Some Thoughts on Robotech: The Movies.

Original animation commissioned for Robotech: The Movie.

Robotech's 1985 run linked three distinct series into a single, multi-generational narrative. The episodes were sanitized for after-school viewers and for U. S. sensibilities and were Americanized in general. Still, it was the highest-profile early effort to present anime to Western audiences without directly dumbing down the themes.

As a young viewer at the time, I was spellbound. Most previous imported "Japanimation" titles were ones that had clearly been aimed at children in the first place, and they were further dumbed down for western audiences. Robotech strove to retain as much of that complexity as it could get away with. To young me, it felt as if I was watching an "adult" show that just happened to be in animated form.

I discovered the show when the second episode, Countdown aired. However, even the first episode was not Robotech's first broadcast...

Rick Hunter engages Zentraedi who are monitoring
(but not understanding) a human beauty pageant.

A BIZARRE PROLOGUE: CODENAME - ROBOTECH:

Execs had concerns about young American audiences being able to follow a complicated, ongoing narrative. Signs of this lack of confidence in their viewers permeate the series, from narration that occasionally feels all but omnipresent to such restating of plot points that I think Netflix used it as a template for its original films.

The single strangest attempt at handholding, however, is the "movie" that opened the series: Codename - Robotech.

A compilation film that covers roughly the first third of "The Macross Saga," Codename - Robotech was intended to make it easier for new viewers to follow the series. I'm honestly not sure how. The actual series opens with carefully paced introductions of both the characters and story elements. The movie clarifies that muddle of painstaking setup by instead offering... a context-free space battle in which characters we've never met rattle off Technobabble, with not a single explanation coming until a good ten minutes in.

The entire movie is a bit of an outlier. Unlike the other films, this was an introduction to the series rather than an attempt to continue it. Still, its very existence demonstrated Harmony Gold's lack of trust in its viewers to follow along; and its presentation, which prioritizes plot mechanics over characterization, foreshadowed Robotech's storytelling focus in contrast to the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, which did the exact opposite.

Robotech: The Movie - Mark Landry and his girlfriend, Becky,
ride into an adventure that's been mostly forgotten. Thankfully.

"THAT'S A CANNON MOVIE!" ROBOTECH - THE MOVIE:

The success of Robotech's 85-episode run was enough to justify making a movie to bridge the gap between seasons. Unfortunately, the distribution deal was with Cannon Films under its most infamous owners: Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who became notorious for slashing budgets and meddling in productions, invariably to the detriment of the films they released.

With no time to create an original animated movie before the new season, Carl Macek fell back on what had worked for the series: adapting an anime, in this case popular original video animation Megazone 23. Macek reportedly delivered a passably faithful version... only to be told that there were "too many girls and not enough robots and guns," and that this was "not a Cannon movie."

This led to Macek tossing in roughly half an hour of footage from Southern Cross, necessitating deep cuts to Megazone. The result is a mess. Though I could pick out one or two episodes that I think are even worse, I'd label Robotech: The Movie as the series' creative low point. It was barely distributed, and it's largely forgotten today.

There are two silver linings, however. If not for Robotech: The Movie, I'm not sure I'd have ever actually watched Megazone 23, a highly influential work that's well worth watching for any science fiction fan. Beyond which, at least it pleased Menahem Golan, who boasted of the result: "Now that's a Cannon movie!"

The wedding of Rick and Lisa in Robotech: The Sentinels.

THE SEASON THAT WASN'T - THE SENTINELS:

After the first season's success, Carl Macek and Harmony Gold decided to pursue original animation for Season Two. Then the dollar/yen exchange rate shifted, making outsourced animation significantly more expensive. If this had happened a few months later, I suspect the season might have survived. With only three episodes complete, however, Harmony Gold decided that the expense was too much and canceled the project.

The Sentinels compiles the animation that was done into a movie. Fortunately, there is an arc: Rick Hunter balances his upcoming wedding to Lisa Hayes against preparations for the SDF-3's new mission, with the film ending after the wedding and just as the ship leaves Earth. This makes it feel less incomplete than it might have, even if it's evident that the most interesting part of the story is yet to be told.

I wouldn't label what exists as particularly good. Characters are bland, and the animators seem a lot more interested in the "B" plot, focused on the Invid invasion of the planet Rick's crew will soon visit, than in any of the scenes featuring the returning cast. Still, there are elements here that might have become interesting; and just having the casts of the three "generations" interacting with each other helps to unify the overall series.

Even so, based on what was produced, I'm not left with a sense that anything special was lost.

