Seto Kaiba

I'm talking about something which accurately reproduces the design aesthetics and viewing experience of Macross, even if it doesn't reproduce the designs entirely faithfully. Something that is, in all likelihood, well beyond the range of legal options Harmony Gold and Warner Bros can take, and certainly beyond the creative capabilities of Tommy Yune. The few Macross-like sound effects which made it into Shadow Chronicles were generic beam weapon sound effects ("pew" lasers) which which can be found in most any sci-fi or action show from that period. Frankly, I can't see a scenario wherein the general public has anything other than apathy towards yet another bland, generic robot movie. Robotech will be just another squirt in the crowd, just like it always has been. It has zero name recognition outside of its rapidly shrinking fanbase, and that doesn't bode well for the live-action movie's prospects. It was not always thus. Even in the 90's, when the only thing keeping Robotech alive was a steady dribble of piss poor comic books and irreverent novelizations, the fans had standards. Quite a few series met their premature ends because the fans found the low quality of their work insulting, and would not buy it. Because there was the promise of something new in the immediate future right up until Robotech 3000 went over like a lead balloon, the fans never got quite as desperate as they are today. The failure of Robotech 3000 was the final straw for a lot of fans... a production that made it abundantly clear exactly how poor Harmony Gold's understanding of its target audience really was. When Robotech.com opened in 2001, the fans who'd remained with the franchise were overjoyed, predicting a Robotech renaissance, and for a while there it looked like they might actually get their wish. Then, of course, the supposed revival turned out to be nothing more than a couple fairly weak limited series comics and a mediocre game. The promise of Shadow Chronicles came along just as the fans were starting to get desperate for new ANYTHING, and that desperation only got worse in the three years between the initial announcement and the actual release. By that time, the few fans who were left were just so desperate for new Robotech ANYTHING that they threw out all considerations of quality. Shadow Chronicles whetted their appetites, and thanks to some misleading remarks from Tommy Yune, got them thinking that the next feature was looming large on the horizon already. Of course, when that turned out not to be true, they lapsed right back into their desperation... obsessing over each and every little re-release, toy release, and vague announcement about future products.

Why yes, yes I am. It's a different business model than the conventional one used by the American comic book industry. Instead of printing as many copies as you need to meet the demand, you do an inexpensive and extremely limited print run insufficient to meet demand for the book, and that forced scarcity not only lets you run the price up for the initial sale, it also guarantees that you'll meet your sales targets, which, all other things being equal, means you turn a profit on the book. Of course, any reprintings after that, you only have to cover the printing and binding costs, so that's almost all profit if your target audience is still willing to buy. Like everything else Shadow Chronicles, Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles looks like it was done on the cheap, which, like most of the RTSC merch and the movie itself, it probably was. Tying in to what I said above, that seems to be Harmony Gold's business model... producing new products as cheaply by sacrificing quality wherever possible, and putting only minimal effort into the creative process. Rather than develop new characters and stories, they just keep recycling old ones, which served two purposes... keeping production costs down, and appeasing the most fanatical fans... those who thought Robotech II: the Sentinels was something other than a massive turd. Does that make Robotech.com Bizarro World from the old pre-crisis Superman comics?

Since all of the "new" comics published by Wildstorm have all been done as limited series with extremely limited print runs to make sure they sell out, there's no doubt that if they did another comic on that business model, it'd still be profitable. Heck, some of the dumber and more devoted fans would happily buy it twice... once on a per-issue basis and once as a trade paperback. I'm betting the reason they aren't trying to fill the void between Shadow Chronicles and Shadow Rising with comics is because they don't have a damn clue what the story of the Shadow Rising movie is going to be. It looks like they realized they've exhausted the potential of comics based on the "original 85" too... they're trying to stay away from Macross (which is the most popular), most of the fans HATE the Masters Saga (Southern Cross), and they've exhausted the few interesting characters in the New Generation (Mospeada). Unless they want to re-do the Robotech II: the Sentinels comics, they've run out of ideas.

I think so, yes.

It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for Warner Bros and Harmony Gold. If they make the live-action movie Macross-y, they run the risk of being sued into next week by Big West, and if they don't, the fans will crucify them with big, blunt, rusty nails shaped like the SDF-1. It's not like he didn't TRY... I mean, we have that spectacularly ugly, unused VF-13 Gamma Fighter design of his, and that equally hideous transforming jeep with the big railgun on top, and it looks like he took a stab at trying to come up with his own transformation for the VF-X-4 but couldn't make it work, so he had to weasel out of it. I don't think so... one of the biggest bullet points in Tommy's powerpoints these days is that they're releasing a trade paperback version of Prelude, and that was a Wildstorm release.

