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M'Kyuun

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  1. M'Kyuun
    I happened to poke around on Pinterest tonight, as I haven't looked around in there for awhile, and I stumbled upon these pics. They were saved by a user calling himself Hal0999, with no other info attached to the pics. I'm a fan of the VG's design, and I made my own a few years back with LEGO. Until now, I believed my LEGO version was the only transformable version of that mech in existence, so imagine my surprise seeing this! It makes me wish Arcadia would make an attempt at the design, or that this was picked up by Bandai or Moderoid for widespread distro. I'd definitely be down for a copy. Anyway, I thought I'd share this here, as it seemed the most apropos place to do so. I take no credit for the model- huge kudos to whoever designed it, as it looks amazing. 😍
  2. M'Kyuun
    @mikeszekely I appreciate your candid take on The Mandalorian crossover fig, and I'm of the same thought of just ditching all the effects stuff, cape, and shield, and just give us the basic fig for voyager price. I bought this guy, too, after having initially passed on it. I watched PVP's vid review, and that was the nudge I needed to commit. I very much enjoy The Mandalorian show, and the N-1 Naboo fighter has long been one of my favorite Star Wars designs, one of the few things I actually like about the Prequels. I bought any number of the old SW crossover figs but I can't recall ever picking up a Naboo fighter, so this seemed a good opportunity. Mine's due to arrive on Thursday, so something to look forward to in a year that thus far holds very little comparatively of interest to me Transformers-wise.
  3. M'Kyuun
    😄 You're not wrong! Y'know, at this point it's the expectation that anything that turns into a jet is going to have a sh!tastic jet mode. They've proven me wrong on a few occasions, but I'd say maybe one in thirty or forty jetformers has a jet mode that's actually decent. In recent memory, the three standouts to me are Skyfire, Maverick, legacy Dreadwing/Skyquake, and Wingtail in the Sonic the Hedgehog crossover set has a really well-done bi-plane mode. I wish it wasn't Sonic, and I wish it was sold separately as I'd be somewhat inclined to pick it up. Hopefully it'll get a retool/repaint. Notably, Dreadwing and Maverick copy transformation elements from Macross. Maverick is probably the closest we'll ever get to a VF-1 again in Transformers (thanks to Harmony Gold, may they burn in Hell for eternity). It's a hugely missed opportunity that they didn't reissue him in the Jetfire color scheme with an approximate VF-1S head sculpt. I think that would have appealed to fans more than Maverick did. As to Liokaiser, I have no interest, so nothing's really lost on my end for the lousy jetformers in the set. I'm glad I popped in here, though, as I was unaware of the new drops. I headed to Hasbro Pulse straightaway and scored a set of Long Haul and Hook as well as snapping up a copy of Legacy Animated Wasp. I sat on the latter, but considering they never sold a version of him that turned into a car back when the show was originally airing, and given my enjoyment of Animated, I relented. After what I thought was a really well-done interpretation of RescueBots' Chase, I was looking forward to Heatwave, but he looks to me like a retool of Legacy Prime Bulkhead, who IMHO, has far more in common with the Animated design than Prime, but whatever. Anyway, disappointed, I passed on Heatwave. No interest in Hearts of Steel or Skybite. Hasbro's just not making much that appeals to me this year, which is good for the wallet and my lack of space. Incidentally, Iron Factory is making their own version of Liokaiser. Here's their take on the green and white plane dude. If I was gonna get a Liokaiser set, guess which one I'd go with.
