The intricate power entanglements surrounding Macross and Battlestar Galactica are expected to be resolved.
Japan's BigWest and the United States' Kim Anderson reached an agreement on April 9 that from 2021 onwards, the two companies will work together for the benefit of the two science fiction series "Macross" and "Battlestar Galactica" in the international market.
The consensus pointed out that the movie and TV version sequel of "Time Fortress Macross" can now go out of Japan to the world, while the japanese Onishi will not oppose the release of the live-action movie version of "Battlestar Galactica" in Japan, and will also recognize the original sale of dragon son to the American Golden Harmony in "Space Fortress" The role of "Space Fortress Macross" and the body shape are a total of 41 exclusive ownership outside Of Japan.
The original TV version of "Macross" was broadcast in Japan in 1982, and then it was bought by the American television production company Kim Ho Sango, along with two other "Time Riders" and "Mecha Genesis", and after the three works were integrated and transformed, it became the "Battlestar Galactica" that began broadcasting in China in 1991.
The original TV version of "Time Fortress Macross" was created by Japan's Onnishi and STUDIO NUE, and the production of the film was all packaged to the legendary Dragon Son, so the rights dispute was very confusing, and after entering 2000, through several lawsuits, the copyright of the original TV version of "Time Fortress Macross" belonged to the Son of dragons, and the rights to the characters and mecha shapes in the play finally went to the hands of Japan's Dainishi and STUDIO NUE.
In the United States, "Battlestar Galactica" became a series, and Kim And sheng registered the elements that appeared in the works of "Time Fortress Macross", "Time Rider" and "Mecha Genesis" around the world as trademarks, including the word "Macross", after registration in Japan, due to the registration opposition applied by the Son of the Dragon, it could not be realized, so under the multi-party game, the gear of copyright was stuck.
"Time Fortress Macross", theatrical version of "Time Fortress Macross Love Remember? " and the subsequent "Zero", "7", "F", "△" and other sequels in the domestic popularity has been high, but due to more than 20 years of copyright issues, these works can not land overseas in a dignified manner, of which the masses are most familiar with the "Super Robot Wars" series of games that were added by "Time Fortress", will not be released outside of Japan, naturally there will be no "official Chinese version", and now the shackles of copyright have been lifted, in addition to the development of animation works, Game companies can also consider packaging classics from previous years plus Chinese editions to sell them again.
Macross series historical entanglements:
The Macross series is much more bumpy, as long as you have a little more understanding of this series, you know that the copyright issue is always a big pit that this series cannot avoid:
1. The Macross series was born in 1982, the first TV was produced by Studio Nue, and the copyright owner was BigWest.
2. Because the first TV animation was too successful, it naturally embarked on the road of overseas distribution, when the copyright owner BigWest gave the overseas distribution rights of the work to the animation company it sponsored, Dragon Son, who later sold the distribution rights in North America to the American animation company HarmonyGold.
3. But because the original TV version of Macross only had 36 episodes, which was not long enough to be played in one season, Kim Anderson merged the other two animations it purchased in the same batch, "Cavalry Southern Cross" and "Mecha Genesis Mospeada" into one animation, that is, "Battlestar Castle Robotech"
4. In the early 1990s, the mainland introduced this adapted animation from Kim Ando, which is also the childhood memory of most of the post-80s.
5. After the success of "Battlestar Battle royalty" in North America, Kim Anderson hoped to make a sequel to the film, but due to its wild adaptation, the world view and setting of this work have been very different from the Macross series, so BigWest, out of respect for the original setting, did not authorize the adaptation rights of Kim Anderson's subsequent works, and Kim Anderson did not know what considerations, preemptively registered "Macross" and "U.N. Spacy" trademark rights in most parts of the world
6. BigWest and Studio Nue, who could not bear this, filed a lawsuit against the Son of the Dragon and Kim Hesheng (the collateral), and after a five-year trial, the final trial was as follows:
1: Big West and Studio Nue regain the copyright, and Kim and Sound can no longer use Macross's characters and bodies to create new animations.
2: Kim Anderson continues to enjoy the right to issue Macross in North America
At the same time, due to the trademark squatting behavior of Kim WahSheng, BigWest and the subsequent producers of the Macross series have no way to distribute the works of this series overseas (outside Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan).
This is basically a lose-lose outcome. Macross lost the channel for the promotion of excellent works to overseas (for example, Bandai officially only sells Gundam models in China and does not sell Macross models); and after the Robotech series lost the support of the original team, the publisher Jin Hesheng could not afford to animate the follow-up works, and only 3 animated sequels (less than 3 hours in total) came out in the following 30 years, the quality was extremely dismal, and the live-action version that has been clamoring has been repeatedly frustrated. Last year, the rights were sold to Sony Pictures and the shooting plan was announced, but if BigWest still does not release the rights, a Robotech without Mingmei and no VF-1, failure is a foregone conclusion.
In terms of fans, because of the copyright dispute, the works with the same animation as the source are divided into two series, and a series of information such as world settings, character names, proper nouns, etc. are in a state of confusion for many years, which has caused great difficulties in promotion. And the official fight even extends to the fan level, not only the fans on both sides of the fight for several years, even the fans' fan works will be officially suppressed, there have been netizens in the name of Robotech to produce a 3D animation containing VF-1, the result was sent by BigWest lawyer letter.
In the case of China, the situation is even more complicated. Most domestic fans were inspired by Battlestar Galactica, which itself has a considerable mass base. However, many fans found the Macross series when looking for follow-up works, and became fans of the Macross series, while the orthodox sequel of the Macross series, "Macross 7", was screened in Guangdong, China, and itself also attracted a bunch of fans, and the fans on both sides also fought for decades, although the older generation has already met and laughed and hated, the new generation may continue to pinch.
The domestic audience group has changed in 2008's new work Macross Frontier, although this work has not been released overseas through official channels, but informal channels are on fire and fire, more than half of the domestic fans are relying on MF into the circle, this part of the fans are very young, Space Fortress is not their childhood memories, naturally it is preconceived. Of course, MF itself and the previous series have a lot of divergence, so the new fans in the Macross circle sometimes can't say that they can't go together, for example, when the new fans think that the Queen of Snow Dew is a goddess, the old fans will feel that Mingmei is the real goddess. (At this point Gundam splits more, UC's disdain for non-UC is almost the norm)
Of course, it cannot be mentioned that the MF of abnormal channels has caused no small problem in domestic translation. When MF came in, Macross's senior fan base has been able to make subtitles for their beloved works, and everyone hopes to be able to correct many previous translation errors through this work, so the KPDM & EDEN subtitle group gathered by professionals has carried out a lot of consideration and preparation, and has unified many proper nouns, such as the huge alien race Zentraedi in the play, which is finally uniformly transliterated as "Jetrati", which is expected to be able to be translated with the previously translated version. The "Zenith Starman" in Battlestar Galactica Robotech makes a distinction so that the audience will no longer be confused. Unfortunately, in order to distinguish between some large subtitle groups in the competitive situation at that time, they still used a lot of terms from the previous Battlestar Galactica series, and even mistranslated them, and this aftermath even affected the new work "Macross Delta"
Of course, we very much hope that this 35th new work "Macross Delta" can enter China through official channels, although Macross's trademark is unknown in China, but the difficulty of changing the name to enter is not great (it can be directly called "Chrono Fortress", which is most inconsistent with tradition, but feasible), and the setting of the new work no longer involves the trademark of Gold Harmony Squatting, so the introduction may not be nothing.