Save Robotech Kickstarter

[AzathothXy]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/717039805/robotech-take-over

How much is the Robotech IP worth anyway?

[Damian Magecraft]

[Alpha 11]

Though, I have to give they guy some credit for trying at least.

[taalismn]

(takes one look at subject and turns and bolts before SK arrives on the scene)

[Seto Kaiba]

How much is the Robotech IP worth anyway?

Relatively little, I expect... the Robotech series has a very poor reputation in the anime industry, both because it was a rewrite produced at the tail end of the period when rewrites were acceptable and due to much questionable behavior on the part of its owners. Its ratings and merchandise sales were pretty poor even back in the day, and for the last fifteen years or so Robotech has mainly been subsisting on low volume direct-sales merchandise from its website.

With Harmony Gold and Robotech still nursing a very public black eye after Robotech Academy's Kickstarter turned into a public relations disaster and the subsequent decision to cancel it when it became obvious there was little chance of it reaching even 40% of its pledge target, the value of Robotech's IP is likely fairly low at this point.

The catch-22 is that the value of the Robotech rights lies not in Robotech, but in the rights to the original Japanese shows. The Robotech IP that is legally separate and distinct from the original shows they adapted is minimal and as a result likely almost worthless, but the "rest-of-world" distribution and merchandising rights from the original Macross series combined with Harmony Gold's trademarks which have impeded Macross licensing are worth a fairly substantial sum through the higher quality Japanese merchandise and the possibility of licensing the sequels.

:lol: Though, I have to give they guy some credit for trying at least.

I'm not sure if it counts as "trying" when the whole thing is hilariously blatant satire.

Still funny tho.

[Snake Eyes]

Wow, really........never gonna happen

[taalismn]

Robotech Fans...we're like vikings; loot and pillage, feast and drink while we can, reminisce about the glory days of the past and wear our hair out long, but ultimately we figure we're doomed to be stomped underfoot by giants.

[Alpha 11]

Robotech Fans...we're like vikings; loot and pillage, feast and drink while we can, reminisce about the glory days of the past and wear our hair out long, but ultimately we figure we're doomed to be stomped underfoot by giants.

You know, your right. Still, it will always be my fist love.

[Seto Kaiba]

Wow, really........never gonna happen

Pretty much... now that they know that Warner Bros is not going to save them, they're going to hang onto their rights to the originals until their license expires in 2022 on the off-chance that Big West might one day allow them a share of the profits in exchange for stateside Macross licensing.

[Alpha 11]

Wow, really........never gonna happen

Pretty much... now that they know that Warner Bros is not going to save them, they're going to hang onto their rights to the originals until their license expires in 2022 on the off-chance that Big West might one day allow them a share of the profits in exchange for stateside Macross licensing.

That long? Sad.

[Seto Kaiba]

That long? Sad.

Yep, we learned that little tidbit about their license renewal when they tried (unsuccessfully) to sue Hasbro over that new Transformers Jetfire toy a year or two back. In order to substantiate their claims, they had to disclose their licensing agreements with Tatsunoko, among other things.

Another eight years of failures and false starts, and then Robotech is probably done for good unless a miracle occurs and the actually develop something that takes off.

[Alpha 11]

That long? Sad.

Yep, we learned that little tidbit about their license renewal when they tried (unsuccessfully) to sue Hasbro over that new Transformers Jetfire toy a year or two back. In order to substantiate their claims, they had to disclose their licensing agreements with Tatsunoko, among other things.

Another eight years of failures and false starts, and then Robotech is probably done for good unless a miracle occurs and the actually develop something that takes off.

I guess I can hope a little then, but in the end, it will not happen. I just wish they could have done something and not burn so many bridges. And another thing, Carl wanted to do just Macross, but was forced to expand it with the other 2, and thus made Robotech. So why are people so mad at him, when it was basicly, he was given lemons, and he made lemonade out of it?

[Seto Kaiba]

I can hope a little then, but in the end, it will not happen. I just wish they could have done something and not burn so many bridges.

Eh... a little hope, but I wouldn't hold my breath for anything more than another direct-to-video mess like Shadow Chronicles before their license runs out. The quality's not likely to go up either, due mainly to the way they pinned their hopes for attracting investors on the live action movie that didn't materialize, and Robotech Academy's very public failure and Harmony Gold's subsequent, and controversial, decision to cancel the Kickstarter and spin it as a great achievement will only end up driving investors away.

And another thing, Carl wanted to do just Macross, but was forced to expand it with the other 2, and thus made Robotech. So why are people so mad at him, when it was basicly, he was given lemons, and he made lemonade out of it?

's probably got a lot to do with him not understanding his audience even a little.

A lot of Carl Macek's bad reputation in the industry is not because of the mess Robotech has become, but rather because his preferred method of heavily editing and rewriting anime to remove anything evocative of Japanese culture went out of style in the industry a few short years after the Robotech series went off the air. Once that shift occurred in the industry, his policy of making major changes to the shows to remove what he called "ethnic gestures" and splicing two or more different shows together went from being acceptable to being seen as insulting to the author and audience. That he defended the practice and even went so far as to suggest that he improved the originals by doing so did not endear him to anyone. (A lot of folks saw that as being disrespectful to the authors whose work he was editing, if not slightly racist.)

There is, of course, also the matter of Macek also being a pretty terrible writer whose "original" work for Robotech was painfully derivative at the best of times, and downright Razzie-worthy when he couldn't lean on someone else's script for the story and dialogue... but that's a whole other set of issues. The biggest and most problematic being that he was the one who started Robotech on its unhealthy obsession with trying to be unauthorized Macross sequels... and that Robotech fans often mis-attribute credit for the story, etc. to Macek when all he really did was change a few names and string together existing plot points.

Warning: Warning for trolling

[Alpha 11]

I guess I can hope a little then, but in the end, it will not happen. I just wish they could have done something and not burn so many bridges.

Eh... a little hope, but I wouldn't hold my breath for anything more than another direct-to-video mess like Shadow Chronicles before their license runs out. The quality's not likely to go up either, due mainly to the way they pinned their hopes for attracting investors on the live action movie that didn't materialize, and Robotech Academy's very public failure and Harmony Gold's subsequent, and controversial, decision to cancel the Kickstarter and spin it as a great achievement will only end up driving investors away.

And another thing, Carl wanted to do just Macross, but was forced to expand it with the other 2, and thus made Robotech. So why are people so mad at him, when it was basicly, he was given lemons, and he made lemonade out of it?

's probably got a lot to do with him not understanding his audience even a little.

A lot of Carl Macek's bad reputation in the industry is not because of the mess Robotech has become, but rather because his preferred method of heavily editing and rewriting anime to remove anything evocative of Japanese culture went out of style in the industry a few short years after the Robotech series went off the air. Once that shift occurred in the industry, his policy of making major changes to the shows to remove what he called "ethnic gestures" and splicing two or more different shows together went from being acceptable to being seen as insulting to the author and audience. That he defended the practice and even went so far as to suggest that he improved the originals by doing so did not endear him to anyone. (A lot of folks saw that as being disrespectful to the authors whose work he was editing, if not slightly racist.)

There is, of course, also the matter of Macek also being a pretty terrible writer whose "original" work for Robotech was painfully derivative at the best of times, and downright Razzie-worthy when he couldn't lean on someone else's script for the story and dialogue... but that's a whole other set of issues. The biggest and most problematic being that he was the one who started Robotech on its unhealthy obsession with trying to be unauthorized Macross sequels... and that Robotech fans often mis-attribute credit for the story, etc. to Macek when all he really did was change a few names and string together existing plot points.

*Scratches head* So he was a fan fiction writer before there was fan fiction writers? With what you've said, that's what it looks to me. I guess I'm just not really seeing the big problem. Or are you saying he was taking more credit then he was due? That's it, right?

[Seto Kaiba]

*Scratches head* So he was a fan fiction writer before there was fan fiction writers? With what you've said, that's what it looks to me. I guess I'm just not really seeing the big problem. Or are you saying he was taking more credit then he was due? That's it, right?

Eh... no.

