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Kraken
Federated Suns
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 Posted: 15-Jul-2007 23:40 Post subject: BTech cartoon series |
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http://www.tv-links.co.uk/show.do/2/127
The audio quality is quite good, but the video quality leaves something to be desired.
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Stinger
The Knights of Chaos
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| Posted: 16-Jul-2007 02:35 Post subject: |
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Interesting. I havent seen any of the cartoons before. But man the cartoon its self is just horribly drawn.
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Stinger
If it's "creepy" to use the Internet, military satellites, and robot aircraft to find a house full of gorgeous young models so I can drop in on them unexpected, then FINE, I'm "creepy". Howard Wolowitz. BBT.
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Karagin
Imperial Karagin Army
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Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 16-Jul-2007 05:59 Post subject: |
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| Stinger wrote: | | Interesting. I haven't seen any of the cartoons before. But man the cartoon its self is just horribly drawn. |
Horribly drawn and the acting/voice overs were bad really bad. As was the plot line...then add in that you have mech pilots running around in Battlearmor, both IS and Clan pilots doing this really didn't help. And the use of the level 3 tech, EI and all wasn't any better.
Did the cartoon help Battletech out? Depends on what the target was, and seeing how in the area I lived in at the time, the only city to have it on was Detroit and that was 6 am on Saturday really didn't suggest a lot of thought or effort went in to the marketing plan...
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Karagin
Only the dead have seen the end of war. - Plato
"Wasted trip Man. Nobody said nuthin' about lockin' horns with no tigers." Oddball
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Kraken
Federated Suns
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| Posted: 16-Jul-2007 08:15 Post subject: |
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| Karagin wrote: | | Stinger wrote: | | Interesting. I haven't seen any of the cartoons before. But man the cartoon its self is just horribly drawn. |
Horribly drawn and the acting/voice overs were bad really bad. As was the plot line...then add in that you have mech pilots running around in Battlearmor, both IS and Clan pilots doing this really didn't help. And the use of the level 3 tech, EI and all wasn't any better.
Did the cartoon help Battletech out? Depends on what the target was, and seeing how in the area I lived in at the time, the only city to have it on was Detroit and that was 6 am on Saturday really didn't suggest a lot of thought or effort went in to the marketing plan... |
Basically, FASA said "hey - let's do a cartoon series!" and dumped it on a small staff of writers.
The writers decided to make the plot be about the Clan invasion so that they had some sort of fixed bad guys.
That was pretty much the entire thought process.
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"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat." -Edgar Allen Poe"I knew there was something special about you, but I never realized you were really a cat." Wolfwood to a random cat (Trigun)
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Sleeping Dragon
Draconis Combine
Tai-i
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| Posted: 16-Jul-2007 11:14 Post subject: |
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I thought that I'll stab my eyes out when I first saw it, but I decided that I'll at least give it a chance.
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Karagin
Imperial Karagin Army
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| Posted: 16-Jul-2007 12:28 Post subject: |
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| Sleeping Dragon wrote: | | I thought that I'll stab my eyes out when I first saw it, but I decided that I'll at least give it a chance. |
I gave it a chance...when my buddy would send me the tapes after he recorded for me...and even then I wasn't overly impressed. Give that at the time, we had shows like Transformers and such out that had better robots and large machines fighting and story lines that had some depth to them, you would have thought that FASA would have at least tried harder to do something with the cartoon.
The Hunchback IIC was cool as was the Bushmaster, but some of the stuff was hokey even for BT...
Things looked clumsy and had that stop motion feel to them.
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Karagin
Only the dead have seen the end of war. - Plato
"Wasted trip Man. Nobody said nuthin' about lockin' horns with no tigers." Oddball
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Sleeping Dragon
Draconis Combine
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| Posted: 17-Jul-2007 02:04 Post subject: |
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I remember the Transformers and I watched them every day since 1990 (before it wasn't possible, since the western TVs were forbidden) I was only 7 and didn't know any English, but Big 'Mechs are big 'Mechs...
At first I learned English from Cartoon Network 
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Kraken
Federated Suns
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| Posted: 17-Jul-2007 08:11 Post subject: |
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| Sleeping Dragon wrote: | I remember the Transformers and I watched them every day since 1990 (before it wasn't possible, since the western TVs were forbidden) I was only 7 and didn't know any English, but Big 'Mechs are big 'Mechs...
