Gabriel

Does anyone know how big those Q-Rau rounds are? I think the rounds would be hot enough, I have a feeling the rounds are as long as a baseball bat and as fat as a coffee can, heat would not be an issue, Roy would have been ripped in half. The chest cannons are 79mm and fire explosive shells, the forearm guns are rapid-fire particle beam cannons. As best I can tell by watching the scene, it looks like a laser volley from a trio of Gnerls is what hits his plane, so I guess it could have been either shrapnel or a degraded/deflected beam. I agree that Roy didn't know how bad he was hurt and probably just thought it was a few scratches he could shrug off. The scene gets me every time though.

I agree with most of the previous post. While the ending made "sense" to me in the way that I could guess what was happening and why, the whole spirita-magic-whatever thing was really overdone. Abstract fantasy elements rarely work when combined with a reality-based war story, which is basically what Macross is, or at least was. Overall the series was pretty decent for the mecha and battles, but the character development? Ugh. Roy is always the same cocky fighter jock, Shin is always the "little boy" struggling to keep up, Nora and DD are always the same ruthless antagonists who you know are going to meet a nasty end, Aries is always the old love interest fated to die in Roy's arms, ect. Here's a general rule of thumb I use as a writer: when you're developing a sci-fi war story and your aircraft carriers start to fly and people start teleporting around and moving fighters with their minds, its time to think about packing up and moving to a different genre.

Not too bad, but the lipstick is pushing it.

Peter Chung's character designs ruled. The casting looks...decent so far, but the only chance for this movie not to suck is if the original strangeness and unique aspects of the story/characters somehow make it on screen. I'm not holding my breath.

If it takes a series 12 episodes to get "good", there's something wrong. I just didn't care for it...the animation wasn't that great and most of the character designs and costumes looked rather goofy. Any of those could be forgivable if the character they chose to focus on wasn't so damn annoying. It seemed targeted at a young audience and felt more like Voltron than Macross.

Similar to what some others have suggested, my theory is that Earth was an experiment designed to create a peaceful and naturalistic society...perhaps as a form of insurance against the dangers that the Proto-Culture's own technology posed to itself. This is why they came here, did their thing, and then left us alone. Mayan island is a control to judge the progress of the experiment. If it ever becomes corrupted with violence and technology (as it has) the Bird Human will awaken to purify the world, either by exterminating humanity itself or signalling for outside help. Then it would start the process all over again. The Professor probably guesses some of this, which explains the urgency of the Anti-UN attempts to capture it.

I think the destroids got a raw deal mainly for the same reasons that the CF's did...they weren't piloted by main characters. The show was about showcasing the Valks, not the destroids. Destroids are ground-pounding grunts, straightforward and uncomplicated. They don't need to transform or fly, so they should have much, much more room for heavier weapons and armor. Unless they were in fact designed poorly/cheaply (or accidently made of high explosives), there doesn't seem to be any reason why they shouldn't perform well in the roles for which they are intended, especially the more versatile models like the Tomahawk and Spartan.

I think the uniforms in the series were pretty cool, at least for anime. They all had a pretty distinctive look to them. The flightsuits in DYRL were a little weird but not bad, though the Zentradi costumes and designs in general weren't all that great.

No thanks. It would be nice if people stopped rewarding the Hollywood crap factory by paying money to see stupidity like this. Wishful thinking.

I knew that and I still turned it off. Just because it has a Macross tag on it doesn't make it watchable, unfortunately.

"Reactors (or Reaction Drives): These systems heat internally carried reaction-mass (air is substituted in an atmosphere) in some sort of reaction chamber/hot fusion reactor and vent it out from exhaust ports. This propulsion system has a maximum total delta-v (change of velocity) limited by the craft's onboard fuel supply. Thrusts must be kept track of using flight vectors and position coordinates. This is fairly complicated, but is the only way for these craft to move in space. These sorts of engines are used as the secondary thrusters on large spacecraft, and are the sole propulsion system on mecha. This is why, for example, the Valkyrie carries fuel tanks (see above)." From here. Some other good info there too.

