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Robotech

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This article is about the Robotech science fiction and anime universe. For other uses, see Robotech (disambiguation).
Robotech
File:Robotech poster.jpg
GenreMecha, Science Fiction, Space Opera
Anime
Robotech: The Macross Saga,
The Masters, The New Generation
Directed byRobert V. Barron
StudioHarmony Gold USA, Tatsunoko
Anime
Robotech the Movie: The Untold Story
Directed byCarl Macek & Noboru Ishiguro
StudioHarmony Gold USA, Tatsunoko, IDOL Co.
Anime
Robotech (II): The Sentinels
Directed byCarl Macek
StudioHarmony Gold USA, Tatsunoko
Anime
Robotech 3000
Directed byCarl Macek
StudioHarmony Gold USA, Netter Digital
Anime
Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles
Directed byTommy Yune & Dong-Wook Lee
StudioHarmony Gold USA, Tatsunoko, DR Movie

Robotech is a popular science fiction and anime franchise that was launched by an 85-episode animated television series about three successive extraterrestrial invasions of Earth. Within the context of the show, "Robotech" refers to Robotechnology, the advances in science and technology that came about from studying an alien starship that crashed on a South Pacific island. Robotechnology made possible the creation of giant robotic mecha, or fighting machines, many of which were capable of transforming into vehicles (especially fighter planes) for greater battlefield mobility.

The original television series (1985)

Main article: Robotech (TV series)

Robotech was one of the first anime released in the United States that largely managed to preserve the complexity and drama of its original Japanese source material. Produced by Harmony Gold USA, Inc. in association with Tatsunoko Prod. Co., Ltd., Robotech is a story adapted with edited content and revised dialogue from the animation of three different mecha anime series: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. Harmony Gold's cited reasoning for combining these unrelated series was its decision to market Macross for American weekday syndication television, which required a minimum of 65 episodes at the time (thirteen weeks at five episodes per week). Macross and the two other series each had fewer episodes than required since they originally aired in Japan as weekly series.

This combination resulted in a storyline that spans three generations as mankind must fight three destructive Robotech Wars in succession over a powerful energy source called "Protoculture": The First Robotech War (The Macross Saga) concerns humanity's battle against the giant Zentraedi warriors who are sent to earth to retrieve the wrecked starship that contains the last known source of Protoculture in the universe. In the Second Robotech War (The Robotech Masters), their rulers, the Robotech Masters, attempt to take up where the Zentraedi left off. In the Third Robotech War (The New Generation), the alien Invid have been attracted to earth by events that transpired at the end of the Second Robotech War, and it is up to returning elements of the Robotech Expeditionary Force to fight them off.

Home video

Following the original broadcast, the series enjoyed popularity on home video in VHS and DVD formats from the following distributors:

For more information, see Robotech (television series): Home Video Releases

Sequels and spinoffs

Harmony Gold has attempted to produce several follow ups to the original series over the years, but with mixed success to this date.

Robotech: The Movie (1986)

Also called Robotech: The Untold Story, this theatrical film was the first new Robotech adventure created after the premiere of the original series. It used footage from the Megazone 23 Part 1 OVA (Original Video Animation, or made-for-video animated feature) spliced with Southern Cross, and had only a tenuous link to the television series. According to interviews with Macek, it had originally been intended to be more of a straight dub of Megazone 23 with dialogue and music changes to reflect the Robotech universe. As originally conceived, it was set during the SDF-1's return from Pluto with the protagonist, a relation of Rick Hunter, finding out about the government's coverup of the SDF-1's fate and fighting to make the information known.

However, at the time Tatsunoko was involved in promoting their own Macross movie, Do You Remember Love, and insisted that Macek not use elements of the Macross story so as to avoid possible confusion. Also, the distributor, Cannon Films, felt there were "too many girls and not enough robots and guns" and didn't like Megazone's downer ending either. Thus, under duress, Macek rewrote the story to take place shortly before the Robotech Masters segment, cut segments of Southern Cross footage into it, and commissioned the animation studio Idol Co. to animate a new ending (which was later included on the laserdisc of Megazone 23 Part II). The new version involved the Robotech Masters sending an advance spy to steal the memory core of the SDF-1.

The movie disappeared in United States after a failed test run in Texas. In some foreign countries like Argentina however, it made a successful run in cinemas and it got a Spanish dub and a VHS release. Harmony Gold relinquished their license to Megazone 23 after director Carl Macek washed his hands of the project, so any home video release is unlikely except for a few VHS tapes that had been in limited circulation in Europe. Some animatics and other supplemental material were released as extras with ADV Films' Robotech DVD release. Academy released a comic adaptation of the movie in 1995 that bore scant resemblance to the actual movie. Additionally, elements from the movie were used in the plot of the Robotech novel The Masters' Gambit.

