1/1 LowViz Lurker

Heron: Not many people liked macross 7 because of the valks with faces in it and magic that basara had to defeat the PD. It was more kiddy. Zero wasn't too bad since imo it did try to link some of the magic with tech. (for eg: the activation of the antigravity devices which made the anti-un ship float, the ancient robot which is discovered by afos radar being the decision-making self destruct device to prevent humans from going out of control like the zents and using the weapon to spread destruction in space. It makes the PC seem less mysterious now that we see a piece of their technology and hear the creation legend rather than gloss over it in SDF:M, showing that some descendants might still be amongst humans, so there is hope that humans can actually communicate to them if there are some out there.)

I voted I like how it is. I like that the human are now in space and the possibilities that they are going to visit new cultures and civilisations beyond their own. It means unlike gundam where they are constantly at war with themselves there is more mystery about the aliens, how the fight, and the weapons they will use. In gundam all that happens is one side steals a robot from one side, and the other steals a robot from the other side and they fight using the same weapons until one makes a doomsday device that wipes humans out. Macross has progressed beyond that, destroyed the earth, and had humans bounced back from it. Really there is nothing left for them to fight unless they go into space and face new threats. It's like space is the wild, (pirates, outlaws savage unseen monsters can exist and danger is back in again) humans are once again "pioneers" looking for new lands, (each planet can have its own unique feel and mecha) and uncertain fate awaits them out there. (discovery of ancient ruins, lost civilisations) Zentradi was one race, what about the many other races that the pc may have encountered that weren't part of the war they had against themselves? As the world expands, we can see new things rather than retread old ground like gundam which is stuck recreating a science fiction version of world war II. (nazi like dictatorship with european culture vs open free democratic american country struggling to catch up and stop them from expanding) I like SDF:Macross and DYRL the best out of the whole macross franchise. But things change, and macross has to move forward. Characters grow old and married, just like in a soap opera, they die, leave a legacy, and others take their place. If hikaru were to reappear, in macross F, he'd be old, teenagers of today wouldn't relate to him, and girls wouldn't care much about him because he is middle-aged and wouldn't want to make fan fiction about the character. In a sense it reminds me of all the old transformer generation 1 fans bashing the new transformers tv series: they want the "great war" again. But that is past history now and the world is better when you expand it and grow it so it feels multigenerational and realistic. Characters like ratchet are old and jaded, and new versions of the same guy can appear in the form of totally new and interesting character.(see beast wars for example: cheetor = new rodimus, tarantulus = new starscream, etc ..similar but new) If you like SDF:Macross you'd have to remake it (much better animation: something like what eureka 7 had but retain the detail in the original) like they did with battlestar galactica, but the problem is fans of the original would stop it from ever happening because they are so set in their old ways and think it would destroy the name. (just like the new transformers movie where people didn't like the change of the faces or the attempt at making the robots complex and mechanical due to nostalgia) If Zero was the attempt to remake the vf-1 for modern audience, then a remake of SDFM would have to have similar levels of rethinking so that it would appeal to people of today. (that would mean a new minmay?) Maybe change the story so that the sdf-1 "robot mode" isn't a coincidence but an intended mode so it's not so cheesy. Make the story have a much more climactic ending. The last third of the series would need better pacing. (maybe have constant attempts by zentradi rogues to challenge the destroids in micronised form with educated brains rather than a period of peace)

Single player games like oblivion are superior imo. You are always the hero (or someone who does something significant) who saves the land from destruction not some dude making items for others or having people along for a raid taking the riches when sneaking is more fun. I think Guild Wars is good though. It won't make you obsessed to keep playing to make the most of a monthly fee. share us your stories. I'm thinking the noobs to mmorpgs are curious about what makes them so addicitive.. Haven't MUDs existed for ages? What makes them so different to MMORPGs? And why take it so serious? It's just a game isn't it? You shouldn't want to quit work over it? Is it just a small number of obsessed fans who are like this or are there normal gamers who don't let it affect their everyday life who play it? And how much of it is media myth/hype, and how much is real? Do you have to commit for 8 hours straight to get anything done and can't eat or sleep or poo because the world is happening in real time so you might die if you leave the computer? Is that why it's dangerous? (say there is a burning smell in the house and it causes fire but you don't notice it because you are playing an MMORPG, would that make the player ignore the emergency so his in-game character won't die in the middle of a fight for example?)

Yeah I hated that look from beast wars. I loved the writing though. If they can just combine the g1 style with the beast wars writing they would have the right combination. When masterpieces of these characters are made in the future, no one can then accuse the toy of having skinny legs, (like star scream and megatron) because that's how they were in the cartoon.

