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Robotech Heading to Big Screen, Starring Toby Maguire
dominique_cimafranca writes "Classic anime cult favorite "Robotech" may be next for the big screen live action treatment, if recent news from SciFi.com's SCI FI Wire is to be believed. Tobey Maguire will produce and may star in the film. The article says 'Warner Brothers Pictures picked up the rights to Robotech, which features giant robots known as mechas. Maguire is producing through his Maguire Entertainment banner and is eyeing the lead role in what the studio plans as an SF franchise a la Paramount's hit Transformers.'" I wonder if they'll go back to the Macross source material when plotting the movie... there's a lot more good substance there then in our version.
in spectacular "me too" action!
As long as he doesn't f-it up along the lines of Spiderman III. Of course, Transformers mostly sucked too. Maybe the higher-level storyline in Robotech will allow for a better movie? Go go Hollywood crap pump!
The version we got in the US is much more "Hollywood-like": It has romance, a love circle, heroes fighting to save the country/planet/whatever, and nearly-stereotypical villains.
Apparently, all the mechs in this re-write, will be powered by stored energy of Cory Doctorow's ego.
Part of me is going:
OOOH! AHHG! YES!
But another part of me is wondering how well this is going to translate into live action. And whether or not it's going to wind up stepping all over the beloved (though flawed) series that introduced so many people to anime.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Clearly, nothing can beat the stop motion awesomeness that was Robot Jox.
Kelly Clarkson as Linn Minmei ... and Queen Latifa as Claudia Grant
Alexis Bledel as Lisa Hayes
Owen Wilson as Roy Folker
Jimmy Fallon as Max Sterling
I've got a big screen, in my TV room. My 50" set is a large fraction of the size of many movies I see in theaters, especially when I go see a fringe or rerun movie, or just wait until it's about to leave the theaters.
What I want is PS3 videogames that have a long, detailed "attract mode": a script that runs the game through its paces. Once someone has "solved" these games, there isn't any reason that a script showing how it's played through shouldn't be available. I'd love to leave my big screen TV set playing some cool games against itself, just a fascinating work of art. Like a 21st Century lava lamp. Since I don't really like to play games myself, just look at the imagery, that feature might even get me to buy some games.
I'd even settle for a Linux version of "Myst" or some other old but cool looking game that runs on my PS3. It's gotta be good for more than watching the one Blu-Ray video that was worth buying.
--
make install -not war
The series is good as it is. The few movies are good as they are. Don't ruin them. I hope they pick a good plot and they do not trade it for effects as they did in most of the late movies.
"Mecha" not "mechas". The same way that "deers" or "mooses" are incorrect. One mecha or many mecha, there is no S at the end.
Besides that, a Robotech live-action with today's 3D animation will absolutely rock! It'd be hard to pack into 2 hours, but I'd like to see some of the 2nd and 3rd Robotech series (and/or Macross Plus) mecha involved, since they look so cool.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Jetfire was a Transformers toy that was the spitting image of the Veritech fighter. They are very expensive on ebay.
The atheists were wrong!
So, on to what's important: who's playing Minmei?
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
I thought slashdot would have picked it up already but Joust, the 1982 video game with gladiators on flying ostriches is being made into a movie,... somehow?
Bring on Teknoman! and Rurouni Kenshin (Oav's only, not the kiddy tv show). I would love to see those 2 made live action.
If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.
anyone else having problems opening wikipedia?
Of course, with Warner Bros. in the fray now, they might actually work out the IP rights, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Tobey Maguire? Way to ruin what was one of my favorite shows as a kid. Let's have Lindsay Lohan play Minmei while we're at it. =/
...if Tobey Maquire's enthusiasm for this high-profile franchise will wane as fast as his enthusiasm for 'Spiderman' did. The cast seemed really bored with their appearance duties for 'Spiderman III', and the work they did on the movie. If they can't be excited about their own work, I can't be bothered to see it. This seems like a dumb move for Meguire when his next movie should be for someone like Ang Lee.
Anyone who thinks that a Hollywood, live-action movie remake of an extremely long running cartoon show is somehow going to be more true to the original story than the American cartoon has never, ever, in their entire life watched any American movie based on a cartoon or video game.
Ever.
