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Lexomatic

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  1. Lexomatic
    Splitting the wings into three splayed segments is something that was done with Thundercracker in the IDW comics for a while, during a period when the designs were tweaked to be more Bayformer-ish. Ooh. The Chengdu J-20 "Mighty Dragon" is a sweet-looking (*) fifth-gen fighter (now that I look), and this toy has one sweet transformation -- very little jet-mode undercarriage kibble, nor robot-mode back- and leg-kibble. Nice color blocking (three shades of grey vs. -- pale blue? mauve?), and the rib-like shapes around the thorax/canopy add some angular contrast to the stealth-curves. Stealthy zig-zags that break up what would otherwise be large blank areas. Head isn't excessively blocked by the shoulder pads. Engine nozzles end up on the calves rather than the feet (personally, this always bothers me -- squashing two very different mechanisms into one spot). I don't see anything that looks like a third-of-jet-on-one-swingarm transformational technique. One of the reviewers is pleased about the die-cast fraction, and indeed it's visible in the calves and feet. The package photos reveal that it comes with a stand for jet mode, but there's no indication how to support the robot. There's a sniper rifle-ish hand weapon, but I can't tell if it stows in the jet or display stand. I think I see a couple of spots where a faction insignia (courtesy of Toyhax) could sensibly go in dual-mode or robot-mode-only. (*) Not the same thing as "effective in any of its intended roles." (Do we have a thread for transforming toys that are neither Macross, Transformer, nor unlicensed Transformer character? For example, there's the whole since-2017 "52TOYS - Beast Box" line of mostly-dinosaurs that fold into cubes.)
  2. Lexomatic
    "Are home theater and a cinema interchangeable?" depends very much on personal taste, and it's a "why not both?" situation where the choice is repeated. There are evidently a lot of people who prefer going to a cinema for at least some of their movie experiences, for technical or emotional reasons -- anything from "no arrangement of subwoofers is compatible with my living room" to "I want to get out of the house." (Personally, I enjoy the experience of a "going out for" a movie -- stages of anticipation, the camaraderie of other moviegoers; and to replicate the technical quality at home would be fiscally illogical, given that I spend only ~$200 per year, as a solo viewer. The equation is tilted differently for consumers who can't tolerate other moviegoers, face family-scale expenditures, or have small bladders.) The question is: will the choice continue to exist? Will cinemas survive as individual businesses and as a sector? -- they're in mothballs now, but are there any parts of the supply chain that will die permanently because they require a critical mass? Studios will continue to produce movies. Modern digital projectors are (probably?) easier to maintain than film projectors. Popcorn and powered recliners are no danger. Expertise is widely distributed. Even if there are bankruptcies in the exhibitor chains now, if market demand revives, there will be investors interested in recapitalizing them (in the current global low-interest-rate environment, there's a whole lot of money looking for returns -- and that's likely to be true for at least several years).
  3. Lexomatic
    Apart from Basara's suboptimal childhood (what little we know of it), maybe child psychologists don't exist, period? Given the whole cultural bottleneck of "one million human survivors of the Rain of Death, most of them on off-planet installations," I'd expect that many specialist jobs haven't been reinvented, especially if they rely on skills learned by an unbroken chain of apprenticeship rather than from books. (In that vein, I'm still wondering how Alto Saotome's lineage of kabuki performers was lucky enough to survive, or enough of an Arab-ethnic population to establish a place like Al Shahal in Delta.) The non-diegetic explanation is that (a) anime rarely does psychological subtlety and (b) Japan has lousy child mental health services (citation), so the writers might not even think in that direction.
  4. Lexomatic
    The difference being that LEGO elements have an intrinsic value, even if there's a crash in appreciated-inflated prices for sets. For the foreseeable future (*) there will always be somebody who'll want to use those bricks, even if they're dumped en-masse into a brick pit for kids, rather than scrupulously parted-out on BrickLink. But printed pasteboard cards don't have a secondary purpose other than making flippety-flippety noises in bicycle spokes. (*) Until/unless some kind of high-res tactile-VR supplants the entire market sector of plastic building toys.
