Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles |
  • USA • 2006 • 88m •   • Directed by: Dong-Wook Lee, Tommy Yune. • Starring: Richard Epcar, Eddie Frierson, Mark Hamill, Alexandra Kenworthy, Yuri Lowenthal, Melanie MacQueen, Chase Masterson, Edie Mirman, Iona Morris, Tony Oliver, Arthur Santiago, Gregory Snegoff, Michael Sorich. • Music by: Scott Glasgow.    The Robotech Expeditionary Force stages their final assault on the Invid to liberate Earth at all costs along with REF pilot Scott Bernard and the Invid princess Ariel's parallel planetside efforts at the alien's stronghold, Reflex Point. Just before the attack, the fleet gets a distress call from Admiral Rick Hunter and their flagship, SDF-3. In the ensuing mission, which only manages to rescue the android Janice Em, the REF discover that they have been betrayed by their own ally, the Haydenites, whose powerful technology they have supplied now is revealed to be designed to devastatingly enable their own plans of conquest even as the Invid withdraw. As Scott and Ariel join the fleet, the disparate pair and Janice must overcome their comrade's deep distrust to find a means to stop their newest foe before it is too late.
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Review:
Now, that said, R:TSC does a pretty good job of updating Robotech (while taking a few... um... liberties with certain story elements) to meet the more mature sensibilities of the returning audience.
Visually, the movie is a blend of 3D and 2D animation, with the 2D looking better than the 3D, but that may be down to the "Shadow Technology" effect on the REF ships that gave them a glossy sheen when a flat color would have looked a bit better (Scott's Alpha doesn't suffer from the glossy look, but it is only shown briefly). Glossy looks aside, its a visual delight to see Alpha fighters and Invid dogfighting in the space above Earth, with missile contrails and tracer rounds lighting up the screen. Robotech mecha battles haven't lost any of their visual appeal.
The characters look slightly more American-styled than Anime-styled, but given that Robotech was cobbled together out of 3 different TV series with 3 different styles of animation, fans should be used to that by now. And at any rate, they are more pleasing to the eye than would be expected, with the female characters' eyes being particularly expressive.
Returning characters are instantly recognizable, despite the copyright-induced makeover they have all received, with the exception of Rick Hunter, who is only recognizable (and only briefly shown) if you've seen The Sentinels. Admittedly, the breasts on Marlene/Ariel and Janice are rather larger than they should have been, but a buxom Maia is perfectly allowable in a character we have never seen before.
A delight to hear is the voice track; almost every returning character has their original voice actor/actress providing their voice again, with the notable exceptions of Ariel/Marlene and General Reindhart (but he was a minor character anyway, so lets not quibble).
Plot-wise things are a bit different... I don't mind visual re-designs, but some of the story elements that were altered grated on me a bit. Maia Sterling's existence is a bit of a shock, considering we've only heard of two Sterling children before. Given her advanced age, she feels shoehorned into the story to provide us with the obligatory Robotech female ace pilot. If her surname was different, she would'nt feel as out of place. The decision to completely disregard Ariel's status as a visual copy of Marlene Rush makes for a rather unbelievable sequence between her and Marcus. And Scott Bernard's decision to leave Earth is different than in the original series; then he was setting out to find Rick Hunter's lost SDF-3, here he is heading to REF HQ to tell them that humans and Invid can live in peace. He has also fully accepted his feelings for Marlene/Ariel, which is quite different from the original series, where he was still struggling with his love of Marlene/Ariel and his hatred of the Invid.
The decision to introduce a new enemy for the REF to fight was a logical one, since the Invid situation was resolved at the end of the original series, and a new enemy means that one doesn't have to jump through copyright hoops before putting them in a movie. However, the identity of that new enemy is fairly implausible, considering their goals are totally not in keeping with their previous portrayal in the Sentinels novels.
The tone of the movie is somewhat darker than the original series, with a little more than the usual Robotech death & destruction on hand, and a general feel of desperation that sets in about halfway through the film. Still, it does maintain the mature feel of what was always the most mature cartoon on American TV.
The conclusion of the film is one thing that disappointed me at first. If you come in looking to see Scott Bernard's quest to find Admiral Hunter, as any fan of the original series would be expecting, you won't find that depicted here. The ending of the film suggests that said search will be the driving plot behind an upcoming series, or another movie, however. So there's still the hope we will finally see Robotech's loose ends tied up, we just might have to wait a while longer. Though hopefully not 20 more years...
Review by (call_me_@hotmail.com) [IMDB 16 March 2007] from the Internet Movie Database.
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