Oh by no means do I want it to go down that route, just pointing out that it would be possible to meld some fantasy with sci-fi and still make it good. It's just that as I mentioned, humans can't possibly know everything there is to know out there. Why couldn't the aliens have a god of their own, their own versions of ghosts, their own versions of love songs, their own versions of demons, their own versions of communication (not using your physical mouth to speak), their own versions of picking things up (having hands replaced by tentacles), way of reporducing (not engaging in sex to procreate etc) method of walking (they use telekinesis to lift themselves), way of thinking. (war is life) A bird must fly to get from a to b, whereas a snake slithers, and a human walks. Aliens should be no different: we are bound to come across what appear to be "supernatural tech" and "supernatural biological beings" the same way we might run into humanoid aliens (giants from SDF:M). This is a science fiction show with people going to different planets, seeing funny looking alien lifeforms, and discovering new things that become new breakthroughs in science due to all the diverse things out there. You can't just limit it to advances in robotics. It's just not realistic. But I do see those who are fans of macross "only as a mecha show", being annoyed at the change in focus from robot technology towards more spiritual/mystical technology. I just think of the mayan priestesses as scientists who kept their "science" secret and very well hidden in the same way the transforming VF-1 was a government secret until the arrival of the zentradi. Just a different science with its own rules. Even though it is a mecha show, I don't want it to just be limited to humanoid robot mechanics. Why can't it have *biomechanical things out there, and ghosts, and strange creatures that float in the same way we have funny looking creatures in the ocean, ones that can fly by using the wind, and animals that slither? Why can't any aliens also have a communication system similar to mobile phones but with their bio-engineered brains which the PC genetically created in some lab and then mass grew in a farm as a way to communicate at long range? Why does it have to resemble a walkie talkie, or a radar dish or some wire? If they have no need for these machines why on earth would they want to build them like we would. That would be like building fins for humans to aid in swimming when we have boats! So even though I understand (and prefer) that there wasn't "magic", I'm willing to have an open mind about stuff like levitation, mind powers, the ability to hack into computer using your brain which is designed to interface with a computer (ghost in the shell) because of the theme of the macross story: that an ancient highly evolved race built all this stuff and actually DID understand it and was able to train each other how to use it. Just as luke learns how to use the force in star wars. It doesn't have to be the focus of the wars that take place (after all even jedi are limited physically and can die) but if it was there in the background I would have no problems. Think of humans as being like the snake which must slither on the ground to get from point to point. The PC are the bird. We just don't "see" things from their perspective and don't understand why a pair of wings would be necessary because using machines we can do those things artificially. A fish can swim, but we can ride in a boat. A bird can fly, but we can build planes to fly. A space whale can survive in space, but we can build spaceships and space suits. A dolphin can dive in the ocean, but we use a sub to move underneath water. from the animal's/aliens point of view: -"humans can build boats to sail, but we fish don't need it since we can swim" -"humans can make planes to fly, but we birds already had wings long before they could fly" -"humans use containers which create explosions to push them around in space, but I was able to move in space naturally so I don't understand why that is necessary." -"humans build subs to sneak underwater, but we dolphins just naturally swim there and use sonar to talk" So while the aliens might seem strange and it might not be suitable for a "mecha" show with robots in it from the point of view of a human who is a "tool builder", this is the universe we are exploring. The PC had years to develop natural versions of the mechanical devices we use and to them we are the primitive ones because they've evolved more than us. If they wanted to fight a war they wouldn't fight one themselves, just build giant fighters in place of themselves. Similarly humans would build robot drones. (remote control planes with weapons on them) But the PC may have just preferred biological versions of the "drone robot": ie the zentradi giants because they like nature. So using this logic why can't it be possible they have biological versions of everything we have as machine? A cellphone brain? a space ship that flies by itself? antigravity that is produced by mind? Machines that absorb energy from the environment rather than need us pouring fuel into them? You see what I mean? This is a race that had thouasand of years to perfect their science so it seems "like magic" to those who still think in terms of using "tools" to do those things where it requires manual labor. Just as modern day cars might seem silly to those who can teleport because they have a portable fold device which has been miniturised to the size of a cellphone. (ie the way computers have miniturised to fit in your pocket thanks to rapid advances) A fish doesn't need a boat to move across water, (to be interesting) -nature gave it that ability A human doesn't need two legs to move on the ground (to be interesting) -we just learned to use them after birth An evolved alien specialising in genetics doesn't need to build giants to fight wars when they could have built robots (to be interesting) - they just went down that path instead of using mecha controlled by a prgrammed AI I'm just saying that it wouldn't be *uninteresting* if aliens also had methods of solving problems biologically and/or using the mind, just as martial artists used their bodies and skill as a weapon when they could have used guns or bombs. Technology isn't going to be the same from race to race, just as the type of weapons invented are going to differ depending on the environment and history of that race. (ie close range combat for animals/bugs, bullets fired from a tube for modern day soldiers, developed by wizards/scientists who had knowledge of the mysterious powder needed to produce the explosion needed to simplify combat. (and be more energy efficient to the attacker so he can kill better and more things) As a fan of mecha, I don't necessarily want to see macross 7 style combat, just that I'm also not closed to the possibility of a show that can combine some of the "magic" and mecha without making it "crap". (Regardless of whether we saw magic in SDF:M - star wars has fighters dogfighting, gun fights, sword fights, and magic "force" fights. Just as we have car chases, martial arts, gun fights, and supernatural themes (with themes of ghosts, ancient curses, religious artifacts, hidden ruins) in an Indiana Jones, or Star Gate or "The Mummy"-type adventure movies and still *enjoy* them.) *technically mospeada gets away with it by making the leader a spirit that uses alien magic to evolve its bugs. It's never explained how it works. Oh, so it gets off easy but macross mustn't? This is magic in a mecha show. The alien didn't need a machine. Is macross zero any more guilty than mospeada for introducing the mayan priestesses?

