1/1 LowViz Lurker

And don't forget little details like posable head lasers, rotating seat, (although it is hard to apreciate in battroid mode) improved knees and the feet thrusters. In fighter mode they look more fake on the vf1. (ie when you transform to battroid mode they kinda split in half.) Can someone get a pic of the gunpod attached while in fighter mode so I can see how much clearance there is from the ground?

Ah that's good to hear. I always thought they were a little stingy with the VB6 by not putting on the eyes so this looks like an improvement.

Stealth is probably for those who were miserable that they couldn't have the credit card valk. Camo is probably for those who felt they were sick of the vf1a cannon fodder, and wanted a new plain military paintscheme mecha as opposed to anime mecha scheme. Really I think the concept of it is nice way to keep milking vf1 for the collector and keeping 1A alive. (I thought 1A CF was going to be the last 1A evarr!11 What happened there?) Now I know kakizaki isn't the most popular character in macross, but yamato should start releasing this one day (not now, god forbid our poor wallets and the number of new things they have already released, but later down the track) just for fan reasons. Battle-damaged Kakizaki limted edition.

Nice pics on toysdaily. It does show that the choice to go 1/60 was a good one and that it's a good scale for a VF0 toy. I don't think I could afford a 1/48 VF0. If only the Qrau had that much attention like that. (opening hatches and actual micromissiles that can come out like GBP, posable pilot like scopedog with more detailed cockpit interior, and knee joints like VF0) Now they need to do the ghost booster (its naked) and vf0A. (and maybe reactive armor fatsuit) So what are all the tampo printed details again? And have the stickers improved?

The matrix is closer to a hong kong action movie in terms of stunts but slower, floatier and with lots of camera rotation. In anime they don't float in the air unnaturally like that. They have weight. When they jump, it is charged with energy and looks powerful, not floaty. When in a gunfight, they don't cartwheel in slow motion, they move gracefully more like a cat and in a very natural way. But when done with animated characters it looks right with just the right amount of tension in thier muscle but with a suggestion that they're actually light-enough of frame to make it 'feel' as if they pounced with the force from thier own move rather than artificially pushed or pulled in a direction by wires. When neo dodges those bullets with his crotch pointed forward, you know he is doing that while inside the imaginary world and to be honest it looks half assed. Like he wasn't really in control of himself doing it. Compare this to the way Jubei from ninja scroll jumps with lightning speed into the air and the camera quickly cuts to him slashing his blade to cause compressed air to hit that rock guy in a sudden controlled, co-ordinated move and you can't compare. Now with live action, you don't get that, and even if you somehow tried to, a movie-going audience wil not accept it because it looks unnatural. This is actually one of my gripes with the cg fight scene in the second movie where neo fights the 100 agent smiths. The physics just feels wrong, when neo bashes them into buildings. They don't react with the right kind of energy and feel like when they get hit, it is like they kind of float upwards rather than be shot like a cannonball into the buildings as if bashed by a huge weight. (think of what happens when you flick a piece of cardboard with your finger - it flies across the room at sudden speed accelerating very sharply.) It's hard for me to explain but to me it felt a little fake. Now evertime I see a bullet time action scene in a live action movie I feel as if it was put there for the sake of it, not to show frames that highlight a dramatic action. (which in anime happens like when a major character get killed or wounded or something) It just seems like it is abused and when done, slows the flow of everything rather than makes the fight seem more exciting. (you know how in "the warriors" movie when they poor guy gets his head slammed into the toilet? That is an example of good use of slowing motion for added effect that draws out attention to a very damaging move - like the equivalent of slow motion used on a knockout punch in a boxing match) The matrix is a good attempt (and so is crouching tiger hidden dragon)but there are things like when a characters run up walls and stuff like that, that just 'feel' wrong when you look at them. As if they are levitating in the air with magic as opposed to jumping.) It's hard for me to explain but it just feels wrong in live action to see it than it does in anime. It's the main reason that when you see Ryu do his hurricane kick in the animated movie, you can believe it would happen because of the way they him move gracefully and naturally as if they were really hovering on a cushion of air generated by thier own spinning kick and pay attention to how the other guy getting hit reacts to that kick and his whole body spins from the blow before he smashes to the ground with his whole body in a twisted mess. In a live action it just wouldn't look natural and convincing so they avoid doing it. This is why I like an animated medium because you can do stuff that you won't see in live action. The cyborg ninja guy, taking on a mech all by himself sounds ok, him jumping in the air at great height sounds ok, people dying dramatically and giving a big speech is fine, but just not for a live action medium where you expect a certain amount of realism you can believe is possible in the real world and not a pseudo realistic uiniverse that is perfectly acceptable in a comic book with comic book-like physics which emphases dramatic flair and style over realism. I can much more believe kusanagi moves like some acrobat in anime when she backflips up a staircase with minimum effort than I can in live action with a real person who has none of the balletic grace of a fictional 2d character. Resident evil is a perfect example of putting stuff where stuf doesn't belong. Everytime they show that bit where the girl jumps off the wall in slow motion and does a spinning kick to the dog, (something that didn't even happen in the game I might add) I get the feeling they are merely putting in these flashy bullet time sequences because they feel they have to for commercial reasons, not because it feels right to put something like that in there. It feels contrived. Mortal Kombat movie escapes this from the beginning because people can accept this is a fantasy martial arts movie where the characters have supernatural abilities (like how we can totally accept neo doing crazy stuff because he is inside the matrix and can't do it in real life) and the in-game characters are just digitised people. (not drawn with comic book style proportions like street fighter where people may have impossibly big hands, long ape like arms, exagerated features, moves that only look good in animated form - ie the psycho crusher)

