ROBOTECH
ROBOTECH a new beginning
ROBOTECH ROBOTECH A series pitch by Jack McKinney, Jr. Over 25 years ago, the original Robotech series unleashed a new age of animation in this country. Created by editing together three completely unrelated Japanese cartoon series, it quickly proved to be more than the sum of its parts. As you are well aware, further attempts to recapture lightning in that particular bottle were, shall we say, less than successful. That’s why we should go back to the basics and do a full remake of the original series! But why redo something that worked so well in the first place? Well, the old Robotech series clearly shows its hodgepodge nature. Important characters vanish and aren’t ever mentioned again, technology is all over the place, the planet Earth itself doesn’t consistently depicts the massive damage it suffered during the “Macross Saga” on the later two parts. Furthermore, it reflects the very irregular quality of the original Japanese material (Macross is great and justly hailed as a classic, Mospeada fairly average, but Southern Cross was a failure in Japan and is now far more famous by its role in Robotech than by any merit of its own). By personal experience, I know that many viewers just lost interest in the series as it went along due to those factors. Imagine then a Robotech series where Rick Hunter is a character from the beginning to the end. Where we follow the logical narrative line instead of just watching Earth suffer one alien invasion after another. Where there is an actual, bona fide ending! If the old series, for all its flaws, can run in syndication for all those decades,
imagine what could do a new and improved version – and one with more modern (and hopefully better quality) animation to boot! By redoing it, we can also change the whole show’s character and mech designs. This will allow us to have a new go on the merchandising side of things, this time without fear of butting heads with the original Japanese licensors. You’ll find a few new proposed designs attached to this document, done Japanese-style by some of our artists. Moreover, the remake has to be an old-style 65-episode weekday syndication animation! I’m fully aware of the huge financial risk of doing such a big series nowadays, but it will also improve its chances on the long run. Syndication loves big series, as do foreign markets (where Robotech is still a Big Name, particularly in Hispanic America). Big animation series that can be aired every day are now few and far between, with even the Japanese production being limited to kiddie shows more interesting in selling toys than telling coherent stories (Bakugan, Beyblade) or gigantic manga adaptations (Naruto, One Piece) that are way too long for the occasional viewer to follow. If the network deal comes through, we will already have a place to air it daily in the US. I suggest we make the most of it. As a concession, the proposed 65-episode series may be broken up in three 21-episode seasons (corresponding to the three parts of the original series) that could be aired weekly for about five months each. Two “clip show” episodes with minimal new animation would link up those series in a consistent whole and give us the intended final tally of 65 episodes. It’s a compromise and may result on the series being dropped at mid-point and giving us yet another unfinished Robotech series, but it’s better than nothing.
ROBOTECH
That said, it is our intention to make a product never before seen in US animation. An SF animation series that builds on the foundations laid o by the old Robotech and takes some inspiration from the Battlestar Galactica series (both old and new) to create something that may be enjoyed by kids, teens and even adults. The old Robotech series (in particular the Macross-adapted part) did that without talking down to the audience – and we can do that again!
ROBOTECH
SERIES SUMMARY An alien ship crashes on Earth and the tech and secrets it contains lead Earth into an interplanetary war. A group of brave young humans may be the only hope of ending the conflict, but their lives – and those of all humankind – will be changed forever by that.
ROBOTECH SYNOPSIS The Near Future. The existence of alien life has ever been a mystery to humankind, but when a huge runaway ship cross the skies of planet Earth under the eyes (and cameras) of millions of people on two continents and crashes in a remote Pacific island -- Macross Island, although we may change that name to avoid complaints from the Macross rights owners -- everything changes forever. After a short but inconclusive war, the world powers agree to get together and give the United Nations a protectorate over the island. Work on the ship begins and in the span of ten years or so a large and populated city develops around it, Macross City -- a multiethnic and multicultural melting pot. On the very day the ship’s reconstruction is oďŹƒcially finished, everyone is surprised by a sudden Zentradi attack. While the major world powers find themselves powerless against the enemy, the UN Army and Space Force had more than a decade to prepare themselves, by researching the alien technology known as Robotech. Armed with giant robots, some of them convertible into aircraft and other war machines, they can count on many skilled pilots in their ranks. During the ensuing battle, the ship accidentally warps itself and the whole city to the edge of solar system and is forced to go back the slow way – with a hull full of displaced refugees! In this context, we are introduced to the protagonist Rick Hunter, a civilian caught in the crossfire, who enlists in the military after witnessing the devastation caused by the invaders on Macross Island. While the young pilot has to balance his personal lives and the war, the big picture starts to unveil. The Zentraedi are just part of a war that has been raging on all over the Galaxy, a war whose main objective appears
to be the mysterious Protoculture, a miraculous substance that is also the last remains of a powerful past civilization. Mankind is of little consequence to all involved. Earth's only hope lies on finding those responsible for all that is going on, the Robotech Masters, who created the technology all sides are using. For that, humanity will need to ally their former Zentraedi enemies to face an even greater threat. But will that possible?
