Cyclone Trooper

Like I said...various sources seem to contradict one another on what is considered "fact" about the compliment of the SDF-1, so I was being all-inclusive. I gave a low number and a maximum number of people based on various "ship rosters" I've come across. So I apologize if I'm stepping on any Macross fact-keeper's toes here...lol I was shooting for the "somewhere in there is the true number" approach.

Now before this turns into another DYRL vs. TV version debate, I want to make it clear that this thread isn't about the battlefortress's appearance or transformation capabilities or anything like that. This primarily concerns Macross City itself, or at least the idea of a sprawling metropolis in the legs of the SDF-1. I was watching DYRL on our new plasma HDTV this evening (man, you see things in the animation you never paid attention to before!)...and something occurred to me. The DYRL Macross is 1210m long, over 300m tall (in fortress mode) and just short of 500m wide. According to the Gold Book, the movie itself, and various other sources, its confirmed that Macross City is laid out mainly in the legs of the ship. The interior of both legs are---for all intent and purpose---designed like a massive multi-tiered shopping mall, complete with theaters, restaurants, entertainment venues, industrial areas and residential lodging. This much can't be disputed... But here's what I've always wondered... The population of Macross City fluctuates between 70,000 and 56,000 men, women and children...with additional military personnel ranging from 1,200 to over 20,100, depending on what source you go with. So when we crunch the numbers, the SDF-1 is carrying (at full capacity) anywhere from 71,200 to over 90,000 people (!)...all confined within a relatively small surface area of roughly 3/4 of a mile. Is this possible, at least in the way that DYRL source material would have one believe? That just seems like a hell of a lot of bodies crammed together into such a small space...yet the interiors seem to represent themselves as been fairly spacious. Hell, the Frontier's Island can house up to 1 million...but there's significantly more space to support that many people, and can therefore be understood. The SDF-1 on the other hand seems to employ the age-old anime magic of "interiors being bigger than exteriors" to make room for all of its citizens. I dunno...maybe it IS possible to put that many people inside the battlefortress comfortably. But I'd need to see a breakdown of how it could be done...

Cut him some slack, BlueMax! It's not everyday that he pulls our puppet strings in his god-like way like this. Let him have a LITTLE fun before he makes known whatever this big news is.

OR... Yamato is going to drop a 1/60 VF-4 on us in both "Flashback" colors and game colors. Who knows?

True... But we HAVEN'T seen a painted, or transformed version of it yet! But honestly, its probably going to be the announcement that Yamato has somehow dodged the old Harmony Gold/Big West legal nightmare and pulled of the miracle of procuring the license to Macross 7 et al, like a few others have speculated...

Well, lets keep this much in mind... A few years ago, I seem to remember hearing that Yamato had absolutely no plans to make the SDF-1 either...but lo' and behold, we're getting one. What Yamato plans to do today may not reflect what it decides to do tomorrow. The Spartan may see a release with the reissues of the Destroids a few years from now to add some incentive to "collect all of them" if you never had a chance to get any of the first generation versions.

Everything you just said is incredibly ironic based on your user name!

Then that brings us back to my initial question... Why bother making these "adult collectibles" transformable when a static statue version would suffice? I'm around the same age as you, MacrossMan (I'm 36, and grew up on "old school" Macross), and you're correct in that I, personally, don't "swoosh" my Valkyries around reenacting battle scenes from SDFM or DYRL. But like a lot of others on here, I DO tend to transform them every so often. As we age, recreating those battle scenes evolves into the fine art of diorama building. Active play turns into recreating what amounts to 3D snapshots of battle scenes, iconic poses, and launch preparations. And honestly, like someone else has stated, so many people are collecting nowadays that nothing is really going to be as valuable as we hope it'll be. The Golden Age of collectibles for our generation was 1977 through 1994 with the original Star Wars and GI Joe lines, respectively. I don't really count McFarlane figures as true collectibles because they've been churned out ad nauseam for nearly 17 years. And Marvel Legends figures will one day flood the market so prolifically by collectors trying to sell them for a small mint that they won't move very well. It reminds me of a line from Pixar's The Incredibles when Syndrome says, "...and when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can be a superhero. And when EVERYONE is a 'super,' NO ONE will be." An off the wall analogy, I admit, but a fitting one. So when your son rips into that new Transformers box, don't cringe. The old Generation 1 stuff in mint condition? Yes, it'll be worth a fortune(some of it already is), provided you can find a buyer willing to pay what its worth. But the modern Transformer lines? Not so much...

