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cwmodels — Robotech Movie Comic Cover 2
Published: 2008-05-22 03:59:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 2858; Favourites: 17; Downloads: 19
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This is the Academy Comics' Robotech The Movie Adaption issue 2. It is painted in watercolors.Because the Movie itself was cut from footages of Megazone 23 and Southern Cross (Robotech Masters), it was very strange to combine the visuals from 2 separate series together.
Here is cover to issue 1: [link]
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Comments: 14
I'll be it was rather odd. I'm probably one of the few who'd admit to having seen the adaptation and, while I think it could have been drastically better, it still wasn't too bad I guess.
I think it'd have been better to just go through megazone without switching scenes and splice it footage from macross as well. But that's just me.
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That's what the original idea was planned. Basically there wasn't going to be much editing at all, it would more or less just be the Megazone23 footage from beginning to end, but just adapting it to fit in to the Robotech universe with the new "happy" ending.
The thing was at the time when Cannon Films contacted Harmony Gold about doing a Robotech movie, what Carl Macek originally wanted to do was an actual original movie, but with the budget and limited amount of time he was given to do the movie would make that impossible, so he had to resort to using an exisiting movie and adapted that. At around this time Harmony Gold was considering doing the sequel TV series Robotech II: The Sentinels and what Carl Macek wanted to do was link the movie with The Sentinels.
The original plot for the movie was going to set around the first Robotech War saga, mainly when the SDF-1 was in space making it's journey back home. Mark Harris (who was supposedly meant to be Rick Hunter's cousin) would uncover a government plot that is keeping the truth of the SDF-1's disappearance from the public which is being kept under wraps by B.D. Edwards and Mark is helped by EVE, a computer taken from the SDF-1 that was being used by the United Earth Government to control the Robotech Defence Force while also providing propaganda for controlling the civilian population. Mark would decide to reveal this information to the public by using the transformable motorcycle as proof which was originially planned to be the prototype to the Cyclone. The movie would end with the newly animated footage which was commissioned, but Mark wouldn't kill B.D. Edwards. (the animation for the ending that was used in Robotech: The Movie was itself edited to make it look like Mark Laundry kills the clone of B.D. Andrews)
And that movie was actually completed and presented to Cannon Films. Problem was that Cannon didn't like it. At all. They felt there was too many girls and there was hardly any giant robots. They wanted the movie to be changed. Now you'd think that all Carl Macek would have to do would be insert Macross footage in here and there and that would be fine right? Well I'm not too sure about this, but I think that due to the that two seperate studios own the original Macross series, Harmony Gold couldn't use any footage from the episodes in a movie.
Not being able to use the original cut of the movie and unable to use Macross footage, Macek's original plan was screwed and so he had to quickly put together a new cut of the movie. Keep in mind he is doing this while also working on The Sentinels too. Macek realised that he could no longer set the movie in the original timeline so he had to bump it up to around the second Robotech War saga, setting it two years before to act like a prequel of short. He decided to change all the characters surnames and he edited the footage together, took the audioless cut to Cannon Films and acted out the movie for them which the movie playing on the screen. Cannon approved this new cut and then the audio was added later.
Because of this, the original plan for Sentinels had to be changed too. Originally The Sentinels was just meant to be set a couple of years after the end of the first Robotech War and the cast of the Movie would be carried over to The Sentinels. I've seen an early character study image which actually used the original Macross designs for the characters of Rick, Lisa and so on in the Southern Cross style uniforms and they were also joined by Mark, Becky, B.D. and EVE II (who would be the original EVE in an android body) all of which were also in the Southern Cross style uniforms. Due to the fact that the movie was set ahead in the timeline and that Harmony Gold couldn't use the actual Macross character designs in animation, The Sentinels was bumped up several more years then originally planned. All the Macross characters were redesigned while all the movie characters were replaced. Mark became Jack Baker, Becky became Karen Penn, B.D. became T.R. Edwards and EVE II would become Janice Em.
Due to the fact that Harmony Gold no longer has the license to Megazone23, we'll mostly never get the finish movie on DVD, let alone the original cut of it as that has supposedly been destroyed in a flood.
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I'd heard about some of this before but you have given me a lot more information that I did not know so I appreciate that. I kinda wish I could see what Macek's original plans were for the original cut of the film now, but as you said we'll probably never see it. I do have a copy of the one that was finally released through Cannon though (a friend bought a copy offline that someone ripped from a VHS and put onto DVD) as well as a copy of all "three" parts of Megazone 23. So I could always imagine how he wanted to do it.
