Robotech Academy - You want a new Robotech series...?

[coronadlux]

I bet that if HG allowed them to release their final segment to their fan film, a lot more Latin American, if not ALL of Argentina, would support it. Maybe even youtube fans that would be exposed to robotech for the first time.

[Apollo Leader]

Might as well ask, but if this new Robotech series is being animated by a team in Argentina, isn't that making the Robotech franchise something other than "anime" kind of like Robotech 3000?

(I am definitely not trying to besmirch or belittle the talents of Creavision)

[Legioss]

Might as well ask, but if this new Robotech series is being animated by a team in Argentina, isn't that making the Robotech franchise something other than "anime" kind of like Robotech 3000?

(I am definitely not trying to besmirch or belittle the talents of Creavision)

Harmony Gold doesn't like Japan very much. They call non-Japanese designs and animation "anime" including Korea and Argentina. Tommy doesn't bother to pronounce Mospeada right. They call Robotech Masters "Southern Cross". They see anime as failed raw material to be localized with superior Western culture. They claim they're major players in an anime industry where everybody's failing except for them. And they associate Japan with haters trying to ruin their enjoyment.

[TangledThorns]

Me too, I'm happy those guys' dreams came true. I just hope they have a back up plan in place. While I do see this pilot episode reaching its Kickstarter goal and getting made, I doubt any network will green light an entire series based on it.

Sadly I agree with you on your statement. Mature (teen) animated series, especially the ones I love, barely last a season or two on the networks. I saw this happen to Tron: Uprising and the Thundercats reboot. I hope that Netflix or Hulu may take interest in a Robotech series.

[coronadlux]

If someone does pick it up, I'm sure HG will set terms that would be unrealistic in the real world. My guess is that they micro manage everything for the love action movie, and that's why it's not getting done. Their creative vision is worse than a dog's dream.

[TheLoneWolf]

Honestly, I feel bad for them. This might look like a dream come true for them, but this project is destined to be a failure... and it's going to turn into a nightmare for them when the inevitable happens and Harmony Gold needs someone to blame. These guys're really passionate fans, and they're likely to end up being blamed for the project's failure and the inevitable decade-long wait for a new title in the best-case scenario.

I think that's a very unlikely scenario. In light of all the failed and aborted Robotech projects out there, Harmony Gold has never publically blamed any of their own staff members. When the Robotech Academy pilot fails to be picked up by any network, history shows that they'll most likely blame one, or all, of their favorite scapegoats:

• The economy/marketplace
• Big West
• Stubborn network/movie executives

[coronadlux]

The macross world fans...

[JB0]

The macross world fans...

To be fair, how many of us are kicking in five grand to get this made? It IS our fault!

[Seto Kaiba]

I bet that if HG allowed them to release their final segment to their fan film, a lot more Latin American, if not ALL of Argentina, would support it. Maybe even youtube fans that would be exposed to robotech for the first time.

I doubt they'd permit it... that would be dangerously close to making the fan film copyright infringement instead of fan works, now that Creavision is on Harmony Gold's payroll.

Harmony Gold doesn't like Japan very much. They call non-Japanese designs and animation "anime" including Korea and Argentina. Tommy doesn't bother to pronounce Mospeada right. They call Robotech Masters "Southern Cross". They see anime as failed raw material to be localized with superior Western culture. They claim they're major players in an anime industry where everybody's failing except for them. And they associate Japan with haters trying to ruin their enjoyment.

To be entirely fair to Tommy, probably ninety percent of the people I know who have seen Genesis Climber MOSPEADA can't say "MOSPEADA" correctly either, and many of them are avid anime hobbyists. Tommy is, at least from my own interactions with the man, what you'd call a "casual" anime fan. A lot of what you say there IS things Harmony Gold have said, but most of them have come from the pen of Carl Macek (who claimed Macross et. al. to be flawed and inferior to Robotech).

As far as calling the Robotech Masters Saga "Southern Cross", Harmony Gold has been deliberately trying to muddy the waters regarding the difference between Robotech and the shows used to make it since Robotech.com went live in 2001.

