#Carl macek

[magicaldogtoto]

There's an auction where they're selling old Power Rangers props. Around the same time, Robotech was announced to be streaming on Crunchyroll.

I'm seeing people bemoan how Power Rangers is seemingly dead (though to be fair, it always felt barely alive the past ten years...), and that the franchise had its merits (mainly introducing a lot of people in the US to tokusatsu). Meanwhile, Robotech is lambasted for being a Frankenstein's Monster of a show (being cobbled together from different mecha anime, including Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA).

There's some dissonance here--fundamentally, both Power Rangers and Robotech are made by cobbling and cutting together elements of pre-existing shows in Japan (the aforementioned mecha shows, Super Sentai). So I'm wondering why one seems to be criticized more than the other.

Is it because most Power Rangers fans I see are Millennials and Gen Z, and therefore have no real nostalgia for Robotech? Is it because live-action shows in the US are generally held in higher regard than animated ones? (Something that really should be changed...)

That's not to say that Power Rangers doesn't have critics. But I see more people willing to bat for it. I've yet to see anyone really believe that Robotech deserves to be preserved in that form.

Much to think about here...

[cantsayidont]

July 1988. An art book for a show that never quite came to be, ROBOTECH ART 3 is also the official account of how the planned sequel to ROBOTECH fell apart. if you've heard of ROBOTECH, you're almost certainly aware that it was an amalgamation of three similar but unrelated Tatsunoko anime series, tied together with a new storyline by American producer Carl Macek as a multigenerational saga with enough episodes for American TV syndication. The dilemma this presented (other than for aggrieved weebs insisting that the new storyline was a bastardization of the presumptively superior original series) was that characters from the different generations couldn't really interact, and some important plot elements could only be presented through exposition. ROBOTECH II: THE SENTINELS was to be a 65-episode original series that would chronicle how the survivors of the first generation (adapted from the popular SUPER DIMENSION FORTRESS MACROSS) set out to make peace with the Robotech Masters of Tirol (the villains of the second generation, adapted from SUPER DIMENSION CAVALRY SOUTHERN CROSS) and ended up embroiled in a war with the Invid, the villains of the third generation (adapted from GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA), who eventually conquered the Earth. This was to lead up to the finale of the original series, which would be the starting point for a subsequent series.

For various reasons chronicled at length in the book, the project collapsed after only a handful of episodes were completed. (The surviving footage was later released on home video.) Macek's story outlines were then adapted in several similar but distinct ways in a series of prose novels by "Jack McKinney" (a pseudonym for the writing team of Brian Daley and James Luceno), in the Palladium roleplaying game, and later in American comic books by John and Jason Waltrip. There was also a fanon take that mostly rejected all of the other versions as incompatible with the actual scripts and footage of the original show, which eventually led Harmony Gold, the American production company, to retroactively declare the entire project apocryphal. Harmony Gold then hired the Waltrip brothers to create a five-issue comic book prelude to its truly dire 2007 direct-to-video animated sequel, ROBOTECH: THE SHADOW CHRONICLES, which is heavily reliant on the events of the SENTINELS storyline without being entirely compatible with any previous version of it, and is frustratingly unsatisfying to anyone who actually liked any of them. (Nobody won, in other words.)

THE SENTINELS is often derided for no particularly good reason. The basic storyline has its clunky aspects (in addition to the continuity issues the RRG contingent identified), but so do the original Japanese shows, and the Japanese MACROSS franchise has subsequently gone a lot of weird places that tend to undercut the claim that ROBOTECH is categorically inferior. Both have their flaws, but ROBOTECH and THE SENTINELS are hardly without merit. (The dismal SHADOW CHRONICLES is another matter …)

[evilhorse]

Damn you!!

[tootern2345]

Legendary artist, animator, director, voice actor, and owner & founder of Big Deal Cartoons. C. Martin Croker, tells Keyframes editor and interviewer, Jim Massara, on how he almost worked on Ren & Stimpy

[ironsaguaro]

Super Fortress Macross! Robotech, Anime, and Manga to American Comics Fans!