because like the price of videogames here in australia: people are used to paying that much. (if you can get away with a high price without affecting the sale, you will keep it high) If you are comfortable purchasing a item for whatever price, then chances are the seller won't pass any savings down onto the consumer unless there is heavy competition from a rival company (or a big enough number of people to sell the item to) that can afford to capture some of the marketshare for themselves and hope to drive the other guy out of business to increase profits to them in the long run. (through offerring a better deal to the consumer) Of course this is assuming there IS a high demand for something. I won't buy mospeada toys that break so for me i can comfortable ignore whatever is out there. But its different for different people. Some people will pay more for rare things, so they excuse the high cost and/or poor QC that they wouldn't for non-rare things. The value of a given thing is worth different amounts depending on the person buying it. When talking about entertainment and luxury items it's really about the 'taste' of the buyer. For example you might think a new music cd is awesome and love the artist and want to pay full price, while another guy who hates that band will never want to pay full price for it. Toy = luxury goods. You won't be FORCED to buy it in order to keep surviving, so it really comes down to 'taste' and the amount you are willing to pay more than what's fair. All businesses want to profit the most while saving money to stay competitive so they will look for the cheapest way to make something. So this brings us to the justification for why yammies are so high price: the limited run. Like the collector item not aimed at the masses, the items can be charged a higher price because as a fan you are "more likely to pay high premium for the rare thing" so they leverage that demand from the fan and profit that way. They probably could lower the price, but if you are going to buy it at the current price, from a business perspective why would they? (unless there was a company that made a better product or offerred a better price some how to force the price down?) If you were doing something risky you might also feel, that risk should be rewarded in some way because you could have spent that time doing something less risky and making more money/profit had you not passed on that opportunity (instead of making items for a small audience) by aiming for the mainstream audience. (who as a large mass of people will pay less money for something, but due to being more people, they outnumber the hardcore fanatic meaning you can sell to more people. Whereas contrast that to the "hardcore fan"; who unlike the casual buyer, is less likely to complain about something being more expensive when it is rare/not widely popular or there is no competition out there to provide the product/service they want.) In a sense you are paying for "risk". How *much* you are willing to pay, is down to taste like the guy who is a fan of a certain artist and doesn't mind paying the full price or hunting it down and paying extra due to how limited in availability it is. (Call it the "tickle me elmo" effect Look at the nintendo Wii as an example: luxury item, sells a lot, but is it really worth what you paid for it? Compared to the xbox360 and ps3, it's overpriced. In terms of graphics the machine is really just an enhanced gamecube and when put next to the high definition consoles it's hard for a buyer of a game to justify the cost for that game when the graphics can't compare to the games on ps3/360. Tastes! Now given; like the yamatos, it still sells well despite the price compared to the higher spec machines, why should nintendo lower the price if it is hard for parents to find, and people are buying it in droves?)

That's a shame. I bought the GBP and loved it. Maybe it's not so posable in battroid mode but the detail is good. I hope that it becomes rare or something so that people start wanting it, and then it creates demand for it, and then yamato can justify one day making the reactive armor for vf-0 when everyone buys GBP. Oh well not too bad considering that original the vf-0 was going to just be the 1/100 swappable parts toy so you can't complain.

Graham does it have double jointed knees? If it doesn't could you tell them to put it in? I wish they would start with the VF-1D.

