Remember back in March 1995 when singer Selena was murdered by the president of her fan club? That tragedy came to mind watching "Stardust" when George Sullivan's biggest fan unwittingly murdered him by blowing his cover as a Global Military Police operative and then shanghaiing him to accompany her on an extremely dangerous mission. Okay, maybe "murdered" isn't the right word, but the fact is Dana's impetuous actions, playing George as her ace in the hole, inadvertently and unintentionally led to his death. That and the fact hovertanks apparently lack seatbelts!
I never noticed until this episode how the squadron soldiers are wholly unprotected in their hovertanks. No harnesses, no bulletproof bubbletop like presidential limos employ since JFK was assassinated. Those who don't learn from history....
ROBOTECH is rightly revered for being a realistic show with the threat of heartbreak and loss ever present. This episode was a textbook example, as all of George's efforts in locating a weak spot in the flagship combined with Dana's skilled shooting landing a direct hit... all came to naught. And most tragic of all was George's death, and just when we were warming up to this lounge lizard superspy.
On that musical note... George's singing. Oy vey, where were Jaye P. Morgan and Jamie Farr with the gong when we needed them, right? And that Milli Vanilli lip-synch malfunction made the old Godzilla movies look good. I get no kick from champagne, but Dana sure did, getting tipsy and tripping the light fantastic with her "dreamboat" in a trippy daydream. Bowie plays piano for free, passes on imbibing "the best" booze in the house, and still gets stuck with the fifty-credit tab! Gotta love that gold-diggin' Dana.
Gotta love that Piano Bar too. What an eclectic clientele. Freeze frame on the audience. You got a double-chinned middle-aged man in a suit, an Annie Hall wannabe who looks about 12 years old, and a bespectacled woman in a pink dress and bow tie looking like a school marm straight off the set of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. I did love that nightclub scene with the bonus of Bowie tickling the ivories. It was a refreshing pause in this saga's unrelenting action that has been coming at us like a firehose on full blast.
That said, I did suffer some cognitive dissonance, admittedly still trying to process the preceding episode's data dump along with Dana's inexplicable flip-flop on killing the enemy. Why? Because they're living creatures and not androids? As Angelo pointedly pointed out, the enemy has no reservations about killing us. I feared Dana was going all Lynn Kyle and was going to start pushing daisies into Bioroid laser cannons. And I still harbor that fear after Dana's outburst led to her getting forcibly ejected from Commander Leonard's meeting and now strongarmed by Col. Fredericks coupled with a warning from Gen. Emerson about insubordination. This chick is brig bait, I'm tellin' ya! Put Satori on speed dial, somebody!
Commander Leonard, who I dubbed Commander Kingpin before learning his rather banal name, actually became a semi-sympathetic character in this episode. He's a man under authority too, and we see him catching hell from his superior. I felt bad for the guy getting reamed and hung up on because we know he's desperately trying to get results, (mis)using men and machines as cannon fodder, ignoring Emerson's warnings to pump the brakes. There's a brief scene of Leonard in the turbo-lift that really underscores how lonely it is at the top. And is the fact the lift is rapidly descending a metaphor and/or foreshadowing?
Two interesting scenes worth mentioning. First was the mind probe of the abducted man revealing his romance and how he and his wife now have a child. My heart went out to him and I hoped he will be safely returned. The second noteworthy scene was George's flashback to his sister's untimely death and his recruitment by the Global Military Police. I was frustrated they gave such a meaningful motivation to a character that was blithely discarded by episode's end.
My closing point goes back to the cognitive dissonance I'm suffering. This show can be confusing! Last episode one of the elders said they had no intention of hurting the "Micronians," then they go and rain down destruction on Monument City and abduct a couple hundred people. Why is a Robotech Master using Zentraedi lingo, anyway? Why was Dana's obsession in "Metal Fire" with not shooting into the cockpits and killing Bioroids all but forgotten this episode? Did George's story flip her back to the harsh realities of war? Shoot the hovercraft, aim for the knees, she ordered her squadron last time, and this time she's trying to blow to kingdom come both the flagship and the rescue craft!
I suspect the problem lies in the kitchen, as in too many cooks therein. I counted ten staff writers in the closing credits, plus Carl Macek playing Stan Lee and trying to corral his creators and maintain a semblance of continuity. I fear consistency went tumbling through the cracks as different writers put their spin on characters and events. Couple that with the unenviable and herculean task of trying to adapt three standalone series and somehow stitch them together. Thus far the best they can muster is dropping random references to the SDF-1, the Zentraedi, and Max and Miriya, none of which or whom played any role in the original Southern Cross saga. Is Protoculture just a Macek-invented MacGuffin?
