Skull1986

The show's not worth getting on Blu-Ray, IMHO. There are just some things that won't be improved markedly that I think money should be saved on. Sure, I want things restored, too, but I'd rather they keep at the older resolution and market them 480p as opposed to those artificially created high-def "upconvert" editions. Also, I think saying the North American release was junk is a bit harsh and ignores the reality that the distributor was working with the best materials available. If you want to see junk, look at the ADV release of Sailor Moon Seasons 1 and 2. THAT'S junk! Courtesy of the Japanese company (Toei) which wouldn't lend better film and audio masters to ADV. What I see in the comparisons does NOT justify getting the Japanese remastered release, IMHO. It's not worth a few hundred dollars more to get something that isn't even English-subtitled. That's a spectacular waste of money unless you're that anal about it. The first comparison I could see a difference, second not so much other than the AE release had sweeter colors. That's not something that breaks buying the NA release (which I do own). As far as the ADV version goes, yes it's the same video. Whether packing more episodes per volume made a difference in artifacting I couldn't tell you as I've only watched the first disc of the release. Right away, though, I could hear the tininess of the Japanese audio on the ADV release. I grabbed my older AE release disc for Volume 1 for comparison and the audio on that is perfect. No tininess. Obviously, AE grabbed better audio materials than ADV. Maybe they had better connections in Japan that supplied them with the materials? With that, I just wonder if there were rights issues that prevented ADV from getting the better Japanese audio dialogue tracks or if they were lazy. It sure sounded like they had access to better audio samples for the music and sound effects in the 5.1 mix! Obviously, if you care more about getting a faithful dub, buy the ADV Macross edition. (Frankly, I still like the Robotech cast voices better. Something about most domestic dubs rubs me the wrong way. That cast, however, seems to fit the characters better than the ADV-translation dub.) Otherwise, the AE release is still a bit cheaper at Robotech.com -- compared to most B&M stores at any rate... Although with the downsizing of the R1 anime DVD market still continuing, we all may be buying over half our discs online.

There was a laserdisc boxset of Megazone 23 put out years ago that Parts I and II in it. I still have this myself. Anyhow, the English dub disc for Part II (there were two discs for Part II I believe in the set -- there are enough footage differences between the English-dubbed and Japanese audio Part II to warrant separate discs -- have to recheck this some day) had additional animation at the front of it that was in the style of Megazone Part I but was NOT footage from the original Megazone I OVA. I've read that this footage is part of the additional animation created for Robotech: The Movie (aka "Robotech: The Untold Story"). Personally, I don't like the style character design in Megazone Part II and never cared for the original dub, either. The change in art style for Part II just doesn't make sense. It's very jarring and doesn't flow well from Part I. Megazone Part III adopted an art style closer to Part I. Megazone 23 Part III was never part of the laserdisc set of Parts I and II since it was owned by a different company at the time. I'm not sure what the situation of ownership with the Megazone OVAs is today. One of the funny things about Megazone Part II is a little in-joke in the film. Look carefully at the scene where a character (the hero?) is playing pinball. The characters on the background of the pinball machine are from either Thundercats or Silverhawks! (It's been so long since I saw the animation that I forget which show characters appear on the pinball machine.) Obviously, somebody (or -bodies) working on Megazone 23 Part II worked on those Rankin-Bass shows. The production company for those TV series I believe was Sunrise, the same studio behind a lot of Gundam over the years.

GiTs as a film series is something that I've always found overrated. The second film, Innocence, is particularly bad and one of the worst animated films I've ever had to sit through. 2 hours of talking heads and a screenwriter trying to impress the audience with his knowledge of comparative philosophy and religion does not make a good film-going experience! Thank goodness I saw it in a theater before the DVD release! It was the most overhyped piece of @#$#@! the year it was released. I have mixed feelings about the first GiTs film, but put a gun to my head and that's the one I'd recommend. As a general rule, I really don't think most films benefit from a director's cut, let alone CG-enhanced special editions, and would prefer the original versions be released on home video instead of being force-fed the DE/SE versions and being told by production companies to take it. Just not very good PR, IMHO. That's where a lot of animosity for George Lucas originates from -- his unwillingness to listen to people that aren't yes-men or have been fans for years that know about filmmaking and story. The unwillingness to release the original versions of the SW OT was a breaking point for many, many film fans...

