JsARCLIGHT

I think the closest you will come is the CSI or Law and Order PC games... both of which are for "adults" and both feature hours and hours of repetative hunt and click and scripted circular talkie bits. They are pretty much police quest on steriods without the action.

I was just a weeeee bit too old to play a kiddie grade geography game when they came out... but I do remember every time going down the games software isle of Egghead (R.I.P.) and seeing Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? Where in North America? Where in the Western Hemesphere? Where in the World? Where in Space? They had like ten million spinoffs of that game... and to think that american kids still flunk geography. Also from what I remember I never saw the game show but I did see commercials for it... my guess is kids also did not like watching geography on TV either.

IIRC in one episode or another they attach the Tread to the Green Legioss for a few minutes. I guess someone in the freedom fighters ranks is colorblind... my money is on Mint. Anyhoo another thing that has always bothered me about the Legioss armo-fighters is that you only see three colors of Tread, the Blue, Green and Dark flavors... was there no Tread for Jupiter Base? Did the Legioss of Jupiter Base really go there to get more stupider?

If I remember my Mospeada Color Grafiti book's translation right the second Earth Recapture mission (of which Stig and the 21st group were part) had their legioss units painted all green with white highlights. Like any good Japanese anime show the leader units were painted a blue rather than a green. Stig, being the commander of the 21st group, flew a blue Legioss... into the ground. The unit that Jim Austin salvaged was also a blue unit from the second Earth Recapture mission as they did not have the Legioss series fighters in the first Earth recapture mission several years before. The third Earth recapture mission fielded almost all Dark Legioss fighters (Shadow fighters for you Robotechies) so they all had the same color palate. The real connundrum of the show was the all red Jupiter Base fighter they salvage for Hoquet... it was aparently part of a joint unit that landed with elements of the second Earth recapture mission and got wiped out by the Inbits. Just what was a Jupiter based fighting unit doing mixed in with the Mars folks?

Stig was from the Mars Base 21st Armored flight wing so my guess is the numbers are for his original issued vehicle... they never really say if the one they "find" in the anime is his original fighter or not, it is just assumed it is not. Jim Austin (Lunk for you Robotechies) just tells Stig "I've been working on/restoring it" which makes it obvious that it cannot be the same unit. All "leader" fighters in Mospeada are painted Blue and White so it was most likely some other poor clod's ditched plane that Jim restored.

It can be stupid, it can be purile, it can be bears driving little cars around a ring... if the movie makes money then it is a success in the eyes of the studio and encouragement for more of the same to other studios. Yes the "diehards" and "fanboys" can bitch themselves into comas for all the studios care they are just out to make money, not entertain. Such is the brave new world of movies... unless the director who helms the project is willing to bankroll the thing himself (ala Spielburg with Dreamworkds or Lucas with LFL) or a studio is willing to part with large sums of cash on just the word of the director alone we will not be getting the "Aliens", "Terminator 2"'s and "Predator"s of the world made anymore to the fanboy's critical tastes as the people who truly care about the license, really deeply want to mold the property into something the fans will love will be sitting in the unemployment line while studios choose a trained chimp they can keep under budget and within their "scope" for what they want the picture to be. A Boardroom made AVP, not Anderson... he was just the right wetnurse for the job to cater the specific audience targeted marketing play that was this movie. Sure you may enjoy the empty headed cavorting of a drunk in the street but when other studios see people flocking to that they will produce more of the same and less of the other truly unique and risky projects. In the end it is all about risk of money and hollywood is more willing to bankroll a predictable shootin' and smart-mouthin' summer movie aimed at teens than it is to support a grim and dark ultra violent plot heavy behemoth.

