JB0

On 4/29/2024 at 2:53 PM, 26662 said:

He’s got an impressive cock-pit.

Doin' his best Zone of Enders impression.

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

This alt mode, licensed from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Toyota, is a semi-real vehicle in that I don't think any have actually been produced, but Toyota and JAXA (along with a number of other companies) are actively developing the Lunar Cruiser with the idea that it could be used in conjunction with NASA's Artemis program as early as 2032. 

As I understand it, NASA has a formal agreement with JAXA to develop it into a real vehicle in exchange for putting a JAXA astronaut on Artemis 2. 

God, I love living in a world where a lunar RV is a real thing in development.

27 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

If they do a white Missing Link Convoy and call it Ultra Magnus I'm out. But if they find a way to do the entire G1 toy with actual articulation that's probably one of the few Missing Link ideas I could get behind.

Yeah, if they do it and do it right, it'll be cool as hell. 

9 hours ago, Black Valkyrie said:

 

https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/04/26/takara-missing-link-bumblebee-cliffjumper-possible-first-look-510074

 

I did not expect that. Bumblebee was actually on the "non-viable" list in my head.

Cool, though!

6 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

So, yeah, I like Missing Link Convoy.  I think, if you grew up with the G1 toy there's a lot of nostalgia here, and because it's Prime I think it's worth checking him out and seeing what an articulated version of that most classic of toys is like.  But I'm not exactly clamoring to see what might be next for Missing Link, and I don't think I'd want to buy a Missing Link Ironhide or something the way some people seem to. 

Missing Link Ironhide would suck. I say this as a filthy toy supremacist who thinks "sunbow or gtfo" is hideous. The original toy needs to hit more functional proportions and actually have room for modern engineering to be viable for this.

MP Skids et al worked well because the foundation was there already. And they could get away with trying it because no one cares about Sunbow Skids. I think the success of MP Skids is why Missing Link Optimus happened, personally.

Missing Link probably won't go much farther, because the Starscream et al design won't work well. Missing Link Megatron is possible, but strikes me as unlikely.

Soundwave, the Dinobots, the Insecticons... the "Autobot Cars" that aren't Ratchet, Ironhide, and Hound(his arms are hopelessly short)... these are great Missing Link candidates. But they aren't Prime and Megatron, and can't be repainted to sell one mold six times. If we're lucky, we'll see a Missing Link Ultra Magnus(but the trailer will be hard, and no one wants White Optimus).

1 hour ago, Thom said:

We are now basically our grandparents, shaking our heads at the changing world and the youth growing up in it.

And yelling at the gosh-darn whippersnappers on our lawn!

1 hour ago, Negotiator said:

My wife is not a big TF fan, but she knows I am and thought the trailer was great in that you can finally see a more relatable side to Optimus.  As she put it, Optimus is always out of reach. He is an authority figure that you looked up to, but you never really knew him.. he’s the boss you don’t know how far you can tell dirty jokes before he fires you.  Which I’d argue is a good thing.

You know, there's an interesting story to be told there. Optimus is a military leader on a planet so thoroughly wracked by war that everyone who hasn't left is a soldier. And he's a major religious figure on top of it. He is PROFOUNDLY isolated.

And were I writing this story, I'd lean into the Transformers' inevitabl  association with humans. They offer something Optimus hasn't had much of in a long time, someone he can speak with as an equal.

2 hours ago, Mog said:

Couldn’t think of another spot to post this:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/long-lost-first-uss-enterprise-153154219.html

Oh, wow. I assumed that no longer existed.

I think I heard they cast Chris Pratt for everyone.

20 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

True... though, if anything, that's a Reality Ensues moment.

Gamlin was trained on the VF-11C Thunderbolt and VF-17D/S Nightmare.  Both of those VFs are at least two generations newer than the VF-1 Valkyrie and have considerably higher performance.  He hopped into a VF he'd never trained on, and discovered it had about 1/5th of the performance he was used to.  Like someone whose daily driver is a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat who finds himself driving a Toyota Prius while on holiday.

Oh, yeah, it is EXACTLY what anyone should've expected to happen.

It really makes you wonder why he commandeered Millia's VF-1 in the first place. I'll assume he just didn't realize it was roughly analagous to training on a Tomcat and then trying to fly a Mustang.