Yes, It is insane what collectors will pay for some things. I second the opinion that the PS1 VF-X games aren't worth it. Frankly, I don't think any of the games are worth over $150 used or not... (Even though I have a few Saturn games that are well in excess of $100, too.) I had the first game in the VF-X series and it had some of the blandest texturing and worst MIDI music you can imagine! In just about any given level, you'd find that 2 of your 3 variable fighter modes were worthless. The fighters tended to be overly sensitive to pad movements and the game was just overall bland beyond words. It was really my first big inititiation into the whole anime license translation to bad videogame experience. Thank goodness I never collected many anime-based games, period! (And people only think American films get turned into bad videogames? Hah!) I had the demo of the second VF-X game released with a PS1 magazine, but the only fighter you could play in the sample level with was the YF-19. Although it looked nicer than VF-X in that one level, all I've ever heard from people that owned both games was that they preferred the first one. I don't feel bad that I passed on the second import game when it was available new. The only Macross games I've ever owned that were worth keeping (for myself, at any rate) were Macross: Scramble Valkyrie for the SNES/SFamicon (works flawlessly with the latest SNES emulators -- used to own the original cart, too, before I auctioned it a year later), the Banpresto Macross and Macross Plus arcade vertical shooters (supported by MAME even if sound reproduction isn't perfect), the Sega Saturn Macross shooter (later ported to PS1), and finally the best of the bunch, the PS2 Macross game. I also still own disc copies of the last two. Compressed files for the SNES and arcade shooters are widely available for their latest emulators. I have ACE 2: Special Vocal Version (which features Macross mecha levels with the original Max, Fokker, and replacement Hikaru actors) but frankly the total Japanese language immersion in that game (hardly a lick of English) makes it very frustrating to play it. There are FAQ guides, yes, but the lack of a match up between the kanji screen options and English makes it a chore to wade through the game. What I wouldn't kill to have an online strategy guide with JPEG pics decrypted into English to get through at least the option menus! My one complaint about original Macross games in general is the insistence on recreating scenarios from the movie and TV series. I wish the game developers would create more original levels with the original characters instead of rehashing what's ancient history all the time. What I think most longtime Macross fans would prefer are original scenarios with the characters that got written off by Kawamori after Flashback 2012 was finished... There are not only possibilities for "side stories" to the original saga (a la the numerous UC Century Gundam spin-offs) but also the period between 2012 and 2016 that remains mostly undocumented for the original love triangle...

UH, do you know how that came off to me? It came off pretty rude and condescending thank you very much! This was not a mistake on your part and I'm offended. I hope you're not a manager at any store because there's no way in hell I'd buy anything from you. Get a clue about what to harp on! Learn to talk to people because you sure as hell didn't impress me.

We'll see if anybody gives Frank Miller a film directing job anytime soon after "The Spirit" opens this Christmas. Prediction -- the film will BOMB. Badly. A) It's based on a character/comic book series that's cultish even in comic book circles; B) Even from the trailers you can see the quality of the film is marginal = IT STINKS; and C) If you have any knowledge of The Spirit comics it's real obvious this film owes more to Miller's Sin City movie than it does The Spirit. Spirit fans are NOT happy about that at all. There's been talk of doing a Buck Rogers film before and after the TV show, but that's all it's amounted to. The property is so old and forgotten by most people that I'm afraid they'd use the late 70's/early 80's TV series as the basis for a new movie... and that show was about as far removed from the old comic strip as the last Flash Gordon movie was from the Flash Gordon comic strips, too. Ignorance is a big tool that's used to promote and develop mediocre films and TV shows instead of being creative and doing something new, or at least creating a film that tries to honor its source material.

Before planes started costing in the tens of millions of dollars, it wasn't that unusual to do an early pre-production and destroy a half-dozen or more planes during the early evaluation process. Prior to its deployment in the early 1960s on-board Navy supercarriers, there were 47 A-model/pre-production series F-4 Phantom IIs built for the US Navy. They were pretty much all destroyed or worn out during testing and evaluation, setting world records, or retired to the Boneyard in Arizona and scrapped. As of the early 1980s, I think only 2-3 tops survived. These planes were never intended to be used in frontline combat and basically were used to verify the soundness of the airframe design and integration of the avionics and engines. Right now, it's just gotten too expensive to build a lot of prototypes and development planes. Legislators also expect the majority of these planes -- even if only 6-7 preproduction planes get built(!) -- to go into service. Macross exists in another timeline and even something like 18 months prior to the SDF-1 launch they were still locked in a world war. Peace time rules and conservation do not apply during a big war!

