Blaine23

We're in an (incredibly stifling) observation "dome" in the Meerkat enclosure at the Nashville Zoo.

And here I was thinking you had a subterranean PopeMobile.

Just kidding, I've been to that exhibit.

As much as I love the "groundbreaking news" that was so much part of macrossworld before, the speculation threads and polls became too much a few months back. People were putting up demands and opinions like they owned Yamato stock. Considering that as of now, we know of products that are months away, I say we are pretty lucky. Also, think about the people that may not get their 1/60 FP upgrades that they thought Yamato "promised" them. Now it looks like it may never see light of day. I kinda liked the way the GBP and the VF-1J was revealed. It seemed like it's pretty much greenlighted and ready to hit the shelves or in our case the shipping warehouses.

Just keep thinking back to days when we were beating each other up for cheap knock offs and overpriced used toys, then sit back, relax and watch the cash fly right out of your wallets...

Word. Double Word, in fact.

Groundbreaking news is nice, but begging for news and speculating all over the place has really grown tiresome as hell. Let's all chill out and let Yamato do their thing.

I've been out of Fathom for awhile... ( ) whos that other chick?

Judging by that thing on her arm, my guess is that it would Turner's other big paycheck creation, Witchblade.

Tell your bud he's got skills, that's a nice pin up. I'd be curious to see if he's done any actual story - panels, etc. It's much more difficult to tell a story than do a splash like that.

Excellent work -

And a very original project, to boot.

Keep up the great work!

What is with this constant desire of some fans to want to make live action versions of anime? I just don't get it.

Is anime not good enough or something? Do you honestly feel that anime would be better if it was turned into live action? If that's the case, why bother with watching anime at all, just stick to watching Hollywood movies!

I have absolutely no interest in seeing live action versions of any anime. IMO, there are far more high quality animes being made every year in Japan than there are good movies or TV series coming out of the US.

I can not think of a single example where a live action adaptation of an anime has been better than the original.

Graham

Well, the easiest answer is because it hasn't been done well yet... doesn't mean that its impossible, or even an unnattainable goal.

Why live action? Isn't anime good enough? Sure it is. That doesn't mean that seeing something presented in another format is derrogatory to the source material. Case in point - why do most anime series have manga as well? Is one generally superior to the other? Most often times, they are simply different and enjoyable in different ways.

The advantages to doing live action are obvious. Acting - not just voice acting, is a different art entirely and it would be good to see it done well. The other benefit would be seeing mecha in 3D CGI done well, if such a thing is possible.

I used to see this all the time with comic fans. I simply disagree - I don't think that making a different version of source material in a different format is something that dissrespects or downgrades the original. It is simply an artistic experiment.

I love the book Silence of the Lambs. I also love the movie. Is that a bad thing? Nope.

I love the book Cider House Rules - I'm not a fan of the film. Big deal.

A good film is a good film regardless of the source material - just as a good anime is a good anime regardless. You can make a good Batman movie or you can make a piece of crap - it's been done. Why dismiss it outright?

Personally, I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

My choice for a live action anime would definitely be Neon Genesis Evangelion. I think in the hands of the right people it could be an exceptionally powerful film with alot of layers. That being said, who knows whether or not the one currently being attempted will be unwatchable? But it won't make me hate or disrespect the anime I already love.

The fact that movie studios would consider putting up the bucks to attempt to translate anime to a live-action format is proof enough that the artists and creators of anime have made a significant impact on American entertainment - enough so that people are simply trying to find new ways to reach an even broader audience with it.

Here's me playing my Warwick...

Guitars... my other, much more costly, obsession

Oh, then that must be the other guy's art. Bash away, folks.

I'll start, "who names their kid Cully?"

That poor lil' fella gonna get lost in that big old box.

Damn... the original character designer for Mospeada draws cover art for a new comic... and it gets blasted mercilessly. Seriously, I'm very, very glad I'm not an artist.

