Robotech gone.

[Seto Kaiba]

Yeah, well, this is a forum that, while technically covering both properties (because of the Macross II RPG) has historically been a center for discussion by Robotech fans. Between that and the fact that the actual end is still roughly two years away, my problem was with the celebratory note being posted here and now. I don't care how justified you think such remarks are; it's still a wrong place, wrong time issue.

In all fairness, can we really claim with a straight face that Robotech isn't already long dead?

That isn't intended to be snarky, by the way. Looking back at it objectively, wouldn't the honest truth be that Robotech died for what looks to be the final time when Harmony Gold's management cancelled the Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles OVA in 2007? That singular moment was when Harmony Gold finally stopped investing in Robotech's future. They hung all their hopes on an external entity creating a new property that would be Robotech in name only and quietly abandoned development of the animated continuity. All we've seen from them since was a failed attempt to fund a glorified fan film on Kickstarter and the licensing situation deteriorating to the point that at least two current toy licensees are actually known bootlegging outfits.

We might still be waiting for the law to draw a line under it, but we reached The End quite some time ago.

In a way, it's a much sadder end than having time simply run out... having the people responsible for the series just write it off and abandon it as a lost cause like that.

I know you view your role to be a sort of Macross evangelist, seeking to convert Robotech heathens away from their folly. But show some tact.

Far from it. I know only too well that that's pissing into the wind. I view my role as to be a voice of reason, objectivity, and proper research practices for Macross AND Robotech. I didn't even come here of my own volition originally, I was DRAGGED here the same way I've been dragged to every other Robotech site I've been on save one... kicking and screaming because someone had a detailed question that someone else figured I'd know the answer to when everyone else came up empty-handed.

But if it's evangelism you're after... Wololo? (Worth a shot, I guess... )

But there's a world of difference between celebrating “more Macross stuff!” and celebrating “no more Robotech!” The first is the sorry of thing you'd have to actively hate Macross to object to; the second is just plain mean.

To be honest, I've already seen a number of Robotech fans celebrating "No more Robotech" for their own reasons.

Mostly it's the more objectively-minded fans, who see the end as an opportunity for Robotech to reclaim some dignity by finally ending the downward spiral of quality in its licensed products so it can pass into memory as what it was originally... a series that was caught between two eras in the western anime industry's formative years. It seems to me like torjones's feelings of schadenfreude towards the ending of Robotech have some foundation in that given his acknowledged frustration with the quality of the failed sequel efforts.

Which is very much what Torjones did: he deliberately referenced a feeling of scheißenfreude concerning Robotech's demise, the sense of joy that others are suffering.

... I apologize, I seem to have confused your intent there. I thought you were trying to make a play on the word "schadenfreude" (harm-joy, taking pleasure from someone else's pain) to draw a line under how unseemly you felt it was, rather than just making a typo. Scheißen is... well... "Number Two".

[ShadowLogan]

No, it's correct... you just misinterpreted the statement.

No I think I interpreted it correctly. Robotech was cast as the only example of Frakenstiening shows together. I agree RT was unique in aspects of this, but in general it wasn't the first to do this.

Not really worth getting into.

This hasn't been a center for discussion for much of anything recently; I'll grant you that. But what discussion has occurred here has been focused on Robotech, and the majority of those who visit this forum generally do so because they like Robotech.

There really hasn't been much to discus in terms of Robotech, much less Macross II. Part of it is we are limited in what we can discuss, but also the lack of new material really.

I'll admit I have a few discussion ideas, I just haven't sat down to iron them out and do the background work for them. And even when I do that it will probably take a lot of time.

[Seto Kaiba]

No I think I interpreted it correctly.

Then let me be extremely blunt about this... YOU DID NOT.

You are blatantly misrepresenting the content of my previous posts in an effort to correct something literally nobody said.

The important portion of the statement that you ignored, and which I had previously underlined and bolded for emphasis, is now colored bright red and enlarged 50% to better catch your attention.

Robotech was the only one that combined material from multiple, unrelated shows including a show that WAS NOT a one-and-done property.

[Warshield73]

I'm not trying to mischaracterize anyone's comments but reading through this thread on the death of Robotech does remind me of the bit by John Oliver - Going on an RPG companies forums and saying "I can't wait for the IP to die" is a little like going on Grandpa Fred's FB page and saying "I really don't see the point to Grandpa Fred in 2019" - Again it just made me laugh thought I would share.