No, Macek's name is synonymous with "doing it wrong" in the anime industry because, as early as 1990, the industry had discovered the audiences wanted the shows in as close to their original form as possible. The practice was then seen as disrespectful to the author, if not slightly insulting to the audience. It's like if a version of Game of Thrones came out that cut out any mature content and changed the names of all the characters... you'd think they'd gone round the twist and were doing something pointless. Macek just didn't adapt to the changing industry, so his name became synonymous with translations that butcher the original work.

As far as his work on Robotech, yeah... it might well be because almost everything he did for RT was basically Macross fan-fiction, and that RT fans often mistakenly credit him for the work done by the original creators, but it's mostly the stuff outlined in the first paragraph of this reply and the previous one.

[jaymz]

The practice was then seen as disrespectful to the author, if not slightly insulting to the audience. It's like if a version of Game of Thrones came out that cut out any mature content and changed the names of all the characters...

This I always laugh at as why it even occurred at the time....

North America had already established that a show could in fact work in it's original form (with maybe just name changes as we all know Japanese names CAN be a pain in the a$$ to say after all). Starblazers (Space Battleship Yamato) Did very well and was a near dead on transition of story. I am yet to watch much of Captain Harlock but my understanding was that was much the same case. Force Five, which was made up five different series that each had their own day to run on (Starvengers/Getter Robo G ran on mondays, Danguard Ace ran on Tuesdays so on and so forth) and they kept their basic storylines intact with just name changes. Hell even Voltron, Robotech's immediate contemporary (it ran just after Robotech where I live), again kept the basic premise and story lines and whatnot with just name changes.

I cannot fathom why HG didn't do something along the lines of Force Five (A title that was more of an umbrella than a "series") than going the route they did. I mean they could have just run each series as itself under a Robotech "umbrella".

That is the thing that makes me laugh....that way Macek would have been able t keep Macross AS Macross as well as the others AS themselves.

[Seto Kaiba]

This I always laugh at as why it even occurred at the time....

Normally, the analogy I use is that Robotech was like someone changing all the names and dates in a pair of novels like The Hunger Games and A Canticle for Leibowitz and tried to pretend those were sequels to Harry Potter's second wizarding war. Even if you presented the idea as completely serious, as soon as people heard about it they'd think you were taking the **** and accuse you of a rather drastic underestimation of their intelligence.

Robotech, at least, came out on the tail end of the period when rewriting shows like that didn't land you an instant no-sell and a comically overwrought reputation for butchering classics like 4Kids has these days. That changed within a few years of Robotech's release, though... and trying to defend those decisions to rewrite their originals and pretend they'd IMPROVED them was, and still is, the worst possible decision they could've made PR-wise. At least the modification of Macross was relatively faithful to the original, and thus didn't garner nearly as much hate as abject and pointless butchery like what he did with Captain Harlock and Queen Millennia... the end result of which bore almost no resemblance to the classics he'd run through a blender to make it. To pretend that that was on equal creative footing with the originals, if not improvements on them as he sometimes alleged, was bound to be interpreted as insulting to the author and the audience.

[jaymz]

Uh...did he redo Harlock then? as I recall Harlock came out roughly the same time as Starblazers (Yamato) in NA and was kept fairly close to the original....I could be misremembering though.

[Seto Kaiba]

Uh...did he redo Harlock then? as I recall Harlock came out roughly the same time as Starblazers (Yamato) in NA and was kept fairly close to the original....I could be misremembering though.

Yeah, you're thinking of the first time Captain Harlock was released in the US by Ziv International... it didn't last though. Harmony Gold, under Macek's direction, made the completely inexplicable decision to go splice Leiji Matsumoto's 1978 series Space Pirate Captain Harlock together with another, unrelated TV series he did 3 years later named Queen Millennia. (The two shows wouldn't be established to be in a single universe until 2000, when Matsumoto did a series called Maetel Legend that connected the two with Galaxy Express 999 and Queen Emeraldas.)

Macek tried (unwisely) to combine the two into a single series instead of running them back-to-back as he had done with the shows he made Robotech with. The end result was an unholy mess that dropped 19 of the original episodes (both shows were 42 episodes) and changed the plot into something completely unrecognizable. Let's just say there's a reason that Harlock fans try to make that one un-happen the way Bandai and Sunrise do with Gundam's mistake, G-Saviour.

[jaymz]

oye bloody vey....

[Alpha 11]

*Scratches head* So he was a fan fiction writer before there was fan fiction writers? With what you've said, that's what it looks to me. I guess I'm just not really seeing the big problem. Or are you saying he was taking more credit then he was due? That's it, right?

Eh... no.

No, Macek's name is synonymous with "doing it wrong" in the anime industry because, as early as 1990, the industry had discovered the audiences wanted the shows in as close to their original form as possible. The practice was then seen as disrespectful to the author, if not slightly insulting to the audience. It's like if a version of Game of Thrones came out that cut out any mature content and changed the names of all the characters... you'd think they'd gone round the twist and were doing something pointless. Macek just didn't adapt to the changing industry, so his name became synonymous with translations that butcher the original work.

As far as his work on Robotech, yeah... it might well be because almost everything he did for RT was basically Macross fan-fiction, and that RT fans often mistakenly credit him for the work done by the original creators, but it's mostly the stuff outlined in the first paragraph of this reply and the previous one.

Thanks for clearing that up. I honestly never thought of Robotech as an improvement on the originals. I just thought he did a good job bringing the 3 series together into something that worked, IMO. I've come to like the 3 originals on their own and as they are in Robotech.

[Seto Kaiba]

oye bloody vey....

Yep... it was a bloody freaking mess, and one of the best examples of what a pointless waste it was for the American anime distribution industry to rewrite and edit shows like that. Not long after that mess came out, the industry came to the collective realization that rewriting anime to "Americanize" it was rapidly losing the acceptance of their audience. As it happens, doing a straight and accurate dub is actually faster and a lot cheaper than rewrites, so jettisoning the bizarre compulsion to disguise the fact that Japanese animation is from Japan enabled the distributors to non-destructively cut costs and increase volume at the same time... which led to industry gaining a lot of ground in the 90's.

Thanks for clearing that up. I honestly never thought of Robotech as an improvement on the originals. I just thought he did a good job bringing the 3 series together into something that worked, IMO. I've come to like the 3 originals on their own and as they are in Robotech.

Harmony Gold staffers and Macek have tried to present it that way a few times, and made a couple bizarre (and, in a funny twist, obviously and provably false) claims about how the Japanese creators allegedly said they think that RT is better than their own work and that Macross's creators are drawing inspiration for sequels from RT.

A lot of what's turned people against Macek and Harmony Gold is their complete and worryingly consistent failure to understand their audience, but the increasing incidence of obvious and easily debunked lies isn't helping. Quite a bit of the vitriol that consumed the Robotech Academy Kickstarter's comment page was caused by exactly that... annoyed fans who didn't appreciate having their intelligence insulted.

[Alpha 11]

Thanks for clearing that up. I honestly never thought of Robotech as an improvement on the originals. I just thought he did a good job bringing the 3 series together into something that worked, IMO. I've come to like the 3 originals on their own and as they are in Robotech.

Harmony Gold staffers and Macek have tried to present it that way a few times, and made a couple bizarre (and, in a funny twist, obviously and provably false) claims about how the Japanese creators allegedly said they think that RT is better than their own work and that Macross's creators are drawing inspiration for sequels from RT.

A lot of what's turned people against Macek and Harmony Gold is their complete and worryingly consistent failure to understand their audience, but the increasing incidence of obvious and easily debunked lies isn't helping. Quite a bit of the vitriol that consumed the Robotech Academy Kickstarter's comment page was caused by exactly that... annoyed fans who didn't appreciate having their intelligence insulted.

If that's true, then ouch! Talk about shooting themselves in the foot. I could maybe seeing the original creators saying the story they put together for the 3 series wasn't half bad, at most. If they had been more truthful from the beginning, if what you said, and other are true (haven't heard all that has been said about this over the years. ), things would have gone a lot better form them in the long run. And not stretching what they might have heard from someone connect to those 3 shows, again, what I said earlier. Though it sounds as if it was an outright lie. Which it would be sad if it was/is.

