Animation Errors (or not)

[eliakon]

Just a question here.
I see a LOT of claims thrown around in these threads about how things should be discounted as animation errors.
Which seems to me to be as pretty shaky stance logically speaking since it is claiming "we should ignore the only source material and instead rely on some other undisclosed source because I am saying the source isn't real"...which is in logic known as "not a valid claim"

I am curious where the justification for these claims comes from and if there are actual, verifiable primary sources for the various "This is an animation error" claims?
Like:
Who made the claim that it was an error?
What is their standing to make the claim?
Was it for the original show or the Robotech show?
If it was for the original show is there any reason to believe that the Robotech show did not take the animation cell as drawn as canon for that show?

If there IS a source for these claims... where are they found?
Because lets be honest... if you can't cite your source for the claim then its not a source. And trying to argue that everyone else should disregard what is shown on the screen because of a source that can't or won't be cited seems to be the very definition of both arguing in bad faith AND elitism.

[Seto Kaiba]

Just a question here.
I see a LOT of claims thrown around in these threads about how things should be discounted as animation errors.
Which seems to me to be as pretty shaky stance logically speaking since it is claiming "we should ignore the only source material and instead rely on some other undisclosed source because I am saying the source isn't real"...which is in logic known as "not a valid claim" [...]

An understandable question, to be sure.

Mind you, it’s worth noting that the animation itself is not the only source material we have. The production reference materials - the animation model sheets for the characters, the mecha, and various other odds and ends like backgrounds - were published in inevitable official art books a show produced back then had as a standard part of its merchandising. For the characters, that reference material includes multiple views of the character in all the various outfits they wear in the course of the show, color guides, facial expression galleries, and relevant vital statistics like their height and three sizes so proportions can be drawn correctly. For the mecha, which is the source of all the talk about animation errors you’ve seen recently, these sheets include detailed interior and exterior views, transformation guides, guides to drawing surface detail, and the tech specs for the mecha itself. One of the beautiful things about the old art books is that they pretty much inevitably had multiple staff interviews about the production of the show, remarks about a variety of little odds and ends, in jokes, and so on. The kind of stuff fans would ask about.

That’s where these statements about so-and-so being an animation error are drawn from.

I am curious where the justification for these claims comes from and if there are actual, verifiable primary sources for the various "This is an animation error" claims?
Like:
Who made the claim that it was an error?
What is their standing to make the claim?
Was it for the original show or the Robotech show?
If it was for the original show is there any reason to believe that the Robotech show did not take the animation cell as drawn as canon for that show?

The specific examples I know you’re thinking of here are:

• The VF-1’s tail missiles in Ep10 “Blind Game”.
• The Beta’s MM-20 chest missile launchers.
• The Alpha’s head mini-missile launchers.

I’m sure there are others you’re thinking of as well, but those are the ones that were recently chewed over in some detail so I’ll start there.

An animation error can be identified one of three ways… either the production staff made some kind of statement to the effect of “yeah, we screwed this scene up”, something is in a scene that clearly isn’t supposed to be there, or something is visibly drawn off-model (meaning incorrectly compared to the production reference material).

The Beta’s chest missile launchers and Alpha’s head missile launchers are both that third type… a mecha was animated in a way that was inconsistent with the animation model sheet which was the “bible” for animators as far as how to draw the mecha correctly. The animation model sheets have been printed in a number of different books like MOSPEADA: Complete Art Works, MOSPEADA Color Graffiti, the MOSPEADA File for Animeca Fan booklet, and so on. My preferred reference is MOSPEADA: Complete Art Works for reasons that should be obvious from the title, but also because the book rather helpfully typesets much of the original artist chickenscratch notations.

If you look at Shinji Arimaki's production reference materials for the AFC-01 Legioss (RT: VF/A-6 Alpha) and AB-01 TLEAD (RT: VF/B-9 Beta), you won't find the launchers in question anywhere in their animation model sheets. The Legioss's reference can be found on pages 44-54 and 62-63 (for the Dark type), and the TLEAD's on 55-60. If you look at the Legioss's spec, you'll find it only lists 60 missiles… the 60 missiles stored 12 in each leg, 10 in each forearm, and 8 in each shoulder. The official cutaway diagram (Color Graffiti p43) likewise shows no missiles in the Legioss’s head. Likewise, if you look for the chest missile launchers on those model sheets you won’t find them. The spec lists 48 internal missiles, but the artist’s notation on the line art itself (see Complete Art Works p56) clearly states all 48 missiles are stored in the pop-up pair of 4x2 missile launchers on the dorsal surface of the aircraft.

Another example of an obvious off-model moment is the VF-1’s “nose lasers”. Per the animation production reference, the blisters on the side of the VF-1’s nose are infrared cameras, not lasers. The studio who Tatsunoko had contracted that scene out to (South Korea’s StarPro) screwed up and drew the lasers firing from the FLIR camera blisters instead of from the laser cannon on the monitor turret.

An example of the second type of animation error would be the accidental inclusion of the two surface carriers Daedalus and Prometheus in a fleet shot early in Macross. In the show’s dialog and the production reference for the ships, they’re naval vessels not capable of operating in space (and whose crews only narrowly escaped dying en masse because the ships were designed to be semi-submersible). Another good example would be the Mars Base Garfish transports launching more fighters than they can actually hold. The spec for them says nine Legioss fighters, and the Legioss drawn for scale with their line art bears that out (ref. Complete Art Works p67), but due to the use of animation looping to save money the shot showing six fighters launching was looped such that the Garfish is accidentally depicted as launching twelve fighters… three more than will physically fit in the ship.

The first type - the “we dun goofed” - has a perfect example and subversion in the missiles seen on the tail of Max’s VF-1A in the episode “Blind Game”. Ichiro Itano, the lead animator, has said in several interviews that this was a bit of last-minute arse-covering after the animators noticed that a later scene had Max firing far more than the twelve missiles his VF-1A should be carrying at a Quel-Quallie theater scout pod. The missiles were added to the tail of Max’s VF-1A at the last minute to cover up the animation mistake that had him firing far more missiles than he was actually carrying prior to the fix. The nose lasers have also been acknowledged in a number of featurettes as goofs caused by Tatsunoko outsourcing its share of the animation workload, and most famously the terribad quality in the infamous Max and Milia knife fight. The VF-1R/YF-1R that debuted in Robotech Battlecry was another acknowledged goof. You’ll notice that the entire group of fighters in the scene are VF-1A’s until that shot, and are all VF-1A’s after that shot as well. Someone screwed up and tried to draw the VF-1J lasers on the VF-1A head.





Now, what we were talking about WRT animation errors in the other thread was more with respect to authorial intent in the design… ie could certain sets of launchers fire together even though they’re considered separate weapons systems. The answer was that authorial intent wouldn’t be found either way, because said launchers were animation errors in the original’s viewpoint… even though they were considered an official part of the Robotech spec.

As far as the status of these… the OSM considers all of the above examples except the VF-1’s tail missiles to be animation errors. As a result of having outsourced their research to a fanfic writing group who misrepresented their sources, Robotech canonized several of the errors like the VF-1’s nose lasers, the Alpha’s head missiles, the Beta’s chest launchers, and a much larger Garfish. They still consider many of the animation errors to be genuine errors, such as the Daedalus and Prometheus alone in space, the inconsistently drawn Sylphid fighters in Southern Cross, and many instances of characters accidentally being drawn with the wrong hair color in background shots.

[xunk16]

Officially Seto at his best.

While this kind of conversations is interesting and might help in preventing abusive interpretations from the players...
I guess that since Robotech always used these animation errors as being "differences" from the originals; one should probably count on them being present as is when referring to a Robotech standpoint.
Of course, by choosing this path, you'd hardly ever have any more material available for defence than the RPG.

And these gets mostly useful when criticizing or expanding on the RPG's material.
From a mechanical standpoint, I find it useful to at least know what the design's original intention were. Particularly if one is to be able to modify it while respecting the inherent limitations of internal space and diverse systems requirements. It's not like if the books were very good references to the finer details of mecha pilot ergonomics, or internal functions. In the end, it all has to do with the suspension of disbelief.
Of course, in the case of the Beta, this brings out a lot of questions on how much you want to interpret the difference. For example, not having a full weapon system while still flying a thing so anti-aerodynamic tells you that the interior space must be filled to capacity. From this, one could conclude that the protoculture engine from Robotech takes less space than the original fusion reactor from Mospeada. When is this going to be useful to know?
I have currently no idea.
But the day it comes up, I'll have Seto to thank for pointing that fact out.

... Unless he also has something to counter that theory.

Then it depends on how much you think some of the interpretations starting from these AE add to your own games in terms of needs.
Personally, I liked the Vindicator so much that I converted it for second edition using the Alpha comparison as a point of reference.
While it is most probably an animation error (do we have the full story on that one too?), the idea that the U­.E.E.F. would have thought about the possibility of remaining Zentreadi force needing CQB intervention is interesting to exploit.
(We hardly ever see the problems caused by size difference exploited in the game rules. Like the fact that having an alpha being smaller would actually help against swarms of Invid Scouts, since they would gang up a VF-1 to immobility that much more easily. At the very least, the smaller mecha don't have to fear having so many climbing on their legs and arms at once. On the other hand, that question can ONLY apply to a Robotech stance, since the OSM never intended for that mecha to even be there to highlight that problem. In such a case, you mostly have the RPG and your imagination to help.)
Also, I don't really remember from which unofficial source I got that part... But having that precise design being canned and recycled as trainer / officer's taxi in the fleet, seemed rather a nice touch of background material.

So to return to the original question, if an AE limits your search for non-existent sources to the most probable material to include the thing you need for your argument then : Yes. I guess it's nice to have an idea to where to go for an answer. However, I don't think OSM built for a project so distinct from what Robotech has become through the RPG is sufficient. It's just the only thing we have that close to the source.
From there, it all depends on how much "limited to only verifiable canon" you want to get at your own table.
And if you have to interpret something, it's better to know that is what you are doing.
As good as an unpublished deduction can be, it can still be trampled and pummelled to extinction by further canon entering into existence.

[jaymz]

Vf-1v vindicator was an rpg writing screw up iirc. The art piece used for reference assumed the cyclone rider was 6ft tall but the rider was riding not standing. By all accounts that particular art piece should have just been a dark legioss.

Mind you i to incorporated it into my version of 2nd ed but in also incorporated a nu her of things well before palladium did as well so.....

[ShadowLogan]

@xunk16 and jaymz
Re: VF-1V Vindicator.
There are two scenes, AFAIK, that get referenced in the animation for its existence in discussions (one is an interaction with a Trooper-class Invid, and the other with Cyclones), but these are animation errors. The one with the Cyclone can be shown to have the Cyclone dimension ratio is off, and the Trooper-class Invid used incorrect size (depending on if you use 1E RPG or the RT.com Infopedia's/2E RPG stated size) in the analysis (older 1E standard it works, but not by the newer standard). So it isn't strictly a pure 1E RPG invention (ex. the Veritech Car), it was based on something in the animation.

