Cyclone Trooper

Well...after all the usual media overreaction...it was announced over the weekend that this strain of the Swine/H1N1 Flu is nothing more than a "garden variety" and is killing no more people worldwide than a regular strain of human flu. Nothing to fear now...according to a small barely-mentioned blurb on the evening news. The media has since brushed this under the rug and moved on to the next big story. Way to stir up panic where none was needed, Associated Press...all in the name of ratings.

Its not about the mousepads having boobs. Its more about how Macross F is cashing in on just about any gimmick idea under the sun...no matter how ridiculous. This sort of merchandise illustrates the opinions of some on here about how Macross F unabashedly and unapologetically panders to horny young male fans...be they of high school age or young professional adults. But the US has its own version of the "merchandising whore" in the form of George Lucas, so not much can be said on our part. Over the past 30+ years, we've seen everything from action figures to toothpaste to cereal boxes to soda cans to R2-D2 phones to high-end movie prop replicas emblazoned with Star Wars. And the list could go on, taking up several pages in this thread just to list everything...

But I also understand that walking that "high wire" between preserving the integrity of a favorite anime, movie franchise, or TV show and outright turning it into "the next Star Wars" in terms of merchandising can be tricky and sometimes downright perilous from a business standpoint. But given that Macross F IS sort of a rehash of all Macross storylines from the past in the form of a slickly-animated homage and geared more toward the newest and younger generation of Macross fans, its just good business sense to milk the franchise for all its worth at this point in time...no matter how stupid or illogical some of the merchandise may appear to us "old timers."

I would love to get one but I would feel too guilty. Plus I would probably get fired.

Yeah...you definitely don't want to tempt fate with Corporate America. In today's workplace, anything from the type of desktop image you have on your work computer to the color of your hair is open game for offending someone's sensibilities. A mousepad with boobs is definitely up there on that list, I can almost guarantee.

Its a cash cow...and merchandisers know that hardcore fans will pay out the nose for practically any piece of Macross F-themed crap they throw out there. Wait until we start seeing $75 electric toothbrushes shaped like Klan or Sheryl standing in provocative poses...

That's the other thing about the VF-11 and the YF/VF-19 that's always bothered me is how the head unit sort of just sits out in the open at the rear of GERWALK mode. It just stares down at the ground, not really serving any function yet again. Talk about having your head up your...er, nevermind! But seriously, the strange positioning of the head unit in this mode looks like the design wasn't fully thought out or something...

Looking over the VF-11 Thunderbolt thread, I've noticed a trend in just about every Valkyrie design rolled out since the VF-11 where the head unit's laser barrel is in a rear-facing position on the dorsal side of the mecha while in fighter mode, and is usually at a fixed 30 to 90 degree angle, depending on the type of Valkyrie. The older VF-1 series used the head unit as a kind of rotating laser turret in fighter mode, as evidenced during Max's aerial battle with Milia in DYRL. But it seems that the later generations of mecha simply abandoned that design idea. The head-mounted laser cannon(s) are simply sticking up out of the hull more because there was no other place for it to go, rather than it being functional in fighter mode. An enemy would have to be within a relatively small cone of fire to the rear of the Valkyrie for the laser to hit its mark. And that leads me to another question. Since Zentraedi technology has been incorporated into newer designs since Space War I, does this fixed rear-facing laser function in much the same way as the rear guns on a Regult? I, personally, would find it annoyingly difficult to manually fire a weapon like that to the rear of my Valkyrie at subsonic speeds without a dedicated gunner or the weapon being completely computer-controlled.

The other question I have is about the penchant for for all these newer Valkyries to have "talon-like" feet (again, everything from the VF-11 to the VF-25 feature this type of foot/thruster). Is there some feature about this pointy-toed design that would improve thrust or something? Or was this nothing more than an aesthetic choice on Kawamori's part? Later designs---especially with the Macross Plus/Macross 7 designs---are far more angular and blocky in some ways. Like with the YF-21/VF-22, the legs are hidden behind two huge slabs of paneling that comprise nearly the entire underbelly of the mecha in fighter mode. The VF-22's gunpod is a huge blocky affair that just seems out of place compared to the fighter's aerodynamic profile...at least that's MY opinion.

Just questions that I've had for years and just now decided to ask...

...and of course these will be followed up by a Klan-Klan keyboard wrist protector. Your wrists will rest snugly between the foot of cleavage it will feature.

