kalvasflam

The plots are flipping a little too quickly in this season. They need to have slowed things down, the consulate infiltration thing should've started about three hours earlier. The situation seem very rushed, now, I know it's supposed to simulate real life, but they're doing too good a job here.

The movie was not too bad for a hollywood piece of entertainment. After all, you don't really expect historical accuracy from a movie like this.

I wish they could've done the battle at the Horns of Hattin in much more dramatic fashion, although in reality, Saladin pretty much killed the idiot crusader forces by taking command of the sole source of water in the area. But the movie had to portray at least one Christian as a good guy. And Bloom's character was an idiot, all he had to do was say yes and he could've had it all, not to mention spare the war.

Historically, Saladin was a pretty fair guy, sure, he was a zealot in his own right, but the Muslims during that era was the most sophisticated around, the envy of the world if you will. Saladin was a good strategist, and was known just as much for his charity as his warrior spirit. I don't actually recall him making a deal with the Christian defenders, but generally said when Jerusalm was under Muslim rule but all faiths were welcome, something the movie didn't really mention.

What really took the Muslims down and gave Europe such a jumpstart into the age of enlightenment was the Mongols. They ripped through the middle east like a force of nature. They were an entirely different story. Nobody stopped the Mongols except themselves. For all practical purposes, the Mongols used tactics that were almost a millenia ahead of their time, mobile tactics, and if you really want to call it that, they used essentially blitzkreig tactics. It was all pretty interesting from a military prespective. Saladin, had he been alive probably couldn't have stopped the Mongols, heck, the WWII generals got a lot of their inspirations from what the Mongols did. The reason that the Mongols eventually got reduced to the dustbin of history was due to cultrual reasons rather than anything else. They were co-opted by all the cultures they conquered, and all their own internal wars. The only real fight they lost to the outsiders was Aun Jit, think I spelled that right, and that's because they were really really outnumbered by the Mamelukes.

I think the Muslims are probably still sore at the Mongols about the stuff that happened a thousand years ago.... it set them back by a lot.

Well, with episode 29, hopefully, the story will finally start to move somewhere. The coming episode all seem to be pointing toward more of a coherent storyline.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the GSD storyline hasn't been very stellar in the last ten or so episodes. You kind of get the Vietnam feeling from it, like it's dragging on and on and just waiting for someone to put a bullet in it.

With Shinn vs Kira, hopefully, we get some good story telling coming out. I just have the feeling that Freedom needs to be put in its place, like some of the others, I'm sick of seeing Kira showing up and try to tell everyone what to do in his own ubiquitous way. Shinn is a bit of a nutjob, but with the proper direction, he could be a great Darth Vader. heh heh.

Nice episode on this one, although I have to say the Chinese consular was an IDIOT.

Who would run into the line of fire like that, that was just plain stupid. Other than that, it was nice knowing you Paul... heh heh, Audrey, gosh, talk about an example of the evil of nepotism.

all of them?

The captain may be... but did all the rest of them lose their minds as well? If that's the case, then well, that's actually kinda cool. EA can use Orb as their kamikaze corp... that'll sure put a crimp in ZAFT, eh?

Well he did tell his men to abandon ship. He tryed to minimize his casualties. Remember he never wanted to fight. He believed in the three Ideals of ORB and didnt want to fight in the first place. It seems to me that he wanted to end the way that ORB's force was being used as a puppet by EAF. Yes most of the other ships in his force were takin out, but by him purposly trying to sink his own ship, maybe he believed that it would end ORB's obligation to fight, atleast for the time being, and thus hopefully giving Cagali a chance to go back to ORB and back them out of the treaty. he probably thought it was the only last honorable thing to do. He always believed in Cagali, so like I said, maybe hes trying to buy her time to take back control of ORB. But who knows, hes dead and he cant explain his actions right????

Ordering his people to abandon ship was entirely after the fact that he went and set his ship on a collision course and the ship was already doomed. Minimize casulaties my ass, what he did was to in fact magnify casulaties. There were other ways of "taking Orb out of the fight," but he chose the way that would get most of his men killed. Now, if the rationale is that by killing Orb military personnel is the most expedient way to remove Orb from the fight. Then his methods were spot on.

But the rest of it just shows him to be an incompetent officer at best. Honor is a great thing to have when you're dead. If that's a choice any clear minded individual would have to make, I tend to think honor would go out the window in favor of life.

