Sundown

A man/horse?/pony?/dog?/pokemon thing? after my own heart. Karamori's basically gone Lucas. What was cool to him as a 20-30 year old isn't to his middle-aged self anymore, and he can't be helped but be enamored by the fantastical new age bloblyblook that some of us can't be bothered about. What made SDF so charming seems mostly lost on him, whether it be due to disinterest or over-familiarity. He did manage to put out M+ though. It didn't have the magic of SDF, but I did enjoy it quite a bit. Any any rate, I would love to see an SDF redone with improved animation-- some basic fixes would be nice, but I wouldn't mind completely redrawn while still sticking to the same timings, shots, camera angles, and of course, line art-- essentially the original SDF if it was produced with the same story boards, a proper budget, and people who actually knew how to draw. But no one does this sort of thing-- every artistic endeavor of this type ends up being about the artist's own unique take and vision, whether that's a good vision or not. And Kawamori does this sort of thing even across his own Macross projects-- they're more vehicles for his personal artistry and exploration than they are efforts to tell a greater story in a fictional, self-consistent universe. In some ways, Kawamori treats Macross as his palette more than something with imputed life and identity of its own. If SDF was the Mona Lisa, then DYRL would be the Sistine Chapel, M+ would be in the style of Realism, M7 Pop-art, M0 Impressionist, and MF Art Nouveau-- most of the works marked more by their artistic divergence from their predecessors in abandoning the previously established tone, than by the quality and story they bring on their own. If most of the sequels didn't have Macross in their title and make obligatory nods to elements I enjoyed in SDF (and to an extent, M+), I simply wouldn't find them worth watching.

Arc welders with old time-y welding goggles in the, what, 24th century? The retro grimeyness doesn't really fit in with the established visual continuity of a TOS-era Star Trek...

Yet, "collectibles" will still be somewhat valuable, not for whatever cultural value they have, but simply for being historical artifacts. Assuming things don't change much, just think of any well maintained piece of art or craft that hails from 1007-- it would probably fetch for a modest sum today. But you're probably better off investing in some piece of art or bottle of wine than Japanese collectible toys.

It would pretty much play out like Transformers. The spec-ops guys in the movie could just as easily been given distinct personalities, codenames, and characteristic quirks. The irony here is that if a direct representation of GI Joe were to be injected into the Transformers movieverse, it would actually render the new Transformers silly and unrealistic instead of the other way around.

I just don't think big enough. Kind of funny, considering I *just* watched the episode of The Office where they hire the Benjamin Franklin impersonator for a party... I suppose you could do pretty well being a live link to the past. I just don't know how to market myself. This thread is funny considering how I'm always lamenting that I was born 100 years too early-- we're actually seeing some things that used to be sci-fi become reality, like working exoskeletons and better robotics. I can only imagine what the internet will become, advancements that will be made to imagery and holography, and how much more accessible technology will be with better and more natural interfaces. Sure beats being born 100 years ago though. "Yes, 'ladies and gentlemen'." Cue smirks to endearingly sexist anacronism. "We would 'talk' to people around the world whom we often don't know what they look like, by pushing buttons-- on a 'keyboard'. Some of us could even 'type' upwards of seventy words a minute!" Guffaws ensue. "Many of us attempted to mate through these means..." "Sometimes, we would even meet them!"

Ideally, I'd like to wake up 100 years from now to see all the advances we've made, with a world that would still be somewhat relateable culturally. But we'd probably be such a bad fit that we'd spend the rest of our lives feeling insecure and horribly out of place the rest of our lives. And we'd also probably have no real marketable skills in this future society, and end up destitute and unable to eak out much of a living. =P

I really like this one (the one with the line art). Nothing brings back memories like retro Macross line art. Classy.

The new pictures look much better-- and apparently the Legioss can actually be transformed correctly with arms apart. Still not sold on this, and the linkup is all kinds of wrong. I think the whole problem stems from them building the Tread too small in proportion to the Legioss. The Legioss chest intakes are just horrendous. Not only are they too small, they're just flat out misplaced and ugly.

Never going to be sick of the VF-1. As far as I'm concerned, they can keep making versions until they get one that looks as close to the line art in all modes as engineeringly possible. The 1/48 was good. The 1/60 made some good compromises and others that I didn't like and really lament. I don't believe the perfect balance has been struck yet.

