Cool News
SMALLVILLE Showrunners To Script ROBOTECH Movie!!
I am – Hercules!!
Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who served as showrunners for the first seven seasons of “Smallville,” will write Warner Bros.’ big-screen version of the 1980s giant-robot cartoon series “RoboTech.”
The Hollywood Reporter describes the premise:
A sprawling sci-fi epic, "Robotech" takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off an alien invasion, with the fate of the human race ending up in the hands of two young pilots.
Gough and Millar’s prior big-screen credits include screenplays for “Made Men” (with Jim Belushi), “Shanghai Noon,” “Shanghai Nights,” “Showtime,” “Herbie: Fully Loaded,” and “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.” The duo also received “story” credits for sequels “Lethal Weapon 4” and “Spider-Man 2.”
Find all of The Hollywood Reporter’s story on the matter here.
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cool...
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They keep it close to the show, one of the only cartoons to show killing and death
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I always thought this show had a great concept that'd make for a blast of a film, though I'm not sure these two are up for it (though I did enjoy the Shanghai flicks, but that's a lighter fare). What happened to Kasdan?
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...From the creators of Superman: The Emo Years. Pass!
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Running smallville into the ground and down to teh centre core of shittiness was bad enough but they also gave birth to that abomination? Can we expect witty comedy such as "the yak yakked" through robottech then? Will the young pilot be an annoying cunt who's meant to be "cool" 'cos he's young? Will he fall in love with some girl after 5 minutes of screen time?
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Because that seems to happen all the time on Smallville. People on that show should all have brain damage being knocked out that much.
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They've done some good work in the past. I wish them will w/ Rick Hunter and co.
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but I thought this series was about humans trying to survive a hostile race in outer space, while trying to get to earth? Never really followed the show, but I liked the few parts I saw, and I loved that it was one of the first cartoons I ever saw that was serialized. It was so cool to see a story running through the show, and it seemed to be leading up to something. Never did follow it, though.
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it sucks that I don't even care to see the end of a show I once loved.
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And the cast from the new 90210.
If we are going to screw this up, lets make it a complete disaster.
Yeah hoping with those two on board the project gets cancelled. -
Zahler's script sucked, so they gave it to Kasdan. Apparently, his attempt was so bad they aren't even sending it out. Enter SMALLVILLE team. For all Robotech and Macross fans everywhere, I hope somebody at WB finally shelves this thing.
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Nov 17, 2008 2:08:25 AM CST
speaking of Smallville, DOOMSDAY finally appears this Thursday.
by mike_d
The actual monster this time
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STOP, you're wrong!
You're thinking of Space Cruiser Yamato, which was known as Star Blazers here in the States. -
Is it just me or are all the Anime adaptations falling into the hands of genuinely bad screenwriters? Even the guy who's writing Akira doesn't strike me as an enormous talent.
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The show was a butchery of 3 great shows. SDF Macross, Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. Carl Macek took the three, chopped and censored the 3 shows to mold into a trilogy that have nothing in common with each other. All 3 shows stand alone are great, smashed and watered down together, suck. This is in the hands of fucking crap writers. It's not going to be any good. It's kind of depressing because Smallville is the one of the shittiest shows in the first place next to their resume of fucking crap. Really, look at the list. The writing is bad. I won't see this movie and Macross is one of my fave animes.
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lots of hot chicks and buff bods
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Smallville has produced some episodes that are better than movies on the big screen and most certainly better than Superman Returns. Don't confuse the title of the show or the theme, with low quality, simply due to the title of Smallville being goofy, a mistake that Warner Brothers has made, or they would have cast Tome Welling as Superman, or looked at the pilot episode of Smallville and said to themselves, "Let's turn this thing into a new Superman movie!!!" That meteor strike opening sequence was worthy of a block buster film!!! Remember, this was the first non-costume, super hero show of any import, not "Heroes", and that alone is a breakthrough!!!
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to the guys who wrote The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor???? Oh, man that is a real fucking downgrade.
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I would rather have the guys who did the story for Spiderman 2 rather than Kasdan. Name me one thing he has done since of any note?
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That show has some of the clunkiest dialogue this side of George Lucas. I watch with my wife and we howl at some of the ridiculous things that come out of Chloe's mouth. "Since I interfaced with Braniac my hacking skills have gone from analog to digital!" and what's with Jimmy calling Clark C.K. all the time? It's like he's on a silent film set: "Whatever you say C.K.! Let's get the ball rollin' C.K.!" Absolutely horrible, yet still I watch. Mostly for Green Arrow and the fact that Lois is so freaking hot and that tiny-headed Lana Lang is gone, though I miss Lex, Lex kicked ASS, especially when he did a Commedian on Lyle.
