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kajnrig

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Posts posted by kajnrig

  1. A couple quick questions:

    1) I just started snapping together a Bandai 1/72 VF-25S for the first time and was caught off-guard by the fact the head transforms. Basically the lower half of the head slides up into the "helmet" to get more compact. Is this accurate to "canon"? I'm leaning toward it just being a feature for the sake of the model kit, and isn't present anywhere else, either in-show or the toys or other merch or artwork, etc.

    2) Have there been any 4K transfers of anything Macross? And which ones include English subs? I'm looking at an auction for a special edition Bluray "Hybrid Pack" of Sayonara no Tsubasa and am wondering if I should bite on it or not, or if there are better options out there currently. (I know there's the English Bluray box sets announced, but that's all they've been is announced.)

  2. 3 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

    Seriously, I'm sold for maybe two of those, it looks like a really solid VB-6 kit.  I do want to see how the classic destroid mode works without the figure riding it though.

    The linked site has tons of photos of the two halves with and without each other. Tl;dr there's a lot of empty space, fortunately the cannons can be combined with or without the Girl kit.

  3. I thought they were finally using a new mold and we'd have our first muscle Girl, but on closer inspection there's a distinct lack of six pack, and the arm bands are giving the illusion of biceps. Shame. If anything warranted a big strong muscle waifu, it was this kit. Oh well. (I'm also not a fan of that face; those eyes are the most uncanny mix of vacant and hostile.)

    I hope it sells well and motivates them to do more Destroid kits.

  4. Movie was as great the second time around as it was the first. Definitely agree that it's probably an age bracket too old for the target demographic that was most excited to see it. There's some... I wouldn't exactly say heavy subject matter, but definitely unexpected subject matter for a kids'/superhero movie.

    The second time around I was especially enamored with the dynamic backgrounds, and especially the brush stroke effects in Gwen's world that changed in real time to visualize emotions or even just to make a more visually interesting shot. A couple moments where the whites of her suit didn't even match in order to emphasize an outstretched hand, a hoodie, mask, etc. Just a very pleasant movie to look at at almost all times.

    Speaking of Gwen, I half-suspected she would be more of a focus in this movie, and I was happy to see that's the case, and I was double happy to see they didn't make her (and the other characters') dramatic arcs easy. Despite their obvious attraction, she tries to maintain a friends-only distance with Miles; and yet despite constantly undermining herself in that regard (they only grow inexorably closer the more they're together) she also constantly and consciously hurts him more and more as the truths of her occupation come to light. And by the end of the movie, her resolve to rescue him isn't driven by romantic epiphany or something, but by a broader character turnaround and refreshed commitment to her standards of heroism. I was a big fan of what they did with her here; again Lord and Miller proving capable of wringing original stories out of these new-gen Spider-people that comics writers (supposedly, according to people who read them) have been struggling to do ever since their inceptions.

    Also, the soundtrack rocked. It was good the first time seeing it, but I didn't really pay attention until the second. Nothing much else to say. Bangers all around, just like last time. I guess it just isn't as memorable...? It's hard to one-up the What's Up Danger? montage.

  5. 17 hours ago, mechaninac said:

    Hollywood (with precious few exceptions), post 2016, with legacy IPs???... Methinks thou dost ask too much of hacks who cannot deliver anything of the sort.

    Wait, did something happen in 2016 in the industry? That was... Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange... I guess on the other side was Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, (EDIT: there was also The Mummy a year later) the latter two of which sucked, yeah, but they didn't exactly spell doom for the industry. Did something else happen, like a mass firing/layoffs or studio consolidation or something I'm not remembering?

  6. Ooh, very nice clean job! Indeed the Delta kits are particularly fragile, and Bandai's decals have never been the greatest.

    I quite like that base. Very simple and elegant, and adding the emblem is a nice touch. What is it and where did you get it?

  7. Against my better judgement, I chose to go see this Sunday night. I guess I was hoping against hope that, with the ounce of pathos that Bumblebee managed to inject into the movies, this one would continue the trend. Alas...

    I don't know why these movies always have the worst writing. The game of script rough draft hot potato always turns these movies into exactly the same flavorless paste no matter how much changes between movies. It's almost impressive. Once again, Optimus is a psychopath; once again, Bumblebee is a mute communicating through radio quips god I wish they would do away with that; once again, everyone else gets at most a paragraph of dialogue; and once again, it's because they're sidelined in favor of introducing Human Protagonist Du Jour. (In its defense, this time the creators almost manage to make a half-decent thematic connection between him and Optimus. Points for trying?)

    The Transformers feel like little more than plot devices in their own movie. I know people have been shouting this since the very first movie, but it bears repeating: These movies need to just excise the human element altogether. Heck, if need be, this would have been the perfect opportunity to borrow more than just the character names from Beast Wars and set the story around having to protect a fledgling human civilization. They could/should have borrowed even more than that from Beast Wars, but at the very least they'd be explicitly aping one of the best story arcs of the show.

    Blargh. Bumblebee suckered me into giving this franchise another chance, and they managed to siphon another cool $10ish out of me for it. Fool me once, etc.

