HG and Robotech Debates

[Gubaba]

I remember the part of the interview you're talking about. It's a hell of an out-of-context quote if that's where he got the idea from.

The way I recall it, he was talking about how badly the originals were showing their age(and by extension, how badly the remastering job Animeigo had done was needed). Basically, the film had deteriorated so much that he didn't recognize his own show on the television.

The best american comparison is probably the pre-remaster Star Wars reruns, where the skies of Tatooine are a perfect match for it's desert sands instead of blue like a sky is supposed to be.

Okay...it's obviously been too long since I watched that interview...I'll break out the AnimEigo DVDs today...

(Incidentally, my first-ever thread on the old MW was entitled, "So what was going on between Global and Misa?")

[Saraphys]

It simply goes back to the issue of making people "find and show proof" when it's already been shown, and then hanging off every word HG says without any.

...Yeah, there's just no getting through to those Zealots...

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Im sorry, are we talking about HG/Robotech and its fanbase, or organised Religion?

[Jasonc]

...Yeah, there's just no getting through to those Zealots...

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Im sorry, are we talking about HG/Robotech and its fanbase, or organised Religion?

Really now, is there a difference? Advancing the "word", excommunicating those that don't believe the same, trying to site internet wars (arguably called that), threats of violence against the "non believers", and RT zealouts that have lost touch with reality. Seriously, aside from the obvious focus of the religion, what is the difference.

I'm sure they'd use that against some here, and in some cases rightly so, but I've never seen it to that extent. I mean, this stuff is cool and all, but there's much more to life, and many more important things than animated shows. I know, I speak blasphemy.

[Gubaba]

Really now, is there a difference? Advancing the "word", excommunicating those that don't believe the same, trying to site internet wars (arguably called that), threats of violence against the "non believers", and RT zealouts that have lost touch with reality. Seriously, aside from the obvious focus of the religion, what is the difference.

I'm sure they'd use that against some here, and in some cases rightly so, but I've never seen it to that extent. I mean, this stuff is cool and all, but there's much more to life, and many more important things than animated shows. I know, I speak blasphemy.

BEING A COOL AND PROUD ROBOTECH FAN IS PRICELESS!

For everything else, you've got Macross.

[taksraven]

Oh yeah...back when he was called the guys from Destroy All Podcasts about twenty different epithets for "homosexual" and ranting about Tommy Yune's "flat face" and "small penis." Good times, good times.

Not trying to dredge up too much ancient history, but what caused Bendo's tirade against DAP?

Taksraven

[Einherjar]

Not trying to dredge up too much ancient history, but what caused Bendo's tirade against DAP?

Taksraven

One little side comment towards him on one of their shows that wasn't a big deal. They spent the rest talking about something more important, the Macross TV show. Yet that was enough to start a three hour rant.

Edited June 10, 2010 by Einherjar

[Seto Kaiba]

It simply goes back to the issue of making people "find and show proof" when it's already been shown, and then hanging off every word HG says without any. If anyone was smart over there, they'd do the same thing and make HG show proof that they're doing stuff, that Shadow Rising is in "production", so on and so forth. They'd probably get banned for being disruptive

Yeah, that's about the letter of it... and when you think about it like that, it makes the Robotech lunatic fringe sound more and more like a religious cult. For them, no amount of evidence is sufficient to disprove the "truth" they find in quoting Tommy Yune and Kevin McKeever out-of-context. For those who don't believe (aka "those who've got working brains"), no proof is necessary because we know Tommy and Kevin are idiots, and that what the believers are reading into their quotes isn't actually what's being said.

Advancing the "word", excommunicating those that don't believe the same, trying to site internet wars (arguably called that), threats of violence against the "non believers", and RT zealouts that have lost touch with reality. Seriously, aside from the obvious focus of the religion, what is the difference.

Let's not forget the crusades by their most (blindly) devoted followers to purge the unbelievers and the heretics (Macross fans) from their "holy land" (Robotech.com).

[Legioss]

You do realize the robotech fanbase will latch onto this as definate proof the movie is in production don't you?

Robotech "fans" will love that. Hollywood movie actors are their favorite thing ever next to trying to fade the success of Macross by putting down Japanese culture. I bet they're still pumped by Spider-Man's involvement. That means it's going to get the budget of Spider-Man, right?