Young pilot Marcus Rush angrily confronts Scott Bernard in The Shadow Chronicles.

AN ATTEMPTED CONTINUATION - THE SHADOW CHRONICLES:

Almost two decades after The Sentinels, and almost certainly in part because of Robotech's healthy home video sales, Harmony Gold produced a continuation: The Shadow Chronicles.

The Shadow Chronicles is almost the flip side of The Sentinels. The earlier film focused mainly on the characters from "The Macross Saga," with smaller roles for a few "Masters" characters and a couple of nods to "The New Generation." In contrast, this film gives leading roles to Scott and Ariel from "New Generation," solid supporting roles to Louis from "The Masters" and to some crew members introduced in The Sentinels; and represents "The Macross Saga" only through a brief appearance by Rick Hunter.

I liked it better than The Sentinels. Unfortunately, it repeats one of the earlier movie's problems, in that it ends just as the story seems to be taking off. A sequel, Shadow Rising, was intended. Despite posting decent sales figures, though, Harmony Gold never managed to move forward with it. They've also never officially canceled it, leaving it in what seems likely to be a permanent state of limbo.

Love Live Alive: Lancer reunites with his friends.

A MINOR EPILOGUE - LOVE LIVE ALIVE:

To date, Robotech's final gasp is Love Live Alive.

I don't know whether or not this will be Robotech's final bow, as one more project keeps struggling out every decade or so. Still, there's an odd symmetry to it ending here. For most of the series' life, Robotech was made up of episodes of '80s anime series dubbed and edited to fit Carl Macek's multi-generational continuity. Love Live Alive carries on that tradition, adapting a music OVA that tied into Genesis Climber Mospeada; and as a compilation film, it provides a sort of mirror to the series' very first release, Codename - Robotech.

Genesis Climber Mospeada: Love Live Alive was a celebration of music. It had little dialogue, instead being almost all music, and it used its clips not to retell Mospeada's story but to punctuate emotions. Robotech reduces the concert to a single scene, with the rest being a bog-standard clip show. Judged on that basis, it isn't bad, and the frame scenes provide a bit of closure for the character of Lancer, but I wish Harmony Gold had retained the structure of the more memorable original version.

I didn't hate watching the Robotech re-edit. Unlike the Japanese original, however, Robotech: Love Live Alive did little to particular justify its own existence.

Lancer pauses in the ruins of a battlefield in Love Live Alive.

OVERALL:

I don't find the Robotech movies to be objectionable. At a minimum, they all manage to be passably entertaining. Even the awful Robotech: The Movie is bad in ways that are sometimes funny... and it's the main reason that I ended up watching the excellent Megazone 23.

But a bit like the Robotech version of Love Live Alive, the movies don't really justify their own existence. They don't make the series larger; The Shadow Chronicles, in particular, muddies the continuity, which just about held together through the 85 televised episodes.

Other opinions are always available. For me, however, the movies add up to nothing more than a handful of curiosity pieces. A viewer who stops watching after the television finale, Symphony of Light, honestly won't miss much if they chose to skip these - though at least they're not a painful experience to watch.

Previous: The New Generation

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Some Thoughts on Robotech: The Macross Saga.

Hikaru/Rick Hunter prepares for battle.

SOME THOUGHTS ON ROBOTECH - THE MACROSS SAGA:

There are those who see Robotech as an abomination - a "Frankenstein show" that disrespects its source material. Some Robotech detractors try to ignore its importance to bringing anime to the west with (much of) its original complexity intact. Others acknowledge this, but don't think it makes up for the results. I won't even get into the legal issues that Harmony Gold and Robotech created for its parent franchise outside Japan, except to say that these issues probably haven't helped the American series' reputation in the eyes of anime fans.

All of that said, I come not to bury Robotech but to praise it. At least, for the most part...


COMPLEX MATERIAL, MORE OR LESS INTACT:

I was there for mid-'80s US television. I remember what television was at the time. In previous "Japanimation" titles, material seen as too adult or inappropriate for young viewers was either altered or removed, and that easily could have been done here.

Super Dimension Fortress Macross was a series whose content challenged the confines of mid-1980s American after school cartoons. It included: a complex ongoing story; an interracial romance; major character deaths; a running theme about the power of popular culture to affect change; and the realization that a victory in war does not mean things won't get messy in peacetime. All of this remains reasonably intact in Robotech.

Inevitably, there is some watering down. Standards and practices for the US were different than for Japan, so a lot of sexual innuendo was trimmed back along with a few "peekaboo" nudity shots. Some of the detail supporting the themes is sanded away, such as observations about the Zentradi's lack of maintenance of their own vessels.

