Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles by Lee Dong Wook and Tommy Yune (2006)
11 February 2007The much anticipated follow up to Harmony Gold’s Robotech series that I grew up on is finally here, and unfortunately it seems it is not that impressive. Honestly I would have rather seen them finally do the Sentinels right (unlike the aborted series they originally tried) then skip telling that story, and continuing after both stories, with a new set of aliens. And while they did do the space battles in computer graphics, they are not at all impressive, and all of the battles in the original series looked far more impressive, and the 1984 film Macross Do You Remember Love is much more impressive. Not only that, but like the sentinels they decided to change the look of the characters, some of them, like Admiral Hunter to extremes. I had no idea that was the admiral when I first saw him. How could he have changed so much, and why, sure it is the same voice, but that is it. And why change the look of Scott so much, when we see him in the same time as the end of the original series, and Ariel looks nothing like she did in the series. And who exactly is Maia Sterling? Is this Dana’s younger sister then? Ehh. This could have been so much better, and was instead a let down.
This takes place before and just after the ending of the New Generation of Robotech (based on the original series, GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA) and right away we are introduced to the new character Marcus Rush (Yuri Lowenthal) who is the sister of Scott Bernard’s (Gregory Snegoff) dead girlfriend Marlene (Melanie MacQueen). Marcus is an alpha pilot, and he wants to join the legendary Skull Squadron led by Maia Sterling (Edie Mirman) who he is interested in. The fleet is waiting for the arrival of Admiral Hunter (Tony Oliver) in the SDF-3 with the Protoculture Matrix which will power the ships. Ariel (Kari Whalgren) is Scott Bernard’s invid girlfriend and she talks to the Invid Regess (Alexandra Kenworthy) and the Regess ends up leaving earth with all the Protoculture, and warns that the Shadow Masters on the way. So Ariel teleports to Scott with the fleet.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
Vince Grant (Rochard Epcar) takes his ship with his engineer Louis Nichols (Edddie Frierson) to find the SDF-3 and they find the SD3 in dire straights, but the Admiral sends them back to warn the fleet about the new alien threat, and the fact that the new missiles and Shadow Technology that they got from an alien race are in fact the problem.
The human’s end up going to Moon base, and getting a colony ship which does not have shadow or missile technology, and they get Alphas that are faster but without the Shadow Technology and they face off with the new Aliens, and head off to find the SDF 3 and the last protoculture in the galaxy.
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Really not very good. This could have been so much better, and is obviously just the start of a series. This could have been so much more, and should have been much more epic. I don’t see why they added these new aliens, or why they changed the look of everything and everyone. I would have much rather had the characters look the same, and done a better story, or a longer movie that got more into the story, instead of this which seems like a pilot to a series, but is not impressive enough to think they will be completing the series.
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