Robotech Remastered - Volume 3 Extended Edition

Rating:
Summary: Robotech Remastered: pretty good improvements
Review: Sheesh...I guess it wasn't enough that Harmony Gold & ADV got me to buy the Legacy Collection DVD box sets; now they gotta throw out all-new platters with a souped-up sound mix and "new" footage in an avaricious effort to get me to buy the same thing twice (sorta)?! Well, looks like their efforts succeeded, 'cuz I just hadda pick this latest volume up to go with the other two I've snagged, thus completing the Macross portion of the saga. And besides, it gives me an excuse to waste yet another hunk of Amazon's bandwidth with my insipid scrawlings!

The main attraction of this "new-&-improved" edition is the inclusion of some "new" footage that was originally edited out of the original Macross show 'cuz it was considered less than appropriate for the American kidvid audience at the time and/or to get the running time down. Only thing is, unlike the last two sets this one has hardly any "new" stuff in it at all. Other than a few 'slice-of-life' extensions, a few seconds of newscast footage showing wounded civilians after a battle, and a Zentraedi literally gettin' his @$$ kicked by a Veritech, not much in the way of visuals has been thrown back into the mix. Well, except for the redone opening and closing credits, which contains new typeface and more Macross footage to replace the excised Southern Cross and New Generation bits. 'Course, if you've seen the original Macross show that the first act of Robotech is based on (which I highly recommend if you haven't seen it yet; the third set, which covers the same episodes as this collection, is available for purchase at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000B1ODO/qid=1084939581/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_8/104-5013392-3531914?v=glance&s=dvd), the added scenes won't be all that new to ya, anyway...

My biggest disappointment with this set was the remastered video, which displayed inconsistent picture quality throughout. On the upside, the picture quality & clarity was a bit more consistent than that of the first remastered set (check it out at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00011ZBRA/qid=1080091881/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl74/103-0457490-8406223?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846), but not quite as good as that of the second one (check it out at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001DCXRY/qid=1084939451/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-5013392-3531914?v=glance&s=dvd). Sadly, Harmony Gold was unable to acquire the footage that AnimEigo painstakingly cleaned and restored for the aforementioned Macross DVD sets, and had to go with the best of what they had on hand. Which was okay for what it was, but not as sharp, clear, and vibrant as I was hopin' it'd be...

This collection's one truly extensive improvement is the sound mix, which has been beautifully remastered in 5.1 channel stereo. Most of the sound effects have been totally redone, especially the various explosion and space fold noises. The only downside to the new explosions is that they're not too varied; most of 'em sound like rock slides and crumbling masonry. You know, noises that a metal spaceship most likely doesn't make when it's gettin' blasted to bits ('course, I could bring up the point that there shouldn't be any noises at all in the space battles, but that'd be gettin' too anal-retentive). Other sounds have been "boosted" for better auditory perception. The most noticeable examples of this enhanced audio are the background noises that play during the "battle stations" scenes on the SDF-1's bridge. But the best audio improvement of all is the remastered voice track: they fixed it so that it stands out reasonably well from the background sounds, thus making the dialogue more comprehensible. Also made more comprehensible was the dialogue of the Zentraedi characters; I can finally fully understand what they're saying through that reverb now!

As for bonus material and special features-- well, aside from trailers for other ADV anime videos and a cutesy transformable super-deformed Miriya model Veritech fighter toy, there ain't any. They didn't even bother to include The Sentinels movie here, which I found a bit of a shocker. Looks like you'll hafta hang on to those 'Elements of Robotechnology' bonus discs that came with the Legacy Collection box sets you bought a couple years back if you've a hankerin' for supplemental material and The Sentinels...

'Late

Rating:
Summary: Final Box for the Macross Series
Review: This 3rd volume of ROBOTECH should be the final box for the Macross Series. The BEST edition of ROBOTECH you'll ever own, so throw away all the other junk and enjoy the crystal-clear picture (from original film masters from Japan - Macross) 5.1 Surround Sound, and EXTRA scenes never seen in any previous edition of ROBOTECH. These scenes are cut into the episodes. Support their hard efforts and enjoy!