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tekering

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  1. tekering
    Ah, right. It's a flamethrower in Prometheus.
  2. tekering
    Well, it's got ankle tilt... 😉 But yeah, I'd prefer a figure that looked more like Fortress Maximus and less like a lazy Metroplex retool. 😒
  3. tekering
    Are you sure about that? 😉 What gives it away, guys? 🤔
  4. tekering
    As we await more news on Alien: Earth, I've prepared this little intellectual exercise for fans of the franchise. Based on the following treatment, can you identify which film it describes? I've tried to include as many details as possible, without actually giving the answer away. ☺️ Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” and Erich von Däniken’s “Chariots of the Gods,” the film explores extraterrestrial influences on early human culture. Set long before the Nostromo crew set foot on LV-426 and encountered the titular ALIEN, the story concerns a diverse group of scientists and technicians sent on an expedition by the rich and powerful head of the Weyland Corporation, who is dying and hopes to secure his legacy with a historic scientific discovery. Aboard a ship bound for a mysterious and remote destination with no hope of rescue, the crew are gathered in the cargo hold and sat on folding chairs, beside large industrial vehicles they will use for transportation in the harsh environment they are meant to explore. Mr. Weyland himself presents their mission: investigate an alien structure thousands of years old, discovered by analyzing common design elements present in multiple ancient human civilizations scattered all over the earth. Archaeologists have found clues among the earliest recorded human history, suggesting that people from every continent had been in contact with tall, technologically-sophisticated beings who inspired the architecture and mythology of human culture from its infancy. Our heroes are an even mix of American and European characters, men and women, black and white, as varied in personality as in race. Assigned to lead them is a young woman following in her deceased father’s footsteps. We are not given the details of his tragic death, but it strongly influences her character. There’s a friendly, unassuming scientist who is rudely rebuked by a mercenary he tries to befriend, and the two later bond a little when they find themselves trapped together in the alien structure, before both being killed. There’s a specialist in ancient languages who manages to read and translate many of the inscriptions they discover, and provides much of the necessary exposition in the story. There’s also someone brandishing a gun, despite the heroine’s insistence that weapons are unnecessary. They enter the alien structure (described as a pyramid) using handheld flashlights for illumination, but there is often ambient light provided by an offscreen light source. They encounter alien life within the structure, awakened after centuries in cryogenic suspension, and several of the scientists are impregnated and killed by parasitic life forms that gestate within their bodies; others are killed by the tall, humanoid alien species that built the structure, including Weyland himself. The young woman leading the expedition eventually realizes the existential threat these aliens pose to mankind, and does everything she can to ensure they never reach human civilization. Our heroine is, of course, the only human character to survive the film, but she is unexpectedly assisted by a non-human character and his use of alien technology to escape. At the conclusion of the story, we witness a massive alien spacecraft lift off and leave the planet behind. The film ends with the birth of an entirely new species, a creature who bursts out of the chest of the large humanoid alien impregnated earlier. The newborn opens its menacing jaws and reveals its tongue, and emits a hissing roar as we cut to credits. Name the film. 😊
  5. tekering
    Thanks for the comparison pics, and great work on the Wave kits! I especially like the blue one. 😁 As always, I'm grateful Moscato Hobby manages to capture mecha designs with more accurate proportions than the licensed manufacturers (vintage or modern)... Mind you, that Yamato's no slouch either.
