1/1 LowViz Lurker

Yeah but I always got the impression that there were 2 PC factions fighting each other? The ones who fullfilled the prophecy were wiped out, so maybe any PC survivors in future series (I know I know thye are supposed to be extinct) would be scared to see an armed and dangerous experiment out to meet them? They would know nothing of who we were and treat us as another specie altogether. All they would know is that we might be some zentradi variant with increased intelligence. Being proud of thier superiority and not realising we are partially like them, they would look down on other races as inferior and try to eliminate us.

I think macross 7 is kind of believable if you subscribe to the theory that a person's spirit can be awakened to a higher consciousness through music. There is probably some explanation as to why repetitive chants and the person's intent (thier state of mind when performing the magic shamanic chants?) is so important in religious/magic rituals and stuff. from: http://home3.inet.tele.dk/hitower/harmonics.html That could explain how God "spoke" the world into existance using the word. And also how the breath of life (or the "spirit" given to all living things), which was sung by Basara to his demonic victims who fed upon souls/spirits to sustain thier life, through his music, was handed over. The singing was half of it, the 'intent' maybe forming the other half but the result was him giving soul/spirit energy to them. This explains how the performance must be live because the singer needs to put thier soul into the music and thier intent forms part of the effect. Recordings are a poor sustitute. Also the reaction of the blood sample in the test tube in mac 0 is explained by this. The song of healing in mac 0 can be explained through the frequencies that exist on a purely spiritual level (think of those people who can see your auras as a 'color') as well as physical level (sound waves and thier vibrations) that bring people back to what they normally were before they got sick/diseased or in a state of disharmony. The song of destruction could be seen as the reverse of this where the intent of the singer creates a negative feeling or reverses the good harmonic frequencies that exist in a persons natural state. My guess here is that it is only exaggerated to an enormous level in m7 so that audiences understand what is happening onscreen. Kind of like what you see in hollywood movies (note I said hollywood, notice how LOTR tried not to create an unecessary light show on the subject of magic unless absolutely necessary?) where you see special effects to enhance the experience for little kids that are designed to make us go: "ccccooool!" Sometimes what you see on a film that is "obvious but not realistic" is more important than just doing something that is "realistic but that doesn't seem to get the idea across easily" to an audience instanty. It needs to be dumbed down somewhat for the audience to grip the idea imediately or risk confusing or boring them. Remember all of this is considered a part of magick to some cultures, (Sharon merely used a hypnotic "spell" with the frequencies she was sending out, and sound coming from the mouth is conjuring up a magic spell just as you see in fantasy where wizards that are silenced seem powerless) but we've been conditioned to view magic as a large lightshow and fireworks display thanks to hollywood and sfx people. Dragonball Z is a good example. It just looks cool to have things that are flashy and exaggerated. (like in sdf macross where hikaru saves minmay by opening his canpoy and phyiscally grabbing her, which would be insane if tried in real life.) I think star wars gets away with magic easily while macross doesn't, because we all are preconditioned to think that all the machinery in the macross world may at some time be possible in real life. Robots are real, but not to the extent that they would move exactly how they should onscreen. This translates into hate for anything remotely magical because it conflicts with the focus on technology over the spiritual and personal. To me all anime should be allowed to be left in the realm of comic book fantasy where anything is possible and details are just modelled on the real world only out of convenience not because the creator deliberately intended it that way. It was never really explained in star wars how Luke could levitate objects off the ground (the force is more metaphysic) so neither should we expect an explanation as to how sara could levitate rocks off the ground.

