by the fans for the fans

LadyGrimes wrote:

Peter Young wrote:

DR-052 wrote:

Alpha Bravo wrote: ... silly to declare Sentinels non-canon, to "make room for" Shadow Chronicles...

Never heard that. Who said that? it's part of the series. whoever said that should not be allowed to make decisions. Far as I'm concerned they aren't cannon.

robotech.wikia.com/wiki/Continuity_and_C...he_Robotech_Universe

This decision seems to have been controversial among the fanbase from te moment it was declared.

Also kind of insulting to Carl Macek, is it not?

Considering that the entire script for the Sentinels episodes was already laid out, yes it is. Personally if I were Carl I would have wanted to read it myself before it was published, but I suppose he was a busy man, and shouldn't have to babysit the novelization process.

I wonder if the original scripts are available to read somewhere, it would be interesting to see how he actually wanted it to play out.

Alpha Bravo wrote:

LadyGrimes wrote:

Peter Young wrote:

DR-052 wrote:

Alpha Bravo wrote: ... silly to declare Sentinels non-canon, to "make room for" Shadow Chronicles...

Never heard that. Who said that? it's part of the series. whoever said that should not be allowed to make decisions. Far as I'm concerned they aren't cannon.

robotech.wikia.com/wiki/Continuity_and_C...he_Robotech_Universe

This decision seems to have been controversial among the fanbase from te moment it was declared.

Also kind of insulting to Carl Macek, is it not?

Considering that the entire script for the Sentinels episodes was already laid out, yes it is. Personally if I were Carl I would have wanted to read it myself before it was published, but I suppose he was a busy man, and shouldn't have to babysit the novelization process.

I wonder if the original scripts are available to read somewhere, it would be interesting to see how he actually wanted it to play out.

I imagine much of what we would've seen in the end result would've played out like it did in the novelizations. Maybe not word for word, but I'm sure the material is the same. Also, do we know who wrote the script for Sentinels?

I made a reply here, but then changed my mind. This discussion seems to have strayed away from the original topic to a 'too bad Sentinels never got finished'.

Lady Grimes, will you look at 'Sentinels - to be or not to be?' ?

Peter Young wrote:
robotech.wikia.com/wiki/Continuity_and_C...he_Robotech_Universe

"Primary Canon sources

The original TV stories, considered sources above all else. On this wiki, these stories include:
1. The original 85 episode anime, including The Macross Saga, The Robotech Masters, and the New Generation
2. The three episodes produced of Robotech II: The Sentinels, either in the form of the 1986 home movie release or the three separate episodes released on the remastered DVDs. " Says it is there, it's just the comic books that are in question, I don't go by them anyway. I mostly deal with the RPG, since there is so little TV/Video coming out. Since Robotech is a Palladium game it goes with Rifts in my collection. I run "True" Rifts when I run Palladium, which means trans-dimensional. if there are parallel universes then by definition (the very hypothesis of multi-dimensions) is that "anything that can happen does happen ... somewhere" therefore ALL Robotech is cannon, just in which parallel universe are you talking about?

Peter Young wrote: I made a reply here, but then changed my mind. This discussion seems to have strayed away from the original topic to a 'too bad Sentinels never got finished'.

Lady Grimes, will you look at 'Sentinels - to be or not to be?' ?

I wouldn't say it's off-topic, because the inconsistencies in episode 36 are precisely because that story arc was intended to continue with the Sentinels.

It's not like this forum is flooded with topics. Speak your mind, son.

Alpha Bravo wrote:

Peter Young wrote: I made a reply here, but then changed my mind. This discussion seems to have strayed away from the original topic to a 'too bad Sentinels never got finished'.

Lady Grimes, will you look at 'Sentinels - to be or not to be?' ?

I wouldn't say it's off-topic, because the inconsistencies in episode 36 are precisely because that story arc was intended to continue with the Sentinels.

It's not like this forum is flooded with topics. Speak your mind, son.

Agreed.

Sentinels introduced me to Robotech in the first place, so no problem discussing it. But not necessarily in this topic. When Macek & co worked on Robotech, there was no garantee a sequel would ever be made. Sequels are less likely to be made when the first movie or series turns out unsuccesfull. So they had to do it right the first time.

Alpha Bravo recently remarked - rightly so, as far as I am concerned - that declaring Sentinels non-canon was ridiculous, because in the end, Sentinels-characters were used for Shadow Chronicles. Killing off five characters in # 36 was just as ridiculous, because those characters simply could have been no longer used.

