Robotech Director James Wan Must Avoid the Michael Bay Sydrome!

Perhaps the biggest grudge that us fans have about the latest Transformers franchise is the fact that director Michael Bay completely abandoned Marvel Comics and even Hasbro's legacy of the Transformers.  Perhaps the fact that Bumble Bee is a Camaro and Megatron is a tank says it all.  I mean I literally turned off my set when I saw the first 10 minutes of the movie.  I was just disappointed that Bay never paid homage to Shoji Kawamori the founding father of the toy mecha designs of Transformers.  (true story).

In case you are wondering, Robotech must pay homage to Mr. Kawamori because Robotech Macross Saga was written, drawn, and designed by Shoji Kawamori.  If they don't aggressively seek him to assist in the movie, then at least pay respect to the original designs.

In general James Wan (Saw, Insidious, Conjuring, Furious 7) has to make sure to avoid what Michael Bay and Transformers did.  I'll go back to the toy history for example.  Most of us Robotech fans know the history of the Veritech fighters, a.ka. VF-1 fighters.  They are jets that transforms into robots 50 feet tall to battle the Zentradi.  But in the toy world, it wasn't so clear.

That's because the company Bandai made the toys available for both Robotech as well as Transformers.  In other words, the same toy covered two franchises at the time.  If that's not confusing enough, they also represented different types of robots.

In Transformers, the VF-1 became Jetfire.  It was a hot seller because the toy was much more appreciated than the other Transformers toys.  The level of complexity and engineering was much higher quality for those toys.   On the other hand Robotech offered them as Veritech fighters.

To get around the lawsuits that Hasbro and Harmony Gold had towards each other, Transformers decided to switch the names and designs of the Jetfire character to today's Skyfire.  Confused?  Well this actually ties into the Robotech saga so listen closely.

First, not only did Marvel Comics or Hasbro abandon the original Jetfire design, they completely abandoned Japanese designs for their own American design.  Sound familiar?  (Transformers movies?)

Skyfire became this thing below.

Okay as a kid growing up we knew that Skyfire was the Jetfire toy but obviously as you can see it's completely off mark in regards to the character.  Skyfire and Jetfire looked different.

If that wasn't bad enough, well try Michael Bay.  Sure, he didn't bother to create new characters for the movie series, but he just totally ruined Skyfire.

I mean seriously?  Does this old bot look anything like Jetfire to you?  Does it pay homage to founding father Shoji Kawamori?  I mean I wonder what Kawamori thinks when he watches Transformers movies and realized they went from, Jetfire the toy, to Skyfire the diluted Jetfire, to this!?

And this is the reason why I say James Wan better pay homage!  This is what the Veritech fighter used to look like in the series.

And sure it looks like Jetfire the toy.  It's supposed to!  It's the same design.   But not a derivative like Skyfire.  And hopefully never towards the design by Michael Bay.  Yuck!

Remember folks, we are Robotech fans and we waited 30 years for this Sony film.  If James Wan has any respect, he'll beg Shoji Kawamori to join the group.  And include not just Harmony Gold as the rights owner, but Tatsunoko Pro and Big West to chime into the film as part of the team.

No dilutions in design please!  Keep the Veritechs in tact.

(Original Jetfire animation before the dispute with Robotech)

(Macross Do You Remember Love? Animated Movie)