  5. Lexomatic
    Re: that unauthorized 5800-piece Macross-like set -- interesting hybrid of the TV and DYRL stylings. It's got the general shape of the TV version, with aircraft carriers; but has the grey color, leg-greebling, and six-nozzle engine arrays of the movie; plus extra red stripes, minus the nose-prongs. AliExpress co-sells include a chibi version of the Macross in Attacker mode, the Yamato and Andromeda from Space Battleship Yamato, the boxy Mark 2 and pointy Mark 7 Vipers from Battlestar Galactica (2004), and the EAS Agamemnon from Babylon 5, and another one.
  6. Lexomatic
    LWB was a head-scratcher when TLG announced it in August -- how is the intent distinct from IDEAS? -- but "official platform for collaborative fanfic / potential monetary reward" covers it nicely. Collaboration is a big thread in AFOLdom -- apart from standards that permit ad hoc town, train and moonbase layouts, in the LUGNET era there was a slew of space themes defined by color scheme (Neo Classic Space, 3vil, Jade Empire, etc.) and the MOCs often came with backstories -- but it's novel that TLG has officially recognized/endorsed/harnessed the impulse, as opposed to tolerating it. I get the impression that Bionicle, as LEGO's second theme-with-story (not the first -- that would be Fabuland -- just the first in the internet era) inspired a lot of non-plastic fan-art. Press release at lego.com (Aug 20) Explanation at The Brick Blogger (Aug 24) Press release on Brickset (Aug 24) GoldenNinja3000 explains, on Brickset (Aug 27) With IDEAS, TLG may have noticed the prevalence of (a) clusters of single-set proposals that comprise a theme, and (b) numerous independent submissions on a topic. They might hope that the enthusiasm expressed in (b) can be bundled together. To borrow a term from publishing, there's gotta be a sizeable team reviewing the "slush pile." So far, LWB is less entertaining than IDEAS -- an abstract, barely-fleshed idea doesn't grab you like a picture of a MOC. A MOC you can instantly decide "I'd buy that" or identify specific aspects to comment/criticize -- but a world-proposal demands a lot more thought. Finding a world to which you can contribute requires effort; creating a contribution (text, illustration, MOC) is serious effort.
  7. Lexomatic
    If "LEGO IDEAS" (f.k.a. Cuusoo) is about single sets proposed by individual fans, then "LEGO World Builder powered by Tongal" (LWB) is about themes proposed by a leader which then accrete content from an ad hoc community. More generally, stories -- the worlds might be tapped for video content, not for toys. Unlike IDEAS, you can propose extensions of existing TLG-owned themes. It's not clear if TLG has lost confidence in its own ability to generate themes, wants a new form of market research, or is merely using this to drive engagement (TLG has done a whole lot of "throw stuff at the wall" experimentation over the past five years, I'm saying). Or maybe it's more subtle: encourage young builders to feel ownership of original ideas, i.e., "have we done imagination a disservice by providing so many official stories?" (From AFOL events, I know there's a segment of the market who need social-approval to "color outside the lines.") The "elements" of a story are characters, society, history, places, storylines, transport, items, and resources. Thumbnails for each element-file are exposed, but to open files, login is required; and it's a separate account -- unlike IDEAS, LWB doesn't federate your lego.com credentials. There's a TOS but no FAQ, so a lot of entries seem to violate the "must be 18" and "don't infringe on IP" rules. As with IDEAS, nobody seems to be moderating submissions for the latter. There's a "help wanted" set of filters (rather like open-source site ... um, whasisname ... it was a big deal 20 years ago, pre-GitHub), but none for "most collaborators" or "has been populated with content." To date, most of the discussion comments are "your world is neat / please vote for mine." There are some neat worlds: ReMyth -- Legendary fauna have returned and are remixing. It's by illustrator Mike Rayhawk, creator of the BrikWars/QuikWars tabletop rulesets and concept artist for LEGO Universe. The barrier to creating a world is low, so inevitably there's a lot of dreck -- much of it obviously written by people who don't meet the 18-year minimum stipulated by the TOS. If you view them as "premise for a motion comic or funny video," a larger fraction become palatable. LEGO Banana World -- "Our world is filled with banana people. The building [sic] are shaped like peeled bananas and the world itself is a giant banana." That one has a summary image and "about" passage but no elements. Purim is the Jewish Halloween (it involves masks and costumes, I gather?) is prima facie a poor fit for TLG, but it originated in one of the platform's "story prompts" -- "families watch a LEGO Holiday special" will elicit some that are religious in nature. (This project has a generic and ill-fitting "T-rex roaring at minifig" summary image -- I've seen it on a bunch of worlds, so it must be a default you can choose. Also, the architect went overboard with the tags: "dystopian, time travel, superhero.") There's a whole slew of "holiday X with Goopy Ghost" worlds (e.g., Goopy Ghost St. Patrick's Day), but created by the IP holder, author (not illustrator) Terry Verduin a.k.a. V.R. Duin. Please return Bionicle to it [sic] former glory isn't even a project, just a cri de coeur. Some worlds clearly violate TOS section III re: IP infringement. KonaSuba -- which is a recent RPG-styled isekai light novel/TV anime/movie, I gather? (The psychology of such things seems to be "fans are fickle / young enthusiasts want their latest shiny in LEGO form.")
