If you have watched other entries in the Macross series (especially Frontier) but you're not sure if you want to sit through the slog of 49 episodes and 4 OVAs/movies that is Macross 7, this is a decent and fun recap of Macross 7 in about 90 minutes. If you are new to Macross, I would not recommend it.

Many of the movie-length Macross entries suffer from packing too much into a small run-time, which can cause you to get very lost very quickly if you've never watched a Macross series or know the lore. FB7 definitely suffers from that. While it is mostly a recap of Macross 7, it is being shown through the lens of the Macross Frontier characters and so not a whole lot is really explained. They kind of just throw it at you. This was also a 30th anniversary special, so it is really just "here are all these established characters in this silly situation".

The "silly situation" being the main character group of Macross Frontier finds VHS tapes containing Macross 7 footage. The band in Macross 7 is Fire Bomber, and of course these tapes are found by none other than the Frontier Fleet's biggest Fire Bomber fanboy Ozma Lee. This is not a serious installment by any means. The whole thing is rather silly, but I do think that's one of the geat things about the Frontier cast: they're fun characters to just put in a random situation together. Some of the characterizations are a little off or exaggerated, which makes the dialogue feel odd at times, but if you're familiar with the Macross Frontier cast it's still fun.

Since it does have such a short run-time though, and since the "main character" is Frontier Fleet's #1 Fire Bomber Fan, the main focus is the music. There's no mention of the love triangle, and there is a decent amount of mech/fighting footage mostly with music over it. While there is a little bit of a story underneath it all, FB7 is mostly just a 90 minute music video of mostly Macross 7 music with recut footage under it so that you get the gist of Macross 7's base story. Any new animation looks good, and matches the quality of Macross Frontier but there is no new Macross 7 footage, it is all just recut shots from it's original 1994 run.

There are two new songs that were recorded by Frontier and 7 cast for this special, and they're really good, but they are not featured during the movie at all. One of them is a medley, which does have new animation of Frontier idols Sheryl and Ranka that starts at the end of the movie but it is short and most of the song is over the credits. The other song is a brand new Fire Bomber song, which is also played during the credits and is not used during the movie. Not featuring brand new songs during what is essentially a 90 minute music video is a little bizarre, but make sure you listen through the credits for them.

Overall, decent but not great quality - music is great, animation is mostly reused from a previous series, story is simple and pretty silly but fun