[jasoncanty01]

So an Artist Friend I know Has a Rock and Rule Animation cell that he's putting up for auction / sale on Ebay to help cove some of his bills. This is what he has to say about it: " A cel from Rock & Rule. It wasn't used in the film, but I bought it from Carl Macek in 1989 at Wondercon, and was verified by John Sylvestri who was the animator on a now defunct Yahoo R&R group. Nelvana's studio burned to the ground shortly after R&R was released, taking all cels and film with it, Carl collected a few cels before the fire, and I have one. I have a ridiculously high buy it now price of $10K to avoid lowballers, and a starting bid of what I paid for it, $30. Which is ridiculously cheap, adjusted for inflation. " Brian, the seller, has some connection to Rock and Rule as he wound up helping the transcript that was eventually used for the subtitles in the DVD release. Also his mom used to be a Copy editor at Marvel Comics in the 1970's and he's an artist himself. Anyway if you want a part of Animation history check out his auction.

P.S. I hear Wil Wheaton might be a fan Rock and Rule and if so could anyone pass this his way. At least get the word out. ;)

[domono08]

I’m gonna be doing reviews again,how exciting I never did ever since Pinocchio broke me. But have two for what I’m gonna review lily c.a.t. And project a-ko . Yep but it’s gonna be a twist ,I’m gonna do a mystery science theater 3000 we’re I’m gonna start to write jokes in the films so can riff them in my reviews. So except to see later on January!

[anime-herald]

Actually, Carl Macek Rocked! Why The North American Anime Fandom Owes Him Its Gratitude

A huge thanks to Mark McDonald for the Patron Article request! This would not have been possible without them, To say that Carl Macek was a divisive figure in the annals of anime history is an understatement like few others. Though his contributions to the greater anime landscape are innumerable, the Streamline Pictures cofounder has been considered by some to be among the most reviled figures in…

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

A CHICKEN RUN Workprint & Such

Quite something that the year CHICKEN RUN: DAWN OF THE NUGGET comes out, we get a look at never-before-seen behind-the-scenes stuff for Aardman Animations' debut feature film...

This channel contains a workprint for the film that has quite a few alternate versions of scenes, alternate lines, and plenty of storyboarded bits to fill in the gaps. Temp music throughout, too. You know, the usual animated movie workprint stuff.

Even more enticing is an over hour-long collection of early test footage, of how the characters move, all on various sets, some of which very rough and simple, and likely intentionally so. Almost like a pitch pilot. There's even some CGI in there, for figuring out how the more mechanical things in the movie - such as the makeshift "crate" plane - work.

CHICKEN RUN has long been a favorite of mine. I saw it in the theaters when I was turning 8, and I absolutely loved it! I watched the VHS over and over, I even had a CHICKEN RUN lunch pack! It had Rocky on it, flying through the air on his tricycle. I've enjoyed all of Aardman's films, but this debut feature really hit the ground running. Just so good, so tight, everything about it is just so cool- BUT this isn't a review of Nick Park and Peter Lord's groundbreaking stop-motion made-of-plasticine movie, I could waffle on about this one for days... Anyways, a favorite of mine, and to see all this behind the scenes stuff is great.

I absolutely love watching workprints and rough cuts of animated movies, and reels of test footage and other such components. Up until YouTube came about, the closest I feasibly had to that was the carefully-edited "Work In Progress" version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, which was available to *me* via the 2002 DVD release. The actual workprint, as in what a specific audience saw at the New York Film Festival in mid-1991, was preserved on the original home video release's deluxe edition... Which I did not have back in the day. The DVD has a sweetened version for a more casual viewing audience. There was also the full rough cut of HEAVY METAL that was available on its DVD release, complete with an audio commentary by Carl Macek. Just so much informative stuff in what you're seeing alone...

It's been a great time for fans of this kind of stuff. This year, we also saw a partial workprint of THE LITTLE MERMAID from around mid-1989 get out online, which curiously capped off with the trailer for the movie that appeared on the VHS release of BAMBI later that year. A workprint of ALADDIN, made sometime after Jeffrey Katzenberg's complete rip-down of the project in 1991, floated around YouTube for quite some time. A full LION KING workprint, made around the time the whole middle section was being reworked in mid-1993, can be found on Archive. A good chunk of Richard Purdum's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is around, too. As for Pixar, there's some TOY STORY and A BUG'S LIFE rough cut stuff going around as well...