I saw Robotech when I was about 9 or 10, and the action sequences and the designs definitely gripped me. Even then, the Macross designs gripped me more than any other anime mecha design did, and the first time I laid eyes on the Fokker VF-1S, I was definitely intrigued. But I also instantly liked the characters-- and even rewatching SDF a few years back, there was much to like in the initial episode. I've also watched various other anime and encountered characters that I enjoyed right away-- I even *liked* the character interactions in M7 right away, and I'm a *critic* of the series. Maybe the writing and storytelling will improve, but so far, I'm a bit underwhelmed. Graham, I suppose it makes sense that the X-Gears would be the same if the academy was trying to find standouts to pilot Valkyries. I guess I'm just not a fan of the winged backpack concept. I agree that as a whole, the series resembles, in broad strokes, SDF more strongly than the other series-- but personally, I'm just having a bit of a time finding anything that I *really* like, even in the first episode-- I liked SDF, the whole package, from the get go. I liked the character interactions in M7 right off the bat, even if the mecha designs drove me insane. I loved the heavy emphasis on realistic aviation in M+. I was vaguely amused but apprehensive about the storytelling in M0. In MF, I'm not finding anything terribly endearing, but there's nothing to downright hate either. I just fear that in having MF go in a new direction, it will be mainly a showcase of fanciful art and design, and storytelling might end up suffering. We'll see.

Oh feh. You're right. I'm mistaken. Well, he did get the thing off the ground. =P And I believe he was at least shot at a bit. And maybe killed one innocent bystander. That's still one kill up on Alto.

Which sort of makes him less believable and relateable to me, I guess, and in the end, less fun to watch. He sort of does his mildly broody and aloof thing, watches a pilot get turned into pizza sauce, and then just goes into scripted-hero-mode. To me, it's as if he's written as an ideal to maximize appeal to a 14 year old girl as much as possible--the mysterious, brooding, pretty-boy hero with rediculous composure underfire-- *not* that you must therefore be a 14 year old girl if you find some aspects of his personality enjoyable of course. I guess I just enjoy Hikaru's bumbling a lot more-- and I can actually buy that he's just a schmuck who wants to impress a girl, while being a decent pilot and (over)confident, reacts as much out of horror and panic as bravery when he guns down his first alien. He only does his brooding afterwards-- after seeing a 60 foot tall alien crawl out of the Regult he just filled with depleted uranium. It's obvious at that point he wouldn't make a very good soldier left to his raw self. And it's only then that his courage is honed, through training, through experience, and through maturity. I wonder if the difference in the two characters (and I compare them because one's obviously set up in situations that are homages of those the other experienced) is reflective of the differences in trends between the two cultures they reflect. Our modern culture tends to be very youth-centric, and often the protagonists are depicted as young folks who in some sense know everything there is to know, who are ready-made heroes even if they're a bit brash, sometimes to their credit. The 80's seemed to make nods towards adulthood, with young characters who were often endearingly shortsighted, but who ultimately grow alongside a mentor (like a Fokker) that they (and we viewers) aspire to emulate. Oh, and Hikaru only managed to *fly* a valkyrie, pick up Minmei, dodge a swarm of missles, catch her in mid-dive with an insane stunt that involved no seat-belts, then add to that one Regult kill. Alto doesn't even have one kill yet. He hasn't even gotten a valkyrie off the ground. All he's done so far is press a trigger, with the episode ending in mid gunpod-spray. =)

I'd have to agree that MF isn't really super-robot, and the tactics at least remain someone believable, but I guess it's mainly the design aesthetics and palette that bug me. I'm seeing some overly-ornamental design elements in the VF-25's head unit and attachments, and the lightning spark that shoots out when the torso attaches during transformation seems there mainly for the sake of "cool", "pretty", and "uber-futuristic" over gritty and believable. There's a fair amount of unnecessary pretty than I expect for real-robot, whether its in the color scheme, the training suit, or the pilot suits. I'm just having a hard time buying into the look and feel-- there's just too much purple and tints of it in the palette. While not super-robot, I guess I feel that it incorporates more fantastical design elements from that end of the spectrum than I'm really comfortable with. I guess MF is sort of the opposite of 'Neo-Super Robots’-- robots with believable capabilities that yet use design elements that are just a tad out there for strictly military. "Pseudo-Real Neo-Robots"? Then again, what I expect for "strictly military" is what I've been conditioned to expect from what our military looks like. I have no idea whether it would be realistic for a future military to use shades of purple in their dress, or less-than-utilitarian robot head units. And before someone points out modern flying glider-suits in development by the military, I also want to point out that they look dark and forboding, rather than fanciful and fairy-like, as any good piece of military equipment designed after 1900 should. =)

