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technoblue

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  1. technoblue
    And here I was thinking this series had 7 to 8 episodes like Boba and Mando. I was off on that total.
  2. technoblue
    As @tekering points out, Jordan Peel has proven himself as a writer and a filmmaker. In his early days, he started as an actor/comedian in the sketch comedy Mad TV. His recent works of fiction, horror, and sci-fi are unique in that they focus on the African American experience.
  3. technoblue
    MP Skyfire looks to be a chonky lad. And as long as the articulation doesn't feel too limited, like it did on MP Magnus, I'm good.
  4. technoblue
    Fist thought: Wat!? Second thought: Nope! Netflix bankrolling an actual Squid Game reality TV show seems so very, very wrong.
  5. technoblue
    Alas, his Schwartz was not as big as Lone Starr's.
  6. technoblue
    Heh. I'm no fan of Disney (never been to any of their parks), but I'm not that down on them yet to damn everything they are connected to by association. Sure, 20th Century Studios is now a Disney subsidiary but I think it remains to be seen how much the suits will mess with this one. Could they meddle with the production like they do with a number of the recent Star Wars releases? I think that is a possibility, but if they were going to mess with things that much, why put it on Hulu and not Disney+? Part of me is surprised that this property even survived the FOX-to-Disney transition. It's like the old Netflix Marvel shows, in a way. We all assumed those were toast too, but Daredevil is coming back to Disney+. Anyway, I don't have an axe to grind on this subject.
  7. technoblue
    Thanks @Big s. I agree and appreciate this insight. Like I wrote in my message above, this show has missed opportunities. I'm saddened by how many of them there are. I was willing to shrug off the goofy camera work with young Leia and the way that they wrote her character as borderline bratty/prescient. The stuff with Obi-Wan on Tatooine, even, I was thinking okay what's the real explanation for it all---what ties this, the animated series, and the movies together? Certainly there's more to it than Obi-Wan got scared or Obi-Wan got rusty? Something more to Leia's part in it than the Organas got tricked by a half-wit bounty hunter on some lazy Alderaan afternoon? But here we are and the show has yet to reconcile these characters to their counterparts in other SW media. And you're right, at the core we should have a good story and this series is treading water at being another middling SW tale. It creates plot holes when ideas should be easy to explain, and it has yet to create any bridging scenes for well-known characters as we see them now to how we will eventually see them when they are older. Honestly, the show could be using its eight episodes to tell us more and fill us in about these events but instead we are getting what amounts to a surface-level CRPG mission plot with about as much exposition. The coat thing? Man, I guess don't know what the creative team was playing at with those shenanigans. My other thought is maybe this is a nod to Luke and Han hauling Chewbacca about the Death Star? Where the only one who noticed that Luke was too short in his stormtrooper armour was Leia? Yeah, it's a stretch but it's all I got. The thing about such nostalgia references, if true, is that they need to fit the plot for them to work. And they should also be somewhat obvious. If they're forced in, or if they ask the audience to think too much about the punchline, they fall apart. This one falls apart fast and we're left wondering if the creative team has any idea how to write a story with kids acting around adults. For me, the only thing this series has established is that Obi-Wan fled to become Ben the hermit and skulk around Luke after Order 66 and his fight with Anakin. What's frustrating is that none of this is new information. The show could have gone anywhere using that as its foundation. Sadly, even though I think the choice to follow Obi-Wan and Leia around is an interesting one, I'm still waiting for the show to tell me something else about these characters---to enrich them in some way. Honestly, I would even be happy if the show turned its focus on one of the side characters involved with the Jedi underground railroad or even the Inquisitors. I mean what is up with the Third Sister? What is her deal and why does she thirst for the rank of Grand Inquisitor? We really should already have an inkling about these details.
  8. technoblue
    Are you okay, @Big s? Seriously, it's just something that I thought. I wasn't making an excuse for the show. Geesh. I'm not the one coming into this thread creating infantile names for all these fictional characters.