ROBOTECH
SERIES FORMAT AND AUDIENCE The animated series is intended to be composed of 65 half-hour episodes with a full three month weekday airing schedule. Being structured in three well-defined story arcs of 21 episodes each (The Macross Saga, Robotech Masters and The New Generation) with two connecting, “clip show” episodes, it may be broken up in three more conventional weekly series. Depending on the networks’ interest, those may be extended to more conventional 26-episode seasons (for a grand total of 80 episodes), but we are still on the early stages of that particular negotiation. It will be an SF anime-like animation series intended for a young (kids to teens) audience, but we expect to cater to the young adult audience and their considerable buying power too. That is not as hard to accomplish as it looks, since kids are open to more complex and sophisticated stories (as long as they don’t skimp on action and Cool Stuff like giant robots and aliens) that will keep the older teens and adults interested, as Harry Potter has demonstrated. As long as we keep things PG-rated (no nudity, sex or graphic violence) and interesting, all those age brackets are within our reach.
ROBOTECH THE UNIVERSE Millennia ago, a prosperous human civilization ruled the Milky Way. It is now known as the Protoculture and, for the purposes of this series, it lived in a sort of Golden Age, with a prosperous and culturally rich civilization spanning the galaxy. They “seeded” all the planets with similar life forms – and that’s the reason why all galactic civilizations are human-like. But not all was perfect. The Protoculture was much like the former Roman Empire, viewing lesser civilizations (that they had created themselves when seeding the galaxy!) as barbarian inferiors and depending of the hard labor of their slave-like robotic creations, the Invids. The Invids eventually rebelled, spreading a bloody war through the galaxy. The Protoculture had now to fight for survival – and it was losing! Eventually, its military-industrial leaders, later known as the Robotech Masters, went for a desperate solution: The whole galactic population would be relocated to an isolated, easily defended world while they would turn the rest of the galaxy into a huge battlefield where they could smash the Invids using their newly-created servants, the Zentraedi, without having to worry about civilian casualties and the like. To be able to keep trillions of people on a single Earth-like planet, the Robotech Masters went for a radical solution: Every single Protoculture member would transfer his or her consciousness to a small nanite robot, that could easily be stored on the huge containment vats built all over the Masters’ planet. An unexpected side effect was that the resulting nanites (still called “Protoculture”) were a wonder tool, able to do many impressive feats,
like building complex machines, fine tuning warp engines and even brainwashing and controlling other people! That last feature allowed the paranoid Masters to defend their planets with a fleet composed solely of brainwashed former enemies, starting with Zor and its conscientious objector disciples. In a few centuries, the Robotech Masters did accomplish their objectives, kicking the Invids out of the galaxy. But they had already become obsessive paranoid megalomaniacs by them and just kept ruling the Milky Way with their massive Zentraedi forces, smashing everyone that dares to rise against them. Due to the sheer size of the Milky Way, their control isn’t absolute, with a budding industrial civilization appearing on the backwater planet Earth while they weren’t looking…
PROTOCULTURE So What is Protoculture Anyway? Well, in the original Macross series it was the former galactic civilization that originated both humankind and the Zentraedi. A bit of that slipped into the later Robotech series, where Protoculture was also redefined as the ultimate Gizmo, a sort of miraculous energy source who could do pretty much anything (and was even self-aware on the book version!). So what is our approach? Well, in the time-honored tradition of having our cake and eating it too, we decided to make it both! The Protoculture is a collection of intelligent (although not necessarily free-willed) nanobots with the minds and consciences of the former galactic civilization (the “original” Protoculture), trillions of souls turned
ROBOTECH into very small machines for easy storage into the Robotech Masters world. The Masters, however, soon saw that the “new” Protoculture was a very useful tool. With it they could fine tune FTL engines to avoid time compression effects, build wondrous devices, brainwash and control hostile individuals (including Zor and his dissident followers) and do many other wondrous feats. Not willing to give up on that, they’ve kept Protoculture under their control all those millennia, with no plans of ever turning it back into flesh and blood humans.
THE ZENTRAEDI Created by the Robotech Masters as the definitive weapon against the Invids, the Zentraedi are an artificial warrior race built from Protoculture DNA with very large, vat-created bodies that make them as physically powerful as the machine Invids. However, the Masters also keep the Zentraedi as unfeeling and emotionless as possible. Their knowledge is implanted on their minds as they are “born” (cloned, to be exact) and, to keep them from developing feelings, they are mostly kept in suspended animation when out of combat, except for their carefully chosen commanders. The average Zentraedi is many centuries old, but only actually “lived” a few years, mostly in battle or doing combat-related duties. Males and females are kept separated for the same reasons. Love and even sex and reproduction are unknown concepts for the Zentraedi. They are programmed to destroy anything that it’s not Protoculture, including what they see as the “barbarian” human civilizations left into the galaxy. Finding the fairly sophisticated Earth humans, with their
well-developed culture, is a shock to them and throws their forces in disarray. The Supreme Commander of this particular fleet, Dolza, eventually tries to hide his forces’ repeated failures to smash the Earth humans from his stern Masters by using his own main fleet to smash Earth once and for all, which proves to be a fatal mistake. The average Zentraedi looks like a (very large) human, but with a much larger scope of skin color and features. Green hair and other distinctively alien features are common, which makes most of them fairly poor spies and infiltrators, even when transferred to regular, human-sized bodies. Most of them have a brutish appearance, since their DNA strain was selected by the Masters to emphasize physical capacities over all else, a few, however, have a “softer” appearance, with the occasional surprising beautiful (for Earth human standards) individuals, like Miriya. Zentraedi ships and technology are pretty much the same since the original Invid war. Most are thousands of years old, but solidly built and still in very good working order, even though the Zentraedi aren’t technically-savvy enough to do much beyond the most basic repairs on ships that do get damaged. With millions of perfectly fine ships in service, the Masters are unwilling to build many new ones, although a few new prototypes occasionally roll out of their Protoculture factories. One of those would later become the SDF-1. After making contact with the Earth humans, some Zentraedi will start to question their own nature and the unending war they live on, this will culminate in open rebellion inside their fleet, with Breetai as leader. After Dolza’s defeat, they will join the Earth humans as friends and be an important part of the fleet that will travel back to the Masters’ world to end their control over the universe once and for all.
