Bri

Isn't Optimus a Kawamori design as well? Come to think of it a Convoy homage in Macross alone would be aswesome. RT just can't win.

Afaik the budget per episode is the total amount raised by the production commitee devided by the number of episodes. Most of the budget would go towards paying for advertisement and broadcasting slots, leaving a lot less for the actual production. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry did some research on the subject in 2002-2003. The flow chart on page 5 is telling: http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/media_content...anime200306.pdf.

I don't think it's the message that irritates people but the way it is brought. These days grimmer and darkeris the norm for a lot of sci-fi. I guess a movie like avatar that portrays the victims as virtual saints is going to seem simplistic. Several franchises got a reboot that made them more ambivalent towards good and evil like Star Trek, Batman and Battle Star Galactica. Maybe the ten years used to make Avatar resulted in an outdated story model that was aimed at a late nineties audience in more optimistic times.

Saw it today, the 3D was well done and not too invasive. For the first time I felt really immersed in a mostly CGI movie, much better in that respect then the Star Wars sequels. Avatar is definitely a mile stone in movie technology in the way Terminator 2 and Jarrasic Park once were. Mecha and action was excellent. Was a bit afraid of savages beating high tech army with bows and arrows. That was fortunately not the case. The Navi are basically dino-riders who can uplink to their biolological mecha through some natural fiberglass like umbilical cords and drive/fly by thought. The space marines are pretty cool and the colonel (Stephen Lang) is badass. Well until the final bit where he throws propper strategy out of the window. Just so he can take attack Skynets main uplink to the planetary defense system in a zone with Minovsky particles. If Terminator and Gundam haven't tought us anything... As for the story, disabled ex-marine with poor health insurance joins future Shell to relocate some blue natives from their ore rich grounds. The ex-marine doesn't agree with company policy and since he is just an employee and not fighting for a country it's ok to switch sides. Not to mention that the Navi offer him better job benefits: A new body, on the job-education, some pussy, better rides (flying T-rex equals cool), a jungle resort and they have some imba internet. His consience and market economics do the rest. The romance is annoying and somewhat shallow but there is enough other things to see to keep you occupied. As for the rest, Signoury Weaver owns every scene she plays in and the Alien tribute is cool. Also loved the opening space ship scenes.

For me it's the 1/60 v2.0 VF-1A CF, there is just something noble about this grunt unit and Yamato did great work on the color scheme.

Not a bad comparison, the tone of the show is pretty comparable, except the cast has to correct the things that are caused unknowingly by one person with powers. This show is very good at presenting down to earth scifi and has some of the best character animation on TV.

The new trailer for the upcoming Disappearance movie. Just looks awesome:

Ah shame to hear, Summer Wars had received quite good reviews so had high hopes for it.

Nice idea. Call it "Blowing Sh_t up, a deconstruction of the block buster mythos". Use some fancy camera work, have Sean Penn read poetry while the faeces explode and it's award winning material. As for avatar going to see it on sunday, hoping for the best.

1. Added mechanical detail behind the visor. Would be nice 2. Improved cockpit interior detail, i.e. more detailed ejector seat, instrument panel etc. Cockpit and pilots is one area where Yamato could really improve. 3. Better detailing on the pilot. That would be fantastic if technically feasable. 4. More Tampo printing (obviously, this one could not be released as an add-on accessory). IMO remove all stickers and do everything in tampo. Makes the valks keep their resale value more while looking their best on display.

Will take a while, if ever, licensing companies usually wait untill a few months after airing before announcing new titles. The more recent of the announced titles have aired roughy a year ago in Japan. Afaik two autumn titles have been licensed sofar: Inuyashu and Queensblade 2. Noting from the winter season as of yet.

Yea, that was my first thought aswell but A1 is quite different from Gonzo. Altough I hope this turns out better than Valkyria did...