  6. tekering
    That AI-generated translation is gloriously epic FAIL. 🤪
  7. tekering
    After six years in storage, I finally got properly-coated UV glass to frame this awesome cel: Better late than never! 😅
  8. tekering
    G1 was exhausted a decade ago, both by HasTak and the various 3P manufacturers. They just keep doing and redoing the same characters, over and over again. Having achieved the pinnacle of cartoon accuracy -- at every conceivable scale, for some characters -- now they're going back to the more stylized interpretations from 20 years ago, and collectors are STILL buying. 😲 They'll never stop producing G1 toys, that's for sure. 🙄 I've long since given up on the possibility that any third-party will acknowledge Animated again. 🙁
  9. tekering
    This has got to be an April Fool's Day prank. 🥸
  10. tekering
    I was looking forward to this release, but with all the gears, electronics, LEDs and die-cast parts depicted in that promotional video, it'll obviously cost several hundred dollars more than I can afford... 😭
  11. tekering
    The vast majority of us here grew up with Robotech, undoubtedly, but after decades of watching HD Macross and Mospeada fansubs, hearing any of it in English again is jarring... If the original broadcasts of Robotech had been properly remastered for Blu-ray (and released back when physical media was still dominant), it might've mattered, but certainly not now... and especially not in the poor state it finally arrived. 😒 Southern Cross, for all its faults, is still superior to The Robotech Masters, although its abysmal home video releases make the Robotech Blu-rays, by default, the best way of appreciating that series. 😐
  12. tekering
    Heads up, guys. For those of you who haven't checked the Model kits section recently: The order deadline is only a few days away, and we haven't reached the minimum threshold yet. Help make this big beauty a reality!
  13. tekering
    ...but retro-style 5POA action figures are not. 😒 This "deliberately poor" figure production and marketing trend is really getting out of hand. Is there really a larger market for crap than for decently-sculpted figures with modern articulation? 🤨
  14. tekering
    Yeah, that's exactly what I posted on Facebook. 😅
  15. tekering
    Yet another dream becomes a reality. Count me in, Cap.' PM sent. 👌
  16. tekering
    Oh, no argument there! Much of Toho's output is just unwatchable. 😒 As much as I hated Godzilla vs. Kong, King Kong vs. Godzilla was much, much worse. 🙄
  17. tekering
    It'll undoubtedly be better than those Godzilla x Kong movies... 🤮
  18. tekering
    EXO-Squad, of course. 😉
  19. tekering
    Lots, yeah! This one's my favorite:
  20. tekering
    Ugly? Yeah, character designs have been trending towards the ugly for some time now, and (if G-Quacks is any indication) mecha designs are, too. 😒 Sloppy? Not even a little. The budget clearly allowed for significantly high production value, and the animation looks smooth and expressive.
  21. tekering
    No, just couldn't justify the cost of the license. Perhaps a new source of funding presented itself. Frankly, I'd much rather see him release more Zentraedi figures to go with his Breetai... His other figure prototypes looked a whole lot better than that Southern Cross merch. 😒
  22. tekering
    Actually, I had to abandon much of the paint work I'd done after I acquired The Robotech Masters on Blu-ray: Color reproduction is much better than on the old Southern Cross DVDs, and "Bug Face" is affected most significantly. With higher-quality reference material to work from, I realized my initial color scheme wasn't accurate. I hope to have it repainted, assembled, and displayed at this year's "40 years of Robotech" exhibit, along with Thomas Hawk, my Space Crabs, and another 1:48 kit I've just started work on... 😎
  23. tekering
    We had them in Canada...
  24. tekering
    A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say... If your goal is either anime-accuracy or real-world physics, you're better off with your Hi-Metal R VF-1. While Bandai, Hasegawa, Max Factory, and even Kitz Concept have consistently relied on official Tatsunoko statistics for establishing Zentraedi mecha scale, the official stats never add up. Zentraedi pilots at 1:72 scale simply couldn't fit into those battle pods! The Regult is depicted considerably larger in the anime (as it would have to be IRL), so you can see how awkward Hasegawa's model scales with Max Factory's VF-1J battroid... or even Hasegawa's own Queadluun-Rau (which is based on the movie version, where the Zentraedi were scaled-down considerably anyway). My Hi-Metal R Max there is a lot closer to how a VF-1 should scale with a Regult, but it's still not perfect. Suffice it to say, we should go with whatever looks right to us, 'cause we care a lot more than the companies do. 😤
  25. tekering
    It's neither screen-accurate nor scale-accurate, of course, and in fact doesn't have anything to do with Macross. It's an ROI strategy, and every toy company does it. Tooling costs are by far the most expensive part of the manufacturing process, so you've got to use those molds as much as possible to keep costs reasonable. KC will sell you the same figure as many times as they can, simply by changing the head or changing the color scheme. The really craven toy companies will incorporate mold reuse into the media itself to justify this practice. 😉
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