Knight26

Interesting, and yes the Airbrake is far too small. Plus the VF-1D does not have an airbrake there.

The most entertaining part of this so far is the "twitter war" between the USAF and the Navy, lol. https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/politics/top-gun-air-force-navy-twitter/index.html

My review of Solo, I will spoiler tag the last half: Overall it was an enjoyable movie that hearkened back to Star Wars' roots. At it's core it was a space western, heist movie. It had all the trappings of a western placed in the Star Wars universe, and when you get down to it, isn't that what Star Wars always was; a mashup of Westerns, Buck Rogers and Samurai movies? Did this movie "play it safe"? Yes, you bet it did, but it gave fans what they wanted in terms of story, action, and set pieces. Will it upset some old school fan? Maybe, the rewrite of Han's back story differs from what was established in the EU, but not greatly so. Had they given Han more time in Imperial service, maybe another year, then I think it would have felt better. But the parallels to westerns are all over: Han is the bitter ex-union soldier wanting to go AWOL. Chewie is his Indian Warrior he rescues from bondage. Lando is the rich carpet bagger. The metaphors are there throughout the story, I mean there is a freaking train robbery and what could best be described as a wagon load of TNT at one point. Do I think it is a good addition to Star Wars lore? Yes. It has some great scenes, especially with Chewie and Lando. Was it something fans asked for? Maybe. Ultimately prequels are hard to write because fans already have their own theories and expectations. Why do I ultimately think it won't ultimately do as well? Studio interference and not knowing their audience. Spoilers ahead. That about covers my thoughts for now. Overall, I though the movie itself was fine. Unlike TLJ I did not come out with a bad taste in my mouth and a dozen things to fix in order to make it a good movie. Also, it is coming on the heels of Infinity War. That devastated so many fans. A bold marketing decision might have been for them to play up the lighter hearted aspects of Solo. "Depressed so many of your favorite characters died in Infinity War, then come see the origins of your favorite space smugglers in Solo and just enjoy yourself."

I saw it with the boys today. We enjoyed it: Ocean's Eleven Meets Star Wars sums it up with plenty of easter eggs for fans.

Looking at the pilot figure runners, it looks like it segInsert other media ments at all the major body joints. So how long before someone adds joints to make it into a poseable figure?

That the IASDF had the first combat sortie does not surprise me at all.

My biggest issue with this season of the Flash was that the solution to Devoe was staring them in the face; Sisko. Devoe never displays any breaching powers, and has only ever stolen powers from the bus metas. So why not send the bus metas to other Earths where they will be safe until they can defeat devoe? Especially the nuke guy, send him to super vampire world and let him blow it up, he gets to die a hero instead of living as a prisoner/science experiment the rest of his life. I wonder if next season of Arrow will give us a rework of the Suicide Squad storyline they were building up to, before DC forced them to shut it down for the movie version.

Interesting way to do pilot's face. But it means you can't do an open faced helmet. Cool nonetheless.

While I saw the ending of this season of Arrow coming, it was still a hell of a gut punch. But it was a good one. I look forward to whatever deal he makes with the feds to keep the series going.

Hard Pass!!!

Interesting, I watch that show with my boys. I had never heard anything about this. This article doesn't say much, but it sounds like she was "bullied" and "assaulted" by people involved with the show. I now wonder what happened.

I actually find this to be somewhat good news.

That's the cover art? I mean, the only "good" thing about most of these comics has been the covers. They look like an actual artist did them, just maybe not for full pay.

3D printed Macross porn right there

Interesting take on the character

Wow, that thing is gorgeous

Actually that part didn't bug me, it harkens back to the Samurai movies, of the old master trying to scare away the prospective student, sometime by doing disgusting things. I think with all the other over the top "humor" and stuff though it was just the cherry on top that pushed people over the edge.

