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Tommy Yune will be a guest with Chris Meadows (also known as Robotech_Master at Robotech.com) on his live Robotech call in talk show, “Space Station Liberty”, on Thursday December, 7 @ 9 p.m. EST (6 p.m. PST). Robotech fans from around the country and around the world can call in and ask Tommy questions about the upcoming anime feature Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles and get answers direct from the source.
Read the full text here at the Robotech.com forums.
Yes, apparently you, too, can pester Tommy Yune with your burning questions. I cannot wait to listen after the fact and see if the whole thing melts down ala the comments thread on any given post at Darkwater's blog. Even if it doesn't, it should be interesting, just so long as Tommy lays off the canned responses.
Oh, and I should add that you can get caught up on the "Space Station Liberty" show here; the latest episode as of this writing is an interview with divisive Robotech fandom figure Peter Walker, of Unofficial Robotech Reference Guide fame. Just downloaded that one myself -- always kind of wondered what he sounded like.
As an aside, I keep meaning to join on on the fun at "Space Station Liberty" -- I think Chris has invited me over every week -- but since the Shadow Chronicles screening in St. Louis life's kind of been standing in the way in the best way possible. But as my pal Evan's said to me time and again, eventually you've got to learn to strike a balance ...
With that said, I've got some material I've been sitting on for a while that I think I'm finally going to break out -- it's probably five months old now, but I'm sure it'll be worth a listen nonetheless. I was actually saving it for the next issue of Emissaries, but given so many circumstances, both personal and professional, I don't know if that'll be out before the end of the year. I was hoping for late November, but that's come and gone. Anyway, keep an eye on this space between now and Sunday night. I'm sure you, the hypothetical Robotech fan reading this, will be glad you did.
posted by Captain JLS at
00:27
10 Comments:
I gave the last download, and they had an interesting point. Discussions would be less caustic if fans could hear each other's tone of voice.
Peter Walker mentioned that Dana found a dress that was 20,000 credits as an example of hyperinflation. She found a dress that was "36,000," not "20,000," in Danger Zone. Strangely, her former commander found a dress listed as "12,870,000" in the same episode. If people think there can't be that much difference between dress prices, they hasn't been dress shopping. :) (Which is normal for more than half of Robotech's audience, I suppose.)
I wish people would stop repeating a Macross urban myth. Shiba, one of the main characters in a Macross 7 tie-in manga, is not the bastard son of Max. That possibility was dangled by gossip early in the story, but it was finally confirmed later in the manga that he wasn't.
It was kind of funny hearing the three people talk about how rewriters of Robotech were unsung heroes compared to Carl Macek. The rewriters at least got their names mentioned in the credits. None of the Japanese writers did, and they're the people who came up with most of the plot points.
By
Anonymous, at 02 December, 2006 13:20
In the last Space Station Liberty download, Brooklyn Red Leg mentioned several statements that are wrong or aren't completely consistent within the 1985 animated adaptation. That's partly because the 1985 adaptation was inconsistent with itself.
Brooklyn Red Leg: "Space Station Liberty cannot be outside the solar system."
Episode 48
Narrator: [Referring to Major Carpenter's ship in the previous episode] The sudden appearance of an attack wing from Space Station Liberty provides a glimpse of hope.
Narrator: Far above, amid the blasted remnants of attack wing Liberty...
After all, if Space Station Liberty is made from the fold-capable factory satellite, why can't it go outside the solar system?
Brooklyn Red Leg: "Moon Base Aluce is most certainly on the near side of the moon."
Hermann2 points out that the Aluce in the 1985 Robotech Master story is "Aluce 1." This indicates more than one Aluce exists, so it's not most certain that any base called Aluce has to be on the near side.
Brooklyn Red Leg: "[Moon Base Luna] is darker. It appears to be a shaded side. It's not in full sunlight, whereas Aluce, when Transport Squadron 85 arrives, is fully illuminated. So that has to be the near side."
The "dark" side of the moon is a myth. There is no permanent dark half of the moon. Why do you think we Earthlings see a bright "full moon" and a dark "new moon" every month? Remember, the moon is tide-locked with Earth, not the sun. The far side of the moon gets as much sunlight as the near side of the moon.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980309b.html
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level2/dark_side.html
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/Academy/UNIVERSE/MOON.HTML
It was disappointing that Walker, as a space physicist, did not correct Brooklyn Red Leg on this annoyingly persistent myth.