Just for the record pretty does not have to equal fragile, high quality does not have to equal high cost and high engineering does not always equal better product. Toynami suffers from cheapout syndrome. I have no doubts that if made bigger, with the diecast in the right places instead of just being added to use the toy as a paperweight and with higher quality plastics in a better staffed factory this toy could be a very nice piece. But alas, they chose to save money and increase their profits by releasing a sub-sized, sub-par toy. An example of a low cost, super detail, super quality toy released here in the US is the 20th Optimus Prime. I did not like the toy due to personal issues but after getting this hellhole toynami piece of crap I can now appreciate the Optimus for the glory that is was... it was not only cheaper than the Toynami garbage but it was bigger, sturdier, made of much better materials, painted very very well and had diecast in all the right spots. We are the victims of a boardroom f**k up here and I think people are starting to catch on. Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and sons!

Well for starters there are TONS of quality differences between that prototype and the actual toy... although you can clearly see the arm missle problem was evident even back then. And is it just me or does that prototype have different hips and is missing most of the "peg and hole" parts that clutter up the production toy. Also look how nice and clean the lines, parts and gaps are on the prototype... is it any wonder why people like me are mad that our production toy looks nothing like pic? We were all shown a cadillac but given beat up yugos instead.

You did not give a ZERO option. Seriously, this toy blows small wildlife. I know, I know "But JsARCLIGHT, you got a bad one"... well from all the reviews and pictures I keep seeing they all look bad to me. Most everyone is having the same or similair problems to my toy which leaves me to believe that the entire run is suspect. Some things just don't bother people as much as they bother me but it is evident that this toy has serious design flaws and serious QC issues that outshine it's good points. It's a ramshakle assembly of sub-par pieces. Like I said originally I bet this thing looked good on paper but in execution it is a train wreck. I also know most people are writing me off as a "toynami basher" or just some angry hater but you will know all too soon how crappy this toy is when you buy it... just hope that you don't pay more than $20 for it.

I currently don't have a camera but here is a nice list of all the things I have found wrong or unacceptable with my toy since I got it: - paint quality on cockpit poor, bad edges with overspill - paint quality on intakes poor, lots of overspill into the black areas - paint quality on wings poor, edges "Fuzz out" and have poor definition - paint quality on head poor, blue overbleeds onto white sides - paint quality on tailfins poor, white is uneven does not follow lines - front landing gear impossible to pull out without tools - cockpit was painted shut on one side and on top - everywhere there is a peg hole on a painted spot (chest, arms, etc.) the paint has already started to wear on those spots - missle doors on shoulders are uneven, they don't line up and they look to be on crooked - lower arms do not propperly seat against the shoulders in jet mode and stick out at about a 10 degree angle - huge gap were tailfins fold in, plus gap is irregular on both arms - forearms are starting to pull apart causing the above gap as well as others on the arms to become worse - hands are difficult to flip in and out of the arms and due to the rubbery nature of the hands they are hard to pose - shoulder transformation joint hits the wing cutout and will not swing into the right spot unless you grasp the wings and pull them in a bad way so it clears - shoulder joints themselves are very loose - left wing's second pivot point, the one in the middle of the wing, is offset which causes the wing to look like it is at two different heights with a nasty stepdown - gun will not stay on wing pegs for more than a few seconds and slides right off - Feet do not line up in fighter mode, left foot collapses farther than right and causes it to look lopsided requiring tons of figiting with the feet to line them up and they still do not line up propperly - legs do not compress into the body in jet mode right which causes the yaw in the toy - that VTOL jet in the robot's groin is way loose and rattles and moves around on it's own - the head's hinge is loose and causes the head to flop when the toy is picked up or moved (Gakken syndrome) - the missles in the forearms are so poorly designed that you only see the tops of them when the hatches are opened... and all four hatches rattle because they are not tight - rear landing gear doors are impossible to open without tools as are rear landing gears - when in armo-soldier mode if you hold the toy by it's chest and give it a little shake the whole thing rattles like an italian rifle - the seams on the upper legs are very deep, black and noticeable - the paint on the yellow inlet spots on all locations is sloppy with little yellow hairs peeping out and rough fuzzy boarder lines - the majority of the missle hatches on the legs don't match the shape of the ports, i.e. port has nice square corners but hatch has rounded corners that leave nasty uneven gaps - some missle hatches on legs are loose and sit slightly open whereas others are so tight they require tools to open - design issues such as screw plugs on the back of the heels yet no screw plugs on the sides of the feet - the hip joints are very unposable, possessing only the ability to rotate back and forth and on a Z axis for transformation - knee joints are problematic, they sit too deep in the leg and if you pull on them any harder to try and extend them you get the feeling you are going to break them - the kneecaps are begging to break - the detatchable sensor pod... why did they even bother making the antenna collapse? It's so small and the thing detatches anyway... - the little pivot hatch on the butt is useless... it moves in like a centimeter and then requires a firm yank to return to normal Other issues that are my opinion rather than hard fact: - sticker sheet is laughable - size is pitiful - pilot and ride armor unit are useless, plus ride armor does not go in the "anime correct" spot - the "diecast" is useless. No parts that you would expect to be diecast are diecast. All the important hinges and moving parts are plastic while stupid things like the arm doors and the inside of the chest and legs are diecast. The diecast was put on this thing for two reasons: so they could claim "Diecast!" and so this punkass toy would be heavy to the feel and appear to be more solid than it really is. The box is the best thing about this toy. If they had made it much larger and out of better materials and not gone with Crazy Eddie's Toy Factory and Used Car emporium to build it this might have been a decent toy... but as it stands this thing is a nightamre to me and a potential hazzard waiting to break for others. Once again, I'm speaking out of frustration with this damn toy. All of the above except for the opinion parts is fact though about my toy. I have never in all my years of toy collecting gotten this bad of a toy... and I owned a lot of 1/60 Yamatos.

