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Lexomatic

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  1. Lexomatic
    Season 2 is an improvement on season 1, but I'm still not loving it. I can live with the distortions to visual canon, and with the reinterpretations of what we thought we knew about technology and politics of the era, and with a certain amount of questionable acting; but there is a whole lot of writing and directing that bothers me. Building the whole show around a main character rather than an ensemble doesn't feel like Trek. Doing a tightly-plotted story arc doesn't leave much room for topics du jour, like other Trek. Doing a tightly-plotted story arc is tough, and this team hasn't been up to the challenge, given the number of dropped characters and implications. Given the number of twists that have been guessed by fans, they're not as clever as they think they are. They keep rushing the stories, as though hoping we won't notice the "and then a miracle occurs" gaps. Most of my reactions are over on the Tor.com reviews (by Trek author Keith R.A. DeCandido, frequent comments by Trek author Christopher L. Bennett), but some low points: How exactly did Georgiou end up in the shuttle that Spock had stolen? (This was part of the seven-episode pursuit of Spock, what fans have dubbed "Spocktease".) A few lines of history dredged from the Sphere's archive convinces everyone to go with Saru's plan to expedite-evolve his entire race. Nobody stops to consider that the Ba'ul may have a point? Or that induced vahar'ai might itself kill some fraction of the population? What was the point of the Talosians? If Spock found his way to Vulcan, why didn't Amanda find him a Vulcan telepathic healer? Do they not have confidentiality? (Maybe the whole "Sarek protects the Enterprise criminals from Federation justice" schtick from Star Trek III and IV is precisely because he learned his lesson of divided loyalties (family vs. professional duties).) After blowing Airiam out an airlock in the transport-shielded station to the not-transport-shielded space, nobody thinks to beam her back to Discovery? The crew jumps to conclusions, possibly because the writers conflate what they know and what the characters should surmise (or, less charitably, because the plot is too big). Saru gets a good look at the Red Angel suit and identifies it as "future technology" (rather than just "it has capabilities I don't recognize, possibly alien"). They somehow go from "we're attacked by an AI from the future" to "it's an evolution of Section 31's AI" to "it's the galactic threat the Red Angel warned Spock about". (I'm worried we'll get an anime-style plot-dump in the last two eps of the season. "Oh, that's how it all connected! None of those clues were in earlier eps, at all.") Last week they determine the Red Angel is future-Burnham, so they plot to trap her by threatening present-Burnham -- whom they include in the planning sessions. The script should've hung a lantern on this, with somebody (probably Tilly) asking, "What model of time travel does this Daedalus suit use?" and "If you remember this conversation, won't you arrive with a way to evade the trap?" At least it's no longer all blue tints and murktoned space, but ... Dutch angles, camera inversions, and lens flares. How are they always so close to a star? The Discovery sets are overdesigned. The polished decks remind me of TRON: Legacy, and I hope they crew have nonskid soles. The uniforms resemble tracksuits, with a front seam that's just slightly off-center, and the asymmetric collar always looks unfastened. Why is there a workstation stuck in a corridor junction, with tanks and bolted-together pressure vessels? What's with the roller-coaster turbolifts? For a show with a movie-class budget, the redressed sets and "let's work in this major compartment instead of a dedicated science lab" scenes are just as obvious as in every other Trek.
