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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    As noted previously, a good deal of the discontent from the die-hard Star Wars fans on social media seems to center around the perceived Sith-Jedi continuity snarl between the dialog in The Phantom Menace and the setting of The Acolyte. Looking in from the outside as a casual Star Wars enjoyer, the long-time fans seem to react especially poorly to anything that changes the previously established timeline or how the setting works. Andor is brilliant. You should definitely watch it, even if the first two and a half episodes are a bit of a slog. That's an easy one... it's all about managing and minimizing risk. Disney's been playing it safe with Star Wars ever since 2017-2018. The one-two punch of the substantially negative fan reaction to The Last Jedi in 2017 and the failure of Solo: a Star Wars Story at the box office in 2018 put them on the defensive in a big way. The ensuing panicked "recalibration" saw them axe their planned lineup of __________: a Star Wars Story films and have the final film of the sequel trilogy micromanaged and written by committee to ensure that it would be made as inoffensive to fans as possible. It's also why televised works have largely been Filoni mining the rich seams of pre-Disney nostalgia with de facto spinoffs of pre-Disney shows and new stories operating in close proximity to the original trilogy like The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan, Andor, etc. The farther afield they go, the less the writers are able to use nostalgia as a crutch in their writing and the more they have to change the visual design of the story. The Acolyte being 100 years ahead of The Phantom Menace seems to be their idea of a happy medium for now... far enough away that the events of the Skywalker Saga aren't yet relevant to the story, but close enough that they don't have to tweak the visual aesthetic any. Killing a few Yuenglings might dull the pain of Obi-Wan a little...
  2. Seto Kaiba
    The Philips CD-i games never happened. It was a mass hallucination. A bad future prevented by the Hero of Time. Moonlight reflecting off of a misidentified aircraft through swamp gas on a horrible night to have a curse. Something like that. 😛 In all seriousness, I prefer Link as a silent protagonist in the games for pretty much the reasons you said. He's usually a deadpan stoic in cutscenes (unless you count the Wind Waker game and the similarly styled spinoffs like Spirit Tracks) and his status as a heroic mute meant that you could project whatever personality reflected your gameplay style onto him. Giving Link an actual personality of his own is going to be really contentious no matter what direction they go because of all the ****ing memes and fan comics and so on about Link as an emotionally vacant stoic, a heroic sociopath, a gremlin-esque kleptomaniac, a snarky action hero, leeroy jenkins moron, a closeted femboy... and so on. I'm sure they'll go with something comparatively safe, but the paths not taken will be talked about for years. ... y'know what, **** it, let's give a whole new generation an anxiety disorder and adapt Majora's Mask. Does it even need to be on the timeline? I mean, the Legend of Zelda timeline's pretty much entirely for show and has no bearing on any of the stories that make it up.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, like I said, it's meant to be a knee-jerk reaction to the content immediately in front of you... not a vote of confidence on the potential of what the video in front of you might be trying to sell. That's a bit wide of the mark, in point of fact. "Review bombing" was a term coined by game and tech journalists back in the late 2000s to describe coordinated campaigns of gamers mass-posting negative reviews of games to punish the developers and/or publishers for misdeeds like false and egregiously misleading advertising or using particularly restrictive or detrimental DRM. 2008's Spore gets cited as the origin of the term quite a bit. The term was later appropriated to describe similar punitive campaigns of mass negative review posting in other contexts regardless of justification. Film studios and TV networks do sometimes try to blame large numbers of early negative reviews on review bombing... but it doesn't take long for the truth to come out one way or the other, and you can pretty reliably predict which way it'll go based on how hard they're reaching for plaudits in their self-published promotional material. What it is in this case, we can only guess... it could be fans downvoting it based on past performance, or it could be people really just don't thrill to the concept. Time will tell. Well, yes and no... If you start your own, the setup costs can get quite expensive... but if all you're interested in is the results you can hire one of the many private firms that provide bot-driven social media "engagement" for pocket change. There are dozens of services that'll happily sell you likes, follows, retweets, and what have you for as little as a penny per interaction if you're willing to buy in bulk. A quick Google search'll turn up pages of services willing to sell you likes by the thousands for the cost of a burger at McDonalds. Studios don't typically do it because it's really bloody obvious when you see it happening, and most social media platforms have rules against buying engagement now. It's easier and less conspicuous to simply buy up the entertainment news websites that're publishing reviews and source their artifiical positive press more organically.