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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    Not to defend the silly spearing method, but I figured it was probably just because that was the only place those fish could be found near the island. Either that, or he needed a pole that long and heavy to pierce their scales (which seems mechanically very unlikely).
  2. Chronocidal
    Not to mention he's had the council of three other jedi who already accomplished the same thing. I thought it was entirely fitting. Also, are we past the spoiler limit at this point? Just to double check.
  3. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Ah, I was thinking of the tails more than the wings, since they attach on a hinge with a little sliding room. The wings sound even worse to stress that way.
  4. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    The way those are attached concerns me.. I think he actually pulled out the tails and pinched the mounting pegs under them.
  5. Chronocidal
    So, after a second viewing, I can say a lot of the really obvious blunders are still blunderous, but a few of the smaller details do kind of hold up. I think what I can say for certain is that once the chain of tactical derp ends, the final act of the movie is pretty awesome.
  6. Chronocidal
    Looks like a 1/48, judging by the long nose, kneecaps, and slightly open speed brake.
  7. Chronocidal
    I can get behind the green and black scheme, maybe they had issues with silver paint? The gold seemed to give them a decent amount of trouble on Keith's. At this point I don't really care what it looks like, just release one already. :rolleyes: (As a side note, it seems like the manual code for smileys is broken?)
  8. Chronocidal
    Sorry, yeah, I didn't mean to drag that in here, but got my topics crossed a bit. I really am just hoping they nail the characters and we wind up with a fun movie. I think I'd be perfectly happy if we wound up with something like GotG. Heck, swap out the soundtrack and replace the infinity stone with some jedi relic, and you're 90% there.
  9. Chronocidal
    There's a difference between taking liberties with the mythos, and making the characters all dumber than a sack of rocks. Sure, people change over time, but the fact that it seemed every single one of the characters must have forgotten every single basic tactic employed by their predecessors in the OT is a special kind of idiocy. I can deal with some changes to the universe, but they need to make sure the writing still tells a coherent story, and the characters don't stumble their way through the entire plot like some Mr. Magoo sequence, surviving only out of sheer dumb luck, despite making all the worst decisions imaginable (the nonsense factory scene and the wacky adventures of Artoo and Threepio in AOTC reeked of this as well). Han and Lando thrived on lucky breaks, and they made their share of dumb choices, but they also were fully aware of how crazy they sounded, and generally had the skills to back up their gambles. If they can keep the writing up to par, characters in character, and not have the plot driven by a flaming jalopy of a plot device, I think it'll have a decent chance.
  10. Chronocidal
    That's pretty much my biggest issue with the entire thing. If the plot was a light bulb, the combined mental capacity of both the First Order and the Resistance couldn't even have gotten the right end into the socket, much less screwed it in. Sometimes you get movies that are a scheme pile-up.. this one is a steaming pile of tactical blunder after tactical blunder that would have ended the movie in a matter of minutes if anyone had managed to yank their head out of the mental singularity powering the plot.
  11. Chronocidal
    Being presented at all would be a step in the right direction here. For all we've seen, the First Order and Resistance might as well be fighting over a single star system.
  12. Chronocidal
    That's really the biggest failing I think of the franchise as a whole lately. They've thrown so much necessary backstory out of the movies and into other stuff like novels and comics, there's no context for what's going on. At least with ANH, you had the conference room scenes and vague political exposition about how the Emperor had dissolved the Senate, but there's absolutely no explanation for anything going on. I thought the First Order was a radical fringe faction hiding in the background of legitimate remaining Imperial holdings, and the "Resistance" was a similar underground movement formed because the Republic wouldn't move against the First Order. See, funny thing. I've seen this plot fairly recently, in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.1. The rogue warlord out for vengeance couldn't accept the treaty, and went out of his way to wipe out the people his people used to be fighting, but the Kree weren't going to stop Ronan either. Except in TFA, the First Order basically won. The part I cannot even remotely comprehend is how in the space of the five minutes between the two movies we literally went from "The First Order has been defeated, and lost their main base/superweapon!" to "The First Order has taken over the galaxy!" Seriously, WTF.
  13. Chronocidal
  14. Chronocidal
    Can't argue with that, and I don't mind having them as easy display pieces. For what it's worth, even with some of the issues they have, they're actually better detailed than many of the older kits of certain ships. Plus, I'll be entirely honest.. I picked up the TWOK Enterprise almost purely for the sound effects. If you leave that one in "Try Me" mode? You have an instant "KHAAAANNN!" at the push of a button. I didn't know the Aoshima one was actually that affordable back then though. If I'd known when it was released, I would've grabbed one probably.
  15. Chronocidal
    See, I might still go see it a second time because the good parts were genuinely fun to see. The plot vehicle was just a duct taped jalopy sputtering through space while it carried the worthwhile plot points.
  16. Chronocidal
    The AA/DS ones are really affordable by comparison, but the quality can be really spotty. I picked up both their 1701-D and the "All Good Things" version, and while the base model is decent, they can't keep the painting consistent.. one version has some pretty sloppy painting on the saucer, and the paintwork on the neck is completely wrong, missing all the windows, and with overdone dark panels. The paint on the three-nacelled upgrade one is better, but the construction of the additional hull section is sloppy, with some hideous giant screw plugs sticking out. Their stands are also worthless scrap plastic, unfortunately. Their best releases that I've seen are the second edition 1701-E, the Excelsior, and the Klingon BoP. I've also got the TOS and TWOK edition 1701 models, but both of them have some really boneheaded design issues.
  17. Chronocidal

