The Thread About All Things Macross

[Member-571539]

Originally Posted by Herry Dunston

Although I'm not sure if Wendee Lee is still an active actress, as it's been a while since I heard from her.

Clearly you’ve gotta watch more Discotek titles. She’s currently playing Conan Edogawa in the Detective Conan / Case Closed films.

[El_Fez]

Originally Posted by CouncilSpectre

My bucket-list is getting shorter and shorter....

The Gordian knot of Macross Rights gives me hope that I'll see good copies of all three Yamato series and the movies someday. Different beast, as far as what's holding up the series, but still a long shot.

[Herry Dunston]

Originally Posted by gloomranger

Clearly you’ve gotta watch more Discotek titles. She’s currently playing Conan Edogawa in the Detective Conan / Case Closed films.

I don’t have to. That said, awesome, she’s still active. The chance is there.

[UniSol GR77]

I've seen that Japaneses did 45 Macross series after the original one LOL.

[Takeshi666]

Originally Posted by gloomranger

If you really want to stick it to Harmony Gold don’t buy anything Macross related. God knows that won’t happen because you idiots will declare a big f**k you to the man and in a year or two buy their discs when they’re released.

Speak for yourself.

Everyone else might have forgotten about them threatening legal action against stores selling imported Macross merch but I haven't. Or that stupid crap with Jetfire, which I'm still so glad they lost.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

^ Except that there was actual merit in this particular case to Harmony Gold's lawsuit, since they do still own all western rights to the Valkyrie-jet and all its likenesses, so they sued Hasbro for profiting off its licensed intellectual property (in this case, the skeevy box-artwork featuring the trademarked image), which Hasbro no longer held the rights to. They simply didn't have much choice in the matter, given that they were legally obligated to "vigorously defend" their intellectual property, as any corporation would be here.

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Herry Dunston

If ProfessorWho is willing to apotheosize, I'm more than willing to let bygones be bygones for the new path forward. Assuming there aren't additional stipulations that would prevent us getting certain things we want, but that's for future talk.

I was thinking about it very hard last night and early this morning, and came up with what most people would consider a "conspiracy theory" because it's so different than what most people think of Harmony Gold. I never posted it here or on Twitter because I knew people would call me a simp, a shill or just plain paid-off because I dared to not see them as only scumbag villains. I'm willing to post my theory here if people want to hear it, but honestly, I'm expecting the same, tired responses that don't actually question the common opinion. I'll be sad if that's the case, because it's the same sh*t being spouted for years and years.

When I thought about it really hard last night and early this morning, I reflected on stuff, as you can see by my post here. It made me really think about what I said back then. Yes, I too said "f**k Harmony Gold" and stuff of the like, I won't deny it, because for me to do so would be hypocritical, but the reason I said that was because everyone kept saying the same things over and over again, and I now feel like I was manipulated into it because I knew nothing back then and was an impressionable teenager. Now that I'm older, it's shocking that so many people are like that. Seriously, when I put things into perspective and when someone told me their take on it, I feel like an absolute idiot for not seeing the real picture here.

Trust me, I am no contrarian who thinks differently than everyone else because it's "cool" or "hip," I just now thought critically upon seeing the final results and now came to a different conclusion than most. I too was in the anti-HG club, but now... well, I'll just save it for if people are willing to hear me give my take on it.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

^ Would love to read your theory on this, @professorwho. Even as I type this, I'm reading sites like Kotaku and others with articles about the announcement news, and the comments-sections are simply full of garbage, lazy, reductionist "F#%K HARMONY GOLD" kneejerk driveby-nonsense (seriously, it's become a freaking hashtag at this point), with no greater amount of rational thought in them (occasionally accompanied by a variation on, "NOW GIMME MUH BLU-RAYS of [INSERT PREFERRED MACROSS TITLE HERE], FUNI").

Sadly, people are gonna post what they've been programmed to post for 25 years now, regardless of how far more difficult and complex the HG-situation actually was in reality than what most of the angry otaku have distorted it into.

[Takeshi666]

Originally Posted by Lionel Horsepackage

^ Except that there was actual merit in this particular case to Harmony Gold's lawsuit, since they do still own all western rights to the Valkyrie-jet and all its likenesses, so they sued Hasbro for profiting off its licensed intellectual property (in this case, the skeevy box-artwork featuring the trademarked image), which Hasbro no longer held the rights to. They simply didn't have much choice in the matter, given that they were legally obligated to "vigorously defend" their intellectual property, as any corporation would be here.

