Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (DVD)
2008 Harmony Gold and a WEB OF LIES AND RED TAPE

The Short Version: Robotech’s franchise is enjoying a little renaissance of sorts. And I’m in no mood to let others enjoy themselves!

The Long Version: I reviewed the old PS2 game a while back and touched on the muddled pedigree of the classic eighties action series Robotech. For the sake of clarity and padding my word count, it’d probably be best to again touch upon the origins of Robotech and the utterly gleeful maelstrom of copyright and trademark nastiness that happened around it.

In the beginning, you see, there was Superdimensional Fortress Macross. It was followed by, in the same sense that the Brave Saga shows were related (or to use a more recent example, say the new and old Transformers animated series are sequels) Superdimensional Cavalry Southern Cross, and the even less related Genesis Climber Mospeada. In order to better sell toys and action figures, the three disparate series were fused into one franchise for the kiddies of the States, with significant rewriting and editing. Some badmouth Carl Macek, the mastermind of the mish-mash for trying to shoehorn these elements together (It melds a hell of a lot less smoothly than his earlier attempt involving Captain Harlock and the Queen of A Thousand Years since everything Leiji Matsumoto writes is basically the same shit- GO ON AND BITCH, YOU KNOW IT) but Robotech is pretty responsible for hooking a fair amount of longtime anime fans. What I’m basically getting at it that probably 95% of those who bitch about the butchering of the original version’s intent probably wouldn’t know there was an original version to butcher had they not obsessed over Robotech in their youth and extended adolescense.

Like, uh, me.

That said, I generally ignore the animation itself these days when called upon to think about ‘Robotech’ as a franchise with its own er, unique ‘canon.’ To me, “Robotech” is the Jack McKinney novels, and the roleplaying supplements and to a lesser extent, any number of badly drawn Antarctic Press comics.* Robotech II: The Sentinels, based upon said novels and comics, was for the longest time the sole true Robotech animation. Even it still fell back on recycled stock images of Southern Cross soldiers and the like in parts, and only lasted 3 episodes- mercifully. For all the Sentinels series did well- the bizarre Invid Inorganics and certain assorted races- it seemed to take joy in screwing up everything else- introducing a rough, tough race of killer bear people was great on paper, but in practice lead to uh. And the entire premise of T.R. Edwards’ career and ending up in a domineering relationship with Minmei is sort of hard to suspend disbelief for, at least until you look at the fact that the REF core group seemed to believe that their goofy-ass jumpsuits were the best get-ups to make first contact with intelligent life and that a coffee can with eyeholes was a superior replacement for the badass skullplate that Zentraedi commander Breetai had previously. (For the most part you’re of course safe from the horrible imagery in the novels, though in the case of Breetai’s head can, you might want to seek out copies of The Sentinels #4 without covers.) Edwards was a long-time military man who had a less than savory past and open contempt for the commanding officers of the Robotech Expeditionary Force, so naturally he was brought along and given a high paying job with lackeys. He couldn’t have been more villainous if he wrung his hands and laughed maniacally when waiting for elevators. I’ll have to re-read to see if that didn’t actually happen.

But I’m going on. The important thing to remember going into Robotech: Shadow Chronicles is that you are about to watch the sequel to a series made up of three different cartoons, filtered through Expanded Universeville, and deriving much material from novels and a comic series which was never actually produced. In short- You’ll probably be pretty damned lost.

RSC picks up right where the series left off, actually, even slightly before it left off. There’s a nice little recap of sorts to bring new viewers to speed, though it’s at a very tiny font size. Essentially, the story begins at the tail end of the ‘New Generation’/Invid Invasion timeline wherein HUGE ENEMY CRABS have seized pretty much the entire world upon detecting that humans have been using their sacred, life-sustaining Flowers of Life as a fuel source for big stompy robots- something they really rather dislike. As a result, human resistance consists mainly of guerilla teams on the ground, and the expeditionary fleets abroad who periodically send a fleet or two to stir up the hive, as it were. Of course all this is pretty moot- as the Earthlings prepare to nuke their homeworld to glass, the Invid’s queen elects to find a new home instead of letting the periodic assault waves reach the triple digits. Hero Scott Bernard is rejoined with the fleet, along with an Invid clone of his girlfriend Marlene, who he refers to as Ariel for the duration of the feature instead. (Presumably it’s to avoid upsetting her brother when they meet up aboard the ship.)  After the fast paced intro segment (Mospeada/3rdGen makes everything better, doesn’t it?) things sort of slow up while the movie (re)introduces a buttload of new and/or re-imagined characters. For example, the old hero, Rick Hunter, is literally an old hero with white hair and everything now. It turns out the SDF-3 was stuck in some parallel space or something, causing commander Vince Grant (of course related to Claudia Grant in the Macross Saga, since all dem space negroes is related) to divert away from the main fleet returning to assault the occupying forces on earth. While on his rescue mission, a mysterious new alien race rears its head, the so-called ‘Children of the Shadow’ who are yet another race that’s pretty miffed at how mankind is using Protoculture** as a fuel source. In this case, it’s more of a ‘YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE TRUE POWER OF-‘ thing than the prior alien forces motivations (“We want the protoculture!” followed by, “Hey, we’re the Robotech Masters, bitches” followed by “that stuff is our natural food source and the last two raped and defoliated our planet for it.”) At any rate, it turns out that the Haydonites, a sort of biomechanical race the REF befriended and borrowed the new Shadowtech (including the aforementioned nuke-like Neutron-S Missiles) technology from, are actually kind of evil, and can seize control of Shadowtech gear pretty much at will. They’re beaten back when the pilots switch off all their S-weapons and kick their asses the old fashioned way- BUT FOR HOW LONG!?!