But to some people it looks like a guy wearing night vision and a mouth guard, just as people claim that the yf-19 looks like a human wearing a helmet and that because it reminds them of this, it just isn't "robotic" enough. I guess it's all just opinion in the end. One of the reasosn I like the SDF-1 is because it looks nothing like a human compared to the macross 7. I do understand what you mean, just don't get why S isn't robotic while J is. I figure because people think it looks like a face to them, but to me it's not different to the shape of a toilet bowl. There is no nose, no two eyes (like gundam), no mouth (like basara's valk) and like the destroids with guns as arms, the two sets of dual lasers are just like turret guns from star wars, retaining the look of a machine part, that serves a purpose. (like the claws on the Qrau to grip objects) I used the Qrau as an example because to me it looks less humanoid than the VF-1 with its claw design, the head is housed inside and well protected unlike the vf-1 head, and the bulky arms are not humanoid at all, more like alien shaped. (they are too deformed to be human) Remember there are many things in nature that have "limbs" that might look like humans beside humans. My point is that VF-1 has 5 fingers with a thumb so it's hard for me to see what "robotic" really means when people say it. Like how some transformer fans say kibble but won't define the term. If we were ostriches, and we looked at the Regult, we would all be complaining that the regult just doesn't look robotic enough because it looks like us with the way the legs work and that it looks too much like it was based on us. But it just might not be that it was trying to look like us, just that the design serves a purpose: maybe the deisgner just wanted the round frame because he like submarines, or that the round shape might be proven in tests to deflect bullets better, or be harder to crush or virtually impossible to grapple when an enemy want to throw it with its hands. And the long bird-like legs were chosen so that when it comes up from out of the water it can leap up and surprise the victim, and not because he wants the robot to look like an ostrich which he might never have seen before. Taller legs might just mean it can hop above obstacles better. (like giant planets with tall grass or uneven terrain)

You know I just got this idea that maybe the red bug does get killed, but they cut it out to make us want to believe the humans are doomed to get us interested like a cliffhanger. If the red bug was destroyed without us taking a heavy casualty they just wouldn't be interesting as an enemy. It would be like a plain old rogue zentradi attack like you see in macros plus OVA who gets his ass kicked because he is outnumbered and really by himself isn't a huge threat. But an army of bugs with stronger weapons and bit better speed is going to be harder. I don't think anything can top the protodevlin from macross 7 though. If we still had them around as friends to help us control all the threats from space by letting us study them and borrow their insane powers, we would have nothing to fear. That furry monster with the cannon on its arm would probably be able to kill the red bug. You just need to clone enough zentradi meat to feed it. Maybe round up some depressed suicidal citizens and pay them to be batteries for the monster as a brave sacrifice to help us live on. The money could go to their poor starving children and bring peace to the galaxy. It's for a good cause.

But gundam never explained the newtype power. It just exists like psychic powers and only certain people have it. Not once do they go into any detail in gundam how amuro's own brain is able to know stuff. We have to accept it. The PC could have evolved to be so much more advanced than us that it seems like magic but isn't. It's just that scienctists from the human point of view haven't create the terms needed to explain it so you never see our scientists explaining it the way you see the jedi explaining the force. If SDF: macross had shown actual flashback of the pc, maybe they could copy what george lucas did (with retcon of star wars by introducing midichrlons) we might be able to see the "magic" explained from their point of view. But in the macross world we always see the events from our point of view which is from our scientists who are limited in knowledge and can't explain how everything works because they are still reverse engineering it all. Why is it so easy to accept anti-gravity and not floating rocks? Because you see a machine doing it? That would be like me saying birds shouldn't be able to fly or glide because they have no engine. You know what I mean? Part of the reason for why we can get machines to fly is to do with generating the lift and with science (just create a paper plane) we can prove this. But we are dealing with "alien science" (overtechnology) so we shouldn't expect aries to know how the pinpoint barrier works or why the psychic can communicate with others because they don't know either. It's unfair to expect it, just like it would be unfair to expect spiderman's peter parker to be able to explain his super powers, (which he has no idea how it works even though he has a bit of knowledge of science) or spawn's magic chains or whatever. Liking it? I can see how a fan can not LIKE it, just like how some people don't LIKE the use of "midichlorens" to explain the mystery of the force. But to not accept it (ie the magic of PC 'mind power') on the basis that PC were not advanced enough of an alien race for thier high scienctists to understand it themselves, (even though they are more evolved than us just like how the newtypes are more evolved than oldtypes in gundam) is the part I don't understand. It's like you are picking on macross but not picking on gundam or starwars which are also both sci-fi. Macross can have both hard sci-fi and stuff that isn't explainable and still be ok with me. If I can accept telekineses, (one form of "human generated" anti-gravity? M.Bison/Vega from street fighter II is an example: using his psychic power to an object just like sara can lift rocks: the object being himself to look like he "flies") telepathy, (american comic books have this: charles xavier from x-men) force fields, shrinking someone's consciousness into another clone body, (sdf:M) transforming robots, ..then I don't see how an ancient atlantean race with older knowledge than our own scientists have, who used this knowledge to create beings with demonic powers from another dimension... can be so hard to swallow to be honest. (not anymore than the ghosts in ghostbusters or the alien ghosts in Final Fantasy: The spirits within) For me "folding" is like the magic "teleportation" you see in dragon ball z. Remember one thing: in the very beginning of SDF:M the anti-gravity engines broke out from the sdf-1 and humans couldn't get them to work properly. It might be due to damage, but part of it is due to being of an alien science which we don't quite understand ourselves yet. (otherwise we would have to have used conventional tech to get off earth) So long as macross is told from the point of view of humans we will always be years behind whatever new enemy race will be thrown at us. It would be pretty boring (no danger) if humans were already the most advanced out there. The element of danger seen in mospeada (bunch of bugs still being better than robots) SDF: macross (giants that are stronger and more numerous than us) and gundam (the zeon have developed mobile suits and like the nazi with tanks and jet fighter, going to use this to conquer others with it unless the good guys copy it and invent a better one with better weapons) ... are examples of why they are interesting. If we knew everything and the science was already obvious to the scientists trying to create advanced weapons from it, there would be no story to tell.