I heard that some of his plans were used in the Robotech novel "The Master's Gambit" as well, so maybe some of his other ideas from the first draft were incorporated. Thank you for all the new information, I had no idea that Mark was originally intended to be used in the Sentinels.
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I believe there are many fans who would like to see Macek's original plan for the movie. But things are a bit messy there. It's been confirmed that Tom Bateman (who works for Harmony Gold) has actually seen the script for the original version of the movie, it still exists in the HG archives, but has said that there is no evidence to suggest that the original cut was recorded and put together, despite what Macek has claimed.
Have you ever seen the "Galaxy of the Stars" DVD extra on the Robotech DVDs? It seems to be an event that HG put together in late 1985/early 1986 to celebrate the success of Robotech. During this short video you can a sign that states "Sneak Preview ROBOTECH THE MOVIE Scheduled for release in 1986 by Cannon Films" Now the little video is short in itself and nothing of this sneak preview is shown (for obvious legal reasons) but it's possible that the sneak preview which was shown was footage of the first cut.
A little while ago I stumbled across a series of video on youtube which were being labelled as Robotech Movie bonus videos. One was the TV spot which was included in the DVD sets, but actually featured Megazone footage (instead of just solely Southern Cross footage which the DVDs show but the most interesting one was an 8 minute long video which is very much similar to the Robotech II: The Sentinels promo reel (also on the DVDs) a selection of scenes from the movie to act as a little sneak peek. The interesting thing about this video though was the dialogue. All of the spoken dialogue in the video was complete different to the final version of the movie and it also showed scenes from Megazone (not included in the Robotech movie) with dialogue added and not a single scrap of Southern Cross footage to be seen at all. While it could be likely that HG merely put the video together, getting a few scenes and getting the voices actors to record some lines, its more then likely the footage is from the actual original cut of the movie and at least proves it was put together. Unfortunately, HG must have put out a cease and desist to the person who uploaded those videos as they are no longer on Youtube, but I was lucky enough to snag the videos before they were removed. They did the same to me because I had uploaded the actual movie to the site as I know it will be a long time before the movie gets a proper DVD release.
As for the Master's Gambit... I'm not too sure as I've never actually read the books, but I think it was actually just the author using elements from the finished movie, but not actually adapting it. Kind of like how despite the fact that both the Sentinels comics and novels were based off the original idea for the cancelled TV series, eventually the writers for both adaptions began to develop their own ideas.
And when you think about it, Mark being in the Sentinels does kind of make sense. Originally the plan was to have Mark and B.D. Edwards as bitter enemies (as following the end of the original cut of the movie). B.D. Edwards records of his crimes of trying to overthrow the United Earth Government would have been destroyed in the Zentradi attack which nearly destroyed the planet, hence why he would be part of the Robotech Expeditionary Force. Mark would be part of the RED to and it would be Mark who would try to reveal B.D. Edwards plans to the others since he knows what measures B.D. will go to. There it made sense, but when the plans had to be changed, Mark becoming Jack Baker and B.D. becoming T.R. Edwards, the subplot of being enemies still existed (probably by accident) but it made little sense.
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I've noticed with a lot of the newer material like the Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, they were showing a bit more of Edwards' back story. I wonder if any of that may have tied into some of Macek's plans.
I almost wish that they would go back and revisit some of these ideas again in the future since they have started using new animation (as evidenced with some of the Love Live Alive dvd release animation--mostly the final moments with Lancer and Sera).
I had no idea about all of this backstory with Mark or Jack in the past, just what I was able to pick up from watching the footage as is. I remember seeing a script floating around by another Robotech fan that used the Megazone story pretty much as it was originally from the OVA and made suggestions on stuff to crop in from other shows to create a bit better flow and story for what the movie could have been.
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That's how I felt too.
When I was told I would do the comic book adaption to Robotech Movie, I thought it was going to be Macross The Movie. So I started gathering references for that, but once I saw the tape they sent, I was surprised that it was a hack job between Megazone 23 & Southern Cross! Had to look for references all over again after that.
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Oh man that sucks, though I'm sure you did the best that you could given the circumstances.
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LOL, well... it was an interesting assignnment and experience.
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true enough, at least you learned from it, right?
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OH YEAH... I sure did. Several pages of part 1 was actually completed in the back of a moving van with no lights while driving to a FED-EX office before it closes at night.
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Wow that had to be quite the experience at the time.
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