Rick Hunter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rick Hunter

This article is about the character from Robotech. See Hikaru Ichijyo for the equivalent character in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross. See Hunter, starring Fred Dryer, for the main character of that TV series.

This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article.
Please improve it or discuss changes on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions.

Rick Hunter, voiced by veteran voice actor Tony Oliver, is one of the fictional characters in the first Robotech anime television series. A nineteen-year-old civilian, Rick had merely come as a visitor to Macross Island in 2009 to watch the launching of the Super Dimensional Fortress One. He was a skilled civilian pilot, having won many world-class flying championships, but was headstrong, impulsive, and naive. His best friend and mentor was Roy Fokker, who had flown with him in his father, "Pop" Hunter's, flying circus. Roy had joined the military during the Global Civil War, while Rick had remained at home, and this had driven a wedge between the two friends, as Rick took his father's more pacifist viewpoint. However, the alien race known as the Zentraedi changed all that when they attacked Macross City on the day of the SDF-1's planned launching. Soon, Rick and Roy were forced to join the fight against the gravest threat humanity had ever faced.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Through luck, Rick was in the cockpit of one of the transformable Veritech fighters, and got a crash course in piloting the strange craft from Roy in the midst of an all-out alien invasion. Exiled to interplanetary space by a hyperspace-fold accident along with the other survivors of Macross City, Rick rescued and fell in love with the young singer, Lynn Minmei. Although he was not initially open to the idea, the constant danger to the ship and the city it carries compels Rick to sign up with the Robotech Defense Force, and soon becomes an ace pilot, eventually earning his own command (Vermilion Squadron) and two subordinates (Max Sterling and Ben Dixon). Throughout the course of the series, Rick matures and gains experience as the SDF-1 slowly limps Earthward, and his convoluted love triangle with Minmei and Lisa Hayes, the disciplined and reserved second-in-command of the SDF-1, is played out against a backdrop of constant space dogfights.

Rick and Lisa Hayes

Even after reaching Earth, the crew of the vast ship are not safe, and his "big brother", Roy, is killed in combat. A heartbroken Rick inherits command of Roy's legendary Skull Squadron, rising to become Earth's greatest hero, commanding the SDF-1's air group during the desperate battles of the last years of the First Robotech War. At the same time, he matures greatly as a person, until by the end of the series he realizes his love for Lisa Hayes is deeper than his infatuation with the self-centered Minmei. As the dust settles from the terrible war, Rick and Lisa are two of the most influential surviving military figures of the human race, and together with the Zentraedi Commander Breetai they construct the SDF-3, with which they intend to take humanity to its destiny in the stars.

By the time of Robotech's third generation, some thirty years after the first generation, Rick is referred to as "Admiral Hunter", who appears to be in command of the Robotech Expeditionary Force that is attempting to liberate Earth from the Invid. (His experiences during the intervening years, as well as his relationship with Lisa Hayes, are chronicled in Jack McKinney's now-decanonized Sentinels novels, which many Robotech fans tend to regard as holy writ despite repeated statements of their current non-canonicity). The SDF-3, with Rick Hunter aboard, never arrives at Earth with the main REF fleet at the end of the Robotech series. The quest to find the SDF-3, and Admiral Hunter and company, is expected to be a major plot thread in the upcoming Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles series.

An interesting development seen on Robotech discussion boards centers on a plot element of the original MOSPEADA, which became Robotech's third generation. At the end of the war with the Invid, it is decided that if the Invid can not be dislodged, the planet Earth must be razed.

In Robotech, Rick Hunter is named as the originator of this order. Since many human civilians and troops are alive on Earth and the imminent threat of the Invid to the rest of the universe is not clear to all, some fans allege that with this order Rick Hunter might be found guilty of numerous charges. These include conspiracy to commit war crimes, conspiracy to commit multiple million counts of murder, conspiracy to commit multiple million counts of assault, willfull destruction of property on a global scale, treason, and others.

Other fans, however, disagree that this could be possible and argue that ordering the destruction of the Earth and all its inhabitants was a legally correct and factually prudent action, or that Rick Hunter did not give those orders.