1/1 LowViz Lurker

Well if the zents are scared of the protodevlin. and We kicked the Protodevlin asses with song energy and have controlled thier minds thanks to basara's music. Then the zentradi are no threat. We have the reaction weapons (nukes) the ability to repair, and culture. As well as basara, transforming valks, and max and milia and the ability to think. Remember how surprised the zentradi were at the start of SDF:Macross about reaction weapons? If they make a new macross ova I hope it follows on from what we saw in M7 and M Zero. The humans are the peace bringers fixing stuff. And the PC were the ones to wreck stuff. There is no one left to fight since the PC are extinct now or near extinct unless there are still living out there and we get a situation like space battleship yamato and they come to earth to finish us off. (we were supposed to have died by the hands of procacha the god in the mayan islanders' legend) The only thing that can kill humans are a race of aliens with godlike fighting powers who can tap into the other dimensions and materialise the thoughts with thier minds to create stuff. Unlike the priestess on the island, it is not magic that 'costs' anything though. It will probably be something not too disimilar to the 'wish granting' treasure you see in outlaw star. (this would be the reward for merging all races as one and uniting the universe into a peaceful community again after a cycle of destruction caused by the zentradi.) What happened when milia and max got married and had a half breed kid was sort of like what will happen between all the alien races as it introduced new combinations of beings. The only problem is what I think will happen is humans having inherited PC technology will try to control all other races and we become like the evil empire in star wars. As a result of this we humans make war with ourselves because we can never agree on anything and this brings out extinction. And the cycle repeats with whatever next race finds out about us through the ruins we left.

Actually Starcraft takes a lot of the idea from aliens. The terrans remind me of the colonial marines. The Protoss remind me of predator. And the zerg are like the aliens because they mutate. (or have evolved stages of growth) When I first played it the memory of aliens and predator movies came into my head. And they don't even hide some of the references either. (the dropship voice is so identifiable from aliens, the ED209 voice for the mecha is so familiar from robocop, and the captain global voice for the ship with the main gun has to be obvious for robotech people.) Blizzard should make the AvP movies. Jurrassic park movies were my fix for action/suspense. When the effects for the dinos was first shown, that made me pee my pants. The only problem is I don't think it is as all out scary as aliens or predator. Like in pred you see the alien actually rip the brain and spinal cord from the body and skin the victims. The aliens rip from the person's chest. What do raptor's do? They chase, like the aliens, and are very fast, but for some reason not as violent as the other two movies. Maybe with all the remakes they've done: they should remake the first aliens vs predator movie.

That's a B1 secret!

But Baldy would be like a ruthless dictator or something imo. So his death is like the key that makes the soldiers lose confidence because they are too dumb to know how to anything themselves. Some of them would want to be loyal like in gundam how you have the zabi loyalists, and maybe you have factions that are more rebellious. (remember kamjin was an exception to the norm since he was a bit crazy and didn't respect the higher ups and went against orders and stuff) The rebels would be like kamjin who didn't help thier own guys on the final battle. (he stepped out didn't he? I bet there are some like him that would just "like killing" because it is in thier genes as opposed to following orders) The 'zabi loyalists' would be the organised ones. But they would still be less knowledgeable then baldy because baldy mentioned that him revealing information was 'not to leave the room'. Like it was meant to be secret and that higher ups hide stuff from the noobs. His defeat would be a loss of information and destroy the fear the obedient ones had. If the noobs have too much info they might be a threat. (kind of like the clone soldiers in PT star wars only bred for one purpose and not bred to think independantly) One of the interesting things about kamjin is that by going against orders he became even more threatening than normal 'obedient' zentradi who are just ordered to die needlesly by thier leaders. Yeah ok so he is a 'backstabber' but he led the attack on the sdf1 so that makes him far more dangerous imo These are probably the ones that are able to cause the most probs. I think of a "rogue" as being like the sneaky cunning survivor who cares more about themselves than thier own men and will break rules. Maybe you could split rogues into two types: -honourable ones that were loyal to thier guy at the top. They will either suck up, or just be loyal to them for comfort reasons with no independant thought. No ambition to lead at all or observe what thier leader is doing, so long as they can stay in the position they are in as a servant. -cunning ones that use the system to thier advantage to increase thier power (ie like they are all too ready to fuq over the gorrilla at the top to take his place and have that control for themselves) Given that kamjin is a guy who kills his own, will backstab anyone, he is 'rogue' in the corrupt sense. I bet there are lots of these types after baldy's death (due to a struggle to be the one in power?) but they are more like they want to do stuff that is self serving, rather than organised. Think starscream from the decepticons in transformers. How many times was he trying to make Megatron look like an idiot in front of the others so he could lead? Now if megatron were to Die, do you think people would have soundwave as leader who can barely think for himself or generate an original thought of his own? Now I think that a majority of the aliens once they found out thier leader was gone, no longer felt any fear to follow orders, and were also scared that they lost SW I, so they just ran off. UN SPACY is king and just needs to mop up the rest. This is what isamu is fighting: random faceless zentradi from SW I who is either scared that he will be killed by his own leader due to contamination, or scared of micron culture because he heard about how minmay defeated them with it as some kind of secret weapon.

