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ANNCast - Macek Training


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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:39 pm Reply with quote
RedTail wrote:
braves wrote:
RedTail wrote:
Anyone mind sharing with me how one goes about finding out who's appearing on next week's show? It helps to know who it is in case you have questions you want to ask. Razz

The only way I know of is to follow Zac on Twitter (ANNZac). He'll usually say who's the week's guest a few days prior to recording the show.


Ugh... Guess I'll have to overcome my disdain for twitter.


Well, you can wait until next week anyway; Justin and I are taking this week off from the podcast.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15279
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 1:30 am Reply with quote
AWO: I've seen the trailer. Looks like Masters of the Universe with mechs to me...
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Shadowrun20XX



Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 1935
Location: Vegas
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 4:10 am Reply with quote
Great interview you guys. Was it just me or at one point too, did you zone out to Macek's monotone rambles? Laughing

I appreciate the long interview. I grew up in the 80's, so it's a blast to hear from the people who made it all possible.

These ANNcasts are getting quite respectable.
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2093
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:00 pm Reply with quote
Yeesh, this thread is a monster.

All right, let's break some things down with Robotech:

1) It was deemed necessary for it to be released via first-run syndication, which required 65 episodes.
2) The solution decided on was to take three series and "stitch" them together to form a complete storyline.
3) GIVEN the above, of course things are going to have to be changed. The only question is what.

"Edits" is a pretty broad category. Every dub has to contain some level of editing, even if it's just passing up a literal translation in favor of something that flows better.

Name changes I consider to be mostly silly (with a couple of exceptions like changing "Jenius" to "Sterling"). And Naruto seems to have demonstrated that kids can handle foreign names. (Case Closed gets a pass from me between it being mandated by the Japanese and not making any real effort to pretend it takes place outside Japan.) In Robotech's case, EVERYONE had at least a minor change to their names, which suggests legal reasons to me.

Cuts to comply with broadcast standards? Fine. It's a pain, but there's the FCC for you. I'm mostly okay with this, especially nowadays when they usually have the uncut version on DVD.

Adding dialogue to silent parts? Mostly pointless and irritating unless something REALLY needs to be clarified. Granted, ideas about viewers' attention spans may have been different then.

But when it comes to the overall task of combining three stories into one...well, the "colonization -> preemptive strike" thing makes a little sense when you realize that there was a bigger, badder race of aliens right around the corner. SDF Macross ended with "yay, we made peace using culture;" the corresponding point in Robotech, by necessity, was "we made peace using culture, but it's not going to last, 'cause the Masters are out there." And making one character a grown-up version of another one as part of the fusion seems all right, save for inconsistencies like the hair color. Protoculture...well, let's just say the term makes more sense with its Macross usage.

Changing who lived and who died...was there ANY point to that?

Changes to the overall content of dialogue -- well, here's one example. In the first episode of Macross, there's a bit where the aliens are shocked at the fact that humans have "reaction weaponry," which they'd lost the secrets of long ago; Robotech changed this entirely to them being puzzled at our using "such primitive weaponry." Completely reversed. How do you justify a change like that? Again, what point is there to it? Especially since the later bit about their having to be careful with humanity because of the latter's powerful weapons wasn't changed. There are a whole bunch of superfluous and sometimes contradictory alterations like this in Robotech's script. No pass there.

(One more thing: nobody's really complaining about the edits to Southern Cross or Mospeada. Huh.)
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MeggieMay



Joined: 08 Jun 2004
Posts: 607
PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 11:12 pm Reply with quote
Well I finally managed to get this episode listen to. Very good! While I didn't always agree with Macek on some of his ideas on how to make things work today verse back in the day (I do think the market has moved on a bit and a few of his ideas wouldn't work because of that), I still thought much of what he was saying had a grain of truth to it. Still, Macek didn't come off to me as someone who hated anime or did what he has done to "spite" (for lack of a better word) Anime fans. Macek is simply coming to this from a totally different worldview that isn't any more right or wrong than current Anime fans views on these subjects are, at least the way I see it.

Anyway, thanks for interviewing him. It was very interesting and worth the two hours it took to listen to it Smile Now I just need to go get some food and to bed so I can get to work on time in the morning.
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Vicserr



Joined: 26 Apr 2004
Posts: 480
Location: Carolina, Puerto Rico USA
PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 11:50 pm Reply with quote
Shay Guy wrote:

But when it comes to the overall task of combining three stories into one...well, the "colonization -> preemptive strike" thing makes a little sense when you realize that there was a bigger, badder race of aliens right around the corner. SDF Macross ended with "yay, we made peace using culture;" the corresponding point in Robotech, by necessity, was "we made peace using culture, but it's not going to last, 'cause the Masters are out there." And making one character a grown-up version of another one as part of the fusion seems all right, save for inconsistencies like the hair color. Protoculture...well, let's just say the term makes more sense with its Macross usage.

Changing who lived and who died...was there ANY point to that?

Changes to the overall content of dialogue -- well, here's one example. In the first episode of Macross, there's a bit where the aliens are shocked at the fact that humans have "reaction weaponry," which they'd lost the secrets of long ago; Robotech changed this entirely to them being puzzled at our using "such primitive weaponry." Completely reversed. How do you justify a change like that? Again, what point is there to it? Especially since the later bit about their having to be careful with humanity because of the latter's powerful weapons wasn't changed. There are a whole bunch of superfluous and sometimes contradictory alterations like this in Robotech's script. No pass there.


As it has been explained the narrative license that was used in Robotech comes from making a multi generational story (and getting 65+ eps for syndication) out of 3 unrelated series, mistakes were made in the short time they had to put everything together. Stuff would have been more fleshed out had not Robotech II the Sentinels crashed and burned.

Quote:
(One more thing: nobody's really complaining about the edits to Southern Cross or Mospeada. Huh.)


Not even Japan cares about Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and it's common knowledge that SC was the most "edited" of the series used for Robotech as they turned the colony planet Glorie into a 1st Robotech War devastated Earth, hand having it's main character turned into Dana Sterling and there's at least on the toy front a resurgence of Mospeada and mostly the stuff edited out of Mospeada for Robotech was stuff with Mint in it that most of us won't miss.
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JonLa



Joined: 01 Feb 2010
Posts: 55
PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:34 am Reply with quote
I thought he came across really well - explaining how hard decisions were made when running a business. I enjoyed finding out the reason for Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years - and what a shame they couldn't get the other Harlock series.

I've watched all of Dunbine, and enjoyed it, but I don't think Macek can be blamed for its failure. ADV decided, at the height of the boom, to release it over 12 discs (maybe it was part of their contract?). I know I gave up after 2 discs when I saw how many it was going to be (I'd been worried about a 10-disc release, 12 seemed too many) but I later picked up the remaining discs in the ADV sale. The dub was okay, not great, but then to my British ears, most anime dubs sound a little bit amateurish, a little bit shouty. What was disturbing was the change in some of the names about halfway through - and here we see the change from Macek's "Mi Ferario" to "Feorine" and I think Chum gets changed to Cham in the subtitles. Nothing major - but quite disconcerting - did Macek get taken off the series before the end?

The real problem is one that plagues a lot of Tomino shows - the 48/50 episode run means that there has to be a lot of repetitive and inconclusive fights before moving on to the next background location. Love them to bits, but it affects Ideon, Turn-A and Zeta Gundam to some extent
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