To the topic, I have to agree that RT has been dead for years. You could say it's when HG canceled sequels to SC but I think it really died when SC came out and fell flat even after all the changes to continuity and elimination of the Sentinels. For casual fans like me it just became too much work to keep up.

As for PB getting any new third party licenses I agree that after Tactics KS I doubt it will ever happen but more than that I think that even if PB returned to perfect health I don't think they have the appetite for it. Anything that would be popular enough to do them any good in terms of new customers would be way too expensive to justify the delay in their own IPs and anything cheap enough for PB wouldn't bring in enough new customers to justify that delay.

Finally I still think it is so weird that in less than two years an entire IP will simply die, no one will be able to put it out again. Love it, hate it, don't give a crap about it, that's still weird.

[Seto Kaiba]

To the topic, I have to agree that RT has been dead for years. You could say it's when HG canceled sequels to SC but I think it really died when SC came out and fell flat even after all the changes to continuity and elimination of the Sentinels. For casual fans like me it just became too much work to keep up.

I'm not sure that's a distinction with a difference, really. For HG's management, it was Shadow Chronicles falling flat that convinced them to bail on animated Robotech in the first place. It was, after all, a product of a number of grandiose promises the Robotech creative staff made about turning Robotech into a mainstream anime property that would attract loads of new fans and sponsors willing to invest in the brand... all of which went unfulfilled when even the existing fan base largely turned up their noses at it.

I'll confess to mild surprise over the supposed difficulty in keeping up, since I generally agreed with Tommy's efforts to keep it simple. The Robotech timeline was the Original 85, the post-reboot comics, and Shadow Chronicles, with the understanding that the Sentinels arc happened but that only the general details still counted. Trying to rationalize all the various stuff HG threw out from before the reboot always felt like a lot more of a chore.

As for PB getting any new third party licenses I agree that after Tactics KS I doubt it will ever happen but more than that I think that even if PB returned to perfect health I don't think they have the appetite for it. Anything that would be popular enough to do them any good in terms of new customers would be way too expensive to justify the delay in their own IPs and anything cheap enough for PB wouldn't bring in enough new customers to justify that delay.

From what I can see, Palladium Books is having enough trouble just keeping the lights on. Getting involved in expensive propositions like licensed games is probably right out for simple lack of cash to purchase a license with, if not a lack of popular properties in a range they could afford.

There's a great deal of fuss and noise about the Megaversal Insider campaign on social media, revolving around people's opinions of whether Palladium can be trusted in a crowdfunding environment that lacks any of the consumer protections that Kickstarter and IndieGoGo offer. I don't really have a side in that one, but it's been blowing up my Facebook news feed thanks to the number of folks I've got on my Friends list and in groups who have strongly held opinions one way or the other. It sounds like the customer base is a pretty divided lot in the wake of RRT, which is going to make it harder to get the company back on an even keel.

Finally I still think it is so weird that in less than two years an entire IP will simply die, no one will be able to put it out again. Love it, hate it, don't give a crap about it, that's still weird.

Yeah, that part is most definitely strange.

Perhaps the strangest part is that, unlike so many other franchises that've folded, when it's gone there's virtually no chance for a revival later on thanks to the complicated nature of what they did with the unrelated shows.

[dataweaver]

My take is that it isn't dead until the license is gone: until then, it's still possible that we'll see some new content, such as the aforementioned non-Palladium RPG. But yeah; the failure of the Shadow Chronicles was basically the death-blow to the franchise.

[ESalter]

My take is that it isn't dead until the license is gone...:

And maybe not even then: I'd be surprised if Harmony Gold and Sony weren't already planning on excluding any licensed designs from their productions.

But yeah; the failure of the Shadow Chronicles was basically the death-blow to the franchise.

It was almost twenty years between the Sentinels movie and Shadow Chronicles; I don't know that I'd call Robotech dead quite yet.

[torjones]

But yeah; the failure of the Shadow Chronicles was basically the death-blow to the franchise.

It was almost twenty years between the Sentinels movie and Shadow Chronicles; I don't know that I'd call Robotech dead quite yet.

I don't know... 20 years between "Episodes" is pretty dead in my book. Seriously, it takes you 20 years to work up the capital and a half way decent script? That goes to show that there's really nobody interested in working on the project. That spells "DEAD" in my book.

