Graham

Whoa.......what's all this to do with updating the splash page? Anyway, I've finally managed to track down Shawn and get the updated passwords to the new server, so updates will start soon, once I get some family problems cleared up. Graham

Robotech Masters? Ah....you mean Harmony Gold right? Afterall, are they not the masters of Robotech. Graham

Just preordered 'Miami Vice - Season Two'. Best cop/action show ever IMO. Also, ordering 'The Clint Eastwood Gift Set (A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)' as my Christmas present to myself. Love those movies. Graham

Heh, I dig the breasts on the female Lego figures. Graham

Shin is correct, Takani did most of the model box art for the old Imai/Arii/Bandai Macross kits. He also did the amazing box art for the old Bandai Xabungle kits. He has also been doing military model box art for decades. His most recent Macross work AFAIK, was the art for the Wave 1/72 scale Macross 7 VF-17 & VF-19Kai/Blazer vinyl battroid kits back in 1995. His VF-17 Battroid box art being my favorite piece of his work. There are actually two Takani art books published that I know of. I have both of them. The first was published in 1983. This book is fairly hard to track down now, although I imagine Seichi could probably help. The second book was published a year or two ago and can still be found online. This book has about 8 pages of his Macross box art pics, full page size with no writing covering them. IMO, it's worth it just for those pics. Graham

I strongly disagree with the statement that Tenjin based 'everything' off of Takani. While it's true that the layout of the first 3 of the early Hasegawa VF-1 fighter mode box art pics (VF-1A Hikaru, VF-1J Hikaru & VF-1S Focker fighter modes) share certain similarities to Takani's work, with regard to layout, lighting etc, this is not really true for the bulk of Tenjin's Macross work, including the majority of his Hasegawa box art kits. IMO Tenjin's box art for the Hasegawa Macross Plus kits, Macross Zero kits, M7 kit and VF-X2 kit is certainly very different from Takani's style IMO. Even most of the VF-1 kits such as the VF-1 battroid kits, Strike & Super VF-1 Fighters and VT-1 & VE-1 bear no resemblance to Takani's style IMO. With regard to the similarities between Takani's Macross box art and Tenjin's early Hasegawa VF-1 fighter box art pics I have heard two stories from fairly reliable sources with regard to this. One is that the similarities by Tenjin were intentional as a homage to Takani. Two, that Hasegawa asked Tenjin to do the box art in a similar style. Not sure if either of these stories are true though. Also, you have to remember that Tenjin was creating Macross art long before Hasegawa commissioned him to do the art for their Macross models. In his pre-Hasegawa days, Tenjin had some great Macross pics on his Valkyrie Maniax site (now sadly down). These had no resemblence to Takani's work. Tenjin has also created art for the Maross games VFX-2 and MPGE, the stunning Japanese Macross Plus DVD box art and Macross calendar art. Again all very different from Takani's art. I have great respect for both Takani and Tenjin and personally find their artistic styles widely different. I've previously heard several members of this forum accuse Tenjin of plagiarizing Takani's work and it always annoys the heck out of me (although I am not accusing you of this Solscud). Graham

The late 80s and most of the 90s were a very dark time for Macross toy collectors. Sure, there was the odd toy released like the 1991 Bandai 1/55 VF-1S Super Valk and the 1/65 M7 toys in 1995, but they were still lean years overall. Model guys had it much better in the 90s with model reissues in 1990, 1992 1994-1995 & 1997, including some new kits like the 1/100 VF-2SS & 1/144 & 1/100 M7 kits. Pre-internet days were terrible. It took me years to track down my two 1/55 Strike Valks and I ended up paying about US$1,000 each for them. Graham

Excellent work. How about seeing it in the standard grey color as well? Graham

Looks great. I'm glad you decided to build it with the landing gear up. Valks in fighter mode look so much better that way IMO. Graham

Personally, I'm fine with how ruthless the Pegasus crew seems. The way I look at it, is that just like the crew of Galactica, they have seen their entire civilization wiped out and thought they were the last surving humans. However, unlike Galactica, they did not have a rag-tag fleet of civilian ships to protect, so rather than running away as Galactica did, they decided to go on the offensive and hunt Cylons, which would necessitate being somewhat ruthless in order to survive against the entire might of the Cylons. Plus, I doubt it's the whole crew of Pegasus that is so cut-throat and ruthless, just Cain and a few select officers and crew, but that is enough. Anyway, I still stand by my theory that Cain will turn out to be a Cylon. Graham

No plans to see it. I'll stick with the original 1933 black and white version thank you very much. Graham

Excuse my ignorance, but what are "Haydonites"? Are they followers of Hayden Christiansen? Graham

