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jwasko

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  1. jwasko
    Seems simple enough: SDF:M = boosters, DYRL = no boosters Maybe Yamato will mold the kits in off-white and include DYRL-accurate side covers for the ultimate DYRL-accurate customs! Edit: /sarcasm
  2. jwasko
    Oh, believe me, I've had to pay inflated prices before (pretty much the entire "classics" line of Transformers) and absolutely hated it. I was just approaching it objectively.
  3. jwasko
    I'm pretty sure that's what he meant. Technically, it's no different than anything that goes on in American capitalism...it's just that everyone who has to pay extra because they can't find one at retail price thinks it sucks when they have to pay a speculator/scalper twice retail price.
  4. jwasko
    Concerning the GCN: I've heard good things about Dolphin. Edit: Oops, missed JBO's edit.
  5. jwasko
    Oh, look, they made the leg bend forward...Was it really that hard?
  6. jwasko
    This Wikipedia article reflects something that I read a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away ) : that there are different levels of canon. Basically: 1. The movies have first say on anything. 2. The Clone Wars is secondary only to the films (which probably reflects that Lucas actually pays a good bit of attention to what goes into the series...a fact that jives with some all of the interviews with Dave Filoni that I've seen). 3. Everything else either fits into the canon established by the films and The Clone Wars series, or it needs to be retconned, or it gets abandoned. Example: Season 2 showed Mandalore as a modern urban planet filled with peace-loving citizens. Recent novels, set during and just after the clone wars, show an entirely rural "old world"-esque sort of planet filled with Mandalorian supercommandos wearing Mandalorian armor and bristling with weapons...when they weren't farming or having tender family moments. Many/most fans preferred the bad-***es/honest farmers/good fathers of the novels to the hippies of the series. I'm hoping for a retcon in season 4, if only because I like the multifaceted pro-killers/farmers/family men.
  7. jwasko
    To add to what Warmaker said about Order 66 and clone obedience: In the books there there were some instances of clones who did not obey Order 66. I particularly remember a group in Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader But I think these were often the clones that were more independent than the average "cannon fodder" trooper. Some clone troopers (like ARCs and Commandos) were purposefully grown and raised to be independents so that they could take on advance training and special missions. Others could just be poor quality control. Also, Warmaker: That's pretty much what I go by. The only thing is that seems to remain unclear (to me, at least) is what percentage of the Stormtroopers were clones by the time of Ep IV. I tend to think of it as being fairly low, at least based on some of the Expanded Universe stuff that takes place soon after Return of the Jedi.
  8. jwasko
    They are planning a retooled release, presumably with all of the Hasbro fixes. I don't know for sure if it will have the Winnebago attachment or not...but I think I saw a preorder somewhere that showed a picture of it. Personally, I'm fine with just the sports car...and Offshoot (the Targetmaster with the Hasbro release) is fun to mess around with, even if Hot Rod can't hold him.
  9. jwasko
    G1: G2:
  10. jwasko
    Mine seems to do better than yours in alt mode, but I was having similar issues until I got the ankle hinges in the right position and the hands folded properly. The instructions say to simply ball up the hands into fists, but videos I've seen show them bending the hand 90 degrees at the wrist and then cupping the hand around the end of the arm so that the fingers are on the bottom of the car. After I did this and fiddled with the ankles, the arm just sort of pops into the correct position and the tailpipes stay in place. It's been posted before, but you can check out Peaugh's video review here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_ZfoYB699w. Skip to around 12.5minutes for the legs and 18:20 for the hands.
  11. jwasko
    Mine seems fairly floppy as-is...it doesn't spin, but I can easily push it up/in and down/out (pushing it up/in closes the gap, but it pops back out afterwards). Here is a (blurry) picture: Oh, another complaint I forgot to mention: he can't really look up (see the picture in my previous post). On the positive side of things, he can look down quite well. He also needs black "boots," but I could fix that fairly easily, I guess. Not sure why you didn't buy the opened one (unless you're one of those MISB guys). But you could always just ask someone to pick one up for you. This thread at TFW2005 is meant for those who want to buy a Hot Rod, and those willing to sell at cost.
