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"Star Trek Movie Syndrome" befalls Macross?


Winter

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This is a very asian way to consider things btw, this 'from the heart' thing...  :p

jesting or not, that's the most ridiculous excuse i've read here to date.

When it comes to Macross 7 threads, it's pretty much a given somebody will use that. Other posts typical of these topics, in no particular order...

- you're not smart enough to understand M7

- you hated M7 'cuz you're an evil warmonger

- Gundam has newtypes, therefore spiritia is ok

- J-pop is awesome, and you're stupid if you hate it

- Basara is the best character in the history of fiction!

:lol: You know I don't mind M7... but those reasons are enough for me to make me hate it.... :lol::lol::lol:

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This is a very asian way to consider things btw, this 'from the heart' thing...  :p

jesting or not, that's the most ridiculous excuse i've read here to date.

When it comes to Macross 7 threads, it's pretty much a given somebody will use that. Other posts typical of these topics, in no particular order...

- you're not smart enough to understand M7

- you hated M7 'cuz you're an evil warmonger

- Gundam has newtypes, therefore spiritia is ok

- J-pop is awesome, and you're stupid if you hate it

- Basara is the best character in the history of fiction!

I could NOT have said it better myself. The only anime fans worse are Evangelion fans.

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To give another example of why Macross 7 is poorly recieved by those who speak against it, think of it this way:

Star Wars is released to the theathers and creates a HUGE impact and fan following. People flock to see it and competitors are quick to snap up any idea that they think they can get away with.

George Lucas, following this wave of success and fame, decides to continue the story he created. Thus he releases to the theathers... Spaceballs! It has all the same ideas and themes as Star Wars, such as love, friendship, and pushing on in the face of certain death, just packaged in a slightly different manner.

Despite what fans say, Lucas insists that Spaceballs is THE true sequel to Star Wars and it is forever written into the canon storyline.

Now think about it for a moment. Does that not sound exactly like what happend with Macross?

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Now think about it for a moment. Does that not sound exactly like what happend with Macross?

In a word, no.

The reasons people have offered for not liking M7 make perfect sense to me, and the list put up by bsu legato does do a pretty good job of pointing out some of the sillier rationales that M7 fans have used to put down M7-dislikers. But I can't agree with your post at all.

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To give another example of why Macross 7 is poorly recieved by those who speak against it, think of it this way:

Star Wars is released to the theathers and creates a HUGE impact and fan following.  People flock to see it and competitors are quick to snap up any idea that they think they can get away with.

George Lucas, following this wave of success and fame, decides to continue the story he created.  Thus he releases to the theathers... Spaceballs!  It has all the same ideas and themes as Star Wars, such as love, friendship, and pushing on in the face of certain death, just packaged in a slightly different manner.

Despite what fans say, Lucas insists that Spaceballs is THE true sequel to Star Wars and it is forever written into the canon storyline.

Now think about it for a moment.  Does that not sound exactly like what happend with Macross?

that's a great example of what M7 is!! congrats! ;) however I enjoyed Spaceballs, M7 to the contrary made me sick... I agree with the "good story but really badly presented" theory the way it is M7 sucks big time. An now for those who like Star Trek here's a great pic I found.

post-2-1097193125_thumb.jpg

Edited by macplus
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This is a very asian way to consider things btw, this 'from the heart' thing...  :p

jesting or not, that's the most ridiculous excuse i've read here to date.

When it comes to Macross 7 threads, it's pretty much a given somebody will use that. Other posts typical of these topics, in no particular order...

- you're not smart enough to understand M7

- you hated M7 'cuz you're an evil warmonger

- Gundam has newtypes, therefore spiritia is ok

- J-pop is awesome, and you're stupid if you hate it

- Basara is the best character in the history of fiction!

