Black Sword wrote:That's an impressive amount of information. Some of it I was aware of, but it still doesn't change the canon as is, namely that DYRL is a movie now, as opposed to a re-telling. And whatever his claims about the refit, in Frontier, the Macross is still in its lake, and still has the Daedulus and Prometheus as the arms, which I'm fairly certain overrules his earlier contention. Le oops.
I wasn't really paying much attention when they showed the Macross in Frontier. To be honest, I was overwhelmed by the Vajra descending on the city and the music. I blame Yoko Kanno for that. If it does have the Daedalus and Prometheus, then they really effed it up... I just hope they don't take it as an excuse to remove the TV series from canon, if they ever thought of having it that way
Black Sword wrote:I'm glad we agree on sloppy. As for artsy, I think it's my natural instinct identifying what Kawamori did. Never kid a kidder, or in this case, never do something for the art when your audience includes writers. It looked pretty, which is fine, but there was nothing that strongly supported it as a conclusion beforehand, especially not the blue light trail and the phoenix fold. I'm sure the fans have created a good explanation, but the same scenes they cite as proof don't really support it strongly enough, I think.
I can't comment on the matter using "theories", or as I call them, fan speculation. I only cited that to mention that in an absence of a direct explanation, that's what people came up with. That's something I don't like to have when the rest of the story does not rely on ambiguous storytelling, only to BAM! Get an odd ending with lots of that. I have heard that the reason the final episode was like that was because the production studio, not Kawamori and his crew, but the actual animation studio was under some bad economic circumstances. Makes a bit of sense, since the time they took to release all five episodes of Zero took way too much, which in turn came to hurt the sales. Macross Zero is a failed economic venture, I hear. Still, since we have talked about the circumstances of the ending, I can ask some bigger Macross freaks than me about it. You know, the kind that start foaming from the mouth at the sole mention of anything related to Gundam.
Black Sword wrote:How was Frontier filled with filler? Thus far, each Macross had a different focus. In the original, we had a the original creation of a Macross series, the music, the battles, and the love triangle. In 7 (ugh) it was the music (God help us all). In Plus, the mecha. In Frontier, it was the love triangle. You may hate the school setting and the triangle, but I think it worked fantastically well, especially as a story. Though I'm glad we both agree to treating the Frontier movies as nonserial movies!
Some parts of the story would have worked better being smaller, I think. As an example, Sheryl's visit to the school and later enrollment. I'm talking about her chasing the vajra larva all over the school for her panties. The Zero movie wasn't THAT good for me either, but that's just a matter of personal taste, there are several things I loved in that episode. The whole Gallia 4 incident with the asshole Zentradi Temjin and the commander of that regiment, Ohgotwhai (How I memorize those names is still a mistery to me), even if some parts like the subsequent incident in the Macross class ship from the 117th fleet (if my memory still works) was excellent both for the advancement of the story AND the mecha porn that ensued.
Regarding the school setting, it's not that I HATE it. I just don't like it. My interest lies more in the reasons Grace's group had with Birla (my romanization), the owner of SMS and how Sheryl ended up in Grace's care and use as a tool. None of those aspects were developed in the movie. In that particular respect, the ending of the series left me wanting more. The thing is, I already know there was a manga telling Sheryl's back story in the 21st fleet.
The triangle between Alto, Sheryl and Ranka was for me one of the highlights of the series actually. It was very well developed and I liked one thing especially: None of the girls ever went into full hate mode against each other. They respected each other both as friends and professionally, even during Sheryl's lowest days both due to her failing health and professional descent, making her grow more as an artist and as a person, which even led her to teach Ranka one important thing when she hesitated and acted selfish. To be a professional. Sheryl is for that reason one of my top favorite characters as a result.
Black Sword wrote:As for 7...ugh. Can we please just remove the things that are of use and pretend the rest of it never happened? Hell, I'd support a freakin' remake at this point that disposes of the more ridiculous parts and canonizes the decent material. Seriously, 7...I lack words for it.
