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They just announced that Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns n' Roses is the ending song

Wow , you got to watch it all! BTW the marketing on the2nd gig movie is not on the same level as Akira ..

shame to me, i own Ghost in the shell since the launch of dvd's in late 90's- 2000's and still haven't watched it. i own and watched 2nd gig series and still haven't bothered to watch the movie. someday i'll get to it. It was at the time marketed as the next big quality anime release after Akira. One day....

same i couldn't find the thread either till way later.

So I know I'm excited to get Dream Star's Scavenger and finish their Devastator, but G1 always does better than stylized, I think. And while a lot of us picked up ToyWorld's Constructor back in the day, I also think most of us also realize that ToyWorld's not quite pulling off the modern MP aesthetic. With that in mind I'd looked at X-Transbots' Ground Bite last April, and Fans Toys' Gehry immediately after. But I also mentioned that MMC was coming out with there own, and I'd get their Scrapper before deciding which set I'd ultimately pursue. Well, MMC finally released Deltus, their version of Scrapper, so the ultimate Scrapper fight begins NOW! *Note that for all pics it's Fans Toys' Gehry on the left, MMC's Deletus in the middle, and XTB's Ground Bite on the right. It's funny that when MMC created their Ocular Max brand the idea was that they would do more Studio OX-style stuff, but every OX release gets more and more Sunbow. Deletus here might be their most Sunbow figure to date... sure, the visible hinges and flaps on his shins make him look a little more detailed than Fans Toys', but with the green lumps for shoulder wheels and the thin-legged, top-heavy proportions he's definitely more cartoon accurate than XTB's. But is that necessarily a good thing? If I'm being totally honest, from a purely "how does this look" point-of-view, I still kind of prefer XTB's. It's like Deletus looks too much like the cartoon, Ground Bite looks like the robot the cartoon was based on, and Gehry looks like the the cartoon Scrapper ate the other five Constructicons. Depending on what you're personally going for on a shelf, I guess it's worth pointing out that Deletus is significantly lighter than the other two, and most of the gray and all of the green and purple you see on him is unpainted plastic. On the other hand, I'd argue that Deletus cleans up the best with the tidiest backpack. Perhaps accessories make a big difference? Again, not really. Deletus comes with a gun and a trumpet... same as the competition. As far as the guns go, they're pretty similar. Sure, XTB put a little silver paint on their barrel, and Fans Toys' used a gunmetal paint for the entire gun, but they're all recognizably the gun Scrapper has in the cartoon. Things get a little more interesting with the trumpets. Deletus has the most movie-accurate shape, and a nice painted finish. The other two use a vac-metal coating to make them look more like actual brass instruments, with Fans Toys having the best finish, I think, and XTB's looking the most like an actual trumpet. Aside from guns and trumpets, the other two mostly have partsforming bits, while Deletus comes with a tool intended to help with his transformation. Ground Bite does come with a sword, so I guess XTB has the best accessories? Really, I don't think it matters which Scrapper you prefer, you're going to get the accessories you actually care about no matter what. So we come to articulation. Deletus' head is on a hinge that lets him look up about 75 degrees. He can't really look down, but wait! That hinge is actually a double hinge! It breaks the sculpt a little but you can use the hinges to crane his entire head forward so he can look about 60 degrees downward past his own chest. No sideways tilt, though. His shoulders swivel and move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows can combine for nearly 180 degrees of bend. His wrists swivel. His thumb has a ball joint at the base with a hinged pin. His index finger has two pinned knuckles. His other three fingers are a single piece molded into a permanent curl pinned at the base. He's got a ratcheted waist swivel, and about 60 degrees of ab crunch. His hip skirts get out of the way to allow 90 degrees of hip movement backward or laterally, and slightly over that forward, all on ratchets. His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed, double-ratcheted knees bend until the bumps on his calves touch his thighs. His toes have a little up/down tilt, and his ankles can pivot nearly 90 degrees. If you go back and check my earlier reviews for Groundbite and Gehry, you'll recall that Groundbite is pretty similar but with even more hand articulation and butterfly joints, but I found Gehry's articulation to be a bit sub-par. MMC eschews the more standard thin tab on the side of the gun handle plugging into a slot on the palm for a larger tab on the back of the handle that plugs into palm under the thumb. It's pleasantly secure on my copy. Trumpet works pretty much the same way, with his fingers curling through the loop. Like Ground Bite, Deletus has the gimmick where you can open a little panel on his wrist to see a communicator/computer. MMC even painted Detetus', which XTB did not. Up to this point you might be getting the sense that I think Deletus and Ground Bite are similarly good figures (but I'm not so hot on Gehry), with Ground Bite having a slight edge for what I consider to be better proportions, a better finish, more