Sounds more like Stallone in Cobra. "Crime is a disease and I'm the cure" Graham

Finally got around to watching the season 2 eps 'Flight of the Phoenix' and 'Pegasus' last week. I'd meant to watch them ages ago, but an overseas holiday followed by various problems at home got in the way. Here's a few short comments on both eps. A little late to the party, I know, but anyway: - Flight of the Phoenix For the first time in both seasons I really have mixed feelings about a BSG episode. On the positive side, it was nice to finally see the confrontation between Chief Tyrol and Helo over Sharon. I'd been waiting for this to happen for a while now and thought it was handled well. I also enjoyed the firing range scene with Apollo and Starbuck. On the negative side, there were several things I didn't like about this episode. Firstly, I thought Chief Tyrol designing and building the Stealth Viper in the space of 1 episode was absolutely ridiculous. True the guy is a talented mechanic and knows how to repair Vipers and Raptors, but designing a fighter from scratch is a whole different kettle of fish. And while the time span of this episode was not stated, it didn't seem to take more than a few days or a week at the outside. Even being generous and saying the episode took place over the course of a month would not realistically be enough time for a project of this scope. Then there's the whole discovery that carbon fiber panels block Dradis. You mean to tell me that the 12 Colonies have had the technology to create fold capable starships for ages and have (or had) the technology to create artificial intelligence (the Cylons), but in all that time nobody ever came up with Stealth technology until this humble flight deck mechanic stumbles on it by chance, by just sticking carbon fibre panels on a ship instead of metal panels. I dunno, for me that involves too big a suspension of disbelief from a series that has so far prided itself on being relatively realistic for a sci-fi show. Secondly, why did the Cylons attempt to attack the Galactica in this episode, when just one episode previously in 'Final Cut', they state that "the baby (meaning Sharon's) must be protected at all costs." Doesn't make sense to me. Thirdly, I thought the whole thing with Boomer sticking the cable in her arm to send the virus back at the Cylon attack fleet was terribly contrived and smacked of deus ex machina. Human type Cylons are supposed to be so indistinguishable from normal humans that they cannot be detected by normal medical tests so how the heck can she do that anyway? Guess it's going to be that old standby 'nano technology' huh? Basically what I'm getting at is if the human Cylons, bleed like humans, die like humans, feel pain and emotion like humans and can give birth like humans, then they are effectively humans, albeit ones with spines that can glow red and increased physical strength . Now I like to think I'm human and I know for damn sure that if I stick a USB cable into my arm, the only thing that's going to happen is that it's gonna hurt like a son of a bitch. Ain't no way I'm gonna be using it to transmit viruses. Pegasus Now this episode I loved, no question about it. I thought the design of the Pegasus was great, sort of like a squashed up Battlestar from the original show. I'm not going to get into the whole torture thing with No.6 and Sharon. Personally it didn't bother me and I thought it was handled well. Now some of you have suggested that the whole crew of the Pegasus are human Cylons. Personally, I don't think so. My theory is that Admiral Cain is definitely one though, which was how she was allowed to escape from the dockyard. I also approve of the casting for Cain. She is one tough lady (or Cylon?). Can't wait for the second half of season 2. Graham

You play as Aegis in the VFX-2 game and start with either a VF-1 or VF-11 for the first mission IIRC. As you complete the missions, other VFs become available, so you as Aegis can chose which VF you want to fly. Major Gilliam Angreat, the squadron leader of the VF-X Ravens flys a VF-19A. Most players will usually stick with either the VF-22 or VF-19A once they become available as they are the best planes to fly IMO. I haven't watched it in a long while, but IIRC all the movie cut scenes from VF-X and VF-X2 are on the 20th anniversery DVD (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong). Graham

Aegis Focker only appears in the VFX-2 game. He is not in the first VF-X game. Graham

Just watched the trailer to see what all the fuss is about. Gotta agree that it looks terrible and I'm not even a DoA fan. Graham

Watching The Hulk put me to sleep. There's very few movies that I've actually fallen asleep in the middle of. The only ones I can think of are 1) The Hulk, 2) Gundam Savior 3) Cashern (live action). The only common denominaor I can think of is that all 3 movies featured large amounts of bad CGI. OK that's nothing to do with X-Men 3, but I just felt like writing it down. Graham

IMO, Brett Ratner is a hack and couldn't direct his way out of a plastic bag. The previous company I worked for supplied the blank guns and ammo for the HK part of Rush Hour, so I was on set quite a bit. IMO the guy is an airhead and ranks alongside such talent as Uwe Boll and Paul Anderson. Graham

Just up to page 64 of the first book 'Game of Thrones' and no gratuitous sex so far . Graham

Now I've (finally) got the new server login passwords from Shawn, I'll try to get this up in the custom toy gallery by the end of the week. Graham

Deinitely the best mecha designer out there IMO. Beats the pants of of hacks like Kunio Okawara. Even Hajime Katoki is overated IMO with the only designs of his I like being the Gundam Sentinel and Victory Gundam designs. And don't forget he's done a heck of a lot of designs in his career, not just Macross, Armored Core, Aquarion & Eureaka 7. His creator credits are listed on Macross Compendium. I love all his Macross stuff. Even Macross 7 has some great designs such as the Full Armored VF-11C, VF-17D Nightmare and VF-22S. Personally, I prefer his newer Macross designs like the YF-19, VF-0S/D, SV-51, VF-17S/D, VF-11B/C to the classic VF-1. Graham

I'm surprised that Serenity did poorly at the box office. Personally, I thought it was the best film of the year, heck the best film of at least the last 5 years if you ask me. Graham

Nope, I think it just means it was one person that ordered all three costumes. I really hope it is not a guy dressing up in them. The phrase 'one sick puppy' springs to mind. I know I wouldn't like to run into a 6'3" Minmay cosplayer with size 15 feet in a dark alley at night. Definitely would not like to wake up next to one in the morning either. Graham

Yep, the eps shown on early morning UK TV were edited for content, Get the DVD set of the first 13 eps, it's uncut and can be ordered from amazon.co.uk For a kids show, there's a surprising amount of death, with people getting shot, falling off cliffs, getting crushed in one of the compactors that crushes cars etc. Graham