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NEWS: 'It' Remake's Director Andy Muschietti to Develop Live-Action Robotech Project

Even better; i hope Harmony Gold releases all the other Macross series as well, editing them into the Robotech brand. Give me Robotech II! Robotech Plus!! Robotech Delta!!!!! Tell me how they fit in to all those other unrelated series! Add MORE unrelated series!!!r

But having said that... everything they've done since has been a disaster, and the way they've manhandled ownership of the Macross franchise outside of Japan is just dreadful. I have no idea what their contract with Tatsunoko says, but the sooner they lose their rights the better. The fact that they have not been able to get ANYTHING off the ground in 20+ years speaks volumes about their competence.

If you can find it, Robotech Art 3: The Sentinels is a interesting read. It's the behind the scenes of how The Sentinels series imploded. Basically, if anything could go wrong, it did.

I made my peace with Robotech years ago. It was a problematic adaption at best, but the fact remains it jump started anime fandom in the US and was the first US adaption to truly showcase the kind of drama and story telling anime is known for. Before Robotech, anime adaptations were always dumbed down, often ludicrously ("Those evil robots look just like humans!" "The planet was destroyed but thank goodness we evacuated everyone in time!" "After the battle my brother joined a space colony and went off to a far distant planet, so I lay flowers at this memorial I erected to him as a tribute!"). After Robotech, there was a much more general appreciation for the kind of storytelling anime could produce, and it created what I can only describe as a desperate hunger for more. I think anime fandom today owes a huge debt to the demand Robotech almost single-handedly created.

Robotech was a splash in the bucket and nothing more. Even if it had "jump started" anime fandom in the west, it still wasn't enough to convince television stations to give more anime a try as anime wsas still seen as too "foreign" and "weird" for American tastes. What did get licensed and shown after Robotech was always stuck in early morning death slots for no other reason than for the stations to fill their alloted slot time. This happened very frequently for Saban licenses as Saban was a frequent licensee to anime at the time. It was tough for the fandom to even spread the word about anime back then as the themes didn't coincide with how Americans viewed cartoons. Sure, you got interested individuals in clubs and discussions and all that and even those who were willing to pay excessive prices for 1-2 episode VHS tapes that could only be found in the dark recesses of hobby stores but that's about it. Sorry, but anime didn't really take off until '98 with Cartoon Network and Dragon Ball Z as that generation was willing to make their voices heard in regards to how anime was the best thing since sliced bread. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone today who wants to even acknowledge the existence of anime in America prior to '98.

On Harmony Gold's end, most definitely!! With the movie in production, it appeases the legal end of things that they are maintaining the license. So if the movie is completed and even if it does horribly, they can maintain the stranglehold on Macross in America. But if the movie fails to be completed, Harmony Gold will have to take drastic measures or lose their "rights".

That's assuming they can even get the rights.

It's been repeatedly established that the situation is so bad and so petty no one can throw money at it and end it because it's about pride.

Sorry, but I beg to differ here. I was very active in 1980s & early-mid 1990s Chicago-area anime fandom, and I can say quite categorically that fandom then was not only there and active but increasingly so throughout the post-Robotech years. I watched it happen, as more and more people filled up the anime rooms at various conventions (I ran the one at Capricon for a number of years) and started snatching up whatever became available. These were also the years that Akira and Miyazaki were first being noticed, and word of mouth was making those theatrical showings of anime at the Music Box sell-outs. By the mid 1990s, Sailor Moon & Tenchi Muyo were showing up on UHF channels everywhere, and internet USENET groups were bringing anime fans together. Anime VHS began showing up at Best Buy and Suncoast Video well before 1998 (I clearly remember buying my copies of Super Atragon and Lensman movie at Best Buy), or for rent at Blockbusters. SciFi channel also had several anime movie nights well before Toonami, including films like Beautiful Dreamer, Odin Photon Ship Starlight, and even Char's Counterattack.

From my vantage point it was steady progression after Robotech. Pre-Robotech, there were a handful of fans like myself who knew about anime and were passionate about it, but we were a small, dispersed but close-knit group. Robotech was the catalyst that really got people to notice anime. It caused anime's first big US explosion; suddenly people were interested in this new, completely alien artform, and the people it ensnared then became the seeds for what came next. Most of the people who started Viz Media, ADV Films, Manga Entertainment, etc. all began out as fans from the Robotech era.

Would anime fandom have become as big today without Robotech? No idea. But I suspect it would have taken longer for it to sink in. The boom of the late 1990s did not occur in a vacuum; Robotech paved the way.