JsARCLIGHT

But it is a redo. We already saw the clone wars in the cartoon. I mean even the little snippet picture in the story looks like the cartoon network clone wars, just redone in CG. If they wanted to show "more" why not keep the style?

OK, so if I get this straight this new "movie" is Uncle George re-doing the successful Cartoon Network Clone Wars show with his own animation and his own "slant" which is to lead into another animated clone wars tv series? Why does this sound like deja vu to me? What happened to the live action show about all the stuff between Episodes 3 and 4? Did we really need another animated clone wars show?

I've always loved Roy for his "everyman" quality... to me he really "sold" the roles he was in because he just had this certain je ne se quoi about him, this tangible "this is what a real life hero or good guy would look and act like" sort of vibe. Which is why he played such a convincing cop. Be it Det. Buddy Russo, Cheif Martin Brody or Officer Frank Murphy, he had the same panache, the same fatherly charm and believability. Which is made all the more strange by his cold and fearsome portrayal of crime boss Fyodor Chevchenko in Third Watch. He was downright frightening and intimidating... so "un Schieder". The guy was an all around good actor and he will be missed.

You know what sucks? I'm waiting like a buzzard for HD DVD's to start going on clearance so I can scoop up tons of movies for cheap... and I realized there is like nothing on HD DVD that I want that I don't already own.

That is because here at MW we constantly engage in conversational physics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Some people, such as myself, do not like it when someone with a vastly opposite opinion of myself or someone else criticizes or belittles their opinion as if it has no merit simply because it is the opposite of the one they have. This thread is a prime example. Many people here do not like the look or the price of this toy while many people here DO like the look and price of this toy... both sides would probably be content to just say their peace about it and leave it at that, but you have certain elements on both sides who keep stirring the pot. And once someone on one side does it, the other side has to "answer". It dies down again eventually and then someone has to step in and stir the pot again. It all comes down to people feeling that someone else thinks their opinion is "wrong". There are no wrong opinions, just points of view. I honestly have only been responding in this thread when I perceive there being a post containing "weasel words" that "draw me back in". Let's face it, both the lovers and the haters here are so very adept at weasel wording the other side back into the thread. Posts like "gee, isn't there anything else for you guys to complain about" or "heck, you guys will just buy anything won't you" and the like are weasel word posts intended to "get the goat" of the folks on the "other side of the isle" which draw those people back into the fray feeling they must retort. THAT is why we have threads like this on MacrossWorld, pure and simple. The lovers can't let the haters hate and the haters can't let the lovers love... it's a vicious circle. We all just have to agree to disagree... we have to accept that folks on both sides have valid reasons for liking or disliking this toy "even though it isn't out yet" and that nothing either side says is going to convince the other to swich sides. As such I propose an injunction against any further weasel wording or baiting until this toy comes out and someone reviews it. This is just going to keep going back and forth between the lovers and the haters until we get a flame war started.

For those of you like me who have always lamented the PS3's downright lame brained non inclusion of an IR remote sensor, here is a quick brief review of a product I found that works like a charm for us "home theater" PS3 users: The schmartz.com PS3IR+PWR accessory. Effectively what this little guy is is a small USB IR reader with a few additional twists that allows you to use an IR remote control with your PS3. How it works is you first install a wired copper lead to your power button which is then covered by a nice decal that resembles the button (it doesn't look as bad as it sounds). This wire is connected to the PS3IR+PWR USB device which you plug into one of the forward facing USB ports on the PS3. After some basic rigamaroo with setup (it's essential that you have a PSP paired to your PS3 and you enable remote connection) and tucking the wire out of the way you are ready to go. The PS3IR+PWR controls the PS3 like a champ. It can turn the unit on and off, navigate, play and pause and do most every function a remote can perform. The only real function it CAN'T do is eject the disc. If you have a super nuts univeral remote like I have programming it is fairly straightforward... you just program it with PS2 or Sony DVD remote codes and bam, works like a charm. All in all this little guy is not exactly cheap (the power unit is $50, but they sell another cheaper one that doesn't control the power on/off) but it more or less "fixes" the one area the PS3 falls down in and really lets it step up and join the rest of your expensive home theater devices as a member of the IR chain. It used to bug me to hell and back that every other piece of equipment in my rack was controllable from my universal remote and could function in concert with the other items at the mere press of one button... except the PS3... but now it can. So if anyone is like me and wants better controllability out of their PS3 for home theater use, this little PS3IR+PWR gizmo from Mike at schmartz.com fills the bill.

Edge Enhancement and You

The Dark Night?

