Vic Mancini

I'd buy a ghost X-9.

The X-9 is much nicer to look at than the Macross Zero Ghost and they made that so why not the X-9 ?

Obvious answer is obvious, but probably because Zero's ghosts attach to Valks like super packs. Everyone who has a VF-0 wants the ghost to fully load their fighter.

Still wondering why Kawamori designed the wing-mounted engines, with the protroding spike at the front-side position, rather than at the 12 o'Clock position. As somebody else mentiones, wouldn't the spikes block airflow to the engines during turns?

I think the answer to that is actually a lot more simple than anything that has to do with airflow or aerodynamics. The reason being that the wings fold up/back at a 90 degree angle when in battroid. Those mid-wing mounted engines become the closest thing to a "backback", and the "spikes" are at 12 o'clock in that configuration.

Holy sh!t.

I'm not a fan of the VF-27, but I really like that YF-27. The scheme is nice too.

LOL. People are still debating if it is red or pink? It's red. RED! There are various shades of red, just like any other color, but in the end, it is red.

Pink is a shade of red.

Just sayin'.

Contrary to some beliefs, its possible to make a movie where everyone dies without it being crap, On the Beach is one example.

Shouldn't this be a reply to Hutch? I'm in agreeance with you.

They did. It was called Skyline. Everybody died. It sucked and was a horrible movie.

Yeah, I watched it the same week as BLA. You're right it did suck. But that wasn't the reason why it sucked.

Saw the movie today. I was a bit underwhelmed. For an invasion force, they have a really infantry heavy ground force. There wasn't anything particularly impressive, though that missile launcher was alright. It behaved more like a towed gun though, and not a real walker.

Underwhelming is exactly how I'd describe it. The aliens and their tech was not very impressive or scary.

On a side note, they really need to stop making alien invasion movies where the bad guys have such critical weak points to be exploited.

Thanks, but 1 correction.

The 1/2000 custom you are referring to, I believe, is done by Mr.'vf_1s'

I didn't have luxury to own 1/2000 version... - way over my hobby budget

And I actually can't decide which one I like better. Both are truly amazing.

That gap is unavoidable because the nosecone has a wider curvature than the chestplate/back fuselage. the smaller chstplate will never match the shape/curvature of the nosecone

Disagree.

Yamato could always take a small liberty with the curvature of the noseconse and another small liberty with the curvature of the fuselage behind the canopy. They made it work much better on the YF-19 and you don't hear any complaints about inaccurate curvatures.

Where there's a will - there's a way.

I seem to recall someone asked Yamato if they would be revisiting the YF-19 to incorporate any improvements developed for the VF-19s. Does anyone remember what Yamato's answer was? What's the likelihood we'll see a new YF-19 in 1/60 scale?

This is just my personal opinion, but I think the likelihood of a new YF-19 is pretty close to 100%. There's just too much demand, (aka: $$$), to not do it. What's the alternative for Yamato when they run out of Macross Valks to build?...call it a day and quietly walk off into the sunset? I don't think so.

That being said, I wouldn't expect a new YF-19 any time soon. I suspect it will come when Yamato decides to relaunch everything. And that relaunch might not even be in 1/60 scale, because Yamato will want everyone to feel compelled to collect/buy a whole new line of freshly scaled Valks.

I don't see Yamato making a V3 YF-19 that is intended to stand shoulder to shoulder with the current YF-21, VF-11, or the rest of the 1/60 scale valks. An all new YF-19 would probably have an all new family of new valks planned for release in Alpha One's wake. The ironic part is the new valks will probably end up making the new YF-19 look substandard once again. At which point everyone will be asking if Graham knows if Yamato will release a V4 YF-19 based on the improvements they incorporated into the next generation VF-19s!

But again, this is just my prediction which is not based on any kind of factual knowledge. I could be wrong, and I really hope I am, because a new YF-19 in 1/60 scale that is intended to stand shoulder to shoulder with the current 1/60 line would totally rock. I think there is a demand for it, and I would definitely be intere$$$ted.

IMHO the feet aren't too small---the ankles are too big.

You might be on to something.

I would only be interested if the hips are in the right place. If the placement is like the 1/60, I'm not even remotely tempted.

I like darker colors too but considering all the stuff that's 'not cool' in Macross7 I think it'd be silly to make the toy darker because that looks cooler. I say it's time to man up and embrace this in all it's MacDowell's goofy glory. Make it bright red, make it bright yellow, and let it be here and .....

QFT

In fighter mode they are fine but in battroid it looks too small IMO.