One big lost media drop, for me, was last year with THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE's fifth season, like several VHS tapes of dailies and rushes that was like a day's length.

What I would like to see drop next?

Any Disney animated movie would certainly suffice, particularly some holy grails, like a pre-regime change version of THE BLACK CAULDRON that has the infamous melting soldier scene in it and all those extra Fflewddur Fflam dialogue bits. Or KINGDOM OF THE SUN, the film that was thrown out in 1998 and retooled into THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE.

DreamWorks and Sony, too. A full workprint of the Chris Farley SHREK? Maybe B.O.O.: BUREAU OF OTHERWORLDLY OPERATIONS, the almost-done movie from 2014-15 that was completely scrapped? I've seen various completed scenes of it via various animators' resumes on Vimeo. Whatever was completed of BOLLYWOOD SUPERSTAR MONKEY and LARRIKINS, that too.

What I'd like to see, like on my mind right now... Two particular pre-acquisition Pixar movies... TOY STORY 2 and FINDING NEMO.

Like, a TOY STORY 2 that still had Al's Toy Barn in the suburbs and not right across the street from the penthouse ("all the way to work!"), a TOY STORY 2 that still has that weird Godzilla roleplay scene that landed Woody in the yard sale by accident, I want to see more of what that version looked like. An earlier version of FINDING NEMO with unfinished no-water scenes and wonky-looking humans is something I'd be down for, honestly. I love seeing this sort of stuff in the raw, before all the refinements. It gives everything a bit of an alien quality, honestly, that only makes it all the more fascinating.

Those, off the top of my head.

[christinaroseandrews]

I'm going to date myself... But my first Ghibli movie was Nausicaa. But it wasn't the Nausicaa that we all know and love today... It was the terrible hacked up Carl Macek Streamline dub called Warriors of the Wind. And I remember watching it with my six or seven-year-old cousin at Thanksgiving when I was in Middle School. So this would be the late 1980s early 1990s. I liked it. I didn't know any better. And the music was amazing and the animation was amazing. I didn't know it was anime until I got to college and my roommate who was a foreign exchange student from Japan had the soundtrack. I listen to that CD like all the time.

Warriors of the wind is the reason why for years and years and years we never got any Ghibli releases in the US. Miyazaki was so dissatisfied with it that when miramax was considering making changes to princess mononoke he sent them a katana with the note saying "no cuts".

I finally saw a non hacked up Ghibli movie as a fan sub when I was in college... And that was probably Laputa or Porco Rosso. However that wasn't my first Miyazaki movie, that would be castle of cagliostro. Lol. I adore Ghibli movies. I have been to the museum in Japan it is lovely.

So yeah. I'm an old anime fan.

Inspired by the fact that I am rewatching my first ghibli movie spirited away

Please reblog for bigger sample size

[cantsayidont]

March 1992. Probably the most interesting change the ROBOTECH storyline makes to the plots of the three Japanese anime series from which it's derived is that in ROBOTECH, the Invid, the snail-like alien race that conquers the Earth at the beginning of the NEW GENERATION/GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA storyline, are a colonized people, interstellar refugees. As explained in the Jack McKinney novels and later dramatized in the six-issue miniseries ROBOTECH GENESIS: THE LEGEND OF ZOR, based on Carl Macek's story notes, centuries ago, the Tirolian scientist and explorer Zor visited the Invid homeworld, Optera, and discovered that the Invid "Flower of Life" could be used as the basis of a potent form of bio-energy he called Protoculture. Zor stole the secrets of the Flower and took them back to Tirol, where Protoculture soon sparked a technological revolution that created space fold travel, reflex weaponry, and bioengineering. The lords of Tirol, calling themselves the Robotech Masters, used this power to annex their neighbors, and created the giant Zentraedi to police their new empire. The Masters then ordered the Zentraedi to defoliate Optera to monopolize their control of the Flower. The surviving Invid split into two factions: one, led by the Regent, fixated on vengeance against Zor and the Masters, and the other, led by the Regiss (or Regis), determined to find a new home and a new evolutionary form that would enable their survival. The Invid later killed Zor, but not before he sent the last Protoculture factory to Earth (as shown in the 1986 ROBOTECH graphic novel), hoping in vain to put it beyond the reach of the Masters.