Don't give them ideas... they'll do it. (and some of them already HAVE) I don't think so... MEMO was excusing his personal attacks left and right because Pizza was the only one buying into his bullshit. It took a LOT for the admins to act on the ROBOTECHFANPLUS issue... mainly a lot of angry complaints about his racist behavior, and several e-mails sent to Steve's everyday-use inbox instead of the problem-reporting one. Pizza hasn't gone that far overboard yet. Yeah, though I don't think he realizes that. He seems to actually think they're valid evidence that Harmony Gold flat-out owns all the rights to Macross. RobotechX is falling to pieces as a result of MEMO and SIGHUP's unwillingness to put their foot down on the trolls who attack other users and accuse them of being "Macross purist trolls" or tells them they're not real fans whenever anyone criticizes Robotech and/or its creators in any way. Because they didn't act on it in that thread, they continued their little witch hunt outside the licensing thread, and succeeded in driving most of the site's active members away. I'd say it's a pretty shitty time to be a Robotech fan... bugger-all's coming out, and there's nothing newsworthy. It's an even worse time to be a Robotech fansite... it's not that the Robotech fanatics are becoming more numerous, it's just that the declining numbers of rational fans are making the fanatics a larger and larger proportion of the fanbase, which in turn drives away more rational fans, and the cycle begins again.

Doesn't look like it. Just yesterday he was over in that part of the boards explaining why it takes Harmony Gold so damn long to turn out each mediocre sequel. No... that's one of the weirder things about the thread. Not only did McKeever NOT close it with the "we own everything Robotech" parting shot, when Pizza started a second thread to try and troll, claiming that the use of terms like "Skull squadron" and "protoculture" were proof that HG could use any Macross IP they wanted, McKeever shut Pizza's thread down and told him that if he couldn't debate civilly, he wouldn't be allowed to debate at all. A "Twilight Zone" moment if ever there was one. Thread would've ended ages ago if MEMO hadn't been convinced that his "discussions" with unnamed "lawyers" using only his hypothetical scenarios wasn't ironclad proof that Harmony Gold can do whatever it wants with Macross. It probably would've just petered out after one or two more posts, after people realized that WB won't be using the original desigsn or derivatives thereof in the movie.

The only reason I bothered bringing it up was that MEMO had claimed that it constituted a confirmation that Harmony Gold had all the rights to Macross. It gives us enough info to understand WHY there is this widespread misconception that Harmony Gold can do what they want with Robotech's contents. That's the weird part... NOBODY has come running to MEMO's defense... not even Kevin McKeever. Normally he'd be dancing up and down screaming that Harmony Gold owns all of Robotech like it meant they owned all of Macross as well. Unfortunately, their inability or unwillingness to understand the important distinction between "all of Robotech" and "all of the source materials" is the source of the entire licensing issue in the first place. As near as I can tell, Harmony Gold has NEVER claimed to own all of the rights to Macross. Yeah, that's the typical Robotech fan rationale... "Robotech is the be-all, end-all of anime, and oh yeah, if you're bored, there's this big, successful thing that's kind of related called Macross that we think is evil but we steal from at every opportunity".

Interesting developments on the RT-side licensing discussion... MEMO posted some (all-caps) quotes he claims are from the January Anime Los Angeles convention panel. EDIT: Caps lock is not cruise control for cool, so I converted MEMO's statements into a more readable form for you.

If you actually muddle through that mess he calls an argument, you'll quickly discover that it's nothing more than a mix of his opinion stated as fact and information he claims to have gotten from "industry lawyers" he can't name, who have nothing to do with Harmony Gold or Warner Bros, and who didn't have access to any of the hard evidence. You could manure several acres of farmland with the contents of MEMO's posts.

I agree... Kevin McKeever is conspicuous in his absence. As soon as the subject of Harmony Gold's (in)ability to use Macross was raised, I fully expected him to butt in and lock the thread straightaway. Yet he hasn't shown up or done anything... If he does, that would probably be how he'll do it. He'll leap in with the "we own everything Robotech" line, which is a half-truth he usually uses to deflect awkward questions. They DO own everything Robotech... namely, everything that is distinct and separate from the original story, designs, and production process of Macross. Since when has McKeever ever relied on facts and evidence? For god's sake, the man works in marketing. As any corporate man'll tell you, marketing is the use of fraud and deception to sell trash to nerds. Yeah, he can't shift aside the evidence I've posted, but I can't really see that stopping him from trying. It's kind of silly, truth be told. It's a reimagining, and they're hoping that Warner will somehow change its mind if enough whiny threads asking for original designs show up. Warner knows full well they can't use those designs without Big West's say-so, which is probably why the movie's going to be a reimagining... so they can do Robotech's Macross Saga without having to bend over backwards to get Big West's OK. Well, there are certainly other reasons they won't get involved... like the simple truth that the live-action movie is well and truly out of Harmony Gold's hands. They're spectators at this point. They sold the rights, and the creative decisions are all being made by someone else. No. Just no. Never. I wouldn't even give them the hideous Sound Force valkyries, and I HATE Macross 7.

