1/1 LowViz Lurker

People kept saying it was too long though. I didn't feel it was that bad. Once you get used to the idea that it's more than just an action movie you won't notice it.

Do you think they will do the black Ride Armor?

You getting one?

Cammy's head in that street fighter statue look too coneheaded imo. I think she should have a rounder head. It's Dan who has a tallish face like that.

It was just an isolated incident after all then? So far it says 3 broken, 2 not broken but a complaint. For all the guys with broken ones, could you all post your pics so we know what broke? Was going to get a Roy VF-1S with FP. I might get these later on: roy vf1s with strike cannon, movie max with FP, (so I can have him fighting with Qrau) hikaru 1J (with gbp) and vf-1D. I wonder what non-canon schemes yamato will come up with for this line? Alaska base valks?

Because in cyberpunk movies it's usually dark and dystopian. The reason I didn't like T2's tone as much as T1's tone was that T1 had that blade runner feel to it that technology is taking control of people's lives, machines are making humans obsolete, poor people who don't want to be part of a cybernetic race to perfection having to survive in a materialistic society that dehumanises people and devalue the human spirit. I like it when technology is not perfect. I like it when future shows the disadvantages of living in such a society, so that there is an excuse to tell a story between the two sides. I like it when the main characters are forced to question whether what they are doing is in fact the right thing. (ie in appleseed for example where duenan actually thinks hard about it, and realises that maybe humans deserve the "right" to make mistakes and learn from it themselves without interference. It's their mistake to learn, it may have a "spiritual growth" aspect to it: they you can grow from it. Or in "Gatacca" where there is a perfect society and people are judged only on genes not on human potential where people can dream and go after the dream, or in "Equilibrium" where just because one madman thinks you can have peace through drugging people, it is best solution to everything forgetting that humans 'feeling' is what makes us human and we don't need 'fixing'.) No I don't assume an artificial life form can't be budha just that I don't like a movie where it is not grounded in social problems with the technology's usage. You need to have strong conflict that shows good balance. You can have advantages (as I mention in astro boy where society is more efficient with the help of the machines) and disadvantages (that because of the humans having problem competing with the robot they now feel threatened so like an endangered species they have to fight them for their share of the world) of trying to make perfect things. These are what make for good stories, and bring realistic social issues to sci fi to legitimise it with audiences that aren't concerned only with how things work. Don't think that just because something is aimed at teenagers it must be dumb and stupid. Many teens are going to be growing up in a society with the technology in their lives. So the world might not be the same as the one the older generation is living in now. They might be facing different issues/problems from the adults of today who never had to think hard about it. By the time they become adults, they might be the ones making sci fi for the next gen that warns of new problems facing their future. With cyberpunk what makes me like it, is the paranoia, the darker feel of it (similar to how in batman you don't have him run around during the day but hiding in the shadows to fight the underworld) the more cynical tone. (the misuse of technology by humans to control others - ie in bubblegum crisis or patlabor where the mass produced robots can be used by bad guys to cause problems. They are not just shown to be beneficial but also deadly weapons just like any other machines like guns or bombs can be misused to cause harm to innocents) If you want your machines to act nice and friendly, and cold and calculating and plotting, that's fine. But that's imo just not as cool as ones that can ALSO fight as ordinary humans like what the terminator is (unthinking mechanical zombie being manipulated by its programming like a person forced to perform a contract killing without caring about the thing it is about to kill in order to carry out the task efficiently where emotions won't get in the way) In T2 I highlighted that AL allows for a terminator to question itself and think for itself (like us humans) and that the only reason arnie couldn't do it., was because he was designed by skynet to not be allowed to. (This make Skynet as bad and corrupt as a genocidal maniac) Sarah and John had to open his brain and flip the neural network chip on. That is when arnie started to "learn". Terminator then IS realistic since this is technology that really exists. A robot can act more human-like and make mistakes if it isn't just tied to a line by line program that runs loops. Instead it can correct itself to adapt to each situation it finds itself in or each unique environment to adjust the behaviour accordingly. Just like animals or humans do when they reach a wall or an obstacle forcing them to find other ways to get to the goal. (I picture a mouse that can learn the maze through many trial and error attempts to get to the cheese at the end) You could say skynet going crazy is dumb, but I say its not. It's not any more unrealistic than HAL method of going crazy to preserve itself. They are both using logic, but because they are self aware, the danger of them being self aware is what caused them to react violently. So morally that's all we care about: the danger that they control a weapon, and kill innocents. If the original poster want to use the term "powermad" then I say he is justified in calling it that. Because being logical and coming up with a solution doesn't disqualify a person from being power mad. "Oh but it mathmatically made a hard choice to defend itself from evil humans" fair enough. Maybe the humans who created it were bad, that doesn't mean a machine killing a whole species itself isn't ALSO bad. You understand what I am saying? Technology not being perfect and also being dangerous (as well as useful and beneficial) is what I like. But I prefer it when there IS great conflict in actions over just philosophical discussions. Cold, calculating, and intelligent AI isn't the focus of the terminator movies. The focus is on the chase between victim and hunter and it is set up like a thriller movie. You just accept that there was a disaster in the future causing the losing side to want to change history. Humans don't have to accept the future, they can fight it, prevent it, and use their free will in current day to affect it. This is the "human potential" part that a machine can't predict about us just using the logic - it's not a crystal ball that makes them some all-knowing god. Now because the emphasis is on US, the humans, we see humans changing the present time and building a new future. Our ability to choose is what makes us seem random to a machine and that is what threatens it. It has to murder to prevent us from having control which threatens its own control. If you like a movie where the machines are right and save humans that's ok with me. I just think it wouldn't appeal to people who watch movies and who have emotions and want to see a great conflict between two sides. I think part of the appeal of terminator was this idea of a machine being powerful and dangeorus and it's that threat of danger to us which creates the suspense, or a sense of doom like what you get from a horror movie like alien. Most horror movies are dark, scary, and violent. I felt that T2 had less horror to it and more action. It's more rewatchable, but the dark cyberpunk feel of it was sacrificed somewhat, causing it to become an action movie franchise. By the third movie robots looked so clean and shiny and too hollywood. Too bright and perfect. Constrast that with T1 which was dark, paranoid (anything from the shadows could be a potential killer, robot won't sleep, invulnerable to most weapons) and your frightened to trust your own common sense. (ie terminator has ability to mimmick the voice of your friends and family, something that you wouldn't assume was possible) ...But humans triumphed over it and survive. Machines are not perfect. We turned on other machines and use a machine to kill a machine in the end. And man was in control. You didn't just assume because a machine could 'think', was smart, could do jobs quickly, that it had no reason to kill people, that it wasn't dangerous. You saw that machines can cause accidents, they can misfire a weapon, and make mistakes at first. (like arnie not knowing what a smile is and having to scan a person's mouth to learn how to smile in t2) They were not portrayed as one or the other. Arnie could be the zombie from the first one, or with the learning chip, an intelligent person who could learn human behavior in real-time and practice behaving like us, not just read about it from a 'file'. Some things you learn by remembering what was written about it; but not understanding it, (eg "humans feel pain") other things you learn by practice and experience; learning from mistakes you make and 'evolving'. (arnie understanding why people cry at the end of T2)

