posted October 07, 2009 10:03 PM
For anybody who is not familiar with Robotech and Macross. I have both the Robotech Macross DVD set and Macross DVD (the original made by the Japanese before it was made into Robotech by Americans,it's an English version)
Robotech
Robotech is a science fiction franchise that was launched by an 85-episode adaptation of three different anime television series. Within the combined and edited story, Robotechnology refers to the scientific advances discovered in an alien starship that crashed on a South Pacific island. With this technology, Earth developed giant robotic machines or mecha (many of which were capable of modular transformations) to fight three successive extraterrestrial invasions.
Robotech was one of the first anime series released in the United States which attempted to include most of the complexity and drama of its original Japanese source material. Produced by Harmony Gold USA, Inc. in association with Tatsunoko Prod. Co., Ltd., Robotech is a story adapted with edited content and revised dialogue from the animation of three different mecha anime series: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA. Harmony Gold's cited reasoning for combining these unrelated series was its decision to market Macross for American weekday syndication television, which required a minimum of 65 episodes at the time (thirteen weeks at five episodes per week). Macross and the two other series each had fewer episodes than required, since they originally aired in Japan as weekly series.
This combination resulted in a storyline that spans three generations, as mankind must fight three destructive Robotech Wars in succession over a powerful energy source and "lifeblood" of two different races called "Protoculture":
* The First Robotech War (The Macross Saga) concerns humanity's battle against the Zentraedi, a race of giant warriors who are sent to earth to retrieve the flagship of the Robotech Master Zor. The ship contains the last known source of Protoculture in the universe.
* The Second Robotech War (The Masters) begins when the creators of the Zentraedi, the Robotech Masters, attempt to take up where the Zentraedi left off, and capture the protoculture held within the remains of the SDF-1.
* The Third Robotech War (The New Generation) occurs after the alien Invid have been alerted to the existence of Protoculture on Earth by events that transpired at the end of the Second Robotech War. The planet is conquered, then enslaved, and it is up to the Robotech Expeditionary Force (and the Earth rebels) to retake their home planet.
On some television stations, the syndicated run was preceded by the broadcast premiere of Codename: Robotech, a feature-length pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotech
Macross
Macross (マクロス, Makurosu?) is a long-running series of science fiction Mecha anime, created by Shōji Kawamori of Studio Nue in 1982. The franchise features a fictional History of Earth/Humanity after the year 1999. The franchise title features three TV series, three movies, six OVAs, and two manga series, all sponsored by Big West Advertising.
Within the series, the term Macross is used to denote the main capital ship. This theme began in the original Macross, the SDF-1 Macross.
Overtechnology refers to the scientific advances discovered in an alien starship (Alien Star Ship - One later renamed Super Dimension Fortress - One Macross) that crashed on South Ataria island. With this technology, Earth was able to reverse engineer the technology to create mechas (variable fighters and destroids), a faster-than-light drive Space Fold for starships and other advanced technologies, which show up throughout the series.
The series title comes from the name of the main human spacecraft (which is usually shortened from Super Dimension Fortress to SDF-1 Macross as it is version 1.0). The original name for the Macross project was Battle City Megaload (or Battle City Megaroad, as the Japanese transliteration to either "L" or "R" gives the title a double meaning in reference to the story line: Megaload, referring to the spacecraft containing an entire city of people; and Megaroad, referring to the long journey through space back to Earth); however, one of the sponsors of the project, Big West Advertising, was a fan of Shakespeare and wanted the series and the spacecraft to be named Macbeth (マクベス, Makubesu?). A compromise was made with the title Macross (マクロス, Makurosu?) due to its similar pronunciation to Macbeth in Japanese and because it still contained connotations to the original title. The word Macross comes from a wordplay combination of the prefix "macro" in reference to its massive size (though when compared with the alien ships in the series, it is only a relatively small gun destroyer) and the distance they must cross.
Themes
The following are themes commonly seen and established among the various series in the Macross franchise.
[edit] U.N. Spacy
The U.N. Spacy is a fictional military arm of the Earth U.N. Government (地球統合政府, Chikyū Tōgō Seifu?). It was established by the successor to the modern United Nations in order to defend Earth from a possible attack by hostile aliens, and was involved in Space War I against an extraterrestrial race called the Zentradi. Later operations of the U.N. Spacy expanded into interstellar colonization and general peacekeeping of off-world Earth settlements.
The term "Spacy" is an extrapolation of the terms Army and Navy - though some Japanese sources also use the term Space Army and some English-language sources use the term Space Navy, suggesting that the term is a contraction.
[edit] Variable Fighters
A variable fighter is one of a series of transformable aerospace fighters, primarily designed by Studio Nue's Shoji Kawamori and Kazutaka Miyatake. They are generally able to transform into jet/space fighters, a humanoid robot and a hybrid of the two mode, better known as Gerwalk. These crafts are referred to in the original series by the model name "Valkyrie".
[edit] Music
Music plays an integral part in almost every Macross title, having significances in the way a series' antagonists behave towards it. Music idols also play a central role to various Macross stories. Often, the protagonist will be forced into a love triangle with a series' music idol; the most notable of them all is Lynn Minmay.
[edit] Space Fold
Faster-than-light travel in the Macross franchise is achieved via space-folding. This capability was introduced when the SDF-1 crash-landed on Earth. It has since been officially described as a type of space warp (or what is called super-light-velocity spatial displacement) navigation, allowing ultra-long distance travel nearly instantaneously. Simply put, a space-fold transports a spacecraft in a very short amount of time, by first swapping the location of the spacecraft with super dimension space or subspace, and then swapping the Super Dimension space with the space at the destination.
According to U.N. Spacy First Lieutenant Hayase Misa during Space War I (2009-2010), an hour passes in super dimension space as approximately ten days passes in normal space. The latest Macross T.V. series Macross Frontier further expands on that concept by introducing fold faults or dislocations which further slow down fold travel and interfere with fold communications. Also explained in Macross Frontier are the limitations of space folding, such as the geometric increase in energy requirement with the mass of the object to be folded. This prevents very large objects to be folded across vast distances because of the enormous energy requirements.
The act of entering Super Dimension space is called "fold in". When arriving at the destination, the act of leaving Super Dimension space is called a "defold" or a "fold out".
[edit] Other elements
The franchise also explores minor themes including culture shock, the coming of age, and nostalgia.
The New Age following the end of Space War I is part of the ongoing alternate history of the Macross franchise. The most recent series, Macross Frontier, is set 50 years after the start of the war with the Zentradi and depicts one of the colonization missions to the center of the galaxy.
Along with Gundam, a real robot mecha series of which Shoji Kawamori is a fan, Macross explored how individuals deal with warfare. whereas Gundam is far more political and is direct on the horrors of war, each Macross television series is unique for never depicting the antagonists as inherently evil and proved in the end that love, culture and music can be used to defeat them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macross
Raymond
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"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"
- Eckhart Tolle
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posted October 07, 2009 09:05 PM
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posted October 09, 2009 07:56 AM