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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    So... you want exactly what I just described in the post you quoted? The sequel Harmony Gold can never make... in which they've got the Macross characters as the focus of the story, out in space doing Macross-y things like establishing colonies and teaching new aliens about humanity's culture, just without the word "Macross" in the title. Sentinels is what a lot of Robotech fans want, for reasons that are fairly obvious... it's basically Carl Macek's Macross-MOSPEADA crossover fic, and it's far more Macross than it is MOSPEADA. There are so many problems with the very idea of producing it that you're pretty much hosed even if you DO become rich enough to independently finance a new animated series.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Won't work. They'll still piss and moan about the evil "Macross purists", simply because it's easier than admitting to themselves that they've wasted thirty-odd years hoping for a clueless but (originally) well-meaning company (Harmony Gold) to produce the impossible sequel of their dreams... something that is all about the Macross characters, doing Macross-y things, but without the word Macross in the title. They're still going to blame us for the bad press the project has gotten, the various reviewers over on YouTube who encouraged people to boycott the Kickstarter, and all the acrimony on the comments page. This late in the game, and with the Kickstarter's chances of success being virtually zero, it'd be no different from taunting them about the project's impending failure.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    This just in... invisible, incorporeal beings turned out in record numbers for the SDCC Robotech panel! Backing for their Robotech Academy project climbed to... wait... whaddya mean they've had less than a grand in pledges the day after such a world shattering multimedia event? What do you mean they've only had five new pledges today?
  4. Seto Kaiba
    The ultimate "do not need" box set for practically everybody anyway... almost every Robotech fan already owns two or three different releases of the series, usually one pre-remaster and at least one post-remaster, and most aren't all that interested in the originals, since being interested in the originals makes you an evil baby-eating Macross purist troll as far as the most vocal fans are concerned.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    It's sad, but the Kickstarter's now devolved into the fans hoping that the whole thing is a sham and Harmony Gold secretly has some other agency in the wings who'll chip in the missing $300,000.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Give or take one or two people who may have backed it ironically, probably. Look on the bright side... at least your gesture won't end up costing you money. No updates, and a lot of recrimination on the comments page. You've got the few blind faithful profusely thanking Harmony Gold for "getting the word out" at SDCC and suggesting that because of this it'll hit a million bucks, and the sane men saying that they accomplished the square root of bugger all in the internet age, and that everyone who was going to pledge probably knew about the Kickstarter long before the panel thanks to the internet publicity. Definitely a smart move on Harmony Gold's part to make the Q&A as short as possible... with the backers giving Kevin flack over his circular non-answers and question-dodging on the comments page, and some going so far as to suggest that he's failed the Turing test, the best thing would've been to avoid a queue of what would have been mostly questions about what they're gonna do if/when the Kickstarter fails, questions about why they've not released Macross stuff in the west if their claims of having all of the distribution rights to the franchise are true, why they're doing this instead of Shadow Chronicles, and why they're relying on "Do it for Carl!" so much instead of posting actual news people care about. A long Q&A session would've been slow and public suicide for the project and the staff.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    ... and boy does it show! As of 8am EDT, the take for yesterday including the incredible rush to give give give that followed the Earth-shattering revelations of the Harmony Gold panel was a mind-blowing $1,444. The Kicktraq trending-towards estimated total is now under 60% (59% - $296,131) and the projection high/low is $220,162 to $281,951 (44%-56%). SideKick's projection actually went up slightly, recovering from 5% to 8%, though that's not much of an actual recovery. At this rate, the only way it stands a chance is if every backer is willing to throw $200 on top of whatever they've already given, and the comments on the Kickstarter suggest most are regretting pledging as high as they did already. Hit the nail on the head. They'll throw us another re-release of the Macross series on DVD (not blu-ray, DVD) if we please, please, pretty please throw some money at the Kickstarter. I'm waiting to hear back from HG's current distributor on a request for the sales numbers for the A&E Robotech box set. I'm expecting it to be less than 50,000. That's a Garfish-class transport from Genesis Climber MOSPEADA with its middle hangar replaced by a harpoon and some wings haphazardly glued to its sides. What an ugly mess.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Business as usual, lol. But not an unexpected turn of events either... Harmony Gold usually crops their "crowd shots" to make it look like they've got a full hall when, in reality, they only have a few rows full at best. Please do.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    No problemo... though that doesn't include certain formations that either aren't squadrons proper or are of unclear designation like the 727th Independent Special Command "Ravens" or 815th Independent Special Command "Havamal", Antares squadron from Macross Galaxy, and squadrons/special forces teams from character backstory like Scarecrow Squadron, the Ruby Maces, Black Rays, (all from VF-X2 characters) and Round Table (Macross R).
