| Robotech: The Movie | |
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| Directed by | Noboru Ishiguro Carl Macek |
| Produced by | Ahmed Agrama Toru Miura |
| Screenplay by | Ardwight Chamberlain |
| Story by | Carl Macek |
| Music by | Three Dog Night |
| Cinematography | Yoshizaki Kenichi |
| Editing by | Jonathon Braun Nishide Eiko |
| Studio | Harmony Gold USA Tatsunoko Uncredited: AIC |
| Distributed by | Cannon Films (USA) Vestron (Belgium) International Video Entertainment (Spanish) The Rank Group (UK) |
| Release date(s) | July 25, 1986 (limited test run) |
| Running time | 82 minutes |
| Country | United States Japan |
| Language | English |
Robotech: The Movie is a 1986 American-Japanese science fiction animated film based on the Robotech TV series and Robotech franchise created by Harmony Gold USA. The 1986 theatrical film used footage from part one of Megazone 23 spliced with The Southern Cross and had only a tenuous link to the television series.
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According to interviews with director/producer/co-writer Carl Macek, the project had originally been intended to be more of a straight dub of Megazone 23 with dialogue and music changes to reflect the Robotech universe. As originally conceived, it was set during the return of the SDF-1 from Pluto with the protagonist Mark Landry, a relative of Rick Hunter, finding out about the government's coverup of the SDF-1's fate, and Landry fighting to make the information known.
However, at the time, Tatsunoko Productions was involved in promoting its own Macross movie, Do You Remember Love, and insisted that Macek not use elements of the Macross story, so as to avoid possible confusion.[1] Also, distributor Cannon Films felt there were "too many girls and not enough robots and guns," and did not like Megazone's downer ending, either.[2] Thus, Macek rewrote the story to take place shortly before the Second Robotech War, cut segments of Southern Cross footage into it, and commissioned animation studio The Idol Co. to animate a new ending (which was later included on the laserdisc of Megazone 23, Part II). The new version involved the Robotech Masters kidnapping and replicating veteran officer B.D. Andrews to steal the memory core of the SDF-1.
Because Megazone 23 (an OVA) and Southern Cross (a TV series) were shot on different film stock, 35mm and 16mm respectively, the visual inconsistency was very noticeable on the big screen.
The B.D. Andrews character was named B.D. Edwards in the original cut of the Robotech movie. Taking place during in the Macross saga timeframe, it was the intention that he was to be a younger version of the Colonel Edwards that would later appear in Robotech II: The Sentinels which was in the planning stages at the time. However, the rejection of the first cut of the movie involved relocating the time frame to the Robotech Masters era. Because Edwards would be elsewhere during that time frame, the name of the character was changed to B.D. Andrews, and he was made into a colonel of earth's defense forces who would become abducted and replaced by a Master's simulagent. Also, the Colonel Edwards that does appear in Sentinels was eventually named T. R. Edwards.
The movie disappeared from the United States after a failed test-run in Texas that lasted only a few weeks. One cause for its poor performance was believed to be poor advertising (commercials promoting the movie appeared only at 6:00am). In addition, the movie faced stiff competition from The Transformers: The Movie, which was released at the same time and with a much bigger advertising budget.
However, the biggest problem by far was the disappointment of fans with the film's extremely tenuous connection with the original series. Another complicating factor was the film's adult themes which (although not as pronounced as in the original Megazone 23) reportedly led some parents to remove their children from the theatre before the movie was finished, as many deemed the movie to be inappropriate for young children. (For example: The main female lead, Becky, was nearly raped at the film's midway point, and there was considerably more violence throughout the film than in the TV series, such as the president being shot in the head on-screen and a man being shown crushed under a car with blood splattered out from underneath.)
In other territories such as Argentina and Belgium, it ran successfully in cinemas and had a VHS release in Spanish (by International Video Entertainment) and with Dutch subtitles (by Vestron Video), respectively. Harmony Gold relinquished its license to Megazone 23 after director Carl Macek washed his hands of the project, so home video releases were limited to the few VHS tapes that had been in limited circulation in Europe and Latin America.
Some animatics and other supplemental material were released as extras with ADV Films' Robotech DVD release.
In 2011, A&E Home video released, as a part of their Robotech: The Complete Series collection, a 29-minute version of Robotech The Movie. This version contains only footage used from The Southern Cross, with a disclaimer stating the film "has been edited for licensing and content." The plot focuses mainly on the battles between The Robotech Masters and the Army of The Southern Cross, with the main plot of B.D. Andrews being referred to mostly through dialogue. This version does, however, retain the end original credits of the film, crediting many characters and songs that never appear in it.
After ADV Films acquired the home video rights to Megazone 23, some fans have held hope that a home video release of Robotech: The Movie would again be possible. However, neither ADV nor any other distributor has announced plans for a DVD or Blu-ray release of the film. Any potential release of the movie is considered extremely unlikely since the movie's original negatives were destroyed in a flood of the studio in the mid-1990s; and a release based on available copies of the movie would be of very low quality.[2] However, blackmarket copies of the movie have reportedly made their way onto the Internet due to file sharing.
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