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I don't really follow the stories of the various artists that have worked with Hasbro over the years, nor the those of the comics' artists. I liked Don's work, as well as E.J. Su's, and Marcelo Matere's on the current box art. In Don's case, I can see both sides of the argument, but it's a shame that a promising professional relationship was soured, especially when Don produced such a prolific amount of interesting and appealing work that would've made for some cool toys. Perhaps Hasbro learned their lesson, as they seem more inclined to give credit to the various artists they work with currently and over the past few years. I'm always happy to hear Mark and Evan credit the Takara designers who do the heavy-lifting design-wise on Transformers toys. I've said it before and I stand by my opinion that without Takara, there are no transforming Transformers. I think Mark and Evan are talented, but I don't think they or very many American designers have the wherewithal to design transforming toys beyond something like M.A.S.K. Even in the LEGO community, which has no shortage of unfathomable talent, I very, very seldom see anyone make transforming stuff, and even then, it's usually on the microscale. I'm usually the only one bringing minifig scaled stuff to the party, which is unfortunate. Digression aside, it'd be great if Hasbro extended an olive branch to Don, seeing as how they're under new management, and perhaps court him again to use his designs with proper credit and compensation. I'm sure there'd be a lot of happy TF fans if that happened. I count myself among them. I always loved E,J. Su's more mechanically realistic approach to drawing Transformers. Instagram I still think they should have hired him to do the live-action designs. Man, my Wally's been slow getting new TF figs. They did have a couple copies of Solus Prime last weekend, the first I've seen her there. I'm not interested in getting her, but I am on the lookout for Alchemist so hopefully they'll get him at some point. As to your review, I appreciate the comparison with the OG mold. I actually have Sideways, and I thought he was a pretty cool fig back in the day, but I concur that the new fig is an upgrade at least where the bot mode is concerned. I liked the OG's cybertronic jet mode, though, and honestly, despite the changes you mentioned, the overall aesthetic hasn't changed much. While I'm not a big fan of partsforming, it's not as egregious a concession given that the wings can detach and be used as an admittedly cool looking weapon. The lack of spring-loaded key functionality is the biggest bummer, as that was the big gimmick with the OG toys. But at least the shield can be manually deployed in a similar fashion as the original. As Cybertronic air/spacecraft go, I dig Sideway's alt. I may end up picking this guy up, too, if I see him in the store. Thanks for the review, Mike!