OK, I'm drinking in the irony of what happened to me yesterday and today. Got my crappy MPC Legioss. Hated it. Complained about it. Brought it to work in the box. Co-worker was interested in it and bought it off of me. Come in today and co-worker wants his money back. Refund money and take possession again of this crap-ass toy. Even he felt ripped off at half the price and wanted his money back. I hate this toy. It's going in the closet when I get home and never coming out. I am also having a hard time understanding how the quality level of mine can be so much different than other peoples... are your parts lined up right? No crooked doors or panels? No crooked seams? Do all of yours stay together when in all three modes? No parts pulling apart? No fugly unbalanced look? I think a lot of people are giving this toy too much leeway just as I am giving it too much critisism. This is a bad toy... bad bad bad. I actually prefer the first gen MPC VF-1 to this toy. At least the first gen VF-1 did not flop around like a dead fish and have all these transforming, posing and just downright quality issues. If mine is the worst of the worst they have made then the good ones must barely be likeable. I know to everyone I must seem like the angry old ahab tilting against a toy that most people find to be a blessing but this thing is the first toy I have bought in years that has made me this dissapointed and angry. I wished this toy would have been at least tollerable but mine is just garbage. I should also point out that this is really the first time I have ever taken a toy this poor out of the box, usually I'm overjoyed at my toy purchases even the bad ones. But this toy... UGH!

OK, the growling bear is back. Sorry to hear about another one of these crappy toys breaking on someone EXO. Seems to me that the true terribleness of this toy will reveal itself to others as time goes on... and as more and more of their toys either break or fall apart I feel this new MPC line will waver and fall just like the old one. I have one final gripe before I finally let this dog lie... the diecast. Is it just me or is the diecast in this thing just plain stupid? It's like they put in diecast just so the could claim "diecast!". None of it serves any purpose other than to make the thing heavier. All the parts that you think should be diecast are modelled in cheap thin plastic and the parts that you would expect to be plastic are for some stupid reason diecast. Like the arm doors... why in god's name are they diecast? And is it just me or is the inside of the chest and legs diecast? Because they are heavy like diecast but almost all of the outer parts are all plastic. And on the topic of the Tread... who here besides me doesn't want one now after seeing how crappy the Legioss is? And why is everyone still looking for interface points when you just know they either had no intention of making one or they were just going to make some weak and stupid "tab A into slot B" connection scheme anyhow. And once again for the record this is not baseless "toynami bashing" that people always accuse us hardcore MW people of... this is pure unadulterated hate at this point. I thought if I put the thing back in the box and got some sleep my anger over this crappy toy would subside but it hasn't. I feel so stupid for getting worked up over a damn toy but this... thing... takes the cake. Not only do I feel ripped off for paying $80 for it but the thing is so crappily designed and shoddily put together that the only people in the world that must know my dissapointment are old Yugo owners.