I think that's a very unlikely scenario. In light of all the failed and aborted Robotech projects out there, Harmony Gold has never publically blamed any of their own staff members. When the Robotech Academy pilot fails to be picked up by any network, history shows that they'll most likely blame one, or all, of their favorite scapegoats:

Actually, you're wrong about this.

Practically every failed or aborted Robotech project has seen Harmony Gold blame one of their business partners for the failure, usually in the form of "so and so screwed up, so the project failed due to circumstances beyond our control". For instance, they laid part of the blame for the failure of Robotech: the Movie on Cannon Films, the distributor, for insisting on changes to the film because they thought it had a "downer ending" and had "too many girls, not enough robots and guns" and their decision to toss the finished product because the test audiences hated it. When the Robotech II: the Sentinels project collapsed, they blamed it not just on the exchange rate crash, but on Matchbox withdrawing its sponsorship of the project and the problems they had with writers supplied by Tatsunoko (who thought Robotech was a confusing mess). After Robotech 3000's trailer flopped, Harmony Gold canceled the project and then blamed its cancellation on financial trouble at the studio, Netter Digital... before admitting it was actually a pretty terrible idea on their part too. The Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles "movie" was delayed, and Harmony Gold pointed the finger at the distributors they were talking to, omitting that the reason distributors were reluctant to take it was Harmony Gold was asking a lot more than they had any right to. When the negative fan response to the film cropped up, they initially tried to blame it on DR Movie, and then turned to the boogeyman of "Macross purist trolls". They haven't pointed any fingers at anyone over LLA, but I'd suspect that's because it's a glorified DVD extra and didn't have a standalone release.

You'd be hard pressed to find a Robotech release where they didn't throw SOMEBODY working for/with them under a bus when things got hairy. Harmony Gold disowned almost all licensee-produced material back in ~2003, and blamed EVERYBODY for a parade of poor-quality garbage that even they didn't consider fit to be called Robotech. Hell, they even used that as an excuse to keep Palladium Books on a short leash when they renewed the Robotech RPG license... citing the crap job Palladium did with the old game as reason to grant themselves a supreme editorial veto and review power over all content, much to the dismay of the Palladium Books gamers. Palladium, meanwhile, publicly WTF'd and explained that they'd missed the mark so hard because of a near-total lack of support from Harmony Gold.

EDIT: They keep slipping... SideKick's all over the map, but Kicktraq's steadily trending downward, it's now projecting they'll just barely break 80% in the best-case scenario, with a projected finish of just 75%.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Seto Kaiba

[terry the lone wolf]

I've yet to see evidence that Carl Macek had said Robotech was superior to Macross. I heard the interview he did for ANN where he said he barely altered Macross to be 1/3 of RT. He admitted he diminished Minmay from being "magical" like in Macross..

Also, LLA had a stand alone release; I have it coupled with the Shadow Chronicles Special Edition..

To be fair everyone calls the Robotech Masters leg of RT "Southern Cross" or Macross the "Macross Saga". Somehow "New Generation" is called "New Generation" and not Mospeada..

[Seto Kaiba]

I've yet to see evidence that Carl Macek had said Robotech was superior to Macross. I heard the interview he did for ANN where he said he barely altered Macross to be 1/3 of RT. He admitted he diminished Minmay from being "magical" like in Macross..

Then apparently you never read his Robotech.com fan interview... because in there, he talks at some length about how Macross is such a flawed series, and proceeds to claim that Macross's creators think Robotech is superior to their own work to the extent that they allegedly base future Macross sequels off Robotech instead.* It's pure horseshit, but as inconsistent as he is about the views he has on the originals, you have to wonder whether that's his honest (deluded) opinion or he's simply a sockpuppet for what Harmony Gold was trying to do to discourage Robotech fans from exploring Macross more.

* That claim of his, that Macross is taking pointers from Robotech and de-emphasizing the role of music and so on is rich in comedic irony once you notice the most recent titles at the time he wrote that were all from the Macross 7 story arc.

Also, LLA had a stand alone release; I have it coupled with the Shadow Chronicles Special Edition..