and slightly better accessories, and slightly more articulation. And that'd be fair. But then I have to transform them all, and suddenly things start to look different. Gehry is far from the worst Fans Toys transformation I've had to deal with, but it's still nothing I'd consider fun. Ground Bite's transformation is a bit more intuitive and a bit less of a pain, but there's still some sliders and thin flaps and some looseness in the middle until things are finally locked in place. And even then the rear wheels and roof don't stay in place super well. But Deletus is what you've come to expect from MMC... it's mostly intuitive and sometimes downright clever. You might need to check out the instructions the first time or two, but for the most part everything moves the way you think it should with minimal extra flaps or bits, and everything locks together solidly. If you're the type that likes to transform their toys, Deletus is by far the most pleasant experience. The only pain point for me was the tires. MMC engineered a kind of cool gimmick where the tires actually expand for alt mode, but despite claims of "I can do it with my fingernails!" from some circles and a tool included just for that bit I found them to be a bit tight. The plastic on the tool bent and let go before the wheels came out, and I cracked two nails before I dug out a metal spudger and pried the tires open. And what does that transformation get you? Well, forget Gehry again, as I think his alt mode is the worst of the three and clearly the mode that got the lowest priority from Fans Toys. Now, there are elements of Ground Bite that I think convey a bit more realism, like the seat an the working pistons in the shovel arms. I think Deletus' exposed knee ratchets do not make as convincing of a grill. But he's still got a steering wheel, tailights, and smokestack. His roof is a bit more cartoon-accurate, and the sides feel just a tad more cohesive. I guess it's good that Deletus has the best transformation, because I think he just might have the best alt mode. Of course, that alt mode rolls on those expanding tires, and his shovel has some articulation. There's storage under the vehicle for his gun. Normally you could stop here and declare a winner, but as part of a combining team I don't think it's fair to choose a definitive Scrapper without considering the leg mode. And we see that Deletus is noticeably smaller than the other two in this mode- for some collectors who don't really care about the robot or alt mode, they just want to build Devastator, simply being the smallest is the dealbreaker. But it's worth pointing out that Deletus is the smallest because there are no additional parts; if it's not on the robot or the alt mode, it's not part of the leg. Gehry has a huge chunk of diecast that snaps into the heel and wraps to fill a gap in the front, while Ground Bite's knee and thigh are a partsforming piece. Sunbow accuracy might also be a consideration here. Ground Bite would almost make a good toy-style Devastator leg, with all four wheel still visible and his arms sticking straight up to form the heel. On the other hand, I think we see where Fans Toys' priority was, as Gehry went from an ok-but-fat robot to a messy alt mode to a leg that somehow captures the goofy Sunbow model that bore little resemblance to an upright loader. The partsforming heel is the only one that has the two angled sticks from the cartoon. Deletus lands in the middle. His shovel shrinks to get the squarish look of the Sunbow foot and he hides all his wheels, but his heel is more toy-style. Looks are one thing, but how it moves will have an impact on the gestalt. All three have ankle pivots, and again Deletus is in the middle with less than Gehry but more than Ground Bite. However, Deletus is the only one with upward foot tilt. It's not a ratcheted joint, though, so it remains to be seen if that's some exciting extra articulation or a weak point that could cause trouble once there's more weight on it. What's not trouble, though, is the knee. Gehry and Ground Bite can both bend 90 degrees, which is technically enough, but Deletus' knee is double jointed and bends nearly 180 degrees. If MMC can maintain that level of articulation through the other figures in this set then their Devastator could very well be the one with the most articulation... maybe not just among Devastators, but of any combiner I've looked at. And yes, Deletus' gun can be plugged in for leg mode, and it doesn't affect the leg's articulation. So... do we have a definitive Scrapper? Honestly, for as hard of a time as I've given Gerhy, I really think we're spoiled as fans that we have three figures of this caliber to argue about. The truth is, I think it really does depend on what you're looking for. Fans Toys is clearly going to deliver a bigger cartoon-accurate Devastator with a premium finish... if you only care about combined mode and you're the type to put a figure on a shelf and not touch it again until it's time to dust then you're not wrong for going with Fans Toys. Likewise, if you're looking for a set of individual Constructicons I'd say Ground Bite is the best-looking Scrapper. But for me, I'll be forging ahead with MMC. I think Deletus offers the best balance across all three modes. I think Deletus offers the best transformation and the most straight up playability. I have confidence in MMC's QC and engineering, and they're the ones I trust the most to continue to make solid, playable robots with clever and interesting transformations into solid, playable vehicles that combine into a solid, playable gestalt.

