Radd

Never been a fan of the Hornet. To see it replacing the Tomcat really, really stinks.

And 'Ebichu the Housecleaning Hamster'.

I got the e-mail and I really, really want one. I almost ordered one right away, and I certainly want to support any LotGH endeavour, but as everyone else has pointed out, they look really, really cheap. My girlfriend got the same e-mail, and it turned out we were both looking at it at the same time in different rooms.

I've heard a dozen contradicting reasons people have come up with as to why the Evangelion tv series ended the way it did and the movies were made. I've never hearda single source for any of these reasons, so I tend to believe they are fan conjecture.

Every week or every other week some friends and I all get together for Anime Night. We each pick a series and watch a couple episodes (as many as 4 if everyone loves it, and sometimes we'll cut an episode off before it's even finished if it's just that bad). We occaissionally toss in a movie or non-anime entertainment as well.

So, yeah, you'd probably like the movies.

Speaking strictly on Evangelion, my theory on why most people hate the ending is because somewhere along the line they tricked themselves into thinking the series was about the robots and the fighting, when it was about the characters all along. In addition to that, the ending to Evangelion presumes that the audience has been paying attention all this time, and can put a few things together for themselves. In my experience, most people I've met hate endings where they have to put anything together for themselves. The Japanese, on the other hand, seem to love endings that require a bit on the part of the viewer. Unfortunately, this also makes room for people who try to make their stories look deeper than they are, and wind up glossing over a simple, poorly executed plot with lots of psychobabble that means nothing. Out of this group, you get endings like those to Metal Gear Solid 2, Gundam Wing, and the recently released Appleseed movie. But for some strange reason, theses shows that just pretend to be deep, spewing lots of contradictory arguments that make little to no sense, and usually seem to end with something blowing up right before or after a long series of monologues, tend to be a lot more popular than those shows who's endings and plots really do make sense when all of the pieces are put together. Now, I'm not a huge fan of Evangelion, I see many other valid reasons to dislike the show. It's pretentious, the characters are wholly unlikable, and the heaps of character developement are poured over a typical monster of the week super robot show. However, for what it was, the tv series ending was probably the best possible ending they could make. They finished off the typical super robot cliches a couple episodes before the end, then wrapped up the characters and story quite nicely, without taking the viewer by the hand and walking them through everything. The movies only vindicated my feelings on this. They offered nothing but action sequences and did nothing to further the story or character developement at all.

It really depends on what is meant by "simpler, arcade shooter-like". I tend to lump games like X-Wing, Wing Commander, Freespace, the first Crimson Skies, and their ilk in with flight sims. I know they are much simpler, but the games I consider 'arcade style shooters', such as Star Fox, Rogue Squadron, Jedi Starfighter, Crimson Skies 2, and whatnot are all far more simple in premise and execution. Weapon loadouts are often non-customizable, or even upgraded by finding powerups in the levels. The levels are often smaller in size, whereas in the games I consider sims, the level size is virtually unlimited. There are usually no boundaries that will bounce you back into the set game arena. The flight controls are often much more simple. You cannot, for example, shift power from one shield to another, or make use of a Saitek X45 flight stick to it's full potential.