You hit the nail buddy! It's always the same thing in every M7 tread, now be carefull 'cause there's "some guys" I don't want to mention who use those same excuses everytime.....blah blah.... Oh and by the way, there's worse things than Eva fans, Gundam Wing fans.. especially the ones who saw that crap on Cartoon Network think that's the best thing ever and think that Gundam Wing is the best gundam show... There's also the geeks who defend Yugishit and Pokecrap... that's for very young kids and to make matters worse are the americanised Dragonball fans... (americanised = Dragonball cut and edited from Cartoon Network), also don't forget the Robocrap fans who swear that it's the best thing.. anoying?? hell yeah! :angry:

Edited by macplus
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This is a very asian way to consider things btw, this 'from the heart' thing...  :p

jesting or not, that's the most ridiculous excuse i've read here to date.

When it comes to Macross 7 threads, it's pretty much a given somebody will use that. Other posts typical of these topics, in no particular order...

- you're not smart enough to understand M7

- you hated M7 'cuz you're an evil warmonger

- Gundam has newtypes, therefore spiritia is ok

- J-pop is awesome, and you're stupid if you hate it

- Basara is the best character in the history of fiction!

To be fair, the arguments of the more vocal Macross 7 naysayers are equally predictable, and hold about as much water.

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Spaceballs is a parody, Macross 7 is in no way shape or form a parody. And considering the stylized nature of the VF-11MAX Kai, why not boobs? Hell, it's no sillier making ace custom paint schemes, as all pilots "should" just have generic production color's, that is afterall all that's required.

If your gripes against 7 are merely asthetic, then that's extremely superficial.

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Comparitivly speaking, Keith, Macross 7 comes across as just that, a parady of SDF Macross, considering how the "message" is packaged.

I see no problems with using Star Wars and Spaceballs as an allegory to SDF Macross and Macross 7. It might not be a perfect match, but the idea is still the same.

Heck, if I could watch Macross 7 on its own, then it would be a perfect comedic parady of SDF: Macross, just the same way that I enjoy Spaceballs, Men in Tights, and other paradies. Unfortunatly, Macross 7 has been made an official part of the storyline, so I'm just not able to dissociate it from the rest of the Macross universe and enjoy it on its own merits.

When I compare it to Plus and SDF, it always falls way, way short.

Edited by CoryHolmes
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Comparitivly speaking, Keith, Macross 7 comes across as just that, a parady of SDF Macross, considering how the "message" is packaged.

I don't quite think you have a clear understanding of what the word 'parody' means if you think Macross 7 in any way, shape or form comes across as one.

Sorry, but Keith happens to be completely correct on this one.

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I've fallen madly in love with the Macross 7 super Carrier design ^__________________^

...groovy pic. New desktop get :D

You mean the Macross class??? just wait, when it transforms it has HANDS!!!! it sucks!!

You heard him, Winter, he has a different opinion, so yours must be wrong. This is exactly the sort of "argument" I meant by my last post.

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Because the record has no heart: to be effective, the song must come from the heart... This is the reason why the other band's songs cannot affect the protodevilns, because they don't bring any emotions, they don't have a real spiritia  :)

I think it's one of the reasons why people don't like M7: they don't get the thing that art is supposed to come from the heart to be 'real'. This is a very asian way to consider things btw, this 'from the heart' thing...  :p

jesting or not, that's the most ridiculous excuse i've read here to date.

My apologies, I didn't express myself correctly, still have some issues with english language...

I don't remember the name of this religion, this is why I used this unappropriate shortcut, but basically its main principle says that everything is illusion and only matters the way of the heart. I think it's some interpretation of buddhism IIRC but I'm not sure atm... AFAIK, it's more asian than western but you may find some equivalence with some occidental philosophies aswell, but these ones would still be less common in our countries than more materialistic way of thinkings IMO

:)

Edited by Gui
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In macross 7 whay did the militery need Basra, use a record like they did in macross 2.....

I don't know if it's realistic or not...

One reason for psychoanalyzing Hitler was to uncover vulnerabilities that could be covertly exploited. Stanley Lovell seized upon one of Langer’s ideas—that Hitler might have feminine tendencies—and got permission from the OSS hierarchy to see if he could push the Führer over the gender line. “The hope was that his moustache would fall off and his voice become soprano,” Lovell wrote. Lovell used OSS’s agent network to try to slip female sex hormones into Hitler’s food, but nothing apparently came of it. Nor was there ever any payoff to other Lovell schemes to blind Hitler permanently with mustard gas or to use a drug to exacerbate his suspected epilepsy. The main problem in these operations—all of which were tried—was to get Hitler to take the medicine. Failure of the delivery schemes also kept Hitler alive—OSS was simultaneously trying to poison him.