  9. technoblue
    Alrighty then... I'm actually quite curious about the new Predator. I'm not bothered about it being female or just a younger Yautja than what we have seen in Predator and Predator 2. What I find more interesting is the brief set up from the trailer. There's the storm in the sky and I'm not sure what that is, but it seems safe to guess at that as being indicative of some accident that causes this Predator's ship to crash? If this Yautja is then in survival mode waiting for a rescue ship and chooses to ally itself with the natives, that could be a very interesting plot device given the other stuff that was revealed. I'm just not sure if the creative team would turn the usual Predator story on its head that much. I would love to be surprised, though, because I think it would be cool if they did.
  10. technoblue
    I was assuming Obi-Wan was using his force whammy on all the Imperials to help with the bad disguise. That said, I was also looking for Ewan (the actor) to give us (the audience) a visual cue showing that his character was using the force. Or maybe a CGI effect letting the audience see what a normal stormtrooper was seeing. I either missed it because it was that subtle or it wasn't there. Obviously, all the dark side force users weren't fooled. Another missed opportunity. That series could have been so much more, but one of the good things it did bring to the table were the imaginative vehicle designs. It stinks we didn't see many of them, and only a few were released in LEGO format. I would have loved to see a complete Ace squadron.
  11. technoblue
    Cool transformation video. I think that is actually Classics/Henkei! Grimlock in the dino/bot mode comparison and not one of the Generations releases like the subtitles say, but that is a good thing IMO. Classics Grimlock is close in size to G1 Grimlock, so NA's dino mode appears to be a very close match and bot mode is just a hair short. That's all good for my collection.
  12. technoblue
    You're absolutely right. I was thinking Wuthering Heights was the name of the album for some reason, but it was actually 1978s The Kick Inside. Running Up That Hill is her second most-famous single and the most famous of the 1980s. When it crossed the Atlantic into the US, it hit 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart so it definitely had a presence here. And, basically, that was my point. I figure those who don't know about it weren't listening to the same music back in the day, which is okay. Everyone has a preference. The Duffer Brothers writing this into the show and using it as a song that's characteristic of the time, it made perfect sense to me. Like I said above, it was often played on the popular radio stations here in the northeast. In that regard, the show isn't rewriting history IMO.
  13. technoblue
    I agree with @Dobber. I also liked how Obi-Wan shows the T-47 in its original role as a light airspeeder. That was cool and unexpected. But I do wish the creative team had used props or some hybrid effects for that scene to cut down on the sloppy CGI. I think an improved presentation would have added more impact. I mean, the scene was also showing how strong in the dark side the Inquisitors are. There was a lot going on, it deserved a larger chunk of the budget. But to stress some of what was already noted above, the snowspeeders in The Empire Strikes Back are T-47s that the Rebels modified to be able to work in the severe climate of Hoth. Remember, they were hiding there after destroying the first Death Star because the Empire had initiated an aggressive counter-offensive. The movie even notes that the speeders didn't work great in Hoth's climate and the ground crews were tweaking them to be as efficient as possible right up until the point that the Empire sent AT-ATs in their ground assault. And ship modifications aren't a new thing in SW either. The X-Wing itself received a number of updates over the movies and animated series, which is why we have the T-65, T-70, and T-85.
  14. technoblue
    Hey, @mikeszekely. I should have replied to this sooner but I wanted to say that I do understand. I'm not slighted by anyone's critique of things I like or personally insulted by the different opinions either. I hope that is clear too. Ymir for sure isn't for everybody, even with the updated EX colorway, but I do think these Legends are great. They've certainly done their job luring me away from larger clunky third-party MPs. As a bonus, though, this has helped me save a lot of space here at home while still having a fun collection that is representative of my favorite characters. The prices are not always great and that's a legitimate concern, especially for someone like myself who now has both NA, MS, and other versions of certain Legends releases. Then again, prices are bonkers for just about everything at the moment... Anyway, I'm not trying to push one voice or opinion above any other. I just want to add to the variety here. People can take or leave what I write as they do.
  15. technoblue
    No sarcasm. I like them both, but it could be more of a UK thing. Kate Bush’s work often tops their charts. She has been consistently outranked only by The Beatles and Elvis across the pond. Her debut album has the first self-written song by a female artist to top the UK singles charts for four weeks in a row. That song, you guessed it, was Running Up That Hill.
