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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    Interesting thing, they actually did have a Blue Angel out here performing some assorted maneuvers and flyovers, as well as some oddball situations with other aircraft that we don't usually see out here. Scuttlebutt was that they were actually using the aircraft as physical footage to overlay CGI on top of, or composite shots of other aircraft over.
  2. Chronocidal
    If they did that, you wouldn't be able to do facial expressions on camera. I do wish we could get over the whole "my helmet needs lights for my face" bit, though. It does, probably because of copy-pasta. You can make one aircraft look good, but too many together, and you start to see how the effects are too similar to be coincidental. At the very least, it's a composite shot of four separate runs by a solo hornet, but the vapor cones looked suspicious altogether. On that note though, I'm slightly sad to see them sticking to the "too close to be real" maneuvering. I guess the original got away with it, but even then jet wash was a real problem. I don't think there's any way four individual hornets would be flying in that close of a formation at low level in a canyon. They'd be eating each others' exhaust, not to mention turbulence and ground effect.
  3. Chronocidal
    Dangit.. now I'm picturing the entire thing done up MST3K style with entirely meme-based dialogue.
  4. Chronocidal
    To be fair, it was probably cheaper and less labor intensive than applying that sort of heavy makeup across the entire cast, or constructing properly scaled sets. Doesn't mean it's not using the uncanny valley as a Tony Hawk level.
  5. Chronocidal
    So, I have a theory about the Tomcat... Are they making Maverick out to be a fictional Snort Snodgrass stand-in, and giving us a universe where the government signed off on his application to maintain an F-14 for personal use at air shows? I can totally get behind that. Trailer looks like fun, and due to location, I'm actually curious if there will be any site-sponsored pre-showings of the film out here. Should be a fun year.
  6. Chronocidal
    What always baffled me was that the Diamond Select TWOK issue 1701 painted the deflector black. That particular one definitely kept the pearly sheen in the plastic and paint, but that thing had all sorts of weird lighting issues. Funny enough, the black deflector dish actually worked fairly well to give it a dim glow, not unlike the initial power-up sequence in TMP. It was just that, because the plastic was so bright and transparent, the entire front half of the engineering hull glowed, as well as most of the saucer. The black deflector was probably the dimmest part of the whole ship.
  7. Chronocidal
    The ship is 1/48, and looks pretty huge from the product photo showing someone holding it, but it comes with its own figure. I honestly never realized how big the ship is. I actually think I'm going to keep the smaller Bandai release as well, since it'll be easier to find display space for.
  8. Chronocidal
    I think 1/87 is HO railroad scale? What's funny is I think the HMRs generally skew closer to that than 1/100 anyway.
  9. Chronocidal
    I think one of the sadder parts of the typical Pre-order MadnessTM is that I've grown trigger happy. I jumped on the AmiAmi order without shopping around at all, because I didn't know how long I had to put an order in. I'm not sad about the lost $10 or so I could have saved at another shop. I'm sad that I've reached a point where I feel like it doesn't matter, and I'm happy to pay a little more to make sure I get the item. On the plus side, I think all of the other pre-orders I have for this coming winter were already paid for, so aside from the usual Christmas shopping, December should be wide open.
  10. Chronocidal
    Same, though I'm really happy how utterly easy it was to order. No spinny loading icons, no login queues, no worry that the shop won't be able to deliver.
  11. Chronocidal
    I have no doubt this will be hilariously entertaining to watch, but I think films like this should come with a "writer recommended" list of illicit medications and hallucinogens to make sure the viewer experience matches what the writers saw in their heads when they conceived of it.
  12. Chronocidal
    I have a hard time arguing for one over the other at this point.. they seem to be circling opposite sides of the same drain. I'll say this much.. Star Wars kits are much easier to do a nice job on than Star Trek ones. You can get by with simple details, but Trek kits are just insanely labor intensive to detail properly. I think we've derailed this into entirely different hobbies at this point though. Are there any upcoming releases in the Eaglemoss line?
  13. Chronocidal
    How hard is that A-6 to find/purchase? Would be nice to stick alongside the VF-84 F-4.
  14. Chronocidal
    Thanks for the links, I went with AmiAmi before seeing the other links, but it's not a huge price difference. Honestly, I think the price is on point for something of that size and detail, and I don't mind having a second bigger version of that design. I think the fancier interior and gear detail sold me on it, aside from the better overall weathered look, and what I assume are working lights. If only Arcadia's PF releases looked this polished.
  15. Chronocidal
    I went to a lot of trouble muting the lights and diffusing them on that kit.. I think I used several layers of wax paper and some blue cellophane behind the deflector to get it down to a soft blue glow, but it really needs a light frosting or etching of some sort to turn it not transparent.
  16. Chronocidal
    You mean Back to the Days of Future Voyages Home? I do give the general SW universe some credit for never actually going down the time travel/multiverse hole, but at the same time, I'm thinking a multiverse angle for the EU is sounding better and better all the time.
  17. Chronocidal
    Ugh.. yeah, I need to do that upgrade as well to my Bandai Refit. I did a cheap fix by adding some tape over the clear portions to filter the light some, and added clear blue cellophane to color the nacelles and deflector better, but the bulbs are just too powerful, and too yellow.