That said, the role the Vindicator plays (anti-Zentreadi) might be handled in 1E just as well by the Beta. There are other potential issues, but also potential solutions for 1E depending on what you want to change in the fluff text. In 2E you have to contend with the Beta's much later service entry, but a port from 1E to 2E is doable.

[jaymz]

In other words those writing the material for the rpg, since the rpg is the only place said vf is ever mentioned, got it wrong due to using incorrect sizes for scale......like I said.

[Seto Kaiba]

While this kind of conversations is interesting and might help in preventing abusive interpretations from the players...

I've often found that the more clear and consistent the material is, the harder it is for players to find loopholes that merit abuse.

I guess that since Robotech always used these animation errors as being "differences" from the originals; one should probably count on them being present as is when referring to a Robotech standpoint.

Well, not "always"... Robotech didn't actually canonize most of the ones it did canonize until the 2000s.

Of course, in the case of the Beta, this brings out a lot of questions on how much you want to interpret the difference. For example, not having a full weapon system while still flying a thing so anti-aerodynamic tells you that the interior space must be filled to capacity. From this, one could conclude that the protoculture engine from Robotech takes less space than the original fusion reactor from Mospeada. When is this going to be useful to know?
I have currently no idea.
But the day it comes up, I'll have Seto to thank for pointing that fact out.

FWIW, I would be inclined to treat it like an error even in Robotech, since the result of NOT treating it like an error actually diminishes the capabilities of the Beta. By treating it as an error, the Beta might have eight fewer missiles in total but all 48 are available in all modes and while docked instead of having the majority of its air-to-air ordnance in docked configurations be unavailable and directly adjacent to a very hot engine. The end result is a more sensible and advantageous configuration if it's treated as the error it OSM-ly is.

The AB-01 TLEAD was pretty thoroughly packed... bomb bay storage for 72 napalm bombs, 48 internal short range missiles, 3 high-powered 30mm rotary cannons, six rapid-fire laser cannons, and six laser bomb launchers, plus all the hardware to connect to the Legioss and draw on both its own engine power AND the Legioss's simultaneously while docked. That it had enough room for two passengers in addition to its pilot AND all that is pretty impressive, no doubt facilitated heavily by its hydrogen fuel cell powerplant's impressive level of miniaturization.

While it is most probably an animation error (do we have the full story on that one too?)

Ja, that one's a scaling issue with the hand-drawn old school animation.

[eliakon]

Okay... so I get that there is all sorts of lively debate about these so called errors.
What I am NOT seeing is that there is any sort of solid PROOF that anyone can cite to back up their claim that they are indeed errors.
Which for someone who is into logic and philosophy seems to make the claims... well false on their face.
When making a radical claim like "the TV show itself is wrong" one has a rather significant burden of proof... but all I am hearing so far is "well yes, there is evidence out there but no one knows where it is or how to find it and its all disputed anyway"
Is this wrong?
Is there actually some location where you can see something like "So and so stated at such and such a location that X in scene Y was an error because Z. So and So being the blah blah in charge of whatever is the authority on this subject" that is proof.

I am not looking for "fan 873 claim on their fan page that a screen shot of frame 4,967 clearly shows that the contrails demonstrate that the missiles launched were not the ones stated in the dialogue"...that isn't evidence that is simply one person making an unsupported claim.

[xunk16]

So... Basically you are not considering the apparent contradiction between OSM and final product as an error since it could be a late addition and you'd wish proof that there is some interview out there that claims this was indeed an error?

[jaymz]

Eliakon, the burden of proof has been met, you are just ignoring it. RT uses much the same OSM as the original shows did from the 80s as well as the people who made the originals flat out saying they goofed in spots.

Add in the fact HG themselves reset canon and used these materials to do so (see the vastly changed ASC mecha and various tweaks and changes to the other two series' worth of mecha as well)....i am not sure what you more you want unless you want Tommy Yune to come here himself to fraking tell you.

[ShadowLogan]

@jaymz
If you are asking me who is responsible for the Vindicator. I would give it a split between PB (2/3) and the animation (1/3). PB did the fleshing out (stats/fluff/naming), but the actual depiction is based on the animation (be in end product or OSM line art like what gave us the EBSIS Battloids).

Compared to something like the Veritech Car (in 1E Bk8), which is a pure PB invention and responsibility as there is nothing like it in the animation (and AFAIK OSM line art).

[jaymz]

To me that still leaves it on the rpg as they mistakenly scaled it from the image rather than using actual hard data that we know they at least had some variation available to them as per "japanimation notes" in ref field guide.

Regardless it was mistake -shrug-

[ShadowLogan]

I agree it was a mistake on their part, to a large extent. I just don't think it is fair to heap the blame completely on them as there have even been some attempts by fans to prove it "exists". Given it can even be attempted to be shown to "exist" IMHO puts it in the not completely PB's fault, sure these can be disproved but at least gives it some justification and just shows PB isn't as "nitpicky" as fans would like. At least for it's apparent size, stats/fluff well that's purely on PB much like the EBSIS Battloids in Book4 of 1E (no EBSIS in the show, the mecha aren't TMS-size, etc).

[jaymz]

Eh to me those fans are the type that ignore being slapped in the face with facts and reality....much like is happening in the beta thread

[Seto Kaiba]

So... Basically you are not considering the apparent contradiction between OSM and final product as an error since it could be a late addition and you'd wish proof that there is some interview out there that claims this was indeed an error?

Some of these animation errors have, as indicated previously, been explicitly singled out by the production staff as animation errors in interviews. Ichiro Itano has commented on several occasions about the tail missiles being to cover for an animation error later in the same episode. The TLEAD's missile launcher problem is easily addressed via mechanical designer Shinji Arimaki's own handwritten notes from the animation model sheets. If the word of the show's creator in their own hand upon the animation model sheets used to create the show isn't good enough for him, then nothing will be.

Mind you, if these were "late additions" rather than errors, they would still be reflected in the animation model sheets and official publications that were released alongside the series and in the years since they aired. The animation model sheets are also used by the show's merchandising partners for development purposes like prototyping model kits and toys. That's why Imai had so much early concept art from the development of Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA sitting around their offices. They were a merchandising partner for both of those Tatsunoko properties, and received copies of the concept art and animation model sheets to know what direction to take for merchandise development and help produce kits and toys that were representative of what was actually in the show. (That's why you'll find some design features that were drafted for the designs in the animation model sheets late in development but were not used during the production itself showing up in toys, like the center-mounted missile pod for the Legioss from this piece (top image) which is used as a structural part in many Legioss toys (including the ones currently under development) or the under-intake "First Strike Missiles" that are never used in MOSPEADA either but showed up on a number of older Legioss toys.

Basically, if these were late additions to the show there would be a paper trail demonstrating that fact... and there isn't.

[eliakon]

So... Basically you are not considering the apparent contradiction between OSM and final product as an error since it could be a late addition and you'd wish proof that there is some interview out there that claims this was indeed an error?

I am saying that how do you prove that something IS a contradiction.
That is a pretty HUGE claim to make.
Especially with Robotech where the Robotech show is explicitly not Macross/Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross/Mospedia but Robotech.

The shows ARE the OSM. Thus the claim that the OSM is wrong is a massive claim to make.
I am not sure if people get how mind bogglingly huge this claim is.
You are literally stating that the Original Source Material (the show itself) is canonically wrong.

That seems to require a rather large amount of proof beyond "trust me on this" or "well in this other show that was different"

[eliakon]

Eliakon, the burden of proof has been met, you are just ignoring it.

not in the slightest
I have not seen anyone provide an actual SOURCE yet. Just more of the constant "trust me I know this stuff"

RT uses much the same OSM as the original shows did from the 80s as well as the people who made the originals flat out saying they goofed in spots.

GREAT!
Where do we find these people saying they goofed?
Where is this "OSM" that is used.
I am dead serious.
If the claim is that there is a higher canon than the show itself that is pretty profound and I am curious as to where this canon is to be found.
If there is claim to official errata to that canon then I am curious as to where the documentation of that errata is (hint "some guy said it trust me" isn't documentation)

Add in the fact HG themselves reset canon and used these materials to do so (see the vastly changed ASC mecha and various tweaks and changes to the other two series' worth of mecha as well)....i am not sure what you more you want unless you want Tommy Yune to come here himself to fraking tell you.

Umm now your contradicting yourself.
Did Robotech use your "OSM" or did HG reset the canon?
You can't have it both ways.
You seem to be unclear on what the words "OSM" and "canon" mean...

And if you want to make a claim that the Show itself is WRONG and that those who claim that the show is correct are deluded... then it is sort of YOUR job to provide a source. Not simply dismiss anyone who doubts your fantastic claim as unworthy.
If you claim that X is an animation error then you need to be able to cite evidence for that claim.
Not just "well trust me" not just "this other show" not just "do not presume to question"
This isn't a religion here...

[eliakon]

So... Basically you are not considering the apparent contradiction between OSM and final product as an error since it could be a late addition and you'd wish proof that there is some interview out there that claims this was indeed an error?

Some of these animation errors have, as indicated previously, been explicitly singled out by the production staff as animation errors in interviews. Ichiro Itano has commented on several occasions about the tail missiles being to cover for an animation error later in the same episode. The TLEAD's missile launcher problem is easily addressed via mechanical designer Shinji Arimaki's own handwritten notes from the animation model sheets. If the word of the show's creator in their own hand upon the animation model sheets used to create the show isn't good enough for him, then nothing will be.

And you still have done nothing to prove your claim here other than be dismissive.
You are not citing any sources nor providing any way to verify your claim. You simply assert that they exist and that we must accept your word.
That isn't how evidence works.

Mind you, if these were "late additions" rather than errors, they would still be reflected in the animation model sheets and official publications that were released alongside the series and in the years since they aired. The animation model sheets are also used by the show's merchandising partners for development purposes like prototyping model kits and toys. That's why Imai had so much early concept art from the development of Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA sitting around their offices. They were a merchandising partner for both of those Tatsunoko properties, and received copies of the concept art and animation model sheets to know what direction to take for merchandise development and help produce kits and toys that were representative of what was actually in the show. (That's why you'll find some design features that were drafted for the designs in the animation model sheets late in development but were not used during the production itself showing up in toys, like the center-mounted missile pod for the Legioss from this piece (top image) which is used as a structural part in many Legioss toys (including the ones currently under development) or the under-intake "First Strike Missiles" that are never used in MOSPEADA either but showed up on a number of older Legioss toys.

Basically, if these were late additions to the show there would be a paper trail demonstrating that fact... and there isn't.

I notice that you are talking about the
Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross anime
and
Genesis Climber MOSPEADA
I am not talking about them. I am talking about Robotech.
Do people here understand the difference?
When the Robotech Series was created they... wait for it... changed things.
This means that claiming that what is unofficial for SDCSC has less than no relevance to what is relevant to RT:MS because we only need to know what the Robotech people viewed what the screen to show and what THEIR intention for that was.
It really is that simple folks.
The canon for the so called "OSM" which I am sorry to break it to you.. isn't OSM for Robotech…
...has nothing to do with Robotech.
The only thing that sets Robotech canon is Robotech.
Why is this such a hard concept to understand?
The fact that Mars Division was based on Mars in Mospedea doesn't mean diddly in Robotech because they were coming from Triol
Its invid not Inbit
And if the screen shows X... then unless the Robotech team agrees that what is shown is not what they want... then that is what they want.

