I still love the original to bits, I just don't love it like that, you know? I was too young in the 80s and was never exposed to the original show in any form (Robotech or otherwise) until I was an adult, so I don't have the same blinding nostalgia for it like I do for other parts of the franchise like Plus (which was my first Macross). Divorced from nostalgia, its warts have become harder and harder to overlook over time. It's very much a product of its era, which gets harder and harder to recommend to people in earnest as time goes along. Peklo in the anime thread had a bunch of stinging condemnations of Plus, and while I can compartmentalize and make excuses for the things Plus does, it's basically impossible to do with the original SDF:M beyond going, "*shrug* 80s Japan sure was a place in time." I think it still works as a grand space opera, and it's a fascinating look into the anime industry of the time, and it serves as the foundations for a franchise I love above almost every other. But it's just got so many warts that it's hard to love it unconditionally. Plus it has the worst songs in the franchise (sound track is great, iconic even, but the vocals are mostly whatever) so it just doesn't click on the same level that say, Plus, or 7, or Frontier, or even DYRL do with me.