kalvasflam

a bit late, but me... me... me... I remember Hardcastle and McCormik. The car was sweet, I was a kid at that point, and so my natural first thought was how do you load machine guns and rockets into that thing. Something that KITT really should've had. But KITT at least had turbo boost, which as far as I could tell didn't do much most of the time. As for Blue Thunder, well, it you look at it closely, it was really a lot like a heavily modified Apache, but no sidewinders or hellfires or hydra rockets. But what police helicopter would ever sport a gatling gun in the first place. Although it would be funny to see those used in high speed car chases. (but of course, the second that happens, the criminal elements would obtain handheld SAMs, and all the lawyers and ACLU will whine and bitch about excessive force and police brutality)

Haven't played SWG in eons, but from the looks of it, the crafting class is going to way of the dinosaurs. I wonder what the SWG subscription base looks like now. This could potentially be a good thing for SWG if they ever go the route of adapting a dynamic storyline for the servers, but unfortunately, I doubt if that'll ever be the case. Which is too bad. They seem to be ripping out the best part of SWG, which was the economy, at least from what I saw a year ago, that was the case. Hopefully they'll be able to do something good with the combat changes. I personally think they should've just struck out beyond the movieverse and go into their own era, i.e. KOTOR era would be decent if there was a good overarching story line.

I second what Anubis said, Yzak as chairman, only a five year old mentality could possibly countenance something that ridiculous. Of course, for the new show, the big question is can Fukuda actually put aside his pettiness and desire to inject politics into his cartoons and do a good series. Seed was actually entertaining toward the end, now I don't know if that was Fukuda's doing or not, after all, GSD's beginnings were good too, and then the show did a 180 and went straight to hell. Well, we'll see....

I second that, they should've gotten fat bastard to play Bond... ha ha ha ha. He's sexy.

Ever hear the concept that two bad might begat a good? begat.... is that even a real word? Woohooo, I'm a success at poor writing thanks to the influence of the team Fukuda. 336038[/snapback] Yeah but that's math not genetics. If those two have a dominant Can't-write-for-crap gene, then that kid isn't going to be able to write for crap either. 336514[/snapback] May be those genes will be recessive in the kid.

Given how the show has departed significantly from the original, and that it is doing very well on its own, I'd like to see more fighters types in BSG. The Stealth Viper is a good start, the Raptor is almost a take off on the old shuttle. But the Raptor role seem to be quite numerous, running from recon, to strike, to AWACS. I hope with Pegasus, they'll be able to add in additional fighter types. i.e. pure fighter version of Viper, an attack version of the Viper. Different types of Raptor... may be one with a gigantic radome on top of it. On the flip side, I'd like to see more Cylon options as well, but that isn't absolutely necessary. The Raider seem to be a good all around fighter/attack craft. The Cylon shuttle seem to be more along the line of an assult vehicle, so they have pretty decent coverage.

Ever hear the concept that two bad might begat a good? begat.... is that even a real word? Woohooo, I'm a success at poor writing thanks to the influence of the team Fukuda.

Does Fukuda and wife have a kid? If so, how old? May be we can have the toddler have a go.

So, the implication is that the prototypes from two years ago are still far away superior to the most recent production models that is supposed to have incorporated all the best features. Well, given Akatsuki, I guess that's the logic of gundams. Although I seriously doubt that in UC, the original RX-87 could've stood up to a Hi-Zack. But then, we can use the excuse that there was a seven year difference between the models right? But I digress, I'm in Seed land where logic doesn't apply very well. Oh, and Chaos, Gaia, Abyss, Saviour, those weren't exactly bottom of the pile gundams either, none of those were production models. And they were all the "latest version." After all, didn't you watch the episode where Chaos was giving Saviour a run for its money? Or how about the episode, where the top of the line Impulse was duking it out with the subpar Gaia, didn't see either one of those getting owned. And of course, what about when Yzak and Athrun beat up on the Gundams, I don't know, those Zakus looks like production models to me. Oh, I guess Yzak's doesn't count since he had a custom paint job. Finally, it took two Impulses to beat Freedom, hmmm, we need to give that phantom Impulse pilot half the credit too then, oh wait, there wasn't a phantom Impulse pilot. Heh, still sounds like an excuse. "My mind, t'wasn't on da fight, his Gundam, OMFG, it can split in two and he has spare parts, UNFAIR.... WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

