Yamato Lover

Oooh, I've been zinged by MJ. Big surprise there. Before this goes to pm DA You've been zinged? I was dissin the banal "White Death" color scheme... Now if you were the creator of said scheme, then I can see how my statement could be interpreted as a zing... But you say that you are not, so lets pretend that is true for now and say that you Mr. Yamato Lover(If that IS your real name! ) were not the target... If you really want me to zing you though, that can be arranged. Finally... I don't think that I will be picking this toy up. I mean, if it were cheaper I would consider it. I have better toys to spend my money on... Still though... if it turns out to be the shiznit, I may pick one up. Oh, and Blaine? Check your tree... the sandwich is gone. Heh, I was just bustin' your chops, buddy. I have no problem with you in the least. I was just poking fun at ya in light of the ridiculous Hurin thread from a week or two ago. You BAD, BAD man! Anyhow, if I DO pick up one of these Q-Raus--and I'm still on the fence about it--I may wait and see if this is going to be another work-in-progress project, based on Yamato's track record of making improvements on the fly. If so, then I may wait and see if there will be a Q-Rau 2.0, like the rerelease Fokker/Hikaru 1/48s (improved nosecone, et al).

Oooh, I've been zinged by MJ. Big surprise there.

Damn, people! Take a Valium, please! I only mentioned the White Death thing because I thought it looked cool back then it was posted on the old boards. A white Q-Rau, that's all that was supposed to be read into it. I'm not "Quadrono-In-Disquise" or a "Quad-Knight". Some people on here absolutely HATED that chick (and still do, from the looks of things) and the rest could care less what happened to her (me included). Come on, give it a rest, all of you. As far as I can see, she hasn't even bothered visiting MW in like 7 or 8 months. She's Big West forums' problem now, not ours. I always read the threads on here and I rarely post on here unless I feel that I have something relevent to add to a thread. And the fact that this $100 Q-Rau doesn't seem to have the ability to stand on its own without assistance from posing stands or clear acrylic display blocks is definitely a non-selling point IMHO. I'm passing on this particular enemy mecha. Just because I had wanted to do a white-colored custom of one of them was never meant to be a call to arms for the MW lynch mobs. I apologize for getting anyone flamed. Ben

I was really psyched about the Q-Rau, was even planning on buying a second one to do a "White Death" custom out of it...until I found out that it doesn't stand on its own. Pass... But thanks for the effort, Yamato. <_<

I was one of the last holdouts around here to give SWG a chance, sticking it out...hoping that gameplay would improve. But as of tonight, I finally cancelled my account. That was $75 and 5 months of my life I'll never get back... Today, SOE added Player Cities and Creature Mounts to the game in a huge 20+ MB patch. But all the patch did was cause a fatal error that boots you completely out to the desktop halfway through load screen. So now, after a month of hype over these new additions...you can't even access the game to get them. Checking the official SWG forums, one of the game developers stated that they should have a patch for this sometime before the weekend. Wonderful...a game patch to fix a game patch. Y'know...in this age of "DEADLINE IS PARAMOUNT, REGARDLESS OF PRODUCT READINESS", why don't game publishers just release half baked beta games with all the developer tools included in the box to let the consumer just finish the coding. That's pretty much the case as it is... Okay rant over...no more SWG threads. It sucks ass!

Agreed. I hate to sound so sour about it, but I'm just stating opinion...not trying to flame or start fights, because I am one of the biggest SW fans ever. Hell, I can actually say that I saw A New Hope when it was in theaters the FIRST time (of course I was 4 at the time). I have to say that the Star Wars franchise has steadily been going down the crapper since Episode I came out. With notable exceptions like the Jedi Knight FPS games, there's no real life left in it. And these Clone Wars shorts are proof positive of that, unfortunately. Clone Wars is Samurai Skywalker...I keep expecting Phil LaMar to voice some of the secondary characters or have corny split-second character cameos from other Tatarovsky shows (George Jetson and Fred Flintstone have made appearances in Dexter's Laboratory as background characters, for example). To be quite honest, the only reason I'm even looking forward to Episode III is so that the franchise can finally be put out of the pre-trilogy-era misery that Lucas has created for it. <_<

