Is Harmony Gold ever going to move forward with Robotech?

[SeerSGB]

clint g wrote:

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Macross Frontier was outstanding. if you get the chance, you should give it a shot.

This.^

As much as I love Robotech (warts and all) I'd rather they just let the franchise die or reboot it complete and get a solid firm with a good voice cast to port over the Macross spin-offs, especially Macross: Frontier.

As for Shadow Chronicles, it could be worse, we could have gotten "Robotech Odyssey"

Macek revealed ideas for another proposed series, Robotech III: The Odyssey, which would have picked up where The New Generation and end of Robotech II: The Sentinels left off, and eventually created a circular storyline that would end where the original Robotech began in a giant 260-episode cycle to fill up all the weekdays in a year. According to Macek, The Odyssey would involved the SDF-3 travelling back into the past to the days before the birth of Zor (as well as Scott Bernard's search for the SDF-3). The SDF-3's crew would become citizens of the Robotech Masters' homeworld and change time by becoming a part of its history. Ultimately, it would be revealed that Lynn Minmei was the mother of Zor, making Minmei the focal point of Robotech. The final episode of the Odyssey would be of Zor dying and his Super Dimension Fortress (the SDF-1) being launched into space, and eventually crash landing on Earth in 1999. The next episode after that would be "Boobytrap", episode 1 of the original series which in turn will create an endless loop within the Robotech universe.[8][9] After the failure of Sentinels, Odyssey never went into development, although some of its ideas were worked into the final Jack McKinney novel The End of the Circle, which wrapped up all of the outstanding plot threads left by the original series and the previous Robotech novels

[Kestrel]

As a Battletech fan, all I really have to say is: fuck Harmony Gold.

[zakkrusz]

The Shadow Chronicles sequel is officially "On hold so we can focus on the live action Robotech" is what they said, but since there's been zero word on that live action project either, I don't think that's getting done anytime soon either.

clint g wrote:

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Macross Frontier was outstanding. if you get the chance, you should give it a shot.

Yes, I agree with this as well. I would personally put Macross Frontier on par with the original. I also liked Macross II, Macross Plus, and Macross Zero as well, but to a far lesser extent. I could not stand Macross 7 at all, and gave up after a few episodes.

[Noname Given]

Takeru wrote:

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How is it possible that Harmony Gold "owns" Robotech? It was just a dub, except for names almost nothing was changed, despite all this bastardization talk it really wasn't that different.

^^^
The above comment just shows that you've NEVER seen any of the original versions of the THREE seperate series that were cobbeled together to make what the U.S. calls "Robotech"; NOR the hack re-writre they did to a completely unrelated OAV entitled "Megazone 23" that was hacked to bits to create "ROBOTECH: The Movie"

[Morpheus 02]

Unrelated to much of the thread talk..but just wondering, could Robotech be shown again on broadcast / cable TV?

seems like it could be a good filler show for some station, and i would imagine much cheaper than making anything new.

it's scary to me to think that it's been nearly 30 years since it first hit US airwaves. Lots of time to create a whole new fanbase.

[Chaos Descending]

Leroy wrote:

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... Southern Cross and MOSPEADA ... were the least popular parts of Robotech.

I'm certainly an odd man out in many ways. I liked the MOSPEADA/New Generation segment of Robotech better than I did the Macross segment. Likewise, I enjoyed the Vehicle Team Voltron more than I enjoyed the Lion Team Voltron.

Plus, I never cared for the Thundercats either.

[Leroy]

Morpheus 02 wrote:

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Unrelated to much of the thread talk..but just wondering, could Robotech be shown again on broadcast / cable TV?

seems like it could be a good filler show for some station, and i would imagine much cheaper than making anything new.

it's scary to me to think that it's been nearly 30 years since it first hit US airwaves. Lots of time to create a whole new fanbase.

Anime is a tough sell on TV nowadays SyFy went and got rid of their anime block and they were showing Star Blazers. The closest thing to Robotech (a mecha show) that's been on TV lately were Code Geass on AS and Gundam 00 on SyFy however those shows are a lot newer with style and animation from 2007 as opposed to 1982. You also have to deal with Harmony Gold's ego I imagine they would ask a lot to air Robotech making it a not very lucrative acquisition for a cable network.

[Mr. Adventure]

^ The whole series is available for streaming from Netflix so I don't know if the rates are that unreasonable. I'm thinking it's more that there isn't much market for anime, let alone old stuff.

[Sephiroth]

Harmony Gold is full of idiots, and the amount of stuff they block makes me think HG is populated completely by trolls that hate anime fans. There IS a demand for the older anime, and they can't see that. The fact that Netflix has Robotech is because A&E got the rights to distribute it. They have also released the series in 3 DVD seasons, you can pick them up for $15 each at Wal-Mart.

[Mr. Adventure]

Sephiroth wrote:

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There IS a demand for the older anime, and they can't see that.

Is there for TV? I'm not so sure there really is.

[C.E. Evans]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Is there for TV? I'm not so sure there really is.

Not enough to really make it worth the while for TV networks anyway.

[Leroy]

Yeah there might be some small demand for older stuff that was adapted for American audiences like Voltron or Robotech but there isn't much interest past that, aside for maybe some streaming online where there isn't much overhead like there is with physical media.

This explains why we don't see classics like Legend of the Galactic Heroes being brought over and why the older Dragonball and Gundam series didn't get that high of ratings back when Toonami was on.

[milo bloom]

Leroy wrote:

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Macross Plus and Frontier are excellent far better than any thing that Robotech has ever churned out (Sentinels, Shadow Chronicles).

As for Robotech I wish Harmony Gold would just fold already they don't do anything with the properties they own and aside form that all they do is block anything Macross related from reaching markets outside Japan. I would move on Robotech is for all intents and purposes a dead franchise.

I hate for anybody to lose their jobs, but it's hard not to wish for something to change to allow the Macross material to come over here. It really just comes across as petty and childish that we can't legally buy the other Macross shows in the US.

[Leroy]

milo bloom wrote:

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I hate for anybody to lose their jobs, but it's hard not to wish for something to change to allow the Macross material to come over here.

I doubt anybody would lose their jobs since most of Harmony Gold's profit comes form real estate Robotech is a miniscule portion of the money they make from anything. Given the state of the anime market in 2012 it makes no logical sense for them to block anything Macross related from leaving the Japanese market.

[FreezeC77]

Probably wouldn't be aired on Cartoon Network or SyFy, but I don't see why it couldnt' be aired on say "The Hub" because it shows a lot of old 80s cartoons like the original GI Joe or Transformers.

Every once in awhile I watch an old episode. I find it funny that both shows include the 'bumpers' leading into a commercial break from when they aired in the 80s, but for some reason the Hub then puts in their own bumper. I'm like why are you letting me know we're going to a commercial? GI Joe just did it (in an 80s style) but still...