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Aladdin Sane

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Everything posted by Aladdin Sane

  1. It won't, just like Shadow Chronicles didn't. Wasn't their aim to actually bring in new people with Shadow Chronicles, though? How did they ever expect to do that with what was basically a retelling of the end of the series followed by a rehash of Sentinels ideas? You need a clean break/entry point if you want to bring in new people.
  2. Last few episodes have been really good. I was worried they'd feel like a bit of an anticlimax after the run of great episodes dealing with everyone's personal conflicts that culminated in the defeat of Basco, but they've really ramped it up in terms of the action first with the five-in-one tribute battle and then the use of a bunch of ultimate powers in the recent mech vs fleet battle.
  3. I haven't seen a lot of Goseiger so I may be wrong, but my understanding was that a lot of the angel stuff isn't really explicit in the actual battle footage, which is all that would concern Saban. I'd seen speculation about the whole "skipping 'coz angels" thing, but also that it wouldn't really be a problem. Unless they're going for a straight translation Samurai style they should be able to work around it. Yeah, looking forward to Gobusters. Blue Buster has a nice "look at all the frakks I give" vibe to him. I still need to get caught up on Gokaiger though, haven't really been watching over the last month and a half or so (but had been loving the show prior to that).
  4. That's more to do with this year being the 20th anniversary of Power Rangers (well, I guess next year actually would be, but they celebrated the 10th in 2002, so...) than the quality of Goseiger, though. They wouldn't skip a show (and therefore the toys) just because the source material is mediocre. Unless they're only going to have the Super Samurai half season this year and not begin the next one until next year, in which case skipping Goseiger for Gokaiger would match up properly with the anniversary.
  5. Still not entirely sure how I feel about the actual suits, but the robo looks pretty ace and the team's jackets are cool.
  6. Technically, yeah. If you're taking the term at face value, an OVA is just animation that originates on a home video format. Of course, from there it becomes a matter of "does the term apply only to Japanese animation?" which I would say is fair, given that it's generally used exclusively in that context. Given that, I wouldn't really call the Marvel and DC stuff, or Robotech for that matter, an OVA. Of course, it's ultimately just a difference in terminology and an OVA isn't really any different to a direct-to-video animation from Disney, or Warner Brothers, or any other western studio. Though I'm the kind of person that thinks it's silly to say "this stuff here, from Japan, is called anime. But all that stuff from America, England, and pretty much every other country? That's cartoons. We're lumping all of that together". It's all animation to me, and segregating one country from the rest of the world doesn't make a great deal of sense as far as I'm concerned.
  7. What makes you think this? There's absolutely nothing in the post you're quoting that would even come close to suggesting that. EDIT: Just followed the link through and see a single person suggesting that maybe it's recycling footage given the short production time. I wouldn't exactly say there were concerns of recycling footage based on a single speculative post. No, he means what he said. I know we all like to bag on MEMO, and he certainly provides plenty of opportunities to do so, but this isn't really one of them. His enthusiasm is, as always, misplaced, but everything he said is correct (in terms of the facts he's been given, that is) even if it's poorly presented (as most of his posts are).
  8. It's been a little up and down with me, but more in the positive than the negative. Eleventh Hour was a great start, lots of fun with a quirky Doctor (the most recent episode cemented how odd Matt Smith looks with his hair slicked back and forehead prominent to me. Of course physical appearance isn't everything, he's been playing the role great as well). Beast Below had some off notes but was ultimately a decent adventure. I'm a little mixed on Victory; it had Daleks serving tea which is possibly the greatest thing ever, but was a little off at other moments. Ultimately I think it served its goal well enough. Angels/Flesh was the best two-parter The Moff's done since series one (I liked Silence but thought it was let down by Forest) and I thought Vampires was a good adventure with a lot of great character moments between the Doctor, Rory and Amy. Overall, I think it's shaping up to be a great year of Who so far. I'm not an RTD hater or anything, I think he did a great job of bringing the series back to prominence and was certainly a great writer of characterisation and did some great stories of his own but the actual plots have felt a lot more cohesive so far this year. Obviously not everyone's going to agree on everything regarding a series with as much history, variety and depth as Who, but this year is standing up fairly well for me personally.
