Keith

LOL, read this after I made my post. Keith, get out from under that damn rock Graham .....I was actually waiting for Bandai to release it, then the HK disc went out of production.......

More likely, it's going to be the opposite of the song Sara has sung thus far. The song she was singing helped nuture nature & life. The song the Bird Man sings may do the exact opposite, especially since it's apparently going to be tearing all ass. From the implication of Shin having to save Sara, it would be pretty safe to assume that she somehow meld's with the Bird Man. It's doubtful that it has anything to do with accidentally contacting the Zentradi, but you never know. That was already explained in the TV series (for the most part). It wasn't that he got lost after 10 years, it was just a simple clean up mission considering the number of Supervision Army fleet's around the galaxy were greatly dissapearing. Without anyone to fight, what choice was there left but to try & track down an old downed ship, that hopefully had survivors to knock around. AFOS is the Bird Man. The Anti-U.N., just like the U.N. want it so badly because it's a hot piece of alien technology to be backwards engineered. How are the details vastly different? The Protoculture (bird people) come to Earth, evolve the fish people into land walking creatures, and take off. This is the same history we've had all along. As for the islander's gene's, the implication would seem to be that Mayan was the hotbed for evolved life. The timeframe that the Protoculture would have visited would have had a vastly different geographical structure on earth (continents in different places, one large continent, or any given pangea theory). Or it could just be that with Mayan being so seperate for so long, its people never lost stories of the Protoculture's visit (as oppose to anywhere else they might have seeded on Earth). Or for that matter, a perfect transformation 1/48 Yamato! [qoute]All Macross Zero has done for me was leave me with a bunch of questions... Someone mentioned it might have been the "Bird-man" that drew Britai to Earth. If that was the case wouldn't he have known that had something to do with race he served? I don't subscribe to that theory myself. Besides which, why would the Birdman call to the Protoculture, when it would be serving the purpose that it was assumedly left for. Overall implication has been that the Zentradi took out any remaining Protoculture colony worlds (i.e. any others that they seeded), only Earth & Zola have been found to have life. According to Macross TV & 7, after the Protoculture/Protodevelin war, the Zentradi no longer had their directive to not harm Protoculture life (it was removed so that they could fight the Supervision army, who were comprised of captured Protoculture citizens). The surviving Protoculture tried to de-militarize the Zentradi, which they immediately saw as a threat. In essense, the Protoculture too became the Zentradi's enemy. Any worlds that the Zentradi came across they "took out," as the saw them as a threat. Bodolza makes references to coming across "culture" before as you'll recall. Looking at Dynamite, the Zolan's share some common traits with the Mayan islanders, so who know's, they may have a "Birdman" there too. [qoute]What was the purpose for altering the native life? Did they want a race to subjegate when the decided to return? Was it a little insurance so if some catastrophy happend the Protoculture wouldn't be completly extinct? This one I answered earlier. Once the Protoculture went to space, they found no one else around. So they decided to seed other worlds to spread out life. These other worlds were most likely part of the Stellar Republic that was taken out during the Civil war & Protodevelin war. So far, only Earth & Zola are shown to have survived. Unless Zero reveals something otherwise. it would seem to be one of those big cosmic coincidences that the Macross crashed on Earth. It was classified before SWI, as the Zentradi hadn't arrived yet, and they didn't want mass panic about giant alien's getting out. It's the same reason that Earth was told that all the citizens of South Atalia died during a strike by the anti-U.N., when in actuality they folded into space during an attack by the Zentradi. The only big question I see that "should" get an answer, is just exactly "why" the Bird Man is set to destroy life on Earth should it prove aggressive. Almost everythin else posed here has been answered by other Macross series.

