chrisk

NO! A thousands times NO! I refused to believe there is no End to the Circle!!! I mean... how can anybody live like this!? What kind of a person would pin his hopes and dreams on the release of a live action version of a cartoon show from the 80's? Or a "side story" of a cartoon for that matter??

When you think about it, diehard Robotech supporters should be rejoicing that the WB LAM isn't going to be released for a long, long, long time. Think about it - no more awkward announcements at the con panels. No more empty promises year after year. In fact, we're starting to see positive effects of the delay already! To think, Tommy Yune finally got off his fat butt and is finally developing another animated "feature". Sure, it's not your precious Shadow Rising, but it's a start, right? In some ways, silencing the LAM naysayers seems almost... unproductive. To this I say, No more LAM! No more LAM!!!

On a lighter note, I finally saw the trade paperback of "Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles" on bookshelves, and it is every bit as amateurish as I feared it would be. The cover is the usual Photoshop chop-job of Tommy Yune's overused Shadow Chronicles promo illustration. The "enhancements" to the original comic are unremarkable - harsher glow effects (around ship boosters, lasers, invid eyes) were added all throughout the comic. On one hand, if you happen to be just another uninformed Robotech fanboy, then you should be jumping with joy at how it mimics the glowly look of some Japanese OVA. For the rest of us it just looks garish and cheap. They thinned out the Waltrip brothers atrocious inking in the original comic run of issues #4 and part of #5, but boy does their style still look cheesy. There are other cosmetic additions to the comic like different holographic effects, hair color changes, but honestly, who cares if the story sucks? Well, it does. It's convoluted, and to address this they put the usual timeline, and all that crap that you can see for free from the internet. Oh, and I think there was a Robotech 3000 feature. Because recycling content is value for your money! The most interesting failure in terms so quality is that two pages of the comic are shockingly low-res pixel-fests. Maybe this was because this is some kind of cheaply made "Asia-Pacific" version, but I doubt it. The only real "bonus" is an additional two page epilogue drawn, and most likely written by Tommy Yune to somehow tie in the comic to the Shadow Chronicles and the orignal cartoon series - Moments after the Neutron S Missile blows in Rick Hunter's face in some far out part of the galaxy, we cut to half of the orignal cast of the New Generation cartoon sleeping in a tent - Ariel, Lunk and Mint. Ariel (who somehow gained 20 pounds last I saw her) suddenly wakes up screaming and sweating profusely... This sort of begs the question - Was the events of the comics just a horrible nightmare? Or better yet, was it canon? Aha! This should keep the Robotech boards debating!! Good ol' Tommy. All-in-all, a curious failure. 2/5 P.S. I didn't buy the comic, I just flipped through it in a bookstore. God knows I've already wasted too much money on this crap.

... Gone are the days when Robotech fans and Macross fans argue over which show is "superior". It's now been replaced with which show has a higher loli quotient. Now that's progress!

People... pay... to... watch... this... year... after... year... It's not even funny anymore...

I think the bigger question is why should anyone care? 1.) Tommy already made it clear it's not worth talking or showing at Comic-Con International 2.) Our only source of info is a rabid fanboy who likes to hear himself talk with capital letters 3.) They've attached Macek's name to the project - Is it that uninteresting?

So we're at it again with Comic Con International 2010, and like it's bajillion other Robotech panels in the recent months, Harmony Gold wants you to know how much people like attending their AWEEESOME panels. However, like I've said before, a great panel is not about the size of your audience, but the content. And this year, we got... 1.) Absolutely nothing regarding the Robotech Live Action Movie. Shocking. 2.) A new near-mythical Robotech cartoon coming out next year, but it seems they left out Sera's panties. (Too many people to ban if they posted it on the net) 3.) Reprinted collection of forgettable comics whose individual issues are worth little more than toilet paper. 4.) Another Robotech Soundtrack collection, with more unreleased songs. If you liked those techno-Sentinels songs, you'll love this one! 5.) A DYRL variant of the Battlepod - So Toynami can shove it to Macross fans faces that they own the merchandising rights. 6.) And finally, if you haven't had your fill of Carl Macek tributes, then you're in luck because they're filming one, filled with footage from Macek's previous appearances at conventions. Yeah... So if you've been following the franchise for some time, this reveals... absolutely nothing. Harmony Gold is still raking in the 'big bucks' on reselling, repackaging content while promising clearer skies in the future. If you can help it, don't be like this guy. If you like to wallow in nostalgia and wish to contemplate on vague promises, you must be in cloud 9 after reading this. If not, I'm pretty sure there's a hundred other cooler, more promising franchises out there for more deserving of your mindshare.

Now I'm even more excited hope the new episodes don't take as long as Valve does with their game...

In the end, everyone has the right to like/dislike the original Robotech series. Being a passionate fan is okay, sometimes great like Captain JLS, just don't be some hardcore jerk who'd sell his soul just so he can fancy himself some kind of Robotech "insider". Nothing is sadder, really. As for the rest of us, vote with your wallet.

Initiated by disappointed mid to late 20's fans taking advantage of mainstream blogging services, and and other web 2.0 tools... It's a shame, really, that a lot of the older stuff was taken down. Naw, it's not like that. It's just that extended Robotech stories in the 90's in general are unintentionally funny. Yeah... since when did MEMO, Mav_LSC, and Doug Bendo become the face of all Robotech fans?

