gingaio
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Everything posted by gingaio
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Thanks for all the additional pics and info. Very much appreciated. First-world dilemmas, first-world dilemmas...told myself I'd buy into this line if the toy has good quality and is at least as big as the old Gakken. Well, the second criterion has been met. And it looks great to boot. The stress marks, especially on the ankles...ouch. Consider my OCD triggered. Last thing I want is a $300 toy that's going to tear an Achilles upon transformation. And the stress mark on the fin is no fun either. Uh. Same issue with MP Hot Rod...need that character, but don't need the QC problems like flaking chrome. I know, right? A super-sized, super-QC'ed Legioss. That's the dream. In fact, my MPP-10 is currently the dream on my shelf.
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Justice League, available now & Snyder Cut on HBO Max in 2021
gingaio replied to azrael's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
This is an interesting video on the state of music in Marvel movies: I tend to agree with the primary claim that so many of these modern superhero/action movie scores are essentially white noise. Maybe it's because I grew up on stuff like the '89 Batman film (and watched all the Christopher Reeves Superman movies), but I didn't mind hearing the familiar music of my youth, and it's not like I would have remembered afterwards what the tracks by Junkie, etc. sounded like anyway (not that it's entirely their fault). Was the music jarring? Sure, but what about JL wasn't jarring or a mishmash of incongruent parts, everything from the plotting to the characterization to the dialogue. I mean, there were entire scenes that I swear were lifted, frame by frame, from the LOTR trilogy. That said, I liked the movie more than I thought I would. But that's because I was expecting the movie to be utter shite. I genuinely laughed at one moment in the movie, which is more than I can say about any of the previous Batman/Superman Snyder films-- -
Thanks for taking the time to take the pics and write the review. Just wondering--any points of fragility with the toy itself, or during transformation (I'm thinking of various issues with the Yamato valks over the years)? The shoulder hinges in particular look a bit thin, but maybe they're solid? Thanks again.
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Indeed. Given the amount of force needed to snap on the ARMDs, I'm hoping that my fingers won't accidentally rub off some of this $200 paint.
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Just binged the rest of the show yesterday with my wife (eps. 3-9). Amazing. As much as we loved the first season, the second was even better.
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As much as I often appreciate the source material, the novel wasn't the best version of the story, IMO. It's been some years since I read it, but I remember the characterization being more black-and-white and simpler than that of the film, and the narrative just being a bit more didactic. A lot of what we appreciate about the film--the complexity of the characters, the ambiguous line between human/replicant that fuels the driving theme of the movie--weren't really there in the written story. But yeah, I also saw that BR wasn't doing well at the box office. If the story ends with 2049, I'm fine with it. I thought they tied up the story well.
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The code seems to be working now (and thanks to F360 for posting it). Just used it along with my eBay bucks to finally pick up an HMR Regult for a pretty reasonable secondary-market price (around $95 shipped).
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Just saw the movie with my wife (she took one for the team--not a Blade Runner fan, and tends to sleep around 10:00PM). Our showing started at 10:00PM, so that means we got out of the theater somewhere in the neighborhood of 5:00AM. Seriously, though, a good film, if a bit overlong, though the contemplative pacing is part and parcel of this universe and falls in line with the tone/mood established by Ridley Scott back in '82. Could it have been shorter? At the risk of sounding glib (and for the sake of not spoiling anything), sure. That said, a really beautiful story, beautifully shot with a really engrossing soundscape, and the cumulative impact of the characters' decisions really does pack a punch by the end. Gosling was fantastic in this film, and despite the fact that no matter how good this film is, it would never have overtaken the first movie in my nostalgia-drenched dreams, it definitely stands on its own merits.
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BBTS is $200. HLJ is about $175 (+ 3% conversion rate, at least for my credit card). BBTS charges $4 shipping. HLJ will be about $25-30 (I'm guesstimating). The big difference for me is customer service. Not that HLJ's is bad, but BBTS's is the best out there. Plus, they're in the U.S., so if I get a defect/QC issue, getting it fixed is a breeze. I often choose BBTS even when the competitor is cheaper. In this case, BBTS might actually be cheaper.
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No, I get that. I should have said that I'm not sure about soft goods being handled well on smaller-scale figs. I always imagined--based on a childhood's worth of Robotech cartoons and Gakken toys--that the under-armor suit was tight and stretchy. I always found Beagle's suit to be too baggy, like an oversized sweater. Sentinel's looks a bit better because the biceps armor at least pins the cloth down a bit. For 6-inch figs, Mezco's One: 12 line is definitely an improvement over the old Mego stylings, which I always found a corny (and not in an appealing way). That said, it's hard at that scale, and even in that line, to create figs that look completely 'right' in cloth suits (IMO, of course).
