Robotech

Robotech is an 85-episode science fiction anime adaptation produced by Harmony Gold USA in association with Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd. and first released in the United States. It was adapted from three different original Japanese television series.

In the series, Robotechnology refers to the scientific advances discovered in an alien starship that crashed on a South Pacific island. With this technology, Earth developed robotic technologies, such as transformable mecha, to fight three successive extraterrestrial invasions.

Name origin
Prior to the release of the TV series, the name Robotech was used by model kit manufacturer Revell on their Robotech Defenders line in the mid-1980s. The line consisted of mecha model kits imported from Japan and featured in anime titles such as The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Century Orguss and Fang of the Sun Dougram. The kits were originally intended to be a marketing tie-in to a similarly-named comic book series by DC Comics, which was cancelled after only two issues.

At the same time, Harmony Gold licensed the Macross TV series for direct-to-video distribution, but their merchandising plans were compromised by Revell's prior distribution of the Macross kits. In the end, both parties signed into a co-licensing agreement and the Robotech name was adopted into the TV syndication of Macross combined with Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA.

Chronology

 * ''For a more detailed timeline, see Robotech Wars

The Robotech'' chronology, according to Harmony Gold, is illustrated below:

Note: Asterisked works are now considered "secondary continuity" &mdash; that is, that their events exist in the continuity of Robotech, but "don't count" when conflicts arise with the "main continuity" that are the three-part Robotech TV series (four, with the addition of 2006's Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles).

In 2002, with the publication of the Wildstorm (DC) comics, Harmony Gold officially decided to retcon the Robotech Universe. The following Robotech material is now relegated to the status of secondary continuity:


 * The Sentinels in all its incarnations.
 * Robotech: The Movie (which, in the strictest sense, never was canon)
 * Robotech comics published by Comico, Eternity, Academy, and Antarctic Press.
 * Robotech RPGs published by Palladium Books.
 * Robotech novels written by Jack McKinney, most notably The End of the Circle.

While these materials are not precisely "retired" or "removed" from the continuity, their events are subject to critical review, and are strictly subordinate to the "official" events of the 85-episode animated series. Although certain events in the new feature film (i.e., the final showdown at Reflex Point) proceed in a slightly different fashion from the original Robotech series, such disparities were intentionally introduced by the Harmony Gold producers, but are still considered canonical.

The original television series (1985)
Robotech is a story adapted with edited content and revised dialogue from the animation of three different mecha anime series:
 * 1) The Super Dimension Fortress Macross
 * 2) Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross
 * 3) 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. On some television stations, the syndicated run was preceded by the broadcast premiere of Codename: Robotech, a feature-length pilot.

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 Tirolioan creators of the Zentraedi, the Robotech Masters, attempt to find out what happened to the Zentraedi fleet, 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 flower of life. The planet is conquered, then enslaved, and it is up to the Robotech Expeditionary Force, led by Admiral Rick Hunter (and the Earth rebels) to retake their home planet that they never knew much of.

see Robotech Wars to find out how the gap between the series is filled.

Animated sequels and spinoffs
Harmony Gold attempted to produce several follow ups to the original series with limited success.

Robotech: The Movie (1986, cancelled in U.S.)
Also called Robotech: The Untold Story, this theatrical film was the first new Robotech adventure created after the premiere of the original series. It used footage from the Megazone 23 Part 1 OVA (Original Video Animation, or made-for-video animated feature) combined with scenes from Southern Cross and additional original animation produced for the film. The American release of the film was canceled after a poor test run in Texas, but saw limited success in Argentina and Belgium. Harmony Gold relinquished their license to Megazone 23 after director Carl Macek washed his hands of the project.

Robotech II: The Sentinels (1987, canceled)
This aborted American-produced series would have followed the continuing adventures of Rick and Lisa Hunter and the Robotech Expedition during the events of The Masters and The New Generation. The feature-length pilot is composed of the first three (and only) episodes that were produced. Being a sequel/spinoff to the combined series, The Sentinels featured characters from all three Robotech sagas and introduced the SDF-3 along with an overview of their new mission. The series was planned to have total of 65 episodes.