[Seto Kaiba]

One little side comment towards him on one of their shows that wasn't a big deal. They spent the rest talking about something more important, the Macross TV show. Yet that was enough to start a three hour rant.

It doesn't take much to set him off... the Robotech reference/community site I'd talked about building for the disenfranchised of the Robotech fanbase has already been the subject of two of his two-hour attack shows, and we haven't even gotten around to building the damn thing yet.

Robotech "fans" will love that. Hollywood movie actors are their favorite thing ever next to trying to fade the success of Macross by putting down Japanese culture. I bet they're still pumped by Spider-Man's involvement. That means it's going to get the budget of Spider-Man, right?

Yeah, pretty much... every now and again on Robotech.com there'd be a thread done in the form of "Hey! <D-LIST CELEB> <MENTIONED/MIGHT BE A FAN OF> Robotech!", and there'd be a bit of a brouhaha over it, as though it proved that Robotech still mattered. The only one I vividly recall apart from Tobey was Wil Wheaton (TNG's Wesley Crusher).

[RDClip]

Yeah, pretty much... every now and again on Robotech.com there'd be a thread done in the form of "Hey! <D-LIST CELEB> <MENTIONED/MIGHT BE A FAN OF> Robotech!", and there'd be a bit of a brouhaha over it, as though it proved that Robotech still mattered. The only one I vividly recall apart from Tobey was Wil Wheaton (TNG's Wesley Crusher).

HAHAHA, Will Wheaton? The guy who has been in more bad direct to video sci-fi movies than Mark Descasus? The guy who played a character that everyone hates from star trek?

And here i thought it was pathetic that the were excited about Mark Hamil being in SC.

Maybe if RT fans are lucky, when the WB movie falls through, Uwe Boll will pick up the license and make a LAM starring Will Wheaton.

[Keith]

HAHAHA, Will Wheaton? The guy who has been in more bad direct to video sci-fi movies than Mark Descasus? The guy who played a character that everyone hates from star trek?

And here i thought it was pathetic that the were excited about Mark Hamil being in SC.

Maybe if RT fans are lucky, when the WB movie falls through, Uwe Boll will pick up the license and make a LAM starring Will Wheaton.

OMG, will Wheaton would be the perfect old Rick Hunter,

PART OFFICIALLY CASTED!

[Dynaman]

HAHAHA, Will Wheaton? The guy who has been in more bad direct to video sci-fi movies than Mark Descasus? The guy who played a character that everyone hates from star trek?

To be fair, Will Wheaton HATED Wesley too. I even saw a clip of him telling Wesley to shut up...

Besides, we all know that the MOST hated person from TNG was Tasha Yar (at least till she died and came back)

[jenius]

Who is Tasha Yar? Was she the security guard who slept with Data? That rerun was on the other night.. HI-larious.

[Dynaman]

Who is Tasha Yar? Was she the security guard who slept with Data? That rerun was on the other night.. HI-larious.

That's the one.

[Squird5]

So, are there any real reasons to watch RT? It's not sounding that intriguing in my opinion...

Before it sounded like a crappy ripoff of SDF... Now it sounds like a really crappy ripoff of a few things...

Best solution is to Hulu or Youtube (yes, it's legally available to watch on Youtube) and watch the episodes. Once you're done, come back to us and tell us if you enjoyed or wasted 1909 minutes of your life.

The important thing is after you watch it, don't get on the Internet and act like you really saw the implied off-camera parts of Robotech and how much more epic than Macross you thought it was or make excuses for Robotech like "well you gotta understand the restrictions they were/are under" to try to make it sound like it's more entertaining to a modern audience than it is and that Harmony Gold is doing their best. Robotech is what it is. It's confusing but interesting.

Okay... Finally got around to watching an episode...

Now my head hurts...

'It tore through the fabric of Hyperspace' the narrator says and I instantly think, "Did they mean time-space?(Space-time, w/e)"

Then later they say 'Warp'

Then they go back to 'Hyperspace'

So what is it? Some sort of mystical HyperWarpSpaceSlipFoldCultureDrive powered by flowers and unborn whales?

And OH GOD THE VOICE ACTING! I hear some of you complaining about the SDF Macross English dub, saying that Robotech's was better. I, personally, am quite confused by that...

Sure, they pronounce Macross correctly, but FOW-KUR? Focker and Fokker aren't pronounced like that... Maybe Foker or something...