Perhaps you're confused as to the definition of "stand-alone"... because what you just described is not stand-alone, it's a paired release with the Shadow Chronicles garbage.

Stand-alone would be if it was release... well... on its own.

To be fair everyone calls the Robotech Masters leg of RT "Southern Cross" or Macross the "Macross Saga". Somehow "New Generation" is called "New Generation" and not Mospeada..

Not everyone, but it's more common with the Robotech Masters Saga than anywhere else... probably because Southern Cross is not a show that many people have any love for, and therefore there's no pressure to make a distinction between the two like they do for Macross and The Macross Saga. These days, fans seem to make a conscious effort to differentiate between Robotech's Macross Saga and Macross proper, which leads to a lot less confusion now that awareness of Macross is on the rise thanks to Macross Frontier and the ready availability of fansubs.

Admittedly, the abbreviations can get confusing... since they sometimes shorten the Robotech Masters Saga to "The Masters Saga", but abbreviate it RMS, and use TMS for "The Macross Saga".

Edited July 18, 2014 by Seto Kaiba

[jenius]

You guys know there is no proper way to say MOSPEADA right?

[TangledThorns]

You guys know there is no proper way to say MOSPEADA right?

I pronounce it... Nu jen-uh-rey-shuhn

[Perrych]

Let's be fair: Robotech did a better job with Southern Cross than the original writers did.

[jenius]

No... No... I don't know that I'd argue it was worse but it wasn't better. The fact the Zor were using humans made Southern Cross more coherent.

[Seto Kaiba]

Let's be fair: Robotech did a better job with Southern Cross than the original writers did.

Debatable, but I would be inclined to agree with it... on the following grounds:

No... No... I don't know that I'd argue it was worse but it wasn't better. The fact the Zor were using humans made Southern Cross more coherent.

Honestly, this is the one case where I honestly think that Robotech did something other than sh*t all over the source material.

No bones about it, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross was an OFFENSIVELY awful show, and shouldn't have even been allowed to run as long as it did. (What information exists suggests it got canned a little more than halfway into what was down to be a 39 episode run.) Robotech didn't really "improve" the story, but they did manage to make the characters more tolerable by eliminating or glossing over some of the more egregiously awful characterization choices by the original creators. Jeanne was a complete airhead who shamelessly admitted to having no goal beyond "Marriage is a woman's happiness". She tells the viewers she joined the army purely because she thought it'd be a good place to snag a good husband, and would quit as soon as she'd done so. Her acting out was simply because she was an ass. The rewrite made her more tolerable by tying her into characters people didn't loathe (Max and Milia Jenius from Macross) and giving her a REASON for her acting out and the lenient treatment she got from the military police (abandonment issues courtesy of her famous parents). It also minimized her sudden and total loss of competence once they brought over Seifreitti (RT: Zor Prime). Southern Cross made its female characters into chauvinistic stereotypes of women... you have the good little housewife-in-waiting (Jeanne, for whom this is apparently meant to be a positive trait), the man-hating career woman (Lana, for whom this is clearly meant to be a BAD thing), and the amazonian woman who loses her edge because she falls in love (Marie). These were toned way the hell down or eliminated, and they even applied a motivation to the Zor Lords, who had never really got the chance to properly explain why the wanted the protozor so badly in the original show.

Macek didn't make it better, but he did spackle over a lot of the plot holes left by the show's cancellation and a lot of the offensive idiocy in the series on the part of its leading ladies. That's something, at least. Didn't help it much though, since the Masters Saga is still the Robotech fandom's un-favorite (something Harmony Gold readily admits, and Toynami has used as a reason to not make Southern Cross-based merchandise).

This, of course, poses a problem for them with projects like Shadow Chronicles and Robotech Academy... because people expect some of these Masters Saga characters to still be around. They don't want to actually USE them, but they have to throw a nod or two that direction or the fans'll bite them in the ass over it. In this case, they're throwing one of the least offensive characters from the Masters Saga at this project... General Emerson.