Still, in an era in which interracial romance would be the topic of a "very special episode" of a prime-time show, Roy and Claudia's relationship only loses a bit of a carnal edge while remaining otherwise strongly present - and with the interracial element never once commented on by the characters. Major character deaths remain (no one goes "to space hospital" and sort of stays there), and the major themes are entirely recognizable.

I was impressed at the time, and I remain impressed at how much it stands out from most of its '80s counterparts.

Rick preens about his skill in the first episode... only
to spend the next three shows repeatedly screwing up.

CHARACTERS WHO ARE NOT PERFECT, AND A HERO WHO IS NOT "THE BEST:"

Robotech tends to put plot above characterization, the exact reverse of Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Even so, and even in its Americanized form, the heroes are three-dimensional people who sometimes behave in ways that are petty, stupid, or selfish. This was not standard for even most "grown-up shows" of the time.

There's an important thing to note about Rick Hunter, our hero. He is introduced as a hot-shot pilot, intruding on an air show with renegade stunts. We're coded to expect him to be the perfect ace. But when he gets behind the controls of the completely unfamiliar Veritech... He has no idea what he's doing, he is in over his head, and he quickly crashes. Then he spends the next two episodes repeatedly crashing. Only after he joins the military and actually learns how to fly the complicated military vehicle is he able to do so effectively.

Even then, Rick's true gift ends up being as a leader. Max, one of his subordinates, is explicitly shown to be a better pilot. Roy, his mentor, is probably also more skilled. In an era in which the hero was pretty much always "the best," Rick... is not. He thinks fast. He has a strong survival instinct. Once he's in a leadership position, he gives good orders. But in the cockpit, there are pilots who are superior, something you didn't often see in television or movies of the era.

Again, this is all as it was in Super Dimension Fortress Macross - but I'm impressed, and given the era also a litte surprised, that the dialogue wasn't adjusted to downplay Rick's early incompetence.

Rick and Minmei are trapped in a sealed-off section
of the ship. Unlike in Macross, they never stop talking.

FLAWS:

I'm not going to pretend there aren't issues. Robotech has a consistent issue with dialogue. The first episode sees Claudia whining to Lisa that she is "not (her) mother." The young women making up the SDF-1's bridge crew seem to be constantly wailing. A fight scene between Rick, Ben, and Zentraedi commander Bree'tai is practically narrated, with the humans telling each other what is happening on screen through the entire sequence. Dialogue generally feels dumbed-down and juvenile - not always, but often enough to be a consistent issue.

Robotech also seems terrified of silence, with many moments that were held to good effect in Macross now slathered over with voice over or off-screen dialogue. This is particularly visible in the fourth episode, The Long Night, which sees Rick and Minmei trapped in a sealed off section of the SDF-1. In Macross's counterpart episode, Lynn Minmay, there are stretches in which they explore without dialogue. In Robotech, they natter non-stop. Some of the dialogue is actually pretty decent... but they just won't shut up, not even for an instant. It's an issue throughout the series, but it's particularly evident there.

Changes to the original (sometimes pointless ones) result in inconsistencies. This starts right away, with the narration on the first episode establishing a different backstory for Robotech than for Macross. When the alien ship crashed on Earth, Macross tells us that the governments of the world immediately went to war for control over it. In addition to finding that fairly likely, it also makes sense of why relatively young characters (Roy, Claudia, Misa) were all affected by previous conflicts.

In Robotech, the crash landing caused the world to stop warring with itself to prepare for a potential outside threat. Fine, that works too... except that, since ten years pass between the crash and the events of the series, it makes a hash of these characters in their early to mid-twenties being veterans. Lisa's fiancée left Earth to avoid a war that ended ten years ago. So... Lisa was engaged at 14? And if Roy shot down 100 planes in peacetime, he wouldn't be a hero - He'd be a serial killer with a very peculiar MO.

Pop star Minmei reunites with Rick. In Robotech,
she's become a spoiled brat in the interim.

THE SABOTAGE OF LYNN MINMEI:

Even in Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Lynn Minmay is self-absorbed to a degree that I found annoying. Still, self-absorption was her only real sin, and that's hardly uncommon among teen girls even when they aren't abruptly elevated to "pop idol" status.

Macross's Minmay grows as she goes through her own series arc. By the series' end, she realizes that she and Hikaru have grown independently in different directions, and she decides to go off to find new, more authentic songs to sing. She's not exactly my favorite character, but she unmistakably matures.