Can't wait to see this. I will wait for the fansubs though. Seems a little abrupt that the main character would disapear never to be seen or heard from again. Doesn't seem like a very happy ending or resolution imo. Maybe the PC evolve like the invid from robotech hehe and start attacking the technologically advanced humans with biomechanical mechs? It would be the nature gods' revenge for all the atrocities commited against nature through high technology. I felt sorry for the forest that got blown up and all the insects that were trying to heal and protect nature in ep4 and i'm not much a green tree hugging person myself. Also I got an uneasy feeling seeing morhping skin on the yf21 in mac+. Was this really explained much? What I'm thinking is that the advanced PC ppl would have machines that no human resources would be able to synthesise and that we end up seeing strange phenomena that scientists can't really explain. And yeah, it starts getting too magical/mystical/paranormal as the story evolves. Just some idea of what I think might happen if this is not the end for Zero. Maybe they will pull off a movie and try to compress the events from the ova for a mass audience, focusing on the main story of what is going to happen to the characters and not boring the masses with unecessary detail and cliff hanging moments? I always get the feeling that fans are more hardcore on details and explanations whereas mainstream audiences are more caring about character development and how those characters end up. If you could compress all the big explosions, characters development, and mystery into a single movie it would appeal more to those who would not stand for 6 month breaks. The movie then, would lead into a new tv series and hooray we get something new. Rick Misa and Minmay are cloned, have thier memories brought back, and the PC start a war with the humans due to thier mixing genes with the warlike zentreadi for fear they may be contaminated. (kind of how the humans are forbidden from mixing with the high elves in lotr ) jk The PC would have monsters that could heal themselves and we see thier frankstein gentic engineered bugs (that happen to be like invid) at thier worst, creating a plague of these monsters that, like a virus, spreads and wipes out everything.. Both the PC and humans catch this virus and the environments they make contact with die from contamination. To cure this galactic aids epidemic and mad-monster's disease (like mad-cow type which creates violent behaviour and is used to make bioweapons of any creature lol) singing would need to be used to heal and put people in a positive mood to fight the disease (ever heard of cancer patients getting better when entertained or hanging around pets or dolphins?) As more people sing, the disease is cured (because the soundwaves created generate certain shapes, patterns and frequencies that heal you on a molecular level - "evidence" of this effect possibly shown as reaction in the test tube in macross zero) and genetic modification experiments to create biohazardous weapons is forbidden from pc once and for all.. END This then ties up the reason music was so powerful in fighting the demonic protodevil and the genetically-modified zentreadi who's negative feelings towards life without culture, had influenced thier programming and conditioning to destroy each other. Of course nature would provide the herbs to heal ilness, while man-made drugs would be stamped out and culture would be restored again, where like the high elves in lord of the rings who had learned to lie in harmony with nature, people would be forced to protect thier unique planet's environments and become more like spriritual and primitive hippies.

It did take a tiny baby step in one episode. (actually just checked that episode where kamjin is riding on top of the monster like a cowboy in a western. It actually does walk. He is seen using a monster to lead a group of glaug and regults. The army of chicken feets. ) But the point was that it can serve the purpose of more than just a cannon that sit in one position. It has always been seen by me as more like a tank with a driver, gunner and comander. If tied down it would eliminate that advantage of moving to different areas and (like that episode I mentioned) surrounding the enemy from mulitple points. And about not walking much: I always thought that was just animation laziness. haha Like how instead of seeing a VF in gerwalk use its legs to walk, it is seen mostly floating around. Only very rarely have I seen it use legs to walk.

It kind of looks like a face hugger from alien. I haven't seen the 5th ep yet but consider that: even though a big destroid like that shouldn't have to move around much, it would be advantageous for it to do so by walking from 1 place to another to increase the targets it could see and the angle to shoot from. Tying it down might not be as practical as just walking around to the next spot, and then clawing onto something that would reduce the recoil when the shots were fired. There are like 3 crew in a monster so it would be faster to have them all coordinate thier moves in synch without having to go through the pain of having people standing around in a dangerous area near the beast getting in the way. Although this is just my opinion, I haven't really seen monsters move around much but remember the one episode where kamjin's soldiers were ambushed by those monsters? (if they were only designed as mere fixed cannons as opposed to walking battle tanks, they would not have been able to do something like that) The episodes was when all the monsters were hiding behind hills and some zentreadi-allies lured kamjin into a trap so they could be shot at from a distance by the (MKII) monsters from all angles. I've always assumed that the whole reason for legs over tracks is that legs are flexible to allow easy aiming in all uneven terrain due to being bendable and stuff. (like the mech in metal gear) You could adjust angle of the weapons easier when each foot was independant and the knees could change to make the mech sit flush against the ground so that things were kept straight. Does anyone think the monster was inspired by the Glaug? They look very similar. Humans must have stolen the idea I bet.

If they do release a green, I'm there. I bought my red qrau out of fear there would be no love for enemy mecha. Plus I just got back into macross and wanted to waste some money on toys. But I probably will skip this release in favour of a green one. Maybe yamato should release a qrau collection of all 3 together? Somehow they got to make the thigh and knees be more bendy and replace the figure with a poseable one who can take the helmet off.

