Seto Kaiba

Prior to finding a copy, I'd assumed that Tommy Yune was the main author, and that Vincent McHenry had "consulted" on the book. When I actually got around to reading it, I was surprised to see that virtually none of it is by Tommy Yune, and most of it is copied wholesale from the Robotech.com Infopedia. While the cover may proclaim that the book is by Tommy Yune with a foreword by Carl Macek, the truth of it is that there are four "contributing authors" who aren't mentioned except on the inside cover and at the back of the book, authors who appear to have been the ones to actually get the work done... Vincent McHenry (McHenry), Dr. Kenneth Olson, Jonathan L. Switzer (Captain JLS), and Pieter Thomassen... four fans whose devotion to the franchise eclipses their common sense. A lot of the stuff in Carl Macek's foreword on the "creation" of Robotech is obvious stuff that you could find pretty much anywhere. Apart from some minimal details about the new characters and modified mecha, virtually none of the content is new or in any way original. A lot of it is content copied almost word-for-word from the Robotech.com Infopedia, and what little isn't copied from the Infopedia is all blindingly stupid statements of the obvious about stuff from the movie and the Prelude comics. Except for the excessive use of screen captures in the foreword, almost all of the art is new. The only sections that use Mospeada production lineart are those for the mecha and ships, which use the existing lineart as a reference point, and then show the 3D art (based on/modified from) it. There is literally NOTHING in the book about cut material from the movie, or about the future direction for the series.

That wouldn't hurt my feelings any... I'd probably buy a few. (Says the man with about a half-dozen unbuilt 1:72 VF-2SS SAP Valkyrie II kits)

Without Macross designs, Robotech probably never would've made it in the first place, and those same Macross designs are pretty much all that kept the franchise afloat for the twenty years between the failure of Robotech II: the Sentinels and Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Hell, the only thing keeping Robotech afloat now is the promise of finding out what became of the few remaining Macross characters. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're "sexier" than RTSC's. It's true Sheryl does have a bit of sex appeal, but it's not her defining characteristic like it is for Maia Sterling, Janice M2, and Ariel/Marlene. The character designs are a lot closer to real human forms too... rather than the Barbie-doll-like women and superhero-esque men of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Badly. I bought a copy (used) at a garage sale for $1.00 just a few days ago. It's easily the worst anime artbook I've ever laid eyes on. I actually feel like I overpaid. The book was written in large measure by fans (Vincent McHenry, Jon Switzer, and Pieter Thomassen), though the cover bears only Tommy Yune's name, and the announcement that the foreword was written by Carl Macek. The content of the foreword is basically a history of the Robotech franchise as viewed through rose-colored glasses. Parts of it read more like a love letter from Carl Macek to himself. That agonizing bullshit goes on for a full TWENTY pages, complete with reprints of Tommy's various posters and screen captures. They piss away about 12 pages on settings and locations, most of which is wasted on corridor cross-sections, room layouts, and for some stupid reason... VENDING MACHINES. 26 pages are devoted to character art, which pretty much consists of a one-paragraph blurb about each character, an early sketch, a mid-development sketch that looks like something out of 90's DC Comics, and the completed design. 21 pages are devoted to the mecha designs, which are also one brief paragraph, plus some Mospeada lineart, one or two images of the completed design (movie screencaps) and occasionally a mid-development view. No multiple angles, nothing even remotely useful. Even if they are multiple pictures of the same mecha it's always from the same angle. 20 pages are devoted to ships, pretty much the same damn thing as the mecha pages, a waste of time. At the very end, there's a 10 page article on actually MAKING the damn movie, and then a brief two-page glossary of terms, a brief mecha stats section made mostly of reprinted Infopedia data, and a two-page Index.

Yeah, the old Bandai 1:100 transformable kit leaves a bit to be desired, accuracy-wise. The mecha itself is fairly accurate to the art and animation, but the backpack of the Super Armed Pack system is about twice as thick as it's supposed to be, and sits much higher up on the airframe than it's supposed to. Presumably there's some kind of hinge or other retaining mechanism holding it in place besides that one large retaining arm, but it isn't shown in the art. I suppose it IS possible that large arm is the main structural element holding the rail cannon in place. It's rare for a toy to be 100% accurate to the mecha seen in the show... it's just too difficult most of the time. I am hoping that the VF-100 series VF-2SS (if a SAP version is released for it) will be more accurate to what's shown in the lineart and the animation.