Oh, you're thinking of Hallmark movies. The ones that all go "big city business girl with business boyfriend has to go to generic country town where she grew up before moving to the city and falls in love with some guy she just met because he's different from her stuffy big city boyfriend". I wouldn't really say the leads in those are arseholes... they're just regular guys living the 9-5 life instead of making a quaint, folksy living farming christmas trees or whatever in a town so small the annual bake sale determines its continued existence.😅 That's not really Noah Centineo's bag. He's more in the himbo comedy genre.

Slop's on. This week, it's Episode 4 "Vox in Excelso". Apparently it's a Jay-Den Kraag-centric episode... or so the blurb would have us believe. We open on the Athena, back in deep space for... reasons. The series couldn't be bothered to have a ready room set so apparently Captain Ake just throws everyone else off the ship's bridge when she wants to record a log or an address to the students. As per her usual, it's a meandering mess of a speech that reads like a collection of cliches from some form letter graduation speech delivered with all the passion and enthusiasm of someone coming off a high dose of dental anesthetic. Also, does nobody go to class at this academy? The entire time she's talking it's montaging over students doing generic admissions brochure stuff like sitting in common areas with random objects laughing at nothing in particular. The writers are leaning really hard into Kraag being the un-Klingon. He's not Proud Warrior Race guy... he's got some aspects of their culture but he's kind of a coward, he's socially anxious, etc. Starfleet Academy does throw an interesting curveball in that Kraag apparently comes from a three-parent household. He has two fathers and a mother. Not entirely outside the usual for them, given that in the relaunch novels that inspired parts of NuTrek the Klingons were pretty darn LGBTQ-friendly. What is it with the current Star Trek showrunners and trying to kill off the franchise's most iconic aliens? Jar-Jar Abrams tried to kill off the Vulcans in Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Picard tried to kill off the Romulans, and now Starfleet Academy's trying to do in the Klingons. Kraag's memories of home are ALSO subject to the piss filter. What is it with every outdoor space looking like world is being viewed through a pint mug of cheap pilsner? We get a "Master debater" joke. This is how far standards have fallen. 'lil bit of Ho Yay for Darem and Jay-Den? Admiral Vance seems to have forgotten the very basic Klingon cultural tenet that they have no gods. They killed their gods back in their ancient mythohistory. "More trouble than they were worth", as Worf put it. We get to see a few more Federation starships at a distance... USS Capricorn, USS Crimson, USS Horizon, USS Lexington, and USS Riker. If we could only ditch the immaturity and the incredibly dated writing, this episode would be dangerously close to sounding like an actual Star Trek episode.