Posing the question is tantamount to trolling on the front page.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
While I and most enjoyed Macross over Robotech. The big difference I can remember was Macross dealt with the idea of proculture, as in culture before the giant aliens became genetically modified, where Robotech strung on two unrelated anime fighting over a mythical engery source known as proculture. Such a big difference in story lines would make it difficult to integrate actual Macross sequels and prequils. Near as I'm aware the only sequel, Macross Plus, was released in English though away from the Harmony Gold treatment.
A number of "Robotech" movies were planned, all canceled. This is one of those cases where I feel the fans suffered by a company holding onto to their intellectual property far too long without actually using it.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Crouching Robot Hidden Spider?
I will be interviewing Harmony Gold representative Kevin McKeever at 7:00 Eastern tonight about this and other new Robotech developments on my live talk podcast Space Station Liberty. Please call in with your questions!
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
This would have a lot more potential as a TV series, in order to properly contain the epic saga storyline.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Of course, if you need your mech-fix you can always check out the Stuart Gordon's wonderful pre-CGI Robot Jox (originally titled Robojox, which I much prefer). The film may be low budget, but as always Gordon delivers in imagination where he lacks in budget.
--
Franklin
Big robots? Gay, gay, gay!
Males over 8 years old who still like 'big robots' are homosexuals with severe developmental issues. Is this the perfect franchise for spiderman?
Don't they have anything more current? The series dates back from the early 80s for Gawd's sake. The story line itself happened in the early 2000s. Besides, Robotech was a badly butchered series from the original Macross Saga.
fuck karma, I like saying the truth better
Flaws in original programming never seem to be a problem.
Take Red Dwarf. The first three series were filmed on cheap sets, with minimal budgets, and, well, the props were mostly crap. And yet the result was pure gold. Never before had I encountered something so funny that I almost pissed myself laughing.
The problem arise when people with big budgets try to recapture that, it never seems to work. In the case of Red Dwarf the final three series were well funded, had lots of resources, and the result was at best mediocre. I'll watch it, but not often.
If this adaption of robotech to the big screen is to have any chance, it will be if the producers understand that they are not required to 'fix' it.
Is making crap considered a good idea?
It's clearly a clone of Transformers, which was about as shit as you get. So what? Someone decides to copy it because they can't think of anything better?
Deleted
hmm
rick (aka hikaru) - Tobey Maguire
lisa (aka misa) - Kirsten Dunst (she'll have to die her hair red again)
gloval (aka global) - Liam Neeson
Min Mei -
I think it will be really hard to find a good actress for this part. The acting part shouldn't be hard, in every scene, Min Mei is either depressed, or really bubbly happy. She obviously has bipolar disorder.
But good luck finding an attractive young actress who can sing. Maybe they could just hire a talented young actress and have her lip sync over Mari Iijima. That would work.
Or maybe just get Michelle Branch.
Ahh, who am I kidding? This movie will never be made. Studios license movie rights and then never make the movie all the time. Battletech has been licensed a dozen times, and still no movie.
Or Tobey Maquire's voice is really annoying? I mean, I like the guy and he did well in Spiderman, apparently he's doing well producing his own features too, which is great. Wish him all the luck.
But god damn it his voice is pissing me off. I'll be ok if he stars in this movie as long as he doesn't speak.
I think that Bobcat Goldthwaite should be Rick Hunter, and Roseanne Arnold should play Minmei.
Roy better die in the movie. Its such a pivotal point.
I would love to see a screen saver using MAME ROMs? I haven't found a good one so far. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
If I want to see a movie about the power of song, I'll rent "Ray" or "Walk the Line".
Robotech is just SO much better than Macross, it's unbelievable to even have this kind of comparison. It's like comparing George Dubai Bush to George Washington.
But somehow... I just can't visualize Toby as Rick Hunter.
As long as Minmei remains a bimbo, i'll consider it a smashing success.
I have this as my laptop's screensaver.
It was three not two unrelated anime series that Carl Macek cut-and-pasted together to make Robotech.
The Super Dimension Fortress Macross http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Super_Dimension_
As for Macross sequels... Hell yes there were more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Super_Dimension_
Robotech on the other hand had only one REAL sequel (Robotech Sentinels crashed and burned before even starting) - the 2006 Robotech: Shadow Chronicles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotech:_The_Shadow
Unless you are counting books and comics. http://www.robotech.com/infopedia/bibliography/
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Who is watching this crap?
I'm 30 years old and I BARELY remember anything about Transformers (just enough to know who Optimus Prime is and sort of remember the one robot that was really a cassette player).
I have no CLUE what the hell "Robotech" is.
