Irony is perhaps more stimulating than straight-forwardness

Greetings to all of The Lost Universe.

I was a Robotech fan for many years who left the fandom, basically, because it turned into a hellhole of unnecessary bantering and partisanship rather than an intelligent, unbiased hub for discussion relative to the franchise. This being said, I have given-up on "fandom" as being a productive medium for true results and have come to these forums in the hope of simply engaging in intelligent discussion with others whose influences are similar to mine.

I love science fiction of all kinds and Robotech is no exception, but on a greater level, the theory of the series is what captivates me to this day. No science fiction series of which I am aware has ever taken the approach which Carl Macek and Company made in the mid-eighties and extrapolated the depth which Robotech has displayed in serious novels, MANGA-inspired comics, and politically-charged role-playing games. It is this "serious approach" to much of Robotech's legacy which I admire the most and which separates it from the "cheap entertainment"-approach to which the original Japanese animators were forced to adhere because of the animation market in their respective state.

I look forward to talking about these encompassing theories relative to Robotech which are forged not by Robotech alone, but by all things science fiction and otherwise.

it's about time you joined lol
anyways, welcome to the site

It's definitely a gem of a forum you have here, Miss Penguins. Everyone seems very open-minded but also willing to step outside of the socially-standardised comfort-zone to speak-out against things which clearly don't make much sense. There are too few discussion forums on the Internet which permit simultaneous objectivity and judgmentalism. It is my hope that, when one can give facts and rationalise an argument against a viewpoint, approach, action, or person (or alternatively, support these), it will be seen by an intelligent community as validated.

Like science, facts should be accepted in order to facilitate forward movement. Subsequently tested and re-tested, yes, but the viewpoint that "every opinion is worth continued existence" does not hold weight amongst those hoping to intellectually move beyond where they currently stand.

A gem to some, but charcoal to others who believe the lot of us here are just troublemakers. We just believe we've had enough of HG's BS and we're not the type to back down, we're actually standing up to HG and their idiotic followers because they've done nothing but shit on us and try to censor our opinions.

Hell, any posts advertising this site were deleted and I got plenty of PMs telling me so. This is all started when we first created this site, I decided to include a special section where members could criticize HG at their will without the threat of being banned and well, when the word got out, that's when all hell broke lose and this community was labeled as nothing more than a hate site. We're the fans dammit, we have every right to say what we like and don't like even if it includes HG's precious gem TSC.

This site started out as a place for all of us with fan projects to come together but over time it became something more. A site without censorship where us robotech fans could come together and talk about the series, being that most of us are strictly 85 episode purists and refuse to accept anything by the yunes as canon. Though it's nice to know they said the comics and novels were no longer canon yet they stole and used ideas from them in their own shitty fics.

Someone once said something like this could never be achieved with words... well yes it can, it just takes more than once voice to do so. A lot of us here have been banned from the official site because they've called the idiots out, myself included.

Irony.... yum-yum-yum-yum! Welcome Sentinel!

"Irony is perhaps more stimulating than straight-forwardness"?

Well, I'm doomed then, because I'm nothing if not straightforward.

Anyway, welcome to the forums: you look like you've got a good head on your shoulders.

I'm reluctant to believe that Robotech can really go anywhere these days, but I'm glad to keep playing around with the multiverse of material that's already out there

incisivis wrote:

I'm reluctant to believe that Robotech can really go anywhere these days,

Infidel! Must burn at teh steak

Mmmm...steak.

incisivis wrote:

Mmmm...steak.

with jack daniels sauce?

mmmmmmmmmmmm Ben Dixon style kamikaze Steak.

incisivis wrote:

I'm reluctant to believe that Robotech can really go anywhere these days

DID YOU NOT SEE AWARDS WON FOR SC? DID YOU NOT SEE SC AS BEST TOP FILM ON HULU AND GREAT DVD SALE!?!? KEVIN AND TOMMY SAY SHADOW RISING STILL ON PRODUCTION, AND RLAM IS GOING AHEAD BETTER THAN EVER. ROBOTECH IS GOING ANYWHERE MORE THAN EVER AND IS STRONG AS IT HAS BEEN

HEHEHE

lol... TSC won loads of awards from third rate festivals. There isn't a movie or tv show in the world who couldn't do that.

