Volume 9, No.4
By Geoff L.
(Edited by Ramón Bannister)
Left to Right: Minmei, Rick and Roy
In his third contribution to Kena Cubed, Geoff L. discusses Robotech’s hero Rick Hunter. A complex character for sure, Rick matures very quickly in the midst of a seemingly unending war with a super alien race.
Geoff L., Kena Cubed Contributor
In Robotech: Macross Saga, the main character in which most of the story revolves around is our hero Rick Hunter. From the beginning of the series, we see that Rick is a civilian stunt pilot who flies for his father’s air circus. He is there on the first episode to visit his adoptive “big brother,” LCDR Roy Fokker (a veteran naval aviator and ranking squadron commander) during the ribbon-cutting launch ceremony of the SDF-1. On approach to Macross Island in his tricked out “Mockingbird” racer plane, Rick arrives in the middle of an aerobatics demonstration by a group of transformable VF-1 Veritech fighters. So what does this crazy guy do? He joins the demonstration as the fighters are in a vertical Immelmann climb, passing just a few feet from them! Naturally, this enrages Roy while the crowd watching the air show cheers in light of the spectacle.
Roy Fokker
…he was swept into the war for humanity’s survival.
As they are meeting on the tarmac and reacquainting after a long time apart, we see that Rick holds a little resentment towards Roy for staying in the military (this time for the Robotech Defense Forces) and not returning to his father’s aerobatic circus. In an attempt to impress young Rick with Roy’s line of work, he puts him in the front seat of a Veritech trainer. But while all this is happening, the Zentraedi appear in Earth orbit. The previously unknown “boobytrap” on the SDF-1 fires its main gun at the Zentraedi. Roy leaves Rick in the trainer plane to investigate the sudden firing. Roy is informed that aliens have arrived and that all fighters need to scramble to meet the incoming threat. As all of this commotion is happening, Rick manages to doze off in the trainer plane cockpit.
Mistaking him to be a military pilot, the Battle Coordinator, Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) Lisa Hayes, gives Rick a rude awakening over the radio. While he was snoozing in the cockpit, the very Veritech fighter he is sitting in is now being armed and his engines are jump started. With LCDR Hayes screaming at him to take off, and the ground crew not letting him get out of the cockpit, Rick complies. Little did Rick realize that this marked the beginning of his odyssey; he was swept into the war for humanity’s survival. His life would be forever changed in these next five years of his life.
To me, Rick seems to represent the very best in society who join the military.
CULTURAL ANALYSIS
We first see Rick Hunter as a cocky, free-spirited young man who really wants nothing to do with the military. However, he changes due to the catastrophic events he finds himself in. When he’s stuck on board the SDF-1 in the outer reaches of the solar system, it dawns on him he’ll be doing nothing for the next year or more as they journey back to Earth. Roy ignites Rick’s sense of duty by convincing him to join the Robotech Defense Force (RDF). Rick then grows from what some might consider being an unruly punk to a responsible service member in the RDF with subordinates to look after.
From what I’ve seen, people join the military for a wide variety of reasons. Some do it out of a need to belong to some kind of a team. Some do it to prove something to themselves. Some might join the military to run away from something in their past. Some do it strictly out of pragmatic reasons (finding a stable job in a bad economy, money for college, etc.). Some do it simply because they have nothing else going on in their lives. Some do it for idealistic reasons. In the cartoon Robotech, Rick probably did it for all of these things. However, it is clear that the one that resonates the most with him is protecting those he cares about.
To me, Rick seems to represent the very best in society who join the military. With the outbreak of WWII, many able-bodied young men put their lives on hold and volunteered. Many of them figured that is was their duty. To top it off, many came into the military already with useful skills that were in heavy demand by the military. Similarly, Rick could have easily joined the ranks of the 70,000 non-combatants on board the SDF-1 and probably could have found some way to stay productive and have no involvement in the Robotech War. However, with Roy’s encouragement, the idealist in Rick decides to go into the RDF because he felt it was his duty. He was an experienced pilot who had something to offer.
Rick's Stunt Plane
It is without a doubt that Rick had a leg up on the other recruits during his pilot training. For someone who grew up flying in an aerobatic circus and winning eight international racing championships, I’d say he probably already had an impressive record of flying hours, being already instrument-rated, and was predisposed to pushing aircraft to the edge of its performance envelope. The technical aspects, however, can only teach so much.
