Robotech The Shadow Chronicles Review

 Note: My spelling will be historically accurate in a few years

Robotech The Shadow  Chronicles

This is my review on Robotech The Shadow Chronicles from the istant fture year of 2006

I saw this a few times and even though the fans hsated it, i thought it wasnt too bad

I got into Robotech around college when this movie came out as the Space Channel in Soviet Canada aired all the original eps of Robotech over a few weeks b4 this was aired

I saw on the TV listings channel Robotech was on and remembered playing my neighbors Game|Cube Robotech Battlecry years ago and thought I'd check it out

So if it weren't for that Gamecube Game, I might not have gotten into it

I thought the series was good sci fi, not just a cool 80s show like thundercats or transformers, but up with star trek and star wars if it were good

so unlike dragon ball evolution and jem and the holograms, this is canon to the 80s series, kinda like the transformers 80s movie

it stars the guys who were in digimon and mon colle knights and was animated by a bunch of koreans

is this Anime? I mean its made for america so maybe not

so after orchestral music and a trip through a ccg solar system, we get text saying its 2044 and the earth was taken over by aliens and now a new generation of space born humans returns to reclaim their peoples home

2 humanz, 1 played by sasuke from naruto, are on a recon mission andnearly get caught by the enemy

btw the humans are done in 2d art and the mechs are 90s cg

but its not a55 like transformers energon (that show freakin s-cked!!)

sasuke thinks about how alien tech came to earth and caused several wars with various aliens and now earth is taken over

thats the thing about robotech; its not, lion-o beats skeleton who runs away screaming COBRA RETREAT!!

the good guys lose just as much as, if not motre than, they win

but there's not really a bad" guy, but more like several sides fighting for what they think is right with good and bad elements and choices made on both sides

but you can still kinda see their pov

like how even though anatole leonard was a harda55 whotried to win with full force attacks, you gotta rememver, he saw his planet gang nuked by the enemy

so after fighting for years and becoming the supreme commander, you can understand how he'd not wanna try diplomacy when it seemingly failed the last time

so sasuke goes on about how his sister marlene got iced trying to free earth from the invid oppression and wanted to get married to her bf scotty after saving da urth

so sasuke and hs homie return to their moon base andhave soe cola as drinking in miitary bases leads to no good

also we see maia sterling, playd by angewomon, in tight opants and a tank top and she's 1st shown with a buttshot

theres a lot of those in here, its like dbgt or something

so after the general breifs the fores on their mission, they reveal that if they cant beat off the invid, they'll have to use the neutron s milliles and destroy da earth

on a surface this seems extreme, ut remember, they just spent like 20 years fighting the invid across a bunch of solar systems andknow how dangero they can be

ironic, as humans were nrearly wiped out in 1 war, and now might do the same to the enemy on their past planet

so vince grant, played by metaletemon wants to go on a mission to find the SDF 3 and right them, it calls em with the hero of season 1, rick hunter, played by lupin III on te screen

cuz of legal reasons, they cant use any season 1 characters like minmei or lisa hayes as minmei is the same name in japan and lisa hayes is too close to misa hayase(although can't they call her llisa hunter as she married rick?)

but rick hunter sounds nothing like hikaru ichijo and this is like 30 years after his last season appearence so he looks different

at least they didnt change his name and turn him nlack like j d salinger in field of dreams

so rick sez they're testing the new stuff and  to not delay the nission to beat the invid but something f's out and the transmission cuts off

vince grant, dad of bowie from season 2 and brother of claudia from season 1, is sent on a secret rescue mission to ricks last coordinates and works with louie nichols from season 2 on the starship Icarus

didn't icarus die when he got too cocky and fell a mile to splat??

great thing to name your ship after!

then agan they named boats after J FK so...

