Rabid Southern Cross Fan wrote:Wow, ad hominem already....
Not really... I genuinely don't want to upset you, but it's never been my habit to sugarcoat things.
Sgt Anjay wrote:But I'll be honest, I'd like to see this overwhelmingly convincing evidence that they cared less while producing the other two-thirds of Robotech, especially since Southern Cross and Mospeada were already in Harmony Gold's library of titles, and wouldn't have been there for the lulz; it would've been because they already had designs upon them. [...]
It's right there in Harmony Gold's own account of
Robotech's creation... they'd already started production on a dub of
Macross when they were sidetracked by Revell, and they only teamed up with Revell so they could support their plans for
Macross with merchandise. Bringing it back to my remark to
Alrik that started all this, the greater quality of the Macross Saga compared to what followed is a function of the facts that it was 1. the mission-critical component they'd built the whole plan around, 2. the only part they invested plenty of time in planning (the others being, by HG's admission, a near-legendary rush job), and 3. the part that they expected to be the big draw... the other two sagas being included as a way of extending the
Macross story rather than something marketed on the basis of their own virtues.
Sgt Anjay wrote:As for "copycats"...well. [...] Southern Cross and Mospeada were certainly following the transforming robot craze of the early 80s, and what show wouldn't want to be a big hit?
Both the creators of
Southern Cross and
MOSPEADA are fairly specific about the substantial influence that the original
Macross series had on their work. Both shows dramatically changed from what they'd been conceived as to cash in on the success of
Macross.
MOSPEADA was taking pointers from
Macross pretty early on, and it shows even in its developmental titles... one of which was
Super Immortal Fortress Reflex Point. It changed from a police mecha series (not unlike
Patlabor in basic concept) to a story about an alien invasion of Earth. The success Takatoku had with transforming VF-1 toys even resulted in
MOSPEADA's toy partner angling for the creators to put greater emphasis on transforming fighters that'd been borderline background designs previously.
Southern Cross's changes were even more profound... it didn't just change settings, it completely switched genres from a sci-fi spin on a particularly storied period of Japanese history to a story about a war with aliens who are identical to humans.
(In fact, if you look in B-Club 79's 10 year retrospective of
Macross's influence on the industry, you'll find both the original
Southern Cross and
MOSPEADA listed therein as shows that drew heavily on its designs and themes. They're in good company, alongside
SPT Layzner,
Super Dimension Century Orguss,
Heavy Metal L-Gaim, and
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, to name a few.)
Now, let's please call a halt to the discussion of me personally, and possibly even drag ourselves back to the primary thread topic before
NMI or
Jefffar burst something aortic.
ShadowLogan wrote:Naming conventions though are a factor, given things are being identified differently in multiple cases in Robotech products at the time.
Granted, but as the title of the thread itself singles out the
Oberth-class space destroyers, I think we can rule out 1E entirely... though I would love to know HOW Palladium reached so many of these perplexing decisions. Anyway, I agree we should get back to the main topic. What say you of my ideas regarding the application of the ARMD as an orbit-to-surface assault platform voiced previously? Particularly with the viability of the M7T retrofit version.