ROUGHNECKS: The Complete Campaigns 7/5/05
 

From DVDAnswers

EDIT: 4-disc set? Well, I can almost guarantee that they'll be double-sided, with probably at least a campaign and a half, maybe two put on each side of the disc. Theorectically there were 8 campaigns so yeah, 2 campaigns per side...also read on:

Hmm...778 minutes. There were originally supposed to be 40 episodes. 36 were actually made, plus a few clip-shows. Each individual volume shows a runtime of 96 minutes. I think there were 5 episodes per disc. That's a runtime of 19.2 minutes per episode which have been editted together as they each lack the opening and ending credit sequence, so that would account for the less than ~22 minute runtime typical of a half-hour show. Anyway, the total run time for the 7 main volumes (sans the "Trackers" disc) is 672 minutes which leaves 106 minutes unaccounted for. Add in the Trackers episode and we get 691.2 minutes. So that still leaves 86.8 minutes, which would be enough time for at least 4 more episodes.

So that begs the question. Could this release actually include the more never produced episodes? Could the production team have actually gotten together and completed this series? If so, I may have to get this set. Until there's more details about this release, I just don't know, but it sounds promising. The fact that it's called the "complete campaigns" has me thinking that they finished the few remaining episodes. There was earlier rumors that portions of those episodes were completed and that the team did want to finish the series, so this could be great news for fans of the show.

I don't know if it's the same case with this show,but i have noticed that lots of anime releases list runtimes that are longer than they actually are.

Including never produced eps would be quite a feat ;) Now if they include never released esp that would be something. I'll definately keep an eye out for this one, thanks for the head's up.

Honestly I wouldn't get my hopes up too high as although Trackers is technically the only eps on that DVD it also includes the 4 "clip shows" that were done. All in all on an avg of 97 mins/DVD it comes out to be 776 min so I suspect the only "bonus" we'll get is the fact the eps will be in order.

Well, like I said, that in at least one of the commentaries on the current releases, the crew expresses extreme interest in finishing the series.

Oh, I just though of this...another reason to upgrade to this release will be if there'll be a 5.1 track on the Tesca campaign, of which it only had a 2.0 track on the original release.

Looks like I'll be double-dipping on this if my speculations are true.

I'm so glad I didn't buy the individuals. I've been browsing amazon for the series for awhile and each dvd goes for over 20 each. Had no idea this set was coming out so I'm pretty stoked.

Oh, OK. There *were* four clip shows. I wasn't sure on how many there were. But the reason why I'm giving some hope that the extra 4 episode runtime allotment is that the package does say the "complete" campaigns. I can't imagine that this would mean the clip shows. In anycase, if the Tesca Campaign is remastered in 5.1 as are all the rest, it'd be worth grabbing this set for that and having "Trackers" in its proper location.

Same here. I was hoping they'd eventually put out a box set.

Wow! Amazon already has this up for pre-order for just $34.97!!! That's not even the cost of two individual volumes.

Why does that cover artwork have Japanese text on it? Is this an R1 release?

That's in case you missed the giant robot.

Glad I held out on these.

Ditto :thumbsup: Definately getting this.

Glad i never bought the individual releases...knew they'd eventually release a box set.

Actually the robot isn't all that big. Maybe 8' tall at most judging by the size comparison of the MI troopers.

Why this box has Japanese lettering is your guess is good as mine, as this was a fully American-made 'toon.

Wait a minute fellas, *is* that Japanese lettering? I'm thinking it may be the Roughneck equivalent of [Star Wars] Imperial eruebesh (sp?)

I hope that isn't the final artwork. I don't remember the robot trooper being in *that* many episodes (but its been awhile) and certainly, he wasn't the main star.

I don't speak the language, but I have a number of Japanese DVDs, and that text certainly looks Japanese to me. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can chime in?

Looks like Predator writing to me.

It's Japanese.
It reads: Starship Troopers Chronicles

For a minute I thought this was some secret anime version of the show.

I can't imagine it would mean anything else myself. The term "complete" probably refers to the fact all the eps that were produced/released are included. I mean it would be nice if they did finish the series and I know the people who were involved would have liked to finish the series but if this was done they are being very hush hush about it. There are no references to recent additions/work on anyone's IMDB page, there's no info on the Roughneck fan sites (although most are hopelessly out of date) and there's no official info on it (which if the studio dumped the money into doing it I would suspect they would make a big deal out of it to make up the costs). Personally I file the final eps of Roughnecks into the same dream category as a spliced version of the last two Matrix movies into a single movie that retains all the action and dumps all the trite philosophy and psychobabble ;)


IIRC he was the focus of 1 eps and the model was used in the background in a couple of other ones. Wouldn't be my first choice either but it wouldn't surprise me if that's the final artwork.

So... how is this show? I was never able to get into on TV, and I heard the current DVDs were scattershot best-ofs.

Well, that's entirely possible, but the latest info I heard about the unproduced episodes was that the audio was done for them, they just lacked the animation. So whether or not they actually did finish them, one would wonder if they did them using the same level of CGI tech they used in '99 or if it's updated.

IIRC, in the commentary for the Tophet campaign, that that's the one they actually rendered first and they at that point hadn't gotten their motion blur technique or special effect down yet and the movements of the character was a bit rough when you looked closely.

Yeah, in fact, that robot was the focus of a Tophet campaign episode and then was used later on in several episodes as a supporting unit. I recently watched the Klendathu campaign and I think they had a few in those episodes.

