Graham

hobbykits, you seem to be missing the points I'm trying to make, which are : - Bandai's designs their MG, PG & HGUC kits so that they will appeal to BOTH the non-professional & professional builder, i.e. the non-professional can just quickly snap the Bandai kits together with no paint or glue and still have something that looks reasonably good. The professional can take his time and use sand, putty, paint and scratch-build or optional resin parts to make the kit look even better. Using this approach Bandai captures a larger share of the hobby market. Hasegawa kits are more traditional model kits in that they require paint and glue to build and thus are more suitable for the professional builder. Bandai MG, PG & HGUC Gundam kits have much less surface detail (fewer panel lines) than Hasegawa's Macross kits. Transforming model kits in general are more fragile than transforming toys. If you want a mecha that you can frequently transform it is better to stick with a toy rather than a model. Transforming toys can be durable, whereas transforming mecha kits like the MG Zeta and Z-Plus and PG Zeta are less durable and often have balance problems (lack of ratchet joints), sagging parts and insufficiently stong locking. Going by the present level of detail on Bandai's PG kits, a PG VF-1 would not necessarily be more detailed than a Yamato 1/48 VF-1 toy, although of course a professional model builder could make a PG kit much more detailed. Graham

I think Michael Mann's 'Heat' is way overated. The only good part of the movie was the big gunfight when they robbed the bank. I thought the rest of the movie was terrible, with De Niro and Pacino being completely unsuitable for their roles. I love's Mann's work on the TV shows Miami Vice & Crime Story, but to be honest have been less than impressed with his movies to date. Graham

Heh, I remember my mothing telling me that my father wanted to take her to see Rosemary's Baby when she was pregnant with me, but she was too scared to go see it. I actually quite like the movie. IMO it had good acting, good story, lots of suspense and was quite scary without having to rely on in-your-face shocks and scary monsters. But then again, I'm mostly into older movies from the '60s, '70s and '80s. And I thought Mia Farrow was quite cute in the movie in a sort of waifish way (I like waifish women). Graham

Very nice. Yours is the first 1/60 GBP custom that I have seen so far. Graham

Thought the first movie was crap, so won't be seeing the sequel. Graham

In the DYRL Saturn and Playstation game, there is one stage where Hikaru does use GBP armor on his VF-1A, so it's sort of correct. Graham

I'm one of the few people who actually prefer Ford's naration in Blade Runner over the directors cut. I agree with Ginrai that the lethagic delivery fits perfectly. And the ONLY good Woody Allen film ever is 'Sleeper' (1973). It makes me laugh when I hear people talking about the slow pace of older films such as Blade Runner. Heck Blade Runner isn't even that old. IMO, it's not Blade Runner that is slow it's just that people nowadays are too used to the wham-bam, super-faced pacing of modern films for today's ADD generation, where there has to be a gunfight, explosion or car chase every 2.5 minutes to stop the kiddies today from getting bored. Graham

Not reading those short synopsis for the second half of season 2. I want to be completely surprised by what I see when I watch it. Graham

That's an interesting take on things Sar and after thinking about your post, I've gotta say I agree with pretty much everything you said. Bandai's MG & PG kits with their snap-together construction, extensive points of articulation, foil stickers and parts all molded in the correct color plastic are definitely aimed largely at the general mecha fan (such as myself) who has neither the time or skill to putty, sand and paint a kit to make it look good, but just wants an easy to build robot that can look good with minimal effort and is study enough to withstand a certain amount of re-posing or gentle play. Of course, the MG & PG kits are also suitable for the experienced model builder who does have the time and skill to paint them, but as Sar mentioned, even the PG kits lack the detail and panel lines of traditional plastic models like those from Hasegawa. Basically, Bandai's MG & PG kits are neither fish nor fowl. They're nowhere near as detailed as traditional model kits such as those by Hasegawa and neither are they as sturdy proper toys. If Bandai were to one day make a transformable MG or PG VF-1 kit, we'd probably just end up with something with a similar level of detail to the existing Yamato 1/48 VF-1 toy with perhaps a few removable panels to show some inner detail, but which would in all likelyhood be more fragile than the transforming toys we already have at present. Although I don't consider myself a model builder, I have owned and built dozens of Bandai Gundam kits in a 14 year period from 1989 to 2003 and they have all left me less than impressed by their durability, even the MG & PG kits and especially the transforming MG & PG kits. Invariably with transforming kits, you get accelerated wear on the locking parts and/or sagging parts due to insufficiently sturdy locking joints. These days if I want a transforming Variable Fighter I stick with toys as transforming model kits have too many compromises and have proved themselves to be too fragile. On the other hand, If I want a nice single mode non-transfoming representation of a Variable Fighter (either Hasegawa or garage kit), I'll commission a professional model builder to paint the kit for me. While I've previously said I'd like to see a PG transfoming VF-1, I don't think anything Bandai could release with their present design philosophy would be much superior to the Yamato 1/48 and as mentioned above would almost certainly be more fragile. Graham