If they were painted *red like the ghost X-9 maybe they would have survived longer (and be shown more) I reckon. It makes sense now why misa mentioned supporting ghosts is for when you use GBP. No human would want to miss the miss macross contest. Thats where drones are handy. No sleepiness, complaining, or grief to family members when one dies. Still wouldn't be practical to have them be like skynet in terminator controlling everything. All someone has to do is hack them and then they go rogue attacking the wrong people. The only people who would gain were the geeks who program the things behaviour, eventually asking for more money in a "y2k scenario" when all the robots go crazy and they have to fix them. In star wars they showed the weakness of robots in that all anakin had to do was blow up a single droid control ship. But humans can think for themselves, sense something suspicious, react to a new situations when the standard rules wouldn't work, and innovate. A robot might not sense anything wrong (like being led and lured into a trap) that a human might pick up from experience fighting and thinking like a human who can adapt to changing patterns. *anime mecha rule: red means you a special and take longer to die(not in the retarded sense). Miria, Basara, Char, Nora, ghost experimental 9, the "Red bug" all flew in bright red schemes. Only a creative genius can beat red painted pilots.

But going by that logic robots don't have to have arms to shoot a gun. Just gun arms like the destroid. The reason I mentioned the round shape was to illutrate that there are as many practical functional reasons for making a shape more streamlined as there would be to leaving it simple and box/rectangular shaped like something off a tank. (by using examples of things like the surface of a dolphin, fish, boats, etc) And remember the valk isn't just used for space: unlike gundam these are designed for atmospheric combat as well. Otherwise kawamori wouldn't have to bother making them look like fighters and just go the gundam route with robots lying on their face. But that's what I mean: the zentradi went a different path: being "1 with the machine". The head is where their own head should be, the arms are controlled by where their arm would be, the legs are what their real legs would be doing out in space. No need to create complexity where complexity isn't required. VFs can get away with this since they are fighters and the people are "used to using flight controls" so it's intuitive. But my point about the shapes of robots is that the Qrau uses more smooth surfaces where there isn't stuff just "hanging off" it (to remind you this is a machine with parts all over the place) and this is actually useful/functional/practical for combat reason: If I punch you in the head with a clenched claw that looks like a boxing glove that is not going to smash the delicate fingers. If the lasers (whatever those gatling arm guns are) are integrated INSIDE the armor they can't be snapped off like the vf-1 head laser. The shape of the outside armor which looks humanoid hides the machinery inside. Just like when you open up the hood of your car all the mechanical stuff will be revealed, hidden by the sexy outer frame. I like both types of mecha: the destroid and valk, but I just wanted to say that smoother surfaces and "helmet-like" shapes are no different from the curvy, practical, surface of the Qrau. Just because it's not box shaped or angular doesn't mean it's not machine-like. Yes organic things have smooth surfaces but it's not like this is exclusive to living organisms only. I think the block shapes are appealing more because it reminds us that these are mass-produced in large number cheaply, rather than made to look like special luxury items with all the bell and whistles. It shows that humans have a limit to their budget and gradually improve stuff when the profit made from the earlier stuff gives them the funding to keep improving over time, adding realism to the macross world. (the toilet bowl shaped head turret to me just shows that there is better parts you can add to the base mecha, like how you can upgrade the pc you have based on your unique requirements and income stream, not be forced to buy the most expensive setup) I think they just wanted to show that Overtechnology = aliens enhanced tech, and it just so happens that this tech is superior to human tech. If the aliens had dedicated fighers that look just like ours on the outside, (no transformation) they would still be the hero machine because of the benefits to scientific knowledge that the crashed ship brought about. Maybe if SK does an area 88 type anime show and ignores robots, just have fictional fighters then people wouldn't have to complain. (but would the toy sell as much a valkyrie? Or would it be like the sales of destroids which are dedicated walking gun turrets?)