Wow...I wasn't intending to do the whole "Chicken Little" thing here. I was just passing along the bit of news about countries seriously considering closing their ports and bringing international trade to a grinding halt. I wasn't exactly trying to sound like a Harbinger of Death! IF some countries had (or will) do such a thing, and Hong Kong or Japan happens to be some of them, then any shipments may be delayed until the crisis subsides. I swear that was all I was saying!

I haven't seen any other posts on here about this yet, so I thought I'd share something I heard tonight...

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past week, you know that the World Health Organization has just raised the "threat level" to Level 5, the second-highest level before the Swine Flu is officially considered a full-blown worldwide pandemic. Some countries are treating this like its a real-life version of Stephen King's The Stand, while others (including here in the US) are only just starting to take the threat seriously. Tonight on the news, there was talk about how this will affect the world economy, since many countries are banning travel and imported goods outright until this whole thing either blows over or takes a turn for the worse.

I realize that this isn't exactly the cheeriest of subjects to bring up, but if anyone has something in transit from overseas, don't be too shocked if it doesn't arrive in a timely manner. But honestly, in light of the current situation, I'm going to doubt that whether or not your Yammie arrives on time is going to be the biggest of concerns...

I think you have to look back as far back as the 1920s to see where the "evil robot" trend started. "Metropolis" from 1927 showed us a dystopian society where the role of humans and machines have been strangely reversed...humans acting like cogs in a massive industrial machine, while the robot is a status symbol by the rich and elite. These were common themes back during the Industrial Revolution...and many writers expressed the fear of machines making humans "obsolete" in their works here in the US.

Since then, we've seen this same tired theme played out in everything from Terminator to The Incredibles...

Since then, many American science fiction writers have made the "evil robot" idea a standard, though it HAS evolved somewhat over the decades. In Eando Binder's "I, Robot," the evil robot idea was taken a step further by making one of them "abnormal" in the respect that it respects humans and does not view them as obsolete meatbags. Issac Asimov actually disliked the whole "evil robot" idea and wrote several stories pursuing this "good robot" theme. His story "Bicentennial Man" was about a common household Threepio-like robot with a positronic brain who is allowed to break his programming and pursue creative endeavors over a 200-year period in his pursuit to become human...even grafting cloned organs onto his metal body near the end of the book. Yes, Gene Roddenberry "Carl Meceked" Data from Asimov. Asimov is responsible for the slew of "good" robots in modern American pop culture (C-3PO, WALL-E, Robby, Rosey, Data etc.). He disliked the idea of robots enslaving their creators or some other ulterior motive so much that he invented the famous "Asimov's Law of Robotics."

I was born and raised in the US, but have always had an Eastern view on all-things-robotic. I would love to live in a world where we stand side by side with artificial constructs. I'm also one of the few who believes that if robots gained sentience (artificial or not), then they should be treated as people and not property. But that's also a theme that stories like Bicentennial Man and the Animatrix have addressed. Would humans accept robots as artificial lifeforms with their own set of "human rights" and freedoms as we enjoy? For many Americans, the idea of having to show the same level of common decency to a "goddamned machine" as you would show to your loved ones or your boss is simply unacceptable. And it may very well be a combination of Hollywood and genuine American arrogance that fuels the "evil robot" genre nowadays. I just had this discussion with my wife and she said she would definitely have a problem if her boss was a robot that she had to answer to...

Besides, evil robots (like their evil human counterparts) are just more interesting to watch in movies than their kinder, gentler brethren.

Okay...then I now know why some sources are giving such large population numbers. It seems some sources indicate that the 70,000+ people aboard are all civilians while the military accounts for an ADDITIONAL 1200 to 20,000 on top of that. While others indicate that the 70,000 INCLUDES the military in the total number. The 90,000 seemed a tad out there for me too. I always thought it was in the 56,000 to 70,000 range.

Where're you coming up with 90,000 people?

Like I said...various sources seem to contradict one another on what is considered "fact" about the compliment of the SDF-1, so I was being all-inclusive. I gave a low number and a maximum number of people based on various "ship rosters" I've come across. So I apologize if I'm stepping on any Macross fact-keeper's toes here...lol I was shooting for the "somewhere in there is the true number" approach.

Now before this turns into another DYRL vs. TV version debate, I want to make it clear that this thread isn't about the battlefortress's appearance or transformation capabilities or anything like that. This primarily concerns Macross City itself, or at least the idea of a sprawling metropolis in the legs of the SDF-1. I was watching DYRL on our new plasma HDTV this evening (man, you see things in the animation you never paid attention to before!)...and something occurred to me. The DYRL Macross is 1210m long, over 300m tall (in fortress mode) and just short of 500m wide. According to the Gold Book, the movie itself, and various other sources, its confirmed that Macross City is laid out mainly in the legs of the ship. The interior of both legs are---for all intent and purpose---designed like a massive multi-tiered shopping mall, complete with theaters, restaurants, entertainment venues, industrial areas and residential lodging. This much can't be disputed...

