by the fans for the fans

Bought the set because it included 'Sentinels'. No idea wether it's uncut or not.

The set includes a section with fragments that were left out of Robotech. Most of which was not that impressive, just half of minutes dialogue. Or Roy Fokker appearing when Rick and Minmei were hauled up out of the SDF-basement end of episode 4.

Two fragments were intriquing: Minmei taking a shower (episode 4) and Roy and Claudia getting personal (episode 15). Strangely enough, then all of a sudden the screen gets dark and the words 'scene left out because of content' appear.

So my guess is that Minmei actually has been drawn in full Eve's costume and I assume similar material exists for Ariel (after all, she has been given quite a few scenes in which she wasn't supposed to have clothes). But I don't understand what was the point of excluding those fragments from the 'uncut' section and simultaneously leaving similar scenes in the 'Masters'-episodes.

then theirs the sequel with yellow dancer and Ariel

The Southern Cross of Robotech could greatly benefit from a complete rewrite. This is mostly due to shortcomings in the original source material itself, which missed the mark of so much opportunity. Let's start with the intro:



This paints a scenario with Dana Sterling, Marie Crystal, and Nova Satori as a triumvirate of their own, of sorts. Dana isn't even the first character shown! And they are shown together in several scenes, in various situations. Let's explore this in some detail.

Dana herself has plenty of character potential. In the original source material, she was a drunk. But in Robotech, she is the daughter of Max Sterling and Miriya Parino - this is more than enough to explain any brashness in her behaviour! She is emotional, hot-tempered, egotistical, naive, wreckless, and immature, but she's also the best fighter they've got. They need her in a position of authority, where she can do the most good. So she is placed as the Commander of the 15th ATACs, in charge of people who are, in some cases, twice her age. Earning their admiration and respect is an uphill battle, which itself could have been the basis of several stories.

Marie is the Commander of an Airborne squadron. Which one? Who knows! This is one of the areas Southern Cross falls flat on its face. For all the buildup in the intro, Marie in the show is given nothing to do, and only appears maybe twice throughout! In one of the earliest episodes, we see Dana, off-duty, visiting Marie's squadron in their barracks, and instigating a brawl (which she then, for some reason, tries to put a stop to it. She should have been an active participant!) This episode, right here, should have set a tone for the entire series, a subplot where Dana and Marie, in their off-duty, personal lives, do not get along, at all, and constantly are antagonizing each other. But when placed together in a combat situation, they coodinate their efforts, and cooperate with each other to win the battle. This would have made for an amazing contrast. Consider the scene where Marie flys overhead, as Dana looks up with a glint in her eye. She knows that Marie's got her back. That's a powerful shot.

And then there's Nova. An officer of the Military Police, who is routinely called on to arrest the two of them for their various off-duty shenanigans. Often placing them into solitary confinement together, where they would have no one to talk to but each other, and STILL they would bicker, argue, and fight.

They could be the greatest trio of frenemies in the entire trilogy. These stories would basically write themselves! Nova, too, is seen only on two occasions: Once when she was asking her superior officer something about her job, and once when some random guy wanted to give her flowers. Another prominent character from the intro who falls flat and fails to deliver.

Speaking of the flowers, since Marie and Nova, and also their love interests, Sean Penn and Jap Guy (do we ever even know his name?) all have such little screen time (Sean throws a one-liner and spills his drink, Jap Guy firez ze missilez), there is zero buildup, chemistry, interaction... so why are we supposed to believe or care when they all end up together? The stories leading up to this are never told.

Speaking of ze missilez, that's another missed opportunity to set a "dark 2nd act" tone for Southern Cross. One of their space stations has already gone silent, and we can only conclude that the enemy mothership has hostile intentions. It's invading their space, and not communicating. It makes sense to fire on it. But what if there was no prior space station destruction? What if the mothership appearing was, in fact, their first contact? And Jap Guy panicked and fired missiles before confirming that the aliens were indeed hostile? This would mean that he was personally responsible for starting the 2nd Robotech War! And it makes sense that the Masters would come in peace, initially. They knew that whoever they were about to encounter, had wiped out the Main Zentraedi Fleet, and that's no small feat! The Masters themselves were low on Protoculture, and their very survival depended upon the recovery of the Matrix. They even shared a common enemy: the Invid were going to be arriving shortly thereafter. It would have been prudent to come in peace, and form an alliance to combat the imminent Invid invasion. There is a brief scene in one of the later episodes where the Masters actually made contact with someone (I think Leonard?) and explained the situation to him. What a weight on Jap Guy's shoulders knowing that he started a war that didn't even need to happen!

If Nova is going to end up romantically involved with anybody, I would say Angelo Dante. He's the mature, level-headed guy in Dana's squad, which would match up well with Nova's professionalism. This could even create stories where Nova goes light on the ATACs, or even, at times, looks the other way, because she now has a personal investment in the squadron. Her personal life would be affecting her professional life. And Nova probably never imagined herself in such a situation, making it all the more conflicting for her.

And then we see characters fighting not only in their Veritechs, but also on hovercycles, and in power armor, and none of this ever occurs in the actual show.

I'm sure there's more, but I haven't had my coffee yet.

yep Dana part zentadie

If this was ever totally remade, we could also do away with that "audiences are dumb and need an entire freaking episode to explain to them that Dana is Max and Miriya's daughter" with Dana explaining to us, through the Bowie surrogate, her childhood friend who himself should already know this by now. So fucking stupid.

They could address two issues in one go, actually, because now that Maya Sterling is a thing, and Dana is supposed to hate her for some reason, there'd be an opportunity to establish that also. Dana simply has a photograph that was sent as part of a communication, years ago. It is a photograph of Max, Miriya, and Maya. Either it is on her desk in her room, or perhaps she carries it around in her back pocket, and pulls it out to stare at it the first time we see her in solitary confinement. A 20 second segment where she ponders to herself why they left her here where it would be "safer for her" and then had another kid anyway, and her resentment over that fact, and that Maya is apparently a formidable fighter pilot fighting alongside them. That is all that is needed. Move along.

Alpha Bravo wrote: If this was ever totally remade, we could also do away with that "audiences are dumb and need an entire freaking episode to explain to them that Dana is Max and Miriya's daughter" with Dana explaining to us, through the Bowie surrogate, her childhood friend who himself should already know this by now. So fucking stupid.

Before the hack, Robotech.com contained a long two-part interview with Carl Macek, answering questions mailed by fans. He admitted this episode was simply made because they were one episode short. With the series broadcasted every weekday, the total number of episodes had to be divisible by 5.

Which was one reason why 'Mospeada' got edited into it in the first place: without it, the then standard minimum of 65 episodes could not be reached.

Much the same with #14. Episode 17, Phantasm, had already been that way in the Japanese original.

Copied from a palladium-universe forum entry:

Shots of Southern Cross soldiers trying to enter rooms...and the shoulder-pad flares hanging up on the sides of the door...
"Ouf!"
"Gak!"
"Unch!"
"Sideways! You enter sideways!"
"Yeah, right, that hardly looks normal!"
"Who designed these uniforms anyway? George Jetson?!"