jenius

One little qualm I had about shaky cam, no one ever sprints and holds a camera facing forward. If you're running for your life your arms flail while you run. So I wasn't nauseated but there were a couple times where I did the whole "yeah, this shot would happen" sarcastic smirk. Thank God they didn't do realistic running though, that would have been the most annoying movie ever. EDIT - Spoiler ratified.

Has anyone ever purchased from them before? Do these guys have a good reputation? Do you know if they normally ship quickly after release?

I just didn't want people to think I felt they were morons when I voiced my different opinion. Tell ya what, make an argument about how Cloverfield is cinema verite instead of just throwing out a phrase. When I think cinema verite, and admittedly it's been a long time since i had a class on film, I think about a movement that was almost obssessed with de-glossing life. In the simplest sense it would be like the camera following someone into the lieu during a movie instead of pretending like people never pooped. So, maybe I have some screwed up memory but I'm at work and don't have the time to Google up a refresher. I have always said the movie was fun. It succeeds in creating tension and keeping the action going. When I say it's "completely stupid" I simply mean that at no point will it ever make you think. Did it set out to make a person think? No. Is it a failure? No. I didn't say any of those things, I said: I think that argument allows plenty of wiggle room for me to talk about scenes I thought were really fun and obviously I had fun watching it. I give the movie creators credit where it was due. I'm just saying, on paper, there ain't a whole lot there. Because we know better than to see those films?

First of all, I just want to set the record straight that we're talking about movies which aren't terribly important in my world so please forgive me for doing a little bashing and know that I mean nothing personal by it. LOL, yes, Cloverfield is an excellent example of cenema verite. Truth in cinema = Cloverfield. Yes, I see it now! There is absolutely no depth to Cloverfield. This reminds me of when people were arguing that Mac7 had all these deep underlying meanings and issues. People standing above a puddle and seeing an abyss. There's nothing there folks, nothing. Christ you're using the cliched "i gotta save my girlfriend" as a means of granting this film depth? It's okay to love a completely stupid film because it's filmed well and is really fun. This is that movie. It was a lot like porn in a lot of ways. I will say there were a few times it surprised me. The way they developed tension in the underground scene was done pretty darn well. You kept thinking something was going to happen and nothing did and then when you were starting to think things were slowing down it got all crazy fast again.

I saw it, I enjoyed it. It's the most vacuous and empty-handed movie I've ever seen though and that kinda scares me. Moral? No. Plot? Run from monster. Backstory? No. Writing more sophisticated than "Oh God run?" No. It really is possibly the worst movie ever made except it was done in a way to be a real fun ride... and it was a fun ride. Most movies of this genre tuck a moral in with the question of "where did this monster come from?" but Cloverfield almost fails entirely to even ask that question except for Hud's ponderings in the stairwell. I'm interested to see where they take it from here but in the meantime I'm definitely only recommending it to my adrenaline junky buddies.

Seeing as they're already going LE on the red and green Legioss toys, I doubt we'll see the dark one.

Did you mod the knees??? If we could combine the super poseable VF-17 (I think Fly4Victory did that one) with a red Milia that'd be sweet. Love your paint work, very nice.

Yours is $208 because of the preferable exchange rate right? If anyone finds a good deal on these let me know. I may not be a huge fan but the completist in me guarantees I'll be buying it. If I score it for a reasonable price I might not hate my completists instincts as much.

I don't really mind them double-dipping on one of the 1Ss but to double dip on both in one wave? That's kinda lame. It should have been either a new Focker or a new Hikaru and then they could have given us a 1D or even a Jenius 1S.

SDCC Exclusive: Hikaru 1S with black box Wave 3: Weathered Hikaru 1S with Strike Parts Wave 1: Focker 1S Wave 3: Weathered Focker 1S with Strike Parts Seems a bit sad to me that Toynami is double dipping twice already. I guess they added the weathering (if these toys ever come out) and chances are the Wave 3 will be built better than the SDCC exclusive and the Wave 1 toy.

Why'd they put those missiles under the intakes like the Aoshima version? How many friggin' missiles does this little plane need?

You just effectively said "What's shown in Macross isn't Magic, it's Magic!" Telekinesis, telepathy, and "paranormal empathy" don't really exist. Just because these fictional forms of magic have cool sounding names doesn't make them scientific of factual. They're all the stuff of legend. I think you're splitting hairs in a big way. There is no telekinesis, telepathy, or "paranormal empathy" in the original Macross series. Anything that seems beyond the realm of modern man is given an explanation (sometimes as vague as "over-tech"). There were no Maos appearing in cockpits just like there were no witches casting ice spells. While I do disagree with you as to what the theme of the show was, I do agree that there's plenty of room to explore things. When humans are wielding magic though then something has gone wrong. Leave inexplicable powers to unknown aliens.

