Radd

Why would that be odd at all? The Megaroad class are colony ships, the first generation Macross class are gunships. Would the navy stop building, and immediately retire, their main class of battleship just because someone came up with a new trans-atlantic liner? Ah, here's the problem. You're confusing the battleships with the colony ships. New Macross Class ships are actually two ships. The Battle ship and the Colony ship. The Megaroad was all colony ship. It wasn't meant to go into battle. I could easily see them continuing to construct what was, at the time, Earth's only long range battleship design to accompany colony missions. You also have to remember, we're talking galactic colonization here. If a fleet leaves Earth when those are still the ships of the line (and actually, you also have to remember that the design of the mass produced Macross ships are based on the SDF-1 refit, which was not completed until shortly after the Megaroad 01 launch, which in a sense means that this design post-dates the Megaroad) they're not likely to be swapping out all their ships the moment something new comes along. That's just not feasible. Also, because it seems to have reared it's ugly head in this thread, I'd like to remind everyone that the magical explosion of colony fleets seen from Earth and Eden are shown that way solely for dramatic effect. Megaroad 1, Macross 7, and Frontier did not all launch the same year. The visual effect just looked really cool and they needed it to fit into a very short time frame, that is the entire explanation.

It's fair enough speculation. I do seem to recall someone quoting an interview in which Kawamori stated that the "real" SW1 was somewhere between the two renditions we've seen, and that for the most part (there certainly being exceptions) that it was a combination of the story from the series, and the visuals from the movie. Still, unless someone can point out a confirming Kawamori quote I'm happy to just go along with that explanation. I suspect if Britai ever appeared in Frontier, or another new Macross, then he would look much how he did in the movie, rather than the tv series. Personally, I prefere the DYRL look on pretty much all counts, so I'm fine with that.

Well, from a real-world standpoint I'd say they chose those designations since "Omega" sounds more ominous, and they were really pushing the 21 as menacing.

Actually, for the story. One friend of mine in particular came away from it completely loving Minmay, and really big on the Hikaru/Minmay/Misa triangle. Most of my local friends are not very big on mecha shows in general. I really don't believe that you need the tv series background to enjoy the DYRL story. It seems to me that this point of view comes exclusively from those who did see the tv series before the movie. Does seeing the tv series add something to the movie experience? Certainly. But that doesn't mean it's necessary. The movie story is pretty self-contained, and everything you need to know to enjoy it is addressed over the course of the movie.

I hear things like this a lot, even so far as to hear people say that someone watching just the movie and not the tv series wouldn't understand what was going on...and yet I know a growing number of people who have seen the movie and not the tv series (or before seeing the tv series) and loved it, and who've gone on to be huge fans of Macross. Sure, there are a lot of nods only fans of the tv series would get (Kamjin, the spies, the giant space tuna), but I'd say that the movie story is rewritten to the extent where it's not required to have seen the tv series to understand and enjoy the movie.

How do you figure? Frontier takes place in 2059 and they're still using a variant of the VF-17, which is older than the 19 and 22.

I voted for the VF-19P. It's always been a favourite of mine, always thought it was one of the better looking production model versions of the 19. Too bad it gets so little screen time. Also voted for the VF-22, though to be honest there is little enough visual difference between the two that I could go either way depending on how I feel at the moment. Of course, Gamlin's Diamond Force VF-22 is my favourite colour scheme to get any official screen time. Actually, this poll kinda gets me thinking...I hope we see more mecah variety in Frontier before the series is over. Some 19's and 22's maybe? Possibly a VF-4 cameo, seeing as we've already seen a first generation Macross make an appearance.

