MovieChat Forums > Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (2007) Discussion > 20 years and we get kicked in the nuts a...

20 years and we get kicked in the nuts again.

posted 17 years ago by zillion29
14 replies | jump to latest

The ONLY thing about Robotech that's worthwhile is the original television episodes (and the DVD releases thereof). Everything else has been an abomination.
The toys: sucked.
The fan club: sucked.
The videos: sucked.
The 1988 wall calender: actually had dates WRONG.
The books: get all bizarro with the Sentinels.
The Comico comics: worst of the 80s.

And then they give us this flaming turd to ice the cake? Every single thing in this movie is derivative: the credits are Star Trek The Next Generation, the Haydonites have HAL eyes, the space battles with capital ships ape every Gundam series ever made, Jean Grant looks like she was stolen from Silent Mobius, Ariel can zoom around and appear wherever she wants . . .

This is sooooooo typically Robotech.

[–] c_poli_99 17 years ago

I think you are overeacting a little. Remember this is only a pilot for a tv series just like Robotech II the sentinels was in the 80s. Its only a question of when a network will sign them up and give them the creative freedom they wish to pursue with the series direction.

As far as merchandise is concerned your quite right. Other than the series itself nothing good has ever come out of this series. But then again i would say exactly the same for thundercats and transformers.

[–] bill_kilgore 17 years ago

The RPGs were okay...

[–] tenakuma-1 17 years ago

Well, it's not Robotech, but Macross Plus had some nice merchandise (and was a good OVA series). Haha.

The Sentinels does get really weird... and I think this movie is counts at least a chunk of the Sentinels as canon.

That calendar thing is hilarious.

I'm not sure what you mean by the credits being Star Trek, or HAL eyes (I thought of the red eye on Sharon Apple's black box in Macross Plus right away, though), I do agree that the series seems to be lacking in originality. I hope it gets a bit fresher (and either gets nicer 3D animation or goes back to 2D for the mecha--heheh....).

[–] darkmax 16 years ago

The OP and ED of the movie is like the ST:TNG Opening, except it is done in reverse for the opening.

The red eye thing has too many precedents in older animes, no surprise there.

Ariel's anywhere teleportation is... well... a bit out of place in a space opera like this one. Far too god-like.

My personal opinion, they should ahve done another 15-30 minutes on the depths of characters. I found them rather flat.

And apparently, this is a test-bed for re-starting the old milk cow. They are not going to do another series, but there is apparently a movie sequel in 2009. I'm expecting that in 2011.

[–] calibanplayer 16 years ago

Actually the video game Robotech Battlecry was pretty cool. It was tough, but thankfully they built in a cheat code for invincibility. Even then it was still no easy task to beat.

[–] geometroid 16 years ago

I have to say here that I LOVED the Robotech novels. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I think TSC sucked was because they discarded the story from the novels (which would have been asskickingly epic BTW) and sliced them up to make this POS.

As to the Sentinals being bizarro, if you stop and think about it for a second.. Let's look at Robotech's storyline...

SPOILERS AHEAD

A big ship lands on Earth in the year 1999. Humans salvage the ship and learn how to make transforming robots that turn into airplanes. After 10 years a race of 50 foot tall aliens that have been bred only for war and nothing else arrive looking for their missing ship. The now united Earth government launches the now refitted ship (that they don't understand the workings of) to fight the aliens and end up at the edge of our solar system because the captain of the newly dubbed SDF-1 decided to use a hyperspace fold system that was never tested before.

In the course of the war that follows it's discovered that the aliens are after something called protoculture (which is never adequately explained) and are really freaked out by kissing. As the war progresses the Zentradi slowly start to want to shed their way of life and join human society because of a bad J-pop singer who only knows three songs (Granted... one of them was "We Can Win".. but...) Eventually the Earth gets fried and the SDF-1 is destroyed by James Mason who, for some reason has purple hair.. or is it blue.. I can't remember.

Fifteen years later, the earth is invaded again, this time by clones who only exist in threes and are controlled.. get this.. by three chicks who play music.. the aliens talk interminably (and in an Ayn Rand type fashion) about whether they should fight against the humans or go digging around in the ruins of the SDF-1 looking for protoculture... which has inexplicably turned into flowers..

The Third act has the Earth getting invaded again, this time by insectoid robot looking things that take their orders from something that looks VERY MUCH like the Borg Queen. This bit has Annie in it.. which makes it the most bizarre segment just by default, then there's the cross dresser.

In the end, the Borg Queen and her children who have decided to become humanoid in appearance, leave the Earth of their own valition after talking for another nine hours about the horrors of war.. the long awaited return of "Admiral Hunter" with the cavalry never arrives and the audience is left with a case of blueballs that, if you read the novels, lasted 10 years and if you didn't, has persisted for 20 years now.