[Seto Kaiba]

If that's true, then ouch! Talk about shooting themselves in the foot. [...]

Yep... it was Robotech writer Greg Snegoff who tried to claim that the Japanese studios had thought Robotech was the better version, apparently not aware that Harmony Gold had already asserted that Macross and MOSPEADA staffers had trouble getting their heads around the changes and that a couple key staffers from Studio Nue and Artland had been asked about Robotech in various interviews with English hobby publications and responded with a mixture of concern, confusion, and surprise. (More or less, "What in the... why would anyone DO that?")

The attempts to assert that Macross was even drawing more heavily on Robotech than its own original series were made by Macek in his Robotech.com interview, and veer into the comical when he tries to claim that Macross's creators are following Robotech's lead by de-emphasizing music (at the time of writing, the most recent Macross series was Macross Dynamite 7, which was just about the polar opposite of what he was claiming... fansubs for which were already in circulation).

If they had been more truthful from the beginning, if what you said, and other are true (haven't heard all that has been said about this over the years. ), things would have gone a lot better form them in the long run.

To be entirely fair to them, they were actually quite honest and upfront about everything until around '99, when they started trying to recover the wreck of the good ship Robotech after the double-whammy failure of Sentinels and Untold Story sank it. It was at that point that they started in with the threatening letters to toy importers, the false claims of having the rights to all of Macross, the filing for trademarks on the Macross name and logo to stop other companies from importing media, and all the other nonsense that reduced their reputation from "well-intentioned but behind-the-times" to what it now is...

[Alpha 11]

If that's true, then ouch! Talk about shooting themselves in the foot. [...]

Yep... it was Robotech writer Greg Snegoff who tried to claim that the Japanese studios had thought Robotech was the better version, apparently not aware that Harmony Gold had already asserted that Macross and MOSPEADA staffers had trouble getting their heads around the changes and that a couple key staffers from Studio Nue and Artland had been asked about Robotech in various interviews with English hobby publications and responded with a mixture of concern, confusion, and surprise. (More or less, "What in the... why would anyone DO that?")

The attempts to assert that Macross was even drawing more heavily on Robotech than its own original series were made by Macek in his Robotech.com interview, and veer into the comical when he tries to claim that Macross's creators are following Robotech's lead by de-emphasizing music (at the time of writing, the most recent Macross series was Macross Dynamite 7, which was just about the polar opposite of what he was claiming... fansubs for which were already in circulation).

If they had been more truthful from the beginning, if what you said, and other are true (haven't heard all that has been said about this over the years. ), things would have gone a lot better form them in the long run.

To be entirely fair to them, they were actually quite honest and upfront about everything until around '99, when they started trying to recover the wreck of the good ship Robotech after the double-whammy failure of Sentinels and Untold Story sank it. It was at that point that they started in with the threatening letters to toy importers, the false claims of having the rights to all of Macross, the filing for trademarks on the Macross name and logo to stop other companies from importing media, and all the other nonsense that reduced their reputation from "well-intentioned but behind-the-times" to what it now is...

Wow, this is just, so sad. Well, I'll still and forever look on Robotech fondly. It was the gateway into anime for me, and introduced me Palladium games. I'll just ignore the morons over at HG and pretend they don't exist and have fun with my Robotech. That's the best and only thing I can think of for this mess. The only really good thing HG has going is Palladium. At least they are doing some thing good with it.

[slade the sniper]

OMFG, How did I miss this!!!!

Ya know, if Toby Maguire backed this...I would too!

All I know is that Robotech was my gateway into Roleplaying...and Anime...and no matter what they do with the IP, I still have my dead tree copies and the setting is MINE in my headcanon! I would LOVE to see a Live Action version of this, my most beloved fantasy setting, come to life, but come what may it will always reign supreme in my personal schema of anime/RPG's/settings.

-STS

[Seto Kaiba]

Wow, this is just, so sad.

Reality is seldom kind, I'm afraid... but they did it to themselves, though I'm not sure if that makes it more tragic or less.

I'll just ignore the morons over at HG and pretend they don't exist and have fun with my Robotech. That's the best and only thing I can think of for this mess. The only really good thing HG has going is Palladium. At least they are doing some thing good with it.

Eh... even that might be overly charitable.

Palladium Books is literally the ONLY licensee Harmony Gold has who's producing new merchandise that isn't super-low volume, direct-sale-by-website stuff that only appeals to die-hard fans, but that hasn't stopped an increased focus on canon compliance from stifling the RPG line. Wanting the RPG to closely follow the canon universe is theoretically a good thing, but because Robotech has almost nothing to show for the last 30 years the writers at Palladium ran out of material from the series halfway into the fourth book and have now started resorting to what little Japanese pre-production material Harmony Gold can lay hands on to keep the line going.

[Alpha 11]

OMFG, How did I miss this!!!!

Ya know, if Toby Maguire backed this...I would too!

All I know is that Robotech was my gateway into Roleplaying...and Anime...and no matter what they do with the IP, I still have my dead tree copies and the setting is MINE in my headcanon! I would LOVE to see a Live Action version of this, my most beloved fantasy setting, come to life, but come what may it will always reign supreme in my personal schema of anime/RPG's/settings.

-STS

So with you there, Bro!

Wow, this is just, so sad.

Reality is seldom kind, I'm afraid... but they did it to themselves, though I'm not sure if that makes it more tragic or less.

I'll just ignore the morons over at HG and pretend they don't exist and have fun with my Robotech. That's the best and only thing I can think of for this mess. The only really good thing HG has going is Palladium. At least they are doing some thing good with it.

Eh... even that might be overly charitable.

Palladium Books is literally the ONLY licensee Harmony Gold has who's producing new merchandise that isn't super-low volume, direct-sale-by-website stuff that only appeals to die-hard fans, but that hasn't stopped an increased focus on canon compliance from stifling the RPG line. Wanting the RPG to closely follow the canon universe is theoretically a good thing, but because Robotech has almost nothing to show for the last 30 years the writers at Palladium ran out of material from the series halfway into the fourth book and have now started resorting to what little Japanese pre-production material Harmony Gold can lay hands on to keep the line going.

That is what I'm hearing. After the Marines book or books, I really don't know were they can go with this. If they would just let Kevin go, he could do so much with Robotech. He didn't do half bad with the 1st ed. ( Though I've also heard something about a Zentradie book.)

[mech798]

That long? Sad.

Yep, we learned that little tidbit about their license renewal when they tried (unsuccessfully) to sue Hasbro over that new Transformers Jetfire toy a year or two back. In order to substantiate their claims, they had to disclose their licensing agreements with Tatsunoko, among other things.

Another eight years of failures and false starts, and then Robotech is probably done for good unless a miracle occurs and the actually develop something that takes off.

So question, do the trademarks revert after that? Because even if HG loses the rights, if they maintain the trademarks it is giong to be very hard for anyone else to do anything with the series.

[Protoculture]

Let's just say there's a reason that Harlock fans try to make that one un-happen the way Bandai and Sunrise do with Gundam's mistake, G-Saviour.

Ouchhh .... you need to mention that abomination Live Action Gundam ....

[Protoculture]

All I know is that Robotech was my gateway into Roleplaying...and Anime...and no matter what they do with the IP, I still have my dead tree copies and the setting is MINE in my headcanon! I would LOVE to see a Live Action version of this, my most beloved fantasy setting, come to life, but come what may it will always reign supreme in my personal schema of anime/RPG's/settings.

-STS

I'm a tad pessimistic. At most, RT Live Action movie would turned out to become direct to DVD / Bluray with quality the likes of the abomination known as Gundam Savior.

[Protoculture]

Wow, this is just, so sad.

Wanting the RPG to closely follow the canon universe is theoretically a good thing, but because Robotech has almost nothing to show for the last 30 years the writers at Palladium ran out of material from the series halfway into the fourth book and have now started resorting to what little Japanese pre-production material Harmony Gold can lay hands on to keep the line going.

Atleast revived back the RT RPG: Starships book. After Marines, there's still that tentative Zentraedi book promising stuffs of Malcontent era.

