Chronocidal

Shh, this has been the most entertaining thing about my workday today. Don't take this from me!

Here's a wacky idea. Setup the situation that enabled Palpatine to rise to power in the first place. I don't expect them to really play with this, but it would be interesting to see them explore exactly why the jedi order became so restrictive by the time of the prequels.

Curse you, I am seriously considering printing myself some YCAPS NU markings. Maybe I'll decorate a Toynami with them.

See, I would agree, if they agreed to keep it coherent.. but they don't seem to intend that at all. The EU itself wasn't always great, and I'm not going to pretend it was all a single contiguous story, but a fair bit of the EU I enjoyed came from a limited number of authors who collaborated to keep their characters and stories consistent. Having everyone existing on the same page from the start would be a huge step in the right direction. I don't want to see bits and pieces of the EU scattered about whatever new monstrosity they build of it, and I don't want them using existing concepts to shortcut building something else that can stand on its own. I just want someone to actually take into account writing a decent story, and making that the main focus, because without that you get... well, what we've had for the last six years now.

Recycling ideas is not in itself a problem, but the recent regurgitation of intellectual property is more akin to recycling old Star Wars paperbacks to produce toilet paper. Actually, scratch that, I don't want that material anywhere near that close to my backside. I think one of the things that bugged me the most personally over the past few years was just how lazy the copying got. I get it, the EU was dense, and full of fanon from over forty years' worth of fan speculation, extrapolation, and innovation. But Disney explicitly proclaimed that all of that didn't matter... and then immediately backtracked on that, and started cherry-picking bits and pieces that they decided they either liked enough to keep, or were just too lazy to take the time to invent something new. I'm going to refer to one specific instance here as an example, and it's very minor, but I think it makes a good case study. The new X-Wings in the sequel trilogy are labeled in official material as "Incom-FreiTek T-70" fighters. Incom was the company listed in old OT material, from what I recall, and carried over to the EU. FreiTek? That's entirely from the EU, the Dark Empire comic series specifically, if I remember correctly. They manufactured the newer E-Wing fighters meant to replace the X-Wings (which I really wish we had seen, instead of them literally making tweaked copies of every OT ship based on OT concept art). So... why did they use that name? Why pick up just the name, instead of using the actual E-Wings in the sequel trilogy? Think about what that name "FreiTek" represents. Beyond just the name, consider all the things associated with it. In the EU, FreiTek had a defined history, founded by the design team that defected to the Alliance before ANH, along with the early X-Wings. The company and people involved had backstories. I haven't read the Dark Empire comics, but I believe there was a fair bit of story involving the development process of the E-Wing, and working out bugs in the design, if the material I can find about the E-Wing is anything to go by. So, why did Disney appropriate that company name for the new X-Wings? Because it gave them a world-building shortcut. By referencing a name, they saved themselves all the trouble of developing something original and having to tell about it. Whether they explicitly told the history of that company or not, just hearing that familiar name would basically be dangling a bell in front of EU fans, hoping they would latch onto that reference (even if only subconsciously), and let it do their world-building for them. Again, this is a super minor case, with a stupidly tiny background detail, but it makes a good example of the lack of world-building for the new movies. They just did not want to try and do that work themselves, so they took referential shortcuts like this all over the place. Even though the company that made a ship is an absolutely minuscule background detail, by using a name that fans of the EU would recognize, they could try and hijack a backstory that they didn't have to write themselves. Now, before anyone goes off on this being a huge wall of text over a tiny background detail, yes, it is a massive diatribe on a tiny detail that most people would never care about. I'm fully aware of how nit-picky this is, and how little these details mean in the grand scheme of the movies. I honestly don't know a good way for Disney to approach this. At least with this New Old High Republic setting, they'll have to do all of their own world-building, because the time-frame is so far removed from both the Old Republic, and the OT/Prequels. I'll be interested to see how well they manage, but I still expect them to pull from as many existing sources as they can, including the EU.

See.. I thought it was doing just fine running entirely on books for a good couple of decades. In fact, I'm moving back to those, because the sequel trilogy demonstrated something to me very clearly: The current people running this franchise have no capacity to generate a compelling original idea, flat out.1 The new movies were a vomit-inducing blend of ideas already explored in the EU, and waste that I wouldn't want to ruin a dumpster with, and I don't expect this to be any different. The only reason they shipped the EU off on a bus was so they could bastardize the whole thing and cherry pick the bits they wanted to mash into their custom disaster blend. If I'm going to be force-fed (hah) old plot points, I would rather just experience them in their original un-sullied format in the EU. I've basically hit my "Nemesis" point with Star Wars now- the point at which the new material becomes such utter shite that I have to cut off my investment, and carry on enjoying the parts of the franchise that were, and still are, good. 1- I haven't watched the Mandalorian yet, so I can't judge that, but either way, it doesn't sound like either Favreau or Filoni are involved in this slow-motion trainwreck.

Yeah, everyone knows there's another release coming out though, so that's why no one's gone for it. I already put in a pre-order for the new batch with another site.

Not too bad? We really didn't get to see much of him, but it's not a bad likeness of the actor John Morton. I might have to track down one of these, but the problem is probably going to be finding the Hoth Luke figure to match it at this point.