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Why not save you a trip? I had it all (preformatted no less) in a notepad file from when I was compiling it a ways back. Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie (Vol.1) SVF-1 "Skulls" SVF-29 "Silver Wings" SVF-20 "Outlaws" "Angel Birds" Flight Demonstrator Squadron (the UN Spacy equiv. of the Blue Angels) SVF-122 "Big Aces" (a Zentradi squad) SVF-65 "Blue Knights" SVA-163 "Flying Fleas" SVF-46 "Gold Wings" SVF-51 "Yellowjackets" SVF-85 "Blue Falcons" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie (Vol.2) "Space Wing" SVF-50 "Spirits of the Sword" SVF-13 "Plungers" SVC-113 "Star Hunters" SVAW-12 "Prairie Dogs" SVF-43 "Grime Wolves" SVF-41 "Black Aces" SVF-74 "Grime Fighters" SVF-92 "Cleavers" SVF-124 "Moonshadows" SVFM-31 "Hawks" SVF-69 "Big Dippers" SVF-26 "Royal Cavaliers" SVF-56 "Griffons" SVF-77 "Seven Stars" SVF-113 "Great Bisons" SVF-144 "Cloverleaves" SVF-197 "Hammerheads" SVF-61 "War Babies" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur SVF-663 "Muskets" SVF-569 "Lightnings" SVF-440 "Dullahans" SVFC-222 "Valkyries" SVF-73 "Sidewinders" SVF-166 "Tiger Waves" SVF-37 "Red Bulls" SVF-290 "Black Sabers" SVF-242 "Guardians" SVF-315 "Cheyennes" SVF-158 "Iron Riders" SVF-137 "Metal Robins" "Emerald Force" (Special Forces) "Sound Force" (Special Forces/Irregulars) SVF-523 "Sonic Riders" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah SVF-522 "Stampede Thunders" SVF-1202 "Fireballs" SVF-121 "Regulus" SVF-173 "Ripsnorters" "Angel Mates" Flight Demonstrator Squadron SVF-152 "Star Streaks" SVF-188 "Fire Stars" SVF-255 "Samurai Fighters" SVF-332 "Strato Falcons" SVF-502 "Electric Dragons" SVF-415 "Storm Birds" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix VF-1 "Skulls" (UN Spacy) VF-8 "Vigilantes" (UN Navy) VF-11 "Bravers" (UN Spacy Technical Research and Development Force test unit) SVX-12 "Space Fighters" (UN Spacy, Orbital Weapons Test Squadron) VF-38 "Green Arrows" (UN Spacy) SVF-115 "Armors" (UN Spacy) VF-3 "Green Arrows" (UN Navy) VF-12 "Firebirds" (UN Navy) VMFAT-203 "Hawks" (UN Marines, Training Squadron) Tenjin Hidetaka: Art Works of Macross: VALKYRIES ~ Second Sortie SVF-1 "Skulls" SVF-569 "Lightnings" VMFAT-203 "Hawks" (UN Marines) SVF-124 "Moon Shooters" SVF-41 "Black Aces" VF-2 "Sonicbirds" (UN Navy) From the Squadrons book: Carrier Air Wing 1 (CVS-101 Prometheus) SVF-1 "Skulls" SVF-2 "Sonicbirds" SVF-20 "Outlaws" SVF-63 [uNNAMED] SVF-28 "Knightriders" Carrier Air Wing 9 (SDF-1 Macross) SVF-48 "Blue Hawks" SVF-38 "Green Arrows" SVF-6 [uNNAMED] SVF-22 [uNNAMED] SVF-13 [uNNAMED] SVF-44 "Gunpod Fighters" SVF-32 "Shooting Stars" Carrier Air Wing 14 (CVS-101 Prometheus) SVF-68 SVF-37 "Red Bulls" Other Units SVF-5 "Hustlers" (ARMD-1 H.J. Niven) SVF-34 "Kingfishers" (CVW-33) SVF-105 "Percivals" (ARMD-6 Constellation/CVW- SVF-54 "Bicorns" (CVW-11)* SVF-47 "Williams" (CVW-17)* VF-11 "Bravers" SVF-90 "Millennium Goblins" (ARMD-6 Constellation) VMS-38 "Night Stalkers" VMS-39 SVFR-7 "Screwhawks" SVF-50 "Spirits of the Sword" Variable Fighter's Aero Report SVF-41 "Black Aces" (UN Spacy VF-1J) SVF-145 "Easyriders" (UN Spacy, VF-1D) 9th Air Force, 723rd Tactical Fighter Wing (UN Spacy Air Force, VF-1J) VF-2 "Sonicbirds" (UN Navy, VF-1A) SVF-38 "Green Arrows" (UN Spacy, VF-1A) SVF-82 "Dirty Sluggers" (UN Spacy, VF-1J) SVF-212 "Black Knights" (UN Spacy, VF-1J) SVMAT-102 (UN Spacy Marines, VT-1) SVT-24 (UN Spacy, VT-1) SVF-184 "Iron Chiefs" (UN Spacy, VF-4A) SVMF-42 "Blue Phoenixes" (UN Spacy Marines, VF-4A) SVF-95 "White Rocks" (UN Spacy, VF-4A) 38th Air Force, 644th Tactical Fighter Wing (UN Spacy Air Force, VF-11C) SVF-72 "Black Eagles" (UN Spacy, VF-11C) SVF-110 "Mighty Wings" (UN Spacy, VF-11C) SVF-35 "Blue Steels" (UN Spacy, VF-11B) SVF-477 "Stingers" (UN Spacy, VF-11C) SVF-411 "Blue Lancers" (UN Spacy, VF-11B) SVA-145 "Cloud Dancers" (UN Spacy, VA-3) SVF-33 SVF-71 "Star Lions" (UN Spacy, VF-5000B) 28th Air Force, 313th Tactical Fighter Wing "Mosquitos" (UN Spacy Air Force, VF-5000B) SVF-124 "Moon Shooters" (UN Spacy, VF-17D) SVMF-45 "Luna Guards" (UN Spacy Marines, VF-17D)