ROBOTECH THE ROBOTECH MASTERS Formerly a think tank of scientists and military leaders created in haste to squash the Invid rebellion, the Robotech Masters eventually turned into the rulers of Protoculture society and, after they turned their subjects into nanomachines, the last remainder of it. They engineered the artificial Zentraedi race to fight for them while they holed up on their planet (only known as the “Robotech Masters’ World”), defended by an enormous host of Protoculture-brainwashed forces. Time, however, took its toll and the Masters aged and died. Not willing to give up on life (and not desiring to use Protoculture for extending their own lives for fear of being brainwashed and mind controlled themselves by other Robotech Masters), they decided to transfer their aged minds into computers. The last flesh and blood Master died long ago, what remains are their computerized minds. Old, senile, paranoid, supremacist, megalomaniacal, immortal and quite mad computerized minds. And they control the universe. They are the main villains of the series, and the only actually evil ones. Their destruction at the end of the second series will free the galaxy from their yoke, but not actually end the whole conflict.
THE INVIDS An insect-like self-aware machine race, the Invids were created by the original Protoculture millennia ago, as servants and slaves. After centuries of subjugation, the Invids, lead by Regess, rebelled against their programming and decided to be free. The conflict that followed
laid waste to the galaxy, as the Robotech Masters escalated the conflict into a galaxy-wide war, which the Invids eventually lost. The Invids have been living on their spaceships just outside the Milky Way ever since, doing the occasional supply raid to survive while biding their time for a new full-scale invasion. The opportunity finally appears when Dolza’s fleet is destroyed, opening up a large section of the galaxy for invasion, with Earth as a particularly tempting target! While the Earth fleet is away, looking for the Masters’ world, the Invids attack and easily take over Earth. Unlike the genocidal Zentraedi and their Masters, however, the Invids are willing to let humankind survive under their rule. Some collaborationist humans even created two large military police forces at the Invids’ beck and call, the North Star and Southern Cross armies, which patrol the Northern and Southern Earth hemispheres, respectively. Unknown to most humans, after having contact with humankind, the Invids were also able to create human-like individuals, which they use as spies and infiltrators among humans. Both the collaborationist forces and the Resistance have some of those “human invids” among them, which becomes a source of conflict when their existence is revealed. Although there is the temptation of making the Invids a hive-like destructive race and the Bad Guys of the story (as was done on the first Robotech), we went for the more ambiguous version used on the original Mospeada and changed them from insect-like aliens to machines, to better fit them with the Protoculture/Masters background. The Invids are not evil (nor mindless drones) by nature. They were willing to let mankind live. Some Invids are artists, musicians and poets. Some Invids are corrupted and greedy. They are
ROBOTECH machines that became people (literally, in the case of those with human appearance), while, ironically, the Protoculture (and Masters) were humans that became machines – and the Zentraedi are humans that behave like machines! That contrast is intended to be one of the main philosophical subtexts of the series and may hopefully help elevate what is essentially a juvenile animation series into something greater.
THE SDF-1 One of the experimental prototypes created on the Robotech Masters’ factories in more recent times (just a few decades before the series, instead of thousands of years), the ship that would become the SDF-1 was intended to be a completely original design, small as a Zentraedi scout ship (just short of a mile long), but with the firepower of a much bigger battleship and a modular design which allowed it to change its basic shape according to need. Another of its original features was the incorporation of holographic training rooms that would hopefully allow its Zentraedi crew to train their skills beyond what is implanted on their minds during “birth” and, hopefully, allow them to perform better in actual combat. It worked all too well. Its Zentraedi crew developed a consciousness and rebelled against their Masters. They hadn’t much chance, however, and the ship was destroyed in battle. Or was it? Unknown to everyone, the ship was able to do an emergency jump before destruction and its remains eventually fell on Earth. All hands were dead, but the Earth people were able to reverse engineer most of its technology and rebuilt the ship under their own specifications.