    Hi-Metal R

    Chronocidal replied to joppewo's topic in Toys

    I was actually surprised, the transformation was straightforward enough that I was able to get almost everything done without looking at the instructions. The only part I had to check was that I was folding the backpack down correctly, because I didn't expect you'd have to leave it hanging open underneath.
  18. Chronocidal
    After letting it stew a bit, I can basically say that I liked the overall plot, in spite of the fact that the entire lynchpin that the plot hung on was the flimsiest piece of crap plot device in movie history.
  19. Chronocidal
    See, I thought about that, but I actually think it's a callback of some kind to TFA that actually plays out in an unexpected way, or just worked out better than I thought it should have.
  20. Chronocidal
    So I might have to reserve judgment on most of the movie until I see it again, because one or two things are literally giving me a mental block trying to remember them. All told? Liked it more than I expected to. Had some very good bits, but also some really pants-on-head stupid parts, and I'm not sure how well it balances, but overall I think it's pretty well done. Humor felt off at some points, but then I look back on the humor from some of the previous movies, and yeah, it's probably pretty fitting.
  21. Chronocidal
    It might be worth getting a second, since they don't seem to be selling very well. Really looking like Bandai's probably going to want to go the same route they did with Grace's VF-27, and sell the Ba as a web exclusive, maybe with swappable parts for the assorted squadron members... but I have no idea if that's even possible, because it would take a major redesign of the valk to allow that. I will say though that the 1/72 kit is actually pretty enjoyable to transform. It's not perfect transformation, but with a little modding, you could probably manage to get a pair of hands permanently mounted. The whole system of pivots for the wings just works better on the kit, because they didn't go so bonkers with the multi-jointed linkages.
  22. Chronocidal
    I think it took me two or three cycles between the modes to actually get the correct sequence down of repositioning the belly plate and wing hinges. And it still scares me that something in there is just going to snap off from grinding on those metal spring pins. This is pretty much why I have two of them, so I can leave them in their respective modes permanently. It's not nearly as sturdy, but the transformation on the 1/72 262 kits is several orders of magnitude simpler. Just need to glue a few parts on that like popping off, and reinforce the undersides of the wing supports, since they seem to have a serious weakness along a molding flow line or something.
  23. Chronocidal
    This may be some kind of blasphemy, but I never thought the prequel stories were bad, for the most part. They definitely had their share of nonsense, but I could argue a few changes in actors and dialogue could make them pretty amazing. I remember hearing that people who disliked the movies thought the novelizations were a much better way to experience the prequels. And seriously, the prequel battles were pretty good. Even for TFA, I heard there were a few changes that greatly improved the story in the novelization. My biggest personal gripes with that movie were almost purely literal JJ-isms, and if you re-paced the movie to make the universe actually feel big, instead of everyone seeming to exist within a 5 minute jog of each other, it would make up for a lot of that. Say whatever you will about how much direct influence JJ had on the plot, but it's the exact same problem I had with the 2009 Star Trek reboot. Everything was stupidly conveniently close together, to the point of rampant magical mcguffinism that allowed distance between planets to be effectively ignored. To paraphrase Han, "That's not how (insert appropriate science fiction travel method here) works!!!" The core story still felt like it fit to me.. at least mostly. In this case, it's sounding a lot like there's no simple change that could make the movie fit the universe better, and it's just a matter of the story itself going off the rails to where it doesn't fit with the others. Note, this doesn't mean it's automatically a bad movie. It could still be awesome, and amazing entertainment... if it were part of some kind of alternate universe that's not tied to the first six movies in the series.
  24. Chronocidal
    You're welcome to it! I have a hard enough time explaining what "UN SPACY" means to my co-workers as it is, I don't need scantily clad anime women dancing across my model aircraft shelf. Now, a full sized wall scroll of that artwork on the other hand.. You do make an excellent point about the decals being terrible, though I don't think I'd ever risk transforming an itasha valk to begin with.
  25. Chronocidal
    You know, I'm not going to hold up the original trilogy as some amazing cinematic masterpiece... but the movies were a fun action/adventure in space, and that was really all that mattered. They had a good amount of acting talent, but the movies weren't going to win anyone any Oscars for acting. They were just fun to watch. Now it just seems like they're making any movie they like, and counting on the nostalgia factor to cover the obvious flaws. I'll be honest, I liked watching TFA despite its flaws, because it did have some genuinely fun moments with the characters. It falls apart if you start thinking too much about anything, but I think the good parts were enough to carry most of the nonsense... or another way to think about it... if you take the story as a whole, write out the terrible coincidences and contrivances and change bits of the setting to fit the established universe a bit better? You've got a pretty decent movie. Nostalgia can only boost suspension of disbelief so far though, and it sounds like this just has so much going on out of character that it blows past the nostalgia filter and slaps you upside the head with the shattered fragments of the fourth wall.
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