Complete and utter bollocks.

[kevers7290]

What I don't get is all the vitriol and hatred towards Carl Macek that I have heard over the years. It seems a lot of weebs like to scapegoat him but he was a hugely influential figure in legitimizing Japanese anime in the west as a mature storytelling device. There was (and still is) the stigma of "cartoons" as a lower form of entertainment and Macek was clearly passionate about showcasing the appeal of Japanese animation for audiences both young and old.

[Herry Dunston]

I may've been on the anti- side of Harmony Gold, but I had and still have nothing against that localization guy. From what I gathered, despite the few changes made for the Robotech adaptation, Macek did a damn great job keeping just about everything that's from the original Macross. He's more respectful to the source than those involved with products by Saban or 4Kids.

[CouncilSpectre]

I’ve never said a bad word about Macek, largely because I have nothing against Robotech per se. Without Robotech I would never have found Macross. Localisations, for all their faults, are what got many older fans into anime. One of the first ‘cartoons’ I can ever remember watching was Battle of the Planets. It was well over a decade before I even became aware of Gatchaman.

:d:d

[LexInHD]

Originally Posted by Herry Dunston

I may've been on the anti- side of Harmony Gold, but I had and still have nothing against that localization guy. From what I gathered, despite the few changes made for the Robotech adaptation, Macek did a damn great job keeping just about everything that's from the original Macross. He's more respectful to the source than those involved with products by Saban or 4Kids.

Macek knew that Macross was the foundation of the Robotech concept, so he understood that he couldn't really mess with it and that the other two shows were going to be heavily mined and tinkered with to bring them in line with what was laid out in Macross. Overall, none of the shows were heavily modified and concepts from Southern Cross and GCM were ported to Macross to make the foundation of Robotech. For example, Protoculture is a long-standing and well-known term from Robotech that originated in Macross, but it means something completely different in Macross. The concept of an "alternative energy source that aliens can sense" was taken from GCM, which had a "clean-energy fuel" that humans invented and the aliens could detect, which led to the Invid controlling it, because it's a key component in human technology and weapons. That idea was combined with the "Protozor" (alien flower) from Southern Cross, to create Robotech's Protoculture (and The Flower of Life). When you really look at it, Macek was very much loyal to the idea of keeping pretty much everything from all three shows, but doing so in a way that translated to all three of them.

[Grey2Grey]

Honestly, I couldn't care less about all the BS that's transpired. It happened, it sucked, and now (thank God) it appears to finally be over.

Now all I want on Blu-ray is an HD remaster of Carl Macek's 85-episode Robotech series that includes the original '84 dub mix (which doesn't have any of the terrible extra sound effects that were added in the remastered DVD's dub).

Do it for Carl!!

[LexInHD]

Without Southern Cross being scanned and restored by the Japanese, there is no hope for a Robotech release in HD. Harmony Gold also no longer owns any media production facilities or equipment, both of which were key to making Robotech/Robotech Remastered and other projects. The original Robotech and Robotech Remastered differ in their scenes, so it would be unlikely that the two would be released in HD, unless someone really wants to blow some money on it.

[Mikezilla3k]

Originally Posted by Herry Dunston

I may've been on the anti- side of Harmony Gold, but I had and still have nothing against that localization guy. From what I gathered, despite the few changes made for the Robotech adaptation, Macek did a damn great job keeping just about everything that's from the original Macross. He's more respectful to the source than those involved with products by Saban or 4Kids.

Didn't he just create Robotech just so that he could air Macross on TV?

[Member-571539]

Originally Posted by Mikezilla3k

Didn't he just create Robotech just so that he could air Macross on TV?

More or less.

https://io9.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-robotech

A man named Carl Macek knew that if he could bring and adapt an anime series titled Super Dimensional Fortress Macross to America, he’d have a cartoon hit — one he wouldn’t even have to animate. But Macross was only 36 episodes long, and there was a minimum of 65 episodes need to syndicate TV shows back in the ‘80s. His solution was to license the completely unrelated anime series Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada and then edit and rewrite them into three “sagas,” turning them into one long series.

[Batman1980]

They were all loosely connected at best anyway until they made Shadow Chronicles and really tied the 3 together more cohesively.

[starsteam]

I wonder if Funimation will ever reissue The Shadow Chronicles to BD. I only have the DVD in the Lionsgate set.

Has Funimation ever said anything about what they plan to do with Robotech besides streaming?