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Still not sure about soft goods/cloth, but Sentinel's handling it a bit better than Beagle (namely, the plastic pieces that cover the biceps). In contrast, the Beagle figure looks like it's wearing a Christmas sweater underneath the bike parts. Not that there's anything wrong with Christmas sweaters...
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Man why does this even need to be stated at this point...come on, Bandai. Easily the most beautiful Zentradi mech design from SDFM, and could be a cheap repaint for a quick cash grab.
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For some reason, the light artillery attachment appears a more natural fit for the Regult design. The heavy cannisters just seem a bit much for what's otherwise a strangely sleek design. May just display one normal and one with the light attachment, since I don't have a normal Regult at the moment. The latest pics are making me more impatient.
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Gotcha. Thanks!
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When you brought up the VF-1s, I was thinking that, yeah, that's a good point of comparison--space jet w/ wings vs. space helicopters. You may be right about our our tolerance for suspension of disbelief being lower for Southern Cross because it's a weaker show. I would also add that culturally/historically speaking, space jets with wings are much more normalized--there's more of a tradition in sci-fi films and TV shows--than space choppers, and at the risk of making a post-hoc error, I wonder if the dearth of space choppers vs. space jets in various media is because the former is considered a bit sillier (I mean, the Dropship from Aliens, one of my favorite designs ever, is basically a space chopper with the rotor blades removed). But can you imagine removing the wings from an X-Wing or a Colonial Viper? Where we differ on the degrees of silliness, yes, I suppose that's subjective, too. Turning it over in my head, a space chopper does still seem a bit sillier than a space jet with wings, in the way that a Megazord seems a bit sillier than a Mobile Suit, even though both are inherently ridiculous. But I would have to add a big IMO to that.
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The wings are there to hold Budweiser missile cans. Obviously. Again, though, I think it's more in terms of degrees than absoluteness, and it's all entirely subjective to boot. Oddly, as I've gotten older, the idea of five robot lions that combine to form the guardian of the galaxy seems totally ridiculous, and yet, a spaceship that houses a teleported island and itself transforms into a vaguely humanoid form is pretty awesome.
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Huh, cool. Didn't realize that. As far as the point about, Well, the whole idea of transforming robots is silly, I sort of get that. But I don't think it's an either/or situation, in which you either swallow everything or disregard everything. That's why there's good sci-fi and bad. Stuff that contradicted its own internal logic was what always got me...like the technology that allowed for a giant transforming robot couldn't allow for flight without rotors (and before someone mentions Springer, we do need to distinguish between magical robot shows vs mecha shows)? That's why the Turbo Tank in Star Wars always seemed odd to me...like why the wheels, when everything else hovers or flies? As far as the convertible look on the Hover Tank, I always figured it was, you know, for casual Sunday drives. Anyway, these are the nerd questions that keep me up at night.
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Thanks! Yeah, that was the way I tried it, but it required so much force I didn't want to risk breaking anything. Maybe I should have just used more force. When you removed the arms, was it the same procedure (unsnapping or unclicking one side, and then just removing it)?
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Thanks. Yeah, when the PF SDF-1 comes in, I'm gonna need like an instructional video on how to do it properly. I had a hell of time trying to get the arms on the original Yamato release and eventually just put everything back in the box.
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Nice, Dragonstar. Are the arms pretty easy to get on and off?
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Wait, who's pissing on valks now?
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Design looks cool, but a helicopter in space always struck me as...dumb? The Hovertank, on the other hand...a modern version of that toy would be a dream come true.
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I think this whole Yamacadia vs. Bandai debate is a bit of apples and oranges. The two lines are of significantly different scales, which makes a huge difference when it comes to variable--especially three-mode--toys. If one says Yamato is better because it's better proportioned, has perfect transformation, etc., well there's no argument. But really, there's no reason it shouldn't be "better" when it's that much bigger (when considering that they're two different kinds of toys--expensive hand-crack vs. full-sized display piece--I still think Bandai did a slightly better job at what it was aiming for compared to what Yamacadia was aiming for...IMO, of course...both lines have their flaws, but I guess I'm more forgiving of Bandai's given the limitations of the smaller size). I was actually fine with not owning any modern valk toys at all if Yamato was the only game in town (sold all my Yammies). As others have mentioned, it was the Destroids and Zentradi mechs that lured me into the Hi-Metal line, and I figured, what the hell, I'll pick up a few Bandai's since they're in (roughly) the same scale.
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While, yes, the knurled pins were the cause of damage, I still don't like having to pull at and stress the rotating joint right simply to clear the tab and convert the arms each time I want to transform the toy. Bandai's method of simply sliding and locking the arms into place is not only more of an elegant solution, but reduces some unnecessary stress on parts. Just my opinion.
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Absolutely. One big reason I sold and have since stayed away from the Yamatos/Arcadias is because of that stupid shoulder rotation design for transformation. Bandai's design team did a much better job.