  2. Lexomatic
    Aldnoah.Zero ("ΛLDNOΛH.ZERO") (2014 to 2015), on the recommendation of a panel at Philcon 2018, via Hulu. The most interesting part is young male protagonist Inaho "Nao" KAIZUKA, who has an almost Vulcan demeanor, and the talent to quickly spot the scientific principle in each enemy mecha attack and its inherent vulnerability. Premise: During the Apollo missions (1972), humans find remnants of an ancient supercivilization on the moon, with a hypergate to Mars. A scientist is recognized by the techbase and given the heritable ability to activate its power supply ("aldnoah"); he declares himself emperor of Mars ("Vers") and attracts a bunch of people to be nobles in his newfangled feudal system. During subsequent hostilities with Earth (1999), the hypergate explodes, turning 30% of the Moon into an orbiting debris belt. There's mecha combat ("kataphraktos", from the Greek "armored", developed in English to "cataphract" to describe armored heavy cavalry used in antiquity); the Versians "orbital knights" have customs with special powers, and Earth has "real robot" squads. So, we've got tropes from David Weber's Mutineer's Moon/Empire from the Ashes trilogy, Stargate Atlantis, and Cowboy Bebop, but not Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. Weaknesses: The underdeveloped idea that a bunch of people decided to secede from Earth, and to form a feudal society. That they developed a distinct culture in a mere 40-ish years (1972 to 2013). The motivation that they're food-impoverished (chlorella and krill), despite having vast aldnoah energy supplies, and that they're facing population pressures, despite being separated from Earth for maybe two generations. The unanswered question of how many of their devices (Landing Castles and custom Kataphraktos) they inherited from the ancient Martians or engineered themselves. Between seasons 1 and 2, the three people who should be dead but, eh, they got better.
  3. Lexomatic
    Is Bumblebee a prequel or a reboot? Both and neither. The term I've seen used is "stealth reboot" which means "hedging our bets". If it performs poorly and no further movies are green-lit, it will be counted as the sixth and final film, and a prequel to the other five. Conversely, if it does well, it will be taken as proof that audiences like this aesthetic and directorial style, and will be counted as the first film in a new sequence, like Maguire!Spider Man vs. Garfield!Spider Man. Everyone involved needs to smile for the press and be enthusiastic about future prospects, regardless of their personal artistic or financial opinions about the saga -- they're not going to go Rainier Wolfcastle and admit, "Zere vere problems vit the script from day vun." Transformers is no stranger to dodgy continuity: Many of the features of G1's pilot, "More than Meets the Eye" (1984), were changed for the production series -- Autobots can't fly, their ship is not extracted from the mountain and refitted by grateful humanity for a return trip. Beast Wars (1996) was intended as a sequel to G1 -- except where the visuals don't match. The Ark has two tail fins instead of one, the Nemesis has a grinder instead of a pelican pouch, and neither ship had a name in 1984. Cybertron (2005) was meant as a sequel to Armada (2002) and Energon (2004) -- but only in the U.S., and the plot clearly contradicts earlier developments. Robots in Disguise (2015) claimed to be a sequel to Prime (2007) -- except Bumblebee doesn't bother to find any of his human friends/allies who might have the interest or ability to help with all those escaped Decepticon prisoners.
  4. Lexomatic
    Yes, it's largely the same plot as the OAV Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015) (IMDb, DC Universe) but several characters have happier endings. I'm kinda sorry action movies demand so many fight set pieces -- I'd've watched the heck out of further meet-cutes between Arthur and Mera, Arthur and his fan club, Mera and small children. Perfect casting re: Arthur at earlier ages. The Sicily sequence felt kinda Power Rangers. Nice that Arthur wasn't uniquely durable, as seen when Mera exits the plane; his special power is pisco-telepathy. During the "fall of Atlantis" sequence, I looked closely for Atlantis: The Lost Empire (Disney 2000) Easter eggs (wardrobe, people with white hair). It seems the ancestral Atlantean surface-human stock somehow speciated (fish-people, crab-people, toothy-horror-people) -- purposeful geneering or just really unstable genetics? The movie notes that only the "high-born" can breathe air -- which neatly explains the face-hiding armor for mooks. There must be some reason they decided to keep their civilization underwater rather than reclaim the surface -- maybe their limitless power supply Ferris wheel, and wireless transmission thereof, works only at