Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Captain Global]

Recently I've been rewatching Zero with the gorgeous new remaster and found this little guy. 

It seems like a mig 29 with sv 51 canards and micro missile launchers. 

I've seen Zero quite a few times and it wasn't until now that I saw it, also I have not seen it mentioned on the forums or the official renders on the artbooks.

Nothing spectacular, but I find it really odd they modeled it just for the final battle.  

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, Captain Global said:

Recently I've been rewatching Zero with the gorgeous new remaster and found this little guy. 

It seems like a mig 29 with sv 51 canards and micro missile launchers. 

I've seen Zero quite a few times and it wasn't until now that I saw it, also I have not seen it mentioned on the forums or the official renders on the artbooks.

Nothing spectacular, but I find it really odd they modeled it just for the final battle.  

 

There's two possibilities that I can think of:

1) they reused existing modelling assets and mashed them onto the MiG-29 (aren't the canards and micro-missile launchers directly ripped from the Sv-51?)

2) the publicity at the time of the remaster's release stated that they used AI to 'enhance' the images.  Could this be an example of an "AI hallucination" during that process?  Or could Kawamori-san possibly have used the tool to add additional details to the footage?

[RangerKarl]

No, the canard Fulcrum was there in the original release as well.

[Master Dex]

Besides the AI was used in upscaling, not generative imaging.

The only Macross product to date that has used any AI generative imaging was the clip of Angel Paints from Flashback that's on the 4K DYRL release and it's very obvious (and to be clear to those not aware, it's a separate clip, not in the DYRL movie)

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, Captain Global said:

Recently I've been rewatching Zero with the gorgeous new remaster and found this little guy. 

It seems like a mig 29 with sv 51 canards and micro missile launchers. 

I've seen Zero quite a few times and it wasn't until now that I saw it, also I have not seen it mentioned on the forums or the official renders on the artbooks.

Nothing spectacular, but I find it really odd they modeled it just for the final battle.  

Yeah, it's one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments.

It doesn't get discussed much because we know basically nothing about it and the Macross Zero CG model(s) for the MiG-29 aren't detailed enough to identify which variant of the MiG-29 is even being used.  Even Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix, which goes into much more detail, barely mentions Mikoyan Gurevich's designs in passing since it has almost its entire focus on Sukhoi since they did a lot of the heavy lifting in the Alliance's VF program.  (The only MiG it really mentions is an OTM testbed called the MiG-2000 that appears to have nothing in common with the real/proposed MiG-2000, and which is itself mentioned only in passing in a section about a Sukhoi transitional model that rejoices in the uninspiring designation of SuX-27.)

The only book I know of that actually mentions this aircraft is the first volume of Tenjin Hidetaka's Valkyries artbook series.  On page 43, in a note on the box art for the Hasegawa 1/72 Macross Zero MiG-29 Fulcrum kit from 2002, a brief mention is made that a canard-equipped version of the MiG-29 appears in Ep5.

Presumably this unknown MiG-29 with canards is a lukewarm/early OTM adopter similar to the UN Forces F-14++ Tomcat Double Plus that was being used to both return an older model aircraft to service and evaluate some technologies being developed for future use in Variable Fighters.  Using the SV-51's missile pod/drop tank units isn't terribly surprising since the SV-51 is backwards compatible with Warsaw Pact hardware and given how ineffective the F-14's weapons were against the active stealth-equipped VF-0 they'd probably want some OTM-based munitions so they could actually fight the Asuka II's VF-0s.