Its reactivation, however, sent an emergency beacon to the closest Zentraedi fleet (that of Breetai), which went to Earth to recover that rogue ship, the event that puts the series’ plot in motion. After the botched FTL jump to Pluto (which failed because the small Protoculture amount present in its jump drive – and every jump drive on the Zentraedi fleet, to prevent accidents and time compression effects – had been removed for Earth scientists to be used elsewhere), the ship has to house literally hundreds of thousands refugees, the survivors of Macross City. They build a makeshift city into the huge main cargo hold and hangar decks, so the ship needs to incorporate two aircraft carriers that were also accidentally brought in by the jump to be able to resume its fighter craft operations. Its modular design makes things fairly easy and gives it a sort of human-like shape with the carriers as “arms”. The Protoculture taken from the drive proves itself useful, however, and is used to create pinpoint defense shields (and later big, destructive force fields) that protect the ship during combat and allows it to destroy Dolza’s very large capital ship. The battle takes a large toll in SDF-1 itself, though, and it has to settle down on Earth (specifically South America). Its civilian survivors build a city around it, New Macross City, which, as the largest surviving human community, becomes the new Earth capital. When Khyron returns for a last hurrah, the SDF-1 is the last line of defense for New Macross City and the still under construction SDF-2. Under Gloval’s command, the ship destroys Khyron’s ship, but is wrecked itself. Gloval dies in the battle, but his sacrifice saves SDF-2,
ROBOTECH the city and even the bridge crew, that Gloval ordered to leave ship while he stayed on. While the SDF-1 would never rise again, its remains were still useful and it became the seat of Earth’s military command. During the Invid occupation, its remains were seized by the Invid High Command and used as the their command center on Earth. Regess himself is there most of the time. It makes the former ship the target for Rick Hunter’s Earth Resistance on the final battle against the Invid invaders.
THE SDF-2 Built as the SDF-1 replacement after the original whip was heavily damaged during the battle against Dolza’s fleet, the SDF-2 is a larger version of its “brother”, without the added carriers (and humanlike alternative form) and civilian refugees of that one. During the search for the Robotech Masters and the fight against the Invids it will be commanded by Lisa Hayes. Being the main set piece of the second part (as SDF-1 was from the first), the ship will need to be fleshed out as much as its antecessor. A Battlestar Galactica rugged, military look will be far more adequate than the spotless Star Trek-like visuals. Large hangar decks crewed by both humans are giant Zentraedi workers would give it a fairly impressive (and distinctive) look.
THE VERITECHS AND DESTROIDS Built as the SDF-1 replacement after the original whip was heavily damaged during the battle against Dolza’s fleet, the SDF-2 is a larger version of its “brother”, without the added carriers (and humanlike alternative form) and civilian refugees of that one. During the search for the Robotech Masters and the fight against the Invids it will be commanded by Lisa Hayes. Being the main set piece of the second part (as SDF-1 was from the first), the ship will need to be fleshed out as much as its antecessor. A Battlestar Galactica rugged, military look will be far more adequate than the spotless Star Trek-like visuals. Large hangar decks crewed by both humans are giant Zentraedi workers would give it a fairly impressive (and distinctive) look.
ROBOTECH THE SERIES OUTLINE As mentioned before, the series, like the original Robotech, will be divided in three subseries, those will be:
final attack on SDF-1 is worth keeping storywise, but the available places to put it would be either on the first clip show, which sort of defeats the purpose of doing a clip show to begin with, or on the first episode of the second series, which would start the new “season” with a loose end from the previous one. Not good choices. We will decide later.
1. THE MACROSS SAGA Similar to the original series (and the Japanese anime it was based on), it will show an alien ship falling to Earth and being rebuilt as the SDF-1. The rest will be very similar: The alien Zentreadi will track the ship down to Earth and attack it, an emergency Protoculture-fueled warp jump will bring the ship and the city around it to Pluto’s orbit, the citizens (and part of the city itself) will be relocated to the ship itself for the long journey back, fighting Zentreadi all the way to Earth, where there will be a final showdown with Dolza’s fleet that will lay waste to most of the planet but end with humanity’s (pyrrhic) victory. All that, of course, will be shown through air show pilot (later combat pilot) Rick Hunter’s POV, which will also have his own romantic troubles with aspirant teen actress (later big star) Lynn Minmay and older fleet officer Lisa Hayes. Things will not end well between Hunter and Minmay, whose singing played a fundamental role on saving the Earth on the original series, but won’t be as vital on this new version, to help give Robotech its own identity when compared to the Japanese Macross franchise. The growing relationship between him and Lisa will also take more time to develop, since both will remain as main characters until the end of the series. This was the longest original series, but the last ten episodes or so were a sort of extended epilogue that may be safely ignored. Only Khyron’s
2. ROBOTECH MASTERS Of the three series, this will be the one most unlike its predecessor. Instead of remaining on Earth while the former main characters go into space, now we will follow the main cast (Rick, Lisa, Max, Miriya, etc.) into space as they go looking for the Robotech Masters planet. More inspired by the plans for the cancelled Sentinels sequel than from the original Southern Cross anime series, it will be a more Star Trek/Battlestar Galactica-style series with the characters searching for the Masters’ world while discovering Protoculture remains, lost “barbarian human civilizations, rogue Zentreadi fleets, the first glimpses of the Invids and the whole rich Robotech universe. This is the place to put entirely new episodes and situations. By the end they will find out the Masters’ planet protected by a huge, very disparate fleet that the Masters created over the centuries by capturing and brainwashing, thorough the use of Protoculture, past enemies into fighting for them! Zor, a very different character from the original, but still a man brainwashed into fighting for the Masters, will be captured early on the series and become a vital part of the Earth fleet’s final victory over the Masters.
