Vic Mancini

That would be ideal. And a smart move for Yamato to make. The cannon fodder SV-51 is not pretty.

I am just loving the silhouette at this angle.

Imagine how Shin would feel. Ouch.

Same here. It's not the real thing to me unless it's Omega 1 with the ominously opaque canopy and the BDI. I'm a Mac Plus guy, not a Mac 7 guy. But the paint scheme is sweet.

Really? These look "nothing" alike to you? Even the UNSC Marine's armor and weaponry was pretty much ripped off from Aliens. I don't think it's any secret either. Bungie has never denied the similarities. They are huge fans of Aliens. Check out this link: http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Referen..._Aliens_in_Halo

Yeah totally. Which is hilarious because the vehicles in Halo were ripped off from Aliens, which was directed by.....

Agreed. Incredibly lame.

It's like...the poker game for example. During the game Saito is chasing a straight flush while his opponent is building 4 of a kind. His opponent thinks Saito is chasing the A to complete a royal flush, and doesn't think Saito knows that he already has all the aces as part of his 4 of a kind. But Saito does know, and lets him continue thinking that Saito needs one of those aces to win the hand, meanwhile he completes a King-high straight flush which is still good enough to beat the 4 aces that his opponent has. Now imagine the poker match went down differently. Imagine it starts out the same by Saito building towards his straight flush, his opponent is building towards 4 aces, Saito let's him think that by holding the A that he needs for a royal flush it makes winning impossible for Saito...etc...etc....same as before... but imagine instead of using that misinformation at the end of the hand to win all the money, Saito misses his straight flush and only makes a straight, but the straight is still good enough because his opponent also missed his quads and only made 3 of a kind. All those mind games and mental tactics go down the drain and are good for nothing, but Saito still wins the hand anyway because his opponent simply didn't make a good enough hand to win. Wouldn't you go, "wtf" and wonder why the writers of the episode would bother with all that build up and misinformation just to have it come down to Saito's opponent missing his draw and making a worse hand than Saito? It would be so arbitrary. Why lead his opponent to believe that 4 of a kind would be good at all? And that's exactly what happens during the standoff between Saito and the Major. In the end her bluff wasn't used to defeat Saito at all...and neither was the tactical advantage of her semi-automatic rifle over Saito's bolt action rifle. In the end Saito just had bad aim and the Major took him out the same way she could have in Step 2.

But why didn't she use her mid range fire control software to properly defend herself against Saito's first shot, and then use the advantage of her semi-automatic to safely disable him? I want to agree with you about Poker Face being one of the best Stand Alone episodes, but the ending feels soooo arbitrary. Motoko goes through all the trouble of orchestrating an elaborate bluff, and then in the end she doesn't even use it to her advantage. In the end all she does is rely on Saito to have bad aim. Wtf? It makes no sense to me. I think it would've been one of the greatest all time SAC episodes if the stand-off ended the way Saito simulated it.

Apologies if I'm annoying anyone by starting a new topic for an old anime that I'm sure has been discussed to death, but I couldn't find any older GITS threads on this forum that pertained to general discussion of SAC episodes. And since I'm having trouble finding any GITS forums on the net that haven't been mostly abandoned some time in 2006/2007, and since I know my beloved Macross World is always active, I decided to start a fresh topic for general discussion of SAC. And now for the question that's been on my mind and burning in my brain since I first watched 2nd Gig. The episode I want to discuss is "Poker Face". There is something that has bugged me about the ending of that episode for years that I've never been able to understand. Hopefully some of you guys are familiar with the episode and can help me figure it out. First I'm going to review the scene step by step. Here goes... Step 1: Motoko charges up the stairs of the Hospital, peeks her mirror around the corner, plugs her cyber brain into her rifle, charges out from behind the corner, fires 3 shots at Saito's jamming gear - destroying it, and holds her stance. Step 2: Saito comes out from behind his cover, takes aim at Motoko, hesitates in fear from what he sees, and then returns to his cover without firing. He's terrified to his core because he can tell from her posture, that she's full cyborg and that he's about to die because she has superior reflexes. Step 3: Saito runs a trial scenario in his head to see what will happen if he takes a shot at the major. Every simulation ends up the same with Motoko shooting down his bullet out of mid-air. And because Motoko's rifle is semi-automatic, and Saito's is only bolt-action, Motoko has the advantage of being able to fire a second round before Saito will be able to take cover, which will result in his defeat. Step 4: Saito racks his brain for an alternate strategy and notices that the Major used 3 whole rounds to take out his jamming gear. Saito questions why the Major would use 3 shots to destroy the gear if she had mid-range fire control software installed, since she could easily do the job with one round, and comes to the conclusion that she in fact doesn't have the software yet. ...And that she's probably downloading it via a satellite link at that exact moment. Step 5: "Get there first", says Saito in his head. He charges out from his cover to take a shot at Motoko before she has a chance to finish downloading the mid-range software. Of course this was all a bluff by the Major to lure Saito out from hiding and induce him to take a shot at her, (and the whole reason the flashback is taking place during a symbolic poker game.) Brilliant. (Now this is what I don't understand) Step 6: Motoko returns fire at Saito. But instead of shooting down his bullet out of mid air, and using the advantage of her semi-automatic rifle and mid-range fire control software to snipe Saito with a second shot, her bullet passes straight past Saito's bullet in mid air. Saito's shot grazes the Major's cheek, (which was a close call IMO), and her own shot passes through the scope of Saito's rifle scope destroying his left eye with the broken shards of glass. Step 7: Motoko runs up to Saito's cover in the aftermath of the showdown and disables him by pinning his hand to the column with her knife, and says, "From now on you're mine." Saito responds, "You had the software all along". This confirms the Major's bluff. Here's what makes no sense to me. Why didn't the stand-off end the way Saito simulated it? If Motoko was simply counting on Saito to narrowly miss putting a bullet in her head, and planning to use one round to disable Saito without shooting down his shot first...why didn't she shoot at him in STEP 2? Why bother bluffing at all? The whole point of the bluff was to get Saito to shoot first so she can shoot down his bullet and use the advantage of her semi-automatic and software to get a second shot at him before he can take cover. But in the end she didn't need Saito to shoot first at all because she didn't even bother shooting down his round or using the advantage of her semi-automatic. The whole bluff was for nothing which really sucks because she could've just opened fire at STEP 2 and had the same exact result. I've watched the episode 6 times and I just don't get it.