What about episode 7? We see a bunch of armoured VF-25s flying escort for the Quarter while all the main characters are otherwise occupied. I rewatched the episode yesterday. As for this episode, ja like some other people mentioned, the clip-show aspects made me think I was going to give it my first neutral review, despite all the new information. But by the end of the episode, so much new stuff had been brought into play that I was pretty well stoked to find out more. All in all, I'd have to say this is by far the most impressive clip-show episode I've seen for a series. They managed to get away with a lot of recycled and rearranged footage (a nice touch, if you ask me) while dangling enough new animation, and dangling enough new story elements to really make it an integral episode. Also, I called it. Galaxy seems to be perfectly fine. The Vajra attack was probably entirely fabricated. Send out a couple ships to stir up a wasp's nest, and have them fold from there to meet up with Frontier's forces, and the resulting battle sets Frontier and the Vajra head on into war. The resource elements, and showing the affects of that last battle on Frontier really helped add a little post-episode oomf to it. Also nice to see that the suspicious elements of regarding Brera aren't escaping characters like Ozma and Kathy who were both privy to flight footage and first hand accounts of Brera's VF-27 appearing in earlier encounters (not to mention Kathy knowing what Leon knew because she was feeding him the information). That all seems like something most series would get a little sloppy on in the writing department. It's also interesting that there seems to be a connection between Mr. Bilrer and whoever Grace is working for, yet he seems something of an unknown factor to them as well. I wonder where that thread is leading? I also thought the tidbits of background info were interesting, such as Frontier apparently being rare in it's lack of cybernetics. Also, they haven't gone far at all into revealing what all this "V-type infection" business is all about. I'd almost forgotten until this episode brought it right back to centre stage. Combined with statements from that Kawamori/Kanno interview, I really can't wait to see where they're going with this. I've had my complaints regarding the pacing of the series since the second episode, but I gotta admit things seem to really be coming together. If the story holds up once all the cards are revealed, this will be one fantastic ride. On the other hand, I'm still a bit sad because of

I was kinda thinking the same thing. The "pinging" effect as the shields were ordered to the rear made me think PPB.

Well, the Kaitos style ship resembles Zentradi designs (actually it more resembles the design of your typical Imperial battleship from LotGH, but yeah...) but I didn't see anything that looked like it was a Zentradi ship. Also we have several sources confirming that Galaxy had no Zentradi.

Actually, I believe the stats on the Compendium state that NMC ships do have pin point barrier systems. There was a lengthy thread on this topic a while back. *edit* Er, somewhat misread that. Is there anything to indicate that the ships in Frontier do not have them?

Man, placed my pre-order. Still...these aren't coming out until November? The series will be over with by then, won't it? I certainly hope Bandai has more planned. VF-171, VF-27, et all. Say, maybe Bandai might give us a 1/60 Konig Monster!

Heh. Seriously, though, we do know that Russia is specifically mentioned as a part of the UN, not the Anti-UN. At least, I recall that being mentioned somewhere canonical.

I love keeping things in scale. I keep all my toys grouped by scale in the display cases. I even have a spot for my 1/100 Konig Monster, Toynami VF-1A Max, and one of those old 1/100 Bandai M7 VF-19 model kits. That said, I'd still love a 1/48 scale VF-4 Lightning III, in addition to a 1/60 scale version to display with the rest of the toys.

I don't know that there's any canon source stating what countries used the SV-51. All we know is that the Anti UN had at least one group of them in use at the tail end of the war, and that when the Macross launched it was not common knowledge that humanity had such weapons. Also, yes, the bombardment of Earth at the end of SW1 was ordered before the Zentradi even knew about the Grand Cannon. It fired after the initial bombardment. When it fired, it made a pretty convincing argument that a network of them would make an effective defense. Really, I don't see Earth as being any worse off for having fired the cannon, except that it drew the remaining Zentradi forces to focus their attacks on Alaska base. Imagine if all of them had been operational, weren't there like 4 or 5 planned for Earth? The Zentradi ability to respond to it would have been greatly diminished. Regarding Earth's resources post SW1, yes humanity's ability to make use of available resources was reduced, but by the time Earth began pumping out colony ships it could be argued that Earth had more resources at it's disposal than any point in human history. I mentioned that in the WTF-1 thread, post SW1 humanity had the technology and, especially once the factory satellite was made operational, the means to make use of all the resources of the solar system. I would imagine that as the human emigration project was well under way, and the population was rising, more and more thought might be given to planetary defense. We did see that Earth already had a pretty tightly knit defense network in orbit in the 2030's. Not saying that they did build more Grand Cannons. Just that resources might not have been the biggest factor deciding whether or not to do it. Also, there is one compelling reason for humanity to construct a series of egregiously overpowered defensive weapons, capable of annihilating a fleet of millions of ships. Because it's cooooooool!