Robotech II: The Sentinels (1986, cancelled)

This aborted American-produced series would have followed the continuing adventures of Rick & Lisa Hunter and the rest of the Robotech Expedition during the events of The Robotech Masters and The New Generation. The animation studio Tatsunoko assigned the first script drafts to writers Sukehiro Tomita (Macross, Mospeada) and Hiroshi Oonogi (Macross), who focused on new characters instead of Rick and the other characters derived from the original Japanese Macross series. Director Carl Macek re-assigned the scriptwriting to American writers headed by script supervisor Kent Butterworth to refocus the project.

The title refers to an alien resistance movement the Expedition encounters, consisting of races subjugated by the Robotech Masters or Invid. The feature-length pilot is comprised of the first three (and only) episodes that were produced for the series. It introduces the SDF-3 along with its crew and gives an overview of their new mission. The most significant event is the wedding of Admiral Rick Hunter to Admiral Lisa Hayes. Being a sequel/spinoff to the combined series, The Sentinels featured characters from all three Robotech sagas, including the Hunters and the Sterlings from The Macross Saga, Dana Sterling and Bowie Grant from The Robotech Masters, and Jonathan Wolfe of The New Generation. Among the newly created characters were young cadet rivals Jack Baker and Karen Penn, whose early love-hate relationship mirrored Rick and Lisa's; Vince Grant, brother of Claudia and father of Bowie Grant; and the Regent, the villainous leader of the Invid. Dr. Emil Lang, a supporting character in the Macross Saga, would return as a main character. This series would notably feature a human villain in the form of T.R. Edwards who was introduced in Comico's Robotech: The Graphic Novel. According to director Carl Macek in Robotech Art 3: The Sentinels, the proposed series was canceled after the crash of the Dollar/Yen exchange rate and lack of support by toy partner Matchbox. Subsequent efforts to petition the completion of this series have gone nowhere, but the pilot was released on VHS by Robotech RPG publisher Palladium. The Sentinels is currently available on one of the Robotech Legacy Collection extras discs, now part of the Protoculture Collection, from ADV Films.

Subsequent to its cancellation, Harmony Gold provided the incomplete Sentinels source material for adaptation by several different parties, resulting in several slightly different versions of the same continuity. Author Jack McKinney completed a novelized version of the Sentinels storyline in paperback; the Waltrip brothers adapted these novels into comic books (though diverged from the novels as the storyline progressed) and are currently adapting some of the events covered in the last McKinney Sentinels novel into the Prelude to Shadow Chronicles miniseries. Macek's original outline and notes for the series that appeared in Robotech Art Three differed from these versions, sometimes substantially. Palladium Books also adapted the Sentinels material into its Robotech RPG II: The Sentinels roleplaying game.

Robotech III: The Odyssey (proposed)

Producer Carl Macek revealed ideas for another proposed series, Robotech III: The Odyssey, which would have created a circular storyline that would end where the original Robotech began in a giant 260-episode cycle to fill up all the weekdays in a year. After the failure of Sentinels, Odyssey never went into development, though its ideas were worked into the Jack McKinney novel The End of the Circle.

Robotech IV and V (planned)

Fan publication Macross Life interviewed Harmony Gold executive Richard Firth in 1986, where he revealed that Robotech creator Carl Macek had "plans through ROBOTECH 5 which would give us an episode for each day of the year for a year and a half." He also said that these two intallments would have brought the series to 285 episodes. Regarding the plot, Firth mentioned a "retired Commodore Hunter, whom ever that may be, could very well be speaking at the graduation of the later day cadets or whatever, and they ask him to tell them the story all over again: it comes back [to the first episode of the series]."

It should be noted that Carl Macek himself has never mentioned Robotech IV or V in any interviews or writings.

Robotech 3000 (2000, cancelled)

Carl Macek attempted another sequel with the development of Robotech 3000. This all-CGI series would have been set a millennium in the future of the Robotech universe and feature none of the old series' characters. In the three-minute trailer, an expedition is sent to check on a non-responsive mining outpost and is attacked by "infected" Veritech mecha. Again, the idea was abandoned midway into production after negative reception within the company, negative fan reactions at the FanimeCon anime convention in 2000, and financial difficulties within Netter Digital who was animating the show. It now exists only in trailer form on the official Robotech website.

Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (2006)

Main article: Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles

In 2002, Tommy Yune announced development on a new sequel which was not named until 2004 as Robotech: Shadow Force. The storyline is supposedly a direct continuation of the unresolved ending of the original series. The overall title of the story arc was soon changed to Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. From late 2004, Harmony Gold representatives have held panels at anime conventions, showing production art and CG animatic previews. The first trailers with finished animation were finally shown at Anime Expo and Comic-Con 2005. While originally announced as having a 2005 release date, it was February 2006 before Kevin McKeever, Operations Coordinator at Robotech.com/Harmony Gold, was able to confirm that the 90-minute pilot movie had been completed. No distributor for any medium, including DVD or television, has yet been announced by Harmony Gold; according to a report from the February 2005 New York Comic-Con, McKeever stated in a panel that earlier discussions with a potential distributor had failed due to contract terms that Harmony Gold considered unfavorable.

A thirty-second public service announcement for the United Nations, featuring Scott Bernard and Marlene, was animated during the production of The Shadow Chronicles. Although it did not use the original voice actors and the dialogue was somewhat out-of-character, it nonetheless marked the first fully-completed Robotech footage in twenty years.

Robotech (Harmony Gold) chronology

The "Robotech chronology" according to Harmony Gold is illustrated below:

For a more detailed timeline, see Robotech Wars
Official Logo
Official Logo
Year Generation / Saga (release date)
1999 - 2014 (1) Robotech: The Macross Saga (1985)
2022 - Robotech II: The Sentinels* (1986)
2027 Robotech The Movie: The Untold Story* (1986)
2029 - 2030(2) Robotech: The Masters (1985)
2042 - 2044(3) Robotech: The New Generation (1985)
2044 - Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (2006)

Note: Asterisked works are now considered "secondary continuity," that is that their events exist in the continuity of Robotech but "don't count" when conflicts arise with the "main continuity" that are the three-part Robotech TV series (four with the addition of 2006's Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles).

In 2002, with the publication of the Wildstorm (DC) comics, Harmony Gold officially decided to retcon the Robotech Universe. The following Robotech material is now relegated to the status of secondary continuity:

While these materials are not precisely "retired" or "removed" from the continuity, their events are subject to critical review, and are strictly subordinate to the "official" events of the 85-episode animated series (especially the Jack McKinney novels, which strayed further and further into mysticism as the Sentinels novels progressed).

The Robotech franchise

At the time of its broadcast, Harmony Gold also launched Robotech through a popular line of comics to be followed by novels, role-playing games, toys, and other consumer products. With the cancellation of Robotech II: The Sentinels, many of these licensed products were discontinued and led to a drought of Robotech product through much of the 90's except for publishers which continued the The Sentinels storyline in print.

Robotech: The Graphic Novel

Robotech comics

Main article: Robotech (comics)

Robotech comics were first published in 1984 with DC Comics' short-lived Robotech Defenders and Comico's adaptation of the first episode of the Japanese version of Macross. However, the first adaptation of the Robotech television series did not arrive until 1985 with Comico's Robotech: The Macross Saga #2, which continued from the first Macross issue.

The various comic publishers include:

Omnibus edition

Robotech novelizations

Main article: Robotech (novels)

Since 1987, Robotech was adapted into novel form by "Jack McKinney", a pseudonym for the team of James Luceno and the late Brian Daley, a pair of writers who had been working with Macek since they had collaborated on the animated series Galaxy Rangers. Using fictitious epigraphs in the style of Dune, McKinney's novels fleshed out the chronology (including adapting the incomplete Sentinels source material) in greater detail. Many Robotech fans consider the McKinney series to be an unofficial canon of its own, despite notable divergences in the writing from Harmony Gold's current official animation-based canon. Despite no longer being considered core continuity by Harmony Gold, the novels have been recently re-issued by Del Rey Books as Omnibus compilations.

Robotech role-playing games

Main article: Robotech (role-playing games)

In 1986, Palladium Books published a pen-and-paper role-playing game based on the Robotech series. The successful run also included RPG books covering The Sentinels. Contractual issues in the wake of Harmony Gold's aborted Robotech 3000 project, as well as a general refocusing of the company on production of its flagship Rifts line, caused Palladium to eventually forego renewing the Robotech license. The Robotech RPG line went out of print as of June 30, 2001. According to a report from the February New York Comic-Con, a new Robotech RPG license deal is in the works, but further details are not currently known.