  12. jwasko
    If there aren't any in Greensburg, there were two left after I got mine off the shelf.
  13. jwasko
    Found Hot Rod at TRU on my home from work today (in Monroeville, PA) It's nearly impossible to get any gun (including the targetmaster) to stay in his hand, but you know what? He didn't have a gun in the movie, either: "Decepticons!" Now I need some sort of robot octopus so I can make use of his blade. My only complaint is a gap in the hood (where it rotates for 'bot mode and opens to reveal the matrix). "On topic": I'm really tempted to spring for the TFC Devastator, based on the positive reviews the first figure has gotten and the fact that he's big enough to actually tower over deluxes (and, hopefully, be fairly in scale with either G1 dinobots or MP Grimlock)
  14. jwasko
    And I thought double negatives were tricky...I have no idea what you just said. Edit: I'm not being a "grammar nazi"...just wondering what you meant. I think you just rebutted your issue exactly the way I was going to. There were some scenes that I wouldn't be comfortable showing to young kids (mostly the attack on the shuttle, I think) but, even then, the goal of the movie was killing off the old coast and introducing a new team of heroes that kids would want to be toys of. Hence the audience is children, even if some of the themes are a little to mature for them.
  15. jwasko
    I did it, with little to no prior modeling experience. I mean, it doesn't look great, but it stays together and transforms.
  16. jwasko
    I had a long list of the good, and the bad, with a final tl;dr of "yes" but I figured it wasn't needed. Keeping it much shorter: I agree with Mike’s sentiments for the most part, although (having just watched it today) I can say that I observed a lot of rough jumps similar to DotM which I never noticed before. I blame Bay/DotM for making me notice such things. What makes the animated movie better than the live action movie (for me) is the near-complete focus on the titular characters: the Transformers. I am much more interested in seeing giant transforming robots when I watch any of the four Transformers movies. Therefore, I am much more interested in seeing Hot Rod’s journey from a “turbo-revvin’ young punk” to Rodimus Prime than Sam Witwicki’s journey from a loser high school student to…a loser college grad. ( Never really noticed that myself until just now.) Also, we need to keep in mind that the live action movies are meant for three audiences: kids, adults who have little to no knowledge about Transformers, and (in the vast minority) adults who can quote the live action movie. The animated movie was meant for only one audience: kids. So, rather than ask yourself how The Transformers: The Movie holds up, ask your kids (or someone else’s, if necessary). Sincerely, Someone who didn't grow up watching G1 but still prefers the animated movie over Bayformers (but Beast Wars > any other series) PS: Even if you don’t like Stan Bush, Spectre General, or Weird Al’s contributions to the soundtrack, you have to admit Vince Dicola did one hell of a job scoring it.
  17. jwasko
    Not going to read that, because I haven't seen all of BSG yet. To clarify my previous post, though: I meant to say that, to casual fans of the older series, these reboots can seem like sequels...at least up to a certain point where something happens that breaks that fantasy. Edit: Actually, I just thought of an example where the creators started out making a reboot that turned into a sequel: Beast Wars was initially to have no connection to the G1 Transformers series but had vague references to events that sort of matched up with G1 events. To anyone who watched the BW Season 2 and 3, however, you know that turned out quite differently. (I'm not quite sure where that information originally came from, but I'm pretty sure it has been confirmed)
  18. jwasko
    I like the Legend of Zelda metaphor used earlier in the thread better: the evil (Ganondorf/Mumm-Ra) keeps coming back/being reborn, and a hero (Link/Lion-O) is reborn to stop him. Similarly, it is stated in BSG that "All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again" which suggests a repetitive nature of existence such as that seen in Legend of Zelda games (specifically Twilight Princess and Windwaker). Now, I watched reruns of both BSG and Thundercats (henceforth: Tcats) when I was a kid but I don't remember enough to know if anything in the new BSG or Tcats flies radically in the face of the originals' canon. So far, in the first 12 episodes of BSG, I haven't seen anything that says the first war against the cylons (spoken about in the miniseries) is not the one portrayed in the original series. Or, the original series could have been an even older war between humans and cylons. And if old memeories and an entire season isn't enough (in BSG's case), then old memories and a premiere is not enough time to know whether or not the new Tcats is able to fit into established canon...whatever the producers actually mean it to be. tl;dr: How about we cool our jets and wait a bit before vehemently taking sides.