At first I learned English from Cartoon Network |
They do have a few episodes of the 1980s Transformers on there, but the links appear to all be broken.
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"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat." -Edgar Allen Poe"I knew there was something special about you, but I never realized you were really a cat." Wolfwood to a random cat (Trigun)
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
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Joined: 07-May-2004 00:00
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| Posted: 04-Aug-2007 02:11 Post subject: |
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| Karagin wrote: | | Sleeping Dragon wrote: | | I thought that I'll stab my eyes out when I first saw it, but I decided that I'll at least give it a chance. |
I gave it a chance...when my buddy would send me the tapes after he recorded for me...and even then I wasn't overly impressed. Give that at the time, we had shows like Transformers and such out that had better robots and large machines fighting and story lines that had some depth to them, you would have thought that FASA would have at least tried harder to do something with the cartoon.
The Hunchback IIC was cool as was the Bushmaster, but some of the stuff was hokey even for BT...
Things looked clumsy and had that stop motion feel to them. |
Obviously some of you weren't kids back then. I thought it was cool. I think I was somewhere in the vicinity of 10. It was a great thing to tape on Sunday Mornings. I'd get Battletech and then Exo-squad.
In terms of kids TV, it was pretty advanced. Story arcs that extended beyond a single episode. Characters grow and change over time. The heroes don't win. There's actually some deeper issues of family, fame, and honor going on in the story.
As for the artwork... my recollection of Transformers, GI Joe, and the other run-of-the-mill cartoons of the day -augmented by a trip down Memory Lane and YouTube Avenue -is that it was pretty much par for the course.
The big advancement for the day was CGI, which had just come available for that kind of operation. BattleTech preceded Beastwars and Reboot and the other CG cartoons by a couple of years.
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Warhammer: 3025
Freelance
Captain, AFFC (Ret.)
Joined: 29-Jan-2005 00:00
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| Posted: 05-Aug-2007 19:58 Post subject: |
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| SaberDance wrote: |
Obviously some of you weren't kids back then. I thought it was cool. I think I was somewhere in the vicinity of 10. It was a great thing to tape on Sunday Mornings. I'd get Battletech and then Exo-squad.
In terms of kids TV, it was pretty advanced. Story arcs that extended beyond a single episode. Characters grow and change over time. The heroes don't win. There's actually some deeper issues of family, fame, and honor going on in the story. |
Exactly! Now that I'm older, looking at it with a much more critical eye, it does seem kinda bad; but at the time, when I was a child, it was a highlight of my saturday morning, right alongside shows like Transformers, Exo-Squad, Gargoyles, and the like (all of which had evolving characters, relatively intricate plotlines, etc. Coincidence?).
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Karagin
Imperial Karagin Army
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| Posted: 05-Aug-2007 20:38 Post subject: |
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| Warhammer: 3025 wrote: | | SaberDance wrote: |
Obviously some of you weren't kids back then. I thought it was cool. I think I was somewhere in the vicinity of 10. It was a great thing to tape on Sunday Mornings. I'd get Battletech and then Exo-squad.
In terms of kids TV, it was pretty advanced. Story arcs that extended beyond a single episode. Characters grow and change over time. The heroes don't win. There's actually some deeper issues of family, fame, and honor going on in the story. |
Exactly! Now that I'm older, looking at it with a much more critical eye, it does seem kinda bad; but at the time, when I was a child, it was a highlight of my saturday morning, right alongside shows like Transformers, Exo-Squad, Gargoyles, and the like (all of which had evolving characters, relatively intricate plotlines, etc. Coincidence?). |
Uhmmm...which characters evolved in BT cartoon?
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Karagin
Only the dead have seen the end of war. - Plato
"Wasted trip Man. Nobody said nuthin' about lockin' horns with no tigers." Oddball
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
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| Posted: 05-Aug-2007 23:42 Post subject: |
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| Karagin wrote: | | Warhammer: 3025 wrote: | | SaberDance wrote: |
Obviously some of you weren't kids back then. I thought it was cool. I think I was somewhere in the vicinity of 10. It was a great thing to tape on Sunday Mornings. I'd get Battletech and then Exo-squad.