By
Anonymous, at 02 December, 2006 13:39
Hey, how 'bout you people dial into the show, eh? :) If you watch the thread on the Palladium forum or the RDF HQ forum, you'll see when I have a short-notice show coming up. (If you register for the forum, you can opt to be emailed a notice when a new post is made in the thread. That's the closest thing I've got to a notification-subscription service at the moment.)
I might be hosting one later tonight, for instance.
By
Chris Meadows, at 02 December, 2006 19:12
Because the Robotech Masters are incapable of executing a hyperspace fold. How are they going to attack a target that is beyond their range of projecting power? Rewatch Dana's Story.
No one is saying that Space Station Liberty can't be in the Solar System in 2029. (Although we'll have a tough time finding a "moon of their sixth planet" with an Earth-like atmosphere.) But we're talking about the whereabouts of Space Station Liberty in the 2040s, over a decade later.
You're asserting a space station can't be outside the Solar System because we hear about an apparent attack in the system in 2029, but ten episodes later in the same story, "an attack wing from Space Station Liberty" comes from the "Pioneer Mission." This is Robotech being inconsistent again.
Except establishing shots in Clone Chamber and Mind Games show the Earth clearly in the sky above ALuCE. That means its the near-side.
Again, this does not conflict with Hermann2's theory. He's saying that the "Aluce 1" we see in the Robotech Masters is not necessarily the "Aluce" in The Shadow Chronicles, since the "1" in "Aluce 1" indicates more than one exists.
Whats more, the base we see in Reflex Point and Dark Finale have berths large enough to hold ships the size of the SDF-04 Liberator. Why would ALuCe (Advanced Lunar Chemical Engineering), a civilian research station, have need of berths large enough to hold the biggest ships in the UEF arsenal?
There is at least a 14 year gap between when we see "Aluce 1" in Robotech Masters and when we see the base in The New Generation. That is plenty of time to build berths. Look at how much was done in the 14 years between The Macross Saga and The Robotech Masters.
Yes it does. I merely used the term 'dark side' cause thats what everyone else said. If you also listen, I do believe I use the terms 'near side' and 'far side'. Sorry, Mr Anal Retentive, I f&cked up and said 'dark side'. If that is the entirety of your argument on this point, then you need to learn to think up better debates.
It's just not a matter of wording, since your argument rest on the "far side" being darker than the near side. Let's revisit what you said:
Brooklyn Red Leg: "[Moon Base Luna] is darker. It appears to be a shaded side. It's not in full sunlight, whereas Aluce, when Transport Squadron 85 arrives, is fully illuminated. So that has to be the near side."
Your argument was predicated on the far side being "darker" and "not in full sunlight" compared to the near side. As NASA explains, neither is true. This is Robotech being loose with its astronomical terms again. It uses the scientifically inaccurate "dark side" term, but never uses the more accurate "far side."
By
Anonymous, at 03 December, 2006 01:30
Good show this weekend! Very different from Friday's, but just as interesting because of all the personalities. Between Palladium's forum being down and the short notice, download was the only option, though. A tip for other downloaders: find out if your media player can change the playback speed of mp3s. Listening at 2 or 3 times the normal speed makes the 2.5 hours easier to swallow. Going through the download:
(Regarding Fullmetal Alchemist and other recent anime/manga compared to Bubblegum Crisis and Legend of Galactic Heroes.) "I don't know. Maybe shonen is going out of style in Japan."
Fullmetal Alchemist is shonen. The manga runs in Shonen GanGan magazine. Shonen doesn't mean manly stuff. Remember what shonen means: boys. Bubblegum Crisis is not shonen because it's aimed at adult males who paid 6,700 yen ($60 or so) for 30 minutes of babes and bullets, not boys. Ironically, the Legend of Galactic Heroes manga spinoff ran for a while in Chara, a magazine aimed the adult female Gravitation crowd.
