Graham

While I enjoyed Avatar, I thought District 9 was a far better movie. While I'll be up for seeing a sequel, I think a lot of the sense of wonder and freshness of the first movie will be gone. Hope to see the humans come back with enough firepower to kick blue kitty butt this time. Graham

RX-78 Gundam. Ugliest mecha ever IMO. Never understood why it is so popular. Graham

If any of our HK based members make a trip into China and spot the toys, any chance you could help pick me up one of the large ones, preferably the white or grey one, but also ok with other colors. Thanks in advance, Graham

I'll talk with Yamato and ask them if they can add a 'kneecap check' to the pre-packing inspection checklist for any future production runs of the 21/22. Graham

Will follow up next week and see what the ETA on the replacements is from the 'alternate source'. Graham

I seldom visit Shenzhen. Cost of a visa is too expensive. Probably only go to China once every 2 years

Sorry, gave up on 24 a few episodes into season 3. Graham

My problem with the Revolting joint system, is not so much the ball part of the joint, but rather the peg/socket interface which loosens up very quickly. I've owned a few Revoltings and bought a few for my son and invariably, during posing or play, the pegs frequently work their way out of a socket and a limb drops off! Not too high in frustration factor, but annoying none the less. Then of course,there's the shoddy paint aps, use of PVC, which I hate as a material for mecha toys, due to the non-crisp detail and edges you get the fact that with most of the toys you are stuck in a spread leg stance. Frankly, they are not even worth 2,400 yen. I threw out all of mine accept for the Regults, which themselves are quite frustrating as getting them to balance can be a challenge. Graham

Bit late to the party. Just read this thread and watched the two preview clips today. Will try to watch the first episode when I have time. There is a fine line between being "inspired by" or "paying homage to" something and being a blatant rip-off and Astro Plan clealy is way, way deep into the territory of "blatant rip-off'. Some of the visual imagery, in the combat scenes, such as the ships defolding, the ships AA fire against the Vajra copies, is almost a direct rip from Frontier. I've alsked Yamato to check if Big West knows about this. It will be interesting to see their response. That said, I thought some of the not-VF designs were interesting, that is until I saw the WTF-angel energy wings in not-battroid mode! Wouldn't miond getting hold of a few of the toys just for shits and giggles. Tried a search on ebay, but couldn't find anything. Anyone know if they are actually out yet? Graham

I think you just answered your own question....heh. I wouldn't say there is 'rage' Nobody is angry about them. We just don't like them. Graham

Saw these in Animate in Causeway Bay yesterday. Definate pass, so ugly. Picked up another 1/60 VF-22S Max instead. Graham

Interesting that they have pictures of the YF-19 in the background. A sign of things to come? Graham

Got say, I've transformed my early 1/60 V2 VF-1S and VF-1A loads of times and no breakage or stress marks on them, or any of the other V2 VF-1 1/60. But then with the VF-1J that came with the GBP, first transformation out of the box and it breaks. Graham

OK, next request (sorry I'mat work ATM & don't have access to my M7 files). I need some screen captures showing the ciolor of the VF-11C space use Super Packs. I seem to recall the Super Packs being a dark bluish-grey, rather than just grey. Graham

They screwed up the color of the flight suit badly on the prototype. It looks really gay. Hopefully, there is time to change it. Not sure if the production run has started yet or not. I'm usually their go to guy if they have any questions. They don't have an in-house expert, although the Japanese Macross production manager is now (usually) pretty knowledgable. Graham

That's great Uxi & Bri, thanks. Basically, something that clearly shows the color of the front of the flight suit. Graham

URGENT - need a few screen captures from Macross 7 of the VF-11C flight suit, preferably where the colur of teh flight suit can be shown clearly. Graham

Heh, so c'mon own up, how many of you spent the whole movie trying to spot Neytiri's nipples? Graham

Smoke, or grety tint finish was actually discussed last night. Graham

Guys, just removed the non-shoulder related info at the request of our patron. Sometimes they are a little sensitive about what I can/can't say. I think most of you have read it anyway by now, so no big loss. However, anybody repasting the removed info into a post will have the post deleted ok, so don't. Graham

Good catch David, I will mention to Yamato. A VF-0D would be at least 60% new tooling if not more. Graham

So, I had a dinner meeting with Yamato last night and I kicked butt and took names. The main topic of discussion was the shoulder pin issue and I took great pains to ram home just how much of an issue this was. Other items were also discussed. Here’s a point-by-point summery of the main points of discussion and the decisions reached: - Shoulder Hinge Issue Yamato did not know that some VT-1 toys were supplied with knurled pins. The VT-1 toys were supposed to be supplied with the smooth pins. Somebody at the factory screwed up, either intentionally or unintentionally. There was a big meeting at the factory over this last Friday and apparently it resulted in somebody from the factory getting fired. I mentioned that many members had been waiting months for replacement VF-1 shoulder hinges from OverDrive. Yamato said they will as quickly as possible make available to OverDrive a large number of white shoulder hinges with smooth pins. Also some of the cream color shoulder hinges for use with the VT-1/VF-1D will be made available. Hopefully, these should be available with a few weeks. Replacement shoulder hinges will also be made available through an alternate source. Please PM me for details. For the Hikaru VF-1J with GBP-1S Armour set fiasco. All I can say is this is stupidity on Yamato’s part. There had been no reported cases of the first run of VF-1J Hikaru’s cracking, so Yamato assumed they would be OK. I explained to them that even sitting in storage or display and not being touched, the knurled pin will stress the plastic of the shoulder hinge and cause it to crack. Yamato sincerely apologies for this and promise greater availability of spares through OverDrive and elsewhere (see above). Yamato say they will revise the metal parts checklist and add extra steps and take greater care during the manufacturing process to insure that only the smooth pins are used in future. Yamato will look into changing the shoulder hinge design when they get back to Japan. I’ve told them the plastic needs to be thicker. They will look into it. I will follow up with them about this in a few weeks. You will be happy to hear that I was told the VF-1S Hikaru and VF-1S Fokker reissues that come with the flashlights are new manufacture, not old stock and Yamato say they have the smooth pins. (posted edited and some info removed at the request of the big boss). Graham

Experten, who previously went by another name (who's name eludes me for the moment) also sold transformable YF-21 and VF-22S IIRC. And on Yahoo Japan auctions, they have soold for 95,000 yen. Graham

So I heard Dollhouse was cancelled by Fox after the end of season 2 right? I'm honestly getting reluctant to start watching any new sci-fi shows, espcially those by Fox if they are going to prematurely cancel them all the time. First Firefly, then Terminator SCC and now Dollhouse. Really, it's just seems not worth bothering to invest my time in a show and get to like it, if its just going to get cancelled. Graham

If it has the shoulder pins that are smooth on both ends, it should be fine, unless you handle it like a 300lb ham fisted ogre. It is supposed to have the smooth pins, but these days you can never be too sure. I'll check mine when I get home tonight. I think I've got it in Battroid mode in my display cabinet. Graham