Japanese PS1 games are still playable on Japanese PS3s... Japanese PS2 games, that's another story! You'd have to have an earlier generation 20 GB Japanese, 60GB Japaneses, or the Limited Edition MGS4 Japanese PS3 pack to play Japanese PS2 games, too. Some people are still under the impression that it was an emulation program that enabled you to play PS2 games on earlier 80 GB PS3s... Not entirely. First-gen 80GB PS3s had partial PS2 circuitry (GPU, I think) and that in addition to a program enabled 80% compatibility with PS2 games. Region-coding still existed for DVD so you had to have the right PS3 model for your Region. All PS2 circuitry was removed from the $399 PS3 and the new 160 GB PS3 models. Yes, it's annoying but remember that the XBox 360 has gone through several internal hardware changes, too, and still manages to melt down, too. Previous generation consoles never had as many obvious SKU changes since there wasn't a question about HD replacement but when you buy systems 2 years apart from the same maker and try to mod them believe me you see changes! The insides and casing are constantly getting changed to keep people from booting up bootleg games or foreign games on the system. Manufacturers also try to consolidate and shrink the inside circuitry to reduce manufacturing costs, too. As for the business of PS3s being completely region-less for Blu-Ray, I'll believe it when I see a European game other the European edition of MK Vs DC work on a PS3. I just don't think that'll happen too much for European games. For Japan and the US, Blu-Ray is not an issue because it was decided early in Blu-Ray planning to put both countries in the same Region Code (A) for Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray region coding affects both the videogame and movie Blu-Ray compatibility in the PS3. Restrictions on DVD still apply, too. I don't think we'll see PS2 backwards compatibility restored to a Sony system until the PS4 hits market in about 3 years...! Right now, the PS2 is still selling too well to completely junk that system. It wouldn't help at any rate for import PS2 games to have the compatibility feature present in PS3s because of the region-coding still present for DVDs. You're basically forced to keep that modded American PS2 or Japanese PS2 for the other-region games...

Just got done watching the video with subtitles. Unfortunately, I couldn't download the file Strife linked to, but I had another set of subtitles I'd previously downloaded so I renamed that set and watched the video with those. Other than a slight delay in the subtitle pop-up, the video played without a hitch. Makes a huge difference in watching it! I just get bored watching video without subtitles. Lovely songs. Ijima really has a nice voice. Although I've owned a copy of the video for over 12 years now, this is the first time I've seen a subbed version. Wish they could license this video and release it officially in the US with DYRL. This is really the coda/finale to the original Macross. It's bittersweet. You know another Macross series with the trio of Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay will never get made because Kawamori doesn't want to do it, so this is as nice a send-off as those characters are going to get.

Thanks! I'll look into your file(s). I'm having some problems with the RAR files I downloaded off-site and unfortunately there isn't a program available on Mac to fix them. It'll be this weekend at earliest before I can do something with them on a family PC which may or may not fix the problem... In the meantime, I'll probably go ahead and look for your torrent! Again, many thanks!

Question -- Does the HD Remastered Macross DVD the exact same film content as the Perfect Edition? IE, does it have all the new scenes and concert footage from Flashback 2012 that was planned for the feature film and added later on? That's an important question to ask... There are AT LEAST 4 edits of DYRL counting the two versions released in English in the US! Personally, I prefer the Perfect Edition and consider it the definitive, Director's Cut.

Actually that doesn't help with the problem I have now. Thanks for the anime lyrics. Maybe I'll look them up whenever I listen to Mari Ijima's CD tracks again! I still want subtitles to the FB2012 video. I guess I'm part of a generation that consider understanding lyrics important?? I'd like to add subtitles to an ISO file. It appears I have to partially take the ISO apart then reassemble with the SRT (subtitle) files into the video. I think ffmpeg can do this. From my previous experience with ISO, it CAN be opened on a computer desktop (provided it's NOT encrypted) and the video files that need to be manipulated are in the VIDEO_TS folder. Never done this before, and my experiences with ffmpeg are mixed to say the least!

