Alpha OTS

My SDCC Valley of Darkness Cylon arrived! I love the figure, it's just so elegant in design. It also comes with a few alternate fists and two different wrist coverings: one with weapons deployed and one with them stowed. The articulation is excellent except that there's no thigh, knee or ankle swivel for the legs, but the ball joint at the hip does allow for a wide range of dynamic poses. The way the leg's designed, it would have hurt the aesthetic to put swivel joints in them. They did make up for this by adding extra joints for the neck and head. The head can pretty much lean forward out of the "cowel" so you can get the head to turn more naturally to the left and right. I also love that the feet are accurate from the show in that they're big and flat footed so there's NO issue with balance. Another little bit I like is the piston setup for the achille's heel which is very similar to Movie Maniacs' Robocop. Now I need to get my hands on a normal Cylon and the Razor Cylon.

As if the Hot Toys Mark III wasn't cool enough, it looks even cooler in Mark II colors.

I've seen a couple people comment that Activator Starscream is better than the Voyager. I don't have the Voyager, but I do have the Activator and it's an excellent representation of the toon character. Bot mode is especially excellent because of all the range of motion allowed by the ball joints. Jet mode is a little weak because the hands are visible, but you can kind of forgive it because of the scale. (only pic I have of him)

It has. This is clearly shown in Alien 3 when the alien is more quadrapedal than bipedal because its host was a steer(cow). Ripley even remarks about how this one is different. Yeah, the theatrical cut shows a dog, but before the flick was cut down it was a cow. The extended cut shows this, and while still a problematic film, it at least fixes a lot of things that were wrong with the theatrical cut. The original concept for the alien had a more clear/translucent face where you could see that behind the dome was a human-like skull. This was the only quick pic I could find that shows what I'm talking about. When you think about it, the "Alien" is really the facehugger. The only way it propagates itself is by impregnating an organism which spawns a larger Alien form that takes on the traits of its host which then is programmed to get more face huggers onto other organisms in an attempt to make a queen that will make more facehuggers. The facehugger seems to be the only constant in the process. The cut scene in Alien with Dallas being cocooned is a variant on this, from the wiki: "The original cut of the film also included a scene where, after the attacks on all her fellow crew-members, Ripley heads towards the shuttle, then stumbles across a room where she finds Dallas, barely alive, and Brett (Dallas and Brett, the first two crew-members to fall victim to the Alien, had disappeared). Dallas ends up immobilized in a cocoon and Brett appears part-way through a process of mutating into an Alien egg. Dallas begs Ripley to kill him, and she does so by using her flamethrower device. (The egg-mutation process comprises the only form of reproduction shown by the Alien until the later films' depiction of an Alien Queen as a source for the eggs.)" It's a cool scene, btw. The collector's editions of all the Alien flicks are pretty nice as they have the theatrical and extended cuts on them, all of which I think are better than the theatrical cuts.

I ended up buying another Prowl because the chipped door paint on the one side was driving me nuts because I'd zoom in on it whenever looking at the figure. I found one that had good door paint apps, but then I missed that there was a mis-app on the front near the headlights. I mixed and matched to one I'm happy with now. I don't think there's a perfect Universe Prowl because I found little defects on all the ones I went through. The longer I've had the figure, the more the design's grown on me. I didn't like it when I first got it because of the door transformation, but once you figure out that you have to pull them out from the side of the car and then turn them perpendicular as the first step in transformation before anything else it all falls into place without parts popping off. I also found out by reading a review of the figure after having had him for a week that the feet pull out to give the figure more traditional ankles which allow it to better balance itself. It's an easy transform step to miss, but it makes a big difference in the figure. Can't wait for Silver/Bluestreak.

After spending a little more time with Animated Leader Megatron, I've come across a problem of a sort that I thought I'd forewarn everyone else about. The shoulders slightly detach from the torso in alt mode. In bot mode they're supposed to be flush against the torso. If you don't put them flush against the torso in bot mode, then the tops of the shoulders *will* rub against the backpack where the rotors are if you turn them to a 90 degree angle. This wouldn't be so much of a problem except that the tops of the shoulder are colored red, and the rubbing causes a line of red on the backpack which I'm sure if you did enough would rub that nice ruby red off of the tops of the shoulders which are also the intakes in alt mode. I'm glad I caught this when I did, because my favorite pose involves the shoulder being at the 90 degree angle for the fusion cannon.