high pressure? Atlantis has powered vehicles and beasts of burden, some of which are whales? (Which don't seem to be wearing scube gear.) (FWIW, there have been SF explanations of Atlantis at least since the Buck Rogers newspaper strip of the 1930s.) They somehow made the Ocean Master regalia (here: a formal title, not a villain-nom-de-plume) look cool. Mera's gown during the "ring of fire" sequence, with the physalia (*) collar and skirt -- did the animators forget to re-insert her legs? I'm getting heartily sick of holograms as the go-to cinematic interface modality (although its appeal is obvious -- shooting angle, cheaper than a physical panel, is inserted in post so defers decisions). The putative timeline for Atlantis and King Atlan's clues is problematic -- The Sahara paleolake peaked in size 6,000 years ago, yet the statue garden in Sicily, featuring Marcus Agrippa, would've been erected in the past 2,000 years. Similarly, the three concurrent timelines (Orm's diplomatic efforts, Manta customizing his suit, Arthur and Mera's quest) don't seem compatible. I like that the movie provides an explanation of Manta's sub in a throwaway line (a stolen USN stealth prototype), but it doesn't seem sufficiently capacious to contain that whole band of pirates, let alone the tools for Manta to adapt the Atlantean armor and plasma weapon. And --how? He wasn't consulting a manual and didn't have an Atlantean technician. The movie did not explain Mera's waterbending, nor give it a name ("magic"); it's just one of the willing-suspension-of-disbelief elements. Thematic and aesthetic commonalities: "The Sword in the Stone" elements of the King Arthur legend (explicit with the infancy scene, but the Karathen acts as The Lady in the Lake) The Abyss (sea-dwellers summon huge coastal waves) Earth: Final Conflict (also inspired by blue-n-magenta bioluminescence) Harry Potter (during a school trip to an aquarium, Arthur discovers he can speak to fish) Black Panther (rival claimants to the throne, in ritual combat twice) Ant-Man and the Wasp (the grand dame in patched-together castaway hunter gear) (*) Physalia physalia is the binomial name of the Portuguese man o' war, and much shorter to type. Note: not a jellyfish.
  5. Lexomatic
    I enjoyed the movie, and wasn't offended or mortified by it, and appreciated that I could follow the action; but nothing was surprising. Well, maybe the demise of Dropkick -- that was novel. I detected these thematic or aesthetic similarities: The Iron Giant (youth without a father figure; Bee remembers he has weapons, and his eyes glow red) How to Train Your Dragon (Bee's skittish nature and flappy head-paddles) E.T. (alien captured by the government, and different aliens phone home, but otherwise not so much) Transformers 2007 (duh) Transformers Prime (Cliffjumper fares ... poorly) Star Trek: First Contact (the antagonists use green-glowing tech to improvise a transmitter) I've got these criticisms: As with many movies these days, the script neglects to name the characters, which makes later discussion awkward. Scattorshot and Dropkick (S&D) were named once, I think, and Blitzwing-not-Starscream, not at all. The chief reason I can identify them is through discussion of the toys. The English-language text overlay on Bee's battle mask (S&D had the same thing) can be taken as metaphorical, but the Decepticon duo also spoke in English, thereby carelessly revealing their plan to Sector 7 Scientist Guy. Why did the Sector 7 vehicles have harpoons? They seemed surprised by Bee, but assuming they've got NBE 1/Project Iceman in the cellar, they're apparently prepared for the anytime-arrival of entities like Bee. When S&D are co-opting Earth's commsats, the one in the front-left is (I'm pretty sure) the NASA Magellan Venus probe (1989). Also: Bee has the worst luck, doesn't he? Of all the places to make planetfall, he does so atop a squad of armed humans. Well, I suppose he could've picked the middle of the ocean. S&D as triple-changers -- their automobile transformations were worked out in detail, but every time they assumed aircraft mode, the scene was shot to obscure details. It's dark, or they're distant, or it's the narrowest profile.
  6. Lexomatic
    @Seto Kaiba Additionally: There is a 36-page glossy booklet associated with Sayonara no Tsubasa (I got mine in a BD combo pack with the movie, video game, script books for both movies, etc.), and on pages 16 to 17 is a "family tree"-type graphic of the YF-24 (that same line art again), Frontier's VF-25 family (YF, F, G, S, RVF, three add-on packs) and YF-29, and Galaxy's VF-27. The lines seem to indicate that the YF-29 derives from the YF-24, VF-25, VF-25F with Tornado Pack, and VF-27. (Actually, the YF-29 and YF-27 are linked with a double-ended line labeled "####?" The text is 1mm tall so I can't translate it.)
