Vespaeda

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-scientists-begin-warp-drive-experiments-190400874.html Never say never. Mark this day: the day human scientists announced they discovered just enough of a hypothetical prod to actually perform experiments expressly with the intent of developing interstellar drives. QTA: "..could travel an apparent speed of 10 times light speed. Gizmodo suggests that an Earthlike world about 20 light years away, Gliese 581g, would be a two year voyage away..." So, we just might find Pandora in time to avoid sucking all bio-resources dry on this world and maybe encounter some nekkid, blue, Thunder-Cat women?

Rented it from RedBox last nite. VERY disappointed with the unrealistic plot & execution. Agree powersuits should have been more 'power-armour'-ey, a la book's original intent; also standard issue guns, while much beefier and lethal looking, didn't seem to be much of an improvement over standard firepower in the original Verhoeven movie. Poorly executed fanservice w/the boobies and I wanted to like the new characters but they just weren't developed enough. Even though Roughnecks was for a more juvenile audience, a single episode of that had more stand-alone watch-ability than ':Invasion'.

Would have been a lot more plausible to use a barrage of super massive CMEs during a solar peak cycle to fry Earth technology and return most global civilizaton to the feudal/Steam Age. Plausibility isn't JJ Abrahms strong suit; he benefits from a contemporary U.S. society that has little grip on causality/basic natural phenomena and scientific principle so his 'yuppie/hipster'-grade logic perseveres.

On the topic of "..why Americans can't design cool robots?"- - reading the Yamato design art interview w/artist Tenjin linked from the "Yamato" thread gave me a possible avenue of understanding. I have an impression of aesthetic expediency and form following an under-developed sense of function, as the weakness of 'American' robot concepts. Also, these being the 'loudest', ergo '..only..' school-of-thought seeing the light of day possibly because of hack Hollywood art direction & producers. Not because '...N. Americans CAN'T do it...'. As I understood this portion of the interview w/Starblazers.com, Tenjin talked about the elder 'statesmen' of mecha anime, the lore of anime production houses from the 70's & 80's and how the specialist artists & designers all got rolled in w/generic 'filler cell' artists to meet deadlines. He opined this became an art enviroment where depictions of mecha, their proportions, details & motion could evolve; how the famous designers could mature and 'trademark' styles furthered a studio team's consistency. Now CGI rapid production has eliminated slavish manhours of human skill reinforcement; thus while character design w/less demanding curves thrives, mecha artists get less opportunities & no skills dev. As I see it, American animators don't have this cultural legacy of mecha designers in animation studios, let alone transformable robot ideology. American art houses like Pixar emphasize character texturing and mass media cartoons celebrate G. Tartovsky, 'Phineas & Ferb' and 'Ben 10' sensibilities. The only contemporary 'test proven'[read that =$$$ makers] school of design for cinema mechs in America is, unfortunately "Bay-formers" and the teraflops of CGI data that supported it. As evidenced by all the studios borrowing its mechanics: "Battle: Los Angeles", "Battleship" & what was that other, dreadful alien invasion movie from 1.5yrs ago..."Sky-something", where people were snatched by blue lights from downtown LA to feed the alien, 'greeblie'/mish-mash ships??? I wouldn't be surprised if the 50ish - 60ish-yr old, purse-string holders for 'green-lighting' contemporary SF films erroneously believe "Robot-Jox" and "G-Savior" still represent what you get for trying to depict giant mechs on screen, short of the "Bay-formers" CGI aesthetic. "District 9" & Blomkamp's achievements be damned. But, then again...HE is South African. My endangered, Canadian $ 0.02.

http://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-objects-punching-holes-weird-saturn-ring-111801087.html Naawww, no mystery. Just Hikaru joy-riding Minmay through the F-rings in the VT-1 trainer. Or a Zentraedi destroyer attempting to avoid detection amidst the frozen debris.

Congratulations, Oto-san, Oka-san Sorley!!!

...hilarious!!! But, yeah why not. Throw in a WAAC ferry pilot homage, Mexican Expeditionary AF senorita's for the Philippines Campaign and the Russian "Night Witches" to boot. Any EEOP been left out? Ground radar control ops lasses, French partisan liaison/ Lysander "night drop" Corp or Bletchley Park 'spooks' of the unspoken persuasion?

reddsun1, Your probably already in the know--that speculation of 'what-if' the P-40 was allowed to evolve into something more updated did happen; it was just turned down. Considered redundant & only as good as the P-51, which was already dominating in all theatres. Radials were edging out inlines as the preferred, high horsepower engine requiring no coolant system. see: My link I agree too...I hope to build this version in R/C someday.

Focusing more time on R/C than gunpla & anime; matter of fact I'm about ready to sell off a crapload of classic HG & MG kits from my 2 tours in Japan for cash. Flying takes me where static displays & anime mecha imagination leaves me at a standstill. Too many good Macross & Yukikaze designs screamin out to be made R/C from foam & cardboard anyways. Those mega projects like the Yamato need to see themselves end up in museums when the creators are done. Fan-friggan -tastic!!

F-ZeroOne, I remember hearing that there was a helluva controversy over a detail of Guy Gibson's depiction in this remake; as concerning the historically accurate but utterly UN-'P.C.' naming of his labrador dog, the squadron mascot. The original movie, BoB and "Sink the Bismark" were among my all-time favorites as a kid!

Honestly, MechTech your interiors bring back fond memories of being in the hanger deck and inner ramps of the USS Essex out of Okinawa! Take your time and detail the interior with appropriate paint, 'greeblies' and additional support crew. That is unless you've already decided to sell it or donate it to a museum as is. Wonderful!