And the lack of emotion. Rick gets shot down and Roy says, "Riiiick." Not even "RIIIIIIIIIICK!!" 'Maybe if I enlongate the 'I' sound I can last for as long as the animation has his mouth open.'

No offense to the people here that DO like it, but I don't see how you can... Explain maybe?

Edited June 12, 2010 by Squird5

[Gubaba]

Sure, they pronounce Macross correctly, but FOW-KUR? Focker and Fokker aren't pronounced like that...

Yeah, they kinda are...

[Einherjar]

Remember the name of Ben Stiller's character in Meet the Parents? I thought that was the rationale for changing Roy's last name; how it's written and pronounced.

I have no idea about Robotech's FTL method. In the novels, they lost a few years by performing a very long-range fold. It couldn't have been a fluke, as they had had the technology for about ten years following the Macross Saga.

[Squird5]

How? It would have to have one of the consonants between the O and the E removed. But seeing as there are two, I can't see how it could possibly be pronounced like that other than they did that so kids didn't start saying 'Roy F**ker'.

[Einherjar]

How? It would have to have one of the consonants between the O and the E removed. But seeing as there are two, I can't see how it could possibly be pronounced like that other than they did that so kids didn't start saying 'Roy F**ker'.

I wouldn't worry about stuff like that too much. HG apparently didn't when they made all this up back in the 80s, or at least stood behind some of it.

Edited June 12, 2010 by Einherjar

[azrael]

Okay... Finally got around to watching an episode...

An episode? As in 1 episode? That's it? You're complaining after 1 episode? Good grief. Kids these days...no stomach for anything, even if it tastes bad.

[David Hingtgen]

Fokker is typically mis-pronounced in the US, to the point that the correct version is thought to be incorrect. Fokker and Focker sound identical, except in the US...

[Jasonc]

Okay... Finally got around to watching an episode...

Now my head hurts...

'It tore through the fabric of Hyperspace' the narrator says and I instantly think, "Did they mean time-space?(Space-time, w/e)"

Then later they say 'Warp'

Then they go back to 'Hyperspace'

So what is it? Some sort of mystical HyperWarpSpaceSlipFoldCultureDrive powered by flowers and unborn whales?

And OH GOD THE VOICE ACTING! I hear some of you complaining about the SDF Macross English dub, saying that Robotech's was better. I, personally, am quite confused by that...

Sure, they pronounce Macross correctly, but FOW-KUR? Focker and Fokker aren't pronounced like that... Maybe Foker or something...

And the lack of emotion. Rick gets shot down and Roy says, "Riiiick." Not even "RIIIIIIIIIICK!!" 'Maybe if I enlongate the 'I' sound I can last for as long as the animation has his mouth open.'

No offense to the people here that DO like it, but I don't see how you can... Explain maybe?

Welcome to the anime composed like swiss cheese, full of holes. That out of the way, I find it entertaining, even with it's rough edges. It's not refined like Macross, but it can be entertaining if you're not trying to pick it apart.

As for the voice actors, that's one of the things I thought was done right by HG. The voices fit the characters about as much as possible (except I'm not a fan of Minmay's american voice.) Still, that is one of the shining moments in the franchise. As for the specific scene you're talking about, where Roy yells out Rick,,,there's two ways to look at that. 1) You can say that he doesn't say it with enough emotion and that the line was said poorly, or 2) In a more realistic setting, being a squadron leader, you'd understand that Roy is a man who's not gonna lose all composure during a battle. I think that part was done just fine. Too much emotion, and the character loses the "Skull Squadron" leader feel, not enough, and he seems like a robot. I think it was done just fine. That's my opinion though.

[Seto Kaiba]

Okay... Finally got around to watching an episode... Now my head hurts...

Just one was all it took? I was betting it would take at least three before it started getting to you.

So what is it? Some sort of mystical HyperWarpSpaceSlipFoldCultureDrive powered by flowers and unborn whales?

No, what it is is a byproduct of the unique "creative process" used in the rewriting and editing that made Robotech what it is (a mess). Y'see, the Robotech we all know was not what the show's editors originally intended. They wanted to run dubs of the original Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada back to back in some kind of Giant Robot Masterpiece Theater sort of setup. The network said no, and told 'em to splice it together into a single show. The rewriting process was, according to those involved in it, a rather slapdash affair carried out in great haste... with the writers working on several episodes at the same time and not stopping to compare notes. So as a result, the show has a lot of inconsistencies, plot holes, and stuff that just doesn't make sense.