I see your reasoning regarding the broadcasting rights given in Article 29 Section 2,3. But, TP was granted copyright based on Article 29 Section 1. Which doesn't only involve broadcast rights but simply states this. You see although SN/BW were confirmed to be the ones who have authorship through Article 15 Section 1, TP was granted the copyright through 29-1. Your right the judges ruling doesn't over ride the memorandum but the memorandum doesn't give BW the right to create derivatives. So what we've got here is a franchise that, through past mishandling of its creators, is essentially locked up where no party involved can do much with it...no matter how you look at it. Right? * BW can't release anything Macross related outside of Japan without legal grief from HG... * HG watchdogs every move that BW makes and creates legal blockades (real or simply claimed) to keep its piece of the Macross pie in tact... * Tatsunoko takes BW to court to challenge that it is actually the copyright holder to the franchise, not just the show... Honestly, there will probably NEVER be a true settlement to this in the near or far-off future...all because, after 20 years, Macross has suddenly become somewhat of a cash cow again for all three companies involved. And therefore, they all wish to exploit it to the fullest extent that they possibly can. Ain't capitalism great? Many mistakes were made during the early years of Macross...and now the fans are reaping what BW/TP/HG have sewn. Back in 1982, when TP agreed to take the reins from Artland/Anime Friend to finish production, I'm sure that neither it, nor BW would have ever dreamed that they'd be sitting in a courtroom two decades later...all because of the legal stink that TP's subsidiary, HG caused by claiming complete and total ownership of the Macross franchise. Businesses weren't run so much by their legal departments back then as they are now, especially in Japan. Here in the U.S., that's a whole different story. I agree with Super O. There's really nothing more to discuss about this subject at this point in time. As I illustrated above, Party A can't make a move with Macross without getting sued by Party B, who can't make a move without getting sued by Party C, who can't...etc. The debate over this has kind of degenerated into a battle of egos. I saw the screaming match back on the old boards between wrylac and Quadrono. That whole thing read like a Tom Clancy novel, what with all of the "conspiracy theories" being thrown around over the authenticity of the translated ruling...with occasional smatterings of downright chauvanism in between. The very battle that got wrylac banned from the old boards in the first place, I might add. <_< Once she had had enough and left MW, the Meltran's role was somehow taken up by WDC once wrylac found his way back onto the new boards. Since then, its pretty much been the same thing... wrylac provided his own translated ruling, which pretty much stated the very same thing that Quadrono showed us way back in the day. But things still seems to boil down to school-yard arguments. Every new post on this subject revolves around the possibility of TP/HG owning more of the Macross franchise than just SDF Macross. I have seen the term "Moral Rights" tossed around on this thread for the past 10 or 15 pages, but no one seems to have a concrete explanation (this is different than one's opinion) of what exactly that entitles all parties to where Macross is concerned. But from the way I see it, no one really wins here. Not HG, not BW, and certainly not TP. Sure, its been spelled out to BW and TP about who owns what as far as line art and the animated series...but what can each party really do with their respective "winnings", without the other parties threatening copyright infringment or authorship compensation? And of course, HG is playing "Boston Tea Party" to keep any Japanese Macross product out of the U.S. So boys...go to your respective corners, and wait for the next bell before you come out fighting. Let's wait till something new pops up over this before we keep running it into the ground.

As far as George Lucas is concerned, its accurate...that's all that matters. He and Hans Jennsen (the Cross-Sections artist) were the ones who gave the final approval on the model. Besides, everyone's gonna complain about what the "real" version of something should be. For example, Yamato followed Shoji Kawamori's exacting specifications on the 1/48 VF-1 Valkyrie, working very closely with him on everything from the sculpt of the nosecone to the exact shade of red on Hikaru's chestplate. And what did some of us do? Complained about: * the nosecone being too big * the canopy being too "bubbled" * the arms being too skinny or "Popeye" looking * the hands being skeletal * the VF-1A head being too small for the overall size of the Valk * the GU-11 being too thin or setting too low to the ground in Fighter Mode But according to Graham, Kawamori himself said that THAT was how the VF-1 would look in real life... Same thing about the Falcon. Yes, I've seen models and toys of it that have had a much thinner hull (the Micromachines Action Fleet Falcon comes to mind). But that raises questions that actually could be moved to its own thread. For example, I've always wondered just how anyone, especially an 8-foot Wookiee, could stand completely upright inside it if the hull tapered down so narrow around the edges of the ship. It would theoretically make the outer edge ceilings of the inside compartments too low to stand up in unless you were to hunch down. And then there's the issue about the circuitry bays under the floor panels that were at least 8-feet deep (Chewie was down inside it in ESB making repairs to the hyperdrive components). But that's for another discussion altogether... I'm sure you all see my point about our perceptions of "accuracy", so I'll stop here.

Honestly, how hard would it really be to double up on the scaling and make 1/24 scale Valks? That'd give Yamato's designers all the room in the world to stuff them full of detail...AND completely 100% perfect transformation. Hell, they could actually include the magnetic pads that lower the legs down to the nosecone and then fold back under the chestplate's underside afterward. And the hands could be far better made than the 1/48 skele-hands. The fingers could be jointed at each knuckle as well as having a ball-socketed opposable thumb...the possibilites are limitless! ...and now we return to our regularly scheduled reality already in progress.

With hull plating removed:

Closeup of cockpit with some of the ground crew accessories:

Side view with landing gear deployed:

whats their site address? Yep, good ol' Red 5 is in the works. It comes with a removable R2-D2, has working S-Foils, ground crew equipment, and a variety of removable hull plating...like the Millenium Falcon. It's not to scale with the Falcon, though. It's a weird 1/38 scale. Here are some of the preliminary pics that Code 3 has allowed to leak out. "Fly-By" position:

Docking Bay position:

Damn double post!

