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NEWS: Funimation to Add Robotech TV Series, Films to Catalog


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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:46 pm Reply with quote
Lord Vaultman wrote:


Can you go into more details for #1 please? That quote feels very vague.
If you're familiar with Voltron, Robotech is basically like that. They basically heavily rewrote three separate shows to make it into one continuous narrative.
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Lord Vaultman



Joined: 03 Mar 2017
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:50 pm Reply with quote
Cardcaptor Takato wrote:
Lord Vaultman wrote:


Can you go into more details for #1 please? That quote feels very vague.
If you're familiar with Voltron, Robotech is basically like that. They basically heavily rewrote three separate shows to make it into one continuous narrative.


So I guess I'm confused still. Did harmony gold actually make robotech or did they just license it from japan? If they just licensed it then who actually made the show that is supposedly based off of three other shows? If harmony gold actually physically made robotech then it isnt really even an anime then is it since it was made in the west right? (assuming harmony gold is an american company)

I'm really not privy to the whole setup and would love a far more detailed response that's not a 200 page document lawsuit filing as I've heard there was.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:54 pm Reply with quote
Harmony Gold initially licensed 3 unrelated shows and rewrote them as one connected series to make syndication rules, as the rules say you need 65 episodes to be syndicated. The problem is that they now claim trademarks on all the shows including their original versions and any sequel series that use the trademarks. This is important because Macross, the only show anyone cares about of the three, has become a massive franchise in Japan, a franchise Harmony Gold blocks coming to the US and frequently litigates against anyone that tries to sneak it in or even slightly resembles it.
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:58 pm Reply with quote
Lord Vaultman wrote:


So I guess I'm confused still. Did harmony gold actually make robotech or did they just license it from japan? If they just licensed it then who actually made the show that is supposedly based off of three other shows? If harmony gold actually physically made robotech then it isnt really even an anime then is it since it was made in the west right? (assuming harmony gold is an american company)
They are three separate anime Harmony Gold licensed and drastically rewrote the plots to and combined by changing key plot points. An example is how in the original Macross Protoculture is a race of aliens that created the Zentreadi and the Macross ship but in Robotech they changed it so Protoculture is an energy source that all the bad guys are after that they used as the McGuffin to link the three shows. Harmony Gold did produce two American made sequels (The Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles) but the original are three separate anime they licensed from Tatsunoko. The licensing issue is due to a separate conflict where Harmony Gold claimed to own the worldwide trademark of Macross and has used that trademark claim to block other companies from licensing the various sequels.
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AkumaChef



Joined: 10 Jan 2019
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:58 pm Reply with quote
Lord Vaultman wrote:
AkumaChef wrote:
Lord Vaultman wrote:
Can someone "calmly" explain this whole harmony gold/macross fiasco that has everyone up in arms?

There are two reasons why fans are irritated.

1) Harmony Gold made rather drastic edits to 3 completely unrelated anime in order to make "Robotech". A lot of fans see this as sacrilege.

2) Harmony Gold owns the legal rights to the trademark "Macross" in the west, and they have a history of not playing nice with others. This makes it all the more difficult for the original (un-edited) Macross, as well as the other Macross spinoffs which had nothing to do with the original, to be marketed in the west.


Can you go into more details for #1 please? That quote feels very vague.


Harmony Gold is an American TV company. Back in the 80s they wanted to sell a "cartoon" to American TV stations. They wanted to license Macross, but the original Macross series wasn't long enough--the American TV stations wanted a longer show with more episodes. So, Harmony Gold hired a guy named Carl Macek to make a show that was "long enough". Under his direction they took three totally unrelated anime (named in the article), edited everything like mad, and the result was "Robotech". There is only the most basic similarity between the plots of Robotech and Macross. Character names are different, there are huge differences in the plot, etc. It really is an understatement to say that it was "edited"; Carl Macek became known as "Carl the Butcher" in anime fandom. Infamous is more like it.
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AkumaChef



Joined: 10 Jan 2019
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:02 pm Reply with quote
Lord Vaultman wrote:


So I guess I'm confused still. Did harmony gold actually make robotech or did they just license it from japan? If they just licensed it then who actually made the show that is supposedly based off of three other shows? If harmony gold actually physically made robotech then it isnt really even an anime then is it since it was made in the west right? (assuming harmony gold is an american company).


Harmony Gold, an American company, made "Robotech" by cutting up film and splicing it back together, then re-recording all the audio. The source film they used were three different Anime (Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada) which they licensed from Japan.

So, in other words, they licensed three anime from Japan, then dumped it all in a proverbial blender, wrote their own plot & dialogue, and the result is Robotech.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:04 pm Reply with quote
ZeetherKID77 wrote:
They are NEVER doing Blu-rays for Robotech. There is no possible way that will happen because of the Big West ordeal. It's going to be the same DVD set with likely the same extras, except maybe now you get The Sentinels.