  8. Lexomatic
    Episode 3.2 "Far from Home": We see what happened to Discovery (TL;DR, they emerged a year after Burnham). We still haven't gotten a full run-down of the future's circumstances, but more importantly we get (a) an ensemble-style story, and (b) Saru being adamant about Starfleet principles. Unfortunately the director is again Olatunde Osunsanmi with his fondness for shakycam. Also, the script makes the common mistake of assuming the ship is the only resource the characters have: no mention of auxiliary craft (not even "they were all lost in the battle against CONTROL"); "internal communications are down" but they don't fall back on handheld communicators. The bridge crew are addressed by name and get lines. Linus the Saurian speaks for the first time. We have extended interactions between Stamets and Culber, Stamets and Reno, Saru and Tilly, and Saru and Georgiou. Oh, and Dr. Pollard's first name is Tracy (per the end-credits). The thug-courier Zareh uses the term "V'Draysh," as established in Short Treks; it seems to be an insulting term for the former Federation (I had theorized that it might apply to a fragment of the UFP -- successor states to the Star League, for BattleTech fans among you). We see a future repair-kit in use, with the term "programmable matter." A critical communications "transtator" is disabled and they need "rubindium" to repair it -- terms dating back to TOS. Zareh comments that "the Burn was the best thing that happened to me" which can be interpreted either as (a) he thrives in the lawless environment or (b) he's old enough to have lived through it, a century ago -- which is biologically more interesting. Upon arrival, Discovery has 88 crew, including injured. They quickly establish that this planet isn't Terralysium, but when Saru and Tilly meet the locals, they learn it's never received a proper name -- so it's not Hima from last week. (Still played by Iceland, though.) There appears to be a giant hole in its side, it's surrounded by rocks, and more rocks are hovering above the surface, like Avatar's Hallelujah Mountains -- and it's a while before anybody (namely, Tilly) comments on them. Discovery is able to plow through the rocks (let's just assume efficacious structural integrity fields), then crash (with some cushioning by shields and graviton beams) on an ice field (well, at least its flattish shape makes it a better candidate than some ships). The ice is "parasitic" (wouldn't be the strangest lifeform Trek has encountered). Re: Burnham's freak-out over the demise of the Federation: The point is, she's not thinking straight; she's not only lost Vulcan control, but also Vulcan logic, i.e., first establish your premises before drawing conclusions. She hadn't even established that she was in the same part of the galaxy as "her" 23cen UFP. That's either a scriptwriting flaw (sometimes writers show poor theory of mind: what they know isn't what the characters know) or an intentional shortcut.