  16. technoblue
    FYI: Kate Bush was a 1980s pop star from the UK. Because of my family, I grew up connected to things across the pond and am well familiar with "Running Up That Hill," so I appreciated the nod this season. The song itself was covered by other bands in the years since then like Placebo, Chromatics, and Meg Myers. But here in the US, and just going on my imperfect memory, I'm not sure if Kate Bush or the Eurythmics were more popular at the time. I do remember hearing both frequently on the radio here on the east coast.
  17. technoblue
    Right. Although I do appreciate how these Legacy releases are becoming more like mini-MPs---some of which are close in size to their G1 counterparts. Anyway, my copy of FT-08X has the same squared-off shoulders as Sixo's standard FT-08 Grinder. I guess most people who complain that the OG FT Dibots are too toon-centric might be critiquing the paint apps? Between FT-08 and 08X, it seems FansToys didn't change much in the sculpt. Gigapower, who I agree also uses a hybrid design for Superator, has more rounded shoulders on the sides but still retains that flat-top. On this point, it appears NA shares a few design cues with the DX9/MFT set of Dinos. It would have been cool if NA had been able to implement something similar to the GP design. I am glad to see that we are getting gold chrome, toy-like paint apps, and print detail for the stickers. I also like that we get toy-specific weapons with the NA EX release. It's too bad the missile launcher doesn't actually work. When looking at the official releases, we've come a long way from the G1 toy to Takara's MP to the latest Studio Series Grimlock release. On Hasbro/Takara side of things, there's no denying that the squared-off shoulders and tech greebling are a thing. I can see why fans are fond of these.
  18. technoblue
    *shrug* I would say it's debatable how close each Dinobot release skews to toy versus toon. The FT Iron Dibots were not perfect and the non-X releases were definitely considered more toon-centric. I think GP did a better job with their hybrid look of merging the toy and toon styles. I have the FT X Dibots, but even these make concessions given what designers were able to engineer at the time. Alas, that meant bot modes with oversized moon boots, two versions of Slag/Slug, a variety of add-on pieces for those who wanted the more toy-like alts, and multiple fixes for Soar. NA Ymir H44EX looks close enough to me to the toy. More so than any of the MP-scale releases we've seen to date. I only had Sludge and Swoop in my G1 toy collection as a kid. Looking at pictures, I don't get the sense that toy Grimlock was as much of a brick when compared to his G1 toy contemporaries. He did have the same limited articulation and the odd G1 proportions and squared off bits to make him look like a 'mechadino' but yeah...I don't miss those features in NA's remix. That said, I think if people prefer DX9/MFT, then that's all good too. (NA vs G1 comparison from TFW)
  19. technoblue
    Very cool. The release will have a Comanche language track. https://www.darkhorizons.com/prey-to-have-comanche-language-track/
  20. technoblue
    Truly. And I hope we can get a few more SW-themed Bad Lip Reading performances from one or two of these. As the wise Obi-Wan once said, "Evil comes in round shapes."
  21. technoblue
    The domestic shops are listing this one quickly… So I went with TCP and put some points toward a gift certificate, but yeah I’m back in. MP Skyfire looks spiffy.
  22. technoblue
    Good points. I'm also quite keen to find out more about the transformation. Speaking about Siege Commander Jetfire, I did like the fun 'armor-up' parts that came with that toy. These look to be missing from the photo showing MP Skyfire's accessories. So there won't be a full hybrid look for the MP that gives a nod to the Bandai/Takatoku VF-1? Just a face swap? That's too bad.
  23. technoblue
    Well, I can't say I'm overjoyed to find out that MP Skyfire is a TT Mall exclusive. Finding a good price, or a store where I can use points/rebates, could be tricky unless this also gets a Hasbro Asia release.
  24. technoblue
    I decided to wait on Lego Optimus for the moment because I picked up the Starry Night set a week prior. Being a fan of the large-scale Technics cars, I also added the Ferrari Daytona to my wish list. Not sure when I'll pick it up, though. I need to plan for it. Maybe in August.
  25. technoblue
    That’s my point, though. A show like Bad Batch does a better job with characterization and backstory. The idea that a clone might become disillusioned by the Empire is given weight because of the events of Clone Wars, the prequels, and that particular episode. Obi-wan, in contrast, has yet to give this kind of backstory for any character other than the show’s namesake. Because of this, if someone other than Ben does something out of the ordinary, I find myself wishing I had more exposition.
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