While putting mine back in the box and IMing with EXO I noticed that the damn cockpit on mine is painted shut as well... bent another paperclip prying it open. My running joke for those who ask now is that the QC guy must have kicked mine twice for good luck. Either mine is a total lemon or my anticipation of this toy was so far beyond reality that I'm dissapointed with what most see as a good toy. I should take pics of all this crap on this thing but I don't have a digicam right now... Edit: And actually I got a haircut and shaved off my beard a few weeks back... sadly now I look like a cross between the blonde guy on Queer Eye and Dennis Leary. I really feel the Leary anger right about now too.

Mine is number 1699. Ironically if this thing was priced $16.99 it would STILL not be worth it. This toy has gone back to jet mode and gone back in the package. At least the thing looks good in that damn box and that is where mine will stay... fugly piece of crap. For those who ask I have just assumed that my expectations of this toy where so far beyond the level of Toynami's skill that I might as well stop complaining as people have pointed out to me: this is normal for Toynami.

I got mine today... wow. Color me unimpressed. Here is my own mini review... because toy reviews are like buttholes, everyone has one. The GOOD: - It's the first Legioss toy in 20 years - the paint scheme is correct unlike the Gakkens - there is more die cast than the first MPC line - umm... it's a Legioss? BAD: ok, here we go... - The design of all the parts and how they work most likely looked reallygood on paper but in reality this toy is a mess of loose parts, crooked seams, gaps, overhangs and overly tight/loose pieces - the paint quality is spotty. Some parts are nice but others look like a blind seven year old painted them with his feet. Paint quality itself (the overall quality of the paint used) is low. - the plastic quality is also low. Looks to be the same cheap thin plastic they used on the first MPC line. Very porus and milky with an almost rubbery feel to it. - Gaps, holes, seams, flash and general poor parts fit everywhere. My toy looks like I myself tried to build a model rather than a nice finished toy. My Missle bay doors don't line up with their seams, the missles underneath are offset or just pushed into the assembly in such a way that they look really really bad. - The hands... UGH! The hands! Rubbery, sticky, hard to pose and yet another design that looked good on paper but is abysmal in real life. - I can forsee several parts on this toy as being very easy breakages. The knees, the arm fins, all the tiny and numerous pegs, etc. etc. My Thoughts: Either I had really reall high expectations for this toy or Toynami has once again graced us with a pile of crap. I so wanted this toy to be awesome and beyond kickass in all ways but instead I end up with a roughly held together by the grace of god pile of tiny parts with bad seams and peg holes galore. As I said above, this design most likely looked sooooo good on paper but in execution it is a loose, sloppy and jumbled mess. The thing is overengineered to the point of being useless as a poseable toy. Every time I move one thing two other things pop loose. If Toynami would have just used better materials and made the thing BIGGER then most of these issues would go away because the teeny tiny parts would then be normal size. I seriously hope to god that not all of these toys are as crappy as mine and I also hope mine is a QC defect as it is unplay-with-able. You can't even leave the thing in fighter mode and display it somewhere because the darn fighter has this "slope" to it where the cockpit is pointing at the sky as is the tail... basically the thing looks like it is dragging it's stomach on the ground. The landing gears, or as I call them the "frustrating little metal toothpics with black boogers on the ends" are basically just there to let you know it has landing gears. UGH! I am sooooo frustrated with this toy. I to this day have only had problems with Toynami toys. None of my Yamatos has ever even remotely angered me as much as this pile has. I am about as dissapointed as a poor kid at the ballpark on free shirt day behind the kid in line who gets the last one. Either my taste in toys is just waaaaaaaay too high or this thing is crap. I really wanted a whole set of these but now I'm seriously reconsiddering it. If they all turn out this bad I don't care if they go down to free with an oil change I still won't get them. $80 pissed away on yet another crappy Toynami product. Oh and if toynami is reading this: I will not brake if I see you in a cross-walk and may even throw it in reverse to get you a second time.