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    From what I can see about it on social media, it does seem that there is a significant portion of the Star Wars fanbase who are not enamored of the premise for The Acolyte. The sticking point for many of them appears to be the apparent continuity problem mentioned earlier in this thread WRT the Jedi explicitly stating they haven't seen hide nor hair of a Sith in 1,000 years with this series set just 100 years before that statement. It's certainly possible it's review bombing, but given the size and devotion of the Star Wars fanbase it's at least equally likely that it's an honest-to-goodness audience reaction to the teaser trailer specifically. The Like/Dislike button does specifically court that kind of snap judgement.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    The Legend of Zelda's got a broad strokes universal adaptor plot that can be neatly slotted into a bunch of different aesthetics without issue. The creative team working on it ought to have a pretty free hand in coming up with their own aesthetic and approach to the story. 😁 The only issue is that Link will almost certainly actually have dialogue... which will be every bit as weird as hearing a Mario that doesn't have Charles Martinet's over-the-top Italian accent. Not a dealbreaker, just a weird thought as someone who's used to Link as an unspeaking protagonist.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, unexpected platform aside it's nice to know that Macross shows are going to be widely available in the near future. Streaming releases should presumably be followed shortly by home video releases... it's shaping up to be a pretty good year to be a Macross fan.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    He's a TV/movie review YouTuber whose schtick is dressing up as a parody of Dr. Doom, and it generally isn't. As reviewers go, he usually falls into the "toxic fanboy" category. I'm actually kind of surprised to hear he's still around. I don't think I've ever seen him talk anime, though... I've only ever seen him ranting about western SF like Star Trek or Star Wars.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    So it's not a Star Wars story? A flogging in the court of public opinion, apparently! 26% positive, 74% negative +/- 1%... that's one hell of a marketing SNAFU.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    It does... but Harmony Gold seems to have given it a pass given that it's outside the scope of what they have licenses to, similar to how the provision that rules out using the designs from the original series in new works only applies to new works created after the agreement. Harmony Gold has the merchandising rights. They got them back in the early 2000s after their original bid to stop imports of Macross toys from Japan failed, as a way to prevent the importation of VF-1 toys that might compete against their Toynami MPC line. They've also trademarked the key art for several characters and so on from the original series. They do... but, based on statements at the last few quarterly earnings calls, Disney's seniors execs and board of directors have cooled on the idea of acquiring outside companies for their IP and audiences. They've spent a combined $88.705 billion on acquisitions since 2006 just between Pixar ($7.5B), LucasFilm ($5.905B), Marvel ($4B), and Fox ($71.3B). That doesn't include the organizational debt they acquired in the process too, which puts the total cost over $100 billion. They're still paying that down, and they'll be doing so for years to come... with even major brands like Star Wars or Marvel only starting to break even ~7 years after being acquired.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Finally getting back to this one after a couple months off. Watched the first couple episodes of The Mandalorian season three last night, and I'm still having a pretty good time with it despite not being entirely conversant in the lore behind the Mandos. The visual effects are as stunning as ever, but I'm a bit disappointed how quickly Din managed to deal with last season's big talking point of being excommunicated from his little fundamentalist cult. I'm hoping a more cogent explanation of that point comes along later. Many jokes were had in my watch group that the Mythosaur that is apparently central to their symbology is... The day in the life segment for that one Imperial scientist from season one was a nice touch too. It makes the galaxy feel much more lived in when we get to see things besides the crystal spires of the elite and the wretched hives of scum and villainy (TM). The spacecraft boneyard is a magnificent VFX sequence and it's weirdly charming to see something like an in-universe tourist trap when they visit the peak of the tallest mountain on Coruscant and it's just... a rock sticking out of the floor of a plaza. Grogu's inclusion still feels kinda forced and unnecessary, but he's not really getting in the way of the plot yet. It just feels like we get periodic reminders that he's still around because they want to sell more dolls.