  18. Chronocidal
    So.. assuming that's the Bandai (because the Art Asylum/Diamond Select one is nowhere near that detailed underneath), that's a mashup of the First Contact, and Nemesis versions. The neck area is from First Contact, as is the underside torpedo launcher/Captains Yacht area, which you can tell is from FC because it looks nothing like the yacht. The entire quantum launcher underneath was remodeled in Insurrection to make the yacht look more like a ship. But while the rest of the ship screams "First Contact," the topside torpedo launcher behind the bridge was a Nemesis addition. I'd have to see more of the ship to see if more of the Nemesis mods are in place. As far as the pylon replacement goes, there was a rather large reason for it, because the Nemesis upgrade included a new set of phaser strips both top and bottom along the aft edge of them, giving the ship roughly the same phaser coverage as the Galaxy class. The Nemesis refit saw a substantial weapons upgrade across the entire ship, including one forward-facing launcher at the front of the bridge terracing, a dual launcher behind the bridge, one embedded in the spine just above the rear-most shuttlebay, and I think one directly under the bay deck. The original design only had the quantum launcher, a dual launcher directly under the deflector, and I believe there was one dual rear-facing one on the very bottom of the hull, where the Galaxy class had the tractor beam emitter. I need to check my references for whether that was always a launcher though, since I'm not 100% sure the under-bay tube was a Nemesis add-on. Far as the saucer separation goes though, I think they gave up on that fairly early, despite the design work that showed how it would function. Regardless of whether that separation joint exists, the lower engineering hull never had any impulse engines to move under its own power. I would assume the saucer separation is still possible, but it would probably be restored to a pure emergency ejection procedure like in the original series. Edit: After reading that design analysis, I noticed they pointed out the modifications in that one drawing, but then not all of the modifications pointed out were actually seen in the movie, specifically that forward launcher on the saucer. The final notes about a "final" version of the ship, intended to be seen after the post-Nemesis rebuild, included an interesting note though, saying that the revised design at that point would have been changed to adopt a more traditional "aztec" pattern for the hull. I never minded the look of the patterns used on the Ent-E, but as shown by that pic above, there is generally no rhyme or reason to the pattern that we can discern, and it winds up meaning that there's no real "canon" pattern for anyone to follow, and no real consistent scale for the paneling, meaning half of the attempts to replicate the pattern wind up looking like random patches of masking tape scattered all over the hull. When I made my Bridge Commander model, I made a template, and then tiled it over the hull to keep from having to draw every single panel, but the panels were much smaller than most models I've seen. I sized them to match the studio model from First Contact, which were pretty tiny.
  19. Chronocidal
    I think I'd rather have a high quality replica of the Ent-E, honestly. I spent so many years building a replica of that one for Bridge Commander, that design is very close to my heart. Unfortunately, the Diamond Select/Art Asylum versions of that particular ship are.. ehhhhh... very average. They look good at a distance, but I've grown familiar enough with the design to know exactly how many corners they cut on the detailing.
  20. Chronocidal
    If I had known about it at the time, I would have grabbed that in an instant. The Diamond Select versions aren't terrible, but the quality and paintwork can be really iffy. They're a big step up from the old Playmates version, but I'd still call them "toys."
  21. Chronocidal
    I just file this under the "Bandai still doesn't understand aircraft" heading. Lettering is always too thick, too dark, too bold, too whatever else. They've never given two shakes that you can just do a google image search for "aircraft" and find millions of references that contradict what they consider "correct." They're Bandai, after all. They know they know better, despite all outside evidence to the contrary.
  22. Chronocidal
    Yeah, I think the top item on my list at the moment is a PF VT-1, preferably with duty-uniformed Hikaru and Misa.
  23. Chronocidal
    I might have to grab that one to get an A model Not seeing that one on CD Japan though, are there other places to order these?
  24. Chronocidal
    The sequence was fairly cool, and I don't have much against the idea, but what it does is basically open a super-massive plot hole, in that if you don't at least give the bare minimum exposition about why it's never been used before, you make the entire universe look stupid for never using one of the most effective weapons imaginable in all of those other situations where it would have been amazingly helpful. In the end, it just becomes your typical "Reed Richards Invention For This Week," where, despite it having existed for hundreds of years, has never been used before, and will never be spoken of or used again, no matter how useful it would be in any given situation. See, wouldn't even go that far. I just want them all dead because they're directly responsible for over 1000 people dying for no good reason. I'd think anyone directly responsible for a mutiny, and the subsequent leaking of classified information that resulted in the pointless and stupid death of 99% of the remaining personnel aboard a military vessel would be easy grounds for execution by whatever happens to be the most convenient method at the moment/nearest blunt object. This has nothing to do with actors, casting or any other nonsense. It falls purely on the writers. The characters deserve to die for what they've done. I want them gone purely as proof that someone involved in the franchise understands that actions have consequences.
  25. Chronocidal
    You don't even have to go that far down the political cesspool to hit that point, honestly. I just personally can't recall any other franchise where I actually wanted the majority of the main characters to die horribly in a mass application of karmic comeuppance. If the entire EU hadn't been trashed, I'd be rooting for the Yuuzhan Vong.
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