As interesting as Shadow Chronicles was, they needed to have something more than a one off movie to seriously rekindle interest in the title. Shadow Chronicles, as it stands, is just throwing a bone to the nostalgic fans, not an attempt to rekindle the fandom.

The movie itself, was it in any theaters? No, it was direct to DVD. New Merch? Nope, just repackaged Japanese merch. Oh, wait, they've now got a bomber jacket. And remind me how long the only merch site was down? For most of that 20 years, the fan sites were better designed as well. I do have to say that the new robotech.com site is pretty slick, a bit too slick for my tastes, but you can't please everyone...

I'm pretty sure that we all know that merch is where you make your money off of any given IP, and the show/movie/web series is just an advertisement for that merch. But if you can't keep interest in the show or movies, you're not going to sell much merch. Frankly, I'd be rather surprised to learn that the Robotech Merch is doing more than keeping the lights on over at HG. Then again, it's a pretty good deal for them, just swap out the Macross logo for a Robotech logo and reprint the thing in English. Very little work compared to what Tatsunoko has to do to release a new product... (and yes, I know I'm oversimplifying)

[jaymz]

^this

[Seto Kaiba]

My take is that it isn't dead until the license is gone...:

And maybe not even then: I'd be surprised if Harmony Gold and Sony weren't already planning on excluding any licensed designs from their productions.

Oh, it's not just licensed designs they have to plan on excluding... it's anything and everything from the Robotech TV series and its sequels that wasn't 100% created by Harmony Gold.

So, of course, you see the problem... and the underlying reason why there has been absolutely no forward motion on the live action movie proposal in the 11 years, 6 months, and 21 days since it was announced. If the license amounts to the word "Robotech", a few key terms like "Protoculture", and a double handful of character names HG changed, there is no benefit to doing a Robotech film since they'd have to negotiate a legal minefield to reinvent the story almost completely from scratch. When that much effort is necessary, what's the bloody point of not just doing an original film that isn't tied to a licensed name and keeping all the money for themselves?

But yeah; the failure of the Shadow Chronicles was basically the death-blow to the franchise.

It was almost twenty years between the Sentinels movie and Shadow Chronicles; I don't know that I'd call Robotech dead quite yet.

Wait, what? Two abject failures separated by 18 1/4 years counts as "alive"?

I don't know... 20 years between "Episodes" is pretty dead in my book. Seriously, it takes you 20 years to work up the capital and a half way decent script? That goes to show that there's really nobody interested in working on the project. That spells "DEAD" in my book.

Deader still that said project literally killed any further interest in working on the property at the corporate level.

As interesting as Shadow Chronicles was, they needed to have something more than a one off movie to seriously rekindle interest in the title. Shadow Chronicles, as it stands, is just throwing a bone to the nostalgic fans, not an attempt to rekindle the fandom.

Shadow Chronicles was supposed to be exactly that... but its stated goal as the first episode of a four-part OVA that was to transformRobotech into a mainstream anime property seems to have been a goal the creative staff had no idea how to actually achieve. Hence its crash-and-burn failure, followed by its cancellation at just one episode and reclassification as a "movie".

The movie itself, was it in any theaters? No, it was direct to DVD.

Well, it was technically "in theaters" for a brief period. They took it to a number of film festivals where it was largely panned, and won the International Sci-Fi and Horror Film Festival's Best Animated Sci-Fi Feature by being the only entrant in the category. HG also did a limited screening tour by renting out little arthouse movie theaters to screen it for fan-only audiences before it got released directly to DVD.

New Merch? Nope, just repackaged Japanese merch.

Some of it isn't even that... the recent run of Super Deformed VF-1s was actually repackaged Hong Kong bootlegs of Japanese Macross merch.

HG's current stable of licensees includes at least two known bootlegging outfits: KitzConcept and MAAS Toys.

And remind me how long the only merch site was down?

The store was only down for a few weeks after a series of hacker attacks.

The official website their online storefront was part of was down for a bit over ten years, IIRC.

For most of that 20 years, the fan sites were better designed as well. I do have to say that the new robotech.com site is pretty slick, a bit too slick for my tastes, but you can't please everyone...

What a shame it's populated almost exclusively by spambots.

It's been speculated that the reason the staff don't crack down on the spambots is because it's the majority of the traffic the site gets.

