Independence Day Robotech rip off?

[Deckard1973]

Yesterday was the 4th. Naturally I watched the movie Independence Day. When I saw it in the theaters, I could not help myself but say,
"They stole THAT from Robotech!"
"THAT" being Dolza's ship with thousands and thousands of ships within it.
And to a lesser degree how they destroyed it.
Anyone feel the same?

[Lt Gargoyle]

well there are lots of simulateritys. but i like the movie.

[slade the sniper]

I for one would like to take ID4, Battle Los Angeles, Battleship and Skyline and just have a long reel of the battle scenes (guns and explosions with no plot) and just watch the fun with some heavy metal music...basically an one to two hour long AMV of sci-fi war

-STS

[Seto Kaiba]

Yesterday was the 4th. Naturally I watched the movie Independence Day. When I saw it in the theaters, I could not help myself but say,
"They stole THAT from Robotech!"

No. No. A thousand times No.

The first, and most obvious, reason that's a ridiculous idea is that there's pretty much nothing in common between ID4 and Robotech. Having a large ship that's full of fighters isn't exactly what you'd call an uncommon idea, and the Boddole Zer mothership from Macross didn't split up into a bunch of smaller ships the way the mothership in Independence Day did.

Second, in order for Hollywood to "steal" ideas from Robotech, someone in Hollywood would have to actually remember Robotech and believe that copying it was a good idea. Robotech's track record of failure hadn't yet achieved its apex with Carl Macek's brainchild Robotech 3000, but it was already pretty damn heinous... certainly enough that any Hollywood creative type would shun the series as poison. Mind you, they'd have to actually know the series existed, which is pretty unlikely considering the mid-90's was Robotech at the peak of its obscurity. It never really caught on during its initial run in the 80s, and had been largely forgotten by all but its shrinking fanbase... Robotech didn't get any real attention until 1999-2000, when Harmony Gold screwed Macross fans worldwide with a campaign of legal threats that kicked off the Big West v. Tatsunoko rights confirmation issue.

Third, in order for the creators of Independence Day to "steal" an idea from Robotech, the idea would have to be original to Robotech. You can't steal from Robotech what isn't Robotech's, and that sure as hell ain't. The Robotech series hasn't had an original idea in going on thirty years, after all. Some studios, including LucasFilm, have included references/homages to the original Japanese Macross (specifically that, not RT) and come right out and said as much. The only pop culture reference to Robotech anyone can point to is a single musical reference for something like three seconds in Futurama's send-up of god-awful dubbed anime (which is hardly a complement). The creators of ID4 have acknowledged several titles as having inspired their work, most importantly Stargate, but Robotech was not among them.

[taalismn]

Its the central bay full of ships and atmosphere and control towers, isn't it?

But no, giant alien spacecraft have been menacing Earth for decades. ever since the pulp era....
And then there's the Death Star...

[ShadowLogan]

ID4 makes me think more of a modern take on HG Well's "War of the Worlds" to be honest than other shows/movies with its alien invaders coming to Earth.

[Arnie100]

There were also no giant human-looking aliens in ID4, either...