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Devil's advocate, what if the sonic weapon is actually a specialized tractor beam that alternates pushing and pulling to induce vibrations in an audible frequency range on the target? As an aside, in a shockingly reasonable and logical piece of writing for Trek, Memory Alpha tells me that one of the novels mentioned the scant appearance of the life support belts in the setting. It said they were retired due to safety concerns. If an EVA suit is damaged or suffers an equipment failure you have a chance to patch it or return to safety. If a life-support belt fails, you just die. Which makes a lot of sense. It also kind of reminds me of the real world with NASA's Manned Maneuvering Unit rocketpack being retired after the Challenger incident because untethered spacewalks were extremely dangerous by their very nature, and the risk couldn't be justified. There's an obvious answer that author missed, though: Build life-support belts into EVA suits as an emergency backup. If something goes wrong, you slap the big red button to activate the life-support belt. This would even extend the accidental parallel with real world space exploration. After we retired the MMU, we proceeded to build the SAFER rocketpack that every astronaut wears when they go out the airlock so they have a chance to get home if they somehow wind up free-floating with a failed tether.

the real Astrotrain for reference to comparisons of ss86 vs. siege

I am considering Shockwave the newest. If it shows up at a store, I will have to make an executive decision on the shade of purple they used. There is a range of purples I adore on Shockwave, a range that is completely unacceptable, and photos are often misleading on specific shades. (There's also a range of purples I can take or leave, but that's not a useful category.) In a way, it'd be good for my use case. My Siege Shockwave wears some of the extra bits, because I thought "Shockwave with a rocketpack" was kinda cool, and it'd be nice to have a "clean" Shockwave without the armor and texturing to stand next to him.

Instructions are up, on the Hi-Metal R Scopedog! Incase nobody knows what to do with the unit! 🤣

It looks cool, but I hate transforming that VF-2SS. My favorites are definitely the Regults, Glaug, and the MAC II.

It's my understanding that they used unpaintable plastic for that part. (Note that "unpaintable plastic" doesn't mean it's actually unpaintable, just that for whatever reason the factory can't paint it). Every time I've preordered something at Walmart (almost entirely Walmart-exclusives) either they've canceled it, at which point I'd find it later at a local store anyway, or I'd cancel it myself because the toy turned up in my local store before Walmart bothered to fulfill the preorder.

Daaaamn dude! Awesome

Just came back from my trip to Japan, and went to Wonderfest 26 Winter. There were some cool Macross kits, but most were sold out. By the time I got to Experten's table, all the new stuff was sold out. When I asked aobut the t.v. Zentraedi (one of the figures is made to fit the Hasegawa Glaug) he looked around, and pulled out a box. In English, he said, "Last one". I was pretty lucky to score it, but the kit had inside 2 standing and two sitting figures. I'm quite excited to put one of these together.

Back to robots, this was quite a display:

Finally, a Superman with a smile

TMNT Usagi Yojimbo.

I don’t think it needs a bigger scale. Just a better heat shield design. Beyond that, I really like it

1978 Superman.

Preordered everything except Snarl and Kranix at Walmart. Preordered Kranix at The Chosen Prime.

Gene Roddenberry and Lucille Ball.

Transformers Hot Wheels Twin Mill.

Same. I also saw that deal and didn't bite.