7 is for me the worst part of the whole franchise. I never liked that idiocy of singing to your opponents even if they're trying to kill you. Basara is the most despised, imbecilic piece of SHIT in anime ever for me. I started counting how many pilots ended up being shot, buildings heavily damaged and civilian casualties only because the mother fraker only wanted to sing. FRAK!! If I was the captain, I would have shot the bastard myself! Either that, or deny him entry back into the ship and let him die of hunger or asphyxia, whichever came first inside his VF-19 by just folding away. After all, the 19 isn't usually equipped with a fold booster. And if that pink haired pipsqueak came crying or complaining, I'd only tell her "Get yourself a new surname if you don't like it, now GTFO."
Black Sword wrote:And...I can't agree. Sorry. Macross has its own special hallmarks, and the sort of psychological drama you want is more Gundam territory. If they make something along the lines of the original Macross, super! It would make a great story, mind you, but doesn't really fit the spirit. And honestly...I think that the Megaroad-1 question would be better remaining as a mystery. Besides, isn't Michael being part-Zolan novel territory? Damnable multiple canons...
Perhaps not psychological drama. That's way too dark, more in the realm of Battlestar Galactica. Not even Gundam goes so deep into the psyche of people pulling triggers, except for maybe MS-Igloo, which I haven't watched. An atypical story that so far seems to be canon to me that I consider one good example of how to write a game story that is based on an animated series. Macross VF-X2 for the Playstation. In that one, you play as a character named Aegis Focker (probably a descendant of a clone of Roy Focker. Yes, people resorted to cloning people in order to fill the empty spots after the war. Official canon material). The story is about an incident in which the head of a special forces outfit initiates a coup against the UN government and hijacks the Macross Class warship number 13. During that game's story you go from working for the UN Spacy inside that special forces group and fight against two connected "terrorist" groups called Black Rainbow, whose leader you kill and then Vindirance, whose leaders you either kill or join, all depending on your own choice. There is a small implication at a love triangle, but not overtly shown. There is a scene with pillow talk between Aegis and his wingmate, an officer by the name of Suzie Newtlett if you get a good enough rank in one of the missions. Actually, now that I remember, Aegis was a loose dick, going out on dates with all the girls... Although he seems to have picked Suzie at the end, who defects from the UN Spacy to go help Aegis in the final battle much to my personal joy.
Music and singing take a back seat, though. They probably didn't know how to implement it back then. It was actually the very first good game made for a console, after the HORRIBLE VF-X1 fiasco, which had a terrible story and emphasis on music. The ending song was good, but the story... UGH... A group of five top charting singers have been kidnapped and split around in different planets. Now it's your job to retrieve them alive, defeat the eeeeeeevil Zentradi behind it and kick the ass of a new transforming mecha that will never really shine. ZOMG LOL, insert an image of my brain popping several vessels at the same time for massive brain hemorrhage. It's canon too, I think...
Black Sword wrote:Wait, speaking of that, do you have the novels? Or translations of the drama CDs? Or a scanlation of the Macross manga based on the drama CD?
EDIT: So? What else are you going to do while you're waiting for your antimatter experiments to bear fruit?
I wish... Scanlations of the Macross: The First manga isn't coming because the manga, while selling well, comes out every six months or one year each time it does. The quality is excellent, however. The Macross 7 Trash manga is already scanlated, but... It's a side story to Macross 7 with nothing to do with mecha. Instead, we get an asshole kid with paternity issues skating as a sport... WHAT. THE. FRAK. NO.
I wish I had some drama CDs. If you SOMEHOW manage to get a hold of one, tell me and I can attempt to at least make a decent summary out of it. Word of warning: Stay clear of the Macross Frontier manga. It sucks dead donkey ass.
EDIT: I dunno... Scratch my belly button?
On the cat topic, my big, evil gray cat just gave birth. Number not determined. She chose a very good hiding spot to use. I could see a black thing moving, which must be a kitten, but other than that one, I can't say how many were born, died, survived or whatever. She was in good health, though... I just hope she recovers. For the time being, I'm going to lay lots of food and water for her. I just can't get anywhere close to her anymore. The name Piranha Cat is not without merit.