Robotech II: The Sentinels

If you're a Robotech fan, you need this film, no questions asked.

If you're into anime or animation in general, however... Sentinels is the result of the abortive attempt by Harmony Gold to create a series that would fit into the "Robotech Universe" (consisting of altered series Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada). In the original series, 3 successive generations of wars are shown; the first generation (Macross) being the most popular, and the second (Southern Cross/Masters) the least. The need was felt to show the continued adventures of the first generation characters over the time-span of the second, and leading into the third, as the original series made continuous mention of the "return" of the original characters, but was never shown. Confused yet?

Animation in Japan began, with "aged" versions of Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes, and other protagonists from the Macross story arc, and stories designed by Harmony Gold. Financial backing was given by Matchbox Toys, who were manufacturing American toys based on the Robotech series. Unfortunately, Matchbox's finances weren't up to the strain, and the Robotech "fad" seemed to be tapering off, so production was halted after fewer than 4 of the proposed 85 or so episodes were animated.

Harmony Gold didn't want to completely write off the whole thing, so they stitched together the completed animation.

Is it worth it? Only if you're a Robotech fan. It's great seeing Rick and Lisa again... but the animation really isn't up to the par of the original Macross, the story line is very sketchy and incomplete (by necessity, of course), the voice acting is worse than the original. Streamline/Orion have been selling this as straight anime, and most people accept it as such, but I feel that this is misleading, and may reflect negatively upon newcomers' opinions of anime. It's really no different than any other "American" cartoon- story and character direction came from America, and the animation seemed to have been done half-heartedly by Japanese studios.

An incomplete story. Only one real storyline gets completed. Its the soap opera type storyline that usually accompanied the action in the TV series. The action storyline never actually get completed. I guess thats because its only the first 3 episodes of a TV series put together and labeled a movie. I grew up watching Robotech on television. It was by far my favorite of all cartoons. Maybe it influenced my decision to pursue an education and career in mechanical engineering. Apart from that I was always intrigued by airplanes. In any case if I had seen this "movie" in my youth I would have been sadly disappointed by the fact that the action was left unresolved. So I guess I'm saying that if you primarily enjoyed the soap opera style love stories that took place in the series you might like this "movie", but otherwise don't waste your time.

I enjoyed this "movie", actually the start of an incomplete series supposed to span 65 episodes. A diehard Robotech fan, I couldn't get enough of this tape, which kept the original voices of the Robotech TV series while recreating the feel of the series even with new animators. Sadly, the story is very incomplete, since all it takes is the first 4 episodes of what would have been a series. Having read the (complete) robotech books, I know that the Sentinels are a group of aliens the SDF-3 is supposed to meet early in the Robotech II story, but despite the "Sentinels" present in the name of the movie, you don't even get a glimpse of them! I hope, probably in vain, eventually someone will pick up and finish the series.

Regardless of what some say, The Sentinels is a great continuation to the Robotech TV series. From Rem and Cabel's Robotechnology/Protoculture discussion's, to Rick and Lisa's Wedding and the final battle on Tirol between the Regent's forces and the remaining Bioroids. The Sentinels Movie remains to me a great start to the series that should have been. (Thank God for the Novels and Comics) I still continually watch this Film as much as the rest of the series. I find this and The Robotech Masters the best parts of Robotech. I hope Harmony Gold will at some point finish it with a bunch of OVA movies like the upcoming Shadow Chronicles.

This was to be the offical sequel to Robotech, or at least one of them. For those not familiar, Robotech was a 3 chapter animated series produced in America, and culled from 3 separate animated series from Japan that were slightly retooled and bashed together and then dubbed in english to be shown here, in the US. Now, that said, Robotech 2 the Sentinels was the backstory of what happened to the surviving characters at the end of Macross (Chap1) and the end of New Generation (Chap3). Basically Rick, Lisa, Max and Breetai plus others create the Robotech Expeditionary Force and begin a quest to find the homeworld of the Robotech Masters, to learn more about robotechnology and the people that created it. Along the way, they find that the Robotech Masters have been sought out by someone else, The Invid, which we got to see in Robotech chapter 3. The Invid are the mortal foe of the Robotech Masters, the sole reason why the Zentradaei were created and went from miners of protoculture (the reason the Invid are attacking the Masters) to being a warrior race, and why Robotechnology was created. This small video was supposed to be a 65 original episode series, but that was not to be since at that time the dollar vs. yen rate suddenly dropped, killing any money in the budget to continue production on the series. So, we never got an official Carl Macek approved American sequel series to follow, but instead we got genuine Macross sequels direct from Japan and distributed by extremely savvy translation and distribution firms. So though it was a bittersweet memory, I think we were better for not having it.