This is a little off topic, but does anyone know a good/active Ghost in the Shell forum?

You guys are nuts. The VF-25 is one Valk where the B-mode and F-mode don't even compare, IMO. I'm a huge fan of the B-mode, even without armor. F-mode....hmmm....still on the fence. And further more, this 1/72 model is the only incarnation of the VF-25 that actually has the B-mode proportions correct. The hips on every other version are wrong. Conversely, the proportions of the 1/72 pilot figure are off. That's why I think this baby was born to be in Battroid mode. PS. Great work as always. It looks amazing.

That sums me up exactly. I love the idea of Macross, but it's not always executed the way I would like to see it. The mature undertones attracted me to the series even as a kid when Transformers and G.I.Joe just didn't have enough grittiness or consequences involved. You gotta love a cartoon that has the balls to permanently kill off main characters and portray a war where the bad guys actually succeed in wiping out 99.9% of the world's population. But at the same time there are so many immature elements and characters that make it difficult for me to really love more than the idea of Macross. I can really relate to that Star Wars quote.

Mac II is the only big one I'm missing, and I have no interest in it. I've even watched every episode of 7, but I regret doing it. The Protodeviln characters annoy me as much, if not more, than anything else that's already been said about the series. My favs have been Plus and Zero.

The heat shield is genius. And I'm warming up to the overall proportions, including the small tail fins. One thing I still can't seem to look past is the feet. Too skinny and that strange toe-hinge just throws me off.

I don't see that happening. You can't just take your ship, leave the fleet, and fly off in a different direction to settle on a planet. The fleet is composed of different ships that perform specific functions, (fuel ships, food ships, factory ships, etc...) Each ship depends on what the others bring to the table and no ship can survive on it's own for long enough to make it to a new habitable planet...even if they knew where habitable planets existed, which they don't. It took them years just to find New Caprica and it was barely habitable.

The 21 is more cutting edge and experimental in nature but it's hasty to assume that necessarily translates into effectiveness in the field. In the anime we see charts showing the 19 outperforming the 21 in almost every category. You could make the argument that maybe Isamu was a better pilot and overcame the technical superiority of the 21, but that's an assumption IMO. It's just as reasonable to think that the 19 is simply more effective than the 21 when in the hands of a capable pilot. Who really knows? Also, we see the 19 clearly out-muscle the 21 when it's arm breaks under the strength of the 19 so that's another point to the 19 having a superior B mode. I like to think the 21 is more cutting edge but in terms of actual practicality the two fighters are evenly matched.

Hey guys, I'm trying to find a bit torrent for Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd gig. I'm having difficulties finding one that is both: A) High video quality AND B) English dubbed. I don't need High Definition or Blue Ray quality. DVD quality is fine, or the closest thing to it. The only English dubbed versions I'm finding are very low video quality. Any tips?

Do you think Serena Williams is hot too?

But the airframe of a VF-1D battroid smashing through brick buildings without so much as a scratch seems realistic? Overtechnology.

Totally agree. People complaining about the trailing edges of the wings in B-mode not being perfectly parallel is a bit ridiculous IMO. And the length of the torso/cockpit/fuselage looks like a great compromise to me. You can't have a short torso and a sleek fuselage at the same time. But the feet are killing me. What is Yamato thinking with that toe articulation? It looks totally wrong.

It's a VF-11, not a VF-1. The wings aren't supposed to come together in B-mode.

I don't really agree. I think the 19's G-mode is flawless. The F-mode, although just a touch gullet-heavy, is pretty flawless too. I actually think Hasegawa's sculpt looks weird to me now. B-mode is a bit off. The chest is too long/pointy, and the legs are too bowed with that John Wayne been riding horses all day stance, but what can you do? You have to make compromises somewhere and there is no way the shapes used in the line art of B-mode could actually transform into a nice plane. Anime magic. Blame K-man for that.

Am I really the only one who thinks the feet look stupid? Or are they mis-transformed? I don't even know what that SV-51 style toe-hinge is for. Do the toes hinge in G-mode?

That's cool, thanks for that. Fuselage is a bit squashed. It's placed too far forward and the canards are too. In the line art the canards are mostly behind the cockpit and on the Yamato they are more below it. Oh well...that's fairly extreme nitpicking on my part. What really bothers me other than the tail fins, is the feet. What's going on there?? They look small and there is some kind of weird mid-joint there that I didn't even know existed. The line art of the B-mode is certainly not standing with the front portion of the feet bent like that.