I'm enjoying ROBOTECH for the first time, coming late to the party as a man in his fifties, and one stabbing the dark and feeling his way through the fog of war.
I never noticed until this episode how the squadron soldiers are wholly unprotected in their hovertanks. No harnesses, no bulletproof bubbletop like presidential limos employ since JFK was assassinated. Those who don't learn from history....
ROBOTECH is rightly revered for being a realistic show with the threat of heartbreak and loss ever present. This episode was a textbook example, as all of George's efforts in locating a weak spot in the flagship combined with Dana's skilled shooting landing a direct hit... all came to naught. And most tragic of all was George's death, and just when we were warming up to this lounge lizard superspy.
On that musical note... George's singing. Oy vey, where were Jaye P. Morgan and Jamie Farr with the gong when we needed them, right? And that Milli Vanilli lip-synch malfunction made the old Godzilla movies look good. I get no kick from champagne, but Dana sure did, getting tipsy and tripping the light fantastic with her "dreamboat" in a trippy daydream. Bowie plays piano for free, passes on imbibing "the best" booze in the house, and still gets stuck with the fifty-credit tab! Gotta love that gold-diggin' Dana.
Gotta love that Piano Bar too. What an eclectic clientele. Freeze frame on the audience. You got a double-chinned middle-aged man in a suit, an Annie Hall wannabe who looks about 12 years old, and a bespectacled woman in a pink dress and bow tie looking like a school marm straight off the set of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. I did love that nightclub scene with the bonus of Bowie tickling the ivories. It was a refreshing pause in this saga's unrelenting action that has been coming at us like a firehose on full blast.
That said, I did suffer some cognitive dissonance, admittedly still trying to process the preceding episode's data dump along with Dana's inexplicable flip-flop on killing the enemy. Why? Because they're living creatures and not androids? As Angelo pointedly pointed out, the enemy has no reservations about killing us. I feared Dana was going all Lynn Kyle and was going to start pushing daisies into Bioroid laser cannons. And I still harbor that fear after Dana's outburst led to her getting forcibly ejected from Commander Leonard's meeting and now strongarmed by Col. Fredericks coupled with a warning from Gen. Emerson about insubordination. This chick is brig bait, I'm tellin' ya! Put Satori on speed dial, somebody!
Commander Leonard, who I dubbed Commander Kingpin before learning his rather banal name, actually became a semi-sympathetic character in this episode. He's a man under authority too, and we see him catching hell from his superior. I felt bad for the guy getting reamed and hung up on because we know he's desperately trying to get results, (mis)using men and machines as cannon fodder, ignoring Emerson's warnings to pump the brakes. There's a brief scene of Leonard in the turbo-lift that really underscores how lonely it is at the top. And is the fact the lift is rapidly descending a metaphor and/or foreshadowing?
Two interesting scenes worth mentioning. First was the mind probe of the abducted man revealing his romance and how he and his wife now have a child. My heart went out to him and I hoped he will be safely returned. The second noteworthy scene was George's flashback to his sister's untimely death and his recruitment by the Global Military Police. I was frustrated they gave such a meaningful motivation to a character that was blithely discarded by episode's end.
My closing point goes back to the cognitive dissonance I'm suffering. This show can be confusing! Last episode one of the elders said they had no intention of hurting the "Micronians," then they go and rain down destruction on Monument City and abduct a couple hundred people. Why is a Robotech Master using Zentraedi lingo, anyway? Why was Dana's obsession in "Metal Fire" with not shooting into the cockpits and killing Bioroids all but forgotten this episode? Did George's story flip her back to the harsh realities of war? Shoot the hovercraft, aim for the knees, she ordered her squadron last time, and this time she's trying to blow to kingdom come both the flagship and the rescue craft!
I suspect the problem lies in the kitchen, as in too many cooks therein. I counted ten staff writers in the closing credits, plus Carl Macek playing Stan Lee and trying to corral his creators and maintain a semblance of continuity. I fear consistency went tumbling through the cracks as different writers put their spin on characters and events. Couple that with the unenviable and herculean task of trying to adapt three standalone series and somehow stitch them together. Thus far the best they can muster is dropping random references to the SDF-1, the Zentraedi, and Max and Miriya, none of which or whom played any role in the original Southern Cross saga. Is Protoculture just a Macek-invented MacGuffin?
I'm enjoying ROBOTECH for the first time, coming late to the party as a man in his fifties, and one stabbing the dark and feeling his way through the fog of war.