Hulu is often biased towards its recent additions. Its called Advertisement.

And before anyone says anything, Cannes IS a third-rate festival - only crappy movies get awards from it.

Cannes third rate???? *In the voice of Minmei*
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

You give it too much credit. I associate Cannes as the stupidity test. Get an award and it goes to show how stupid the thing is. Survive Cannes without receiving something, and you're mediocre at best.

mmm... steak

I am not an 85 episode purist. I enjoyed the comic adaptations, and I loved the Jack McKinney novels, including the Sentinels and Circle of Light. However, after that, the universe began growing stale. You can only tell so many side stories before you have to come up with something actually new.

Macross Plus? Loved it. Great animation, and the voice actors were some of the better I'd ever heard at that time.

TSC? Crap. Complete and total. The worst $20 I ever spent. I could have gotten a better deal at a titty bar, if I were into those things anymore.

I've long since lost the burning love for Robotech that I had, though I do sometimes watch a few episodes. What HG has done to the universe is nothing short of criminal stupidity. I'm looking forward to the next movies just to see if they may have actually improved any at all in their story telling.

85-episode purist? Me? HAH!

No.


Nope, I'm just a scavenger, an opportunist. If there's any possibility of me enjoying anything Robotech-related, I'll check it out, and if there's at least a few drops of entertainment to be squeezed from it, I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

I don't think of canon and non-canon, just a multiverse.

And there is Macross. I really don't unreservedly like any post-SDFM Macross work as a whole, but I've seen them, and there are a few good bits.

I'm not much different from incisivis in that regard - except of one thing -

I'm a fan of Robotech as it existed in its pre-Yune state. Well, to be honest, the more accurate line would be before people at HG started being influenced by the RRG, which would put the cut-off date at various points.

Comics - any before Been Done and the Antarctic Mess had the license (god, what an awful confusion, a mix of RRG timeline, Macross DYRL, and sheer stupidity - they even managed to plagiarize Yamato/Star Blazers in their first story arc too). Granted, Some of the Academy stuff jumped the shark on a tricycle while wearing a porterhouse loincloth, but they at least meant well. Even CLONE is truer to Robotech than anything Antarctic or Wildstorm ever printed - and that's saying a lot....

Novels: Before the rewrites to conform to Late Return

RPG: The timeline was never right after SC in its first incarnation. I've not bought the new books yet, but am willing to use the stat blocks and rules - just not the fucking renames and BS timeline (BTW, the Sentinels scripts CONFIRM that RDF & REF ARE PROPER NAMES, and the ones for the forces - bite me, Yune-boy)

Episodes: As released in the original boxed sets - whose DVD bonus materials DISPROVE every change Yune made to the timeline.

I'm a rare bird - I got into Robotech in probably the wierdest way imaginable, in 1988 - Comics, then RPG, then Novels, THEN the episodes (unless you count seeing Rick's coma hallucination episode in '86, with absolutely no context, and missing the scenes where it showed it was someone's nightmare - I didn't recognize what it was till years later).

I can argue continuity and the merits and faults of each Robotech timeline, pre-Yune, on their own terms, rarely if ever having to bring a different source in, unless the multiverse in question has no information at all on the subject. I do, however, hate novels 18-20 with a passion, the way TEOtC made no sense, and #19-20 horribly mutilated the comics they were based on (dear God, they turned a tormented ex-VT pilot that Dana had a crush on, in Cyber-pirates, into a SERIAL PEDOPHILE in Novel 20, and never actually covered any of the material from the comics, just mutilated bits of it until some drug-induced sequal to TUS!)

