MSW

The martian war machine...erm...my rough interpretation of it...come on Spielburg call me already

Blade Runner is good, but overated IMHO...both versions dumbed down the original storey, filling it with some pretty yet unimportant action, technology and SFX...more Nerumancer then Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep And Metropolis was likely left off (or just overlooked) because so few have actualy seen it...heck, practicaly everyone that has, have only seen the US edited version...and even fewer have seen it as it was originaly intended because some 40 minutes of it has been lost to time (film deteriorated). although the new DVD tis quite good, includes as much of the original as possable, even a recreation of the original music that was performed in theaters while it played (Freddy Mercurys mom likely wasn't even a twinkle in her fathers eye when the film was originaly made).

Ah SHMUPS!...My favorite video game genre I'm a big huge fan of the genre, and am (very slowly) working on a homebrew at the moment...sort of a manic reworking of M.U.S.H.A. anyway.... UFO Robo Dangar from the new SHMUPS site: http://www.shmups.com/reviews/dangar/index.html

Excalibur was fantastic, loved the film (I saw it in theaters way back when...yeah, I'm old ) I never understood the critisiams against the film's use of plate armor...or how folks get all wrapped up pointing out the historical accuricy (or lack there of) in how the knights are dressed, thier choice of arms, and all that...If the accuricy is your primary concern then gripe number one should be with the music... good grief folks, music from the likes of Wagner and Mozart was not around back then and makes as much sense as useing modern hip-hop...yet the historical accuricy zealots always seem to point out the visual flaws, yet ignore the fact that they are listening to orcestrial musical scores that were not possable to make in the time period (as many of the orcestrial musical instriments had yet to be invented ) ... that alone should tell you "it's just a movie!"

First of all anime and manga are not ment to be near photo-real representations of characters, places, and/or events...its a style used to tell a story...its a style that was inspired by early Disney animation..Mickey Mouse looks nothing like a real mouse, and thats because a mouse drawn realisticly would have a hard time convaying the actions, charms, and emotions that the Mickey Mouse styleized representaion can do. It's not some deep seated desire of the Japanese animators to look different, nothing of the sort...the reason the characters are designed that way, the reason they are given the odd hair coloring and all that is because anime and manga use styleized representations of characters inorder to easily and quickly convay actions, emotions, and motivations...it also allows the viewer to quickly tell characters apart ... Character designers, whom develop the look for each character in an anime, are largely driven not by the characters nationality or what they would look like if real...but by the characters personnality, by the characters motivations, by who the characters are rather then the physicality of realisam...it's the same for pretty much all forms of animation...Isamu from Macross Plus has wild hair and larger "wild man" eyes then the stoicly reserved, angular featured Guild...notice how the characters are designed, how they are drawn, are reflections of thier personnality.

Check out the Clerks animated DVD...in the episode where Jay and Silent Bob sue Dante and Randal...at the very end when the jury is about to announce the verdict...the screen goes black and text pops up saying something to the effect of "Due to an unforseen international shipping accident. The Korean animation studio was asked to animate the ending of this episode, in place of the missing script." It cuts back to the court room, this time everything is drawn in a pseudo anime style...the jury foreman screams out "lets have big American party!!" and all the characters scramble about, decide that they must rescue the animators whom are slaveing away...rush outside the courthouse to find a giant robot, which turns into a car...some of the characters get in...and they race to the animation prison...once there the one car turns back into a robot before the people have time to get out wasn't pretty, but very funny ...Actualy that whole episode ending sequence was great!...it only lasts for a few seconds, but it packs in so many absurd refrences (Axle Foley, complete with theme music, pops by to do the bannana trick ) it's almost worth the price of the DVD set alone

Umm...Bakshi had nothing to do with Rock and Rule either...

