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Robotech: The Macross Saga was originally Super Dimension Fortress Macross. The Japanese series was adapted by Carl Macek to become the first act of the American TV series Robotech. It originally aired from March 4th, 1985 to April 22nd, 1985.

Characters and names were changed to better appeal to a western audience and episodes were edited to conform with the new Robotech storyline. Despite the numerous changes and a modern controversy, The Macross Saga is the series out of the three that's storyline remained the most unchanged from its source material.

Characters[]

Humans[]

Zentraedi []

Other[]

Episodes[]

No. Name Air Date
1 "Boobytrap" 4 March 1985
2 "Countdown" 5 March 1985
3 "Space Fold" 6 March 1985
4 "The Long Wait" 7 March 1985
5 "Transformation" 8 March 1985
6 "Blitzkrieg" 11 March 1985
7 "Bye-Bye Mars" 12 March 1985
8 "Sweet Sixteen" 13 March 1985
9 "Miss Macross" 14 March 1985
10 "Blind Game" 15 March 1985
11 "First Contact" 18 March 1985
12 "The Big Escape" 19 March 1985
13 "Blue Wind" 20 March 1985
14 "Gloval's Report" 21 March 1985
15 "Homecoming" 22 March 1985
16 "Battle Cry" 25 March 1985
17 "Phantasm" 26 March 1985
18 "Farewell, Big Brother" 27 March 1985
19 "Bursting Point" 28 March 1985
20 "Paradise Lost" 29 March 1985
21 "A New Dawn" 1 April 1985
22 "Battle Hymn" 2 April 1985
23 "Reckless" 3 April 1985
24 "Showdown" 4 April 1985
25 "Wedding Bells" 5 April 1985
26 "The Messenger" 8 April 1985
27 "Force of Arms" 9 April 1985
28 "Reconstruction Blues" 10 April 1985
29 "Robotech Masters" 11 April 1985
30 "Viva Miriya" 12 April 1985
31 "Khyron's Revenge" 15 April 1985
32 "Broken Heart" 16 April 1985
33 "A Rainy Night" 17 April 1985
34 "Private Time" 18 April 1985
35 "Season's Greetings" 19 April 1985
36 "To the Stars" 22 April 1985

Production[]

During his travels to Japan, Carl Macek discovered the anime Super Dimensional Fortress Macross and was very impressed with its characters, action and drama, and wanted to localize the show to the United States with him using the argument that the show could take advantage of the popularity of Transformers and G.I Joe to sell toys. However, the show lacked the 62 episodes required for syndication in the United States. This didn't stop Macek who would go to the American production company Harmony Gold with a pitch to combine Macross with other anime shows to reach the required episode similarly to how 1984's Voltron: Defender of the Universe combined the anime shows GoLion and Dairugger XV into a single storyline to great success.

Harmony Gold would negotiate with Tatsunoko Productions, who owned the distribution rights of Macross but not the IP, for the rights of multiple mecha shows, with them getting the rights to Super Dimensional Century Orguss and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA alongside Macross. When Macek and the people at Harmony Gold watched the shows to determine how they would be linked together, they reached the conclusion that Orguss couldn't be used due to its alien setting and time travel storyline, and instead renegotiated with Tatsunoko for another show, with them licensing the then-recently cancelled Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross. However, there are some versions of the story where Harmony Gold failed to license Orguss in the first place and thus were given Southern Cross.

After watching and examining the entirety of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, it would be decided to use "Protoculture" as the unifying element of the three shows, most likely because the translators at Harmony Gold misunderstood that "Protoculture" was the concept of both Humans and Zentraedi having descended from the same ancient spacefaring race, as the term was used in a way that implied that Protoculture was a object rather than a term in the original Japanese version.

Release[]

On 2016, it became available for streaming on Crackle.[1]

Novels[]

The episodes of The Macross Saga were novelized by Jack McKinney during the 1980s. During the 1990s the six novels were re-released in two omnibuses. Robotech: The Macross Saga: Battlecry and Robotech: The Macross Saga: Doomsday, containing three novels each.

Comics[]

The Robotech episodes were turned into comics in 1985 by Comico. An ad was provided at the end of every episode for the Comico adaptations. Most of them were reprinted as Robotech: The Macross Saga in the 00s by WildStorm Comics.

References[]

  1. Robotech On Crackle TV Series Trailer
Macross

For the Macross equivalent, visit Super Dimension Fortress Macross.

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