Terminology slip-ups happen fairly frequently, as do cases where the original dialogue made it through mostly intact and doesn't line up with the setting (such as RT Bodolza's famous exclamation "This results from protoculture?!", when in the RT rewritten version "protoculture" is a pseudomagical biofuel rather than an ancient civilization). It feels, by in large, like they didn't really waste much thought on it and just wrote what they thought sounded cool at the time... which often degenerates into something startlingly similar to the sort of technobabble more commonly associated with Star Trek (or more precisely, bad Star Trek fan-fiction). The problem is only exacerbated by inconsistencies in the animation itself and the new dialogue's occasional departure from it... like the famous invisible SDF-2 problem they've been talking about ceaselessly for about 25 years now.

For the most part, nothing in Robotech is ever actually explained. Even what the Macguffin the whole story is centered around really is is never actually explained, it's just taken as an article of faith by Robotech fans that this mystery substance that is somehow produced by/from magic flowers that have seeds AND spores can be used for everything from powering starships and giant robots to food, medicine, and making people thirty feet tall.

No offense to the people here that DO like it, but I don't see how you can... Explain maybe?

One of the things we've been trying to do in this thread is wrangle some kind of logical explanation for why Robotech is worth watching now that the originals are freely obtainable out of the Robotech fans that occasionally come here, or that those of us who are also visitors on Robotech sites encounter in our travels around the net. Thus far, we've yet to find one... every answer we've gotten usually boils down to either nostalgia-powered rose-tinted glasses, ignorance of Robotech's origins (often due to Harmony Gold's attempts to obfuscate the show's history), apathy towards anime either due to ignorance or a profound distaste for other cultures, or blind faith in Harmony Gold as a function of all three.

For most, it seems to be like how when you're drinking heavily in a bar and the homely girls get better looking with each shot you do... but instead of whiskey it's childhood memories of the show back when those dubbing practices were considered acceptable. The most vocal (and belligerent) Robotech fans are usually guys in their late 20s or early-to-mid 30s who remember the show from when they were kids.

I have no idea about Robotech's FTL method. In the novels, they lost a few years by performing a very long-range fold. It couldn't have been a fluke, as they had had the technology for about ten years following the Macross Saga.

Yeah, but the novels are non-canon... just a drop in the ocean of stuff that was tossed out when Tommy Yune rebooted the continuity. Even before then, the "five year fold" hypothesis to explain the REF's absence from the second war was on pretty shaky ground. Like everything in Robotech, it's an ill-defined macguffin that does whatever the plot needs it to... by the most recent titles (RTSC) it's been retconned into something that basically is just a Star Trek-style warp drive by another name.

Edited June 12, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[HappyPenguins]

No offense to the people here that DO like it, but I don't see how you can... Explain maybe?

From my personal experience let me just say that Robotech was what I was first exposed to back then. I also didn't know the truth about the show till much later, but by then I had already become attached to it. Yes I know there is a lot of silly and retarded things about it, but hell that's why I grew to love it. It is what it is, and there's just no other way to look at it. I would never compare it with the original shows or vice versa because they aren't the same thing and there's just no point in comparing them either. If you like robotech, then you like it, if you prefer the originals? Then that's just the way it is.

I know plenty of people hate robotech but I would never condemn them for it, and why? Cause its their personal opinion, and I respect that. Heck I'm an avid RT fan and I STILL laugh at some of the RT bashing that goes on here. Why? Again because I don't take this crap seriously, nor do I get offended if others hate something I like.

[atreyu2112]

I'll chime in. I like Robotech - there, I said it! But I like Robotech from back in the day. I enjoyed the Comico comics and the Jack McKinney novels. I thought the show was alright. I didn't really like a lot of the voice acting, but I was entertained. No matter what anyone says, it still had a better story line than a LOT of what was out back then. Have you guys gone back and WATCHED the G1 Transformers??? I think that the novels were pretty good and well thought out. To me, they are what's cannon for "Robotech". I feel that the show and the comics are a simple & dumbed down version. Take them for what they are, simplistic entertainment.

That being said, HG retconning the whole continuity since just before Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles was released really pissed me off. Why put in the effort to do that? The source material was there already! It's like they're going to great lengths to further separate Robotech from Macross but in the process have George Lucas'd the whole effing thing! Where are some production samples from Shadow Rising? Lets see some pre-production art for the LAM? You'd think that they'd WANT to generate a buzz for these projects by giving the fans & the general public a few glimpses into their progress, but NO!