  9. Lexomatic
    Episode 3.1 focuses on Burnham, and she's too emotionally drained (*) to ask the right questions about the new era in which she's arrived (**). In episode 3.2 (tonight) it appears the Discovery and the rest of the cast will arrive -- much later, because handwave-wormhole-dynamics -- and maybe then we'll get necessary milieu details to judge the quality of the worldbuilding (use of smart matter, alternative-drive ships, hybrid people with genetic or cyber super-powers, how many post-Federation fragments there are, etc.). One promising point is this: Burnham's no longer set up to be the cause of galactic events. Instead, she's going to make the best of the place she's arrived -- as a "true believer" she will try to improve the world, so she may remain central to the show, but that's the role of any TV show's idealistic main character. It might still be a "as outsiders, this crew is uniquely positioned to make a difference" situation -- is that a variant of the "white savior" trope? (*) A lot of fan complaints about her shock at the Book's news the Federation has fallen (***), which is an objectively reasonable event after 900 years. But (a) her first priority was that life of any kind survived, (b) it's reasonable if she never really thought about the UFP's long-term prospects, (c) her UFP is only a century old and hasn't faced the many existential threats of the TOS and TNG eras which we know are lurking, (d) she's completely forgotten any emotional training she learned on Vulcan. Actually, I'd've been happier if her emotion had tilted to the "drained and numb" end ("What? Gone? But... Oh. 900 years. That's not surprising. I guess?") rather than histrionic. More Arthur Dent after Earth is demolished by Vogons ("start with something smaller ... there will never again be a McDonald's hamburger"). (**) Despite the fact she and Book -- however reticent he may be -- spent hours trudging across the moors of space-Iceland. I swear, sometimes TV writers forget what "compressed time" is. (***) Her first assumption is they're talking about the same Federation, which from her POV isn't necessarily true -- in 900 years it may have fallen, revived, and been conquered several times. It's our assumption, because we're privy to far-future characters like the USS Relativity and Time Agent Daniels.
  10. Lexomatic
    Is humanity the first race in 500,000 years to approach Protoculture levels of tech? The galaxy is a big place, and 500,000 years is a long time. Sub-Protoculture races may have had Protoculture relics to study, or observed Vajra activity, or independently discovered superdimension physics. The Supervision Army booby trap tactic may have been tried elsewhere. Non-Protoculture non-humanoid races may have arisen unnoticed in the lacunae between Zentraedi and Supervision Army patrol zones. Any of these civilizations may have thrived for millennia and then been destroyed for any reason, including such mundane ones as a nearby supernova or bolide ELE. (It's not hard to splice established space-SF tropes onto the Macross milieu.) Now, there is (1) the practical question of, "how would the characters know?" Human knowledge (c.2012 to 2070) is limited to whatever records the acculturated Zentraedi have provided (and there may not be complete sharing between the thousands of main fleets), whatever the extant sub-Protoculture single-planet cousin-races (Zolan, Brisinger Cluster, etc.) might know, and what human xenoarchaeologists have excavated from Protoculture and extinct sub-Protoculture sites. And (2) the dramatic question of, "does authoring such galactic history support the signature themes of the Macross brand?"
  11. Lexomatic
    Why not just move the center of human civilization to Eden, which has a functioning biosphere? (Presumably with human-compatible Protoculture-standard biochemistry.) Sentiment for Sol System? By the time Eden had been located by the earliest fleets, the mass cloning efforts had produced too much population to relocate? The Protoculture itself didn't manage projects on that timescale, if I understand the Stellar Union timeline correctly. (Human xenoarchaeology probably didn't know that quite yet.)
  12. Lexomatic
    My first encounter with Southern Cross was via the mid-'80s Robotech novelizations where the visuals are, of course, imagination-driven. When I finally found a picture of the hovertank (in Robotech Art 1, as I recall), my reaction was, "That can't be right -- it's tiny, and where's the canopy? No practical design would expose the pilot that way." The contemporaneous Matchbox toy version had only two of the modes, which led to more confusion. Seto has written (here(?) and elsewhere) about the troubled development history of the show, and the backstory of colony planet Gloire -- its military is largely ceremonial, doesn't want internecine fighting, and doesn't expect to encounter nonhumans. (They don't know the Zor are time-displaced human colonists, rather like the Evoluder from Detonator Orguss (1991).) The ceremonial role explains the ornate body armor, but the mecha designs should've leaned into the premise -- with scrollwork like on Walther P-38 Megatron, or the identifying banners worn by samurai (sashimono). As-is, they're too boxy and utilitarian; they're almost convincing as light high-mobility units, like armed jeeps. It doesn't help that I can't convince myself of the utility of all three modes, given the magical hovering and vectored thrust. I guess the tank mode provides high speed for deployment, and the upright mode is a stable but agile artillery piece (stability is necessary if your targeting is slow), but given the lack of giant humanoid adversaries the third mode is for ... I dunno, parades? Being unable to use all three weapons in all modes seems like a huge design flaw. And why three weapons at all? (TV animation is lousy at showing any distinction in capability -- rate of fire, range, ammo capacity, anti-personnel/anti-armor/anti-structure.)
