GobotFool

Sigh. I'm conflicted. I want a ride armor, but I want a very small scale ride armor. This is the scale I want, but the reviews on the CMS all seem to hit the same negatives.

Grab one, buy a tube of superglue, and be prepared to fix the windscreen. It should be a fairly invisible fix if you apply the glue conservativly.

I was just about to post/ask about the latest ep, so I'll address your question as well:

Anyone else see the latest ep w/Blackarachnia? AWESOME ep IMHO. (Lockdown/Arcee was good too, but not as good as this).

There does seem to be two types of eps IMHO: Introduce/deepen a character, or "generic villain/situation of the week". The former are definitely better than the latter.

And--since GobotFool asked it in this thread and I replied, should I go ahead and close the dedicated TF:Animated thread, located here: http://macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?show...5&start=175

and have all future posts here in the main TF thread?

Otherwise, these 2 posts should be moved to the Animated thread.

I'd say just keep it all here. We don't need more than one transformers thread.

Over all I think if they keep the character development on track, this could be as good as Beast Wars. I'd like to see a few episodes dedicated to developing bumblebee. Right now he's just some cocky kid who gets on my nerves. I'd like to see something happen that allows him to develop a little beyond that.

I finally got around to watching a few episodes of animated beyond the pilot. Its weird. I really don't want to like this show. But for some reason, I find it all sorts of fun. Have I gone insane? Parts of it reminds me of Beast Wars and a few of the human villians remind me of Batman Beyond. I don't even mind the Teen Titan influence that much. its probably the only show made primarily for kids I've willingly watched more than a few episodes of and intend to keep tuning in for.

I'm still waiting on the remake for Andromeda Strain.

Unless it had explosions, hot scientist chicks, and the virus turned people into icky mutated zombie/vampire monsters, I think a readaptation of the andromeda strain would put modern audiences to sleep.

Does anyone own the TF RID series, "Autobot brother" figures: X-Brawn, Sideburn, & Prowl???

Any thoughts or opinions - if they are worth owning or not??

I've been eyeing these 3 figures for awhile now, and am debating whether to pick 'em up from eBay. Their alt modes look cool, but I'm indifferent about the robot modes since they do have kibble. Some reviews I've read seem to love X-Brawn & Prowl, but apparently Sideburn is a PITA to transform.

Thinking of adding them to my collection and what to hear thoughts ...

TIA.

They do have alot of kibble, but still they look rather cool. I'd say the only must own among the group is prowl. He has the least ammount of kibble and is fairly easy to transform while looking fairly cool in both modes. Sideburn can be a PITA to figure out at 1st, but once you get used to him he's not that bad.

I wish Classics Jetfire's plane mode had a more realistic, fighter-like canopy and nose. I do know it was done the way it was as a way of replicating the G1 cartoon model's look in robot mode. I see Classics as a fusion of influences from both the animation models of G1, and the original G1 toys. Just a few weeks back I realized Classics Grimlock is influenced a lot by the Pretenders Grimlock.

Either that or they went with a less realistic sci-fi mode with the body. The thing that drives me nuts about jetfires fighter mode is it looks like a F-14 with Skyfire's nose, or Skyfire's nose with a F-14 body, take your pick. Two very different aesthetics that, IMHO, clash. As far as I'm concerned I have my ultimate version of Jetfire with yamato's VF-1s. I really really wanted a homage to Skyfire. Which I did sort of get with classics jetfire, its just that they tried to homage two very different looks in one toy. Classics was kind of our last hope for a true skyfire toy, unless they decide to do a MP for him, but I figure he'd be pretty far down the list in terms of characters they'd pick to make an MP out of.

I can see that, I just don't see how seeing it from ground level or even from above while in the helicopter makes me see a completely different color.

Well the beast looked very slick/wet in the movie, that mixed with most of it being filmed at night, with it being illuminated by explosions, nightlights ect, I think gave it a redder tint on film. This is just speculation, regarding the color they could just have messed things up with this figure. I went through and counted all the possible points of articulation on the figure, and I can't see how they managed to count 70. Unless the tail is articulated with 50 extra joints or something.

I think they went more for Dreamwave's interpretation of Jetfire.

Whose design was very much a fusion of a VF-1 and the classic G1 Skyfire. I really like Classics jetfires robot mode. I just wish his plane mode wasn't so... lazy.

\Though I wished classic jetfire was just the vf-1 from G1 TF but updated.

Classics jetfire is 1/2 good. If they ripped out the valk influence, and went for a 100% G1 cartoon influenced look I would have been happy. As it stands classics jetfire is the unholy love child between a VF-1 and G1 Skyfire.

It didn't look so lanky. To me at least.

Seeing it from a ground eye perspective probably helped make the limbs not seem so thin. Seeing all the limbs in relation to the rest of the beast makes it seem lankier than what you saw in screen. At least thats my guess.

It's not an easy task getting him to sit down even with all the attachments provided. It's still an awkward ride with the big boots and almost back breaking to the toy to reach the handle bars.

Really? thats disapointing to hear. I've only seen photos with him sitting on the bike and they looked really nice, but if its that hard to do, and the toy is as fragile as so many people say, well I don't think I'll try and force it.