The First Order has been heavily mishandled. You are right, they are imperial fanboys with no real military acumen. And once again, they are space nazis. I would have much preferred if they were modernized into more of a terrorist group that somehow has unlimited funding. The resistance would then be more akin to the Republic's Special Forces division, somewhat rogue and off books, but they get the job done. I have no idea what audience these movies are written for anymore. It clearly isn't the old fans, and they are turning away any new, potential, fans. Even my kids, once the initial euphoria of seeing space battles wears off, are pointing out serious issues with the new trilogy. They do not do that with the OT, R1, or even the PT (ok a little with the PT), but they are doing it on their own. As I've said before, I don't know a good way to save the franchise at this point. I hope that Solo will be good, and the latest trailer helped with that, but I have little faith in JJA to save Ep9 if he uses his typical writing team. For all it's failings Ep7 at least left open a sea of possibilities for where to take the franchise. Ep8 left us with a First Order that has supreme power in the hands of petulant children, a shatter Republic unwilling to come to anyone's aid, and a rebel force of a dozen or so people. To wrap that all up in one movie will be, difficult at best. Also, let's talk Canto Bite. The movie establishes that it takes place the same day as Ep7 ends, maybe the next day. Are you seriously going to tell me that inside of a week of the Republic capital getting obliterated that the rich and powerful would still be partying it up? Hell no, they'd be bunkering down, consolidating their wealth and watching to see who becomes the new galactic superpower. There is no longer a central government or bank, the whole galaxy would be in utter chaos. Again, the timing issue.

I'm one of those weirdos who preferred IM2 to IM3. The whole pacing of IM3 felt off, and the Mandarin reveal just didn't work. I would have loved if the closing scene was the Ben Kingsley in jail, putting on his Mandarin voice and saying something to the effect of, "thank you, now I can build my real army."