Ha, that's a good one, reminds me of the movie Maverick when Mel Gibson was taking money from some snot nose punk in a poker game. Punk: "I don't think that hand should count" Mel: "Why do you say that? Is there any logical reason why that hand shouldn't count?" Punk: "Cause, my mind, it wasn't on the game." Sound familiar? "I lost to that Shinn kid, cause, well, my mind, it wasn't on the fight." Impulse was newer than Freedom, heh, so are the Zakus, Windams, Murasames, Goufs, and the other gundams. But newer models didn't do much there, did it?

It's more dramatic, and it also illustrate to everyone just how stupid Kira Yamato really is. Not to mention narrow minded. But I'm sure his defenders will come out of the woodworks to defend him and rationalize why he has to confront Gilbert face to face.

You're telling me Norris and Gato wouldn't give Amuro a hard time? 334423[/snapback] Amuro already took out Ramba Ral, so there's no big deal with Norris, and Gato was obvously too afraid to face Amuro at A Boa Qu, which is why he was still alive in 0083 334426[/snapback] It's all a matter of prespective. Gato and Norris might have bested Amuro back during the time of Ramba Ral, or at least gave him a good run for the money. But if they fought Amuro in 0083 or 0087, they would've died in moments. I swear that by the time 0087 rolled around, all of the great pilots had at least some newtype capabilities. But strictly speaking, I like the generic non newtype pilots better. Again, that's more a function of story quality than actual piloting capabilities. Those side stories had very compelling characters, that is not to say that Zeta and MSG didn't have compelling characters, but I saw the side stories first, so those are the parts of Gundam that really got me hooked.

Ah should land... where the lawn is perfect, the roads are uncongested, and the should land high school football team drives across town to meet their arch rival reality check and get their ass handed to them on a silver platter. Ha ha, sorry, just had to put that one in. You gotta love American Dad sometimes.

You really can't class them in the same categories as newtypes. But my personal favorite was either Norris or Gato. Again, difficult to compare since both typically piloted Zeon suits, and if Norris had a gundam, he probably would be a terror, look at what he did with that one Gouf. If he was truly interested in whacking the 08th team, I think he could've done it, but he knew what his mission was, so he did that instead. Gato is probably the best of the lot though, he took essentially an artillery gundam (with a broken arm at that) and came out even against a gundam that specialized in direct MS combat. You can see how he was beating the stuffings out of Kou at their final fight with the Zeon mobile armor, even though you could argue that GP-03 was a better mobile armor.

Not bad?!!! They were fricken excellent! Along with CCA, they are the best the Gundam franchise has to offer IMO. Certainly better than the pile of Poo Destiny turned into. Graham 334017[/snapback] Oh yeah, CCA, and I guess 0083. They weren't too bad either. I think at least a little better than GSD. You know, going into UC, Amuro vs Kamille would've been a dream match. It's not at all clear who would win. I know both are probably better than Char, but the truth of the matter is that Char is far more a leader than a front line ace pilot. I'm not much of a Nu Gundam fan, but I always loved Sazabi, now, that was an MS. Quebley and the O were other favorites of mine in UC. I would love to have seen the love child of the two, the O with a set of funnels. Hmm, I guess actually, that's Sazabi. Never mind. As for GSD, the more rabid element of Gundam fans only have themselves to blame as far as how GSD turned out. As early as the mid 20s you could see that GSD was turning into a crapfest with more and more old Seed, and less of the new characters. And the storyline started seriously degenerating, the first sign is the constant whining about Orb, how powerful it is and so forth, how noble, blah blah blah. If it's so powerful, why did Cagalli feel so constrained by EA's threat. If it was so noble, why did all those officers decide on a suicidal way of showing their lack of intelligence? (oops, rhetorical question there) Yet, through it all, most of the fans continued to support this show, they kept hoping it'd get better even as they defended their favorite Seed characters in ways that were beyond logic. I think that was the case all the way throughout the series until about episode 45 or so when a majority started thinking GSD was POS, but by then, it was too late. Now people want to blame Fukuda for his idiocy, meh, you reap what you sow I say.