Are you sure you're talking about Macross II, and not, say, a far worse offender called Macross Frontier? The VF-2SS Valkyrie II's rail cannon is far and away the largest VF-mounted weapon in Macross II, and it's only about 7 meters long. I seem to remember the VF-27 lugging around a beam rifle that's well over 14 meters long... longer than the entire VF-2SS WITH THE RAIL CANNON. I also seem to recall the VF-25G lugging around a railgun that's at least 10 meters long, significantly larger than the one on the VF-2SS. Of course, if you want to talk disproportionate weaponry, you can't do better than the VF-25 Armored Messiah. So we're left with two conclusions... you're either misinformed, or you're projecting so hard I could point you at a wall and use you to show the Powerpoint presentation at my next meeting. There's already been one... Bandai did a 1:100 scale transforming VF-2SS w/ SAP parts kit back in the 90's, and they're releasing a VF-2SS toy as part of the VF-100 series. I'm hoping they'll also cover the VF-2JA Icarus and maybe even the Metal Siren eventually. I'd be over the moon about it if they released a 1:60 VF-2SS.

Yeah, they've said a few times that they were perfectly willing to bring Macross to the world, and that the problem was Big West not wanting to deal with them. It doesn't look like the actions of a company acting in good faith at all... it looks more like the actions of a company that wants to keep a stranglehold on a potential competitor and continue profiting from someone else's work.

Personally, I'm hoping that since Tobey Maguire has committed to work on Spider-Man 4 and Spider-Man 5, that Maguire Entertainment will either cancel the live-action Robotech movie for being an unprofitable waste of time and more legal trouble than it's worth, or they'll place it on indefinite pre-production hiatus. Somehow, I can't help but think that with Harmony Gold's track record, the most likely outcome is a quiet, direct-to-DVD release for a low-budget quickie production ala Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation. And this surprises nobody.

If you ask nicely, I might add it to my to-do list. Some of my translators are off on vacation, so I'm stalled for the time being. I'd love to get another VF from Macross II in Chronicle soon, but I guess I can content myself with character sheets for the time being.

Yeah, that's the catch that's supposed to keep protoculture relevant now that Tommy Yune has his heart set on taking the fairy dust out of it and turning into just another generic sci-fi energy source... having the last remaining means of it go missing. Y'know, I found that page a year or so ago, and it's STILL damn funny. I forget exactly who I was talking to (it might've been Brooklyn Red Leg), but the subject of Harmony Gold's attempt to salvage Robotech 3000 as a conventionally-animated series came up, and I went Googling for production art from the aborted project, and stumbled across Khyron_Prime's Robotech 3000 fansite. It was kind of a surprise to me, since Khyron_Prime never tried to confront me on the Robotech.com message boards, and I never once received a single e-mail because of that page, despite him posting my old e-mail address and imploring people to send me hate mail. It's absolutely hilarious that he attempts to defend Robotech on there after openly admitting that even he thinks DYRL is better than anything Robotech-related. I guess Khyron_Prime just didn't have the balls to insult me, j_wong, TotsugekiBomber7, or MechAce-1 to our faces, so he took the third-grader's way out and wrote nasty stuff about us in his private website where he was sure we'd never read it. Same guy. The "rock dudes" are one of several stupid-looking alien races created for Robotech II: the Sentinels. They're called the Sphersians, and prior to the arrival of the Pioneer Mission forces, their planet was one of many former subject planets in the Robotech Masters empire that was invaded by the Invid when the empire fell apart.

I wouldn't even classify that as an ATTEMPTED sequel... all they ever achieved was a single teaser trailer that the fans turned up their noses at. Considering past performance, Rick Hunter was going to be involved SOMEHOW anyway.

