f13.net

Warner Bros. Pictures has picked up the rights to bring anime classic "Robotech," which featured giant robots known as mechas, to the big screen. "Spider-Man" franchise star Tobey Maguire is producing through his Maguire Entertainment and is eyeing the lead role in what the studio plans on being a tentpole sci-fi franchise.

"We are very excited to bring 'Robotech' to the big screen," Maguire said. "There is a rich mythology that will be a great foundation for a sophisticated, smart and entertaining film."

Drew Crevello also is producing through his Supercool Hollywood BigTime Productions. Craig Zahler (The Brigands of Rattleborge) will write the screenplay.

"Robotech" was a cartoon series during the 1980s from Harmony Gold USA and Tatsunoko Productions. It was re-edited and re-dialogued to combine three Japanese anime series to give the producers enough episodes to air as a daily syndicated series.

A sprawling sci-fi epic, Robotech takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off three successive waves of alien invasions. The first invasion concerns a battle with a race of giant warriors who seek to retrieve their flagship's energy source known as "protoculture," and the planet's survival ends up in the hands of two young pilots.

Frank Agrama of rights-holder Harmony Gold will executive produce; Jason Netter will serve in a producer capacity.

This article was in The Hollwyood Reporter.


Wow...  I have so much anxiety over this movie.  I've loved the series ever since I saw them, like what 20 years ago?  I even played the RPG version put out by Palladium back in my gaming days.  I'm scared they might screw this one up big time.  If done right though, this could be a kick ass movie and a nice franchise.. as they have tons of source material.

There is a .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance that Hollywood will not fuck this up to an unimaginable degree.

The series hasn't really held up well over 20 years later. Updating and turning it into live-action? I can only imagine the horror of Minmei.

No the true horror of Minmei is going to be that they'll get someone like Britney Spears or Ashlee Simpson to play her.

And yes, it'll probably suck and be some type of reimagining, but I dare to hope.  Although something like the Max and Miriya fight in live action.. with CGI as good as say Transformers, could be friggin awesome.

Paris or Lindsay. Hell, why not change it and have Minmei split into two people so both Paris AND Lindsay can play the role. I need to go rub one out.

I think you might be on to something there with the whole Transformers thing.

If I recall correctly, didn't the original anime come out shortly after the original Transformers cartoon got popular?  I smell a blatant marketing vehicle.

Fear not!  The next thing down the pike must be Gobots, if current trends continue...  Ahh...  Gobots.


Tobey Maguire as Rick Hunter?  That should be plenty of horror for Minmei.

Color me waiting for cable.

I would much rather him play Rick Hunter then Roy Fokker.  lol

Actually Gobots are now a part of the Transformers line. Gobots are now like the Fisher-Price of Transformers.

Well, they did just do Shadow Chronicles, which I liked, so I'm not too skeptical of their ability to pull this off.  Though I'm not crazy about setting it back during the first invasion.  Wasn't the old 1986 Robotech movie basically the same idea?  Which bombed so hard it never saw a video release?  And the whole live action angle screams mistake to me, but I'm gonna wait for the trailer before I jump all over it... it could concievably be really cool, if they do it right.

What do you mean "Now"

 :-D

I thought the 'Movie' was just a summary of the series.  Someone who knows more about anime than me will know.  I remember them showing a 'Movie' on TV but it was just the first series' story condensed.  I don't know if it bombed so much as it was the same thing people had already seen.

I don't think that's the one... But I haven't ever seen it, and it hasn't been released for video, ever.  As far as I know, the movie was only ever aired theatrically, and very very briefly.  I think it was supposed to take place during the later part of the original Macross series (represented by clips from Megazone 23, which I've also never seen) and lead into the beginning of Southern Cross (represented by clips from Southern Cross).  I don't know much else about it, other than that it was evidently a failure commercially, which bodes ill for Robot Jox 3 here.

Edit: oop, my bad, looks like it was released for home video, but only in very limited numbers, says IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091862/)

Honestly, I could see Kahterine McPhee or one of the American Idol types getting the Minmei part, despite Jessica Simpson's recent attempts to develop her acting chops.

Why, when i first read this post, did i have a sudden, horrifying flashback to the Wing Commander movie and feel the overwhelming urge to scrape out my eyes with a rusty spoon and pour bleach in the sockets.