How about an interesting side story. 0080 wasn't bad, and neither was 08th MS team. A side story based on Astray manga could be a good choice. The only injunction being you can't use any of the Seed/GSD characters. Because it is blazingly obvious that the Seed characters are like crack cocaine, once used, the writers can't give it up. They'll keep snorting them until the end of series.

Good point there. I think though it's not the gundams that I'm referring to, but all the Zaku, DOM, Goufs that's on my mind when I made the rip off statement. And you're right about Akatsuki, it's a sufficiently new design on its own right. The key is that outside of the original set of gundams in GSD, they didn't introduce many new designs, SF and IJ were rehash at best, but the laziness seem to be reflective of that particular staff overall. As for fevernt defenders of GSD, I'm sure there are some out there. They just need the courage to pipe up and defend the product, and tell all the critics that if they don't like it, they didn't have to watch. That's all. Now, regarding Mwu/Neo, as Anubis said, it's a travesty. Ideally, he should've stayed dead, but no, he has to come back, and now people are just going to forgive him for what he did as Neo? The same is true with Andy, I don't mind so much that he came back, he had just a little role in GSD, and it was good for a bit, and then he was nicely shunted aside because they had to bring back Mwu. So nice to just gloss things over. Yeah, can you imagine Roy coming back after dying. "Oh, by the way, I'm back, Hikaru, but I've been crippled, and can only ride the ELINT valks now.... "

Let's not kid ourselves, most of the mech designs were rip offs of the old UC. SF and IJ were just jokes, I mean, can you honestly look at one scene with IJ and tell that it's different from the original Justice? I doubt it. Same with SF when its docked with METEOR most of the time. To me, if they want to do a third series, it's fine. We can have one of two scenarios. Scenario I: Evil queen Lacus with her nasty enforcers, Athrun and Kira. Along with their fanatical followers: Dom trio plus the Murasame boys. And of course, their incredibly gay fence hopping lapdogs: Yzak and Deakka. With this, we can milk them for what little worth they have, and in the end, they can hopefully all die horribly ala some of the losers in Windams (oh, wasn't that supposed to be a good suit at some point... someone remind me). Scenario II: Opening sequence of third GS series, Lacus, Kira, Cagalli, Athrun, they all get killed with a bomb, I mean pink hair, green eye balls, red haros, all of the supporting evidence of the lucky charms cereal that the original cast died a pointless and painful death (i.e. to illustrate the fact that GSD was so badly written that all the main characters that botched it up die in a ritual seppuku) Then focus in on someone new... no Shinn, no Luna, no Mwu, just a brand new cast.

I finally saw ep 50. Oh my God... is it just me, or did the animation even suck compared to previous episodes?

From what I heard, it didn't sound like it. They can't kill anyone popular, luna is probably popular enough.

Well, what can you say, it's over. I haven't even watched the last episode yet, and I'll get around to it at some point, but given how much was left undone, well I didn't have any high expectations. The whole seed series, GS and GSD is like a big triangle wave. GS started off poorly, but by mid series, it started to develop its own characteristics that deviated in a good way from he original gundam series. Then it ended pretty well, a bit fast, but nice flow. GSD did a good job in the first ten episode or so setting up for a good story. Then, it went to hell. Recap episode after recap episode, old characters coming back and making all the new characters take a back seat, etc, etc. There is a lot of things that can be blamed for the way this show ended up, from Fukuda's apparently urgent desire to put his political anti-US message into the show to the endless reuse of animation, (i.e. blow up a few mobile suits, insert Legend/Providence/Akatsuki) to the urgent desire to pull in all the old characters to supplant the new ones (to do what? boost ratings?). Character wise, they had a bunch of interesting characters, but they had to pull in the old characters, and given their popularity, predictably they dominated the show. Lacus is cute, but dead Lacus would work, so would dead Cagalli, dead Andy, Mwu should've stayed dead, etc, etc. Dullindal went from possible diabolical genius (Scirroco without piloting skills) to a boob. Shinn had no character development, to sum him up in one word: ANGRY. Rey is... well, the best thing you can say about Rey is that he is dead. I cared more when the old druggies got capped than the death of any of the three new druggies, couldn't care less. Rey died? Who the hell is Rey again? I suppose I might have had too high an expectation of the show. I was hoping for a good storyline, it started off well, and in the end, the show became the Athrun/Kira gayfest. Hell, all the backslapping of the mutual admiration society, they should've had Athrun kiss Kira and profess his undying love or something. I think at this point, they shouldn't do another series in Seed. Overall, GSD is not the shining example of what Gundam series ought to be. Compelling story coupled with interesting characters, and and of course, lots of MS action.