  4. M'Kyuun
    Your knowledge of this stuff is remarkable and much appreciated. Had to do a bit of searching for the tiltrotor you mentioned (The Macross Mecha Manual let me down😟), but I'm glad you mentioned it. It's a pretty cool design that deserves a toy or a model in its own right. I wonder if this served as inspiration for the Oblivion Bubbleship, as there are some parallels. Really neat design. Might have to do something like it with LEGO, as the idea of variable utilitarian vehicles has caught my fancy over the last decade, Think I'd probably modify that tail section to split and make it a quadruped instead. The Octos, though a military mech, is a really cool but nigh forgotten variable mech from Zero. I realize the valks are the big draw, but stuff like this tiltrotor and the Octos are equally forged of cool, IMHO. Bit of animation magic there with those forearms taking on a much deeper curve than when they're deployed. Still a neat design worthy of some form of plasticization. The Octos:
  5. M'Kyuun
    That, indeed, is cool. I was pleasantly surprised when they showed pics of the Glaug as inspiration for ED-209. They didn't mention it in this documentary, but I've heard it mentioned in other RoboCop BTS vids that the open grill was also meant to be humorous, putting a point of vulnerability right up front on an otherwise tough combat machine. Until I heard that, it never really crossed my mind; it just looked really cool to me, and I guess growing up in the 80s with so many nigh invincible vehicles in shows and movies, it was intentional and probably reinforced. Anyway, it's such a gorgeous design. I have the Neca toys of it and RoboCop on my desk, so they're always there in sight. Just lovely.😍
  6. M'Kyuun
    I'm glad you mentioned this. RoboCop is one of my all-time favorite movies and the documentary was enlightening and enjoyable for the candid takes by many involved as well as adding a whole new level of appreciation for the final film. I remember all the controversy surrounding it's having received an "X" rating for violence, and they go into depth about that and what they ended up trimming and what stayed. They also mention Peter Weller's extracurricular proclivities with the ladies- quite the player back in the day apparently. I've long recognized the film as being far more than the sum of its parts- it was an audacious and unique film that set a precedent that's, IMHO, never been equaled by another film in the genre, and likely never will without blatantly copying it. And for all the horror stories about Paul Verhoeven, it simply would not be the film it is without his vision and instincts, and pretty much everyone agrees with that. And I'll forever be grateful for Phil Tippett and his FX folks who created and animated ED-209, one of the all-time coolest robots in any film, or genre of film including anime, ever.
  7. M'Kyuun
    Agree on all. Additionally, I thought the production introduced some other interesting concepts like the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie. It only has a GERWALK, like another M2 mecha, the GERWALKroid, as well as a variable fighter for the Marduk Zentradi (full sized). Being an all-hand-drawn series, a lot of the details were iffy at best on a lot of these, not to mention the brevity of their appearances along with other mecha and ships in the series. But, FWIW, it's not a bad series, tells a coherent story, features likable characters and, despite a nearly non-existant love triangle, and a barely there and hamhandedly wedged in relationship between Hibiki and Sylvie at the end, it has the overall feel of a Macross series. Kudos to the designers for pretty much inventing most of the mecha throughout and for implementing the aforementioned innovations. I wish Kawamori had carried forward some of those ideas, especially the idea of more civilian ships with GERWALK and full battroid modes, not really for any practical reason, but just b/c the rule of cool dictates. Credit to Macross Mecha Manual for image links. VC-079 GERWALKroid Marduk Variable Zentradi Fighter
  8. M'Kyuun
    Since the majority of Macross is now on Hulu, I decided to watch Macross II this evening. I own the movie version, and until today, that's all I knew of it. I watched the entire series, and despite the love triangle being more of a suggestion than an actuality, the music and valks were present, and the other mecha designs weren't all that bad either. I know it's a bit of a black sheep among Macross entries, but it felt Macross-y to me, and I enjoyed it. I liked it better than the majority of Macross 7, at any rate. I think Macross Zero will be my next watch; I own a DVD set from years ago, but the subs tend to get worse as it goes along and I'm hoping the ones on the Hulu version are better. Too, my wife hasn't seen most of these, so I'm trying to indoctrinate her. 😁 I also watched Phoenix: Eden 17 tonight. I enjoyed it, but my understanding after reading some reviews is that it departs quite a bit from many of the darker and more profound themes in Osamu Tezuka's original manga. I'm not a manga reader and I was completely ignorant of the significance of both the author and Phoenix, considered his greatest work as well as one of the greatest manga in the history of the genre, but I've gained an appreciation just from what I read on Wikipedia. RIP Tezuka-sensei. Your work lives on.
  9. M'Kyuun
    I was never a MotU fan, but I definitely remember Morris the Cat. Unfortunately, time inexorably marches on and we continue to lose those who made impacts on us through their talented contributions to various media. After doing some reading, apparently Mr. Ervin was quite shy and reclusive; despite coaxing by Skeletor VA Alan Oppenheimer to join him at fan conventions, Mr. Ervin declined and never did attend one. I hope he knew, at least by anecdote, how much his bringing Prince Adam/ He-man to life meant to his many fans. Gone but not forgotten. RIP
  10. M'Kyuun
    All they had to do was make his hands flip out of the arms to give them that extra bit of length. However, seeing as how the forearms are on ball joints, I foresee a definite add-on kit to address that issue. Thing is, though, it's an easy problem to remedy and it should have been fixed by Has/Tak during production.