Robotech's Minmei actually regresses. She showed more common sense than Rick during The Long Night, voicing hesitance about eating all their rations, only to transform in the second half of the series into a spoiled brat. Nor is this an accident of translation - It's done on purpose. Moments of thoughtfulness from Macross are removed, and a scene in which she deals with her fans is rewritten to be scornful.

Any question that this is a deliberate choice evaporates with the episode Private Time. In the Japanese original, Kaifun has drummed up a concert without her knowledge, specifically to keep her from spending time with Hikaru. In Robotech, this is changed so that it's an interview that she was already aware of, making her into... well, a brat throwing a temper tantrum.

Misa, Hikaru, and company receive promotions. The ADV dub
keeps the Robotech ranks rather than sticking to the original.

MACROSS'S ADV DUB:

I chose to watch Super Dimension Fortress Macross using the subtitled Japanese version. It should be noted that an Engish dub was released by ADV. I'm going to admit to having some issues with the dub. It retains certain changes made for Robotech, notably the shuffling of the characters' ranks after their promotions. Yes, the Robotech ranks make more sense (the characters effectively are promoted two full grades fairly early in Macross)... but if the point is to make a faithful dub, then surely it goes against that point to "fix the mistakes."

I also have problems with some of the voice acting. Vic Mignona, whatever his other issues, is a generally decent voice actor - but his Hikaru sounds like a cartoon chipmunk. Having Mari Iijima reprise Minmay sounded like a good idea on paper, and it helps to make the transitions between dialogue and songs more seamless... but her voice aged in the two decades between the original series and the dub, and she simply doesn't convince as a teenager.

Oh, and what can you say to a dub that persistenty mispronounces the show's own title? Seriousy, refer to the opening song for each episode and you can hear that it's "Mac-ross," as in "Mac-intosh," not "Muh-cross," as in "Mud-lurker."

It should be noted that my opinion is just that - an opinion - and the dub has its fans. For me, this is one anime where I'll happily stick with the sub.

The heroes prepare to fight for the survival of their homeworld.

TWO GOOD SERIES - THOUGH ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER:

I don't think there's any real question that Super Dimension Fortress Macross is a better show than Robotech's Macross Saga. Though it has its own faults (the epilogue arc feels vaguely half-finished in both versions), it is internally consistent, and its characters and themes have more dimension than the Americanized version does. Macross's "protoculture" feeds the theme about the power of popular culture, while Robotech reinvents "protoculture" as a simple plot device.

Still, this point must be emphasized: Macross being better doesn't make Robotech bad!

On this rewatch, even as I mentally noted the American show's flaws, I was legitimately impressed by its ambition. For its era, timeslot, and target audience, Robotech is considerably above-average, and I think it remains well worth watching in its own right. I was also surprised to find that it's far more faithful to the Japanese original than I'd been led to believe. Things are watered down and simplified, and some emphasis has been shifted to make it more plot-focused and less character-focused; but there's no point at which I felt that a given Robotech episode was unrecognizable from the original.

If you're going to watch just one version, make it Macross. But Robotech's Macross Saga has its own virtues, and I'm personally glad to have spent time watching both variations.


Next: The Masters

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Robotech vs. the Original Series: Review Introduction and Rating Scale

In the mid-1980s, I was just the right age to be caught up by Robotech, the multi-generational animated sci-fi epic. I enjoyed science fiction in general, with Star Trek, Doctor Who, and the original Battlestar Galactica being shows I never missed if I could help it; and though I was on the cusp of outgrowing cartoons, I was not quite there yet.

Robotech was startling for a mid-1980s viewer used to the animated sci-fi of the period. It told an ongoing story, with episodes more chapters than complete stories in themselves. It dealt with emotions and serious themes, and even featured multiple romances. Like most boys of my age, I usually rolled my eyes when shows took side-trips into "mushy stuff" - but I actually found myself interested in the relationship side of the plot.

I never went through an anime phase. I watched a few of the highly touted offerings of the 1990s and mostly wasn't impressed. "Let's stop chasing this terrorist for five minutes while I pontificate like a stoned philosophy undergrad." "OK, but as soon as you're done, I'm going to wake the audience up by flashing my panties five times as I turn cartwheels while double-wielding machine pistols." I had larger priorities at that time anyway, and so I dismissed anime as "not for me" and went merrily on with my life.