In Robotech Art 3: The Sentinels, Macek blamed the cancellation of the series on the crash of the Yen/Dollar exchange rate, which caused toy partner Matchbox to withdraw from the project due to the increased cost. Since Harmony Gold lacked the funds to produce the series on its own, production ceased after only three episodes.

Efforts to petition the completion of this series failed, but much of the completed footage—re-edited and rewritten as a feature-length production—was released on VHS by Palladium Books and on DVD by ADV Films. The completed episodes have never been released in their original form.

Robotech III: The Odyssey (proposed)
Macek revealed ideas for another proposed series, Robotech III: The Odyssey, which would have picked up where The New Generation and end of Robotech II: The Sentinels left off, and eventually created a circular storyline that would end where the original Robotech began in a giant 260-episode cycle to fill up all the weekdays in a year. According to Macek, The Odyssey would involved the SDF-3 travelling back into the past to the days before the birth of Zor (as well as Scott Bernard's search for the SDF-3). The SDF-3's crew would become citizens of the Robotech Masters' homeworld and change time by becoming a part of its history. Ultmately, it would be revealed that Lynn Minmei was the mother of Zor, making Minmei the focal point of Robotech. The final episode of the Odyssey would be of Zor dying and his Super Dimension Fortress (the SDF-1) being launched into space, and eventually crash landing on Earth in 1999. The next episode after that would be Boobytrap, episode 1 of the original series which in turn will create an endless loop within the Robotech universe. After the failure of Sentinels, Odyssey never went into development, although some of its ideas were worked into the final Jack McKinney novel The End of the Circle, which wrapped up all of the outstanding plot threads left by the original series and the previous Robotech novels.

Robotech IV and V (planned)
Fan publication Macross Life interviewed Harmony Gold executive Richard Firth in 1986, where he revealed that Macek had "plans through ROBOTECH 5, which would give us an episode for each day of the year for a year and a half." He also said that these two installments would have brought the series to 285 episodes. Regarding the plot, Firth mentioned a "retired Commodore Hunter, whom ever that may be, could very well be speaking at the graduation of the later day cadets or whatever, and they ask him to tell them the story all over again: it comes back [to the first episode of the series]."

It should be noted that Macek himself has never mentioned Robotech IV or V in any interviews or writings.

Robotech 3000 (2000, cancelled)
Macek attempted another sequel with the development of Robotech 3000. This all-CGI series would have been set a millennium in the future of the Robotech universe and feature none of the old series' characters. In the three-minute trailer, an expedition is sent to check on a non-responsive mining outpost and is attacked by "infected" Veritech mecha. Again, the idea was abandoned midway into production after negative reception within the company, negative fan reactions at the FanimeCon anime convention in 2000, and financial difficulties within Netter Digital who was animating the show. It now exists only in trailer form on the official Robotech website.

Robotech UN Public Service Announcement (2005)
A sixty-second public service announcement for the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, featuring Scott Bernard and Ariel, was animated during the production of The Shadow Chronicles. Although it did not use the original voice actors and the dialogue was somewhat out-of-character, it nonetheless marked the first fully-completed Robotech footage in many years.

Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (2006)
In 2002, director Tommy Yune announced development of a new sequel movie, which was untitled until 2004 as Robotech: Shadow Force. The storyline overlaps with and continues from the unresolved ending of the original series. The title of the story-arc was soon changed to Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. The first trailers with finished animation were shown at Anime Expo and Comic-Con International in 2005. It was not until February 2006, when Kevin McKeever, operations coordinator at Harmony Gold, was able to confirm that the pilot movie had been completed. After a series of delays, FUNimation Entertainment was finally announced as the home video, broadcast, and theatrical distributor at the 2006 Comic-Con International in San Diego. Harmony Gold premiered the movie at various film festivals in 2006, and it was first seen by a public audience at MechaCon in August 9, 2006, where it was showcased as a charity screening to help raise funds for the ongoing Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita recovery effort. A limited theatrical run followed in January 2007, and the film was released on DVD on February 6, 2007. A 2-disc collector's edition was released in November 2007.

