[Akalabeth Angel]

Macross Plus was the last gasp of a truly decent Macross show; Macross Zero blew (storyline was AWFUL, combat was good), 7 and Frontier are just terrible IMO.

Macross Zero combat was good? Um, no it wasn't. The atmospheric dogfights were unrealistic. Someone needs to learn how to animate.

There was about 10 seconds of awesomeness in Macross Zero. And that's when the Mac II stepped out onto deck and fired a volley.

[Narvi]

No, actually Super Dimensional Fortress Macross was originally about making fun of Gundam and some other robot animes (witness the "falling into the cockpit" parody that was its first couple episodes). Then it was about making fun of the stupidities of Space Battleship Yamato and being ridiculously awesome. The music is a multi-series plot tumor resulting from having to give Minmei a reason why she could ever be of interest in comparison to lady Hayes.

The love triangle threesome setup is, at its best, highly subjective. Sure, I can see how you got that, but most people I've talked to see a clear Sheryl win ahead of it in the probablity rankings.

The use of singing as a battle tactic and the Jammer Birds/Sound Force come to mind from 7, and it's never quite recovered from that. Frontier is gleefully unrehabilitated, a giant step backwards from Zero.

The original conception does not necessarily matter compared to how it eventually ended up.

And, my god, Zero was terrible. It started out good but then... bam, terrible!

Plus would technically be good, if all the characters weren't such douchebags.

Yeah, god forbid that the first episode of a show that premiered on the 25th anniversary of Macross includes a few callbacks to the original.  

You don't even know what the plot is about, I bet.

No I can't say I do. The series hasn't been released in North America.

All I saw was some city fight with some Valkyries and some whatever aliens and I thought "oh, this is the part where Hikaru saves Minmei. He's going to fly up, his arm will get shot off and then he'll pull her into the cockpit" and then what happened? Oh exactly what I predicted. Except instead of pulling her into the cockpit he ejects from his fighter on a bungie cord, grabs her in mid air and then the cord retracts. What the hell is that crap???

And the aliens. Well, see the thing is if they're doing the same story, which, essentially it looks like they are. Then having some "creatures" instead of the Zentraedi is kinda lame because instead of having any sort of morality like "we're fighting aliens that just look like humans" they're fighting some monsters and no one cares if they get slaughtered.

So basically same story, but crappier, from what I can tell.


I'll give it a chance when it hits North America, I'll probably even buy the thing. After all I've seen every other Macross except Macross 7, and I own most of them. But the latest one I saw, Macross Zero was pretty much crap. Frontiers look very good, but it looked like what I already own so . . . if that turns out to be case in full I'll be disappointed.

The series is never going to get released in North America. There's a huge rights kerfluffle over it. And the main character can fly. He's got this whole flight-suit dealy, so it's less stupid than it looks.

Yes, Zero had the worst ending in the world.

Look, the evil bug alien thing is actually handled pretty well. They aren't Zentraedi, and how they're dealt with is somewhat different, but it's not like the show considers it okay to kill them just because they're evil bug aliens. They actually get some characterization, despite being aliens. It's one of the biggest sources of drama in the show, where there are people who just want to kill the bugs and those who... don't.

Spoiler:

Hell, there's even a big-ass conspiracy in the shadows.

Hell, even the whole combat singing thing got a bunch of strings attached.

Stuff like this only really becomes apparent like ten episodes in though. It's kinda bland before that. Not bad, bland.

It's rather annoying that most series with "realistic" walkers always assume that they are going to replace tanks, instead of simply filling a specialized combat role.

I rather like how MGS4 did it. Walkers only around twice the height of a man, deployed mainly within combat areas, and they serve the specific role of anti-insurgent warfare. Mind you, they were absurdly maneuverable.

You're confusing the "real robot" genre with "realistic robot". Real robot shows merely handled mecha as another weapon platform, but at heart (mainly due editor/producer interference and fanwank) were still initially "kidshows" and later on retained a lot of these aspects because producers needed the gimmicks to sell the show.

However there are a couple of "realistic" robot shows out there: Gasaraki is a prime example and the GITS mechas are the ur-example.

You forgot Patlabor.

[Akalabeth Angel]

The series is never going to get released in North America. There's a huge rights kerfluffle over it.

Is it Harmony ****ing gold again?

See that's the thing. Harmony Gold had the rights to Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeada and with that they created Robotech.