Especially in shows like gundam where the TF is more like robot lying down. The cool thing about vehicles, is because they are machines as well, you appeal to the fan of that vehicle (car nuts) as well as fans of science fiction. (could a robot really be made to drive the vehicle by itself? Why not? ) But when you say: "they live on an alien planet and they are alien vehicles" it opens up the possibilty that the vehicles are just there for half assed reasons and the toy designers can make up any excuse. Example: if the aliens can fight in humanoid form, what advantage would there be in turning into another object? There wouldn't be. So now we don't have to put as much thought into the complexity of the transformation because we don't have to make an alt mode accurate to any real life thing. In the cartoon (or was it the comic?) it made sense the computer (teletran 1?) thought cars were the 'alien' lifeforms so creating robots that look like 'aliens' as a disguise, was a beneficial trick. Not only could you take advantage of what that the machine's purpose was (example the constucticons are acutally useful as construction vehicles and are seen being used) but natives would not get suspicious. The good guy robots could then go to any planet to hide from the decepticons (note how the autobots are like a resistance that has to go underground?) and fight both 1. with the advantages of being machines that can get work done efficiently, and 2. without those people giving clues to enemy where they are. (becuase they are disguised amongst common objects in that world. Making it easier to stay hidden. Although in the cartoon this rarely happened, as a toy it works when people see it and don't realise that the toy is a robot in disguise - the alternators really do look like ordinary car models on the outside.) For me the diguise element (and the fact that they were machines) was what made it cool. You can have a transforming "alien tree", or a transforming "alien" monster, but where is the usefulness in that as a toy which transforms to look like an object another person sees as a disguise and is actually fooled by it? You'd want to transform into something that can be used and stuff. (that doesn't mean the insides have to be functional parts and mimmick the real thing, but that on the outside at least you will not be seen to attract attention or give away your position to an enemy) This is why I didn't like Beast wars. I don't mind beasts amoungst the machines to break up the team and introduce some variety, but not as a "theme" (like everyone is a beast). The dinobots were mainly cool because dinosaurs are a "cool" animal and deadly real life animals, than because kids necessarily think robots are better as beasts rather than vehicles/machines. You look at Grimlock as a dumb dinosaur with no intelligence becuase he is like this big dumb animal. If grimlock is a car that personality of a Giant imposing T-Rex is lost. You don't look at grimlock in car mode as this "big dumb animal" who goes into a rage and gets out of control and won't listen to commands when he is turned into a machine. So It's not that I'm against beasts if thought has also gone into the characters and thier personality as well. I'm also not saying that as a tv series the story of beast wars was not good, or that the toyline itself was poor quality, but that the concept of prime as a truck IMO is more appealing to me than prime as an ape. Mainly because I like the idea that a robot transforms into something cool or "useful". (like jetfighters are cool cuz they would fly in the air, a construction vehicle can be used, a cassette can be used to record for spy purposes, a gun can be held to actually shoot people, cars can be used to actually drive to a place with little fuss etc)

I could be wrong but I think it would be cooler if they had just been unorganised aliens who wanted to stick to warrior pride. So losing SW I against microns was humiliating and like kamjin they all decided to go into the wild. (not necessarily hunting microns but more like "we are bored, lets just kill them for fun" kind of thing.) I thought that maybe baldy was like the king of the lot since he was so damn big. Bigger than Britai. Once the ape was killed the others were free to do what they wanted to. And notice how he is like the only guy in the whole tv series that knows about the history of microns? Without thier leader they are like grade school children because they were bred for obedience weren't they? Even though kamjin was a threat, he still was pretty dumb and uncivilised (until he lived with humans for a while) so I think the rogue zentradi are kinda like that. They got lots of power but not much inteligence or organisation and don't see our superior knowledge as a big deal. Like massive Barbarians who have the might and knowledge to be good at fighting but too dumb to lead themselves.

