Radd

I definitely intend to get at least one. Any word yet on how those of us not in Japan will be able to nab some of these?

actually it was the marines who caused enough damage with their crew service 'Smart Guns' to force the plant to eventually explode. Ripley just went b*tch mode to rescue Newt... but yeah! KICK ASS America... derp.

I should re-watch it. Been a while. I always liked the first movie better. Love Aliens, too, but it's much more of a "Vietnam in space" action power fantasy than the suspense-horror that was Alien.

Letting the ending argument go because at this point we're just discussing something that can never be proven, but 100% agreement here. Let me just day though that there is a way to enjoy it. The trick, Radd, is not minding it hurts.

Heh. Yeah. I was just playing Devil's Advocate out of boredom. Last day of work before a week off, not much to be done. I'm not convinced your idea would make the movie worse, just it would have been as schlocky as the already out of place and schlocky alien love goo which seemed to be able to do everything from creating the building blocks of life for an entire world from a single specimen amd summon the alien squid from Watchmen to creating a 7' tall space zombie. (It can also remove stains and goes great on sandwiches!)

"If a big budget movie or a movie from a big franchise dosn't live up to its hype or bypass decades worth of thousands of movies then its complete crap. It's pretty insane how we expect every new movie to be better than the best and if it isnt its crap."

Dismissing legitimate complaints about a movie by saying "the only reason people are complaining at all is because of unreasonable hype" is complete crap.

Avengers wasn't perfect, but it didn't have the sheer amount of egregious writing issues and I'd argue it had just as much hype and elevated expectations to deal with. (More, actually. Come on, after Resurrection and the AvP movies, Prometheus' script just needed to be halfway competent and most people complaining now would have enjoyed it thoroughly.)

Argh. Don't know if I want Sideswipe or if I should wait for Red Alert.

I'd get Sideswipe.

Red Alert...I hate that guy.

A pursuit of the engineer's ship could have been achieved in a non schlocky way and is accepted in many finales.

It would work in Star Trek, it would work in Firefly, it would work in Herlock, it would work in Macross....but those are actiony super sci-fi space western/opera shows with mechanics that allow for that. As opposed to a more low-tech world like Prometheus with such a huge tech disparity between them and the aliens. Trying to shoehorn that kind of action power fantasy into this would have been out of place and extremely schlocky.

Admittedly, much of the movie was schlocky, from the cheesy, B-movie creature designs to the poorly written no-rules alien goop, but I don't think trying to force a Star Trek action ending would have really added anything positive besides some cheap, "America! $^&@-YEAH!" fist pumping unless you went back and rewrote the script from the beginning to make it seem more plausible but then it would still be more out of place than going back and building up the characters for the kamikaze run better which would make more sense if you're going back in time to rewrite the movie better anyways.

Not to mention, the Ripley comparison falls apart completely. In Alien, she blew up the ship she was already on and escaped in a pod. In Aliens, with the aid of Marines and their gear who went on a military expedition prepared for combat against feral alien monsters not sentient aliens with far superior tech, she went to a human installation on the planet she was already on and set it to blow, then escaped on a craft which was up to the job of outrunning the explosion, not trying to catch a superior tech faster than light craft that had a head start.

It's like comparing apples and the Large Hadron Collider.

Was the suicide necessary? They were billions of miles from the earth. If that was the firefly or any other scifi vessel. Captain mal or Kirk would have gotten aboard that ship kicked the Engineer's ass and turned on the self destruct. What we saw was the classic" we only have ten minutes left in the film, we have to do something!!!!"

Did Ripley crash the Sulaco on LV-426? No she went back into the heart of the hive and kicked ass. If Idris Elba was the lead, that's exactly what woulda happened.

Ok, as much as I dislike the movie and it's bad writing, I can't agree with this.

First of all, that was NOT the Enterprise, not the Firefly, not the Macross. It didn't have converging beam cannons, photon torpedoes, teleporters, shuttle craft, or a forceful entry airlock. If it did have any of these things it would have been extremely out of place.

Hell, we saw pretty definitely that the Engineer ships far outclassed the Prometheus in every way. A couple more seconds and they'd have zipped away at lightspeed and been halfway to Earth before the Prometheus could break atmosphere. So, no, the Kirk or Ripley approaches would not only not have been applicable in this situation, but would actually have been far more nonsensical than anything else in an already nonsensical movie.