ROBOTECH An empty victory, as the characters will soon find out, since the Masters are long dead, their conscience transferred into machines that have been keeping their huge military machine in an unending war with the Invids. Worse, the destruction of Dolza’s fleet had left a large section of the Milky Way open to Invids’ ravaging. Even worse, unknown to the characters until then, a long time span had passed thanks to the FTL time compression effects, so they find out that the Invids had conquered Earth… Ten years ago!
Meanwhile, the remaining fighters have only one chance to survive annihilation: Forced atmospheric reentry on Earth, which ruins the fighters but gives the pilots a chance to eject and survive. Among those who do are Rick and Scott, who eventually join up with the Resistance. Looking for them are the Invids and the collaborationist Southern Cross Army, whose best pilot is Dana Sterling, who has grown up in an Invid-ruled society and believes the Resistance to be a group of evil terrorists. Of course, in time she will change her mind and join them to fight her former masters and companions.
3. THE NEW GENERATION
Among the people Rick, Scott and co. find on their way through the planet is a down-on-her-luck cabaret singer Linn Minmei and her new artistic partner, the cross-dresser man known as Lancer, later revealed as a special agent sent by Mars to help the Resistance.
This series will be a bit of a mix between Southern Cross (showing the Southern Cross Army, now a collaborationist police force at the Invids’ service) and Mospeada (with the Earth Resistance fighting the Invids with the help of downed pilots and their cool biketransformable survival armored suits). The human fleet returns in haste to Earth, leaving some people behind to dismantle the Masters’ defenses and free the brainwashed people. Using Protoculture they are able to FTL back to Earth without the time compression effects. Even so, they arrive too late: The fleet is jumped in by Invid ships and badly mauled in the following battle. All fighters scramble to relieve the pressure against the larger ships, to no avail. In desperation, Fleet Commander Lisa Hayes orders the fleet to jump out, saving the ships but leaving most of the non-FTL equipped fighters to their doom, including those piloted by Rick Hunter and Scott Bernard. The fleet eventually settles in the Mars base (still hidden from the Invids) to recover from damage and prepare to retake the planet.
Eventually the team makes contact with the Mars base and they coordinate an attack on the Invids’ Central Defense Command (located on the former SDF-1) to scramble their defenses while the fleet strikes the Invids. Things don’t go as well as planned, but the arrival in the nick of time of the former Masters’ fleet, now under human command, and the vast stores of the deadly-to-Invids Protoculture it carries, forces the Invid to surrender. The series finishes with the humans, Invids, Zentreadi and other galaxy civilizations agreeing on a peace treaty that will at last end the wars that have been tearing the galaxy apart for centuries.
ROBOTECH MAIN CHARACTERS:
commander, a duty that will keep him in direct touch with Lisa and make them realize their true feelings for each other.
RICHARD “RICK” HUNTER
At the end of the second series, he will have to fly Zor on a two-men stealth fighter to the Robotech Masters’ planet surface, where we will have a showdown with his mind controlled stepbrother. Rick wins, to his chagrin.
The main character and element of identification with the viewers. He is essentially not very different from the original: Still the good old brash and headstrong teenager who ends up getting hard lessons from life - especially thanks to his troubled relationship with Linn Minmei. He will have to grow a lot thanks to the load of responsibilities that fall on his shoulders. With time, he go beyond being just a common pilot. He will have to fly missions that won’t allow mistakes - an error and millions of people could die. Too much for a boy of just sixteen. He falls in love with Linn Minmei – the girl he saved on the first episode. But Minmei is not what he expects her to be, not interested in romances or commitment, focusing only on her career. He is on the illusion they have more than that, which makes his behavior somewhat pathetic, and people around him realize it – some making fun of him behind his back, others trying to open his eyes unsuccessfully. To make matters worse, at some point the relationship between the golden girl of Macross and a combat ace is used by the military propaganda machine to encourage more people to enlist. This will end in heartbreak, and will be the main factor that makes Rick volunteer for the mission to seek the Robotech Masters, with no certainty of ever coming back. During the mission, his stepbrother Roy will go missing (thought as dead, but in truth brainshed into becoming a Robotech Masters’ slave), turning him into SDF-2’s combat air group
Back to Earth, he is one of the pilots stranded in the planet after the failed attempt to retake Earth. He joins the Resistance and becomes one of its leaders, but he feels deeply hurt by having been abandoned by Lisa during the battle (not that she had many other options, but he doesn’t know that, of course): When he meets a down-in-her-luck Minmei on Earth (now older than he is – and far more mature), his feelings for her return – and this time they seem mutual. Will he go back to his former flame or the sentiments he developed for Lisa will be stronger?
ROY FOKKER Older stepbrother of Rick. Fun-loving, gregarious and an incorrigible womanizer, is also the leading ace of Skull Squadron. Due to his involvement on the Robotech project since the time it was still a state secret, he knows the capacities of his combat machine more than anyone else; which makes him the voice of experience in combat. But he is in love with Claudia Grant, Lisa Hayes' best friend. And she will not make things easy for him, thanks of his (deserved) reputation as a womanizer.