I have yet to buy the movie on BluRay, for some reason I just can't bring myself to do so, but I did dig up this write up I did on small fixes that could have helped the movie, because, you know, I like to fix broken things. The Last Jedi Fixes There is nothing quite like a good Shrimp burrito, when all the ingredients are there in just the right proportions and combinations it is a flavor explosion that cannot be beat. But, when the cook doesn’t prepare it right, using days old fillings, or the tortilla that’s been sitting just a little too long you get just a taste of the greatness, but not the whole experience. That was the taste left in my mouth by The Last Jedi. I’m not saying it is a bad movie, at it’s core it was good with great potential, but it was mixed with stale ingredients, the wrong spices and wrapped up with tired cliches. The scenes involving the Jedi were great, though sometimes a bit odd, but those were the core of the story that kept it from being terrible, though even they could have been better. It could have been saved though, one more story revision and it could have been near perfect. Here’s how I would saved it. The biggest issue with the movie is one of timing. The movie takes place too soon after the last and over too short a period of time. It is a common misconception that in Empire, Luke was only on Dagobah for a few days, however it is established in canon that he was there for months as the Millenium Falcon trudged its way up to light speed and back down again on its much slower accelerating reserve hyperdrive. The movie just does not make that clear, something a single line of dialogue could have fixed: “We’re almost out of supplies too Lando, that reserve hyperdrive takes weeks to get you into hyperspace.” The problems with the timing are massive. The last movie ended with the Galaxy in utter chaos, the Republic capital has been destroyed, billions dead and its fleet scattered, this is bad for our heroes. The First Order isn’t much better off, their capital has been blown away as well, but as a smaller overall force, they would be able to rally faster. So give them a few months, 3-6. The Republic will still be in disarray, and skip the evacuation of Resistance base, instead start with the pursuit. The pursuit is 3 months on, the Resistance is haggard, down to just a few ships. They have been unable to call for aid, unable to resupply, refuel, rearm, rest, think the episode 33 from the NuBSG. Pilots and crews are all exhausted and the First Order is able to bring in its ships from throughout the galaxy to pursue them, each one coming with fresh crews as they track the Resistance through some unknown means. In a desperate gambit, Poe leads a bomber force against a First Ordere dreadnaught, but not the stupid B-17s in space we got in the movie. Instead we get the new gen B-Wing (or its replacement) making torpedo runs with one final bomber, piloted by a good friend (or lover) of Poe making a suicide run into the soft spot of the ship. But the bomber force is still devastated, giving Leia her excuse to demote Poe. Meanwhile Rey has her meeting with Luke, he still tosses the lightsaber and refuses to train her. Cut to a montage of her waiting outside his hut for days on end before he finally opens the door to start “Training” her. This plays homage to the old Kurosawa Samurai movies that also inspired Lucas. Much of what happens from here on can remain relatively untouched, but maybe show a bit more training actually happening. This takes us back to the Fleet battle. Leia has been injured and the Admiral (in a proper military uniform) has taken over. She reveals their plan (you know, respecting the intelligence of her troops instead of keeping them in the dark) that they are heading towards an old, disused base on the rim with a transmitter that can reach the remains of their allies and the scattered republic forces. But, they only have so long they can wait to get there due to their dwindling supplies. They need to lose their First Order pursuers and have only a few days to do so before they either run out of fuel or take their chances. So, she order Poe and the newly revived Finn to find a way through the shields of the First Order flagship to destroy the tracker, sending them off on their sidequest. Boom, we just deleted the second biggest issue with the movie, the Rose and Mutiny storylines. Instead we get Poe and Finn off doing their buddy cop thing from Episode 7 more, developing and maybe rocking that friendship some more, no forced love story, no criminally bad fan service. Now let me explain that Fan Service. Rose is the worst kind of fan service, she is a fan replacement, a fan of the film in the film. Her hero worship of Finn makes no sense in the timeframe of the movie as it stands, Finn would be little known at this point, especially amongst the lower level crew. At most, they would have heard about the First Order defector who helped destroy Starkiller base, but not much else in a day or two. You could also cut most of the slave/animal abuse angle. Star Wars has always been for kids, yes. But, the first two movies did so with minimal pandering, The Last Jedi pandered to the kid audience hard in those scenes, and it didn’t need to do so. The character of DJ, a wasted performance, did not need to happen or turn traitor. He could have been a legit ally, but what would have been better is this: Have it be Captain Fasma instead. We’ve never seen her face before this, so, while the audience might be in on her being coming betrayal, the characters would not. Or have it be that he was working for her the whole time, and it was all a trap or setup to wear the Resistance fleet down, capturing Finn is just the icing on the cake. The rest of the movie can play out largely the way it did, the hyperspace ram (most awesome scene in the movie) can still happen as a last ditch effort to get the Resistance planetside when the other plan fails, but keep the Admiral alive, an astromech could have piloted the ship at that point. Rey can still show up when she does, the scenes with Snoke could be expanded, but would remain largely intact, as well as the fight between projected Luke and Kylo Ren. Even have there be minimal response to their call, but add one last thing, a rescue by the shattered republic. Instead of only a few dozen people making it aboard the falcon, have it be a hundred or so crammed into a handful or dropships getting cover by a squadron of advanced X-Wings. This gives us a bit more hope for the future, and maybe even a cameo by the real greatest pilot in Star Wars, Wedge Antilles, and even Lando. The movie could even close on the slave kid using the force, a clear sign that Jedi still exist and are being born. Overall I think that covers the biggest story issues with the movie. Does it address all the fan complaints, no, but it doesn’t need to. The identity of Rey’s parents was fine, they didn’t need to be connected to the rest of the movies because it shows that anyone can be a Jedi and opens up the possibility for a huge number of Jedi in the future. Snoke being a bit of a glass cannon was fine, it showed that Kylo Ren was a real force to be reckoned with that he could fool his master in such a way. As it stands, Episode 9 will have a very weak base to stand on after these last two films. It has a lot of issues to address, the biggest of which is real life death of Carrie Fisher, something this movie should have fixed in reshoots. I do not feel that the franchise stands on solid ground at the moment and with Abrams coming back to helm Episode 9, I do not have much hope. Rogue One left me on a Star Wars high, Ep8, has dropped me back down, but I didn’t have my hopes high to begin with.

The bombing scene was so offensive IMHO that I nearly walked out of the theater. Even from a story perspective it was terrible.

Back to the Macross License. Does HG have right of first refusal with Tatsunoko, or does it become an open bid in 2021? If it is the former, well we could be in the same boat we are now, if the latter, all BW or Bandai, or any other distributor need to do is give a better offer, which seems likely.

Interesting, but who will play young Spock? And the young Majel Rodenberry first officer?

That trailer does fill me with hope. And Donald Glover must have studied a ton of Billy Dee performances, because he has the mannerisms down pat. So, thoughts, is the piece in the mandibles a shuttle, cargo module or "escape pod." I hope it is some kind of cargo or expansion module.

Don't forget, Bandai has a vested interest in Macross now too. I'm sure they will be all over working with Big West to buy the rights from Tatsunoko so that they can finally market Macross products outside of Japan; BluRays, Models, Toys, etc...