Kind of a weak summary, I admit, but I don’t want to ruin everything, or for that matter just keep Jabootuing on about every little detail to the point that reading about a sole scene takes three times longer than simply watching the movie. The CG work is competent enough for the budget- I don’t need or want to see photorealistic space robots fighting bugs in the context of all the humans looking like New Anime, though the fight scenes are a little stiff and lacking in a sense of ‘impact.’ (I saw a review describing them as Sci-Fi Movie of the Weekish, which is pretty unfair considering that. The animation gets a bit choppy, though.) And of course, the animation is a lot more polished and sharp than the original incarnation which ought to go without saying given the technical strides since then. (It’s good to have everyone in the same art style, at least.) Overall I’d say while not a mindblowingly awesome film in the likes of Macross Plus it would be nice to see more from the team that put all this together. All the various shout outs really seem to clue in that R:SC was more a labor of love than a cheap cash-in effort, and I’d say it’s a damn fine return to animation for the series.

Bonus: What Tangled Webs We Weave When We Import Mecha

The iconic Valkyrie Variable Fighter, a.k.a.; the Veritech, had something of a bumpy transition to the US market thanks to conflicting properties’ interests in it. The problems began in the ‘pre-season,’ when toy companies had cast their nets seemingly at random to import transforming robot toys. In the fray, a nice, detailed die cast Valkyrie was licensed for sale- as a Transformer, rather than Robotech. However, with Robotech already on the air, it would have been a bit sticky for the Transformers cartoon to air with a ‘new’ character appearing and looking identical to the Veritechs being flown around on the other channel. (Korea didn’t care, for the record- they aired a “GUNDAAAM! series where the titular robot was a Valk that emerged from a block of stone a la the Monkey King.) So, the model was altered, Jetfire was born, and the TF fans ironically were left with a high quality toy that didn’t look much like the person it was supposed to represent. This cockblock worked both ways, however- Robotech was blocked from releasing (that particular) toy of the Veritech. So one show could broadcast the likeness but not sell the toy, and one had the toy and was forced to try and sell it with a character who only superficially looked like it. Not that many of the old Transformers were exactly slavish replicas. To make matters even worse (or better, if you’re Zim), the tabletop wargame Battletech was growing in popularity-but they had been ‘borrowing’ designs from Robotech and other anime to fill out their Tech Readouts, as well as selling pewter minis. The ensuing reprimands lead to the discontinuing and redesign of several key mechs (now known in the Battletech universe as the “Unseen” and replaced with statistically-identical but different looking mechs to represent ‘current’ forms) The whole brand got a further revamp when it was exported to Japan, where people would have been more likely to notice in the first place.

Macross itself is in a strange net legally as US distribution goes. Though the original, II, and Plus have seen US releases, Macross 7 is in eternal limbo since nobody wants to pay for the soundtrack rights (lol, I say) and since F makes reference to and apparently used some Fire Bomber numbers, its future is precarious as well.

FURTHER BONUS

*Are they still around? Do they still mostly specialize in Gold Digger and a bevy of over-photoshopped “OEL Manga” titles?

**The definition of Protoculture, the one unifying element of the series, is notably drastically changed from its original meaning in Macross. Here, it’s a near-magical power source generated from the Flower of Life, a ‘culture’ in the sense yogurt is, whereas in Japanese it simply referred to an ancient culture, preceding both humanity and the Zentraedi.