Holy Christ..you didn't use the phrase "photrealistic" but you were certainly critical of the textures. Which is why I pointed out that they were going for an "anime" look, as opposed to a Final Fantasy approach. Had Appleseed been cel animated, do you thing the textures would have been any more detailed?? Whoa there, fella, anyone here with animation experience, especially CG experience, can tell you that texturemapping is not limited to photorealism. However, my last post may have been poorly worded in that regard. The above fragment of my previous post was not in regard specifically to Appleseed, but was expanding on the sentence that came before it, that "the "plastic" look comes from a lack of effort on the part of the texture crew." The problem with Appleseed's characters looking like plastic comes from the shadows rendered in the cel shader. They do not look like the shadows you would find in a 2D cel. They fall across the model in all sorts of awkward ways, and just never look quite right. On top of that, the lighting with the characters and the backgrounds never really meshed, in that the characters seemed to be glowing whenever they were in a dimly lit setting. The hair on the characters seemed to be textured in a way that did not fit with the cel shading, and stood out looking like a plastic toupe stuck onto the character. The backgrounds, however, had a sterile, overly clean look to them that not even any utopia would ever achieve in an outdoors environment. If the show had been cel animated, then yes the backgrounds would have been more detailed in that regard. Look in just about any decent animated feature in your collection and you'll see that a lot of the backgrounds are painted, or have a painterly look to them. Digitally flat and clean surfaces are nowhere to be found. Those that do not have a painterly look to them often are coloured in a very similar fashion to the characters, aand so the two elements mesh together and the effect is that the backgrounds still do not look out of place. The effect of the backgrounds in Appleseed was that of the production crew trying to make the backgrounds look realistic, and falling short for the reasons I've already mentioned. However, in some newer 2D animation that makes use of digital colouring techniques I do complain about the lack of flaws in the colours and lineart, as it lacks character and becomes dull to the eye. Even then, though, the backgrounds often still retain that painterly look for the most part. I have the same complaint on a lot of so-called 'photorealistic' CG movies, and movies with CG elements, that have this easily solved problem. It is a sign of laziness. A lack of effort put towards dirtying up and adding imperfections to unnaturally perfect CG models.

Who said anything about photo-realism?

I'm not disagreeing about Innocence being pretentious, however it did have a plot. The plot was very clear, and while it was not entirely deep, and it was hidden behind artsy visuals and literary quotation, it made sense and was brought to a satisfactory conclusion. It was eyecandy that the story did not detract from. You presume that I did not understand the end to Appleseed, and you presume incorrectly. I did understand, completely. It was not difficult to follow, wich made the fact that it was convoluted and nonsensical that much harder to swallow. The Evangelion tv series was difficult to follow (at least the ending), but when you unravelled it all it made sense. You also presume that I raise my nose at any and all CG and say, "It looks like plastic!" You, again, presume wrong. CG does not need to look like plastic, and on rare occaissions you see examples of well done CG that was not poorly done. Usually the "plastic" look comes from a lack of effort on the part of the texture crew. The CG models look unnaturally clean and flawless. Combined with stiff, puppet-like animation, the effect is similar to plastic puppets dangling from strings. Even without bad animation, the poor texturing job makes everything look...well..."fake". The CG in Appleseed suffered from this, and another problem. The backgrounds and vehicles suffered from the former problem, the characters quite another with the film's attempt at cel shading on CG models. First, the shading was never quite right. There was plenty of shadow "clipping" where a shadow would be there, then completely dissapear when the character made even a slight movement. You could tell there was little to no control over the shadows, and worse yet while the shadows could not be used to add to the visuals, they often detracted Another problem was faces, wich never moved correctly throughout the film. A part of the problem was that the eyes seemed to be textured onto the models rather than modelled themselves. It simply did not look right when the faces would not move at all, just the character's eyes. The hair, the hair did not seem to fit at all. To be sure, I cannot myself offer any suggestions on how to CG out traditional cartoon style hair and have it look right, but it's plain to see that they did not succeed. The hair looked stiff and unnatural, like a plastic helmet that would sway and move only when instructed, even given the style they were attempting to emulate. I will admit, my standards are high when it comes to CG. However, I do have standards and they are my standards. The issues I bring up are real, and most of them could have been addressed. My standards for storytelling are significantly lower, as I stated with Innocence, the story was not great, but it was not bad enough to detract, either. I enjoy simply action movies no and again, my main expectation being that the story, no matter how simple or contrived, will not suck enough to stand out from the pretty explosions and pretty visuals I am there to see. Appleseed did not meet this requirement.

