by the fans for the fans

Are there reallyt that manypeoplewho are as MEMO infers there are that are actually happy with whats beendone and going on? I know a TON of anime fans who even when TSC came out where like huh what there is a new roborech? eh who cares.

Jaymz

Are there reallyt that manypeoplewho are as MEMO infers there are that are actually happy with whats beendone and going on?

WHERE YOU GET THIS FROM? THERE THINGS THAT THEY HAVE DONE THAT "I" BELIEVE THAT THERE WERE TO MANY THINGS WRONG. AND THERE ARE THOSE THAT JUST DON'T DIG TO MUCH INTO HG LIKE I DO.

I know a TON of anime fans who even when TSC came out where like huh what there is a new roborech? eh who cares.

I HAVE SEEN A TON OF FANS THAT I DON'T KNOW BUT KEEP POSTING ABOUT IT IN TWITTER WHO WATCH IT. SOME LIKE IT AND SOME DON'T BUT STILL TWITTER THEY ARE WATCHING IT. ANIME FANS, CONVENTION FANS, ETC.

HERE.. JUST TRY IT ONCE AND LOOK

twitter.com/#search?q=ROBOTECH%20SHADOW%20CHRONICLES

YOU SEARCH ROBOTECH AND YOU GET TONS OF MORE.

SEE, THESE ARE PEOPLE THAT DON'T FOLLOW HG. THERE A FEW THERE YOU MIGHT RECOGNIZE LIKE CAPT. JLS.


AND YES, I ALSO BELIEVE THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT DON'T LIKE IT. THIS WILL NOT SATISFY EVERYONE. BUT STEP OUTSIDE OF THE BOX AND YOU SEE MORE THAN WHATS IN IT.

Here's my problem with the Shadow Chronicles...

1) Re-writing the end of "Symphony of Light", so it's no longer the poignant ending where they all part ways, and instead is used as a platform to...

2) Ariel is turned into "Princess of the Invid", with magical unexplained super powers. Seriously? Really guys? One of Robotech's strengths was that there was a given set of realistic constants (okay, for a given value of "realistic"). Even if things weren't explicitly diagrammed, you could easily infer certain things without having issues suspending your disbelief. Okay, the Regis has crazy super powers, but as the all-mother of the Invid, of course she can channel the power of the Protoculture/Flower of Life. And, okay, even though none of her other human children could harness the power in the same fashion, I can gripingly swallow that Ariel can too. But then the Regis buggers off to wherever with all the protoculture like some sort of intergalactic Beverly Hillbillies episode, and Ariel is still glowing like the Leg Lamp in A Christmas Story and teleporting around with no effort. There is no explanation or rules around this, she's just a chesty female MacGuffin plot device. All the poignancy around her character is gone, and suddenly there's this ham-fisted let's accept the Invid as a parable for racial and social equality. For fuck's sake, what next, Rick Hunter poops out of a black hole dressed as Captain Planet?

3) Children of the Shadow? FUCK YOU. Right in the god-damned ear. If there had been this backstory with the Haydonites being the Children of the Shadow, the Regent would have stomped every last one of them in a xenophobic campaign of revenge, which is what Senor Slug-face was really all about - after all, wouldn't that be as big a beef, if not bigger, than with Zor & the Robotech Masters? So much better to have left the Haydonites as unwilling sleeper agents - you still could have had "the awareness" kick in, and wake them all up like a bunch of Trojan horses (I do like the idea of The Awareness alot better than Haydon scooting around the universe, so props to Tommy and crew for that).

4) I want to punch Marcus Rush alot. But that's just a personal thing.

5) Ripping off Babylon 5 in a total ham-fisted way. The Shadow, really? That's the best you could do, ripping off J. Michael Straczynski? And really, it's all too self evident when...

6) The Haydonite ships look like a lego version of the Star Trek Planet killer sucked into the Babylon 5 universe. Totally uninspired ship design. One of the great fun things about the vessels used previously was that even the enemy vessels (save the Invid clam ships) had these amazing levels of detail. Sure, the organic, bulbous thing is kind of played out, but a duplo-block space-stogie? You didn't even fucking try.

7) Also, the Shadow forces fighters look like something I'd shoot at in Galaga. And their mecha aren't exactly all that much better - they look jarringly out of place.