Not exactly true. While Big West has the original film masters for Macross & Southern Cross, Harmony Gold does have its own 16mm film masters for those two shows. Therefore, HG has the ability to do their own HD remaster of those two shows using the film it has, with the main difference being that a HG-lead Macross remaster would look somewhat softer than the Japanese Macross remaster, since HG has a 2nd generation master. Southern Cross, on the other hand, has no remaster in Japan, so HG doing one for that would look better, in general. Mospeada, however, is 100% Tatsunoko, so HG could simply get the HD master for that show that was done back in 2013.

The only problem is that in order to do an HD release for Robotech, HG would have to literally recreate the entire show using these HD masters, which would obviously be a massive (& very expensive) endeavor. The only time something like this was done for anime was when Media Blasters digitally remastered Voltron by taking remastered GoLion & Dairugger footage, & literally redoing all of the edits to recreate Voltron. That being said, that remaster did wonders for Voltron, selling outstandingly well & even making remastered releases of the original Japanese shows possible. Really, for all we know, FUNimation could have had to agree to assist with HG in doing an HD remaster & eventual Blu-Ray release for Robotech, as FUNi has the ability to do HD remasters, in order to make this deal happen in the first place.

Meanwhile, I do think that FUNimation wouldn't agree to this deal if they didn't get the rights to the original Japanese shows, alongside the Robotech stuff. Therefore, I'm sure we'll be seeing new releases of Macross, Southern Cross, & Mospeada from FUNi, at some point. Mospeada being given an HD remastered Blu-Ray release is easily the most likely, as it being completely owned by Tatsunoko makes that easy, but we'll just have to see what FUNi will end up doing with Macross & Southern Cross.
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Gray Lensman



Joined: 17 Mar 2019
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:05 pm Reply with quote
AkumaChef wrote:


Harmony Gold is an American TV company. Back in the 80s they wanted to sell a "cartoon" to American TV stations. They wanted to license Macross, but the original Macross series wasn't long enough--the American TV stations wanted a longer show with more episodes. So, Harmony Gold hired a guy named Carl Macek to make a show that was "long enough". Under his direction they took three totally unrelated anime (named in the article), edited everything like mad, and the result was "Robotech". There is only the most basic similarity between the plots of Robotech and Macross. Character names are different, there are huge differences in the plot, etc. It really is an understatement to say that it was "edited"; Carl Macek became known as "Carl the Butcher" in anime fandom. Infamous is more like it.


The term Macekre exists because of this, but to be honest, I'm not overly concerned with that part myself. Those changes allowed these shows to hit US airwaves in the first place, and was the first experience with anime to a large group of fans.

My issue is that while the fans have grown, and are wanting to see the original take and the rest of the Macross franchise, Harmony Gold refuses to grow with them, seemingly keeping something that could be amazing away from anyone other than pirates out of spite. Although I wasn't even expecting this much out of Harmony Gold - for the past several years they seem to have existed more as an intellectual property troll than as an actual media company.
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Dumas1



Joined: 20 Dec 2012
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Lord Vaultman wrote:
AkumaChef wrote:

There are two reasons why fans are irritated.

1) Harmony Gold made rather drastic edits to 3 completely unrelated anime in order to make "Robotech". A lot of fans see this as sacrilege.
.


Can you go into more details for #1 please? That quote feels very vague.


Here's one example that crosses all three series, taking a central background element from each one to create something that ties it all together: In Macross, the Protoculture was a precursor culture that created the Zentraedi and once ruled the galaxy. Macross 7 and Delta show that they also had some epic screwups and seeded the galaxy with humanoid life.

In Southern Cross, the Flower of Life is the source of "bioenergy" that sustains the Zor and their clone culture. It happens to grow in certain ruins on Gloire, the planet where the series is set.

Mospeada has HBT, a universal fuel source that powers human mecha, weapons, and technology in general. The Inbit invaders have some affinity for it, mostly tracking humans by detecting HBT emissions.

Robotech mashes these three together into "Protoculture," a fuel extracted from the Flower of Life grown in Protoculture matrices. The Macross was carrying a matrix when it crashed on Earth, which the Zentraedi and Robotech Masters seek to recover since they lack their own source of Protoculture. The Invid are still drawn to Protoculture and the Flowers, which draws them to invade in the final arc. It got weird at the end. That's about all I remember based on seeing some of the series on Cartoon Network back in the day, along with reading the novelizations of the Mospeada arc.
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Gray Lensman



Joined: 17 Mar 2019
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:07 pm Reply with quote
AkumaChef wrote:
Lord Vaultman wrote:


So I guess I'm confused still. Did harmony gold actually make robotech or did they just license it from japan? If they just licensed it then who actually made the show that is supposedly based off of three other shows? If harmony gold actually physically made robotech then it isnt really even an anime then is it since it was made in the west right? (assuming harmony gold is an american company).