Ah but he lives in a portion of the macross 7 that is not inside the ship where all the other civilians live so he can't be an ordinary civilian. It's kinda strange because it is right there exposed to the danger. I thought this might mean they "knew" him, and that black guy's (who has connections to the military from his past) wanted to fight in a different way, and so max, (being upset in the first tv series that he was firing on milia's own people) saw that it was "wrong" to take advantage of mind controlled aliens by going full force. (shooting to kill) So given max high position, Ray's conections (was a member of pink pecker) and basara's singing (which max encourages his daughters to take up) you could say he was involved in a secret part of the military. (fighting to persuade) Enough that they would grant him custom vf19. Do you not think it is strange that basara a civilian was given state of the art vf19 while thier "elite" were using those vf17? Come on! And why would the military not see that what it was out there is a VF19 and not be surprised enough? Max must have approved and known about it. Basara would have to be an idiot to think he could just fly a state of the art vf19 if he was alone with no help from the military (secretly). No normal civilian is going to just fly out into space with a valk in the middle of a battle. But basara was "allowed" to. Cuz max secretly didn't want to resort to killing his enemy. (similar theme in kenshin where the hero has the ability to kill but realises it is wrong no matter the circumstances) I think that Ray might have even trained him because basara was just a street kid when they met. And guess what? There are no details on his past. Sounds like the military erased the file or something. So there is more going on then what you see on the surface. Similar to how global acted a little bit strange in SDF:Macross when the report revealed man's similarity to aliens. (must have known about all the stuff that went on in macross zero? Otherwise Global would have a more surprised look on his face) I think where you are confusing things is where basara disagrees with the other part of the military that wants to "use" him as the distraction as a dog that follows thier order rather than him choosing how he wants to to the job. (He still wants the freedom to be a civilian you see) Because those other guys don't understand him. They are the most likely to just want to use nukes when things don't go thier way. Oh BTW Macross II rox!1!11 There. We are on topic.

Exactly. And they could make them super posable (but don't deform them) because they are simpler mecha. Definately make those knees completely bendable. For destroid: they could include little accessories like the baton for the spartan For zentradi male power armor: posable hands to hold guns Regult: have detachable weapons: (ie missile pack) I've always wanted to have like a bunch of those regult in dramatic poses in a group. Maybe one Glaug in the front. For the Glaug: include a glaug booster. Maybe for UN spacy they could do those fighters in the ARMD that got thier asses kicked at the start of the show.

I agree with that. What they should do is make the cardboard box very thick but make the box smaller. Ah, well. Looking forward to reading reviews of this. I can't see much reason it would be any more delicate than the 1/48. As for the plastic complaint: if it were up to me I would force yamato to make all thier toys plastic. Don't get me wrong, I like heavy toys too like the Masterpiece prime, but even that has flaws from the added weight. And given how easy the paint chips (yf21) I would rather the saving go to improving other stuff. (when gbp/reactive armor is added for example, it will be pretty punishing on the joints I imagine) The only thing I hope they take into consideration is joint stiffness. I didnt mind that the Qrau was plastic, so much that mine can get loose hips so it might be hard to keep it standing without deliberately leaning the thing forward. Now imagine for example if the legs were diecast? If you want to pose yours with its legs spread out using one of those stands to make it look like it is flying in space, (but its body is tilted at a dramatic angle to give an impression of speed) I imagine that the legs would droop down towards the ground all the time because of the weight, limiting posability. Some people like to have thier robots doing more than just standing up on the ground on two legs. (although most galleries I've seen never really pose them "floating in space")

I'm not that big a fan of the 1/72 M+ stuff. It's why I hope we get a new line of macross plus toys maybe in larger form with better quality. But since they are the only M+ toys for now, it is not like we are spoilt for choice. I think the 1/72 vf11 with fast pack is the best out of the three.

