EPISODE 12 - THE NEW GENERATION & MICHAEL BRADLEY: THE PROTOCULTURE TIMES INTERVIEW

Hello all!

Well, we’ve come to the final regular episode of The Protoculture Times for 2009. Before I knew it, Episode 12 turned into a 3 hour affair! But if we are exiting 2009, why not do it talkin’ some Robotech!

www.protoculturetimes.com

I’ve talked about it for two weeks and the moment has finally arrived! The Protoculture Times Interview with singer/songwriter/composer and singing voice of Robotech’s Yellow Dancer from the New Generation…………..


I want to thank Michael for taking time out of his schedule to sit down with The Protoculture Times. It was a GREAT time! He is friendly person, funny and is grateful to the Robotech fans for all their appreciation! Although I was nervous, he put me at ease from the start and we talked about so much! His career, his inspirations, what he’s been up to and of course, his involvement with ROBOTECH! It was a true privilege to talk to such a highly regarded personality in the fandom.

Thank you again to Vivian Lanza. You are such a joy and just like Michael, a friend now and always, BIG HUGS!

And to the listeners. Your belief in this show, with your kind words and encouragement of “keep on going!” are a big part of why this happened. I consider this “our” high moment that I share with all of you!

And please excuse the geeky host saying AWESOME throughout the conversation, but it was…TOTALLY AWESOME!

But before that we do have of course;

THE SHOUTOUTS!

Sayin’ hi to all those who have stopped by!

Whitehall - Robotech’s future is indeed a question mark. Kudos on exercising your right to an opinion as a fan!

Brian3D, you sir have made me switch my thinking that the Logan is the ugliest mecha in Robotech. Click here to check out Brian’s Logan project!

You definitely give the Logan its charm! Nice job!

To blog poster “R.” In regards to your question about Rand’s line in the episode titled Hard Times where he says to Rook’s mom “Get a job!” I’ve asked a few people and I’m being told that it was just ad-lib just to add dialogue for the sake of adding it. I’ll keep asking around and if anyone has any rhyme or reason on that, let me know!

Mike….you told me so! (there I said it…lol!)

Incisivis (INSIZE-IVIS, sorry about all the mispronunciations), We must talk Sentinels in the near future!
ROBOTECH FILES - A two for one deal today! We will conclude the New Generation story and talk about my one time nemesis….THE MECHA! (Disclaimer:
May make experts on mecha “facepalm” conitnually!)
Click here to watch the New Generation on Youtube legally and for free!

For those that want to follow my ramblings about the mecha, in the order that I talk about them go the main website.

Thanks to Michael Perry for all the mecha information on his site. It has made me better appreciate it and Iearned a few things. Please feel free folks to add your insights!

And….your host delves into unchartered territories for a Christmas edtion of THE ROBOTECH WORD OF THE SHOW. Believe me people, this is something you will probably never EVER hear again. HEE HEE!

And a special surprise courtesy of Michael Bradley to end the show with!

It’s been quite a year…lookin’ forward to 2010!

PROGRAMMING NOTE!

I’m taking next week off! No Protoculture Times, No Robotech. I am in FULL CHRISTMAS MODE! Everyone out there got take a break!

We will return for a year end RandomCast on December 30th where we will recap what the journey was like in 2009….gotta a few things to say about that! LOL!

Until then to all…yeah even the Robotech.com moderators…please have a safe and blessed holiday and enjoy that in union with the people that you love!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

JT

protoculturetimes@gmail.com

Thanks for the shot out JT!

So here is my story since I am not sure where else to put it.. and maybe some other people will kick up theirs.

So, started off like almost everyone else. Weekday morning cartoons of the Original 85. I remember Macross and New Generation episodes.. but i have no recollection of watching Southern Cross on TV. Robotech did however establish my childhood love of robots and made me decide by the age of 9 that I was going to go to Carnegie Mellon and learn Robotics.