[ShadowLogan]

or the under-intake "First Strike Missiles" that are never used in MOSPEADA either but showed up on a number of older Legioss toys.

Not just older, you can find them on current/near-current ones. Aoshima Mospeada products where releasing them last year with the extra missiles.

The Aoshima Mospeada Legoiss in the RT.com Store have them, and is listed as a marketing point. They are out of stock (@RT.com), but:
https://robotech.com/store/product/mosp ... 1-55-scale
https://robotech.com/store/product/mosp ... 1-55-scale
https://robotech.com/store/product/mosp ... 1-55-scale

[Seto Kaiba]

You are not citing any sources nor providing any way to verify your claim. You simply assert that they exist and that we must accept your word.

I literally gave you publication-and-page references.

At this point, it doesn't look like you're actually interested in evidence... only an opportunity to reflexively deny the facts.

I notice that you are talking about the
Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross anime
and
Genesis Climber MOSPEADA
I am not talking about them. I am talking about Robotech.
Do people here understand the difference?

In terms of the animation, there isn't one.

Where is there original animation in the 85 episodes of Robotech? NOWHERE.

[jaymz]

Hg used original osm from the originating series when resetting canon. So either **** off or accept the answers that in fact answered your ******* question multiple times now.

[jaymz]

They even used newer osm of the originating series to correct the majority of the flaws in 1st ed to 2nd ed.

Do your own ******* leg work and contact hg directly. Not like they have a series to work on anyway.

[xunk16]

I am saying that how do you prove that something IS a contradiction.
That is a pretty HUGE claim to make.
Especially with Robotech where the Robotech show is explicitly not Macross/Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross/Mospedia but Robotech.

The shows ARE the OSM. Thus the claim that the OSM is wrong is a massive claim to make.
I am not sure if people get how mind bogglingly huge this claim is.
You are literally stating that the Original Source Material (the show itself) is canonically wrong.

On this I can only agree. I've come up on this forum claiming the exact same thing. Robotech is Robotech. And while for some reasons that show appeals to me, Macross never did quite in the same way.
As for Southern Cross and Mospeada... I don't feel the urge to go check the originals. Though that feeling might have been strongly fed by online comments.

But even with Robotech... There is a lot of authors and artistic visions at play. Plus, it's built way closer to the American fashion. Which means most will only build on it from what they want and their interpretation of finished products. A lot like fans do. Not necessarily building it all from the ground up. (The design phase is kinda rushed, ever changing, especially for the comic book world. And the RNU were written on a deadline.) Especially since, like some here sometime says, a part of the "fans" that buy the products don't do it for Robotech itself; this kind of audience split might have been what pushed HG to limit Palladium in their development of original material. Trying to reach the most people for the bigger bucks. Usually a sane strategy.
Though it deprived the Robotech fans of some good input. Like EBSIS.

Because in the beginning, there was an expanded universe relation going on there. The RNU admitted to have been inspired by the RPG and the comics. The comics were obviously inspired at least in part by the novels. (And often told so themselves, while repeating they wouldn't necessarily go the same exact way.) Both have been adapted from the show, just like the RPG was.
And now Titan's sequel tries to wrap all this up in something... that might have been better received if it wasn't sold as a reboot at first.
(I'm trying a second reading now to see how I can look at what they were trying to do instead of being hopelessly shocked. It kinda makes more sense when you're not waiting a month for each issues.)

Now when we do speak about the RPG, there was at some point a contact being made with the OSM for recuperated clips that go with the RT radio-drama.
So these sources, while indirect, can be used to shed some light on things. However, I agree that they could not apply directly on a show which was re-written without consulting them. Nor about an RPG which job was to adapt the show and not only the mech designs. (Like it would be done for a toy, for example.)
Technically, on a higher budget, someone should have remade a production bible constituted of original OSM for Robotech only material.
A thing that is still lacking. The Robotech art-book themselves still using the inappropriate OSMs.

But, obviously, some stuff couldn't have been written without taking that same source into account.

In the end, that's why I try as much as I can to quote which iteration I use as source.
I can see that canon matters a lot on RT forums and I can respect that. Knowingly using information that you have made up at a table is never the same as using information you can point to. It somehow feels less... entitled.
Obviously, different people will orient themselves differently towards a multiple iteration franchise.
Quoting from which source we came from helps the readers make their own opinion about which argument they take as valid, and which they take as suggestions.
But ignoring that another iteration has brought this or that potential is just limiting. Especially since the current and future authors might not care as much.
Since they too... have a favourite iteration. Sometime including the movie, or not. Sometime being the Japanese unedited show, or not.

And sometime... there is no other way. How fast does a Logan fly? Only the OSM told that to the animators. Only the animators told it to Robotech.
Only the OSM, then, can clarify that point for someone looking at a picture.
Until there is another more recent OSM that is produced.
Which the RPG kinda is.

For example, I like the idea that the Beta is imperfect. (RPG 2nd ed.) That there was trouble in its conception and that while it might have been apt as a bomber, that type of plane was not what the war effort asked for (PB forum), or what the veritech aces were trained for (Anime. Even in sentinels, they don't really drive the Beta directly). RT personnel is kinda limited by the strong attrition on demographics. (Macross Saga, Malcontent Era RNU / Old Comics) Since there was no dedicated bombers in the first two shows (OSM), it's kinda coincidentally coherent that the apparition of one in 2022 would be greeted with mixed feelings.
By mixing all those factors I take it that, in RT, the Beta became the uneasy fix it is, and was released as is, without further consulting giving rise to a next gen Beta. They basically asked dogfight pilots to input some comments and suggestion on a one-man bomber. They obviously tried to make it more like a fighter. That is the problems they think about and the comfort they have.
That's what you get when the brass think they strategically need something but don't have the men to make it work.
Or the time to train them adequately in a unending series of wars.
(Personal synthesis / fanon.)

The arguments that it could have been better are valid.
The argument that it has an uncomfortable choice of weapon systems is valid.
The argument that it could evolve into something akin to what its original designer wanted is valid.
But that the show cannot be used to base an RPG campaign on it is not.
Especially since the books supports a lot of nose lasers and head missiles.

Even worst would be the claim that the RPG cannot be used to build an RPG campaign.
Though it will be easier to return to a complete iteration for the setting to work.
Which the RPG is not. It wasn't finished.
But then, so wasn't Southern Cross. (However, Southern Cross' OSM was. Whatever the intentions that can be extracted from the tumultuous development it had.)

It's not more valid, it's only less work.
Going at it, when you actually plan the game, it all goes down to the questions you ask yourself and the problem they rises.
If there is too many holes, you'll have that too much work to do.
If there isn't enough holes... then you'll end up being forced to drop out of the setting.
The thing is to manage to find the holes where they are and expand them, while staying as close to the action as you can with your players.

Those who do go at it using OSM for the Japanese variant obviously do not want to have to make that part of the work.
They are right in that it will be the most credible source of consistency until new OSM is created.
I did go toward the OSM when buildings stats for the MODATS and Harguns.
I had no other choices. Other fans interpretations were all conflicting and in 1st edition format.

The Beta offers many possible roads.
And so does the VF-1.
But getting out of the Show / RPG in order to explain something means that any source can provide the explanation.
Which include the point where a GM tries to improve on a given mecha.
How can this be done? What would it actually do? What questions might the players have that could break your flow?

And looking at those, it is at least understandable how OSM that was built for answering exactly this would be a tempting source.
But the number of people who have written even in here that they had to re-write the game doesn't exactly paint it as the only or best solution.
If it was... then the game would have been it.

EDIT : The no bomber comments might have been misguided. There is something akin to it in Macross Saga Sourcebook for anti-submarine warfare. And I think there was an hovercraft with that same purpose in Master Saga Sourcebook. Either way though, it's not like they get to see very much action during the show / comics / novel continuities.
Also... I'm getting used to write "OSM" meaning "production art". While Robotech has not passed that step prior to its existence, it can be considered that the show is the first draft. However, that doesn't make it production art... since it was distributed as a finished product. I think most other op here use "OSM" only for "production art". If the argument was true of Robotech, it would mean to consider the anime as an unfinished product still in development stage.
Giving us mostly unfinished or de-canonized material as "true source".
The very nature of the thing defy the conventional logic of these talks.
Which is probably why Titan is re-integrating old stuff.
Also... I like the sharing in here. Despite the obvious polarized factions. It helps me get a bigger picture.
Thank you.

[Seto Kaiba]

On this I can only agree. I've come up on this forum claiming the exact same thing. Robotech is Robotech.

To be brutally frank, the fundamental problem here isn't that... it's the accompanying misconception that Robotech is an original series rather than what it actually is, a hastily-made adaptation of three preexisting TV anime series that had no grand plans of any kind. It will never be an original series, nor will it ever be separate and distinct from the original shows that make it up. Some fans of the series wish that wasn't the case, but it is what it is and that reality has dictated the course of creative efforts in the franchise since the beginning as well as the shape of its official setting.

Especially since, like some here sometime says, a part of the "fans" that buy the products don't do it for Robotech itself; this kind of audience split might have been what pushed HG to limit Palladium in their development of original material. Trying to reach the most people for the bigger bucks. Usually a sane strategy.
Though it deprived the Robotech fans of some good input. Like EBSIS.

While it is indisputably true that there have been a number of merchandising efforts that were pursued by related fandoms (Macross and BattleTech), this isn't the reason Harmony Gold has been exercising editorial control and oversight of its licensees since rebooting the series back in 2001.

Harmony Gold's reasons for exercising this editorial oversight over what their licensees produce were fairly straightforward, and mostly elaborated on back in 2006 when Robotech/i]'s marketing lead gave an interview on the reasons for having rebooted [i]Robotech and thrown out the old comics, novels, etc. around the same time they announced the 2nd Edition RPG license. Specifically, it was the linchpin of their efforts to reinvent Robotech as a credible, professional sci-fi anime franchise. After taking stock of the mess their licensees had produced while they were asleep at the switch during the late 80's and 90's, they were horrified by the terribly unprofessional quality of the work, the horrendously inconsistent content, and the many problematic additions made by several of those licensees. Harmony Gold's goal was to rework Robotech into a franchise with a managed official setting much like those of other successful sci-fi and/or anime properties. Imitating the practices of successful properties in those genres was only a logical step towards producing more consistent, higher-quality work for a more professionally-credible franchise.

Now when we do speak about the RPG, there was at some point a contact being made with the OSM for recuperated clips that go with the RT radio-drama.
So these sources, while indirect, can be used to shed some light on things. However, I agree that they could not apply directly on a show which was re-written without consulting them. Nor about an RPG which job was to adapt the show and not only the mech designs. (Like it would be done for a toy, for example.)