  13. Lexomatic
    I'm not convinced: System elements don't do "subtle", and matching the look of an established aircraft is all about the subtle curves and angles. A good-looking modern-style aircraft can be done -- see 31039 "Blue Power Jet" (2015) -- but it has to be an original design that works with the shape and structural limits of the palette, not against them. Tapered nosecones and canopies have demanded unsatisfactory compromises for aircraft MOCs since forever; alternately, you can embrace the squareness and go for an impressionistic look (proportions, color blocking) that the market recognizes even if the details aren't strictly accurate for perfectionists. Clone brands sometimes solve this with set-specific elements, as with the Mega Bloks Call of Duty Harrier II (2015), or the Probuilder Carbon Series Fighter Jet in which the entire nose and canopy are one piece, looks like. (FWIW, I've got a copy of the 31039 in my "to be modified" box, to look like IDW Thundercracker sporting E.J. Su's F-22 design.)
  14. Lexomatic
    For more of that style, DiCola did the soundtrack for the "Angry Birds Transformers" game, which is available on Soundify. (And I happen to own The Protoform Sessions, a special CD produced for BotCon ... 2000, maybe? Its availability, I don't know.) The "Soundwave superior, XYZ inferior" line is also popular; it's used several times in Cyberverse season 3 (in which -- minor spoiler -- Soundwave ends up as a rival to Hot Rod for command of a small mixed band of resisters). I guess it's his emergency backup personality. (With apologies to Douglas Adams and Eddie, the shipboard computer of the Heart of Gold.) To briefly review the variations of Bumblebee: The Transformers (1984): Scout. Cheerful. Proper voice. VW Beetle. The Transformers (2007 et seq.): Scout-fighter, progressively more heavily armed. Speaks in radio clips, Junkion-style. Camaro. Animated (2007): Cheerful sociopath; practically G1-Swindle. Proper voice. Compact car. Prime (2012): Scout. Speaks in Artoo-like buzzes which are somehow comprehensible to human kid Raf. Robots in Disguise (2015) (pseudo-sequel to Prime): Uncertain junior commander, similar to Optimus in Animated. Proper voice. Bumblebee (2018): Scout-fighter. Amnesia. Speaks in radio clips. Several shapes, incl. VW Beetle. Cyberverse (2018): Amnesia and goofy, initially speaks in radio clips. War for Cybertron (2020): Surly loner scavenger. Proper voice.
  15. Lexomatic
    As a trivia-oriented TFwiki-reading Geewunner I'm definitely not the right person to answer that question but IMHO it's not a problem as is, say, the position of the game Enter the Matrix vis-a-vis the latter two Matrix movies. Rather, each new version of TF adds some elements to the mythos, and then later versions pull from the pot and remix. Each time they're introduced adequately for their immediate purpose, and knowing the lore is more likely to confuse than enlighten the casual viewer. The life-creating function of Vector Sigma (G1) is rolled into the giant cube-shaped Allspark (Bayverse), then appears in Animated, becomes an icosahedron in Cyberverse, and shares that shape in WFC:S; in most of those iterations, it's either lost or specifically jettisoned into space by Optimus Prime. Galaxy Force/Cybertron creates the colony world of Velocitron, which we visit in Cyberverse and is name-checked in WFC:S. Hasbro creates the character of Windblade, who's fleshed out in an IDW four-issue mini (2014), is first animated in RID (2015), and whose function as a Cityspeaker is key in Cyberverse s3. The idea of Cybertron having an ecosystem dates to the G1 Tech Specs cards (e.g., Mirage hunting turbofoxes), and there were hints in Prime, but Cyberverse s3 is the first time we've toured it in detail. Bumblebee, Hasbro's favored son since 2007, has a different personality each time. Now, that's likely to confuse anybody who's more into characters than trivia, and is unclear which of the iterations are meant to be compatible.