Robotech: Shadow Rising (planned, delayed)
On July 27, 2007, at their Comic-Con International panel, Harmony Gold and Yune unveiled the second entry of the Shadow Chronicles production, titled Robotech: Shadow Rising which will be another feature movie. Pre-production reportedly began and a projected release date of sometime in 2009 was originally expected. However, subsequent announcements in mid-2008 have made it clear that little-or-no progress has been made on the film, and it has been indefinitely postponed, pending developments with the live-action film.

Unofficial and parody productions
In the 1990s, Seishun Shitemasu, an anime fandubbing group, produced the parodies "Robotech III: Not Necessarily the Sentinels" and "Robotech IV: Khyron's Counterattack," using footage from, respectively, Gunbuster/Aim For The Top! and Gundam: Char's Counterattack, continuing the tradition of the original Robotech's adaptation of unrelated anime series into a single continuity.

In 2010, a Chinese animated series titled Astro Plan was released. Fan-edited videos of the series were produced to make it look like a new Robotech title.

Proposed live-action film
On September 7, 2007, The Hollywood Reporter stated that Warner Bros. had acquired the film rights to Robotech and would be producing a live-action film with an as-yet-unknown release date. Tobey Maguire is producing the film through his Maguire Entertainment banner and is pursuing the lead role in what the studio plans on being a tentpole sci-fi franchise.

"We are very excited to bring Robotech to the big screen. There is a rich mythology that will be a great foundation for a sophisticated, smart and entertaining film."

- Tobey Maguire

In an interview, Harmony Gold representative Kevin McKeever said that Warner Brothers had approached Harmony Gold about the project, that Harmony Gold would have "a say" in its creative direction, and that it was not expected to affect the production schedule for Shadow Rising. He was unable to confirm any details of budget, casting, expected release date, or storyline, explaining that it was too early in the life of the project for these things to have been decided.

In June 2008, it was reported that Lawrence Kasdan (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Bodyguard) had been hired to write the film, with Charles Roven (Afro Samurai, Get Smart, The Dark Knight) and Akiva Goldsman joining Tobey Maguire as producers.

During the Robotech Panel at Anime Expo 2008, the involvement of Tobey Maguire and Lawrence Kasdan was confirmed, with Kasdan writing the script for the live action movie. Tommy Yune also revealed that the movie is planned as a re-imagining of the original Robotech universe (with new updated mecha and character designs) and will take place several years in the future, departing from the original cartoon's 2009 setting.

As of November 2008, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (who both worked in Smallville, Spider-Man 2, Herbie: Fully Loaded, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor) are the set writers for the film.

Due to undisclosed reasons, Roven is currently no longer working on the proposed film adaptation of the Robotech animated series. Roven also announced that he wishes the remaining producers, Akiva Goldsman and Tobey Maguire, "fantastic luck" on the project.

The Mania.com website reported recently that British television writer and novelist Tom Rob Smith "has taken over writing duties" for the proposed film adaptation of the Robotech animated series. Smith wrote for the British soaps Family Affairs and Bad Girls before writing a critically acclaimed crime suspense novel called Child 44. Smith will be the fourth writer or writing team to be reportedly attached to the upcoming film's pre-production.

The Robotech franchise
At the time of its broadcast, Harmony Gold also launched Robotech through a popular line of comics to be followed by novels, role-playing games, toys, and other consumer products. With the cancellation of Robotech II: The Sentinels, many of these licensed products were discontinued, and led to a drought of Robotech product through much of the 1990s, except for publishers who continued the The Sentinels storyline in print.

Art books
In 1986, Starblaze Graphics published Robotech Art 1, a reference book containing artwork, Japanese production designs, and episode guides from the original television series. This was followed by Robotech Art 2, which was largely a collection of art by various American artists and fans. In 1988, Carl Macek collected much of the unused designs from Robotech II: The Sentinels into Robotech Art 3: The Sentinels, which also included his story outline for the rest of the unfinished series, with an explanation behind its cancellation. In 2007, Stone Bridge Press published The Art of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles.

Comics
Robotech comics were first published in 1984 with DC Comics' short-lived Robotech Defenders and Comico's adaptation of the first episode of the Japanese version of Macross. However, the first adaptation of the Robotech television series did not arrive until 1985 with Comico's Robotech: The Macross Saga Number 2, which continued from the first Macross issue.