Perhaps Gloval needed to be 'explained away'. But even in his case, being killed would not have been un avoidable. In real life, army officers (as well as company directors and leading politicians) at some point step back and others fill in their places. Gloval simply could have retired because of age or diminishing health.

As a kid, # 36 would be my reason not to watch any further episodes.

And since several accounts state that Robotech was initially not that succesfull with the originally intended target audience - primary school children - I guess my reaction would not have been unusual. It was not untill the nineties when teenagers and adolescents were discovered as possible audiences for action animation and anime as well.

Peter Young wrote: Sentinels introduced me to Robotech in the first place, so no problem discussing it. But not necessarily in this topic. When Macek & co worked on Robotech, there was no garantee a sequel would ever be made. Sequels are less likely to be made when the first movie or series turns out unsuccesfull. So they had to do it right the first time.

Alpha Bravo recently remarked - rightly so, as far as I am concerned - that declaring Sentinels non-canon was ridiculous, because in the end, Sentinels-characters were used for Shadow Chronicles. Killing off five characters in # 36 was just as ridiculous, because those characters simply could have been no longer used.

Perhaps Gloval needed to be 'explained away'. But even in his case, being killed would not have been un avoidable. In real life, army officers (as well as company directors and leading politicians) at some point step back and others fill in their places. Gloval simply could have retired because of age or diminishing health.

As a kid, # 36 would be my reason not to watch any further episodes.

And since several accounts state that Robotech was initially not that succesfull with the originally intended target audience - primary school children - I guess my reaction would not have been unusual. It was not untill the nineties when teenagers and adolescents were discovered as possible audiences for action animation and anime as well.

I agree there was no reason to kill off Gloval and the girls in #36. For the Sentinels they gave the macross characters somewhat new appearances/redesigns, don't see why the same couldn't have been done for the others. Unless they just wanted to kill them off for shock value.

Peter Young wrote: ... Killing off five characters in # 36 was just as ridiculous, because those characters simply could have been no longer used.

Perhaps Gloval needed to be 'explained away'. But even in his case, being killed would not have been un avoidable. In real life, army officers (as well as company directors and leading politicians) at some point step back and others fill in their places. Gloval simply could have retired because of age or diminishing health ... It was not until the nineties when teenagers and adolescents were discovered as possible audiences for action animation and anime as well.

:
I was a teen viewer in the 80's, I didn't think at the time that the proper audience was grade school children, they wouldn't understand much of it anyway. As for killing-off characters, I believe that was part of the original Macross. In Japan, characters dying heroically is a cultural norm. In the original Gundam book trilogy, there were very minor tertiary characters, barely mentioned in the first book, {spoiler alert } they were the main characters at the end of the book, because there was no-one else left! That's something I like about Japanese anime, you can just never tell. In America, OHHH-NO!!! The main characters in a jam, is he going to die? well duh, no of-course not he's the main character. How often does a main character actually die in American TV, very rarely, except maybe in the series finally. That's what happened to Buffy (sold the franchise then the old producer killed her off before she went over the new channel - like haha, deal with this !!! ) Not having Captain Gloval die heroically at the end would have been seen in Japan as a waist, "I thought he was a hero, why didn't he die like one? He just wussed out and went fishing."
As for "target audience" well I've seen some of the "promo" videos on the DVDs, those 'apparent' morons in the marketing department didn't even know the show. this one guy showed a Zentraedi Male power armor (which is completely different from the Female Power Armor) in green and called it correctly a "male power armor" then showed the same exact model in purple and called it a "Female Power Armor". This is the guy whose suppose to promote it? He didn't even know what he was talking about. (& yes we all make mistakes, but not when it's your job to know the product and promote it, and have all the time you need to learn and practice what your talking about. you don't spend 1000s of $ making a prototype toy and be wrong. that's just being a D-A)

DR-52, I agree with you. They should have thought things through beforehand and realize Robotech would be better off if targeted for an older audience. instead, they aimed for the same age group as He-Man, Transformers and G. I. Joe. The A & E box set contains a promotion real as well as toy commecercials'.

(Singing Voice): "ROBOTECH! To the rescuuueee!!!!"

(male voice: Help the RDF defeat evil Bretai !'

It seems that advertisers are not required to know the synopsis of the series of which they try to sell the toys.

But they did aim for primary school children - those most likely to buy toys. Hence the dependancy on Matchbox.

At the risk of Macek-bashing: was he not supposed to be an entertainmentmarketeer before he joint-ventured with HG to create Robotech?