Now whatever do you mean by that?

Not the best pics. I can never get the right lighting.

I had to return a defective dvd set to the store, so I stopped by the toy aisle again. I saw Blades and Blaster on the shelf. Blades looks ok, if a little plain, but I think I'd prefer the Springer repaint of the Evac mold if I were ever to buy one. Blaster, blech. I already have the Soundwave version of the mold and I refuse to ever buy another. It doesn't lock together in alt mode, and the legs in bot mode are just....odd. However, I did find Leader Animated Megatron! After the sticker shock wore off, I got him home and opened him up. The transformation's not that complicated, but I expected that. The leg transformation had an extra step I didn't expect that I liked. What surprised me though was that I like the electronics. I like how it makes the mouth move and the chest light up. I really like how it makes the G1 transform noise as I clip/unclip the fusion cannon under the cockpit, and then once clipped it only makes helicopter noises if you press the button.

Very good sign. However I haven't put complete trust in Kevin Smith's nerd-dar since his saying the last Star Wars prequel was just as good as the OT. It wasn't. It dropped the ball; it just didn't drop it as far as the other two preceding movies did. He's generally on track, but sometimes he's way too positive and gets too caught up in the hype. I'll keep my fingers crossed that this is the former and not the latter.

now that was funny! If only they could get shopping for TP and milk Batman in there somehow.....

Saw a Powerglide on the shelf today. That's just a bit too large for my tastes.

Rocky Horror Picture Show to be remade: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7558091.stm

Watched it last night. It wasn't a waste of time, but I doubt I'll ever watch it again. I never had the misfortune to watch the second one. Most of the problem is budget, but they do make the most out of what they have. Lots of gore happens off screen or in shadows during the first part of the movie. Nothing feels quite as massive as it did in the first film either. Most of the action fx shots take place planet side so there's nothing in the movie anywhere close to the two full fleet planetary assaults we saw in the first film. The Marauders of the title also unfortunately suffer. It's a cool bit when they show up on screen, but it's also short lived. Secondary problem is acting. I forgot Jolene Blalock was a poor man's Angelina Jolie She was good in this though. Most of the main actors were good, it was the secondary cast that seemed a bit hokey. Heh, I'm actually surprised Denise Richards wasn't begging to be re-cast. Third problem is the script, which while not bad in concept needed a little tightening up plus fixing of some plot holes. They went a little overboard with the fascist state bit. It wasn't so blatant in the first movie, which is part of the reason the satire worked. Here they go a little too far with it(with the unnecessary and frequent hangings) and it comes off as more silly than satire. Don't listen to the state or your superior? HANGING! Dix's character is affected by it too since his actions also come off as silly and that's shortly after he's introduced. He's the main character who connects the whole story too. They kind of did the same thing with the religion bit. I could see where they wanted to go with it, but it was delivered in such a heavy handed way that by the time the punchline was delivered in the commercial bit at the end I was tired of hearing about it. They had good ideas. They just needed to dial it back a notch. They did pull off the news media/propaganda bits as they were probably the best part of the movie. It was worth the time to watch if you were a fan of the first flick. A bigger budget might not have helped the plot, characters and casting, but it would have made the fx a bit more grandiose. Some parts did feel a lot like the first movie. I did burst out laughing at the "Maybe you live right next door to a big fat reward!" bit, and the kiss at the end was worth a snicker.

Bums me out. I was holding out hope that one day Chef would return.

In defense of Activator Bulkhead, it may not be a good figure, but it is a good representation of the character with a working auto-transform gimmick at the 3" scale. If you want a good Bulkhead, there are very good LARGE and LARGER transformable representations of him available. If you want a small(actually tiny) version of the character, the activator's not a bad option. I'm glad it's available even if activator Bulkhead's not in scale with anything else.

Didn't the cylons admit in the show that their plan was wrong? I remember a Cavil/One admitting this to Adama. Caprica Six and Boomer had become very influential in changing what their plans were which lead to the New Caprica storyline. I always figured the plan was genocide of the human race after figuring out how to propagate themselves.