Honestly, I'm not sneering or regarding anyone as a freak here. I'm more or less peeking into the minds of collectors who DO fall into the other two catagories so I can better understand the motivations behind, say, keeping something MSIB, or purchasing multiples of the same item, etc. And on a side note, one of the reason why I started this thread is so that when my wife asks me questions like "Why would someone spend that much money on 3 of the same thing when it equals a whole car payment?" I can give her an educated answer as to why. The more legitimate the answers, the more legitimate our collecting is to someone who "just doesn't get it." And trust me...you don't tell a wife or girlfriend that its none of their business why we collect high-end items; and we DEFINITELY don't tell them its none of their business as to how much it costs! *all of the married MW members and members in relationships are nodding in agreement as they read this last statement*

Back in the late 80s, me and a group of friends roleplayed Macross using the old Palladium Robotech RPG. My Valkyrie was an Elintseeker (unit number 517) for Diamondback Squadron assigned to ARMD-02. This particular Valkyrie will always have sentimental significance, so this will definitely be my first "Version 2" purchase! And this time, my kids won't be given a chance to destroy it like they did to my Version 1 VE.

Keeping the boxes for moving purposes is understandable...and completely utilitarian. That's something I can relate to. Kanedaestes, you bring up another thing collectors of all stripes contend with: the wife/girlfriend. This creature is usually the ultimate nemesis or ultimate ally to a collector. All in all, I've been lucky to have a wife who has been (for the most part) completely supportive of my collecting. I've strictly limited myself to Macross, UC-era Gundam, and a few items from Original Trilogy Star Wars as far as collecting goes...so the wife doesn't get too concerned about what I bring into the house, as long as her, the kids, and bills come before the latest Valkyrie toy. But I've known of hardcore collectors who have been stopped dead in their tracks once a girlfriend becomes part of the equation. These women will usually view collecting (and by extension, the collector himself) as childish and financially wasteful. These are the poor souls who you sometimes see on forums like this that are suddenly selling $1000s worth of their collections "*because they're moving" or "to free up room in their house" or some other excuse. But whatever the excuse may be, a significant other is usually at the heart of the decision. Not ALL wives/girlfriends are like that...but...lol

sharky and Vifam7, you both bring up a point I only lightly touched on earlier...and I'm glad you did. Collecting as a form of investment. I'm 36 years old and, as a kid, had ALL of the original 12 Star Wars figures. I saw the value of a lot of original Kenner SW merchandise skyrocket to insane levels during the 80s...and some people became independently wealthy by selling off their collections for exhorbitant prices. But years later, when Hasbro began rereleasing items like the Millenium Falcon and the AT-AT with updated electronics, the value of the older stuff began leveling off and eventually depreciating altogether. Hell, back in 2004, I got an original Death Star playset complete with intact cardboard walls for $50 shipped off of eBay...while it went for nearly $1200 at one point. Macross toys seem to follow these same trends. The Version 1 1/60 Valkyries are dropping in price as collectors move to the newer Version 2s; the original WAVE SDF-1 was abandoned by collectors in favor of the "movie paint scheme" version, leaving the original to drop in price; the newer VF-11 will undoubtedly cause the same to happen to the original. Collecting for the sake of getting filthy-stinking rich off of it at some point in the future is becoming more and more difficult to do, considering that we are now in the age of the "remake" or "reboot." When an "anniversary" of a given series or movie rolls around, the market is flooded yet again with tons of new merchandise, which is nearly always an improvement over the older versions of said merchandise. Honestly, I can't see selling off any of the current Macross stuff (be it Yamato, WAVE, Bandai or otherwise) and it allowing me to retire at 40, with a nice nest egg to boot. Is this how some collectors are viewing their collections, as far as investing in them?