It had to end. He told the crew to abandon ship and seek refuge on Archangel so he didn't endanger his crew. The Takemikazuchi was serverly damaged. Shinn would be along in a few moments to sink it. He was obeying his conscience.

As soldiers, they obeyed their orders to take out Minerva by any means. If that meant ramming it or slamming your fighter into it, then that's what had to be done.

That might be, but he could've done that much earlier. And just soloed the ship in. As a soldier, he had to obey his orders, but that didn't mean committing suicide on purpose. The worst thing a soldier can do is to sacrificing himself for no purpose, which is how I viewed that final ride on toward Minerva.

The point here is, he can either decide to follow his conscience or be a soldier, straddling the line is a great way to get lots of people killed. The captain managed to do exactly that. Militarily, it's absolutely senseless to take an aircraft carrier against a battle ship in direct combat, and you'll note that carrier still had MS tied up on deck as it was going down. So, the only logical conclusion was the captain didn't really want to kill Minerva and his only choice was to sacrifice his own people in a suicide run. Talk about bad choices.

The bridge crew was just as bad, there is a big difference between reasonable and insane orders.

entertaining episode, minor nitpick: after the kamikaze run, why was Dullindal and company on the bridge of Minerva, along with Athrun and Cagalli?

It might be contrarian, but did it strike anyone else as stupid for the captain to have taken an aircraft carrier against a battleship? Any competent officer would've relieved him of duty immediately. He was purposely endangering his crew and his entire command. The results were predictable. The only argument I could muster is that since the writers wanted Orb to emulate Japan, they decided to model the Orb navy after the imperial navy in WWII. The suicide run by the Murasame as well as the obstinate captain that had to go down with the ship because he just orders hundreds of men to their death, all smacked of WWII type mentality.

But nice bits of new animation sequence. I like how many ways they thought of to blow away the Murasames. Neat. I don't know how its possible, but that Orb carrier must've had over 40 Murasames aboard considering the numbers that went down in both encounters, if you just count on the fact that they couldn't be easily resupplied, that monster was really something. A blow like that would really hurt a minor country without a big military like Orb. It's probably the real reason Cagalli was crying in the end, that big carrier and that entire task force wiped out. OUCH, how much money will it cost to replace all that. That's just so wrong.

I wonder if it'll be too much to hope that Marwan will survive into next season, you know, do an actual extension of this day into the next day. Kinda like they should've done for season 2 and 3. That would've been interesting.

Well, Chloe with a rifle... that was worth it. My God, she handled it like it was second nature. Old man Bauer better watch out, cause his computer skills aren't nearly as good as Chloe's.... and she seem to be shooting better than he did when he had an AK-47.

All those shots went through the wind shield... I don't even think that guy had a face left. This was a great episode, much better than last weeks....

But next week, it looks like Bauer and company are invading the Chinese consulate in LA. Can anyone say world war III? Guess it'll alternate good episode/crappy episode. Oh well.

Last but not least, old swoop and squat is back.

I must be blind or something, I saw the side by side comparison, and that's the only thing that told me there was a difference between Knight Justice and the old Justice. At first glance, I was like some of the others. What's the difference again?

Is that thing suppose to be transformable?

Heh heh, the only obvious things looking at the photos were that the wing pack was oriented differently, and Knight justice doesn't seem to have boomerangs.

May be I'm just blind.

The VP turn Pres was to make Keeler look good. Boy, did he ever. At least Keeler wasn't spineless and was willing to off his own sec def. This one was: "oh, help me, help me, hide me in an impenetrable bunker." At some point, it seems leadership completely vanishes, and the old self serving politician takes over.

The best thing about SWG is it's economy. This was surely true a year ago. A little less true these days. I'm not too combat oriented, but the revamp will be a very good thing. Hopefully there will be dramatic improvement in my chosen profession: Smuggling, but who knows.

The main problem with SWG in my opinion is that the combat is fairly meaningless. I think they haven't done a good job with GCW either. The problem I think is the static nature of the game, you're between episode IV and episode V. So, don't expect to play against Darth Vader, last I checked, he was still sitting on his old lazy ass with Palpatine on Naboo.

In terms of a jedi, many people have the patience to run through the hamster wheel that is the force sensitive process. But expect to have large chunks of your life taken out if you grind through jedi.

