reddsun1

They say 1st impressions are lasting ones, and the impression I got from the trailer just wasn't all that good. The point where they totally lost me was the scene where it [appears to] shows the guy flying his plane straight down through the fireball of an exploding Zeppelin. *groan* I concur w/previous posts that it looks like the "action" scenes are video-gamish and not really heeding to realism [which begs the question: just who says realism in dogfighting/flying isn't "exciting" enough for moviegoers anyway? if they can't appreciate the inherent danger/skill, what the h*ll do they know?]. As I've read/heard and understand it, the fighter pilot's life is largely "long periods of boredom interrupted by brief moments of stark terror," and we know Hollywood just doesn't think that's a good formula for film. But I am curious: is the fourth flier in the group actually based on/supposed to be Eugene Bullard?

I dunno, I don't look at 300 as being a "historical" movie so much as I do a comic/graphic novel adaptation, so I'm willing to give it more leeway. But like others here have said, I do not look forward to Flyboys being any good whatsoever. They've got a lot of nerve to even include the claim "inspired by true events." Hollywood's casual disregard for any semblance of accuracy in so-called "true-story" films for the sake of hollow merchandising pluglines and cheesy romance dramas is pretty sickening. A lot of times, truth is a helluva lot more fascinating than fiction. This movie's gonna suck like a whore at a Las Vegas business convention. I'm guessing that one pilot is "based" on Eugene Bullard, who was "America's first black fighter pilot." The actor does look a lot like the real Bullard though. That's probably where the similarity ends, from what I'd venture of this fecal stain of a film. From what research I've done on him, this guy should get a movie all his own--the real Bullard lived a hell of a life, one that just about any man would consider a dream. http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/apjinte...valetteeng.html It's a damn shame his "rags to riches" story ended up "going back to rags" to a certain degree, when he was forced to return to America during WWII. In his adopted country of France, he was a national hero, a successful entrepreneur, an equal. In his homeland, he was considered a second class citizen. God**mn shame.

Yeah, the "modern" music is a bit out of place, and some of the green-screen/CG stuff looks a bit "made-for-TV," but still shows potential. As comic-books-turned-movies go, I liked Sin City, so I'm willing to give this one a shot. Those guys are like seriously ripped--enough to make a Gold's Gym trainer weep. They've got to be "touched-up" using CG or something? I guess they're going for a bit of a mysticism-and-comic-style-action-meets-hstorical-legends feel to it? Heck, I figure they can't do any worse than Troy.

Wow, I almost forgot to check back on the boards. Lots of stuff happened while they were down. Not only did Australia lose iconic nature/TV personality Steve Irwin, but in the same week tragedy struck twice when racing legend Peter Brock was killed during the Targa Australia, when his car left the road and struck a tree. Talk about a bum week for the Aussies.

Honest to God, how fuggin ignorant is that? Seriously, if they found the a$$clown that did that, I wouldn't feel a bit sorry if everybody in that theater crowd decided to "stomp a mud-hole in dey a$$."

ROTFLMAO! I found this in another thread, and then it hit me! It's the next cult-classic unapologetic B-movie mega-hit in the making! "...From the producers who brought you Snakes on a Plane: get ready for this fall's next nonstop edge-of-your-seat action fest that will have you cheering in the aisles! Nothing can prepare you for the drama, the excitement, the danger, the romance, the pathos of! BAD-ASSES! ON! MO-PEDS!!" LOL, they've even got the t-shirts already printed up...

Nah, I think that's what's got so many people in an uproar. We all pretty much know it's NOT going to have a decent story, it's NOT going to have decent settings, it's NOT going to have decent acting, etc [i mean really--it's a Michael Bay film ferchrissakes]. So a lot of people are probably collectively sighing to themselves and wondering: "why? why oh why in the name of the 12 disciples, Christ and his cousin Pete can't we at least get cool L-A renditions of the transformers we all know and love from our childhoods, instead of some wierd looking rip-off wannabe poseur CRAP being passed off as our favorite TF characters?"

You were saying? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyErC56zrWc...related&search= This one appears to be gaining momentum as the most popular of all so far...

Oh, dear Lord! Well, I suppose it was just a matter of time before one internet cult-classic would find itself inexorably merged with another already established and well-worn internet cult-classic..... --"I'm just sayin', if that little f*cker so much as taps my sh*t just one more time, I'm gonna go f*cking snakes on a plane up in this piece. I'm just saying." *thunk* --"All right, that tears it."

Now, exactly which version of the TF'ers is this film attempting [and the operative word here is attempting] to "flesh out" for the big screen? Which generation from the toyline/universe/continuity exactly are they trying to create? Or are they just trying to make this and "everything-to-everyman" sort of package? I haven't followed the series in years. I didn't realize there were so many different generations/versions now. This film seems to be striking a chord primarily with late-20-to-30-somethings, who remember/collect the first gen toys and TV show/movie from the mid-80's. But if that's the audience that they're primarily targeting, then it certainly doesn't seem to me that they're delivering "the Transformers" at all; merely an approximation--it's like some bad Unsolved Mysteries re-enactment or something. First impression? they're just taking familiar/popular names and tacking them on to completely different characters, who'll be involved in totally different/unrelated events, taking place in totally different/unrelated settings. "Oh, and we'll get some hot-name actors to stick in it too--ones who score well in polls taken in our target demographic audience--just for good measure..." Yeah, this is my vote......It'll SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! SUCK!! SUCK!! SUUUUUUUCK!!!!

Holy Crap! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3656815532557531640 That's a carrier deck! Dayum! Well, guess they had to get it on there somehow.... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4015390308129405896

Well, if sales of the upcoming Challenger prove a success--which I'm sure they could--then a special edition kinda like these could follow. Somebody needs to go have a talk with Doctor Z. *knock knock knock* Hey, Dr. Z! You listening in there? You need to get with it, man. You ain't got your ear to the pulse of your car buying public here in the US! Those cutsie commercials are funny and all, but enough! Knock it off with the TV spots, tell your boys to get off their ARSES and get it in gear! Get those Challengers to the showrooms already, before it's too late! They say history has a tendency to repeat itself. Let's hope not in the case of the automotive market here in the States. Oh sure, Americans are being stubborn right now; we're pretty insistent on having our cake and eating it too, when it comes to expressing ourselves with what we keep in the garage/driveway. But if fuel market trends continue as they're going--and I feel they likely will--then [premium] gas prices will continue to rise. I fear that OPEC and their cronies will effectively KILL the muscle car market a second time [and SUV's too for that matter]. We'll not likely see gas come back down under $2.00 a gallon ever again in our lifetimes. By the time Chevy and Dodge get their s--t together, it could very well be too late. They could conceivably get their product to market just in time to see the segment sales dry up.

LOL, it could work. But for the love of Christ, all his diciples and his cousin Pete---just don't let Dean Devlin or Roland Emmerich produce/write/cater meals/answer the office phone/have anything whatsoever to do with it!!!

Found this on google.video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1...et+render&hl=en Very impressive--it appears this game engine is capable of rendering entire planets in real time. All I want to know is: why ain't somebody working on coding the huge fleet of "space cucumbers" so's they can show up in orbit and start bombarding the planet surface? Where's the Valkyries, dammit?! *edit* Now I just wish somebody'd find a way to get Jay-Lew's SDF-1 CG model into orbit near the space station!

Yup, apparently from a creative standpoint, it's been a free-for-all from the various comic companies over the last dozen years or so with the Robotech license for US fans. Add to that the somewhat limited exposure of the original Macross, and you get folks pretty much pulling thier material seemingly out of the air, as far as continuity is concerned. I kinda liked the Covert Ops mini series. But I think that was just because the mecha/character designs were pretty cool compared to other offerings of the day. And why was that? It too was a real hodge podge in regards to continuity and just plain erratical materials in the story. With a little better tweaking, the story could actually fit into the continuity. But as one review stated: "most of the designwork Lane used was from the 1984 motion picture Macross: Do You Remember Love ("DYRL" for short)--from the bridge uniforms, to the pilot uniforms, to the SDF-1 bridge, to the Zentraedi base and armor design, even down to the Coca Cola machine on page 3 of the first issue." In a nutshell, it was a chance to get DYRL-esque artwork in comics back around '98-'99, when very little else was available at your run-of-the-mill comic shop.