I keep coming back because I'm a moderator and I have to check threads to make sure everyone is playing nice. I only post when someone types something that makes my eye twitch or when I feel my opinion on this toy is being miscast. There is no "right" or "wrong" opinion to have on this toy, and everyone is entitled to post what they feel about it.

Now, it could just be me but the most expensive Macross toy made by Yamato that I ever bought was the Max and Milia Fast Pack Valkyries... and from what I recall Kevin at Valk Exchange sold them to me for something like $180 or less each inside the US with domestic shipping. They where then and still are today the most expensive Yamato toys I ever bought. Two of them at the same time with shipping went for something like $370 if I remember right. I thought that was way too much to spend on two toys... I really enjoyed those two toys however. They were both quite large in size, very close to the line art in mechanical accuracy and of very good quality. I actually sold them because they were too big and took up too much precious space in my display cabinet. In other words they had several pluses to offset the ass pain of their price tags. I do not see those same pluses in these smaller, less accurate, more expensive toys. I mean, in my mind these Legioss / Tread sets are about equal to one of those 1/48 VF-1J's with Fast Packs in terms of "what you get", and the Yamato was still $70 some dollars cheaper.

As long as you guys behave and listen to the mods when we ask you to, you could pretend I sound like Mary Queen of Scots for all I care. And just for good measure, "Who's leg do I have to hump to get a dry martini around here?"

Admittedly I'm "broken record-ing" here but price is the ultimate deal breaker for me. I can forgive a lot for something that is cheap. I have this sliding scale in my mind... if something costs X then I expect Y. In the case of this toy it costs X ($250) and I expect Y (line art accurate OR a much larger toy). For those who recall my original bile filled rant against the Toynami Alpha the biggest dorito shard in my gumline with that was that it just cost so much for what you got. Had the Toynami Alpha been $30 I probably would not have had such a violent reaction to it when I got mine. I could easily afford a whole set of all three of these, but I don't like "what I get for that value". $750 buys me a lot of stuff. I'm a Mospeada fan but not a $750 Mospeada fan if you catch my drift. If I found these toys for $100 or even possibly $150 I'd really consider buying them... but as it stands they are just too expensive for what I get.

This is a reminder to keep things civil. People are free to complain and free to bash a product or a company but NOT other members, so please keep that in mind when crafting your replies. nugundamII is within his rights to complain so long as his complaint has merit and does not insult other members. A such everyone else should follow that end as well. The cardinal rule of debate is to debate the issue and not the person making the counterpoint, and some uncivil barbs and baiting are coming close to the line. I really do not want to babysit this thread today as I'm quite busy at the office, so consider this to be my last gentle nudge.

Oooooooookay. Everybody take a deep breath and chill out. We can all address an issue and offer insight without the pointed words. I don't want to have to come back in here... and yes I did just channel my mother for a second there.

With as cheap as the first Cloverfield was to make, they could easily follow the "SAW" template. The only thing holding them back from milking this thing for every last drop IMHO would be JJ Abrams. I don't know a whole lot about the guy but he seems to be a very "I did it, it's done, let's move on to something new" kind of guy. They might have him for one sequel but I get the impression he will walk if number three gets tabled.

Sports and the news. Mostly because they are first source capture using good cameras and they have little processing done to them. When my friends ask for an HD demo of my stuff using my dish my two "go to" channels are CNN HD and ESPN HD. They almost always have a high quality signal with a very good picture. Edit: I guess this is on topic for this thread, but how does everyone here get their "non local source" HD? I have DirecTV satellite with the HD DVR. I live way outside town in a new development and they don't have cable TV cable running out here yet. I actually prefer the DirecTV service to my old cable service, the HD channel lineup is ten times larger and the overall picture and sound quality are far superior.

Well then, looks like Bandai's HD anime will continue to go unpurchased by me. Upscaled, 4:3 and an $80 price tag? Nooooooo thanks.