  11. M'Kyuun
    😄 I don't remember that, but I know he was completely covered in snow and let it fall on Spike in "Fire in the Sky". I always thought it odd that they killed off Skyfire in that ep, although it has one of the more solemn endings where Skyfire sacrifices himself and the Autobots pay tribute. However, they dug him up in the "Fire on the Mountain" episode of season 1, IIRC, thus cheapening his sacrifice. Regardless, I really liked the character and was glad they brought him back.
  12. M'Kyuun
    True, but the first season started out with a slightly more serious tone. Alas, we can't go back in time and tell them to choose different toys for Megatron, Soundwave, Reflector, and the cassettes so that they can avoid all the mass-shifting shenanigans required to keep their bot modes at the larger scales. I often wonder what the show would have been like had they assigned those toys to different characters and kept them at realistic scale in both forms. We'll never know. Anyway, I enjoy the more focused narrative of first season where it's essentially Megs and the Ds looking for ways to either gather resources or gain greater power and advantage. The Autobots, nearly always on the defensive, try and stop the Decepticons while protecting themselves and Earth. The overall tone was more serious, and while there were moments of whim and humor, silliness even, on the whole I found it much more enjoyable than any successive seasons, which only seemed to incorporate far more whimsy and silliness, which didn't, and still doesn't, appeal to me. The '86 Movie , while it had its few serious and shining moments, had its share of silliness. Astrotrain's request to "lighten the load" while in the vacuum and weightlessness of space takes the cake. 🙄 The writers definitely did not anticipate this movie's becoming the icon that has become amongst fans, especially adults who can pick it apart for all of its gaffs and sillier bits. Then again, given the short lifespan of most toy properties, who could have predicted that this one would still be going strong 40 years later?
  13. M'Kyuun
    I concede my point! Just one of the dumber things in the '86 Movie. Dare to be Stupid may have been focused on the Junkions, for good reason, but I think it applies to a number of things in the film. The showdown and quotes from Prime's and Megatron's fight are classic for a reason though, and worthy of having been enshrined in other media.
  14. M'Kyuun
    I agree. Their J-35 is even more impressive since it has a functional internal weapons bay in addition to a beautiful realistic sculpt, properly placed and functional retractable gear, and an opening canopy. It's amazing what some third parties can do with certain material. Touch Toys are definitely well above the competition when it comes to making realistic aircraft that transform. I hope others take inspiration. I'd love to have a set of Aerialbots where the jet modes were on par with this. On a side note, I got the Dreamstar Toys versions of Skydive (F-16) and Slingshot (Harrier), as they did a fairly decent job of capturing the fighter modes. They're not perfect, and not even close to Touch Toys' level, but for transforming jets, they're some of the better ones I've seen. Like Touch toys, they went for a more complex robot design that's far more evocative of Bayformers than G1.
  15. M'Kyuun
    I doubt it, too. The Chinese govt seems rather selective on who they prosecute for IP violations. However, I was reading in the comments on a vid review for Touch Toys' J-35 Carefray and apparently the designer did go to prison for Marvel IP infringement. Best not mess with the Mouse, even in China. As I mentioned, most large aircraft companies are probably unaware of these toys and their far greater concern is keeping their designs and technology out of Soviet and Chinese hands. I'm thinking by now third parties understand exactly how much or how little they need to change a design to avoid legal repercussions. They're able to get away with a lot, but some might implement changes just to be on the safe side.
  16. M'Kyuun
    😆 Haven't seen the actual film yet, but the SNL crew did a bang up job on this. Guessing they had to preshoot a lot of that stuff, as most of that would be tough to film on the SNL stage. I don't regularly watch SNL, but if this is their normal level of operations, wow.
  17. M'Kyuun
    Agree on your first point- it seems the most logical way for the intro of a xenomorph without affecting the rest of the timeline. As to the second point, also conceivable, although, one would think that WY would take any bit or piece of the thing and try cloning it, which means they'd had it for years and the need to send the Nostromo to LV-426 is moot. My hope is for a The Thing plot where a group of maybe 20-30 people, ostensibly rescue workers sent in to search the downed ship and recover and give aid to survivors, in an extremely isolated and hostile environment, perhaps Antarctica, encounter the Alien. The usual running, hiding, searching for a way to kill or stop it ensues, lots of dead people, and eventually the Alien itself, with the person who brought it down also fatally injured so there's no one to tell the tale. I don't want the stories of Alien and Aliens retold, rebooted, or amended. An isolated story with good writing, interesting characters, good effects, and some engaging plot beyond the usual dumb decisions and large body count would serve a show like this well. Like Alien, apply some good pacing- someone needn't die at the hands of the monster every episode. A good use of tension and suspense would be far superior to just another run and slash film.