  7. Lexomatic
    There are several classes of Earth warship with "stealth" in the type (Guantanamo-class stealth carrier, Northampton-class stealth frigate, Battle-class variable stealth space attack carrier) -- what does "stealth" mean in this context? I can guess, but is there any explanation in the (if I understand correctly, limited relative to VFs) official technical documents? My guess: the human emigration fleets (or at least their UNS/NUNS outriders) are designed to avoid attracting the attention of uncultured Zentraedi fleets, by whatever means Zentraedi use to detect Supervision Army forces -- maybe thermal or radio, but probably fold emissions. Presumably stealthy overtechnology was invented by humans as soon as Britai and Exedol revealed how they had found Earth in the first place, and showed off the sensors; this might be an innovation the Protoculture itself didn't have, or which they saw fit to reserve unto themselves and not the Zentraedi-supplying factory satellites.
  8. Lexomatic
    In the fansub I'm watching, the first time Gepelnitch appears and Gigil uses the masculine pronoun, a note appears to emphasize that it's not a mistake. (In my post, I remembered to remove all personal pronouns, but missed that one possessive pronoun. Whoops. Thanks for the reminder, @Zx31.) More important than the character's gender is, of course, their (if ever there was a need for a non-gender-specific single-person pronoun, this is it) very-1990s-anime costume: wide pointy shoulder pads, tall pointy hat with cheekguards, and concealing goggles.
  9. Lexomatic
    I'm up to episode #15, and it's around #10 that the plot starts to move after the not-exactly-captivating first tranche. #11 "Minmei Video" - Mylene and Basara are recruited to play lead roles in "The Linn Minmei Story" (second in-story evidence of Kawamori's "all of the series are different fictional depictions", after the comment by Battle 7's bridge bunnies about "that movie"), which is actually a Spacy recruitment piece, and features a couple of full-size Zentraedi as Britai and Kamjin. Mylene briefly fangirls about her mother's early days as a giant. Max and Minmei aren't publicly separated. #12 "Spiritia Farm" - After weeks of her the "vampires" taking samples, Gepelnitch has determined that these prey can regenerate their spiritia levels. Gigil prefers the hunt. #13 "Fold Out" - Gepelnitch's infiltrators (the name "Varauta" hasn't been used yet) hijack City 7. Miria shows up in her VF-1 and with Basara stop the second fold (by punching the fold drive's control console), but they're separated from the convoy. #14 "Fighting Woman Mayor, Miria" - Fire Bomber visits the Silver Paradise retirement home. We see the gerwalk mode of the Elgerzorenes and Basara's VF-19, in a battle through the city; a pilot is captured, but Miria is injured (shot through the leg). Aboard Battle 7, Gamlin convinces himself that, during their dates, Mylene has not mentioned her role in a band because her friend, i.e. Basara, is a jerk. Dr. Chiba reveals himself as a Minmei fanboy to Gamlin, who reacts poorly to being force-fed her music. #15 "A Girl's Jealousy" - The captured pilot won't talk, but DNA analysis reveals he's an Earth-human. Miria holds a carnival of privately-owned mecha to recruit pilots. The three Silver Paradise veterans have a Monster, and foolishly use it as AA against an Elgerzorene. Mylene pilots Miria's VF-1, and confronts Basara about his ongoing pacifism. A love triangle starts to develop, insofar as Mylene is jealous when she believes Basara has slept with biker chick Rex ("you're slow on the uptake," says her bodyguard) Worldbuilding: From Fire Bomber's concerts, we see that the million citizens of the 37th Long-Distance Colonization Fleet aren't all aboard City 7 -- there seem to be residential areas on each of the specialized vessels, including Hollywood (despite the emphasis in the Macross Mecha Manual profile). The retirees at Silver Paradise would remember Earth pre-Rain of Death, and the veterans (assuming age 70) would've been older members of the UN Spacy during Space War I (2014 - 2010 = 35 years). That carnival has a whole lotta war-surplus mecha -- what kind of storage closets does City 7 have? Some of them seem to have been adapted to workroids (not a term yet?). How is that there are no