Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles

I just ordered this and it's hard to believe it's been over 20 years of Robotech with Shadow Chronicles already out, and some otakus still have issues over Macross and Robotech. Every Macross/Robotech fan has to have their likes and dislikes. Well here's some of the things I recall over the last 20 years of Macross/Robotech.Robotech became an anime series phenomenon next to Star Wars that consisted of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Super Dimensional Cavalry - Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. Macross became widely popular in Japan until Harmony Gold bought the rights to all three shows, altered some of the characters, edited some of the most shocking and violent scenes to make the series "safer" for kids to view and rewrote the storylines that would tie all three shows together.Macross, S.D. Cavalry, and Genesis Climber are originally three separate shows that had nothing to do with each other. Genesis Climber was the less popular show in Japan while Macross and S.D. Cavalry were successful. Harmony Gold changed Cavalry's Lt. Jeanne's name to Dana Sterling tying the series with Macross' Max and Myria as their daughter. After Genesis Climber/New Generation ended, Robotech II: The Sentinels movie (originally was to be a 15 episode series) reveals the beginning of who the Invid were and how they invaded Earth. But for The Sentinels movie you see Dana with Max and Myria for a brief time while Rick and Lisa were going to get married including Minmay realizing she had to move on with her life. But the Invid were already beginning their invasion by attacking the Zors/Robotech Masters who meet their demise which leads to Genesis Climber/New Generation.After the success of Macross series, the creators decided to make a movie version of the series. Now here is where a percentage of fans disliked about the movie. The story was choppy and I agree with what they are saying but here's the problem, when you make an animated movie from a series consisting of 36 episodes, how are you going to squeeze 900 minutes into a 115 minute movie? If you're the director, you have to make some really hard choices on what and what not to put in. The movie itself centers around the highlighted moments from the series. Yet the story remains the same. There are two versions of the Macross movie. There's Clash of the Bionoids and S.D.F. Macross: Do You Remember Love. Clash of the Bionoids is the English dubbed edited version where a U.S. distributor hacked off 30 mins. of footage with some important scenes that should've remained. Setting aside Myria's massacre attack on the Zentrans, I was so disappointed with 50% of Minmay's "Do You Remember Love," song with Rick blasting away Bedolza's head were edited out. However, I was relieved the uncut, unedited, Japanese dialogue version, S.D.F. Macross, came out on Ebay. The story from the movie may be choppy but the animation is fantastic. Despite every Robotech fans' fixation on the series, the movie itself has some moments that are a different variation from what we know. For instance, Max and Myria's dogfight leading to her ship. In the series, Max persues her but Myria manages to make her getaway onboard her ship. In the movie, Max persues her all the way into her ship where she tries a sneak attack ambush, Max dodges her firing and their fight continues. What I disliked about the series was during the big battle in space with the Zentrandi and Bedolza. The battle was extended with stock footage looping numerous times with Minmay's cheesy "We Will Win," song. Even Bedolza's battle fortress looked totally lame as an oval shaped asteroid compared to the movie version.Macross Zero is a 5 volume series about Roy Faulker and events that took place sometime before the Zentrandi invasion. In the beginning, Rick/Hikaru is there for a short time to reveal some early moments of their friendship. Roy learns more about himself while fighting in the Union War. As Zero reaches its climax, signs of premonition reveal near future events will occur from what we know from Macross/Robotech. Macross II, Macross 7 and Macross Plus are sequels that take place several hundred years after the end of the Zentrandi and Meltrandi War.Now we have The Shadow Chronicles Movie where some of the leading characters are from Genesis Climber. With Rick Hunter missing along with the other characters from Macross and Southern Cross. Some fans aren't satisfied with how this movie came about but last year from the Robotech website, they recommended the fans to get the comic-book mini-series of The Shadow Chronicles before the movie came out because it tells the prior half of the story that may have most of the characters from all three shows. But others say the absence of Rick, Lisa, Minmay, Max, Myria and Dana from the movie were due to licensing agreements with the original creators. I have yet to get the comic-book mini-series and to my surprise the Invid are still around after Genesis Climber when Scott Bernard will face a new threat while searching for Rick and SDF-3. And some fans are criticizing over the CGI battle scenes and how some of the female characters were drawn? Please remember Harmony couldn't get the same artists and animators from the old series after 20 years, the characters have to look more grown up as well as we are.

