MZero Ep. 5 *SPOILER THREAD*

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

The grey area in mac+ was in the use of the bio-neural chip. If sharon was more than a program and had this living thing connected to an electronic device, you could say that she was conscious when they used it because robots/ai could be programmed to not harm humans (like the ghost?) and so long as the humans create the programs they are completely safe.

Real people have emotions and will lash out and do stupid illogical things. It's a battle between logic and emotion for control. My guess is Sharon was a combination of this organism that could truly 'feel', AND the failed program which only synthesised the feeling, such that the organism was able to project it's emotions into the electronics (like that brain in DYRL controlling the ship) and control and manipulate the program that was created by the humans and overide that programs restrictions. Otherwise it would not have gotten out of control and that mad scientist would not have had to murder the guy who was ringing to have the concert cancelled. The mad scientist knew what he was doing and what would happen.

The program would be the connection to SDF1 to bring it back to life as if it were a living being, but the emotion in the bioneural chip would be the catalyst to bring death through the weapons; through the history of Myung's past memories feeding it the information it needs to bring the logical-but-unethical solution: kill Isamu or just scare the poo out of him to give him the adrenalin rush he so desires when flying recklessly. The horrible singing of sharon is like that of a dying moan I thought.. (more like a chanting used to annoy the pilot and stop him from focussing) Note for the future: never agree to accept a biometric makr of the beast style chip under your skin!

You would think that after seeing aliens with brains stuck into giant ships (DYRL) to control them, there would be some sort of governement standard to try and restrict this like the restriction on reaction weapons usage. Becuase it would be seen as inhumane, immoral, and unethical by the majority, not to mention repulsive. (this doesn't stop the use of an external system of braincontrol of a flying machine like the one guld uses. But safety first! )

The mad scientist was doing something illegal and probably hoped to make an impression on society with his creation - a truly living breathing organism with feelings and ability to think for itself and form a unique identity of its own. Not just a mere program that synthesised the behaviour of a human. But one that could be left alone to work without programmers maintaining and supervising it. (I guess the military were expecting that the AI program was going to do all thier tasks for them and they could eliminate the need for humans and pilots, little did they know "it" wasn't just a program.) IF SDF1-style battlship could be used to run completely by an AI to make every decision on its own, imagine all the money they'd save paying people a salary? It's all about cost-saving and downsizing.

And is it just me or does the stretchy skin of the yf21 seem a little too far fetched?

I know the machine is supposed to be cutting edge technology of the distant future, but why don't they explain to us how it is able to do this? Does the morphing of the armour help to explain the "anime magic" that goes on sometimes?

Edited December 7, 2004 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Final Vegeta]

And is it just me or does the stretchy skin of the yf21 seem a little too far fetched?

I know the machine is supposed to be cutting edge technology of the distant future, but why don't they explain to us how it is able to do this? Does the morphing of the armour help to explain the "anime magic" that goes on sometimes?

Have you ever heard of liquid metal?

FV

[Final Vegeta]

And is it just me or does the stretchy skin of the yf21 seem a little too far fetched?

I know the machine is supposed to be cutting edge technology of the distant future, but why don't they explain to us how it is able to do this? Does the morphing of the armour help to explain the "anime magic" that goes on sometimes?

Have you ever heard of liquid metal?

This obviously doesn't mean the Macross one is technology of near future or ever feasible But then, maybe I mistook your question.

FV

[Prime]

I couldn't disagree more. If that was the case, every movie with an excellent story would be a blockbuster hit, and every action movie would be a bomb. There are other factors that go into a show/movie that also increase or dectract from the entertainment value. I'm sure you don't need me to provide you with examples.

Your supposition being that they are all good stories. A good story can be told with animation, live action, ice cream sticks, light bright, etc. A poorly told story is poor irregardless of the medium used. With that said, not liking visual presentation has nothing to do with the value of the story being told in it.

I know that good stories can be told through a wide variety of means. A visual presentation may have nothing to do with the value of a story, but it can have everything to do with the enjoyment a viewer gets from the show. My point is that a poorer story with better visuals/other elements is potentially more entertaining to a viewer than a better story with poorer visuals/other elements.