Top view with hull plating removed:

Top view:

My wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year...and after careful thought, I decided that I'd like one of the Millenium Falcon models being released by Code 3 Collectibles. I had considered a few Macross items, but nothing really appealed to me at the moment, except maybe Macross Zero Ep. 3. For those of you who aren't privy to what it is, its a 3-dimensional model based on the cut-away diorama paintings in "Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections" This thing is beautifully detailed at 1/80 scale (measures 13" long and 9.5" wide) and has several removable hull plates that reveal the internal layout of the YT-1300, including the cockpit. Other features are retractable landing gear, rotating/pivoting rectenna dish, opening/closing boarding ramp and movie-accurate rotating quad-cannons (complete with the "Y" shaped swivel mounts). And the whole thing weighs a whopping 5 lbs.! The only setback is that each one of these beauties is the price tag. At $295 each, they are rather pricey...but you can make 5 payments of $59 each...which was what convinced my wife to preorder it for me! It was either this or the Yamato Destroid Monster, which we may never see before next summer. <_< There's also Luke Skywalker's X-Wing Fighter coming soon...but I don't know if I can convince my wife to snag one of those too. Here's a few pics of it:

No it wouldn't... We'd find something else about it to gripe about.

So doesn't that bring this whole thing back to square one? If I am to interpret your last statement at face value, you are essentially saying that BW simply doesn't own anything related to Macross...with the exclusion of the line art, right? And that could technically include any derivative based on the series (like FB 2012)?

I suggest you take another look at the Zaku II figure and compare it to the machine gun that comes with it. The gun is way oversized for the figure, a big screwup that still went unfixed even with the version 2.0 release of the Zaku II figures. That's why I put the term accurately scaled in quotation marks. I know that MSiA figures aren't 100 accurate in scale. Some range between 1/100 and 1/140 scale with a host of offbeat scales in between.

I saw MSiA figures for Zeta Gundam in issue of Toyfare several months ago (around April or May, I think), and the September issue showed U.S. releases for FIX figures. The release dates were supposedly for Fall and Winter '03, but now Bandai America has merely started cranking out rereleases of 3-year-old Gundam Wing figures and Battle-Scarred MS. Beyond that...nothing. No news, no rumors...nothing. I've searched the internet for SOMETHING regarding future releases, but it seems that kids (including the big ones like me) have finally gotten their fill of this line...and Bandai has slowed production down to almost a trickle. Suddenly all we're getting here in the U.S. are tons of these SD Gundam figures and minifigures. These simply don't have the appeal to me that the "accurately scaled" figures do. I know that many people on MW are big SD fans, but the cuteness of the oversized heads and stubby limbs wears off really quick for me. And the SD Gundam series on Cartoon Network is the most insipid thing I have ever seen...it makes Sailor Moon look like high-drama. <_< Does anyone know if Bandai has given up on bringing any of the other Gundam series over here in MSiA form...or are we doomed to the next 3 to 4 years of every Gundam MS being in Super-Deformed versions? Ben

I read that on August 19th of this year, Toynami secured a three-year license to merchandise toys based on Voltron. And at the San Fransisco Comicon, it was revealed that it will release Voltron I-Men and Masterpiece Collection versions of the five lions. So here's my question: Are these going to be original sculpts or are they simply reissues of previous toys (a la the now-defunct Robotech Destroids)? When I was a kid, Playmates released REALLY nice die-cast 1/100 two-pack sets (blue/red lions, yellow/green lions, and black lion individually) for about $30 each. I remember them being fairly heavy and very detailed. Will Toynami follow its usual business tactics and just make cheap, QC problem-ridden knockoffs of the Playmates and charge almost $100 apiece by slapping a nicely-designed box around them? <_< This ought to be interesting to see how they turn out... Ben

When Sharon Apple detects Isamu's YF-19 enter the U.N. Spacy's Defense Grid perimeter, she brings the whole damned thing online at once. This was illustrated by a schematic of the planet suddenly blossoming with electronic "paint" and threat-assessment grids...almost to the point of overkill. And from the sheer amount of defense fire Isamu dodged from satellites and orbiting warships on his way into Earth's atmosphere, it seems that our homeworld...although nearly uninhabited, aside from in and around Macross City...is the most well-protected hunk of rock in the galaxy. If the U.N. Spacy launched such a massive colonization program to populate non-irradiated planets (which I'm sure a good portion of Earth still is by 2040), why would it bother placing such an aggressive defense grid around Earth, if the human race is out looking for "greener pastures"? Ben

If it is him, why should he be banned when you are not? It's not like this guy has done any flaming. As of now anyways. The Yamato Lover account. There's no reason people should have two accounts. Awww.... multiple accounts are FUN. I've got the name God registered on one board for occasional use, mainly for the sake of humor. Whoa, what the hell is this? What have I done to deserve a ban? All I was doing was offering my viewpoint on this legal case, and suddenly I'm being accused of trolling and someone with multiple accounts? Put the torches and pitchforks away...too many people have left this site because of crap like this. I don't know BoK or wrylac...nor do I agree with much of their rheteric about this case. But I simply gave my opinion based on what wrylac was saying. But if personal opinion is grounds for account suspension, then I suggest you all get ahold of a mod and take this to PM with me.