OTOH, am I seeing a virtual repeat of RT IP stagnation whereby RT barely survived by fan websites, Palladium releases of RT: RPG, and odd non-canonical RT crossover comics with that of what befallen RT back in 1990s?

[Protoculture]

To be entirely fair to them, they were actually quite honest and upfront about everything until around '99, when they started trying to recover the wreck of the good ship Robotech after the double-whammy failure of Sentinels and Untold Story sank it.

Talking about RT II: Sentinels, I had the pleasure of re-watching the original Sentinel animation as per 1980s and the remastered version. To my surprise, ALL of the Macross flashback scenes in the original 1980s Sentinels OVA were not present in the Remastered version of RT II: Sentinels ...... Yune actually cut 'em out at the editing floor.

Could this be that HG legal team and TPTB (Yune's team) self consciously removing all SDFM elements from RT past and present sequels, from Sentinels to Prelude to The Shadow Chronicles and RT: Shadow Chronicles?

Even RT: Academy reflected this attitude of strictly hands-off approach on SDFM ....

[Seto Kaiba]

That is what I'm hearing. After the Marines book or books, I really don't know were they can go with this. If they would just let Kevin go, he could do so much with Robotech. He didn't do half bad with the 1st ed. ( Though I've also heard something about a Zentradie book.)

Now that's the million-dollar question facing Palladium and its fans...

The Palladium Books writers ran out of official, canon Robotech material halfway through the writing of the New Generation sourcebook, and they're using what little of value there is in rejected concept art that a fan dredged up from the Imai model company to get through their attempt at a broad-strokes recap of that Sentinels period Harmony Gold is so bafflingly adamant they won't revisit. What's left after they push UEEF Marines out the door? Robotech Academy didn't materialize, so they won't be doing that, and I don't think there's enough "new" designs in RRT to fill a book.

So question, do the trademarks revert after that? Because even if HG loses the rights, if they maintain the trademarks it is giong to be very hard for anyone else to do anything with the series.

One of the less moon logic-driven parts of American trademark law is that you have to actually be using the name, logo, etc. that you've trademarked in order to renew that trademark. So, if Tatsunoko is unwilling to renew Harmony Gold's license in 2022, they would be unable to renew their trademarks and within a couple years those trademarks would all expire.

Let's just say there's a reason that Harlock fans try to make that one un-happen the way Bandai and Sunrise do with Gundam's mistake, G-Saviour.

Ouchhh .... you need to mention that abomination Live Action Gundam ....

lol, it was the only example I could think of that was viewed in a similar light by the original creators and the fans as well. G-Saviour and Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years are in that rare category where the creators pretend they never happened, and the fans usually try to sweep 'em under the rug and pretend those titles never happened.

(Admittedly, for Gundam, I wish they hadn't also binned Gaia Gear, because that was actually quite well done... even if it was a little "out there" and would now contradict Reconguista in G.)

I'm a tad pessimistic. At most, RT Live Action movie would turned out to become direct to DVD / Bluray with quality the likes of the abomination known as Gundam Savior.

That was my view when they first announced they'd licensed the live-action movie rights for Robotech to Maguire Entertainment. There was no legal way they'd be able to make it based on Macross, so the idea that it'd be a big-budget special effects extravaganza was pretty much sunk from the word "go". What I'd suspected was that they'd end up pulling a Starship Troopers 3 on us, and have the mecha appear only for a minute or so at the very end to save money.

Atleast revived back the RT RPG: Starships book. After Marines, there's still that tentative Zentraedi book promising stuffs of Malcontent era.

AFAIK, the Starships book is deader than dead because of issues with the original author. Not sure if they have enough material to actually make something of the so-called "Malcontent era", since the From the Stars comic seems to suggest the UEDF had that mess well in hand by 2015.

OTOH, am I seeing a virtual repeat of RT IP stagnation whereby RT barely survived by fan websites, Palladium releases of RT: RPG, and odd non-canonical RT crossover comics with that of what befallen RT back in 1990s?

That would be my interpretation of it, yes.

In the past, I've drawn numerous parallels between the old, aborted projects and the most recent ones. The Robotech II: the Sentinels "movie" and Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles "movie" were both "first episodes" of their respective series (RTSC being an OVA) that were canceled in mid-production. Robotech 3000 and Robotech Academy were both CG-heavy Macek-original stories (only allegedly for RTA) in situations that were completely isolated from the main Robotech story and were very public disastrous failures after being rejected by the fans for various reasons that prominently included "not connected to the original story".

There is, however, a lot less material being released now that Harmony Gold is exercising strict control over its licensees and what they produce than there was back in the 90's, when they were letting the tiny comics companies and Palladium Books just do whatever.

Talking about RT II: Sentinels, I had the pleasure of re-watching the original Sentinel animation as per 1980s and the remastered version. To my surprise, ALL of the Macross flashback scenes in the original 1980s Sentinels OVA were not present in the Remastered version of RT II: Sentinels ...... Yune actually cut 'em out at the editing floor.

Could this be that HG legal team and TPTB (Yune's team) self consciously removing all SDFM elements from RT past and present sequels, from Sentinels to Prelude to The Shadow Chronicles and RT: Shadow Chronicles?

Even RT: Academy reflected this attitude of strictly hands-off approach on SDFM ....

Now that, we cannot provide a clear-cut answer for... so I'd like to make it clear that the following is purely my theoretical assessment of the situation:

The decision to remove the Macross footage from the re-release of Robotech II: the Sentinels is baffling to say the least. There has been no change in their limited rights to the series, so they should still have no legal obstacles to using the existing Macross original series footage in an edited form as they did in the original version of the Sentinels "movie".

What I think is going on is that Harmony Gold is making a conscious, considered effort to sweep the "Macross connection" under the proverbial rug. They obviously can't do away with the Macross Saga in the series because that's their biggest money spinner, but they likely want to draw the audience's attention away from the Macross designs as much as possible because they can't use those designs in any new animated or live-action material. They want Robotech to be Macross-like without actually using anything that might provoke the ire of Macross's owners... to separate the Macross Saga's cast from as much direct association with their Macross equivalents as possible. So, instead, they try to make the designs of other parts of Robotech they have more control over like Macross designs but without actually being obvious (and legally problematic) Macross design derivatives.

That's why we got things like VF-1-style Super Packs for the Alpha fighter in RTSC, the Macross-esque designs and Macross-ized Southern Cross uniforms in Robotech Academy, etc. They want something that the fans will subconsciously connect to Macross without the legal problems that would come from actually directly referencing Macross.

[Alpha 11]

All I know is that Robotech was my gateway into Roleplaying...and Anime...and no matter what they do with the IP, I still have my dead tree copies and the setting is MINE in my headcanon! I would LOVE to see a Live Action version of this, my most beloved fantasy setting, come to life, but come what may it will always reign supreme in my personal schema of anime/RPG's/settings.

-STS

I'm a tad pessimistic. At most, RT Live Action movie would turned out to become direct to DVD / Bluray with quality the likes of the abomination known as Gundam Savior.

I... actually like it.

[mech798]

What I think is going on is that Harmony Gold is making a conscious, considered effort to sweep the "Macross connection" under the proverbial rug. They obviously can't do away with the Macross Saga in the series because that's their biggest money spinner, but they likely want to draw the audience's attention away from the Macross designs as much as possible because they can't use those designs in any new animated or live-action material. They want Robotech to be Macross-like without actually using anything that might provoke the ire of Macross's owners... to separate the Macross Saga's cast from as much direct association with their Macross equivalents as possible. So, instead, they try to make the designs of other parts of Robotech they have more control over like Macross designs but without actually being obvious (and legally problematic) Macross design derivatives.

That's why we got things like VF-1-style Super Packs for the Alpha fighter in RTSC, the Macross-esque designs and Macross-ized Southern Cross uniforms in Robotech Academy, etc. They want something that the fans will subconsciously connect to Macross without the legal problems that would come from actually directly referencing Macross.

Unfortunately, they're going about it very poorly-- one of the things that sold macross, both as film and as RPG was that it was a broad setting-- you had the rebuilding earth, going into space, zentraedi, etc. You also had a very interesting and multi-faceted antagonist group that you could (and did) do a lot with. Neither SC nor next generation had that-- the opponents were for the most part forgettable and the settings were very bland-- you could...fight the masters. or fight the invid. And of coures they never had anyone like Khyron-- nor could they which means that it's difficult to hang a story on the idea of a nemesis.