It has been many years since I have seen it, but to my recollection it actually is a closer adaptation of the novels than Peter Jackson's versions. Are you saying that if the animated had been completed it would have been a better than the movies (assuming that a closer adaptation is the better story)? Would there be no chance that even with a worse version of the story people might like Jackson's versions more anyway?

Closer to the novels???? Go rent the animated version & come back to this topic.

Like I said, it has been many years, but I don't remember such large changes such as Faramir taking Frodo to Osgiliath and the Ents deciding not to go to war in the animated version, for example. But it could be I just don't remember.

In any event, my point is the same. Assuming for argument's sake that the animated version has the "better" story, it is still entirely possible that a viewer may still choose Peter Jackson's versions as more entertaining because of the excellent visuals and other elements. Visuals and the like may not affect the quality of the story, but they do affect whether a viewer finds the whole experience entertaining or not.

[KingNor]

actually, aside from the looks of the elves, the animated Hobbit is MUCH closer to the book than the Jackson LOTR movies.

Gollum from the hobbit wipes the floor with gollum from the movies.

but what this has to do with MZero i don't know.

Maybe the Hoary Froating head wanted some Hoary Froating rocks to keep him company

you know what i DID like about mZERO though? the flight suit. i thought it was really cool. Looked very functional yet still looked "macross"

[Prime]

but what this has to do with MZero i don't know.

Well, my original point was that even if the stories for Zero and M7 have similar elements, I can still like Zero and not M7 because there are other parts of Zero (visuals, music, mecha design and so on) that make it much more enjoyable for me.

And all that came up because Keith believes all my reasons for not liking M7 are superficial.

Edited December 8, 2004 by Prime

[ewilen]

All you have to do is look at the wildly different reactions to various film remakes to see that Keith is all wet on that point. Consider Planet of the Apes, or if the redone story isn't close enough thematically, then how about the various Draculas, Frankensteins, Dr. Jekylls, and giant-monster-terrorizes-a-city films? DYRL vs. MII? Havana vs. Casablanca? In many cases, the remake tells the same story yet it's atrocious. In a few cases, the remake improves on the original, sometimes by a wide margin. (It's rare to find a remake of a truly bad movie, although sometimes there's a bad film of a good book, followed later by a good film.) There's far more to a good movie than the overall story or theme.

Edited December 8, 2004 by ewilen

[Myersjessee]

Just got around to watching Ep 5 with my 8 year old son.

My opinion - "wow..cool animation and flying special effects"

My son (and I quote) "Dad, why would they call that Macross when it's not really Macross...I mean, come on...what was all that! "

This from an 8 year old....I guess..in the end, I'd like more good character building and emotion, more good animation and mech fights...and less floating flowers, magic, and unexplained deep endings.

[KingNor]

well.. how CAN they call it Macross when there is no Macross in it? i mean physically, you dont ever see the Macross. do you?

[treatment]

well.. how CAN they call it Macross when there is no Macross in it? i mean physically, you dont ever see the Macross. do you?

play on numbers.

Macross Zero == zero physical SDF-Macross ship

SDF-Macross TV/SDF-Macross:DYRL == one prominent SDF-1 Macross ship

Macross Plus == SDF-Macross ship plus the YF-19 and the YF-21

Macross-7 == seventh-version SDF-class ship.

non-canon Macross II == two or more SDF-class Macross ships.

[Keith]

Anyway, Zero & 7 are awesome. Next topic?

[ewilen]

well.. how CAN they call it Macross when there is no Macross in it? i mean physically, you dont ever see the Macross. do you?

Just the smoke trail from when it crashed to earth.

The lack of the ASS-1/SDF-1 per se is one reason why I think Bandai & Big West could conceivably bring M0 over to the US with a name change, if they decide it's not worth fighting HG over the Macross trademark.

[Noyhauser]

might explain why the Monster has the funky hands... legal issues? I can just imagine the legal arguments stated in a court... "members of this court, as you can see quite clearly in this frame, with the deployment of these hands, the Monster in Macross zero episode 5 is nothing like the one seen in SDF MAcross"

And about the series being called Macross and not being macross... give me a break. Hell why don't they call it HWK Monster? its the only thing that appears in all the series.