The goal of a licensed product like the RPG is to accurately reflect the contents of the show's official setting. That's why the OSM is a relevant resource here. Harmony Gold used the OSM as the basis for their official stats, albeit having been misinformed on some of it by irresponsible fan "researchers", on the grounds that the best way to have the fewest inconsistencies between the official setting's stats and the visuals was to use the same information that the people who created the original shows created as guidance for the animators.

For RT2E, Palladium Books was literally not given an option to not comply with those OSM-derived facts. Their choices were "produce a game that reflects the content of the official setting within these guidelines we have set for you" or "publish nothing".

Technically, on a higher budget, someone should have remade a production bible constituted of original OSM for Robotech only material.

That's... not how OSM works. That's not how Robotech works.

The term "OSM" means Original Source Material. The only Original Source Material for Robotech is the original three shows that were adapted to make it. For a scholar, this is called a Primary Source: an original document created at the time under study. There's no such thing as "new OSM" for an adaptation of an older work. To have "new OSM" you'd have to burn the franchise down and start over entirely from scratch... and HG won't do that because nobody will ever give them the money or manpower to do it, all their merchandising is built around Macross, and the last time the company tried to do an all-original work it was the worst failure in the franchise's history prior to Robotech Academy and ran one of their business partners into bankruptcy.

And looking at those, it is at least understandable how OSM that was built for answering exactly this would be a tempting source.
But the number of people who have written even in here that they had to re-write the game doesn't exactly paint it as the only or best solution.

This isn't an OSM issue, that's generally mechanical issues with the Palladium game system or players taking issue with the liberties the RPG took in the name of things like game balance or making the setting fit an existing game system.

Also... I'm getting used to write "OSM" meaning "production art". While Robotech has not passed that step prior to its existence, it can be considered that the show is the first draft. However, that doesn't make it production art... since it was distributed as a finished product. I think most other op here use "OSM" only for "production art". If the argument was true of Robotech, it would mean to consider the anime as an unfinished product still in development stage.

The term should, correctly used, refer only to the original shows and their production materials.

Production material for Robotech sequels would not be OSM, because the project itself is not original... it's a derivative work.

Giving us mostly unfinished or de-canonized material as "true source".
The very nature of the thing defy the conventional logic of these talks.

That's because you're using that term incorrectly...

Which is probably why Titan is re-integrating old stuff.

The way it looks, Titan is referencing that old, non-canon material with an eye towards writing it out of the setting in their version too by "breaking the circle" so that none of those futures come to pass in the name of their own Macross-centric version of Robotech's future in Robotech Remix.

[xunk16]

On this I can only agree. I've come up on this forum claiming the exact same thing. Robotech is Robotech.

To be brutally frank, the fundamental problem here isn't that... it's the accompanying misconception that Robotech is an original series rather than what it actually is, a hastily-made adaptation of three preexisting TV anime series that had no grand plans of any kind. It will never be an original series, nor will it ever be separate and distinct from the original shows that make it up. Some fans of the series wish that wasn't the case, but it is what it is and that reality has dictated the course of creative efforts in the franchise since the beginning as well as the shape of its official setting.

To be fair, that's coming from the guy who was happy that "Harmony Gold was losing their licence" and has been calling all and everything they have done (paraphrasing here) "nothing good". To Point : viewtopic.php?f=9&t=155060&start=50

I'd recommend either looking the other way or making peace with it, because there's going to be an awful lot of celebration when Robotech is well and truly pronounced dead.

Harmony Gold USA pissed off a LOT of people over the years. Macross fans have the biggest axe to grind thanks to Harmony Gold's persistent efforts to block all Macross releases from the western markets, Carl Macek's incessant dishonest claims about - and badmouthing of - the franchise, having to resort to piracy to experience the shows at all, and missing out on the vast majority of Macross's published material because of the shortage of fan translators. That said, Macross fans have only the biggest axe, the Transformers fans and BattleTech/MechWarrior fans have their own thanks to the various lawsuits that ranged from hilariously spurious to wholly justified over the years.

(Celebration in Camp BattleTech is likely to be short-lived when they realize that all that will change is who's suing their franchise's owners for copyright infringement.)

Frankly, as one of the Macross fandom's more active fan translators, I'll do my fair share of celebrating once we start seeing Macross publications being made available in English. I spend a lot of my free time and a lot of money poring over Macross books and magazine articles to make them available to fans who haven't spent years learning Japanese. Having that free time and the extra cash back would be quite welcome. (A professional translation firm's estimation of my work suggests I've done close to a quarter million dollars of free work for the fandom so far.)

So... permit me to be skeptical about your objectivity when it comes to Robotech being something, or even to have built an original story upon original concepts.
Of course it's scrap-booking. Of Course it has taken pictures to subvert their meaning. But being pop art doesn't prevent it from being original art.
Even if pop art is... critically falling between the chairs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_Soup_Cans

And other comments such as this : viewtopic.php?f=9&t=157853

Since there never was a definite and detailed truth written about it, any game must find it's own interpretations of the shapings at some point.

Most tend to leave that stuff out completely...

Leaves us to ask who exactly are "Most". Protoculture not being an ancient race but rather a multiversal entity which is unfathomable to linear species and which express itself as a biological power source in the material plane is entirely Robotech. All living organism being affected on an instinctual level by it is also a Robotech thing. Having each iteration's universe ending in a way pushing the next one into existence is also a recurrent formula. And there could be more but I would start painfully stating the obvious.
You certainly have your experience and there is no denying that you do have a lot of good points which tends to be critically well constructed and well sourced. Your style is professional and demonstrate a long relationship with the subject. But there is also no denying the fact that you go at it from a particularly oriental and production based stand point.
Something that isn't necessarily the only truth as far a writing and the occidental production method goes.

Production art (since OSM is apparently only primary source), is to be accumulated as more stuff is produced. It eventually forms a production bible, yes. But what is the clearest when it comes to looking at occidental concept art; is that they do not generally survive intact the process of actually making the thing.
In fact, by most standard, concept arts tends to be wrong about what a product or franchise actually is. They are often used by fans to emancipate a given subject, and they can be useful to the next creative team. (Alien Isolation comes to mind.)
But ultimately, the real guide will always be what the public has been exposed to.
Not the original concept art, but the final art which is also added to the file.
(A very good example of this is 2010 : Odyssey Two being written from the butchered movie by Stanley Kubrick instead of the first novel.)

Even so... Final art is not yet final art. Once it is done, there might still be some re-writes, "corrections" added by the actors and directors.
And even when this is done, it has to survive the cutting floor. Nowadays, not just for the original distribution, but sometime for variants that comes afterwards.
Basing a sequel on something that wasn't actually true for the distributed art is quite rare.
Even Alien Isolation had to wait for the Aliens Director's Cut to reveal about Amanda Ripley before planning to use her.

Subsequent material that would not base a sequel on produced and distributed iterations would provoke perceived incoherence and lack of continuity, except to most hardcore fans... Hence, despite returning to the OSM, the second edition of the RPG kept the AEs as a truth for Robotech.
And despite pushing the RNU and old comics out, they are still considered as "production bible" material for Titan's iteration.
Something that consistently happens in occidental media.
But tends to be less true of the Anime world... Where often OSM is used directly to build new OSM and create something new entirely from there.
A good example of this would be anything "Captain Harlock". While there is ways to build a fanon continuity from the different versions, and the author wasn't necessarily against that idea... most efforts would fail before what was deliberate re-writings keeping only the OSM alive.

And you are right. I'm not getting that Robotech isn't an original series.
No more that I would accept Power Rangers as being even close to Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. They both have their own story, their own target audiences, their own symbolism, their own themes... And would there be a remake of both recreating entirely the source material according to these only foundation stones, they'd probably look nothing alike. (Well, we already have half that answered haven't we...)
But I'm not saying the RT TV show was a complete product either.
Rather it was an accidental production prematurely distributed.
But denying that it has found a life of it's own afterwards is basically saying that the Highlander TV show wasn't a real thing since it didn't really tried to be the first Highlander movie. That Matrix wasn't a real movie franchise since it basically tried to re-tell Ghost in the Shell mixing it with other popular anime tropes.
In fact... by your definition of the requirements to return to visual OSM... the Riddick Franchise wouldn't even be a franchise.
There are simply cases where the standard operating of Japanese production doesn't apply in the west.

Especially since, like some here sometime says, a part of the "fans" that buy the products don't do it for Robotech itself; this kind of audience split might have been what pushed HG to limit Palladium in their development of original material. Trying to reach the most people for the bigger bucks. Usually a sane strategy.
Though it deprived the Robotech fans of some good input. Like EBSIS.

While it is indisputably true that there have been a number of merchandising efforts that were pursued by related fandoms (Macross and BattleTech), this isn't the reason Harmony Gold has been exercising editorial control and oversight of its licensees since rebooting the series back in 2001.

Harmony Gold's reasons for exercising this editorial oversight over what their licensees produce were fairly straightforward, and mostly elaborated on back in 2006 when Robotech/i]'s marketing lead gave an interview on the reasons for having rebooted [i]Robotech and thrown out the old comics, novels, etc. around the same time they announced the 2nd Edition RPG license. Specifically, it was the linchpin of their efforts to reinvent Robotech as a credible, professional sci-fi anime franchise. After taking stock of the mess their licensees had produced while they were asleep at the switch during the late 80's and 90's, they were horrified by the terribly unprofessional quality of the work, the horrendously inconsistent content, and the many problematic additions made by several of those licensees. Harmony Gold's goal was to rework Robotech into a franchise with a managed official setting much like those of other successful sci-fi and/or anime properties. Imitating the practices of successful properties in those genres was only a logical step towards producing more consistent, higher-quality work for a more professionally-credible franchise.

Yes. And these efforts aren't always successful. While it does make sense and I don't doubt the relation you are shedding light upon there... I'm thinking the reverse is actually happening. When they did the reboot, they tried something. However, for different reasons placated all over the place on this forum, mostly by yourself, it didn't worked out.
The rebooted comics where incomplete and lacked visibility. The RRT kickstarter and Academy's failed to attract the attention they needed. The 2nd ed RPG is so full of holes that only a consummate fan could really recognize the show from it. Even then, a weird variant of it. While Tomy Yune's efforts might have been well intended and planned; they didn't pan out.
Eventually leading to a near crash of the franchise.

When I was very young, there was Robotech Material here and there. I didn't knew what it was then, and I didn't had the money to buy it. Then it essentially disappeared around the time of the reboot. It only reappeared when they finally got out of that nihilistic phase and began to bring back stuff once again.

What I am seeing, from my limited stand point, is the reverse of what generally happens with Japanese video game's relation to the west. When they see a fall in profit, they try to westernize it. And if it no longer sell as westernized, they retract their licenses and can them... or return to a Japanese only formula with a diminished investment.

Robotech has done the exact reverse from the Famicon Wars / Advance Wars franchise.
It managed to create a mess trough HG's inexperience, received a lot of fire and fury from a specific part of their audiences, and when it began to fail; they tried to go at it the Japanese way. Telling themselves that their true clients were the Macross fans. While this might have been true for the Macross products, it wasn't however for the Robotech material.
Hence, they currently try it the other way around. They are re-Americanizing it.
At least, that's what I'm seeing from what's getting out of their current market presence.