The first GitS movie was a let down. Very shallow treatment of Shirow's premise. The characters were stripped of all personality. The animation was pretty, but not nearly so much as was promised. The hype machine said it would be better animated than Akira, and when you make promises like that you better deliver. Oshii's GitS did not. The second GitS movie, Innocence, was actually surprisingly pleasant. The characters were still far more grim than in the manga, but they at least had some personality, and it went well with the grim world that was presented. The animation, while still not "better than Akira" was excellent, and this time they made no such promise as to the quality, so there was no letdown. Also, this was one of those films were the CG was actually much better than I'd been expecting, and that does not happen often. Also, since this movie did not directly try to cover the major story arc of the books, it wasn't really dumbing down something on the order of 12 volumes worth of material. Instead, they took the premise of a single chapter of the original GitS manga, and played around with the ideas there. Masamune Shirow, the creator of Ghost in the Shell, had absolutely nothing to do with either of the two movies. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a tv series that does not even pretend to be the original manga. It's a seperate world altogether. The characters are all decently developed, personality-wise. The stories are smart and interesting. The first several episodes seem incredibly episodic, but after about episode 5, they settle into an ongoing story, interrupted now and then with individual stories that don't dissapoint. Shirow was apparently consulted for the tv series. To me, GitS:SAC still isn't as good as the original manga, but it's a far cry better than the original movie, and definitely entertaining. I'd reccomend checking out all of the GitS related media if you're a fan of the manga. The first movie is pretty, it's just shallow and weak on characters and story. However, the second movie is much better, and having seen the first movie will help you get into the second as it is a direct sequel. So the first movie is worth at least a rental, though I don't know that I would reccomend buying it. If you're dissapointed with the first movie, well that just means you'll probably appreciate GitS:SAC a lot more. It really is a top notch tv series in it's own right.

I won't write off the Spielberg movie quite yet, but I was not a fan of the 1950's version and I was really looking forward to a faithful adaptation of the book. I'm more looking forward to seeing the Pendragon pPictures version that HWR pointed to. However, you give too much faith to the viewing public. They're less likely to watch the faithful version BECAUSE they want to see it take place in modern times, because they want to see a famous studio and director listed in the credits, because it will have big budget blockbuster special effects, and because it will get more media attention.

To quote a popular webcomic, "In other news, look out for the Metroid movie, about a rowdy team of baseball players who discover the true meaning of Christmas from a robot cowboy angel!"

I had a volume of the Appleseed manga, and it was certainly better than this movie. Same with just about anything I've read of Shirow's, or movie adaptations. I did not like the first GitS movie, but it was certainly far better than this Appleseed movie. I don't remember disliking even Black Magic M-66 this much.

I had the misfortune of seeing Appleseed tonight. Sad to say, folks, but do not get your hopes up. I'll repost my rant from another forum for your benefit: The new Appleseed movie was really, really bad. The CG was not that great, the cel shading just made everything look like plastic. The actual animation wasn't too terrible. It ranged from pretty decent to mediocre. All in all, the visuals paled next to the other recent Shirow based movie, GitS2:Innocence. Storywise, Appleseed was just wretched. I mean, Metal Gear Solid 2 wretched. Lots of posing, and characters all trying to get the last word in with no actual substance to what they were saying. The overal premise was beyond rediculous, and made no sense whatsoever in the end. Characters would literally say something, then in the same breath completely contradict themselves. The story also suffered from the very same problem that causes many people to hate Final Fantasy 8. You got it, a complete 'What the..?' moment, where it turns out that the main character knew something all along, but conveniently forgot it, along with her relationship to several other characters. Add to this absolutely zero character developement, a terrible soundtrack (cheesy-bad techno-ish music for the action scenes, and what sounds like bad American pop music scattered about), and I'll say it again, the CG just was not that great. I would not reccomend paying money to see this crap. I was really dissapointed because while I was not expecting much from the CG (and it wasn't bad, per-se, it just was not great either. I probably do harp on it too much when there's so many more significant reasons not to like the movie.), I was hoping the story would put the GitS movies to shame since Shirow was more active in it's developement (or so I'd heard). As it is, at least Innocence was a pleasant surprise. I'm glad that's the one I actually saw in theatres. If I had spent the money and effort to see this trash in theatres, I'd be even more upset.

