Passing the wheel

I was rewatching Macross Zero, albeit in a very slice-and-dice, haphazard fashion. I figure that I paid my dues by sitting through every awkward exchange involving a certain island woman the first time around. Besides, the message is pretty much inescapable, and after being beaten over the head with it repeatedly, I get it. But comprehension is not necessarily internalization, and the whole argument is lost on me, perhaps as a result of being so thoroughly consumed by the technological way of life, coupled with the observation that a large part of Macross Zero is digitally rendered.

SCIENCE! Don't knock it, just rock it.

There are a couple things that I do come away with, though. The sheer amount of detail goes without saying, but related to that is being struck by the graphicness of the violence. Blink and you may miss pilots parachuting out of their jets, or a person literally exploding after being hit by autocannon fire.

My favourite scene is the night-time raid on the UN carrier Asuka II. Darkness is a chaos multiplier: tracers, rocket motor flares, explosions, all intensified. What really seals the deal though are the Destroid Cheyennes: burly point defenders encased in armoured cylinders, with autocannons or missile launchers for arms. The charge towards the edge of the flight deck against a backdrop of fire cements their image as menacing Cylons machines.

That the Destroid seems to be hopelessly outclassed by every opponent it was pitted against is a fate that seems unbefitting for something that appears to take and deliver punishment. The autocannons, when fired pointblank into an anti-UN amphibious unit, didn't so much as put a dent into it. In all likelihood, it scored zero kills in its brief episode 3 appearance.

I guess it's understandable that a rolling AA battery will get short shrift in a franchise that's all about flight; no one wants surface to air ruining the party. It would be interesting to see another few episodes set even prior to Macross Zero, a series sans variable fighters. Macross Negative One.

Speaking of fighting robots on wheels, for some inexplicable reason I was relieved to find out that the idea pre-dated 2006. If I had to guess, my thoughts must have been something along the lines of, "Heaven forbid that they actually come up with something original." That includes that one flying mech with twin shoulder mounted, sustained fire energy weapons.

They're not exactly large hadron colliders cannons; the ability to destroy the world, presumably in less time than it would take with nuclear weapons, is a smidge more impressive than drawing circles in the ground. In addition, the planet would experience no increase in radioactivity, kind of like what happens when you nail an area with the Ion Cannon. It's environmentally friendly that way.

I know there's prior art for the former (Armored Trooper VOTOMS) and probably the same can be said for the latter. I mean the existence of another flying mech with shoulder mounted energy weapons, not that it necessarily appears in VOTOMS. In all honesty I know nothing about VOTOMS other than that it exists, and that encasing humans in the equivalent of soup cans with wheels is a better idea than, I don't know, tanks. Aluminum: It's what's for dinner.

Before this entry veers even more off course, I should sign off.

No Chobham for you!

P.S.

I just thought of something. C.C. or C2 is a military acronym for Command and Conquer Control. That's kind of fitting. Also, I continue to lament the fact that the Apocalypse Mammoth Tank T-61 got totally stomped by the Goliath Zaku.