Then again, it's a pretty good deal for them, just swap out the Macross logo for a Robotech logo and reprint the thing in English. Very little work compared to what Tatsunoko has to do to release a new product... (and yes, I know I'm oversimplifying)

Tatsunoko doesn't do anything... their stake in Macross is just distribution and merchandising rights to the original series outside Japan and merchandising rights to the first movie outside Japan.

They haven't been directly involved in Macross's domestic merchandising in almost forty years.

EDIT: It occurred to me to mention this is likely the reason Tatsunoko Production made an attempt to assert in court that its role in the production of the original Macross series should entitle it to a share of the profits from sequels and sequel merchandising. Their claim was rejected by the Tokyo court system, and they seem to be cozying up to Big West in the hopes of killing two birds with one stone via refusing to renew HG's license. (The other bird is HG's lawsuit over Tatsunoko's refusal to pay their legal fees from an arbitration over claims that HG was skimming off royalties owed.)

[Warshield73]

My take is that it isn't dead until the license is gone...:

And maybe not even then: I'd be surprised if Harmony Gold and Sony weren't already planning on excluding any licensed designs from their productions.

I have said this many times, and I know I might be in a minority, but I just don't ever see a movie of this being made. If they do anything - a transforming vehicle, giant aliens - that resembles anything in the original shows they will be sued. Given the total failure of the Shadow Chronicles I just don't think Sony is going to bother. They can make a movie about robot vehicles fighting aliens, not call it Robotech, and they will do just as well.

But yeah; the failure of the Shadow Chronicles was basically the death-blow to the franchise.

It was almost twenty years between the Sentinels movie and Shadow Chronicles; I don't know that I'd call Robotech dead quite yet.

When you are 20 years between heartbeats you are close enough to dead to really not make much of a difference.

[dataweaver]

So the new Robotech RPG is available for purchase on DrivethruRPG, for $12. Picking it up now…

…and a quick review:

I'm impressed. This is what I wanted from a Robotech RPG. It covers everything in the Macross Saga, up to and including the VF-4 Lightning and the Orguss lookalike (!), the vending machine that Rick and Lisa encountered in the park that one time — everything. It managed it by not being a self-contained RPG; it’s actually a supplement for Savage Worlds — which, for you fans of Savage Rifts, does indeed allow for the possibility of mixing Robotech and Rifts even now, but without Palladium’s house system. To me, this is a win-win-win, as I’ve always loved Palladium’s settings but despised its game engine.

Given the turnaround time on this one, I have hope that they’ll be able to come out with at least Master’s Saga and New Generation before Harmony Gold loses the license; maybe even Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles, if they really push it.

[Seto Kaiba]

Given the turnaround time on this one, I have hope that they’ll be able to come out with at least Master’s Saga and New Generation before Harmony Gold loses the license; maybe even Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles, if they really push it.

Eh... I doubt it, unless they've had books for the other sagas in the works for at least a year already.

Even if the Robotech franchise's merchandising strategy for the last twenty-odd years hadn't basically been "Macross Saga and out", they've got at most a year and ten months to capitalize on their newly-released RPG before Harmony Gold's license to the property it's based on expires and they have to pull it from the market and surrender all unsold inventory. With such a short time before the book they've already released has to come down, they'll be lucky to break even on what they spent making it given how niche the Robotech brand is. Throwing out another book, let alone three, will not give them enough time to recoup the cost of development and production on those books in the time they have left unless they're out yesterday.


In other Robotech news, Philippines-based Transformers toy bootlegger-cum-Robotech licensee MAAS Toys has apparently been run out of business by by the failure of its criminal enterprise. Apparently cost overruns at the factory in China they were using to build all their unlicensed Transformers merchandise combined with significant losses incurred by refunds and unhonored pledges when they tried to run a crowdfunding campaign themselves instead of via Kickstarter or Indiegogo and a general failure to account for shipping costs left them irrecoverably in the red. People connected to MAAS Toys have indicated that most of the money from recent MAAS Toys crowdfunding campaigns was going to pay off the group's existing debts from previous ones, putting them in a debt spiral they couldn't climb out of. Their plans for a line of licensed Southern Cross toys were apparently a pipe dream, since it apparently never occurred to them that Harmony Gold wouldn't permit them to use crowdfunding to finance the project and they were already so deep in debt it's unlikely they'd have been able to raise enough money to actually make it. BigBadToyStore has cancelled all MAAS Toys preorders and pissed off backers from their crowdfunding have started demanding refunds.