It's an R2 release intended for the Japanese market. The R2 series releases are also for the Japanese market. What may be convenient for you, is not necessarily convenient for everyone else. I'm trying to look at it objectively. The people who spent a fortune on the series R2 releases have to spend even more to get something that could have been easily just spread over all the releases. That's just stupid. And guess what? R2 versions of SDF Mac series are apparently no longer in production anyway. Yay! Now the only way to get the original show is through Harmony Gold! Yippee! Macross just gets better all the time!!!! Considering the bare bones nature of R2 releases in general, I'm sure they were quite happy to get the extra's disc. Besides, in a country where OVA's are released 1 episode at a time at full retail price, an extra's only disc hardly seems out of the question.

Best thing about that article is it still implies Zeta to be released thsi year..... Honestly, I could care less about theatrical releases at this point, I just want the damn DVD, as F-91 is about the only thing (aside from the original SD OVA's & G Savior) that I haven't seen.

Except that it gives us an interesting look into the origin's of Roy's skill. What new questions? For the most part, Kawamori has been pretty good at fleshing out the reasoning behind the Protoculture's "visit." Because they (the Protoculture) were the only sentient beings in the universe when they became a space traveling race & started exploring. The purpose behind their "altering" life on other worlds was to populate the universe. This was explained a bit in Macross TV, more in DYRL, and extensively in Macross 7. That's directly tied into the mysteries of the bird man, which "should" be solved by the end of the next episode. Stop being so skeptical, complain after you've seen it

Look at it this way. If it had been included spread amongst R2 series DVD releases, it would have been a hell of a lot more expensive to get all the extra's. This way they're neatly bundled into one easy to obtain DVD that goes nicely along with an R1 collection which lacks such extra's.

Actually, not all that much needs to be covered. -We know about the Protoculture already -We know about their intervention on Earth -We know what will become of all this new technology -We know that Mayan is toasted -We know Sara's singing has a spiritia power to it, effecting all nature around her & also somehow letting her interface with the birdman. All that really need's wrapping up is the fight between Roy & DD, the true purpose of the Birdman to be revealed, & how the whole mess is going to be covered up (possibly an epilogue on the new characters introduced). This can easily be wrapped up in the remaining time. To find out what happens next, all you have to do is watch Macross.

This is a VF-11 That thing you have there is not even remotely (design wise) the same.

I wonder which will make it out first, Zero Volume 5, or Yukikaze volume 5....

Depends on what you already have. There isn't any story content, just a lot of extra features. Mind you they're really good extra features, but only extra features none the less. Personally, I find it worth it to get the SD intro, DYRL animated scenes, and VFX-2 intro alone.

a bit too "american" of a take on the character for my tastes, but interesting none the less.

Has it only been 2 years? Wow.

Could definately stand to be more ecchi. Nice, but there's also a bit too much "pudge" in Mao's crotch. Might want to trim the muffin' down a bit.

I keep telling you guys, next time Kawamori comes to a con, "tell him" we need subtitles! Last year was a perfect opportunity when he was on the Macross Panel, and I can't believe no one thought to mention it. Wasn't there even a Bandai rep with him???

They're the remastered animeigo dvd's, i.e. the only true version of Macross available over here.

If my memory serves me, it wasn't until the second or third season that the Rolling Stone's Fade to Black was used for the opening credits. The music used for the end credits was used for the opening credits of the first season. After reading that the video wasn't cleaned up/remastered, I'm not sure if I'll get Tour of Duty on DVD... Ahem, "PAINT IT BLACK" !!!

There actually is only 1 downside to the FX release, and it's that for some reason, he chose to clip the studio logo at the beginning, so it jumps right into the black screen with Britai & Exedor chatting. Slightly dissorienting for those who've seen it many times before, but nothing that can't be gotten over. Definately better than missing actual in film footage. I know we're not Japan's target audience, but I wish more companies would expend the minimal effort & subtitle DVD's that have little to no chance of being licensed over here. Bandai could have really blasted their Macross Zero sales sky high if they'd just included a subtitle track. BTW, I think there actually is supposed to be another production run of the FX DYRL disc.

Anyone who wants SGV can easily get it from www.dvdasian.com It's a Korea release DVD, but it's R1 compatable. Only downside is no subtitles, but on the upside it's only $15.