I believe the licensing style guide from the 1980s trumps anything Yune says, unless in spots where it contradicts itself or the pre-2000 material (exception being Antarctic, of course - anything trumps the AP comics - I'd rather kiss Tommy on the lips (as a 42-year old straight male), than have to force myself to read the AP crap again)

I've even found ways to FIX the R:TUS movie and some of the failed pre-yune game products to actually fit the timeline as well.


And of course, there are the original series and their spin-offs and siblings; I love all their soundtracks, pretty much like their stories (though it seems the one Macross sequel that seems most-loved, Macross Plus, i my LEAST favorite of the lot for both plot and music - the art is pretty, though). I consider Robotech and Macross to be equals able to stand side by side, and think the whole argument over which is better detracts from the enjoyment of both (and that the average MW flame-boy needs to get Hasbro Products #40613 and 04000- though like Robotech, the original version of 04000 is the better game, before it got all PC)

I go by Basara on the net, but loathe the actual character (Gamlin was already taken as a handle in the major Robotech communities by the time I got on the net), and it took some watching to get by the first episodes of Frontier (which are at a higher schlock level than the first dozen episodes of M7 that people routinely use to unfairly bash the whole of that entire series, which ignoring the Wisconsin-yearly-output level of cheese in early Frontier). I have a soft spot (some say in the head) for Macross 2, and even have the second OST.

In order, of the original Super-Dimension series, my preferences are

3. Macross
2. Southern Cross
1. Orguss

That in and of itself shows I am NOT your average Robotech/Macross fanboy. Further evidence to this effect can be found in my fanfic (reposted to these forums) "Letters" (wherein I tie an entirely different Gainax series into the mess). Just wait till I have the chance to rewrite "The Manifestation of Destinies" from its current form (which suffered from me knowing little of supporting OSM for macross when I typed it over a decade ago) to fit what I know now - it's general premise and plot resolution would probably explode a few dozen heads in both Macross and Robotech fandom.

Oh boy! Is it time to share our Robotech Stories?

Maybe I can trump you in weirdness, Basara, because I got into Robotech just about *two years* ago, when SPACE aired it in Canada.

It's probably safe to say I'm the only new fan HG got from its venture into the Great White North, and I realize now how little sense my own venture made, given that I have been a fan of "real" anime for quite a while (favourite series: Evangelion; favourite movie, Whisper of the Heart). But I was missing the gene that said, "Robotech is evil and you should not watch."

Since that January of '08 I've been running through the Robotech and Macross oveure like a cheetah on crack, including digging up old apocrypha, Robotech novels and comics that we aren't supposed to think about anymore, Macross fansubs, and everything else, largely thanks to the magic of Bittorrent.

Gradually things have slowed as I realized that what I like the most is the Zentraedi, and especially Exedore, which as you can imagine fucked me up pretty much. It means I can't let go of either Robotech or Macross, because I'd rather have Sentinels Exedore than whatever the crap Kawarmori has tried to do, and I like the idea of Breetai n' Kazianna, and...

(Also, much hate for Do You Remember Love? whose technical merits I nonetheless recognize, but whose re-interpretation of the Zentraedi is absolutely putrid)

But I like Macross, I have to like Macross, and I can say that the subtitled SDFM is better than the Robotech dub, but not, for me, in a blow-your-mind way.

The old novels I like, though I've come to realize their faults and sometimes wish uselessly for a Robotech expanded continuity that fixes all its problems and keeps the things from the Sentinels novels that I do enjoy.

The Shadows continuity sucks, plain and simple. It's mismanaged and messy with no idea who it wants to cater to, and nobody who wants it. I'm glad my favourite characters are dead so I don't have to put up with any of this crap.

To put it bluntly, Robotech is dead, but I'm not done dissecting its corpse.

"To put it bluntly, Robotech is dead, but I'm not done dissecting its corpse."

Interesting analogy...