I say if anybody has a right to determine how Lancer should look - it would be Amano.

Cool cover... and I'm thrilled to see a GBP armor involved. Can't wait.

Love 'em both...

But in the end, I prefer SDF Macross. The storyline is just more epic to me and I get caught up in it more than Macross 7. Not to mention, it's very, very, very difficult for me to fairly compare something I watched and loved as I child to something I saw last year.

But in the end, I still think SDF Macross has the edge over Macross 7.

The whole idea of berating everyone to NOT discuss prices is terminally retarded anyway.

People will discuss what they want, unless Shawn & Graham ask them not to. If I got on the boards and asked people to "please don't discuss toy boxes! It upsets me!" I'd fully expect to be reamed for it.

First it was Yamato who was setting the price too high... now, it's the "middlemen"...

Let's face it, Haterist, you're just mad that the things you want cost too much and you're ranting.

This conversation has lost what little value it had to begin with.

2. Creating one set of credits for all three parts limits the amount of confusion among viewers.

Honestly.... I don't see how this could be a reasonable explanation. I just fail to see how something like that would cause viewer confusion. Seriously.... ppl can't be that stupid to be confused with different credits in an intro sequences. Were IQs really that low back then?

It was HGs choice on how to handle the crediting and the intro. I'm simply saying that certain "jobs" should have been credited.... main character design.

You're right, that's not what I meant exactly, note my edit. But, it does bring up another point. Back then, creating titles meant a heafty expense in the editing room, now it's easy, but you had to rent a seperate piece of equipment to do titles. Creating one set of credits limits the cost during post-production.

That's no excuse for why they haven't corrected the credits since then.

A mistake made in ignorant times I can handle - the continued blatant discrediting of the original creators for 20 some odd years, I can't handle.

Seems to me ADV could have easily thrown in proper credits when putting together the RT DVDs at very, very little cost.

But then HG wouldn't be HG. And we wouldn't all hate them for being giant asses.

Ray? Straight. Basara? Obsessed with music. Everything else is a distant, distant second.

But nobody... and I mean, nobody - doubts the masculinity of Kinryu. He had 2 bridge girls. At the same time!

Need to go back in time?

Just "slingshot around the sun"... because that makes an awful... lot... of sense?

I also hate "the magic food dispenser", the "holo-deck" or "battle-room", and windows that let you look at stars going by.

Get a grip, kids.

The toys cost alot because

1. they aren't made in super-high production numbers

2. they aren't licensed for release in the U.S. - so we have to import them at high cost

3. they are very detailed, great sculpts, and complex to transform - ie -difficult to manufacture properly

4. folks at Yamato like to make a profit just like any other company, American or Japanese. Yamato empolyees have kids, like to eat, and go to the movies, etc.

5. they cost what they cost because we buy them.

Now, if you want to stop spending so much - stop buying toys. If you don't like that - then, tough noogies.

It's not as though they could sell 1/48's here in the US for $50. They can't. They would either lose money or make crappier toys.

You do realize that Macross collectors paid ridiculous sums of cash only a few years back to get their hands on vintage imported Takatokus, Bandais, etc... now, you don't have to. $150 for a 1/48 is a freaking dream to most US Macross toy diehards.

Seriously... can we stop whining about how Yamato doesn't make exactly what we want, when we want it, and then have the audacity to try and make a profit from it?

Fellow Macross snobs unite!

If you're gonna unite all over the place... try to form some sort of mighty robot like Voltron, would ya?

Otherwise... it just sounds a bit frilly.

EDITED because spelling things correctly is fun.

Maybe I've been living in a hole but just who is that actor? Why haven't I ever heard of him? Who hires an unknown as the star of what I assume is meant to be a block buster?

Who hires an unknown to play a comic hero? I dunno, but Hugh Jackman kicks plenty of ass as Wolverine and I wouldn't have known who the hell he was before X-men.

From the imDB...

Who the hell is Thomas Jane?

He's been in some good flicks... and some really terrible ones.