Ack, it's gone from the site! I don't suppose any kind souls have it saved?

Do you think they should remove the word "portable" then? Sure there are many place that have power outlet, but carrying that thing and a power plug everywhere you go? Battery life and size are both important in portables. Sure, many places have outlets, but in most cases they can be difficult or even impossible to get to. Also, the PSP is already larger than the DS by itself, and people complain the DS is too large, having to carry around an external battery and a bunch of plugs can make it a hassle to take anywhere with you. I had that problem with my Game Gear. The PSP is really almost useless as a movie player, considering the battery life in movie mode. As a portable... I think 4-6 hours is alright. I mean, if you're flying out of the US, the battery life is probably too short for the plane ride. But for the most part, I've never played a videogame for more than an hour or two oustide of my home. Even if you find yourself playing for four hours in one day, you go home and charge it, and you're good to go for the next day. That's just it, though, I seriously do not believe it will last 4-6 hours. Sony's track record gives me reason to believe they might be exaggerating (read as: outright lying) about some of their technical specs. If it is 4-6 hours, that's not too bad for many people, I suppose. Too short for me though. I'm guessing it's more along the lines of 2-4 hours. I hope Sony proves me wrong. Don't think for a moment I want Nintendo to have unrivaled control of the handheld market. That market is more important to me than the home console market, since I do most of my gaming when I'm not at home. A little competition would push Nintendo to make better games and systems for that market, and I'm all for that.

Do you think they should remove the word "portable" then? Sure there are many place that have power outlet, but carrying that thing and a power plug everywhere you go? Battery life and size are both important in portables. Sure, many places have outlets, but in most cases they can be difficult or even impossible to get to. Also, the PSP is already larger than the DS by itself, and people complain the DS is too large, having to carry around an external battery and a bunch of plugs can make it a hassle to take anywhere with you. I had that problem with my Game Gear.

Yeah, seems all anyone makes these days are arcade style flight games. Aside from straight up simulators, the X-Wing franchise has been my favourite flight style game, it has dissapointed me to no end that Lucasarts keeps pumping out Rogue Squadrons and Jedi Starfighters, but has abandoned the more sim-style gameplay of the X-Wing franchise. I need more excuses to break out my old Saitek X45, other than getting around to Alliance and the original Crimson Skies (another great franchise that was abandoned to arcade shooter gameplay) so many years later.

Maybe, and I know I'm stretching here folks, it's called Macross Zero because it takes place in the same universe as every other Macross series, and happens to be a prequel. Not to mention the fact that it carries all teh same themes and ideas, features versions of some of the mecha from the other Macross shows, and even has one of the characters from another Macross series playing fairly big role in it.Yeah, I know it's crazy, but you know how wacky those Japanese are.

I also still do not trust Sony's estimates on the battery life. When they say 4-6, I think 2-4. Maybe they'll prove me wrong, but I still remember when they promised the PS2 could render out the ballroom scene from FFVIII on the fly with a roaming camera. These load times will just suck up more battery life.

I believe there was a huge, promotional cardboard Macross. I think someone posted pictures of it here long ago.

This question really, really, really belongs in the 'Newbie Questions' thread above. Yes, the stripe on his Valkyrie is green.

I have to disagree with you KingNor and Corey. The idea in 7 wasn't that Basara was super human, he was a regular guy. It was the message he was trying to get across that was important. Victory came, and not just for the M7 fleet, when enough people understood that message. Also in Zero, it was Shin who was important in the end. It was Shin that gave Sarah hope for the rest of humanity, and in that way it was Shin, not Sarah, who saved humanity from both Sarah and AFOS. And what about DYRL? and Plus? Both came after SDF and neither of them are ever accused of having some super powerful hero character leaving the regular people in the dust.