1/1 LowViz Lurker

If the new series has spiritua, and just presents it in a way that doesn't look cheesy (ie magick coloured lights) and instead goes for a more scientific explanation would it be ok? I find that is the only thing needed for the people to accept it. Just explain exactly what it is to the audience, why it works, how it works, and the effect it has on people. I find the culture shock thing from SDF:M was good enough. But when it went into mystical energies that is when the science fiction guys were turned off. I think if the new series were to bring it back, this time go into more details and expand upon the idea. Perhaps the aliens known as the PC were musical aliens? So all the descendants (that chick in M0) who might be related are the only ones who can use this energy and make plants grow fast and stuff? People may get confused and think it is just soundwaves. and the vibrations themselves have healing ability. But it is more magickal than that and if that magick is there, I would like them to at least go into detail. Maybe give us a history lesson on the protoculture's religion (if they had a god) and teach us more about what their beliefs were. (go back in time with flashback or have an explorer discover ancient ruins with a library of books that describes their ancient civilisation for example.) Once people know what the PC were like, why the magic exists and works, and what limits if any there are, we can start to get a clearer picture of this macross universe. At least gundam is straight forward. That is psychic communication becoming the next step in man's evolution when he learns to cope out in the far reaches of space and make use of the dormant ability when exposed to it over a long time. This is something that gives us the reasons for it being the focus of the gundam show and why it centres on the newtype and not the average pilot. It's all about the special people with this ability so the mind powers and communications with machines through the mind define it. With SDF:M there isn't any of that: the music wasn't so magical and stuff, so its going to need fleshing out so people can start to embrace/accept it and not feel it is just tacked on as an afterthought.

Yeah but if this turns out to be a reboot a new generation of fans might be born to carry the torch. You need fans to keep things alive. some of the older generation may have to give up on what they liked about SDF:macross to see a series new people will accept. If an anime fan won't watch the original SDF:macross just because it is old and ignore seeing it just on the strength of the story alone, then that tells you it is time to take a different approach only until the thing generates enough money for the more serious older generation to see new show made. That's what I predict ends up happening at least. 1. they go for a mainstream audience and put the cute cats on girls shoulders in. 2. maybe add in a race of catgirls 3. lure people who like the character into watching a robot/mecha shows which they wouldn't ordinarily do 4. the popularity of the music and characters allows for merchandise to sell as fans of those characters buy the fluffy dolls, cds, figures, otaku love pillows etc 5. with the awareness and boosting of the name "macross", a more "close to the original" series can then later be made if the money is there for it for those who are genre fans. (ie in it for the robots, not the cats or teen angst characters which teens will relate to better than adults) People keep making fun of others for obsessing over a "20 year old robot show", in a way that says: "get over it, move on, nerd" yet they will get frightened when the mere mention of cute animals is in early design sketches because they don't want their baby changing. heh You can't have it both ways. You want originality and something new? Then you got to have some change and compromise. (not just about robots but culture - highlight difference between races of alien and civilisations and thier way of living and their strange customs, not just action) You want more of the same? Then don't complain it isn't adding new things to the macross name to boost popularity with a new audience who won't just be drawn to the show based on the genre. (my guess is most people want hard science fiction and stuff, and not the mystical ancient magick civilisation stuff, am I right? Some alien tech may be just too advanced for humans to understand so things like pinpoint barriers just exist with no explanation alongside all the realistic stuff like planes that look like they would really fly based on what we know) At the end of the day maybe you got to rely on the cute characters, the young inexperience kid, the magical girl, ..type characters to get enough people to even consider seeing a new show? Chuck in all those things at the same time as having the characters who are like an update hikaru, misa, and minmay clone?

The classics look *better than the old g1 toys imo. Grimlock classics > grimlock 80s original. They should make a videogame on the g1 classics. *except for prime with his fake grille

Good news that the classics is continuing. Does this mean we might see thundercracker, dirge, thrust?

Good that the problem was resolved. Anyone else with problems? Reviews, impressions, warnings of fragile areas etc would be appreciated. Eventually I'm going to get all the macross plus stuff. Like the monster I'm just going to leave it alone displayed in a favorite mode though. If the SV-51 turns out to be durable I will consider first release purchase if I have the money.

Lets us know when it finally reaches you and you get to see it.

