Radd

None that I know personally. The PS2 makes a pretty poor DVD player, with lots of skipping, refusing to play certain chapters, or outright failing to play certain DVDs altogether. At least in my experience. Besides, most people I know have a DVD drive in their computer, and a DVD player for their television. While I'd normally argue that as the case, the same people I know that have gone through multiple PS2s also tend to have other consoles, and those other consoles still work as well as the day they bought them. One of my friends is a console collector. He has an NES, a Sega Master System, a Turbo Graphix, an N64, a Sega Saturn, etcetera. The only problems he's had have been with the Playstation and PS2. This is a well known and documented problem.

Nobody is arguing against the fact that Sony is successful, just that their hardware tends to have an abnormally high rate of failure. My own personal experience is similar to Mike's. Everyone I know who owns a PS2, and almost everyone I know owns one, is on either their second or third. I don't think I know anyone unlucky enough to be on their fourth, though.

Taste is subjective. However, I've noticed several shows and movies listed here that I'm surprised to see listed in a 'worst anime' thread. What's more frustrating is when no reason is given. "Anime X sucked because it was dumb.", just makes one want to chime in with their own opinion, when it's something they enjoyed.

By my understanding, they won't call them 'Alternators', but they'll be real world jets that fit in the same line as the Alternators, but in a different scale because, let's face it, if they made real world jets in the same scale as the current Alternators they'd be BIG. Like ham.

Fit For Natalie, compared to which G1 Prime of the past? The original toy? The original toy's box art? The various G1 Prime toys that came after? The G1 animation model sheet? The various stylistic takes on Prime by various comic artists since the very first issue of the G1 comics, to the latest incarnation of the series in that medium? Debating proportional issues on Transformers is sillier than debating them for Macross toys, since there really is no set design for the characters. Especially here as a redesign, where it's obvious Kawamori was not simply tracing over someone else's design from the past, but giving his own interpretation. And beyond deviating from a set design, you don't get very far before your opinion of the character's proportions are entirely subjective. I for one prefere the overall proportions Kawamori gave this Prime to the MPC Prime (specifically in the line art). I will agree that the truck mode is important, though, and it seems the designers of both this toy and the MPC Prime kind of let that mode suffer in favour of a more appealing robot mode. I suspect given the MPC size, this Prime could have gotten a much better truck mode with few concessions to the look in robot mode. As to whether or not it was a good idea to get Kawamori for this....why not? If Kawamori indeed does not "get it" as far as Transformers go, I don't see it reflected at all in what looks to me to be an excellent take on an old favourite. I will certainly agree that Takara has made plenty of poor decisions in its handling of Transformers, but I don't think asking Kawamori to do a version of Prime is one of them.

This thread is almost entirely speculation, cwbrown. I only stated what it seems BW's stance is based on observation. That is a very useful word in speculation and observation, 'seems'. I only mentioned the additional information about the FASA case because someone brought it up recently in the thread. Confidentiality agreements may be common in settlements, and there may very well be no hidden meaning (not that anyone has recently suggested there was), but the case provides no solid information.

Aside from the limits of the size of the toy, I think Kawamori Prime looks fine in robot mode. Truck mode could be better, but it's already a great improvement over the Robot Masters version. wouldn't mind grabbing one, but yeah, I'd rather he was larger, like MPC Prime size. I think it is a better overall design than the MPC toy, and given that scale more could have been done to make the truck mode the best since the original.

capt.actionjackson, the courts did not rule against Tatsunoko's international merchandising or distribution rights to SDF Macross, only the idea that Tatsunoko owned copyright on the designs and derivatives. In fact, against Big West, the court decided that Tatsunoko did have domestic distribution rights to SDF Macross, meaning Tatsunoko, not Big West, could distribute the original tv series in Japan. All of this has been covered at length, and in great detail in this thread (at least, I believe the thread has that material still in it, might have restarted since), so I reccomend researching it that way, rather than dredging up old arguments.

There was that court dispute between Tatsunoko and Big West that concluded that Tatsunoko didn't actually own any copyrights on the designs in Macross, or any stake in derivative works. Big West's stance seems to be that HG only has international merchandising and distribution rights to the original SDF Macross, and nothing else. The conclusions of the Tokyo circuit court would seem to support that. Additionally, if I recall correctly, HG and FASA settled out of court on a condition that FASA not disclose information on the matter to the public.

Wow, I always felt that the DS would be perfect for a web browser. I'm kinda surprised it took this long. And it's Opera, which is a pretty good browser. I wouldn't mind throwing money at them to be able to surf the net on the go. Now if only they'd get telnet and IRC on there...

Well, actually, having legitimate Region 1 Macross 7 and Macross Zero DVDs would be nice. As would easier access to the better Macross toys. There is also the potential for the series to do well enough internationally that it could promote more Macross series.

I love Macross, even the one where they blew up the Enterprise and it turned out Minmay's singing abilities came from medichlorians. Wait...

The new DS looks nice. Nothing to run out and upgrade over, but worth holding out for if you don't have a DS already.

I loved Zero Mission, but yeah, a port or update of Super Metroid would be most excellent. With the quality of 2D graphics the DS has, I hope the rumours of a 2D DS Metroid game come true.

Personally, I think people will complain no matter what.