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Gamlin was shown to struggle a bit to draw out the full potential of his VF-17D/S, which is 9 or 10 depending on model,

In fairness, Gamlin was also shown struggling to draw out the full potential of Millia's VF-1, which he got destroyed. Never forget!

22 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Glad I'm not into the Japanese Transformers; that Ginrai looks all kinds of terrible to me.

Powermaster Prime was my first Optibotimus, and it makes me sad to see him done dirty like this.

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

See, it's comments like this that tell me people are actually reading my rambling opinions on toys and not just humoring me by looking at pictures and maybe liking the post.

I'm readin' 'em. I don't often have much to say, but I read 'em all.

I really do want a new Ejector. "Evil toaster that burns your bread and steals your drink when you aren't looking" is such a wonderfully ridiculous concept.

5 hours ago, Scyla said:

1. Simplified detail with regards to greebles and sculpt (since the toys and the cartoon were less sophisticated)

Sticker detail. The original toys had a crapton of random greebles represented as stickers.

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

  (Don't answer that, the correct answer is and will always be Dispensor.)

Studio Series Ejector when?!

22 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Y'know what?  Yes.  That's exactly what Titan Comics should do.

They had - for the first time since what? 1996?** - an actual original Robotech story that wasn't slavishly following or playing in the same sandbox with the TV series.  They had the chance to take the story somewhere new and different and they got cut off before they could really do something with it.

Yeah, I was phrasing it flippantly, but it was a genuinely interesting mess of a thing. 

20 hours ago, Big s said:

That and no more struggling with bad translations on bootlegs.

Hopefully it won't move to struggling with bad translations on officially-sanctioned polycarbonate.

2 hours ago, Jupiter Jazz said:

That's the rub though: I'd argue that the 2007 HD remaster is not even up to the standard of "exactly as it was in theaters," as far as the viewing experience goes.  If the 2007 HD remaster was shown in a modern theatre as is, (as in seeing the level of grain and inconsistencies that one sees when viewing the DVD) I would assume something was wrong with the film/projector/etc., and possibly even demand my money back.  There's something messed up about being better off watching a film on VHS on an old low resolution CRT television, rather than on a digital disk on a high resolution flatscreen TV.

It probably isn't. But I was speaking purely about the captioned zentradi scenes.

Like TMBounty_Hunter said, the problems they have originated from the original optical compositing. They're  inherent to the original production, and can't be "fixed" without leaving the source behind and (at best) reshooting the scene.

12 hours ago, lechuck said:

I wish Takara had come up with a solution to have the rear trailer wheels recess along the the feet instead of leaving it jutting out unsightly like that and breaking sculpt cohesiveness.

I agree, but some of the Powermaster Prime/Ginrai toy features wound up being carried into the cartoon as well, and I think wheels hanging off the toes is one of those things that's actually anime-accurate(as is Ginrai wearing the whole front of the truck on his back).

Enough of this, Titan! Bring back the epic saga of Sad Dana!

Honestly, he looks pretty G1 to me. Monochrome enough to be unstickered G1, but still G1.

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

That's because they need to degrease the plastic before the vacuum metalization process, which removes a lot of the plasticizers out of it.

On that note: I found a very thin foil tape that I use to either repair worn chrome or chrome a piece if it needs it. It can be a little fragile (especially in transform areas), but it does the trick and I'm usually pretty good about where to place it.

So THAT'S why!

Thanks, I had wondered about that for a long time.

12 hours ago, Jupiter Jazz said:

That's a shame that a truly great remaster is held back by such a process.

I mean, remastering isn't reshooting. They're stuck using the original footage, warts and all.

I'd personally argue "exactly as it was in theaters" is a reasonable target most of the time, and that editing to eliminate imperfections that have always existed is the first step towards the dark side of Special Edition reworks.

Peg's back, baby!

11 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Sadly, Hasbro doesn't do chrome anymore, probably due to its tendency to chip and flake over time. I miss it.

My understanding is chromed plastic breaks easier, and has a tendency to leave sharp edges when it does. Hasbro doesn't want broken toys drawing blood. Buncha babies, I swear. Scars build character!

(My preferred dinobot representation is Gigapower's chromed releases, but they're in a very different price class than pretty much anything Hasbro makes, and I never could justify a full set.)