Mystery is great, but I think too much hinged on the actions of the engineers to leave their motivations "that" vague.

I agree. I don't think nothing should have been explained. I'm only saying that the lack of a detailed, thorough and clear understanding of the Engineers, their society and their motivations would not have made the movie better, and would have actually been detrimental.

There are still a few gems out there though among a sea of crap shows.

Actually, it's always been like that.

We tend to remember the past being better than it was for several reasons.

Our tastes weren't as refined. If we took some of the stuff we loved back then, erased it from our memory, and watched it for the first time with today's eyes, we'd hate it.

When we got into anime, we had all of Anime Past to draw upon. There was a stockpile of good stuff to feed our addition. Now, we have to wait and see what new gems we can find after sifting through all the crap that is constantly being made.

Third, yes there are trends and things change. Personally, I feel that the 80's to early 90's were the high point in anime. A lot of people younger than I am feel that the mid to late 90's were the best. I loke Mikimoto's character designs. I hated the designs in Macross Plus. I hate the designs in Macross Frontier even more. (I still love both shows due to excellent mechanical designs and fantastic storytelling.) Give it ten years and the old fogies will be complaining that nothing is as good as Bleach and Naruto were.

Crap, Vifam7 beat me to it.

Times have changed and tastes have changed among the fans. But also, anime has gotten so easy to acquire that it's difficult to figure out what's out there and know what to filter out amongst the dozens of anime that come out every season. The series are also running in shorter lengths so the turnaround is really fast. So unless you're "tuned in", it's hard to keep up with the scene. It was much easier in the past when all you had or could get was a couple of titles.

Plus I suspect most of us are much busier these days. Thus there's no time to check out the new stuff and we gravitate towards what we're already familiar with or comfortable with.

At least, that's where I am to some extent.

So much truth to that.

@Keith

I'm happy you enjoyed the movie, but I wouldn't say everyone's issues with the movie are nitpicking, or even related to the fuzzy motivations of the Engineers. Personally, I would have been disappointed if they had laid out a clear understanding of the Engineers. Mystery is good in a story like this. You don't need to answer all the questions.

My problems were fundamental flaws in the writing. There were some pretty glaring examples of bad writing there.

It was definitely a very pretty movie, and if I'd been able to forgive two or three major flaws I'd have come away feeling the movie was pretty good.

This is by far the worst thread on this board ever.

Is that an objective opinion?

I wanted to like the movie, but the storytelling was a mess.

Character motivations were flimsy/unbelievable, plot holes abound, the creature designs were cheesy b-movie material, and the alien goo seems to have no rules, just doing whatever the writer wanted at the moment, which is just abysmally bad writing (the appearance of the xenomorph was just painfully forced). There's some moments of brilliance in there (Fassbender is fantastic as David, and seems to have gotten the most to work with in his role, and other than the fact that every alien creature in the film seems to be more afraid of the dark than the humans the directing is pretty fantastic), which unfortunately make the flaws stand out all the more.

I felt this was worth quoting and repeating....

I find that quote objectionable. I work in the entertainment industry. Something like a film is made up of the efforts of a lot of people, and during production it can be difficult to have a good idea of what the final product will be like. Or even if it's clear that the final product will be terrible, we do our best on our part and hope that what we do is seen as a bright spot in the production.

I'm not going to get offended if I do the effects work on something that has terrible writing and people bash the writing. I might get offended if they bash the writers, because the writers themselves don't always have a very free hand and just try to make the best of what they're given to work with. Editing can also make or break a movie.

Anyways, I'm getting off point, many talented people are involved in the production of crap every day. That's the nature of the business. Personally, I'd rather see crap flop so that more good stuff gets made for those talented people to work on.

I'm one of them.

Same here. Dawn of Sorrow is one of my favourite DS games, and while Portrait of Ruin was a step down, it was still great. (Order of Ecclesia kinda blew, tho.)

They seem pretty intent on telling me that everything I loved about the DS Castlevania games will not be a part of the 3DS game. Seeing the videos has made me lose all interest. It looks like a 2.5D God of War more than a Castlevania. Not a fan.

Good to see Professor Layton and Animal Crossing on the way, but is anyone else perplexed by the lack of DS classics making their way to the 3DS? I really want some 3DS news on Phoenix Wright, Pokemon, Rune Factory, Advance Wars, Infinite Space and any number of games that chewed up a tonne of my time on the DS.