That would seem to be the case, yes.

Thank you.

Virtually all of the remaining Macross Saga characters were killed, incapacitated, or simply didn't appear in Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles. The only remaining character from that saga (Rick Hunter) was dramatically redesigned such that he looks like Hideo Kuze from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd gig now. Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was exclusively content from Southern Cross, Mospeada, and Robotech II: the Sentinels. Like the current character design of Rick Hunter... Fancy that...

Okay... this is actually a matter of interest now... MEMO is claiming that Harmony Gold has made official statements at conventions and the like that they have the ability to use anything out of the "original 85 episodes". He hasn't provided any evidence to back that one up though. If he does, it could be a very interesting breakthrough. Anyone who goes to their panels... have they ever actually discussed their rights to the original Macross series, or is MEMO just blowing smoke?

You bet. Pizza the Hutt's already over there throwing a fuss-fit too. I get such a kick out of seeing him call anyone who argues based on the facts a "Seto fanboy".

Good grief, he posted the same mess in that thread on Robotech.com too.

Unfortunately, with people like MEMO around who are simply unwilling to believe the truth, or don't understand the situation but won't shut up anyway, there's very little that can be done. Your one argument is bullshit based entirely around wishful thinking and a complete inability to understand the evidence. Also, turn your damn caps lock off already... it's not cruise control for cool. Harmony Gold only acquired the film distribution and merchandising rights. That does not give them the right to use those copyrighted designs in their live-action movie, and it does not give them the right to use those designs in future animated works. We've seen proof of that already in Shadow Chronicles, with the deaths and disappearances of the entire Macross cast. Rulings on copyrights apply internationally under the Berne Convention, one of the cornerstones of international copyright law. Not if, as is the case, Tatsunoko never had the rights you're alleging they licensed to Harmony Gold. Of course, there is no proof they ever gave Harmony Gold those rights, and a mountain of evidence saying they didn't. The situation with Catalyst concerned a violation of Harmony Gold's MERCHANDISING rights to Macross's original series. Nothing more. Harmony Gold was entirely correct in stating that the legal battles in Japan didn't affect their Robotech franchise, because they never had the intellectual property rights to begin with. In short, this "information" of yours comes from people who in all likelihood had little-to-no access to any of the relevant documentation, and were simply going by the few, incorrect details you gave them.

That Harmony Gold hasn't produced a Robotech continuation the industry noticed or cared about certainly hasn't stopped the delusional die-hards from rambling on endlessly with petitions to get Robotech: the Untold Story released on DVD, or to get Robotech II: the Sentinels and Robotech 3000 finished. Yeah, threads like that do tend to bring out the crazies... particularly those who can't cope with the idea that Robotech failed spectacularly and Macross is successful. The average Robotech fan is quite a bit calmer and more rational. It's my brother's pet... his girlfriend hit him with the doe-eyed attack and got him to adopt it from the humane society last year. It would be more accurate to say that he hates me in part because I don't find Bobby's homosexuality offensive. As he put it on RobotechX: "On a sad note,it is a shame that a homosexual was piloting the Macross quarter.I guess that means the homosexual plague will have a place in the future.I mean Alto was also a kabuki female dancer..Jeeze that is sad" and after we told him to drop the bigotry and explained the cultural context of both characters: "Sheesh!,I did not know that there was that many gay huggers out there.I can tell by all the gay huggers who supports homosexuality it will be required by law for everyone to be gay by the year 2018." I do recall him saying something about having an account here that he said he was using to spy on this thread (as though it were some secret, clandestine affair). If he really does have an account here, he's probably too afraid to post himself, since if he came out swinging like he does on Robotech.com and RobotechX.com he'd probably be banned pretty swiftly.