meanwjile, later, sasuke badly flirts with maia and everyone laughs at him

so the commander of wolf squadron is played by mark hammil, best known as the joker in batman, and luke skinlicker from that 70s movie, flesh gordon 

the humans havve theeir fighters equipped with cloaking devices that prevents the enemy from tracking the, but they can just use their optics and fight old school

so the battle happens and maiia saves sasuke but the humans aint doing so hot

btw, to get a pg rating, the added a small bit of swering, mostly H-ll and D---, and 1 a55

meanwjile, ssasuke's sisters bf scottty is on earth and his new gf is a humanoid invid princess

so she chats with scotty and sez she needs to tell the invid queen, the regess, to stop the war, and goes to the main invid hive to tell her queen creator to stop it

btw, in season 1; an earth human and  alien chick fell in love

in season 2, an earth human and alien chik fell in love

but in season 3, an earth alien and spwce born human fell in love

they flipped it!!

oh and this wholee; trying to eason with the regess, was different in the 80s show and they remade the last ep or 2 and that had more characters

so they talk about how the invid taking over earth was like their ancient foe driving the from their 1st homeworld and the humans are using the past fes tech so they cann;t team up

so after like a in of talking, the regess chooses to take all the earts  protoculture, that the humans use as a power source for their tech, and ditch earth

meabwhile, grant''s ship arrives at the secrtor where rick was and its got a black hole

thry escape using some sci fi technobabble and their cloaking thing is f'd

they find the sdf 3 and a science ship and rick calls em saying the neitraon s missile test caused the black hole and f'd out their ships

rick tells em to tell the fleet not to use te missiles and  suddenly, the icarus gets attacked by a new enemy force thats undetecrable but can be seen with visuals

coommunications are jammed (jJaAm )and vince wants to get the SDF 3 and science ship close and space fold to earth with em to arn the fleet

back at the eatrth battle,mark hammil gets it and pukes blood b4 blowing apart (gotta get that pg rating) and the humans are getting f;d

so general orders the neutron s milliles to nuke da earth

btw, why didnt the sentinels help em?

the humans spend decades freeing their homeworlds from the invid but they wont help the humans?

so the regess recognizes the neutron s missiles as a weapon she saw b4 and offers to bring ariel (the invid chick, not da mermaid) with the rest of the invid, but she wants to stay with the humans

regess turns into a big phoenix thing and telephazes  the invid  on earth to anotherr world to evolve into higher lifeforms, and takes out the neutron s missiles

btw there are these creepy guys who keep showing up in the shadows and want to wipe out all who use protocultture as directed by this supercomputer the awareness

now i did read the robotech ii the sentinels comiics and, while not fully canon for now, painted a different picture of the awareness than this

unless it changed from being f'd by janice

meanehile, grant has equipped the science vessile and is nearing the sdf3 but when its about to spacce fold, an enemy ship kaikazes the sdf 3 and knocks it outta range

not wanting to wait a few more seconds, vince books it

meanwhile, lster, its night and scotty reunites with ariel, but wants to leave her so he can convince the human forces not to ice invid anymore

also he's worried as his crew and 1st gf bit it and he dont want her to aswell

so the humans regroup and they only have less than a year of protoculture left

and without the protoculture matrix on the sdv3, they cant make more

then why did you send the ship wit it to test the new superweapon?!

i mean yeah, they were told it was safe, but why risk it?!

so sasuke(whos name is marcus like 50 cent in get rich or die trying) is bummed commander luke got it and wishes they could wipe out all aliens

but didnt he grow up in an interstellar war with like a half dozen races of space monster?

maybe thats why he hates em, he got sick of em!

maia comes by saying she's half alien and if they wiped ouyt all aliens, sasuke would have been killed by the invid

OBJECTION!!  with no aliens, no invid either and he'd not be in danger!!

also wolf squad and skull squad get merged cuz of all the guys getting it and they work for her now

also sasuke's homie is gay for her and seems to have some SM interests in her

suddenly, the icarus and the new foes arrive and vinnie gets leg damage from the ship being hit somehow

so scotty shows up andtakes em out old school and communications are restored

vin diesel tells em not to use the missiles but learns they were stopped

they go to the moon base and vinces wife, who's a dr, treats his broken leg and they put off the rescue mission for the sdf 3 as they figure, if it got its space fold stuff back, it would've foded out by now

why not send another ship?!

