reflects reality at the time. 

(Other shows that I'm fairly sure inspired elements of Macross include Blue Noah (AKA Thundersub), which I should really see if I can track down and rewatch. I only saw the dub way back in the 80s.)

 

 

Edited August 21, 2023 by SebastianP

[Raikkonen]

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Hang 10, dude. In a Battle Fortress.

hahahaha, you right... Battle Fortress surfing into battle. 😅 

[SebastianP]

On 8/19/2023 at 8:51 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Despite frequently using wars and minor armed conflicts as a backdrop for its stories, Macross is a fundamentally upbeat and optimistic series.  In Macross, there are no real "bad guys".  That is to say, both sides of any given conflict in Macross are typically good people doing what they believe is right and necessary and the conflict stems from the failure to communicate and understand each other.  That failure to communicate is always ultimately transcended (typically by music) and in the end the two sides come out of the conflict ready to pursue a lasting peace instead.  None of the antagonists are "evil" or hurting people for the lulz... they're motivated by fear (Zentradi, Mardook), desperation (Protodeviln), the anxiety of a rapidly-changing world (Anti-Unification Alliance), the desire to protect their own kind (the Vajra), trauma (Havamal, Windermere), or a desire to save as many lives as possible and uplift all of humanity (Galaxy, Heimdall).  When the dust settles, yesterday's enemy is usually tomorrow's friend.  Macross, essentially, is an argument that war is unnecessary.

 

Macross has plenty of "bad guys", it's just that no species in the whole franchise is "always chaotic evil". Individuals can and have been absolutely terrible with insane motives and no regard for what anyone else thinks but by-and-large, the majority of sapients would avoid fighting if given the option. 

Bodolza feared humanity so much he tried to wipe them out, and was killed for it.

The Galaxy hive mind decided that their vision for humanity trumped everyone else's wishes and went "join the hive mind or die". They wished to end the fighting by ending *humanity*, humanity objected and the hive mind died.

Ushio Todo decided that everyone alive right now (except him!) was less important than whoever he had lost during the Rain of Death and could not be convinced otherwise, and had to be killed to prevent him from wiping everything out and starting over.

Roid Brehm tried the same "join the hivemind or die" thing and *his best friend* went "you're nuts" and killed him. 

Cromwell was going "anything is an acceptable sacrifice if I can just kill 'Lady M' who is the source of all evil despite being out of contact for most of the last fifty years". He was *nuts*. 

Also, evil is as evil does, I suppose. When your methods include "stab everyone else supposedly on your side in the back" it doesn't matter what you think your motive is, you've crossed a line. (Edit: I suppose the exception is if you found out that the organization you worked for was evil and had deceived you, stabbing them in the back is in itself not evil. But neither Mishima, Cromwell, or Todo had that excuse, nor did Galaxy). 

What Macross is showing though is that *as long as both parties are willing to communicate*, and try hard enough, communication will be established and war can be avoided or ended. But whenever someone goes "nah, I'm not going to bother listening to your attempts to communicate because my right to dominate is stronger than your right to free will or life", there's no choice but to mass your forces and kill them before they kill you. 

 

13 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Nopelandia. The scene is a massive tone killer. Things got so wonderfully laid out with engrossing tension from where Ranka+Alto get separated from Sheryl + Ozma, to Grace's last stand, and then suddenly goes stupid with a giant robot surfing while the captain gets off it. 

The tense mood goes away when Ranka starts singing, and everyone gets caught up in *her* mood. Plus, Jeffrey Wilder being a surfer is shown off earlier in the movie when they're at the beach and he's surfing while the others are chatting. 

Also... it's a ship that transforms into a robot, one of the most articulated ones in the entire franchise, of course it's going to show off its agility and this was a fun way to do it that even makes sense in context. 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2023 by SebastianP

[pengbuzz]

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

But also, this wouldn't qualify since in order to "jump the shark" it has to be a poorly-received significant and out-of-character change that results in a significant decline in, and the ultimate demise of, a long-running series.  That was a completely in-character and extremely well-received moment from one of the highest-rated Macross titles ever made.  It is the polar opposite of "jumping the shark".  

More like the shark got jumped.

In all seriousness, that Macross shows that former enemies can become friends is one of the most welcome ideas I've ever encountered, and is one of the things that keeps bringing me back to the franchise.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Macross has plenty of "bad guys", it's just that no species in the whole franchise is "always chaotic evil".

My good chum, you've missed my point completely... and mischaracterized a bunch of the antagonists in question.