Good movies - Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Thursday (actually, a really good one, if you've never seen it), 61, and arguably Deep Blue Sea

Worst movie - Dreamcatcher. The Sweetest Thing. Original Sin.

Overall, not a bad track record for an "unknown"... he's got a lot more going for him than Jackman, who'd been on some Austrailian soap operas.

I think an iPod Soundwave would look pretty cool

if that were the case, he wouldn't have his little cassettes anymore. All digital now!

Say that again?

Yup! Soundwave would be cool, especially with a working and transformable memory stick. But it was more fun when they were cassettes. It's a good thing they didn't come out in the 70's because records are hard to transform. For the kids out there, records are real big CDs.

You should take a look at soundwaves copyright sometime. It's 1974. He's probably older than most of our members.

Blaine23 looks at his "ancient" 1974 birthdate...

he then runs to the drugstore to start taking his geritol.

I think they should go straight retro and have Soundwave kickin' some bigass 8 tracks.

I thought about putting Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling in the list, but decided not to since The Silence of the Lambs wasn't exactly an action movie, even though she did carry the movie.

Foxy Cleopatra... what did she do action-wise other than posing with a gun?

Seriously.... most of the chicks (ahem... female action stars) on your list have done nothing other than look pretty and hold a gun. CGI and bad writing does not make a Revlon girl an asskicker. I'll give special passes to those who actually did martial arts training. But let's face it... "Selene from Underworld, cuz she's hot" is not a real ringing endorsement of how far women have come in cinema as action counterparts to men.

I'll take Ripley or Pam Grier for being among the first to really change people's perceptions of women.

I'll take Foster as Starling simply because it is the best female characterization and movie brought up this far.

And I'll take Angelina Jolie, because, like EXO, I am just a man who loves that nutjob.

A really, really, really high dollar value gift card from Lowe's or Home Depot.

Unfortunately toys & anime have taken a big ol' backseat to renovating the house I bought this spring.

Oh, yeah... my new business would love to ask for several very large jobs, in order to pay for all of the above.

My original Jetfire (my link to the past)

Joon's Hikaru 1J

Joon's Milia 1J

Joon's wacky blue canopy 1J

Bandai Strike 1S

Reissue Hikaru 1J

Reissue Focker 1S

Reissue CF 1A

Reissue Hikaru 1A

Reissue Super Focker 1S

Reissue Max 1J

Reissue Milia 1J

... and Jesse's recast GBP armor and Strike armor

All I really need is a SuperO and an Elint...

and a custom 1D...

Okay, I'll admit it - I still have serious love for the chunky monkeys.

Sweet!

Go Yamato! Yep, this is definitely a 1/60 item that I will gladly purchase.

Now I just need to get back to work... time to make some more money - because I must have that GBP!

Great news and thanks for the photos... I'll bet the 1/48 version is gonna be even cooler. Imagine the detail on those shoulder missle packs!

Quoth Sting:

Free! Free! Set them Free!

It's a toy, dammit.

Him and half of Japan, to be fair...    ( when you travel about five hundred miles in a completely foreign country and meet three different people all of whom are Harry Potter fans, it kinda makes any argument about whether the books are any good rather redundant... )

There is a distinct difference between something being 'good' and something being 'popular'.

Just beacuse the masses like something, does not make it good. The Spice Girls & Britney Spears are two examples that spring to mind. But anyway, I digress, that is a discussion for another time.

Graham (not a Harry Potter fan).

I agree. I enjoy Hary Potter, but Graham is right the formula popular = good is a false one. Look at pokemon for a even better example.

Welcome to the wonderful distinction between entertainment (popularity with the masses) and art (popular with critics and peers)....

Either way, I actually dig Harry Potter quite a bit... I enjoy the writing, the films, etc.

So to me, it would be both "good" and "popular." But to each their own opinion.

Heaven forbid if any of us were swayed by those who feel that anime is crap and Macross is, in particular, old crap.