But here's what I've always wondered...

The population of Macross City fluctuates between 70,000 and 56,000 men, women and children...with additional military personnel ranging from 1,200 to over 20,100, depending on what source you go with. So when we crunch the numbers, the SDF-1 is carrying (at full capacity) anywhere from 71,200 to over 90,000 people (!)...all confined within a relatively small surface area of roughly 3/4 of a mile. Is this possible, at least in the way that DYRL source material would have one believe? That just seems like a hell of a lot of bodies crammed together into such a small space...yet the interiors seem to represent themselves as been fairly spacious. Hell, the Frontier's Island can house up to 1 million...but there's significantly more space to support that many people, and can therefore be understood. The SDF-1 on the other hand seems to employ the age-old anime magic of "interiors being bigger than exteriors" to make room for all of its citizens. I dunno...maybe it IS possible to put that many people inside the battlefortress comfortably. But I'd need to see a breakdown of how it could be done...

Cut him some slack, BlueMax!

It's not everyday that he pulls our puppet strings in his god-like way like this. Let him have a LITTLE fun before he makes known whatever this big news is.

OR...

Yamato is going to drop a 1/60 VF-4 on us in both "Flashback" colors and game colors. Who knows?

Maybe he was referring to the SDF-1. It was an old sig right? But now we already know about the SDF-1. Just another shot in the dark.

True...

But we HAVEN'T seen a painted, or transformed version of it yet! But honestly, its probably going to be the announcement that Yamato has somehow dodged the old Harmony Gold/Big West legal nightmare and pulled of the miracle of procuring the license to Macross 7 et al, like a few others have speculated...

Well, lets keep this much in mind...

A few years ago, I seem to remember hearing that Yamato had absolutely no plans to make the SDF-1 either...but lo' and behold, we're getting one. What Yamato plans to do today may not reflect what it decides to do tomorrow. The Spartan may see a release with the reissues of the Destroids a few years from now to add some incentive to "collect all of them" if you never had a chance to get any of the first generation versions.

I don't collect stuff, I buy the things that I want, I don't need to own every valk that's out or the rarest and hardest to find, just the ones I like

for the moment I'm keeping the boxes cause I will be moving to another country in a few years cause of work and it's best to keep the valks safe during transit, but I really hate those yamato oversized useless boxes and the first moment I get I will burn them into oblivion for taking so much space, stupid boxes...

Everything you just said is incredibly ironic based on your user name!

Come on guys, are these toys? Yes! Are they meant to be played with? I don’t think so. They’re collector grade toys in my opinion and not meant to be displayed and not played with, but whatever floats your boat.

Then that brings us back to my initial question...

Why bother making these "adult collectibles" transformable when a static statue version would suffice? I'm around the same age as you, MacrossMan (I'm 36, and grew up on "old school" Macross), and you're correct in that I, personally, don't "swoosh" my Valkyries around reenacting battle scenes from SDFM or DYRL. But like a lot of others on here, I DO tend to transform them every so often. As we age, recreating those battle scenes evolves into the fine art of diorama building. Active play turns into recreating what amounts to 3D snapshots of battle scenes, iconic poses, and launch preparations.

And honestly, like someone else has stated, so many people are collecting nowadays that nothing is really going to be as valuable as we hope it'll be. The Golden Age of collectibles for our generation was 1977 through 1994 with the original Star Wars and GI Joe lines, respectively. I don't really count McFarlane figures as true collectibles because they've been churned out ad nauseam for nearly 17 years. And Marvel Legends figures will one day flood the market so prolifically by collectors trying to sell them for a small mint that they won't move very well. It reminds me of a line from Pixar's The Incredibles when Syndrome says, "...and when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can be a superhero. And when EVERYONE is a 'super,' NO ONE will be." An off the wall analogy, I admit, but a fitting one.

So when your son rips into that new Transformers box, don't cringe. The old Generation 1 stuff in mint condition? Yes, it'll be worth a fortune(some of it already is), provided you can find a buyer willing to pay what its worth. But the modern Transformer lines? Not so much...

This is not a new topic... Very often, someone who loves their toys in mint condition would be sneered at and regarded as freaks. I always wonder why people cannot enjoy their own purchases in their own ways.