Like a lot of other things in life, it's becoming a big let down.

[Wanzerfan]

Fokker is typically mis-pronounced in the US, to the point that the correct version is thought to be incorrect. Fokker and Focker sound identical, except in the US...

I pronounce Roy's last name like the German person's who helped revolutionize aviation; with a long "o". Edited June 13, 2010 by Wanzerfan

[jenius]

In Robotech his name is Fokker, not Focker, and is pronounced as it is in Robotech. If you're not upset that they keep mispronouncing Hikaru as "Rick" then you shouldn't have a problem with Roy's last name. As it's been pointed out, Fokker as it appears in Robotech is actually a more accurate homage to the Fokker airplane.

I like Robotech. As a cartoon for kids in the 80s it was one of the better examples. Are you an adult right now critically analyzing an 80s cartoon? Well, chances are then you're going to find LOTS wrong with it. It does suffer from technobabble, macguffins, terrible animation quality (at times), plot holes, occasionally awkward voice acting (although I've seen MUCH worse), and what I think is a pretty terrible second generation.

[Robelwell202]

In Robotech his name is Fokker, not Focker, and is pronounced as it is in Robotech.

Uh, yeah... that made a lot of sense...

[Seto Kaiba]

That being said, HG retconning the whole continuity since just before Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles was released really pissed me off.

Um... actually Harmony Gold gave the old comics, novels, and other stuff the boot a good three or four years before Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles #1 came out, but that's just hair-splitting on my part. ^^

Why put in the effort to do that? The source material was there already! It's like they're going to great lengths to further separate Robotech from Macross but in the process have George Lucas'd the whole effing thing!

In a few discussions I've had and witnessed with Tommy Yune and Kevin McKeever, it was made clear that they did actually have a half-decent reason for making the decision to boot the vast majority of the "expanded universe" material from the continuity. Almost all of the old comics, novels, etc. were made without creative oversight from Harmony Gold, and tend to clash with and contradict themselves, each other, and the so-called "original 85". Quite a few titles were disowned simply because they bore only the most superficial resemblance to Robotech. Declaring the whole confused mess non-canon was a housekeeping action that made the continuity halfway intelligible again and got around all the dead ends and extra baggage the comics and novels created.

In practice, I don't think Harmony Gold has ever wanted to separate Robotech from Macross. After all, the overwhelming majority of Robotech merchandise that actually sells is Macross-based, and the Macross Saga is far and away the favorite saga of what remains of the fanbase. The whole ongoing story of Sentinels and the Shadow Chronicles movie centers around the Macross Saga characters. Even now, the most recent batch of retcons and other affiliated garbage is bringing the mecha of the Robotech universe closer to their Macross origins by making them run on nuclear fusion instead of whatever protoculture is this week.

Where are some production samples from Shadow Rising? Lets see some pre-production art for the LAM? You'd think that they'd WANT to generate a buzz for these projects by giving the fans & the general public a few glimpses into their progress, but NO!

*raises hand* Oo! Oo! I know the answer! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!

In all seriousness, the reason we're not going to see any production samples or teasers for Shadow Rising is that the movie is, according to slips from HG and some voice actors (incl. Richard Epcar), the movie is on hiatus. Presumably indefinitely, since our boy Tommy Yune has said that Harmony Gold is sitting on its hands waiting for Warner to un-screw the franchise's reputation so they can get better endorsement deals and have a bigger budget so it won't look like complete crap the way Shadow Chronicles did.

By a similar turn of events, we won't be seeing anything like pre-production teaser art or details about the movie itself because the film is, for want of a script, still mired in the earliest phases of pre-production. That's why the only thing they've done to stir up interest is trot Lawrence Kasdan's rejected story treatment out to D-list directors like Sylvain White. Robotech fans should thank their lucky stars it's looking increasingly like Warner just intends to sit on the license until it expires, so that they'll be unable to subject us to a remake of Stomp the Yard with giant robots.

[JB0]

I have no idea about Robotech's FTL method. In the novels, they lost a few years by performing a very long-range fold. It couldn't have been a fluke, as they had had the technology for about ten years following the Macross Saga.

That's actually a semi-logical interpolation out from Macross' fold data.