ROBOTECH Fokker died too early in the original Macross, but nothing prevents him from staying in the show longer on this version. It is part of the effort to differentiate Robotech from the original Macross. However, its disappearance is important for the hero’s journey of Rick Hunter. During the second phase, Roy will go missing and thought dead, but in reality he will just become a thrall the Robotech Masters, becoming the biggest adversary of Rick during that part of the story and surprising old viewers who would be expecting the same chain of events. They will at last face each other in air combat on the Masters’ planet surface. Rick will win, but will Roy die? Jury is still out on that. Dead or injured, he will be out of loop during the third part of the series.
LISA HAYES Fleet Officer. She has personal reasons to hate the Zentraedi, her fiancé dies during their first attack on the series’ first episode – right in front of her! The traumatic event turns her on a tough, demanding commanding officer, which makes her hardly popular with her subordinates At first, she’s almost an antagonist, always ready to give a hard time to protagonist Rick Hunter every time he makes even a tiny mistake (on the other hand, he sees her as a shrew). The audience will understand her plight, though, since this is a reaction for the loss of her fiancé. As the first phase of the series goes on, Rick and Lisa begin to slowly develop a mutual respect and even trust. By the second phase, she takes command of the SDF-2 when Khyron’s attack takes the life of his former superior, Commander Gloval. The
later death of Breetai gives her undisputed command of the whole fleet for the remainder of the series. To Rick’s surprise, she appoints him as air group commander when his brother goes missing during the fight against the Robotech Masters. The new role puts them in constant contact and their mutual respect turns into admiration and finally into love. But Lisa won’t give in to her feelings during the mission, she is too much of an officer for that. This is also the reason why she has to abandon Rick (and most other fighter pilots) during the botched attempt to retake Earth. To save the lives of her subordinates, she has to leave behind the love of her life. The decision wrecks her inside, but when she learns he is alive with the Resistance, she decides not to hide her feelings again. But is Rick still sharing those feelings or has he decided to go back to his old flame on Earth? It is important to differentiate her visually a little from the original model Misa Hayase to establish the feeling that nothing will be the same. A simple suggestion is to keep her hair up or to shorten her hair, making Lisa look a bit younger – but not too much, she’s the boss and she has to be respected.
LINN MINMEI The character most in need of adaptation and updating. The original character was very much linked to the singularly Japanese concept of Idols. Not for us to detail it here, but you could feel the culture shock in the adaptation from Macross to Robotech, especially during the chapters detailing the Miss Macross contest.
ROBOTECH Here, Minmei is a teenager living in a relatively isolated place, dreaming of television and music celebrities. All she wants is a life less ordinary than spending her youth as a clerk in a convenience store in a gas station roadside. She finds her opportunity when visiting her family in Macross City, by participating on a reality show (modeled on "American Idol") where his rivalry with another unknown girl, Jan Morris, polarizes Macross Island’s audience during weeks. Obviously she wins – and becomes a sort of futuristic Miley Cyrus (if you think about her current public image). But her behavior off-camera is questionable; if it becomes public, she could lose everything. And, during the series, this will happen, with serious consequences to her career. She will keep some of her former popularity, in particular among the Zentraedi, who first saw her on transmission from Macross, their first contact with Earth culture. But that’s hardly enough to keep her career going. When her manager embezzles her money away, in some unspecified moment between the first and third parts, she will go on really hard times, having to sing in ill repute establishments to survive. She is paired with a talented cross-dressing performer, Lancer the Yellow Dancer, who eventually links her up with the Resistance and Rick Hunter, whom she had thought dead. This time she develops actual feelings for him, but after being spurned by her before will he be open to a relationship now? One of the ideas is to really rethink Minmei as a celebrity in Western terms, including doing all the image work that is usually done for real celebrities. Videos, choreographies, and especially a new collection of songs (and I must emphasize “collection” instead of two or three tunes) more alike to what a teenage girl would hear nowadays. Forget
"Stagefright" forever. Think of her singing something like "Can’t Be Tamed" or “Who Owns My Heart”, to preserve the Cyrus comparison.
MAX STERLING In the original series, Max was presented as an officer subordinate to Rick Hunter. Here, they both know each other during basic training. Max is a perfectionist, and although he is unfailingly polite to others, he is also extremely competitive, to the point of putting others at risk because of that. Max does not see Rick as a comparable pilot, so he’ll get very annoyed when his colleague is chosen as squad leader instead of him. Max is the better pilot (the best pilot even), but Rick’s other qualities allow him to ascend in the ranks much faster than him. However, his main rival is Ben Dixon, a childhood friend and an equally aggressive competitor (and much better pilot than in the original series). This competitiveness will lead Dixon to death in combat, and provoke an attitude change in Max that wil make him a more sympathetic character. His further relationship with the Zentraedi Miriya was important for the original story and will remain so in this reimagining, but not in the same manner. The Zentraedi are more clearly alien here (they remain humanoid, but they could not simply infiltrate the SDF-1 and pose as ordinary human), so this is not an easy relationship. Miriya and Max fight many times, with him winning every time but the last, where Max is still affected by Ben’s death and is squarely defeated. He does survive, though, and gets captured by Miriya, whose rank and personal authority keeps him alive, albeit jailed. Miriya does get fascinated by her
ROBOTECH little captive, to the point that she decides to get micronized to feel what is to be like him. It works too well and she gets pregnant of him and they decide to escape back to SDF-1, where they aren’t initially received very well, but her pregnancy is used as a propaganda tool against the Zentraedi – one that actually works and helps turn Breetai’s fleet agains Dolza.
