Radd

How is that really any more closure than what we got? "They left earth on a the first colony ship and lived happily ever after." is what we got. How is, "They landed on the planet Bob and had 8 more kids." any more closure when there's always "Well, what happened next?" Where does it end? What planet did they colonize? Where did their careers go from there? How many kids did they have in the end? What did their kids do? I'm not seeing where this additional closure is coming from. Curiosity, that I can understand but then call it what it is. It's not closure people are asking for. We got closure. It was pretty open and such, literally almost with that book closing ending. If the "they disappeared near the centre of the galaxy" thing is the jab at the fans that I originally heard it was, I can certainly see why Kawamori would do that. Sheesh. On the other hand, I rather like the air of mystery it gives those characters. Saying they disappeared kinda makes them larger than life, and I'm perfectly fine with it remaining like that. Lets the curiosity and imagination run wild.

Oh, how I hope Bandai or Yamato gives us one of those in 1/60.

Animation! Does SDF:M beat M7 in terms of animation? Well, yes and no. There were certainly moments, and entire episodes, where the animation in SDF:M was great. However, there was at least an equal number of episodes where the animation was absolute garbage. Meanwhile, outside of an unaired episode and a theatrical short, M7 had no really great animation moments or episodes, but on the other hand it didn't have any dips in quality that are really comparable to those found in SDF:M. It would be more accurate to say that while SDF:M had some great animation at times, it had some pretty awful animation at times too, whereas Macross 7 is much more consistent in its animation, never truly amazing, but never really scraping rock bottom like SDF:M was known to do. I do wish that the reused footage in M7 was of a higher quality. I loved the Battle 7 transformation, but the fighter launching sequences and the reused battle footage was really disappointing and bland.

I agree completely. You know, I'm all for killing characters when it's for the sake of emotional impact and strong story telling, but if it had actually happened this episode I would have groaned. Well, after crying many manly tears, sure, but still...from a story telling perspective, it was just too heavy handed, which made the misdirection all the better. Such a great use of a Macross reference, while at the same time further pushing Frontier in its own new direction. I still kinda expect we'll see characters die before the end. Possibly even Ozma. But if it happens, I expect it won't be nearly as overwrought as in this episode. They might even make it a completely unexpected shocker. An out of nowhere shot, and suddenly they're gone. Also, thumbs up for all the Fire Bomber this episode. Best episode? I dunno, but the pacing and everything was a lot stronger than usual. Like everything is in the right groove now, and the story is pushing on towards the big revelations. I can't wait to see what next episode brings.

I'm satisfied with the ample closure already provided to the Hikaru/Misa/Minmay story. Bringing them back would be like beating a dead horse. Unless they had a story in mind that really made use of them, it would wind up being too contrived, too forced. It's a big universe, plenty of room for other people to play their part. Max and Millia worked as returning characters because we really didn't get a whole lot of development out of their story in SDF. They were never, ever the focus, unlike Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay. If Hikaru and Misa, or Minmay, or Basara ever showed up I'd expect it would be as a small cameo. I could see Gamlin and Mylene returning, as unlike Hikaru and Misa, we never see these two riding off into the sunset. There's unresolved issues there. Is it necessary to resolve it? No. It will never weigh heavily on my mind. Will the Alto, Sheryl, Ranka love triangle meet the same fate? Possibly, but I actually kinda doubt it. Unlike Gamlin/Mylene/Basara's "love triangle", this current love triangle seems much more central to the story. Not to mention there is an actual love triangle here, unlike Macross 7 where much of the "love triangle" element is fan conjecture. 7 was very atypical in that regard. Gamlin was certainly after Mylene, Basara certainly was not, and Mylene's own feelings were never entirely clear. Here in Frontier, Ranka and Sheryl both certainly have feelings for Alto, to the point of being outright competitive about it, and Alto certainly has conflicting feelings about both of them. It could end with the love triangle unresolved, it could even be done well, but it would not be the same as any of the previous Macross love triangles.

Fair enough. I've seen enough of that to get annoyed by it. I do try not to assume that's what people mean unless they say as much, and those who do mean that are usually quick to say it. Just how specific would you like me to get? It sounds as if you would be satisfied with nothing less than a full and polished script. I think it's sufficient to agree that we disagree. I believe the episode, and several other such episodes, seemed rushed and the storytelling suffered for it. I've stated why I believe this, and what I believe would have remedied this. If you don't agree, then you don't agree. I will say you're putting words in my mouth again. I'm well aware that SDF was not stone-cold serious through and through. That is specifically why I brought it up rather than, say, Plus or Zero. I like storytelling to be well paced. Build-up, resolution. This can be achieved while keeping an episode "crammed" as you put it. Grace's monologue before detonating the Dimension Eater seemed to indicate that the uprising itself may have been the work of Galaxy, which would go far in explaining why it was so easy for Ranka's appearance to defuse the situation. However, all of that came an episode later, letting the audience feel, for an entire week, that the situation seemed to wrap up a little too conveniently. I believe you are proving my point here. The events on Gallia 4 are not so irrelevant to Frontier as you seem to think. The entire event was engineered by Galaxy to set into motion the battle in episode 14. It did not work out quite as planned, but the end result as almost as much as Galaxy had hoped. That point was not made as strongly in part due to the very problems I found with the episode. From the point of view of the Frontier fleet, half a planet and a bunch of zentradi were destroyed in an instant, apparently by the Vajra who then attacked the Frontier fleet and did a lot of damage and killed a lot of people. From the point of view of us, the audience, a ton of story was both set up, and revealed via the events on Gallia 4. Again, I'm not saying I'm not enjoying the series. I am, it's great. One of the best shows I've seen in years. Just saying that, in my opinion, there is room for improvement and that I speculate a part of the problem may well be out of the hands of the creators. The best intentions can certainly be hampered by budget and time constraints.