That's especially true given what changes we saw to the canon-- the effective end of the zentradi mean that there's no possibility of running into a splinter fleet or dealing with a group of malcontents on earth, and the changes to the setting mean there is no other faction on earth-- it's all supervised by the Imperium of hum-er, the UEF, though they both have the same PURGE THE XENOS attitude.


So in terms of an RPG, HG has pretty systematically removed anything from the setting that you could use. I dunno how much Palladium pays for the rights, but at this point, unless it's a very good contract, I'd have to seriously wonder if its cost effective anymore. After all, I'm certain rifts sells at least as well and Kevin doesn't have to worry about a rights holder for that.

[ShadowLogan]

What's left after they push UEEF Marines out the door? Robotech Academy didn't materialize, so they won't be doing that, and I don't think there's enough "new" designs in RRT to fill a book.

I agree there is not enough new stuff in RRT at this time to justify a new book on its own. However, they might be able to do a single book on the subject matter if/when they complete the other arcs (TRM and NG) in RRT IF those include new variant designs and such. There is hardware from the show that has yet to be touched (Carpenter Fighter, Wolfe Flashback Fighter, Point K wreakage that may indicate new designs, Wolfe's jeep, Shadow Drone, etc) and may or may not be part of Marines so could be combined w/RRT (or a result of their inclusion in RRT) material for a new book. The only problem with this approach is the more hapazard nature it might come across as covering various arcs.

lol, it was the only example I could think of that was viewed in a similar light by the original creators and the fans as well. G-Saviour and Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years are in that rare category where the creators pretend they never happened, and the fans usually try to sweep 'em under the rug and pretend those titles never happened.

Star Wars Christmas Special.

Robotech: The Untold Story might be another.

Though even stuff most people would rather forget and pretend don't exist have their fans.

That's especially true given what changes we saw to the canon-- the effective end of the zentradi mean that there's no possibility of running into a splinter fleet or dealing with a group of malcontents on earth, and the changes to the setting mean there is no other faction on earth-- it's all supervised by the Imperium of hum-er, the UEF, though they both have the same PURGE THE XENOS attitude.

Actually there is the possibility of dealing with a mutant strain(s) of Zentreadi (micronized IIRC) out in/coming from space as indicated in TRM saga. And those mutant Zentreadi don't need to use established designs either give the ASC thought the Masters might be examples of one such group. And Gloval mentions the Zentreadi evolved due to a civil war, so there could be other evolutions of Zent. relatives out there.

While there is no foreign govt for the UEDF to engage in between 2000-2029, I doubt "outlaws" (terrorists, cartels, organized crime, religious extremists, "freedom fighters", etc) have dried up.

So in terms of an RPG, HG has pretty systematically removed anything from the setting that you could use. I dunno how much Palladium pays for the rights, but at this point, unless it's a very good contract, I'd have to seriously wonder if its cost effective anymore. After all, I'm certain rifts sells at least as well and Kevin doesn't have to worry about a rights holder for that.

Not really. The world in 2E is pretty similar to 1E in this respect. While 1Es assembly of named independent countries (EBSIS, Merchant Republic, York, Quebec) are gone, 2E does leave hints that something like them are still around.

What is required more so than in 1E is the ability to flesh out those sites post book printing. The series itself offers several options for GMs and maybe even PB to flesh out:
space pirates, not likely a single group, so plenty of options on how to do individual groups
"mutant zentreadi", based on a few dialogue references its possible there could be multiple variations here
Diciples of Zor
Children of Zor (notes from RTA/RT2)
"Robotech Forces" (Gloval says something to the effect "even now they are traveling away", while this could be about Khyron, it might not be since we as viewers know that wasn't the case IF we assume Gloval was speaking factually and not speculation in Ep36 to Lisa)
the Pigeon Menace (Sentinels OVA, might be hyperbole, but might be fun), again options exist here
general mutation of animals in the environment from the radiation (and/or protoculture)
invasive species introduced by the crashed Zentreadi (and later Masters) ships or returning human ships

Now i doubt HG wil let Palladium play with the DoZ/CoZ (and they will assume Gloval/Leonard are speaking speculatively from the above list), but the other options are certainly possible since they aren't necessarily representative of any one group.

[jaymz]

I think this was one area Palladium managed to out do HG. They fleshed out between arcs and post Series better.

Robotech Untold Story.....while not very good wasn't SO bad as to be swept under the rug...I mean GARLANDS COME ON!

Also 2e does insinuate there are Zentraedi still out there to be encountered. Genesis Pits gives us this insinuation.

As for anything else....meh. I can and have rewritten all the mecha stats to my tastes (in my opinion more accurately). IF they were to do the Ship books afterall that would be the end of it unless given the green light to do a colonies book or sumsuch.

Between 1e and 2e and my stuff....I honestly don't NEED anymore. It would be nice but is really unnecessary by and large.

[Seto Kaiba]

Unfortunately, they're going about it very poorly-- one of the things that sold macross, both as film and as RPG was that it was a broad setting-- you had the rebuilding earth, going into space, zentraedi, etc. You also had a very interesting and multi-faceted antagonist group that you could (and did) do a lot with.

's one of the reasons I've maintained that Palladium Books would be better served if all concerned would drop Robotech and focus on Macross. The Macross setting is HUGE and it's only gotten bigger with time. Robotech is a setting that is geographically vast, but is very small in narrative terms, with only three planets and a double handful of characters who actually matter, and antagonists who are increasingly one-note.

Neither SC nor next generation had that-- the opponents were for the most part forgettable and the settings were very bland-- you could...fight the masters. or fight the invid. And of coures they never had anyone like Khyron-- nor could they which means that it's difficult to hang a story on the idea of a nemesis.

To be entirely fair, that's mostly the source material's fault... both Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA were trying VERY hard to cash in on the success of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, with a conspicuous lack of success. Southern Cross ended up on the network's chopping block before its creators ever got to the "big reveal" that the Zor were actually the temporally-displaced original human settlers who'd been lost en route to Glorie, and the humanioid Inbit in MOSPEADA were kind of a too-little too-late effort to salvage the Inbit when they realized they'd written themselves a boring adversary who was both completely inscrutable (and therefore hard to like or dislike) and supremely apathetic when they weren't being actively shot at (which made it hard to consider them the antagonists at all, for want of any coherent intent beyond "leave me alone"). Robotech tried (and failed) to make them more interesting antagonists by ascribing some offscreen malice to 'em.

That's especially true given what changes we saw to the canon-- the effective end of the zentradi mean that there's no possibility of running into a splinter fleet or dealing with a group of malcontents on earth, and the changes to the setting mean there is no other faction on earth-- it's all supervised by the Imperium of hum-er, the UEF, though they both have the same PURGE THE XENOS attitude.

To be fair, those things were like that in the show and weren't "changes".

It was Scott Bernard who implicitly confirmed that the Zentradi were extinct in the New Generation, before Sentinels came along and established they'd taken the last few Zentradi back into space with the UEEF (to get killed there). By 2029 there's no evidence of malcontents or anything on Earth, and it was Palladium who tried to add the then-obligatory (and terribly cliched) evil Soviet separatist state to a post-war Earth established to have been built up by only 70,000 people. They're just running with the ball Macek threw 'em... and they can't change anything, because the fans scream "Sacrilege!" every time they try.

So in terms of an RPG, HG has pretty systematically removed anything from the setting that you could use. I dunno how much Palladium pays for the rights, but at this point, unless it's a very good contract, I'd have to seriously wonder if its cost effective anymore. After all, I'm certain rifts sells at least as well and Kevin doesn't have to worry about a rights holder for that.

Well, yes... but not for the reasons outlined above. It's more because they're insisting that Palladium adhere somewhat stringently to the Robotech setting's official canon, which means Palladium can't just make things up as they go for the sake of making a compelling RPG experience the way they were able to in the old RPG. They can't invent new factions, or throw in new mecha that don't exist in the production materials, or generally invent their own stuff.