The point being made there is that, in Macross, the antagonists are not bad people.  Their methods may be questionable, or even abhorrent by regular Human standards in a few cases, but all of them are trying to do what they believe is right and best for their people.  They're not cruel or malevolent or causing harm because they like hurting people, they're motivated by a desire to survive, by fear, by past trauma, by perceived injustice, or by a desire to prevent a calamity. 

They're not evil, just misguided.

(Sharp contrast to Gundam, where so many antagonists are motivated by ruthless will-to-power, racism, classism, or other beliefs that make other people in some way "lesser" in comparison to themselves.)

 

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

More like the shark got jumped.

Poor shark's probably wondering WTF is going on by this point.

 

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

In all seriousness, that Macross shows that former enemies can become friends is one of the most welcome ideas I've ever encountered, and is one of the things that keeps bringing me back to the franchise.

It's something I hope Macross continues to do.

In much the same way that Strange New Worlds is a breath of fresh air after the relentless depressing darkness of Discovery and Picard, Macross is that much needed optimistic break from the relentless misery of Gundam and so many other titles out there right now that emphasize the negative.  With so much emphasis on how polarized things are these days, a story about how people can bridge divides in worldview and find peace together feels like it's needed more than ever.

[TG Remix]

On 8/15/2023 at 3:37 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

TBH, it's a running joke in the fan community.

There's always That Guy in threads like this who wants a dark, gritty, action-focused war story about Destroids fighting a ground war.  If you think about it, a dark, gritty, depressing land war story featuring exclusively ground-bound mecha is a description fit for most any Gundam series.

Well jokes on them, I'm a certified Gundam X and Turn A enjoyer!😤 That has to count for something out of this entire discussion of Gundam being pessimistic. 

I feel like even with the latter's Dark History in mind there's always a silver lining to it all, a friend put it best to say that Gundam is pessimistic on the systematic level, but optimistic on the personal level; even disregarding this forums opinion on G-Witch its ending was pretty optimistic as well. Really I'm more convinced it's just Universal Century's overarching grasp (And honestly, Zeta's infectious effects on the franchise as a whole) that makes people think that there can't be happy endings in Gundam even though there's many to the contrary, no matter how small or big. 

 

On 8/18/2023 at 5:25 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

On 8/18/2023 at 5:20 AM, Raikkonen said:

[...] scale down the over the top finales, and no more SDF's types surfing into battle (like in the second movie version). 

Hell no, this is Macross... when a series ends, it should end as stylishly as possible.

And the Macross Quarter surfing a fragment of Island-1's armored shell down into the Vajra planet's atmosphere was ****ing awesome, how dare you. 😛 

Ditto, Macross has and always will be over the top in the best of ways, and seeing the Quarter play surf is yet another top contender for that!

 

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The point being made there is that, in Macross, the antagonists are not bad people.  Their methods may be questionable, or even abhorrent by regular Human standards in a few cases, but all of them are trying to do what they believe is right and best for their people.  They're not cruel or malevolent or causing harm because they like hurting people, they're motivated by a desire to survive, by fear, by past trauma, by perceived injustice, or by a desire to prevent a calamity. 

They're not evil, just misguided.

I think the only exceptions to that are really the video games (And in a lesser extent Zero, which even then those like Nora has understandable reasons for being apart of the Anti-UN), since unless we're focusing on the fascisms of certain powers of the UN government and how it got to that point they're more or less Zentradi dissidents who really only exist to be the guys to shoot at unless you're a lucky Moaramia (I mean heck, the enemy commander and rivals' names from Digital Mission VF-X are quite literally Commander and Rival, I know the game really wanted to focus on the female cast but jeez.)

Honestly the only thing I'd have on a wishlist for the new series (Other then personal design aesthetics including more that isn't a derivative of the skinny VF-25, since honestly the franchise peaked with mechanical designs with Plus and 7) is more focus on the already established worldbuilding details (Like the consequences of human overcloning and seeing more planet life in general) and more insight into the different aspects of Zentradi life after becoming apart of the UN. It was my favorite part of the last several episodes of SDF and it's a shame it played second fiddle with a repeat of the love triangle in the short time it had.

[Raikkonen]

12 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The tense mood goes away when Ranka starts singing, and everyone gets caught up in *her* mood. Plus, Jeffrey Wilder being a surfer is shown off earlier in the movie when they're at the beach and he's surfing while the others are chatting. 

Also... it's a ship that transforms into a robot, one of the most articulated ones in the entire franchise, of course it's going to show off its agility and this was a fun way to do it that even makes sense in context. 

The singing happens through out the Macross universe before or when a battle begins. It is it's DNA. Yes, it's execution counts a lot, but Ranka singing to a surfing fortress... yeah... 