Still no sign of Mixmaster, but I was at my local Walmart and saw that they're putting out some kind of display in the main aisle that seems to be targeting collectors. One of the sections has Transformers... indeed, after what seems like years of being behind (I saw Legacy Devcon and Tarn not even a month ago) they seemed kind of well-stocked. There was Vortex, Crasher, Alchemist Prime, Scrapper, Bonecrusher, and even the Commander pack with Long Haul and Hook. Of course, I have all those already, though... but they did have one figure I didn't have yet... the Walmart-exclusive Deluxe-class Sideways. I uh... I never made it through Transformers Cybertron. I think there were some interesting ideas, like the notion that there were other lost Cybertronian colonies, that even made it into other media, but I was kind of put off by the "sequel" to Armada and Energon that seemed to have nothing to do with the prior shows. This was, of course, because in Japan Galaxy Force wasn't actually a sequel, but I digress. Point is, I didn't buy a ton of Cybertron toys, but the tail end of Cybertron overlapped the launch of Classics and Universe, and a lot of Cybertron toys got repainted as G1 characters. One of those repaints was Sideways as Ratbat, and I do have that figure, so I can compare them. At first blush they might seem pretty similar, but I quickly realized that I liked the proportions just a bit better on the new figure. His chest doesn't stick out quite so far, and his pelvis and waist are a bit bigger. He's still got pretty long feet, but not quite as long and flat. Color-wise, he's a pretty close match for the cartoon/original toy, though he's missing a little orange on his thighs and he's got orange paint on his chest and face instead of translucent plastic. The wings on his lower legs are tucked in a bit closer, as they lack the armatures the original figure had. He's got tiny molded details near his collar that I assume is supposed to be like the black-and-gold bits on Ratbat... in the cartoon, they were black and orange on Sideways, and gold and orange on the toy. So I guess he's got some missing orange? It's a tiny thing, but technically the cartoon/original toy had orange heels, and the new figure has black ones. Much like the original figure, the wings on Sideways' legs are removable, so they count as accessories. They have molded details where the the original had green paint, but there's no green paint on them. He's got a little Cyber Planet Key. And he's got his shield, which is no longer permanently affixed to his arm anymore. The shield has the faction-switching gimmick of the original, but the key isn't required to activated. Instead, there's a switch on the under side that lets you freely toggle between Autobot and Decepticon. Hope the Autobots don't see his Key! I can't complain, though, the original toy came with a Cyber Planet Key with a Decepticon badge, so it's accurate. Sideways' head is technically on a ball joint. Not a lot of tilt, but it swivels no problem. His shoulders swivel, and they can move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, and his wrists swivel. So far, basically the same as the original toy. Things start to improve at the waist, which swivels now. His hips are molded to look like the originals, but instead of ball joints he has pinned swivel hinges. He can move his hips 90 degrees laterally, and if it weren't for his shoulders they could almost move forward/backward 360 degrees. His hips swivel, and his knees bend nearly 180 degrees. His feet can tilt up and down a little, but in another improvement over the original he now also has 90 degrees of ankle pivot. His accessories work basically the same as the original toy. The wings, which are simply pegged into 5mm ports on his legs, can be held like a bladed weapon or bow. The shield can mount on a 5mm port on either arm, and it has the blades that can fold out near the tip. They are not activated by the Cyber Planet Key; you have to fold them out manually. That said, the only place the Cyber Planet Key can really go is into the back of the shield, just like the orignal. Transformation is, by and large, the same. You open the chest to fold the head into it. His backpack lifts up, and part of his back opens up so you can fold the arms around to the inside. His waist folds back, and his legs still turn and curl around on themselves, but his pelvis doesn't have to split in half anymore. The biggest differences are that his accessories partsform now. There's no armatures to move his wings into place, you just remove them from his legs and plug them into his backpack. The shield also comes off... more on that in a minute. I think its fair to say that the improvements int he proportions of the robot mode are largely at the expense of the alt mode. The cockpit's a little shorter and rounder. The shield doesn't sit quite as flush with the top of the fuselage. His shorter, not-so-flat feet stick out of the sides and don't meet the cockpit at the same angle. I get the feeling that someone familiar with this version of Sideways might look at this particular toy and see something close enough to be recognizable, but side-by-side with the original (or Ratbat, as it were) you can't help but notice that how less aerodynamic the new figure looks. The fact that the pelvis doesn't split and and flatten out the underside winds up leaving a pretty big gap between his legs that his little arms don't totally fill in the back. I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out some noticeable orange hinges where the arms folded into the torso and around the ankles that weren't present on the original, and some missing orange and green paint apps. The new Sideways is also missing a bit of the alt mode functionality of the original, too. Remember, the original toy's shield was permanently attached to his left arm on a swiveling double hinge. This hinge allowed you to raise the shield up, so the Key could be inserted and the blades popped out while in alt mode. On the new figure, the shield comes off the arm, the peg is folded in, and in plugs into tabs on the top of the ship (marked with green arrows). That's it, it's either attached or not attached. It can't lift up, and it doesn't have the clearance to fold out the blades if it is attached. That seemed like such a glaring omission that I very nearly missed the fact that the new figure also doesn't have any wheels. Yeah, the original toy has three tiny wheels, one under his torso where the pelvis split and folded away, and two in the armatures holding the wings on. The new figure kind of just sits like a lump. Ultimately, Sideways feels like a series of tradeoffs. The robot mode has better proportions and better articulation that allow for more dynamic posing. Heck, improvements in how the shoulders fold in make them less saggy, and even just in a casual A-stance with his feet turned slightly outward is enough to make him look more alive, like he's about the spring into action, than the original toy. Having the shield as a removable accessory and putting 5mm ports on his forearms also opens up a lot more options poses. But every robot mode improvement seems to have come at the direct expense of his alt mode, which now has worse proportions and is missing most of the functionality of the original toy. And the thing about Cybertron is that we're not talking about a toy that's a major upgrade over a 40-year old brick that hardly bore a resemblance to the cartoon like we get with G1. The Cybertron cartoon was GCI modeled much more closely off of the toys, which again were contemporaries of Classics with most of the articulation we enjoy today. New toys have to work harder to be actual improvements over the originals. I'd argue that some *cough cough Galaxy Upgrade Optimus cough cough* haven't hit that mark. That said... Sideways' alt mode is an alien spaceship, not any kind of recognizable Earth vehicle. Does it matter how sleeky it is? Do I really need the top of the fuselage to lift up to deploy a melee weapon in high-speed aerial combat? I guess what I'm getting at is, yes, I'm a little disappointed with his alt mode, but my appreciation for the bot mode improvements outweigh that disappointment. And frankly, I'm not sure how many of you old geewunners care that much about Sideways in the first place. So, kinda cool robot I have no attachment to that turns into a weird spaceship that's slightly less good than the weird spaceship of *checks notes* TWENTY YEARS AGO? Already? Well now I just feel old.