I agree there is not enough new stuff in RRT at this time to justify a new book on its own. However, they might be able to do a single book on the subject matter if/when they complete the other arcs (TRM and NG) in RRT IF those include new variant designs and such. There is hardware from the show that has yet to be touched (Carpenter Fighter, Wolfe Flashback Fighter, Point K wreakage that may indicate new designs, Wolfe's jeep, Shadow Drone, etc) and may or may not be part of Marines so could be combined w/RRT (or a result of their inclusion in RRT) material for a new book. The only problem with this approach is the more hapazard nature it might come across as covering various arcs.

Most of the stuff you've listed really isn't the kind of material that's going to sell books, though... that's just obsessive check box-ticking of background designs so minor they don't have names, let alone production line art. There are no new designs in the "Point K" wreckage, so that's a dry well, and the Shadow drone is just a Shadow fighter with one weapons substitution. Between all of those you'd be lucky to get three pages, not a book. Apart from ships, there's nothing of value that's been left untouched after halfway through the fourth book.

Star Wars Christmas Special.

Robotech: The Untold Story might be another.

Though even stuff most people would rather forget and pretend don't exist have their fans.

Er... not being a Star Wars fan, I'm not sure how that one's actually regarded. Untold Story definitely doesn't fit, because even though Carl Macek flatly disowned that mess, the last DVD re-release established that Harmony Gold was desperate enough for filler to suddenly acknowledge its existence and pretend it had value (even though the parts of it people cared about are beyond their ability to use).

While there is no foreign govt for the UEDF to engage in between 2000-2029, I doubt "outlaws" (terrorists, cartels, organized crime, religious extremists, "freedom fighters", etc) have dried up.

Considering weaponry is a single-source thing from 2012-2030, that kind of thing is probably every bit as nonexistent as the show and other setting material indicates.

Robotech Untold Story.....while not very good wasn't SO bad as to be swept under the rug...I mean GARLANDS COME ON!

That one was swept under the rug because it was a crash-and-burn failure in America and Carl Macek disowned it in disgust... and they can't use any of the Megazone 23 IP anymore, so its value is 0 even if they're treating the edited Southern Cross footage in it as a DVD extra.

[ShadowLogan]

Most of the stuff you've listed really isn't the kind of material that's going to sell books, though... that's just obsessive check box-ticking of background designs so minor they don't have names, let alone production line art. There are no new designs in the "Point K" wreckage, so that's a dry well, and the Shadow drone is just a Shadow fighter with one weapons substitution. Between all of those you'd be lucky to get three pages, not a book. Apart from ships, there's nothing of value that's been left untouched after halfway through the fourth book.

I agree individually it isn't going to sell books, your going to need a theme to do that. The result would be more than 3 pages unless one is really pessimistic about what to include that got missed, I'm also thinking they would do this after RRT covers the 3 main arcs not just TMS, so the "new" stuff from RRT could be more extensive depending on what they do with those two arcs specifically. They might have to shoot for one of the smaller supplement sizes Palladium has done in the past, though not recently AFAIK (1E RT had plenty of them, even their M2 line used them for deckplans).

I have to disagree about the Point K wreckage. There is at least one Alpha variant present (it has a spherical "big brain" going, though that might be the result of damage really depends on how TPTB want to play it), and there is a fighter among the wreckage shots (Robotech Research designates it "REF Aircraft Type 2", and in one shot it has the BB-Alpha mentioned previously, I will admit based on the angles it could simply be Wolfe's Fighter but there is enough to make them distinct to). It's not a lot, but at least it's something.

That the Shadow Drone has a weapon substitution is noted, but we lack AI stats for the unit, and detail about the weapon substitution (by the 2E RPG integration, I know enough is up on RT.com to fake it).

Er... not being a Star Wars fan, I'm not sure how that one's actually regarded. Untold Story definitely doesn't fit, because even though Carl Macek flatly disowned that mess, the last DVD re-release established that Harmony Gold was desperate enough for filler to suddenly acknowledge its existence and pretend it had value (even though the parts of it people cared about are beyond their ability to use).

It made the #1 slot for "100 Dumbest Events in TV history", GL himself is said to want to destroy every copy w/a sledge hammer, both per wikipedia article (it's called the Holiday Special). The "high" point of the show is when they introduce Bobba Fett in an animated short (not a character I really care for).

That HG changed their mind to make a buck shouldn't surprise either of us, however I was thinking of when it was finished, not more recently.

Considering weaponry is a single-source thing from 2012-2030, that kind of thing is probably every bit as nonexistent as the show and other setting material indicates.

I highly doubt that. While the UEDF certainly could have a monopoly on the heavy weapons (mecha, energy weapons, fighters), they likely can't stamp out criminal activity like I mentioned. First there are the improvised weapons and explosives that people can create, might not be very threatening to the military, but to the civilian populace would still get the job done. Then you have to consider if there are any black market sales of low end equipment. There could also be weapon caches of pre-Rain UEDF (or even pre-SDF-1 crash) that could be raided.

That one was swept under the rug because it was a crash-and-burn failure in America and Carl Macek disowned it in disgust... and they can't use any of the Megazone 23 IP anymore, so its value is 0 even if they're treating the edited Southern Cross footage in it as a DVD extra.

Isn't part of the footage for RT:TUS actually made for RT though? I know it would use MZ23's designs so could be in a quasi-legal situation depending on how the rights for that particular footage are actually done.

[Seto Kaiba]

I agree individually it isn't going to sell books, your going to need a theme to do that.

Most importantly of all, you need content that people actually care about... and more entirely mundane vehicles and background filler that gets even less screen time than the non-transformable Southern Cross Army hardware is not going to sell a book. The vast majority won't even know what designs you're referring to, they're that obscure and out-of-focus.

I'm also thinking they would do this after RRT covers the 3 main arcs not just TMS, so the "new" stuff from RRT could be more extensive depending on what they do with those two arcs specifically.

Considering how much of RRT's future is up in the air, that's not really a good time to schedule anything... assuming RRT lasts past this initial release.

I have to disagree about the Point K wreckage.

You're certainly welcome to disagree... but if we're talking about objective reality, there are no new designs to be found among the "Point K" wreckage. There's no reason or justification to try to turn every piece of slightly off-model or out-of-perspective animation into another variant... something Harmony Gold seems to understand and agree with.

(I'll check my MOSPEADA books on that other fighter, but I'm 99.9% sure it's the same one from Bernard's flashback to the exploits of his childhood hero.)

I highly doubt that. While the UEDF certainly could have a monopoly on the heavy weapons (mecha, energy weapons, fighters), they likely can't stamp out criminal activity like I mentioned.

... and yet, it's completely absent in canon. Funny, that. Probably has something to do with the UEG being a world government ruling a planet where there aren't enough people to threaten anything and the government appears to have a monopoly on vital supplies and all means of production for weaponry and other military-grade hardware. We don't see civilians in possession of anything that could be mistaken for a weapon until 2042, after the Earth has been occupied by the Invid for more than a decade... and the weapons that we see then are comically low-tech compared to military hardware for the most part. (A six-shooter's not much threat when the military police all wear head-to-toe body armor and carry laser rifles.)

Isn't part of the footage for RT:TUS actually made for RT though? I know it would use MZ23's designs so could be in a quasi-legal situation depending on how the rights for that particular footage are actually done.

Yeah, they changed the ending... but AFAIK they still can't use it because the IP in it is all Megazone 23, which Harmony Gold doesn't have any rights to anymore.

[glitterboy2098]

too bad.. the Garlands are cool (though my favorite is the hover one from megazone 23 pt2, which was never involved. *shrugs* the Garland-Modat is cool enough), and they could have made it work if they'd been willing to be creative and spend funds to do it right.

mainly, they should have avoided the robotech master's angle (anti-UEG rebels taking over the government would have worked better given the MZ23 story anyway) and just had all new animation made for inserting instead of trying to use the show animation at the different sizes and quality.

oh well..

(i still really want to add my own "how it should have been" version to my site for the RPG.. i'm just not sure whether i should given the legal issues around what is basically now a conversion.)

