Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Macross the Universe
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2273 Location: Online Terminal |
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A) the paint's barely dry on the series, so there's no reason not to discount the chance of some sort of twist coming B) I've always read the original series as a little jingoistic, with the idea of J-pop being the savior of the universe. Then again, the cynicism is strong within me. Music as a unifying concept taken to an absurd degree is a common point throughout Macross, so why not have the singers pilot the frigging robots? |
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bumbayker
Posts: 24 |
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"Frontier had its dueling starlets, and now Delta has an entire idol team, who also happen to pilot Valkyries."
This isn't true though. None of Walkure's idols pilot Valkyries, at least not yet. The most we've seen so far is one of them ride on a Valkyrie in combat. But she seems to be the only one doing any superhuman feats. |
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walw6pK4Alo
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Originally animated Robotech has nothing to show for itself. I'm completely ignoring and disregarding whatever TCG or video games or comic books there are because those are not animated. A. A cancelled TV series some 25 years back that only got a few pilot episodes. It might have turned out alright because it was still animated in Japan and was not so far removed from the original TV series visually. Wonder how it'd look remastered in 1080p. B. And then nothing until Shadow Chronicles, which was just painful and embarrassing to watch, and had nothing Macross in it. I get that they had to stick with Mospeada designs, but I also found Mospeda itself to be dull and forgettable (probably wouldn't have watched it if not for the accessibility that being tied to Macross affords it.) |
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Darthtabby
Posts: 21 |
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Kawamori stated in a 1998 interview that he sees the Macross productions as in universe historical fiction. Unless he's changed his view since then, he's not big on saying "this version is canon and this one is not." IMO it's kind of an interesting way of looking at things. |
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Buster D
Posts: 81 |
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10000 used? Huh, that was about what the pre-order price was when I bought it new from amazon.co.jp. But they did specifically say that it was a release limited until July 24 2015, so it makes sense that it's OOP and getting harder to find. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Hello EricJ, my fellow Branta canadensis!
This ushers the question of what caused a lampoon to become a straight-faced space opera. Was the transformation somewhat organic as new ideas beckoned a change in tone, or had these numerous comedic features been supposedly finalised, only for them to be dismissed by late decisions?
So that is what happened to such a scheme. A sinful delight Schadenfreude may be, though as the article notes, only further reticence from Harmony Gold arose from it. |
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LightYapper
 Posts: 131 Location: Somewhere on Earth |
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Honestly, other than a few ostensible knowledge about the franchise, I never really got to Macross. Mike's article really got me hooked in for it. It's a shame no legal sites are streaming it because of licensing issues or whatever.
But really, if HG doesn't intend to localize the franchise, why not they quit or hand over the rights back to the licensors? Rip them apart, someone. |
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ZeetherKID77
 Posts: 981 |
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Let's not also forget that one of HG's employees basically only is in it for the money and tried to call out Gwyn on Twitter for quoting that someone at a Robotech panel said "no one wants Macross" claiming nobody said it. Gwyn was at that panel and heard it verbatim.
https://twitter.com/GwynCampbell/status/617098029246517248 I wish someone in Japan would actually take action against them. The Robotech thing seems to only be a hobby for HG because the real estate thing is keeping them afloat, I guess. Delta having subtitles seems to be some kind of sign that Japan wants to push to get it here, maybe? |
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davecabrera
ANN Columnist
 Posts: 132 |
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I remember the toy thing pretty fuzzily: this went down when I was buying a lot of Chogokin and occassionally Yamato's transforming Valkyries. In the early 00s all the Kaiyodo and Yamato stuff is starting to pour into comic shops, among them Yamato's high end ($150 or so? They're more like 3-400 these days) Valks. They're huge hits, nobody can keep them in stock. I believe that HG wanted to sue people who were importing this stuff? I know that at the very least all the online shops disregarded them.
But a few years later, in comic shops, rather than the Yamato Valks you'd see merch like the picture in Mike's article. Branded with the Macross name, even DYRL, for chrissake, they were these kinda crappy figures done by Toynami, a US company. They were kind of done up to make you feel like you were buying an import figure, which is a strategy that still works today! |
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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I personally am very open to the idea of having English subs on the Japanese BD/DVDs. An excellent quality release straight from the source without having to go through a middle-man. (^.^;)
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EricJ2
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(Sorry, eh--The smaller geese with the cute bills and short midget necks are more likely to be Cackling geese, Branta hutchinsii. Same markings, but easy to confuse.)
They do "homage" the Robotech-Macross series in the opening of Shadow Chronicles, when the Mark Hamill pilot deliberately annoys the other by humming old Minmay hits during maneuvers....Yes, the two English songs she sang over and over in the Robotech dub.
