JsARCLIGHT

I believe the old line is "No Schwarzenegger, not a good movie" I went to see this last night with my wife. We both kind of liked it. I definitely have to eat my words when I said Craig could not pull off Bond, he did a respectable job. Still not a rival to Connery but better than the recent Bonds. The only place I can fault the movie is that I felt Bond came off kind of clumsy at times. I understand it is a "early, inexperienced" Bond but it just seemed like he had spots of amazing agility and dexterity with complete command of a situation and then he suddenly has spots of extreme clumsiness and poor judgment. Another thing that sort of confused my wife and I contains a spoiler so I will ask the question in "spoiler text" below: -spoiler question- Why did Vesper just suddenly decide lock the elevator gate and let herself drown? M clearly states she was being blackmailed into helping the baddies because they held her boyfriend captive, she even deliberately leaves her phone behind so Bond can figure out the ruse and come after her... yet when the situation is resolving itself she suddenly decides to just let herself die? Why does that totally not make sense to us? It just seemed so pointless and that it only happens to give the story an "oh boo hoo my girlfriend's dead" angle. Hell, my wife thought it would have been better (and more hard for Bond to stomach) that he DOES rescue her and then finds out she is going back to her boyfriend and that SHE played HIM like he does to so many women.-spoiler question-

Say the wrong thing and you are branded for life. (and no it was not me)

Long story short: the topic you chose is a long standing heated one here on MW. When people say negative things about a show and do so in an articulate and thought out way few people see the need to say anything more on the subject as someone has already summed up their feelings. Suffice it to say you are in the camp that dislikes M7 and your reasons are pretty much the same as the other people's reasons. There is no need for a hundred sycophantic posts saying virtually the same thing. The poll Az linked to should be taken as it is, a poll of opinion. People don't always have to post their reasons or feelings... their opinion was voiced well enough by their vote.

Unless they have no budget left for prints and media... which could very well be the case. I would assume the "word" would be getting out by now in the form of anime magazine ads, anime website banner ads and the like. Has anyone seen any?

Sometimes yes and sometimes no. When a project hangs in limbo it can mean a lot of things, most of the time at the point in the game they are at now (the product is "finished" and awaiting distribution) it means behind the scenes financial things are not shored up yet. I have always said and I stick to my feelings that this project, reguardless of quality, cost HG a lot, a whole lot more than they might be willing to admit... and as such they are possibly scrambing for ways to maximize the release for greater initial return on investment. While some might see this as a "the milk is stale" situation, the usual reason is that they are trying to finagle lower percentages on distribution deals and get better cost of production numbers from various channels. In other words their bean counters are scrounging ways to make this release cost them less, earn them more and get more product on the shelves and in front of more people. My money is on their money and bottom line being the prime reason the delays have mounted. If this release does not go off as well as I think they need it to go off, they may have just shot themselves in their wallet.

Most folks place Macross 2 beneath Macross 7 because Mac2 was "non-canon", meaning the "Macross grand poobah" Kawamori and his production company did not work on the project and it takes place "outside" the "official" Macross timeline. In a sense in a few people's eyes Mac2 is an "illegitimate" Macross sequel. Personally I prefer Mac2 to Mac7 and when you hear other people say the same that is all it is, personal preference. Each series has positives and negatives, and even those are seen differently by different people. And just a quick notice, let's try to NOT make this a Macross 7 or Macross 2 bash thread... those have been done to death here. I'll leave this topic open for people to talk about their own personal reasons for liking Macross 2 over Macross 7 or vice versa but PLEASE leave the vitriol and 7/2 slamming out of the thread.

Don't mean to rain on this parade but since the show has passed I'm going to close this topic. This is basically housekeeping, don't take it as a slight on this topic. Please continue the discussion in the big Aircraft Thread.

OK, we're getting some lip about there being so many similair aircraft threads popping up outside of the Aircraft Thread so I need to start pruning these. Don't take this as a slight against these pics or this topic, please repost them in the big Aircraft thread. We just need to keep all this similair stuff in there, Thanks.

From the look of it, lots of people want it. Please transfer all comments or questions to the main thread Wolfx pointed out.

My wife and I basically stayed home... no one had any parties so we did not get to dress up. Against my better judgement I bought a bag of candy on the way home halloween night and turned on the porch light to see how many kids we'd get. We got one, only one. Not too shocking though as we live in a brand new development way out in the sticks and I think only one house in this whole place has kids and I think it was that couple with their kid that came by. I think I gave the kid like ten candy bars... heh. The remainder got taken to the VA by my wife. Go I guess halloween is officially dead to us now.

On MST3K: I was and still am a massive MiSTie. Those who are and want more, go to: RiffTrax Mike Nelson's new shtick, clear out of the Satellite of Love. Downloadable "riff tracks" to modern movies. Simply play your MP3 while you watch the movie. I've bought a few of their riffs and my freaking god are they funny. It's like having classic MST3K just without the silhouettes and host segments. On Adult Swim: Someone must have gotten away with saying "Dick" on TV lately because just about every homebrew AS cartoon in the last week has been rather dick obsessed. I think AS has a serious case of penis envy.