Saw the trailer, doesn't look like a bad movie at all. On the other hand, it doesn't look very much like what little I've ever seen of The Spirit. Definitely far more Frank Miller than Will Eisner. That would seem like a legitimate complaint to me. Considering how much I liked Sin City, and how there's not really many, if any, movies quite like it, stylistically, I don't really think the market is quite over-saturated with that style. Also, I agree with GobotFool, The Rocketeer was at least fun.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, no. If there's a NMC ship in the fleet, I would wager it's not visible in that picture. Why assume that Galaxy would recieve a NMC battleship so entirely different from every other ship in the class that it would be a painful stretch of reasoning to even call it a NMC? Galaxy appears so different that it's entirely likely that the accompanying NMC ship doesn't connect to it in the same way that it would to a NMC city section. Also, none of the Dulfim type ships are in any position where we can really get a good idea of scale. That thing could dwarf Frontier and nothing in those screenshots would contradict that. You can't assume the smaller Dulfim type ships are behind the Galaxy. Not unless you see it overlapping them. On the other hand, there's a smudge of pixels near the rear of the ship that kinda look like a Macross style bridge, so I wouldn't rule out Galaxy being Megaroad size, but with an accompanying NMC battleship. On the other, other hand...in the opening colony map graphic we see Galaxy marked with a NMC colony ship icon, so I would certainly take any information from that with a huge grain of salt. There might not be a NMC ship in that fleet at all.

Heh, if Battle 25 doesn't transform and go into action at some point I'll be disappointed, but that doesn't mean I'll dislike the show because of it. On the other hand, not letting the ship perform it's primary role just because Quarter is the star of the show is sloppy writing. I still think throwing Battle 25 into battle would provide ample opportunity to show why Quarter is so special. For similar reasons I thought the VF-25 and SMS superiority was being handled in a very ham fisted manner until this last episode when they showed that the NUNS pilots could muster some backbone and take some names when put into a corner. Trying to portray the SMS as being so great falls kinda flat and cartoonish when all they're compared to is a caricature of incompetence. On the matter of whether or not Battle 25 transforms, I certainly agree with Mr. March on all points regarding that. Until they specifically say otherwise, there's no reason to assume that it doesn't transform, and every reason to assume that it does.

He's also behind the Vajra, and is remote controlling Grace. You see, this is all an elaborate plot to win Nanase's affection. If it works, I think we can all agree that it was well worth the cost, effort, and sacrifices.

For me, the fact that we see Battle 25 with our own eyes, multiple times throughout the show and that it's even labeled as such on the holo-screens in the NUNS command centre is enough to convince me that there is, indeed, a Battle 25. I know, I know. I'm just a little too easily convinced I suppose.

Well, some of us would consider it a bad thing not to see Battle 25 in action. Putting the 25 out there would provide plenty of opportunities to give some scale shots, showing the size difference between the two, and it certainly stands to reason that the cannon on Battle 25 is more powerful than the one on the Quarter. Seeing the 25 in battle would also give the opportunity for the Quarter to show it up, heh.

Gas giants tend to have moons. Also, I believe in some point in the series they said something to the effect that scouting fleets were checking out nearby star systems.

We don't know that they're less effective in larger numbers. There's been nothing to imply that, either.

By my understanding the show had it's length cut in either preproduction, or early production due to budget constraints. The final showdown with Bodolza's fleet was then planned for episode 23, which would have been the final episode. Instead, the series did surprisingly well and was extended. The "final battle" was moved to episode 27, and I believe 2 filler episodes made entirely of recycled animation were added as a part of this extension. So, it wasn't just several episodes tacked on post-Bodolza. There was some significant rewriting there.

Also, am I the only one disappointed that we didn't see Battle 25?