Robotech: Valkyrie Project - Robotech Fan Film

[Seto Kaiba]

I've said it before, but if I could, I would buy HG to get more Robotech done. Those fools can't do anything. [...]

To be entirely fair, I very much doubt that you'd be able to do anything either if you had to work with the same restrictions Harmony Gold does. Like them, you'd be forced to spend most of your time checking and double-checking that anything you did doesn't violate the terms of the license agreements with Tatsunoko that allow Robotech to exist, or unlawfully use the copyrighted intellectual property of Big West, Studio Nue, Tatsunoko, or any other studio.

Assuming the stars align just right and you manage to find some time away from making sure the owners of the intellectual property you're using aren't about to sue your knickers off, then you'd spend THAT time begging and pleading for someone... ANYONE... to give you some money to go make something. Nearly thirty years of failures and false starts haven't exactly been kind to its standing with potential investors*, to the extent that Harmony Gold's own staff have said even Harmony Gold will only grudgingly invest the bare minimum in Robotech now. Good luck in getting ANYONE to throw money at a new Robotech project.

Even if, by the intervention of the infinite power of some nonspecific patron deity, you got the money to make a bare-bones "movie" like Shadow Chronicles, you'd still need to find some company willing to produce it, and several more to facilitate distribution. Harmony Gold's been burning bridges with alarming regularity since 2001, and the low volume of Robotech sales means finding anyone willing to take it is a tall order... and they probably won't take it twice.

* It might be more accurate to say that those thirty years ran Robotech into the ground so hard they found the Higgs boson in the wreckage.

And if I have to get on my hands and knees and go over glass for the people in Japan so we could use ALL of Robotech as we would need, I'd do it in a heart beat. I get the feeling they are not even trying anymore at HG.

It'd accomplish precisely bugger-all, honestly... the Robotech franchise is, for very good reasons, held in low esteem over there. With Macross riding high on the momentum from Macross Frontier, Macross 30, Macross R, etc., they've got more reason than ever before to turn down any request like that. Particularly if they're planning to animate the Macross the First manga... they'd want to protect the exclusivity of their IP.

[sirkermittsg]

the folks making Valkyrie project had the financial resources to do so.... they were making good quality stuff. HG could have let them continue and then found a way to release it into the theaters.

[jaymz]

1 -there is absolutely no official word as who served the C&D

2 - No they could not have released it as full feature into theatres. At best it would stay as a compiled Fanfeature nothing more. Why? HG has absolutely zero ability to do any film or animation derivative of Macross. At. All. Tat means they cannot use Macross Designs in any works they do to that end. They may have trademark on teh name but theo nly rights they have are to use the original SDF Macross as it is and in Robotech and for distribution purposes thanks to their (what I STILL call unethical though legal) Trademarking of Macross in North America, South America and Europe.

[Seto Kaiba]

the folks making Valkyrie project had the financial resources to do so.... they were making good quality stuff. HG could have let them continue and then found a way to release it into the theaters.

That would have absolutely ended badly... because that would've gone from being a fan film to being an official Robotech movie. That would have made their use of the copyrighted Macross designs into copyright infringement instead of fair use. The inevitable result of that would be that the Japanese companies that jointly own Macross would take the creators of Valkyrie Project to court, and with such blatant copyright infringement a judgment against Valkyrie Project's creators would be a foregone conclusion. By endorsing it, Harmony Gold would make itself a party to the lawsuit... and that means that they would have to answer for supporting Valkyrie Project's infringement.

The judgment from a case like that could, and almost certainly would, be the final nail in Robotech's coffin and the movie would never see the light of day.

(This is, as I have remarked before, probably why the cease-and-desist was sent... Harmony Gold and company didn't want the Japanese to think this was an officially-endorsed project.)

[Arnie100]

the folks making Valkyrie project had the financial resources to do so.... they were making good quality stuff. HG could have let them continue and then found a way to release it into the theaters.

And HG wouldn't have gotten away with that.