Saw the movie. Would have prefferred the good ole g1 idea of the autobots fighting a resistance against the decepticons over generations and passing leadership on to lead the autobots to freedom. The autobots would get beaten due to not being based on the military hardware line, and as a result they practice the art of stealth. The most successful technique being the reconfiguration of their form from a robot to that of a vehicle to kind of blend in with the city they would fight in and secretly spy on the decepticons as harmless vehicles. Disguised as consumer products like cars and trucks, which would not arouse any suspicion, they could get the surprise on the more firepower-heavy decepticons, and eventually win the war. That is until the decepticons copy thier techniques and begin to dominate again forcing the autobots to flee thier home planet and search for resources on other planets to continue the retaking of planet cybertron from the decepticons. Like the empire that is chasing the rebel forces at the begining of star wars, the autobots have to fight their way out of a situation (think of a car chase but in space) and end up crashing on our planet earth which is where they lay dorment for millions of years. Yeah yeah, the movie is not g1 but to me the above story explains the whole reason they even need to transform at least and if we could turn back time, we would all prefer this. I liked the humour, the cg, the flow of the animation, and pacing of the movie, but did not like the lack of character development or the lack of a dramatic building up towards the end with megatron. It just seemed like they missed an opportunity to have a prime vs megatron fight with both of them trying to persuade and reason with each other about why their ideal is the right one. Think of the scene in gangs of new york where you had the leader of the two gangs face off against each other amidst a lot of fighting between the other lesser followers who can't fight as well and/or don't really stand out that much. That's the humanoid equivalent of what I wanted to see in the transformers movie! It should be a story about prime and megatron and the eternal hatred between two tribes of robot smashing each other to pieces with no end. The autobots would fight with honor, while the decepticons would use all the dirty tricks in the book to have their way only to be betrayed by those wo seek to gain the control of the army for themselves through assassination attempts or just revenge. Both sides should take heavy casualties (not one side winning without much effort or sacrifices) and this would be the theme of the never-ending battle between the autobots fighting to free cybertron and the decepticons fighting to gain control of cybertron which would then allow them to use their military might to rule over other defenceless worlds and eventually conquer the galaxy. What I would like to see is the decepticons actually having their way and having the autobots play the defence for the first two movies and then in the third, the gradual take over of power as they catch up to the decepticons in building up their forces to finally beat them at their own game and force them off cybertron. This won't live up to g1 but what it did show, it presented it with nice photorealistic cg that is worth paying money just to see it all. I would say I liked the movie as a standalone science fiction movie, but not as I would have liked to see it as transformers. It's just my G1 bias. Having said that the action was very well done. Just as I would have imagined the robots to look if they were these real alien robots fighting each other and trying to rip each other apart. One thing I would have loved to see is the energy axe and energy mace haha. Have prime and megatron project a ancient magic energy weapon that only the leaders of the two sides can wield to fight each other one on one which is the final confrontation to determine who is the superior fighter. Of course even though it is a death match prime's compassion gets in the way after he wins and megatron as we all expect interprets this as prime being weak (true warriors kill each other and finish their opponent off, not shake hands and congratulate, putting faith in the other to not take advantage of the niceness) and kill him from behind which leads to an all out fight between both sides and the end of movie 1 as the autobots try to select a new leader. Movie two would be all about how the autbots cope without their leader and loss of hope, as a dark horse arises to take control to substitute as leader. Eventually that allows prime to return in a 3rd movie and come in with a dramatic entrance to finish what he started. It's deviated too far for g1 fans to expect that though but I will still see the next movie/s anyway for the action.

I wish they were made out of chocolate so you could at least eat them when they break.

Wow great news. FAST packs finally. About time.

I have to admit though that if you don't transform stuff much it might not be that big a deal. I haven't touched the konig monster for ages. I know that if I were to transform it enough times I bet those little nubs would break over time. Stress marks are scary. Best to be on the safe side and mention all the problems you are having than to keep the rest in the dark and then risk having people buy it without warning of potential problem beforehand. It's going to be interesting to see how long the SV-51 will last before people complain of any snaps and cracks and pieces coming apart.

It would be a non-canon release.

CF is good to have in groups. They make the other valks stand out because they are so plain. Would be cool if they did a set of CF FAST packs colored brown in the style of the max and milia tv FP.

I'll probably end up seeing it, but won't hold huge expectations. Just going to go in with the thinking of: It's an action movie with robots. G1 universe was just a dream. The real transformers are messy and detailed and more complex than the shapeshifting cartoon robots we all thought were awesome as little kids. They should hold a new poll: did you actually like the movie after seeing it? Maybe they could even do a beast wars cg movie after this?

Will they non-censor the dvd version though? I mean if the movie is good it might be worth buying the dvd of it and getting the proper version that way. In fact I believe they'd be able to make money selling the theatrical and uncut since now they have two things to milk people of.

Alaska base valk. Although I have to admit vf-1 is done to death. Maybe yamato need to give it a break for a while? There is only so much money one can spend and saving up for the macross zero and macross plus things is probably of higher priority for people since these are new. SV-51 is going to mthrfkn expensive I predict. Did anyone by that urban camo GBP?

This is what I mean by no safety net for macross products for us outside japan. Macross is the only one where I'll wait for later releases or a good first release because of that. Just can't afford to have a dud. It would be good if people had some japanese friends we could all contact to buy the stuff from, and people would pay upfront to that "friend" for it, they would go and buy it directly from a japanese store, open it up to check for problems (at the option of the buyer who wants to get a flawless toy - you would email telling him to "please check before sending") and if there is a problem, use him to complain about it. Once that person got the replacement that is owed to them of a fixed shoulder (and since they are a japanese customer where it would be ok for support) then he would send the replaced shoulder with the toy in box to avoid the aweful HLJ treatment of selling it as a seperate item. The person would need a good reputation though and free time. (basically have to be a fan of macross who is more than happy to help a fellow fan out for the good of the community) But think of all the risk you eliminate by doing it? Bulk order would probably save money too. If people knew they had some form of safety net, it might even boost sales due to knowing they are being taken care of, and there is no danger of yamato just abusing us customers outside of japan because they weren't supposed to sell to them in the first place.