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Okay, mystery solved... you've conflated typo'd "SVC" into "SCV". Welcome to acronym hell, population... almost everybody at some point. SCV is a depreciated/unofficial hull classification symbol used for the ARMD-class space carriers in the Sky Angels VF-1 technical manual, and fan shorthand for "space carrier" in some threads here on MW. SVC is a UN Spacy squadron classification symbol for a space-based composite squadron (the kind of group whose job it is being the adversaries in simulated combat). The SVC-8 Blue Roses are an (apparently unofficial) squadron for which the paint scheme was featured in the October 2002 issue of Model Graphix magazine on a VF-1S Strike Valkyrie. I don't believe they've appeared anywhere official, but they have showed up in a few other issues of the magazine. EDIT: I just realized the "SCV" thing is probably a typo, since you copied it out as SVC-8 in your second post. I put together a similar list of squadrons on another forum already, containing everything from the Master File books out thus far and the VF Aero Report in TIA M+. There's a lot of 'em, but only one that has just a number 8... the UN Navy squad VF-8 Vigilantes in the VF-0 book. EDIT 2: The November issue of same also has some models done in the SVC-8 Blue Roses scheme.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Erm... what's the source you found a reference to "SCV-8 Blue Roses" in? I ask because that's not a Macross squadron designation... Macross largely uses a US Navy-inspired designation system, while the only usage of "SCV" that leaps to mind was in an unofficial tech manual (Sky Angels) as an alternate hull classification symbol for the ARMD-class space carriers. SCV/ARMD-8 was listed as the carrier Midway. EDIT: Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix lists the squadron VF-8 as the "Vigilantes". EDIT 2: The only google results I'm coming up with for "SCV-8" is one of the alternate license plates for the popemobile.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Y'gotta remember, az, that the perceived situation is just as important to selling a product as the reality is. That's marketing in a nutshell. In a purely objective sense, it doesn't matter a damn whether Agrama was guilty or innocent... but the subjective views that backers and prospective backers take of the situation can have a dramatic effect on whether they contribute and how much they contribute. The behavior of the chief executive reflects upon the company he heads, after all. People are going to be a lot less interested in backing a project by a company whose owner has the reputation of being a sleazy scumbag who's got himself caught in shady dealings involving large amounts of money, regardless of whether that reputation is actually merited. So, yes, with Harmony Gold's reputation already in the toilet and Frank's badly in question, they NEED to reaffirm to the backers that the man at the top isn't tax-evading crook that everyone has had legitimate cause to think he is for the last nine years. You wouldn't, for instance, hire an accountant whose resume listed his last held position as CFO for Enron... regardless of whether or not he was involved in their book-cooking scandal. It's a game of perceptions, not facts, on that front.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Harmony Gold apparently felt it was necessary to remind the backers (for what has to be the fifth or sixth time) that Frank Agrama was acquitted by the Italian courts on charges of tax fraud. You'd think that, at some point, they'd notice that the fact that he was acquitted matters very little in terms of the damage that it's doing to their cause. What matter is that there was enough evidence for the legendarily lazy and corrupt Italian courts to charge him at all... to say nothing of the fact that it somehow took nine years to clear his name (or bribe his way to acquittal). The public image of the company's chief executive matters to the company's reputation... and if your closest associates act like they aspire to a lifestyle somewhere between that of a Bond villian, a Captain Planet villain, and Hugh Hefner...