[Apollo Leader]

Harmony Gold doesn't like Japan very much. They call non-Japanese designs and animation "anime" including Korea and Argentina. Tommy doesn't bother to pronounce Mospeada right. They call Robotech Masters "Southern Cross". They see anime as failed raw material to be localized with superior Western culture. They claim they're major players in an anime industry where everybody's failing except for them. And they associate Japan with haters trying to ruin their enjoyment.

With D.R. Movie it wasn't too far of a stretch to call it "anime" since so much of the work in Japanese animated projects these days are being farmed out to Korean studios such as themselves.

But there is definitely a trend. A decade ago even with all the nastiness of the Macross legal battles, there was an otherwise effort on the part of Harmony Gold (at least those involved with the Robotech property) to show an interest and respect in the source materials. We saw Macross restored and receiving two major DVD releases; Mospeada and Southern Cross also getting similar treatment. There was merchandise and toys giving homage to both Macross and Mospeada (ie. Toynami). And with Shadow Chronicles, love it or hate it, they were trying to do something original.

But just this last year or so they seem to be heading backwards. They are back to "butchering" other people's work with Robotech Love Live Alive and the Robotech/Voltron comic book. (As an aside, I would have bought Robotech LLA if they had included the Mospeada version with it as a bonus; including Shadow Chronicles instead and forcing anyone wanting Mospeada LLA to buy a full Robotech boxset is ridiculous and bad business).

As for this whole Kickstarter campaign, it's been enteraining watching this creep along. I honestly don't think we will ever see an actual Robotech animated release ever again, but even if they do eek things out and get this video pilot released it will not go any further than that.

[terry the lone wolf]

LLA might not be a "Stand Alone" release but it's not a DVD extra. It's part of a two movie collection..

Now from what I heard the reason for Carl Macek's "beef" with the Tatsunoko's writers wasn't that they were confused about Robotech it's that they didn't want to include the Macross characters and Carl Macek did.

[EXO]

C'mon guys... Help Carl Macek's dream become reality and stay on topic...

[UN Spacy]

I'm gonna have a good laugh when the PPD reaches $17,000.

[CoreyD]

Latest update is that rick hunter will be in the pilot. Anyone else recall the same bait and switch they pulled in LLA when tony oliver chimed in for less than 5 seconds of off screen dialogue?

[technoblue]

Rick Hunter? He sure does get around the Robotech universe.

I don't know what is more depressing: Is it the fact that Tommy Yune and company continue to use the same tactics and haven't learned from their mistakes, or is it the fact that there are people who have pledged almost $160,000 to this and think that it is good business? I am very confused. There has to be some other thing or some other individual who has a better reason for that amount of money, and who has communicated their need better than this group from HG in the last two weeks.

[jenius]

You're thinking about it too much. People will come across this and say 'oh I remember that show, sure i'll give $10.'. Some won't even know about Shadow Chronicles or licensing disputes.

[Seto Kaiba]

But there is definitely a trend. A decade ago even with all the nastiness of the Macross legal battles, there was an otherwise effort on the part of Harmony Gold (at least those involved with the Robotech property) to show an interest and respect in the source materials. [...]

Back then, Harmony Gold was making a concerted effort to revamp Robotech and the public perception of same to make it into a moderately credible mecha anime franchise. Now that they've realized they're no damn good at creating original material and the general public is smart enough not to mistake their nonsense for real anime, they're backpedaling somewhat.

They're trying for a "By the fans, for the fans" sort of vibe now, which is generally seen as a bad sign for a franchise.

LLA might not be a "Stand Alone" release but it's not a DVD extra. It's part of a two movie collection..

Now from what I heard the reason for Carl Macek's "beef" with the Tatsunoko's writers wasn't that they were confused about Robotech it's that they didn't want to include the Macross characters and Carl Macek did.

Robotech: Love Live Alive is not a stand-alone release, in order to sell it they had to package it with RTSC. Case closed.

Also, what you heard is wrong. Even Harmony Gold's own account from the 80s indicated that the writers supplied by Tatsunoko couldn't get their heads around the Robotech plot and, in frustration, tried to relate everything to the original three shows.

Latest update is that rick hunter will be in the pilot. Anyone else recall the same bait and switch they pulled in LLA when tony oliver chimed in for less than 5 seconds of off screen dialogue?