  16. Lexomatic
    That looks to be a fan image, but how conjectural is it? Lessee ... there was an MSD (screencap at Memory Alpha) in the relevant episode of ST:VGR ("The Raven", 4.07), and it does show five decks with an aft shuttlebay, but most of the other details are different. The Decipher RPG identifies it as an Aerie-class surveyor with a length of 90 meters. I agree, that would be plenty of cubic for cargo and a half-dozen supernumerary passengers. It's a rather boring boxy shape, but Rios could've given it the red-stripey antithesis-of-sober-Starfleet Narn-reminiscent paint scheme seen in ST:PIC. That a ship of that size and capability can be operated for years on end by a crew of two (viz., Annika Hansen's obsessed-scientist parents) attests to Federation-built mid-24cen durability and automation. (When not being abused by cosmozoans and space anomalies every other week; Starfleet vessels need crew mainly for damage control, I guess.) Of course, we've had solo operators at least since TOS, with the Cyrano Jones and Harcourt Mudds of the universe.
  17. Lexomatic
    Have internal layout plans been published? The external layout (via high-res, well-lit images to promote the ship's addition to Star Trek Online in May) show the ship to have at least three decks and two large hatchway-like insets flanking the central fuselage, implying there's a lot of cubic apart from two-deck open space (transporter, flight deck) where most of the action is set. (During the pre-show buzz for ST:PIC, when the only promo images were of that space and fans wondered how a cargo ship could adapt to carry as many persons as shown, I speculated that it might use holodeck-like technology to create partitions as needed. Alas, nothing so interesting.) After its controlled crash on yet-another-Soong-world, did any shots establish its scale? I didn't see that ep myself; I tuned out midway through the season, and only followed the episode reviews by Trek scribe KRAD on Tor.com. FWIW, I'm still perplexed by the catamaran/mandible-like structures on each side. They're not in the right place for warp nacelles, they're too narrow for cargo or quarters ... maybe they contained large gun-like weapons, or vertical launch tubes? Which were removed before the ship was sold on the second-hand market, and the hull retained for aesthetics. Otherwise they're like the huge fins on Star Wars vehicles that have no evident aerodynamic, thermal radiator, or shield-projecting function.
  18. Lexomatic
    A banner ad led me to an intriguing eBay listing for "WJ Transform Computron Wars", an interpretation of the G1 Technobot combiner team. At $60 it's priced like a knock-off, but it's not Maketoys Quantron (2014) or the official Unite Warriors (2016), or any other design I'm familiar with -- wait, it might be an alternate deco or knockoff of "Weijiang Calculation King" (eBay listing for that, with a photo of the toys in their packaging), which has a red and white deco resembling Jetfire. The topology (which of the five figures become which limbs) isn't the conventional fusilateral quintrocombiner: Afterburner (motorcycle with canopy) - blue - left leg Nosecone (drill tank) - brown and yellow - right leg Scattershot (plane with nosecone cannon) - white - arms Strafe (plane with two nosecones) - red - torso and thighs Lightspeed (car, now with hood-mounted supercharger) - red - chest I recall the brand name Weijiang from the dealer's room at TFcon DC 2017, but I haven't seen the name on merchants like TFsource or -- oh wait, here's a listing on Robot Kingdom for G1-styled "Megathron".
  19. Lexomatic
    On Friday, mikeszekely wrote: There are definitely some design cues in Cell that resemble, as noted, the image on page 50 of The Transformers: The Ultimate Guide (2004), but I believe the notion dates to the original Floro Dery concept. There's a second movie poster (it's on the back of the collector's sticker album for the 1986 movie (39 cents, 49 in Canada), which I happen to have in a box two meters from this very PC) that shows Unicron in robot mode, in which his fingers are round and have talon-like fingernails. "Pointy fingertips" is a hybrid between "blunt square fingers" and "talons". (FWIW, the poster's composition is odd -- several of the characters are facing in random directions.)