Spacy personnel in the city? --Even if they're billeted on Battle 7 and the escort fleet, wouldn't some rotating fraction be on leave? The three veterans foolishly target a passing Elgerzorene with the Monster's four topside guns and instead take out a skyscraper, whereupon Mayor Miria reams them out, but really -- how many people did they kill? I expect charges of negligent manslaughter and reckless endangerment (the phrase "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw large-caliber artillery" comes to mind). Language: Evidence that people are speaking English, not Japanese: Gamlin's Spacy dossier, and Mylene's application to pilot a battloid, are both printed in English. The English word "jealousy" (Japanese pronunciation: "jel-oh-she") is used, not the Japanese shitto. Mylene's name is pronounced either "muh-lenn" or "muh-lane", depending who's speaking, which implies some combination of (a) ambiguous spelling in the script and (b) a voice director who wasn't paying close attention. "Veffidas" is pronounced "vee-fee-da". Holding the idiot ball: Where are the Varauta hiding their Elgerzorenes such that they keep surpising the city (it's only 6 by 5 km)? For example, why has no neighborhood watch been set up? ("This is Watchpost Seventeen - three bogies emerged from the Fourth Avenue maintenance tunnel.") I'm paying more attention the BGM now. Macross II on the car radio ... Macross Plus on a different car radio ... at the carnival ... in a restaurant. (This is called diagetic sound -- it originates within the film's world -- as opposed to the non-diagetic sound of an orchestral score.)
  10. Lexomatic
    FWIW it's definitely not this particular combo pack (Wings of Goodbye (2011) on BD, PS3 game, script books for both movies, lots of pictures), which I own and viewed this weekend. It has alternate audio mixes, extras of the trailers and promotional junket, but no subtitles in any language. (I happened to find this in a Book Off location in Shinjuku in 2017 at a very reasonable price, along with the VF-1 Master File and both both volumes of Macross the Ride. That was a lucky day.)
  11. Lexomatic
    I'm working my way through a Macross 7 fansub now (first time I've viewed any part of it since 1997 with my college anime club), and taking Seto Kaiba's advice to do so slowly (I'm alternating with Disenchantment, Stranger Things, Super Dimension Century Orguss, and Trollhunters). I notice that each ep is ~24:30 in length, but after subtracting the OP, ED, and historical recap (hmm, that vanishes after ep 6), it's down to ~20:00. Neat, those recaps reuse music from Macross Plus. I'm up to episode 8 ("Virgin Bomber") of 49 and the storytelling is ... leisurely, to be charitable. Each episode delivers approximately one each new plot detail/character/worldbuilding detail, such as "Exedol has noticed that the raiders' variable fighters resemble Earth designs" or "Mylene is 14 years old and lives with neither parent" or "there are private space-cars flying between the ships of the fleet like something from The Jetsons". The most frustrating thing is that the command staff of the fleet are so blasé about the repeated attacks. "Ho-hum, it's those raiders again. Lost some more VF-11s, their pilots are now comatose, and there's a whole lot of raider debris we won't bother to examine. What, there's some dismembered VF limbs in the park aboard the factory ship? We won't examine them either, to notice that they use Earth-standard metric screw fittings." There are a few scenes about the populace being in near-panic re: the "vampires" that have infiltrated the city, but they're outweighed by Mylene berating Basara for his diva proclivities, or Ray evading any explanation about how he obtained Basara's VF-19 custom. So far, Veffidas the amazon drummer has exactly one character trait: she's always practicing. And what is up with girl-in-hat-carrying-bouquet who can never reach Basara? Even though I've been paying attention to how the characters pronounce "Mylene", they can't displace the wrong pronunciation in my head. It's mee-lenn, rhymes with Delenn, not mai-leen, rhymes with buy polythene. I've also got definite opinions about the art design and/or civil engineering of the Island- and Island Cluster-class colony ships of M7 and Frontier, but those deserve a separate thread.