- JsARCLIGHT hugs his bootleg Dougram VCDs - I'll say what I've said a million times before, I'll trade someone copies of my Dougram VCDs (the entire series) for a copy of the entire Dorvack series... - Listens to crickets - Damn.

Fang of the Sun Dougram, AKA Taiyou no Kiba Dougram. And a good list of all the units can be found here: http://www.mahq.net/mecha/dougram/dougram/index.htm

I did not have the time. I did not have the nerve. To ask you how you feel. Is this what you deserve? When it's all too late... It's all too laaaaaaaate! Change! Yoooou caaaaan chaaaaange! Change! Yoooou caaaaan chaaaaange! But TFF aside and in all seriousness, the moderation apologizes for any inconvenience you may experience. If anyone notices a favorite topic seems to have gone missing or has been moved please PM a mod if you have an issue with it and let us disuade your fears or issues. As Hurin said, the site is "staffed up" now and we are all doing our best to correct old issues and get things in better order. It would be a real shame to break our peaceful streak over simple belated housekeeping matters.

My wife and I hosted a halloween party last year that bombed. This year we are planning on just going to other people's parties. We always dress to match each other, last year we were Bogey and Igmar Bergman from Casablanca. This year we are going to be Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint from North By Northwest... which are almost the same costumes from last year. We're boring.

It's sad to say but good zombie movies are few and far between. For every Dawn (original 70's version) of the Dead there are ten to twenty forgettable zombie movies. This is one of the latter.

Think of how perps would feel getting busted by "Righteous Butter".

The weirder names get IMHO is a sign that writers are reaching. They can't think of a cool kickass original name for their new thing so they just start floating totally bizzare stuff until something sticks. Hell, that's probably how they name most cars these days.

Yeah, those names work well for gaudy rock bands... but for a group that is supposed to be a "war relief unit"? That would be like my wife calling her VA floor nurses the "Peach Microwave". Not only is it non sequitur with what they do or who they are, it's kind of offensive. I mean, would YOU want to be taken care of by a bunch of nurses called the Peach Microwave? Same thing goes for a "war relief unit" (whatever the happy hell that is) called "Pumpkin Scissors"... oh look! It's the Red Cross coming to help our war weary country!... oh... wait... it's "Pimpkin Scissors" instead.

Ditto that... How do Anime writers come up with these crazy names? Do they have like three hats with slips of paper in them with random english words that they draw out of until they get something that "sounds good" to the average Japanese? -fishes around in hats- Grand Bread Llama! Blue Kitten Socks! Hyper Plastic Taco!

Ah but that was not the goal of the movie. The movie was not explaining why we fought there as much as it was depticting common intelligent men, having no real knowledge of what lead to the fighting, trying to rationalize why they fight and die for something unseen above themselves and their scope of vision... a common thing wondered by almost all grunts with half a brain at any time in their careers. His reflection on nature was not to show the effect of war on nature (which was the more obvious visual key) but to show how conflict, aggression, destruction and death ARE natural acts... and how there is a sense of order and direction in nature while those same things are perverted by man. It's a pretty literary work when you dig into it's meanings with repeated viewings. Then again this is all "high school english lit bullshit" in the eyes of some people and those folks will never really understand why I like this movie (and no that is not directly aimed at you Bsu, it's a wide brush). As I said, difference of opinion.

It's just a different kind of movie... where you saw "metaphysical wankery" I saw deeper inflection on war and life. It's not a film for everyone, with that I will agree, but to brush it off as some sort of rambling dietribe of nonsense is not giving the movie enough credit. Just in your responses and choice of words one can see that while you say you went in with no preconceived notions of what the movie should have been you seem to have quite sharp notions of what the movie wasn't or what it didn't have. It's a difference of opinion in the end. I liked it, it made me think and reflect on things... it was a good movie in my opinion. Better than that ball of wax that was Windtalkers or that stilted hollywood cookie cutter that was Pearl Harbor.

But there where characters and there was a cohesive narrative, it was just not smacking you in the face.

And that is the point. You went in expecting something different than what you where shown. The Thin Red Line is not about the war, it's not even really about Guadalcanal. The reason I liked it so much was because it felt very eerily familiar to me in some ways. A lot of the sentiment and musing in the movie I myself had at one point in life. And yes, The Thin Red Line is not Saving Private Ryan... it was never supposed to be. Watching the movie with that expectation in mind will definately cause you to dislike it. It's a different kind of movie for a different kind of person. It's strange but the biggest reasons people put up for disliking it are the biggest reasons why I like it.

While it was a departure, I actually liked the movie The Thin Red Line. It was poetic. Sure they did not have pattented Spielburgian slow mo or guns-a-poppin every ten minutes and I can see how people going in would expect an out and out war movie only to be treated to an art house piece, but if you knew the subject matter then the movie was outstanding... there is something about The Thin Red Line that speaks to me.