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Nah... Disney's been pretty clear that their main focus is still very much in developing original IPs. Their efforts to merge with Hulu and diversify their streaming portfolio are all about trying to steer a streaming service to profitability like what Netflix had before the bubble burst and the marget segmented. Not to mention you can't force a private owner to sell if they don't want to... and if the previous investigations and prosecutions for tax evasion are any indication, Harmony Gold's owners might not want to risk a more financially literate firm examining their books too closely.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Wait and see is the only sensible approach... Disney+ is currently running around coin-flip odds of a series being either terrible or actually pretty good. It's just a matter of being patient until it comes out and we see if it's either another story that didn't need to be told like Obi-Wan Kenobi or The Book of Boba Fett or an actually-pretty-good addition like The Mandalorian and Andor. Given that it's pitched as a Jedi-heavy story, I'm strongly suspecting the former... but I could be wrong, and will be delighted if I am. It wouldn't be the first time Disney Star Wars did that for me.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    I can think of only a few people whose opinions on the matter would be even less relevant than his... and they're all Harmony Gold employees. 🤣 Harmony Gold still has the exclusive rights to the original series outside Japan under their license with Tatsunoko, and they need to keep the Robotech franchise limping along so they can keep the trademarks that are the only reason Big West has to deal with them. So in order to protect their Robotech franchise, they added into the contract with Big West that Big West would not use designs from the original series in new works meant for global distribution. Presumably the reason Flash Back 2012 is in the clear is that the main characters were redesigned for it and are "different enough" from the original designs used in the TV series and in DYRL to be considered legally distinct.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Ech... yeah, it looks pretty. Shame that it's from the Zeon perspective... being veteran foot soldiers of the bloodiest and most evil regime in Gundam's human history is Nightmare difficulty for making your protagonists relatable or sympathetic or anything other than arsehole victims when the Gundam comes calling.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    That's probably not going to happen... mainly because nobody involved has any idea how this thing is supposed to transform. Kawamori's VF-X-4 design from Super Dimension Fortress Macross didn't come with a transformation already figured out, and nobody working on the Robotech license over the years has had the design chops to come up with one. The reason they've only started using it recently is that they didn't have alt-modes for it at all until Ninja Division designed them for it while working on that failed Robotech tabletop game ten years ago. Even then, Ninja Division never figured out how to get from Point F to Point G to Point B. They just came up with something that looked about right for the modes themselves... and subsequent commercialization ground to a halt when the game's publisher overestimated demand and spent the remaining development budget on retail stock, the Robotech Academy Kickstarter bombed, and they more or less sold control of the franchise to Sony Funimation.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    ... oh it's "number two" all right, in a sense other than the strictly numerical. 🤣 In a way, it's kind of impressive what an equalizer the Robotech license manages to be. It doesn't matter if the writer is a slumming industry professional or a rank amateur who'd got the license because literally nobody else wanted it... it somehow drags them all down to the same level. Truly, this is the duality of Robotech's licensed works... Robotech desperately wants to be seen as "American Macross", but outside of the daring-but-doomed piss-take that was Robotech Remix the franchise can't conceive of a happy future at all, never mind one where Humanity voluntarily coexists with aliens the way it does in Macross. It goes back at least as far as the New Generation, where Scott implies the Zentradi were driven to extinction and wishes the same on the Invid. Subsequent works just made it worse with each iteration. Robotech II: the Sentinels had Humanity effectively expel the remaining Zentradi from the planet by drafting them into the Expeditionary Forces so the Robotech Masters could finish the job, which one of their own rogue officers ended up doing instead post-reboot in Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles. Scott's very specific trauma WRT the Invid was distorted by licensee writers until it became an article of faith that Humanity in general was openly, unapologetically, and militantly xenophobic outside of a few painfully naive people in senior positions. It hit its apex in Prelude and the accompanying Shadow Chronicles "movie" with the story depicting the few pro-coexistence top brass as almost suicidally stupid and the bigoted villain being objectively correct that aliens couldn't be trusted as the Haydonites backstab everyone in turn.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    The REB-22 beam guns and AMG-30 machine guns are for the gun mounts on either side of the cockpit. The AAB-7B/AAB-9A beam cannons are on the monitor turret (head) as coaxial guns. The official writeups note that the original VF-17's forearm-mounted beam guns are not present in the economized VF-171.