[Seto Kaiba]

mainly, they should have avoided the robotech master's angle (anti-UEG rebels taking over the government would have worked better given the MZ23 story anyway) and just had all new animation made for inserting instead of trying to use the show animation at the different sizes and quality.

The original story concept for Robotech: the Untold Story was to be a side story to the Macross Saga... where the main character was struggling to expose the government's coverup of the SDF-1's disappearance. The plan was vetoed by Tatsunoko, who didn't want Harmony Gold making a movie based on the Macross story and IP because they themselves were riding high on the profits the first Macross movie was raking in and production for FB2012.

[mech798]

The problem is that they should have upped the number of survivors and introduced what was supposedly the purpose of the Archangels-- a substantial colony operation. It makes a great deal of sense-- after all, Earth has a gigantic target painted on it and supposedly the leadersihp were not idiots (which must be held in some doubt given their actions). In that light, moving to other worlds made a great deal of sense and also allows for a wide range of adventures.

My feeling is that the biggest error is quite simply-- HG is wedded to really bad 1980s style story telling where you must always have cobra commander-er the Hadonites. It focuses any conceivable story on one thing, and causes all other stories to fade to meaninglessness. That's why the period between Dolza's death and the attack of the masters stays so interesting to many people--it's one of the few periods in robotech where you can have a wide range of stories that are not all dominated by a single theme.

[ShadowLogan]

Most importantly of all, you need content that people actually care about... and more entirely mundane vehicles and background filler that gets even less screen time than the non-transformable Southern Cross Army hardware is not going to sell a book. The vast majority won't even know what designs you're referring to, they're that obscure and out-of-focus.

I'm not so sure about the majority not knowing. They are just as obscure (generally) as the Conbat and Condor in the footage in the 85ep. Its only due to their role in "Invasion" comic series that we have anything for them in the main book.

However, presentation of the designs can be just as important in generating interest. Advertising the BB-Alpha at Pt-K and Shadow Drone as ("new"?) Veritech Alpha Fighter models would certainly generate more interest than just a simple "missed mecha" as a selling point.

... and yet, it's completely absent in canon. Funny, that. Probably has something to do with the UEG being a world government ruling a planet where there aren't enough people to threaten anything and the government appears to have a monopoly on vital supplies and all means of production for weaponry and other military-grade hardware. We don't see civilians in possession of anything that could be mistaken for a weapon until 2042, after the Earth has been occupied by the Invid for more than a decade... and the weapons that we see then are comically low-tech compared to military hardware for the most part. (A six-shooter's not much threat when the military police all wear head-to-toe body armor and carry laser rifles.)

I agree civilian criminals aren't going to have the best hardware compared to the military/govt, but it depends on who they are going to target with what weapons they do have access to. And the weakest link they could target is going to be other civilians for the most part. Which makes a certain amount of sense, as most criminal activity doesn't look to take on the govt/military directly. Terrorists and "freedom fighters" are of course a separate matter, but even then they are likely to engage the UEG/UEDF asymmetrically.

It seems highly doubtful that all criminal activity could remain suppressed for so long by the UEDF/UEG before the Invid over-run the planet. Alcohol and tobacco use survived the RoD, so why wouldn't other (what we would consider) illegal drugs? Why would murder, domestic violence, rape, robbery/theft, etc all suddenly dry up? That the show doesn't bring them up doesn't mean its been stamped out, just that said activities aren't important to the story of dealing with an alien invasion.

[Seto Kaiba]

The problem is that they should have upped the number of survivors and introduced what was supposedly the purpose of the Archangels-- a substantial colony operation.

That would've grown the setting, sure... but they're understandably a little gun-shy about changing things in the Robotech series when the fans start shrieking themselves hoarse about retcons every time they do anything to further the story or explain away plot holes or increase consistency in the story.

Of course, they'd probably also get accused of trying to copy Macross if they actually HAD shown their colony ships being used... it makes you wonder why they even bothered, until you realize exactly what they were originally going to do with Shadow Chronicles and backed away from.

It makes a great deal of sense-- after all, Earth has a gigantic target painted on it and supposedly the leadersihp were not idiots (which must be held in some doubt given their actions). In that light, moving to other worlds made a great deal of sense and also allows for a wide range of adventures.

Perhaps... but the leadership was sort of forced to hold an idiot ball by the sheer necessity of the latter two sagas. The story wouldn't have happened at all if Earth had been mostly abandoned due to the large-scale colonization of exoplanets. Of course, one could also argue that a similar model was what they tried in the multiply-aborted Sentinels story concept, with results that were mixed at best and tended toward the campy.

That's why the period between Dolza's death and the attack of the masters stays so interesting to many people--it's one of the few periods in robotech where you can have a wide range of stories that are not all dominated by a single theme.

I think there's probably a simpler reason than that... it's a period that's not covered that belongs to the all-important Macross Saga cast and setting, before both were ousted by the much less beloved Masters Saga cast and setting. Like the Sentinels art, it's got appeal because it's the "lost" adventures of the main characters people love.

I'm not so sure about the majority not knowing. They are just as obscure (generally) as the Conbat and Condor in the footage in the 85ep. Its only due to their role in "Invasion" comic series that we have anything for them in the main book.

Er... isn't that a false example though? The Conbat wasn't obscure because it's tied into the backstory of a main character in the New Generation. It was Lancer's fighter, and has subsequently been depicted in more detail in other titles like LLA, so its inclusion makes sense. Likewise, the Condor is a relatively high-profile minor design that shows up prominently onscreen in backstory shots and has a lot of (mistaken) fan-hype surrounding it because of misinformed people thinking it was a VF.

However, presentation of the designs can be just as important in generating interest. Advertising the BB-Alpha at Pt-K and Shadow Drone as ("new"?) Veritech Alpha Fighter models would certainly generate more interest than just a simple "missed mecha" as a selling point.

Except everyone with a brain is going to know that they're not new... and that the "Point K" Alpha isn't even one of the legitimate designs. It won't pass the BS "sniff test".

I agree civilian criminals aren't going to have the best hardware compared to the military/govt, but it depends on who they are going to target with what weapons they do have access to. And the weakest link they could target is going to be other civilians for the most part.

If there's only a few tens of thousands of people on the entire planet the way the narrator and the top man in the government both tell everyone, then there's not really a lot of place for criminals to hide or any organized resistance to the government that can blend in with the populace. This is, after all, basically a police state in the military's thrall, where the government controls the means of production... you could say the UEG was a lighter and softer version of North Korea after the defeat of Dolza's fleet.

There's no evidence of any kind of organized crime, or crime at all... it's such a tiny society (and a military-run police state to boot) that there isn't likely to be room to hide a criminal empire or terrorist organization, and quite a lot of societal disincentive for both when vital supplies come from the government only and the population has a well-defined external threat to confront.

It seems highly doubtful that all criminal activity could remain suppressed for so long by the UEDF/UEG before the Invid over-run the planet. Alcohol and tobacco use survived the RoD, so why wouldn't other (what we would consider) illegal drugs? Why would murder, domestic violence, rape, robbery/theft, etc all suddenly dry up?

Considering the planet's surface is mostly desert and is said to have been totally annihilated, it's unlikely the means to create most, if not all, controlled substances still exists... never mind that society was so small and so dominated by the military that there wouldn't be much place to hide it. That's why the current canon has insurrectionist behavior dying out with Khyron's band, for instance.


EDIT: I realized I'd attached the wrong name to the last three quote blocks. Fixed now tho.

[Protoculture]

Robotech Untold Story.....while not very good wasn't SO bad as to be swept under the rug...I mean GARLANDS COME ON!

That one was swept under the rug because it was a crash-and-burn failure in America and Carl Macek disowned it in disgust... and they can't use any of the Megazone 23 IP anymore, so its value is 0 even if they're treating the edited Southern Cross footage in it as a DVD extra.

Not that I'm putting ideas into TPTB at HG ..... chances are, RT Untold Story might has a chance IF HG saw it fits to acquire the IP of Megazone 23 Part 1.

Well, there's a high probability that even the new RT animated movie could very well be the Megazone 23 Part 1 sans the Southern Cross footages.