And no, doesn't mean cause the captain is a avid surfer, that it makes sense to show a giant battle fortress surfing into battle later-on. 

Roy Focker was a alcoholic, so then it would have made sense and been acceptable by showing his VF-1 trying to jag down barrels of fuel? 🤣

[SebastianP]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

My good chum, you've missed my point completely... and mischaracterized a bunch of the antagonists in question.

The point being made there is that, in Macross, the antagonists are not bad people.  Their methods may be questionable, or even abhorrent by regular Human standards in a few cases, but all of them are trying to do what they believe is right and best for their people.  They're not cruel or malevolent or causing harm because they like hurting people, they're motivated by a desire to survive, by fear, by past trauma, by perceived injustice, or by a desire to prevent a calamity. 

They're not evil, just misguided.

(Sharp contrast to Gundam, where so many antagonists are motivated by ruthless will-to-power, racism, classism, or other beliefs that make other people in some way "lesser" in comparison to themselves.)

I dunno, "ruthless will to power" kind of describes at least Bodolza (he decides to wipe humanity out because they're threatening his control) and Leon Mishima (who murders his way to the top in the TV series... so it can be him standing on the bridge of the Battle Frontier commanding the assault on Planet Vajra.). 

I'll agree we didn't see anything resembling the "earthnoids vs spacenoids" nonsense from Gundam in Macross, but we've gotten at least a couple of actual megalomaniacs.

 

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

In all seriousness, that Macross shows that former enemies can become friends is one of the most welcome ideas I've ever encountered, and is one of the things that keeps bringing me back to the franchise.

 

I think I'll direct you towards Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth (a long, long series of novels that started back in the 70s about the alliance of the Humans and the Thranx, an insectoid species, after a very nearly botched first contact); Larry Niven's Known Space (another long series of novels started in the 60s, where the cat-like Kzinti nearly eradicated their warrior caste trying to defeat the humans, and the remaining castes were much less hostile afterwards, IIRC); and Star Trek's Klingons, who are allies as far as I remember in current "prime" timeline material, as well as in Star Trek Online. 

There's probably other examples, but these are the ones that spring to mind. (I've also not read a whole lot of either of the novel series, and the ones I did read were ages ago so I may be misremembering how things went with the Kzin after the war...)

Oh, and then there's stuff like Dragonball Z, but you knew that, I think.

 

 

[SebastianP]

20 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

The singing happens through out the Macross universe before or when a battle begins. It is it's DNA. Yes, it's execution counts a lot, but Ranka singing to a surfing fortress... yeah... 

And no, doesn't mean cause the captain is a avid surfer, that it makes sense to show a giant battle fortress surfing into battle later-on. 

Roy Focker was a alcoholic, so then it would have made sense and been acceptable by showing his VF-1 trying to jag down barrels of fuel? 🤣

I personally was hyped as heck for that scene, because it marked the point where the story was going "nope, downers are over, time for the cast to be awesome and holy crap is that a surfing robot? Just what the doctor ordered to cure the depressive fit!"

Anyway, a drinking robot doesn't make much sense because why would you make a piloted robot with the ability to drink, that's inefficient. 

On the other hand, motor skills we know transfer, and have known since back in SDF Macross, where Max and Milia turn out to be just as good on foot as they are in the cockpit. 

And it's not like Captain Wilder is the only one showing off a skill learned normally while driving a robot. 

Alto does kabuki acting - while piloting his VF. Michael does sniping both in and out of his VF. I don't remember if Ozma actually uses a knife while on foot at any point, but do you doubt that he'd be able to? Hayate dances in his robot. The Windermere knights have swords, both for their uniforms and for their robots. (and later on, Max flies the Gigasion like it was a fighter jet...)

All you need to be able to surf in a robot is for the robot to have three points of articulation per leg (hip, knee, ankle), and two per arm (shoulder and elbow) so it can adjust its pose and hold its balance; a good balancing system; and a surfboard and a wave to ride. And we had already seen that there was enough articulation and balance, given that Bobby does all sorts of flips and stuff, so all that was needed was a board and a wave. And a helmsman who would do it.

Also, there's something called conservation of detail, aka Chekov's gun, which means that if I see a character perform a signature activity that is theoretically possible to do in a VF or other robot while on foot, I'm not going to be surprised to see them do it while piloting a VF. 

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

53 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

I feel like even with the latter's Dark History in mind there's always a silver lining to it all, a friend put it best to say that Gundam is pessimistic on the systematic level, but optimistic on the personal level; [...]

Eh... on the one hand, yeah there are characters who have a "happy" ending.  On the other, even in the happiest endings in Gundam the world is still ****ed explicitly or implicitly so if it's a happy ending it's one with a very narrow scope.