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Nov 17, 2008 3:20:15 AM CST
Are four minutes time enough for our eyeballs to be raped?
by ricarleite
If it is, I rather not watch it. I really don't know what will result out of this media extragaganza James Cameron is doing, and it will be a hit based on his name only. But I really have a bad feeling about this one.
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Nov 17, 2008 3:20:23 AM CST
Smallville always took me to Sleepytown. This steamer will do th
by zeotron
Unless it has more CG Yeti's!!!!!
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STOP. FUCKING. WITH. ANIME!
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and The Mummy 3 Comes the groundbreaking anime-epic that will TRANSFORM your opinion about EVERYTHING....TOBEY MAGUIRES ROBOTECH!
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and The Mummy 3 Comes the groundbreaking anime-epic that will TRANSFORM your opinion about EVERYTHING....TOBEY MAGUIRES ROBOTECH!
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Touche
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without them. There are rumors about "mysterious red and blue boyscout" in Metropolis. Things have consequences. They show actual monsters and shit.
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...Painfully dull to sit through and a TOTAL story mess and cluster fuck from start to finish. With some truly stomach churning dialogue tossed in for good measure that even a daytime soap would be embarrassed by.I agree with Lyghthouse's point above: The producers went from the guy who wrote THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK to the guys who hacked out HERBIE RELOADED?Wow, this already sounds CRAPTACULAR!
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I had been told the shows were similar, but never watched Robotech. God, I would give so much to see a well-done Exo-Squad movie, a kick-ass Exo-Squad live-action TV show, or at the very least, the damn episodes on DVD. MAKE IT HAPPEN UNIVERSAL! PLEASE!!!
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fucking a seriously there has to be some actual talent out there
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He was working on this... How the fuck do you go from the writer of Empire Strikes Back to the douches who brought you Curse of the Dragon Tomb?
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...it's been proven that if you can fuck up Superman, you can fuck up anything. Oh... and Superman Returns rules!
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Smallville is a steaming pile of shit, ergo...
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Nov 17, 2008 5:00:09 AM CST
A Live Action Version Of An American Bastardization By The Guys
by laserpants
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How in the hell do you go from the dude who wrote Raiders and EST to these douches?
I mean really, anything Kasdan wrote will be better than anything these retards will? From the writes of SMALLVILLE and Herpies Reloaded comes this piece of shit movie?
It really sounds like they are trying to make this a kids movie, otherwise they wouldn't have thrown out Kasdan's writing. This is sad because Robotech/Macross was so much more than a kids show, and it even deserves to be respected for not being a kids show.
They should stop this shit right now, but we all know they won't. Fucking suits have to ruin all the good shit. -
Excuse me, ESB not EST. This is still a fucking downgrade though.. Also who gives a shit if Kasdan hasn't written anything in a while, he still wrote raiders and empire strikes back. That easily puts him leaps and bounds above two dipshits who wrote some of the worst movies we have ever seen.
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Nov 17, 2008 5:38:58 AM CST
"From the dynamic duo that gave you The Mummy: Tomb of the Drago
by jackpumpkinhead
Wonder if that will go on posters?
Hey, the Myspace teenagers probably liked that "movie", so it might as well. -
Tight set sunah muno Protect my balls! Bookah gaweh nooweh So let's fighting, Let's fighting loooove! Let's fighting loooove! Sorry, I just felt like breaking that out as soon I watched that Robotech intro.
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Ok, let's fix these misconceptions once and for all. Media Gold, WoW is mostly right in what he belived Robotech was. If you didn't see all the episodes, i can see how he was mislead
Robotech starts off on Macross Island where an Alien Ship is renovated over 10 (15?) years by humans, who don't even understand all of it's complexities. On it's launch day, the island is attacked by aliens called Zentraedi.
In the insuing battle, the captain orders a "space fold" operation (sort of like warping, but more like teleporting). The destination is the far side of the moon. If the aliens want the ship, he wants to take the ship away from earth.
The ship materialises on the far side of Pluto instead, and the warp drive engines are gone (warped away. It's never clearly explained. However the book series my Macek gives some lame ass reasoning for it).
So for 80% of the Macross Saga has the SDF1 and it's crew slowly heading back to earth, all the meanwhile battling the Zentraedi.