  9. The thing with the whole "we needed x amount of episodes for weekday syndication" justification for Robotech is that, well, if that's all you were after you could've just done an anthology series. Finish the dub of Macross, do dubs of Southern Cross and either Mospeada or Orguss or whatever with a similar quality and accuracy (because really, within the proper context, the "Macross Saga" is a reasonably okay dub of Macross outside of the Robotech elements) and just keep them as their own, seperate stories under the "Robotech" umbrella. "Robotech Presents: Space Fortress Macross/Space Cavalry Southern Cross" and whatever else. If they'd gone that route you could genuinely buy into the "helping to bring anime to the west" rhetoric, Harmony Gold and Carl Macek would be viewed a lot more favourably without all the negative baggage Robotech ultimately brought about. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but the anthology idea just seems like the most logical to me.
  10. I haven't watched the video yet, but I suppose Negus didn't do anything apart from introducing/concluding the segment? It's no surprise that SBS, of all the commercial Australian networks, would run such a piece. Before ABC2 came about and started airing Death Note, Cowboy Bebop reruns and whatever else they've got, SBS was pretty much the only free-to-air source of anime in the country outside of Sailor Moon/Pokemon/Teknoman/DBZ stuff you saw on the children's morning programs on Seven and Ten.
  11. Too soon? For what it's worth, I thought the list was amusing without being particularly disrespectful.
  12. I do not have the same connection to Macek that people who found Macross (or anime in general) through Robotech do, but it is always sad when someone dies, especially at such a relatively young age. My condolences to his family and those close to him.
  13. Rewatched Eleventh Hour on Aunty last night, Karen Gillian's legs looked much better on the 50 inch telly than they did on my laptop monitor (though that's not saying much, as they weren't half bad there, either). Oh, the rest of the programme looked pretty good, too. Third time viewing that ep, still really enjoyed it. Matt Smith is quick to take to the role, bleeding leftover bits of Tennant, "regenerative trauma" and his own take on the character all into one. The "I'm the Doctor, look me up!" bit felt lifted from Forest of the Dead, but with a bit more weight to it this time as the Doctor had just demonstrated his abilities instead of just saying "lol we're in a library, read a book mate" like he did last time and the montage of clips of the previous 10 was nice. I really liked Beast Below as well. 11 starts to come more into his own and Matt continues to do a great job of it, and it was a solid story overall. I didn't love the resolution but I didn't have as much of a problem with it as some others seemed to have reading over at Gallifrey Base and thought it was sensible overall. Victory of the Daleks. I'm not entirely sure what to say on it yet. I enjoyed the time spent watching it, but it would benefit from another viewing to be able to judge it better. I'm not a massive Dalek fan, although a number of stories that I rather like are based on them (Genesis, Revelation and Rememberance of the Daleks). The premise is good, there's a lot of nice moments in it and, ultimately, . Loved . Like a lot of stories since the relaunch, it felt like it would have benefited from being a two-parter. I wasn't a huge fan of the reworked theme tune the first time I heard it, but it seems to be growing on me a bit. Something that seems to be a bit of a recurring theme so far . I suppose it's possible we'll see them return later this year, but I'd prefer if they didn't. They were in three of the four series finales in the RTD era, a bit of variation would be nice. That said, they don't need to be reused straight away to recoup the costs. The Beeb has been reusing the Cybus Cybermen for a few years now after all, it could be a long term investment,
  14. Nothing, realistically. Things will go ahead as they had been (which is to say, not very quickly). Macek had had very little to do with the franchise for the last decade, and I doubt his returning to it this year was much more than a PR stunt to appease those who have become disenfranchised since Shadow Chronicles. It's still in the hands of Yune and Co.
  15. I watched DYRL? for the first time yesterday and although I thought it was quite enjoyable, I wasn't as taken with it as others seem to be. It looks very nice with some great animation and new designs (though I'm a little iffy on the new look for the Zentradi) and the music is as great as ever (sounded fantastic coming through my surround sound system, had My Boyfriend is a Pilot in my head all day today). There was a lot of nice moments (all the extra time with Misa is of course a plus, and the segment with Hikaru and Minmay alone in the ship with Zero G Love playing was great) and I liked the way the story was presented as it was but overall I prefer the depth allowed for by a series instead of the two hour movie format. I found Minmay to be a lot more likable in the movie and was less annoyed by Hikaru towards the end (he was very wishy-washy when I thought the love triangle should have been resolved to the point of just wanting to reach into my screen and slap him. Just go on the picnic damnit, you should be over Minmay by now!). Regarding the extra "maturity" of DYRL?, I think citing that as an advantage is missing the point of the TV series. It's about Hikaru maturing as the war progresses, becoming comfortable with his role in the military, dealing with the deaths of people close to him and moving forwards in his relationship. As the character is immature to start with, there needs to be a certain element of that in the series itself. Another aspect that seems to be missing from the movie that was in the series that adds to the "maturity" is the lack of comic relief, which I feel is something of a loss. The clip show where Hikaru is in hospital and tries to ride the bicycle into space to rescue Minmay, for example, is one I really enjoyed and possibly the greatest clip show of all time. There's also the extra gore present in the movie which I felt was somewhat gratuitous. On the whole though, for all the points I've given to DYRL?, I was merely entertained by it whereas I was completely and utterly engrossed with SDF:M TV, watching the whole thing in three days. I'd need to rewatch the TV series again to be able to fairly judge the two given that it's been a fair amount of time (nearly a year) in between viewings of it and the movie, but my initial instinct is that the extra development time and lightheartedness afforded to the TV series gives it the advantage for me. You're given more time to get to know the characters and care about their story, as well as further background into the series universe itself (the movie assumes you either know or don't care about how the Macross came into human hands, how humanity first encountered the Zentradi, etc) which the movie doesn't have.