 

Spoiler

53 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

even disregarding this forums opinion on G-Witch its ending was pretty optimistic as well. Really I'm more convinced it's just Universal Century's overarching grasp (And honestly, Zeta's infectious effects on the franchise as a whole) that makes people think that there can't be happy endings in Gundam even though there's many to the contrary, no matter how small or big. 

The Witch from Mercury would've been an unambiguous happy ending - a true rarity for Gundam - had the epilogue not snuck in a line about how Miorine and Suletta hadn't achieved any kind of societal change or addressed the systemic economic inequality.  The ending is very clear that Miorine and Suletta are happy, but their grand gesture of selling off Benerit Group assets to Earthian companies was a token and temporary gesture since those assets would just be snapped up by Spacian companies again in no time.

There are happy endings for the main characters, but when all is said and done it's almost always still a bad ending for the world.  There's either the Happy Ending Override called Moonlight Butterfly waiting in the wings to ruin things, or there's just the reality-ensues ending that the "bad guys" were beaten but the causes of the war were never addressed and the misery is set to recur in short order .  The UC is most famous for it, but even in superficially cheerful endings like G Gundam's are dark if you think about them (since the Gundam Fights continue to make everyone on Earth's lives hell every four years and are the only thing preventing a space war.) 

Really, the one that soured the milk is Turn-A, with the implication that every era's story ends in a Moonlight Butterfly hard reset that kills billions and erases any records which humanity might use to prevent itself from making the same mistakes all over again.

 

 

53 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

Ditto, Macross has and always will be over the top in the best of ways, and seeing the Quarter play surf is yet another top contender for that!

TBH, even as disappointing as I found Delta's writing... I would LOVE to see someone else continue the Immelmann style and be a "dance battler" with their Valkyrie.  That was some wild stuff, and made for some really impressive choreography when they actually used it.

 

53 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

Honestly the only thing I'd have on a wishlist for the new series (Other then personal design aesthetics including more that isn't a derivative of the skinny VF-25, since honestly the franchise peaked with mechanical designs with Plus and 7) is more focus on the already established worldbuilding details (Like the consequences of human overcloning and seeing more planet life in general) and more insight into the different aspects of Zentradi life after becoming apart of the UN. It was my favorite part of the last several episodes of SDF and it's a shame it played second fiddle with a repeat of the love triangle in the short time it had.

We're probably stuck with the skinny VFs... just because it makes the transformations more realistic and easier to replicate in toy form.

More worldbuilding is always welcome.  FWIW, they built an amazing playground for Delta and then just underused it.  TBH, when it comes to the Zentradi I kind of like how once they got past the "recovering adrenaline junkie" phase they were just normal folks.  It really brings home the "not so different" message in the original series to see them so integrated into human society that nobody bats an eye that their neighbor's cucumber green or has pointed ears.  They're not being pigeonholed based on their species like they might be in so many other sci-fi titles and stuck in quasi-military roles... there are Zentradi artists, executives, research scientists, athletes, musicians, doctors, stay-at-home dads, any occupation that a human would have is open to them.  I'd like to see more of them in non-military capacities in future stories because they really are just "my green neighbor" by the time of Frontier or Delta.

 

29 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

I dunno, "ruthless will to power" kind of describes at least Bodolza (he decides to wipe humanity out because they're threatening his control) and Leon Mishima (who murders his way to the top in the TV series... so it can be him standing on the bridge of the Battle Frontier commanding the assault on Planet Vajra.). 

Not really... his motives become clearer in hindsight with Macross 7.  Even in the original, he was a concerned commander looking at an enemy who was seemingly causing a large-scale mutiny among his forces and frightened by that.  With 7 in mind, we know he was probably quietly terrified looking at what appeared to be his forces succumbing to a mind control attack similar to the Supervision Army's.  (Something that frightened even the likes of Exsedol.)

Leon... well... he varies by the adaptation from "useful idiot to the Galaxy fleet" to the movie version's capable but (properly) paranoid right-hand man to Howard Glass.

 

29 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

Oh, and then there's stuff like Dragonball Z, but you knew that, I think.

Yeah, those are all familiar titles... 😉 

(Funnily enough, the Kzinti are in Star Trek too... thanks to Larry Niven scripting an episode of TAS based on "The Soft Weapon".  Apparently something similar happened in Trek too, since there are Kzinti in Starfleet as of Lower Decks.)

'course Star Trek is kind of the poster child for "yesterday's enemy is tomorrow's friend" in western sci-fi... if only because, as a TV series, it has broader exposure than many classic sci-fi novels.  Every new series tends to feature the previous one's recurring baddies becoming allies.