They eventually make it, but are then not allowed to land anywhere, or have of it's civilians let off the ship. Basically Earth wants nothing to do with them, since the Zentraedi left them alone after they dissapeard.
Finally the "Ontario" quadrant agrees to let them land and disembark the civilians.
So they SDF1 flies over there, and of course is once again attacked by the Zentraedi, the SFI implements a new "barrier point system" to defend itself, and it overloads and basically nukes the entire area, killing massive amounts of people. Needless to say, no one else wanted the SDF1 after that.
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And one day, after much lamentation, pulling of the hair and gnashing of the teeth, Harry decided to chime in, saying that he was fine with the entire mess of Bay and Orci and Kurtzman because he felt that it would mean a Macross movie...Right now, I'm feeling like Paul Sheldon in Misery, telling some overzealous fat troll,"YOU WANTED IT? HERE!!! EAT IT!!!!"Yeah, I'm making the same derranged facial expressions, too.
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I just cant understand that a piece of piling shit like smallville has already been greenlighted all the way to its eight season.. WTF?.. Is this is all they can come up with...I feel dirty
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I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad. I'm happy that they are not accepting crap and are heading to new writers to get a better script. However I am not exactly excited over the prospects of the guys that wrote the 3rd Mummy and a Herbie movie to be doing Robotech.
The fact that they had some credit with Spider-man 2 doesn't mean much. It just says they helped, if they wrote one little scene, they would get a story credit. What if that scene was the worst scene in the movie?
I hope this movie gets done right. Transformers was ok, but it could have been SO much better. I was dissapointed in parts. it became a mindless action movie with cliche after cliche. Good popcorn flick I suppose, but nothing about it makes me want to consider it a "classic", or "ground breaking" -
These guys are giving Kurtzman and Orci a run for worst screenplays ever written.
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...I would have had more hope. The current season of Smallville so far has been far better than the previous seasons.
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If you're a 30-something and still a Robotech fan, you have issues.
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could they have a less impressive resume?
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First several seasons of Smallville at least attempted to make sense (and I enjoyed them); last 3 I've barely watched. So, perhaps they can do well - after all, it's not like they don't have plenty of source material to work from.
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They show Doomsday. First time he's ever been portrayed in live action. Must give 'em credit for that.
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...could not give less of a fuck about this.
Why don't these dirtclods get out of Hollywood and just start packing dogshit directly into cans? Apparently there's a fortune to be made there, if crap like THIS will make money... -
might be my favorite superhero movie of all time. so this could be a good thing.
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Gough and Millar’s prior big-screen credits include screenplays for “Made Men” (with Jim Belushi), “Shanghai Noon,” “Shanghai Nights,” “Showtime,” “Herbie: Fully Loaded,” and “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.”
WOW! THAT IS SOME BODY OF WORK! I Smell a Razzy in this films future. These are the only writers WORSE than Orci and Kurtzman...Too bad...as Robotech is actually a pretty good Anime. -
On the other hand: Spider Man 2 and Shanghai Knights isn't so bad. Always wait and see.
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Of course it's on a relative scale and it's still got a long way to go, but there are promising signs that the show is headed in a positive direction. I would've had some faith if Macross were being made by the current show runners and not Gough and Millar.
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Make the first movie about the SDF-1 crashing and the initial battles with the Zentraedi. Have the movie end after they jump to Pluto and Rick & Minmei see the city construction inside.
Movie #2 is the journey back to earth, Rick & Lisa captured, etc, etc.
Movie #3 is the return to earth and the final battle with the Zentraedi.
Make it happen script monkees. -
Nov 17, 2008 9:07:32 AM CST
Why is this deemed "cool news" but not...
by i_am_not_the_droid_you_are_looking_for
Christopher McQuarrie signing on to write two new flicks, one which is The Champions with Guillermo del Toro? And del Toro is teaming with The Henson Co. for a stop-motion Pinocchio? Surely both those are "cooler" than two fucking hacks signing onto a Robotech movie!
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...Lock them in a room and force them to watch all of "Macross". Because not locking them in a room to read history and folklore caused them to screw up the third "Mummy". (Well, partially.)
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The success of "Transformers" is now officially a curse.
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Hey anime fans! I'm not a big fan like you guys and gals but I do like me some good old-school Asian animation before we in the states called it 'anime'.So, in the spirit of celebrating similar interests, I do have just one friendly request. Please, when you elect to read the latest issue of your favorite anime GN at the bookstore...can you please go and find a seat instead of just sitting in the aisle? If it's at the mall and there are no seats, can you at least find a spot that doesn't put you in the way of any and all foot traffic in that aisle? Perhaps you can simply stand?Thanks! Signed: everybody else.