But why would they have rights to Macross 7, Zero, Plus, Frontier, II or Macross the Movie????
I honestly don't get it. Different shows. Different designs. Etcetera and so on . . .  can't be any worse that Robotech: Shadow Chronicles, which I think was okay except the only thing I remember from that movie is every woman on it had huge breasts. I mean, make one woman voluptous, sure, but every one of them?? bleah . . .

Or is it something else????

[Narvi]

Oh, that too. But it's also got to do with the songs rights. Again, it is huge and complicated and beyond the ken of mortal men.

[TrashMan]

Anything which draws inspiration from the F-14 is bound to be awesome. This is undisputable.

Hear, hear!

That said, I don't really recall VF-1's fighting in melee in Macross/Robotech. They'd usually avoid it.
And when they did it it was usually in an area where it could be done. (like towns. hiding behind a building and clobering an enemy as he passes the corner - you can do that in real life)
That said, VF-1's were crazily manuverable and they could close distances extreemly fast (they're friggin supersonic jets. By the time you raise your gun it's already behind you).
Also, Macross is not about music. At least it wasn't. The Zentradi were already on the fence in regards to fighting or joining humans. And since most never heard music, it was a good method to confuse them or push them off the fence. As such it's use actually had some sense.
The sequels turned the power of music and love into a universal weapon. Don't even get me started on that HORRIBLE Macross 7 and rock stars flying fighters with guitars.
Zero had a crappy story, but I liked Roy and the battles were awesome.

To quote The SpoonyOne: "Macross 7 sucks and you suck for liking it!"


***
The thing irks me the most about giant robots is the CONTROLS. Especially when several viechles/mecha merge into one robot. How the hell do you control such thing with any precision?
I liked the way VoE did it - mecha were somewhat sluggish because there was a lot of mass to move. And they way  they were controlled made sense.

[Ghostavo]

I've always found Full Metal Panic's interpretation of mechas to be more realistic (apart from the whole lambda drive thing) than Gundam's or Macross. Of course this being anime, realism is still very far away.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Armoured Trooper Votoms and/or Heavy Gear is the most realistic I've seen. Military-application wise anyway.

Though I've not seen FMP.

[Commander Zane]

Heavy Gear's realism comes from the fact that you're piloting basically an armored suit, it's practical, and being anything from three meters tall at the smallest up to six meters tall at the largest, it's a lot more possible.

Although realism game-wise, Heavy Gear 1 was where it was at, it was very difficult to get a light chassis to hold a Snub Cannon or the Light Railgun, Heavy Gear 2 botched it all up by making it possible for something like the Cheetah hold a ****ing Very Light Field Cannon and Very Heavy Autocannon on the same loadout and still go its top speed.

[Flaser]

Humongous mecha will never make sense. It's just too damn big. Both as a target and as mass to haul around. Another thing I don't get is why almost no-one designs non-humanoid mecha (beside GITS and the short by Studio 4C called Higan).

The tank is the best ground based weapon platform to take ground. (Artillery will be always more powerful and holding ground is infantry's specialty). If you make advances in robotics and/or mechatronics (this is an actual field of engineering, but instead building mecha it's a fusion of mechanic and electronic engineering and focuses on the controls of integrated systems) why don't you upgrade/redesign the tank first and foremost?

In any era where you'd have mecha - the most likely role is in logistics, S&R, and hauling artillery and AA through impossible terrain - and power armor (which would pretty much function as how mecha is portrayed in anime) you'd have tanks and AFVs that will put our current hardware to shame. They'd have very nimble and sturdy locomotion, redundant transmission systems and an integrated weapons suite that will be death to anything the operator so much as "blinks" at funny (or anything if he puts it on "all-targets-assumed-hostile" mode).

[Roanoke]

I liked Macross Zero. I enjoyed watching VFs launch from an aircraft carrier. The story was a bit odd, not helped by really inconsistent subtitles but I wasn't really bothered tbh.

[StarSlayer]

I liked the tanks from the 2nd GitS SAC episode that got blown up at the very begining, they looked like a modern MBT that could actually convert its transmission to walk on its treads. 

[NGTM-1R]

The original conception does not necessarily matter compared to how it eventually ended up.

And, my god, Zero was terrible. It started out good but then... bam, terrible!

Actually, it does. Gundam said so. (One of the main reasons 00 and Seed were/are bad is because they lost the formula.)

Zero had massive, gaping plotholes simply by existing, but it was the only series that ditched the singing except for a few, easily stomache'd songs. I had high hopes about the direction it appeared to be taking the franchise with less song-based bullcrap. Whatever else it did, that was rehabiliating the series.