Regarding which military contractors "would get the big bucks" after the crash in 1999: Whether American military contractors remain the most lucrative in the defense industry depends on America staying above the worldwide fray. One reason America as a whole rose from World War II to dominate the First World nations was that its homeland was relatively untouched. There were less than a half dozen World War II offensives that reached the mainland states, with only one being fatal: a fire balloon that killed six civilians. Things were different in Robotech. Sometime after 1999, we even had enemy fighters attacking a base in Wyoming. A lot of things had to have gone wrong for enemy fighters to reach that far into the American heartland. Of course, several years later, the whole rulebook is thrown out yet again for 95% of the Earth's surface.
"I'm going retire as a CO of the fighter squadron or whatever squadron. Or I'm going have to grow up and learn how to become a captain of a ship. And eventually you just get sick and tired of facing so many damn traps. Everybody gets old. Nobody gets old in anime."
Except we do have squadrons pilots who grow up and retire or become captains of ships and commanders of larger units in anime. See Char Aznable of Gundam, Amuro Ray of Gundam (retired, then went guerilla, finally reactivated), Max Jenius of Macross, Miria Jenius of Macross (becomes a commander at the Eagle's Nest training center before retiring), Hayato Kobayashi of Gundam, Millard Johnson of Macross Plus (makes a cameo as a fighter pilot in a Macross short story), Those are just some of examples from Gundam and Macross.
"1979. Yeah, [Roy's] two years older in Robotech. Hey that's another feather in its cap. Robotech is more realistic. The debate is over. So we never have to hear that argument again."
Roy is 29 years old before February of 2009 in Macross. Unless his birthday is in January or the first week of February, he turns 30 years old in 2009 in Macross.
Roy was born in 1979 in Robotech, which made him 30 years old in 2009 in Robotech also. In other words, the two Roys can be the same age. It definitely won't declare any realism debate over.
"Robotech is pretty much the only cash cow that Harmony Gold has left these days."
..
"Didn't [Harmony Gold] actually do Shaka Zulu or was that something else?"
"I think that's something else."
Harmony Gold USA did work on Shaka Zulu miniseries, and the Shadow Chronicles is not their only project now. Here's a list of of their current and former projects:
http://www.harmonygold.com/catalog.htm
http://www.afmfilms.org/catalog/CompanyDetail.php?id=121
"Do we even have an idea of what the production costs [for the Shadow Chronicles"?
Thanks to Darkwater, we found out that Harmony Gold is telling American Film Market attendees that its production was "3M-5M." They also claim that it's "the biggest sequel news in the history of anime!" so provide your own grain of salt.
http://www.afmfilms.org/catalog/FilmDetail.php?id=653
"The company that created [a Robotech game] was bought by a particular gaming company, which then canned the project. This happened like two or three times. It was the reason that Crystal Dreams got canned."
Game-tek went bankrupt on its own when it worked on Crystal Dreams. The developers were actually hoping another company would pick up Crystal Dreams and restart it, but it never came to be.
http://www.robotech.com/news/viewarticle.php?id=93
"[The Italian fraud trial] will probably not have any effect on Robotech, per se, because it's not related to Harmony Gold, but to other stuff Frank Agrama was doing."
The Variety article says that Italian authorities found a letter from Agrama to former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi that explains "Berlusconi might become the principal shareholder in Harmony Gold but that Agrama would be setting up a separate entity called Wiltshire not subject to Italian law." If this alleged letter is introduced as evidence as is, it relates Harmony Gold to the case even if the people involved tried to cover their tracks.
"I don't think that's likely to happen. I mean, back then, you didn't have a whole division of people related to the show."
A lot can change in a few years. Harmony Gold had a whole division of people related to the show as late as 1986. By 1989, that all changed.
"Someone got a hold of Lancer's Rockers, and said hey, this would be cool for the next Macross."
Palladium Books published Lancer's Rockers in December of 1989. By that time, Bandai had already created Macross spinoff games in Japan that included music weaponry as minor elements. A bizarre idea then as now, but Robotech didn't have the dubious honor of originating it.
"Whereas you take the Sylphid. Not only does it got lasers built underneath the fuselage--2 to 3--"
Did we see a third laser firing underneath the fuselage, or just two? The third underfuselage protusion could be anything: a pitot tube, a sensor, or an antenna.