Remember, this is before Frontier and fold faults and all that. Time for people IN the fold goes slower than time for people OUTSIDE the fold, and the lag is fairly constant, such that L/Misa could accurately predict how much time had passed back home just by knowing how long they'd been in fold space. And they lost over a week of time without being gone long enough to start getting really hungry. That implies a pretty strong lag.

If a week passes for every day in fold space, then after a week in fold space, 49 days have passed in real space. A 30-day month in fold space is 210 days real time.

Since we don't know how FAST anyone actually goes in fold space(especially in Robotech, with it's much smaller sample of uselessly incomplete data)... it's hard to guess what sort of fold times are reasonable, though. Robotech just picked numbers that worked for their extended setting.

ON THE OTHER HAND... if the Robotech Masters live in our galaxy, then wherever the factory satellite and zentradi main fleet were stationed had to be quite close to Earth or travel times would be ridiculous. Assuming a constant multiplier and single long fold, the roughly 14-real-year trip the Robotech Masters took would've taken 2 years in fold space.

It is probably best to assume they made several short hops, with large waits between them.

It's also worth noting that the Robotech novels introduced the idea that fold space had it's own "geography" and what parts of it you went through would greatly affect how long it took to get there many years before Frontier did it.

ADMITTEDLY this was only done to justify the SDF-3 not showing up with the first assault in New Generation. They got lost in fold space and it took several months for them to catch up to the rest of the fleet.

But the point remains... Macross Frontier ripped off Robotech.

[jenius]

Uh, yeah... that made a lot of sense...

What doesn't make sense? His name in Macross is Roy Focker (pronounced "Fawker"). His name in Robotech is different, it's Roy Fokker (pronounced Foe-ker). It's not that his name in Robotech is mispronounced, it's a different name just like Hikaru Ichijo is not Rick Hunter.

[Einherjar]

I always thought of the five year fold as Deus Ex Machina to fit a convoluted story filled with constant urgency. I don't know. Personally, I have a feeling that they could have told people anything to keep them interested. Not that it matters anymore, since HG has pretty much made that feeling very clear.

Sorry everyone, the need for willing suspension of disbelief for a lot of this has really screwed me up. When it comes to Robotech these days, all I think of is $$$ as its unifying thread rather than an actual story with in-universe explanations for stuff. It's magnified even more by the crap many of us see on a regular basis. Don't get me wrong, Macross and other franchises are sometimes accused of that as well, but they sure put a hell of a lot more effort in making it work than here.

Edited June 13, 2010 by Einherjar

[Seto Kaiba]

Since we don't know how FAST anyone actually goes in fold space(especially in Robotech, with it's much smaller sample of uselessly incomplete data)... it's hard to guess what sort of fold times are reasonable, though. Robotech just picked numbers that worked for their extended setting.

Like most any technology in Robotech, the capabilities of the show's fold drives change to suit the needs of the plot and/or the whims of the writer in any given episode or adaptation. Even the depiction of the drive in operation isn't consistent, with most cases using a classic Macross-style fold jump, but several others (including the Shadow Chronicles movie) using a Star Trek-style warp drive. The variance in the time differential between adaptations is pretty extreme too... according to Lisa it was 1:7 in the Macross saga, it was 1:525949 (1 minute = 1 year) in the novels, the pseudocanon Waltrip comics had it instantaneous across intergalactic distances with no differential at all, and RTSC has it as a warp drive with no time differential.

ON THE OTHER HAND... if the Robotech Masters live in our galaxy, then wherever the factory satellite and zentradi main fleet were stationed had to be quite close to Earth or travel times would be ridiculous. [...]

It is probably best to assume they made several short hops, with large waits between them.

Which actually doesn't work... in the Macross Saga it's said that the Robotech Masters made the trip to the vicinity of Earth in a single fold jump that got them close but drained their power reserves, and then wasted YEARS cruising the rest of the distance into the Sol system on sublight. Similarly, in the pseudocanon comic adaptation of Robotech II: the Sentinels, the SDF-3 makes a single, instantaneous fold jump, traveling all the way from Earth to Tirol with no apparent (mentioned) time difference, though it isn't outside the realm of possibility that one COULD have occurred.

It's also worth noting that the Robotech novels introduced the idea that fold space had it's own "geography" and what parts of it you went through would greatly affect how long it took to get there many years before Frontier did it. [...]

But the point remains... Macross Frontier ripped off Robotech.