*shrugs shoulders* It doesn't really matter to me the origin of the pics so long as they are new pics. We are all going to get it eventually. For those groaning about the price and how it is only 1/60 scale, I hope somebody eventually puts the 1/48 vf1 and 1/60 vf0s side by side to silence them and show they are roughly the same size.

thx for the pics. Looks great. So jealous. How does it compare to the 1/48 vf1? Stiff wrists? Is there clearance between the gunpod and ground in fighter mode? How does it looke next to all the 1/60 vf1 and the Qrau?

I liked the aliens. I like the preds. I like space marines. I don't want the movies to be horror. I want war. What they need to do is make a trilogy of movies (like LOTR) where there is like a war between the three and we the audience are along for the ride seeing it from all three perspectives. What are the orders being given from each side? What are the tactics they use to beat each other? Who are the main characters or heroes on each side. And what are they actually fighting for? The preds I can imagine as just that: hunter warrior types with a code that must be followed. (they choose melee weapons and poo) Aliens are like intelligent animals with no technology but breed and sneak aboard to "infest" a planet until they have farted up all the native lifeforms where ever they go. They are like pests, that can't completely be wiped out. Like a cockroach infestation. Only hang out at night ("monsters mostly come out at night..mostly" ) and will creep everywhere. Because of superior numbers they can ambush and swarm you. Humans are just that: corrupt, wanting to "capture" the aliens for profit and turning agianst thier own kind (no honour or code here ), thinking they are the the poo, but too reliant on the tools and infrastructure. (we have to set poo up before it is safe which means we are slow. And when our supply line is cut off we are farted) They should have made a trilogy of movies. I disgree with death hammer that aliens wasn't scary cause it had "Action". That action was an excuse to see a massacre. (not a fight) The aliens were ten times more menacing when they actually move like animals and leap at you and swarm you and poo. Aliens = vietnam in space. And yes you do see more aliens, but weren't you scared shitless when they had a room full of the aliens and the marines are using thier motion trackers and wondering where the fuq they are and the aliens come out of the walls? If anything, aliens was even more claustrophobic than the first.

Well I think it might be important for cars with only two modes. Who wants a car that doesn't look like one? It's supposed to be a disguise so it should look real in true spirit of the G1 show. This is one of the reasons I like alternators. The detail, and that when it is in vehicle mode, it looks like a real model car and transforms into a cool robot. The thing about transformation in the transformers is that if they choose to do more fictional stuff, where the bots becomes non-existant vehicles that no one can identify, it means they can kinda invent whatever vehicle they want and explain it away much more easily. (like cheat a litte bit) I think the disguise thing is what makes the TF universe "cool". Sort of like how in a james bond movie sometimes you have a vehicle armed with secret gadgets and weapons inside them, but on the outside it can fool normal people. In macross it is a different story: transformations actually affect the potential of the vehicle. Without alternate modes, you can't fight as well in on the ground in fighter as you would in battroid mode etc. The transformation lets pilots adapt to the situation. Whereas in TF the 'disguise' thing is more important. The aliens want to blend in with the environment and not be seen. (I find that a cool concept too. Enough that I would much prefer the TF toys to be and look like realistic vehicles that don't show any sign they are robots and really hide stuff well enough to fool anyone looking on the outside) If they are robots they should ultimately not complain what form they can take. so transformation should not be any more a burden than having humanoid form. But the realism helps me to imagine that the concept of using transformation as a true disguise, is really possible, and adds to the value of the toy.

The lineart of MP03 looks nice. The face is just like in the movie. If they do a jetfire with incredible amount of detail, I am so going to buy it. As a kid it was the only transformer I wanted above optimus prime. And when you think about it, he is significant just because the poor autobots are short on air power against the decepticons so he stands out so much.

I don't own any PG kits myself, but would love to see a model with its detail. The pic could have been from any PG kit from any series, but my point was: "please make it like dis" (in spirit of the Fast packs)

Cool. Will there be a shiny gold "hyaku shiki" VF1 custom next?