Possibly because Robotech was just a hack-job of three different anime series crowbarred into one dub? :)

The animation makes my eyes bleed, and the Minmei- Rick plotline still grates, but the rest of the series held-up pretty damn well.   I still remember how shocked I was when Roy died, and then Ben quickly after.  I think that's why the damn series still holds such a soft spot in my heart.  It was the first 'toon I saw that took things seriously.  There was that sense that there might NOT be a happy ending.

There's no way the movie will live up to that for me.  That's before you even consider the time line they'd have to cram into a 2 hour, or even two and a half hour movie.  It'd feel much too small.  Fuck, just having Max and Miria dogfighting would eat-up a good chunk of the movie.

Whatever they do, it's going to be a very small piece of the saga to do it in any way you'd want to call "good."

I never watched "robotech" as it was, but I've watched every series/movie of macross there is (except for macross 7, couldn't really get through the first 2 episodes) and really love the whole series.  They have a better chance of not fucking this up as long as they are sticking with the earlier macross story arc of robotech, since from what I know, they didn't really change much storywise with it (and robotech stupidity gets worst as you get into the re-dubbed anime they tacked on to the macross story after that).  I personally loved the first macross series, and the macross movie was actually quite good (the robotech movie was a weird recut/reedited version of it that is suppose to be one of the worst things ever produced).  I'm fairly excited about this, but I fully understand Hollywood could easily fuck it all to hell and gone.  Hardest part is going to be implementing minmei without making it to over the top retarded.
Never seen the robotech movie, but the macross movie was pretty much a summery and retelling of the series, with some plot changes.

I'd love to see them do something akin to Macross Plus. In the same universe but not trying to retell the Rick and Minmei stories. If they do do the old series I say stick with Macross, the other two sucked...hard.

As for casting...sheesh..I literally can't think of anyone who could do Max and Miria justice. Guess we could have Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and subtitle the movie "Mr & Mrs Smith innnnn Space!"

The original Jetfire transformer was a direct copy of the Robotech variable fighter, or whatever it was called.

Anyway, Transformers sucked, and so will this.  I can already picture the cast: Sam Jackson as the SDF-1 general, Toby as a 40 year old Rick Hunter, Ashlee Simpson as Minmei, and Vin Deisel as Roy Focker in a summer CGI blockbuster clusterfuck.  I'M TIRED OF THESE MOTHERFUCKING ZENTRADI IN MY MOTHERFUCKING SPACE ROBOT!

I suppose the best we can hope for is something pretty and insubstantial like Transformers.

I never really gave a crap about the original Macross story, and never saw the other two parts to Robotech, but I do love me some Planes that turn into giant robots. I loved it as a kid, I love it now.

Put me in with the 'hoping for eye candy' folks.

Do straw brooms make you horny or something?

No, I'm sure they'll find some talentless bimbo to play Minmei. After all, that's what the role was written as. But she'll have to SING to defeat the aliens, who will be mesmerized by her emotion.

That's why the series hasn't held up well. The death of Roy, the killing and all that stuff made Robotech great. The shit like Minmei... that's the shit that makes me want to pummel anime and all its fans into paste.

I liked the Southern Cross and Invid series that they loosely connected with Macross, just not as much as the original series (despite Minmei).

Hahah, they could just hire some chinese actress with engrish and they're done.  :roll:
In the end Rick went with that comm. officer didn't he?

Yep, he did.

It's to bad though that they aren't trying to set something in the overall universe (obviously I would prefer the Macross universe).  There is alot of open material for them to work with in that universe, and they could make a good original story.  Macross on the whole has held up pretty well over the years, with Plus and Zero being especially good.  One thing they were always good about was not only incorporating realistic dogfighting (yes, its in space so it realistically wouldn't work like that, but they do represent how it would look in normal air very well ;) ) but how the combat would be different if you could switch between the three modes. 

Here's my pick for Cmdr. Lisa Hayes (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=10846.msg341777#msg341777). Yummy.