Like the troll who knows he's unpopular and tries to play up to that act anyway, even THAT couldn't attract fans gullible enough to want to keep HG in the black. And for $2, at that. It had just become a vaudeville stage where we were calling for The Hook. |
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doubleO7
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Indeed it is. I think I've heard that said before, but still, with Delta being a sequel to Frontier, surely eagle-eyed fans have been able to pick out details and references that point towards one version or the other, even if the creators don't want to make any kind of official declaration. With how different I hear the Movie and TV endings for Frontier are, I would assume they're not pulling from both, unless they just decided to completely throw any kind of canon out the window. Though to be fair, it's only 3 episodes in, right? There may just not be enough information to go on yet to say one way or the other.
As long as they get someone to do decent subtitles. I've heard that the Plus movie subs left much to be desired as they were littered with grammatical errors and typos (although I suppose that's still better than nothing). However, the Frontier movie subs apparently fared much better. Hopefully that's the case with Delta as well. |
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bumbayker
Posts: 24 |
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Because if they do they know that Robotech will no longer have any relevance anymore and in extension Harmony Gold. Not just in the West but world-wide since Macross has a much more faithful following and fanbase as well as produces new series. Harmony Gold also can't keep up with Macross in production of new content as every project they had initiated ended up in utter failure. By putting a stranglehold of Macross's licensing and distribution outside Japan they can and will extort and file suit to anyone who attempt to do so. Harmony Gold is just the filthy scum of the anime industry who would rather put an entire anime franchise hostage internationally just to keep their already dead franchise on life support. |
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Bamble
Posts: 130 |
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I thought it a little odd back in July 2000 when Harmony Gold started asking websites to stop taking pre-orders for Toycom's Macross Plus fighters. Of course, the true ramifications of Harmony Gold's actions and what that would end up meaning took a little longer to sink in.
That the superlative 1984 movie, truly one of the highlights of anime's technical prowess in the 1980s outside of Akira, was never granted a R1 home video release during the boom years always seemed to be an huge missed opportunity. It's truly a shame this wonderful film, featuring characters that some of the mainstream audience would have actually heard of, has never been granted a decent official release in English to this day. Nostalgia sells, and thanks to Robotech, genuine nostalgia exists for Macross, so putting out the 1984 movie in particular would have seemed a sure-fire hit. I don't begrudge Harmony Gold's alteration of Macross into Robotech back in the day. As far as Macross itself was concerned, as the primary series they wanted to market, it was naturally the least changed of those three series, despite what detractors would have you believe (usually citing non-animated Robotech media, such as the once-ubiquitous comics). I do however think that Robotech as an entity should probably have been put to rest a couple of decades ago at the very least. It's kind of astonishing that Harmony Gold is still holding onto Macross so steadfastly, since Robotech has been moribund on the screen since the (belated) release of The Shadow Chronicles nine years ago, itself one of only a handful of unique Robotech animated productions ever made. The only possible scenario that might have inspired someone to put a spotlight on the legal issues with Macross was the promise of the live-action Robotech movie, which, like Cameron's Battle Angel, will of course never happen (and even if it did, it wouldn't be based on Macross due to the aforementioned legal issues). But no-one on either side of the ocean has ever seemingly taken any steps towards a resolution, and so here we are, some 16 years after Harmony Gold renewed their copyright to Macross and began exercising their "rights" to Macross-derived productions they've never owned. The net result being the original 1984 movie, 7, Zero, Frontier, and now Delta have never been licensed in the U.S. In just under a week's time, it'll be the 19th anniversary of the last "new" Macross material to ever be given an official U.S. release, namely Macross Plus: The Movie. This statistic is a damning indictment of Harmony Gold's grip on Macross. They need to give it up. |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1445 |
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About Flashback 2012, it's not just a bonus short: it's a half-hour-long music video compilation OVA that was edited with some really cheesy, outdated composite video effects Kawamori was experimenting with. Because it was edited on videotape, the only way they could really do a true HD version would be to re-edit the whole thing from scratch by applying modern digital tools to the HD-remastered footage from the TV series.
The film materials for FB 2012's non-TV footage (the "Tenshi no Enogu" music video and the scene with Megaroad-01 leaving Earth), however, appear to have been lost. If they had the original film for "Tenshi no Enogu", I believe they would have given it a new telecine so it could be used on the ending credits of DYRL's Blu-ray release, instead of upscaling it from the composite master. Despite the censorship, the limited edition of DYRL's original BD release is worth buying for the awesome physical extras and the fact that it includes an extra disc with Flashback 2012 in it. Yeah, it's an upscale, but it's apparently the best version we'll ever get, and that OVA has yet to get a stand-alone BD release. And to be frank, that decapitation scene during Minmay's title song performance is so hilariously out of place that I actually didn't mind that they blurred it, but I thought doing the same with Millia's head-stomp scene was unnecessary. As a completist, though, I'm glad there's an uncensored re-release out there. As for the eternal Big West/Studio Nue vs Harmony Gold debate, I'll just say I've been happily supporting the Macross franchise by importing the Japanese BD releases for the past few years, and if Macross Delta continues to exceed my expectations as it has (by the way, the Walküre idol singers are not Valkyrie pilots), I might end up importing the single volumes instead of waiting for the inevitable boxset years from now. I just hope the English subs are as good as the ones the Frontier movies got. |
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