It is fun to notice that they began to adopt that strategy at the same time it became very popular in Japan.
And while producers can be cynical about their products and past failures, it doesn't mean they have abandoned to try to cash in on something that still receive feedback. But sometime it is better to have the audiences expecting nothing and be surprised than announce something disappointing. Another lesson HG learned the HARD way.

The term "OSM" means Original Source Material. The only Original Source Material for Robotech is the original three shows that were adapted to make it. For a scholar, this is called a Primary Source: an original document created at the time under study.

And there you have it. Using the original three Shows which were indeed used as source material is not the same as using well translated and defined concept arts. Which is where all these conversations about AE falls in. Robotech's OSM just happens to be already animated material.
When you think of it, that's not very different from the reverse way that "Le Théâtre de la Dame de Coeur" does things.
They begins by creating entirely original models, create a choreography for it, then send it to a writer. The writer must then figure out what the flying f*** he's looking at; to write a story while the troupe is actively creating each giant puppets entirely free of constraints.
Once they have the story, they put the finishing touches on their puppets and adapt the subtlety of the show to their puppetry.
And it works. And it's amazing to see live. And it's basically putting any other theatrical or movie making in reverse. (Except maybe for Dark Crystal, which also was derived from puppets and partly written in function of what the puppets could actually do.)

I'm also fondly thinking of Enki Bilal's work here... Creating random paintings over a long period of time and then ordering them as he wants before even trying to think of his dialogues.

Trying to apply a conventional view to a product that is so incredibly unique... is a good way to confuse the apple for the image of the apple.
In that precise case, pre-production material for the original Japanese series is as non-canon as the story of the japanese shows themselves when trying to define Robotech. What was re-used in the production of robotech can be illuminating, but in the end, it only begins to be Robotech once released. (Like it was in the 2nd ed PB RPG.)
If not... someone could well think that the original concept for Darth Maul should be the way he would be described in future stuff!
https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/sta ... rge-lucas/
And that would be very surprising to most.

This isn't an OSM issue, that's generally mechanical issues with the Palladium game system or players taking issue with the liberties the RPG took in the name of things like game balance or making the setting fit an existing game system.

Yet, as unpopular as this seems to be, it wouldn't be wrong for someone to use these books as they were intended for... with other Palladium Material.
If HG didn't wanted that, they could well have searched for another publisher sooner.
They could have prevented the AE to be included in the RPG.
They could have forced the inclusion of an "optional rule" for multi-lock of missiles.
They didn't.

The term [OSM] should, correctly used, refer only to the original shows and their production materials.

Production material for Robotech sequels would not be OSM, because the project itself is not original... it's a derivative work.

My mistake. By trying to not be a dead weight someone sometime has to assume. Which eventually leads to incomplete reasoning.
But then... If Pre-production material for Robotech's sequel isn't OSM.
And that Robotech is an entirely derivative work...
Then one could assume that Robotech doesn't have an OSM.
Which would make any OSM non Robotech related.
And force one to concentrate on sources distributed as Robotech, not interviews or talks about it's origin.

Giving us mostly unfinished or de-canonized material as "true source".
The very nature of the thing defy the conventional logic of these talks.

That's because you're using that term incorrectly...

Even using it correctly as a word doesn't mean there is a way to use it correctly as far as Robotech goes.
Hence the Challenge, in this era of changes and mutations in the franchise, to know where to stop sourcing when speaking of a defunct product.

Which is probably why Titan is re-integrating old stuff.

The way it looks, Titan is referencing that old, non-canon material with an eye towards writing it out of the setting in their version too by "breaking the circle" so that none of those futures come to pass in the name of their own Macross-centric version of Robotech's future in Robotech Remix.

I'm wishing so very hard that you are wrong on this one.
And so far, I have not been disappointed. You said yourself many times that Robotech couldn't start something successful without aiming for that classic nostalgia of the Macross Saga aesthetic. I'm seeing that they certainly have taken the looks of it for covers, in order to bring back the audience after a very long absence. That part has worked.

As for their Macross-Centric views and wanting to write out the old original ideas of Robotech; what I'm reading is the exact reverse.
They couldn't flee fast enough from it.
They couldn't more clearly try to anger the Macross fans while destroying everything that was defining about that part of the franchise. A strategy which only works out if they finally have chosen to get out of Macross' Shadow.

From important characters relationships being absent or twisted, to characters themselves being the exact reverse of their own personality.
From epic events turning out to be non-show, and new material being all over the place.
Hammering in the idea of protoculture and protocultre powers to the point where we'd wish we'd forgotten all about Minmei's original signification. (So that it wouldn't hurt so much.)
Making the Macross part the most painful they could, while releasing the pressure just as they begin to get out of it.

They even managed to avoid the malcontent era by not burning earth's surface so much.
However, they kept T.R. Edwards. They introduced Trimuvirs styled clones from the beginning with a very RNU Lazlo Zand.
Remix will be directly about Dana, in the Untold Story era... whatever they will change that into.
And while the introduction to Remix does remind me of Macross Plus, it could well be the return of that old idea that E.V.E. and J.A.N.I.C.E. are the same thing. They were after all partly autonomous A.I.s in charge of a propaganda machine at some point. (RNU.)

By this point, it could very well go either way.
It will certainly make use of the original Macross look longer, but as far as story goes... I just don't know yet.

In short, when going out of canon ourselves to create stuff, I think we should emulate the creation process of the 2nd ed and at least look at the AEs and concept art.
But when trying to source something as unmovable, maybe only the distributed "as a definite product" should count. Not the story behind it.
After all, we are speaking of a franchise that was in development hell for its whole history here.

[Seto Kaiba]

To be fair, that's coming from the guy who was happy that "Harmony Gold was losing their licence" and has been calling all and everything they have done (paraphrasing here) "nothing good". To Point : viewtopic.php?f=9&t=155060&start=50
[...]
So... permit me to be skeptical about your objectivity when it comes to Robotech being something, or even to have built an original story upon original concepts.

Point of order, this is fallacious reasoning... you're resorting to an ad hominem.

This has no bearing whatsoever on my ability to state the facts about Robotech's nature and Harmony Gold's management of it. Neither naive optimism nor reflex denial will change the nature of Robotech's existence (creatively or legally), nor will it alter the creative staff's positions on things like the OSM or the pre-reboot materials that were thrown out.

Of course it's scrap-booking. Of Course it has taken pictures to subvert their meaning. But being pop art doesn't prevent it from being original art.
Even if pop art is... critically falling between the chairs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_Soup_Cans

This is a false equivalence fallacy, and a very obvious one at that. Even you should know better.

Harmony Gold took three shows that already existed, and made a hasty dub with just enough edits to string the stories of those three shows together into a single plot. That's rather different from an artist making a painting (or rather, thirty-two paintings) of an object that exists. Robotech's creative process would be like Andy Warhol gluing thirty-two Campbell's soup can labels to a canvas.

And other comments such as this : viewtopic.php?f=9&t=157853

I keep having to remind myself that you're new to the fandom. You haven't been around as long as the rest of us, so the things I'm saying there might seem shocking or mean if you don't already know that these are simply the facts laid out in my typically blunt plain English. It's really throwing me off a bit. Harmony Gold's staff and Robotech's voice actors make no secret of the fact that Robotech was slapped together in an enormous hurry, with the writers literally making it up as they went with no time to cross-check scripts for consistency with themselves or each other, and production being rushed to the point that the crew were sleeping in the studio hallways between takes and basically living on food from the pub across the street. It gets cited by them all the time to explain why there are bits of dialog that make no sense, why there are so many inconsistencies and plot holes, and as a reason for rejecting certain fan theories. Since the reboot in '01, Harmony Gold's staff have been fairly candid about the pre-reboot comics, novels, etc. having been disowned because Harmony Gold's lack of oversight led to poor quality, inconsistent products that did not properly reflect the setting and story of Robotech. Even Carl Macek himself went on the record several times about Robotech's status as a derivative work and the problems it caused for development of new stories in the 80's and 90's.

Likewise, the unholy mess that was Southern Cross's development is a matter of well-documented record. It's probably the single best-documented thing about the show, TBH, thanks to it being covered at length in This is Animation 10: Southern Cross and having a surprising amount of material from the show's earlier incarnations survive to see publication thanks to Imai Kagaku. The really unpleasant parts were something I opted to leave out... because the actual start of the show's development was INTENSELY creepy in a "let's call the police" kind of way.

Leaves us to ask who exactly are "Most".

The majority of Robotech fans... the McKinneyist view of protoculture was one of THE most made-fun-of things in the novels. That and the Thinking Caps. There were very few fans who thought that was a good idea, and even most fans who liked the novels generally agree the Sentinels arc of them was rather difficult to enjoy because of The Shapings. It's not really something that gets talked about much anymore, because the fans of the novels tended not to last long in fan communities back on UseNet.

Protoculture not being an ancient race but rather a multiversal entity which is unfathomable to linear species and which express itself as a biological power source in the material plane is entirely Robotech. All living organism being affected on an instinctual level by it is also a Robotech thing. Having each iteration's universe ending in a way pushing the next one into existence is also a recurrent formula. And there could be more but I would start painfully stating the obvious.

This isn't actually a part of the Robotech story or setting conceived of by Harmony Gold under Carl Macek and Tommy Yune. It's something that exists only in the novelization that Harmony Gold considers so wide of the mark as to be Robotech in name only. In Robotech proper, protoculture is just an exotic power source derived from an exotic plant... and even that fact was quite a late addition to the show, which abruptly changed gears on what "protoculture" was in the middle of redubbing Macross.

When you get down to it, it's mostly just Brian Daley adding The Force to Robotech as interpreted in some of the earliest Star Wars novels... several of which he wrote. The stable time loop thing is a riff on Carl Macek's aborted plans for Robotech sequel shows that would follow Robotech II: the Sentinels, where the final episode of the series would be a framing device for the first, allowing the show to loop endlessly.

You certainly have your experience and there is no denying that you do have a lot of good points which tends to be critically well constructed and well sourced. Your style is professional and demonstrate a long relationship with the subject. But there is also no denying the fact that you go at it from a particularly oriental and production based stand point.

Generally speaking, I approach the subject from the hard evidence and the official positions and policies held by the creative staff. Even if it is an adaptation, they're the ones in the driver's seat and their word is effectively law on what is and is not a part of the official Robotech setting and brand.

Production art (since OSM is apparently only primary source), is to be accumulated as more stuff is produced. It eventually forms a production bible, yes. But what is the clearest when it comes to looking at occidental concept art; is that they do not generally survive intact the process of actually making the thing.

I feel like you might be conflating animation and live action here.

Animation is much more rigid in terms of what gets depicted even in the west. The show's creative staff have to provide concrete direction to the animators on what to draw, when, and how, in order to get animation produced in a timely fashion and without going over budget. Unlike working with flesh and blood actors who can (and do) shoot scenes many times multiple ways, there isn't that kind of flexibility in animation production. Reshooting a scene can take a couple minutes discounting setup time if any effects are involved. Reanimating a scene can take man-weeks worth of time which now isn't getting spent on animating other scenes. Live action affords you more flexibility, particularly in the age of the green screen. (That said, there are still "production bibles" in live action too, even if there's more flexibility. I actually have several from Star Trek: the Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. Paramount handed writers a fairly substantial document detailing the characters and giving their essential traits, a list of Do's and Don't's (which was notoriously oppressive in TNG Season 1), and even descriptions of what things various tech items could and couldn't do.)

