Wasn’t this called something else in America? “Legendary and Sunrise are collaborating on a live-action film version of Sunrise’s “Gundam” giant robot franchise. The movie was announced by the companies on Thursday at the Anime Expo in Los Angeles.” I didn’t watch it, but there was some sort of show involving aliens and pilots and some of them were colored blue*?
Anyway: live-action Gundam. I assume that the typical response of mixed gleeful anticipation and existential dread applies as usual, yes? After all, the Stones are all chang’d now in Nine groundes out of 10. You are never sure till you question.
Moe Lane
*I know that it’s not Star Blazers or G-Force. I’m not that ignorant.
I’m pretty sure Gundam’s always been Gundam in the U.S.
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My hardcore Gundam fan friend heard this yesterday, and he’s pretty heavily in the existential dread category. He remembers the last time someone tried a live-action Gundam (G-Savoir) and a distrust of the companies involved. He’ll give it a fair chance, but he’s not hopeful.
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>> “I didn’t watch it, but there was some sort of show involving aliens and pilots and some of them were colored blue”
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The first title that comes to mind for that is Macross, which *DID* get a different name and some other butchery done to it when it was brought to the U.S. I can’t recall that name off the top of my head right now, though.
I think I’m leaning toward dread on this one. Gundam was the last anime I invested time in. (Star Blazers was the 1st, of course.) I’m not sure how a live action of that would play. But then, the first Pacific Rim wasn’t a complete fail. Sooooo *shrug*
Did you see the live action Space Cruiser Yamato? It wasn’t bad.
I thought it was well done, actually. At least until the end. Smashing the Comet Empire into 10mins of movie was beyond problematic.
But I also think it was an inherently easier movie to make than Gundam.
The U.S. version of Macross was called Robotech. There were three separate series. The first followed the adventures of Rick Hunter and his annoying girlfriend MinMei during the Zentradi invasion. The second one was also about the Zentradi, and the third one was about the Invid invasion. That one featured motorcycles that transformed into power armor, but I don’t remember much beyond that.
I think the blue aliens were the Zentradi. The Invid weren’t even humanoid, if I recall correctly.
THAT’S what I’m thinking of. Robotech. Thanks!
Robotech. Thank you. I knew it was something sounding like that.
I was a big fan back in the elder days.
Palladium even had a Robotech role-playing game. My brother had that one back in the day. Not sure what happened to his books.
The great thing about Palladium is that they pretty much had the same rules for all of their games. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had the same rules as Heroes Unlimited and Rifts.
Harmony Gold have prevented most subsequent Macross from being imported into US due to their Robotech. This despite the fact that the Japanese Court have ruled that the licensor that they licensed the initial Macross never have that license to began with. Thus we’re deprived of Macross 7 (not a huge loss), Macross Frontier (almost as good if not better than the original, certainly better animated) and Macross Delta (semi ok).
That’s why some anime fans really hate the term Robotech as it prevented some good stuff from coming, and Robotech is 100% Harmony Gold abomination.
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HG licensed it from the company that had been granted the largely worthless international rights. There’s no dispute over that. The dispute is whether it covers as much as HG claims it does (such as follow-up series and toys).
Incidentally, Macross Plus got in before HG reinterpreted the license. So it’s grandfathered in. Do You Remember Love is in the same situation. But no one knows who exactly has the US rights due to bankruptcies.