  18. M'Kyuun
    Well, I doubt Phil Dick had Alien in mind when he wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in 1968. Likewise, I doubt that Dan O'Bannon had Dick's pivotal work in mind when writing Alien in the late 70s. Ridley Scott can conflate the two properties all day, but any crossover is purely his work and not the work of the originators. I feel the same way about Alien and the Predator; no matter how much Hollywood and the fans want to see the two enmeshed, at the end of the day, they're separate stand-alone properties that were artificially brought together. Judging by what's been done with those enmeshed films, I'll take mine separate, thanks. I enjoy the Blade Runner universe; I thought Blade Runner: Black Lotus was well done, as well as 2045. I'm happy with their expanding the universe with additional stories, however I don't feel that it needs to be combined or crossed with anything else to make it better. Honoring Dick's paranoia and mistrust of government and technology, his questioning of humanity and sentience as it pertains to artificial life, and whether that life has the right to exist or be free to live as it desires are all fundamental elements of Blade Runner, and those elements should be focal points in any Blade Runner media. Mixing it with Alien, I think the philosophical element would be lost amidst all the screaming, running, hiding, shooting, and dying.
  19. M'Kyuun
    It'd be great if these guys got the licenses to produce American aircraft, but let's be honest, why pay for something you can essentially steal with little to no repercussions, as I doubt many of the American aircraft producers would even know about these things or care. They're more worried about the Chinese and Soviets stealing info about the real aircraft to care about some toy maker. But to the point, it'd be great if an American toy producer arose with skills at this level who decided to make transforming versions of all our American fighters. I just don't think it's financially feasible here.
  20. M'Kyuun
    Showz Store has POs up for Touch Toy's J-16N Wu Tian Yu Shang 2035 Nacrmmi, yet another licensed transforming Chinese fighter by this company. I passed on their previous effort, Carefray, a Chinese J-35 which looks oh so suspiciously like the US F-35 but given that this has a nigh-flawless Su-27 Flanker mode (The Shenyang J-16 is a Chinese derivative of the Soviet fighter), I couldn't resist pulling the trigger. I love the look of the Flanker, one of the most beautiful designs amongst the world's modern fighters, and I've long wanted a transforming version of it. Prior to Touch Toys' version, Sci-Industry, who made sophisticated transforming versions of the Chinese J-20 (Lumitent) and the Changhe WZ-10 combat helicopter (Aegocopter) had a transforming Flanker design in the works that looked amazing. Alas, it was never released and Sci-industry seems to be all but defunct. However, Touch Toys, whose designs are uncannily similar to those of Sci-Industry, are producing incredible transforming versions of real Chinese military aircraft, ships, and a mobile missile launcher that maintain the realism, features and functions of the actual vehicles, and yet transform into complex highly articulated bots. I've heard the designs described as Bayesque; however, let's be clear- these figures have actual mechanical transformations which make sense because they are 100% practical, whereas Bay's monstrosities were the creations of CG artists who just cut up images of vehicles and placed them willy-nilly over a frame without any thought as to how anything would actually move or assume its position. Touch Toys is operating at a level far beyond Takara, who've proven again and again ad nauseum that they have no clue how to make an accurate fighter turn into a robot or vice versa. So while Touch Toys figs, due to their complex aesthetics, do approximate the Bayformer aesthetic, the actual engineering brought to bear makes a world of difference. This guy looks impressive in bot mode, but man, that fighter mode is just amazing. The gear retract and they're located properly on the jet, a feature we almost never see on a Transformers figure. If I have but one gripe, I'm not too crazy about the long skirt bit hanging from the waist. I've no doubt it correlates to some bit of traditional Chinese attire, but I wish and hope that it can fold up onto the bot's back and out of the way of the legs. In all other regards, this is truly a masterwork of engineering. I wish the designer, possibly a fellow going by the interesting sobriquet "Black Apple", worked for Takara, as they, and we as a Transformers fandom, could certainly benefit from his approach to transforming aircraft. I'm definitely looking forward to adding this to my collection.