I think 1/100 would be fun for all kinds of mecha. Things that I would not consider buying in bigger scales I would like to see in 1/100. For example a simple zentradi fighter pod would be a good start. Does not transform, (no risk of parts not fitting nicely together) doesn't look like it would break easily based on its shape, and not many moving parts (apart from the landing gear things on the underside), so no risk of 'loose limbs' that you get with robots. You could have a mock space battle between 1/100 vf1 and these. (there always has to be a bad guy to fight) I would buy stuff like this in small scale because although they don't seem very important, (the valk is the real star of the mecha show) when placed next to other stuff like the vf1, it just makes for nice overall display. And the matching scale and cheap price makes the toy more easily collectible for people who want a variety of things. The way I figure, I really wouldn't want a highly detailed fighter pod the way I want a detailed valk, since in the show it didn't really look like a complex machine that required one anyway.

Model looks good. As I said before: I know it will never happen but if bandai made perfect grade macross kits with the same attention to detail they put into gundam, I would so buy it. Vf1, VF0, yf19, whatever. One aspect I like about the fast pack on the vf1 was how you could see into the guts of the thing by removing the outside frame. Kinda like here where you can display and see the mechanical stuff inside: ...but the difference is unlike the kits we have now, the thing transforms like the yamatos. Even if it were just destroids, it would be really cool.

What I mean is the character Basara was deeper than ordinary musicians. His mission in life was getting aliens to understand him not just being famous and just wanting riches like normal people. You'll note he half didn't care what other band members thought of fire bomber not being sucessful at first. If you as a firebomber fan didn't understand him for example it's not like the character minded if you became a fan of someone else. Secretly he was working for the military, but choosing his own way to go about achieving what he set out to do. (he wasn't just a member of fire bomber remember. He was good enough to kick anyone's ass in a normal valk armed with weapons but was a kind of special branch max used, to see if there were a non-violent way to convert aliens to our side. He was a civilian but the way they let him do what he wanted, was as if max wanted him to succeed so they didn't need to use the nasty stuff to kill people) Once he achieved that he was happy. For basara just waking up sivil was more important and higher priority to him than just getting into the top forty. The music was more a means to an end to achieve that goal of getting aliens pacified, than because he wanted to be a star. What does this have to do with "expanding" on the idea? Well it goes into a bit more depth because it means music isn't just diversion tactic but an actual power that affects people in specific ways (healing, waking up, attacking, trapping them etc) that requires a specific person with a specific skill to have any affect. (ie anima spiritua seems mainly unique to basara, and without his presence on the battlefield - as opposed to sending a singing hologram - it won't work) Yeah minmay was fascinating for a while in the first tv series, but they try to go into more detail about the "why?" it works. Even if it is psuedo scientific, it is still trying to flesh out the idea and explain why it might not always work. (people's emotion during the song not being sent outwards to affect the listener. Shown as basara's song energy being represented by glowing power of a certain color around the body) There was no energy like that in the previous series. So it feels like it is "growing" on the idea rather than repeating something.

ahah Everytime I see the thread: "New pics of yamato VF-0S" I can't help thinking there must be new pics. So when I come in here and find none, I feel this urge to reply to the thread, which boots the thread back up again and the cycle repeats.

Well I'm just saying: with regards to UC for example. Don't you find it kinda unrealistic that people would fight a war forever and ever and ever and ever with no central government to finally control it all through peace or through force? When I say all, I mean everything. For me one of the things I liked about gundam wing was how in the story operation meteor almost resulted in the loss of freedom for everyone on the planet AND everyone in space due to one guy just trying to dominate everything. It felt like this big epic with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Not "lets fight over race, kill each other, shake hands for a bit, and start the war again without learning our lesson". I'm just saying that if the humans fight, why not have them finally reach a point where a single side manages to overpower the other, and the focus is on another threat? Kinda like in LOTR where of course there are like racial hatred between the various people (elves not getting on with dwarves, hobbits hiding in thier holes, men not helping out each other out of pride and then resenting each other and holding grudges and stuff) but there was a common enemy that threatened the very existance of ALL those people. (ie the big bad orcs) The world is much richer when you show greater range of things for the people to fight about rather than the same thing: newtype vs oldtype. (or variations of the same idea in AU shows) It would be as if in macross the UNG ALWAYS reaching a stalemate with the anti-un and the anti un always stealing the technology and mainting exactly a 50 percent strength with the UNG and never straying from this for like hundreds of years. No begining, middle or end. No decisive victory, or one side forced to have its history written by the victors and have to accept defeat. (they got it right with the star war trilogy by showing a rise of an empire, and a defeat of the empire which feels like it has a permanent or semi-permanent long-lasting effect) Ok so they don't have to bring in aliens then. The suggestion of bringing in an alien race has more to do with my wish to see much bigger variation in mecha design and a "struggle to catch up" scenario more than caring about seeing them in a gundam show. (its a reaction against seeing so many similar looking mecha in seed destiny)