But Cathy knows about the "Foo fighter", and Ozma probably knows what Cathy knows. Hence their suspicions regarding Leon.

I'm under the impression, and dialogue between Kathy and Ozma seem to reinforce this, that Leon may be covering Brera's tracks.

You are making a lot of assumptions that do not appear to have any foundation. I cannot recall anything that would indicate that the Vajra know anything more, or can any more easily use Ranka to communicate. There has been nothing in the show to indicate that Ranka understands how to bridge communication between the Vajra and the humans. You also speak of Ranka communicating with the Vajra queen, as if there was a scene showing the Queen clearly and easily communicating with Ranka. I cannot recall this scene occuring within the show, are you referring to some source outside the tv series? In episode 14 it was certainly shown that the Vajra have some interest in Ranka. Wouldn't it be quite the twist there if they were, in fact, attempting to use her to communicate and that attempt did not quite succeed before Alto and Brera arrived?

By that very same logic, it's no tragedy at all if the Vajra wipe out Frontier. After all, Frontier has had Ranka far longer than the Vajra and have made no attempts to communicate.

You're a "black and white" kinda guy, I'm guessing? Now, of course, the people of Frontier are convinced that there is no way to communicate or reason with the Vajra. They're alien enough that it's pretty easy to convince them, in very reasonable terms, that the Vajra are just mindless killing machines. The SMS and NUNS are just protecting a colony full of civilians from a vicious, mostly unknown enemy. The thing is, the people of Frontier are victims, too. As you've pointed out, they've lost quite a bit to these Vajra attacks, and they have no idea that strings are being pulled. No one has suggested that the heroes of the show have become villains, just that all is not as it seems and that the Vajra may not actually be villains either. Is it so hard to believe good people might kill good people because they're convinced they need to, to protect those they love? So now you have these two groups, both are being victimized and mislead by this third group, and one side is provided the means to just slaughter the other. You honestly can't see the tragedy here?

Who said anything at all about gore? I just think it could have used more buildup, and maintained a little more SDF seriousness before Ranka swooped in, would have made the over-the-topness hit with just the right amount of punch. As it is, like several other aspects of the series it seemed kinda rushed, and Ranka's appearance seemed kinda forced as a result. I enjoyed the episode, just think it could have been done a bit better had it been two episodes rather than just one. Also, it seems that the conflict was not all that secondary, as it was something that seems to have been engineered by Galaxy, and fairly integral to their original plans.

So they released a recut version of the first episode with footage from both the Deculture and aired editions? I hope it flows together better than the aired version, which had some sloppy edits, like Alto catching a paper airplane that just happened to be flying through the air, since you never saw him fold and throw it before he took off. Looking forward to a fansub of that, I'll have to keep an eye out. *edit* Ja, just caught the Yakku Deculture information in the News thread.

I'm thinking the tone of the zentradi uprising, and many of the pacing issues I've complained about since the beginning of the series, are a side effect more of time constraint than simply poor writing. I'm already thinking this series could have benefitted from a longer run, the overarching plot seems more ambitious the more they reveal. Too late for that, unfortunately. I just hope the end run doesn't fall flat due to poor pacing and a shortage of episodes. That's not to say that I'm not enjoying every single episode. Loading up Animesuki and seeing the latest Macross Frontier episode is the highlight of my week right now, end every new episode leaves me all the more eager for the next.

I felt really bad by the end of this episode, not in the "this is a bad episode" way, far from it, but well...that fight at the end felt more genocide in action than a battle. I'm starting to wonder if it's not pure xenophobia that is driving those who are pushing this war. Maybe a bit of so-called "manifest destiny" in conquering all of space under the banner of Protoculture derived species, while wiping out the Vajra for being "too alien" to coexist with? Of course, SDF2501 has a point. Maybe that's the idea behind the war, make the Vajra into the mindless killing machines they need to be, at least as far as popular opinion goes. Manufactured xenophobia. If people see them as an alien race, yet one which humanity can co-exist with, perhaps even communicate with, then you can't just use them as a resource. That would, afterall, be inhumane. Of course, if the Vajra are perceived as vicious killers, with no capabilities of higher thought and reasoning, then you can slaughter them as needed, and use them to your own ends, while being hailed as heroes and protectors. However things unfold, I'm eager to see where all this is going.