I think he had multiple fighting styles, guns and melee weapons. I may be mixing memories of one of the later cartoons though

I guess it makes sense to make Tri-Klops a sniper (with the whole eyesight thing). But I always remember him as being this hard to beat bruiser. . . . Yeah, the pack-in comics made an impression on me.

I hate them, but my lady loves em. They seem to have more neurotic characters than they used to back in the simple 90’s. They often mix the usual problems of old with some kind of tragedy or horrifically toxic relationship that they need to escape from to find their true love. Most of the older ones had the boring dude with a boring over stressful job meeting a chaotic girlfriend that shows the guy how to be more exciting or whatever. It’s kinda flipped to where the people live absolute chaos and then meet the boring person in a small town and they end up living peacefully in the end

Unless something awful happened to romcoms while my back was turned, I think that's just the domain of a few specific actors whose films skew more comedy than romance like the ever-cringeworthy Adam Sandler. You can bin most romantic comedy male leads in one of three basic categories: the Himbo, the Shy Guy who isn't really shy in any meaningful sense, and the Humorless Workaholic. Traumatic backstories are usually fodder for the "serious" romance stories, especially fantasy romance stories. Definitely feels to me like Gundam's live action movie is kneecapping itself before it's ever reached the starting line with a terrible set of casting decisions.

I’ve had that happen to me as well, I blame old age. Sometimes I’ll wonder if there’s a thread for something and after searching can’t find it. Then maybe another try later in the day and there’s some thread that already existed that I actually started. Makes me wonder if I originally created one while I was half asleep or something

Highlander 2 was a TERRIBLE movie on it's own merits and an even worse sequel. Even Robocop didn't fall so far so quickly. I'll be giving this one a look (theater or streaming yet to be decided, reviews will determine which) but even the first movie ended up a far better film then the sum of many of the parts. The opening alone was cringe worthy.

what's funny is you created that Gundam Live Action Movie thread

man.....July. That's a bummer.

Waterworld meets Death Race 2000

I totally get what you’re saying. A lot of bad movies from the 80’s and early 90’s actually look amazing and just blow away modern overly cg films. The angles and overall looks are still amazing and make watching older bad movies fun. Nowadays a bad movie comes out like the second Black Panther and I’ll never rewatch it because the movie had nothing going for it, not even visually. Although I have rewatched Highlander 2 several times and even though it’s bad, I still enjoy it

The felt rubbed off of mine and had odd plastic bald spots. Oddly I think the plastic was the same color as the felt that was glued on top. As far as Robotech, that was something I thought a lot about when Independence Day was in theaters, but the more I’ve thought about it over the years the more I know they will just ruin it. It won’t have the heart and probably will look more like bayformers. They may as well just do a generic mecha movie instead. Kinda the same problem for Voltron. i still think there’s hope for Thundercats though. I think this would be a fairly easy one to do since most of the cast still look 90% human, and it’s a cool basic hero family story, just give it a little love and I think it could be an easy win.

I believe Sega's Orguss (for the SG-1000) beats it to that historical footnote by a couple of months, though that wouldn't change that Formation Z is kinda just really bad.

Well… not if his wife is that Tifa doll. WAIFUUUUUU! XD

Some more pics of the 1D fighter. wasn’t sure if they were posted yet because I was too lazy to go back more than a couple pages.

Actually that description sounds pretty close to a rom com star. They’re always traumatized and kinda a total 💩head moody and socially withdrawn til they meet their special someone that’s supposed to turn things around. That’s all kinda the basic formula

Galaxy Rangers definitely! Though I would love to see it as a series. It has an underlying story dealing with the main guy's wife and possible invasion, but a lot of other stories to keep things varied. I think the closest to it would be Space Rangers from 1993. Another would be Bionic Six. And Macross would be a dream to see!

As a rule most Macross video games outright suck, are piss poor minimal effort cash grabs, or are mediocre/forgettable and more designed to sell records of who ever Big West's music arm is trying to push at any given moment. There's a reason why the best Macross games are either not actually Macross or haven't been made since the 16 bit days.