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May they continue to make millions by making us feign interest.
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This is what's going to happen. Davis turns into Doomsday, Clack shows up and gets the ever lovin' shit kicked out of him. Doomsday continues his rampage, until Chloe confronts him. And we get awesome dialog that will go something like this.
Chloe: Davis I know you're in there, please stop (Boo-Hoo).
Doomsday: No worry, Hulk no hurt Betty.
Doomsday turns back into Davis and everyone agrees that he's to dangerous to bet set free. So he either kills himself or gets sent to the Phantom Zone. Ta-Dah the end. -
Where's my William Shatner's TekWar movie?!?
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I just want it to be more Spiderman Two (which is probably why producer Tobey Maguire thought of them to begin with) than say Mummy III or Shanghai Knights.
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Or else Rick Hunter would be a charming thief with a heart of gold who falls in love with a woman above his station. Same damn plot, every frickin' movie! Seriously though, I want this to be good even more than Leo's Akira movie.
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For those of you who absolutely hate Robotech (maybe because you prefer each original series in tact, or those who think it's terrible and doesn't hold up) I should note two things:
1) If it wasn't for Voltron, Tranzor Z, Starblazers, Voltron and most of all, Robotech, we wouldn't have nearly the exposure to anime and manga we have today. Sorry, but Astroboy and Speed Racer weren't quite going to do the trick. Also, it should be noted, without American influence Manga and Anime wouldn't even be here.
2)While it is a point of contention among creators and fans, there are even creators of SDF Macross, SDF Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada, that actually believe the story (which was released in the States but Canadian in origin) was better than the original Japanese conception.
It should also be noted the "bastardization" was done out of necessity, because without the required thirteen weeks at five episodes per week, Macross could not have been released at all. The result was supplement provided by the other two series which became a multi-generational war epic, the likes of which North American kids had never seen before. -
I just want a good Robotech movie. I'll settle for good. Three out of four stars. Just make it good. At least that.
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Nov 17, 2008 1:53:18 PM CST
This is great news for fans of movies that don't follow the sour
by slder78
"Hi, i'm Rick Hunter and you two are?""I'm Scott Bernard and this is my fiance Lynn Minmei. So what do you do here?""I fix the planes. One day I hope I can fly one of these things, but they won't let me. I can't even put on the tight flight jacket.""Really? No tights or flights?Why""I never get a good answer to that""Excuse me, sorry to interrupt, I'm looking for Admiral Gloval.""And you are?""Marlene Regis. I'm the CEO of Invid Industries."Meanwhile in the theater watching all this unfold on the screen sits a middle aged asian man shedding a solitary tear muttering under his breath, "Bastards."
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is the full title
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...and say "uhh...you should probably keep that a secret."? I'm sure the fear is that if the press release reads 'Lawrence Kasdan' instead of 'Lawrence Kasdan (Empire Strikes Back)' we retarded Americans won't know who he is. But that only works for GOOD credits! If it's gonna say 'Al Gough & Miles Millar (The Mummy 3)' you gotta ask yourself : is people not knowing who our writer is worse than people knowing our writer is an idiot?
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You have no idea how to handle it. Transformers proved that beyond the shadow of a doubt. Just drop it. There's plenty of other geek friendly genres for you to fuck up. Can you say Warhammer movie? Go fetch!
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i'm waiting on that glorious review.
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Insular, know-it-all fanboys generally know dick-all about how to adapt source material. When you become a credited screenwriter, we'll talk.
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That is the funniest post I've read in a long time.
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im confused from what ive seen isnt the show about flying these warcraft around and blowing shit up...how can it be about robots if the machines piloted by a human???? wouldnt that make them powered armour at best
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No, I will not blow you, though I appreciate that you at least bothered to say "please." Now, are you a credited screenwriter? If so please, point us to the fruits of your labor and then tell us how these guys are going to do a decent Robotech film, especially taking into account all the legal wrangling surrounding this property and what can and can't be used character/storywise.PS: You're not going to tell me you actually liked the Transformers script, are you? I mean come on...
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Seriously, I talked with Larry Kasdan last month at the Austin Film Festival. I asked him about what he's been working on and he said over the summer he'd written the scripts for the Clash of the Titans remake and for the live-action RoboTech movie! (I sent Quint an e-mail about it.)