Yeah, I'd go with that.

i bet it's a trilogy,
1st they can start with Rick taking part in the air show at his hometown, impressing Fokker, and he joined the super fortress as Zentraidi attacks earth for the first trilogy, and they make their escape to hyperspace fold?
2nd probably Macross getting stranded in far reaches of space or something where they discover that asian singer can actually scare zentraidi
3rd homecoming to earth, finale.

(http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/7153/sighjc7.jpg)

Heh, from Macross fan forums:

(http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/8434/robotech01mf8.jpg)

(http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/4249/robotech02ms7.jpg)

you know, the movie could be set during the Invid invasion, a time frame less mem-gay. The Zentraedi was never my favorite invasion.

I'd be for it if they could do the motorcycle combat armor justice.

Apparently I need to turn in my geek credentials, because I have barely even heard of Robotech and couldn't care less who they cast in it. Maguire being in charge might give it some hope, however- if he is nerdy enough to really want to do it, he should be nerdy enough to get it mostly right.

Cyclones!

(http://www.kent.net/robotech/gallery/mydata/ref_battler.png)

Eh, doesn't seem quite right. Admittedly, on her, I'd be picky.  I watched Robotech at just the right age to solidfy my views on women -- so I find smart, confidant, in command women (IE: Lisa Hayes) to be fucking hot and I find whiny drama queens (IE: Minmei) to be a total pain in the ass.

I found Minmei to be an irritant the entire series, although admittedly I watched this when I was perhaps 10 so it's not like I remember things that clearly. Lisa, on the other hand, was awesome-sauce (even if they did weaken the character a bit too much at times to make the love-triangle thingy work).

I do agree on the Invid invasion. Combat motercycle armor = Awesome.

The invid were definitely the best "Invasion".

...and crossdressers.  Don't forget it had the crossdresser.

Ahh, Lancer.

What a mindfuck THAT was at 12.


This thread got me to break out the series DVDs again. (I bought them when they were first released back in '99.) Minmei is, in fact, the single most annoying thing in the show.  You could wipe her from the entire series and do it no harm, the whiny, selfish, insipid little bitch.

And yes, they make Lisa too much of a "wahh, I'm so unsure of everything" sub at times so that Rick doesn't become the 2nd whiny bitch in that little storyline.

The only way to watch the Macross series is two bear two things in mind:

1. Gloval hates the fuck out of the Macross inhabitants and is intentionally trying to kill them.
2. Keeping track of the massive loss of human life in off-screen situations whenever tons of buildings are blown up or the like.

It becomes very clear that shitloads of people are dying in droves and that Gloval, when presented with choices, ALWAYS chooses the option that results in the greatest loss of civilian life.

I'll watch with an eye to Gloval's decisions now, I haddn't noticed the trend.  I did begin to think "wtf, those buildings have to have people in them" the very first episode that the Zentradi show up and Rick plows through a bunch of them.

In later episodes they for-the-children it and hand wave about secure areas and rescue shelters.  Of course these must be the fastest humans EVER because not 30 seconds after whatever battle alert is issued yet another building is demolished.

I've also been puzzling about the staggering casualties that the SDF-1 crew takes.  Watch a battle scene and the Humans are killed 2, 3 sometimes 4 at a time in the land mecha or veritechs every 20 seconds.   I'm amazed they HAD a fucking crew by the time they made it back to earth.  :-D   Then I remember it was a show aimed at pre-teens in the 80s and I loosen up a bit.. but still.

If they do a movie, we should start a petition for a BSG-style "Survivor Count". I'd love to see the numbers wizzing downward every time Rick and Max decide to play freakin' tag inside SDF-1 with the Zentraedi or whatever they're called.

I admit, the Daedalous maneuver would be fun to watch. Who doesn't like to see a giant robot with aircraft carriers for arms punch through a giant alien spaceship?

Jesus, though -- I do hope they update it a bit. The bridge bunnies would be more annoying now than back then, and that's saying a lot.

Chalk up this idea as "too awesome for Hollywood not to fuck it up."

it could have been worse, Dragon Ball the Movie. Stallone as Goku.

Cha-ching! (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dragon_ball_z_the_movie_dead_zone/news/1668144/)

Over 9,000 :-o

Macross, Southern Cross and Mospaeda all pre-date Transformers, iirc.