Almost certainly not, IMO. There are a few countries that have laws and/or media regulations that restrict or outright prohibit the depiction or use of certain national flags in media, but the US flag is not typically one of them. Especially not in the countries where an American-made series like Star Trek is aired or streamed. There wouldn't really be any other reason to go to the expense and trouble to change the flag in the scene except to avoid a Top Gun: Maverick-type situation. Multiple prior episodes of Star Trek incl. TNG's "The Royale" and VOY's "One Small Step" had already pretty well established that the Americans led the rush to other planets and into extrasolar space too.

i watched Trekyard's YT post about this episode and i asked if the USA flag could or would be changed edited based on the country or region the episode is aired in?

oops, sorry, wrong post, just found that it is begin reposted to the correct forum by Admin....

No, it is Tamashii "Smoke" effect in white color.

RIP Terence Stamp.

Which serves to illustrate how thoroughly the studio missed the point back then. Asking how the military would deal with a (non-supernatural) horror movie monster is a fundamentally tension-destroying premise. Would the likes of Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, or Leatherface be able to generate any real tension or fear if they were up against a platoon of heavily armed infantry instead of a bunch of teenagers and camp counselors? No, they wouldn't. If everyone's got guns and your monster ain't bulletproof, then your monster's not scary anymore. If you try to make it scary again by having a ton of them, all you've done is make your monster into just a dangerous animal and that's just not as scary. 😆 My friend, note that I'm holding Isolation up as the exception that tests the rule there... as the one time the people working on it understood the assignment instead of mindlessly indulging in fanservice like Alien: Earth, Alien: Romulus, etc.

I am today years old in realizing that General Zod also played Chancellor Valorum in The Phantom Menace.

Aliens looked at the original film and did the logical thing by asking "How would actual trained military people handle an Alien and how would we make them an even bigger threat?" Then ran with it. After that every attempt since has tried to rehash the original film's horror aspect or done a stupid creature feature VS mashup and has been terrible. I do find it amusing though that you whine once again one of your spoilers about putting fans in charge of franchises and then heap praise on Alien: Isolation which was 100% a product of putting fans in charge of the franchise.😆

Rest in peace, General. All of Krypton shall remember you!

Mari Iijima

"Hey guys! What if Space Seed but also Doomsday Machine!"

Look what I found!!! The Ultimate Warrior was my favorite!

Watched episode 1, not impressed with the story & plot so far. I might watch more of it later but I'm in no hurry. I would much rather finish up Wednesday, The Bear, King of the Hill and Strange New Worlds. For me there is only ALIEN & ALIENS, both masterpieces in their own ways, just like there is only The Terminator & T2.

I am watching the 2nd season of Aharen-san is indecipherable, I am enjoying it. Again My Dress Up darling was great yesterday.

DAN DA DAN S2: this show is hit or miss with me. I want to like it more than I do. Clevatess S1: not caught up with this quite yet, but I am digging it so far. Gachiakatu S1: don't love the character designs, but Bones and Katsuyuki Konishi got me to check it out. Interesting so far. Kaiju No.8 S2: another show I want to like more than I do. I kinda want it to be more ridiculous than it is.

Honestly, I'd even skip Aliens. It was a pretty good or even great action movie but it was a pretty miserable follow-up to the excellent horror movie that was the original Alien. IMO, the only writing team thus far to actually understand the assignment when it came to writing an Alien sequel was Dan Abnett, Dion Lay, and Will Porter. What they understood that James Cameron and every other writer working on sequels failed to grasp is that what makes the Xenomorph work as a horror movie monster is the paranoia it evokes. Like the shark in Jaws, what makes the Xenomorph in Alien scary is NOT being able to see it. They know it's out there. They know it's hunting them. They know that It Can Think. But they don't know where it is until it's too late and the monster is ready to strike. Having the audience know where the monster is because it's constantly mugging for the camera robs it of most of its ability to scare. Combine that with being able to Just Shoot It and the threat it represents is diminished all the way to the level of "just a dangerous animal" like a tiger or bear that escaped from the zoo. Can you honestly say the Xenomorph's scariness and ability to intimidate didn't take another gigantic L when we saw a single guy tase it unconscious and bag it like a ten point buck in deer season? Throw Expanded Universe material into the works and pretty much anything is on the table due to wildly inconsistent presentation over decades of material of varying quality.

It's alright. The cheaper price is worth it for me. I haven't shipped my Roller's Stash anyway.

1/10 Deadpool.

1988 Remastered 6 Pack.

Marvel Legends Gamerverse War Machine vs Omega Red x2.

This is one of those franchise's where the cannon keeps on reinventing itself with each release.