I didn't exactly LET my 3-year-old twins play with my Valkyries, but they did get ahold of my 1/60 VE-1 Elintseeker from the den. Let's just say that it suffered quite a bit of battle damage in the process... The side antennae on the Fast Packs are snapped off, the radar dish is missing and both pilots apparently ejected because they've been MIA ever since. So I've vowed to get the V2 Elintseeker and NEVER let them near it! lol

And sadly, VFTF1...there ARE people who are that obsessive about the packaging, for whatever reason. Now to a point, I can understand this sort of "gotta make sure the packaging is perfect" behavior if you are purchasing an item only to turn around and resell it yourself. Customers don't want to buy beat-up merchandise, whether it be from a store or from an individual. But in most of the cases I'm citing, these are their private collections, so I don't know where the need for perfect packaging comes from.

Working for Toys R Us all these years, I've indulged in my fair share of collecting everything from Gundam to Star Wars to Macross; as well as observed the shopping habits of local collectors. And I've found it to be fun to treat it almost like a psychological experiment. Now, in my experience, I've found that there are three distinct groups of collectors... The first group is the one that I can say that I belong to: The "Open-and-Play" group. These are collectors who will actually open something like that hard-to-find Star Wars figure or that ridiculously expensive 1/48 weathered-special Yamato Valkyrie. We apply decals with wild abandon, have no qualms about customizing a $100 SHGM-PRO Gundam figure with our own paint schemes, and generally don't keep the packages of anything we purchase. The second group is the much more anally-retentive one: The "Mint-In-Package" group. These are the Star Wars collectors who search through a store's entire stock, checking figure cardbacks for the smallest creases and imperfections with the same meticulousness as a master jeweler examining a diamond for flaws. These are the collectors who will spend tens of thousands of dollars in their lifetime amassing a large collection of merchandise, but will absolutely refuse to remove any of it from its original packaging for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER! Their "collection rooms" generally look more like an aisle in a TRU stockroom than a collection. Boxes stacked perfectly from floor to ceiling, catagorized by item, character, theme, etc. Some of them could nearly be considered monuments to OCD behavior. And lastly, there is the third group who is an eclectic mix of the first two groups: The "Buy-One-Get-One" group. These are the collectors who will invariably purchase two of everything, no matter what it is. One to open and play with...one to keep in mint condition. This is the more problematic group because they tend to clutter their homes up not just with the "MIP" stuff, but all the opened toys as well. This group also tends to keep all the empty boxes from the toys and collectibles that they've opened. Not all of them do, but a good majority that I've encountered definitely do. This is also the group that tends to flood eBay with items marked up 300% too... Now, decide which group you would say you belong to, and we'll continue... I've read a few people here on MW make clear-cut statements that SOME Macross items are "toy" toys and others are toys for "adult collectors." I think its safe to assume that we all know the difference between them (i.e.: Bandai 1/55 VF-1: toy; Yamato 1/60 VF-1: adult collectible). I've also heard comments made to the effect of "I'll buy a Yamato Valkyrie...but it'll stay in the box, never to see the light of day." I'm going to play devil's advocate here and pose a question based on comments like this. If this is the general thought process behind collecting higher-end Macross items, then why should companies like Bandai or Yamato even bother with making them transformable at all, if most collectors feel that they are to be treated like VERY expensive preassembled model kits? Just release each Valkyrie in all three modes, pick the mode you like best...and just purchase that one. If its basically going to stay hermetically sealed in a climate-controlled room, never to be removed from its packaging...are some collectors, in essence, just spending hundreds of dollars for nifty box art? I've always been of the opinion that you should enjoy these things to their fullest, so I've never really understood the whole "keep it pristine and unopened" mentality. I'd love to have some insight into the minds of other collectors on this...

