As someone who'd got no knowledge of the Macross 7 universe other than "some dude flies the cooler Valkyrie from Macross Plus with a Guitar Hero controller," I decided the movie might be a fun place to start. Firstly, calling it a movie is not quite right. It's a slightly longer episode of the show, really. It stands pretty much alone, since although there are references to the rest of the series it doesn't presuppose too much knowledge and that which it does can be gained by inference. The plot is slight, and mostly an excuse for namedropping and a few awesome action scenes. The real starof the show is, of course, Basara and his music. The movie features some of the best songs from the series such as Heart and Soul, and it's hard not to get some kind of response from the hugely entertaining guitar duel scene.

I'd say that if you enjoy this movie, you'll probably enjoy the series itself. If you watch it and think "that was stupid," then you probably won't.