Then Frontier goes back to it. Goddammit.

[Thaeris]

I'm going to have to agree with StarSlayer on the tank design, there. Still very mechanically complex and thus undoubtably fragile, but such a configuration could be a great help in urban combat situations where heavy debris could inhibit mobility. And, if the tank commander deemed raising the shilouette would be a good idea, he might be able to achieve some helicopter-like abilities such as popping up to take a shot from cover, crouching back down to normal height, then moving to a different position. I'd love to see that in action in a non-over-the-top series... but non-over-the-top is almost counter-anime... A more plausible design might be derived from wheeled multi-limbed rovers being studied by NASA at this time. In the next 20 years I would not at all be surprised to see new MBT designs with wheels instead of treads.

In any sense, Ghost in the Shell has to be one of the best mixes between plausible tech and pure fancy. It's the only series I've seen that could bring back the anti-tank rifle... and make it awesome! (no, the sniper rifle from Gurren Lagann doesn't count!)

Regardless, as pure walkers go, the "power suit" (you know the iterations... StarCraft, Ghost in the Shell, Warhammer even...) will inevitable be a reality in some form, I'm certain. Other than that, the farthest I'd go is for something like the Goliath from SC. But, I've said that before...

-Thaeris

[Roanoke]

so, uh, why do we hate Macross Zero ? 

[QuantumDelta]

so, uh, why do we hate Macross Zero ? 

Raging mecha fans who don't really care about plots , wanting Macross to return to the original SDF micky-take formula rather than the genre defining brilliance it became.

[Mongoose]

I do find the wangsting about Macross's infatuation with music to be a bit amusing, since from all accounts, the song sequence in the film Macross: Do You Remember Love is considered by many old-timers to be one of the defining moments of anime as a whole.  I tend to very much favor the Rule of Cool myself, so I'd probably agree with them.

[NGTM-1R]

so, uh, why do we hate Macross Zero ?  

Giant Space Mecha From Nowhere when we had a perfectly serviceable revenge/war plot going already.

...and of course the girl who freaked out because the UN brought, y'know, electric lighting to her village. (Particularly in that environment, where you could just have walked about a half-mile, or less, and been in total darkness again.) That was a real low point.

[Stormkeeper]

... I thought this was about the plausibility of giant robots in combat. But it seems like a disucssion over Macross now...

[Roanoke]

so, uh, why do we hate Macross Zero ?  

Giant Space Mecha From Nowhere when we had a perfectly serviceable revenge/war plot going already.

...and of course the girl who freaked out because the UN brought, y'know, electric lighting to her village. (Particularly in that environment, where you could just have walked about a half-mile, or less, and been in total darkness again.) That was a real low point.

uh, i think you missed the point there ? Sara (I think ?) wanted the village to be isolationist and shun technology after that Dr dude got a hold of her blood, betaying her shamen oath. Doesn't seem so crappy to me ?

[Thaeris]

Well, this was a thread originally split from discussion of the VF-1 fighter in terms of practicality. It's inherently Macross to some degree.

If I'll propose a "practical" walker again, picture this: You're dealing with incredibly rocky terrain - probably mountainous. I'm envisioning something like a modern MBT with six legs. On the legs themselves are a set of "retractible wheels" which can be lowered when on normal, traversable terrain. The legs are "simple," they only have one joint on the "leg" itself; this does not include the sliding mechanism found on the wheel assembly or the attachment to the hull of the tank. Mechanical operation is via "synthetic muscle;" hydraulics for a practical walker would be either too slow or fragile for combat work. Wheel power would be electric. The tank would thus have a conventional engine turning a generator to supply power to the limbs/wheels.

Long range is questionable... If you're operating in a mountain range, you're going to be using a LOT of energy to get around. On open ground, the vehicle might be outplaced by conventional tanks in terms of overall mobility due to the wheels. Because of the wheels, it might be faster, though. And because the wheels are on legs, you'd have uber-suspension. Of course, comfort is not the primary concern of a combat vehicle.

Operationally, the vehicle might have similar capabilities as noted in my prior post. However, I really do like the possible application for mountain troops. On a smaller scale, picture something like a jeep-sized "Big Dog" with six legs. Now, mount an infantry-howitzer on it. Now, the troops aren't weighed down with carrying a pack gun and its ammunition. Now, it carries itself! I wouldn't be surprised to see things like that in the future.