My love affair with Macross began like a lot of the other "old timers" on here...with Robotech. Even in its bastardized rewritten state, Macross was the most appealing of all 3 series to me. It had a much more realistic feel because it had mecha that was believable, comparatively speaking. Veritechs were quick and deadly fighter/robots while the Destroids were basically 35-foot tall infantry/artillery. Around the summer of 1986, my local comic shop procured several imported Macross model kits and books, including the (at the time) never-before-seen Flashback 2012 book and the famous Gold Book, which I purchased a year and a half later. The shop owner was the one who introduced me and my friends to the concept of the Macross movie (DYRL) by allowing us to leaf through the Gold Book. Because the only information we could get our hands on at the time (remember, there was no internet back then) was the Robotech Art 1 and 2 books, we had never seen a Strike Valkyrie before...nor did we know that "Valkyrie" was the correct name! The comic shop also had a list of videos that could be imported from Japan...one of them was simply called "Macross: The Movie" on the order sheet. The shop owner assured us that it was indeed the same DYRL movie from the Gold Book, and was even dubbed in English. And it could be ours for $100 plus shipping. We pooled our money and preordered it. $100...for a freaking VHS tape. But when it arrived, we were treated to our first glimpse of the "real" version of Macross. The version of the movie we got was not the heavily-edited Clash of the Bionoids, but an unedited version that still had Minmay's shower scene, the beheading of the Macross citizen, and Bodolza's head exploding under a hail of gunpod fire. It also had Japanese subtitles, which I found strange. But a few years later, I was told that this particular dub was used to teach Japanese-speaking people how to speak English...whether that was true or not, I dunno. For those who are aware of the various dubs, this is the one that has the Zentran uttering the line "A man and a woman! It must be Protoculture!" The voice actors were supposedly from both China and Australia. The DYRL redesign of the SDF-1 struck a resonating chord in me and my friends, leading us to use that version in our later roleplaying campaigns. Yes, I was a complete Macross RPG geek back in the late 80s. lol We used the old Palladium Robotech RPG book, but everything was quickly relabeled with their correct names, including the characters. Lisa became Misa, Minmei became Minmay, Rick became Hikaru, etc. The material we used incorporated all the "new" stuff from DYRL, including the strike cannon, ARMDs and redesigned Zentraedi and Meltrandi. And we never ventured into any of the other source material pertaining to Southern Cross or MOSPEADA. Because of this, I became an obnoxious Macross "purist" for a few years in the late 80s/early 90s...quick to jump into someone else's Robotech conversations and correct them with information that they were fairly unaware of. I'd flash my Gold Book at them like it was the Gutenberg Bible, showing the error of their sinful "Robotech" ways. Also by this time, I had acquired several other Japanese Macross sourcebooks as well. I felt smugly sure of myself as a Macross know-it-all. Since then, I've found that I was woefully wrong! lol By the early 90s, Macross II came out and left me sort of put off by the whole Marduk thing...and the extreme leap into the timeline's future. I saw it as little more than "Macross: The Next Generation." So I sort of drifted away from Macross until the Spring of 1995 when I caught wind of something called Macross Plus. Because of the bad taste that MII had left in my mouth, I was a tad dubious as to what this would be about. But I preordered the first video tape...and was blown away by everything from the characters to the storyline. I DID have to get used to the YF-19/YF-21 designs simply because I had been so used to the tried-and-true VF-1 design for so long (and still prefer it over anything else). But the writing was good, the visuals were spectacular (I loved the scene where Sharon Apple activates the entire planetary defense grid against a single Valkyrie), and the characters were engaging. Yes, there was a love triangle, but it was between three adults instead of between teenagers (and Misa, but she sometimes acted like a teenager herself), and therefore was a bit more mature than the sometimes comedic "Three's Company" triangle from SDFM. I was officially hooked again! It would be many years later before I'd see any of the newer Macross offerings...all of which were viewed via the internet. Gotta love YouTube! Macross 7 came across too much like Power Rangers to me, though it did have some good parts, but there were more cringe-worthy ones than not. Macross Zero was beautifully-done, but it didn't hit me the right way because of the "prequel updating" that was done to it. I've already covered my opinions of M0 in another thread, so I'll spare you that rant again. If I consider it a stand-alone project, then I have absolutely no problem with it at all. And then I sat through Frontier... Don't get me wrong, Frontier was good...it had the visuals of M0, the designs of DYRL and M7, and was episodic like SDFM. It just felt too much like a retelling of everything that had already come to pass in the Macross universe. That was my only real gripe with it--aside from the anorexic mecha. Otherwise, it carries on the spirit of Macross in spectacular fashion! It's been nearly 25 years since seeing Macross as the first installment of Robotech, and my passion for it is as alive as ever...