Actually, the anthropomorphic shape is ideal for a human-driven machine because it so closely mirrors our own bodies, though the control system used in most anime robots isn't intuitive enough to make this really practical. As far as optics in the backs of their heads, the utility of having this feature would be offset by the cost and extra space needed for having to double up the sensors and cockpit displays, plus it would add even more complexity to the vehicle's operation since the pilot would have to keep track of both sets of camera input and make sure he doesn't get them confused. With radar and all the other sensors the VF has available, having eyes in the back of your head wouldn't really add that much to the mix. The two gun deal is about the same as the optics. Two guns = more weight, more cost, more complex targeting system requirements, and against what the Valkyrie is designed to fight, overkill. You can only destroy a target once. Yeah, and plus its not real.

Uh yeah, I know that. I was just specifically referring to its space operation. It's atmospheric operation would be relatively 'normal" nuke type stuff, I imagine. The RMS isn't really designed to be anything fancy, as the internal diagram on Nanashi's page shows. Its basically just guidance, warhead, fuel, and motor. I would say that the larger ship-to-ship missiles are more likely to possess shaped or two-stage warheads. The RMS is mainly a multi-purpose missile, which is to say its good for just about any situation but not great at any specific one.

Yeah, getting too much into the technical side can start to ruin the fun. There are ways it could still be an effective weapon, but just like visible laser beams and sound effects in space, you have to make some allowances for entertainment over reality. It wouldn't be Macross without hundreds of missiles flying around and filling up the screen with explosions.

Some space nuke info here. Radiation would cause all the damage and carry for extremely long distances. Thick shielding or armor plating like on Zentraedi ships would probably soak it all up fairly harmlessly. Any craft operating in space has its electronics hardened to prevent cosmic radiation from messing it up, so I'd think that EMP-type effects would be fairly reduced too.

Yeah, the glowing stuff is probably just luminescent particles or glitter hit with laser light. And they probably brought the Megaroad to Earth so they could have a real ceremony and everyone could see it take off. It was a pretty monumental occasion after all.

Well, when I use those terms, I usually invoke them to imply something that doesn't suck. And I wasn't serious about the magic thing. Although magic might actually have be better.

I started with Robotech. In my opinion the characters are a lot easier to identify with in Robotech than they are in Macross (mainly because they're presented for a Western audience) but the overall story for Macross is much more complex and interesting. They both have their ups and downs.

Without the music and the fantasy you will end up having just another action flick. Talk about dirty pleasure... FV Story and character can still exist without protoculture rock star magic. In theory, at least.

I used to think these missiles were awesome, that is, until I made the mistake of researching how nuclear weapons would really work in space. Too much reality can be a bad thing. They still look cool though.

Very, very nice work. I didn't know much at all about the VF-4 until this thread got me interested in it. Now its fast becoming one of my favorites.

Well, I'm up to episode four. Feels like I'm watching Voltron.

I think that's the most likely scenario. And its pretty tried and true in reality. Sucker em in with our culture, then conquer em with capitalism.

Hikaru wrestling fish in space is silly, but the idea is not entirely impossible. People can survive unprotected in space for very short periods of time, especially if they don't try to hold their breath. More info here. I'm not asking for infallibility. I'm just asking that Macross not turn into Pokemon with mecha.

At the end of the first episode when Shin is running off to save Mao, Sara sees the VFs and SVs fighting and ponders something along the lines of "when the bird humans appear again, the song of destruction will echo through the world." She talks about it in the second episode when everyone is in the cave listening to the legend. At the end of the legend where Roikanu and Roiwaku have children, and Roiwaku leaves, Roikanu calls for her to return but she says that the day she does return the song of destruction will spread throughout the world. Hmm, now that I think about it, it could possibly apply to the arrival of the Macross itself.