[KingNor]

And about the series being called Macross and not being macross... give me a break. Hell why don't they call it HWK Monster? its the only thing that appears in all the series.

You remember the sitcoms of the 80's right? the name IS important, imagine if "family ties" was called "taxi"

it would be alot like haveing a show called macross and not having the macross in it.

[Radd]

Maybe, and I know I'm stretching here folks, it's called Macross Zero because it takes place in the same universe as every other Macross series, and happens to be a prequel. Not to mention the fact that it carries all teh same themes and ideas, features versions of some of the mecha from the other Macross shows, and even has one of the characters from another Macross series playing fairly big role in it.Yeah, I know it's crazy, but you know how wacky those Japanese are.

[KingNor]

Maybe, and I know I'm stretching here folks, it's called Macross Zero because it takes place in the same universe as every other Macross series, and happens to be a prequel. Not to mention the fact that it carries all teh same themes and ideas, features versions of some of the mecha from the other Macross shows, and even has one of the characters from another Macross series playing fairly big role in it.Yeah, I know it's crazy, but you know how wacky those Japanese are.

i know, i'm being obtuse

[Noyhauser]

Maybe, and I know I'm stretching here folks, it's called Macross Zero because it takes place in the same universe as every other Macross series, and happens to be a prequel. Not to mention the fact that it carries all teh same themes and ideas, features versions of some of the mecha from the other Macross shows, and even has one of the characters from another Macross series playing fairly big role in it.Yeah, I know it's crazy, but you know how wacky those Japanese are.

i know, i'm being obtuse

.... either way we could asssume you were being obtuse for the sake of being funny, or actually being serious. My previous post was made in the spirit of you post.

[Final Vegeta]

Before the thread dies I wanted to make some notes.

First of all "magic" is a term which I find an improper and misleading label.

Kawamori expressed some of his ideas about the deceptions born from language in both Arjuna and Macross Zero. In Macross Zero the leaf is called "leaf" even if it once had different names, but ultimately not even "leaf" is leaf's true name, yet civilization sticked with "leaf", even if this doesn't help understanding the leaf better. In some way this may be a reference to Hindu principle

"Truth is One, though the Sages know it as Many."

— The Rig Veda (Book I, Hymn CLXIV, Verse 46)

Hindu thought distinguishes itself by strongly encouraging tolerance for different beliefs since temporal systems cannot claim sole understanding of the one transcendental Truth (I have heard however that there were some wars over religion in India).

I associate "Magic" with sword & sorcery. In sci-fi settings usually you talk about "psionics". Basically it's just a matter of canons: magic is usually associated with magical artifacts (wards, pendants) while psionics is born from the mind (making a person become the magic tool). Fantasy has mythical monsters, undeads, golems while sci-fi has aliens, genetically engineering, mutants and machines. I think that from a cultural point of view, for Westerners fantasy is about good and evil, while sci-fi is mostly about truth and lies (can aliens and machines be considered true human? This was a point in Macross and Macross Plus).

In Japanese anime you can see that their magic (even within technologically settings) is represented by something like magic seals and ghosts or oni, while instead of ESP there is something related to ki or spiritual force. I don't know exactly how Japanese see these things; I think they regard them as manifestation of nature. I've read an essay where someone said anime magical girls are often in trance, because they act only as a medium of a greater force. The same mecha are kami of nature that lend a hand to the character (the character in himself doesn't have any power at all); it goes as far that many of them are actually gods in their anime. I percieve a lot of mecha like an energy oni covered by a metal shell. Seeing Evangelion I think that's really their cultural image: mecha trap in themselves the very essence of atomic bomb. On this side I think that Kawamori really differs here more than other authors, and this is true even in Macross Zero; Valkyries are more tools than kami.

Now that I've mentioned about canons, it's obvious to say that Macross 7 was less conventional on these canons, at least for Westerners: on one side the "psionics" have the same visual canon of energy weapons (which in Japan is no problem because ki beams are also considered energy beams), on the other hand the power must be "triggered" by singing (again, Japan is the country that invented karaoke, so they have no trouble with that).