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... I like to think of Cesar's film as a martyr. The noble sacrifice of Cesar's film, coupled with the incredibly shameful behavior of Harmony Gold in the Robotech Academy Kickstarter, has finally opened the eyes of many Robotech fans to the fact that Harmony Gold is completely out of touch with its audience and is only really interested in using nostalgia to pocket-mine its gullible fans with false promises of a comeback. With a little luck, Robotech Academy's Kickstarter will be the crash-and-burn failure that Kicktraq and SideKick say it will, and that will finally prove to them (and to Frank) that Robotech is not (and arguably never was) a viable property. The sooner they let go of the false hope that Robotech will someday continue the story and recreate the magic they felt back in the day, they sooner they can move on and find something that WILL. Ethically, the Robotech Academy Kickstarter's not much different from selling rhino horn as a bogus cure for cancer... at the end of the day, the only thing on offer is false hope. EDIT: This is actually turning out to be a slow day, even by the Kickstarter's low standards. Not even $900 yet, and it's 3pm at SDCC.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Just goes to show that Harmony Gold's efforts to condition the fans to believe that anything Robotech is solid gold and all their ills are secretly the fault of the evil Macross purist troll Illuminati Priory of Scion Lizardman Ancient Alien Government Mind Control Chemtrail conspiracy* haven't been entirely ineffective. Usually a conspiracy allegedly headed up by yours truly, because I am beloved of the average Robotech fan. * The things they actually say about this are scarcely more sane than that, I wish I were kidding. Most of the folks on there seem to be more reasonable than that though, with a lot of them saying that they'd prefer it if HG wasn't raising so much negative press by blocking Macross, or how much they wish they could get Macross and Robotech side by side instead of in an adversarial relationship.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Robotech Battlecry was released for all three major consoles of the period (Nintendo Gamecube, Sony Playstation 2, Microsoft XBox). It had lukewarm sales at best, and the Gamecube release was roundly condemned for having more bugs than pixels and a tendency to lock up that would shame the most diligent jailer. In retrospect, its cinematics look better than Robotech Academy does... and that's sad for all kinds of different reasons.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, with Casper van Dien and the obnoxious fish-faced chick from Star Trek: Enterprise, no less. It's god awful, but it's still way more watchable than Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Update 23... Tony Oliver reminisces, more harping on "Do it for Carl", and a reminder that they've only got a fraction of the way to their goal. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1381502542/robotech-academy/posts
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Who knows? With a little luck, and if today's presentation fails to arrest the steady downward trend of the Kickstarter, this might actually end up being the last Robotech project... or at least the last one under Yune, Yun, and McKeever. Maybe that picture of Steve being escorted out by security that was put up as an April Fool's joke a few years back will turn out to be very prophetic indeed. Fat chance of that happening, the live-action movie's so doomed that they'd be lucky if it got a direct-to-video release at a level of quality equaling Starship Troopers 3: Marauder. Their big announcement will probably be another bait-and-switch like they did in their promotion of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles... "we're finally gonna reveal the fate of Admiral Rick Hunter, guys!", followed by a solid year of fans grumbling about how he showed up on a viewscreen for thirty seconds and promptly disappeared again. It's kinda sad that even the guys attempting to defend Robotech Academy are starting to admit that this is basically turning into a more blatant than usual attempt to rip off Macross. The general feeling I'm getting from them is one of weary resignation, and of their defense of it being more for form's sake than because they actually believe something will come of this. The fanatics would defend this to the death, naturally, but even the comments section on the Kickstarter has started to talk about how all this "Do it for Carl" stuff is in profoundly awful taste. SDCC's been open for about three hours now, and so far the Kickstarter's take for the day is only $673, from a mere 9 people, and most of that gain is existing backers upping their contribution.