There 's going to be spoilers, so just realize that up front.
I liked the TV show. I really did. I was sixteen, and somehow G.I. Joe and the Thundercats weren't cutting it for me in the entertainment department. For what it was, Robotech was way ahead of its peers.
But.
Robotech the Movie might've been okay in concept, but the actual execution was awful. "A" Robotech movie, maybe, but not THIS Robotech movie. With the original show, the three series that comprised it were seen in succession. Here, we have two unrelated anime intercut, and it shows. One of the components, Megazone 23, was shot on 35 millimeter; the other, the Southern Cross series, was on 16 millimeter. The design sense was radically different between the two anime, as well, and of course characters from the two shows never interacted, even though Harmony Gold had about ten minutes of new animation made for the ending-since Megazone had originally ended on a cliffhanger, and its sequel had completely different character designs, they needed to wrap things up somehow, after all. You'd think-or wish-that they'd had the sense to make some new footage bridging this gap. (Note: the english dub of Megazone part 2 that was dubbed by Harmony Gold for the japanese market and has been floating around for ages contains this extra footage at the beginning, even though it cannot possibly fit into the continuity of the original story.)
It could be expected that the resultant film would bear little or no similarity to the original Megazone 23, but it also utterly fails to fit into the continuity of Robotech. Supposedly taking place between the Macross and Southern Cross series, we have the Robotech Masters showing up five years before they "finally reach earth" AGAIN at the start of Southern Cross. The fact that one of their ships is brought down on earth and the Masters themselves speak to the head of the earth military makes one wonder how our heroes manage to completely forget that they've met, fought, and defeated these same enemies when they show up again. We also see Southern Cross fighters that aren't invented until halfway through the SC series showing up in this alleged prequel, and the same stock footage used for the "cloning of Zor" bits dropped into the later Macross episodes gets used again for the "cloning of B.D." part of this film.
Yes, that's right, the fascist militant antagonist B.D. from Megazone is now a good guy who is captured, cloned, and sent back as a saboteur, using the Zor Prime/Marlene plotline from the show YET AGAIN. What's hilarious, however, is that we never see any of this take place onscreen. The "good" B.D.'s voice is heard coming out of a mech early in the film, though we never see his face, and we never see anyone getting kidnapped at all. We hear one of the other pilots yelling, "Look over there! They're kidnapping the commander!" without seeing any of it happen, since there was no actual animation depicting this wholly made-up plot point. And while all the events onboard the space-travelling city in Megazone are now transposed to earth, they managed to leave in the part wherein the hero punctures the hull of the ship and drifts out into space without explaining what the hell just happened.
This film is best viewed the way one would view Plan 9 From Outer Space; no other way is likely to be enjoyable. I'll point out in closing that while Robotech's creator Carl Macek has in interviews denounced the preposterous way in which the voice actors in the film constantly go "huh?" and "wha?" and "eh?" throughout the whole film, the anime he's dubbing in present times (up through 2003) still contains this obnoxious approach to voice-over. Some folks never learn.
I liked the TV show. I really did. I was sixteen, and somehow G.I. Joe and the Thundercats weren't cutting it for me in the entertainment department. For what it was, Robotech was way ahead of its peers.
But.
Robotech the Movie might've been okay in concept, but the actual execution was awful. "A" Robotech movie, maybe, but not THIS Robotech movie. With the original show, the three series that comprised it were seen in succession. Here, we have two unrelated anime intercut, and it shows. One of the components, Megazone 23, was shot on 35 millimeter; the other, the Southern Cross series, was on 16 millimeter. The design sense was radically different between the two anime, as well, and of course characters from the two shows never interacted, even though Harmony Gold had about ten minutes of new animation made for the ending-since Megazone had originally ended on a cliffhanger, and its sequel had completely different character designs, they needed to wrap things up somehow, after all. You'd think-or wish-that they'd had the sense to make some new footage bridging this gap. (Note: the english dub of Megazone part 2 that was dubbed by Harmony Gold for the japanese market and has been floating around for ages contains this extra footage at the beginning, even though it cannot possibly fit into the continuity of the original story.)
It could be expected that the resultant film would bear little or no similarity to the original Megazone 23, but it also utterly fails to fit into the continuity of Robotech. Supposedly taking place between the Macross and Southern Cross series, we have the Robotech Masters showing up five years before they "finally reach earth" AGAIN at the start of Southern Cross. The fact that one of their ships is brought down on earth and the Masters themselves speak to the head of the earth military makes one wonder how our heroes manage to completely forget that they've met, fought, and defeated these same enemies when they show up again. We also see Southern Cross fighters that aren't invented until halfway through the SC series showing up in this alleged prequel, and the same stock footage used for the "cloning of Zor" bits dropped into the later Macross episodes gets used again for the "cloning of B.D." part of this film.
Yes, that's right, the fascist militant antagonist B.D. from Megazone is now a good guy who is captured, cloned, and sent back as a saboteur, using the Zor Prime/Marlene plotline from the show YET AGAIN. What's hilarious, however, is that we never see any of this take place onscreen. The "good" B.D.'s voice is heard coming out of a mech early in the film, though we never see his face, and we never see anyone getting kidnapped at all. We hear one of the other pilots yelling, "Look over there! They're kidnapping the commander!" without seeing any of it happen, since there was no actual animation depicting this wholly made-up plot point. And while all the events onboard the space-travelling city in Megazone are now transposed to earth, they managed to leave in the part wherein the hero punctures the hull of the ship and drifts out into space without explaining what the hell just happened.
This film is best viewed the way one would view Plan 9 From Outer Space; no other way is likely to be enjoyable. I'll point out in closing that while Robotech's creator Carl Macek has in interviews denounced the preposterous way in which the voice actors in the film constantly go "huh?" and "wha?" and "eh?" throughout the whole film, the anime he's dubbing in present times (up through 2003) still contains this obnoxious approach to voice-over. Some folks never learn.