so sasuke recognizes scotty and is glad to see him as he heard scottys divisoin got wiped out

scotty tells him sasukes sister bit it and they go to get changed as scotty was wearing that same outfit sine he left for earth years ago (it must really stink!!)

meanwhile, louie and maia check the science ship and there's no survivors (exedore no!!!) and louie finds JANICE M, a female robot with a hoologram projector to fake being a curvy chick

meanwhile, ariel on earth has a vision of the ancient for, the shadow childrencoming to destroy the humans, so she teleports to space(cuz she can totally do that)

meanwhile, luouie is developing a crush on the robot chick like its cutey honey andf she reveals it was the haydonites who gave the huamns the tech to make the neutron s missiles and her

also the haydonites told the humans to keep the word of their help secret

then maia  came in thinking they were gonna b0ne or somthing and they go to get some chow

people say the chicks in this movie have huge t-ts, but after eiken, jungle de ikou and nami sos, they dont seem that huge to me

in the mess hall scott tries an alien drink and it tastes like cr-p

he tells sasuke and homie that he fought with a group on earth and then he meets louie from season 2

just like in the sentenels where anatole leonard  met rick and lisa

sasuke reveals he has a holooendent and each tim he wacks an invid, he carves a notch in it (total 29 now)

then ariel comes in wearing a univfrom and has viet nam flashbacks at what sasuke just said abotu wasting 29 invid

then janice sings a minmei song and all the guys look at her cuz they are hetero and maia is disgruntled at guys finding someone hot

what is she? a feminist?

so meanwhile, ariel shows scotty a vision of the 1st invid planet in ruins from the shadow kids and if humans rust em, its da earths future

also the shadow kids fear protocuulture and wiipe out any users of it

whats going on with the sentinels planets now?

are they attacking them now?

so vince is bummed he couldnt save rick and his wife fixed his broken leg

also skull squadron is reassigned witn vinces group aand they know about janice, who dsapite being a part of the sentinels campaign from the start, they dont recognize her as they saw get get it to stop edwards and she never told em this is her neew body, despite having the same name

so sasuke walks in on scotty with glowingariel and knows shes invid somehow

as far as i know, the invid didnt have these powers until after evolving on earth and sasuke was never on earth, nor knew of this

so sasuke fights scoty and thinkd scortys a traiter and might've sold his crew out to the invid

to be fair, jonathan wolfe did  so it might be  a callbackk

instead of killing him, sasuke  outs scotty togeneral and scotty tells his story and it looks kinda cool

btw, scotty is played by greg snegof who was in wicked city, rei and wiggle in hokuto no ken the movie, andlike 9 other guys in robotech

vince believes scotty but genral dont and thinks the haydonties ae his ally

then one of their bases loses contact and louie recognizes the jamming as the kind rom b4

btw, losing contact with a space base was how season 2 started

vince sees scotty and ariel just pops in as she can phaze through things now and after she sez she has visions, he believes her and they teleport to the ship

so the humans remaining forces atack the new enemy who blows through their forces easy

the humans fire their synchro cannons but the enemy uses a disruptor wave to screw up their synchro cannons and cloaong devices and the human ships blow

then vinces shipp arrives and 89% of the human forces are iced and vinny plays it cautious and dont go in

louie found a way to ngate the jjamming and they send in skull squadron to check out the foe

louis figgerz out how the cloakng device is f ing them and vince has em turn of ftheir shadow device and go to pull into the space base

homie goes to hold off the enemy fightersbut when he tries his synchro cannon, his fighter f's out andhe kamikaze's intto the fighters instead of ejecting and blows it to dust

now they know not to use em and vince realizes anything the haydonites gave em is a trap (like the commies and their phone tech) andd has jannice arrested for being part haydonite

good way of showing how even the good guy characters can make choices that seem bad

also; is this a thing on german and japanese canadians being rounded up into camps in ww2?