Hmmmm.......still no sign of A1. Graham

Ah OK, I understand now. Unfortunately, I had to delete the pics, when Shawn moved to the new server and instituted the present 1.95mb limit we now have on attachments. Anyway, here they are again. Click on thumbnails to enlarge. (This is the Bandai 1/144 Scale Plastic Model Kit) (This is the Bandai 1/144 Scale Plastic Model Kit) (This is the prototype Bandai 1/65 VF-17S Milia toy from a 1995 Japanese toy show. Unfortunately, the toy never made it into production) (This is the prototype Bandai 1/65 Milia VF-17S as well as a prototype 1/65 VF-19F Blazer Valk displayed at a Japanese toy show in 1995. Sadly neither made it into production). Graham

You mean the pics of my custom Milia VF-17S toy? They are still showing up OK for me on page 1 of this thread. Graham

OK, time to lock this thread. I was going to allow it to stay open as long as the discussion stuck to reviewing the movie only, but I guess with a movie like this which is a fictionalised account of real-world events, it's too tricky keeping politics out of the discussion. Graham

I'm gonna leave this thread open for now, although I can't speak for the Mods. As much as I'd personally like to comment on terrorism, I don't really want to break the no politics and no religious discussion rule on this forum. I will however say that out of all the posters so far in this thread, my personal views would most closely follow Major Jonathan's first post on page 3 of this thread. Based on what I've heard so far I doubt I will bother seeing this film. Not really a fan of any of Spilberg's recent movies anyway. Graham

Wow.......it must have been bad if the last 5 episodes were unaired. Graham

Not reading the above spoiler as I'm still only on book two, about 65% of the way through. Gotta say I was suprised about what happened to Renly. I didn't see that coming. I liked him as well. Just ordered The Art of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire for myself. Thinking about getting the D-20 RPG as well, even though I may also not end up ever playing it. Must be 10 years since I last played a tabletop RPG. Gonna have to wait until early May 2006 to read A Feast for Crows, as that's when the paperback comes out . I never buy hardbacks even for books I really like as they take up too much space. Any of you ever played the Game of Thrones board game? It seems to get good reviews. Graham

Absolutely beautiful! Graham

Yes, the front part of the GBP-1S's back pack booster is detachable. No, you cannot attach a regular FAST Pack version on it. Graham

Excellent costumes. Graham

Can anybody tell me what the handgun is that Mal uses in the TV series & movie? Is it a real gun or something made up? Been trying to find out, but without luck so far. Graham

So EXO, I'm guessing it's a while since you've had anything twixt your nethers then? Graham

Definitely better than the actual movie. Graham

The whole point of buying MODEL KITS and not ACTION FIGURES is to build it. LOL 355041[/snapback] Which is all well and good assuming you have the time, patience, desire, suitable location and skill to build model kits yourself. If not, then getting other people to build models for you is sometimes the only way of getting a nice representation of your favorite mecha. I'd much rather have a nice toy of the SV-51, VF-2SS and VF-22 rather than a fragile model which is only good for looking at, but unfortunately no toy of those mecha exists yet, thus I have to go the model route. Graham

The micro-missiles used in Macross are obviously much shorter in length than real-life air-to-air missiles, but I wouldn't necesarily say that the body diameter is smaller. While the micro-missiles used in the FAST Pack HMMP-02 micro-missile launcher pods look to be fairly small diameter, the ones in the UUM-7 pods appear to have a much larger diameter. While the Yamato 1/48 missiles may or may not be accurately sized, if we compare them say with the size of the pilot figure then it looks like the diameter would be larger than 5 or 6 inches if scaled up to 1/1 scale. Graham

Luckily, none of my 40+ Yamatos have any yellowing so far. They are mostly kept in a display cabinet in my study with minimal exposure to sunlight (curtains in the room are open in daytime, but the cabinet is out of the direct line of the sun). On the otherhand, all of my old 1984 Bandai DYRL 1/55 toys have some degree of yellowing, ranging from minimal to extremely serious. Personally, I've got no complaints about the ABS plastic that Yamato use with regard to yellowing. If you keep any toy made of ABS plastic exposed to sunlight long enough, it will yellow regardless of who the manufacturer is. Graham