Years later, I outgrew having outgrown cartoons, and it wasn't long before I found anime titles that legitimately impressed me - notably the works of Mamoru Hosoda, Isao Takahata, and of course Hayao Miyazaki. Like everything else in film and television, I realized that there was plenty of both art and trash to go around.

Fast forward to now, and I decided there was a review series I really wanted to tackle... Which wasn't actually this one.


THE ROAD TO THE ROBOTECH REVIEWS:

An upcoming review series will be a look at the works of Studio Ghibli, starting with the pre-Ghibli works of Isaio Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. That series is still very much "under construction," in terms of viewing the first several included titles, creating initial review drafts, and researching background. I will likely begin posting those reviews sometime next year.

It was research that led me here, however. Reading up on the history of anime, both in Japan and the US, quickly leads one to that old show from my early teen years: Robotech. 


ROBOTECH VS EARLIER "JAPANIMATION"

Robotech was hardly the first anime series (or "Japanimation") to be adapted for US television. It wasn't even the first case of multiple series being combined into one. Just one year earlier, Voltron was slapped together for the US market out of two entirely different anime series: Beast King GoLion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV. 

The difference between Robotech and previous effort is in content. Earlier shows had been made specifically for child audiences and/or had been heavily altered so that elements such as violence, sexuality, and major character deaths were heavily toned down. Again citing Voltron: In Beast King GoLion, Takashi dies of his injuries in Episode Four; Sven, his English language counterpart, goes to "space hospital."

In Robotech, characters died, including series regulars. Action scenes would turn from exciting to grim on a dime. Relationships received as much, sometimes more, focus than the transforming robot battles. Complex themes involving the power of popular culture, the nature of war, and the difficulties of peace were left largely intact. Sure, some elements were censored and others were watered down, but in general the adult material remained recognizable.


"THE FRANKENSTEIN SHOW" - A QUICK BACKGROUND:

Robotech's short-term but significant success helped to raise interest in anime in the US. However, it's far from beloved among anime fans. Part of this is likely resentment against Harmony Gold, the American company behind Robotech, which made it as legally difficult as possible for the original versions of its series to receive international release. The rest stems from the nature of the 85-episode series.

It began life as a straight translation of the popular Japanese series, Super Dimension Fortress Macross - but Macross's 36 episodes weren't enough to qualify for US syndication. Writer/executive producer Carl Macek came up with the idea to combine Macross with two other series whose rights were held by Harmony Gold: Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada. Changes were made to the stories of the three shows to transform them into a single, multi-generational saga, with each new series representing the next "generation" of a larger epic.

I'll judge the results as I go... but commercially at least, this worked. Robotech was a success, drawing in children, teens, and even some adults. That success didn't outlast its initial run: An attempted movie failed hard (which is what happens when you deal with Cannon Films), and the second season was scuttled with only three finished episodes because of issues with the overseas animation studios and exchange rate changes that made outsourcing the animation suddenly much more expensive.

Still, that 85-episode original run captured a lot of viewers' imaginations. I recognized it instantly (one of those, "Oh, that show!" moments) when I came across it while researching. And as I began rewatching, I was surprised by how much of it I remembered.


THIS REVIEW SERIES: ROBOTECH VS. THE ORIGINAL SERIES:

After watching the first few episodes and determining that I actually would enjoy revisiting the full series, I decided that I also wanted to look at the original versions. As a result, the format for these reviews will differ from my other series.

Each review will cover both versions of the individual episodes. The reviews will look at the major changes made to each episode, with me giving my opinion about which changes were for the better, which were for the worse, and why.

For the three original series, I will base my reviews on the Japanese language versions with English subtitles. ADV has released an official dub for Macross, but the separation of languages will help me to mentally separate the Japanese originals from their Robotech counterparts. For Robotech, I will use the remastered versions from the most recent blu-ray release.


RATING SCALE:

Please note that a 10-point scale for a 1980s anime may not be equivalent to a 10-point scale for, say, Best Picture Winners. If I give a "10" to a Robotech episode, I'm not claiming that it's as good as Casablanca, just that it's as good as a 25-minute animated television episode is likely to be. Also, due to the changes made, there will likely be instances in which the Japanese version will receive a different score than the Robotech version.

In general, my scores can be read as...

9 - 10: Outstanding. The episode is about as good as a 25 minute animated show reasonably could be.
7 - 8: Good. The episode is well-done, with multiple strong elements.
5 - 6: Okay. The episode does its job, but little more than that.
4: Below Average. Not good, but still passably diverting.
3: Bad. There may be decent elements, but it's poor overall.
1 - 2: Terrible. I want my 25 minutes back.

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