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The Star Wars Holiday Special of Robotech
Feb. 2nd, 2007 06:00 pmI don't know if I'll ever be able to work up the courage to seek out the Star Wars Holiday Special and see it for myself. However, I have recently happened upon another work that just might carry something of the same overtones of having been briefly promoted and then long lost in infamous legend, if in a different and smaller circle: Robotech: The Movie.
I first heard about Robotech: The Movie in the process of searching out information on Robotech as a whole right after I first went on-line. It was clear enough why I hadn't heard about it before: it had been test-screened in Texas in 1986, then pulled from the theatres, apparently released on video only outside North America. It had since become infamous among anime fans, although I could wonder how many of them had even seen it for themselves. I was willing to wonder if the controversy around Robotech in general, a controvery that might in itself have been puffed up through external factors, had taken a victim.
In any case, the best description I had to go on was a short essay written by someone who had been in the right place to actually see Robotech: The Movie during its test screenings, although that wasn't the only reason he was notable in fandom. Years later, I bought the official re-release of the anime OVA that had been the core of the Movie, Megazone 23... and then, some time after that, I happened on a chance to see Robotech: The Movie itself. Dark curiosity drove me onwards.
( Cut for Megazone 23 and Robotech: The Movie spoilers, should anyone care... )
I suppose that in the end, Robotech: The Movie was just a curiosity for me, an fragment from a world that might have been. Still, even a curiosity can be interesting to see when you weren't expecting to ever experience it for yourself. Too, perhaps, I just may be telling myself that it's lowered the bar a little further for "Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles..."
I first heard about Robotech: The Movie in the process of searching out information on Robotech as a whole right after I first went on-line. It was clear enough why I hadn't heard about it before: it had been test-screened in Texas in 1986, then pulled from the theatres, apparently released on video only outside North America. It had since become infamous among anime fans, although I could wonder how many of them had even seen it for themselves. I was willing to wonder if the controversy around Robotech in general, a controvery that might in itself have been puffed up through external factors, had taken a victim.
In any case, the best description I had to go on was a short essay written by someone who had been in the right place to actually see Robotech: The Movie during its test screenings, although that wasn't the only reason he was notable in fandom. Years later, I bought the official re-release of the anime OVA that had been the core of the Movie, Megazone 23... and then, some time after that, I happened on a chance to see Robotech: The Movie itself. Dark curiosity drove me onwards.
( Cut for Megazone 23 and Robotech: The Movie spoilers, should anyone care... )
I suppose that in the end, Robotech: The Movie was just a curiosity for me, an fragment from a world that might have been. Still, even a curiosity can be interesting to see when you weren't expecting to ever experience it for yourself. Too, perhaps, I just may be telling myself that it's lowered the bar a little further for "Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles..."