It looks to me like McKeever and co. are still trying to build awareness that there is a proposed live-action movie in the works, and not making much headway due to the general apathy of the majority of Robotech fans, and the casual anime viewer's contempt for Robotech. Yeah, that was one of the things that bothered me about the Shadow Chronicles movie and the Prelude miniseries... the attempt to re-work the events to make the new stuff fit with the end of the "New Generation Saga". I received the Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles miniseries from a colleague of mine who wanted to prove to me that Robotech was not essentially a dead franchise. The story recycled whole scenes and often large blocks of text directly from the Robotech II: the Sentinels continuation comics, but the most offensively stupid part of the miniseries was that the villains (General Edwards and the Invid Regent) seemed to have studied villainy under Gargamel from The Smurfs or Mumm-Ra from Thundercats. A villain whose only motivation is a borderline-fetishistic dedication to being a bastard is NOT GOOD STORYTELLING. What's more, they go WAY out of their way to fix plot errors introduced by the Sentinels, where Lisa was in command of the SDF-3, not Rick, by having her severely wounded in issue 1, allowing Rick to take over as Admiral. They go even farther to make Rick out to be an innocent victim of circumstance, rather than a leader who was willing to destroy Earth if he couldn't retake it... the Haydonites are so obviously evil that the only way they could make it MORE obvious would be if they all wore sandwich boards saying "HEY! EVIL ROBOT HERE!". Everybody and their cousin tells Rick that the Haydonites aren't trustworthy, and that it's a dumb idea to implement technology you don't understand... even that stupid overgrown carebear tells him as much, but he ignores it, and then he has the gall to act all surprised in the movie when the Haydonites betray his ass. Y'know, I don't think they've ever explained (or even tried to explain) why they changed the particle missiles into "neutron-s missiles". I'm guessing they wanted something that would sound more impressive and sci-fi-ish. In the Prelude comic they explain that the "neutron-s" is short for "neutron star matter", which I guess makes them into enormous gravitational weapons. That's why I keep accusing the series of coasting on the success and popularity of Macross. Every attempt at a sequel except Robotech: the Untold Story involved Rick Hunter and the rest of the surviving Macross cast. They've been stringing the fans along with the promise of finding out what happened to him for years now, and they know that'll make a title sell. Most of the people who bought Shadow Chronicles only bought it to find out what happened to Rick Hunter, and they got rickrolled something fierce when he went missing again by the end of the movie.

Yeah, Wildstorm's "From the Stars" and "Love and War" convinced a fair few fans that Robotech's creators had long since abandoned any pretense of originality or creativity, and were just coasting on the popularity of the Macross Saga, or rather, Macross. Perversely, some fans hold those two miniseries up as examples of the best Robotech comics ever made! Considering that the live-action movie doesn't even have a script yet, the mind boggles. No matter what Warner does, the mecha designs are a guaranteed lose-lose situation. Either they try to come up with something new, risking the almost certain outcome of the fans turning up their noses at it, or they try to come up with something close to Studio Nue's designs and risk getting slapped with a lawsuit. For all practical purposes, the script is a lose-lose situation too. If they do manage to accurately replicate the Macross Saga's themes and tone, the casual audience won't take to it because the terminology and modified story are hopelessly dated, and if they don't, the casual audience might take to it okay, but the fans will crucify them for turning the story into another "Michael Bay presents... Loud Noises". Between the fact that there's no way they're working with an old, anachronistic property that nobody gives a damn about anymore, and the fact that it's the legal equivalent of a minefield, the movie doesn't appear to have very good prospects.

Why would they post pictures that would show them in an unfavorable light? Robotech.com isn't exactly an objective source of information... if there's news that shows Harmony Gold or Robotech in an unfavorable light, or portrays Robotech as something less than wildly popular and successful, you won't see it there. If someone posts that unflattering news on the boards, you bet they'll get their thread locked and they'll be told off by the mods.

I think it was Phineas Taylor Barnum who once said "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public". It doesn't surprise me that the die-hards are paying good money to hear the same old half-answers, half-truths, and weak excuses... after all, those exceptionally gullible people are the ones who've bought Robotech on DVD three or four times for each incremental improvement in video and audio quality and a few minor special features. They're the ones who've kept Robotech alive all these years. The answer is a resounding "no".

Yeah, but this glosses over the real problem with the live-action Robotech movie. The fans want (and are, by in large, expecting) a faithful adaptation of the "Macross Saga" with all the familiar mechanical designs. Once you take those out of the picture, and modify the story to avoid a copyright infringement lawsuit, what you're left with is a project that many fans have avidly pointed out that they DO NOT WANT. Don't tell me you actually thought I paid money for that crap. An admirable summary. Unfortunately, they repeat the same bullshit behaviors on their message boards too.