If true, then THIS is precisely why films get covert treatment/misleading names in production--ONE BIG PHHHKIN SPOILER! Oh where & what happened to surprise??!! This ENTIRE generation prolly grew up taking their own X-mas presents hostage & raping them 2wks before Dec. 25th!!! [...albeit, I admit interesting & titillating possibilites.]

Agree with slaginpit. This is mainstream audience marketing that isn't relying on pre-branded/toy 'tie-in', name recognizability like TFs. Thinking outside the box of hardcore SF enthusiastes and connisseurs of 'anime mecha' fine art aesthetic, its story driven and the hardware is just props & settings. American family audiences regard H. Jackman as likeable to 30's-40's parents, single, working mom 'heart-throb', hero actor who does more drama than action & adventure. I see it as another way entertainment execs aim to boost struggling, down & out American middleclass to keep thinking hard on innovative tech, alternative energy and particularly robotics. Of course, spending movie dollars in the process... The same, popular view of robotics and technological future possibilities that primed 60'-generation, Japanese salary & labor class people to dream of Astro Boy, Ultraman and eventually MS Gundam and Star Blazers. So, the current, nascent US citizen can complain less that "they Dun took ur jobz!" and spend more time geeking in the garage over electric vehicles, biodiesel, and hacking consumer electronics into new devices. Please forgive the socio-politics; I'm a big proponent of hack-labs, Maker Fairs and home & community scaled alternative energy/utility production. All practical application derivatives of scale modelling and scratch building.

Your wife is awesomeness!

How about these Belgian AF schemes... Kinda like Belgian AF fighters get p0wned by the JAM, if you ask me

Regardless of his choice/availability of kit quality, he's used some classic diorama and backdrop display techniques to 'enliven' his depictions. Really exceptional work as a whole!

Never seen the original, but love the art/mook and manga versions I thumbed thru in Japan. Wish more action heroes would utilize a fore-arm gun.

Throwing my helmet in.... I've never ordered swag, fan-kits or MW-Con t-shirts from the the forum before, but it high time. Esp., since I'm in the most cash-strapped time in my life in a long time -- Strike!..when the crowd says retreat!

Great mods/update to this kit. Please don't give up on adding a 'ball' swivel feature to your guns; you might just wanna finish it & be done with. But, if you step aside for a day or so, a better solution or a 'steadier hand'-day[your gunpla Muse] will show up to help you cross that finish line! Living vicariously through your build... I've made dozens of 'cheap' ball joints by using doll beads of consecutive sizes[they nest 1/3rd of the way into each other, like "a wart on a wart"] for Gundam HGUC kits to give them poseability, especially waist articulation under the rectangular plates. Looking at your work so far, tetsujin's suggestions are spot on & wouldn't require too much surgery--just patience drilling into the cabin to sink some beds/sockets for self-contained swivel units. I'd use his suggestion of wire + elastic cord; I use a combination of nylon fishing line & vinyl-insulated, flexible electronics wire run coaxially through a ball-point pen spring-when inserted inside plastic pieces & glued with the right balance of tension, they provide a great, floating swivel. These can be pre-assembled as a unit, like an aftermarket ball-joint and just sunk into the proper socket. Careful clean up/puttying of the opening hides the external work. I can add a drawing if you want; might have some of my sub-assemblies around in kit boxes I could snap a pic of. Best of luck, whichever way you work it.

Ooops.....thousand pardens, reddsun1 Thats what I get for navigating 5 windows on disparate, non-Macross subjects at once! Its not easy indulging these 'pleasures most guilty', during "Bleeding Hearts or Severed Manhood" season,....if you get my drift!

That is sick!

Watching Taksraven's clip compilation, I noticed for the first time the similarities between Hikaru taking out Bedolza and Will Smith & J. Goldblum's missile insertion in the Hive. However, as reddsun1 and others have pointed out some alien invasion/space combat ideas will not be new. Its all based off of WWII combat(one way or another); only the fact that the movies we now take for granted, thanks to the uniform employment of CGI, were impossible to be funded/filmed convincingly in my 70's-80's era childhood. Thats why anime in the forms that made it over here in the late 70's/early '80's[Gatchaman, Star Blazers, SDF:DYRL on VHS] energized my generation. Roland Emmerich and several other creative producers are about my age--we all grew up on what little anime we could get. Many film creators for SF have testified to this, including a reverence for Macross. Unfortunately, like giving respect to Carl Macek, we owe hacks like Emmerich for getting it on celluloid[ or digital] & in the popular domain for starters; at least they've shown us how NOT to do epic alien warfare movies! The clincher for me was the ID4 clip posted, with the 'laughing skull' w/the virus insertion; never thought of it before, but I'd readily guess it was an early "Easter egg" homage by Emmerich, representing Hikaru in Skull 1, doing his thing. Forgive me if this is not news...

I've had that & use the 'flip-phone' descendent of that currently(don't remember the model#; its in my locker @the moment). Agree w/everything you've said!

Please find a way to make a mold of this model...even if it isn't perfect or has minor distortions that could be sorted out later. Might be just too long a wait before stereolith or rapid-3D printers ever generate something like it! Kinda like the wait in years before Macross material actually started becoming available stateside[i KNOW!--I SURVIVED THE ENTIRE DARK AGE, BEREFT OF HOPE & LIGHT!!!!] wonderful work!

Hey, Cap'n, I'll admit many moons ago I considered springing for your original $500 project offering. But, as with many others, I too am not in a position to join; w/current inflation, an ailing, elder mother and 2 properties w/out tenants. I might be willing to make a 'good will' donation towards the project, just because I want to see it 'fly'! I will say that the 'spirit' you are embodying here is the "Can Do" that America's populace needs right now. The cost & investment is steep, esp. for a niche/entertainment item, but the rewards for homegrown skilled labor & creativity--priceless & empowering. "FSA, to Reflex Point!"