In terms of kids TV, it was pretty advanced. Story arcs that extended beyond a single episode. Characters grow and change over time. The heroes don't win. There's actually some deeper issues of family, fame, and honor going on in the story. |
Exactly! Now that I'm older, looking at it with a much more critical eye, it does seem kinda bad; but at the time, when I was a child, it was a highlight of my saturday morning, right alongside shows like Transformers, Exo-Squad, Gargoyles, and the like (all of which had evolving characters, relatively intricate plotlines, etc. Coincidence?). |
Uhmmm...which characters evolved in BT cartoon? |
Umm... Almost all of them?
Major Steiner: Starts as a geeky and cautious Rear Echelon Trainer, ends as an audacious and skilled front line commander.
Rachel: Starts as the back seat for Adam, and though she never gets her own mech, is quite independent during the last two episodes.
Val: Starts as a cocky mercenary, becomes quite the patiot by the end.
Keilley: Starts as a wet-behind-the-ears and insubbordinate aero-jock, ends as a responsible mid-level officer.
Hawkins: Experienced and audacious, if a little reckless, mid-level who doesn't care about anyone else. Becomes more cautious.
Sakamoto: Arrogant and stuck up smuggler... actually turns down the crown of Kurita.
Ciro Hmm... switches sides from arrogant and patriotic FedCom, to disillusioned POW, to Arrogant Clanner.
Malthus: Went from honorable clanner to Mr. "I will obey our Bargain to the Letter."
It isn't Shakespeare, but it was a step up from the old cartoons where at the end of every episode they rebooted the universe and it was like it never happened next week.
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
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| Posted: 05-Aug-2007 23:47 Post subject: |
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| Warhammer: 3025 wrote: |
Exactly! Now that I'm older, looking at it with a much more critical eye, it does seem kinda bad; but at the time, when I was a child, it was a highlight of my saturday morning, right alongside shows like Transformers, Exo-Squad, Gargoyles, and the like (all of which had evolving characters, relatively intricate plotlines, etc. Coincidence?). |
I was talking with some friends from college, and we decided that period represented our Golden Age of Cartoons. I forget all the ones we mentioned. Gargoyles and the 2nd run of GI Joe came up. Beastwars.
Some older ones too. Robotech, for example.
We were talking about the kind of absurdity represented by 22-year olds buying old cartoons rather than serious movies.
Then decided that absurd or not, they were still better than a lot of the current crop of what's on TV.
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Karagin
Imperial Karagin Army
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| Posted: 05-Aug-2007 23:52 Post subject: |
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Sorry I didn't see any of them evolve, all I saw and still see is a poor script, bad voice overs and even worse "reworking" of what mechwarriors can and can't do.
They could have done a better job on both the stories and the background of the characters as well as given us mechs that would be likely seen on some of the worlds that were fought over.
As for the characters growing let's see...
We had mechwarriors piloting Battlearmor, funny only saw that once in the novels and even then Kai freely admitted he didn't have any of the skill the Clanners had. YET the cartoon showed a Bloodname MECHWARRIOR piloting a suit of battlearmor without any issues. Right okay...
Then we have Adam Steiner, funny how we have to have one of two main character related in some way to the ruling families of two of power houses of the IS, doing everything short of stopping a mech single handily with an SRM2 manpack...
Sorry but nothing in that cartoon showed any evolution and the CGI was cool for the first episode but got really cheese afterwards. But hey look at all the cool stuff we got for the game and the fact that out all the characters two of them make it anywhere in the novels and future history of the universe...and oh yes..NO ONE DIED. Sorry but in BT folks die like flies in Antarticia.
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Karagin
Only the dead have seen the end of war. - Plato
"Wasted trip Man. Nobody said nuthin' about lockin' horns with no tigers." Oddball
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
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| Posted: 06-Aug-2007 00:09 Post subject: |
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Well, that's a different complaint.
You'll get no argument out of me that the show didn't age well.
And yeah, the show has a lot of the Stackpole syndrome in it.
Your complaints about the number and kind of mechs are true, but consider that no cartoon has ever had more than a dozen models in it unless it was selling something. And even then it may only have 2 dozen.
As it was, we saw some of the cooler mechs (at least, the Axeman, Awesome, Mauler, Bushwacker, and Mad Cat were my personal favorites).
I think I've answered the evolution question.
If you're saying the show isn't great TV, you're right.
But it was good kids TV, and a step up in the development of animated series.
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