[dataweaver]

Given the turnaround time on this one, I have hope that they’ll be able to come out with at least Master’s Saga and New Generation before Harmony Gold loses the license; maybe even Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles, if they really push it.

Eh... I doubt it, unless they've had books for the other sagas in the works for at least a year already.

Frankly, I'm not the least surprised by this response. There was a similar response when I first pointed out that a new Robotech RPG was in the works: “yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.” Well, here you go.

If it doesn't happen, oh well. But I'm still going to hold out hope that something more is on the way.

[slade the sniper]

So the new Robotech RPG is available for purchase on DrivethruRPG, for $12. Picking it up now…

…and a quick review:

I'm impressed. This is what I wanted from a Robotech RPG. It covers everything in the Macross Saga, up to and including the VF-4 Lightning and the Orguss lookalike (!), the vending machine that Rick and Lisa encountered in the park that one time — everything. It managed it by not being a self-contained RPG; it’s actually a supplement for Savage Worlds — which, for you fans of Savage Rifts, does indeed allow for the possibility of mixing Robotech and Rifts even now, but without Palladium’s house system. To me, this is a win-win-win, as I’ve always loved Palladium’s settings but despised its game engine.

Given the turnaround time on this one, I have hope that they’ll be able to come out with at least Master’s Saga and New Generation before Harmony Gold loses the license; maybe even Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles, if they really push it.

Is there anything in this book that could be added directly to a Palladium Robotech game? If so, I'll get it.

Thanks.

-STS

[taichara]

So the new Robotech RPG is available for purchase on DrivethruRPG, for $12. Picking it up now…

…and a quick review:

I'm impressed. This is what I wanted from a Robotech RPG. It covers everything in the Macross Saga, up to and including the VF-4 Lightning and the Orguss lookalike (!), the vending machine that Rick and Lisa encountered in the park that one time — everything. It managed it by not being a self-contained RPG; it’s actually a supplement for Savage Worlds — which, for you fans of Savage Rifts, does indeed allow for the possibility of mixing Robotech and Rifts even now, but without Palladium’s house system. To me, this is a win-win-win, as I’ve always loved Palladium’s settings but despised its game engine.

Given the turnaround time on this one, I have hope that they’ll be able to come out with at least Master’s Saga and New Generation before Harmony Gold loses the license; maybe even Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles, if they really push it.

It's worth noting that this the game that Battlefield Press were working on. Strange Machine Games, which is the company that has been being slagged on here, still has theirs in production and has always said that BFP's version would hit release before theirs did.

So yes, there's been not one but two Robotech rpgs in the pipe. Surprise!

[Seto Kaiba]

Frankly, I'm not the least surprised by this response. There was a similar response when I first pointed out that a new Robotech RPG was in the works: “yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.” Well, here you go.

Any sane person would doubt it... a professional publisher would've looked at a time frame like that and politely (or not so politely) ask you if you'd taken leave of your senses.

That's why Harmony Gold is working mainly with small-time indie outfits and East Asian bootleggers these days. They're the only ones crazy enough to gamble on being able to move enough product in the short time Robotech has left to turn a profit with the minimal fanbase it has, so HG can pocket a bit of cash in licensing fees and royalties before the property checks out forever. They have no reason to care anymore if the end result looks unprofessional or downright terrible, it's all about cashing out. (Seriously, just look at how bad MAAS's prototype for the Spartas toy was... people were ripping into it as looking barely any better than the Matchbox toy from the 80's.)

[dataweaver]

That may indeed be Harmony Gold's position on this. But the “crazy indie company” that produced the RPG I cited has produced a professional-looking book; and from the intro, it's obvious that the developers of the game aren't doing it as a cash grab: they're doing it because of a personal love of Robotech. And it shows.

[mech798]

Yeah, well, this is a forum that, while technically covering both properties (because of the Macross II RPG) has historically been a center for discussion by Robotech fans. Between that and the fact that the actual end is still roughly two years away, my problem was with the celebratory note being posted here and now. I don't care how justified you think such remarks are; it's still a wrong place, wrong time issue.

In all fairness, can we really claim with a straight face that Robotech isn't already long dead?

