Robotech: The Movie

This article is about the 1986 animated film. For other uses, see Robotech (disambiguation).
Robotech: The Movie

Film poster
Directed by Noboru Ishiguro
Carl Macek
Produced by Ahmed Agrama
Toru Miura
Screenplay by Ardwight Chamberlain
Story by Carl Macek
Music by Ulpio Minucci
Arlon Ober
Cinematography Yoshizaki Kenichi
Edited by Jonathon Braun
Nishide Eiko
Production
company
Distributed by The Cannon Group
Release dates
 July 25, 1986
(limited test run)
Running time
 82 minutes
29 minutes
(A&E version)
Country United States
Japan
Language English

Robotech: The Movie, also called Robotech: The Untold Story, 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.

Plot

In the year 1999, the alien spacecraft SDF-1 crashed on Earth, followed ten years later by the alien Zentraedi, seeking to reclaim the vessel for their rulers, the Robotech Masters. The First Robotech War erupted over the vessel, ending with victory for humankind, at the cost of the SDF-1 itself. Now, in 2027, the Robotech Masters themselves arrive in Earth’s Solar System, aiming to recover the ship’s still-functional mother computer, being studied at Earth’s Robotech Research Center in Japan. The Masters launch a covert attack on a small human settlement, killing Colonel B.D. Andrews of the Army of the Southern Cross and secretly replacing him with a clone. Following a disastrous attack by the ASC on the Masters’ flagship, the Andrews clone proposes that the military take charge of use the mother computer to formulate a defense against the Masters. When his proposal is approved, he secretly begins beaming the contents of the computer’s database to the Masters, after which they plan to destroy the Earth.

Suspicious over the military’s decision to hide the Masters’ existence from the populous, soldier Todd Harris steals the "MODAT 5" - a mobile terminal remotely connected to the mother computer in the form of a motorcycle - and seeks help from his friend Mark Landry, telling him to contact “Eve”. Troops under the Andrews clone’s command accost the pair, and Todd dies in an escape attempt before he can fully explain everything to Mark. Mark manages to escapes with the MODAT 5, but unaware of its true significance, winds up merely using it as a prop in an amateur movie being shot by Kelly, a friend of his girlfriend, aspiring dancer Becky Michaels.

Seeing a music video from popular idol Eve, Mark presumes that she was who Todd wanted to contact and telephones her talk show to tell her about the MODAT. The call is traced by Andrews’s men, leading to a freeway chase during which the bike automatically reconfigures into a humanoid mecha form to fend off Mark's attackers. Mark proceeds to sneak into the TV studio from which Eve’s show is broadcast and discovers that the singer is not a real person at all, but a holographic projection. Eve explains that she is the artificial intelligence of the SDF-1’s computer, and informs Mark of the Masters' plan. Eve leads Mark to the Robotech Research Center, where Mark engages and defeats “Andrews” in a mecha battle, but accidentally lets slip the existence of Kelly’s film footage of the MODAT. Escaping, Mark attempts to warn Becky, but his recent distractedness has alienated her, and it is not until he rescues her from being sexually assaulted by an unscrupulous dance show director that the pair reconcile.

ASC forces under the command of Rolf Emerson stage another attack on the Masters’ fleet, and again meet with failure thanks to Andrews using the mother computer to feed them bad data and control their movements. When a concerned technician reports Andrews’s suspicious actions to Professor Embry, head of the Ministry of Computer Sciences, the computer is ordered to be shut down. Andrews stages a coup and takes control of the Japanese government, ordering the computer reactivated and the transmission of its database resumed. Amid the chaos of the coup, Kelly is killed by Andrews’s men and her film of the MODAT is stolen. Realizing the threat Andrews poses, Embry prepares to depart for Alaska Base, location of a secondary terminal that will allow him to take control of the computer, but is delayed by waiting for his daughter Stacy – Kelly’s roommate – to join him.

The Masters’ flagship descends to Earth and they deliver an ultimatum to the ASC, but in doing so, reveal the link between the computer and their vessel. Exploiting the link to discern a weak spot in the Masters’ defenses, the ASC is able to cripple their flagship, and when it crashes, the rest of the fleet retreats. Simultaneously, Mark, seeking revenge, attacks the research center to flush out Andrews. Defeated and left for dead by Andrews, who departs to intercept Embry, Mark is contacted through the wrecked MODAT by Eve, who directs him to commandeer a prototype space fighter that carries him to the airport just in time to save Embry and Stacy from Andrews’s attack. Transforming the space fighter to robot mode, Mark has one final battle with Andrews that ends with him killing the clone and triumphantly reuniting with Becky.

Production

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.

Limited release

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 graphic as in the original Megazone 23) reportedly led some parents to remove their children from theatres before the movie was finished, as many deemed the film's content 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.

Current Status

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 film'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 likely be of very low quality.[2] However, blackmarket copies of the movie have reportedly made their way onto the Internet due to file sharing. The events of the film are no longer considered part of the official Robotech timeline.[3][4]

Comic and novel adaptations

Cast

References

  1. ↑ "Macek Training". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2010-01-25.
  2. 1 2 "Unreleased, Incomplete, and Canceled Projects by Harmony Gold". Robotech Companion. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
  3. ↑ Bibliography: FAQs at Robotech.com.
  4. ↑ The Carl Macek Interview by Todd Hill.
  5. ↑ Powell, Benny. "Benny R. Powell Interview at Robotech Companion". Robotech Companion. Retrieved 2007-09-12.

External links

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