To paraphrase Emperor Palpatine, "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Max and company showing up with reinforcements for the final showdown would really make my day.

Depends on how tight Bandai has the Frontier toy rights locked up. On the other hand, I could easily see someone making a fan sticker set that could be done nice enough to look as good, or in Yamato stickers' case better, than an official release.

I never really saw Basara as particularly anti-military. He wasn't like Kaifun, giving anyone in uniform a hard time. Basara was fine with military people, he even eventually got along with Gamlin pretty well. He didn't jump around denouncing the military and everything they did, he just thought fighting in general was not the answer, and was willing to run out in the thick of things, without firing a shot himself, to get that point across. Whenever he did utter something bad against the military, it was always directed at something specific. While I agree that his views put off a lot of people here, I still think he, and Macross 7 in general, fell victim to poor direction. The show lacked balance between the character development and the mecha action, and also between Basara and Gamlin. A lot of it comes off as hokey, and many episodes are far too formulaic. At times it came off like a monster-of-the-week kinda show. Plus the idea that spiritua=magic comes, primarily, from the way it was presented in M7. Really, Macross 7 is basically all the elements we loved from every other Macross show, just the way it's packaged and put out there, quite understandably, puts a lot of people off. I suspect if it had been presented more like Frontier or Plus, keeping the very same themes and ideas, not substantially changing the characters or their motivations, both Basara and Macross 7 as a series would have been better received by the sorts of people who are quite vocal here about how much they dislike it.

Heh, fair enough. Still, I see things being kinda the opposite. I would expect the colony ships to have their own shields, as well as their own fold drives, et all. I'd also expect them to have a fair amount of defensive weaponry, like AA guns. Protect the civilians and get them out of harms way, you know? Meanwhile, Battle 25 would be there to detach and combat/draw off the enemy. Of course, being the command ship and primary gun ship, it would be something shooting from a distance. Like artillery. Also packing far more offensive punch than the colony section which would focus on defense. Of course, in this case, Island 1 probably serves as the command ship. I'd be kinda surprised if those "war room" scenes are on Battle 25 itself. Rather, I suspect it's somewhere within Island One. Well, I suppose I wouldn't be that surprised. This is the same franchise where they used a baby to take an alien factory satellite. Why do they need the SMS at all? I think a lot of the same reasoning for SMS can be applied to the Quarter. Also, like I suggested, the Quarter likely wasn't the NUNS's idea.

Is there something that states that the Battle 25 is required to power Island 1's repulsion field? That seems like a horrible design flaw. Yeah, Battle 25 and the New Macross class might be getting a bit long in the tooth, but the designers had to know what Island 1 and the smaller islands would need, and it's large enough that I really can't see them building it to not be self sufficient without the attached escort battleship. Also, it doesn't make sense that Quarter would be acting as a stand in for Battle 25, the whole point is that it's not as big and powerful as the larger battleships, but that it is fast and maneuverable, and packs the punch of a small Macross Cannon. Also, as someone pointed out in reply to something I said way back when we were discussing the name "Quarter", why would the fleet's primary battleship be under the command of a private military organization? Also, from dialogue in the show itself, it would seem that the Quarter was something Bilrer wanted, and that the NUNS only acquiesced under the condition that it have a NUNS officer aboard, overseeing its use.

Er...the DYRL background for the Macross was that it was a Meltrandi gunboat that crashed on earth, at least that's what I've always heard. Considering that both ships look a lot like the Macross, it makes sense that they look a lot like each other.

I don't know that the statement being made that early changes anything, it's still as good as anything for speculation. Though we do have a much more recent piece of Macross to go on, the PS2 video game that might be worth considering. If I recall correctly, it was to be considered canon, and had both an SDF and a DYRL version of the campaign, and in the SDF version it still used DYRL designs, except the Macross itself was either the tv series design, or the DYRL design with the Daedalus and Prometheus for arms. I never got to try the game myself, am I remembering all that correctly? I do agree, though, anything we speculate is just that, speculation. It's never really bothered me that much. I usually don't even think about it.

Er...you're kidding, right? I mean, there's been several Macross Plus homages. In fact, one was used twice, the second time in episode 15.

Well, ja, I meant if he wandered onto the bridge of Battle 25 with a martini in one hand and a meltran on the other, and said, "Alright, as commander of the UN Spacey I order all NUNS forces to stop sucking ass in combat. Also, promote Machida to Supreme Commodore General of Kicking Ass and Chewing Bubble Gum, and apologize to his squadron that we do not have the supplies to provide them with any bubble gum for this mission."* *This is actually what occured prior to the battle in episode 14.** **I may be making that up.