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Yup, powered armor. Imagine a cross between transformers and gundam...
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I would love to see this done right, but have low expectations no matter who is making it. Movies based on kid's cartoons from the 80's usually suck. Excuse me, always suck: Transformers, Scoobie Doo, speed racer, and so on. Kasdan may have written an awesome script (and the story IS awesome, even the hacked together american version, read the novels), but the studios would still ruin a live action movie version. However, there are several excellent Macross anime already available on DVD.
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or something like that
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It's been a long time since I've seen it, but I remember Robotech as being one episode of ass-kicking robot/dogfighting action per five episodes of whiny soap Opera BS. Is the Japanese version of the series better? I feel like this is one property where I want to see more 'splosions and less character development. the zentraedi deserve better mecha as well. the two-legged shooty chicken walker things always seemed a bit lame.
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that live action Thunderbirds movie, remember that? No? Exactly.
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... is the voice acting and the narration. If someone was to take the time and re-record all the sound (re: kick-ass Akira DVD vs. crappy Akira VHS) it would stand up as a great show today.
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Seriously bad. Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor was the only good part and it was despite the writing.
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Will it have the scene where Minmei and Roy (was it roy? its been too many years) are below deck and he swims out into space and nabs a 200 foot goldfish for them to eat?
If there's no squid in watchmen, then no goldfish in Robotech!
Also the 3rd act (with the cycles) would make a far better movie - the storyline there (cross-gender popstars notwithstanding) is much stronger. And I still have my 15 inch fully transformable Rick Sinclaire w/ motorcycle action figure. envy me now. -
Starblazers > Robotech.
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And just release a MACROSS movie? I grew up loving Robotech, and I still respect what it did for bringing Anime to the USA ( well, keeping it here I should say )
BUt its time to drop the facade, Harmony Gold. Please just let Macross be Macross. I even went and saw Shadow Chronicles in the theater, and it was a really good attempt to make your own story. It still failed miserably because in the end you all are not the writers of this story. You are ones who have retold a story. It's just a fact that you can't retell it better again on the big screen.Please help bring a *real* big budget treatment of Macross. Reach across the isle here. Please -
For the Macross Movie "Do you Remember Love" and for all future incarnations of Macross they got rid of the chicken walkers. :)
Even later in the original series, they start using more "body suit" looking mecha.
Those units must have been the soldiers that drew the short straws.
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The Japanese verison is not any better on the melodrama part. In fact, it's probably worse. Some of it makes some more sense, but if you've seen the "restored footage" of robotech, that clears up some things that were forced to be cut by censors here in the US.
Macross Plus tones down the melodrama considerably. Macross 7 decided that that ws no fun and upps the meldrama and "music will solve all the world's problems" quotient up by a factor of 10.
If you survive Macross 7 ( I didn't! ), then Macross Frontier will be easy as pie to swallow. If it weren't so otherwise impressive, animation, and even musically ( and filled with homages to the other series ) it would have been tougher to watch.
OK I'll shut up now.
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because these jokers left
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Supposedly Owen Wilson rewrote all of his dialogue, so they can't even REALLY take credit for those.
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Although given all the lawsuits in Japan and Harmony Gold's asshattery, we were never going to get Robotech/macross as we knew it... I just pray they don't make this a meaningless teen comedy... but I bet they'll fuck this up and find a way to cast Owen Wilson, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan in this one...
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WTF?
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Only because he's a dead ringer for Rick aka Hikaru Ichijo
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Lets guess.. Hmm. A love triangle the should have died 5 mins after starting throughout the whole movie while ignoring what the public actually wants, or even material merits. Brilliant! I have seen their work, ideas, and frankly I would rather watch the happening tied to a chair for a week with a glass of water right out of arms reach.
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Nov 18, 2008 1:13:12 PM CST
Hope the Kasdan version ends up on the internet somewhere
by drewlicious
I'm curious to see what his take was. I wouldn't mind seeing his Clash of the Titans either.
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Pile of Emo crap on TV I watch it with Morbid Facination But being a writer on Smallville is nothing to be proud of.
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I was wondering how long it would take before someone would interject that piece of information, blissfully unaware that every Robotech fan in the world already knows it. That was news about 15 years ago. And I'm sorry, but the stand-alone series are not superior to Robotech. The original voicework, music and unedited content of individual original episodes were superior.
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but the overall tone of the Robotech series was far more epic and apocalyptic than any of the 3 original series were able to achieve
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