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Nothing buzzworthy thus far, the only piece of news that's come out of SDCC and reached my ears so far is that Harmony Gold has chosen a printing company to print the Robotech Academy art book backer reward. I've got some friends attending SDCC, and I'd say they were not amused or impressed by how little Harmony Gold brought to whet the appetites of their audience who might attend today's panel discussion. The Kickstarter comments section is still a seething ocean of recrimination and hostility, and they've finally noticed the commentary here on MacrossWorld about the Harmony Gold apologists trying their hand at (and having a conspicuous lack of success in) keeping the vocal critics of Harmony Gold's business practices and "give us your cash and we'll make something, honest" pitch at bay. Tonight's the night... sink or swim, do or die, and all that rot. Going into it, it's not looking good. There was about a 28% increase in the dollar amount pledged yesterday, but that's 28% over the five or six day average of about $2,413.60, so $3,101. I was predicting a lot more response from SDCC than that, something more on the order of a 400% jump for a few days (~$10k+ per day) until it petered out. Since we know Harmony Gold didn't keep the Robotech Academy Kickstarter under wraps there, that indicates a strong possibility that most of the people they're hoping to pitch this to tonight are already aware of it and have already contributed... so there's a decent chance we won't see a significant spike in pledges tonight or tomorrow either. That underwhelming response from SDCC was enough to push SideKick's success prediction for Robotech Academy down to 6% and aggressively resume the downward 3% dip in Kicktraq's prediction, which now sits at 61% of total (~$308k), with a projected min/max of between $225k and $296k. I think we'll continue to see those fall in the coming days, since they were only momentarily arrested in their drop by that one guy who upped his pledge to $10,000 two days back. As often as Robotech has ended in abject and hilarious failure, I'm amazed everyone's friend Mr. Alan Smithee hasn't ended up involved at some point.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Don't go giving them ideas... some of them are just nuts enough to try, and the ones that are are old enough to buy power tools and dumb enough to try it at home. Still, tomorrow's the do-or-die day. The SDCC attendees who bothered to stop by Harmony Gold's booth are reporting that they didn't have anything newsworthy except that they'd picked a vanity press printer to do the backer reward art book, so unless the announcement they're going to make at tomorrow's 7pm panel really sets the world on fire they're hosed.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    That's weird... it looks like someone pulled their money out. It went down by $30 over the last hour... I wonder if they're starting to try to kick the critics out. You could almost understand them doing it, since today's "big reveal" at SDCC was (reportedly) that they went and found some vanity press company to print the Robotech Academy artbook backer reward. Not a lot of ways to polish that turd. Kicktraq's prediction actually went up 1% thanks to that guy who chipped in a few grand to get to the $10k tier yesterday, though it's still sitting at a mere 64% and looks like it'll start trending back down unless there's a surge day tomorrow. SideKick's hit an all-time low for its prediction of this getting funded, a whopping 7% chance of success.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    They'll probably run into more problems than just Robotech's lack of name recognition and terrible reputation... everything in the story concept for Robotech Academy requires prior knowledge of not just Robotech's original series, but also of Robotech II: the Sentinels, an aborted project whose sole pseudocanon depiction has been out of print for decades. It's no ambassador, and the only thing it'll do for its audience is leave them more lost than... well... Lost.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Well, yeah... but according to McKeever, The Powers That Be at Harmony Gold don't give a damn about any part of the site that doesn't directly bring in a profit. Essentially, the store is all they care about and the rest is a massive blind spot. THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS! The funny part is, the other half of the Robotech.com Two Stooges routine (Maverick_LSC) once expressed to me that that was actually his motivation for deleting posts and banning people for speaking critically of the Shadow Chronicles or asking questions about Harmony Gold's (in)ability to use Macross in future works. The exact moon logic he gave was that those touchy topics had the potential to directly hurt Robotech if prospective fans or someone from Warner Bros were to see it. Put simply, his stance on those matters was that anything other than slavish, unquestioning praise for Robotech was hurting the franchise. That attitude - that questioning even the most obvious lies told by Harmony Gold - was an unforgivable sin did so much damage... and the Kickstarter comments REALLY show it. There are a lot of people snapping back at the Harmony Gold volunteer thought police now, and a fair amount of snide commentary about their unthinking devotion. There are a lot of people who would almost certainly be pledging who are not, or who would pledge more than they have, had Harmony Gold not done that. Well, when you put it like that it sounds completely reasonable... I don't think they can preemptively ban people from the panel... you have to actually do something at the convention to earn your forcible ejection, like pie Tommy Yune in front of an audience. I'm sure there will be some backers who show up and attempt to ask the hard questions. I'm equally sure that Harmony Gold will have some memorized form answer rebuttals that rely on obfuscating weasel words and unclear language to counter them. That is, after all, how they've been dodging the Macross rights thing every time it comes up.
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