  20. Lexomatic
    I had charitably interpreted those utterances as "planting seeds for potential future seasons" but now that the possibility is raised (by you and others), they could also be a sign of a disorganized writing process: Are there too many tertiary points distracting the narrative from the primary and secondary? The audience has a hard enough time following the development of the main beats without being distracted by self-indulgent flourishes and half-baked red herrings. My background is software, where a properly engineered project starts with a detailed "requirements list" used a blueprint for coding and QA ("menu 3 shall have a button in position 4"). I've often thought that large writing projects (especially collaborative ones) should have the same, to verify that intentions are implemented. What are the theme(s), in what chapters are they addressed, and by which characters? For Mystery X, are essential clues {1, 2, 3} in evidence? Is toyetic vehicle V licensed to L displayed prominently?
  21. Lexomatic
    Following up on Keith: The OG Yamato projects post-Yamato 2 ("The Bolar Wars" TV series, the movies, the Resurrection movie in 2009) suffered a dramatic problem of sameness ("oh look, it's another space empire attacking Earth and only Yamato's crew has the proper spirit to defeat the threat"). (Also, the movies were long and slooow, in ST:TMP fashion.) IMHO, if you're going to keep using the same cast, you need to confront them with novel challenges. There are a few plot threads raised in 2202 that could be tapped, some of which are themes visited by Leiji Matsumoto, and which have present-day relevance: Surrendering your defense to AI, automated weapons manufacture, voluntary replacement of body parts with cybernetics. (The adversaries in the two "Dark Nebula" movies, The New Voyage and Be Forever Yamato, are a cyborg species, and Alphon, the blond with a think for Yuki, expresses some regret re: the societal choice.)
  22. Lexomatic
    IMHO, the more cogent question is: Can an interstellar war make for an interesting story in a future TV series (or other medium), one with the signature elements of Macross (love story, music, fancy aircraft)? We've all seen plenty of interstellar wars -- Star Wars (mostly the Clone Wars TV series), Star Trek DS9, Babylon 5, Space Battleship Yamato, Legend of Galactic Heroes, Crest of the Stars -- but the themes they explore tend to be more political, philosophical, or pure action-oriented set piece. (The secret marriage of Anakin and Padmé isn't quite the same flavor of flirting-infatuation favored by Macross.) Frontier and Delta show conflict on an interstellar scale, but both are initiated by small cabals and the "hot" phase is resolved quickly. What we haven't seen is a prolonged war, with entire colonized star-clusters and emigrant fleets lined up on one side or another, with hostilities and attrition that require new ship construction and troop recruitment. We also haven't seen the allied Zentraedi put to use. (Heck, we've barely seen Zentraedi mecha, apart from Ranka's off-planet concert in Frontier and the Vajra-infected troops at the start of Delta. And post-Space War I-designed models like the Variable Glaug have appeared only in games.) Who would fight in such a war? The galaxy has numerous Zentraedi Main Fleets, leftover Protoculture prototype superweapons, Vajra (well, not anymore), Terran-clade polities, various sub-Protoculture races (all of them inferior to Earth's pre-ASS technology). But the galaxy's a big place -- is there another sub-Protoculture race that has achieved interstellar capability and hasn't been whomped by the Zentraedi? (Say, with fusion and antimatter but not the superdimension technologies that draw Zentraedi attention.) Or a non-Protoculture-derived race that either evolved in the past 500,000 years, or which even the Protoculture didn't know about. (The galaxy's a big place even for the Stellar Union.) Did the Vajra engage in uplift? If the aliens are utterly unconnected to Vajra or the Vajra-inspired Protoculture, would they lack the fold-wave biology that makes song an effective avenue of communication between species?