And then toss on Speed Racer...
Are they now aiming at making stupid movies about stupid cartoons that only people over 40 years old would know about?
I never understood the appeal of that actor. In the spiderman movies, his demeanor made sense for pre-bite Parker but he then continued to play the character as tentative and hesitant through the rest of that first movie and through the two sequels. The Parker character is supposed to be an awkward nerd in his teens and grow into a more confident but not flamboyant adult. But when he's in the suit, he's free of those inhibitions. He's wise-cracking, high-swinging spiderman. One of the themes of Spiderman is how dreams don't pay the bills. Sure, he can do all this wonderful crazy stuff as Spiderman but that's not going to help him get the girl, it's not going to pay the rent, and he'll have to face up to responsibilities outside of webslinging. I always thought that sort of thing was coming from the deep inner fears of the writers and artists working on the books; the next best thing to being a superhero is writing a superhero book but not many people have the chops to pull it off. There's that sick feeling in the pit of the stomach when an artist has to weigh dreams on one hand and personal responsibilities on the other, the dream vs. a 9-to-5 job to pay the bills.
Anyway, back to Robotech. The only thing I can take solace from is that there's no actor, living or dead, who could make Minmei a worse character than she already is. They could stick a wig and a dress on Jar-Jar and that would be a fucking improvement.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
All threads I've read on discussing a live RT movie on other sites follow the same pattern. I predict that this thread on /. will be no different:
1. "They'll (Hollywood) will mess it up!"
2. So and so should play Rick Hunter, and So and so (Owen Wilson) should play Roy Fokker, etc.
3. I want to see a trailer!
4. I'm afraid that it's not going to follow timeline X, which I deduced from an obscure comic book or novel!
5. I hate the idea of a live action RT! (but I'll have to go see it anyway, since my favorite geeky 80s cartoon hasn't gotten any other love in the last 20 or so years)
Sometimes individuals fall into all five categories at once. Hilarious to watch.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was introduced to (good) Anime via Robotech, which was on for half an hour every day after school. I was quite young, and did not start to pay attention to it until much later in the series. That being said, I liked the 1st War, never really understood the 2nd war, and fell in love with the Invid invasion of the 3rd war.
So, which is the movie going to be based on? I suspect the 1st war.
I've been meaning to buy/rent/borrow/catch on tv all the episodes some time to re-acquaint myself with the old series... I still have an old VHS of some of the 3rd war (Denver, Rook's battle with the biker bounty hunter...) and would love to see this series taken correctly to the big screen.
Truthfully, the three wars _could_ be done in 3 movies. Think "Lord of the Rings," as it was difficult but translated to the silver screen successfully. But it would take somebody who truly loves the series to do it right.
Here's hoping to a god movie, not another ruined 80's remake.
And you all know... we're eventually going to come to what some call "the mother of all 80's remakes"... G.I. Joe.
-Pathway
I didn't mind the series, but the singing just started to drive me nuts - anyone who has seen the series will know what I mean. If they keep that out of the film, then I'm happy.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Breakfast served all day!
This is great because Tobey's done a GREAT job with Spiderman. He brought emotion to Spiderman, so much so that Spiderman is a pussy now. He was always an affable geeky type but come on, that bar scene belonged in The Mask, not Spiderman 3. I have no doubt this will suck.
If Transformers showed one thing it's that computer graphics were created to render gigantic robot fights.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Robotech, or the Japanese original Macross, is a very very sacred franchise... Just go look up the Robotech wikipedia and you'll learn that this thing is just as big if not bigger than the whole Gundam series which is still on going and is like the Apple ipod of Anime mecha series. My opinion? Don't mess around with this unless you've got your head screwed on real tight. This to the anime aficionados is like Star Wars. There is much at stake. If you've seen the Macross movie you'll understand why. So touching, so well done. The American version is really........a joke. I'm sorry, the songs "Star light, star bright" really didn't do the originals justice. The original franchise could have been grandiose if the corporations didn't get involved and muck it all up. (again, read wikipedia for more info). Sorry, ranting while inebriated. I just really hope that Mr. Toby doesn't think that he can cash in on transformers and screw around with this one. I for one, do not wish to see screwed up versions of my childhood toys/robots. Have you seen the transformers toys that are being sold now a days? I mean, honestly, are kids nowadays that retarded? I have nephews and the optimus prime they are playing with is a lot more simplified and retarded than what I had as a kid. Shoot, I would think we progress as the generations roll forward, not backwards. With brilliance in kids such as Geohot who can crack the iphone while still in high school I feel the marketing depts. in big corporate really need to be fired for taking two steps backwards. Anyways, enough of rant, I just realllllllly hope they do this movie justice. No, Robotech was a joke and melding 3 different animations was a stupid stupid AOL/time-warner merger style move. Just keep it simple and close to what the original storyline held and you'll win the love of fans/fanatics and newbies alike. Think Lord of The Rings and you'll win in Spades. And god, please don't dumb down the toys or change the valkyre.