[ShadowLogan]

Er... isn't that a false example though? The Conbat wasn't obscure because it's tied into the backstory of a main character in the New Generation. It was Lancer's fighter, and has subsequently been depicted in more detail in other titles like LLA, so its inclusion makes sense. Likewise, the Condor is a relatively high-profile minor design that shows up prominently onscreen in backstory shots and has a lot of (mistaken) fan-hype surrounding it because of misinformed people thinking it was a VF.

No. Even though the Conbat is attached to Lancer's backstory as his introductory mecha, its screen time in the original 85ep is just as limited as most of the other mecha/designs we could bring up or point from the show . And those are about all we have left, the blink and you might miss it stuff once you remove the ships. That later works may go back and put more emphasis on these is noted and such, but I'm just looking specifically at the 85ep in terms of obscure.

Except everyone with a brain is going to know that they're not new... and that the "Point K" Alpha isn't even one of the legitimate designs. It won't pass the BS "sniff test".

It depends on how one wants to interpret "new" and there are a few ways to do so and not set off the "sniff test" with the right question concerning what new is supposed to relate to: Is it a completely unseen design, is it something that hasn't been in the RPG before (either edition), is it new to this edition, etc. All of these are valid ways to look at if something is "new" for the product.

That HG might not find information on the PT.K Alpha doesn't mean they can't run with it as such if they are desperate for new material. Though technically I suppose they could allow PB to work with the awful RTA designs and basic setting, even though nothing will come about from the project at least they will get some return on investment.

If there's only a few tens of thousands of people on the entire planet the way the narrator and the top man in the government both tell everyone, then there's not really a lot of place for criminals to hide or any organized resistance to the government that can blend in with the populace. This is, after all, basically a police state in the military's thrall, where the government controls the means of production... you could say the UEG was a lighter and softer version of North Korea after the defeat of Dolza's fleet. /

There's no evidence of any kind of organized crime, or crime at all... it's such a tiny society (and a military-run police state to boot) that there isn't likely to be room to hide a criminal empire or terrorist organization, and quite a lot of societal disincentive for both when vital supplies come from the government only and the population has a well-defined external threat to confront.

No there are not a few tens of thousands of people on the planet. Leonard failed to consider the Zentreadi survivors who integrated into society and/or who where on the planet's surface assisting w/the rebuilding for some period of time (not to mention the population of millions achieved by the time of TSC requires either more people survived or Homo Sapien Sapien went through the BIGGEST population growth spurt in history somehow). The people are also scattered about in both post-FOA TMS and TRM sagas, so there are going to be places to hide.

That we can't point to any kind of concrete evidence of crime (organized or not) doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We only see the world in snap shots essentially, and with a particular set of focus(es) that does not include crime.

Considering the planet's surface is mostly desert and is said to have been totally annihilated, it's unlikely the means to create most, if not all, controlled substances still exists... never mind that society was so small and so dominated by the military that there wouldn't be much place to hide it. That's why the current canon has insurrectionist behavior dying out with Khyron's band, for instance.

If they can produce medicine and alcohol and tobacco (two of which are shown in post FOA TMS and even in TRM) they can produce drugs (do recall that a black market exists for some medication). You will recall that some regions of Earth where already regenerating on their own as early as 2013 by dialogue, which means the plants for drug production could have survived.

[Seto Kaiba]

Not that I'm putting ideas into TPTB at HG ..... chances are, RT Untold Story might has a chance IF HG saw it fits to acquire the IP of Megazone 23 Part 1.

Well, there's a high probability that even the new RT animated movie could very well be the Megazone 23 Part 1 sans the Southern Cross footages.

That's profoundly unlikely, even in the best-case scenario for Harmony Gold. The Megazone 23 license is held by one (or more) of AD Vision's successor companies, with whom Harmony Gold has long since had a parting of ways. There won't be any Robotech adaptation of Megazone 23. They can't afford the license. Hell, by their own admission they couldn't convince their own management to give them the relatively paltry budget they needed to do a better job with the sequel to Shadow Chronicles, and their reluctance seems to have only increased if the existence of the Robotech Academy Kickstarter is any kind of indication...

All they're doing, as far as they've told anyone, is re-releasing Robotech on DVD again (this time with massive steps BACKWARDS in quality, because somehow that's a desirable thing?!), finishing off that comic book crossover with Voltron (the one that started with a readership of less than 7,000 and has lost, on average, about 1,000 readers an issue), and supposedly lifting the "on indefinite pre-production hiatus" status from Shadow Rising because they've given up waiting to cross-promote it with the live action movie WB doesn't seem at all interested in making.

No. Even though the Conbat is attached to Lancer's backstory as his introductory mecha, its screen time in the original 85ep is just as limited as most of the other mecha/designs we could bring up or point from the show.

It's still directly associated to a main character in two separate animated features for Robotech, so it's minor, but "high profile" minor.

And those are about all we have left, the blink and you might miss it stuff once you remove the ships.

Therein lies the catch... there's no real incentive to do the "blank-and-you'll-miss-it" stuff, because none of it has any relevance to the plot and there's usually no art or stats for any of it... even in the OSM.

Is it a completely unseen design, is it something that hasn't been in the RPG before (either edition), is it new to this edition, etc. All of these are valid ways to look at if something is "new" for the product.

It's not a design at all, it's an animation error... and Harmony Gold continues to avoid canonizing those without VERY good reason.

Though technically I suppose they could allow PB to work with the awful RTA designs and basic setting, even though nothing will come about from the project at least they will get some return on investment.

I think your choice of adjective draws a line under why that's probably not gonna happen... those designs weren't well-received, and the "new VF" that was going to debut but never did was something developed BEFORE Harmony Gold got re-involved with Creavision, so they might not even own the rights to that...

No there are not a few tens of thousands of people on the planet. Leonard failed to consider the Zentreadi survivors who integrated into society and/or who where on the planet's surface assisting w/the rebuilding for some period of time [...]

The ones we're told are extinct, you mean? (Also, the ones who left Earth with the expedition in 2022, never to return?)

[ShadowLogan]

It's still directly associated to a main character in two separate animated features for Robotech, so it's minor, but "high profile" minor.

At this point I think the issue basically is what one uses to define a given unit as a "minor" and "obscure" in the 85ep. We apparently don't have the same definition. I do agree the Condor/Conbat have grown in profile because of being added to post 85ep projects (like the new comics, LLA, etc), but originally are what I consider obscure. That doesn't mean they have to remain obscure as certain case examples (VF-X-4, Condor, Conbat) show.

Therein lies the catch... there's no real incentive to do the "blank-and-you'll-miss-it" stuff, because none of it has any relevance to the plot and there's usually no art or stats for any of it... even in the OSM.

I'm not so sure about that. Certainly a book dedicated to the stuff will be harder to sell if that is the focus, but stuff like this can be included. And some of them do have relevance to the plot or can help fill out the equipment tables. We know the UEEF didn't rely on VFA-6/VFB-9s until the 2040s, and the Condor/Conbat weren't the only mecha the UEEF used in the 2020-30s from the show.

I think your choice of adjective draws a line under why that's probably not gonna happen... those designs weren't well-received, and the "new VF" that was going to debut but never did was something developed BEFORE Harmony Gold got re-involved with Creavision, so they might not even own the rights to that...

I agree it (and possible AEs) likely would not happen unless HG gets really desperate for new material (they aren't?). All I'm saying is that they have an option to recoup some of the investment they did make in the project. Rights issue is valid, but I would imagine that even Creavision would like to recoup some of their investment IF they could, so may go along with it if they have any rights involved and are compensated. How well an RPG supplement would do based on RTA I don't know, we can certainly speculate, but I would think it really depends on how HG/PB approach doing said book (could do it as an adventure module, could do it as a book primarily focused on the Sentinel worlds, etc) and marketing it.

Personally at this point, I'm think HG might be better served in the "hard story" department with more comics rather than animation when it comes to RT. That would allow them to provide new material to the RPG and RRT much faster than if they tried the animation route.

The ones we're told are extinct, you mean? (Also, the ones who left Earth with the expedition in 2022, never to return?)

No. Or to put it clearly when do they go Extinct From Scott's Perspective? A case could be made that Leonard's statement is highly subjective to a specific POV in 2029.