Forum - View topicNEWS: Funimation to Add Robotech TV Series, Films to Catalog
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 4849 |
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Lord Vaultman
Posts: 810 |
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So I guess I'm confused still. Did harmony gold actually make robotech or did they just license it from japan? If they just licensed it then who actually made the show that is supposedly based off of three other shows? If harmony gold actually physically made robotech then it isnt really even an anime then is it since it was made in the west right? (assuming harmony gold is an american company) I'm really not privy to the whole setup and would love a far more detailed response that's not a 200 page document lawsuit filing as I've heard there was. |
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4379 Location: New York |
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Harmony Gold initially licensed 3 unrelated shows and rewrote them as one connected series to make syndication rules, as the rules say you need 65 episodes to be syndicated. The problem is that they now claim trademarks on all the shows including their original versions and any sequel series that use the trademarks. This is important because Macross, the only show anyone cares about of the three, has become a massive franchise in Japan, a franchise Harmony Gold blocks coming to the US and frequently litigates against anyone that tries to sneak it in or even slightly resembles it.
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Cardcaptor Takato
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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Harmony Gold is an American TV company. Back in the 80s they wanted to sell a "cartoon" to American TV stations. They wanted to license Macross, but the original Macross series wasn't long enough--the American TV stations wanted a longer show with more episodes. So, Harmony Gold hired a guy named Carl Macek to make a show that was "long enough". Under his direction they took three totally unrelated anime (named in the article), edited everything like mad, and the result was "Robotech". There is only the most basic similarity between the plots of Robotech and Macross. Character names are different, there are huge differences in the plot, etc. It really is an understatement to say that it was "edited"; Carl Macek became known as "Carl the Butcher" in anime fandom. Infamous is more like it. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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Harmony Gold, an American company, made "Robotech" by cutting up film and splicing it back together, then re-recording all the audio. The source film they used were three different Anime (Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada) which they licensed from Japan. So, in other words, they licensed three anime from Japan, then dumped it all in a proverbial blender, wrote their own plot & dialogue, and the result is Robotech. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2558 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Not exactly true. While Big West has the original film masters for Macross & Southern Cross, Harmony Gold does have its own 16mm film masters for those two shows. Therefore, HG has the ability to do their own HD remaster of those two shows using the film it has, with the main difference being that a HG-lead Macross remaster would look somewhat softer than the Japanese Macross remaster, since HG has a 2nd generation master. Southern Cross, on the other hand, has no remaster in Japan, so HG doing one for that would look better, in general. Mospeada, however, is 100% Tatsunoko, so HG could simply get the HD master for that show that was done back in 2013. The only problem is that in order to do an HD release for Robotech, HG would have to literally recreate the entire show using these HD masters, which would obviously be a massive (& very expensive) endeavor. The only time something like this was done for anime was when Media Blasters digitally remastered Voltron by taking remastered GoLion & Dairugger footage, & literally redoing all of the edits to recreate Voltron. That being said, that remaster did wonders for Voltron, selling outstandingly well & even making remastered releases of the original Japanese shows possible. Really, for all we know, FUNimation could have had to agree to assist with HG in doing an HD remaster & eventual Blu-Ray release for Robotech, as FUNi has the ability to do HD remasters, in order to make this deal happen in the first place. Meanwhile, I do think that FUNimation wouldn't agree to this deal if they didn't get the rights to the original Japanese shows, alongside the Robotech stuff. Therefore, I'm sure we'll be seeing new releases of Macross, Southern Cross, & Mospeada from FUNi, at some point. Mospeada being given an HD remastered Blu-Ray release is easily the most likely, as it being completely owned by Tatsunoko makes that easy, but we'll just have to see what FUNi will end up doing with Macross & Southern Cross. |
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Gray Lensman
Posts: 143 |
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The term Macekre exists because of this, but to be honest, I'm not overly concerned with that part myself. Those changes allowed these shows to hit US airwaves in the first place, and was the first experience with anime to a large group of fans. My issue is that while the fans have grown, and are wanting to see the original take and the rest of the Macross franchise, Harmony Gold refuses to grow with them, seemingly keeping something that could be amazing away from anyone other than pirates out of spite. Although I wasn't even expecting this much out of Harmony Gold - for the past several years they seem to have existed more as an intellectual property troll than as an actual media company. |
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Dumas1
Posts: 75 |
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Here's one example that crosses all three series, taking a central background element from each one to create something that ties it all together: In Macross, the Protoculture was a precursor culture that created the Zentraedi and once ruled the galaxy. Macross 7 and Delta show that they also had some epic screwups and seeded the galaxy with humanoid life. In Southern Cross, the Flower of Life is the source of "bioenergy" that sustains the Zor and their clone culture. It happens to grow in certain ruins on Gloire, the planet where the series is set. Mospeada has HBT, a universal fuel source that powers human mecha, weapons, and technology in general. The Inbit invaders have some affinity for it, mostly tracking humans by detecting HBT emissions. Robotech mashes these three together into "Protoculture," a fuel extracted from the Flower of Life grown in Protoculture matrices. The Macross was carrying a matrix when it crashed on Earth, which the Zentraedi and Robotech Masters seek to recover since they lack their own source of Protoculture. The Invid are still drawn to Protoculture and the Flowers, which draws them to invade in the final arc. It got weird at the end. That's about all I remember based on seeing some of the series on Cartoon Network back in the day, along with reading the novelizations of the Mospeada arc. |
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Gray Lensman
Posts: 143 |
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Think of something like a Team Fourstar dub, only played straight instead of for comedy. |
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ZeetherKID77
Posts: 981 |
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Redub of Macross without Vic as Hikaru? I can dream. Thanks for the correction, by the way. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2558 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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That's only part of it. The licensing issue also comes down to the fact that Tatsunoko even licensed Macross & Southern Cross to Harmony Gold in the first place, as Big West claimed ownership over those shows. That lead to a Japanese court case that eventually resulted in Tatsunoko being given license control of SDF Macross & Southern Cross outside of Japan, while Big West controls licensing in Japan. Meanwhile, Big West owns the rights to everything else in the Macross franchise worldwide, which is how we managed to get Macross II & Plus. Because of that whole debacle, combined with HG's Macross trademarking, Big West could theoretically license the other Macross shows for release in North America, but HG will want involvement, due to the trademark; ADV apparently once admitted that HG would have "let them" release Macross Zero, for example. However, even if HG was gone from the picture completely, there are other problems we may never know the full details about, as Justin Sevakis mentioned in his Answerman column back when HG's renewal was revealed at Anime Expo this year:
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Lord Vaultman
Posts: 810 |
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So basically for better or worse robotech happened way back in the day and while not everyone hates it they also just want the original releases of macross and others in the west in addition to robotech but harmony Gold basically refuses to release all or some of the nonblenderized versions of the said blenderized show known as robotech?
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Transformers03
Posts: 41 |
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Harmony Gold aren't the only issue. While anime fans love to villainize them (and lets be clear, they are a bad company), but Tatsunoko and Big West are also to blame for this whole rights issues. I'm not an expert, however this whole issue stems from the weird laws in the 80s and companies failing to reach to understanding before things got way too complicated. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 4849 |
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