My Battlepod is forever broken.

Carl Macek 1951-2010

So now the bad news. Carl Macek died. Macek made Macross accessible to westerners. Renamed Robotech, and extended the original Macross by adding two completely different series to it (In order to have enough episodes so it could be aired on US television). The result was something equally as good as the original. Maybe even better to be honest. Talk about working within limitations, he built a whole story using footage that already existed. He found a way to make a multi-generational story out of what stated as 36 episodes! In the end he had a 85 episode saga. The US intro was even better than the Japanese. To be honest, one of the few times I'd say, a shitload better.

Robotech had a profound effect on me. Giant robots. Huge space battles. Xenophobia (to the Nth degree). Characters died. The good guys lost from time to time. It was hard to tell who was good and who was bad. You just began to believe that all this fighting really sucked balls. It didn't matter as much who won in the end.

Of course, it could deliver the 'war sucks' message and hand out a massive helping of kick ass action. Granted, the message was there in the original, but I never would have seen or known about it if not for Macek.

I mean shit Neill, look at those fucking missiles. Fucking look at them.

So to Carl Macek; thanks for the inspiration, and not only in treating us to your vision of Robotech, but in figuring out how to make it work to bring it to us in the first place.

Did I also mention he brought over Akira?

You're the fucking man Macek, and you will be missed.

Doug "Roy Fokker?NOOOO!" Williams