SPOLERS END!

And you thought the Sentinals was Bizarro? That summary was, give or take a sentence or two, the summary I gave my mom when I was 10 and she asked me what my favorite show was about. It should be noted that the first time she ever laid eyes on Robotech she watched Force of Arms... I think that the fact she was young and healthy was the only thing that stopped her from dying of a stroke.. the Thundercats was about the heaviest thing she'd seen me watching til then.

I've heard nasty comments about the Sentinals before and I think I have figured out why the one or two readers who read those novels didn't like them :) The Robotech that we watched and loved on TV had at its heart a struggle to defend Earth, indeed Earth is a character in the show, that is.. if you want to get all metaphorical and artsy. The Sentinals took that away from us, who cares if Rick and Lisa are fighting for the freedom of Peryton or Tirol.. I think that's one of the reasons Robotech II never got made beyond the first 3 episodes. They were fighting for Earth in a kind of abstract way, but the heart was gone. Robotech was about Love and War... Somehow (and I'm not sure how exactly) if you take Earth out of the equation, it's just about...war.

The biggest jip about the Sentinals was that, at the end of book 5.. you still didn't know what happened to Admiral Hunter.. it ended with the fold.. that did make me pretty mad at the time.

My name... is GEO!!!

[–] Mitaka 15 years ago

something that looks VERY MUCH like the Borg Queen.

More like the Borg Queen looks very much like the Regess, since she predates the Borg.

Personally, I liked TSC. Was it great? No, it wasn't. Over-all, I put it on par with "New Generation", placing it, for me, ahead of "Masters" but behind "Macross". Although, I agree with one comment that they should have made it a little longer to allow for more character development.

I thought the character design was interesting. Familiar characters were still recognizable (ie Scott and that damned rebel bit of hair). About the only thing I didn't like about the characters were the over-inflated breasts. (How the hell could Maia see her control panel past those things?!)

I think this series does have a lot of potential, and I hope they do continue with it.

And regarding the Robotech novels: The first set of books were really enjoyable, but, yeah, Sentinels did go a little overboard at times. Still, the author did a good job on them, I thought. Even with the some of the stuff in Sentinels, it kept me interested enough to read through the entire series.

But this is all just my opinion. YMMV.

"The moment a person finds his voice is the moment his life takes on grace."
Story

[–] doctorcrimedog 13 years ago

The Sentinals took that away from us, who cares if Rick and Lisa are fighting for the freedom of Peryton or Tirol.. I think that's one of the reasons Robotech II never got made beyond the first 3 episodes.

That doesn't actually make sense. The series never aired. It wasn't as if they started running the show and then gave up making more because of bad ratings or fan response. The project died for various economic reasons before anyone ever saw it. I do think it was a mistake, however, to have put all of their efforts at the time into a sequel series that happened concurrent with Southern Cross, when everyone I knew who liked the show really wanted to know what had become of Rick and the SDF-3. That was the burning question for fans, not what they did in the meantime. The very fact that Rick was expected to show up at the end meant that he'd survived the Expeditionary mission, which sort of takes away much of the potential suspense.

-There is no such word as "alot."

[–] LTBrian 11 years ago

"....the SDF-1 is destroyed by James Mason...."

Dude, that made my day. Thanks!

[–] dlee473 16 years ago

"20 years and we get kicked in the nuts again"- Beautifully put, my friend.

[–] solar_tide 15 years ago

That's just like...your opinion, man...

[–] wallacesawyer 15 years ago

This movie is okay. Nice follow up, but I hope for more sequels.

I actually like the 1986 film better.

For DEMONIC TOYS and updates on Full Moon Films:
www.freewebs.com/demonictoys/

[–] gloop05 15 years ago

The novels were good. The Shadow Chronicles = epic fail of epic proportions.

[–] jimanchower 15 years ago

Some of the Robotech toys were awesome, why would you say they sucked? Granted some of them did, but there were the mini toys, the "destroids" or whatever those things were called, those were cool as hell.

I liked the Battle Pods, and I had an awesome die cast SDF 1 when I was a kid. I wish I still had it, it was really cool. But I "battle damaged" it to look like the tore up SDF 1 from the cartoon.

Also there was the Cyclone toy, that thing was cool. And there have been a ton of small Alpha and Veritech toys, granted I'm not sure if they were licensed or not, but I remember in the 80's you could go to any drugstore or toy store and find those little plastic Alphas and other Robotech jets.

Plus, there was the ultra cool Jetfire/Veritech toy. It fell apart, but damn that thing looked cool. I had Jetfire and even though he fell apart literally the day I got him, he was an awesome looking toy. It looked just like the cartoon.

And the Novels were very good too.

So I disagree that all Robotech stuff has been bad.

This movie though was awful. The voice acting was some of the worst I've ever heard in a bigger budget movie.