Ok, actually took a look at the set last night. As dissapointments never cease, it does appear that cramming 14 episodes per disc was a bit too much, even for crazy HK companies. As such, don't expect to see explosions without blockyness. Sad hting is, had "1" more disc been used (with about 10 episodes per disc), it would have come out a hell of a lot better looking. The other odd thing is that the dub episodes don't seem to work on my Pioneer DV-525. They just stop up like no ones business. They seem to work fine on my DVD ROM & PS2, but not on my standalone player...wierd. Perhaps my player know's by now that I don't care if dubs work or not.... Other than that, it seems to be a good set, although just as I mention that animaniacs haven't noticed the change, they update their pricing & disc count listing... Hindsight sure is 20/20 though, I remembered the animation quality looking a lot better when I first saw it, though I suppose it was back when there was little anime to be found on TV, and it was still lightyears better than any other animation on tv at the time.

What about the 99 lives of black jack saveage (decent TV movie, terrible tv series).

The AC/MI versions are vastly inferior in the audio & video departments. The FX is a direct R2 anamorphic widescreen rip. The AC/MI verisons are also missing about 15-20 seconds at the layer change, scene where Misa uses the Protoculture City com system to try & contact the Macross. Some say they like the sub script better on the AC?MI version, but I found the timing to be pretty off, and the scirpt to be just as loose (though in different spots) as some say the FX version is. Plus, the FX version at least get's the most important line in the movie (Misa's last) correct, while the AC/MI version screws it up.

Kawamori never said he didn't care about continuity, just that he wasn't going to be a slave to it. With that said, and with Macross Zero apparently being a "never happened" sort of incident, he couldn't exactly claim to have fought there could he?

I'll say this about SGV, the parts of it worth seeing are definately worth seeing. Everything else is a complete waste of time. I feel justified in owning it for the opening intro & theme song though. It would have been much better if there had been more badly drawn VF-1J fighting giant rat's & spiders, and less fat kids running around being chased by dogs, kids drowning at the beach, and aliens standing around chatting (I kid not).

Mantis was cool until they started doing that other dimensional crap. The Flash was awesome though, but it was killed by Gulf War coverage....! Since we're getting ecclectic, why not Chris Carter's other non-x-files show "Strange Luck" starring D.B. Sweeney. That was getting interesting right before they cancelled it. Or Space Police (I can't believe that actually got on the air).

Haven't actually watched it yet, just took a peek at the disc's last night (had to watch MZ 23 Prt 2 first, & ROD TV vol one is scheduled for tonight), but from the few seconds I listened to of the first episode, it seemed like the same dub, though perhaps the ep isodes after 25-26 used a different one? The only thing that scares me is that at 7 disc's, this would seem to pack in 14 episoes per disc (49 episodes each, 7 subtitled, 7 dubbed, as they use entirely different titles for each). I only checked in my rom drive, didn't actually use my DVD player, but perhaps later I'll see just how crammed onto the disc the episodes are. I also didn't check for next ep previous, but all intro's & endings seem to be intact, with a different intro & ending for the sub & dub. This is actually the most interestingly put together HK set I've seen. I don't know what the old 5 disc sub only version was like, but this newer 7 disc version (2 gatefold's packaged together, one with 4 disc's, the other with 3 disc's) and two completely different menu's on each disc. The default appears to be the sub version's menu, while if you go to the last option titled "voices" it takes you to an option between Japanese & English. Choosing English takes you to a parallel menu specifically for the english dub. Assuming when I start watching it, it isn't blocky as all hell, this will be one of the best mastered set's I'll have ever seen . BTW, animaniac's doesn't appear to know there's a difference between the older set & newer set, as I thought I was initially buying the old 5 disc set, and that's still the info that's listed for it. Looks like it even uses the same cover art. Ah, and before I forget, it also appears all the extra's are still included, further adding to the incredibly crammed content of this disc. How the hell did they do it???