When Zor Prime, a clone of the original Zor, destroys that factory at the end of the ROBOTECH MASTERS/SOUTHERN CROSS segment of ROBOTECH, it effectively seeds the Earth with the Flower of Life and draws the attention of the Regiss, who invades in hopes of finally reclaiming what had been stolen from her. (This isn't the case in the original MOSPEADA storyline, where the Inbit simply invade Earth because it seems like a habitable spot for their eugenics project.)

This is a clever amalgamation of ideas from the original shows, and it gives ROBOTECH a very different perspective on colonialism than the original series. MACROSS says explicitly that the devastation of the Zentraedi holocaust makes the colonization of other worlds a moral imperative for the human survivors; the original SOUTHERN CROSS storyline is about defending a human colony world (established after a nuclear war devastated Earth) against the return of that world's weird and malevolent original inhabitants; and MOSPEADA ultimately suggests that the Regess has been a more-or-less benevolent, religiously motivated colonizer who leaves the Earth better than she found it. The ending of ROBOTECH is a series of moral reversals: The Invid Regiss has gone from refugee to conqueror, doing to the humans what the Masters and the Zentraedi did to her, but at the same time, the human survivors of the war with the Zentraedi have in effect become the new Robotech Masters (something the Regiss says pretty explicitly in her final monologue), prepared to replicate the devastation of Optera and the Zentraedi holocaust to keep the Regiss from winning. Her ultimate departure, which also destroys the attacking REF fleet, is driven by shame, and a desire for a very literal kind of restorative justice that seeks to redress the humans' sins as well as her own, which makes for a morally complex and bittersweet finale for the saga (the misbegotten SHADOW CHRONICLES notwithstanding).

[evilhorse]

I can’t get control of the fighter.

[magicofthepiper]

Watch "Doesn't Even Matter (Magical Princess Minky Momo AMV)" on YouTube

I'm very surprised by how much this remix vibes with my feelings about Minky Momo.

I've mentioned before that I seem to be drawn towards "deceptively cute" series. I think having grown up with the Princess Gigi and the Fountain of Youth VSH was pretty formative in developing a fondness for such narratives.

Not only does the original OVA share the same director and writer duo of the first three Pokémon films, but even the localization was penned by Carl Macek of Robotech fame. So while most dubs I had been exposed to prior were written to be absolutely inane, in order to make the central conflict overtly cartoony, Macek rewote the original core conflict away from a difference in philosophical belief, to a constant threat of military invasion done to extract a rare resource. The way the original material already included Dr Strangelove references certainly helped.

The AMV above opts for footage from the original Minky Momo TV series, which was already deep in its own way. I think it's disingenuous to say it was the first dark magical girl series, there's plenty of dark and depressing subject material in the magical girl franchises before it, but it was still often profound in how frequently it dealt with such subject matter.

[sentientdessert]

One of the reasons I want to get better at Japanese, and try to use translation as a means of practice when I get better. So many good series out there that will never get a translation.  I’ll try to help in a few years.   Looking into the roots of some of the OG translating companies in the US, they would translate and release hentai anime because they knew it would sell enough to let them work on a series that they were obsessed with.   That being said, I both appreciate and hate Carl Macek for his role in anime in the US...  he helped bring a lot over...  but at the same time he normalized butchering of anime...  I don’t think we’d have gotten the 4kids era without his influence. Sorry for the rant.

with how much manga is published in Japan, i don't think the translation publishing industry without fan translations to serve as a vetting process. there are 40+ volume manga that ran for decades that you've never heard of because they never got translated. the well is unfathomably deep. but if something gets a fan translation and becomes popular that way, it can be a sure bet to license

these companies put out interest surveys and they definitely check these websites for what's popular. the industry wouldn't function without fan translations

[80smovies]

[shadow27]

This is a model/diorama. It’s so close to the animation it makes my brain hurt. (Found on twitter) And all I hear in my head is this: