Evil Porkchop

No, you work with the amount of money alloted by the current government, he took the budget that was to be given to the DOD and made it work for the two wars we're in now, to keep people alive now, not to fund the USAF's wet dream for a war in 20 years.

I will not argue the fact that you need to fund the current wars that the U.S. is involved in, and at present those 2 wars are a low-tech counter-insurgency/guerilla warfare type of conflict. But you can not count that the next war will be the same kind of war. If history teaches us anything it is that those that plan to fight the previous war usually loses. For all we know the next war could be a counter-insurgency like the current wars or it could end up being a war with a well-equipped foe with technical parity. Whether it is funding the Army, Navy or the Air Force, you need to have a vision of the future that does not pigeon hole your forces into fighting one type of war.

Gates is an idiot, you can only cut the military so much until it becomes ineffective and they are treading dangerously close to that line. The reason the F-22 is being cut, is that the "experts" are unable to envision a war where it will be needed. The same experts that 40 some odd years ago that said fighters don't need guns. Also a C-17 doesn't equal a C-5. As far as I knew when I was at HQ/AMC is that the C-17 was more of a replacement for the aging C-141 fleet. I won't argue the fact that the USAF needs more C-17's to replace aging C-5's though. What the USAF really needs is a new tanker... the ones in my unit are all over 45 years old.

Great... another reason for the haters of the F-22 program to demand it's end.

The only people that knew of the eighth cylon model was cavil, and the final five it did not make any difference. We didn't even know of David's existence on till the forth to the last episode.

Final five, Cavil, Caprica, Sharon, Simon, Liobin, D'anna, bureaucrat guy(forgot name), and the eighth David.

It did end a hundred fifty thousand years in the future their future.

Semantics.

Saying our present is BSG's future, and BSG's preset is our past. It's a cop-out at best, and horrible storytelling at worse.

Hell the ending would have been more satisfying if they would have just left out the whole Proto-human/Eve thing and never flashed the 150,000 years later thing. Some people liked it, some didn't. I just felt it cheapened the story. I've went back and watched S1, S2, S3, and S4.0 before S4.5 started and the first two seasons really are quite different from the last 2. Season 3 meshes relatively well, but as soon as Starbuck came back and 4 of the final 5 were revealed at the end of S3 RDM has to retcon so much of the first 2 seasons.

I won't blame just RDM for the way BSG ended or the way S4.5 went. Some of this was the writer's strike that happened. So RDM had to create a plausible ending (the end of S4 with Cinder Earth) just in case S4.5 never saw the day of light. Besides discarding all the technology the Colonials had and bascially vanishing into the pages of "our history" no lessons are taught, nothing is remembered and from the ending provided, you can see signs of the cycle starting again.

I would have ended it 6000-8000 years in the future. They could have landed on our Earth and for whatever reason the planet could be un-inhabited (God/It could have made that happen), or on any other planet and just called it Earth. They don't leave all the technology behind, but the Colonials do decide to become more "naturalistic" and live in peace with the rebel cyclons etc. etc.

With the ending we received, I would have preferred RDM just ended BSG with the Cinder Earth scenes at the end of Season 4. Season 4.5 was such a mess for the most part, and the ending was less than satisfying. RDM painted himself into a corner by saying they would find Earth. But you are correct BSG is almost 2 different TV shows. The mini, S1, S2 being one show. Then Season 3 and 4 being the second show.

But I guess this is what happens with you actually have no plan. RDM readily admits to this. They really should have at least plotted the highlights for the whole show before they got into the narrative story telling so they didn't have a ton of ret-cons and other mis-steps along the way. Still though, BSG was/is better than 99% of the current trash on TV. I think the point where BSG started to take a turn for the worse was when they revealed Tigh, Galen, Sam, and Tori were cylons and the ommission of the #7 model. The creators had to retcon far to much and let's be honest other than more or less saying "we are one of the final 5 cyclons" the F5 really did nothing. They had no great insight, no great revelations until Sam was shot in the neck and even then only he remembered anything.

Anyways I would have rather the story ended 150,000 in the future, instead of 150,000 years in our past.

so i'm confused. I thought that the toasters were already at war with the colonies when the final five arrived. I thought the toasters agreed to end the war if the final five created humanoid cylons. but daniel (#7) is already planted as an agent from the trailer. so what's the chronology?

vinnie

Daniel is just the name of a character in Caprica so far. His connection to #7 Daniel or the final five is all fan speculation and nothing more at this point.

I do not have high hopes with Jane Espenson being one of the major developers/writer for this series. I'm sorry but almost every episode she wrote for BSG was Soap Opera like crap, with Deadlock being the worst episode of the series.

I'll give it a chance, would be nice to see a glimpse of the Colonies before the war. But I would rather a prequel deal with Adama when he was a Viper pilot set during the first Cylon war. Or go even farther back than that and do a series called Kobol, and really dive into the mythology of BSG.

There's a HUGE difference between Moore's work on something like WildC.A.T.s (or Spawn, or Batman) and his other work. "From Hell" is, I believe, among the finest comics ever made, and the best treatment of Jack the Ripper in any medium. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is likewise stellar. (I thought Promethea was quite excellent as well, but I can understand why a lot of people lost patience with it.)

The problem is that no matter how many times people say his work is cinematic, it really isn't. It's too long, it's too dense, and most of the things that are most characteristic and clever in his work are impossible to translate to film.

Anyway, judging a writer based on movie adaptations is like judging a director based on novelizations of his or her movies. No one's been able to make a good movie based on James Joyce's work, either. Does that make him a bad writer?

Just want to say that I completely agree with your assessment of Moore's comic book work and the rather pathetic attempts to adapt them to the cinematic medium. Moore is a genius of comic book writing and his work has inspired a generation of writers. Just because his work doesn't translate to the big screen does not make it bad. Moore has continually insisted that his work doesn't translate and people continue to refuse to believe him.

Nothing I've heard or seen about this movie has made me think I'll like it. I don't like big Hollywood action movies, I don't like the director's other works, and what I love most about Watchmen is

A) the way "Tales of the Black Freighter" intertwines with the main story,

I believe this was added because DC wanted it to be 12 issues. I may be wrong, so please correct me if I am.

C) the backup material,

If I recall correctly this wasn't in the original story but was later added in the TPB.

So while not defending th director or the movie, as I haven't seen it. I have only read the TPB. Those things were not integral to the Watchman story, but rather added to it.

I really enjoyed Nite-Owl II in the comic over all the other characters. Rorshach was much more one dimensional IMO, much more of the "Wolverine, I'll never compromise" character. Nite-Owl seemed to be conflicted though out much of the Watchmen comic. I really hope that carried over to the movie... which I have yet to see.

I know no-one but me would even want this. But if I was ending the series. I would have them all jump to Kobol, but surprise, surprise Cavil's fleet is there waiting to kill em all. Big battle ensues, Galactica gets taken out, Cavil's forces are defeated. The Fleet and Rebel cyclons settle on Kobol. Cycle start over again.... potentially. I know it's a cookie cutter type ending. But I like it.

Of couse I would like the question answered as to what exactly Kara is, and what the Final 5 really know... but nonetheless.

And GALACTICA is truly the best ship in the fleet, She is not going down without a fight, no way in hell!!!

Well she's the only ship in the fleet... at least militarily speaking. I'm really hoping the next 3 hrs... well more like 2+15 hrs is going to be really good. I can already see that BSG isn't going to end the way I would have wrapped up the series. But I'm still ready for the ride.

To Galactica... best ship in the fleet.

Damn right, and she's gonna go down fighting by kicking the hell out of Cavil's forces next week.

That article seems a tad irrealistic. I mean F15s as a pure air superiority fighter having a loss ratio to Su27/Mig29s of more then 1:1? Doubtful statement at best.

Anyones guess what will happen but with the JSF being a wildcard I doubt they will cancel the F22 rightaway. The airforce could opt for some latest versions of the F15/F16s as a stopgap measure and a minimum number of F22s to keep the production line open to buy time (and money).

Aren't Su27/MiG29s also pure Air Superiorty fighters too though? I think that all 3 aircraft a for the most part evenly matched and it would come down to the pilots.

This episode's writer, Jane Espenson should never, ever be allowed near anything do to with BSG again. Sadly she is one of the writers for Caprica and for one of the BSG movies. This was by far the worst episode to date. With characters completely going against what they have been for 4 seasons. The last 4 episodes better be pretty damn good to get the bitter taste out of my mouth that this one left.

They revealed last year that they have the vintage mold. I hope to see it eventually, either as an exclusive this year or next, but better yet, a mass market release. With the Movie Night Raven already at the $39.99 pricepoint, I hope it sells well enough that big vehicles are brought back to mass market rather than being just exclusives. I'd love to pay just $40+tax for the original Night Raven, modified to fit 2 modern era figures, and the drone, for $40. Any of you thinking it is too big for that, well I don't think it is. Similarly sized aircraft toys sell for $25 at TRU.

And Hasbro can get a 2 for 1 deal since they can release the Night Raven painted up like the Sky Raven, since we all know they like the re-paints.

As nice as those would be, I doubt we'll ever see anything that matches the quality/accuracy of the F-22. That plane just has an abnormally ginormous cockpit, which is the only reason a regular figure will fit in there. Pretty much anything else is probably going to get giant bulbous cockpit syndrome to fit a figure. If they can pull off a decent F-14 I'll be waiting to buy a fleet tho.

I'd be happy as long as it was as accurate as the relatively older PTE F-18 and A-10. Granted the F-18 had a rather large nose section, but it is nowhere near a horrible as the Thunderwing or this new Night Raven they are putting out.