  23. Lexomatic
    I'm in concurrence with the above that "2199" was an interesting update of the 1974 original, but that "2202" went overboard. Some thoughts, grouped approximately: First, the over-designed mecha (CGI has led to bad habits); second, the numeric scale; third, the physical scale. If your heroes are just slightly outnumbered or outmassed (ten-to-one, not million-to-one), the comparison is easier to depict visually. There were certain signature visuals of "Yamato 2" that couldn't be replicated at the enlarged scale. "They've turned the moon into a burning ball of fire!" Soft-landing Comet City outside Tokyo to accept Earth's surrender. (According to the setting materials, the asteroid-hemisphere is 15 km wide and 6 km deep -- which doesn't actually fit in the Pacific basin near Japan, but whatever.) There are points where the characterization is too subtle -- three of the characters are actually Zordar-iterations: Current-Zordar, original-Zordar with the four-eye headset, and next-Zordar sent to supervise Dessler. Making Teresa a superdimensional goddess (as in "Farewell to Yamato", the movie) rather than a woman with uncontained psychic powers (as in "Yamato 2", the TV series) made the character unrelatable. (Kinda like Jean Grey of the X-Men, but surely that's not a comparison that would worry Japanese writers overmuch?) So far as writing goes: If your antagonists are motivated by an interesting philosophy, you can't dribble it over a dozen episodes -- the audience will forget the clues. Moreover, ideally it should be "show" not "tell" but there are some philosophies that can only be demonstrated by spoken debate. The "character declaims his philosophy" happens a lot in anime -- it might originally been inspired by kabuki. If the goal is to elicit an epiphany ("oh, so that's their motivation -- I'm simultaneously sympathetic yet appalled") that's really tricky. Now, there were good points. A motivation for the White Comet Empire (cloned soldiers for yet another Aquarian child-race, whose leader-caste rebels at the idea, then leaves and finds a leftover superweapon) is more effective than the unexplored-space-barbarians of the original. (But Zordar's "love was personally painful, so I'll destroy all the sub-Aquarian races that feel it" was simplistic.) The flashback that revealed the story of the Dessler family was equally welcome, in giving Abelt a motivation other than cackling-despot.
  24. Lexomatic
    The name's Kazutaka MIYATAKE (Wikipedia, ANN, forbes.com) -- b. 1949, a founding member of Studio Nue, designer of the Macross. Designs from this series are regularly posted by Yamato superfan Tim Eldred to the "Our Star Blazers.com/Cosmo DNA" Facebook community page. The PS2 games are detailed on the Cosmo DNA fansite. Not a lot of images of the ships, though, if you wanted to compare Miyatake's busy designs to the limitations of low-poly tex-mapped models.
  25. Lexomatic
    Hmm. Given the relative volume of discussion for LOW vs PIC, isn't it time for this show to get its own thread? As I speculated, the promotional poster a week ago did not depict the ship in all its detail. OTOH, we now can see hull-features that exist but in the wrong places. The ship's name and registration are on the dorsal aft arc of the saucer (0:07, 0:09), not forward. None of the clips are angled to reveal if there's a registration on the ventral surface. There are red and green lights on the saucer (0:13, 0:25) and nacelles (0:25, 1:35), but they're not in positions to make them useful formation lights. There are no visible shuttlebay doors on the aft rim of the saucer (0:12), although the MSD cutaway (1:02) shows a shuttlebay. There are still no RCS clusters (at 0:12 there's a yellow stripe wrapping around the rim, but that's decorative). There are cutouts in both the saucer-nacelle pylons (0:12, 1:32, 1:35) and nacelle-deflector pylons (0:28, 1:35). Following TAS's precedent of "aliens are easier in animation": Andorian (0:27, 1:53), Bajoran (0:57), Bolian (1:46), Caitian (0:30, 1:08), , green girl (Orion/Rigellian?) (0:27, 0:29, 1:00, etc.), alien Hulk (1:09), purple head-fin webbed-finger fish-people (1:33), olive-green slit-nostril tusk-people (1:46), spotted purple trumpet-eared pig-person (1:50), Vulcan (1:53) 0:32 - That's ... really not how the major blood vessels to the heart are arranged. Must be a non-human humanoid with convenient spare vasculature. 0:44 - Klingon facility with blue daytime skies, yay! 0:55 - I suppose Borg combat is a reasonable part of ongoing physical certifications. Is that a dedicated training compartment with android training dummies, or a holodeck sim of a training compartment?
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