also her being the  only survivor from the science ship makes him ssuspect (even though shes a robot and not alive so since the ship tanked the missile test, she should've too)

the haydonites in cloaks are after the protoculture matrix and detect janiice in the space station and send dudes

at the station, vince orders they go to a ship without the cloaking device and they find a colony sjip without armorments

also maia fins some super shadow fighter prototypes that dont got cloaking deviices installed andthey use em to hold ooff the dudes to buy time for louis to turn on the colony ship

areil warps the crew to the new ship andd scotty and vinny go to use a neuton s missile to nuke the space sttation to take out the hayydonites attacking

yeah cuz wasting a massive space base to stop a buncha ships is a god move

its not lie they have more of em or anything

aas janice is being tanek to the brig, haydonite mechs attack looking like dreamcast cgi and take out the guards

a haydonite comes oyt and sez she was only told wat was needed to get the humans to do the haydonite plans and they want her to tell them where the protoculture matrix is

galvatroon; magnus! i want the matrix!!

she dont consent and is gonna get iced but scotty and vinny save her and take em out

vince reconsiles with janice as if the haydonites want her j fk'd she mus be good

yeah bit they wanted the invid gone too

so skull squad takes on the dudes and vinny authorizzs the mussiles to go

on his access screen he's said to be 36, enen though he was in the service in the 00s, had a son in 2013 and this is set in the not so distant future yar of 2044

although in some canons  theirr expedition in the 2020s caused a time warp that made they skip 5 years there and 5 years back

they get to da ship and take off in a ship called the Ark Angel (which is a popular name i robotech) but the baddz are after em and skull squad takes em on

maia gets hit and ejects ND sasuke gets her, but he gets hit and throws her  as he chooses to fight annd die

ariel sennses sasuke and phazes outto save him as the missles blow and the haydonites and ark angel space fold

how do the hsydonites fold wthout protoculture?!

i mean tthey hate it so them using it would be ironic

are their ships powered by peat moss?!

so marcus is in h e double heaven and sees his sister whho sez its not his time (so there's an Afterlife in Robotech? I mean they mention God several times, even in the 80s show, so maybe) and he wakes up on the ark anhel as areil saved him

hs surprized she saved him even hough he hates das invido and she sez hate  only makes more hate (so the punch a nazi guys are wrong?)

they return to earth space and general sez based on the info thrry got from janice, the sdf 3 and protoculture matri are probably not destroyed and the humans need em to save the universe

general sends vince to look for the sdf 3 like its robotech 3 the oddysey and maia comforts sasuke for all his homies and fam getting it

she sez most of her fam was on the sdf 3 (even dana?? is this how the titan comics got it from?)

scotty smooches ariel with connsent and louis says to comfort janice they will win, and she sings the minme song as da cridits roll as we ecape the silar  system and galaxy (eyes photon dragon)

the end

that wasnt so bad

pretty decent 00s movie

clean enough for kids but cool and srs enough for adults, with a bit of humor

yeah its got some continuity errors and some stuff could be better, but i thought it was decent

yea its not as well animated as the 80s robotech movie thats outta print and the ultra epic animayion macross do you remember love

but for a 00s anime style movie and considering the budget they had, its pretty good

would''ve been nice to have more charaters fromthe 1st few seasons but they  had em in the comic prelude to the shadow chronicles

the music is pretty good and its got a bit o aa gamecube feel to the art and animation

i liked it and it would be nice if we got more of these anime style robotech movies

for robotech the shadow chronicles 2 i want them to go to the planets with the  sentinels and find the haydonites have attacked thhem and wiped most of them out. they band together and launch a united strike force against the haydon wolrd but it dons;t work. out of options, they find the invid on another world and make a pact with them to stop the haydonites and use hybrid human/invid tech to fight the haydonites. also several menbers of the sentinels races have dcided to turn invid and devolvved themselves in the genesis pits to gain new abilities and they use the remaining inorganics to lead a streike force of hybrid inorganic veritechs and inorganic destroids and take on the cyber world of haydon. also its a 128 bit gamecube, xbox, ps2 and dreamcast game where you play as a new recruit and choose your race and mech and do misions based on what you chose