For the winter season A-1 will release a new anime called So Ra No Wo To in the new 'Anime no Chikara' block in Januari written by Hiroyuki Yoshino of Macross Frontier. This block is meant to promote anime beyond it's otaku audience by assembling top creators to develop original anime television series. The story apparently focuses on a group of girls who enlisted in the military and end up protecting a fortress (while being musicians) in a post war situation... Strangely the character designs resemble K-on! in Wehrmacht uniforms. Supposedly it should have a Nausicaa vibe and be free of moe and fanservice (yes, K-on without moe, uh-huh). Still given the dreadfull level of the coming winter releases this anime has at some potential.

It was actually a pretty clever move at the time, trademarking Macross. In hindsight HG could not have known that internet sales directly from Japan to individuals would have taken off so much. Harmony Gold appears to be extremly protective of the merchandising part of their license given their legal action against FASA and sending cease and desist letters to importers of Macross merchandise. I'm tempted to say that this was the main reason behind them trademarking the Macross name. HG would not get any income from toys made for the Japanese market who are then exported based as their sublicense excludes the Japanese market. Speculating further, I would bet that HG isn't even interested in licensing further Macross shows, given that they ignored Plus and MII, and that their partner Tats(who has to renew the SDFM license every few years according to Yune) would not be to pleased with HG getting friendly with BW. It would be interesting to know if HG has to pay Tats a fixed amount for the license or that Tats is entitled to part of the revenue from SDFM sold internationally and RT.

Heh so true, in my high school we had mixed locker rooms and showers, makes the discussion on underaged nude in animation a bit silly to me.

Just google a bit on late night anime and UHF stations, you'll get some insight on the working of anime broadcasting. Most of what we see is late night anime. On the major Japanese networks the only anime you'll find during the day/evening is the kids and family oriented material.

* Best Anime (film/TV series/OAV) movie: Spirited Away/T: Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya/OAV: Macross Zero * Best Manga Jiro Taniguchi - Hare Yuku Sora * Best SF (film/TV series) Film: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorow/Cloverfield TV: BSG * Best SF Literary Book: GR Martin Song of Ice and Fire/ Erikson - Malazan book of the Fallen * [Most annoying trend in Anime Ill fitting inclusion of High School Life in way to many anime. * Most annoying trend in SF Forgetting to include a plot * Best comeback Apple * Best Game of the decade World of Warcraft/Mass Effect * Most consistent game developer Bioware * Best Game platform of the decade PC * Most Unnecessary Sequel Matrix 2 and 3 * Greatest addition to your toy/model/DVD collection Toy 1/48 VF-1J Millia * What is the piece of technology that you have now which was not available at the start of the decade that you cannot do without? Google * Best Band/Album/Live performance Band: Audiotransparent/ Album: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - Flaming Lips /Live performance: Muse - Rock Werchter * Person of the decade (NO politicals) Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page * Where do you think you will be at the end of next decade? A place with a tropical climate hopefully * Complete the following sentence. "I will be much happier next decade if..........." I could go to work out of choice instead of necessity. + What have you been calling this decade? (The zero-zero's, the noughties, whatever) The two-thousands

Wow, that's a pretty big difference, does make it look a lot more realistic.

Why does this Doug Bendo generate so much emotion? I can't find any way to say it without being rude, but in his post he doesn't come across as a stable or sane individual, so why take his words seriously?

The UN Spacy trademark in the US is an elusive one, I have talked with theLoneWolf about it in April but we couldn't confirm it's existence. Though it has been mentioned in older versions of this thread. The only UN Spacy trademark I'm aware of is the one in Europe and owned by some gaming company from Tokyo.

They will use a Japanese ruling, a Japanese decision on copyrights is perfectly valid in US courts as both the US and Japan are part of the Berne convention. edited for clarity.

Timeline: http://terrania.us/hg-fasa/

I'm not sure about this, BW actively intervened when HG filed for the Macross trademarks so it's hard to say BW doesn't care. Why would BW want to have that text changed? It doesn't affect them in the slightest.

Because there wasn't a ruling, as Seto stated. Fasa backed off and settled. And even if FASA would start a new case they can't win.

Not really, it just states the relationship between HG and Tats. At the time the judge could not have been aware of the fact that Tats could not pass these rights over to HG as Tats never owned them. The legal rights on the designs were only confirmed in Japan post 2000.