bsu legato

Once upon a time there was a cool site devoted to the "origins" of SW, but it seems to be long gone now. If somebody could find it on some web archive, it would be recommended reading. Edit: And there's actually far more Hidden Fortress in Phantom Menace. While ANH still retains some Fortressesque elements from its earlier drafts, TPM reuses the more overt elements that were dropped. The earlier They Who Step on the Tigers Tail is also an influence, since it was sort of a "Hidden Fortress ver 1.0b."

To whom? Hey, I hear there's some Flash Gordon inspired stuff in there too. And maybe a little Kurosawa too. Can anyone confirm?

Funny..I would have thought that the larger scale in and of itself would be a benefit.

Sure it is. Keith Himself states that each and every time this subject comes up, and I'm sure in his mind if he repeats it enough it will become accepted as "fact."

I guess I made it through several more books than the rest of you all. I couldn't tell you where I actually stopped reading, but it was about a decade ago if that helps place what book I was on. I had actually seen the writing on the wall (in regards to the series' Neverending Storyness) a couple of books earlier, but since there were one or two more in the plastic bag that I had borrowed them in, I trudged onward anyway. It's just too bad he'll mostly be remembered for his half-baked opus and not for his many other pre-WoT books, including some Conan novels in the early 1980's.

The difference being that one or more mods here (and their hangers-on) are plane nuts. I can't think of any mods here with a hard on for armor. F-14 minutiae = acceptable topic Main Battle Tanks = doomed topic. I know it sucks, but sadly thats the way it is around here. My suggestion would be to appeal to the toy collectors. Maybe post some picks of the GI Joe M.O.B.A.T. or some 21st Century Toys. Oh and my money is still on the Leopard 2. Panzers FTW!

There's no way they'll actually be involved, but you have to wonder if Special K and the Nue Crew will at least get some sort of "Original Story By" or "Based on the characters and situations by" credit. I mean, no matter how much HG likes to gloss over this aspect, the first chapter of Robotech IS SDF Macross, just shellacked with a glossy, candy coated veneer of wholesome, over-narrated Americanization.

Without even any mention of cast, director, or even a final script? Wow, can you say "fast track?" I guess we can blame this on the success of The Transformers

So now it's a race between this and the supposed Voltron movie to see who'll suck the most. Whoever wins, we lose.

Time to dust this thread off. Now that production has begun on season 4, some news has begun to work its way online. http://www.comingsoon.net/news/tvnews.php?id=36673 Jeff Fahey joins the cast?! Pvt Upham too?

Yeah, we've heard the "grumbly UK crew" story before. They also didn't like some American showing up to sequelize their hit movie. But I had asssumed you were talking about the film-going public and their opinions, like the rest of us were. I never claimed to have some super insider info. Also, get bent.

Indeed. As a matter of fact, I'm wearing them right now. Fashion is cyclical, don't you know? I'm just ahead of the game? As for discussing entertainment, why don't you develop some taste and then we'll talk.

And just where was this? You have some pre-Internet postings to back that up. Besides, when Cameron was signed to do Aliens he already had a little film called "The Terminator" to his credit.

Some of the shameless apologists in this thread make me laugh. This "movie" is nothing more than fanboy pornography, no matter how anybody tries to frame it as silly, harmless fun. Those of you who are all tingly in anticipation of the "action" in this one clearly have no real understanding of what made the first two Alien movies and Predator 1 so good. Congratulations; YOU are that lowest common denominator people keep complaining about. Treat yourself to a trip to Wal Mart, followed by a night of reality television. Mr March has it right. This trailer just reeks of some executive ticking off a list of complaints based on the last outing. "More gore - check More alien on predator action - check More predator on alien action - check Predalien - check Oops, we didn't budget for an actual script, a competent director and some decent actors. Oh well."

You guys are all barking up the wrong tree. Neither the rebels nor the empire "won" the galactic civil war. It was big business. Not those dupes in the Trade Federation either, I'm talking about the shareholders in Kuat Drive Yards, SoruSuub, Incom, and so forth. You can debate politics and hokey, ancient religions all day, but in the end all that matters is money. Corporate greed for the win!

The Iigaa has the right proportions. The worst you can say about it is that somebody retconned it to look more organic. Boo-hoo.

As much as I loathe the AvP movies, the lone "Rambo" Predator is actually truer to the original movies than Paul Anderson's big Predator Antarctic slumber party was.

The real thing just shambled onto IGN. http://media.movies.ign.com/media/746/746237/vids_1.html

ANN should have titled that feature "Anime for people born before 1990." I can just picture the average reader's reaction to that column. "Holy cow, there was a Gundam anime before Wing?! OMGWTF?!" And reading the related ANN message board thread gave me a headache. But I really shouldn't be surprised that an old-school anime like 0080 (which has been commercially available for nigh on a decade) gets little notice from today's fan, who's raised on overrated shite like EVA, or just plain infantile garbage like SEED would pass on a true gem like 0080. Kids these days... Now, if I get any more crotchety old man-like, I'm going to to start sounding like JsARCLIGHT.

Not too bad looking, I guess. The Ride Armor looks pretty sleek, especially compared to the Gakken/Toynami/Imai versions. The trouble is that it does come at the price of a somewhat smallish bike mode. It's that damn anime magic that pervades Mospeada so much, rearing it's ugly, third dimension defying head yet again.

Close. The Hard Master was Storm Shadow's uncle who gets an arrow (courtsey of Zartan, stolen from Storm Shadow) instead of Snake Eyes. The Soft Master was SS's other uncle, a pudgy dude who first showed up in the Snake Eyes origin issues. He was the guy who eventually played chicken with a TOW missile, trying to save Billy, Bongo and drunk guy. The black blind dude with the tattoo-hiding skin graft was....another guy whom I can't recall right now. But I answered 66% of your question anyway.

That's only what Shipwreck thinks happened. Actually the fatal throwing star was tossed by none other than Firefly, hired by Cobra Commander as a backup assassin to Zartan, who was attempting to kill Snake Eyes. the Soft Master knew this, but alas he was never able to pass this information onto Storm Shadow before he left the dojo.

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=11398 I have to echo the article's love for the early Hama comics, although I'd even push my "best before" date up as far as #50, Serpentor aside*. Even some of the latter issues had gleams of greatness, such as the multi-part Cobra civil war with the Joes stuck square in the middle. Then Action Force 2000 showed up and the whole thing went to hell. But anyway....it seems we're doomed to get a mediocre film treatment of the beloved 1980's franchise, aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator like so many other films these days. I'm not going to recycle the usual fanboy tirade about how the property needs a "darker, more violent" treatment but I do have to wonder how they'll handle the basic concept of a Ruthless Terrorist Organization, determined to rule the world. Bottom line, it can't be any worse than this year's Transformers movie. We surely won't see Roadblock peeing on a federal agent.....or will we? *The two-part battle in Springfield was such a long time coming, and kicked so much ass those issues get a pass from me no matter how lame Serpentor was.

Here's a new INTERVIEW to further whet your collective appetites. This DVD is going to rock.