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.

Hollywood Treatment

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

[certron]

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.

Macross source

[zakezuke]

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.

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Tread carefully...

[zelik]

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.

Re:Franchise?

[iluvcapra]

I'm doubtful this will end up going anywhere. It's only in development, they don't have a script, it's Tobey's first real movie as a producer, and the guy they've brought on to do the writing is an unknown. Tobey just wants a sweet development paycheck-- after five years alternating between Brett Ratner and the Walchowski brothers to direct, and half-a-dozen "it" girls "attached" for Lynn Minmei, the project will die quietly, with Tobey $5 million richer.

On the other hand, he might get really attached to it and spend 10 years waiting for its moment to come, only to make a Robotech so intellectual and true-to-source that it ends up being slow and uninteresting ("Paging Gale Ann Hurd, The Hulk would like to see you!").

Re:It doesn't matter - Mechwarrior

[nevermore94]

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.