  8. I tend not to like much of Sunrise's Gundam animation. But they've often done very good "traditional" flight and dogfighting animation, and their other mecha animation can be pretty good (if a bit uninspired), so I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll do at least the mecha side of things justice. Character animation... well, they're no worse than Satelight, at that. I know some people don't like Satelight's character animation, but I think it does its job. What I'd have especially liked is a studio like KyoAni (Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid) or Orange (Land of the Lustrous, Beastars, Trigun Stampede), but Sunrise is consistent quality.

  9. UN Spacy? Not Robotech Defense Force?

    And Lockheed and Grumman logos as well. I wonder if that was just mocked up in the hopes of getting their sponsorship or if it was included BECAUSE they got an early promise of a sponsorship.

    Anyway, it's always a treat whenever this decrepit thread gets dug back up. :lol:

  10. Revival Alto arrived from Kappa Hobby. People were always a bit wary because they're newish and offer a suspiciously low price (IIRC something like 240, 250 shipped ConUS), but they continue to come through for me some 4+ years now, so I continue to highly recommend them. My Alto was double bubble-wrapped, even!

  11. 1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

    What I've read on the subject is that the Delta in the title was based on the letter Delta being triangular. Apparently it represents, or is evocative of, the three main aspects of the franchise as a whole: songs, wars, and love triangles.

    If that's the case, that's... well, exactly the kind of tenuous reasoning I'd expect from that show.

    They could just as easily call Frontier, or 7, or etc., "Macross Delta." I'd even go so far as to say that the title better suits Macross Frontier than it does Macross Delta. Triangular imagery is prominent, the love triangle is a strong component, the show even features a song titled "Triangular," etc... If they had to go with Greek letters, they should have gone with "Macross Sigma Σ". The liberal use of W shapes, the forward-swept wings of the Siegfried making a W silhouette, the W hand sign, Walkure, etc.

  12. I was rather disappointed in the VF-1 fighter kit. The odd construction, the TERRIBLE stickers... The overall look of the kit is a bit of a wash compared to the Hasegawa, so it doesn't entice me on that front... So I was all too willing to sit out this battroid release, but I'll be damned, those promotional pics have worn at me and worn at me and so I finally preordered a pair from HLJ.

    But am I reading that right, the release date is March 2024???

    On 5/21/2023 at 1:35 PM, lochness said:

    Sorry if this has been asked many times before but I was curious how the fighter model compares to the Hasegawa 1/72 fighters? I was debating if I should pick one up but with them being more expensive than the Hasegawas of the same scale I was wondering if they are worth it.
     

    Thanks for any insight. 

    The Plamax kits certainly come together more easily than the Hasegawa kits, so if you're tired of the gluing and sanding seam lines, they manage to do away with quite a lot of that... or well, they get rid of the sanding seam lines, anyway. You still have to glue parts together, a design decision that I noted being completely baffled by when I quick-built one a while ago. The lack of waterslide decals is probably among their most annoying features; it seems Max Factory are correcting for that in future variant releases. The stickers provided as an alternative are of terrible quality.

    If I had to decide, I think I'd stick with the Hasegawa versions. They're a bit more of a pain to work with, but they've been floating out there for 20+ years, they're cheap, they look great, you can get them in tons of variations, and they all come with hefty waterslide decal sheets.

  13. 53 minutes ago, KOG Water Dragon said:

    That's a creative idea but... would soft cushioned hands be good for precision handling of the gunpod? Good for lifting or moving heavy objects? For punching Zentran in the face?

    They were spectacular failures, hence why they swapped to mechanical hands in the movie. MY LOGIC IS INFALLIBLE. :lol:

  14. On 5/18/2023 at 12:51 PM, KOG Water Dragon said:

    a bigger part of adult me can't get past the fact that these rounded hands on this kit clearly wouldn't fit inside the arms.

    I've always reasoned away the rounded hands as being cushioned and/or ballooning material for softer handling of materials/people, that shrinks down around a mechanical skeleton when stored away in the arms.

  15. I was lucky enough to get a Tomahawk and Defender from HLJ, but the Phalanx was and remains listed as Discontinued. I don't shop from HS as often as I used to, but thanks to this topic I was able to place an order yesterday for a Phalanx there. Fingers crossed it's truly in stock.

     

    For what it's worth, the Defender seems to be the hardest of the three to get, but its Bandai(/Arii?) equivalent is the same scale and builds up... well, not nearly as well or easily, but it's a solid alternative is what I mean.

     

  16. 8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

    So, a bunch of hours in and... yeah, TotK is good.  But probably not 10/10 good.

     

    ......

     

    So, yeah, like I said.  It's a good game, but also kind of disappointing.  Maybe an 8 or 8.5, not a 10.  Not even as good as its predecessor.

    Don't let the Nintendo fans hear you say that. They were getting all up in arms (like they always do, apparently) because someone deigned to give it a *gasp!* 8 out of 10. They got even more up in arms because someone gave it a *DOUBLE GASP!!!* 6 out of 10.

    They're unironically arguing against video game emulation, too, now. And all because it may or may not hurt Lord Nintendo's bottom line. It's ridiculous.

  17. Yep, it's a nice sizable kit, that's for sure. What scale are those Plamax kits you talked about? Are they 1/20 like their other Minimum Factory kits? Or IIRC they launched a line of larger-scale kits, like 1/8 or 1/7. I've been hoping and hoping that they scale those MinFact kits up, but alas... And given the cost of materials and production, they could probably bump it up to 1/4 and still sell for a nice profit. If only....

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