Pics, and let us know what to look for. But I'm optimistic and think that if you give them a chance that the gradual improvements will be seen as they "learn". Which is why I recommend people to wait,(don't preorder so much without waiting for reviews first - think of all the shipping cost?) share your impressions, complain, (nitpick like a whiny bitch) and speak out so they can at least be presured to address any issues if they hear your voice loud enough so future people don't suffer too. The complaint could be something small like loose head turret (I got one of these on the VF1S Roy) but hopefully it will alert and inform others enough to at least make an informed purchase so they won't reel in shock. If enough people want something and bitch about it enough times and provided it is doable, (hips being improved in later 1/72 macross plus toy editions for example) they will get it. Being an early adopter is always risky. You sometimes are the one relied upon to eat the cost and help to eventually open up the gates for the masses who jump in later after all the early issues are looked into from the initial early complaints. (take massively multiplayer online gaming (MMORPG) as an example during the early days of Ultima Online. Are we not glad that this pioneered the way for all other mmorpg that came later, despite all the early problems experienced and that it was not perfect from the start?)

I'm just going to assume it is custom made VF1 stolen by space pirates who now can't use the skull and bones on the heat shield because people might think they are part of the skull squadron. They just paint thier whole valk black/grey to look scary for psycological reasons before killing you and leaving one messenger left alive to tell the story. The credit card valk is the leader, and these are the other members. I'm actually very tempted to get one, but just not right now when the 0S is out. (still also looking out for garland too) I bet I will eventually cave in though as I am a fan of black w grey scheme. lots of stuff out by yamato: GBP reissues garland (poseable pilot woot!) new LV new Stealth GBP v2 stands vf0s

Thx for the info. This is why I never preorder, pays to be a bit patient. I still have held onto my money for a VF0S because I definately still want it. (and a future A and possible D) I will wait for impressions from all you guys first though, since shipping costs is my main beef. Some pics of the things to look out for would be nice. There are some people who are just going to buy stuff and may not even inspect or open up the box.

Well I was kinda unsatisfied with the ending in SDF:Macross the same way I was kinda of unsatisfied with the ending in Macross Zero. (ie roy didn't beat the guy using his skill, and similarly in the original, minmay is left pretending she is happy that she lost the guy, so now she can't put her heart into her songs because she isn't in love. Just a sad girl who dies miserably because the ship she was on is lost, kind of like the sinking of the titanic.) With 50 eps they might be able to tell the "true" story, before it had to be shortened and then lengthened, flesh out the characters, tell us what happened after SW I, and maybe even add elements from DYRL. (show the scientists invesitagting the ASS1 crash, show flashbacks of the wars on earth after this, the undersea ruins and the constant racing between the anti-un for possesion of this info, show roys change from being against wars and his gradual (or sudden) change in attitude, maybe add more detail about who the supervision army were for people who have not read the compendium. etc Stuff that basically you can't go into enough detail in from an OVA. I think I wouldn't mind seeing global and admiral hayes in thier younger days for example. And maybe have global be more perverted like was mentioned in the commentary on the animeigo dvds )