I wasn't thinking that at all... I've only seen the series once, and honestly I'm recalling it from memory. Those who have studied Macross F frame by frame like the Dead Sea Scrolls are obviously going to have more insight into the ship design than I can remember. It was just one of those things that I saw for a split second before a Vajra destroyed it and thought it may have a fleeting resemblance to a Marduk ship. But maybe I'm completely off base with this. I'm not too proud to admit when I may be completely out in left field on something.

Okay, I can't give a specific time index or anything for what I'm about to describe, because I don't have a set of DVDs (pirated or otherwise) for Macross F. But I know everyone who's seen the series a few times will know what I'm talking about... The research ship that Ranka is jettisoned from in an escape pod as a child looks exactly like a Marduk Dreadnought from Macross II. It has a vaguely Zentraedi-ish organic design, with four leg-like prows at the bow and stern of the ship. Can someone confirm this with a screencap or am I completely imagining this? If that's what the ship design was supposed to be based on, then was this possibly Big West giving a brief nod to MII? There are two flashback sequences during the course of the series that shows this particular scene... Or is this just one of those coincidences where the design just HAPPENED to look similar to the ship I'm referring to? With all the other fan-service Macross F has been guilty of, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was a blatant case of "Here's to all the MII fans out there! If you blink, you'll miss it!"...

AWESOME! Is that the new VF-31 Bulimia?

The VA-3 was just an idea Kawamori came up with around the time that Macross Plus was in production, but it was never actually used. The Cheyenne is a "proto-Destroid" that eventually evolved into the Tomahawk. You might consider the Cheyenne to be the "Mk I" version of the Tomahawk, though there's no official information to support this claim. Ironically, the design was resurrected in Macross Frontier as the Cheyenne Mk II. Neither of these Destroids seem very inspired in terms of appearance, but they are functional nonetheless... In contrast, check out the Destroids from Macross II in terms of sheer hulkishness. MacII took the existing Destroid designs and pumped them up with steroids.

I suppose the newer designs are no less outlandish than past incarnations since the VF-1. Macross Plus was the era of the Valkyries-with-boobs. Macross 7 continued the techno-boob movement but added Transformers-style head units featuring mouths and noses. Even the VF-17, as kickass as it is, has tri-barrel "boob cannons". On a side note, Macross 7 could be marketed here in the US by someone like HG as "Guitar Hero Galactic Power Team" and no one would notice it was originally a Macross series at all. The only quasi-realistic designs that came out of that era were the Macross Plus Valks, in spite of the small arms and uni-boob of the YF-19 and the fact that the YF-21 simply looks like a transformable Q-Rau. The VF-11 Thunderbolt was simply an updated version of the VF-1A with transitional elements leading to the YF-19. Had we seen more Zentran/Meltran-influenced variable mecha as time went on, I could fully understand that, since its their manufacturing technology that has been the driving force behind reclaiming Earth and producing everything from clones and toothbrushes to hippocows and colony ships ever since the end of SWI. But instead, we get the current crop of bug-like mecha... *sigh*

Same reason George Lucas gave for his prequels having a much more modern look...for no other reason except because he can do it, continuity be damned. And you actually touched on another reason I'm cooled off toward the VF-25's design. The "noise" factor. Excessive panel lines coupled with a comparatively elaborate paint job make for a Valkyrie that's difficult to take in all at once from a visual standpoint...at least in CGI form. At least with the Bandai toys, you can sit and examine them at your leisure...or at least until your eyes go crossed... Case in point: I didn't even know Ozma's VF-25S had a gigantic Skull Squadron logo painted on the aircraft's "back" until I saw the actual 1/60 toy. The paint scheme was just too "busy" in the series to catch it right away. All I gathered from it in the series was it had the same yellow/black color scheme as Roy's VF-1S, therefore Ozma is MF's "Roy" character. Beyond that, I couldn't tell what the actual layout of the paint scheme was to save my life.

