And I wouldn't trust any fan who says they do know. How they and Harmony Gold came to an agreement, whether or not it had anything to do with the Piranha or Tatsunoko lawsuits, I couldn't tell you. I remember seeing them and I and a bunch of other fans thought the whole thing was frivolous to begin because they looked nothing like the SDFM designs, regardless.Īlso at this time Big West was trademarking their Macross titles one by one in different territories, so they were already working legal ways to claim. Again, Piranha went ahead and used their designs. Edit: Looked it up, they did mention the 41 designs. There were disagreements from Big West to clarify what Tatsunoko could and could not license to Harmony Gold, one of them being a live-action movie.Īlso, Piranha got to go ahead and use the designs they wanted to, so something came of it. Big West won't challenge any attempts of Harmony Gold to make a live-action movie. Big West can release anything "Macross" internationally from 1987 on, and call it "Macross" (which they couldn't before since HG trademarked the name).Oddly enough Exedore and Breetai appear to be friends even though. The recent joint announcement wasn't about the 41 designs, it was: Exedore is primarily Breetais advisor and is always at his side during times of battle. Pirahna used a bunch of Japanese SDF Macross publications (pre-Robotech) to basically say "Your trademark claim to Macross is invalid, it belongs to Big West, not you." It was eventually settled out of court, so no one except Piranha and HG knows the outcome. Exedore is absolutely loyal to Breetai, and eventually becomes a great supporter of Admiral Gloval, Rick Hunter, and Lisa Hayes. It was a lot to read through, but Piranha basically argued that no, HG didn't have right to claim any of the designs, instead it would have to be Big West (if Big West wanted to). Just before the release of Shadow Chronicles, HG did get the rights to use Macross characters in an animated sequel, but this was when Shadow Chronicles was already completed.Īlso around the time of this claim, HG sent cease & desists to Piranha games (who were working on a Battletech game) about using mecha similar to those of the 41 original Macross designs.This is why Rick Hunter looked so different in Shadow Chronicles, even the comic prequel avoided using Macross character likenesses. Just before they announced work on what would be come Shadow Chronicles in 2002 (like 6-7 days prior), they worked out a new deal to be able to make a sequel to Southern Cross and Mospeada only.In the late 90's / early 2000's, HG didn't have the rights to make any sequels to any of the three anime (which is probably whey they went with Robotech 3000). There were a lot of interesting points made in that claim: A few years back there were a bunch of suits about Robotech, one of them being Tatsunoko themselves believing they weren't being paid fair royalties and expressed wanting to leave the agreement.
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