8) Apparently, if you achieve the rank of commanding a ship, you're immediately put on a heavy steroid regimen that makes your eyebrows twitch wildly (maybe because you just crushed your own pelvis from clenching your buttcheeks too hard?). Also, a Schwarzenegger-esque Louie Nichols? Really? Part of his charm was that he was a skinny nerd kid who made good.

9) Apparently the reason why the SDF-1 had such issues with their space-fold destinations is because it would seem that space-folding requires an entire orchestra with an overdramatic score to ensure that you de-fold in the correct location. NASA, I hope you're taking notes here and shoot the London Philharmonic into orbit when you're ready to head off to Mars! SERIOUSLY, what the hell? Just because you can't actually script anything with gravitas, you have to bullshit your way around with a shrieking chorus and crashing string instruments. IT'S A GOD-DAMNED SPACE FOLD. Okay, it's cool and neat, but guys, over-dramatic much?

10) The number of pilots and ships in the returning expeditionary force. Wow, apparently a great way to de-stress from fighting the invid is having ALOT of unprotected sex and craploads of children. It looks like they must have had the Duggar family up in there.

11) Testing the Neutron-S warheads RIGHT BEFORE YOU MIGHT USE THEM? Really? That's a special-ed level of forward planning right there.

Things I liked:

1) I loved seeing the Invid updated, and their hordes, although I would have loved to have seen more of them, especially other mecha.

2) Janice - nicely updated, and I like the fact that she may very well be a trojan horse in some ways. Also, thank you for giving a female character (even if she's a robot) a somewhat generous backside. I can get behind (ha ha) that.

3) Although I didn't think the CG was up to par, it was really neat seeing the capital ships slugging it out. However, for a naval-space battle, I really don't think everyone would have stayed in such tight formation, and it would have been ALOT more chaotic.

Overall, the franchise got seriously dumbed-down. Robotech's strength was that it worked on so many levels. As a kid, there was the joy of seeing exciting battles and mecha. As a pre-teen, it was cool to see characters falling in love with eachother in ways that weren't Lois Lane and Clark Kent simple. And as a young adult, there was a rich universe ripe with backstory and plot possibilities, and a certain level of realism that allowed you to continue to suspend your disbelief and take enjoyment in it on yet another level.

What I see now is a de-evolution of the franchise into something exceptionally derivative. Tommy Yune and crew are steeped in anime and its history, which has been a boon in character design and updating the existing art, but the plot is paper-thin. At best, it's weaksauce fanfic with a budget.

Good analysis. Not sure I agree with all of it, but it was well-thought out and well-written...which seems to bebecoming a rarity these days.

Sushispook wrote:

Here's my problem with the Shadow Chronicles...

1) Re-writing the end of "Symphony of Light", so it's no longer the poignant ending where they all part ways, and instead is used as a platform to...

Have you seen "Mospeada: Love Live Alive"? That has a brief and wordless, but very touching reunion for all the characters (except Sorji [Sera] who seems to be stuck back on the ranch drinking coffee while her husband is out entertaining the masses).

Sushispook wrote:

9) Apparently the reason why the SDF-1 had such issues with their space-fold destinations is because it would seem that space-folding requires an entire orchestra with an overdramatic score to ensure that you de-fold in the correct location. NASA, I hope you're taking notes here and shoot the London Philharmonic into orbit when you're ready to head off to Mars! SERIOUSLY, what the hell? Just because you can't actually script anything with gravitas, you have to bullshit your way around with a shrieking chorus and crashing string instruments. IT'S A GOD-DAMNED SPACE FOLD. Okay, it's cool and neat, but guys, over-dramatic much?

*smirk*

*snort*

BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!

Awesome.

Sushispook wrote:

Overall, the franchise got seriously dumbed-down. Robotech's strength was that it worked on so many levels. As a kid, there was the joy of seeing exciting battles and mecha. As a pre-teen, it was cool to see characters falling in love with eachother in ways that weren't Lois Lane and Clark Kent simple. And as a young adult, there was a rich universe ripe with backstory and plot possibilities, and a certain level of realism that allowed you to continue to suspend your disbelief and take enjoyment in it on yet another level.

What I see now is a de-evolution of the franchise into something exceptionally derivative. Tommy Yune and crew are steeped in anime and its history, which has been a boon in character design and updating the existing art, but the plot is paper-thin. At best, it's weaksauce fanfic with a budget.