"I tell them to come to Dragon*Con in Atlanta. The official number is 30,000 geeks."
Where does this number come from? Dragon*Con's website says 20,000+ unique attendees, unless the bodies/day method is used, which would make Comic-Con International 200,000+. Even the one-year-old New York Comic-Con (another stop on the Robotech Con Tour) is quoting a higher number of unique attenedees.
By
Anonymous, at 03 December, 2006 10:29
In that Space Station Liberty ep:
"Maybe there are too many fans at SDCC. You're talking about 50,000 to 60,000 swinging dicks coming through the doors."
Yep, and even more, if you count the attendees without swinging dicks. ;) Comic-Con International quoted 104,000 individual people, XX and XY, in 2005.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=5669
By
Anonymous, at 03 December, 2006 11:14
Why would they move it outside the Solar System when the war they are fighting is to liberate Earth? The further it is from that front, the more time and energy is lost moving new equipment. Whats more, the Invid are incapable of attacking any target above Low Earth Orbit as they lack any kind of armed capital ship. Why would Space Station Liberty moved outside our Solar System and subsequently all but abandoned (as per The Shadow Chronicles)?
A similar question could be asked about why Robotech had the "interstellar ships" from the expeditionary mission stay out of the solar system for years. Why did they return via space folds in "contingents" instead of coming en masse, if they would have been unmolested beyond Low Earth Orbit as claimed? The Invid had the ability to teleport weapons of the enemy (episode 84), invade more than one planet (episode 61), destroy several planet-obliterating missiles and part of the enemy fleet within minutes' notice (episode 85), conduct a "swift and complete" conquest of a planet (episode 62), and devastate a planet "within a matter of minutes" (episode 61). Robotech demostrated that the Invid did all of these things, but left the question open as to why Point K was ignored for years only to be swiftly devastated, or why they let a moon base exist, only to destroy its biggest threat within minutes. Robotech doesn't tell us if this incongruence is due to the lack of ability, interest, urgency, or fear, so we can't say it's just one of these factors for certain.
This also raises the questions of where and when Liberty was attacked in the first place. It's possible any number of conflicting ways, since the cobbled episode only showed the Liberty observer ships and Marie's unit being attacked after the enemy arrived "behind the moon of their sixth planet." (Never mind that there are far more than one moon of Saturn in the real world, and none of them have a Earth-like atmosphere as seen in the cobbled episode.)
The next episode then said that there was an attack on moon base Luna repeatedly, but we didn't see this attack directly and it didn't mention that Liberty was attacked. We didn't specifically hear about Liberty itself being attacked until 17 episodes later. To make things even more confusing, the 1985 dialogue muddied the waters on whether Liberty observer was attached to the moon base, Liberty, or neither. We got the following exchange:
Moon base personnel: Liberty, this is moon base. Space station Liberty, come in at once! (Thinking) Why won't they answer? Why?
Moon base personnel (offscreen): Space station Liberty, come in! Emergency!
Liberty observer personnel #1: So that's what he's saying! We better get on the horn to our gun battery right away 'cuz we're in trouble!
Liberty observer personnel #2: Right!
Voice: Laser plasma gunners, battle stations!
Liberty observer personnel #2: I couldn't raise them, lieutenant. And then they just seem to disappear from my radar screen.
Marie: Roger, Liberty observer, will respond. Our ETA in your quadrant, approximately 90 seconds.
The problem was that the moon base personnel and the lunar observer personnel #2 was the same person. The other person in the lunar observer ships was basically relaying a message to the same person who sent it. ;)
At no time does either Carpenter or the Narrator state that the Major's ship was from Liberty. At no time does the Narrator at the beginning of Deja Vu state that the Attack Wing Liberty was from the Pioneer Mission. You are the one providing linkage where none occurs, as Carpenter's ship CAME ALONE from the SDF-03!
Alone, the major's unit was called the "attack wing" in both episodes:
Episode 47
Voice: All pilots to battle stations. All pilots to battle stations. All ground crews to staging areas 6 through 16. Prepare fighters for rendezvous with the attack wing from pioneer mission. All pilots and ground crews to staging areas. Prepare for immediate rendezvous with SDF-3 attack wing.