Eh... having the sub-universe ships depend on for FTL travel sport its own "geography" and obstacles was nothing new when the McKinney novels were being written. It had long since been established as a fact of life for hyperspace travel in the Star Wars universe due to explicit mention in the original movie back in 1977. I haven't read it for myself yet, but I'm told the 1965 novel Dune also included in its setting a means of FTL wherein the extra dimension had its own unique geometry that required the use of special navigators. Coincidentally, in the very same year the first batch of the Robotech novels came out, we also got the forerunner of Warhammer 40,000 (Rogue Trader) that introduced warp travel as riding the currents of a hellish dimension of energy populated by demonic beings that want to swallow your soul and beset by storms, eddy currents, and other phenomena that can isolate whole systems, blow a ship off course, or destroy it outright.

EDIT: And it was just pointed out to me by a Star Wars fan of my acquaintance that while the McKinney novels were being published, Star Wars's expanded universe significantly fleshed out the whole hyperspace obstacles thing, even going so far as to introduce new ships that could create obstacles in hyperspace so enemy ships wouldn't be able to jump away.

It certainly wasn't a new idea when Luceno and Daley added it to their Robotech novels... and it's astonishingly unlikely that Macross would've copied ANYTHING from Robotech, given that Robotech was and still is banned from Japan by the terms of the license agreements that shat it into being.

ADMITTEDLY this was only done to justify the SDF-3 not showing up with the first assault in New Generation. They got lost in fold space and it took several months for them to catch up to the rest of the fleet.

Didn't they also justify it by first having the SDF-3's fold drive be damaged beyond repair, and then having it swipe/recover the SDF-1's fold drive by pure shenanigans, setting up the stable time loop that ended with Minmei as Zor's mother and all of the familiar characters as the ancestors of the Robotech Masters?

The comics played the "fold drive damaged beyond repair" angle, but never got around to any End of the Circle foolishness.

Edited June 13, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[VFTF1]

No offense to the people here that DO like it, but I don't see how you can... Explain maybe?

There you are Macross Pyourist because it's old news to me that u whatch 1 part and are like no. Maybe watching the hole would be better for you before you run your moth? Facts is what are mattering and nt having the true facts is not helping you. So maybe understand that what looks like your mind is not what your eyes see. Fine fine! Go back to the naked 12 years old girls that is the only reason japcrap is prefered to Robotech. The Veritech fighter is in this episode but you don't like it!?

Pete

[JB0]

Like most any technology in Robotech, the capabilities of the show's fold drives change to suit the needs of the plot and/or the whims of the writer in any given episode or adaptation. Even the depiction of the drive in operation isn't consistent, with most cases using a classic Macross-style fold jump, but several others (including the Shadow Chronicles movie) using a Star Trek-style warp drive. The variance in the time differential between adaptations is pretty extreme too... according to Lisa it was 1:7 in the Macross saga, it was 1:525949 (1 minute = 1 year) in the novels, the pseudocanon Waltrip comics had it instantaneous across intergalactic distances with no differential at all, and RTSC has it as a warp drive with no time differential.

I was sticking to the original TV series(serieses? anthology? mashup?) for that part. Mainly because I recall them a lot better than the novelizations.

I thought the novelizations said it was 1 minute per light-year? One minute fold time per year real time would be pretty ridiculous, especially in light of the factory satellite and Vermillion Team capture episodes.

...

Not that it would be the most ridiculous thing to come out of the novelizations, or the most ridiculous statement in light of those two episodes.

Eh... having the sub-universe ships depend on for FTL travel sport its own "geography" and obstacles was nothing new when the McKinney novels were being written. ...

It certainly wasn't a new idea when Luceno and Daley added it to their Robotech novels... and it's astonishingly unlikely that Macross would've copied ANYTHING from Robotech, given that Robotech was and still is banned from Japan by the terms of the license agreements that shat it into being.

I was merely looking at the Macross and Robotech universes. And being silly at the same time.

Didn't they also justify it by first having the SDF-3's fold drive be damaged beyond repair, and then having it swipe/recover the SDF-1's fold drive by pure shenanigans, setting up the stable time loop that ended with Minmei as Zor's mother and all of the familiar characters as the ancestors of the Robotech Masters?

The comics played the "fold drive damaged beyond repair" angle, but never got around to any End of the Circle foolishness.

End of the Circle makes me cry every time I remember it.