The first chase was Max's VF-1A. The text you quoted makes me think the next chase will be Kakizake's VF-1A although that completes Vermilion not Skull Squadron.

Questionable certainly doesn't make for a good toy. That's stuff like crooked landing gears, really crooked heads, paint flaws, chips, etc. I'm a pretty relaxed collector, I'm sure there are many people that would have returned some toys I held on to. Of course, there are also people who wouldn't be bothered with that stuff. The problem with saying though that either half or 75% of the toys I own are in good shape is that they are only that way because I am scared to handle them. The hands fall apart, the front landing gear door can fall apart, and if you move the arms more than three times you'll never be able to get it to keep an out-stretched arm pose again. Let's not even get into how scary the arms are during transformation. I love the look of my MPC Alphas, and I appreciate what Toynami tried to do, but I'd never consider it a toy. I like it enough to have bought 12 of them so I could have 4 I considered excellent (and some extras). With CMs at least I think I can buy these toys and not have to freak out about how hard it will be to return if I get a lemon. That was always a concern with my Toynamis.

I've owned about a dozen Alphas, three were so bad they had to be returned to Toynami and at least another three were questionable. 50% pass/fail rate? I'm confident CMs will improve upon that ratio... I'm just sad that those few real quality Toynami MPC Alphas I have will probably still be preferred to this CMs piece.

Guys, the 0A giftset has the craptastic shoulders, not the good ones. THe only VF-0 toys with good shoulders are the VF-0S 2nd edition and the VF-0S Ghost set. No 0A has been made with good shoulders yet. Since no 0A has been made with good shoulders it's probably a safe bet that any people ordering 0A colored arms are still getting crappy breakable ones.

I'm pretty sure it'll just be a repaint of the VF-1... making it a completely different toy wouldn't make a lot of sense I'm afraid.

It's been said before but since all this design talk is coming up again, the Toynami design is too sophisticated for the scale... which means you can easily argue it's poorly designed. If it were a much bigger toy it might be perfect. It might even be a perfect design if Toynami had a beautiful manufacturing process that kept all toys to be built within precise tolerances. As it is, with Toynami being only capable fo constructing shoddy products, they needed to make their design much simpler than they did. I think I described the Toynami MPC Alpha in my review as being "overly ambitious" and I'd stick with that description. They tried for a lot... and screwed up a lot in the process. CMs seems to be going pretty far in the opposite direction but questionably so. They kept a bunch of gratuitous gimmicks (missile doors), surrendered some necessary features (fins collapsing into the arms), and made some very odd decisions (leg transformation). In the end I think it's a lot easier and more durable to have a toy that doesn't have collapsing bits, there tends to be way more pressure involved with telescoping parts. Sadly, I don't think you can eschew collapsing bits with the Legioss design so I wish CMs wouldn't have gone this way. There are so many WTF areas on this toy. I'll always look at my Toynamis and think "If only you were made of better materials to exact tolerances" and I get the feeling I'll look over at my CMs and think "If only they had tried to be more true to the design."

Still no word on the chase? I liked the first set chase... especially since it was in almost every box.

The initial review on MSNBC said this is a must see. I'm surprised. I hope it lives up to the hype!

You can get cheap display cases on craigslist occasionally. I almost bought a few several times from stores that were closing.

I'm confused, are you saying you don't think the MPC Alpha looks just like the old model kit? They're practically identical with the exception that Toynami, for whatever reason, felt the front winglets should be rounded. Looks-wise I think Toynami did a stellar job... as they should, they actually bought the molds from the kit to design their toy. IIRC, they later resold the molds to Aoshima who then reissued the kit.

Of all the toys to pick the Morpher Alpha has got to be their most original to date. The little Gakken Legioss really has only that in common with the morpher that any legioss toy would have. Otherwise the Toynami is much more sophisticated. Aoshima and Toynami do have a business relationship together. That much is clear. Toynami's MPC Alpha is essentially a model made into a toy.

I believe there is one mass-produced (although certainly in limited quality) Mospeada toy I do not own (including paint variants). It's not a very good toy but I do anticipate I will own it some day. CMs has just introduced a toy I will never have any hope of owning. That kinda bums me out .

Even if you stuck with the Gakken trap-door mentality, you could always put the array on a swivel joint. It's not like these toy companies don't know how to make something spin around. I see no way the shoulder flap should ever be considered a hinderance in the head's ability to turn. CMs just got it all completely wrong with the head being below the shoulders. Look, if Toynami's MPC can do it, so can CMs. Yeah, Toynami made the piece removeable but have you ever looked at how close they are to not even needing to make it transformable? If that one back plate flipped out instead of only being able to push in it would nearly fit. And if CMs absolutely wanted huge arm fins why not add a slot in the shoulder where the fin could collapse into when the arms were collapsed? There are just a lot of really questionable engineering calls that went into this toy.