Consequently, Rick was shocked by the brutal realities of war. In one particular battle, he found himself face to face with a Zentraedi soldier. When Rick raised his weapon at the soldier, all he saw was the stark terror in the eyes of the enemy alien, and found it difficult to shoot someone that appeared human. In other situations, he found himself narrowly cheating death on a regular basis. It affected him the most when some of his closest friends died in combat. Reasonably, anyone would find it difficult to put up with all of this if they didn’t have something to hope for.
Rick & Minmei
To speak of Rick Hunter’s life in this saga would be incomplete without mentioning the romance in his life. From near the beginning of the saga, Rick was infatuated with Miss Lynn Minmei after meeting her and sharing moments of survival and laughter. Minmei was a source of joy for him, yet also a source of frustration as it seemed that she didn’t always reciprocate his feelings. This was further complicated by the fact that she became a local starlet and recording artist after winning a beauty pageant. You could say that she was like an on-again/off-again girlfriend with an ambiguously defined relationship with him. With this being a source of angst, he unexpectedly found solace in the woman who would later be the love of his life: Lisa Hayes.
When you’re deployed, you sometimes wonder about what you could be doing if you weren’t at war. For myself, I wondered what else I could have been doing if I wasn’t in Iraq.
As the romance between Rick and Lisa develops, we see a difficult courtship to say the least. Yes, opposites can attract but not without some rough and tumble moments. Both Rick and Lisa are passionate about their jobs. What this really means was that there were occasional argumentative flare ups. There’s no avoiding this, as a pilot needs to adhere to the instructions of the battle coordinator. Rick is responsible for the tactical arena in the field, while Lisa is responsible for the overall strategic picture in the bridge. Rick is unruly in that he operated on instinct alone. Lisa is more prone to follow planning and procedure. Rick is brash. Lisa is cultured. In other words, they are polar opposites. However, Robotech was a dynamic drama in that characters changed over time.
Rick Hunter embracing Lisa Hayes
Rick and Lisa’s relationship develops throughout the episodes as they find themselves sharing similar struggles in the line of duty. In one episode, he saves her life on a Mars base. She saves Rick from drowning while they were POWs with the Zentraedi. Lisa muses to Rick about the state of humanity and its uncertain future. They eventually find some comfort with each other as they lament over lost loves. She feels responsible for his safety when she accidentally has Rick fired upon. He heroically saves her yet again from a base in Alaska. As these events unfold, their relationship grows from annoyance, to begrudging respect, to a close friendship, to an uncertain cat and mouse game of attraction, to finally acknowledging their love for each other. Although seemingly straight-forward, none of this is without the complication of Rick needing to sort out whatever remaining feelings he may have for Minmei.
In the Robotech story, it could be said that Rick Hunter has a bit of a Hero Complex. He likely has an inherent deep-rooted desire to help others in need. This is part of the impetus that compels him to enlist. We also see this in how he idealizes his rescuing of Minmei or his willingness to undergo any risk to save Lisa. While this seems to be an inherently good thing, this is also his weakness. It is for this reason that he is caught up in the euphoria of Minmei and finds it difficult to let her go even while he and Lisa were dating. He’s a nice guy to the point where he seems like he can’t be decisive and set a boundary. It’s a love triangle that distracts him.
Rick Hunter
When you’re deployed, you sometimes wonder about what you could be doing if you weren’t at war. For myself, I wondered what else I could have been doing if I wasn’t in Iraq. In a similar way, Rick wondered what he would do if the Robotech War never happened. Given his independent nature, I can imagine that he would have wanted to be his own boss or have a job with a great amount of latitude. He would have eventually taken over his father’s flying circus. As he got older, he would be flying a Gulfstream jet, meeting rockstars, actors, and talk show hosts. With enough contacts, Rick would probably be flying between major international cities, making the world his sort of oyster. At some point between all of this jet-setting, he’d probably be asked to be a catalogue cover model for Breitling watches, sporting some Ray Ban wireframe sunglasses, a leather jacket, that famous ascot, and prominently displaying a $7000 watch named after his famous “Mockingbird” racer. However, this war with the Zentraedi took him to a different destiny.
During the exploits of the 1st Robotech War, Rick Hunter became a major figure in the RDF. We see that he’s a complicated man but holds to simple ideals. He grows as a person, marked by the responsibilities he bears and for the people he held in high esteem. He never wanted to be a military man. He was a man seemingly forever young, yet thrust into a circumstance in which he would have to be mature beyond his age. Those circumstances that he found himself in demanded people who had the right qualities to fulfill this role. In the cartoon, humanity gained hope by having Rick and countless others fight on behalf of them.