Oh no, of course Robo&*#h isn't going to have silly alien AFOS stuff like that. The great diety-incarnate that is Carl Macek decided to enlighten us unwashed masses with something much more clever than that. In Robo*@#h, Protoculture isn't some ancient and mysterious alien race--no, it's waayy cooler. Protoculture is the fuel that powers multi-functional t-forming mecha! and it comes from flowers! and it has hallucinogenic properties! Go on an LSD-like mind trip when you drop it yourself, and get wicked HP and gas mileage when you drop it in the tank! Why, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread! *groan*

I'm sure I'll have a multitude of reprisals for mentioning this--slurs, death threats and the like--but I was digging thru some old comics and stumbled on some old back issues of Robo#$@h, by Antarctic press circa 1997-98. Before the pitchforks and torches are heaved in my direction: I got these during a period before I found the redeeming salvation and enlightenment that is Macross World. I was off in college at the time, just getting into collecting comics as a bit of a hobby; I was really digging the mecha art, since it was my only "fix" for VF's, Destroids and such. In retrospect, I'm guessing they were using some resource of Macross line art or some other artwork for the mecha, given the huge disparity between mecha and character art in the comics. Kinda like old movies that use war "stock footage" for all their action scenes. They appeared to be using the "gaps" in timeline/story from ep. to ep. in the TV show to pull their story arcs from. Given, there were lots of errors and inconsistencies in the story and art. The characters don't look a whole helluva lot like their anime namesakes; there's coloring "errors," on mecha, like VF-1A's in orange/tan 1D colors; one frame may show a fighter w/a 1J head, only to be "drawn" in Battroid mode on the very next page, with a 1A head, so on and so forth. For instance, the story in the first 3 eps takes place before the battle in Saturn's rings. But Max appears in issue 1, flying in Roy's sqn, and in a VF-1A--but it's colored in his 1J Blue Max scheme no less! Anyways, I digress. You're wondering: "WTF has this got to do with Mac 0?" There was a side-story arc in the first few issues of these comics titled "Prototype 001: Tigercat," which bears an uncanny similarity to the storyline of Mac 0. Coincidence? Maybe--you be the judges. The prototype doesn't fully TF but is, in fact, basically drawn as an F-14 with VF "legs" for gerwalk/flight testing. Sure enough, just as in Mac 0, Roy Fokker is a key player in this "prequel" as well. He also faces off with a former mentor/instructor in this story as well, who also happens to have a customized fighter and fly for the Anti-UN. His mount is, interestingly enough, a Mig-29 with reconfig. legs, though. Roy leads up a test squadron in this story too; and they likewise head into battle against Anti-UN forces. A breif synopsis I found: "Two years earlier, in February of 2007, a younger but similarly surly Lisa Hayes brings a younger and slightly more immature Roy Fokker to a hangar on Macross Island to get familiar with his new mount, the YVF-14A Tigercat Prototype 001. The aircraft is a live simulator prototype developed to test a new battle configuration, which was discovered on the VF-X prototype by accident." Mere coincidence that someone did a "prequel" story--albeit using different media--along similar lines to that of Mac 0? Perhaps, after all, there's only so much you can work from the story line before Space War I and still involve cool ass TF mecha battles. The development of the technology was relatively rapid, given the reverse-engineering used, and really didn't come into play until pretty shortly before the arrival of the Zentraedi, in both Mac and Robotech, respectively.

" When asked who was buying the Action Hookers, Mlle. Latrampe said, 'Everyone. Men, women, working people, white-collar professionals, although our research indicates that they seem to sell in tandem with Star Wars action figures. We aren't sure what that is all about, though we suspect it has to do with the light sabers and where they can be applied.' " "We will soon introduce Raoul's -- how do you say it? -- 'tricked out' Pimpmobile, which can be parked in the Action Alley playset, located right beside Le Hotel DeHeure, where rooms are available by the hour." oh, brother!

So how do the Legioss kits compare to the Toynami Alphas? I've always figured they [Toynami] were just copying that design anyway. I remember having a Go-Bots knock-off model way back when--I even painted it red in JB colors. But I was just a kid, and my model skills were nil. I was always disappointed in the wings with that model kit; thought they were too small.