Right, right. Yune originally cannibalized the Robotech Graphic Novel, and to make it feel "authentic" he shoehorned some of the Roy Focker's flashback scenes from the Macross TV series. Shame that Yune didn't include the Robotech Master Bioroids inside the SDF-1 crashsite like what the original Graphic Novel did. Or Boldoza as a security guard for Zor. That's s**t was frikkin' awesome. Not so enthusiastic, are we? Y'see, one of the main prerequisites of being a modern Robotech fan is to have an overly active imagination. Just take a look at any of the Robotech boards and try not to get excited when you hear from reliable sources that "The Robotech Live Action Comic Book is going to be optioned as a Live Action TV series!" or "It's going to be bigger than Michael Bay and directed by Sylvain White!" and their favorite - "Comic Con International is going to have another major reveal!" Who cares if the end product is disappointing or a piece of crap?

Ouch. Alchu was like "SO?" And Mav's like... marked for ban. Yikes.

It's a very strange scenario, really. On one hand, everyone is eager to say how the 90's stuff was terrible and cheesy, and yet somehow I recall a strange excitement when Tommy started releasing his own comics - which were really just retooled ideas from the original Robotech Graphic Novel (Robotech's version of Macross Zero) and the Sentinels. Yeah, that's what's so strange about what's going on at present. On one hand you can say Tommy released stuff that Macek never did in the 90's - and yet I feel they didn't give what fans really wanted - a good compelling story. As the 'noughts went by it just seemed that while HG was putting out 'better quality' (a debatable topic) stuff, they were all just rehashes and regurgitation of the stuff people hated from the 90's. So yeah, Dr. Lang is still an idiot, Edwards has no personality, space ships escaping from blackholes... And that's probably why every review for new Robotech crap keeps having the phrase "this is just for the fans", because while there's nothing wrong with rehashing a character, the writing is so uncompelling that nobody but the hardest of the hardcore will get it. And speaking of the hardest of the hardcore, Mav_LSC's on trying to generate excitement over nothing: My favorite is the snarky reply from Alchu: And here's one from the creepy guy who takes pictures to show the Macross groupies they're wrong: Yeah MEMO! You tell those fanboys whose boss!! HEHEHE

This kinda thing begs the question on how different the Robotech fandom was in the 90's compared to the ones what came out of the 'noughts. Robotech comics and novels coming in left and right, hundreds maybe thousands of crappy freeweb sites, Carl Macek was still jerking around his dreams of finishing Sentinels and Odyssey... Compare and contrast then and now, which era was more disappointing?

IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S TRUE. Hey guys, this is strange: http://www.mwir.net/forum/index.php?/topic/52491-starblazers-and-robotech-2011-movie-previews/ This is a link of some guy who posted some pretty interesting Japanese Macross commercial ads. However, is this guy talking out of his arse? Oh, and in case you didn't know, long time fan Jonathan Switzer is blogging about Robotech again. http://sdf5x.blogspot.com/ Just a heads up in case you have nothing to do and want to be amazed at how Zor invented Protoculture.

Slow news day, just thought I'd share what McKeever thinks Robotech fans want to see - that they, and their audience aren't getting any younger.

Yeah... It's kinda sad that 20 years of fandom "politics", shady office drama, failed projects and merchandising efforts, and the entire license debate is significantly more compelling than anything this current crop of chumps can accomplish. Unless you have high hopes with another Tommy Yune helmed beast.

You mean the same mod who took his own contraband pictures and showed it to a couple of strangers during a screening of Trigun at AX? Can a mod ban himself for breaking the rules? Aww... So cute. Let me see if I can explain to Tommy why this incident happened: #1 The hardest of the hardcore fanboys are left #2 Cellphone camera technology has come a long way #3 Prolonged franchise production news blackout / Multiple promises and vague panel answers #4 Transformers is already a trilogy while Robotech can't even get a script And Tommy's poo-pooing that the interwebs gets to see this grainy shot for free? Guess who's the real Focker now...

Better pray to the art gods its just camera lens distortion. Still, Harmony Gold is going for a slow burn on this one. Real incognito for what should be a big, big deal.

Wow, I'm so glad I didn't mention Jack Archer. Unfortunately, I got nothing for this bit. Next year is not going to be Jack Baker's year, nor this year for that matter. I must've misinterpreted Harmony Gold's little icon they got on the left of their dated site. Can I make it up to you with this funny story? If ya'll head on over to Robotech Espanol, there's a post by Juan, also known as the second biggest Robotech fan on the planet next to you know who Anyone care to cry for the that Focker?

epic in the worst way possible.

If I said that next year will be the Year of Jack Baker, would you squeal with delight, or groan in despair?

I heard HG asked WB to lock up a hundred monkeys with typewriters to write the LAM script. No luck so far except for a room full of dead monkeys.

Well, according to their itinerary for their "signature con" in New Orleans, Tommy's holding some workshop on how to draw comic books (never underestimate the power of Speed Racer!), and McKeever has some panel on independent filmmaking(?). And then they hold some topical anime-related panel like "is manga publishing dying?" or "are anime conventions dying?" or "is anime in general dying?" - cuz' the anime industry is all about dying. And finally, they invite Tony Oliver or Mari Ijima to show up for some three hour panel to talk about how Robotech made such a splash in the 80's and how we'll never hear the end of it when we're all old and decrepit. And then you all eat in some restaurant that serves something either grilled or deep-fried and pretend to be friends for a night. Then you pretend you don't know each other on Robotech.com. Oh, and lets not forget AWESOME PRIZES LIKE MUGS AND TSHIRTS and SIGNED STACKS OF COMICS YOU ALREADY OWNED FIVE YEARS AGO COLLECTED IN HARDBOUND TRADE PAPERBACK!!!!!!! Do I get a cookie?

I'm getting a lot of mixed signals... which is weird for Harmony Gold. You'd think Yune's second foray into animation would be a pretty big deal after the hiatus hoopla, but the way the hype machine is going for this "full-length movie" its been a pretty slow burn. And with San Diego so big now, maybe McKeever couldn't book three hours of the same BS (like Robotech showing in Southeast Asia, #1 in Hulu, etc.) they spew every year?