That isn't intended to be snarky, by the way. Looking back at it objectively, wouldn't the honest truth be that Robotech died for what looks to be the final time when Harmony Gold's management cancelled the Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles OVA in 2007? That singular moment was when Harmony Gold finally stopped investing in Robotech's future. They hung all their hopes on an external entity creating a new property that would be Robotech in name only and quietly abandoned development of the animated continuity. All we've seen from them since was a failed attempt to fund a glorified fan film on Kickstarter and the licensing situation deteriorating to the point that at least two current toy licensees are actually known bootlegging outfits.

We might still be waiting for the law to draw a line under it, but we reached The End quite some time ago.

In a way, it's a much sadder end than having time simply run out... having the people responsible for the series just write it off and abandon it as a lost cause like that.

To be honest, just take a look at this board. Other boards, D&D, M&M, even the Rifts and Palladium fantasy sections see continual activity. This board? Maybe two or three messages a day, less now. Most of the fan pages have either gone away entirely or have "Last updated, 2011" on them.

Robotech as a whole, as an IP is essentially dead. And mind you, it's dead in an era where you have companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime desperately looking for IPs that they can use to add to their streaming content, so when you can't even sell an IP in a sellers market--well, that's double-plus dead. It'll always have some niche appeal, but that's it-- a niche, and you can't hang a healthy IP off of a niche.

[Seto Kaiba]

To be honest, just take a look at this board. Other boards, D&D, M&M, even the Rifts and Palladium fantasy sections see continual activity. This board? Maybe two or three messages a day, less now.

To be entirely fair, that would probably be the case even if Robotech weren't a dead property walking.

Palladium no longer has the Robotech license, so there won't be any future developments from them and the mods still police the place for conversions and other fanmade material that's banned under the forum rules. There hasn't been anything newsworthy from Robotech itself in over a decade except more failures and false starts. Thus, not much to talk about anymore except for the occasional rules clarification request.

Most of the fan pages have either gone away entirely or have "Last updated, 2011" on them.

Honestly, that was already a problem when Robotech was still proclaiming itself resurgent and better than ever in the early 2000s with Tommy Yune's reboot. The vast majority of Robotech fan sites were products of the late 90's and the lawless age of Netscape and Geocities free web hosting. With nothing new of substance coming from Robotech, they just ran out of material in the same way the 2nd Edition Palladium RPG eventually did. The stubborn ones tried to keep going by writing fanfic justifications for adopting designs from Macross's sequels or other anime, but that didn't last particularly long either.

Robotech as a whole, as an IP is essentially dead. And mind you, it's dead in an era where you have companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime desperately looking for IPs that they can use to add to their streaming content, so when you can't even sell an IP in a sellers market--well, that's double-plus dead. It'll always have some niche appeal, but that's it-- a niche, and you can't hang a healthy IP off of a niche.

Well, Robotech is kind of screwed coming and going on that front.

All they really have is the one, almost 35 year old, TV series that was a niche title even when it was new. Most of its fans already have multiple copies of the series on home video, so demand for it on streaming is low and when they tried to market Shadow Chronicles on Hulu it bombed so they know their false starts aren't a draw. Harmony Gold doesn't have anything new to offer for the brand, and because they don't own the IP of the original shows the streaming services know that there's no point even considering a streaming-original reboot like Voltron: Legendary Defender for Robotech.

[jaymz]

It's dead Jim. And I'm someone who's been writing and rewriting material for robotech online for 20 years. I still do.

It is dead. As an official property. It is dead.

[Lt Gargoyle]

I am glad that the Savage Worlds got some Robotech out there. It be nice if they could get the other two era's out as well. I do not see a need to do another shadow chronicles. Just add Haydonites to the Generations and call it good.

As a life long fan of the Robotech Universe I am Sad to see it go into the dark oblivion. I am not surprised by this in the least. Shadow Cronicles got my interest, but literally dropped the ball. the sequels should have been in production at the time of release. And as soon as they canceled any further production, I knew it had finally died. I was just hoping to get tons of material to play with here before it passed into nothingness.

I bought all the rpg books and novels. Movies and some of the toys. I mean collectables. I was always happy to see new stuff in the works. I always just planned on reworking the concepts to meet my own game needs. And that is a problem for any RPG. as stated by many here There was no consistency and lots of the 2nd edition stuff was just rehashed for its first edition. i have my remastered movies which i have digitally back up along with all my books. So i have the ability to enjoy them. And web games continue to allow me to play. even if it is a small niche group.