Honestly, I'm not sneering or regarding anyone as a freak here. I'm more or less peeking into the minds of collectors who DO fall into the other two catagories so I can better understand the motivations behind, say, keeping something MSIB, or purchasing multiples of the same item, etc. And on a side note, one of the reason why I started this thread is so that when my wife asks me questions like "Why would someone spend that much money on 3 of the same thing when it equals a whole car payment?" I can give her an educated answer as to why. The more legitimate the answers, the more legitimate our collecting is to someone who "just doesn't get it."

And trust me...you don't tell a wife or girlfriend that its none of their business why we collect high-end items; and we DEFINITELY don't tell them its none of their business as to how much it costs!

*all of the married MW members and members in relationships are nodding in agreement as they read this last statement*

Back in the late 80s, me and a group of friends roleplayed Macross using the old Palladium Robotech RPG. My Valkyrie was an Elintseeker (unit number 517) for Diamondback Squadron assigned to ARMD-02. This particular Valkyrie will always have sentimental significance, so this will definitely be my first "Version 2" purchase! And this time, my kids won't be given a chance to destroy it like they did to my Version 1 VE.

Keeping the boxes for moving purposes is understandable...and completely utilitarian. That's something I can relate to.

Kanedaestes, you bring up another thing collectors of all stripes contend with: the wife/girlfriend. This creature is usually the ultimate nemesis or ultimate ally to a collector. All in all, I've been lucky to have a wife who has been (for the most part) completely supportive of my collecting. I've strictly limited myself to Macross, UC-era Gundam, and a few items from Original Trilogy Star Wars as far as collecting goes...so the wife doesn't get too concerned about what I bring into the house, as long as her, the kids, and bills come before the latest Valkyrie toy. But I've known of hardcore collectors who have been stopped dead in their tracks once a girlfriend becomes part of the equation. These women will usually view collecting (and by extension, the collector himself) as childish and financially wasteful. These are the poor souls who you sometimes see on forums like this that are suddenly selling $1000s worth of their collections "*because they're moving" or "to free up room in their house" or some other excuse. But whatever the excuse may be, a significant other is usually at the heart of the decision. Not ALL wives/girlfriends are like that...but...lol

sharky and Vifam7, you both bring up a point I only lightly touched on earlier...and I'm glad you did. Collecting as a form of investment. I'm 36 years old and, as a kid, had ALL of the original 12 Star Wars figures. I saw the value of a lot of original Kenner SW merchandise skyrocket to insane levels during the 80s...and some people became independently wealthy by selling off their collections for exhorbitant prices. But years later, when Hasbro began rereleasing items like the Millenium Falcon and the AT-AT with updated electronics, the value of the older stuff began leveling off and eventually depreciating altogether. Hell, back in 2004, I got an original Death Star playset complete with intact cardboard walls for $50 shipped off of eBay...while it went for nearly $1200 at one point.

Macross toys seem to follow these same trends. The Version 1 1/60 Valkyries are dropping in price as collectors move to the newer Version 2s; the original WAVE SDF-1 was abandoned by collectors in favor of the "movie paint scheme" version, leaving the original to drop in price; the newer VF-11 will undoubtedly cause the same to happen to the original. Collecting for the sake of getting filthy-stinking rich off of it at some point in the future is becoming more and more difficult to do, considering that we are now in the age of the "remake" or "reboot." When an "anniversary" of a given series or movie rolls around, the market is flooded yet again with tons of new merchandise, which is nearly always an improvement over the older versions of said merchandise. Honestly, I can't see selling off any of the current Macross stuff (be it Yamato, WAVE, Bandai or otherwise) and it allowing me to retire at 40, with a nice nest egg to boot.

Is this how some collectors are viewing their collections, as far as investing in them?

I didn't exactly LET my 3-year-old twins play with my Valkyries, but they did get ahold of my 1/60 VE-1 Elintseeker from the den. Let's just say that it suffered quite a bit of battle damage in the process...

The side antennae on the Fast Packs are snapped off, the radar dish is missing and both pilots apparently ejected because they've been MIA ever since. So I've vowed to get the V2 Elintseeker and NEVER let them near it! lol

And sadly, VFTF1...there ARE people who are that obsessive about the packaging, for whatever reason. Now to a point, I can understand this sort of "gotta make sure the packaging is perfect" behavior if you are purchasing an item only to turn around and resell it yourself. Customers don't want to buy beat-up merchandise, whether it be from a store or from an individual. But in most of the cases I'm citing, these are their private collections, so I don't know where the need for perfect packaging comes from.