The various comic publishers include:


 * Comico (1984-1989)
 * Eternity Comics (1988-1994)
 * Academy Comics (1994-1996)
 * Antarctic Press (1997-1998)
 * Wildstorm (DC) (2002-present)

Collectible card game
The first Robotech collectible card game was released in 2006 by Hero Factory, which had previously produced Robotech trading cards.

Music and soundtracks
Various Robotech soundtracks have been released on records, cassettes, and compact discs since 1988.


 * Robotech: BGM Collection, Vol.1 (1988)
 * Robotech: Perfect Collection (1988)
 * Robotech: Perfect Soundtrack Album (1996)
 * Robotech: Battlecry Soundtrack (2002)
 * Robotech: Invasion Soundtrack (2004)
 * Robotech: The Original Soundtrack (2005)
 * Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles Soundtrack (2007)

Novelizations
Since 1987, Robotech was adapted into novel form by "Jack McKinney", a pseudonym for the team of James Luceno and the late Brian Daley, a pair of writers who had been working with Macek since they had collaborated on the animated series Galaxy Rangers. Using fictitious epigraphs in the style of Dune, McKinney's novels fleshed out the chronology (including adapting the incomplete Sentinels source material) in far greater detail than the original animation. Many Robotech fans consider the McKinney series to be an unofficial canon of its own, despite notable divergences in the writing from Harmony Gold's current official animation-based canon. Despite no longer being considered core-continuity by Harmony Gold, the novels have been recently re-issued by Del Rey Books as Omnibus compilations.

Role-playing games
In 1986, Palladium Books published a role-playing game based on the Robotech series. The successful run also included RPG books covering The Sentinels. Contractual issues in the wake of Harmony Gold's aborted Robotech 3000 project, as well as a general refocusing of the company on production of its flagship Rifts line, caused Palladium to eventually forgo renewing the Robotech license. The Robotech RPG line went out of print as of June 30, 2001. In 2007, Harmony Gold and Palladium Books worked out a new agreement to produce a Robotech RPG supplement to The Shadow Chronicles. A press release from Palladium Books addresses their recently (Sept 2007) renewed contract. Robotech The Shadow Chronicles RPG was released March 21 2008.

Toys
3 3/4 inch action figures of the three Robotech generations were initially released in 1985 by Matchbox toy company, but then reissued in 1992 by Harmony Gold (Lunk and Corg were only released by Matchbox and Lynn Minmei was only released by Harmony Gold). 6" figures were released in 1985 also by Matchbox. All of these figures were from the first generation and were of Zentraedi characters only. These figures were supposed to represent the size difference between the Humans and the giant Zentraedi forces, but to be correct these figures would had to have been made about 20 inches tall. None of the figures came with weapons but the Armored Zentraedi came with a removable helmet.

Also many toys depicting the vehicles and mecha from the series were released by Matchbox in 1985, Harmony Gold in 1992 and Playmates 1994 (under the Exosquad line). There were major differences in packaging, toy stickers and colors between the different releases. The vehicles were designed to be used only with the 3 3/4" figures. The SDF-1 Playset was only released under the Matchbox line in the 80s and could be used with both the 3 3/4" and 6" figures.

Harmony Gold and Matchbox were unable to sell the 1/55 VF-1 Valkyrie toy originally sold in Japan by Takatoku Toys due to Hasbro licensing it as Jetfire in the Transformers toy line. Because of this, they settled with manufacturing a non-transformable Veritech Fighter that could fit any of the 3 3/4 inch action figures, as well as importing the transformable super deformed Veritech Fighters (originally manufactured in Japan by Bandai as Macross VF-1 Valkyrie "Joke machines").

Since the late 1990s, there has been a resurgence of Robotech-related toys. In 2001, Toynami released the Robotech Masterpiece Collection line, featuring replicas of the Veritech Fighters of The Macross Saga. Since then, Toynami has become the exclusive toy manufacturer of the Robotech franchise - having covered mecha from The Macross Saga, The New Generation and The Shadow Chronicles.

Video games
Robotech spawned five video game licenses, of which the most recent three were released:


 * Robotech: Crystal Dreams for the Nintendo 64 game system. This was aborted when its publisher, Gametek, went under in 1998. The game would have taken place during the period between the SDF-1's destruction and the launch of the SDF-3. The game had a Zentraedi invasion during what was scripted in the series as a period of peace.