I would love to see the Series live on. even if only by streaming. Though I already know the odds of that.

[ESalter]

Robotech still exists; new licensed material is still being created; it is still, obviously, being discussed.

Saying "Robotech is dead" sounds knowledgeable and wise, as if one is quietly and firmly saying hard truths, but it's not actually true.

[Seto Kaiba]

Robotech still exists; new licensed material is still being created; it is still, obviously, being discussed.

Saying "Robotech is dead" sounds knowledgeable and wise, as if one is quietly and firmly saying hard truths, but it's not actually true.

For the overwhelming majority of fans - and Harmony Gold itself - "Robotech" means the Harmony Gold-produced material continuing the story of the Robotech animated series.

Harmony Gold's management canceled all future development of the official Robotech continuity back in '07 when Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles failed to perform as promised, and the one ill-considered attempt to resuscitate it via Kickstarter back in '14 was an embarrassing public failure, so yes... "Robotech is dead" is an accurate factual statement.

The material the few independent and indie licensees who aren't doing collectibles are putting out is only "new" in the sense that it was published recently. The RPG publishers are just repackaging the same old Macross Saga stuff Robotech has been milking for over 30 years now, and Titan Comics's series is just a mad jumble of pre-existing plot twists from various failed Robotech stories smashed into an alternate universe Macross Saga and spackled over with soap opera cliches, so badly written that Titan's own summary pages can't keep it straight.

[Lt Gargoyle]

Seto while being blunt and callous. He is not a fan of robotexh . And he loves to criticize it. But when it come to the details such as this he is usually right.
And i dont know anyone more informed about Macross.

Robotech still exists; new licensed material is still being created; it is still, obviously, being discussed.

Saying "Robotech is dead" sounds knowledgeable and wise, as if one is quietly and firmly saying hard truths, but it's not actually true.

The franchise has been dead since the failure of shadow chronicles. Us fans have carried it for 30 plus years. At best we ate left along on our websites. But even the tabletop miniatures did not go past macross.

[Seto Kaiba]

He is not a fan of robotexh . And he loves to criticize it.

Oh, I am... I wouldn't know so damned much about the series and franchise if I wasn't.

I try to stay as objective and impartial as possible when it comes to analysis and interpretation because an analysis colored by personal views and feelings will inevitably be skewed by those views and feelings. The Robotech fandom has historically been very poorly served by its vocal "expert" fans, who did (and still do) far more to misinform than inform by substituting their headcanon for the relevant facts. I'm much more interested in what is rather than what I wish was, and I'd rather lay out the facts in plain English and be hated for it than be loved for spouting off wild theories that fans might find more palatable than the facts.

If you think I don't subject other properties I'm a fan of to the same kind of scrutiny and criticism, you're dead wrong.

Spoiler:

Indeed, my current project should demonstrate that fact in grand form.

I've partnered with four other translators to begin development of a proper bloody Macross encyclopedia, with proper source citations, annotated translations linked directly to those citations and references, with detailed analyses of the material and how it has changed over the last 35+ years.

[ESalter]

Seto while being blunt and callous. He is not a fan of robotexh .

While IIRC Seto used to play a Robotech hater on the Robotech.com message boards, his shtick on these boards is more guy-who-likes-Robotech-but-must-regretfully-tell-you-how-Macross-is-better.

And he loves to criticize it. But when it come to the details such as this he is usually right.
And i dont know anyone more informed about Macross.

He's really good at affecting an air of calm expertise; I'm not impressed by his actual content.

The franchise has been dead since the failure of shadow chronicles.

You keep saying that but it doesn't make it true.

[Seto Kaiba]

While IIRC Seto used to play a Robotech hater on the Robotech.com message boards, his shtick on these boards is more guy-who-likes-Robotech-but-must-regretfully-tell-you-how-Macross-is-better.

