Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (2006)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles is the long awaited sequel to the Robotech franchise that started in the 80s. Its release was met with very mixed fan reaction and reviews ranging from amazingly awesome to downright terrible.I am a "late comer" to Robotech, having only discovered the classic series recently thanks to dvds and youtube. My first impression was not a good one and only season 3 of the original series made me not dismiss it as overly dramatic, hyped up anime trash. Robotech the Shadow Chronicles was entertaining but inconsistent. It is very obvious that there were different directors and writers working on different parts of the movie. Story - The good points of the story was that it was easy to follow. It lent itself well to the setting of the movie. However, the creators make the assumption that the viewer already has a level of knowledge concerning Robotech since little time is devoted to flesh out the backstory, and this would tend to alienate new viewers.Characters - A very varied bunch of characters with well defined personalities. Only the main cast gets any significant development though. Most of the characters are likable and the dialogue interplay between them fits very nicely. Their character redesigns are very attractive and still keep the essence of the originals. On the other hand, once again the creators assume that the viewer should have prior Robotech knowledge and thus character back stories are just glossed over.Animation - Inconsistent in both the 2D and 3D. For the most part, the 2D art is a good balance between detail and animation fluidity. Vibrant colours complement the attractive character designs and smooth character movements. However the few animation short cuts used can be quite obvious and jarring and the "zoom in to face close up" shot is slightly over used. In the 3D department, there are scenes of amazing quality, like The shot where Scott Bernard is flying is Alpha Fighter toward the invid Hive to look for Ariel. Another well done 3D scene was the Haydonite mecha invading Space Station Liberty. The quality in those is equal to that of high production value anime movies like Sky Crawlers. However, at the same time, you get really shoddy 3D work like the invid mecha and the human space cruisers.Choreography - I do not know if it was just inexperience, or that the directors were trying to be true to the original.......but the fight choreography of the space battles looked like they came straight out of the original 80s anime. This is not really a good thing since this is a 2007 production. In the original anime, to save on budget, mecha would zip across screen locked in a set pose, enemies would disappear in gaudy balls of flame and space cruisers exchange volleys of fire while making no attempts at evasive maneuvers, basically on screen movement of mecha and spaceships were kept to a minimum. Robotech the Shadow Chronicles continues that tradition. Mecha are locked in a set pose as they zip about screen, there is minimal mecha part movement, spaceships do disappear in gaudy out-of-place looking balls of flame. All in all, Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles is a good effort by the creators. Especially since for most of them, especially the directors, this is their debut production. Perhaps their only mistake was continuing the mistakes of the original series. The sometimes campy dialogue, derivative music(the original robotech theme seemed ripped from Superman), limited mecha animation and inconsistent production standards were all carried over from the original series. Of course, this would spark the "keeping true to the original" debate again among fans.I look forward to seeing the next installment of the Robotech saga but I do hope that the creators learn from the mistakes of the original series and Shadow Chronicles.

However, my lack of speech is more out of respect for the original series than anything else. As a long-time fan who grew up on Robotech every day after school, it is extremely hard for me to speak about the series with harsh words. And yet, that's what I feel I must do.This movie is a prime example of why Americans (or maybe just Harmony Gold) should NEVER, EVER, EVER be allowed to do Japanese-style anime. To begin with, the plot is predictable, the dialog is terrible and the voice acting even worse. Seriously, the voice acting is worse than a bad dubbing job. However, even if all of that were true, at least there should be some great eye candy for Robotech fans, right? Really cool robots flying around, new aliens to gawk at, cameos from old characters, cool new armor, etc. Wrong, you get NONE of that.The mecha in this movie is so utterly disappointing. On the Earth side, you get Alpha and Beta Fighters with a short scene with Cyclones. Not a single new mecha. Not only that, but the mecha are rendered in the worse CGI I have seen in decades. Simplistic models with no texture mapping at all (AT ALL!!), no cell-shading or any other advance techniques to maintain an anime-style feel. Just pathetic. On the Invid side, all you ever see are the standard Invid Troopers (they may even be Scouts, I didn't get a good enough look). For the "Children of the Shadow", you only get to see their mecha for about 5 minutes towards the end, and the mecha design is really primitive compared to Japanese designs.Overall, it's hard to believe that this movie was made twenty years after the original series. If you watch the many sequels for series such as Macross, each one brings to the table advancements in animation, character and mecha design. The Shadow Chronicles is a step backwards in each of these areas. If you are super die-hard fan as I am, you will probably ignore this review and see the movie anyway, because you need to see for yourself. However, just be prepared to have your childhood memories ripped to shreds.

Wow. What an incredible cliché after cliché... You wait for 20 years and all you get is a complete rehash oh every SCI-FI cliché in the book...Yet again the earth is fighting nasty aliens, with one dimensional forgettable characters...Only this time the awesome(robotech) music score is not here. It is replaced with easily forgettable Star Wars alike score...And on Top of that, we have the so advertized CGI. O dear that is THE worst CGI ever seen on film. I simply cannot find a comparable title.What you will see is one cgi flaw after another, badly animated mecha,( almost not moving), Massive perfectly aligned fleets, moving all at the same speed..., horrible out of sync explosions..The 2d characters were somewhat decent. They could use some more animation, but they look quite good.. Too bad all they have is their looks...Over all a major desapointment. Most certainly not worth the money...

I been waiting for something like this for many years, specially after read every comic of the second saga The Sentinels trying to know what could be the complete Robotech Story. But it's a shame to find a movie full of CGI, the worst CGI you can imagine specially when you remember the original robotech almost like a "masterpiece" of animation where every character, and every scene was something unique. Not here, the story begins good with new characters and new information of somethings let out of the comics but they change many original elements from the TV show and that is a sin, just to create a story where nothing fits really well. Now, if you wanna know more and investigate some chronologies made by fans using the TV show, comics and the books, the disappointment is greater, the producers create a clever story, but with many changes away from the original storyline and, as I wrote, if you consider the very poor quality of the animation it's just a losing time watch this spawn. You can find fan-made movies of every franchise with better animation.