Robotech: The good, the bad, and the painfully cheezy dialogue

A few months ago I was able to get hold of the e-books for the novelization of the entire Robotech series. I have very fond memories of watching the series as a young child, and as a teenager I had found a few off the books at my local library and read them, even though they only had a few of them, and the ones they did have weren’t in order.

The first six books parallel the first 30 episodes of the series, aka the first robotech war. These were alright and provided lots of interesting details not found in the series. The author does a lot of interesting retconning, though. From explaining why the SDF-1 never performs another space-fold maneuver after the initial jump to Pluto, to why the fighters still bank and turn like atmospheric planes even though they are in space, all the original bad writing from the original series and the bad science is painstakingly and skillfully (taking into account the original material they had to work with, it really is a skillful undertaking…) adapted by the authors to somehow fit thier overall story and scheme. The authors could have saved themselves a lot of time if they just adhered to the 25 laws of Japanese Animation (my favorite is 4: In space, constant thrust equals constant velocity.)

The hardest thing to read has to be the romance. Really bad writing and dialogue. Here’s a famous scene where Miriya, a defeated and humiliated Zentraedi pilot, tries to kill her rival, Max:

Amazingly, Max engaged her blade in a bind, whirling it around and around, whisking it from her grip. It flew high, landing yards away. The point buried itself in the ground, tantalizingly close and yet so far, too far.
Max held the point of his knife close to her throat. She raised her chin proudly. “I guess I win again,” he said, yet there was something in his tone that made him sound unsure.
It was the moment Miriya Parino, warlord of the Quadrono, had never thought she would face. And yet there was such a thing as dignity in defeat, such a thing as her warrior code. “I’ve lost to you.”
This is a shame I cannot endure. She sank to her knees, pulling the scarf down and baring her throat. She waited for the cold kiss of the blade, hoping it would come soon to end her suffering. She couldn’t help it, but tears welled up in her eyes-not from fear or even anger but from impulses to which she could put no name.
He was hesitating for some reason; she thought that perhaps he was going to show the cruelty a Zentraedi might in his position. She didn’t blame him and was bravely determined to endure whatever he might mete out, but she thought that perhaps he simply needed a word from her to acknowledge her defeat.
“End my life.” She lowered her head; the long green tresses hung about her face. “Please. Do it now.”
But what she felt wasn’t the final cold fire of the knife’s edge. His fingers were under her chin, lifting her face. “But I couldn’t! You’re so beautiful…”
Suddenly everything was so unreal, so difficult for her to understand, that it came as only a minor shock to see that he had let the knife fall.
Miriya looked up blissfully into a face that held confusion, wonder, and a certain something else she was only beginning to comprehend.
She never felt herself come to her feet; perhaps she didn’t, and the zero-g, flying feeling was real. One final spasm of Zentraedi warrior training made itself felt, telling her to stop him, to stop him before…before he could…
But he already had, and they were kissing, embracing, Miriya in Max’s arms. For a while, in the little meadow in Macross’s darkened park, there was a place apart from all other worlds. No word was said for a long time, until Max got up his nerve.
“Miriya, this is gonna sound crazy, but-will you marry me?”
“Yes, if you wish. Maximillian, what’s `marry’?”

Pretty bad, huh? Granted, the original scene in the cartoon is equally painful to watch, but the detail somehow makes it worse.

So I’m now towards the end of the Southern Cross section, but it is so bad that I’m actually having trouble finishing it. Both the retconning and the bad dialogue are even worse than the Macross saga. If you can stand it, try reading this:

Musica gave him a pleading look, then averted her eyes again. “I want so much to accept the Masters’ decision and believe that it is right, but something very strange within me keeps saying that the Masters cannot be right if their decision makes me feel this way.”
Feel‘?” Karno repeated. Could she have contracted some awful plague from the Humans when the primitives from Earth managed to board the flagship for that brief foray?
Darsis and Sookol had gasped, as had Allegra and Octavia. “It’s madness!” Sookol burst out.
Musica nodded miserably. “Yes, feelings! Even though we’ve always been told that we’re immune to them, I’m guilty of emotions.”
Madness, indeed.
She saw the repulsed looks on their faces as they realized, she was polluted, debased. But somehow it didn’t change her determination not to surrender these new sensations-not to be cleansed of them, even if she could.
“I know I should be punished for it,” she declared. “I know I’m guilty! But-I cannot deny my feelings!” She broke down into tears.
“What’s-what’s that you’re doing?” Darsis asked, baffled.
“I think I know,” Karno answered tonelessly. “It’s a sickness of the Earthlings called crying.'”
If it was a sickness, Musica knew, there was no question about who had infected her with it. It was Bowie Grant, the handsome young ATAC trooper who she had met when his unit staged a recon on board the flagship.
Instead of a mindless primitive in armor, he had turned out to be a sensitive creature. Bowie was a musician and he sat down at her Cosmic Harp and played tunes of his own devising-beautiful, heart-rending compositions that bound her feelings to him. New songs-songs that wouldn’t be found in the approved songlore of the Masters. He had shown an inexplicable warmth toward her from the very start, and he quickly drew the same from her.
Now Musica found herself sitting at her Harp, playing those same airs, as the other five looked on in shock.
Bowie, do you feel this way about me? How I wish we could be together again!

Madness, indeed. I wonder how the Pulitzer Prize comittee overlooked this work? Still though, I remember the story being a lot better with the Sentinels, so I’ll try to plough my way through the series.

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