Yay! Razor Cylon Minimates! Pilot, Freefall, Commander Pilot, Warrior For anyone ordering, the "Freefall" cylon is just like the pilot cylon only with carbon scorches and a knife sticking out of the wrist of the left hand. I wish they'd release the normal size cylon figures already.

I liked the extended DD movie as it better fleshes out all the second tier characters in the movie and connects them to the main plot so that DD isn't the single driving force in the movie. The ending in the theatrical version is somewhat of a mess, but you don't realize how messy until after watching the extended cut. It's still a poor man's Spider-man, and I can't really disagree with any negatives pointed out about it, but I like it all the same. Affleck was ashamed of DD, eh? This from the guy who did Pearl Harbor and Phantoms in which he was the bomb, yo?

My Henkei Jetfire and Hot Rod arrived from BBTS. Jetfire is just pure love. The previous Hasbro deco was nice, but this is SOOOO much nicer to me because it's as completely slavish to the G1 toon as it can be on this mold. The way the cockpit was painted to make it look more accurate, but also smaller, and looking smaller makes the rest of the figure look larger like the Autobot transport he should be. I mainly ordered because of the cockpit. I missed out on a few other details when I ordered him that I was pleasantly surprised by when he arrived. The helmet has blue on the top like the toon and the helmet edges outside the face are outlined with silver like the face, which is hard to describe, but it's another attempt to be toon accurate and it works. The helmet has a red visor instead of a blue one, which is a nice touch that I much prefer as a G1 toy homage than the Stormbringer blue helmet on the Hasbro version. The vents on the front of the jet become the chest vents(it does on the Hasbro version too, but it's much simpler here and the mainly white deco really makes it distinctive and toon accurate). The wings are painted(or not) to be more accurate to the toon too. I'm just really really happy with the deco on this figure. Hot Rod, I'm a little dissappointed by. One of the things I hate about buying figures online is that you can't go through the stock yourself to get the one with the best paint apps. There's just little imperfections on the chest that bug me, and one very obvious spot where the orange should be but isn't, and the orange is the reason I bought the thing. The red/maroon is the *exact* same color as the red on the Hasbro version, which I expected but still can't help but be dissapointed by. He's ok, but I'm a little hesitant to give up my Classics version which is something I shouldn't be feeling. I blame this mostly on the QC. I also picked up one of those Transformers' Club movie Allspark cubes for $15. It's a little large for the figures, but it's the size I wanted for my display. It's a little over 1.5" square and has all the imprinted detail I expected.

Has to be a joke site. Spooky all the same.

I've been watching the first season of BSG over the last week. I'm on episode 7 now, quick synopsis: "Six Degrees of Separation": a Six from the Olympic Carrier but lucky enough to not be on it when it was blown up by Apollo accuses Baltar of blowing up the defense mainframe that allowed the cylons to succeed in their attack on the colonies. It's pretty cool to see how the characters were different then but also the same and how the show's evolved. A couple of neat things I've observed so far, which is part of the reason the show is so cool: - Starbuck seems to instinctively know how to fly the gutted Raider, but Tyrol has absolutely NO idea what's what inside it. - Baltar makes a condescending speech to Pooka Six about how God doesn't exist and is something the simple masses use to comfort themselves. After being accused of being a traitor and locked up, he makes a prayer to that same God. It just struck me as a neat moment given Baltar's prophet and harem status now. - The metal Toasters showed up more than I remembered.

Same here. Although I'm a little irritated that the one deluxe that should have been an Ultra didn't happen. Poor Galvatron.

I've seen enough Kevin Smith that I know that that's his schtick, so it didn't really phase me. He could have dialed back the cursing though. I think that's what really caught the cast off guard.

Thanks for the link! Watched the whole thing, a full hour long. The mics for the cast are set really really REALLY low, and I had to turn my monitor volume way up to hear them. Doesn't really tell you anything new about the show, but it's neat to see the cast act like regular people. When asked what was the best moment in the show, a lot of them said it was when Galactica entered the atmosphere of New Caprica. I have to agree. That's going to be a moment that'll be hard for Galactica or any other sci-fi show to top.