I keep throwing my monies at the screen, but they just bounce off! D:

You say "tomayto" I say "tomatoe" It's not like there was a complete deconstruction as you so put it. I seem to recall the whole team (minus The Comedian) getting together at the end. ;P

Um...you do realize that is not at all what is meant by a "deconstruction" in this sense, yes?

With regards to Avengers, I enjoyed it, a lot. A lot a lot. The thing is, I feel it was so great precisely because it's done what no other Super Hero movie has managed to do so far, like comics themselves it took bunch of characters you've already been introduced to in five other movies, and brought them together. Building on established plots, characterizations and themes. It's not meant to be taken by itself as a single entity, it's a gestalt.

Not only that, but it used those existing elements masterfully. Particularly Agent Coulson. I've never seen such an energetic, obnoxiously loud crowd suddenly go silent so quickly.

It's definitely a summer popcorn flick, it's not trying to change the world. It's a comic book up on the big screen, that's all it's trying to be and I have to say it pulls it off better than most.

Why do all these amazing toys have to be coming out now while I have no money? I've been wanting a VF-19P since first seeing Dynamite!

In all seriousness, I always assumed the "and they disappeared near the centre of the galaxy/into a black hole" was just a flippant response to a silly question.

See, here's where we fall into the pit of "Never Satisfied", now I'm drooling over the idea of a 1/48 VF-4.

Only 5 more days...

I want three so I can display it in all modes. Both the fighter and battroid designs are among my favourites Kawamori has ever penned.

When I saw this thread I instinctively started trying to shove all my monies into my computer to send it to Yamato. My DVD drive no longer works and I'm out several hundred in shredded bills as a result. I fully intend to buy at least three of these.

There are two Macross toys I've always wanted more than anything else. My 1/3000 Macross is sitting in my apartment right now, so all I need is this and I'll finally achieve the pure and eternal happiness that can only come from purchasing molded plastic.

I also don't get how anyone could say Hikaru, Misa and Minmay got any less of a send-off than any other characters. "Britai became commander of the UN Spacey" is less send-off than "Hikaru and Misa got married then, along with Minmay, went off on humanity's first interstellar colonization mission! (Misa was captain!)" Britai, Kim, Global, etcetera get much less than that, yet people don't seem to be satisfied unless they learn everything that happened to the big three right up to the grave. In detail.

Max and Milia got further adventures, but you still don't know any more of their "ultimate fate" than you do Hikaru, Minmay and Misa!

Personally, I'm satisfied that we know all the important bits. We don't need to know about their transition into adult diapers and nursing homes.

Isn't that also what led to "Rupan III" and "Captain Herlock," as well?

Really? I'd heard somewhere that Leiji Matsumoto considered "Herlock" to be the official translation? Was it really due to some licensing issue?

I downloaded Mighty Switch Force for the 3DS from the e-shop and it's a blast. Nothing truly game-changing, but good, simple fun for the price.I'd love to see a Metal Slug style shooter or a good platformer with the fluid, detailed sprites and 3D effects in this game. A Bionic Commando remake like that would be brilliant. I've been wanting a redone portable BC ever since Re-Armed. Been playing the Gameboy version on the virtual console, too, but it's not the same. (They made it all futuristic anime rather than WWII retro-styled like the original and Re-Armed.)

This assumes that Scott will even acknowledge the queen alien and the second movie. I believe he is making a prequel to Alien, not any of the other films.

This is very true, and the vibe I get from his comments is that you hit the nail on the head. He's making a movie in the same universe as his original movie, but ignoring the sequels others made.

Honestly, I'm fine with that, even if he contradicts elements from the other films, including Aliens. I like Aliens, but not as much as the original. It was not the same kind of movie at all. I can enjoy it for what it is, but I want to see more of the path the original was treading. It was almost Lovecraftian in the way it played out and the sequels, including Aliens, diluted that a lot.

I'm not certain I understand that sentiment, are you saying that there is no way to draw in a broader audience without linking a film directly to a pre-existing IP? Certainly I'd agree that having an existing popular IP attached does make it easier to market, but it's kind of silly to suggest that it will be "problematic" for any movie to reach a broad audience unless it's a sequel.

I'd buy at least a Battle 7. I love the New Macross class ships.

I still need to save up money for this and the VF-19, tho. Feeling all kinds of poor lately.