Anyway it just seemed kinda sus that when gamlin wanted to find out about basara he was not allowed to find out this information easily and was blocked from doing so. What was the military hiding from Gamlin? Why block Gamlin from wanting to know something on this mysterious civilian who lives in a capsule stuck to the exterior of the macross 7? (note in macross 7 trash they point out this out - shouldn't he be in the inside of the shell where it is safe? He is obviously given special privledges that normal civilians aren't) And why is there no background info on him? I speculate that when Ray meets this starving kid on the street, he takes him into his care, and using his past connections is able to train this little kid how to fly. This is the secret of why basara is so good at flying. Makes sense to me. Yes I have no proof, but it is a strong possibility. The military could secretly be experimenting with new ways to deal with alien threats (by researching into this) but not publicly. (similar to how VF1 itself and its transformation was a secret project not known to the public) Basara is more than just a normal guy who sings in a band, he has uber skills that surpass the elite who are granted the best valks to fight with; skills almost as good as max, and gamlin is forced to admit this in one of the eps. I find it strange nobody questions how this can be without suspecting that maybe his ideals go beyond wanting to be famous like the other band members who always whined about not getting the gigs to boost thier image; and that he might be part of something that max already knew about from the start but it had to be kept secret from others in the military. Max mentions getting his children into music in the first episode, this is probably an indication that as was seen in SDF:macross, he really doesn't like to use violent methods and his thinking is closer to what Kaifun's thinking was. I mean Basara was way too preoccupied about why the music wasn't working on the new breed of alien to care about other stuff. Not all the people would have been in the know so I assumed information about who basara really is was deleted as we never see him in any flashback before he met Ray. He's a civilian but it's possibly a cover for something else. Maybe the commercial side to his music is one half, but the other half is his personal wish to use the music in a controlled way to affect the behaviour of aliens as a pacifying weapon. (a non evil method of mind control, kinda like the 'mind control' Sharon Apple used in macross plus, but whose aim is to heal rather than hypnotise) I just don't buy that a civilian would get access to a vf19 without some strings being pulled. It's the most advanced plane and basara is just a nobody, so the military must knowingly be providing the equipment, but making it look like they have no knowledge on the surface. So I think, the funding for the project must have been secret and this allowed Ray to use his aprentice to test his theories about using music as a mind control weapon and the findings to be used as future tacitcs against other aliens. (think about why kamjin didn't fall for the trick after prolonged exposure in SDF:macross. They might have wanted to know "why?" so they continued this research in secret to find the answers to perfect the weapon. Yes putting your "heart into it" might seem sorta cliche, but a team of scientists might want to know in greater detail what the ingredients are that create this energy to begin with: to cure disease, brainwash people to recreate what sharon apple did, or just for healing purposes, as they might have information from the PC about the use of music for different things other than entertainment)

I would argue that aliens is still horror, but unlike the first which was horror/science fiction, this was horror/science fiction/war. I still consider aliens a horror movie but close to a war movie in that people died, there was no glorifying of death or a "hero". Action to me suggests "stunts". When I think action: I think rambo, diehard, and commando and terminator 2. If ripley started kicking the aliens around using fancy moves like the guy in Pitch black, then I would call it an action movie. Sure there were guns and explosions and the typical stuff you might see in an action movie. But those weapons were merely to show that in a science fiction movie with a setting in space, we have newer more high tech futuristic toys to play with. They were required to give the feeling of humans wanting to get 'revenge' on the alien. In no way was it presented as "here comes the hero to save us" like mad max, or robocop. There was no one fighting for justice and beating down a bad guy. I think it is wrong to say it was an action movie. And I don't think it was 'trying to be cool' the way something like starship troopers movie was. I was as horrified in aliens (if not more than alien) at the sight of groups of them closing in on the marines who had limited amounts of ammo, no supplies, limited time, and gruesome deaths. (being cocooned and having your chest burst open) Nope it was not an 'action' movie. There were no real big one-liners or flashy death moves or comedic deaths poking fun at the people that are going to be killed. It was horror. The tone was serious, and the twists and surprises had you shitting your pants and at the edge of your seat right until the end. For some people thier scairest horror movie was "Jaws", for me it was aliens. Because it felt like a realistic depiction of a futuristic war. At no point when watching aliens did I think the violence was merely put there "to be cool", but to genuinely make you scared. Whatever action was there, was done in a non-heroic way: no single hero taking on the odds and easily coming out of it ok riding off into the sunset. More often than not people were dying and being slaughtered barely able to survive, and just happy to come out alive, more like a real war. By breaking this formula, aliens brought something new to the table to make it even better than the original it was based on. Giving us a bigger badder threat (queen alien), showing something a bit different (humans with proper weapons this time with a bit more knowledge) and a constant sense of fear even with weapons. (ripley goes from being traumatised in the beginning with nightmares, to being confident due to the marines explaining how thier superior tech will make everything ok, ..to being frightened again after everything goes bad and the humans suffer heavy casualties, low morale after getting thier ass kicked, and panicking that they are doomed to die when all of thier confidence is taken from them and they are left isolated and alone.)

