HGSucks

Oh, I do have a couple of questions, for anybody who has seen the movie version. I had only seen the OVA about 20 years ago. Were the "pew pew" sounds deliberately used to replace the audio of a few songs that they unfortunately might not have gotten the rights to have them shown in the west. If so, would this have to do with royalties and not something like interference from an outside party (company)? Oh, while on the topic of music, am I the only person who was bothered that they didn't subtitle the songs? It seems like the songs are such a HUGE part of the series. There are times that the lyrics actually have to directly do with the plot. I'm picturing the part on Delta in which Freyja basically confesses her feelings to Hayate by singing to him? Most watchers are probably smart enough to know what she is singing about but, my point is that it's so much more impactful to know what is beinb sung. In a lot of anime it doesn't matter but, Macross isn't Gundam. I know some people hate Delta but, despite having several issues with it myself, I still liked it. It had a lot of potential. Anyway, is there any way to get the message through to BigWest to PLEASE, show English (or for whatever language it's translated to) during the songs? Did anybody else read or hear that anything 1987 or before is going to be internationally under the rights of Harmony Gold, and everything post 1987 belongs to BigWest. This might mean that my favorite Macross movie, Do You Remember Love, may not make the cut for BW. At least we will be (hopefully) getting 7, Zero, Frontier, and Delta. I still am very happy they are releasing it in the West. Thanks.

I agree with all the audio complaints. I can see why some people were very disappointed in this up to the point of wanting a refund. But, maybe we should keep some things in mind. 1. The impossible happened! I never thought, with all the legal web involved in it especially with Harmony Gold copyright squatting on the IP for about 35 years, that there would be an actual Macross release at all. This is absolutely groundbreaking so maybe at least BigWest should be cut some slack since this is their very first attempt to breaking the wall that had kept them out for so long. 2. This may have been rushed to just get something released in the US as quickly as possible without having a Robotech Sentinels disaster. Maybe, they thought that if they didn't get something done quickly, HG might pull some crap to stop them from releasing anything. 2. As far as I know BigWest has not had any other international releases of anything until now in the west (ironically with their name). So, there familiarity with western theaters, the language etc. may be a large learning curve for them since, they aren't exactly Sony as they are backing Robotech. 3. I had never heard of Fanthom or whoever they are. Perhaps they screwed this whole thing up and maybe, BigWest should seek out a larger company to assist them in the future or do better oversight. 4. It seems like multiple locations were less than eager to show this movie and some kids in the theaters were probably thinking, "I only have to do the bare minimum since it's only going to be just for a couple of nerds showing up." For example, the one I know about here failed to turn the lights down until a forth of the way through the movie. Maybe, there is something to the way the sound was handled by them or they put people in the room with the worst audio system. 5. Keep in mind this was dubbed in Dolby Stereo. Since, that there have been at least Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital, etc. If you have a surround sound system and you play Dolby Stereo with the wrong settings you can get a mono, stereo only, Dolby Surround II, etc. Some theaters may have poorly upmixed it or didn't do so at all. 6. Despite all of this, a lot of people who saw this for the first time, like spouses who were dragged to this, xD seemed to really enjoy it despite all of this. 6. Even if you had an awful experience, all of you and the other people who should be proud to be one of the first to watch a Macross movie in the west! 7. We got to show BigWest that there is interest in the west hopefully enough to release more material, and really make an investment in it, money and effort-wise, in the west to release what is probably a very expensive franchise to release internationally with all of the music rights, etc. So, they may have been very budget restricted and couldn't risk spending too much money only to find zero interest in the franchise. 8. Maybe the best part of it all was giving a big "F*** you Harmony Gold" for every person who showed up or at least bought tickets to show support for BigWest.

I just got back from watching it in one of the several OKC theaters that were showing it. There were about a dozen people showing up for this one comprised of a few couples some with Macross shirts. It seems as though they blocked out a couple of songs with sounds that were annoying. That's disconcerting that something that is a HUGE part of some of the series, including their meaning being part of the plot, were not subtitled. It's not a franchise like Fairy Tail that doesn't matter much if they are subtitled. It wouldn't be a big deal in a series like Zero but, in Frontier and in Delta (hell, that is the show but unlike some, I love it...7, not so much). I was surprised that in the history they included Macross II since, I thought that was considered non-canonical because didn't the rival studio Tatsunoko Productiond that was part of a 3 way lawsuit in Japan, do that without BigWest and Studio Nue (Tatsunoko Productions I believe was the studio that illegally sold the renewal rights to HG). So, it looks like there are still some possible song rights/royalty issues. I'm glad at least Voices was included. Anyway, despite my complaints, it still is a big accomplishment without HG being mentioned at all. I never thought I'd see something like it at all in the US so it is a big step. The names "Harmony Gold" and "BigWest" have huge ironies if you think about them and the effect they had on the franchise. The subtitles were uneven but, this is not too uncommon in anime since there is some debate within anime circles on how much liberty to take with strictly literal translations or more "artsy" and not so literal ones. This seemed to find an ok balance. English dubs have gotten better but subs of course tend to have better thanslations. On a side note, I believe HG originally just wanted to do it as Macross only. However, do to the way syndication was done in the United States, they need many more episodes so were forced to by the other two series to satisfy the number of episodes they would need. Unfotunately, they decided that throw the series together as one big one. At first HG was cool and allowed an albeit bad like most anime English dubs at the time have a Macross Plus dubbed by ADV as well a Do You Remember Love. There was also a "Clash of the Bionoids" crappy version that I think HG might have been more behind. Anyway, I could be wrong on a lot of this so I'm saying all of this with the disclaimer that I'm taking this from memory and some of it may be speculative. The so-called Macross saga was more faithful to the original although it still was basterdized by it's throwing around the word Robotech instead of protoculture some and making protoculture later having somethign to do with flowers. Anyway. I'm new and I apologize if this was a bad post. I'll try to post something with citations and be more concise. I'm just tired. It was exciting to see and better than I had remembered it. Anyway, I'm fininished bumbling this. I apologize to anybody I didn't give credit to as well.