No need to watch ZZ, nice to have complete history, and although I never watched ZZ, I heard that the first half was horribly botched. But then it got better, don't know what that means. Anubis, think you'll enjoy Zeta, the show is usually not a series of continuous events, but it really helps that there is a narrative to connect each set of events. The episodes are more character centric although they do seem to introduce MS like new candy flavors, but those MS have some very similar capabilities for the most part. And better yet, the Gundams aren't overpowered psycho killing machines. In Ep 50, things to do: Kill Rey, kill Dullindal, destroy Messiah, destroy Requiem. Shinn/Athrun fight. Possibly kill off one or two other characters. Gonna be some short fights. They should've started those fights in Ep 49, but they couldn't do that because they needed the ep to show Rey's origin. Which at this point is a big fat who cares, since Rey is likely to bite the dust in Ep 50. It's about as useful as showing the Meer recap. As far as Lacus and company are concerned, so far, they're against the Destiny plan, that's it. Like Druna said, it isn't all that clear what they stand for, they dance around it, but never come out and say it. One could argue that based on what they said so far, Lacus and crew are agents of chaos, free will to kill each other and all that.

You're not the only one who thinks that. But Shinn's character has been too bungled, even now, his character is not that well developed. BTW, even though Luna is ichiban kawaii, I think she still need to die tragically, but the writers seem to be coddling the fan favorites. List of people that need to die: Kira Cagalli Lacus Athrun Mwu Rey Dullindal Talia Luna Yzak or Deakka List of people that will probably die by the end: Dullindal Rey Anubis, As for taking a pounding, are you kidding? They should've been crushed last episode when they faced so many ZAFT ship. Having the Messiah doesn't mean a thing. They'll just tear through them. The problem is the poor story telling, they (eternal and AA) had real problems in Seed at the end even though they were part of a much larger battle. Now, they're the sole targets, so even if they are ultra souped up, they should've been crushed by the larger ZAFT fleet.

Ha ha, I like this, Athrun is Wonder woman, a guess we're going with a little snip snip action. ha ha. Time for him to start the soprano action. Holy trinity... heh heh.

The problem is always the same, they simply don't look at the Cylons as human beings, which is absolutely true. People are reading a little too much into this prison stuff, there is a real distinction between Cain authorizing stuff like this with full knowledge and what happened in Iraq. As for humiliating and brutalizing the enemy, ok, they just wiped out the entire colonies, a little humiliation and terror wouldn't matter from the human prespective. Doesn't balance the scales, and really, it's a machine. The only thing that I would be concerned with is the fact that the discipline of the troops may be affected by things like this. As pointed out, you have women in that crew. You do things like that enough, you don't have a coherent military force, you have a mob. And mob stops being effective, and you could always have a psycho on the ship who thinks, well, if it's ok with a humaniod looking cylon, why not just a regular human. The fact of the matter is, Galactica crew is too close to Boomer. I don't think they need to brutalize this Boomer, but they have to have an intelligent way to use her. Adama and company seem to get results, the other guys haven't had any yet. It's all about effectiveness and return on investment. Bottom line, if I thought brutalizing my enemy in the worst possible will not adversely affect my troops, my overall situation, and will help me gain victory, I'm going to brutalize away.