Lame double post. Might as well make use of it. But in SDF, we have a somewhat likable but bumbling Hikaru, who right off the bat is framed in a fun interaction with a very initially likeable Fokker, who then immediately gets thrown into the mess of his life with the girl of his dreams. Right off the bat it frames everything that we'll be interested in for the rest of the story-- Hikaru, Minmei, his relationship with Roy, and what the war with the aliens will all mean. In M+, we have a brash, somewhat annoying, somewhat entertaining Isamu-- we instantly know what he's about-- pushing the edge, breaking the rules, and we know his hot shot mentality will either make or break him as he's given the opportunity to test pilot in a competition for the next production valkyrie. His childhood friend being his rival in some sort of bizarre love triangle makes things interesting as well. In M7, we pretty much know what Basara is about-- screaming at people with his speaker pods and songs. Some of us find him grating. That's why they included a moderately watchable Mylene to balance the grating Basaracity. But in M0, we sort of get a mopey, brooding pilot who graces us with breathy monotone voiceovers-- honestly, I can't even tell you what the first episode was really about. I can tell you what happened-- he flies an F14, gets shot down, there's some funky stuff with aliens and he almost loses his RIO. But I can't tell you what it's *about*. And in MF, we get Alto, who's somewhat broody and irate (rightfully so, I suppose), who's bishouneness doesn't win likeable points for a male viewer like myself, who'd rather a character be likeable or "cool" than pretty, who's only marginally relateable trait is that his pretty-boy-ness is as annoying to him as it is to us, but who doesn't display any other likeable trait. He doesn't seem to show much likeability even in his desire to fly, as his main attempt at flying has been so far to fly on fun-but-fruity-looking wings, which again, doesn't really scream "badass" or "cool" to me. A character like that needs to be handled with some wit and humor-- or else he's just a broody, emo elf, and I guess that's just not my cup of tea. The interactions that he has with his friends seem mainly to revolve around mild annoyance, and any spark of fun never really gets developed more fully beyond him ignoring them. He interacts with Sheryl, but it's mainly to talk at her and storm off. He also ends up interacting with Ranka, which presumably sets him up for a Hikaru-Minmei-like interaction that the final scene mirrors, with him being the accidental hero of circumstance, but his interaction with her is again one of kind but aloof apathy and displaying none of the charm in Hikaru and Minmei's banter. In the end, Alto's not having any fun. And as a result, I'm not either. I guess I'm also not a big fan of the flying-wing-suit. The design's just too fanciful for me for a Macross series. And it feels to me wholly contrived that Alto's suit just happens to be the same as the military issue, and just happens to enable him to pilot the valk a pilot "ejected" out of. Instead of Hikaru's fun and somewhat believable bumbling, I can't help but feel that the director wanted a homage, wanted a hero who flies like a fairy on wings, and *wanted* it to make sense that he would have them by making it necessary to pilot the valk, rather than circumstances naturally making sense. I guess I can't help but feel that this wasn't really made for folks who really liked or would have liked SDF or M+, but rather teenage girls who read girls comics, boys who are used to broody characters and like pretty robots in whatever form, and all three fans of M0. Hah, I know most anime is made for teens, but it doesn't have to feel so much like it-- and good storytelling is compelling regardless of the target audience. Then again, maybe I just have bad subs. =)

Maybe I'm watching bad subs. What's the best one out? Or maybe I should sift through 43 pages for that answer. At any rate, Milia wouldn't make for a very interesting initial protagonist-- its only her inner tension after contact with humanity that makes her interesting-- and she's much more interesting in M7 where she's a bit more human and yet retains her headstrong sass. Still, she would only ever be a support character, and could never serve as a relateable main. That Alpo/Alto is even likened to her (not to mention being likened to a woman at that) isn't terribly promising.

I guess I'm one of the few who don't rave about Macross Frontier. While the animation quality was good, and the designs were passible, none of the characters were terribly relateable or likeable. So far, each character seems kind of bland and generic, although I suppose Ranka's cute in her beauty obsessed sort of way. Still, none of the characters seem to have any of the grit and likeability of those in SDF, M7 (and I don't like M7), or M+. Then again, this is the first episode-- but you'd think this would be the most important episode in introducing the essence of a character beyond yet-another-pretty-but-bland character design. The characters sort of remind me of those in M0, who also tended to be bland, slightly conflicted, but mostly either cute and over-expressive or emotionally aloof. I'll have to see more, but there's not much so far to get excited about here. Now I'd agree with most that the designs are well done, but at the same time, they don't feel very "Macross" to me-- or at least those parts of Macross that I fell in love with apart from the generic template of transforming planes, aliens, and singing girls. It seems that each generation of Macross bears an aesthetic that's more and more fanciful, with a color palette that's more and more fantastic, and departs farther from what first made Macross relatable, believable, and endearing to me. MF feels more like generic Gundam Wing-esque anime and seems to be departing from its real-robot roots, the same transition the Gundam franchise seems to be undergoing itself. The music is somewhat catchy and likeable... and the series might improve for me. And it might just be that my subs weren't the greatest-- but there just wasn't all that much dialogue to translate in the first place. I guess we'll see. I did appreciate the homages, but its sort of telling when the things I can get excited about are all homages and what I've seen of MF hasn't given me new cause for excitement on its own.

