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.

GoBots coming to live action...

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!

Overfiend coming to live action...

Maybe they can follow this up with a live action Urotsukidoji [wikipedia.org]. I mean if they were able to bring The Story of Riki [wikipedia.org] to the big screen live action style, I can't see why they can't do the same for tentacled demonic sex.

I don't think it'll be the original version.

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.

Re:I don't think it'll be the original version.

To be fair, the original Japanese version of Macross has that too - that isn't specifically the difference between Robotech and the original source material.

Yeah, honestly.

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.

More info leaked

Apparently, all the mechs in this re-write, will be powered by stored energy of Cory Doctorow's ego.

As big an RT fan as I am...

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.

Re:As big an RT fan as I am...

What I am perhaps most worried about is that they will try to cram the three chapters/ages of what we know as Robotech in the US into one movie. This would be a mistake, I feel. However, I would also hope they would take enough time for some character development. Roy Fokker plays a huge role in the first chapter, even if he is... otherwise indisposed. Will I care, at that point in the film, that he is making an exit? Will the characters of Claudia and Rick, believably?

One thing that they absolutely need: an orchestra.
One thing they can do without in a movie, but which was crucial to the series: a narrator.

I almost want to say the first arc could be made into a trilogy by itself. The discovery, development, training, the first fold, being lost, death, first contact(s), spies, micronization, destruction, reconstruction, more destruction, etc are going to be hard to squeeze into a single movie, even if it turns into "Dances with Bretai" and is 3 hours long. The main problem I had with The Sentinels was that we were introduced to a whole new alien race, find out they are bad, and see them defeated in the span of 90 minutes. While I'm sure part of it is latent Comic Book Guy "It was better when I was 8 years old" feelings, I'm pretty sure they would have taken 5 episodes of introduction and explanation for me to care that anything happened to them.

For some reason, when thinking about the Mospedia chapter, I keep thinking of the danger room from X-Men III. Mostly, the scrapyards.

This is heresy!

Clearly, nothing can beat the stop motion awesomeness that was Robot Jox.

Hollywood Treatment

Kelly Clarkson as Linn Minmei
Alexis Bledel as Lisa Hayes
Owen Wilson as Roy Folker
Jimmy Fallon as Max Sterling ... and Queen Latifa as Claudia Grant

Videogame Attract Mode

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" [wikipedia.org]: 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.

plural

"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.

There IS a god!

The atheists were wrong! [slashdot.org]

So, on to what's important: who's playing Minmei?

You know....

Bring on Teknoman! and Rurouni Kenshin (Oav's only, not the kiddy tv show). I would love to see those 2 made live action.

The Source Material

It is very unlikely they'll be going back to the "source material" on this one, as there are still a lot of disputes between Harmony Gold and Tatsunoko and Big West. At the very least, they aren't likely to be able to use things like the original Macross Valkyrie (aka Veritech) designs, and they may not even have the rights to redo the original story.

Of course, with Warner Bros. in the fray now, they might actually work out the IP rights, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I wonder...

...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.

Macross source

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 [wikipedia.org], 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.

Interviewing Harmony Gold rep tonight

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 [terrania.us]. Please call in with your questions!

But a movie is only a couple of hours

This would have a lot more potential as a TV series, in order to properly contain the epic saga storyline.

Stuart Gordon's Robojox

Of course, if you need your mech-fix you can always check out the Stuart Gordon's wonderful pre-CGI Robot Jox [imdb.com] (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

Since when ...

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?

 

Is it just me

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.

keep it real

Roy better die in the movie. Its such a pivotal point.

Hey, I'm easy to please.

As long as Minmei remains a bimbo, i'll consider it a smashing success.

Toby? Ugh.

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.

Toby as Minmei

You seem to have misunderstood the story. Your objection to Toby is made moot by your closing statement.

You see, Toby will be playing Minmei...

RoboTech ... will be right back!

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

No singing please

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.

Franchise?

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.'

Wait ... so one crappy movie counts as a "franchise" these days? No wonder movies suck so bad. They've stopped even pretending they're supposed to entertain people. From the second the ink dries on the contract, it's nothing but keychains and Happy Meals. Screw you, Maguire.

Oh yeah

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.

Bring it on!

If Transformers showed one thing it's that computer graphics were created to render gigantic robot fights.

Tread carefully...

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.

Mobile Suit Gundam

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.

Target Audience?

Its interesting that they keep making movies for geeks,(Epic-Over-The-Top-Special-Effects-War, Robots, Cyberspace, Hacking-Computers-With-An-iPod) who are the most likely, surely, to be pirating them? So the people they make 100 million US dollar movies for, are the ones ripping them off!? Maybe they get ideas from the fan art desktops from seized computers?

Have they ran out of ideas for romantic comedies?

Why must Hollywood ruin good things?

I liked Robotech.

I also liked Transformers, Hollywood butchered that. :(

Good! I am now waiting for Star Blazers!

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!

Let's just bury it already.

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.

Hm.

I can't think of a story line done in a Western live-action film which is anything even remotely like Macross.

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

"Toby"?

How did everyone miss this terrible misspelling? It's Tobey Maguire, not Toby. Come on, people.

It was spelled correctly in the summary, though...

which is more worriesome?

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.

Toby != Rick

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

Amazing coicidence

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.

+6 Untouchable

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.

eva

this sounds interesting and all....but i'm still waiting on that live action Evangelion that Weta promised us a few years ago..

Clash of the Bionoids

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.

Live action Clash of the Bionoids, yay! :P

Re:BTW, Joust The Movie

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?

They were knights (the game was loosely medieval-themed) and yeah you're right [gamerflicks.com] there is supposed to be a movie. Weird. Paramount is looking at it, the article says.

Still, once Paramount passes on the idea and they can't find another major production house to pick it up, it'll probably go direct-to-DVD. Maybe kill off an evening with it that way.

Re:*vomit*

She would actually fit the role pretty well...

Re:This must be because Transformers were such a h

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.