Actually in today's day and age this is a common response to "crime"... which is usually make the law-abiding tax paying citizens suffer the hardship and possibly the blame. Most companies realize that bootleggers are like drug dealers, you squash one and ten more pop up. Rather than tackle the roots behind bootlegging and address ways to reduce bootlegging they usually take the easy road which is to pester the goverment for more laws... laws that clamp down on everyone, not just the offenders. You can't legislate crime away it has to ebb from natural causes. Attack the root of the crime, not the criminal and you will eliminate crime... just attack the criminals and you basically hold back the flood for a few days more.

Any movie can open big in this day and age... the proof of it being a contender is if it stays high at the box office. Pretty much every big budget flick that has come out this summer has fizzled after the first two weeks and my guess is that AVP will do the same. I find it strange that a while back it was one or perhaps two $100+ million epics come a summer but now there are like 10... and most of them are barely breaking even in the box office. I wonder if hollywood will learn it's lesson finally.

The "violation" happened in the first movie, Alien. It is 100% implied and not shown. Basically you have a paralyzed from fear Lambert standing and screaming her annoying head off as the camera shot shows the alien tower over her from about five to eight feet away. His tail moves (somehow) along the floor and is shown coming up between her legs. But in all honesty I always assumed that was so the tail would grab her from behind and pull her to him so he could bite her head apart like he did Brett... but then again the muffled grunts and breathing of Lambert heard over the ship's intercom seem to indicate otherwise.

My main issue with the toy (getting mine on monday from Kev so my opinion may change when it is in my hands) is the same as my opinion of the Gakken... in fighter mode the legs just don't "tuck up" underneath the fighter like they do in the line art. If you watch the anime and look at the line art a lot the legs sit almost directly under the arms and the "feet" end right about even with the boosters on the arms. All the Legioss toys have the legs sticking way too far out the back. I know this unit has a ton of "anime magic" in it's transformation but this Toynami piece looks to be the closest to the anime (sans the leg thing). Has anyone taken a shot of one next to one of the Legioss Super Posables yet? I can take one tomorrow night when I get my MPC but I was wondering if someone had beaten me to it?

Implied violence only goes so far though. In Alien you had to see Kane's chest explode and Brett get his head bit in half in order to have an apreciation for how deadly the Alien is. After you show how grusome the monster or killer is then you can use the off camera deaths and "implied" deaths all you want. The deaths of Dallas, Lambert and Parker can then be all mood as your mind imagines worse deaths than what you saw... but in order for that to take place you need a starting point, some visceral image to shock your subconsious into creating that fear. The "Visual payoff" is needed at first to create the power of the later off camera and implied effects. A killer that is never seen at work cannot have the same appreciation of one that is caught in the act. As for the Predator decapitating people that was something I myself wanted to see. Outside of stabbing Carl Weathers and hoisting him aloft those stupid claws are more or less hood ornaments than actual combat weapons... plus a double blade cannot properly decapitate, the physics of it are just wrong. Most of the killing the Predator did was with his beam cannon rather than his own hands in the first movie but at least you saw the results of those beam cannon hits.