As you can see, in real world there are things you would never guess. If CIA were to find out that music could have the effect it has in Macross 7, you would have a guy who sings "Support our troops!" to your enemies.

FV

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I think it's one of the reasons why people don't like M7: they don't get the thing that art is supposed to come from the heart to be 'real'. This is a very asian way to consider things btw, this 'from the heart' thing...  :p

It's not religion, it's music. Macross 7 managed to grab the spirit of j-rock.

I don't know if you have ever heard it, but in Japanese works "in the end all people die". Japan has something that Orwell called the "Cult of Death". The spirit of j-rock, with its appreciation of life and joy, is something out of place in Japan which ranks first in suicide rate, but it's there.

FV

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I think it's one of the reasons why people don't like M7: they don't get the thing that art is supposed to come from the heart to be 'real'. This is a very asian way to consider things btw, this 'from the heart' thing...  :p

It's not religion, it's music. Macross 7 managed to grab the spirit of j-rock.

I have absolutely no idea about what j-rock is supposed to mean, therefore it's impossible for me to agree or disagree with you :)

On the other hand, Japan doesn't represent the entire Asia

Edited by Gui
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I have absolutely no idea about what j-rock is supposed to mean

A J-rock blog, read the article dated Wednesday, June 6, 2001

Slight spoilers, I suppose. You don't need to agree with all he said.

On the other hand, Japan doesn't represent the entire Asia

True. The best you could say is that there is some common cultural basis due to buddism and confucianism.

FV

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To be fair, the arguments of the more vocal Macross 7 naysayers are equally predictable, and hold about as much water.

Yup.

Liking or hating M7 isn't a measure of your intelligence.

Liking or hating M7 isn't a measure of your social conscience.

Etcetera.

Personally, I found the first 8 or 9 episodes to be somewhat repetitious and unfocused, but the storyline did become more interesting after that. Some of the characters are annoying or goofy, but you don't necessarily have to like them or idolize them to enjoy the show. In fact, I'd say that being annoyed by Basara is a perfectly normal reaction shared by many of the other characters, yet after a while his quirks grew on me or at least became more tolerable.

As for the way the plot is handled, I agree that there are a lot of elements which would be offensive to grim & gritty hard SF sensibilities. However, if you enjoy lighter anime such as Lupin III or Ranma 1/2, it's not too difficult to suspend disbelief and "get into" the fictional version of reality in M7. Overall, if I were to rank various anime for grittiness/seriousness/hard SF-ness, I'd have something like this:

Grave of the Fireflies

Wings of Honneamise

Ghost in the Shell

Macross Plus

DYRL

Akira/Macross Zero

Nausicaa/SDF Macross/Kiki's Delivery Service

Lupin III (TV)

Macross 7/My Neighbor Totoro/Kimagure Orange Road

Ranma 1/2

Sailor Moon

Urusei Yatsura

Seeing as I'm a fan of the bottom three titles on that list, M7 is well within my tolerance. (Actually, it should be a 2-dimensional graph with grittiness/maturity on one axis and believability/realism on the other, but I've collapsed it for the sake of simplicity.) I'd put Star Wars (taken as a whole) somewhere in the middle of the scale, near SDF Macross. Star Trek would be a notch or two higher, although I think the esthetic quality of Star Trek has degraded even more than Star Wars over the years, if that's possible.

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- you're not smart enough to understand M7

- you hated M7 'cuz you're an evil warmonger

- Gundam has newtypes, therefore spiritia is ok

- J-pop is awesome, and you're stupid if you hate it

- Basara is the best character in the history of fiction!

1) I think it's a matter of taste it's not an itellegince thing

2) I am an evil Warmonger and I still like M7 :p

3) I think psionics and and the spiritual powers of song are different. Sakura Taisen has Spirit power so... that has nothing to do with Macross 7.