Cool. Do you have a website of everything you did so we can all keep up to date and download it? Maybe you could do some 1/100 macross destroids to go with the VB6 Monster?

but why are they dying? poor sales from lack of interest or poor management?

All I know is that if there were a macross III, and it followed the exact same path and gave the exact same message (I don't care if there are different character doing it) I would be disapointed. I stick by my belief that a sequel should expand upon what has already been said, what has already been done in the past. Otherwise it has a cash cow feel to it. Like macross plus has the theme of music that saves the day, but it is done in such a way that you could say it doesn't repeat the overall style of the past shows. The AI isn't an alien, it is a creation of our own people. In macross 7, it was'nt the music itself, the message was how you need to put your heart into a performance to transmit the feeling of a song to the people listening. (it goes beyond the "we need to spread culture" idea, and tries to flesh out the "why it works" reason behind music, even going so far as to have a scientist explore the effect of it on people, plants etc) In the OT star wars: were introduced to the "force" In PT they expanded on this and gave us some extra depth: introducing us to the midicloren idea. What I mean is a sequel should be able to give us all that stuff we loved but not just clone the message from the first, but instead give us more, go into more depth, let us see its origins, let us see something we may not have already known before. You know what I am saying. Yes I agree the mechas are different (how could they not be?), Yes the characters are new people (it's the future FFS), yes by this time they are using new ships and not the ancient SDF1 (really do you expect them to not advance at all? this was the very first time the humans built one, and for me seeing it getting destroyed was not THAT big a shock to me or even the characters in the story given how obsolete it was) and yes I agree there were "enough difference" from the original (me calling it a "clone" is more reffering to the basic concept not the whole show - sorta like how you could say gundam seed is 'clone' of the ideas in MSG) that you could still enjoy watching it. I've already said I am a FAN of macross II, but from a critical viewpoint, its the same thing that was done before. I'm just saying that if they were to do it again: (have humans on earth, have new aliens come to beat us to a pulp, have a girl sing a song and all is better) it would be a wasted opportunity to do something else that we weren't expecting. I gave my idea for a sequel being the "counterpoint" to the original and think it would have been really appropriate and much more interesting. (why? because in the tv series the singing didn't beat kamjin, it goes into more depth than the movie) So what they could have done was work that idea into the whole "UN SPACY is complacent" idea. Have the singer sing the damn love song, have some of the aliens realise that on first hearing it, it was a shock but that shock still won't change the fact that we need good pilots and soldiers to fight these bad guys or we get a repeat of kamjin ramming his ship into a city and killing innocent lives and bombing people in a revenge attack. And then the message could be: "humans can't be wusses or we'll all die. Singing only goes so far". The problem is after the events of Macross II what if people see that ishstar sang a song again, and get even more complacent? Seeing even less need to worry? Maybe the civilians are thinking: the military is so incompetent that really what is the point of fighting? The song saved us twice in a row already. I didn't feel any safer from having these people there because they didn't change thier tactics from last time." We only saw it from the feelgood "love song" viewpoint, but not the other viewpoint of soldiers getting whupped from repeating mistake of the past and not learning new tricks. So there was no noticeable change in human attitude towards the threat of another attack like that which would make us tougher. All we saw was the sappy and sweet ending from DYRL. No images of humans learning thier lesson. In macross 7 we did see an expansion of the ideas. We got answers to origins of culture (going to the first culture's ruins to reinforces the idea that we were the good guys fighting for peace rather than just out to save our skin) and that music alone isn't enough. It is the energy behind the singer putting thier feelings into it as much as the song itself which changes people's behaviour. Sure all the other talented singers could copy, but were they really singing in songs they created and believed in enough to say that this was about something they themselves were saying in the music, based on an experience they had, and not someone else just manufacturing it for them so it feels contrived or forced for commercial reason or to make a buck?