I'm no TF fan but really This ( http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/salamis.htm ) predates Macross by a good three years,,but the new Omega suprime is a "rip off" from Macross? Have a look at some of Liji's Yamato designs...which predate Macross, and fueled much of the inspiration of the SDF-1

We all need to drop the M7 argument in this thread... It has nothing to do the subject. Keith, Have you seen Fire and Ice? I personally think it is one of the greatest animation features ever. No, I only managed to make it through: -American Pop -LotR -Fritz The Cat -Heavy Metal -Heavy Traffic That was enough for me. Bakshi had nothing to do with Heavy Metal... The IMDB entry on Heavy Metal : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082509/ The IMDB entry for Bakshi : http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000835/

"rotoscoped softcore porn" We get the point Keith. You don't like Bakshi, and don't think we should either... So, I suggest you move on...You have said your piece, your opinion has been noted, you should be adult enough to live with that.

From what I've read in Popular Mechanic (or was it Popular Science. Gah..) they do intend to do atleast suborbital trajectories. It likely won't be as difficult to heatshield such a shell, due to its extremly small size and, thus, lower surface area for friction. it can't be too small, or it won't have enough mass to cause the intended damage (light is hitting you right now at, well, lightspeed...but because it has no mass, you haven't been reduced to a pile of goo)...too much mass and the range becomes limited as gravity effects the shell (technicaly it is still a shell...main difference is in how it is fired)...and way to much mass, well then even a rail gun can experience some recoil Smaller shells have less surface area for friction...and they also have less surface area for built up heat to dissapate too...but still the shell is only going about mach 8...not the much faster mach 18+ that small meteorites burn up at when flying through the upper atmosphere ... so heat shouldn't be much of an issue anyway

Don't mind Keith. He is convinced that his opinions must be shared by one and all...tolorance is not one of his virtues

Nice, I'm really starting to like these With the new copter, tank-ish and airplane designs...it kinda reminds me of the "cannon fodder" mecha in Detonator Orgun...might have to pick some of those up and do some customs of my own What happened to this guy? Why is it now listed on HLJ as being discontinued? http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?KNMCC0335

Not off hand...I'd think a Google (it's Bakshi not Bashki ) should point you in the right direction. edit: Now why didn't I think of this earlyer...Bakshi's official website: http://www.ralphbakshi.com/ Also check out Animation World Network ( http://www.awn.com ) you can find lots of info and such there. Bakshi's flicks were both a bit ahead of and a product of thier time IMHO...ahead in the sense that it was certafiably adult animation (even largely before anime targeted the market)...and a product of the times in the sense that "head films" were big box office back then thanks to the likes of Easy Rider... If you get the chance (and you liked Coonskin) check out Heavy Traffic (it's out on DVD)...it's sort of an autobiography, concerning a young artist involved in a interacial relationship back when such things were taboo... Coonskin was the original title, and there was so much uproar when the film was released that theaters wouldn't even play it...it got renamed Street Fight in some markets to subdue some of the heat the film was being targeted with...I don't think it's out on DVD yet...you might find a VHS rip though on ebay American Pop isn't too bad, nor is Fire amd Ice...it's been a while sense I've seen Hey Good Looking, but it was okay...Best thing about Cool World was the soundtrack IMHO

I've figured it out...took me about 15 minutes... 2,5,6,2,1 = 4 3,4,6,6,2 = 2 1,5,6,4,5 = 8 I get that but I don't get the connection between the signifigance of the name of the game and the solution

It was late when I wrote that. I originaly intended to put true "up and comers" in there but drifted off into directors I thought were "really really good, but not quite what I consider great"...sorry for not makeing that clear There are three things I really dislike in movies...lots of slowmotion, lots of rapid fire "intense" editing, and the insecure need to always move the camera around in every shot ... None of it is "cool" anymore, and so overdone it has become trite and cliched ... too damn many former music video directors turned film makers and not enough true storytellers