Just watched the GP version (this group used to be called white_base I think) and I love the new subs. No more Evirus!

Haven't checked the thread in ages but: *drool* Great graphics.

I do see what you mean: for example I like that the SDF-1 is very pieced together as seperate parts docked with each other to make a whole, rather than one big giant robot that has to resemble the parts of a human. It's not obvious that the humanoid shape is even there or that it is trying to look human. I don't like that about the battleship in macross 7. I prefer the old SDF-1. I do think it is still possible to have a curvy and rounded shape but retain the simplicity that makes it feel non-human though. The Qrau to me for example, has a nice futuristic look to it (no blocky or hard edges) and those smooth curves and claws still remind you that this is machine to fight stuff with and not trying to follow the human body in every way. (it's got better, more practical, feet than the VF-1, the fingers look sturdy, and the faceplate sits right where the pilot should be looking out through her mechanical "suit". So its head is a practical and functional part of the whole machine that serves a purpose. It is like this because it is intuitive to a pilot just like the right control stick being in control of the right arm/gun, and the left control stick being in control of the left arm/gun just makes practical sense. If the valk ever has to *"swim", the rounded head would make it just a little easier and possibly faster. (streamlined curves pushing water to the sides) *both in battroid and in gerwalk. I am reminded of a scene where hikaru has the vf-1 floating in the water at one point.

Guld looking at these giant bullets (even though we don't know whose they are until later) is enough evidence for me. It's just the brevity of that moment that is very easy to miss. (no indication he is doing something sneaky, no indication its to do with the yf-19, and no actual image of him doing *something* to the bullets - ie just showing bullets) Anyway the OVA isn't so confusing now! You can throw the trashy movie edition in the bin if you want. ..Now if they can just make a movie version of Mac Zero...

I'm going to have to rewatch that bit. edit: Yeah I see it now he is looking at some weapons. It's very brief, like a few seconds and very easy to miss. the eyeball reflection giant bullets. On first viewing there is no real indication that it had anything to do with the yf-19. (nothing on the monitor says in obvious letter what weapons is he looking at, often in movies the writers play with your mind making you think one thing and then twisting it - ie like the images of the camera's spying on dyson before he steals the yf-19 which would make you think it was sharon, but then you realise it was yang who hacked the security system who was the one spying on dyson in the cameras, revealing himself in the backseat ) Although that brief scene becomes really obvious to you *after* you get to the end. (when the gunpod issue comes up as a focal point in ep 3) The black guy was pretty irresponsible to have covered for him. Good thing they showed his relaxed side in the movie edition to explain where this hyposcrisy is coming from . (ie the bit where he talks to lucy after dyson took off with the 19 to fight the ghost)

Ok then explain how sara could sing and the flowers could grow fast right in front of shin's eyes? Or how Sara could generate that protective ball using her mind? Or how they didn't die when the floating rocks they were "flying on" (I think it was just sara levitating them using telekinetic powers which are supernatural) were destroyed mid air? What about the telepathic messaging mao used to project an image of herself? (who needs a cell phone when you got that?) The mayan priestesses are like the jedi, where although it might seem magical to humans (who are a younger race than the PC in years) there may be a "type of science" yet to be labelled for humans to later discover and create rules and formulas for. (just as ancient people had alchemy before chemistry. And the alchemist was a "magician" to the ordinary folk. Or how people who are seen "reading" a book, might look like they are possessed by the devil in a trance to someone who has never heard of books or understood the individual characters that make up written words which then become meaningful information for the brain, before. In many role playing games for example "nature" itself, is the source of magic: with the elements of fire, water, wind, earth etc being the basis for conjuring spells because nature is 'alive'. So there are terms for it, but because it doesn't exist to those in the real world who don't practice it, don't believe in voodoo curses, or superstitions it becomes fantasy. (just not fantasy to those who know it works for them) For example a martial artist who has trained for years in a discipline that allows him to use his conditioned body to break things (like concrete block with their heads) might seem like "people using magic powers" to those who witness it, but it's explainable in *scientific terms. Those who don't know any better just might not have had the chance to create the terms needed for them to make logical sense of it just yet because it's "new" to them, and not new to those doing it and proving it can work consistantly enough to be able to train others in it and pass it on in secret. The humans therefore are like that in macoss: most of the people don't have the power, don't believe it exists, don't understand and can't explain it in scientific terms so they make no attempt to just accept it at face value. (just like the existence of 5 million alien ships in misa's report to the global military leaders in SDF:M, who were naturally skeptical about the claims due to the loss of her camera which would have been solid evidence to back it up - people tend to believe their eyes more) ....but ....my question is... why is that more acceptable in star wars (not really science fiction to be honest) and gundam (even though the idea of space colonies is a real possibility) but not macross? (has realistic planes, contains antigravity, shows pilots doing things that would kill them in real life) Star Wars had the "Force" in the original trilogy, but macross had the existence of a "older race". Why couldn't this older race just have been a bunch of beings who were shamans, expert witch doctors, or some kinda never-before-seen alien wizard with jedi like mind powers? Couldn't they have just been like a martial artist who had trained for years how to use their brains to grow plants quickly, (saras singing) lift objects (the earth quakes in role playing games could be interpreted as "casting an earthquake spell by talking to the god of the earth or some rock spirit") create a magic barrier (force field seen in macross zero), or talk using an ancient version of the cell phone? (mental telepathy?) Why can't aliens have contact with ghosts/the dead from another world helping them to manipulate nature from behind the scenes just as magic worms in your body is a "scientific" explanation for why jedi have these powers in the star wars universe, or how the lack of gravity in space is the "scientific" explanation for why newtypes have more sensitivity that allows them to be better than oldtypes in spatiat awareness because their brain can evolve faster in that environment? *there was actually an attempt at this a while ago in a national geographic documentary (Fight Science! see below for wiki and see if you can find a torrent of it to watch it for yourself ) using crash test dummies and sensors to measure (therefore prove) the power of a strike (so a cynic can't say it's a mere hollywood effect) and the effect it would have on the object using math/physics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Science