Honestly, I'm not that interested in a getting a DVD that costs close to $70 and has no English subtitles to boot. I'd basically have to re-rip the thing and then add subtitles to make it worth my while. I got out of the habit of buying Japanese-only videos years before DVD became mainstream. I'm not getting back into that or learning Kanji now. It's just not going to happen!

Hollywood ran out of fresh ideas years ago, don't ya know? As long as they can get ignorant people who have never read books or seen the original movies and TV shows the remakes are based on, all the better. It means the executives greenlighting the remakes get more money. As long as enough dodos see the remakes, this trend will continue. Really, that's all it's about. I pretty much stay away from most remakes. They just aren't very good most of the time and lack the charm that the original writing staff and actors bring to the originals. (I saw the Get Smart movie over Thanksgiving when my sister and her boyfriend rented it. Lousy film. Completely lacking in the charm of the TV series. And Stephen Carrell is no Don Adams ((or Maxwell Smart, for that matter) for sure! Different sensibilities, yes, and it completely misses the point. No "missed it by that much" when it's over 10 miles off-target.) Those are my big beefs against a new Star Trek. I just don't think the director is all that good and know that the writing can't match what was done in the 1960s by writers who were GOOD TV writers AND science-fiction authors. I really don't expect the chemistry of the original cast to be replicated, either. They haven't been successful in that regard with any of the other Star Trek spin-offs, IMHO. And in all honestly with everything Star Trek on home video, why would I NEED to see a new Star Trek movie in the theaters -- especially if it's going over the same old ground (again), or revamping something that DOESN'T need that!?!!?? P.S. -- You can bet you'll hear more of the same IF either the Robotech live-action film OR a Macross live-action movie ever get off the ground. Frankly, I'm more interested in seeing more of the original animation that's been produced. I know live-action versions will look goofy and things will be changed for incredibly dumb and financial reasons.

I want the subtitles so I know what she's singing (as close as possible in English). It's nice to have the song lyrics in English, too! I can't count how many times I've bought DVDs from Pioneer and Viz that DIDN'T have translated song lyrics. Nice to finally see something for the Macross music. That was half of the original show. BTW, an issue did come up with the download for the Flashback 2012 DVD booklet. Apparently, you have to type in a password/paraphrase to decompress the RAR file with Stuffit. Anybody actually know what the paraphrase/password is?

Right... We can only hope all the companies involved in the licensing mess can come to their senses and realize it's to their benefit to release MORE Macross material outside of Japan. I would love to get my hands on legally authorized, English-subbed and dubbed versions of Macross: DYRL, Flashback 2012, Macross Zero, and probably Macross Frontier. The rest can stay in Japan! It also goes without saying that I'd love to see a next-gen Macross game released on PS3 and XBox-360. Seeing how nice the last PS2 game was, it'd be great to see a repeat and build on that. (Not gonna rebuy a PSP to enjoy Macross Ace Frontier... I got burned by that system good, and am only too glad I got rid of it when I did and replaced it with an iPod. I should have gotten a portable DVD player INSTEAD of the PSP!) Most of the mess I place in the Japanese' lap. If only that memo to Tatsunoko Productions had been clearer about the length of time they (T.P.) were entitled to distribute Macross internationally! Ah well, at least the rest of the world got the best Macross TV series!

Every time I look for the Flashback 2012 video I usually find the raw feed or another language subbed version. I'm just looking for an English subbed version -- doesn't have to be the HD-remastered video, btw -- from an active torrent. I'm getting errors every time I try to download and it seems like the best download is limited to Demonoid.com which is impossible to join or sounds like one of those "sign up and get your bank account fleeced!" scams. Advice, or just a general point in the direction of? P.S. -- BTW, I thought the 2.1 version of COTB/DYRL was excellent. There's a bit of a problem with the scene navigation on the DVD when you try to use it on a DVD player but it otherwise plays flawlessly. I've tested it across a computer, 1999 standalone DVD player, and a PS3 and it runs sweetly!

I'm new here, But frankly think the fansubs I've downloaded were perfectly fine. The Bakawolf is fine for the iPod or portable video player, the COTB 2.1 fan-edit is better for burning to a personal DVD. Right now, there is no perfect solution for DVD. All the official releases have something wrong with them and basically aren't available to fans outside of Asia on DVD as far as I know...