Some really good ones listed so far (but Simon West !? Isn't he like the love child of Micheal Bay and Joel Schumocker ) Here are some more greats not yet mentioned... The writeing/directing team of the Coen brothers, if for nothing else then for graceing us with the Big Lebowski Hitchcock...Psycho was cool and all...but Vertigo and North by Northwest are masterpieces George Miller - the former doctor from down under, whom fueled Mel Gibson to fame...if for nothing else then Mad Max 2 (AKA: the Road Warrior) - one of the greatest (and most imitated) action flicks of all time, IMHO. Orson wells - Citizen Kane pretty much says it all...I first saw the film back in 1993 as part of a community collage filmstudies class with a bunch of fellow students ... and we all seemed much more eager to watch Terminator 2 instead of the supposed "greatest film ever made"...but after seeing it in that little theater, and how enveloped we all became in watching it...well lets just say it truely deserves much of the praise given to it. some other up and comers Christopher Nolan - Momento and Insomnia both show his mastery of tone and setting mood...he has control of Bat Man now, look out Robert Rodriguez - yeah he has gotten sidetracked by Spy Kids (although the first one wasn't terrible) but Once Upon a Time in Mexico still shows a glimmer of hope. Danny Boyle - Up for some Trainspotting anyone? Richard Linklater - Dazed and Confused ) ... plus he is setting up for a Scanner Darkly (a P.K.Dick story...same sci-fi author of the works Paycheck, Minority Report, Impostor, Screamers, total recall, and Bladerunner are all basied upon ) David Lynch - Blue Velvet, need I say more? John Waters - Hairspray...Like Lynch, he is often hit or miss with me...often within the same film...dependably odd to say the least... Course there are many others Sam Raimi, Joe Dante, and even Sofia Coppola (I loved the Virgin Suicides )

JsARCLIGHT - I too, have on set experience for a wide variety of local TV commercials, as well as some experience in independant film production (gotta toot my silly "claim" to fame here...Catgirls was the original title, but Troma picked it up for distribution and it became Teenage Catgirls in Heat ....It's the only feature I've worked on, and will openly admit the experiece was great...even though the film wasn't, but it never really aimed to be either ) Anyway...I don't disagree with you exactly...however the above quoted statement seems a bit short sighted in terms of film history...films are obviously a collaberative medium, be it live-action or anime...only now in the last 40 years or so has the director been given the rather lavish (and ego boosting) attention as the film's "visionary" leader...previously that fell to the producer (which is why the Oscar for "best picture" is awarded to the producer)...the director has always been important, but in the olden days the effects artist typicaly were the directors of the shots they were responceable for working on...Ray Harryhausen often directed the actors in the shots he was to apply his special brand of effects work to...Matte painters like Albert Whitlock commanded attention shooting the plates for thier own work...this form of directing wasn't often even overseen by anyone other then the producer...the effects artist acting as director had control over the camera placement, the lighting, the actors, everthing that we attribute to what the director has command over (tha same held true for the stunt people concerning thier work)...What you are senseing today in modern films is actualy a carry over from days long past. Of course on the other hand, in modern times when you are dealing with a director whom has to answer to a studio (with concerns over the findings of pre-release focus group viewings of the film)..you may end up with the people writeing the cheques demanding that the effects people produce only what they can be relied upon to do (produce more spaceship shots, etc...) and not entrusting the effects person enough to come up with something better...film after all, especialy in Hollywood, is a buisness first.... anyway... In 1933 Willis O'Brian brought to life one of film's greatest larger than life characters...King Kong...this was a character that required no actor to bring to life, no lines of dialog to emote, and in the grander scheme of things concerning the films plot Kong need not show anything other then fierce violent anger...But O'Brian's animation of Kong, still to this day, displays a sense of character, a sense of compassion a sense of wonderment in his predicament, and even a sense of humanity far beyond much of the rest of the human actors in the film display - even though the part of Kong never required it...No, the animation isn't nearly as technicaly smooth as CG is today, no the effects arn't photo real...but those are technical issues we have had 70 years to improve upon...King Kong is great simply because of the character of Kong, because Willis O'Brian gave a rabbit fur covered puppet a sense of life far outside the part it was built to portray...and no Kong wasn't even the first time such stop-motion animation was ever used in a film...but King Kong is a film that stands as an ,at least noteworthy, achievement of an effects person haveing the directoral chops to make something beyond simple eye candy.