Robotech video games

Robotech spawned four video game licenses, of which only three were released:

  • Robotech: Crystal Dreams for the Nintendo 64 game system. This was aborted before release when its publisher, Gametek, went under. The game would have taken place during the period between the SDF-1's destruction and the launch of the SDF-3. A continuity nightmare, the game had a Zentraedi invasion during what was scripted in the series as a period of peace.
  • Robotech: Battlecry (2002) for the Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation 2, and Nintendo GameCube. The gameplay takes place in the Macross era and parallels the events in the Animation for that Era. Multiplayer support is limited to one-on-one. Several of the voice actors from the original series, including Melanie McQueen, Dan Woren, and Cam Clarke, reprised their original roles or voiced new characters in this game.
  • Robotech: Invasion (2004) for the Microsoft Xbox and the Sony PlayStation 2. First/third person shooter. The gameplay covers the New Generation part of the story with support for single player missions and multiplayer online matches. Features Cyclones, transformable body armor/motorcycles. As with Battlecry, several of the original voice actors reprised their roles.

Impact

While anime shows were brought to the US as early as the 1960s, such as Astro Boy, Speed Racer, and Kimba the White Lion, most were heavily bowdlerized for American audiences, with violence, deaths of major characters, sexual references, etc., completely edited out for what was assumed to be an audience of young children. Robotech along with the earlier Star Blazers (1979) broke with this tradition by leaving in some of those elements, and they are frequently credited as the series that helped spur American interest in Japanese animation, leading to the current anime industry in North America. Robotech was frequently among the top ten anime lists of American anime magazines such as Anime Insider, Animerica, Newtype USA, and others.

Robotech had a similar impact in other places of the world, including Australia, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and China, where in the summer of 2004, it was awarded "Best Robot-theme Anime of all time" at the Cartoon Channel of China Education Television. It is highly likely that if you grew up in any of those countries during the 1980s, you watched at least some of its episodes. (Robotech did not start its broadcast in China until 1991.) As in the US, it helped begin a slow but continuous rise in the consumption of anime where also was honored with an award for its contribution to the science fiction genre by The North American Science Fiction Convention (Cascadia Con) and The Science Fiction Museum Hall of Fame .

That said, Robotech is often an extremely polarizing issue among anime fans. Some critics consider the show to be an abomination that runs rough-shod over its original sources by westernizing character names, making some censor-appeasing edits, and changing the stories of three wholly unrelated series (some compare it to Woody Allen's camp Japanese movie re-dub What's Up, Tiger Lily?) to pass them off as a cohesive whole. Series writer/actor Greg Snegoff did say in an interview on the now-defunct Shadow Chronicles News fansite that, "afterwards, we received compliments from the Japanese who thought our dialogue and stories were better than the original," and Protoculture Addicts magazine reports in a Robotech fifth anniversary article that those compliments came from the production company Tatsunoko. However, Animag magazine (issue 11) and Animerica magazine (issue 9, volume 4) reports that the original Macross creators at Studio Nue and Artland such as story creator Shoji Kawamori and chief director Noboru Ishiguro expressed their disconcertion with the Robotech adaptation and surprise on its differences.

In an effort to combine the storylines of three different Japanese series, certain characters underwent drastic role changes with little explicit character development or plot exposition. Notably Rick Hunter (one of the main characters of the Macross segment) was changed—by a line of dialogue—from an ordinary yet pivotal fighter unit commander into an unseen admiral who is said to have ordered the destruction of Earth under the controversial rationale of saving it from the enemy. The line by an unnamed commander on the SDF-4 in the episode "Dark Finale" was, "I've been ordered by Admiral Hunter himself to obliterate the planet completely."

In addition, the 65-episode minimum guideline cited as the reason to combine the episodes applied specifically to weekday syndication. Contemporary series such as Star Blazers and The Transformers series were initially syndicated weekly before reaching the 65 episode mark. The guideline also did not necessarily require a combined storyline; adaptations like Voltron coupled two unrelated Japanese series without initially combining the storylines until a crossover special years later. Defenders counter that such changes were critical for getting the show onto American television, given the cultural and economic environment of 1985. In the current climate of broadcast and cable television, such conditions do not exist.

Robotech has been the subject of two parodies by the fandub group Seishun Shitemasu: Robotech 3: Not Necessarily the Sentinels and Robotech 4: Khyron's Counterattack (using footage from, respectively, Gunbuster and Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack).

See also

Official Sites:

Fan Sites: (English)

Fan Sites: (International)

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