If only macrss zero had gone under the radar the way mac + did. Maybe there would be a big fanbase for macross zero and more legit purchases for the dvd due to that dvd's exposure to people who don't understand japanese. (and ordinarily have to resort to fansub?) The profits made this due to fans purchasing legit dvds, could then go into making more of the goodness. But now fans suffer because of the blocking. They need to remake macross with all new variable fighting mecha and just call it something else. joking only.

See that's what devastor should be like in the transformer movie.

I would rather an animated movie. I can't imagine the fight between that cyborg ninja guy and the metal gear translating well to live action. He jumps into the air and flips around and stuff - much cooler to see in a pseudo realistic anime setting where all kinds of crazy stuff is allowed to happen. (ie people telling thier life story before dying, having flash backs, us caring for the bad guy because they had a horrible childhood experience, all the usual anime cliches) When the resident evil movie came out and they had milla doing the off-the-wall jump kick on that dog, and the dodging of those lasers, I thought: that is so videogamish. Now when you watch an anime movie like say Ghost in the shell and you see kusanagi doing her acrobatic flips and dodges to get away from the four legged tank shooting her, that is acceptable in animated form because it damn well looks cool. But in a movie you wouldn't want those kind of thing to happen. But that is why I like animation in the first place. All kinds of crazy stuff can happen including videogamish actions and flashy moves. Case in point: Streefighter II You didn't really see guile do his sonic boom on bison in the live action movie because it would have looked damn well silly. But in the animated movie I can totally accept it, because if you think about it, we are all used to those kinds of super moves from watching shows like dragon ball and reading comics. Mortal Kombat was ok because the videogame has a basis in reality with the sprited being live motion video of people. There is a delicate balance between retaining the things that made the game cool, and not doing things that a movie-going audience who is not familiar with the game, would find silly.

Well they do make a toy that is for a hardcore fan. Without fans: who to sell to? I actually stumbled on info about the 1/48 by coming here. It made me into a convert to the religion. Now how much impact it would have is a matter of degree. In the grand scheme of things I doubt it makes that big a difference but when you multiply that by hundreds of people, and sometimes each person buying multiples of the same stuff, that all has to count for something. Does "US" only refer to macross world? Or yamato valk fans on other toy boards too?

It's not the point. I agree that the old is a quality show. Just that a remake doesn't necessarily have to be bad. It could in fact improve on something that has gone before. It's not the quality reasons why an anime fan won't watch something, just that they might be too young and impatient to bother about wanting to see it because they are too busy watching what's current. (ie little kid who prefers to see gundam seed vs MSG for example) Maybe later they will seek recommendations from others about classic series, do some more research, but given it is something 20+ years in the past, can you blame them? Sorry didn't mean to derail the thread.

Remakes don't have to be crap if handled with care. See Batman Begins and DYRL. (essentially an alternate retelling of SWI) Even look to newer versions of cartoons like teenage mutant ninja turtles. Older doesn't automatically mean better. And for people who are scared: just continue to watch the old. Nothing will stop you getting the older macross DVDs. Look at astroboy as an example. You can still see the older version tv series if you don't like the newer one. Ain't choice nice? And what about shows like macross plus? You telling me that you wouldn't crap your pants if they could refine some of the mecha battles in a modern tv series to look like what you see at the start of that OVA? (ie when they are fighting those rogue zents. I've seen some nice smooth animation in eureka 7, rahxephon and other mecha shows that I wish could be done for a remade macross.) The original wasn't perfect. There were mistakes, (disapearing objects) horrible faces (in some of the animefriend eps) and parts that weren't explained to us (who the supervision army were) in enough detail. *sighs* That was explained in macross 7 by the fact that the characters themselves were a rock group who wanted to have a fancy and flashy design to get attention while they were up there in space as everyone watched them. As for pointy noses, yeah I can agree with that. I really didn't like that in macross plus everyone's face looked the same.