I've just moved this post to the newbie movies and tv series thread from the newbie toy thread since I was told it was more apropriate to ask for here: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some stupid questions on yf21. Ok this is from the compendium about the yf21: where it mentions: "Two semi-fixed Mauler REB-22 laser beam guns with forward and rearward barrels mounted underneath tail stabilizers in Fighter mode or in the lower arm section in GERWALK and Fighter modes." Where are the forward barrels in fighter mode to shoot forward? Could someone post a pic (maybe even show on the yamato 1/72 toy) and circle the area where it would be? The rearward barrels are just the guns on the mechs wrists, correct? But I only see them being able to shoot rearwards..How do these lasers shoot forward in fighter mode if there is no visible hole to shoot out of? (maybe the roundish elbow piece opens up or something?) Also on the arm armor, there are what look like black holes on the back of these arm armor pieces. (they are on the toy at least) Does this armor piece have any weapons in it or is it just extra armor? I've always been confused as to where all the weapons and stuff are located on the yf21. I've just watched M+ and some of it is confusing. For example there is a scene where guld doesn't have any leg armor to hold the 2 gunpods on his yf21 and he is shooting from underneath his plane. I don't exactly know where from but it is underneath somewhere. Is there an extra area to shoot from underneath the plane other than the where the twin gunpods usually sit when the yf21 is equiped with the fp leg armor? The angle doesn't let you see clearly. If he doesn't have the leg armor to hold the twin gunpods is this possible? (ie to shoot stuff from this area?) Argh I need some diagrams to show me the exact locations of all this stuff.. even after watching the action scenes in slow motion it is still hard to follow what is going on. Thanks in advance for any help.

Edit:

ah yeah you got me there so there goes my theory. "It is said.." I'm thinking that's why so many UN pilots were being killed because they just couldn't match the ability of the variable fighters. But why not just say that: "And so he stole the vf0's development data." rather than "it is said.."? Maybe there's another side to it that we may not know? For example I believe that white haired chick in macross 0 didn't understand that it may have been anti-un forces that killed those villagers and not un forces. Similar to the way Guld in macross plus remembered that Isamu hurt myung but his memory got mangled until the end when he finally realised it was him all along. Basically the technique used was so the audience was made to be tricked from the beginning, thinking Isamu's recklessness translated into him accidently hurting myung, and Guld was the protector - and then they add the final twist where they both protect her. History is usually written by the victor of the war. If Ivanov knew about the secret projects they would have trusted him and he may have had a good reason to defect. Possibly because after some people who were neutral to either un or anti-UN causes who helped create it, the technology was thought too dangerous under UNG control because there was some bad eggs in the UN (similar to the mad scientist guy in macross plus) who wanted to kill off any resistance to thier power and go on a mass killing spree to gain whatever resources from other poorer villagers and nations they could wring out of through unwarranted force; instead of diplomacy, asking for co-operation instead of taking it, "because they just could" ..with these new weapons. If they had actually used the word "stolen" in the compendium it would set it in stone but since there is still 1 episode left there might be some interesting twist they want to keep secret ala mac +. The problem is the anti un characters just seem a little too evil imo Like the way isamu in macross + comes off as a bad guy at the start because we are led to believe myung was hurt by him. (we are left hanging: What on earth could he have done to her to make her so depressed?) Similarly, maybe the anti-un got that way from something the un had done to them? We obviously see the UN as playing the imperialistic 'bad guy' in macross zero (Sara can't stand the technology the whites have brought to her people) but when you consider that there is corruption within the UN (the Hasford figure that roy's girlfriend is folowing under, and also Ivanov) we can't be sure it's the Anti-un themselves doing the "stealing". (ie the trusted characters who once worked under the UN are just defecting, having previously not been part of anti un. What the series hasn't explained is: why did they do it? Did they have good or bad reasons or are they just evil guys like the mad scientist in macross plus?) When your own mentors and teachers are the villains (hasford, Ivanov) it just shows how dangerous that technology is when it goes into the wrong hands. (mainly the innocent villagers who get hurt by both sides from the fighting for power: neither one anti-Un or UN being good or bad, just struggling for power and control) Like Global mentions in sdf macross: man must spread his species to avoid these type of incidents (we make ourselves extinct by fighting) when all the attention and tax is spent on boosting military funding and making more deadly weapons, and war ends up killing innocent civilians along with soldiers, thus reducing the human population the longer we keep the war machine going. There's is no such thing as everlsting peace even under a UN since it won't account for those bad eggs within the un (the mad scientist types) who want that power for themselves. This is basically going back to the idea that no one can expect where the bad guy is going to come from (whether from within or without) and why I think the idea of a mass rebellion needs to take place to challenge the UN again. The bigger the power gets, the increased chance of rebellion and need for independance as more people develop thier own military to be able to take them on. (after sw I there were no resources to make this possible, except for what attacks came from kamjin who happened to learn how to repair technology from us humans. ...but after a time...after more and more become educated and decide they want to have thier own slice of the pie and be independant again...its like a ticking time bomb) Now given that some of the older generation humans who fought in sw 1 would be a little scared, a little more racist and xenophobic towards zentreadi (because of the threat of characters who are like kamijin who might rise again), would it be unreasonable to suggest that they would want to limit the education they give to the zentreadi, keeping them dumb out of fear of what they could do to the humans, and therefore give them less opportunities to be independant? Sparking another war at the hands of a new zentreadi leader who claims to want to help make them proud again if they grant him the power to lead them to independance?