  16. Given the neat little portion of time in Shadow Chronicles that was spent rewritting the end of the series proper, it might be more apt to say he gave the world episode 85.5.
  17. I've not seen any outside of JT's Protoculture Times Anniversarycasts, no.
  18. I'm not saying any have. I didn't say mecha anime was some mainstream sensation. How many toku shows though, outside of Power Rangers, have sustained any level of fandom in the west compared to something like Gundam (or, indeed, Robotech and Macross)? Mecha anime is a niche interest, toku shows moreso. Power Rangers was absolutely massive and still has a dedicated following, I'm not trying to deny that. But it's a significant outlier and not really representative of western interest in the genre.
  19. Power Rangers is the exception though, not the rule.
  20. Misappropriating Macross material as Robotech is pretty much submitting to the fact that one franchise is still putting out quality new material while the other is, well, Robotech.
  21. I've just checked my original post and my wording was rather poor, so I seem to have failed in conveying my point. I didn't mean to say that Robotech or Macross themselves are more popular than Power Rangers and its ilk (such an assertion would of course be very silly; Robotech has been a shambling corpse for more than a decade and Macross has been kept out of those markets since Plus). As a whole, mecha anime has more mainstream appeal to western audiences than Japanese toku shows or American adaptations of them.
  22. Sorry, allow me to clarify. I'm entirely aware of the huge popularity of Super Sentai and the likes of Kamen Rider. What I meant to say is niche in places like America, Australia and the UK. The popularity of those types of shows in the west pretty much began and ended with the boom they experienced at the height of the popularity of Power Rangers. Asides from Power Rangers (the future of which is now uncertain) and last year's Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight (which, as I understand it, pretty much bombed), the toku genre is largely dead in those places. I also wanted (but completely failed) to say that a straight dub/sub release of an anime in its original format is probably much more commercially viable in the west than a comparative release of a toku series, making the creation of something like Power Rangers more justifiable than something like Robotech (which only came about because of syndication rules).
  23. I celebrated Robotech's 25th anniversary by finally ordering Macross II on DVD from Amazon (to go with my local SDF: Macross and Macross Plus releases) and starting to download subtitled Southern Cross and Mospeada torrents. I was tempted to buy DVD sets for the aforementioned series, possibly selling my Protoculture Collection in an attempt to subsidise some of the cost, but I decided I'd already payed $60 of my Ausland Funbux for that footage, I wasn't paying another $75-ish just for an extra audio track and subtitles. It's kind of funny. Power Rangers celebrated its fifteenth anniversary a few years ago with a special two-parter that featured the return of five past Rangers (the second Ranger to hold the original Black Ranger powers, along with Rangers that had appeared in the four series before the current one), all featuring their original designs without having to be reworked. Of course, a toku series like the Super Sentai franchise is significantly more niche than a mecha anime like Macross, but Power Rangers ultimately represents the owners of an American series based on footage from a Japanese show working with the owner of the original source material to ensure that the resulting product is mutually beneficial. Tony Oliver is, really, the only link between them (though he was "only" a voice actor for Robotech (though said voice was Rick Hunter, possibly the most important man in the Robotech universe), compared to his role as executive producer on Power Rangers). As far as the future of Robotech is concerned, I only hope the LAME is a success, simply because it should lead to something original in terms of design and overall story. I don't hate the basic concept of Robotech ("a generational story of the human race and it's interaction and wars with alien races"), but lifting so directly from the source materials bothers me. Legal pressures and the involvement of a larger force may finally lead to the depature of such things.
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