Ah but if guld had loaded the gunpod, how would he know he would lie in the exact spot on the floor in the battroid fight? Or that isamu wouldn't just miss him while he was dodging isamu's gundpod shots? (are you saying he can count exactly how many rounds left there are in the gunpod by superhumanly listening to each bullet leave the weapon and then know when the live ammo would come out and being psychic and predicting where he would land and how the fight would go?) I mean wouldn't guld risk getting himself killed if it was him who really loaded the gunpod which would then prevent him from winning (and "protecting") the girl he is after? (and yeah he does *actually* kill himself at the end but that death was his way of protecting myung from the ghost/sharon, not against isamu who he thought was generally a monstrous rapist in his blocked memory state) So confusing. But the sharon apple conspiracy theory might explain it all, since she has fiddled with stuff before like making the ghost and the defense satellites go rogue and out of control, hypnotising the crew of the sdf-1 (she could've hypnotised some people responsible for the inventory program so it could actually be another person) and making yang not want to help dyson rescue myung after all.. (by using the orange haired girl flirt with him in the cockpit of the yf-19) So I see it as sharon manipulating events behind the scenes without anyone knowing it at the time. (and because she is so good at hiding it there is just no evidence that it was her since she's just an innocent AI who has no emotions or so we are led to believe meaning the investigators at the time wouldn't have suspected anything)

..but these are human-shaped robots with 5 fingers and a thumb. *shakes head* They go into space and use the arms the way a human would to hold and shoot a gun. (rather than having gun turrets are arms like the destroids who have no head at all) They are humanoid enough in other ways that the head is not going to matter much. face it, you subconsciously think it's a nutsack that hangs under the fighter mode so you are scared it will get hit. That is why you fear it. /joke My reason for liking it is that smooth surfaces seem to be more "futuristic". Like the hardsuit things in bubblegum crisis. The smoother it is, the more practical they seem when moving through the air even though it will make very little difference. I don't necessarily think of it as a humanoid helmet, just a part of a machine (like a boat or a surfboard or head of a golfclub) that just happens to want to have a smoother surface for some reason. Wheels and ball bearings are smooth and rounded, and they are mechanical and used for some purpose in a greater thing. Why can't a head turret be?

Movie didn't have the opening scene showing the vf-11 stabbing the zentradi in the gut and then lifting him over his head while the knife is still in his gut and then throwing him to the ground while his blood comes gushing out of the suit. Some fan should go ahead and make a fan made "ultimate cut" that has the best stuff from ova and combines it with the extra stuff from the movie! Anyone willing to do it? Let's be honest with ourselves: the movie while having tits, took some of the mecha porn out. VF-11 derserves more than being blown up in the background or crashed to the ground like a piece of crap. That one scene shows it shine. Oh and yeah while I do think guld did actually do it, I wish there was actual proof one way or the other. It just needs to be there explained. There is still no actual proof within the OVA that he was responsible. He could have been surprised that the black guy was saving him for no reason. He never at any point in the ova admits "I did it" and we never get to hear the evidence from the investigation that guld was the one who tampered with the inventory prgram. So that's why I put out the possibility that maybe it was neither of them and sharon might be involved some way. (just like the phonecall about the fire that would soon break out where she is spying on myung's hidden thoughts and from judging by the cameras she controls, able to guess who the people she is thinking about in her mind are. And then manipulating events by getting both of them to rescue her) If anyone has any solid proof that Guld actually did do it, please show me the proof in the OVA. Sure he was guilty of the tipping over of the vf-11 (which was semi accidental since the battroid did it after he thought about it ) but you can't say with 100% certainty; without a shadow of a doubt, that you KNOW Guld did it and that's what has always gotten to me. That would be like me accusing you of murdering your neighbor (without seeing anything) because of a grudge you two had over the noise you each make so "it's probably true". Sure I could say "you never got along" but unless I have some solid evidence people can't assume that you are some murderer due to a petty argument.