We are saying pretty much the same things in the end. My original point was that movies like these need the snippits of gore and blood to keep the fear of the monster/killer in the audience and that editing those out in benefit of a younger audience base destroys it's credibility as a monster movie. If everything happens off camera then the aliens and predator could be playing canasta for all we know. The audience has to see the death up close to get a real fear for the monsters. As for the reviews of AVP I have read two in local papers and two online... all four were negative reviews of the movie. From what I have seen they are not giving wide critic screenings for AVP for the same reason Pluto Nash did not get any critical screening, the studio fears critical panning will keep people away from the movie. Word of mouth has become the death bell or mealticket for modern movies and if a flick has a positive "spin" going on then it will stay active at the box office for weeks... but if it has poor word of mouth and a lot of dissappointed people coming out of the theaters then expect it to hit video release in a few short months.

It's not the continuity it's the pacing and the content. Not every kill will be a blood spurting death and not every shot will hit... but the "high points", the memorable stuff from the movies is not the "off camera implied" death it is the in your face oh my freaking god did you see that head come apart death. In Alien you have the chestburster, then you have Brett getting his skull munched in and finally you have the gooey mini hive sequence. Then in Aliens you have yet another chestburster, all the gooey people glued into the hive and several other mini maulings topping off with Ash getting ripped in two. Predator is the chief offender of the blood and guts sprayings as almost all of the members of Dutch's team get splattered in nice gooey ways. The green berets are skinned and strung up, the shootout with the guerillas is nice and bloody, the guy with the glasses gets ripped to pieces then dangled from a tree, Jesse the body gets his chest blown into cat food, Carl Weathers gets his darn arm blown off and the bald guy gets his brains blown out. There is more gore in Predator and Alien/Aliens than there has been in almost all the movies released this year. The concept of "what you don't see bothers you more" is only appropriate in certain situations but in order to sell the monster, sell the murder or sell the action you actually do have to see the bad stuff happen. Not showing something and calling it "artful" is a cop out. People need to see the true horror of things to know the true horror. People needed to see Brett get his head torn up and lifed away by the alien to feel real fear for it. I'm not scared when someone gets killed off camera but when you see that Predator knife take off someone's head or that Alien mouth cleave a skull you silently say "daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn" to yourself. The trick is that all the "good old" sci fi movies like Predator and Aliens were made in the slam-bang shoot 'em up kill 'em all '80s... back when gratuitous violence, lopped limbs, bloodspray and brains all over the place were common. Since the whole "think of the children" movement everyone has toned down most of the gore and violence in movies themselves without the stepping in of the MPAA and marketed things to kids that would have rather been made for adults as kids are the ones with the disposable incomes going to see these outrageous movies that most adults would never go see. As for Event Horizon the movie is scarry because it is CHEAP. They used sudden loud noises and jump out of nowhere scare tactics to spook the audience rather than actual menace and mood. Anyone can tone down the music then throw in a loud SSHRRREEEEEEE! or KABOINK! to make the audience jump. Those sort of things are cheap amateur tactics. The true measure of a scary movie is if you are still a little spooked when watching it the second time through. If a movie can blend the imagery, story and tension together to give you a lasting spook out then it succeeds in being truly scary. Anyone can make you jump, it takes a master to give you nightmares.

I'd like to add a category to Max's list that I fit into: People who just wanted to see a hard core 3 way vs. movie I wanted this movie to be all blood and guts and slashing alien tails with predators ripping spines out and humans shooting everything that moves and a general melee of violent combat... something like Scarface or South Park the movie that got rejected by the MPAA several times for having just too much bad content. In the previous "good" Alien and Predator movies the highlights of the movie were the sensational action sequences, the stomach turning gore and the terrifying suspence... in this movie you have the three ultimate killing machines in the galaxy in one place fighting each other and the general reaction most viewers have is "meh". To me, that is a complete failure of the concept. But on the flip side of the coin if the movie was made all teeth and tails and flying entrails like I wanted it to be then most likely no one would go see it and the critics would pan it as being "all gore and no substance"... whereas now they are just panning it as being no substance.

Spoiler alert! ALF SHOOTS FIRST!!!

AO is away on a special op out of the US right now I think... last time he checked in it was from London about a week ago. Just so no one goes into AO withdrawl I'll put on my Agent One mask for a second... (clears throat) "No Schwarzenegger = not a good movie"