CLAUDIA GRANT Fleet officer and Lisa Hayes best friend. She’s one of the few characters that objectively don’t need much modification from the original. An african-american female character, competent and with both an attitude and sense of humor? From an 80’s animated series? It’s pure gold! The big difference here is the status of her relationship with Roy Fokker, still in development. Since Fokker has a reputation for womanizing, Claudia will not make things easy for him -- she does not want to be another girl to be used and discarded later. When she at last realizes what they both really feel for each other, he’ll be missing and presumed dead. In the absence of Dana Sterling in the second phase of the series, it will be Claudia’s turn to be attracted by Zor, once he healed from the Robotech Masters’ brainwashing. But when Roy reappears, himself brainwashed by the enemy, we have a new love triangle in scene to make up for the absence on Minmei during that phase. Assuming Roy survives (the jury is still out), will she go for the bad boy pilot with a heart of gold or the distant, millennia-old gentle soul still recovering from his terrible trauma?
MIRIYA PARINA An enemy pilot. She is the one that captures Max and imprisons him. There is a huge obstacle for their relationship early on: Not just she is an enemy, but it was her who killed Ben Dixon in combat. But, as much as they feel they should hate each other, their attraction of grows on – and will eventually be consummated. She becomes pregnant and, not knowing what to do, she runs away with her former prisoner back to SDF-1. As the first alien among humans, she generates distrust and is even initially arrested, dramatically breaking up the couple for a while, but it is thanks to her that humans get the necessary information about the Zentraedi and the Invid. And her pregnancy becomes a formidable propaganda tool. Different from the original version, the early catalyst of peace among human and Zentraedi in the new series is not Minmei’s music, but this unusual baby from two sworn enemy. Miriya and Max become an unshakable couple, to the point that she decides to leave Earth with him to search for the Robotech Masters, even when it means they need to leave her very young daughter behind. He is injured protecting her during the first attack against the Masters’ world and she in turn saves him from dying at the same battle. They stay on Lisa’s fleet on the third part, helping to train the new pilots that will fight against the Invids in the final battle for Earth. The Zentraedi originally had a much greater variety of appearances, but they essentially are human - they just introduced new ethnic groups in humankind melting pot (gray and purple skin, and new hair colors for example). This will not change, but for purposes of differential, we emphasize a little more the alien nature of the invaders. Miriya have
ROBOTECH gray skin and yellow background on her eyes here, but remains with her long green hair. And she will continue to be a very beautiful woman -hot enough to cloud the thoughts and feelings of poor Max.
a lot of Zentraedi characteristics in her personality. She’s a member of the collaborationist Southern Cross Army that serves the Invid invaders. Dana is a fierce warrior and (at first) she hates the parents that abandoned her to her fate.
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Eventually, after fighting against the Resistance -- and her parents’ friends -- she ends up changing sides. But this betrayal will not be forgotten by the other Southern Cross soldiers, and her life will become hell, with her old companions disputing among themselves who will bring his head as a trophy.
Another character rebuilt from scratch – he originally a much too complicated backstory. But here, it’s not as hard to understand. He appears as force commander under control of the Robotech Masters. Captured by the protagonists, he reveals himself an authentic representative of the Protoculture, kept alive for centuries since the beginning of the Invid war thanks to the Protoculture nanites on his body. After his recover from the Masters brainwashing, he starts a relationship with Claudia Grant. But when it is revealed that her old boyfriend, Roy Fokker, is alive – having ironically taken Zor’s place as a Robotech Masters’ brainwashed minion – he ends up in the midst of a complicated love triangle. Zor becomes crucial for the victory against the Masters. He and Rick are able to bypass the planet defenses on a stealth fighter and destroy the computers that host the minds of the Robotech Masters.
DANA STERLING Daughter of Max and Miriya, she’s quite different from her original counterpart -- she barely remembers her parents (they’re travelling through space, under the effects of time compression) and has
Visually Dana is not very different from her original version (she is a fake blonde, her hair is actually as green as her mother’s). The only substantial difference is that she has a more muscular physique, and after switching sides she will tattoo the skull squadron insignia on her shoulder.
SCOTT BERNARD A pilot that enlisted himself after the end of the Zentraedi war, Scott is one of the many volunteers that join the SDF-2 fighter group on the mission to search for the Robotech Masters’ World. A competent pilot, he quickly rises through the ranks, eventually taking the Skull squadron leadership when Rick is promoted to SDF-2 air group commander. By that time he is on a relationship with one of the Skull female pilots, Ariel. Not the wisest decision, since it causes him not to return to his ship during the Earth fleet’s first attack on Earth. He stays behind to try to
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SOME MINOR CHARACTERS:
The traumatizing event deeply affects him – and only Rick’s orders are able to make him take even the most elementary survival decisions, like getting his Cyclone armor from his fighter wreckage. He appears to be an useless asset to the Resistance until the point where he meets a strange woman that strongly resembles Ariel, Marlene.
