11 Megazone 23, Robotech, And Everything
Description
This article is from the Anime FAQ, by Steve Pearl with numerous contributions by others.
11 Megazone 23, Robotech, And Everything
MEGAZONE 23 (MEGAZONE TWO THREE) is a SF film about the Tokyo Megazone, a space-faring reproduction of modern Tokyo. Its inhabitants are kept unaware of the fact that this is not the real Tokyo by various means. There have been three MEGAZONE 23 films.
Carl Macek (the producer of ROBOTECH) wanted to use the footage from the first MEGAZONE film for a ROBOTECH movie. The film was dubbed in late 1985, Intersound finished the production while Carl Macek was in Japan working on ROBOTECH: THE SENTINELS [a sequel to ROBOTECH which never got off the ground]. The deal was with Cannon films and when they showed it to them, they couldn't "understand" it. Since they wanted a ROBOTECH movie, they wanted "more guns, more shooting, more robots" and basically gave them two days to make a new movie. So Carl put in the SOUTHERN CROSS [a.k.a. "ROBOTECH MASTERS"] stuff in, even though he said "it's going to look terrible, Megazone is in 35mm , SC is in 16mm it's going to look terrible when it's blown up." Nevertheless he put it together and showed it to them and the execs said quote[in thick russian type accent as Carl was retelling] "Now dees is Cannon Film." PLUS, Carl had Tatsunoko animate a NEW ending (I guess we Americans can't handle anything but a happy ending). It was about ten minutes worth.
And thus a test showing of ROBOTECH: THE MOVIE came out in a couple of Texas theaters back in the Xmas season, 1985, or maybe early 86, I can't quite remember. The audience reaction was so negative the film never got wide distribution.
Now, MEGAZONE 23 PART II came around 2 years later. Harmony Gold was hired again to dub it for the Japanese market, for educational purposes (sorta like the Macross movie dub, except at least Intersound's actors had some semblence of talent.) I believe this was probably the last thing Macek did with HG though he might have been gone by then. Anyway, on the LD of the English MZ 23 II, at the beginning of the disc, they included a "Present For You", which basically was the new ending they did for use in Robotech the Movie without the voice track. The art styles between the new "ending" and MZ 23 II are radically different.
-- Written by Ryan Gavigan
Streamline Pictures has the rights to the entire Megazone 23 series and will be dubbing and releasing them.
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