The stealth kinda grows on you over time. At first I had issues with the patchiness but it doesn't look too bad and the grey breaks up the black. The black does make it look evil. I wonder if the next (if there is any) batch of non-canon schemes uses a 1S head? VF1B in tv cannon fodder color (and tv fast packs) for example?

Macross is pretty ancient, so nobody will watch it, unless you were a fan to begin with. But if they were to remake it with updated animation, a newer generation would get into it. Kinda like how some people won't watch black and white movies. They would rather see something new.

Big motherf*cking box. You would think there was a GBP in there as well.

Yeah it's always a good idea to wait. Same with game consoles. I ended up rushing to get my xbox when it first launched all those years ago, and realise that because I had a thompson drive (mainly in early models) that I was going to be having problems down the long path. Similar with the GBA, I hated the dark screen (realising this might be a compromise for having long battey life) but couldn't be bothered buying the newer model and spending more money on the same thing. (even though I wanted one) Same thing with software: Waiting until all the bugs have been found by people and proper patches before delving into it. And for me toys are no different: I like to hear many different opinions on these from people who have owned other toys. So now I have 'wait and see' policy. (I never preorder games, buy game consoles on launch day, see movies on opening night etc) I do hope for example that issues on the GBP are worked out from feedback by people with problems putting missiles in. Although only nitpicks, I do take note of all these issues because I've always been nitpicky and wanted a 'flawless' version. By taking note of the delicate parts I can hope to avoid snapping some part off because of a mistransformation, or from being careless and not paying attention to pieces that are under a lot of stress. (eg the little tabs on the VB6 Konig monster.) It's always a good idea to wait and take notes of what to look out for. Even the 1/48 is not flawless and if you are not careful, and have fast packs, you can easily snap off a hinge. Hopefully we at least get a 1A. Wouldn't be hard to put improvments into that if there were any probs or issues in the 1S.

I always think the gold in harmony gold refers to them given macross fans a golden shower. Oh and about talking about macross, you can do that on rtech forums, but you can't talk about toys that are not the toynami branded ones. That's one of the reasons I ended up here. I couldn't even talk about banpresto valks. (must be huge threat to the MPC at the time )

I think this movie should be made for a newer generation of fan. People not familiar with the 80s g1. But at the same time have some homages to g1. I'm glad they are all vehicles though. Megatron as a tank is a good thing, but I'm a little disapointed devastator isn't a giant like we all remember. So long as they keep with the theme of the 'the bad guys having the advantage in power over the good guys', I will be happy. The decepticons should have the fighters and tanks, while autobots are mainly innocent cars in keeping with thier name. (who may build up defence later to counter - ie jetfire, dinobots etc )

Is shadow chronicles even real?

It's mainly because I'm more a fan of the vehicles and machines. I don't know, organic robots have never really appealed to me that much. The idea of a transforming into a animal is not as cool as a car imo. It's just more cheesy in my mind. As a toy, I like that robots can be disguised as things we can identify with in the real world but hide thier parts and be useful at the same time. This is the appeal of G1 for me. Yes I am aware that cybertron was thier home planet and that originally they all had alt modes before they came to earth, but from the perspective of a person buying the toy I (I'm not saying you have to) prefer when those alt modes are not fictional vehicles, becuase I like that I can transform the bot into a mode that acts as a disguise or is useful. When I say disguise I don't mean a disguise to the fictional aliens in that planet, I mean as a TOY, a person will look at an alternator, see it, and go "WOW I had no idea this was a transformer, the disguise really fooled me into thinking this was just a toy car/truck/plane/tank... whatever" I was just saying that to me personally, the fact that the robot was modelled off a real vehicle adds value to it. It's cool to know that you can leave a robot in alt mode and not tell if it is just an ordinary vehicle just by looking at it. That does not mean fictional alt modes suck, just that the appeal for me is when they put lots of effort into making that toy really complex just to be accurate.