Major: You see, sir, my attack wing was merely a last ditch effort, to join forces with your available fighters and knock the invaders from their orbit.
Episode 48
Narrator: The sudden appearance of an attack wing from Space Station Liberty provides a glimpse of hope. But Veritech fighters are no match for the awesome power of the Robotech Masters.
The Liberty observer ships (which were never directly called an attack wing) didn't make a "sudden appearance" in the previous episode; they debuted eleven episodes ago. However, the major's SDF-3 attack wing did make a sudden appearance in the previous episode.
I would point out that the Liberty Observer Group from Dana's Story have ships coloured blue-black and are apparently attached to the Liberty command. Only one of at least 5 was destroyed in Dana's Story. Lets take a look at those remains: Attack Wing Liberty http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m77/Brooklyn_Red_Leg/RemainsofAttackWingLiberty.jpg Reaction Engine Block of Major Carpenter's Tokugawa http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m77/Brooklyn_Red_Leg/TokugawaReactionEngineBlock02.jpg Can you reasonably explain HOW the ship in the first pic is supposed to be the ship from the second pic, when the hull in the first is painted blue-black and Carpenter's is painted tan? How about the fact that Carpenter's ship blew itself to kingdom come after burying its hull several hundred meters inside one of the Masters' city-ships, which in turn blew up? There wouldn't be enough left of that ship to fill a thimble. http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m77/Brooklyn_Red_Leg/UESHannibalexploding.jpg
The Liberty observer ships also had bright red paint around its engines, but we didn't see that in the dark debris either. :) We've had other craft destroyed and still leave similar gray debris, even if the original ship paint wasn't gray. Interestingly, we didn't see the enemy mothership blow up. The entire area was aglow from the blast, but we didn't see that mothership explode any more than we saw another mothership next to it explode or the flagship explode in episode 85.
I've worked Registration for 5 years now and I have friends among the other staff. I also attend the after-Con Dead Dog Party. The official numbers given out were 30,000.
If it was official, is there an official press release or PR statement with this attendance number? New York Comic-Con, Comic-Con International, Gen Con Indy, and Anime Expo (all conventions on the Robotech Con Tour) have announced bigger attendance numbers in official press releases or PR statements for better verifiability than a staffer's recollection at a post-con dead dog party.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/8738.html
http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=5669
http://www.gencon.com/2006/indy/press/releases/2006.09.06.Press.aspx
http://comics.ign.com/articles/724/724607p1.html
By
Anonymous, at 04 December, 2006 03:09
http://www.dragoncon.org/history.htm
They haven't put up the 2006 numbers yet. If you don't want to believe me, be my guest. Why don't you email Brenda Tackett at the DragonCon office and ask her: dragoncon@dragoncon.org
As written five posts ago:
Dragon*Con's website says 20,000+ unique attendees, unless the bodies/day method is used, which would make Comic-Con International 200,000+. [Note: Both con stats are for 2005.] Even the one-year-old New York Comic-Con (another stop on the Robotech Con Tour) is quoting a higher number of unique attendees.
By
Anonymous, at 04 December, 2006 11:15
"the SDF-04 Liberator."
"the SDF-03!"
As a side note, why are you using name and numbers inconsistent with the 1985 series, if you insist other people should be consistent with the 1985 series elsewhere? We never saw SDF numbers written with zeros in 1985, only as SDF-1 several times onscreen. The flagship in the last two episodes was never called the Liberator in 1985, but it was named the Izumo onscreen in 1985.
If you're arguing that the Shadow Chronicles is inconsistent with the 1985 series, why do your own arguments share some of the same inconsistencies that it has?
By
Anonymous, at 04 December, 2006 11:54
So, you're arguing that The Shadow Chronicles is inconsistent with The Robotech Masters, even though The Robotech Masters is inconsistent with itself on those points.
At the very same time, you fully endorse the inconsistencies The Shadow Chronicles has with The Macross Saga and The New Generation, because those inconsistencies "sound alot better."
Well, everyone's gotta make their own rules. ;)
By
Anonymous, at 04 December, 2006 14:10
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