[HirouKeimou]

Originally Posted by Nachtwandler

I would argue with it.

Spoiler for Frontier stuff is a spoiler so use spoiler tags please:

- They killed Michael just because;
- They made Sherils manager and Rankas brother behave out of character as generic villians in final parts of the story just because, instead of exploiting the whole plot with crazy goverment of their homeplanet;
- The whole situation with Sherils potential imprisonment was abandonned;
- They ended the series with generic happy end that did not resolve romantic triangle any way.

And these are just from the top of my head. It is pretty clear that the script was rewritten during the process and scriptwriters just were not sure what to do with trhe plot.

Despite movies being much more condenced I like the general storyline and ending way more there.

To be fair, in order:

Spoiler for Frontier isn't the greatest writing in the world but it's not terrible...:

- Not an excuse for it but Michael's death served as a push for Alto because their slopping writing of Alto's character throughout the first half of the series left him as this completely indecisive character following wherever the wind blew. And this infuriated a lot of characters on the show, including Ozma, who in the movie got to freaking punch him. Talk about not critically thinking about things, Alto took Mishima's words about the Vajra at face value and failed to think for himself, which he later regretted but alas his character having flaws essentially meant other characters had to pay for it.

- Grace is an enigma. On one hand, it's foreshadowed a couple of times earlier in the story with her relationship with Mishima prior. However, her actions and complete disregard for Sheryl, at least, were confusing at first. Because it did sort of come out of left field in episode 15. And it's like they felt Mishima didn't work as enough of a villain so then they decided Grace was but then also Galaxy, except Galaxy isn't Grace herself, she's a part of Galaxy. The whole thing got super hive mined in the final episode, especially. So it's like, I look at Delta, and I get it considering Frontier's reveal in episode 24.

- This is valid. But I always took it as by the time Mishima had power to do so (death of Catherine's father), the situation was in such a dire strain and Sheryl was already compromised so he could blackmail her into doing his bidding. And once the show finished, they'd basically cleared Sheryl's name. Ranka, on the other hand, is one I'm kind of bitter about in the TV series because they basically glossed over how she temporarily (for good reasons, but I digress) swapped sides and if it would have any negative consequences for her as a person once the war had ended. They dropped this in the movies and thank goodness. Because the switch itself still baffles lots of people; her sudden choice to go with the Vajra in the context of the show and her character makes no sense at all; however, as an outsider looking in it could be perceived differently; so it's been a mixed bag and one of the most inconsistent writing in the show by far.

- Didn't really care about the triangular ending but not gonna lie, I look back at the ending and feel it really didn't deliver on where the consequences for the villains. And I've talked in prior forums on here about how Galaxy is still at large (the main ship) at the end of the TV series. And as far as I remember, the movies didn't resolve that either. So it's like, I could write that off as lazy writing, but the show is kind of about the people who live on Frontier, specifically. So it's no surprise if Galaxy one day shows up as an enemy in a new Macross. The most interesting aspect would be to see how Kawamori would keep their affiliation to the ship a secret.

On topic, at the end of the day, Delta is ironically better as a TV series because of how much it sadly wants to cover in one go. Whereas the movie can't focus on one plot or the other. So it's like eight stories all going on at once with very little resolution for each one. And I know I said it's a lot more compact back when the movie first hit Blu-ray, and it's true; but that can be a detriment. After all, as I said for Frontier, it's not simply a retelling of events because a lot of those events are mixed up so much that the original context of the TV series no longer works. Everything about the characters is changed or swapped around. I said ages ago how Sheryl got watered down in her movie appearance to a point where if you didn't watch the TV show you wouldn't know this girl suffered much outside of a passing mention in the movie. But it's a real plot point in the TV series that's supposed to help you sympathize with her. And it's sort of why I wish they would stop doing a retelling of an established series and make a sequel movie for an existing plot. They did this with 7, what's so hard about other Macross'? (And no, I'm not counting Frontier's second movie being a completely different beast from the original series or Delta's new movie because it's still in the movie verse; I mean something following the TV adaption.)