Someone mentioned they would not have found out about the problem if they didn't look for it. I assume yamato did the same: assumed there is no problem and didn't prepare for a problem that they didn't know even existed until too late. The HG issue is what makes it hard for the macross collector. Support for spare parts wouldn't be a problem if officially we could receive the fixes. Without the support and due to the high import price, its way more risky than for other toys. Japanese buyers have the safety of knowing it is for their territory so I guess they would have less to be angry about, right? (whereas the slightest stress mark scares us due to the hassle of getting the replacements and/or having no contact with someone who can take care of us) Hopefully the japanese customers do notice the problems or it will mean any complaints by those outside japan start to have less legitimacy in thier mind. (and even if there is a boycott by people buying outside of japan in protest, I doubt that would do anything seeing as how insignificant sales outside japan would be and how we are not the main target in the first place) There is still hope that they do take all feedback (regardless of where the buyer is from) seriously though otherwise we would be stuck with the VF0 swapping parts thing instead of the PT. It's still money at the end of the day. I wonder if by the time toys for that new macross tv series start to be made, yamato boosts their own durability in order to compete with any other toy company making toys for it? (assuming there is multiple companies all doing something) As an example if a VF-11 appears in the tv series, and bandai were to make a ultra tough but decently detailed pt toy, and yamato also had plans for a VF-11, and the bandai one was going to affect sales of the yamato one, because they look similar, what effect would that have on yamato's attitude towards their own rendition of the mecha? Would they start bouncing ideas from others, changing the toy to match the better design, and generally being more serious about the thing having to actually outdo the other to profit? The current problem is we are not spoilt for choice. People say yamato is the only game in town, so you either don't buy and resist the temptation, and miss out. Or you buy and take a risk that you are going to waste money on a busted toy with no support which is the safety net you can get for other franchises. Two big extremes with no comfortable middle.

Looking good. But yep as much as I love the beauty of these pics I will await reviews. Come on yamato, better QC and testing. Treat it like they are masterpieces that must be built to last forever. Love that telescoping head gimmick. And the folded bat wings pose for fighter looks cool. Please don't let ivanov be the one with the early durability issues! I like his scheme much better.

I'm for the "put all the stuff in a single box" idea. It would make up for it not being a transforming mecha. Maybe if they wanted to, have a seperate fully posable action figure pilot (with weapons and swappable heads) to milk us there but for the mecha itself I want all the accessories together. It's just a blue ball with legs FFS

I wonder if they'll ever put orcs in macross? Then have the humans and elves fight against orcs and trolls like warcraft? Orcs would just be the genetically modified elves built for battle just like the zentradi are to humans.

Good to hear that. Hopefully if a future release has a shoulder prob (like vf-11 on first release for example?) the early adopter can still be able to get the fix after reporting these probs. Durability seriously needs to be looked out for before yamato release any future transforming toys. I'm willing to buy, just that I'm also very patient and will wait for the right time to buy, rather than rush out immediately. It's too expensive to take too much risk for us people who are going to import. I'd rather wait till they've been out for a while and see if any complaints pop up here before deciding.

The regult is cool but make the glaug too. So easy to make. Just make sure you can pose the things in a natural way. Only two limbs to concentrate on. Can't be that hard. Zentradi have no transforming mecha in SW I. So no compromise on proportions or worry of fans of one mode whining about how it looks.

Starscream looks dirty. He must have crashed a few times and not dusted it off. Also, many times in transformers what happens is characters shoot the ceiling to trap their enemy under a pile or rubble and this hits them on the head or buries them under the pile which they are trapped under for ages.

Well if it WAS him, can you tell him to change it back to traditional TF bodies so that when they transform it looks like a vehicle? (I'm too scared) I am not saying that style isn't cool or anything, just that I would prefer a less-stylised approach because that's how g1 fans envision them. I'm not trying to be offensive that's just the truth of how I feel. Although if they can't, it's not going to make me cry or throw a tantrum. It's just a 20 year old robot show like macross. I actually watched Robotech Shadow chronicles and thought it wasn't as bad as many macross purists made out to be. (except for the singing at the end ) this took courage to say it on here. In fact lately I am coming to appreciate the good writing in shows like transformers beast wars, as I didn't like the cg and characters but I can put up with it for the story, just as many noob anime watchers are probably going to pass judgement on macross as too uncool and old to be worth the time to see due to the crappy animation in some episodes. (max and milia knife fight)

Transformers G1 needed a reboot the same way Ninja turtles got one with its use of more shadows, and edgier look compared to its 80s cartoon version. 1987 vs 2k3 It would have been good to see something that is "similar but different" to what g1 was. Just beef up the story and flesh out the characters more (g1 sometimes showed a character without you really knowing who they were or introducing them) and smoothen out the animation so the action is dramatic and exciting and I would have been happy.