So if beagle ride armor is going to be getting official toynami release as a masterpiece, will this lessen the cost of them to those outside japan? I love the look of the beagle. Hopefully this toy can have some reasonable durability too. Personally I think it is the best looking of all the ride armors.

Ahh good to see the little 1/100 get some gbp armor. It was a good idea for toynami to make small scale "toys" for those who want to touch their transforming valks imo. I think it would be good if Bandai made their own 1/100 VF-1 too. Just take away the chunky munky proportions, include the FP armor as default, sell it at the same price as the toynami valks. (while eliminating problems of the banpresto valks crappy "falling apart" syndrome)

So beagle ride armor is really being released through toynami?

I remember threads talking about how macross was dead in japan and that on hobby mags all you ever see is gundam this and gundam that. Ok maybe they don't completely forget macross, but what's past is past. Once minmay, misa and hikaru died a part of macross itself died because SK wanted to end macross through killing the fans' hopes of seeing more of those three characters. Then along came macross plus which wasn't even supposed to be macross in the begining. Then macross 7 which became too metaphysical for old school fans to like. (ie didn't have the same feel as SDF:M and DYRL) People pleaded for a destroid sidestory, some kind of macross show all about the supervision army, and many other things because they were tired of kiddy gundam shows at that point. They were complaining that the creators of mecha shows had forsaken them and made stories only aimed at little kids. (it started with gundam wing?) Now because of that fans of the old show by that time must have just given up and so that is why you don't see japanese version of macross world. (over time they must have got impatient and lost interest altogether)

I asked that as a question as I don't buy lots of toys. No need to get offended. Well is it? What's the most complex TF toy? I genuinely don't know.