Wow, after seeing the picture of the new Night Raven being held like a gun, there is no way in hell I will be buying that. Still it's so sad that we can get a relatively accurate and good looking F-22 from a company that probably isn't 1/10th the size of Hasbro. But Hasbro can't even design a completely new vehicle that doesn't look like some Fisher Price toy.

Here's to hoping True Heros gets all their new vehicles in to TRU's soon.

Yeah but the Cylons have that super-jump capability so they could get around that. Whereas I could see a return to Kobol fitting the whole "everything has happened before and will happen again" I can't see where they're going with this story. They'll probably have the good guys try to break the cycle but who knows?

At this point that would be the best ending IMO. Then in another 2000 years or so the "Cylons" can go off to Earth, and the 12 Colonies can head off again too. Right now I'm firmly in the camp that everyone is "technically" a Cylon. This weeks episode to me was a little weak. Sure some stuff happened, but it is all set-up to next week.

I hear that. All hail the last of the Grumman 'Cats, one Sierra Hotel bird.

Here, here. From what I have read and granted it's not as much as most. But the 'Cat could carry more ordinance further and faster than even the SuperBug can. And when ordinance was packed on the 'Cat it's performance was not affected nearly as much as a Hornets. Too bad the Navy couldn't pull their heads out of their collective asses. The Super Bug was never an efficient replacement for the Tomcat and never will be. I believe I also read that (Northrop) Grumman wanted to upgrade the F-14/produce new actual airframes and the Navy more or less cut them off at the knees on that plan.

At least the Air Force is actually getting/already has an aircraft (the F-22) that is an upgrade to the F-15. (I won't debate who should have won the fly-off between the YF-22 and the YF-23 though). To me what the Navy did with the F-14 and F-18 would be like the Air Force giving up it's F-15s to use a larger version of the F-16 like the F-2.

Still can't believe that the Navy retired the F-14 in favor of using (Super) Hornets for everything.

Would I have to apply primer or wash the surface first to make the paint stick better? I've never painted a toy before, so I am very new at this. I may actually go for a high viz scheme(and eventually buy more to do low viz).

I would reccomend priming the surface (IMO white primer if painting white, grey primer for any other color), and then lightly sand it. It will make the paint go on much easier, and black is a PIA to cover up with a lighter color. Also you make want to sand down the area of the landing gear doors a bit. A coat of primer, then 1-2 coats of paint, and a sealer will make them rub and difficult to close.

I have already painted up one of those F-22s into Skystriker colors. It was basically a testbed for my next F-22 re-paint which will be a Low-Viz or yet another Skystriker scheme. I just used generic Krylon Primer, and some Krylon Fusion White and Fusion Black. The only parts that rub are the gear doors (which I already know what I will do to fix that next time in addition to the sanding).

If this really is your first project I would just go with either Krylon paints or the generic Wal-Mart brand. Then if you decide to do another after learning some of the issues like I did, and then possibly upgrade to Tamiya or Testors spray paints. But to be honest unless Krylon doesn't have the color you want I would not bother with expensive model paints for something like the F-22.

On a side note I gotta say this is the best G.I. Joe compatable vehicles to come out in over 10 years IMO. Yes the bbi stuff is nice (and I have both the F-18 and F-16), but for relative realism and playability the F-22 is where it's at. I plan to buy at least 5-6 more and have a whole squadron of them in various paint schemes.

Envious that you got to go to Dayton! Regarding the air show you're talking about, was that an Air Force run event or something that was non military? I know there's an Air Force base south and east from St. Louis... that's where my sister and her family are at right now.

As for more Offutt air show pictures, I got about another 60+ to post online tonight then I'll be ready to do more sharing.

Scott AFB is the one you are referring to. I'm stationed there too. My unit used to do fly-overs for the STL airshow.

I have no idea of Scott is even having an airshow this year, but in all honesty unless they bring in some Raptors I have no interest in it.

Seems odd that it would be a YF-23, since it never made it past the prototype. I know the Joes always got experimental/high-tech stuff, but the F/A-22 would make more sense to me. But please no http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/04/thunderwingjet/ at the very least come up with a new mold. I'm still holding out hope for the Skystriker to get re-issued.

I've never been a really big transport plane fan, but after seeing a C-17 demonstration today, I'm quite impressed. The coolest thing I thought, was its ability to actually move backwards under its own power.

Yeah, the C-17 is a very, very cool plane with some of its abilities. I remember when I first stationed at Scott AFB back in 96/97 and the C-17 was still very new, and they had one here doing a demo for the yearly airshow. Well the AF wanted to show off all the C-17's capabilites with combat landings/take-offs, and the pilot ended up standing it/scraping the tail... needless the say the AMC 4 Stat General that was in attendance was not happy.

Guess my point is, that "heavies" are far more agile than people give them credit for... especially the C-17.

Oh, and the C-141 was able to back up under it's own power too... and the C-5 can too, but C-5's need a waiver (C-141 didn't) to do that... at least last time I checked.