Macross Frontier (Review)
Possibly misleading post title
This not strictly a review of Macross Frontier. There are going to be a lot of those on the web, of varying quality and opinions. And I’m guessing a lot of people are going to say they liked it, with some complaining about a botched ending or how Alto didn’t stick it in your favorite girl, blah blah. And they’ll be right about many of their complaints: the end was a copout and the love triangle was lukewarm at best. But after all the shipping, all the whining, and all the missile spam, what did Macross Frontier really do for the franchise? While thankfully some reviewers can look at Frontier as its own sci-fi series, if you’ve seen previous versions it’s harder to divorce any series from the overall Macross “experience,” the way you could with (for instance) a Gundam series.
First, let’s have a look at what other series and films have brought to the table.
- The Super Dimension Fortress Macross. The birth of Macross.
- Do You Remember Love? Established Kawamori as one of those artists who obsessively paints the same picture over and over — in this case, the chill-inducing juxtaposition of an incredible battle with a majestic song performance.
- Macross 7. Took the vague mystical concepts of Lynn Minmay and turned them into vague hard science. Also made Macross a bit silly and fun.
- Macross Plus. Set a higher standard for music and characterization, and opened up the possibility of a more mature Macross.
- Macross Zero. Gave fans real perspective on the Macross world, and a new view on Protoculture. In a way, Zero made Macross “real.”
Macross Frontier
Zero animator Satelight is back, and this time they’re out to turn all your characters into cyclops. The computer work is better, in fact it’s amazing. But the end result doesn’t smell as good as I’d like it to.
The contribution… What is it? In my mind, when I try to reach a conclusion about what Frontier means to the franchise, I come up short. Since it’s Macross, here’s a musical analogy: Frontier is less like a new album by a master songwriter and more like one of those awful tribute albums — or worse, a re-recording of old tunes by the original artist with none of the fire intact.
There’s no new Macross here, only more of the old Macross. More songs (which is a good thing), more singers to sing them, more space battle, more guy-who-looks-like-Global, and more more more references to past Macross.
The peppering of little smirks and nods to Macross lovers is a cool form of fanservice, and just as panty-shots of Mylene Jenius are a rare and notable thing, so should be those references, or they become less… nifty. Sorry, saying “special” in reference to Mylene’s panties seems totally wrong.
I like a captain who looks like Global, I like the dread inherent in a pineapple dessert, I like filming a movie about the events of Zero, but put them together along with all the other (often forced) wink-wink-nudge-nudge fanservice in this series, and two things happen: instead of creating something original, you’ve created a collection of references; and it only reminds me that all those shows you’ve referenced were better than this one.
Deja Vajra
Not only is Frontier determined to look toward the past, it’s basically made of past Macross spare parts. Take, for instance, Sheryl’s climactic performance on the battle stage, an enemy who is not actually your enemy in the end, or a fold engine for Valkyries that’s newly invented. What the flying fuck? How many times must we invent this thing? Gamlin used one in M7, Isamu used one in Plus, and suddenly Bilrer’s a flipping genius for making another one. Re-inventing the VF fold engine only served to iron out a story issue that should have been solved through quality writing.
The point is…
Perhaps I’m missing the point. Fanservice seems to form the basis of plenty of series these days anyway. Maybe Macross fans deserve to have a TV series that tells a very “Macrossian” story with a modern look, bright colors, and more songs than ever before. And I think I can get behind that idea.
The problem is, Kawamori and Satelight didn’t deliver. If the goal is to sum up the “Macross experience” in an all-encompassing story, then it deserved more consistent production values, a tighter story, and better characters (Ranka…). If the goal is simply a jumbled Super Dimensional antique store full of basic nostalgia, then I guess they did well.
Let’s just say it didn’t leave the best taste in my mouth, that way I’m justified in using this picture.
