Darkwater

Man, Battletech was the shiz-net. Then again, I never played the board game, I only played at the Battle Tech Center in Chicago in the early 90's

Tommy once said at a convention that he always wanted Rick Hunter to be an ongoing story in the background, like the survivors getting off of the island in "Lost," even though at the convention he said that, the survivors had been off of the island for a couple of seasons at that point. So, it makes sense that they hyped up Shadow Chronicles as the answer to the "greatest mystery of a generation." Because, you know, when you think about your childhood from the 80s, the first thing you think of is " OMG Rick Hunter! What happened to him?!?!"

Okay guys, here's a little secret: Harmony Gold isn't what you'd call a "real" production company by any Hollywood standards. I say this as a true Hollywood professional of over 12 years. And I don't say that to brag, but rather drive home the point that HG is literally nothing in Hollywood. In the 1980's, Frank Agrama was an entrepreneurial businessman who saw the value of buying international rights to American TV Shows and movies and then sell them overseas. And he also imported, like Anime, which many other companies had started doing. He wanted Macross, it was too short for the American syndication market, thus Robotech is born. But over the years, with the syndication market dying down, no one in Hollywood gave a crap or knew who Harmony Gold was. Frank Agrama continued to make his money from international sales, later in real estate, and a private theater he owned that was rented out for special events. And there's some shady dealing with Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi that have been investigated, but I'll let you do your research on that. But he always owned Robotech. It made money through some licensing deals like Comics in the early 90's, got a boost in the Chinese market around that time, and it continued collecting checks. When it came time for them to try and make Robotech big again, it was headed by a number of people who hadn't worked in entertainment in years, or never really at all, but more importantly, it not really willing to learn. When running my Shadow Chronicles blog, the one thing I was told by multiple professionals who dealt with HG was the sheer amount of ignorance that came from them. Well intentioned as they may be, they just really had no idea what they were doing, or how to go about things. This point was only driven home to me with the amount of question I personally was being asked by the HG staff on how to handle certain things. And honestly, that's why I love reading and ranting about HG's lack of professionalism on obscure message boards, because most of it is right.

Nope, that was where I learned everything I needed to know about sex in the 90's.

I don' t know about you, but all I ever needed to know about sex in the 80's was taught to me by Minmei's Miss Macross performance.

Not even merchandising, there'd be a ton of money to be made in cable sales, DVD sales, international TV sales, and internet streaming rights. You'd just need a lot of money upfront to get it done. Kevin keeps saying on Robotech.com that the reason they're not on TV is because it requires a network to order a certain amount of episodes, but that's not really the case. If you have the money upfront to produce what you want, you can later sell that to other outlets. That's how Clone Wars was done, as well as that one show Wolverine & The X-Men was done (also produced by the producer of The Shadow Chronicles). And since Robotech is SOOOO huge and successful as HG likes to point out every two seconds, I can't see why they're not doing that.

Or, they could just license the franchise to another studio/production company that actually pumps out animation on a regular basis, reboot the franchise, get rid of their current structure, and just sit back and collect royalties. The downside to that is that you'd have professionals with experience handling the franchise.

Something interesting I just noticed going back to actual "licensing" debates - all of the Macross footage has been removed from the new "remastered" version of The Sentinels on the A&E DVDs. This includes the flashbacks, as well as the brief shot of the Valkyries flying in space for Max and Miriya's wedding that was re-used. Apparently HG wants to wash their hands entirely of any old Macross footage in anything that could be considered "new."

That's the thing about the internet, you can focus on only what you want and make something up to be big in your own mind. Any Robotech or Macross fan in the 90's knew they were a part of a niche group, simply because only a handful of other friends ever knew what you were talking about. Between the fact that comic shops only ordered 3-4 copies of each Robotech, or that you had to buy Macross II VHS tapes buried deep within the bottom shelves of Suncoast, it was pretty sobering knowing Now, thanks to people being able to focus on one thing on the internet, not only the fans, but the people behind Robotech really think it's a big thing. At Anime Expo, when a fan asked about "the movie," Kevin interjected and said "you have to be specific, Robotech is SO BIG that there are THREE movies going on right now!" No, Robotech is not that big. If it were, there'd be more than three people on staff at Harmony Gold handling Robotech. But, when your job is to go around the internet all day and surf forums, then attend conventions where half the people believe your crappy PR spin, then yes, it's easy to fall into that trap.

As a businessman in entertainment myself, I will applaud Carl as a businessman. He knew how to identify a good product from one market and get it to another. Organizing the narrative threads that he did was an impressive feat. But, his innovations as a businessman is where I'd stop my praise. His original story.... um, yeah. Not a fan. I don't know any of the backstory behind Carl and HG personally, although I do know that when I was invited to the cast and crew screening, Carl sat right behind me. At the end of the movie, he looked really pissed off and left before Tommy did his question and answer portion (which was odd, given that it was a cast and crew screening and like 12 fans).