Didn't they make some changes in the black prototype SaveRobotech showed us a while ago? I distinctly remember bigger intake/chest holes. These look small like the original prototype from a year back. Did they go back on the changes, or were they still this small after the improvement? Hiriyu: wow, "pointless liberties". That's the perfect term for it.

Hair dye renders humans invulnerable. A gunpod's effectiveness is inversely proportional to how many rounds it fires. When in doubt in an awkward social context, kiss. This works even better when aliens are present. There is a law in the universe that demands all species, whether alien, monster, or human, regardless of any previous contact or relation, must employ inaccurate swarms of miniature missles as a weapon.

I dunno... Zhang doesn't really have Chun-Li's face, and I think she's too slight. Kreuk bothers me because she looks so obviously not-really-all-asian... but she might be more watchable for me.

As decent as most of the sculpt for the Legioss and Tread are, this has "meh, who cares about accuracy and engineering" written all over it. How is it that the fins don't even fold completely into the arms, the link between Legioss and Tread doesn't resemble anything in line art or the anime other than one's behind the other, and that someone thought putting the Legioss's engine nacells together in fighter mode and having its legs forcefully splayed out when linked up was a good idea? The nacells don't even go into the Tread's slots for them, which are actually inaccurate and too closely spaced together, but *would* have worked in a link because the Legioss's nacells are too close together as well. I mean, if you're going to make such a drastic error in accuracy, at least take advantage of it and make it look purposeful. Instead, I see a bunch of mistakes and no attempt to get them to work together for some semblance of sanity. It sort of screams all kinds of laziness and lack of concern. Especially in a *$300* dollar toy that's going to be rather small. For 60 bucks this might have been a fun toy.

Hmm, there's a lot to like about the new 1/60-- proportions in battroid look fantastic, with my only complaint being the shoulder blocks that deviate moderately from the line art. I think they could be a bit beefier, but I understand that might make them stick out more in fighter mode. While I like how the nosecone looks in battroid, it looks a bit stubby in fighter. I will say that it's short enough that it takes away from the sleekness of the fighter mode considerably, which the 1/48 captured much better despite the huge shoulder blocks. I would even say this is the weakest part of the whole sculpt, as a slightly too long nosecone in battroid doesn't bother me nearly as much as a slightly short nosecone in fighter. There's just something about how the nose swoops in the 1/48 that makes me all gushy inside. I'm also not a fan of the new interpretation of the intakes and covers-- I thought the old intakes were a nearly perfect representation of the line art, while the new ones look a tad blockier, with the grill covers almost popping out instead of being recessed. The rest of the leg looks fantastic though, as the contours and bulges capture their look in the line art. Overall, I feel that too much was lost in the fighter mode, and would rather see compromises in that direction. I think slightly bigger shoulder blocks, a slightly longer nose, and redesigned intakes would make it a perfect improvement over the 1/48 in all aspects other than size. As it is, I still prefer the 1/48 by a hair as it does what it does very well and I've learned to live with its compromises. That shorter nose in fighter on the 1/60 is going to bother me to no end, even as much as I appreciate the better battroid. -Al

Adam can get out. It might even take a few years. Since he can't die, and I assume he can't suffocate and he can't starve, he's got all the time in the world to scrape through the coffin lid and dirt with a beltbuckle or something. He can even wear his fingertips to the bone scraping-- after all it'll heal in a moment. He might be in a awkward position to work and he might get trapped in the dirt at some point, but he's got eternity to figure it out.

The question then really should be, why bother with huge starships for combat applications when you can cram so much firepower in such a small package, requiring so little crew, and at a presumably lower cost. Maybe there's an in-universe explanation for why starships aren't now obsolete.

I vote Neal McDonough as Duke, even if he is pushing 41. He can certainly do All-American war hero.

Teresa Palmer better get a physical trainer fast. I'm a little tired of seeing waifish supermodel cuties being casted to portray physically powerful heroines. I still say Lucy Lawless would have been great, even if she's a little older than what Hollywood tends to go for. She was even Wonder Woman's voice actress in one of the animated features. At least Palmer's more of a classical beauty, and has features that vaguely resemble Linda Carter. I'm just glad they didn't go with the gal for Lost, or worse, Jessica Alba.