Yes, and maybe afterward Shoji Kawamori and Tommy Yune will ride Unicorns to Hogwarts and board a winged mushroom for a flight to the Sherbet Kingdom. Or maybe the planet will suddenly reverse its orbit tomorrow and fling us all into space. Seriously... Big West surrendering their rights to Macross? Fat chance. That thing's a cash cow and they KNOW IT. They'd have to be blind not to, since Macross Frontier merchandise is selling like mad, and sales of the DVD broke Bandai's blu-ray sales records. If Big West ever does license the intellectual property of the original series to Harmony Gold, it'll be because Harmony Gold agrees to be contractually sodomized in hopes that the Macross designs will liven up the dreck that is Shadow Chronicles. Not necessarily... Macross characters were STILL plot-critical to Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, which is what necessitated the killing-off of everybody except Rick and Lisa, and the redesigning of those two into something that bears NO resemblance to the original Mikimoto character designs. All it likely convinced them of was the fact that the Robotech fanbase is SO gullible that they'll buy ANYTHING, no matter how poor the quality, just so long as there's somebody named Rick Hunter in it, and that continuing to recycle old characters, plot devices, mecha designs, etc. is more profitable than making original content.

Well, yes. We can be fairly certain that the actual sales figures for Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles are setting no sales records, except possibly at the Robotech.com online store. Still, since the profits from the DVD sales were enough to cover the film's production costs several times over, which does technically make it a financial success. In the context of the film's budget, which was confirmed to be less than $1 million, it's a lot less impressive than it sounds.

Yeah, with particular attention to the Haydonite mecha, which looked a lot like a mix of the old and new versions of the Cylon Raider.

Yeah, but wasn't that declaration made before Funimation picked up all those shows from Geneon? Back when Funimation's catalog was a cavalcade of mediocrity? Sales to people who were already fans is one thing, the movie still failed spectacularly in its stated goal of bringing new fans into the franchise and returning Robotech to the cultural spotlight. It was ignored by the mainstream anime fans, and pretty much any publication that wasn't already kissing Harmony Gold's ass. No. In fact, considering the overwhelmingly negative fan response to the idea of a "reimagined" Macross Saga, I'd say that Macross may well be the death knell for the live-action Robotech movie, either because of the inherent legal ramifications, or the fact that the fans don't want Baytech with their Bayformers. Your memory and mine don't line up very well on this subject... I don't recall it getting much of any media attention. The response to most of it was an overwhelming "What's Robotech?". There's been precious little interest in the movie since, with only a few sites actually bothering to post what little news has come out on the film. Robotech.com remains the only site that really seems to give a damn. Plus, a WB-sponsored media blitz does not mean the movie is well-received or hotly anticipated... it means Warner paid a lot out of pocket to try and build awareness in a public that largely doesn't even remember what Robotech was. If it were a straight-up adaptation of Macross, it might have a chance. But it's a reimagining, mainly to get around the fact that they can't legally use anything from Macross in the live-action Robotech movie. The fans have already made their displeasure known. Remember how everyone thought that Speed Racer and Dragonball Evolution were going to set the world on fire? Of course you don't, nobody gave a damn about those movies either, and they fizzled in theaters. Expect the same from Robotech, if it even gets that far. Shadow Chronicles failed to impress (artistically) because it was a thoroughly unoriginal fan-wank with no story, unlikeable characters, bad music, no new mecha designs, and shoestring-budget animation. In short, the reason it failed to artistically impress anyone is because it was a movie utterly lacking in artistic merit of any kind. It was NOTHING like the "original" series, which despite all its faults, actually had a story, some relateable characters, and some interesting mecha designs.