I still have yet to understand why some RT fans are making Carl Macek out to be a saint after his death. From the RT.com forums, one guy said this after attacking Macek to which, a rely was: First of all, none of these fans actually knew Carl. I didn't know him. Was he a great guy? I have no clue. Some of my friends knew him and said he was a nice guy, so I would have taken that into consideration. All I really know about him was that he was a producer. You can debate the merits of work as producer, as many have over the years, but why the deification of him into something more than that is beyond me. I guess it's common after the creator of something passes away, but people don't realize that these are just people. After Gene Roddenberry died, no one really talked about the fact that he was a pot smoker, stole ideas, and met his second wife while cheating on his first. Still, I enjoy the hell out of Star Trek.

Here's the lowdown on the DVDs: Robotech episodes - still the same as the Remastered versions. Only audio option is 5.1, which, on the last release, was terrible if you had anything other than a 5.1 receiver. Early Robotech episodes - literally taken from a VHS tape of the original broadcasts, these have different audio. I wasn't able to watch enough to tell the differences. Carl Macek's Robotech Universe - as said before, decent for DVD extra, nothing for even the most hardcore Robotech fan to get excited about. Richard Epcar's character credit is wrong. Whoops. Robotech Music Videos - from a Chinese release, basically AMVs. Pretty well done Robotech: The Movie - a 29 minute version without any Megazone or extra HG footage at the end. This ought to be interesting. Original 70 minute Macross pilot - haven't seen it yet, want to, though The Sentinels - color corrected, with new opening graphics like the Remaster episodes. A short epilogue at the end (with text), explaining the Masters sereis, and setting up Shadow Chronicles. Then, pretty much all of the past DVD extras from Legacy sets. The one thing I can think of that was never there were the two "Robotech Wars" episodes that came on VHS with the toy set. These were specially edited episodes just for that toy set and don't fit into any continuity.

I just watched it now. They showed mostly LLA footage but had one closeup shot of Dana (new animation) and dissolved to closeup shot of Lancer (old animation). That looked really out of place. Then, they showed the three mounds, still shots with flower pedals animated over them. And... that was it. And over on Robotech.com, someone said Tommy mentioned not using the music portions that much, and mainly the dialogue scenes.

I actually think LLA is a good idea from a business sense and I will see it when they release it. What I don't get is the hype built up around it. It'll be nice to see, but it's not something that deserves 2 and half years of teasing. It's like the extra animated shorts you find on those DC Comics animated movies. A nice supplement, but nothing to promote as a main attraction. Obviously, though, we all know why they have to hype it as such. Hell, the Carl Macek documentary was meant to be a DVD extra, nothing more. And for that, it did a good job. The fact that they made a formal event and screening around it was just quite... odd. I enjoy the extras on my Star Trek DVD's every now and then, but would I dress up to seen one of those in a theater???

The TNG shots are actually much more extensive. Like when you have Picard standing in front of the viewscreen, switching between a shot of the person he's talking to, and then to the ship they're in. They've got re-do the shot the of ship, take the original footage of both Picard and the person he's talking to, and recompisite all three. TOS was light on the VFX, usually just including changing the color of the planet the Enterprise flew over, and adding a few phaser beams.

Another reason for that is because remastering TNG is a lot more work than TOS. TOS was all on film, so they easily restore that to HD. For the VFX / Composite shots of TNG, most of them were transferred to SD video first, meaning an extensive re-do of a lot of those shots is needed. If you ever watch them on DVD or Netflix, you'll notice those shots are a little murkier than the rest.

I always wondered how it worked exactly for the licensed products, like comics and games. They had no problems with using the character designs and names to all of the Macross and pre-Macross era designs in the Wildstorm comics, but when it came to Prelude, they got really weird about it. They totally re-designed Rick & Lisa, used Breetai, but gave him that ugly buckethead helmet from the Sentinels, and they only showed Minmei from behind. Then there was Battlecry, which had all of the main characters, settings, etc Is it like for licensed products (and technically not new animation), they can use all of the Macross-era designs as long as it takes place within the Marcross timeline, but anything that could be considered a sequel, it's a major no-no? I know animation-wise, they were afraid to use Max, Miriya, or Lisa because even with a redesign, they're names were still way too close the Macross names.

I'm guessing the thought process went like this: 1984: "We need another monument in Macross to tie into Southern Cross's mounds! Let's make the SDF-2 through the dialog" 1985: "Well, it aired, and no one seemed to notice" 1986: "Crap, people are asking, give them an answer" 1987: "Okay, some guys are writing novels, they'll have an answer" 1988: "Wow, people are still asking about this?" 1989: "Wow, people are still asking about this? Well, they drew it in the comics..." 2000: "Wow, people are still asking about this?" 2010: "Wow, people are still asking about this?"