Here's where I disagree. Speaking as an anime fan, I think one of the (many) problems with Shadow Chronicles was that it wasn't anime ENOUGH. Some animes have deep and complex plots, some don't, but generally, they are directed in interesting ways. Look at the scene of "Rick" in his Super VF-1S saying goodbye to "Lisa" in her shuttle in episode 24. Look at the battle sequences in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Or the Newtype vision scenes in Gundam. Everything from the "camera angles" to the editing is fresh and exciting, even a decade or two later.

What did we get from Shadow Chronicles? A lot of scenes of people standing around in white hallways, talking to each other. I thought it felt more like an episode of Star Trek than anything else.

Now, if they had been talking about something INTERESTING, the stodgy direction would've been adequate. But as it stood, characters I couldn't care about given dialogue I couldn't care about talking about things I couldn't care about...

Well, it took me three tries before I made it through the whole movie.

Visual pizazz woul've been a help. Good dialogue would've been better. A good plot would've made the movie enjoyable for me.

Having none of those things left it as a chore that I watched more out of a sense of duty than anything else.

Good analysis. Not sure I agree with all of it, but it was well-thought out and well-written

Thank you!

Have you seen "Mospeada: Love Live Alive"? That has a brief and wordless, but very touching reunion for all the characters

I can't say that I have - but thank you for the tip. I'm definitely going to look it up.

(except Sorji [Sera] who seems to be stuck back on the ranch drinking coffee while her husband is out entertaining the masses).

If Lancer's out a-rockin', don't come a-knockin', I guess... The Sera/Lancer angle was always a bit forced to me, especially when you could see Rand & Rook developing slowly over the arc of the series, but that's still kind of sad.

Here's where I disagree. Speaking as an anime fan, I think one of the (many) problems with Shadow Chronicles was that it wasn't anime ENOUGH. Some animes have deep and complex plots, some don't, but generally, they are directed in interesting ways. Look at the scene of "Rick" in his Super VF-1S saying goodbye to "Lisa" in her shuttle in episode 24. Look at the battle sequences in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Or the Newtype vision scenes in Gundam. Everything from the "camera angles" to the editing is fresh and exciting, even a decade or two later.

Good point, and you've underscored something that I didn't go enough into and didn't really explain.

First off, when I compare it to anime, I'm comparing it to modern anime that I've been exposed to - and I'll be the first to admit that all it is is what's risen into popular mainstream view. It just seems very formulaic and overall, *safe*. Which, from a financial point of view, is a tempting way to roll the dice. But... just UGH.

Secondly, I'll be the first to admit that I haven't watched alot of anime in my life. When I was a very wee sprat, I watched Battle of the Planets, and later I'd catch Starblazers. Voltron was cool to me because there wasn't anything like it on TV, but when Robotech came on, I really dropped Voltron like a hot potato.

But other than Akira, and a few rentals from the local video shop where I grew up, I just didn't get into anime. I loved the look and style of it, but I'm kind of ashamed to admit that I've never seen Neon Genesis Evangelion, or much Gundam at all. Why? Honestly, there's a certain amount of cultural permeation through alot of the character archetypes and dialogue that was... well... *too* Japanese for me, and just took me out of it so often that it got to the point where I just wasn't enjoying it at all.

(Oh, except for Vampire Princess Miyu - that was a really great "date" anime for the kinds of girls I was into when I was younger, especially if the copy of "The Crow" at the local video store was rented already - yes, please laugh, heh)

Ultimately, I think you're spang on - it doesn't hold true to alot of the roots of good anime, which was just as much about telling a story as it was about delivering a universe with a distinctive aesthetic. Regardless of my own personal feelings about most Japanese anime out there (new and old), there is absolutely no denying that, and it's sad that it got left by the wayside.

Also, one complain point I forgot to tack on above - all of them on a lone vessel banded together like a motley crew in search of the SDF-3 just seemed like another Babylon 5 storyline thieving: I instantly thought of the ill-fated "Crusade" series.

The Babylon 5 parallels that I keep seeing are extra amusing to me, since I was never a huge fan of the show the way my roommate at the time was.

Well it's interesting to see another's point of view when it comes to TSC. Especially when they are giving reasons for why they like it.