  19. jwasko
    I'm sure if you search google for something like "streaming Transformers prime" you'll find something. Just make sure you have antivirus/adware. Edit: Actually, this site was recently liked in the Thundercats thread: http://www.watchcartoononline.com/ I think I still prefer BW Megs, because he was cold and calculating but still vicious when he needed to be...which is what I like the best in a villain. This new Megs is definitely more evil and a lot less sane. That's not a bad thing, though, and I have quite enjoyed this version as well.
  20. jwasko
    The focus on Starscream in the last two episodes really raised the bar. Once again, Steve Blum's voice acting (as well as good writing) really make the series. I don't remember G1 that well (aside from the movie), but I feel like Prime could stand to be featured/fleshed out a lot more...I think he gets even less screentime than Ratchet, and seems to mainly act as the cavalry after Bulkhead or Arcee have their "moment." Speaking of which: I can stand the kids, but I wish they'd kept Wheeljack or Cliffjumper around because, while Arcee is cool, the constant focus on her and Bulkhead will eventually get old. Although, really, some episodes centering on Prime or Ratchet (maybe even Bee) would work, too.
  21. jwasko
    This, I think, was my biggest complaint as well. The original was epic just because it was totally new (and I think it had the best Optimus vs Megatron fight...Megatron not only put up a good fight but actually "won"). ROTF had several memorable battle sequences. I think DOTM tried to make size = epic but failed in comparison to the other two.
  22. jwasko
    They did in the original/animated CW series: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=clone+wars+microseries+kit+fisto&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbnid=F1eAGBM-I1emJM:&imgrefurl=http://www.jeditemplearchives.com/content/modules.php%253Fname%253DJReviews%2526rop%253Dshowcontent%2526id%253D721&docid=julRC5gX_ma4kM&w=450&h=253&ei=ZTEqTpapLMP00gGMu4DhCg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=556&page=1&tbnh=100&tbnw=178&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0&tx=77&ty=35&biw=1276&bih=580 Concerning that series in general: I think a lot of the "episodes" are more atmospheric than the new Clone War series. The new clone Wars is most often inspired by modern (war) films, including the flawed hero, the not-so-bad bad guys, and the involvement of (corrupt) politicians. The original...well, it was created by Tartakovsky (of Samurai Jack fame). I can't really think of anything else to compare it to. There's a lot less yelling and more quiet efficiency on the part of clones and droids, while the Jedi are portrayed as one-man armies. There's not enough time for character development -- I think the whole series is maybe 2 hours long -- but some of the fight scenes are pretty epic (see: Jedi = one man army). I've heard complaints about the uber-powers of certain Jedi in the original series, but, personally, I liked that aspect. It's definitely one of the most Samurai Jack-esque aspects of the series.
  23. jwasko
    Hoping for Ratchet. I'm kinda sick of his Movie 1 voyager class mold...It's been used every movie (and was even recolored/rereleased again last fall or summer). PS: If that Unicron's eyes light up green, I'm going to be so mad at Takara.
  24. jwasko
    Ah. Well, in that case, you may want to keep taps in mind. I have used a high speed steel hand tap to tap ABS and even PVC before. This wasn't on a transformable/posable model/toy like this, but I don't think it should be too much of a problem...if anything, my application (spring-powered nerf blasters) probably had more stress on the threads. Shouldn't be too difficult, either, since (I'm assuming) the holes are already there...at least they were on my 1S kit.
  25. jwasko
    Mcmaster has the second one on your list: Item #92000A011 And the third: Item #92010A001 (Just go to their site and paste the item # in their search box) Edit: Same screws on Grainger here: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/machine-screws/screws/fasteners/ecatalog/N-8n0Z1z12nykZ1z0ncw8Z1z0nbrc You sure you looked? On the other hand, I'm not seeing size 1.8 diameter for sale anywhere...but they do seem to exist. If you get desperate, Mcmaster sells taps...you could maybe tap the parts for a size M2 screw instead.
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