So, in your opinion, any person who has had an film effects background can never, ever possably be a respectable film director? In your opinion there is something about being involved in the technical issues of model building, effects photography, creature and prostetic makeup sculpting, puppetry, and animation that automaticly bars a person from makeing good, let alone respectible, decisions involveing the paceing, tone, and acting within a motion picture? If so then what, pray tell, constitutes a respectable director in your eyes? do they have to have been indoctorned through filmschool, do they have to have been actors themselves, do they have to have had theater directing experience? It's all good and fine that you conclude Cameron and Jackson's work to be subpar, it's fully within your right to hold such opinion...The only reason I made that last post was to correct the impression you made that the last time an effects man directed a feature we ended up with the Spawn film; when in fact there have been a great number of films made sense then; directed by former even current effects people....Look, I'm not asking you to buy, let alone watch, ST2...I only ask that you don't dismiss out of hand the effects field as being completely incompatable with the glorified directors chair...you are dismissing the entirety of animation when you do that.

I'm assumeing that you are talking about an AC to DC convertor If so, then typicaly the inside of the plug is positive, while the outside is ground (negative).

Does it have an off line gameing mode? I'm asking because it looks cool as hell, and I'd love to play it...but I don't have broadband, and seriously lack the free time to justify getting a DSL/cable modem connection and haveing to fork over additional $$$ on a monthly gameing fee...all for something I may only get to play a couple hours strait per month

Erm.... We also ended up with Titanic, True Lies, Terminator I & II, Aliens, and the Abyss...James Cameron was himself an effects man for a number of Roger Corman's flicks (most noteably Battle Beyond the Stars) as well as one of the founders of effects studio Digital Domain. Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings movie fame, also helped do effects on his early films (Brainsmasher, Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles) as well as helped found the Weta Workshop effects house. Tom Savini and Tim Burton are two others that have both done effects and directed some respectable films.

the Iron Giant film is basied off a story titled the Iron Man, written by english poet Ted Hughes. It was written for his children after the suicide death of his wife in 1963, and first published in 1968 (a full year before Giant Robo was introduced to the english speaking world in the form of Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot)... Iron Giant is not a rip-off of Giant Robo, they have completely different stories and completely different characters...and before you insist in useing the term "rip-off" because they share the same "a boy and his robot" theme, you should recall "Danger! Will Robinson!" and realise that Lost in Space (1965) used the story framework as well...in fact the whole "a boy and his robot" theme dates back much further to stories concerning "a boy and his monster" and even "a boy and his pet dog"...Japan never invented in a vaccume thier story concepts involveing robots, and neather did anyone else...History shows these things evolve over time, and even though the writers/creators are half a world away, they can still come up with seemingly simular ideas without haveing plagerized each other.

This sounds a like a good one. I love Indiana Jones. It's only Indy Jones like in that the heros fight the Nazis...there are no trap filled secret tombs or magical arks and such...Lots of spys, traveling all over the world, cool mecha, cliffhanger sequences, action set pieces and such...sorta like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, meets League of Extrodinary Gentalmen, meets James Bond, meets the Rocketeer, meets Giant Robo. It's a short OVA series of 12(IIRC) episodes...short but very sweat, lots of fun

The bugs from the first film (the vast majority of all the CG) were done by Tippett Studios ( http://www.tippett.com ) not ILM. Tippett again did the CG effects for this sequel, in fact Phil Tippett makes his directoral debut with this film...and he has been rather quick to publicly point out it's many flaws, due in no small part to it's pathetic $7 million budget and dominering studio executives.