  12. Lexomatic
    When speaking of "setting materials" -- the written content that provides background (cultural, character, mechanical) to the anime -- Seto Kaiba et al have frequently alluded to Macross Chronicle (official), Variable Fighter Master File (fan-produced), and others. In terms of canonicity, it's like comparing The ST:TNG Technical Manual by Sternbach and Okuda to Starfleet Dynamics (1991) by "Starfleet Academy Training Command." My question: Is there a full list of such reference works (or titled series of works), what form they take (book, mook, pages you put in a binder, etc.), and who they're written by (fan circle name, specific author, etc.)? I've acquired a few of these on prior trips to Japan (browsing the BookOff chain can be tremendously useful), and since I'm travelling again in early June, I'm wondering what I should be looking for. (Paper is heavy, and airline baggage allowance is finite.)
  13. Lexomatic
    ll be attending a LEGO fan event called Japan Brickfest in Kobe in June, which gives me a reason to finish various anime-themed MOCs ("my own creations" in the jargon of AFOLs ("adult fan of LEGO")) that have been germinating for a dozen years, or to start new ones. Here's the current state of my experimentation vis-à-vis Macross: three variations on a VF-1 battroid body, some alternate limbs and heads, a larger-scale missile pod, two Regult legs, and a very square proof-of-concept Regult (height: 20 cm). There are ways to improve its roundness, but I might stick with this intentionally angular form to match the VF-1. Building original models in a modular building toy (LEGO System being the front-runner, though there are others -- I'm a connossieur) is not like customizing a factory-made plamodel, or scratch-building a resin kit, or 3D printing, or papercrafting. If you're trying to replicate a character from media, there's always a compromise between shape, color, articulation, size and stability. Personally, I prioritize general shape, color blocking and durability over exact proportions or details. If you haven't built with System lately ("System," as opposed to LEGO's interoperable Duplo, Technic, or CCBS -- the "character and creature building system"), there's been an explosion of shapes and colors in the past 20 years, including many elements to facilitate what's officially called "sideways building" (which fans cheekily call SNOT, for "studs not on top"). It's possible to achieve a lot of "physical coloration" rather than using decals.
  14. Lexomatic
    I'm not a plastic modeler, resin or otherwise (I'm more of a LEGO custom builder), but I'm very glad of the photos in Captain America's post on March 5. This is (somehow) the first time I've seen the back of a Legioss in upright mode, and now I know how the wings fold up. I've been puzzling over that aspect of the transformation since 1987 and the cover art for the Robotech novelization #12: Symphony of Light -- art which is, admittedly, highly approximate. (My instinct is to call it a "battloid," but that's the Robotech derivative of Macross terminology, so what did MOSPEADA call it, if anything? Aha -- "armo-soldier," if the boxes of the Aoshima and Imai model kits are to be believed.)
  15. Lexomatic
    I encountered Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986) a few times in the '80s (I recall the episode in which the android is photocopied, overloads himself to stop the villain, and is then promoted to Ranger) and then forgot about it until it was mentioned in the anime track at Philcon by Brian Price (creator of the venerable "Bad anime, bad!" video presentation). I looked it up on Netflix, but their edition seemed to consist of only selected episodes. (Looking at its entry now, it seems to be complete -- season 1, four discs, 32 eps; season 2, four discs, 33 eps. The show's Wikipedia entry confirms 65 episodes.) Personally, I couldn't get past the audio mix, in which the constant background music obscured the dialog. I don't know if that problem was specific to the DVD edition, or was in the originally aired version. In my ongoing revisiting of '80s toons, I have been discovering that use of BGM was typically ... mmm, not subtle.
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