I thought Robotech:The Shadow Chronicles was a terrific beginning (hopefully) for a new sequel to the original Robotech. I am a huge fan and loved every minute of it. But as usual die hard fans have to critisize it. Where's Rick & Lisa? It is to Mospeda themed? etc. What did you expect, Rick Hunter to come flying in on Skull One to save the day. It's a sequel for God's sake. I thought it was great, creating new characters like Marcus Rush (Scott's dead girlfriend Marlene's little brother). Robotech is a multi-generation series and always has been. The original covered 3 generations and 3 wars. What was nice about The Shadow Chronicles was the way they represented the 3 generation even the imcomplete Robotech II:The Sentinels. Vince Grant (Claudia Grant's brother- Macross), Scott Bernard & Ariel (The New Generation) JANICE (The Sentinels) & Maia Sterling (Max & Miriya's daughter and Dana's sister - Macross & Masters). I thought Maia was the biggest suprise. Anyone who read the comics Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles would remember Rick saying that "There's more than one Sterling who can lead the Skull Squadron..." On the next page you see Dana walking by Maia and her team and assume that they meant Dana. But in fact Maia is Dana's little sister and commander of Skull Squadron. You can already see tension between her and Marcus (Rick & Lisa all over again). For those who said it was missing females in command positions and dorky guys, you must have missing Miai & Marcus and Vince & Jean and as always Scott & Ariel. The one complaint is that they did it as a feature film which left little time to really develope the new characters. Hopefully, this is just a pilot to a new series. I'm ready for more.

We all know that some of the animation in Shadow Chronicles is computer-generated; my question is, so what? I had no trouble telling that an Alpha fighter was an Alpha, or that an Invid scout was a scout. The dedication to reproducing the original mecha in updated style was obvious. To me, these updates didn't diminish the Robotech legacy, they just brought it into the twenty-first century.Will people complain? Of course--a great many supposed fans of Robotech still complain that Carl Macek made the series at all, preferring the "original" Japanese storylines of the show's three unrelated components. These purists will certainly have no love for Shadow Chronicles, nor should we expect them to. I thought that the new mecha animations looked great, and I appreciated that the characters and other scenery were traditionally animated. Surprisingly, these didn't seem out of sync.The storyline in Shadow Chronicles is setting the stage for something, a precursor to an expanded Robotech tale that goes beyond what was seen in the original trilogy. It also goes beyond and in some cases against what Robotech fans may know from the Jack McKinney novels; this is not surprising, because McKinney's novels themselves were out of sync with the show in several important ways. It is a bit tricky, though, because in the case of the Sentinels saga (i.e. what the REF and Admiral Hunter were up to halfway across the galaxy while Earth was fighting the Second Robotech War), there IS no show to fall back on for most of it. Whatever we as fans know of the storyline comes from the novels.Is that a problem? It doesn't have to be. Shadow Chronicles is, as I mentioned, clearly a pilot for a new Robotech storyline. Provided that new storyline helps us learn the key points of what happened "off stage" regarding the Haydonites, etc., we could seamlessly be brought up to speed on the Sentinels storyline as it was assumed when making this film (rather than the storyline from the books). Among these key points: how the Haydonites rose to such power so quickly after the fall of Invid Regent; why their world was spared outright destruction by the Regent if the Invid knew that they were responsible for the destruction of Optera; the relationship between the Haydonites and the Robotech Masters, who seem to have been Haydonite agents of sorts but clearly were Protoculture users; and how Louis Nichols came to be part of the REF by the time of the attack on Reflex Point (which was not the case in the books).These are areas of opportunity, though, where Harmony Gold can expand and enhance the Robotech storyline. They're not "flaws" in the storyline. Robotech: Shadow Chronicles fits nicely with the conclusion of the original series and lays the foundations for a new Robotech saga. If Shadow Chronicles is a bit light on personal development, I'd suggest that you rewatch the first 2-3 episodes of each of the original Robotech series; it takes time for characters to become real.

great product amazing loved it.work well and ontime

Shadow Chronicles is a US-made sequel of Robotech, the US hacked-together compilation of three separate Japanese anime series, Macross, Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada.. It brings back some of the key characters as the Martian expeditionary force comes back to liberate Earth. There's plenty of action in the movie and the characters are fairly true to the way they were portrayed in the English dub of Robotech. Unfortunately, there was no follow-up.I was able to buy the blu-ray when it was released. Recently a friend of mine decided he wanted a copy but the bluray is now much too expensive. Buy this dvd instead if you want to see the story.

I liked it very good

On l'a attendu 20ans, la suite de la série Culte Robotech, ce film est un véritable film de science fiction filmé en Haute Définition, son 5.1 et DTS en Français et VO sous titré Français.Le scénario est bien pensé, l'image est superbe malgré une certaine raideur dans les mouvements de personnages, mais l'action est omniprésente et on en redemande :).A noter que ce film bénéficie du musique orchestré par Scott Glasgow avec l'orchestre philharmonique de Prague, du pure bonheur digne d'un Star Wars ;-)TF1 Vidéo nous a gâté en sortant directement cette édition avec les bonus de la version double DvD collector américaine TOUS sous-titré en Français !!!MISE à JOUR POUR LA VERSION BLU-RAY: Une version attendue mais un peu décevante car même si on gagne un peu en définition, les bonus sont ABSENTS ! D'où une certaine frustration, car je suis obligé de garder la version DvD pour conserver les bonus... Une version donc réservée pour les fans de Haute Définition; Pour les autres la qualité du DvD est largement suffisante.

A good updated version of Robotech that captures the feel and adventure of the 1980's series and brings it to a new audience. Though the lack of scene selection options are mildly annoying and the special features are limited this is still a very good buy that I would recommend both to old and new Robotech fans as well as anyone looking to try something new.