The SDF-2 one of the few things that really bugs me about the Robotech adaption of Macross. It was quickly used to explain why there'd be these three mounds in the Masters saga, but it felt rushed. Then again, when they were producing Robotech they were doing it cheaply, quickly, and probably didn't think anyone would give a crap and still be talking about it 26 years later. The series was already like 3 years old by the time Comico finished up their adaptation, so they just threw it in there: Edit: Don't know why its only saying "posted image," here's a link http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2i4Xikk3LbE/RlAWSCRBc9I/AAAAAAAAASc/hm-oq3mfO8E/s1600-h/tms_36f.jpg

Here's a serious answer. Robotech is owned by a really old guy (Frank Agrama) who's made millions from real estate, owning a theater, foreign sales of domestic TV and films, and shady off-shore deals with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Robotech to him is a fun little franchise to own, that while seemingly dormant, has made him money throughout all of these years. Those comics with the horrible art that someone linked to above? Those have still made him money. Shadow Chronicles, as crappy as it was, still made him money. Toynami's crappy toys? You guessed it. They still make money. And you better believe that Tobey McGuire gave him a decent sum for the rights to the live action movie that will probably never get made. So, while using these residuals to help three employees coast on these earnings, Frank Agrama still has his own little franchise to play around with. Plus, the earnings from Robotech help keep the feds off of his back while they continue to deal with his Berlusconi past.

I'm not even going to click that link because I don't have enough bleach on hand for my eyes (I used it all the last time I saw those pics). But, if you want conspiracy theories, take the pics above, add the fact that he's homophobic as hell as on his podcast, while at the same time he constantly references anal sex and male-on-male fellatio... I think 6,000 lessoners might not be the only thing he's fooling himself about. Wow, I'm being mean today. Edit: spelling

Now I've always been a fan of Robotech, but there are some full-on loons in the fandom. We can't forget the guy who spent literally his last dollar on a trip to Anime Expo to pie Tommy in the face. Then there was a guy on the RDF HQ message board who was convinced that Tommy's portrayal of Vince Grant in the Shadow Chronicles was Tommy's way of getting back a the African-Americans who looted Korean owned stores during the LA Riots in the early 90's. And let's not forget the fan who was so obsessed that he BS'ed that he was a producer and worked so hard to land a job at Harmony Gold, that he could have been a real entertainment professional had he put in half the effort. Back when I had my old blog years ago, I got some whacky emails from people with long-winded theories about crap I didn't even understand. My only guess is that Robotech attracts the crazies because it's the type of story that one has to analyze and theorize about in order to make sense, since it was cobbled together from three unrelated sources and had a lot of holes in its stories. 99% of people would just shrug that kind of thing off and enjoy it, while the 1% of whackos would obsess about it. But to be honest, one of the reasons I was posting about Bendo and the whackiness that ensues for the past few days was because I know he reads this board and would probably do a show about it, which he records every Friday. So yeah, while I was offering an honest analysis, I was also trolling the troll. I'll knock it off now.

I think it's more self-denial than anything. He sounds pretty confident on his show that he actually has that amount of lessoners, but he probably doesn't want to think too hard about the fact that almost no one actually listens live, nor does he get a pouring in of emails. It's like a when someone suspects their spouse of cheating, but pretends everything is a-ok.

I think the fact that Bendo believed that Jason created the Robotech Alto print ad, with the sole purpose of converting Robotech fans into Macross fans so that he could win his imaginary war was proof enough. But Bendo is an all out nut, looking for any and every reason behind everything. For example: -When he asked me why I didn't blog about Robotech anymore, I told him that I gave it up because I'm too busy going out, meeting women, and having fun. He somehow morphed that and started to refer to me on his podcast as a mid-40's guy who has an alcohol problem who consistently date-rapes women. I'm being serious. Later, it was stated that I was attempting to get him to stand down from being the king of Robotech and that I was attempting regain my old glory, after telling him not to take this stuff too seriously. He saw me post on some message boards and created a scenario in his head. -When he asked Tom Bateman about the leaked Shadow Rising outline, Tom took the high road and didn't talk about it. Suddenly Tom and Jason were the one who wrote it and released it based solely on the fact that a) Tom never denied writing it (which he did) and b) It sounded too much like a Macross story, thus they wrote it. I think he did a two and a half hour show about it that. -And going back to the Alto ad - as soon as that got out there, Bendo did a podcast on it, and how Macross fans were secretly trying to infiltrate Robotech fans. Thinking it was the most f*cked up thing I had ever heard from him, I called Jason to laugh about it. Jason then said he'd mess with him by posting that he did it, but did it rather sarcastically. Bendo THEN did ANOTHER show about this, talking about how he was right, and how Jason's sarcasm was his way of fearing legal repercussions. These are just a few examples. Bendo doesn't have a whole lot going for him in life (I know, I've looked into it). This imaginary war between Macross and Robotech fans is all he really has. He has to bend and contort everything that he sees into something really, really serious to give it meaning - to basically give his real life some meaning. The fact that he really believes that he has 6,000 lessoners only intensifies his delusions. So to answer your question, yes. Bendo is the king of conspiracies. And yes, he is a fan of Glenn Beck.

Don't you see it? There's a conspiracy here. You actually went to Japan and brought Robotech items over there, telling everyone there that they were actually Macross items from the US, in hopes of making the Macross fandom even bigger over there. You then photoshopped the Robotech ad with Alto, gave it to Jason who flew to Canada to display it up at FanExpo, in the hopes of converting recently emigrated Japanese-Canadians to Macross, since that's all they'll have known because of you. Why you won't go on his show to admit that is beyond me.