4) Music is music... some is good some is bad... dosn't matter what country it comes from.

5) I hate basara most of the time he's a jerk and I still love the series.

I realize that these were exactly your point... but I'm just saying that not all M7 fans are really like that. (though I'm not really an evil warmonger, that was joke).

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I've fallen madly in love with the Macross 7 super Carrier design ^__________________^

...groovy pic. New desktop get :D

You mean the Macross class??? just wait, when it transforms it has HANDS!!!! it sucks!!

You heard him, Winter, he has a different opinion, so yours must be wrong. This is exactly the sort of "argument" I meant by my last post.

Blah blah..... it wasn't an argument, it's an opinion buddy :)

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I don't see where the goofyness is. Is it goofy to sing to someone instead of shoot them? And if so, why?

in a war that is kinda goofy. why? because if you sing to someone in war they're going to pause just long enought to aim their riffle at you and make you stop.

Edited by KingNor
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Well, goofy maybe, but unreal definitely.. when was the last time you saw someone diffuse a fist fight by jumping away from the punches while singing "Lean On Me" or some equivalent? :p Given the history of Macross, Basara did have a good reason to try singing to distract the alien invaders, since, heck, it worked before. :) I can understand the musician thing, I come from a musical family, play a few instruments, etc... the "coming from the heart" thing makes perfect sense to me, personally I think that's the best kind of music. But you have to draw the line somewhere. I don't sing to avoid confrontations, or burst out into a jazz trumpet lick when someone insults me. Granted, it'll probably at least get people off your case since they'll assume you're just plain nuts, but it wouldn't be my first choice of retaliations.

I guess it just kind of comes down to whether pacifism works or not. Pacifism would work, just as long as everyone agrees to it. Once someone renounces it, it doesn't work for anyone. Someone once told me, if you want to show a pacifist the error of his ways, punch him in the face repeatedly. Cruel, yes.. but there's a painful truth in that. I guess I could say I'm pacifistic to a point.. I'd much rather avoid confrontations entirely than fight through them, and I'd rather everyone just got along. But there has to be a line somewhere, and if someone or something threatens something that I hold dear, I'm going to do my best to fight it any way I can. No, violence isn't the answer. But sometimes it's the only language that will be understood, or respected. (K, I'll get off my soapbox now, sorry, I've been thinking of joining the air national guard to pay for college and get experience in my field (aeronautics), and these kind of issues are kind of heavy on my mind right now.)

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I don't see where the goofyness is. Is it goofy to sing to someone instead of shoot them? And if so, why?

in a war that is kinda goofy. why? because if you sing to someone in war they're going to pause just long enought to aim their riffle at you and make you stop.

Well Basara is a peace movement kind of guy and it's not like the enemies even care at first... As Gigil said after about ten seconds "continue the operation"...

And it seems crazy in our world... but in the world where he learned how Minmay lead the Zentran and Meltran to peace with her voice... maybe it seems a little less so.

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Well, goofy maybe, but unreal definitely.. when was the last time you saw someone diffuse a fist fight by jumping away from the punches while singing "Lean On Me" or some equivalent? :p Given the history of Macross, Basara did have a good reason to try singing to distract the alien invaders, since, heck, it worked before. :) I can understand the musician thing, I come from a musical family, play a few instruments, etc... the "coming from the heart" thing makes perfect sense to me, personally I think that's the best kind of music. But you have to draw the line somewhere. I don't sing to avoid confrontations, or burst out into a jazz trumpet lick when someone insults me. Granted, it'll probably at least get people off your case since they'll assume you're just plain nuts, but it wouldn't be my first choice of retaliations.

