It's always fun to write about what will happen to the Robotech franchise. I already know what Tommy Yune and Harmony Gold are attempting to do with their mediocre property rights to the franchise. They are attempting to move away from Macross in favor of their own art direction and story plot. However, we all know that Masters and New Generation just don't suffice to continue the Robotech franchise. Macross is it. We all know it. Without the Veritech fighters, and Lynn Minmay the franchise is pretty much dead.
Sony Pictures must move past the first ever Robotech movie in favor of an anthology plot. In many ways Carl Macek attempted to create a trilogy with three different generations of Robotech, but he then went ahead and created the fourth generation Robotech under Shadow Chronicles which ultimately didn't do what it was promised to do.
Robotech fans are a bit off in terms of the Macross origins, but there's nothing stopping from the next generation of Robotech fans to adore the origins of Macross through Shoji Kawamori, the author and founder of Macross. Not to mention the father of a lot of the G1 Transformers toys.
The anthology will fall under a different direction. For me, SDF Macross will be the entire premise of the series, but within the plots will be three or four different movies. The first will be the Zentradi invasion of Earth and the SDF-1 Macross defending U.N. Spacey only to fail. After all in DYRL? We know that SDF-1 fails to save Earth. It's desolated and destroyed before they can return from Pluto.
The art direction can be true to Macross but maybe removing the 1980's style jets in favor of more Gen 5 fighter jets of present. I'm assuming that the F-22A Raptor and F-35B are favored over the old F-14 fighters. Also, there has been other properties that had made its way into America. Manga Entertainment under permission of Harmony Gold released two other Japanese Macross movies. Macross II Lovers Again and Macross Plus.
Both continue the legacy of the original SDF Macross series and is easily adaptable to the Robotech franchise although why Harmony has never done this is a mystery to me. There are a lot of fans of Macross II even though most people hated it. It was at a time when Shoji Kawamori was not brought back on board as a director and the VF designs were completely off from the original VF-1 fighters.
I adored this movie because it continued the DYRL? time line. For me, the idea of a second invasion by the Marduk another race which existed within the Zentradi forces was interesting. But instead of controlling the Zentradi via Lynn Minmay, they used Emulators which were Marduk females who sing songs of war.
The premise might be weak compared to the original Shoji Kawamori Macross series, but it suffices as a second feature film. Here's the issue, they should not abandon Lynn Minmay and Rick Hunter in the process. I do believe they need to add in the new characters like Hideki and Ishtar. I'm definitely hoping for additions of Silvie and other characters, but of course we have to kill off other characters like Roy Fokker and Ben Dixen in the first film.
The third installment might have to include the Shoji Kawamori film Macross Plus. Most SDF Macross fans adore Plus. It's back to the origins of fighter pilots and jets. Of course this particular movie is a different timeline which includes Zentradi forces as part of the U.N. Spacey. If that sounds odd it's not. This is long after the war with the Zentradi and Earth is slowly reconstructing.
For me, Plus is a good premise but with much more intent. For me, the movie should include a fully recovered Earth and a stronger U.N. Spacey. In this timeline, Rick Hunter and Lynn Minmay must still exist. However, we can add the mixture of the Zentradi characters and the new fighter pilots. The addition of Sharon Apple as the IA is a gift to the saga.
Earth now has the capability of controlling forces using artificial intelligence. And that's important because this character can out last just about every other character in terms of timeline. Now some of you will frown that the movie series doesn't include Scott Bernard and the Invid.
I'm not saying remove them at all. I say add these characters back into the story plot along the Macross timeline. In other words, we shouldn't abandon the SDF-1 as a defense ship throughout the entire anthology. Instead, James Wan should add SDF-2 and even Frontier. They should add dozens of other space fortresses to potentially add spin off movies and even a TV deal.
In many aspects James Wan could make this one of the largest franchises in history of Hollywood. That's because there has been so many spin offs of Macross that it has gained dozens of lawsuits. For instance, some will argue that Jetfire is a Macross toy. So Transformers and Robotech had a run in. Others say that Battletech and Robotech used the exact same toys. And it's true, Battletech did use VF-1 fighters, but hey it also spinned off over 200 novels in the book industry. Battletech couldn't have happened without the Macross toys.
Others will point to MechWarriors which is another spin off franchise which has existed for decades in the video game world. Basically Macross toys were used for all these franchised which made fans crossover rather easily.
The characters in Robotech never really cross. That has to due with the fact that they are different generations. Also Carl Macek put together three different cartoons. However, in the new anthology none of the main characters have to be removed. In other words, keep adding the main characters to the series without removing the old.
If they do this, then it's possible to stretch Macross out beyond the movies and into TV and video games. It's also possible spawn a franchise that involves its own convention like that of Star Trek and Star Wars.
Sony has something here. And considering that they are in dire straights, the time is now to expand Robotech.
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