Ghosts aren't all that you know. Remember guys they also had ghosts in SDF:M too. pic showing them in ep1 of SDF:M: We just didn't see them much. It was just one character in the macross plus anime that thought ghosts were a good idea and that was because he didn't believe pilots should endanger themselves unecessarily. Choosing them was not necessaily because of a belief that pilots are inferiour to unmanned drones. (the black guy mentions this in the elevator scene - it's mainly "safety to humans" reasons that the choice was made, there was never going to be a chance for humans to officially prove themselves against the ghost drone in a fair competition because the old geezer already made up his mind ahead of time, not even caring whether humans would perform better. It might be that he does not like pilots so he is biased towards drones. Thankfully dyson kicked sharon's ass and the mad scientist gave a bad rep for putting too much faith in computers doing all the work automagically) So many people seem to think the drones outperform real humans just because they can move at a high speed. So unfair. After all Max beat the crap out of miria in his plain ole vf-1 against an ace pilot an a superior Qrau which seems to have more power and speed than the stock standard cannon fodder mecha. Part of it is brains and tactics (like how max used the qrau's greatest strength (speed) as a weakness, by taking the fight to a small enclosed space with little room to manuever rendering miria's speed useless. (Qrau looks to be designed for space more where there is a lot of open room to dodge) This is part of the humans' strength: "experience", thinking creatively, coming up with an innovative solution to problems on the fly. Where we can adapt to changing circumstances better than a programmed drone and actually learn with each fight. This makes humans superior to a robot drone which is just "search and destroy" ie taking the most obvious path and being easy to trick and fool and set traps for it to run into. I hope in future they illustrate the weaknesses of robot drones in macross the same way they do in star wars (paint them dumb and stupid) so that people don't get the wrong idea that drones are a silver bullet for winning. I think these are the same as the guys in macross 7 whose job was to defend the city while the stock standard soldiers are in control of enemies away from the city zone. Perhaps they need these elite soldiers because they have less chance of accidentally blowing up innocent people while fighting? Just a guess. If you watch macross 7 again you'll note that the diamond and emerald force were sometimes butting heads fighting over who has control over what space. So the civilians are the high priority and get the aces protecting them (guarding important targets) while the other ones can focus on blowing bad guys away and chasing them away from the city so nobody gets hurt. And the red bug is char the red comet. Holy poo I think you're on to something here. Heh all red mecha never die. That's the rule. The pilot inside the red bug is probably macross' version of char. All they need to show is the vf-25 being specially equiped to take a beating from the red bug because the red bug's poorer guns have trouble penetrating the special armor of the gundam/new valk due to the secret materials it is made out of. Macross is going to be about newtypes. (the mayan islanders descendants will be the psychic pilots who can beat the bugs because of their intuition. Remember too that certain people on earth may have a blood type that may match those PC people that visited earth once..perhaps this could explain why max is so good a pilot? He's a PC "newtype", and the spatial awareness is his psychic intuition?) Communication with the alien bugs might be through some psychic connection, like the alien girl in mospeada who always got headaches whenever there were inbit around and she acted as an early warning to everyone to be careful?

I don't think it would appear though since there was no usage of this in the anime. (either the OVA or Movie version) Did this wear the armor in the vfx games? Cuz if it did, then you could get the armor that way. If yamato had the macross 7 license we could probably get our VF-4 because this thing appears in the Macross 7 trash manga. (miria is training pilots to use them) Arrrgh, don't take this personally bandai but you suck for not making me a vf-4. (oh btw did that appear in the vfx games too?)

Go to the "Yamato" section and under "1/48 scale" subsection, I think in one of the reviews of the 1/48 vf-1 there are pics of the 1/48 comparing it with other toys of various scales. (they are standing in battroid mode side to side) search from here and click on each 1/48 review and look for comparison pics in the review pages of each one: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/toys/_toys_yamato.htm Is that what you were looking for? for example after clicking the first toy review from the left "VF-1A Hikaru Pre-Production Sample (DYRL)" you'll be here: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/toys/1...ample48main.htm ..you can see a comparison pic and look at the difference in battroid modes. after you click that thumbnail image...you should be taken to this page: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/toys/1...comparisons.htm It's like they are lined up for the miss macross contest.