But me? I just can't like it, nor can I call it Robotech, because it didn't feel like Robotech at all.
Also nice to know they ruined a great character like Ariel. Who had so much more potential than just being there for fan service.

Before I started doing original stuff I used to write short fanfics and I wrote about Ariel a lot. So seeing what tommy did with the character really irritated me.
Maybe he should of killed off all the remaining characters from the original 85 and instead just used his own, then he could do whatever the hell he wanted with them and no one would give a shit.

Sushispook wrote:

Good analysis. Not sure I agree with all of it, but it was well-thought out and well-written

Thank you!

Have you seen "Mospeada: Love Live Alive"? That has a brief and wordless, but very touching reunion for all the characters

I can't say that I have - but thank you for the tip. I'm definitely going to look it up.

Good luck. It's hard to find. If you want to buy it officially, you'll have to get the Japanese edition of the final volume of the Mospeada DVDs. There's a crappy-quality file of it floating around on the internet, though.

And if you can handle even WORSE quality, there's always youtube:

If Lancer's out a-rockin', don't come a-knockin', I guess... The Sera/Lancer angle was always a bit forced to me, especially when you could see Rand & Rook developing slowly over the arc of the series, but that's still kind of sad.

Not really sad. She looks content, at least. And Yellow clearly misses her.

What's REALLY odd about the video is that they kinda/sorta imply that Jim [Lunk] and Mint have hooked up. Ewwww...

As for your points about anime...something that I've noticed (and that I've seen many people comment on) is that there are roughly two kinds of people who got into Robotech: those who branched out into more anime, and those who branched out into more science fiction in general. And that most of the people (like me) who got into anime whole hog tended to become Macross fans rather than stay Robotech fans. (This isn't to say I don't like SF in general; I do, but I prefer written SF to television or movies.)

It's not always the case, but it seems to be true more often than not. (I hasten to add that I'm not making any value judgments here. People like what they like.)

So (to answer the question in the thread title), I started losing interest in Robotech in April or May of 1985, when I learned that it was made of three unconnected series. Really killed the willing suspension of disbelief for me, because all the confusion I'd had (where was the SDF-2? Why did Dana's hair turn blonde? Why did Zor have a Southern Cross uniform on in his flashbacks?) suddenly had a very clear answer: the two series were unrelated, and Southern Cross went through some especially intensive rewriting.

By the time New Generation started, I knew what was what, and I remember having an argument with one of my friends as we watched the final episode. He started getting really, really excited because he thought Rick Hunter was going to reappear. I said, "They won't show his face. They can't. It's a different show." My friend got really angry, and shouted "They will! They will! They'll show him again!"

Wish I'd put down some money on that one...

Anyway, Sushispook, the moral of this rambling tale is: WATCH EVANGELION! IT'S GREAT!!

HappyPenguins wrote:

Also nice to know they ruined a great character like Ariel. Who had so much more potential than just being there for fan service.

See, I thought the dialogue for Louie was atrocious. They turned him into a parody of the stuttering sci-fi nerd. It was sort of like they had reset his character to the earliest part of The Masters War as opposed to the Louie at the end. And even in the beginning, if you listen to some of Louie's dialogue, its got wit to play off of Angie:

Angie: 'Yes ma'am. But dying under the command of a ditzy teenager isn't the way I'd hoped to go.'

Louie: 'Well, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. So let's get going'.

That Louie that we first meet is completely absent in The Shadow Chronicles as well as the combat veteran he became later in the series.

yeah I don't understand why they changed him either..
why couldnt they just leave the old characters alone?

HappyPenguins wrote:

yeah I don't understand why they changed him either..
why couldnt they just leave the old characters alone?

There was certainly no reason to make him a foreground character as The Shadow Chronicles is SUPPOSED to be a story about Maia, Marcus and Alex. Secondary characters would have been Scott, Ariel, General Reinhardt, Louie and JANICE. Background characters should have been Vince & Jean Grant, Rick Hunter and Doctor Lang.

In all honesty, the amount of time between The Battle of Reflex Point and The Search for the SDF-03 should have been AT LEAST 6-8 months. Given that Time Dilation supposedly occurs at the Event Horizon of a Black Hole, its not like Rick et al would have noticed the time difference. Instead, the quick departure and return of the Icarus was one more problem in a long laundry list of problems with The Shadow Chronicles.