It seems that the leader animated megatron has a face that can change expressions.

I'm really loving this line.

It's 2008 for god's sake, and toys in Japan are WORSE than they were 20 years ago? Look at the Gakken bike, that f*cker was perfect.

Considering stick can't ride his bike, and the way the leg peices attach in armor mode, I'd call it far from perfect. I love my old gakkens to death, but calling them better than modern toys is silly. The CMS seems like it really would have benefited from a larger scale. Nothing seems wrong with the design itself, its just the fact that executing something this complex, this small just didn't seem to work out particularly well.

Is there any lineart out there showing how the ride armor is supposed to transform?

In the movies you're right.

Now about HT 's figure?

I'm not too sure.

Yeah, that was what I was wondering too. can anyone snap a shot of the 1st and 2nd hot toy robocop side by side?

ummmm yeah indiana jones, whips, hats and stuff. You know, I wouldn't put it past Speilberg to have them all enter the giant temple we see shown in the trailer and find out that the natives worshipped a crashed transformer.

'sides, spielberg already pissed off the christians with his jesus redo (ET). I don't think lucas/spielberg would lose much sleep if they further alienated religious conservatives.

The whole ET as jesus thing was alot of people reading to much into that movie methinks. While some of those themes are there, I don't think speilberg said, hrm... I think I'm gonna make a movie about jesus, but make him an alien. His actual inspiration for ET came after making close encounters of the 3rd kind where he asked himself, "What if they left one behind."

I wasn't aware I was supposed to be pissed off at ET. I just knew I was supposed to find him/it adorable, when in fact I found him horrifying.

You too!?! ET scared me as a kid. He still does.

Anakin has a different starfighter in this one, its like the Ep2 version with a droid in the center. I am excited for this. I think we may see Anakin in a new, better light, untainted by the acting of Hayden Christianson. (I like the character of Anakin, not the actor in the live action movies). Not to mention I like the way Anakin was portrayed in the first Clone Wars cartoon. I hope we see the jedis that were killed off in less than a minute in ROTS have more screentime here.

I just hope its not the same stiff animation we saw in the preview a few months back. Stuff that makes Christianson's performance look dynamic.

Wow... the shininess metallic reflection on Robo's armor looks exactly like the real thing. That's hot! The only way you can easily tell it's a figure is from the skin and mouth.

I still like the original RoboCop though. They made him too shiny in the 2nd one.

The paint job is different for the second version of robocop?

I've been meaning to take some pics of Rei with Revy for about a month now and it keeps slipping my mind. I'll try to snap at least one tonight. The only Revoltechs I have are Revy, Eva01 and Rei, and Rei is much taller than Revy and Unit01.

Thanks, that would be great. Thanks!

But for what it's worth the Ark of the Covenant *has* been reinterpreted by some to be an extraterrestrial radio. It wouldn't haven been difficult to do what you describe, as much of the groundwork has already been done.

Well crud, that explains why the scene in the trailer looks like it takes place in the warehouse the ark is hidden in. Indy needs it to phone god, aka Xenu and ask him to stop beaming his signals into L. Ron Hubbards head.

That's true of the regular Revoltech line; but, at least as far as Rei is concerned, the Fraulein series has the scale called out on the box. At 1/10, the Frauleins will be in scale with Beagle's Ride Armors .

Speaking of scales, comparing my Brocken to a 1/60 kit I have, the Patlabor series of Revoltechs are almost exactly HO (1/87) scale.

Wait, the Fraulein series is bigger than the regular revoltech figure? Can anyone take a shot of one next to a regular revoltech to give me a clue of how much larger it is?

There's quite a bit of speculative "archeology" that reinterprets all the mysticism of ancient religions as being the result of alien encounters. Peruvian culture and the tradition of elogating heads are speculated by believers to be the Peruvian attempts at imitating their alien "gods". Most of this is pretty baseless and creative speculation.

There is a famous, I think Aztec carving, that people often interpret as some kind of alien spaceship. Truth is it's just a collection of relious imagery that most archeologists familar with Aztec culture are familiar with, but the modern person, unfamilar with any of the symbols, tends to recode these images into into a spaceship. There is a really funny website debunking most UFOlogists intepretation of aliens in art that you can find here.

http://sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_eng.htm

I really wish Hollywood would drop the whole, well the gods were just aliens angle. If the head honcho alien in this movie turns out to be named Xenu I think I might just have to kill someone.

It's not an important discussion to have here.

Which is why I said, lets get back to talking about how lucas and speilberg are raping out childhood memories.

Anyway back to the trailer. Some people have seriously sharp eyes. I wasn't really paying attention to the CG pants or shirt pocket 1st time around. I see it now that it has been mentioned. I dunno about it being some kind of anti-gun, someone think of the children thing (considering there are still plenty of guns in the background, why if it was an anti-gun thing not replace them with walkie-talkies? ). I suspects its more of a, "We didn't want anything obstructing the view of Indiana in his 1st big screen shot in almost 2 decades thing and they just badly removed the things obstructing the view.

Edit: I take the above back. I looked at the frame again and can see alot of things were removed that were not obstructing the characters after looking at the comparison shots. Looks like it is 100% and MPAA thing.