1. The show basically throws out all the goofiness and fascist aspects from the film and makes a ~40 episode WWII-style action drama in space. ie. You have definate good guys and definate bad guys. The show revolves around "campaigns". Each campaign typically lasted 5 episodes, one lasted 6 and the unfinished last one was supposed to last 4.

2. The current DVDs are NOT "Best ofs". They were in fact complete campaigns, except the Klendathu one where the 6th episode "Trackers" was put on its own DVD along with the 4 clip shows.

The campaigns are as follows:

• The Pluto Campaign (took place on Pluto...obviously)
• The Hydora Campaign (took place on a water planet)
• The Tophet Campaign (took place on a kind of volcanic desert type planet, first appearance of the Skinnies)
• The Tesca Campaign (took place on a jungle planet)
• The Zephyr Campaign (took place on an Ice Asteroid)
• The Klendathu Campaign (took place on the bug's home planet which was just a typical alien looking planet)
• The Homefront Campaign (took place on Earth)
• The last campaign would have probably been called something like Dante's Inferno or something. Took place underground under Hawaii.

I vaguely remember watching on TV and thinking that it *wanted* to be like a WWII combat action series, but without really killing people much, just bugs... Kinda like SWep1 only killing droids... Am I remembering right? Isn't the violence way toned down for kids? I'm still really interested in this, but I'm wondering if the kids TV aspect isn't going to water it down too much...

It's certainly not to the level of some "japanimation" (aka you won't see any blood, that I recall) but...



Overall it is definately meant more as a kid/young teen thing but I still thought it was interesting (more from a technical aspect than screenwriting though).

Yeah, I'll probably rent one or two discs to sample again before buying. Thanks for the overview, both of you...

(I was really interested in the computer animation when it was first shown-- but those things advance so quickly I'm afraid the thrill may be gone on that count, and if the story is thin there may not be much to draw me in.)

Well, the animation does take some getting used to once you're used to more modern CG. But once you're used to it, you don't even thing about it that much. In fact, one of the most realistic aspects to the animation is the explosions. The explosions are very realistic and use particle effects and look like feature film explosions.

You can also tell that the animation got better as the series went on. Oh, not in huge leaps and bounds, but you can tell that certain elements improve slightly over the course of the series. Mainly the explosions. ;) At first they were a bit cartoony, but then they became really cool. But like I said earlier, they rendered the 3rd campaign first so it's a bit out of order to which the animation improves. The Pluto Campaign, the first, is actually one of the coolest campaigns in the whole series.

There is some skimpying on the animation, for example they fail to render the tracer fire for the hand rifles on several shots.

In the end, I wished Mainframe Entertainment would have done the animation for this series. Mainframe did the series War Planets: Shadow Raiders at about the same time and the animation was and actually still is, leaps and bounds better than about any CGI toon that has come out to this day, with the exception of Squaresoft's Final Fantasy...but not by much. Had Mainframe done Roughnecks, it would have probably been the most kick-ass CG show to date.

Any new information, re: extras, anything... ;)

Using :google: the only specs I've found are 5.1 audio and a photo gallery. Hopefully they'll port over the commentaries as well. And hopefully they've remixed the Tesca Campaign to 5.1 from 2.0. Also hoping to see a cleaned up Zephyr Campaign transfer. The original had lots of grain for some reason.

This set is $28.25 plus shipping at DVDSoon right now (total $30.78).

Someone just bought my old 8 disc set off eBay for $151.:eek:

Better put yours up fast before people realize a new (ie:cheap compilation) is coming out.:lol:

Any new information on this release?

I've haven't been able to find anything definitive yet :( Even the official page by Sony, last time I looked, makes no mention of whether or not the commentaries were ported. I don't recall where but I seem to recall reading a blurb somewhere that lead me to believe it was the eps as they are on the individual DVDs (aka nothing new was produced for this collection). At this point I think I'm just going to cancel my pre-order and wait until it comes out to see what's included.

I was wondering the same thing recently. I haven't seen anything new on it from any news site.

I know I probably shouldn't post this here, but .. is this series more in tune to Heinlein's original Starship Troopers book (which I loved), or very far removed similiar to the film? Thanks guys ..

Well, theorectically yes. It is more in line with Heinlein's novel. The Skinnies are used in the series. Technically however, it uses elements from the '97 movie. The bug design for one.

The way the series went was you had roughly 7 and half campaigns. Each campaign was generally 5 episodes with one running 6 and the last supposedly running 9 or so I think, but the last 3 episodes weren't finished. The voices were recorded, but the animation wasn't done. But anyway, the first campaign, the Pluto campaign introduced the warrior bug (from the movie) and the flying bug, dubbed the ripper. Each campaign after that introduced a new species of bug. So by the end of the series, there was about 10 or so different kinds of bugs they battled so the series never got old in that respect.

The Skinnies were introduced in the third campaign, the Tophet Campaign, and from there on, they had the leader of the Skinnies as a fellow Roughneck.

With this new compilation, I hope they fix some of the things that were lacking in the individual releases. For the 4th campaign, which was one of the first discs released, it was only in DD 2.0. Hopefully they've remastered that one in 5.1 in line with the rest. Also the Zephyr campaign, which is known as the Ice Asteroid campaign, was extremely grainy on the individual release, which is strange given the source material is CGI! So hopefully the new version is cleaned up.

I will ebay mine off, if this new one is Complete :) thats for sure.

Just hope a review pops up soon, and the reviewer knows what he is talking about in regards to changes etc..

Thanks Mike. Sounds like this one may be a winner ...

I really have my doubts about this one being anything more than just the current episodes slapped onto 4 DVDs.

I dont mind even that, if every episode is in the set I will still sell my old dvd and get this compact set as its cheaper too.