Now that I think about it, the VF-0 is like a Hollywood-made "movie version" of the VF-1...same basic design, but with all kinds of stuff added in for no other reason but to modernize the design and make it more eye-catching for "the big screen."

It was the only thing I could think of that would fit in with the "wasp-waist" term...and its become such a common moniker of the original VF-1 that it just seemed natural. It was used to convey an idea, not as a slam against Bandai or its original line of Valkyries. No offense meant!

The past couple of years has seen somewhat of a "Macross Revival" both in Japan and abroad. Yamato has single-handedly usurped Bandai as the go-to company for SDFM/DYRL-era mecha. Macross Frontier has introduced a whole new generation of viewers (and collectors) to the franchise. It's given a new singer nearly the same legendary status as Mari Iijima. And, with some exceptions, its just darned cool to watch... The mecha designs (and thus, the toys based on said designs) in recent years have taken a turn that I really wished they hadn't. First, I'll cover Macross Frontier's insectoid-like mecha. Every single Valkyrie in MF looks like some form of bug when in Battroid mode. The VF-25's super-thin waists and arms, talon-like feet, and wings being mounted on the back like gossamer wings don't help to disprove my opinion either. The head units appear especially insect-like to me, with the overly-thin laser barrels and sensors appearing more like compound eye blisters than anything else. Now I understand that this may very well be the look that Kawamori was shooting for when he designed the VF-25...but still, it just makes the UN Spacy's mecha look too much like something the Vajra would use in its arsenal instead of the other way around. The VF-25 and VF-27 (and to a lesser degree, the VF-117) all have a decidedly organic feel to them when in Battroid mode, which just doesn't feel right to me. It just seems like the further into Macross's future we go, the Valkyries keep getting more and more anorexic and alien-looking. And enemies in Macross are becoming more and more organic and exotic as well. What's next? Space-borne sacks of cosmic goo bent on intergalactic genocide? And the viscous nature of their bodies absorb soundwaves? Eventually, it'll be difficult to distinguish who the good guys and bad guys are during combat sequences because the mecha designs will look too similar...but I digress. That's a discussion best left to the Movies/TV threads. The other issue I have is over the whole "past technology looks WAY more futuristic than present-day technology" thing. This is the same phenomenon seen in the Star Wars prequels. This would apply specifically to Macross Zero. Again, we have a Valkyrie that looks like it'd be right at home in the 2040s or 2050s instead of 2007/2008. The VF-0 has the same "zig-zag" panel lines that the VF-11 has, and shares several other design characteristics with the VF-25 instead of the VF-1. It's understood that in both the Star Wars prequels and M-Zero, that visual effects technology had advanced by lightyears since the original releases of the Original Trilogy and SDFM, respectively. But there's also a little thing called continuity that has to be taken into consideration. Why would the UN Spacy suddenly scrap the super-advanced design of the VF-0 in favor of a design that simply looks like a retro-engineered F-14 with transformation capabilites? The argument here from most would be that SDFM was made in the early 80s, so the designs will of course look dated. True. I can't argue with that. But I just hate how all sorts of "prequel" subject matter tends to be given a much more modernized look than the original series or movies that its based on. If you stand a Yamato VF-0 next to a VF-1, which one honestly looks more advanced? It definitely won't be the VF-1... The VF-0 also tends to suffer from the same anorexia and insectile anthropomorphism that the MF Valkyries have, though not nearly as exaggerated. I guess I'm just saying that I prefer my mecha to have a little junk in the trunk instead of being skinny beanpoles with bug eyes... The VF-1 isn't exactly a heavyweight mecha by any means, but I guess I like the fact that it still maintains the look of being a machine when in Battroid mode instead of resembling some techno-organic creature. Does anyone else feel the same way or at least sort of understand where I'm coming from with this?