Gubaba

Yeah...that yellow guy DOES worry a lot!

To me, the new Dune books seemed more like a marketing venture than an artistic one...I never touched them. Certain worlds are simply too personal to be carried on by someone else. Dune, Foundation, Mists of Avalon...hell, even Gone With the Wind...no matter how talented the sequel writers are (and the Foundation sequels were written by indisputably great writers), it feels like someone who used to be a friend who you just don't know anymore. Leave the sequels-by-other-hands to Star Wars and Star Trek. Next up: Michael Valentine Smith Reborn, by New York Times Bestselling Author Kevin J. Anderson™ in "collaboration" with Robert Heinlein's wife's cousin's nephew, Jeffy!

Yes, but really...No flying cars? In 2008? Seriously? EPIC FAIL for the human race! The Jetsons is WAY better than reality.

Damn, no wonder he never answered my fan letters...

YOU WILL LISTEN TO SHERYL'S SONG!! LET'S NOMU!!

Most of the SF I've read is the stuff everyone's read (Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Card...), but on the somewhat obscure side, I really liked Gregory Benford's Galactic Center books. They were out of print for a while, but I thnk they've been reissued in the past couple of years. In the Ocean of Night is the first book, and there are six books in the series. It gets a bit wonky at the end, and the second one ends on a maddening cliffhanger which is not resolved for a while, but they're really, really good.

I unfortunately didn't get a picture of it, but when I was in Odaiba last fall, I saw a great sign that said, "Winter has come! GO! GO! LAUNDRY!"

I completely agree with you, so maybe I didn't make my point well enough...Simply put, I think there's a big difference between "What if by the year 2050, we had X...what would happen?" and "By the year 2050, we WILL have X, and this is how it will change things." The first is a game that all SF writers play, the second is a house of cards waiting to get toppled by whatever unforseen advance comes along to render the speculation invalid. The question for any SF writer is not, "Will X happen?" but "If X happens, will it have some interesting consequences?" Most of the best SF is, as you say, social commentary or speculation, but not usually outright prediction. Which is why Asimov (to pick one of MANY examples) is still readable today, even though a lot of his speculations are outdated. Or why we can still watch Macross, even though an alien spaceship didn't crash in the South Pacific in 1999, and (I hope) none of us ever expects to see an F-14 that can turn into a robot. Macross is crap as prophecy (why doesn't anyone have a cell phone? And why is Minmay making RECORDS?), but the "What if...?" game is thought out well, and it's a damn good story. Which, in the long run, makes it good SF.

Well...ANY list like this is bound to be flawed...most SF is not designed to be "prophetic," it's simply a vehicle to tell a certain story, wrestle with a certain idea, or illuminate a certain character. Making a list most prophetic SF movies is kind of like making a list of most historically accurate fantasy novels. What's the point?

Beautiful Dreamer and Patlabor are awesome...I thought Ghost in the Shell was good, but I couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that Manga Entertainment gave Oshii a bunch of money and said, "We want another Akira." Ihaven't seen Dallos or Stray Dogs. I tried to watch Talking Head...but it was raw, and my Japanese simply isn't good enough to keep up. I can't imagine I'd like it much better subbed, though... Anyway, Oshii is definitely an auteur, and like most auteurs, his output can be really inconsistent. God bless 'im when he's good, though.

I suppose we can be grateful that EVERY black character isn't named LaSalle, unlike a certain extended Grant family...

But Basara DOES change...as the show goes on, he becomes more Basara-y.

I haven't seen as much of Oshii's work as I should have, but I love Beautiful Dreamer...it's weird, it's slow, it feels like it's twice as long as the running time states it is, but it works! I'll definitely be checking Sky Crawlers out.

I think they should wait until after Macross F finishes...if they released it now, there would be too much stuff about it that they wouldn't include.

No, of course it's not a coincidence...but that doesn't mean the characters are related.

Remember way back when Macross Zero Vol. 1 was released, and we all thought, "Hey, Edgar has the same last name as Claudia! There must be some connection!"...? I'm getting deja vu...

Yep, we've noticed. No flies on us.

Hey, no one's been forcing people to buy NERV coffee mugs and Eva Doritos...if there's a market for it, why not? At least they haven't been cranking out inferior sequels and side stories every year or two. There's the series, there were the previous movies, now there are new movies. If you want a complete Eva DVD collection, it's not going to cost a fortune. If you want a toy of every Eva Unit, it's quite possible to do so; more possible than Gundam or Macross. And Evangelion 1.0 was damn good. If they had done some Greedo-shooting-first-type changes, I would have decried it. But they kept true to the characters and the story, extended it in some interesting ways, and made it look spectacular. Why should I be suspicious of future ventures?

1. Hmmm...the subtitles say "Love SPIRIT in cosmic wave," but is that really right? 2. Hell, yeah! 3. GoshScottWeBetterBeCarefulOrElseTheInvidWillFindUsHuhDon'tYouThinkSoTooDon'tYou? ...you mean you don't talk like this? I sure do! 4. I found topless Mint more disturbing than naked Yellow. Mostly because, when he grabs Sorji during his bath, I always expect him to say, "Don't look down, but I think I love you." 5. I don't remember RT well enough...what was different? Actually, I'm realizing I've forgotten quite a lot from RT...I completely forgot about the entire epiosde with the old guys (or maybe I just never saw it initially?), and a few things are ringing distant bells that I can't quite recall. So are you finished with it yet? I'm up to episode 18 now.

Agreed. I believe that for pure hack'n'slash editing, Battle of the Planets is clearly the worst, but Warriors of the Wind is the biggest offender in that it took a classic film and REALLY dumbed it down. At least in Robotech, the storyline remained largely intact, and characters were allowed to die. And I dislike Robotech INTENSELY, so for me to say something is worse means that it's REALLY bad. EDIT: typos.

HOT DAMN!!! Now that's a great collection!

All I remember about it was that the guy who voiced Khyron in Robotech did a similar turn as the villain in the Goshogun half of the show... Even seeing the words for the theme song written out, I have no recollection of it.

A great evil was averted the day someone decided not to go forward with those... But hey, if we're talking about what might have been, I should've included the Doozy Bots! Best. Gundam. Series. EVER.

That's right, I forgot about the Macek-produced Windaria...what was it called? "Once Upon a Time" or something...?

The thread about how you got into macross got me thinking...sure, a large percentage of Macrossworlders dislike Robotech, ranging from a mild distaste to all-consuming fury, but is it the worst adaptation out there? What do you think is worst hackjob done for western audiences? These are the ones I could think of off the top of my head, but I know there are more out there...