Even the production of animation for Robotech's various failed sequel attempts was done in that very rigid approach, precisely because a do-over in animation is so damned expensive and they had budgets that were small even by anime industry standards.

In fact, by most standard, concept arts tends to be wrong about what a product or franchise actually is. They are often used by fans to emancipate a given subject, and they can be useful to the next creative team. (Alien Isolation comes to mind.)

Concept art and production reference are different.

Concept art is the developmental process from when the show is still being designed... the draft versions of the production reference material. The actual production reference materials are the final, frozen requirements communicated to whatever departments need to actually turn those requirements into concrete realities, be it an animation studio, a special effects firm, wardrobe, prop masters, and so on.

Alien: Isolation is a fantastic example that was celebrated by the Alien fandom because the game's developers were able to get their hands on so much of the production reference material from the Alien movie and use it as the stylistic basis for their game. They went above and beyond in their goal of adhering to the aesthetics laid down by the original film's creators for its props, sets, and so on. It was a game that was lauded, essentially, because of its adherence to Alien's OSM.

But ultimately, the real guide will always be what the public has been exposed to.

This is an emotional, rather than factual, argument. Whether or not something is an animation error is a matter of objective fact, not feelings. It's a question of having the hard evidence to point to a clear discrepancy between the animation and production reference or a clear inconsistency in the animation and say "an error demonstrably occurred here".

Even so... Final art is not yet final art. Once it is done, there might still be some re-writes, "corrections" added by the actors and directors.
And even when this is done, it has to survive the cutting floor. Nowadays, not just for the original distribution, but sometime for variants that comes afterwards.
Basing a sequel on something that wasn't actually true for the distributed art is quite rare.
Even Alien Isolation had to wait for the Aliens Director's Cut to reveal about Amanda Ripley before planning to use her.

Yeah, this is live action you're talking about... it's much, MUCH more flexible than animation production in this regard as described above.

Subsequent material that would not base a sequel on produced and distributed iterations would provoke perceived incoherence and lack of continuity, except to most hardcore fans... Hence, despite returning to the OSM, the second edition of the RPG kept the AEs as a truth for Robotech.

The Robotech fandom in general is pretty militantly attached to the original animation... it was part of the reason the fanbase near-unilaterally rejected Robotech 3000, and why they beat on Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles so heavily.

And despite pushing the RNU and old comics out, they are still considered as "production bible" material for Titan's iteration.

Titan Comics's series was a non-canon alterniverse story from the outset... it's not playing by quite the same rule set as real Robotech, and even then its references to the various failed projects appear to be setting them up as "bad futures" that will un-happen when the current crew successfully break the time loop in the final issue and are able to carry on with their heavily Macross-ish "Remix" series.

And you are right. I'm not getting that Robotech isn't an original series.
No more that I would accept Power Rangers as being even close to Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. They both have their own story, their own target audiences, their own symbolism, their own themes... And would there be a remake of both recreating entirely the source material according to these only foundation stones, they'd probably look nothing alike. (Well, we already have half that answered haven't we...)

That's another false parallel... Power Rangers added SUBSTANTIAL amounts of new material to Zyuranger. Literally all they kept were the action sequences and costumes. Roughly half the show was straight-up new material that didn't exist in the original. Robotech can't claim anything close, there is no original animation unique to Robotech's version of the 85 episodes.

But I'm not saying the RT TV show was a complete product either.
Rather it was an accidental production prematurely distributed.
But denying that it has found a life of it's own afterwards is basically saying that the Highlander TV show wasn't a real thing since it didn't really tried to be the first Highlander movie. That Matrix wasn't a real movie franchise since it basically tried to re-tell Ghost in the Shell mixing it with other popular anime tropes.

This is such an obvious false equivalence I'm at a loss to understand why you'd even attempt to use it in an argument. This is a mismatch so severe it's not Apples and Oranges, it's Apples and Codfish.

Yes. And these efforts aren't always successful. While it does make sense and I don't doubt the relation you are shedding light upon there... I'm thinking the reverse is actually happening. When they did the reboot, they tried something. However, for different reasons placated all over the place on this forum, mostly by yourself, it didn't worked out.
The rebooted comics where incomplete and lacked visibility. The RRT kickstarter and Academy's failed to attract the attention they needed. The 2nd ed RPG is so full of holes that only a consummate fan could really recognize the show from it. Even then, a weird variant of it. While Tomy Yune's efforts might have been well intended and planned; they didn't pan out.
Eventually leading to a near crash of the franchise.

Eh... I can see how you might reach that conclusion if you weren't familiar with the franchise's history. "Success" in Robotech is a highly relative term. Tommy Yune has achieved far more in the way of concrete successes with his post-reboot Robotech than anything that came before. I mean, c'mon... he's technically leading Macek 2-0 on completed animated projects.

The comics made for the reboot were not meant to be stand-alone long-running series. They were meant to be limited run comics to promote the reboot of Robotech's animated series as part of its continuity, and in that they were actually reasonably successful. They were never meant to carry Robotech as a whole. The 2nd Edition RPG is a (mostly) accurate reflection of the show, with most of its issues being the fault of the publisher cancelling books (the Spaceships book) due to business-side difficulties or from trying to create a balanced game (e.g. NERFing the VF-1's weapons to ensure that it wouldn't render the Alpha completely irrelevant stats-wise). Some fans were upset that it, and the official setting, contradicted their personal fan theories about various things, but what was printed does actually closely resemble the show. The failure of the Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter had nothing to do with the official setting or animated series at all, it was entirely down to mismanagement of the game development and questionable budgetary decisions. Robotech Academy's problems were also not related to the official setting and canon, rather they were a not terribly unexpected result of a very arrogant pitch by Harmony Gold (bragging that fans would BEG them to take their money), a rather callous attempt to exploit Carl Macek's recent death for money, and the simple fact that fans were PO'd that they were making a Sentinels sidestory instead of just finishing Sentinels (a pipe dream, but one shared by many fans).

They laid the groundwork for reinventing Robotech as a properly managed mainstream anime property and did a respectable job doing so. The problem is that they let their momentum ebb away after Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles came out. It turned a profit, even if it was a small one, but management's confidence in the brand was damaged so badly by Carl Macek's three huge flops in the 80's and 90's that they balked at funding further development and jumped at the chance to pin their hopes for the brand on someone else via the live action movie proposal.

Where we are now is back where we were in the 1990s, where Robotech is effectively dead because it failed to get something out there to keep the show's story going and Harmony Gold itself has returned to focusing on just making a profit through merchandising with no regard for what's actually getting made or who they're working with. It may not end with another revival this time though, in light of recent trademark judgements against them in key markets like the UK, EU, and China. Robotech may soon find itself on the receiving end of the same kind of licensing lockout that they've used against Macross, which would probably kill the franchise given that it doesn't have a strong following in its home market.

The term "OSM" means Original Source Material. The only Original Source Material for Robotech is the original three shows that were adapted to make it. For a scholar, this is called a Primary Source: an original document created at the time under study.

And there you have it. Using the original three Shows which were indeed used as source material is not the same as using well translated and defined concept arts. Which is where all these conversations about AE falls in. Robotech's OSM just happens to be already animated material.

Concept art and Production reference material are two different things... specifically, the draft and final version of designs respectively. Your conclusion is erroneous here, based on having missed that distinction.

They begins by creating entirely original models, create a choreography for it, then send it to a writer. The writer must then figure out what the flying f*** he's looking at; to write a story while the troupe is actively creating each giant puppets entirely free of constraints.
Once they have the story, they put the finishing touches on their puppets and adapt the subtlety of the show to their puppetry.
And it works. And it's amazing to see live. And it's basically putting any other theatrical or movie making in reverse. (Except maybe for Dark Crystal, which also was derived from puppets and partly written in function of what the puppets could actually do.)

That's all very fine, but it's not remotely close to what went on with the creation of Robotech.

In that precise case, pre-production material for the original Japanese series is as non-canon as the story of the japanese shows themselves when trying to define Robotech. What was re-used in the production of robotech can be illuminating, but in the end, it only begins to be Robotech once released. (Like it was in the 2nd ed PB RPG.)

This is emphatically and demonstrably false. Harmony Gold itself considers the OSM - the original animation and production reference materials - to be a primary source for Robotech. Almost all Robotech reference materials are OSM-derived, including official timelines, character bios, mecha stats, ship stats, you name it. Harmony Gold has even used the original dialog (and the absence thereof) as justification for decisions made WRT Robotech. The idea that the OSM is not relevant ignores a fundamental reality of Robotech's creative process going all the way back to the show's beginnings.

Yet, as unpopular as this seems to be, it wouldn't be wrong for someone to use these books as they were intended for... with other Palladium Material.
If HG didn't wanted that, they could well have searched for another publisher sooner.
They could have prevented the AE to be included in the RPG.
They could have forced the inclusion of an "optional rule" for multi-lock of missiles.
They didn't.

Eh... the reason Palladium Books had the license in the first place, and got it back after losing it the first time, was that nobody else wanted it. It was, and is, an obscure property. The indie outfit that has the license now would never have been able to afford it if the value of the license hadn't tanked as a result of the brand's slow backslide deeper into obscurity as it failed to capitalize on momentum gained from the release of RTSC.

As to questions of content, they enforced that the game had to follow the official setting as much as possible. They didn't force Palladium to rework its game system for them. As to animation errors, Harmony Gold's position on some of them is "we like this error", so they were included on purpose as part of the official stats. This was elaborated on in previous comments.

But then... If Pre-production material for Robotech's sequel isn't OSM.
And that Robotech is an entirely derivative work...
Then one could assume that Robotech doesn't have an OSM.

... did you just posit the existence of a derivative work with no original to be derivative of?

That's... something bad happened to logic here.

New designs in the production reference materials for a sequel are new content, but they are part of a derivative work. They are not Original Source.

Even using it correctly as a word doesn't mean there is a way to use it correctly as far as Robotech goes.
Hence the Challenge, in this era of changes and mutations in the franchise, to know where to stop sourcing when speaking of a defunct product.

There really isn't a challenge here... you seem to want to make this very complex, but it's actually quite straightforward the way Harmony Gold has handled it and the way the term is used.

I'm wishing so very hard that you are wrong on this one.

I'm actually kind of with you on that one. I'm not impressed by what I've seen of Remix, it seems like they're aiming for a Macross Saga continuation story in a similar vein to Macross Plus and Macross 7 with a focus on Max's family (though no signs of any kaiju or military rock bands).

As for their Macross-Centric views and wanting to write out the old original ideas of Robotech; what I'm reading is the exact reverse.
They couldn't flee fast enough from it.
They couldn't more clearly try to anger the Macross fans while destroying everything that was defining about that part of the franchise. A strategy which only works out if they finally have chosen to get out of Macross' Shadow.