 * Robotech: Battlecry (2002) for the Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation 2, and Nintendo Nintendo GameCube. The gameplay takes place in the Macross era, and features a storyline running exactly concurrent with that era's historical events. Multiplayer support is limited to one-on-one. Several of the voice actors from the original series, including Tony Oliver, Melanie MacQueen, Dan Woren, and Cam Clarke, reprised their original roles, or voiced new characters in this game. The game was a relative success, even though many fans complained of the over-cartoonified look of the game.


 * Robotech: The Macross Saga (2002) for the Game Boy Advance, a side-scrolling shooter that resembles the Japanese Super Famicom game Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie.


 * Robotech: Invasion (2004) for the Microsoft Xbox and the Sony PlayStation 2. First/third person shooter. The gameplay covers the New Generation part of the story, with support for single player missions and multiplayer online matches. Features Cyclones, transformable body armor/motorcycles. As with Battlecry, several of the original voice actors reprised their roles.


 * Robotech: The New Generation (2007) for mobile phones. A top-down scrolling shooter that covers the New Generation part of the story, leading up to the Shadow Chronicles. The player can play as one of three characters (Scott, Rook and Rand), each with their own special weapons. The player also has the ability to change into "Battloid Mode" through the collection of Protoculture. Robotech: The New Generation features famous music from the TV series, as well as the most evil of all the villains.

Criticism of adaptation
Robotech is often an extremely polarizing subject amongst anime fans. Some critics look down upon the show for its extensive edits to the source material (Westernizing character names, editing for content and chiefly, forging a connection between previously-unrelated series), while supporters of the adaptation have pointed out that it helped to maintain a slow but continuous rise in the consumption of anime in the US.

Series writer/actor Greg Snegoff said in an interview on the now-defunct Shadow Chronicles News fansite that, "afterward, we received compliments from the Japanese who thought our dialogue and stories were better than the original". However, Animag magazine (issue 11) and Animerica magazine (issue 9, volume 4) reports that the staff of Macross at Studio Nue and Artland, such as the original story creator and mecha designer Shoji Kawamori and chief director Noboru Ishiguro, expressed their concern over the Robotech adaptation, and surprise at its differences.

In an effort to combine the storylines of three different Japanese series, certain characters underwent drastic role changes, with little explicit character development or plot exposition.

In addition, detractors of the show argue that the need for 65 episodes did not necessarily require a combined storyline, citing adaptations like Voltron which coupled two unrelated Japanese series without directly combining the storylines. However a year after this show ended, 20 additional Voltron episodes and a crossover special were created for American audiences by Toei Animation, after the first daily run of 104 episodes.

Shortly after completing Robotech, Macek would make the less-well-known Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years in a similar fashion by combining two Leiji Matsumoto series, Captain Harlock and Queen Millennia, together and altering the storyline significantly. In this case, however, the two anime series were spliced together in a manner where the stories of the characters occurred simultaneously, not one after the other.

In 2009, IGN ranked Robotech as the 34th greatest animated show of all time in their Top 100 list.

Distribution
Following the original broadcast, the series enjoyed popularity on home video in VHS and DVD formats from the following distributors:
 * For more information, see Robotech (TV series): Home Video Release


 * Family Home Entertainment (VHS, Laserdisc) (First six-tape run of The Macross Saga was heavily edited, with roughly 38 minutes of footage cut from each six-episode tape. The episode "Private Time" was almost entirely removed, with only a few minutes of the beginning and end being shown.)
 * Palladium Books (VHS)
 * Streamline Pictures (VHS, Laserdisc)
 * ADV Films (DVD Region 1 &mdash; North America)
 * Manga Entertainment (DVD Region 2 &mdash; UK)
 * Madman Entertainment (DVD Region 4 &mdash; Australia)
 * FUNimation Entertainment (DVD Region 1 &mdash; USA) (Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles &mdash; Release date: 02/06/2007)
 * Guangdong Qianhe Audio & Video (DVD Region 6 &mdash; China) (Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles &mdash; Release date: 08/20, 2007)