Yeah, that seems likely... after all, Rick Hunter is probably the most dangerous character they could use, legally-speaking.

This is exactly the kind of bait-and-switch routine they pulled with Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. They advertised it as being the "big reveal" of Rick Hunter's fate and his return to the series, then had his only role be to have a few seconds of dialog via a viewscreen and then promptly disappear again so the fans desire to know what happened to him wouldn't be sated, robbing the franchise of one of the few questions keeping the fans watching. The best part is that the backers are likely wise to this game in the wake of RTSC, so it won't improve things much.

Robotech Academy will likely have Rick say a few words over the radio, and then sail off to parts unknown... which is probably for the best, because Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles' comic flanderized him into a naive dumbass.

I remain amused that the Kicktraq projections continue to trend downwards while Harmony Gold is acting like this is already a done deal... they're estimated to only make about 75% of their target now, as opposed to 80% just two days ago. The projection of the backer contributions has them potentially barely breaking $250k. Part of me suspects that the Robotech fanbase is actually a lot wiser to Harmony Gold's game than Harmony Gold thinks, and every subsequent update is giving them progressively colder feet about putting more money into it.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Seto Kaiba

[technoblue]

You're thinking about it too much. People will come across this and say 'oh I remember that show, sure i'll give $10.'. Some won't even know about Shadow Chronicles or licensing disputes.

Yeah. But It still boggles my mind.

After watching the short with Cesar Turturro, I was struck by how much Robotech might benefit from fresh talent that isn't locked into the thought processes of the old guard. If it's true that Robotech is not part of HG's main business, then why perpetuate this stuff? Why not instead reorganize it, Microsoft-style, with a new team that includes the Creavision staff and other new faces?

Edit:

Earlier in the thread I think it was mentioned that HG proper didn't care about Robotech. That seems backward, especially in the face of this Kickstarter project, which I think would have a lot more success if it was truly about starting over. But then, I could be way off since I wasn't as entrenched in the history of it all as others appear to be..

Edited July 19, 2014 by technoblue

[Mr March]

You're thinking about it too much. People will come across this and say 'oh I remember that show, sure i'll give $10.'. Some won't even know about Shadow Chronicles or licensing disputes.

This.

As fans, we have a tendency to assume everyone knows as much as we do and have known it for as long as we have. In this case, years. The truth about is only those of us who are way into Macross would know the ugly details about Harmony Gold, Carl Macek, C&D, legal battles and so on. The vast majority of people that watched and remember Robotech (if history is any indication, it's about 2/3rds) are blissfully unaware. It's the reason demagogues get elected

It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that most of the folks contributing to the Robotech Academy kickstarter have no clue about the long history of this intellectual property.

[Seto Kaiba]

As fans, we have a tendency to assume everyone knows as much as we do and have known it for as long as we have. In this case, years. The truth about is only those of us who are way into Macross would know the ugly details about Harmony Gold, Carl Macek, C&D, legal battles and so on. The vast majority of people that watched and remember Robotech (if history is any indication, it's about 2/3rds) are blissfully unaware. It's the reason demagogues get elected

It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that most of the folks contributing to the Robotech Academy kickstarter have no clue about the long history of this intellectual property.

Since a lot of this is being rehashed on the Kickstarter's comments page, complete with all the vitriol and half-truths that Harmony Gold usually brings to such discussions, they're not likely to stay ignorant for long. The hostility on the comments section is very likely helping drive down the number of backers AND discourage backers from increasing their pledges.

[EXO]

It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that most of the folks contributing to the Robotech Academy kickstarter have no clue about the long history of this intellectual property.

I've noticed that a lot of people that do back the project are almost habitual backers. They probably see the words Robotech and remember something that they haven't thought about in years. But that's probably exactly what HG is counting on.

[terry the lone wolf]

It says it in the Wiki, HG gave detail charts of RT to writers Sukehiro Tomita & Hiroshi Ohnogi but where they wanted to center on new characters Macek gave it to American writers to refocus on the Macross characters..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotech_II:_The_Sentinels

Nothing there says they were confused about Robotech. Yes they try to relate to the original three series but they wanted to write about new characters and not the Macross ones..