Macross 7 unluckily got together some potential flaws of "uncanonicity":

1) colored beams and no particular emphasis on physics

2) battle not resolved by defeating the enemy. No real point in having a better mecha

3) wacky jokes and mecha.

Singularly one of these points may have been handed with only some mild protests, but together from the beginning they may be hard to swallow. I blame this on director Amino, while I consider the basic ideas behind Macross 7 still coming from Kawamori, and indeed handed better in Macross Zero. On the other side, Macross 7 also doesn't really have state-of-the-art animation, it's a long series so it's easy to have problems with pacing and direction is not really inspiring. At the end I don't consider it a master work, but it's different enough to deserve a mention.

Talking about troubles with accepting Macross 7, I would say that, ignoring the butt-ugliness of Grabil (by the way, I ignored the existence of this Gabil), the main trouble may be the colored beams. I think that, if authors instead went for making them work as a kind of magnetism (that is, invisible to eye), they would be accepted more easily.

I said magnetism because, while the classical four atomic interactions have their official carriers (photons, gravitons, W bosons, gluons), apparently the magnetism has only something like an "unknown vessels of force" (in fact no-one has yet observed any graviton). In scorning Macross 7 many people don't know that our current physics, medicine, economic system and other things still don't work well. From times to times someone discovers something that would force to review a whole system; these men obviously gain a poor end. Ezra Pound tried to warn people about international bankers, and he ended up in a Federal institution for the insane without even a trial.

In the case of floating stones, two facts are worthy mentions: one is that if a respectable English professor said on TV that there is a place on Earth where rocks float, millions of people, at least in the US, would believe rocks could really float. The other fact is that the history of humanity presents numerous cases of giant structures like Machu Pichu whose stone blocks were carried from kilometers afar. Actually this was done even in this century, see Coral Castle. I think Kawamori refers to this kind of myths since there was a drawing of pyramids and Stonehenge. How Coral Castle was done it's not my business, though.

Now, the question of "magic". Well, first of all it's not the same thing in Macross 7 and in Macross Zero. In Macross 7 it's something so explicit it's even used in battles. In Macross Zero instead is mainly background, and its role was to mean that not everything can be understood by current science, and in this sense I feel OverTechnology should obey to Clark's law. Macross Zero is good because it compensates supernatural elements with hard edge technology, but in its way it's even more supernatural than Macross 7, which insisted only in a concept of life energy without making it a real miracle.

SDF Macross was shortened and then lengthened; someone says authors chose to change the plot that should have been after Earth's final battle. I am not sure if this is true, but I think it's likely, and when Macross characters would have found some Protoculture ruins, as it was supposed they would have explored the galaxy, Kawamori surely would have inserted some OverTechnology jokes of near magic technology.

Then Kawamori really changed his mind. This period is not after Macross Plus but before Macross Plus, during Kawamori's trip to India. At first there was simply Hindu-style minor designs (like Gabil), but now Kawamori seems to study even Indian philosophy. He indeed got more extreme; Macross Zero is akin to shamanism and spiritism, and in its way it's even more "magical" than Macross 7.

There is an interesting article written by Kawamori himself which you can find in Escaflowne movie's booklet (there are scans in Tsubasa no Kami's site). For the development of "supernaturality" in Kawamori, it is worth remembering that Japanese culture already has its kind of "superstitions", like believing that when something has existed from a long time it gains a life on its own (the aforementioned spiritism), or sneezing when someone is talking about you. And then there are simply many other anime shows to compete with.

In a general sense every show usually takes its degrees of liberty in representing an "embellished" reality. A character could keep firing even if he should have exhausted his ammunition/missiles. Everything can be blowed up. Some typical scenes in American movies are opening a door by shooting at the door lock, or erasing the content of an encrypted CD if you fail hacking it; this wouldn't work in reality, but it's not questioned in fiction because the public sees an action and then a reaction, and anything is fine with this. Conjurers use similar tricks: they pretend they are putting a coin from one hand into another and instead they are keeping it in the first hand, yet the public is watching what is doing the other one. Everything in anime from physics to character development can have gaps or be stretched.