All right, we had a new episode of Star Trek: Star Feet Academy last Thursday and I'm only just now getting around to it... "Come, Let's Away" So... that's new. A photosensitivity warning due to some scenes having strobing effects. The writers invoke their inner Roddenberry by reminding us that Deltans hat is being from F**k Planet for the first time since Star Trek: Enterprise. That was a creepy bit of lore by old man Gene that I think would probably have been best left forgotten, but here we are. It's still weird hearing licensed music in Star Trek too. This whole opening has "UFO" by Olivia Dean as BGM. So Starfleet Academy and the War College are on joint exercises together aboard the Athena. Honestly, while I am gradually warming towards this series the Athena is still emblematic of how the 32nd century Starfleet ships are irredeemably fugly. Also, these cadets have been in their respective service academies for only a few weeks. They're already doing field training? And in a starship graveyard, no less. Maybe start the kids who've been in the service for only a few weeks on something a little simpler like, y'know, routine shipboard duty? Then again, these kids never seem to actually go the **** to class... so they're even less prepared than they ought to be. Seems like the showrunners spent so much money on extras in heavy prosthetic makeup, licensed music, and unnecessary CG for things like Reymi's face that they couldn't afford actual spacesuits for the characters away mission. But since everything old is new again, I'd like to bid a fond "Welcome back" to the Starfleet Life Support Belt from Star Trek: the Animated Series (1973). "Starfleet's newest plasma-based life support system" is tech from 2269 that somehow manages to look worse in this $8M+ per episode streaming series than it did in Filmation's 1973 hand-drawn animation produced on a budget of two Cheerios box tops and whatever change Gene had in his sofa cushions at the time. Come on Starfleet Academy, you were doing so... almost not terrible... up to now. One little bit of space adventure and you fall back onto an idiot plot immediately? Also, why are there so many hybrid aliens now? They can't be arsed to say what species the Furies are, but they're half-Human half-something. Honestly, the fact that Captain Ake is the one who points out what a stupid idea this entire plot is is very much in "the worst person you know just made a great point" territory. Why is being thrown out the airlock even an issue? All of you are wearing personal life support force fields. If those things can't activate automatically when they sense a vacuum the way the 23rd century equivalent could, then they're actually less useful than a regular spacesuit. There is practically nothing stopping them from deliberately spacing themselves and just floating home. Paul Giamatti's performance here is so detestably awful that I very nearly gave up and turned the episode off. This is a line of actual dialog delivered by him in this episode: Someone wrote that. Likely workshopped that for days if not weeks through table reads and rehearsals. And said, with the gleeful ten-thumbed incompetence of the very meanest Pakled, "Yeah, that's good enough dialog for Star Trek." To this episode's writers, Kenneth Lin and Kiley Rosseter, I will say only that I hope you stub your smallest toe on the corner of every piece of furniture in your respective homes at least once a day for the rest of your miserable lives you absolute hacks. Much of the rest of his dialog is similar in content and delivery. That Mr. Giamatti apparently did not look at this script and immediately turn to the writers and say "What the f*** is wrong with you?" is a true black mark on his professional comportment as an actor. To make a dumb character dumber, one thing we learn about Nus Braka in this episode is that his character has cut a game of tic-tac-toe into his own hair on the right side of his head. A game that was apparently played by someone VERY bad at tic-tac-toe. Say it with me now: Space is a vaccum and sound waves do not travel through a vacuum. A sonic weapon on a spaceship is fundamentally useless. I have an actual headache from watching this. Like, an actual migraine headache forming from watching this. Medication is required. Whether that'll be alcohol or just advil I have not decided.

+1. Couldn't bring myself to get the kai even for just $60. VF-2SS at least looks great in all modes with or without the SAP, even if I wouldn’t dare play with it like I would the VF0s.

For a Valkyrie toy that is riddled with Anime magic in order for it to transform, the HMR 2SS is still a must have... warts & all. To see Arcadia or Bandai make a 1/60, that would be a true Holy Grail for me.

The worst for me is the HMR VF-19. Gorilla hands and being ridiculously undersized/underscaled against the HMR VF-1/VF-0/VF-2. Plus the seemingly glued-shut leg missile bays of the VF-19P... edit: Even more confoundingly weird, DYRL Max 1A/1S and DYRL Kaki-1A. Other than the stripes/arrows and Jolly Rogers colors, they're the same frickin' valkyrie as the Hikky-1A! Bandai gotta Bandai...

What's been the worst Hi Metal R Macross release? Maybe the VF-2? Still impressive, that toy really needs a larger scale to pull it off properly.

It's season 4 condensed into a movie. Each villain in that deck of cards would have represented a single episode.

Sadly that is a sign of our own age and coming date with eternal slumber. My mother's generation it was Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable and James Cagney. For the generation after us these actors are our equivalent of Leigh, Gable, and Cagney. I did not know that was Duvall playing the character in Apocalypse Now. Indeed he did make a great impression.

Looks like fun. I'm in.