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MACROSS
December 4, 2009
January 17, 2010
The original Macross, aka
"Super-Dimensional Fortress Sometimes called
Macross" was about a the "White Label"
refurbished alien space ship edition.
that fell to earth in the
1999. Then, in the
far-flung year of 2009, they Many of the elements of later
were facing alien attack.... entries in the Macross
product-line are all there:
fighter pilots and pop-stars;
the power of music in warfare;
"variable fighters" with humanoid modes;
powerful giants: the Zentradi;
"cities in flight"
MACROSS_TRANSFORMS
I like the recurrent Cities flying through
motif of balky space becomes a constant
technology that never BOND_NOVA motif of the Macross
works right. line.
The cannon refuses to fire, the CITIES_IN_FLIGHT
anti-gravity devices rip themselves
loose from the ship, the space fold Many works of Japanese anime
swallows up a bigger volume than and manga show a good deal of
expected, scooping an entire city off familiarity with classic
of the ground, then the space drive American science fiction. This
transports just itself, it disappears. understanding is much deeper
and they can't use it again. than you typically see in
American movies.
The Captain has occasional flashes (It often seems to me
of insight into what might really that even a passing
be going on: these often show an knowledge of *any*
interesting grasp of strategy that written work is really
you don't often get in this kind of useful for people
story. working on projects in
other media.)
The Macross was an alien vessel
crash-landed on earth, which was
then reverse engineered and
refurbished. It turns out it
was crashed by a faction called
the Supervision Army, and it was DISTORTING_MIRROR
planted on earth on purpose: it
was booby-trapped, designed to
automatically fire on their own
enemy, the Zentradi, thus
provoking a side-conflict That's actually pretty
between the Zentradi and the complicated. It may
humans. not entirely make
sense, but it's
unusually elaborate...
There's a suggestion that war
may be less than glorious, and
more an orgy of murderers.
A prominent theme: are we humans
any better than the war-like,
militaristic Zentradi? If
we're not afflicted with There's a pacifist character
battle-lust, then why is human who is a very interesting
history a parade of wars? rendition: very sanctimonious,
more than a little clueless,
I suspect that in this but our heroes in the military
story, the Zentradi can't help but have some seeds
represent the pre-WWII of doubt planted by his
Japanese, and the humans endless speeches.
are the western forces who
defeated them, despite an Also: the fact that he's clueless is
apparently weaker resolve. not entirely his fault. It's not
like the military is willing to tell
the citizens what's going on...
There's a casual acceptance
of government censorship.
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