  21. M'Kyuun
    Wow, that's fandom. I didn't see the Movie in the theater, though my friends did (despite the fact that I was probably the most ardent TF fan of them), and one them owned the VHS, which is how I got to see it for the first time. Gotta say, it didn't appeal to me as much as I thought it would. I hated Daniel. Hot Rod was just ok as a lead. I'd rather have had the OG first season bots be the focus. I didn't care for Galvatron's alt mode. I didn't care for the Junkions. I thought their putting Ultra Magnus back together after Prime died from a side wound was total BS. I thought the whole Quintesson thing was weird. I hated that the Cons blew trumpets at Starscream's coronation (a medieval human practice undertaken by "advanced" robots who don't need to breathe and likely lack the apparatus necessary since they can exist just fine in space). I was 15 or 16 when I saw it for the first time, so while I could (obviously) suspend disbelief, some things just annoyed me. Still do. I watch the Movie every few years (I believe I own the Rhino DVD), but it's not the great bit of TF lore to me that it is to other fans. I still rank most of first season as my favorite part of G1. Contrarily, I loved the concept and realization of Unicron- just a marvelous idea that had never occurred to me. To that point, beyond Skyfire, we hadn't even seen large ships transform let alone a planet. Moreover, the mystique of this character was intriguing; we get no back story- he just is- this malevolent seemingly unstoppable force of destruction. Unicron made for a most worthy adversary and a good use of the new MacGuffin, the Matrix of Leadership, the mention of which is notably missing throughout first season. I wonder which came first in the Movie writers' minds: the Matrix or Unicron?
  22. M'Kyuun

    MΔ - VF-9

    M'Kyuun replied to Xigfrid's topic in The Workshop!

    Too true. I'm enjoying it vicariously. I love that Xigfrid made a video, as I can revisit that as often as I please, and bonus, it takes up no room in my already crowded house.
  23. M'Kyuun
    Oh my, I really, really hope they don't try to tie this into the Blade Runner universe; Scott has enough trouble keeping his own Alien universe in check let alone tying it to a completely unrelated one. However, considering for the sake of consideration that the ship is in fact detected sans the swarming of media, and a small recovery team is sent in, and all of them persish, including the xenomorph, in such a way as to leave no remains to be found and studied, lest the whole timeline be disrupted, I see few other ways of positing a story that doesn't upend the previous continuity. Unless, they try to say Weyland-Yutani did recover some remains, have it in their lab for 30 years or so, and somehow draw a correlation between the derelict ship's signal thus sending the Nostromo to their fate. That narrative, however, contrasts with the incredulous response by the company's people to Ripley's report at the beginning of Aliens where they explicitly mention that nothing of the sort has ever been recorded prior despite having colonized numerous worlds. However the showrunners approach it, I just hope they don't destroy the continuity. I'd like to enjoy the show and I hope it's done well.
  24. M'Kyuun
    Astrotrain had misaligned wheels in his train mode. C'mon, how hard is it to at least make it look like all the wheels are aligned on a vehicle that travels on rails? The shuttle's cargo bay has a large unfinished section where it looks like the doors blew off. The G1 toy, despite having, like most 80s Transformers, a mostly immobile bot mode, had much better realized alt modes. Takara did a good job on his bot mode, but when the alts suffer to that extent, I found it pointless to get him. I hope the '86 version rectifies the former toy's flaws. Moving on to Legacy Blitzwing, I'm not crazy about the huge chunk of forward fuselage jutting out from the front of the tank mode. Alas, while the G1 toy did have a bit of it showing, the Sunbow animation tended to emphasize it, and instead of making up for the flaw in both toy and toon, Takara too emphasized it. SMH. The jet mode is a travesty, the result of careless engineering and a traditional mindset at Takara where everything they can't be bothered to integrate into the jet's fuselage gets tossed on the bottom. I would've hoped there'd be an evolution in design philosophy by now, but it doesn't seem so. While I have yet to own an official post-G1 Astrotrain, b/c , quite frankly, they've all looked like ass to me, I have, however, bought the majority of Blitzwing figs, his being my favorite of the triple-changers second to Astrotrain. I finally picked up the Legacy toy after finding him on discount, and while I think the bot mode is fantastic and the tank so-so, I still find the jet mode abhorrent. I hope they do right by both of these characters with the '86 SS figs and give them the polished alts that they deserve after 40+ years of lackluster toys.
  25. M'Kyuun
    2026 Studio Series Listings Found - 86 Leader Soundwave, Astrotrain, More! - Transformers News - TFW2005 As the link suggests, we're getting SS86 Astrotrain and Soundwave, and they, unlike another release of SS86 Snarl, are not listed as package refreshes. This is cautiously good news, as both the WFC Siege Astrotrain and Netflix Soundwave figs had flaws aplenty beggaring for all new molds to address them. I'm all for improved figs of both. Hoping they turn out great. I'm really hoping that an SS86 Blitzwing is in the pipeline as well and that it does a better job of integrating the kibble so as not to put it all under the jet mode again. If MechaFansToys can accomplish that at legends scale, surely Takara can do it, too.
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