They literally set the story up from the first issue to write the other two sagas out of existence entirely. That's pretty Macross-centric. As far as what they've done story-wise, remember that they are working from Robotech's Macross Saga rather than the original Macross story in an attempt to make the "gritty" and "realistic" Robotech action story fans profess to want... which is probably why the fans mostly make fun of it. (The fans are a notoriously unpleaseable bunch.) They explicitly labeled this story and all the failed Robotech sequel projects as Bad Futures created by a recurring temporal anomaly. The more the timeline loops, the worse the future becomes. Even if you assume the art isn't terrible on purpose, the whole comic is one massive Take That aimed at Robotech's story in general and the sequels in particular. It's all an alterniverse story anyway though, so no consequences or implications for the animated continuity.

[Seto Kaiba]

Really though, we're drifting wide of the mark... the relevant point is that we have a readily-available framework for determining if an animation error exists or not because we have the animation and we have the animation model sheets and other production reference materials that were created by the show's creators as guidance/requirements for the animators to refer to during the animation process.

If the two don't line up, that's an animation error.

How Robotech handles the errors is a separate, secondary concern to the demonstrability of an animation error's existence.

[xunk16]

you're resorting to an ad hominem.

That wasn't the intention. I just felt this was kinda related to the "why" that topic was even started.
The tone of the first poster read like this was something going on for some time now.
Plus. I take you for a man that stands behind his word. And very vocal at that. Sorry to have missed how quoting you could have been seen as an attack. I was doing it more in the mind that by quoting you, I'm demonstrating that I care enough to read you.
You quote me and other people all the time. By now I was taking it as part of the ambience here.
Once again; I was just establishing that people on this forum, or elsewhere, doesn't necessarily have the same relationship with the product.
Which might also alter the way they'll receive an argument.
I'm actually playing the middle here. I don't really expect it to pay as a winning strategy.
It does however leave us with a very good definition of two points of view.
If the remaining arguments are ignored, well... that too will be a lesson.

Of course it's scrap-booking. Of Course it has taken pictures to subvert their meaning. But being pop art doesn't prevent it from being original art.
Even if pop art is... critically falling between the chairs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_Soup_Cans

This is a false equivalence fallacy, and a very obvious one at that. Even you should know better.

Harmony Gold took three shows that already existed, and made a hasty dub with just enough edits to string the stories of those three shows together into a single plot. That's rather different from an artist making a painting (or rather, thirty-two paintings) of an object that exists. Robotech's creative process would be like Andy Warhol gluing thirty-two Campbell's soup can labels to a canvas.

I know it kinda escape the classification. I tried to still classify it. That's where that thing with chairs fits in.
But on the one side, it is definitely something. And since the original studio and artist did not produce any of the secondary robotech canon directly...
The idea of recuperating a picture to twist it out of it's intended environment seemed rather Warholian to me.
Even if we're speaking of a film editor instead of a painter.
Then again, pop art is often criticized as not being art. And to today's standard, it would be copyright infringement.
So I was at the same time not really contradicting you.
Merely expressing that from it came out art.

Before I met Robotech, I would probably never have even thought to call such a start anything but plagiarism.
However I had this teacher who always said poetry was in the way someone can mix up things in order to get the beauty out.
And since I feel further Robotech's iteration managed a part of this; I'm inclined, through training, as seeing it as an artistic achievement.
Now that should make it classifiable.
But there isn't really a name for the artistic current born out of cheaply importing parts of shows in order to make new ones. Not to my knowledge.
Which is strange considering that there is a few of them, all in the same time frame.
Mostly in the US.
Of which the culture were also responsible for pop art. Hence the rapport being established here.
You can refuse it. If there was a single unified and detailed objective view on art, we would have found it by now.
Genre aren't even the same from one side of the globe to the other.

But for the sake of demonstrating the path to that reasoning : https://theculturetrip.com/north-americ ... influence/
Even if it is only half-serious :

American Pop artist Andy Warhol was one of the most significant and prolific figures of his time, his works exploring the connection between celebrity culture and artistic expression.
His aesthetic was a unique convergence of fine art mediums such as photography and drawing with highly commercialized components revolving around household brand and celebrity names. Garnering international attention for his unique productions, Warhol loved to maintain an element of personal and professional mystery, admitting that he never discussed his background and would invent a new persona every time he was asked.

Robotech was composed of something that was gaining celebrity : Japanese animation. It was fine art, but it was also highly commercialized to sell toys in the 80's US. Andy Warhol, as far as I know, had a reputation somewhat similar to Macek's. Both very public, very contradictory, and not very informative.
And they both took stuff that today would be copyrighted material, or trademarked, in order to produce something that would make them famous. Mostly because they could and because it was convenient at the time.
Now this is only an analogy. While it might not be directly the same as officially released opinions, it still is artistic comparison.

You seem to imply that they did go too far for this to still stand.
I'm saying if one was trying to name what they did, it would be this.
Now I'm not a pop art critic by formation. So while it seems to be, it doesn't mean it would critically be considered good.
But the critical value of art doesn't prevent fandoms from forming around disputable material. Especially since the post-2000s.

I keep having to remind myself that you're new to the fandom. You haven't been around as long as the rest of us, so the things I'm saying there might seem shocking or mean if you don't already know that these are simply the facts laid out in my typically blunt plain English.

True. I'm learning. And I find it blunt. But at the same time, I don't see much to contradict you. Of course, that doesn't mean everyone receives it in the exact same way. I'm not thinking you are deliberately shocking or mean. But since you already do your part so well, some counterweight can be a good thing. In a way, It makes you fascinating also.

Harmony Gold's staff and Robotech's voice actors make no secret of the fact that Robotech was slapped together in an enormous hurry, with the writers literally making it up as they went with no time to cross-check scripts for consistency with themselves or each other, and production being rushed to the point that the crew were sleeping in the studio hallways between takes and basically living on food from the pub across the street. It gets cited by them all the time to explain why there are bits of dialog that make no sense, why there are so many inconsistencies and plot holes, and as a reason for rejecting certain fan theories. Since the reboot in '01, Harmony Gold's staff have been fairly candid about the pre-reboot comics, novels, etc. having been disowned because Harmony Gold's lack of oversight led to poor quality, inconsistent products that did not properly reflect the setting and story of Robotech. Even Carl Macek himself went on the record several times about Robotech's status as a derivative work and the problems it caused for development of new stories in the 80's and 90's.

Yeah... but when they say it, they make it sound heroic or something.
Maybe it's just me having lived on the floorboards of a theatre and slept on chairs for a while.
As for poor quality and and inconsistent product... there is at least a part of this that comes out as characterization.
However, related to AE being or not an argument to make something unavailable in a RPG... I think it is mostly a matter on how the audience perceive the product and can explain these for themselves. The mistake by themselves still being an official part of the thing being analyzed.
That is, however, only a personal view point.
That others might second that point of view, or not, remains to be seen.

Likewise, the unholy mess that was Southern Cross's development is a matter of well-documented record. It's probably the single best-documented thing about the show, TBH, thanks to it being covered at length in This is Animation 10: Southern Cross and having a surprising amount of material from the show's earlier incarnations survive to see publication thanks to Imai Kagaku. The really unpleasant parts were something I opted to leave out... because the actual start of the show's development was INTENSELY creepy in a "let's call the police" kind of way.

Yes... Kinda Transformers Kiss Players creepy.
Though I suppose you would know it more personally.
I am grateful that Palladium did a good enough job so that I hadn't too much research to do on that part.

This isn't actually a part of the Robotech story or setting conceived of by Harmony Gold under Carl Macek and Tommy Yune. It's something that exists only in the novelization that Harmony Gold considers so wide of the mark as to be Robotech in name only. In Robotech proper, protoculture is just an exotic power source derived from an exotic plant... and even that fact was quite a late addition to the show, which abruptly changed gears on what "protoculture" was in the middle of redubbing Macross.
[...]
The stable time loop thing is a riff on Carl Macek's aborted plans for Robotech sequel shows that would follow Robotech II: the Sentinels, where the final episode of the series would be a framing device for the first, allowing the show to loop endlessly.

... That's in the old comics also. Just saying.
These kinds of additions during the dubbing process are why I don't think the show should be considered more than a published first draft.
Re-writings exist to get these kinds of inconsistencies out.
And the time loop was indeed developed in each of the subsequent versions... Except the few comics insert under Yune's watch. And SC.
So... You are not contradicting that there was stuff created for the franchise.
Even if you don't seem to think these are enough to change drastically the meaning of the whole.
That's okay. A judge would probably say you're right.
But then again, judges rarely make franchises. To my knowledge still.

Generally speaking, I approach the subject from the hard evidence and the official positions and policies held by the creative staff. Even if it is an adaptation, they're the ones in the driver's seat and their word is effectively law on what is and is not a part of the official Robotech setting and brand.

And we thank you for doing it. Someone must keep the madhouse in check, right? For protecting unsuspected eyes from readings the unhampered ramblings of raving fans deluded by years of new material's deprivation. (Not an attempt at ad hominem.)
However, I understood the suppositions made on a variant for the Beta, and the original statement made by Eliakon, both to be related as to "what was possible" in terms of deviations while staying consistent with the RPG. To where I think there is a bit more leeway's in the dramaturgical expression of a Gm and his players.
Not "Does that exist in canon?", but "could this exist in canon? Why not? How would you make it work?".
Which, happily, was explored since the start of that topic.

I feel like you might be conflating animation and live action here.

I totally am. As the 7th art itself. Even animation can have many stages of pre-production before it eventually gets started.
I'm sorry if I'm using terms a bit out of synch here, but I'm not a translator and I did do my film-making classes in french.
I figured that from an analyst standpoint in the given field, the bigger picture would still be relevant.
I wasn't, however, foolish enough to think it would convince you.

Alien: Isolation is a fantastic example that was celebrated by the Alien fandom because the game's developers were able to get their hands on so much of the production reference material from the Alien movie and use it as the stylistic basis for their game. They went above and beyond in their goal of adhering to the aesthetics laid down by the original film's creators for its props, sets, and so on. It was a game that was lauded, essentially, because of its adherence to Alien's OSM.

Yes. On the other hand, (almost?) nothing you see in that game's setting was previously explained or included in canon directly.
(I'm obviously not counting the xenomorph in here. Nor the Nostromo DLCs.)
While they did take the OSM for visual and sound reference, the mechanical concepts, story and locations were almost all originals deduced from the space left open by previous material.

Which was kinda my point. AE is relevant when you fall in the first category. But as far as legitimizing artistic freedom for creation inside a given IP, it cannot be used alone. I would like to think that under that light it would maybe make more sense.
As previously said. I'm aiming at the middle ground.
What happens when one does not only want to repeat, but develop from a concept.
Then the previous deduction from the OSM should count as jurisprudence in front of a law.

But ultimately, the real guide will always be what the public has been exposed to.

This is an emotional, rather than factual, argument. Whether or not something is an animation error is a matter of objective fact, not feelings. It's a question of having the hard evidence to point to a clear discrepancy between the animation and production reference or a clear inconsistency in the animation and say "an error demonstrably occurred here".