I guess it just kind of comes down to whether pacifism works or not. Pacifism would work, just as long as everyone agrees to it. Once someone renounces it, it doesn't work for anyone. Someone once told me, if you want to show a pacifist the error of his ways, punch him in the face repeatedly. Cruel, yes.. but there's a painful truth in that. I guess I could say I'm pacifistic to a point.. I'd much rather avoid confrontations entirely than fight through them, and I'd rather everyone just got along. But there has to be a line somewhere, and if someone or something threatens something that I hold dear, I'm going to do my best to fight it any way I can. No, violence isn't the answer. But sometimes it's the only language that will be understood, or respected. (K, I'll get off my soapbox now, sorry, I've been thinking of joining the air national guard to pay for college and get experience in my field (aeronautics), and these kind of issues are kind of heavy on my mind right now.)

saying youd rather not fight isn't pacifism. Pacifism means no fighting what so ever.

its healthy to wish to avoid violence. it should be a last resort but an option none the less. if people know you're not willing to defend yourself. you're gonna be in a world of hurt.

avoiding violence shows wisdom. but resorting to violence when all else has failed does too. you have to know when to fight for your beleifs. pacifists tend to get wiped out or eventually are shown to be fake in the end.

how many pacifists do you think woudln't fight to save their children from harm, for example. imho, violence is a part of being human, just like racism and all the other nasty things that people don't like. its better to accept it, understand it, and work with it than pretend it doesn't exist. denying flaws will always come back to bite us in the ass.

as for m7, i'm getting more and more resolute to see it. It seems much more intresting than M0.

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You mean the Macross class??? just wait, when it transforms it has HANDS!!!!  it sucks!!

Wha? These aren't JUST carriers? Oh this I've GOT to see.....

Check this site out, then:

Steel Falcon RPG page. Sure, it's an RPG page, so you can ignore all the little stat blocks, but it also serves as a decent enough description of the ships and their capabilities, in all their hand-having, gun-pod wielding glory *shudder*.

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You mean the Macross class??? just wait, when it transforms it has HANDS!!!!  it sucks!!

Wha? These aren't JUST carriers? Oh this I've GOT to see.....

Check this site out, then:

Steel Falcon RPG page. Sure, it's an RPG page, so you can ignore all the little stat blocks, but it also serves as a decent enough description of the ships and their capabilities, in all their hand-having, gun-pod wielding glory *shudder*.

Awsome, but even better when you see the transformation sequence in the show. One of the few bits of pretty animation in M7.

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I don't see where the goofyness is. Is it goofy to sing to someone instead of shoot them? And if so, why?

[Minor spoilers follow.]

I agree with some of the answers that have been provided but I'll put it in my own words.

In no way whatsoever is it goofy within the context of M7. In M7, singing works, so it's the right thing to do.

But in terms of viewer sensibilities (this viewer anyway), it's somewhat goofy both in concept and in execution. That doesn't mean I hate it, though. Trying to stop a war in the middle of the action by singing at the combatants is crazy in any real world instance, unless you're determined to be a martyr. In the science fiction world of SDF Macross, it's not crazy because there was a demonstrated culture shock reaction that you could count on (not to mention, you're desperate). In M7, it's not crazy both because of the prior experience of Space War One, and because you increasingly learn about certain effects of singing which have hitherto been unknown to science.

Whether those explanations are sufficient for accepting the fictional presentation of singing to stop a war depend on the individual viewer's reaction to the concept and its treatment. My impression from what I've seen so far is that Basara is pretty much acting on faith and idealism for the first third or so of the series. If I saw someone acting like him in real life--let's use an historical case to avoid political discussion--by flying around in 1943 the Eastern Front in Sturmovik equipped with speakers, I'd think he's a nut and I'd expect him to be dead very soon. But in anime I'm willing to cut him some slack and go with the flow. Later it turns out that there's a "scientific" explanation for the success of his tactic. This is also really far out...although it's hard to say why one science-fictional/supernatural concept is necessarily more "acceptable" than another. It may depend on cultural conditioning, or familiarity from other fiction. Nevertheless, I can deal with it (some parts better than others--e.g., I think the effects on the bad guys are more reasonable than the use of Dr. Chiba's gizmo to locate City 7 over vast distances in space).

Anyway, I'd like to write more but a very important person of the opposite sex is calling me to dinner...

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I don't see where the goofyness is. Is it goofy to sing to someone instead of shoot them? And if so, why?

Head over to Iraq, find a raging firefight, don your best glam-rock outfit, jump in the middle of said firefight, and give it a shot.

I think the goofiness will be readily apparent.

-Al

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