Harmony Gold, an American company, made "Robotech" by cutting up film and splicing it back together, then re-recording all the audio. The source film they used were three different Anime (Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada) which they licensed from Japan.

So, in other words, they licensed three anime from Japan, then dumped it all in a proverbial blender, wrote their own plot & dialogue, and the result is Robotech.


Think of something like a Team Fourstar dub, only played straight instead of for comedy.
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ZeetherKID77



Joined: 17 Jun 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:15 pm Reply with quote
Lord Geo wrote:

Meanwhile, I do think that FUNimation wouldn't agree to this deal if they didn't get the rights to the original Japanese shows, alongside the Robotech stuff. Therefore, I'm sure we'll be seeing new releases of Macross, Southern Cross, & Mospeada from FUNi, at some point. Mospeada being given an HD remastered Blu-Ray release is easily the most likely, as it being completely owned by Tatsunoko makes that easy, but we'll just have to see what FUNi will end up doing with Macross & Southern Cross.

Redub of Macross without Vic as Hikaru? I can dream.

Thanks for the correction, by the way.
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Lord Geo



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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:19 pm Reply with quote
Cardcaptor Takato wrote:
The licensing issue is due to a separate conflict where Harmony Gold claimed to own the worldwide trademark of Macross and has used that trademark claim to block other companies from licensing the various sequels.


That's only part of it. The licensing issue also comes down to the fact that Tatsunoko even licensed Macross & Southern Cross to Harmony Gold in the first place, as Big West claimed ownership over those shows. That lead to a Japanese court case that eventually resulted in Tatsunoko being given license control of SDF Macross & Southern Cross outside of Japan, while Big West controls licensing in Japan. Meanwhile, Big West owns the rights to everything else in the Macross franchise worldwide, which is how we managed to get Macross II & Plus.

Because of that whole debacle, combined with HG's Macross trademarking, Big West could theoretically license the other Macross shows for release in North America, but HG will want involvement, due to the trademark; ADV apparently once admitted that HG would have "let them" release Macross Zero, for example. However, even if HG was gone from the picture completely, there are other problems we may never know the full details about, as Justin Sevakis mentioned in his Answerman column back when HG's renewal was revealed at Anime Expo this year:

Quote:
...the fact is that [Harmony Gold's] involvement is but one of many roadblocks that any wholesale reintroduction of Macross to North America would have to clear. And they might not even be the biggest one.
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Lord Vaultman



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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:21 pm Reply with quote
So basically for better or worse robotech happened way back in the day and while not everyone hates it they also just want the original releases of macross and others in the west in addition to robotech but harmony Gold basically refuses to release all or some of the nonblenderized versions of the said blenderized show known as robotech?
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Transformers03



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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:31 pm Reply with quote
Lord Vaultman wrote:
So basically for better or worse robotech happened way back in the day and while not everyone hates it they also just want the original releases of macross and others in the west in addition to robotech but harmony Gold basically refuses to release all or some of the nonblenderized versions of the said blenderized show known as robotech?


Harmony Gold aren't the only issue. While anime fans love to villainize them (and lets be clear, they are a bad company), but Tatsunoko and Big West are also to blame for this whole rights issues. I'm not an expert, however this whole issue stems from the weird laws in the 80s and companies failing to reach to understanding before things got way too complicated.
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Cardcaptor Takato



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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:40 pm Reply with quote
Lord Geo wrote:


The only problem is that in order to do an HD release for Robotech, HG would have to literally recreate the entire show using these HD masters, which would obviously be a massive (& very expensive) endeavor. The only time something like this was done for anime was when Media Blasters digitally remastered Voltron by taking remastered GoLion & Dairugger footage, & literally redoing all of the edits to recreate Voltron. That being said, that remaster did wonders for Voltron, selling outstandingly well & even making remastered releases of the original Japanese shows possible. Really, for all we know, FUNimation could have had to agree to assist with HG in doing an HD remaster & eventual Blu-Ray release for Robotech, as FUNi has the ability to do HD remasters, in order to make this deal happen in the first place.
It's kind of sad to me how even though Voltron and Robotech were basically conceived the same way, Voltron is still pretty well respected by American anime fandom because the American company actually respects the original GoLion and the Voltron franchise stays active with new entries in the series as opposed to Robotech where outside of that boring recap thing, there hasn't been new Robotech animated content in like a decade.
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