Graham

LOL...........poor 1/1 Lowviz Lurker, does anybody actually read all the way through his super-long posts Graham

The number of missiles a Viper MKII carries internally is mentioned in the Battlestar Galactica Official Companion Book. I'll have to go double-check when I get back home, but IIRC, it is 8 missiles. Graham

Am I the only one that thinks 'Van-Force' is a really silly name. Sounds like a bunch of super heroes that like drive round in a van or something Graham

You guys want this for your co-admin? Graham

While the movie deviates from the book in so many ways, I do prefer the casting and acting of the movie. I absolutely hate the casting choices in the mini-series. IMO, every actor/actress is completely miscast. And don't get me started on the extremely wooden acting. I really had to force myself to sit through the whole mini-series, and promptly threw the DVD in the trash as soon as I'd finished it. Graham

No sloppy seconds for me, thank you very much! Graham

Thanks for the clarification. Graham

I'm no expert, or rabid X-Men fan boy, but wasn't it Wolverine, not Cyclops who made the comment and I think he said yellow spandex, not blue. Graham

The new issues of Hobby Japan and Dengeki Hobby magazine should be out by next Tuesday (Jan 24). Hopefully, they will finally have some photos of the 1/60 VF-0S in Gerwalk mode (the only mode we haven't seen yet). I'll be buying the magazines on the day of release and will post any pics immediately. Graham

Finally rented the Spielberg WOTW on DVD over the weekend to watch with the wife. We both thought it was pretty bad overall, although some of the special effects were decent. Here's the things I disliked about the movie: - Tom Cruise's annoying grinning for the camera every few seconds at the beginning of the movie. I swear he's getting as bad as Will Smith in this regard. Thankfully he stopped doing this once all the bad stuff started happening. None of the 3 main characters (Cruise's character, his son and daughter) were at all likeable. In fact I found all of them really annoying. The whole idea of the Tripod's being burried underground for thousands or millions of years was so lame and flawed on so many levels. What's wrong with using the original concept of the Martians coming to earth in Giant cylinders? Thought the concept of the Martians coming to Earth on the lightning was pretty silly also. Even as sombody suggested they rode capsules down the lightning, the capsules must have been pretty small, as the holes the lightning made in the ground were not that large. Tom cruis's son should have died, that spoilt the whole ending. The lamest part of the movie was that the Tripods forcefields stopped working just because the Martians got sick. The design of the Martians were lame. Monkeys, crossed with ID4 Aliens crossed with ET. WOTW Aliens are supposed to be giant brains, bigger than bears with tenticles. IMO, the original H.G. Wells book is still better than all the movie adaptations put together, closely followed by Orson Well's radio adaptation, followed by the Jeff wayne musical. I never liked the George Pal movie either. Haven't seen the Pendragon Pictures version yet, but have it on order. LOEG Vol.2 is definitely worth a read for it's take on the Martian invasion of Earth. Graham

Hmm.....I would have thought that steel wool would have scratched the plastic. Graham

Just average IMO. Nothing special. Graham

Looks nice enough, but yeah I'm with EXO on this. Graham

I've owned and built several of these kits over the past decade. Yes, they are snap-fit, but like most snap-fit kits benefit from the odd dab of glue here and there. The kits are mostly molded in the correct colors and come with foil stickers. Of course they look much better if painted. They are not perfect transformation and the hands, head and lower torso section all have to be removed to transform from Battroid to Fighter mode. They are actually pretty sturdy kits (about the same as Gundam HG kits) as long as you treat them like models and not so much as toys. The only real weak point on the kits are a small tab on each wing, which slots into a hole on the outside of the lower leg in fighter mode. I've had this tab break on me before a couple of times. I'm actually having one built up for me now as a VF-19F by a professional model builder, although it won't be ready for a few months. I'll post pics when it's done. Graham

Probably licensing or royalty issues that prevented Paladium Games from using the original Studio Nue & Studio Artmic lineart. Graham

Mostly hookers at the moment Graham

Well, the store's open, but it's Japanese only. And the only thing they are selling so far is a fixed-pose figure of some chick in a bikini with gigantic breasts. Graham

Pretty cool, but what happened to the head laser on your Doyusha? Graham

Thought Titan AE was a horrid little film. Can't even remember why I rented it. Graham

Better to track down one of the various Japanese books on either Mospeada or Studio Artmic for original Mospeada line-art. Probably Seichi can help find them for you. There are at least 4 Japanese books that I know of and own. If I have time, I'll post some scans. Personally, I avoid using Robotech RPG books as a source of line-art as in the ones I've seen most of the art is not original Japanese line-art, but they use their own artist (IIRC a guy called Duncan Long) and I find his interpretations of the mecha to be pretty dire. Also, there used to be an excellent Mospeada site with lots of art on the MW links page, but I think the link may be dead. Graham

I'm still very curious as to how the Tread is going to attach to the Legioss fighter. Graham

Actually, Yamato don't necessarily make a ton of money on the 1/48 or any toy, unless they sell sufficiently large quantities. One thing to remember, is just because the retail price of a 1/48 is say ¥14,800, that doesn't mean that Yamato is getting back ¥14,800 for each 1/48 they sell. Between Yamato and the final customer (you), there is a usually a couple of layers of middle-man that the toy passes through first, with each one adding their own mark-up, e.g. from Yamato to distributor, from distributor to toy store, from toy store to final customer. The actual price that Yamato sells each 1/48 for is not that high probably less than half the recommended retail price. When you deduct the production cost from this selling price, the actual profit per toy is pretty small. Graham

I really hope Yamato releases a recolor of the 1/48 GBP armor in this color: - Click on thumbnail to enlarge. Graham

A VF-0 in 1/48 would just be too large and therefore too unwieldy, not to mention be a real shelf hog. The 1/60 VF-0S is already slightly larger than a 1/48 VF-1. The cheaper (I won't say cheap as the price point would have been ¥4,400), 1/100 scale VF-0S toy was quietly dropped before release as it came under universal scorn from both Japanese and International fans due to the ugly sculpt and need to swap out a large number of parts to transform it. There were also rumors of production difficulties with the parts fitting due to some of the parts of the toy being designed with CAD, while others were hand-sculpted - basically a real mess. Graham

Just saw this announcement on Yamato's website. Can somebody translate please? Click on thumbnail to enlarge. From the English text it's obvious that something on the web is going to be open from January 16th, but what? I wonder if it's going to be a Yamato online store? If yes, it would be great if they could ship Macross toys internationally and start selling spare parts again . I'm probably guessing completely wrong through . Graham