Yeah, you've got some good points there too... I guess if you really wanted to be brutal, you could say that Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles is a proper Robotech sequel the same way that Robotech 3000 was... nothing more than a below-average generic story with the name Robotech slapped on in hopes that the fans wouldn't notice that it was missing everything that made the TV series even remotely watchable. I wouldn't go so far as to call the voice actors talented though. The "big name" voice talent that they were making a fuss about in the marketing blurb and the pre-release hype didn't do the movie any favors. Yes, they had Mark Hamill, but his character was killed off within the first twenty minutes. Chase Masterson barely had any acting credentials work speaking of, and I'll bet good money that she was only included in hopes of getting some Trekkies to buy the movie. Yeah, I suppose you're right. Though I do tend to classify Robotech's traditional weak attempts at cliffhangers to be a type of ending too. A better way to put it might be that nothing was really resolved at the end of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Sure, they'd changed ships, and they'd been attacked by the Haydonites, but the SDF-3 was still missing, still had a fuel crisis, etc. etc. etc. It was like the whole movie was one big side-story that didn't really matter.

Probably the same lineart the Robotech.com Infopedia used... none at all. Macross Frontier gained an active, devoted following because it was a good show. It had fairly good writers, excellent mechanical designs, downright incredible music, the whole nine yards. The characters were compelling, interesting, and developed as the story went on (except for Ranka), the mechanical designs were a mix of classic and new that was quite interesting (though I didn't really love them that much), and the story itself was original and quite well put together. So I guess you really could boil it down to being a new and original take on a classic formula. There was nothing original or interesting about Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. The characters and set pieces were all recycled from the "original" TV series and Robotech II: the Sentinels, there were no new songs of any kind, what little there was in the way of new mecha was all horribly generic and/or stolen from Battlestar Galactica, the animation looks like it was done on a shoestring budget (and it was), and the voice acting was nothing short of awful. It was like Harmony Gold decided to animate somebody's half-assed fanfic. When you really think about it, it was probably a fortunate thing that Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was almost totally ignored by the anime fan community. It was a cheap, direct-to-DVD movie made to cash in on what little interest there was in the franchise, and it looks the part. Any sensible viewer would laugh it out of town as a horribly amateurish attempt to milk more money from the few fans they have left. If Robotech wasn't a virtual nonentity in the anime world, Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles might've gotten some serious critical attention, and the critics would've crucified it.

Be careful... he might interpret that as a challenge.

About the only news that there's been on the alleged sequel-in-development Robotech: Shadow Rising is Kevin McKeever's insistence that "hiatus" doesn't mean what the dictionary says it means, and that they really are working on it, despite having nothing to show for it after two-plus years. IMHO, the best thing for Robotech right now would be a Robotech 3000-esque complete and total departure from the established setting, which is derived in equal measure from Mospeada and Carl Macek's Robotech II: the Sentinels. The Robotech universe IS dead. That's not even up for argument, it's a fact of life. Almost all of the new comics were recycled stories originally produced by Academy, Antarctic, and Eternity/Malibu, with somewhat better art. Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles is just an amalgam of story elements and characters from Mospeada and Robotech II: the Sentinels that's trying to be Battlestar Galactica. Booze won't cut it if you intend to start listening to his show "Robotech Fan" on TalkShoe... you'd better get ready to start abusing painkillers. The experience of listening can be accurately replicated by taking a belt sander to your ears. Ask the Robotech fans... for them, it's business as usual. I doubt it... for as long as I've known him (and believe me, that's longer than I care to admit) he's been determined to carry on with his irrational hatred of Macross simply for form's sake if nothing else. I suspect that his real reasons for loathing Macross stem from a grudging knowledge that it really is better and more successful than Robotech, but he's afraid to acknowledge it because he doesn't want to tarnish his cherished memories of Robotech, or lose face by admitting that he was wrong.

So what if Minmay's into bondage and clowns... her music's still good.

I know... I know... I'm a glutton for punishment. I just can't resist my helpful nature... I go there every now and again to peruse the forums for people asking burning questions that they want answered, and I do my best to give them the most complete answer I can. Unfortunately, in the course of that, I run into a fair few people like Pizza the Hutt and Doug Bendo. I guess it's nobody's fault but my own. Don't go writing 'em all off as Doug Bendo-esque wastes of carbon... I've met quite a few good people over on that site in my time... Robelwell202 being just the latest example of a decent guy who somehow ended up there. I'm sure this will shock you, but there are actually a few contributors there I respect simply because they approach their debates with a scholarly angle, rather than the stereotypical frothy-mouthed fanboy rants. EDIT: Spelling! It's a useful life skill...