[Seto Kaiba]

I've noticed that a lot of people that do back the project are almost habitual backers. They probably see the words Robotech and remember something that they haven't thought about in years. But that's probably exactly what HG is counting on.

That would explain why SideKick's chart has so many ups and downs... the metrics they use there are supposed to be based, in part, on the way the individual backers have contributed on Kickstarter campaigns (their ability to "pick a winner"?) as well as the exposure they give to the project on communities like Twitter.

Considering how many Kickstarter campaigns fail, it might be fair to just lump them under "suckers".

It says it in the Wiki, [...]

*sigh* What part of "Harmony Gold's own account" didn't sink in? Having to constantly correct you is getting tiresome and largely isn't relevant to this thread (and thus is irking the OP). Let it go, man. You don't know what you're talking about.

[Duke Togo]

What other account is there of the Sentinels production, outside of HGs?

[Seto Kaiba]

What other account is there of the Sentinels production, outside of HGs?

That's the fun part... they're ALL Harmony Gold's. Just at varying levels of "revisionist history" over the years. The one that I'm referring to is the oldest version, back before they started in with the retroactive arse-covering. Their original claim was that the Tatsunoko-supplied writers couldn't get their heads around the Robotech version of things, and tried to address the problem by relating everything to the original shows instead.

Every version of every failure story ultimately gets progressively revised by them to make them look better and displace blame to other parties. A few years ago they changed their tune from "Robotech: the Untold Story did poorly with test audiences" to "the test audiences loved it but the distributor didn't".

Kinda makes me wonder how they're going to try and dress the Robotech Academy failure up. They almost always tart the flops up with something about how it was a fantastic idea brought down by circumstance. It's gonna be hard to put a bow on a lack of support from the backers in the likely event they don't break $500k (and projections suggest they might not even break $300k!). Will they blame Creavision for not faithfully executing Carl's vision? Will they blame the backers for not supporting it enough? Or will they actually admit fault on their part for once?

Edited July 19, 2014 by Seto Kaiba

[The Shade]

Not that I want this KS to succeed, but if HG had been asking for only 250 grand, instead of 500 grand, would more people have been inclined to donate?

A lot of discussion on people not wanting to pledge seems to be because of the very large amount HG is asking for.

[Seto Kaiba]

Not that I want this KS to succeed, but if HG had been asking for only 250 grand, instead of 500 grand, would more people have been inclined to donate?

A lot of discussion on people not wanting to pledge seems to be because of the very large amount HG is asking for.

Yeah, I've noticed that as well... there's been some noise on a few sites about Harmony Gold saying some of the money was going to be used for a feasibility study for a series, which has apparently spiraled into awkward questions both on Robotech.com and on the Kickstarter page about how the money will be used and why they're asking for so much. That one estimate that only $150k was actually needed to produce an episode gets quoted a lot in those discussions.

I'm not sure if it would actually affect the pledge rate... the Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter seems to have done a LOT of damage on that front.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Seto Kaiba

[azrael]

Take the argument to PM or the thread gets locked permanently and people get banned.

I've noticed that a lot of people that do back the project are almost habitual backers. They probably see the words Robotech and remember something that they haven't thought about in years. But that's probably exactly what HG is counting on.

Latest update is that rick hunter will be in the pilot. Anyone else recall the same bait and switch they pulled in LLA when tony oliver chimed in for less than 5 seconds of off screen dialogue?

Banking of nostalgia only goes so far. They're probably hoping for Transformers-type response.

But yeah, likely the majority of the backers are people who do not know anything and have no interest in what HG has done. They see a news article, say "wow", maybe visit the KS page, maybe donate, and then move on. They won't read the comments, just hit that "Donate"-button. And they're not going to care.

As the sayings goes, "Haters gonna hate." Which is why I say offer an opposing viewpoint and do it on neutral ground.

Also keep in mind that there are KS and Amazon Payments fees. KS is 5% and Amazon is 3-5%. So if they make it to $.5M, they lose as much as 50,000 to fees.