I want to see hasegawa and bandai team up to make a redo of vf-1. That'd be great. Isn't that what is happening with the vf-25?

I have no doubt about that but that's because I am a fan. I'm talking about people who liked it but after 20 years would have forgotten about it. The reason being it was a show they saw 20 odd years ago and might have moved on. Compared to gundam where there is more chance of multigenerational fanbase. I mean I remember a person posting to these boards a while ago complaining that whenever they showed macross at their high school anime club people would not care much for it. "it's old" Come on. We are fans. But we are not representative of the rest of society. The other guys must have moved on. That is up till now with macross f showing of course. But before that people were acting so depressed that macross was a dead franchise with nothing new. When there is nothing new to talk about people's interest dies off after a time. So that's why I say, perhaps people have just plain forgot all about it?

Er...Is there a bigger picture or what??

Yeah but gundam has far more shows to remind you that it's still around. Macross fans are like members of a secret society too embarassed to admit the still talk about a "20 year old robot show" Why? because it's so old! It's not hip! Nobody you know remembers it. Ahaha just admit it. You get teased by the little kids on the street, and it reminds you that you are too old to be watching these shows! Most people are not going to remember something they saw 20 years ago. That's a huuuge gap. Oh and don't say macross 7 - we all know that was just a dream sequence like the one hikaru had when he was unconscious in SDF:M. He wakes up from the dream and tells misa: "I had the strangest dream about singing to whales and valkyries with faces and furry mice that were so intelligent that they could understand human language and respond to it, even technology like how to shut off the power that runs an alien prison to rescue people. Pink valkyries, Milia singing, polka dot paintschemes...strange..There were even space elves and military valkyries with boobs!"

1 is broken, 1 has complaints, and 6 say perfect. Hopefully there are no self destructive one that only break after a time. (those people wouldn't be able to change the vote.

I like how it looks so far. Bandai are putting a lot of effort into it. Is this the most complex transforming toy bandai has ever made?

But macross is old. Maybe they just forgot all about it?

Yeah but think of it this way, the robots could do construction work like in the patlabor anime. The other day I read an article about Lilypad cities. There is something about this that reminded me of patlabor and how they had aritifical islands. And then the robots were made to help build them. I'm thinking giant robots could be built using construction robots but the robot is also for other things like disaster relief and such. (think of how whenever the macross city inside the sdf-1 got attacked they could use the destroids to aid in picking up heavy objects and stuff to help clean up) If say there is an earthquake, the labors could aid in carrying rubble out of the way or let's say in the future (assuming the polar caps melt and we experience global flooding) we could build artificial island like the patlabor ones. (make them high) Or they could build an "SDF-1 for the sea". Giant submersible ship with a city inside it. All the japanese people can live inside a giant transforming sub. Holographic images are all over the insides of it to remind them of earth before the flood. (sort of like megazone 23)

Clicky joints on hips, shoulders etc should be in future 1/48 version 2 releases By this time beefy hands will be the norm, and the gunpods back to normal size. I hope. The handle of the gunpod detaches from the gunpod, and you can clip the then "enhanced" gunpod handle onto the enhanced palm (let's just assume the dominant right arm is the only gunpod holding arm) which has a hole in it for the thick peg of the enhanced handle to slot into it, ...which than allows you to attach the remainder of the gunpod onto the handle. You could have two gunpods: one where the gunpod is short and small. Another where the gunpod is long. Just like how we got short and long "crotch pieces" on the 1/48 GBP. But you would have two palms: the palm with a huge hole in it is obviously for the big gunpod. (ie like the exaggerated gunpod the yamato vf-11 GNU got) You don't want it to waggle around too much. They gave us big hands, so now they might be able to give us large gunpod. If only to match the larger GBP-equiped valk. A long gunpod would look better imo. I hope an arm curl is still possible with armor on but that's doubtful. What I want is a skinny GBP, with decent articulation, but big hands (like the ham hands you see in illustrations) and longer gunpod. -Skinny gbp (for articulation) -ham hands (aesthetics) -longer gunpod in proportion with ham hands. (meaning we get two versions of gunpod for aesthetic reasons: short and long) Overall it's more playable. For the vf-11, if you wanted a GNU "oversized gunpod": you could have a seperate set of hands, those hands have a large hole in the palm, and the other big gunpod handle has a bigger peg in it for the bigger hole. Personally I think a short gunpod looks better for the GERWALK mode. But a long one is cool for fighter mode. See it all depends on the size of the hands: if the hands look beefy I don't mind a if it is a bit longer. But if the hands are tiny (like with the default 1/48 ones) I think a shorter one might help it from wobbling out of the hand easily. (less playable) Under this system you would still need two different handles because the peg on the forearms is one size. (they aren't going to give two different forearms, but different gunpod handles maybe more easy)