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    If what you're envisioning is a remake of Super Dimension Fortress Macross akin to what Sunrise did for Mobile Suit Gundam: the Origin... then no, there's no legal obstacle we know of that would prevent them from making it. They just wouldn't be able to distribute it outside Japan if they used the original designs at all. Part of their distribution agreement with Harmony Gold was that they wouldn't use the OG designs going forward... which is probably a dealbreaker for it now that they're focusing on an international audience.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, well... the answer is technically "All of them" and "None" respectively. The pre-war Earth Unification "UN" Government was a world government that was proposed, negotiated, and ultimately established through the modern United Nations. On paper, and for most intents and purposes, every nation was a member. The Earth UN Forces that were established to oversee planetary defense were, in theory, open to any nation. The dominant players were, of course, the nations that had the largest and/or most advanced militaries like the G8. Many of these same advanced nations were also the founders of OTEC, the international NGO that was set up to study and reverse-engineer the technology of the alien warship. Many fans look at the abbreviation "Anti-UN" for the Anti-Unification Alliance and assume that it was a Legion of Doom-esque "evil UN" rival to the Earth UN Gov't. That's giving it quite a bit more credit than it deserves. The Anti-Unification Alliance was something akin to the early Rebel Alliance in Star Wars's Rogue One and Andor... a loose association of nationalist partisans, anti-government militias, terrorist organizations, out of work mercenaries, and other flavors of armed and dangerous ne'er-do-wells from all over the world who found common cause in opposing the Earth Unification Government despite their separate sociopolitical agendas. They weren't tied to, or openly backed by, any specific nation... though it's indirectly suggested in official material and outright stated in Master File that the largest and best-supported groups in the Alliance were from former Soviet republics like Russia and Poland. The defense companies selling arms to them that've been named in official materials are in Russia (Sukhoi, Mikoyan), Germany (Dornier and Daimler), and Israel (IAI).
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, that doesn't so much look like it takes inspiration from the alien isolation game as it does just straight up taking every aspect of its set design. Not the worst move they could make, considering that's basically the only good title the franchise produced after Aliens.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    It says in the announcement: "(*Some works are only available in Japan)" Since the original series and DYRL? are ruled out of western markets by their agreement with HG, we presumably get the sixteen titles from Flash Back 2012 forward: Macross Flash Back 2012 Macross II: Lovers Again Macross Plus Macross 7 Macross Plus: Movie Edition Macross 7 the Movie: the Galaxy is Calling Me! Macross 7 Encore Macross Dynamite 7 Macross Zero Macross Frontier Macross Frontier the Movie: The False Songstress Macross Frontier the Movie: the Wings of Goodbye Macross FB 7: Listen to My Song! Macross Delta Macross Delta the Movie: Passionate Walkure Macross Delta the Movie: Absolute Live!!!!!!
  22. Seto Kaiba
    One can only admire their commitment to maintaining a bell curve, quality-wise. Eventually, I'm sure... but it's going to be the same zero-sum game the pre-Disney material was playing. In the grim darkness of the *checks notes* distant past there can be only war. War... and constant political upheaval with a new government every thirty years or so because the galaxy absolutely cannot get its sh*t together under any circumstances. All things considered, they'll have to introduce the live action canon's fourth galactic government in the next feature moving the story forward. We've already had Republic Classic and New Republic... what's next? Diet Republic? Wild Cherry Empire? Vanilla Republic? The Second Order? Republic Zero? That's probably why they're faffing about in the pre-prequel era instead of setting up the story going forward past Episode IX. It's in the fan-heavy writers room's comfort zone and they don't have to come up with anything that might have actual implications for the setting down the road.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    When all's said and done, this is still the era of the Jedi Council blindly marching towards its own destruction thanks to that heady mixture of arrogance and overconfidence in their abilities... It wouldn't exactly be off brand for them to miss the Sith Lord in Plain Sight. It'd just mean Palpatine wasn't the first time they rolled a critical fail on a Sense Motive check.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Hrm... the Andor route. I hope this doesn't mean another 2-3 episodes of people dramatically walking from place to place before the plot starts so they can show off the sets. 🤣
  25. Seto Kaiba
    That's the whole IX Legion, you're gonna have to be more specific. 😛
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