Pat Payne

It looks like that montebank, Alex Trebek, has finally mentioned anime on Jeopardy. Therefore, the day is mine! http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=4484

HA! I thought that the Merovingians and Issac Newton had something to do with it!

They are Nukes. more powerful nukes...but nukes no the less. I'd heard that Kawamori wanted to identify them as nuclear (remember, that's nu-clear, not nyu-cu-lar ) weapons, but couldn't since a Japanese audience would not have stood for a show's heroes using nukes. That, of course, being a holdover from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

For my money, it's "Stagefright" from that other show...that's enough to make anyone desperate enough to do anything to get it to stop

That's... naw, too easy

mynameisjohne, I'd like to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn and oil rights in the Ozarks now....

I don't think they can. Im not certain about the laws concerning such name usage...but I think its forbidden in anything officially published (anywhere) to make reference to a military-industrial company in a totally ficticious setting without their permission. There are cases where fictional representation is ok (like how Grumman might be referred to on the program JAG because the F-14 is their baby). I don't think so, though: The companies would rather that they didn't, and certainly, if the association could harm their business (for instance, a TV show's plotline implying that United Airlines was unsafe), the company could sue. But there's no law forbidding the use of real-life names in fiction (outside of normal trademark protections), just a whole lot of lawyers.

I know it's not sci-fi, but one guilty pleasure film of mine is oddly enough, "Xanadu." The story is a dog, the main male lead couldn't even act dead, and Olivia Newton-John is not all that attractive to me, but it does have a couple of things going for it, namely a not-too-bad-for-disco soundtrack by ELO and those uber-cool late '70s/early '80s optical effects.

who?!? Nanchatte...just kidding... Seriously, one of the singers in the movie, (I think is was the woman who did "In Your Eyes (Bko's Theme)") also was Jem in the TV show of the same name...just another '80s animation link there that I thought was interesting.

IIRC, didn't Hikaru do the same stunt by accident in ep. 2?

I had heard about a year ago, IIRC, that there was interest in bringing Doraemon to the US. Don't know what happened with it, though. Also, IIRC, wasn't Macross actually for older teens and young adults, to capitalize on the high-school/college renaissance of Gundam?

Most likely not. AnimEigo would get in serious hot water if they sublicenced the Macross footage to anyone else without Sauron--er, I mean Harmony Gold's permission. AFAIK, any other set other than the Japanese relase and the AnimEigo R1 release is a bootleg. As for DVD stores, there should be some...just keep searching the web. If worst comes to worst, you can even try e-Bay.

It was, IMHO, an attempt to recapture the mild success of Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch from the late '60s US Cavalry sitcom "F-Troop."

My answer isn't there: "No, because I don't have the insane skillz some here have." I'd love to do a custom some day, but I'm still getting the hang of painting simple color schemes on WW2 aircraft. If I have trouble painting a $8 model kit, hell if I'm going to louse up a $130 Valk.

Well, there is a undercurrent of paranoia, but it predates 9/11 by a LOOOOOONG time. I can remember as far back as the '80s, people were getting paranoid because some nut in Chicago had bought a number of bottles of Tylenol and then dumped poison in them and put the bottles back on the shelves. Then there's the prerennial "always check your kids' candy, because some psycho may have tampered with it" scare that seems to have finally killed trick-or-treating as we know it

I don't know, but I do want to say this: I hereby solemnly give anyone in this thread permission to wack me with a two-by-four if I ever become like either of those two choices

Because IINM, this is actually a site for a modeling/toy mag that Bandai puts out...a little like if Hasbro published Toyfare.

Slashdot doesn't qualify as news. It doesn't even qualify as "National Enquirer" news. It's a bunch of computer geeks posting unverified information under the banner of "news." Kinda like what we do here in the toys section, but at least we've got an honest-to-god inside source Now, watch George Lucas fall flat on his ass laughing as this info he probably leaked to keep the actual plotline of the film (for all we know, it's a remake of Hamlet ) secret gets taken as the last word on the storyline.

Hey taka, awesome work. I'm getting my first 1/48 (VF-1S Hikaru) for Christmas and I plan to order some of your stickers. I am also planning to get a VF-1J w/FP soon after. Just one question: where's the big kite symbol for the VF-1J FAST packs? (Now, are these stickers, or decals?) EDIT IN: Never mind... And do the intake cover ones actually fit inside the wells unlike the Yamato stickers? Either way, I'd love to get myself a set at some point. I like the alternate cockpit graphics choices.

I liked this idea, since it allowed them to keep at least some of the design ethics of the original series (from 1979) rather than try to make it this millenium's version of "faux futuristic." Yeah, even in the here and now, telephones with cords are going the way of the dinosaur, but it gives continuity with the original. Also, didn't they establish Adama in the miniseries as being something of a technophobe because of the Cylon wars? No argument. There was no character there, just a pile of attitude. You don't build a character on one trait only (unless his name is Camille Vidan ). I haven't seen all that much of the original Galactica, but I don't remember Starbuck being half as much of a jackass as Starbuckette here. Making the character into a woman didn't bother me as much (since this wasn't a sequel or follow-up, but a new continuity... think of it as "Battlestar Galactica Wing" if it helps ) but, as you said, I think they bent over backwards to make her a woman in form only so that they could get the network's quota of "empowering" female figures there. Other than the unecessary sex scene, I thought Baltar's character worked. He was a dupe whose hubris and pride laid the groundwork for the catastrophe. He became a metaphor for scientists throughout history who can only see the benefits (and major awards) of their work, but not the unintended negative consequences. And there wasn't self-pity there, but self-interest. Even after the Cylons attack (thanks to him), he basicsally only wonders what will happen to him. He seems not to care that nuclear armageddon is wiping out the planet. And that, I think will turn him towards the Cylons in later episodes. If you watched all the way through the episode...done and done. And the whole "breast cancer" angle was serving no purpose anyway.

Glib way of putting it. A better answer would probably be, at least for the last two: Megatron: Once we can find a way to quell protests from people who don't like toy robots that turn into guns. Jetfire: Are you kidding? Even if Bandai wanted to part with the license again, who'd be willing put their head in that legal noose??? As for the Prime smokestacks, it'll probably come to what their legal department tells them they can get away with vis-a-vis child toy safety laws in this country.

You mean if DYRL ever has a R1 release... If that happens, I'd want Animeigo or Bandai to put it out. However, Robert Woodhead has pretty much said that it'll be over a number of US companies' dead bodies before that happens.

OK, I'll admit perhaps I was going out on a unreasonable tangent a little For whatever reason, I had some neat little theory about the fact that the only thing they have that could be concrete is claim to trademark, but it began to fall apart almost as soon as I pushed send. I still think, though, that the Peter Jackson analogy is a little off-base. And eep! Just two seconds ago (when i began the reply), Ewilen's was the last. What happened to the blessed silence in this thread? Anyway, can't wait to read your essay ont he subject Ewilen. :thumbsup:

Just one thing...I'm sure it's actually Corps, not corporation.

Unfortunately, it's not the same. Right now, while certainly HG has little to stand on in regards to most of the derivatives of the show (Plus, 7, et. al), they have been arguing on trademark distinctions (the name Macross, the look of the Valks, the characters) and "consumer confusion" in addition to assertig a copyright to the material. The analogy is a little more like New Line telling Warner Bros. that they can't do a film version of The Hobbit since they have a trademark interest in Middle Earth. Of course, they'd probably lose big if they can't prove that they have an option for the Hobbit Novel.