They redeemed themselves with nora sv51, and yf-21. Maybe that's why it was delayed? I like the idea of a much slower release from yamato if it means better QC. See my thing is to just let all the japanese buyers eat up the early releases, then after they iron out all the early problems, wait for second run and then purchase. Even if there was nothing wrong with the early releases, they might do something like make a joint tighter here or there, or become more knowledgeable about HOW to check for these problems and prevent too many making it out. (like the thing involving the melting of plastics for the early VF-0s can't be helped since they were unaware of it in the first place so I can forgive them for that if they actually do something about fixing the damn thing for later releases) Actually if toynami had done that with masterpiece alphas I would have bought one: fix all the old problems so that you can be guaranteed a good one provided the company has ways of eliminating them later and learning from the mistake. But now with these pin problems, well yamato are back to being the "first release is scary" reputation again. I'm crossing my fingers the upcoming VF-11 is like YF-21 and SV-51 nora.. Delay it if you must. No more broken bits. And the comment about the skinny legs is what makes it so cool to me. The valk is girl! When you put armor on top of it, it gets bulky and heavy and gets a sex change. So it needs to look almost skeletal to give it better GBP look imo I hated how on the 1/48 the armor was so chunky that the hands were out of proportion with the sumo armor. Hopefully yamato have planned this line better with regard to how the default naked valk form looks. I want a better GBP which is allowed to maintain thickness without affecting its overall form on the outside. If it means making a skinny naked valk, I'm all for it. (I'm used to it from the banpresto valks which look so anorexic but still cool ) It is an unwritten rule that skinny robots have superior articulation from bulky ones. Look at classics mirage and TF LA movie Landmine. I want valks that look like they are moving away from the 80s chunky munky toys and closer to what we see in anime where more natural-looking poses are possible. They've got the fighter mode down, now see if they can improve battroid mode. The Qrau toy for example couldn't do the leg curl you see in the anime, and didn't come with a stand to have it in a flying pose, so I think yamato's next goal is to try to let their robots look cooler in a display in robot mode for us robot fans. If yamato can give us good looking skinny valks (with good beefy armored hands) and bandai the chunky ones then there will be balance in the universe. Just make sure the joints can hold the weight of the limbs! When you put armor on something it adds extra weight so I wish yamato would work on clicky joints like what you get on leader class transformers.

Not saying that they don't exist. But where things like this can be prevented, you can find a better solution than putting them in jail: just educate people about the dnagers of leaving children in a car alone. Awareness. He is still the child's dad. We can't assume he is the "cruel baby killer" you read about, (the news is mostly coverage of bad news so your constant exposure to it makes you biased) just the negligent parent as opposed to a cruel parent. (ie the sadistic and loony types) I'm not against jailing the truly psycho people, but there is a fine line between a negligent parent, (who is mostly good most of the time and isn't out to deliberately harm the child, even if their own ignorance might accidentally lead to it) and a crazed child killer, you know what I'm saying? If an ignorant and young defenceless girl is walking in the park and gets mugged and raped by a crazed killer is it her fault for not knowing of the dangers due to being stupid? No it's not. Education, awareness and prevention of this happening again is more effective than playing the "point the finger" game which doesn't really do anything. "oh let's mention batman in the headline so that we have some scape goat to lay blame on" is how I'm thinking they decided to go with the story. What relevance does Dark Knight have? None. Focus on actions of the parent in your story. Help solve the problem. Teach the stupid (through boosting their awareness) how to avoid the danger rather than imprisoning people. Not all negligence is necesarily down to deliberate abuse. I'm not defending the actions of real psychos, loons, stupidity of parents, just saying that I wish they wouldn't try to sensationlise the story by mentioning popular movies, games, and other things which have no relevence to the actions of the individuals who do the stupid things. "Oh the innocent young girl that got raped and mugged in the middle of the night on a saturday was on her way to go and see the latest Batman movie which involves stories about killers and robbers and masked vigilates"... err so subtle...but it's there: movies are to blame. "The title was named "The Dark Knight" so maybe she would have seen it during the "The Bright Sunny Day" when it would have been more safe if they renamed the movie." "The REAL lunatics only come out at night time on a full moon when people are at their height of craziness." blah blah blah [insert more irrelevent stuff in the article to pad it]