Meh, I'd rather someone made a Mobile Suit Gundam (Wing or the original, or hell even that one with a team of Gundams...) movie than this.
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It was televised in north america during the Mid-80s. 22 years ago. So you'd only needed to have been what, 26 to remember it vaguely, 30 to remember it well, and 40 to be a little old (18) to be watching Saturday Morning cartoons.
Have they ran out of ideas for romantic comedies?
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I liked Robotech.
:(
I also liked Transformers, Hollywood butchered that.
Maybe they can follow this up with a live action Urotsukidoji. I mean if they were able to bring The Story of Riki to the big screen live action style, I can't see why they can't do the same for tentacled demonic sex.
Star Blazers had more drama and better music, plus it had the coolest villains around, and the separation between good and bad guys was so clear! real Hollywood stuff!
I remember getting up and watching Robotech on TV and I loved it. So much so that I joined a fanclub and would mail VHS tapes across country to get obscure anime movies and shows. I quickly learned that Robotech isn't just three unrelated shows packaged together, but that its story largely replaces the originals. There have been several awesome Macross series that won't find an audience in America because Robotech has ruined Macross for Americans. Try to explain protoculture to a Robotech fan, and they will tell you it's an energy source despite the word itself clearly implying "ancestors". Proto-culture. So much more intriguing.
Just to spin this waay off track, I remembered one of the funniest Wayne & Shuster comedy bits I'd ever seen. --They re-did Citizen Kane as a half hour comedy sketch, and in the second scene they had the reporter agonizing over the question, "What was Rosebud? What did he mean?" The fellow he was talking to shrugged and said, "Maybe it was the name of his sled."
It totally cracked me up. Twice, in fact. --The first time because I'd never even heard of Citizen Kane when I saw the comedy sketch and the apparent randomness of the comment struck me as utterly hilarious. I'm giggling at the memory even as I write this. --Then five years later when I began to absorb some culture and saw the Orson Wells flick, I remembered the sketch and slapped my forehead. It was kind of a let down though because, "Maybe it was the name of his sled," was ten times funnier without the proper context. It was just such a thoroughly insane thing to say. Unintended comedy. It's hard to write that well on purpose.
-FL
So that's two fairly hard-wired reasons I had difficulty with the casting in Spider Man. --And both reasons are totally unfair standards to gauge a movie by. Phooey.
-FL
Please... please nooooooooo!
The concept is just so. . . weird, it could only fit in an animation from Japan.
Think: Alien vessel crashes to Earth. What is the government's logical response?
1. Hush it up and give it to the tech boys in Area 51.
2. Put it into active service as the Earth's flag ship despite the fact that half the vessel hasn't even been properly explored.
Part of the mystique of Anime for Westerners stems, I think, from the incomprehensible style of logic they brew in Japan.
That being said, I thrived on Robotech when I was fifteen, and if Toby casts himself as Rick I'm going to gag. I can't, in fact, think of a single actor who would do Rick justice. The dark-haired every-teen who stars in nine tenths of all Anime just doesn't exist in our culture, but he's such a great character. Unpretentious and gentle, always screwing up, but also equipped with all the right elements to become a strong and heroic Man. For some reason, young actors in the West only seem to come in two flavors; "Way Cooler than any of You Losers, DiCaprio clones", and guys like Toby who seem somehow to be a bit testosterone deficient. --That guy who played Neo in the Matrix almost got it, but that was only because he's the King of Bland, which is probably why he can't do the, "Way Cooler Than You" schtick. I mean, can't even remember his name and he's supposedly a super-star.
A young Tom Hanks comes close, but there's too much comedy in him. Rick isn't a funny character.
I think there's a good chance that people like Rick are a product of Japanese culture. Too bad. We could use more guys like him over here. --Somebody you know you can trust in a clinch; who isn't going to have an emotional crisis or crack a nervous joke if you hand him a gun, but who also isn't a self-centered prick who would put the moves on your girlfriend if thought he could get away with it. We need more decent guys promoted in our culture.