You do have to figure that anything "broadcast", be it over the air, through a cable or transmitted from a satellite, is going to have some level of degradation at several stages in it's "life". It will never be as clear as a local source (Blu Ray / HD DVD). Plus it also depends on the media you are watching. A lot of "new" shows are shot in HD these days but a lot of other stuff isn't, and you can pretty much be assured that any rerun older than a few years is also SD. Another thing to watch for is that many "HD" channels are only upscaling their standard SD feed... two channels that are notorious for this are Animal Planet HD and Cartoon Network's HD channel. It's basically their regular channel upconverted and stretched to be widescreen (and in the case of Animal Planet at times it is zoomed and cropped). Some of their bumps are true HD but a lot of stuff is just SD scaled up. It's easy to see on some shows because their bug, the little logo in the bottom corner, is in HD but the program is all fuzzy and soft indicating it is an upscaled SD. Another thing that pisses me off about HD channels is that they zoom their feature movies. For example, right now I'm watching Alien Resurrection on Universal HD... and the movie is zoomed to 1.85:1. This is a 2.35:1 movie yet they zoom in on it to fit the screen... why? Oh and get this irony, the Universal HD channel just ran a 2 minute long Blu Ray spot. Ouch. Edit: And did anyone see that Bandai is releasing Yukikaze on Blu Ray in the spring? Sure it's going to be another $80 release but it might be as close as we get to Macross in HD anytime soon in the states.

So are all those marking stickers or are they painted onto the toy?

As someone who works with images and video all day my eye is programmed to detect all the little imperfections and artifacts in those images. Like Cory, I can see distinct differences between the resolutions. The trick is not to absorb the whole image but to look at the nuance, the tiny things. It's the most noticeable in edges and points of delineation between color fields. The difference is subtle but it's those tiny subtle differences when playing that give the image just enough added boost. BUT it is 100% true that your average man on the street would not see a difference. But IMHO crazy high def 1080p picture quality is an "enthusiast" thing anyway. Just as your average joe would not appreciate the difference between a painting by an original artist and a copy, I don't expect everyone to just fawn over a slightly improved picture. I've become so "bad" about HD signals lately that I almost can't watch SD anymore on my home system. Last night I was watching Comedy Central in SD and the picture was just... so... bad. I kept purposefully flipping to CNN HD just to remind myself what my TV was capable of showing. As such I'm finding myself more and more nitpicky of HD signals as well. I've come to learn how to spot "upscale" in broadcast HD programs and how to spot all the "nasties" as I call them in BD and HD DVD discs. In some transfers the grain and edge enhancement are so noticeable that it wrecks a movie for me... then in other movies the picture is so pristine that the occasional artifact or imperfection jumps out like a flare going off.

I'm more or less comparing the movies financial box office performance. Blair Witch started slow but then exploded and held a high return for a few weeks. Cloverfield started off with a massive bang then suffered a 65% downturn the next weekend, and if the weekly trend is any indication of a continuing cycle it will have another 50%+ drop this weekend. Given that the advertising is pretty much gone here in Saint Louis I assume they have yanked most of the ad campaign, favoring the "money in the bank" approach (why spend more money on a movie they have turned a profit on when you can simply let it ride out on word of mouth then scoop home video sales). I was just expecting this thing to be a $150M+ movie... on it's current trend if it hits $100M it will be near the end of it's "shelf life" and just by a hair. This movie is by far not a "fizzle" but it's performance is certainly an "all up front" affair it seems.

I've been watching Cloverfield's numbers to see how well it was doing. I was expecting another Blair Witch phenomenon with how well it opened but it seems to be sinking like a stone in the box office lately. I can understand the explained reasons why (stiff competition from other new releases, the general "blah" of a January release, etc) but it just seemed to start so strong and has fallen so much... it makes me wonder if the movie doesn't have good "buzz" and is becoming more of a Snakes on a Plane than the next Blair Witch. Either way it's made it's money. Cloverfield has a big thing going for it, it was super cheap to make. It doubled it's money opening weekend so everything else is gravy... I was just expecting more gravy. They've all but pulled the marketing in my neck of the woods (I have not seen a TV or print ad for it since it opened) and it just feels like the studio has "made their money and is moving on".

It would have been better had he kept his hands off camera and just made weird facial expressions and rocked around in his seat like he is.

If no other outlets are carrying the info then it's most likely a goof. I sure as hell hope Paramount releases Indy soon. With the new movie due out in May you'd think a HD release of the originals is in the cards somewhere... and seeing as Spielberg and Lucas only like Blu Ray that sort of lines up some planets I'd think...

So is this a remake, revisioning, a sequel or just another ripoff of the old '60s Raquel Welch movie "1,000,000 BC"? Studio Executive: "Hey remember that Raquel Welch movie they made in the '60s with the rubber dinosaurs? That thing was big juju back then" Roland Emmerich: "It'll never fly today! Today's audience demands MORE!" Studio Executive: "You mean better scripts, intelligent plots, decent acting and competent direction?" Roland Emmerich: "HELL NO! I mean move the decimal point, throw in some eye candy in fur bikinis, CG the crap out of it and bing... one hundred million in the bank."