If you're comparing to the stylized cartoonish line art designs of Mac 7, you may have a point. Almost all the valks have exaggerated feet. But geez, I dunno. The F mode of the VF-19 already has more junk in the trunk than any other valk design I can think of off the top of my head. If the feet get any bigger it's going to have problems getting off the runway.

The feet is soooo small! lol

You're not being serious, are you?

I just remembered: VF-9 Cutlass. I guess the forward wing VFs are all named after bladed weapons.

They are also all nines.

VF-9

VF-19

VF-29

Who voted for Brera?

Firstly they do not set out to save Myung so there is nothing heroic about it.

It's difficult to set out to save someone when you don't even know they're in danger. But as soon as they knew Myung was in danger they decided to work together and go to her rescue. Isamu risked his life against the Macross, and Guld martyred himself to take out the X-9 so Isamu could fulfill his task without the Ghost interfering. Risking your life, (and sacrificing it in Guld's case), to save the lives of others are heroic traits.

Guld wasn't sacrificing his life just to beat the X-9 and selfishly prove that human pilots were superior to machines. He was sacrificing his life because if he bugged out, Isamu would be the Ghost's next target, and Myung would have nobody left to save her.

I dont think Macross Plus is a story of heroes at all. The main charcters might be good pilots but personality wise they are a collection of irresponsible arseholes.

Isamu cant even just follow Guld in a chaser plane without trying to ruin his test by showing off.

Guld tries to kill Isamu on a couple of occasions during tests.

Both of them have a dogfight through Macross city using civilian housing as cover.

They are definitley great characters but heroes ? no way.

I guess that's one way of looking at it. But that's not how I see it. The reason Isamu can't resist showing Guld up in a chaser plane is not because Isamu is simply an "irresponsible arsehole", it's to convey how deeply routed and competitive the rivalry between Isamu and Guld is. The same can be said for all the reckless things Guld did. Isamu and Guld are both equally driven to win...at whatever the game is. It's all encompassing.

I guess calling them irresponsible is not inaccurate. They are. But I don't like how simple you paint their picture. Their relationship is more complicated than just being "two irresponsible arseholes" that do irresponsible things simply because they are irresponsible people.

As for being heroes...They do save Myung in the end. Along with the rest of Macross city from falling under the hypnotic trance of a self preservation driven A.I. gone amuck.

This whole "realistic Zero-G dog fighting" notion is absolutely hilarious. The very notion of small craft flying out and engaging each other in close range, maneuvering fights in space is completely unrealistic; any space battle is going to consist entirely of (relatively) slow moving craft shooting high powered lasers at each other from extremely long ranges.

Yeah, that's another good point. You could be 186,000 miles away still give your target less than 1 second to move out of the way from a high powered beam weapon. Shows like Star Trek where huge spaceships are getting up close to each other and maneuvering around like slow-moving fighter jets always used to give me a chuckle. At some point you just have to suspend your disbelief and go with it though.

What just kills the design are those twin auxiliar engines...

If they had just made a mixed breed of the VF-25 and the YF-19 it would've been so cool.

Actually i've made a CG attempt of how it would look like: http://takm.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1xu6hh

That's beautiful.

One thing Macross Zero demonstrated was the offensive capabilities of the head guns. They can pop out of the fuselage (in many cases) and be used like a turret. Unfortunately it isn't used as often as I'd like in the shows...

As for dog fighting, there are many ways to get behind your opponent-air speed, bank turns, rolls, etc... In space, dog fighting is very different. I think on BSG we got to see for the first time what actual zero-g dog fighting would be like.

That's a good point on the space dog fighting. But in Macross it's rarely portrayed that way.

In Macross air planes in space seem to fly the same as air planes in the air. (Kind of like Star Wars space combat). Personally speaking, if I'm flying a space ship that handles like an air plane, and I know I'm going to be pulling way more positive G turns than negative G turns, I want a defensive laser turret facing aft, and even more importantly upwards by 15-45 degrees. Because if I have a bogey on my tail, that's where he's going to be.

PS. When were the head lasers used offensively in Mac Zero? I don't remember that. I'd love to go re-watch that scene.

Rick Hunter pwns everyone.

(kidding)

If you're engaged in a dogfight with another fighter jet, and he's on your tail, isn't he almost always behind and above you? Or isn't that where you are when you're on his tail? Dog fights don't usually happen in straight lines. You're usually trying to out-turn your opponent and get on his six. Planes turn by banking to one side and pulling up...that puts your enemy right in the sweet spot for the rear mounted lasers on the newer VFs.

In that Bobby is a bridge bunny who fancies the fighter pilot squadron leader... thats about it really.

Ok. I thought maybe there was something more going on that went over my head.