See, that's true, but I only collect the fighters to begin with, and some of them are dead-on, scale-wise. The A-Wing absolutely nails it, as did the old snowspeeder, and the rest are basically close enough that a 1/18 scale figure can reasonably fit in a 1/24-ish vehicle. What I don't understand.. if that's a "Black Series" snowspeeder.. does that mean it's actually 1/12 scale? That's gonna be huge. On the other hand, can I maybe hope for a Black Series A-Wing?

Ok, the Snowspeeder looks beautiful, but yeah.. I'm not going to get excited for 6" figures. I just can't see a reason to collect them when I'm more interested in the vehicles, and they don't make those in the proper scale.

So, as an alternative, what if you drill out the screwcover, just accept that the cover is a lost cause, and make a new one after fixing the leg? Personally, I would try and cut the cover in half by drilling small holes down the slot in the center, then pry it out. Then if the halves are still good, sand away what remains of the recessed slot, and glue them together around a thin slice of plastic to rebuild the cover. The slot won't be as obvious if it's a slightly different shade of plastic.

... Is it just me, or was that trailer full of scenes not even in the final cut?

I haven't followed much of the animated series, but if we're getting any New Republic era content, the only thing I really want to see is some kind of assimilation/adaptation of the X-Wing and Rogue Squadron books, and maybe the comics. The majority of those books could easily still fit in the new canon with minor modifications, and I would love to see some Wedge/Janson/Tycho/Hobbie shenanigans in this format. Seriously, all I want is to see Lieutenant Kettch in some format.

Unless they were stationed on another ship or base, either on land or in space, I think Prometheus still fits the bill around the end of the series. I'm trying to remember whether the episode with the fire-suppression ordnance was launched from that ship or not. Permanently ground-based naval aircraft do tend to be marked with the name or acronym of the base (NAWCAD and NSAWC come to mind), but any squadron attached to a ship will carry that ship's name between cruises. Given the way the SDF-1 landed, it wasn't going to be able to operate as ground-based fighter platform anyhow, so the fighters would probably just remain stationed on the Prometheus, whether it was mobile or not. It's possible the SDF-1 kept a compliment of fighters that just launched in gerwalk/battroid, but I don't ever recall seeing it.

It will also be very easy for Bandai to just drop a set of skull logo pieces in with the valk itself. They can do that for pretty much every future release now. I'm just waiting for the rest of my strike packs to arrive from NY, and then I'm going to be drowning in spare skull logo panels. No reason to keep so many duplicates, so a lot of them are going to be repainted and decaled with other logos.

Appears that OT Tie Fighter is back available, it wasn't appearing as in stock a while back. Went ahead and placed an order for a second one, with the hope that we eventually get a similar release of Vader's. That price is too good to pass up.

Edit: Ignore what I typed here before, I thought I was in the "workbench" thread.. I think this one is more focused on pre-built collectible figures? I can't say for sure though, and I feel like I've seen some kits shown in here as well, or at least custom jobs.

See.. I can understand some amount of hesitation on that front, but I think they've overcompensated for both the inflated production runs, and over-zealous production of obscure schemes. The situation with the VF-31A should put forth at least a hint that the low-vis schemes do, in fact, sell. They still need to manage production numbers carefully, but there is absolutely a market for them.

I'm not going to say it's bad, because it's a decently nice image.. but you people do realize that's just a photoshopped image of the toy, right?

Yeah, the chest intakes are the weakest part I think, with the weird jagged yellow tail tips a close second. I might strip them down, but if the main plastic color is the same, I may just swap parts in and out with another version.

Boy do I ever wish Bandai would give us versions of these in the same scale as their star destroyer kit. The destroyer isn't exactly big, but a rough one foot length is just a nice display size.

Oh, no, I get you entirely, don't worry. And you're right, Bandai's tampo really is all over the place. It just seems to peel off on its own sometimes, especially on those early VF-25 releases. I forget where I got the impression that weathering/panel-lining from Yamato/Arcadia would wear off, but it might have been a comment about the early 1/48 weathered releases. The PF SDF-1 is definitely top-coated nicely.

Once NY sends out my order, I should have six sets of packs, which will cover all of the DYRL versions I intend to equip, and leave me a couple to experiment with. I'm going to be repainting a lot of the Skull logo pieces with other markings.

Hey, maybe I just have greasy fingers, but yeah, I have smeared tampo edges before just from handling. Could also just be badly applied, but hard to say. I agree though, it's a goofy argument now that I think about it, since the paint will all be recessed anyway. I'm not a fan of excess paint applications on transforming stuff because of the potential to scratch during transformations, but it shouldn't be a problem with panel lining.

Pretty much this, yes. It looks cheaply done, partially because you can see where they just slapped stickers on it, and partially because the "weathering" looks dirt cheap compared to the work they put into the PF VF-0D. I'm just really not interested in the PF version. I don't care for panel lining in general, and would rather not have to worry about smearing it when handling the toy. I'm really happy that I don't have to pay extra for a feature I don't want, just to get a FB2012 version of the VF-4.