Come to think of it. . . Luke was a decent guy in Star Wars. Despite the (popular) complaints people had about him, I thought he was the sort of guy you would really be proud to call your friend. He wasn't short on testosterone, and he was an earnest, stand-up guy. Heck, whenever he got too full of himself, it was because he was drifting to the Dark Side. And look at that! Luke practically became Jesus in Star Wars because of those qualities. That's how rare decent behavior is over here. In a nation where the fast-talking, back-stabbing jerk is the ideal, guys like Luke and Peter Parker are considered practically divine when they should by rights be the norm. Sheesh.
Can you imagine Rick Hunter being played by somebody like Tom Cruise? Ugh.
-FL
Robotech is just a big rip-off of Battletech anyway.
paintball
How did everyone miss this terrible misspelling? It's Tobey Maguire, not Toby. Come on, people.
It was spelled correctly in the summary, though...
The fact the article quote had "mechas" instead of "mecha" or hollywood producing it?
If the people handling it cant even get the terminaology correct, that doesnt bode well for the movie content.
You have your actual, crummy mecha, land walker.
A hint of what all-terrain robot legs can do with a robot donkey.
And mechanical monsters are a cultural inevitability, ask robosaurus.
You can't take the sky from me...
It's Hollywood kid: fuck the story line, it's gonna have cars, babes and lots of explosions, and the protoculture will be a macguffin of all-spark proportions.
You can't take the sky from me...
I am excited for the movie and hope it comes together well. The movie can not be great with Toby playing Rick. Toby would make a terrible Rick because Toby does not have the ability to act/demonstrate raw innocence/excitement to experience soemthing for the first time. Now what if Toby played exodor (spelling?) Regards, Gg
After getting into a conversation with coworkers about Robotech, I Ebayed the DVDs and have started rewatching the series last week. While some of dialog is cheesy, the relationship conflicts and the political intrigue is pretty mature. It's also a pretty unique take on the "alien invaders" genre. The characters are still sympathetic and way more complex than sitcom caricatures. I just hope that they don't infect the story with the typical blockbuster tripe.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Do you really want to help AOL, Warner Bros., Time ("The person of the year is... a computer!", "...you!", etc.), CNN?..
I wonder if they'll go back to the Macross source material when plotting the movie... there's a lot more good substance there then in our version.
This is a good insight, CmdrTaco, and I wish you had posted it in the comments thread rather than using your editor-fu to append it to the end of the story submission, so that it could be moderated +5 Insightful by users like me. Or so that users who don't think it's a good insight could mod it down to -1 Overrated.
Administrators administrate. Editors edit. Commenters comment. It should stay that way.
this sounds interesting and all....but i'm still waiting on that live action Evangelion that Weta promised us a few years ago..
Speaking as one who has played the Battletech boardgame and all of the Mechwarrior videogames as well as read many of the books in the series I have been wating for this franchise to be made into a movie for years. There is ample source material, lots of cool robots, and some very good story lines. I think it could make some great movies if handled right.
Nevermore.
It's gotta be Legend of the Demon Womb. That's the one with the Nazi Death/Rape machine.
Since when is Toby Maguire capable of being a stud that two (not one pale redhead) hot chicks fight over? PLEASE...I think toby maguire should take the lead role in Revenge Of the Nerds and leave Rick Hunter Aka Hikaru Ichido alone.
I agree. Battletech would make an amazing movie, but I don't really see it being commercially viable. You'd end up getting some rehashed, watered down story like Starship Troopers.
There are many reasons for this. Some kinds of war movies work well. Typically, those that involve platoons or groups of people that interact together. Submarine movies work good because everyone is there on the bridge. Same with shows like Star Trek.
Movies that center around single people in ships, fighting each other don't work well, because it's much harder to have character interaction, and seeing your squadmates on a video monitor doesn't work in the movies.
Now, it might work out to have the majority of the story outside the mechs. Maybe following a platoon of ground forces. But then we don't get that up-close-and-personal feel of the battle mechs that fans would be looking for.
We'll see, though.. as long as Uwe Boll doesn't do it...
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More likely, it'll end up being that slashed up and reimagined trash because Americans really don't get this robot thing. It's certainly not in their culture, nor technology they export.
:P
Live action Clash of the Bionoids, yay!