In terms of connection, the game isn't bad at all, nothing like UO days with lag galore. If you do go into the game. Have fun.

So back to our mysterious gundam, guess it likely is the next providence, so that should go to Rey, and Luna takes the Impulse. So now everyone has a gundam.

ah ha, so that's rather like command and conquer generals when you play the GLA.

You have that upgrade for angry mob, and when you get it, the voice over says: "AK-47 for everyone" followed by a cheer.

It's kind of similar here: "Gundams for everybody."

No, no, that's not true.

Repeat after me.... Dullindal GOOOOOD. He is just being outpolitiked by his enemies.... blame the liberal press, those bastards.

I agree with Focker.... the jedis are a bunch of snobs.... At least most of the masters. Obi-wan was a bit better in terms of how he acted toward others. My only regret is that no one sliced up Yoda in the end... he got a dose of humility from palpy, and he was still acting like a snob in the end.

Palpy was a little overboard, but then I just think of him as a dirty old man that couldn't get any and so decided to go on a power trip instead. See, if he only had regular access to the playboy channel while he was young, he wouldn't have turned out this way. How sad.

P.S. yes I'm a sith lord, but that's ok, I advocate playboy channel for everyone as a means of destroying the jedi rather than all this annoying mechanisation that Palpy likes so much.

heh heh, except Kiefer's last line made up for the pain of watch Mr. How do I save my own ass.

The writing seem to be on an up and down course these days. Last week good, this week, not so good.... and dammit, i missed the preview. I know old scoop and squat will be back, but I hope they don't make it too improbable.

May be Palmer is the speaker of the house.

But remember what happened to Mike the last time they tried a in house coup?

The Meer one doesn't work as well, but the Shinn one is hilarious.

As for 27

Guess this does indeed cast some solid doubt on the Chairman finally.

I'm still rooting for the chairman. From his view, some evil little bitch has stolen a ZAFT shuttle, and her accomplice did attacked a ZAFT base creating casaulties (to be included later). ZAFT must therefore hunt down the imposter Lacus (after all, if he can create an imposter, why can't anyone else, in fact, since he hasn't heard from the real Lacus for so long, how does he know she is still alive even? In fact, the one on that Orb beach house was rumored to be a fake in the first place, hence the order to assassinate.)

Heh heh, ok, enough twisted logic

Azrael,

That image on the bottom of your last post just seem so... not sure if it's right or wrong....

I didn't know GSD had turned Hentai....

You forgot the best line of the night.

Jack: "oh, here is something for the pain."

BAM, right in the noggin.

Graham, can you let us know about what it's like on the inside? I'm all for new Macross art.

anyone else want to strangle that bee-otch that gave up the football? 

jack did say, they were terrorists, that the football has complete access to all the nuclear devices in the US, and that they would be killed if they were found no matter what.  yet the bitch gives up the football?    i hate stupid amercian bitches.    if i were jack, i would've put one between the eyes and called it day.

It you guys notice the Pages that made up the Play Book were Laminated it wouldnt have gone up in smoke all that easily maybe the Control board would have been smashed but thats neither here nor there.

You know, I have to wonder if the football would contain a anti-tamper self destruct. It would seem logical given its utter importance. Punch in the code wrong twice, and big KABOOM.

That would've been hilarious. Jack would've told camper to try the code again and again, and KABOOM. They die, no codes, and Imhotep goes home mad. But then, that would be too obvious, and Imhotep would've had to move onto plan 7 or 8 of the day.

As for Behrooz... who was that again? I see him taking on the role of Marie in season 2, all but forgotten probably until the very last episode.

Oh man, how the heck do I get a copy of this. I wonder if I can order it on Japan Amazon.com.

Hmm....... More UC Mobile Suits blue Gouf, Rick-Dom and New Justice looks like a VF-1 in fighter mode with the Gunpod under it. Stellar is now Four, so whats next a new Sazabi with Gill as the pilot

Sazabi will have Athrun as pilot... that's obvious.

The good and bad thing about Seed is that they seem to stop doing their own unique MS at all. It's now all a rehash of UC series, but fortunately for them, they have a long list of MS they can rip off without ever coming up with another MS of their own.

Probably saves Bandai money as they can just use their older modeling molds. heh heh