*Obligatory Gurren-Lagann reference goes here*  8-)

I tried to explain this thread, the upcoming movie, and why it's going to suck to my wife. I realized later that all I'd needed to say was "Okay, this giant spaceship crewed by GIANT HUMANS/ALIENS lands and the humans decide that in order to defend ourselves against the alien hordes (if they come), we'll need jets that can turn into giant robots so we can fight them fist-to-fist..." and she'd have gotten the gist of "How bad this can get"

Yea, I meant the Robotech/American version when I said original came out after Transformers.  My bad.

i think u shd just skip to the pop star song owns aliens part.

"Stage Fright" is the sound that makes me punch babies.  They played it about three times in every episode.  Maybe that's how they brought down the Zentraedi.

The PS2 Macross game is pretty good, but would have been better if you could multiplayer without using a split-screen.  It also has some interviews with the original cast members.  The Max Sterling guy (Cam Clark) is actually a prolific voice in several videogames and is easily recognizable, the last one I remember is Sky from Jade Empire.  And the guy that voiced Rick Hunter went on to produce the Power Rangers or something.

I believe a Robotech MORPG or even a regular RPG has the potential to be very awesome.  Too bad the movie will probably bomb too badly for it to ever be considered.  Hell, just give me something with jets that turn into robots that I can fight other players with and I'll be happy.

I would think the "Gamer" population and the "I'd like to use a giant robot to blow shit up" crowd overlaps pretty heavily.

But I'm holding out for the Big O MMORPG.

I don't think a real anime MMO would work in the US.  Battletech all the way!  :-D

Battletech?  Yeah, I know me some Battletech:

(Warning: Pictures of toys and an RPG/miniatures scenario follow.  If this bores you, scroll down to movie comments!


(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1083/1405000553_f104c850a8_o.jpg)
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1186/1405000559_d8cb6d5742_o.jpg)
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1264/1405000567_0672319ffb_o.jpg)
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1040/1405000569_513e0567c9_o.jpg)

And sorta Battletech related, plus I wanted the Stinger's player to see what her mech looked like.  The Panther's player wants to get an LAM so he needed to see it too!

(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1072/1405000575_575e9633b7_b.jpg)

I need to buy an armor set for it though. Or both kinds of armor since I have 2...

(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1056/1405000589_be4ea3f54d_b.jpg)


On to movie and Robotech minutae:

The Robotech movie was basically a hacked version of Megazone 23.
The Macross movie (Aka: Do You Remember Love?  In Japan, Clash of the Bionoids (edited for time/content) or Macross (just the same bad english dub) in the US) was a retelling of Macross as a movie.

I am preferential to the Southern Cross storyarc because Dana Sterling was awesome to my just turning 12 self.  And I like tanks and helicopters that transform.  I am a heretic though.

The first or third series would make the best ones to do a movie on though.  One is a post invasion story of rebels, the other is Battlestar Galactica with transforming jets.  And the power of song.
(Japan's Macross stuff would eventually midichlorian this, shitting all over the concept and then making it stupid.  Fuck Macross 7.)

Of course all 3 series fit together entirely too well.  All have 3 stage transforming mecha, alien invasions, romances with alien chicks, and a serious musical element.  Compared to other US cartoon anime imports Robotech did a bang up job IMHO.
(I haven't fully watched the Japanese originals.  Got Volume 1 of Macross free, and the other 2 series for like 20 a pop.  Hopefully my Southern Cross set doesn't have the flaw the early sets did.)

And my vote for Claudia Grant goes to the Doctor's current companion on Dr Who, Freema something or other.  I have no idea for anyone else, though the choices shown above certainly would work.

As long as they don't fuck it up and I get high quality transforming mecha toys for a reasonable price.  (Meaning nothing by Toynami or Yamato who prove the US and Japan can both make overpriced low quality transforming toys.)

There was a Gundam UC mmog released in Japan a while back which never officially made it to the west, iirc (despite pretty much all of the in-game text being in English).

I'd like to see a Super Robot Wars-type MMOG, personally.

A Robotech MORPG could work.  Discuss?

Yes. Just base it on the palladium RPG materials (Not necessarily the rules)

Aye Palladium did a pretty good job of putting info together for the RPG.  I played it for many, many years.

Same here, they we really good at dissecting items and things that were never touched on in the series..worked well.