^ I don't think he should go to jail and have the kid grow up without a father. Yes americans can be a little seflish, ignorant of danger (homer simpson style dad?) but not all of them are cruel people. If I were to guess, it wasn't out of cruelty to the child to leave them there but the genuine belief that it wouldn't have killed the child. Why not work to prevent these things through education instead of overfilling your prisons with ordinary people? I think you will save lots of money and lives that way. He may be stupid, not the perfect parent, but he is still his dad. I don't believe the media's hype that all parents are necessarily the sadistic monsters they paint them out to be. Humans are just imperfect. Parents make mistakes, don't see dangers where others do, and may live a busy lifestyle so they are tired or can't afford to hire a babysitter or put them in child care. That doesn't mean they are necessarily cruel and sadistic. (ie intending to hurt the child on purpose) That is just the hype of the media. They could print what the dad had to say in self defence of his actions but you only hear one side of the story. I would like to hear what he was thinking at the time. And I don't like that they had to name the title of the movie, as if this had anything to do with it. It just has this "oh let's blame these movies for the parent's stupidity and sue sue sue" vibe going for it rather than focusing on the action of the parent.. You don't have to name The Dark Knight in the headline. Honestly, who cares what movie it was?

Er we know it's set in the future. And what happened in the future? Humans being owned by robots. Nukes being launched as skynet manipulated all the weapons and hacked into everything. John running away because he had early warning from arnie about future events and stuffed him into an underground base to be leader of the resistance at the last moment just as all hell broke loose. Didn't you watch T3? This was supposed to set up the future war. Many complained "it wasn't even an ending", hinting that the ending was left open for other movies now that terminator is becoming more like a cash cow franchise. (hollywood just milking more $ from the name, than wanting to just end it) To be honest: the 3 that we got didn't even need to exist. Two modern day movies, and then one set right into the future ending the terminator movie story would have been enough. Then after humans beat the machines, they could have had a tv series about mopping up the last remnents of the robots resisting the human. (much smaller scale battles, more focus on individual characters instead of action) My idea is they make it like the movie "V" (remember that movie and show from the 80s about reptile aliens?) where the robots are now much more highly advanced and slowly getting smarter and disguising themselves as humans but they aren't human to those who can see them or tell the difference. Not as many direct conflicts, but more "we are sneaking amongst humans stealthily" kinda thing. (ie they can't afford to reveal themselves in public like the arnie versions anymore with guns blazing and all) This should have happened AFTER the future war movie, not in between one imo. It's like V the tv series, but with terminators hiding their true form from society.

http://deseretnews.com/user/comments/1,515...0244860,00.html Lesson next time to fathers who want to see the dark knight while leaving kids in the car: tint your windows, put the baby in the boot with the air conditioner turned on. Oh and don't lock your doors or close the windows. That way whoever wants to steal the car can do so very easily. Er this article is a little strange.. hot temp, but it was night time. The baby could not be removed because windows were rolled up (but why would you want to make it easy for strangers to remove the baby?) People noticed the baby....wait, so someone was hanging around the car for a loooong time at midnight? This is when most people are in bed sleeping. Maybe the baby was alseep too? I think this is one of those articles written so you click it to raise hits to the site. Not trying to defend the selfish parent, (assuming the story is true) but it seems like the headline was worded in a sensationalist-style to capitilise on the new movies buzz. Sort of like when a game like GTA just comes out you the media starts printing out more anti-gta stories to shock people. You click the link, lots of traffic to the website, translating into $ as ads load up. Sure there will always be irresponsible parents, but notice how they just have to mention the dark knight as if that had something to do with it?