This can't be claimed as "magic" (even though we are no more in a realistic domain), and at the end I won't try to convince people there was "magic" in SDF Macross (even because I don't see it as magic) however I think it's more a "bon ton" in willing suspension of disbelief than anything else (and in this regards Macross 7 was ill-behaved). Macross Plus did indeed added mind control (input and output of informations from the mind). Wouldn't the next step be mind control without helmets, or would it be too big a leap? Then after this you can have telepathy. In real world growth of economy doesn't mean a good thing in itself, yet even Macross has to "grow" adding more and more new things; you could argue it's not becoming better, but it has grown.

For another note, Macross Zero's ending presents clear staples of Kawamori. For istance a lot of Kawamori's works, including even Macross Plus, has a giant last opponent.

Lastly, about Sharon Apple:

Philip Dick wrote in an article that what you are worth depends on how much you give when one needs it. "When you give, when you really give, nothing comes back". For him the machine, the droid, is not a matter of being mechanical. The droid is the one that stands still and watches you suffer without doing anything (this is enforced in the principles behind the Voigt-Kampf test in Do Droid Dream Of Electric Sheep). It may happen that sometimes a machine stops its cycle to help you, but that's not the point. Dick was painfully worried that humans are becoming machines.

Sharon Apple maybe could pass Turing tests after Turing tests; in the future maybe machines will, too. The conception of what a human is should not be taken for granted; indeed even now dehumanizing use of name calling is spread by media. A male mind revolves around the concept of justice, a child is pissed when someone is not playing by the rules. A male mind is good in abstract thinking. Yet media depict as signs of manhood guns, cigarettes and artificially pumped muscles. It reminds me of 1984, where most people ended up small, fat and dumb.

PS: Before talking about Pink Peckers, you should mind your own neighbourhood

FV

[Prime]

First of all "magic" is a term which I find an improper and misleading label.

It is, but it has been used in this discussion for lack of a better term.

Macross Plus did indeed added mind control (input and output of informations from the mind). Wouldn't the next step be mind control without helmets, or would it be too big a leap? Then after this you can have telepathy.

I don't think that going from mind controlled machines without helmets to telepathy is a "feasible" leap. Mind controlled VFs in Plus seemed feasible by what was shown. Potentially doing this without a physical connection is also feasible within the realm of story. This is because both systems would rely on the machine to gather input from the pilot. Whether the connection is a physical one or a "wireless" one doesn't change the fact that the machine is the one that is creating the connection and operating off the input. Without the technology of the machine, there is no connection. The mind is not doing anything special per se, it just operates as it always does.

The jump to telepathy means that it is the human providing the connection and interacting with things that were not designed to recieve input from the mind, which is completely different than the above.

[KingNor]

First of all "magic" is a term which I find an improper and misleading label.

It is, but it has been used in this discussion for lack of a better term.

Macross Plus did indeed added mind control (input and output of informations from the mind). Wouldn't the next step be mind control without helmets, or would it be too big a leap? Then after this you can have telepathy.

I don't think that going from mind controlled machines without helmets to telepathy is a "feasible" leap. Mind controlled VFs in Plus seemed feasible by what was shown. Potentially doing this without a physical connection is also feasible within the realm of story. This is because both systems would rely on the machine to gather input from the pilot. Whether the connection is a physical one or a "wireless" one doesn't change the fact that the machine is the one that is creating the connection and operating off the input. Without the technology of the machine, there is no connection. The mind is not doing anything special per se, it just operates as it always does.

The jump to telepathy means that it is the human providing the connection and interacting with things that were not designed to recieve input from the mind, which is completely different than the above.

yes, dont' think of it as a mind-controlled plane, think of it as a plane that can read the brain patterns.

its not the pilot that is so special (though he does need extencive training) its the plane.

there is absoloutly no way guld could have piloted the 19 the way he piloted the 21. guld didn't extend himself into the plane, the plane reached into gulds mind so to speak.