I agree. But my statement was in the line of thought of judging the argumentative importance of said animation error when making an artistic choice.

The Robotech fandom in general is pretty militantly attached to the original animation... it was part of the reason the fanbase near-unilaterally rejected Robotech 3000, and why they beat on Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles so heavily.

It is also the reason why I think it is more than time that Robotech cease to be based on the original OSM from the Japanese show and invest in retro-engineering an equivalent of their own. While it might end up as being very closely related to the original OSM, it should include now canonized AE as depicted and explained. For occasions such as this one.
If I'm getting you correctly, I think you'll disagree with this on the basis that HG will never invest themselves in such a daunting enterprise.
But Palladium had the chance to commission original work by illustrators. And so will the new RPG's team.
Now considering that the fandom is the kind that will look for these kind of things from time to time, it would have made for a pretty nice supplement.
Mechanical cutouts are usually great for players wanting to play grease monkeys.

However, it wasn't re-made to specifications. Hence my position when saying this is not a classical case.
And most probably you telling us it wasn't a real original series.
To the risk of looking oblique, I'm going to propose that these positions are only both sides of a coin.
And there lies what I call my difficulty. The coin isn't on a side. It's upright. HG never made it fell.

Many accidental aspects of an art piece can eventually become a defining point of it for an audience.
Not having had a "grand design" doesn't mean that one will not form in the long run through multiple artists and analysts.
Though that would be a very Naked Lunch / Gestalt thing to say.

And despite pushing the RNU and old comics out, they are still considered as "production bible" material for Titan's iteration.

Titan Comics's series was a non-canon alterniverse story from the outset... it's not playing by quite the same rule set as real Robotech, and even then its references to the various failed projects appear to be setting them up as "bad futures" that will un-happen when the current crew successfully break the time loop in the final issue and are able to carry on with their heavily Macross-ish "Remix" series.

There lies another difference in our perspective. You assume I'm speaking of the franchise as parts while I'm speaking of it as an evolving thing.
Considering the comic not canon (not in continuity) in face of the animated series is very factual... But that is what they are doing now. And for someone who would choose to play in that continuity, or make some kind of rift happen in his game, this is very Robotech (canon) indeed.
It's just something I saw time and time again in other long lasting franchises. They will do something. It will work out.
Then they'll need to do it again, but they won't necessarily get what was important.
From there, it will be a dance on the edge of the razor between creating new stuff and re-integrating old deductions because not doing it would go against what the product means.
I've been trained to see continuity and canon as different things. While one is very strict, the other is more topological.

Though I must admit, my view of that precise problem was mostly shaped by my previous attempt at mastering a Transformers game.
There is a definite cycle in there, of going totally outside of canon and then save the new ideas by telling they are a sequel.
Slowly explaining the links that make this possible, as writers find solutions that the fans can accept.
Each time only adding to the whole ensemble of deductions... some of the stuff becoming only understandable by combining the explanations from different universes.
They even had prose stories which linked all those for a while, as an half-official fanzine.
Attempts at reboot were often revealed as the same. Attempts at creating a unified continuity failed miserably and splinted into many.
I'm getting the distinct impression that HG is trying to cash in on that technique.
But then again, that might only be the results of the interventions of Simon Furman on the Titan's version.
He is known for his use of recurring motifs.
Except... I'm getting this from the licensed stuff previous to Tommy Yune also.
And since Mr.Yune's vision has been canned for SC and Academy; I cannot affirm that he won't change it prior to his next project.
Plus, the "thank you note" at the bottom of the credit page for each new Titan's issue lead me to believe he was actually having some hand into what they could and couldn't do.

instead of just finishing Sentinels (a pipe dream, but one shared by many fans).

Guilty.

As to questions of content, they enforced that the game had to follow the official setting as much as possible. They didn't force Palladium to rework its game system for them. As to animation errors, Harmony Gold's position on some of them is "we like this error", so they were included on purpose as part of the official stats. This was elaborated on in previous comments.

So... from your own standpoint. How should we use your elaboration on animation errors as it pertains to elaborating variants for use in the RPG?

... did you just posit the existence of a derivative work with no original to be derivative of?

That's... something bad happened to logic here.

New designs in the production reference materials for a sequel are new content, but they are part of a derivative work. They are not Original Source.

Yet things that were introduced in previous iterations does pop-up in others without it having passed the stage of OSM.
Hence asking how far should one dig before being satisfied? Since digging far enough give us the Japanese shows, not Robotech per say.

I'm wishing so very hard that you are wrong on this one.

I'm actually kind of with you on that one.

They literally set the story up from the first issue to write the other two sagas out of existence entirely.

Do you have source on this? Because I was rather under the impression that they were rushing things to get there faster.
Probably to avoid getting cancelled before reaching it.

(The fans are a notoriously unpleaseable bunch.)

Yeah... Yet I don't see a way out off this one yet myself.

They explicitly labeled this story and all the failed Robotech sequel projects as Bad Futures created by a recurring temporal anomaly. The more the timeline loops, the worse the future becomes.

Yet again, what is the source of this? Because I thought the Bad Future was the one the main Titan's continuity was in! At this rate, they'll get invaded by shadow invids without having allied with as much Zentraedi troops and without the Robotech Master's help. (And without having as much time to develop the right mecha for the job.) Plus the relationships of the current main characters all seem to go forward the realization that changing the past might not have been a good idea...

Even if you assume the art isn't terrible on purpose, the whole comic is one massive Take That aimed at Robotech's story in general and the sequels in particular. It's all an alterniverse story anyway though, so no consequences or implications for the animated continuity.

Yes well. I did see worst. And it make sense that they'd want to re-include as much stuff as they can since it would protect their copyrights for an extended period without needing to re-invest in such an enterprise before quite some time. (If I understood the US laws about re-editing and making sequel to keep one's right correctly.)
The way I see it... The anime would be in the past. Continuity wise.
So that the Titan alterniverse or Anime alterniverse is now the main one doesn't change much to that fact.

Hope it does clarify the intent behind the previous post. Sorry it wasn't as clear as I thought.
But clearly, beyond this, a return and close of the main question would be nice.
(By the asker itself if that is at all possible. So that we'd know if we even managed to scratch the surface with all this.)

[Seto Kaiba]

That wasn't the intention. I just felt this was kinda related to the "why" that topic was even started.

Oh, very probably... the Robotech fanbase still has some issues with fans who are upset with the idea that Harmony Gold gives the OSM a fairly significant say in Robotech, because it led to their fan theories being discredited.

Plus. I take you for a man that stands behind his word. And very vocal at that. Sorry to have missed how quoting you could have been seen as an attack. I was doing it more in the mind that by quoting you, I'm demonstrating that I care enough to read you.

No worries, I wasn't offended. I was just pointing it out. We're here about the data, not the people...

But on the one side, it is definitely something. And since the original studio and artist did not produce any of the secondary robotech canon directly...

Tatsunoko Production actually had a fairly significant hand in Robotech II: the Sentinels, both developmentally and in production.

The idea of recuperating a picture to twist it out of it's intended environment seemed rather Warholian to me.
Even if we're speaking of a film editor instead of a painter.

That wasn't even the goal of Robotech though, the only thing they were trying to do with it was make Macross long enough for first-run syndication.

Cultural commentary can be art in its own right (Andy Warhol is good at that), but Robotech was never intended to do anything more than get the 36 episode Macross series on broadcast to appease Revell with as little effort as possible.

Before I met Robotech, I would probably never have even thought to call such a start anything but plagiarism.

Macross's creators would've agreed with you... Shoji Kawamori, Haruhiko Mikimoto, and others have made comments about considering Robotech a bootleg or knockoff of their work.

Yeah... but when they say it, they make it sound heroic or something.
Maybe it's just me having lived on the floorboards of a theatre and slept on chairs for a while.

Oh, it was absolutely a herculean effort in the name of saving money to make the series on the cheap... which crosses the line into comedic sociopathy when it comes to things like having used the pub across the way as a source of "liquid courage" to get Rebecca Forstadt ready to record the song tracks. That was voice acting back in the day. Put your life and your liver on the line for a paycheck.

However, related to AE being or not an argument to make something unavailable in a RPG... I think it is mostly a matter on how the audience perceive the product and can explain these for themselves. The mistake by themselves still being an official part of the thing being analyzed.
[...]
However, I understood the suppositions made on a variant for the Beta, and the original statement made by Eliakon, both to be related as to "what was possible" in terms of deviations while staying consistent with the RPG. To where I think there is a bit more leeway's in the dramaturgical expression of a Gm and his players.
Not "Does that exist in canon?", but "could this exist in canon? Why not? How would you make it work?".
Which, happily, was explored since the start of that topic.

Like I said, Robotech's approach to handling an animation error is an almost completely separate question from whether or not an animation error is present.

Looking at animation errors from Robotech's standpoint, the question to ask is whether or not what the animation error depicts materially adds to the consistency or sensibility of Robotech's setting and story. For instance, the VF-1's "nose lasers". Those are unambiguously an animation error in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Robotech ran with that error since the idea of the VF-1 having laser cannons in its nose lined up with another VF from later in the series (the Alpha) which also had lasers in its nose. It materially improved consistency between the two sagas by drawing a visible technical/design link between them. The Alpha's head missiles similarly follow the idea that previous-gen VFs had weapons mounted on the head. Others, like the error that had the explicitly (in both Macross and Robotech) blue water Navy vessels Daedalus and Prometheus in a space fleet scene are seen as errors because it contradicts other parts of the show as well as the production reference.

As you saw, my contention is that the Beta's "chest missile" animation error really ought to be left out by Robotech because it materially diminishes the capabilities of the Beta for no real reason and zero benefit.

I totally am. As the 7th art itself. Even animation can have many stages of pre-production before it eventually gets started.
I'm sorry if I'm using terms a bit out of synch here, but I'm not a translator and I did do my film-making classes in french.

It just threw me a bit, since I've heard many stories of live action series I love working "off the cuff"... but the process of developing and producing animation is something I've known from entirely too many creator interviews to be a very regimented, focused, almost engineering-like process of requirements development, refinement, and lockstep production. That's why you had some artbooks back in the day that literally styled themselves as the show's Bible. You could DO that because animation development and production was so heavily requirements-focused.

(My favorite tale of live action productions "winging it" is the story of the Feinberger... the term Star Trek's production staff applied to any prop whose design as left to the discretion of prop master Irving Feinberg. The man who made most of McCoy's medical instruments from kitchenware, and MacGuyver'd so many other props from garbage lying around for a pittance.)

[ShadowLogan]

Robotech ran with that error since the idea of the VF-1 having laser cannons in its nose lined up with another VF from later in the series (the Alpha) which also had lasers in its nose. It materially improved consistency between the two sagas by drawing a visible technical/design link between them.

To expand on this as the Alpha wasn't the only one with a "nose" gun(s) as technically both the Logan and AGAC are considered to have them (as described in the Infopedia).

Really the only Veritech Fighter described in the Infopedia without internal nose guns is the Beta, and it doesn't really need them given its gun configuration.