I'm gonna try to keep my reply here short, since my hands hurt like blazes after being scraped and smashed and gnawed on by a rabbit while helping my brother move into his room at the frat house today. Yeah, I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment... these days, I only go there when someone points out a thread of interest or a question that falls under one or more of my particular areas of expertise. Of late, I just seem to be on the target list of some of the more deluded fanboys who just can't accept simple truths. They've taken to hounding me across multiple sites, and get smacked down by the moderators of those sites most of the time. It'd be amusing if it weren't so pathetic... and it is sorely tempting to simply say "to hell with it all" and let them run the community there into the ground. A few of the more reasonable RT fans and I were actually talking about that in a chat not too long ago. Pizza's problem with me doesn't even really seem to be Macross-related. He's got his nose out of joint because I and a bunch of other people took him to task for his horribly bigoted behavior on RobotechX (he's a HUGE homophobe, and took great offense to a gay character being in Macross Frontier), and he's been hounding me for revenge ever since. I think that's probably at least 90% of why he's acting like such a twit lately. He's got big issues with cultural context too... Pizza the Hutt had this to say on Robotech.com: That's the thing... there are a LOT of people on Robotech.com who do appreciate my input and openly seek my help and involvement with various projects and threads. Yeah, I know the Macross fanbase (or at least part of it) appreciates my work on Macross II, but there're people there who appreciate what I do as well. It doesn't feel right to cut a bunch of good people loose just to spite one or two trolls. That's EXACTLY what MEMO is trying to accomplish. He's been trying his hardest to take what little evidence he can muster and twist it to support the unsupportable. MEMO, Pizza, and sanman are examples of that tiny lunatic fringe of the fanbase who have just been so devoted to the franchise for so long, that they've lost their objectivity completely and don't want to believe their waiting and efforts have been a waste. They don't want to believe that Harmony Gold can't do whatever it wants with Robotech... because it doesn't bode well for Robotech's future... so they simply deny the truth so they can go on believing that their hideous, malformed goose of a franchise may one day lay a golden egg. The best way to deal with denial-based arguments like MEMO's is to crush it under the sheer, unrelenting weight of the facts. Once it comes out that they have virtually no evidence to support their claims, or that their arguments are based on half-truths and misunderstandings, they usually shut up pretty fast. It's not that MEMO doesn't understand the situation, it's that he doesn't want to understand the situation. If he accepts the truth, then he has to also accept that Robotech is, for all practical purposes, doomed... because the most popular saga is off-limits for future movies and TV shows.

Whoops-a-daisy... posted a half-finished reply.

They're WAAAAAAAAAAY ahead of you there... almost all of the surviving Macross cast is either dead, incapacitated, or missing. The one or two who are left have been redesigned to be unrecognizable. Just business as usual... what's more obnoxious than MEMO's ill-informed denials (he seems to think the archived court documents and official statement from Big West are fanmade for some utterly insane reason) is that he's allowing the worst of the RT fascist fanboys to troll freely since they kiss his ass. To quote Spider Jerusalem... lies are news and the truth is obsolete.

Yeah, Tommy and company kind of wrote themselves into a corner by giving Ariel near-godlike powers, and then sending the party of one-dimensional idiots we're allegedly supposed to care about off in a barely-armed colony ship. It's shoddy writing like that which got me thinking that there might be something to the theory that Harmony Gold is putting off making Robotech: Shadow Rising so they can broom the whole "Shadow Saga" for a reboot TV series if the live-action flick's a hit. Can I get back to you on that? I'm not sure where to begin. (just kidding) In other, much more relevant news... it looks like our little How-is-Battletech-using-Macross-designs conundrum has finally been brought to light. http://catalystgamelabs.com/ It looks like the idiots who own Battletech and MechWarrior now (Catalyst Game Labs) were aware of the whole Harmony Gold et. al. v. FASA Corp. et. al. case, but not the details of the settlement. So they went ahead with making new products containing the Macross designs, and got pretty far with it before Tommy Yune found out about it (I have it from reasonably reliable sources that he found out when a fan told him at a convention booth) and sicced the Harmony Gold company lawyers on 'em. Apparently Catalyst agreed not to use the designs without having to go to court over it, and pulled the art from their new products (presumably the Tomahawk-like design will be pulled from the pending MechWarrior game as well).

The Zentradi and "Robotech Masters" mecha all still use protoculture as fuel, as do ALL of the ships (even those used by the Earth forces). As far as what protoculture DOES these days... your guess is as good as mine. From what little was released about the failed Robotech 3000 project, it seems that Carl's eventual plan was for protoculture to become the galactic standard fuel until the flowers of life evolved and became sentient (in 3000) and started trying to kill everyone. 'course, Luceno and Daley made it even more magical than Macek intended. Tommy's playing the "Regent/Regess" angle from a literal perspective. One of the definitions of Regent and Regess is "someone who rules a country of people while the monarch/soverign is underage, disabled, or absent". The common sense answer based on that is that Ariel/Marlene is supposed to be the new Invid queen, and that's why she has haxx superpowers.

While it's true that Tommy recently established that all of the Earth Forces mecha from the Macross Saga and Masters Saga run on nuclear fusion, it's not actually a retcon. You see, at no point is it ever actually established that any of those mecha ran on protoculture... the fans just assumed that they all did. I talked to Tommy about it at length back when it was first announced, and he seemed pretty annoyed at the fan reaction to his decision. The other reason he gave for the change was that he wanted to impose some semblance of technological continuity on the original series. From what I can see, Tommy wants to erase all the stupid, contradictory crap that came out during the late 80's and the 90's from the Robotech universe, and one of the major bullet points of his plan seems to be to get away from the pseudo-magical protoculture envisioned by Macek, Luceno, and Daley.