In the fine old traditions of the Usenet groups that preceded them, the old Robotech.com forums were a tribalistic mess where voicing even the most reasonable criticism of any part of Robotech was enough to get someone there to accuse you of being a "hater". That's why the fans of the novels and comics gradually disappeared, along with the volunteer moderators who were sick of presiding over a fandom civil war. It hit its peak when the handful of remaining volunteer moderators decided that ANY criticism was tantamount to a personal attack on the Harmony Gold staff itself... a hilariously ill-advised attempt to stifle criticism of Shadow Chronicles that killed the site's community stone dead when everyone was banned or went elsewhere to avoid being banned. (Which is why their new forums are populated pretty much exclusively by spambots.)

So yes, I was a "hater"... for criticizing things like plot holes and dialog errors, supporting the newly imposed official canon, explaining the legal situation and how it impacted the proposed live action movie, occasionally saying that Shadow Chronicles was kinda terrible, and voicing my frustration with the lack of originality in the development of new material. Most of the site's population were "haters" of one stripe or another, so I was in good company. I did lose my temper a lot back then, but in all fairness I was often dealing with some of the most irrational and intransigent members of the fandom so I was understandably frustrated rather often.

(Mind you, if I'm a "hater" and not a fan then why the flying **** do Robotech fans keep inviting me to Facebook groups and forums devoted to the series? Seriously. Robotech.com was the only one I joined without receiving an unsolicited invitation to do so first.)

You keep saying that but it doesn't make it true.

Reflex denial may be entertainingly ironic on a Robotech forum, but it won't change reality.

There has not been a serious effort to create new, original Robotech material in over twelve years and the license is expiring in a bit less than two. That's pretty dead.

I've long since made peace with it. I have no love for Harmony Gold, though I've had candid and cordial discussions with most of its staff, but I can appreciate Robotech for what it was and for the incredibly bizarre place which it occupies in the legal and creative history of the anime industry in the west.

[Warshield73]

While I frequently disagree with Seto and find him to be...let's say overly critical of Robotech, and well everything else, he is clearly a fan. I also have to agree with him about the old Robotech boards. I have always been predominantly a fan of the novels as opposed to the series and just having discussions about that on those forums you would have thought I was advocating for puppy murders.

The simple fact is that Seto & Lt Gargoyle are correct that there has been no canon new material since Shadow Chronicles so it's dead. Letting a company remake the same old material for a new gaming system is not new material. Now let us just say that Robotech is alive and kicking in two years it will be murdered. The licenses will expire, they will not be renewed and there will be nothing official ever again.

The fan community is fairly active but from everything I've seen it is stagnating and with no new material (not redo's of old stuff but actual new material) the fan base will dwindle to nothing and die as the current fans you know age and die.

[ShadowLogan]

Robotech still exists; new licensed material is still being created; it is still, obviously, being discussed.

Saying "Robotech is dead" sounds knowledgeable and wise, as if one is quietly and firmly saying hard truths, but it's not actually true.

The franchise has been dead since the failure of shadow chronicles. Us fans have carried it for 30 plus years. At best we ate left along on our websites. But even the tabletop miniatures did not go past macross.

A case might even exist that it was dead before Shadow Chronicles going back as far as the "reboot" in 2001-ish when HG reset Robotech by throwing out basically everything but the 85ep (IMHO they could have classified some as Alternate Universe like the RPG and Novels easily enough, the comics...). The RT that existed upto this point had ended, and more so possibly with the remastered edits for the DVDs (I say possibly as I don't own them, haven't seen them) and emphasis in shift in materials from what fans referred to as the Early Return to the Late Return Time Line (Novels and 1E RPG agreed that NG-arc happens in the mid 2030s, was there any licenced material from the 80s-90s that actually put those events in the 2040s?).

Robotech still exists; new licensed material is still being created; it is still, obviously, being discussed.

Yes Robotech still exists and new licensed material is being created. The thing is the ability to produce new licensed material is coming to an end unless HG can renew their license with Tat. No renewal means Robotech very much will be dead on several fronts. Robotech will still obviously exist in historical form, and will be discussed but with no new material there is only so much you can discuss that isn't retreading (and if you look at the robotech message boards how active are they really with regard to RT discussion).

[jaymz]

A thing can exist and still be dead.

[Warshield73]

A thing can exist and still be dead.

Not sure if this is what you intended but I all of the sudden have this visual of Tommy Yune and Steve Yun carrying a dead Robotech between them going full Weekend at Bernie's.

[Jefffar]

Since we are at the point of debating who here is and isn't a fan of Robotech, I'd say this topic has expended it's lifespan.