(A note... never ever ever let your children decide their career path based on cartoons such as ... it um... makes for a mess when they realize are not gonna be building giant fighting lions and instead will be making robotic mail carts and wishing they had studied secondary education - history)

So after i was unable to watch any more cartoons due to the show being off the air or change in school times or whatever.. I still kept the memory of Robotech in my brain,, and it was not until 6th grade when I was at Waldenbooks and saw a copy of Jack McKinney's Battlecry on the shelf that it really came back to me. I ate up those books, joined the science club at my elementary school.. and was always begging for a ride to the mall after I finished the next volume.

As far as other material went i was able to locate a Revell model kit for a transformable model which I was all excited about but never finished.... and when I found a super-deformed Skull 1 model.. wow that just really made my day! 7th grade though I was making some money delivering newspapers and I found a kid at school that was willing to sell me his Jetfire for 15 bucks! And back then since I was only making 6 bucks a week,, that was big cash.. but I just HAD to have something that was connected to Robotech... it was what was driving me. got it, without the booster packs in a brown paper bag in a middle of the hall handoff... im sure the teachers thought it was drugs... oh how right they were.

I think I finished reading all 12 original novels by the start of 8th grade.. and was starting on my second round through them.

Then I found the Sentinels.. and OMG was it a pain to get those! I dont know why, but actually locating the Sentinels books, and eventually End of the Circle was really hard. It was a great payoff though because now i had brand new material infront of me. It was not affected by anything I had seen or read before.. it was a new story and it was awesome. The amazonian chicks, the fox people, the bear folk, the crystaline culture... all blew me away. there was just something great about having to visualize all of that material on my own... it was not until years later that I found Sentinels comics and saw a visualization of what the stories held.

End of the circle for me was the conclusion.. it was meant to wrap up the story and all was good. i enjoyed the novel, loved the tie ins to Scott Bernard, but i have to admit that the whole.. .Minmei on an island and pregnant was pretty wierd.... I was maybe 14 at the time,, so i think im gonna have to re-read that to try and understand it again.

So time passes, and then the great Robotech revival of the last 1990s, early 2000s hits. Robotech is on Cartoon Network in the fall of 1997, its my freshman year of college and I am freaking out at the chance to finally watch the show of my youth again! And then there were DVDs around 1999, or 2000? Awesome! Battlecry around 2001 or 2002, and more toys??? AWESOME!!! Robotech Invasion? eh, it was ok But ya,, I was so excited in the early part of this decade.... and when I found a Max Sterling masterpiece at Gamestop for 75% off, i thought i had died and gone to heaven. I ended up with 2 poseable alphas, 1 valkyrie, and 2 pull-back action chunky veritech that transformed a little, and the Battlecry collectors edition.. and I still wear the shirt.

So.. Shadow Chronicles comes out.. I know nothing about the drama that had been going on on the Robotech forums.. I just knew that it was a new Robotech film and in such case.. it must be awesome... right?

Well, I can't really say that it was. The CGI reminded me of fan films I saw on theforce.net , except the Star Wars fans did better work.... and the whole "Open Ending" really really annoyed me because on my initial pass all i could think was... "ok... So they retold the last original episode... introduced a few new characters... added a space battle ... um.. what? its not over? There is gonna have to be a sequel to finish this story? WTF!" I think it was the whole revisiting of episode 85 that turned me the most sour.. I expected new material, not a rehash... if felt like they were cheating me by retelling a story i already knew.

So after 1 watching i put it on the shelf and did not pull it down until a few weeks ago when I volunteered to review it for one of the threads. My opinion didn't change much.. but i liked the character designs better on the 2nd pass.


After all that.. here we are today. I still love Robotech.. I am not building giant robots... and I am honestly hoping for the best for the future. I don't know how much I trust HG, but i have no other choice. I am really hoping that we see a website redesign launched to compete with Voltron.com.. and we know they have the expertise to try, since they just updated harmonygold.com As for Shadow Rising? as much as i hate to give Kevin credit.. I have got to figure that the movie is gonna be released in 2010, because if it is not, then there is some serious crap going on over there.