I'll probably grab it. I mean, aside from being a character that I really don't think it should be, it looks pretty nice, the more I look at it. If it were Ironhide, I'd probably proclaim it one of my favourite designs in the line, at least at first glance. At least my most anticipated for the time being. I'm a bit worried that the lower legs are hollow and unstable like a few previous Transformers (RiD's Ultra Magnus comes to mind). Too bad Hasbro didn't decide to do a colour and headswap. Of course, seeing how many repaints the line has, I think a Dodge Ram Ironhide isn't out of the question for the future.

Being in animation school at the time this movie came out (or maybe it came out after I graduated, but was still in the area of my school) I heard some interesting stories about the production of this movie. Now my memory is a bit foggy on the subject, but I recall hearing that Fox gave Bluth very little control over the movie, pulling the script several times while the film was already into production, forcing the animators to redo a lot of scenes repeatedly. The script itself was primarily made by committee, as too many movies are these days. I also heard that midway through production, the budget of the movie was slashed considerably and about half the animators were laid off. Subsequent layoffs followed. Before the movie was finished, Fox informed Phoenix Studios that no matter how well the movie did, they were all to be laid off anyways. Now, I make no claims as to the authenticity of these stories, it's just what I heard. In school I often heard a lot of stories from the industry, and most of them turned out to be true, so I kinda take it for granted. Personally, I thought the movie was full of wasted potential. I'm not the biggest Bluth fan out there, but anyone trying to push 2D animation outside of Japan these days is OK in my book.

I'm fine with the jets being a seperate scale. To make them in scale would make them ridiculously large. They would dwarf MP Prime, even. Heck, they'd make Yamato's Konig Monster look small. I do think the seekers (Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp) should be a bit larger than the average Alt/BT in robot mode, but still smaller than MP Prime. I'd love to see a G2 style Megatron tank that equaled MP Prime in size. In the comics, at least, G2 Megs looked very much like the original Megatron in robot mode. Heck, go all the way and give G2 Megatron the Masterpiece treatment. I know everyone would rather get the original G1 Megatron, but since that won't happen, I think this would be a very acceptable alternative. Yeah. I know I'm dreaming.

I don't know. I love Skids, and Sunstreaker is a repaint I can appreciate. My beef with Prime is that I just don't think it should be prime. 20th Anniv. Prime is already perfect for the role. If Alt Prime had been Ironhide instead, I'd have been very pleased with that, and quite able to overlook that Ironhide was originally a van. My main beef with the Alternators line as a whole is the lack of Decepticons, and the fact that there's only cars/jeeps/trucks so far. I'd like to see some tanks and other military vehicles. Also jets, helicopters, etcetera. Of course, the popular rumour is that there will be a line of jets in another scale coming eventually.

I went out east to visit family, when I was struck with curiosity to see if the Walmarts out there still carried Alternators. Glad I checked, because I walked out with Skids, Sunstreaker, and Prowl. I'm very happy with all three, though I found that Hasbro had Skids transformed wrong on the box. They didn't even bother to pull his legs out. Or maybe it was just the crappy angle. I'm very happy with all three. Sunstreaker for nostalgia reasons (the original Sunstreaker was the first Transformer I ever owned), and Prowl and Skids are just great designs. I could do with a bit more posability in Prowl, but otherwise, I think he's one of the best looking Alternators so far. Another friend down south told me his Walmart stopped carrying Alternators around the same time I did, but apparently started stocking them again this past week. I'm looking forward to seeing if my local store carries them again. I hope so, I've already missed several that I need to track down.

So far I've gotten a back massager, one of those models that you put on a chair and it massages while you sit. It's great! Now I can get a back massage whenever I want! It's a nice one too. Aside from that, the only thing I've gotten is a new Land's End satchel to replace the old one I've had these past 9 years or so. I'm really happy with it, so much nicer than the old one, and not falling apart! I'm still expecting presents, though. Family is coming over today around noon, and the second week of January I go and visit more family. Since the only thing I've asked for is a crapload of DS games, that's what I'm expecting.

I've been meaning to pick up the first two Patlabor movies on DVD, with this news I'll most certainly hold off, and probably grab the special edition. These two movies are among my favourites.

Well, most anything by H.P. Lovecraft comes to mind pretty quickly. Personally, I did not get anything out of EoE that I didn't already get out of the tv series, aside from some action sequences. Again, it seems to me that you presume because you were clueless that the information wasn't there. I maintain that the 'giant robot' angle of the series was always a secondary aspect. I believed this long before the tv series ended. The fact that the show ended how it ended only seems to support my belief in this regard.

I believe you misunderstand. The fact that you compare straightforward action and adventure stories with a complex character decontruction and equate them as basically the same thing indicates that well enough. We'll just have to disagree about storytelling. I personally believe many of the best stories do make the audience think. The entire mystery genre is built on that idea. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but you seem to be confusing storytelling that doesn't assume the worst of its audience with storytelling that fails to deliver any resolution or clues as to what is going on.

I can believe it. Evangelion was primarily about the characters, and how each one was uniquely screwed up. It was a character disection, with heavy themes of transcendance in the form of the human instrumentality project. How do you show that in an action sequence? End had some nice action sequences, but little else. Plus I hate the all-too-common 'holding the viewer's hand' mentality of storytelling. I like thinking.