Wireless_Phantom wrote:Perhaps it's less impossible than you think. Harmony Gold's time is running out on the license, and if it isn't given back to them then there's a chance so long as Takara could work things out with...Was it Takutoku who made the original Valkyrie mold?
Harmony Gold wont get the license back. They've been holding it hostage for a long time and Japanese courts don't recognize it (Tatsunoko Productions gave HG the rights, but they didn't have the right to do so at the time, that was Studio Nue), but US Courts upheld their rights anyway. Big West Frontier actually owns most of the individual character likenesses in Robotech (most anime is created by multi-company committees with different jobs like character designs, mechanical designs, animation, music and so on), 41 according to Wikipedia, and HG didn't get those rights from the courts so they're already losing their grasp. They're keeping their rights until 2021 and I would really be surprised if Hasbro didn't snap it up since there's a lot they can do with it (toys, movies, cartoons, etc) which has to be enticing to all of the Japanese rights holders. Unfortunately Harmony Gold does own all of the Macross (et al) trademarks which expire in 2022 and there's really nothing stopping them from renewing them another 10 years.
Hasbro still can't make a Jetfire G1 reissue, and probably never will without working with Bandai, but if they got their hands on the Macross/Robotech rights they could make a new figure that's very, very close to it, more so than what we've gotten in recent years.
Emerje
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