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The event completely changes his attitude. He becomes her fierce protector and the best fighter in the Resistance. Even when she confesses that she is an Invid agent sent to the Resistance as an infiltrator he vouches for her life, to the point of becoming suspect of being an Invid agent himself. That devotion pays off later on. When they are both captured by Regess and Marlene is about to be executed by treason, Scott offers his life in exchange for hers. That act impresses Regess, who didn’t believe humans were capable of such noble sentiments, making him see humankind in a new light and paving the way for a pacific solution for the conflict. Bernard is clearly no longer the same character from the original series, and this is reflected in the series. One idea here is to redesign him completely, and since we need more male african-american characters in the Robotech canon, we think it’s a good idea to change him ethnically.
She and Ben Dixon (more on him later) are two examples of the changes to establish the new Robotech identity, moving away from the old show and enhancing characters entirely secondary in the classic version. The problem, again, is culture clash: originally Morris did not make sense (as a character) outside the context of the Japanese idols meat grinder system. In Japan, you can see this as a desperate, but not absurd, measure; but for western eyes, why would an allegedly famous actress risk her career by participating on a ridiculous beauty contest? Here, she has the same age as Minmei and a profile more "Disney Channel-like", as the mentioned Miley Cyrus used to be. Minmei can only win over Morris on the reality show they both are when she goes the same route as her rival, surprising everyone. With that, Morris is not only defeated, but also eclipsed and forgotten. However she does not leave the story! She hasn’t forgotten her fifteen minutes of fame and become resentful and bitter, trying to appear in the media at any cost without much success. When she realizes what is really happening between Minmei and Rick, she’ll be the main catalyst to the end of their fake relationship and her rival’s meteoric rise.
BENJAMIN “BEN” DIXON Another character rebuilt from scratch. One of the original series’ problems was that the deaths of Roy Fokker and Ben Dixon
ROBOTECH happened very close to each other. That minimizes the impact of Dixon’s death in particular; indeed, viewers didn’t care much about him on the original series. Since Fokker will be present until much later in the series, the ideal would be to give more time for Dixon in the show, making his death... relevant. Dixon is a childhood friend of Max Sterling and they both enlisted together. The problem is that after their graduation, they plunge into a fierce competition that starts to slowly affect their friendship, particularly when it becomes obvious that Max is the better pilot. Dixon will eventually die trying to overcome Max in battle, making a reckless move that will cost many lives. This will affect Max profoundly.
ADMIRAL HENRY J. GLOVAL The top military commander of Earth against the Zentraedi forces. He has a somewhat more political profile in this new series, but like the original he’ll die during Khyron’s final attack on SDF-1.
T. S. EDWARDS Veteran member from the original Skull Squadron next to Max, Hunter, Dixon and Fokker. He doesn’t go into space with his fellow squadron mates in the second phase, being replaced by Scott. When he does reappear in the third phase, scarred and holding a grudge against his old companions, is as leader of Dana Sterling’s Southern Cross Army unit. Her desertion turns him into her (and the Resistance) most dogged enemy.
KYLE KING In the original series, he (as Lynn Kyle) was presented as Minmei's cousin, but there is no family relationship here. Kyle is Minmei's manager and it’s hinted that both have an affair. When her star starts to wane, he’ll abandon Minmei after embezzling most of their past earnings, leaving her bankrupt.
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LOOK AND FEEL Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeada, the cornerstones of the original Robotech series, were anime – and it should be enough to define once and forever the series aesthetic. But the aesthetic has evolved and the world has moved on, we should reflect this evolution. The new Robotech has an obligation to sound more pop and modern than the actual Macross sequels made in Japan. The series can’t seem outdated or look like a low-budget project. However, 65 episodes may not be commercially viable for a top-of-line TV animation. How to balance this? Combining traditional techniques of Japanese animation features designed to save money between 70’s and 80’s, but applying it to today's technology and visual refinement. The anime aesthetic was built with limited financial resources; just think about applying these techniques on material that refers to the production of good animations like The Legend of Korra, where we can see a great job of scenarios, color and movement. Think of Korra’s fight scenes protagonized by giant robots. Think about Rick and Minmay trapped in a dark room during an attack, in which you can use to save on animation, yes, but whose effect on the viewer will be electrifying and too claustrophobic for them to think about these details. We will use experimentation not to be artistic or “difficult”, but to merge the viewer in a sense of intensity and speed. Let's work the editing process: shots from multiple angles would be spliced together in rapid succession, often at different speeds, like in Sam Peckinpah movies. Let’s split the screen in dramatic moments, let’s freeze frames, let’s use stark lighting -- and maintain a dynamic feeling! Let’s make Robotech an intense experience.
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CONCEPTUAL ARTWORK
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New faces for old characters: Preliminary sketches for a more teenlike Jan Morris (above), Scott Bernard (aside), ethnically redrawn, and Rick Hunter in his pilot suit (at right).
ROBOTECH From ordinary girl to superstar: Minmei will not stop a galactic war, but her storyline is crucial to mantain a necessary “pop feeling� in Robotech.
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ROBOTECH and all related characters and elements are TM & Š Harmony Gold. All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2010, Toynami Inc.