What?! Gundam SEED made the top of this list?! Ugh, I think I'm gonna be sick.... I agree with Akilae and Sketchley's comments; what this shows is merely that the power of marketing and promotion of more recent anime is certainly much greater than in the days of Gundam, Yamato and the like. I for one sure as hell don't think SEED merits its presence based on its story, characters or mecha--I think they're all re-hashed glitzed up versions of the original, and they suck in comparison.

Not sure if this has been raised. Seeing as how 1/60 Valkyries have been pretty much eclipsed by the 1/48's, this point may be moot but... I wish Yamato would consider addressing the instability issue with 1/60 VFs, perhaps by using less/no die cast? I honestly wouldn't mind all-plastic construction [hey, it works great for the 1/48s] if it meant curing the "kamikaze" tendencies of the 1/60's in Battroid mode, i.e. falling over, the spontaneous nose dives off of shelves/bookcases/etc phenomenon. The weight of the legs is just too much for the hip joint design, and unless placed in certain poses in Battroid mode, it makes them just too prone to flop over. Honestly, it was that tendency that pretty much killed my interest in the 1/60 line. But the 1/48's are just too expensive for me to consider collecting any significant numbers. I realize an almost complete re-design is out of the question for Yamato--but it would be cool if they considered a swing-arm mechanism for the legs to accomodate t-formation, either like that of the 1/48 VF-1 or VF-0? Not a chance, right? Would it be considered too fragile due to smaller scale or something?

Battroid mode looks great. As does Gerwalk mode. But the fighter mode seems somewhat lacking. The legs and tailfin area looks a bit off. But hey, for $20 a piece, who can knock it?

Oh well, maybe some day. Perhaps some daring--and patient--custom builder may be able to undertake building a one-off example? Hey, I have no such skills/time/patience, otherwise I might try it myself. Then we can all be dazzled at the photos that would undoubtedly be posted for us all to envy and wonder at. True, the 1/48 Yammie would indeed serve as my basis for the up-scale, if given the choice, as it is currently the benchmark of VF representation par-excellence. But I would attempt to address the "big" canopy issue. Yes, I still think it looks a bit disproportionately large, in relation to the body.... And yes, a 1/18 non-TF VF-4 would kick ass up and down the block, too. It's one of my personal favorites, among "space fighter" designs. Wasn't it originally non-TF when Kawamori-san designed, i.e. didn't do battroid sketches at first? Or did he just leave that open to interpretation?

As a kid, when I was about 10 or 12, I used to see former NASCAR driver Wendell Scott on a regular basis. Wendell's youngest son Frank is a friend of the family, and was a teacher and coach at my local high school; so when we went to the varsity basketball games every week, we'd see his father Mr. Scott. I was just an ignorant kid, to me he was just "Mr. Scott." I had no idea that he was Wendell Scott, the race car driver that Richard Pryor had played in the movie; I had even seen Greased Lightning on TV a few times. Wendell was Coach Scott's biggest fan and supporter, and I don't think he ever missed a home game, at least prior to his illness/failing health. You could count on him being in the stands, just a few rows behind the coaches' bench. So of course when we'd go to the games we'd of course speak and chat: "hey Coach Scott," and likewise we'd say hi to his dad. He would always give a smile and a hello, or a wave. Stupid kid, I never even guessed he was a race car driver--one of the race car drivers, as far as I'm concerned. If only I'd known then what I know now; I would have loved to have gone up and sat with him in the stands and talked with him, asked him about all his racing days and experiences. Alas, the ignorance of youth! I guess if there's a moral, it's: folks, you really ought to pay a little more attention and respect to your elders every now and then. You never know just what knowledge they might have to impart, what tales they may be able to share, what wonderful experiences they still remember... Wendell with sons back in the day (Frank, center)

wow, kind of a bummer to think that no one's really interested in a huge-a$$ Valk. So it was the non-TF thing that shoots it down, eh? So, by all accounts, Hasegawa's model sales ought to be in the toilet.... Dear God, how much would Yamato want for a 1/18 VF if it DID transform? I don't give a s--t how detailed it is, 3 or 4 hundred dollars or more would be just rediculous to expect for a toy, no matter how dang cool it is....