heh, I'm not sure what actually happened in mospeada but in the robotech version of events protoculture would give away thier position so they were forced to limit thier use of alpha-beta/legioss-tread unless they wanted to die. And those larger mecha are still smaller than the robotech "veritechs". The truth in that version: the humans got thier asses kicked in space and had to continue on the ground because the enemy was simply more powerful than them. Sometimes they would fight in the air, but flying was too dangerous a lot of other times in that version and thier team were consisted of just resistance fighters who lived on earth, and people they met were slaves and sometimes secret sympathisers of the invid. It is like lotr where thier supplies and allies were short and they had to make do with limits. The problem with the UN is that to me they need an enemy who can threaten them or a splitting up of power to make an excuse for war and a new series. (unless they find new aliens to fight?) I think the overtechnology is too mysterious. After the crash, maybe the UN had to borrow concepts from the anti-un to help understand the science of the aliens. (why would they have variable vehicles ahead of them?) Similar to how the nazis were ahead in technology possibly because they had occultic knowledge (spirit guides passing them information through "automatic writing") and were even rumoured to be experimenting in saucer designs. It would be too embarassing to admit they learnt alot of the ideas from thier enemies to the public. This is demonology! The most mysterious thing I can think of that parrallells with this is the "foo fighters" from WWII. Today they are just called ufos. Perhaps the goverment has reversed engineered the alien tech from ideas the nazis secretly gained about them after the end of the war? I was hoping macross zero would explore and explain the area of antigravity that seemed so mysterious to the humans in sdf macross. Because in that the goverment only half understood the technology, else they wouldn't have made so many mistakes using it when launching the sdf1 out into space and ripping holes in it when trying to take off. It needed unconventional minds (ones who weren't afriad to be ostracised by the rest of the scientific community) to begin to explain how it all really worked. Like the futurama and the jetson's cartoon maybe we already have the tech and can begin making hover vehicles but it is being held a tightly guarded secret? (why provide free energy systems when you stand to lose big $ charging people for existing ones?) No one apart from people in the fringe groups, is prepared to except it so science fiction movies condition us to be prepared for it when it IS used?

All they would need to do is find out what made the original so good, and kind of evolve that idea. I'm all for a ground based war where the focus is on variable mechs that are custom designed to survive on land. (kind of like the land equivalent of that sea-based mech in macross zero. I think it's called the 'octos'?) In mospeada they had that cool bike thing that acted as extra body armour and powersuit in one. Brilliant idea imo. It served it's purpose well for a single soldier who would have been too noticeable by the enemy if he used a full sized mech and given that technology would get more advanced, an idea like that would fit in well for human-sized soldiers of the future who had to survive in space but needed to be small to explore small areas tht a full sized mech wouldn't have been suitble for. (I thnk I remember seeing something like this in bubble gum crisis) I want to see something like that where they can grow from the original variable technology and expand the macross world. At least this would eliminate complaints by people who keep saying the mechs don't have to be giant sized anymore. The anti-un in macross zero seem to have this variable tehnology idea first. Before zentreadi had arrived to earth, suggesting that maybe the variable battroids the UN created weren't so secret to everyone after all. The UN could have infact infiltrated and inherited ideas from anti-UN after thier defeat. It makes sense that maybe they (a new anti UN group that had to go underground and remain secret) would try to team up with the rebel zentreadi as a force to fight against the UN. (given my idea that racism is still felt within the world of macross and some zentreadi would defect from human civilisation out of religious, traditional, or cultic reasons. Although I didn't much like macross IIs story, the evil villain in that is the kind of guy I have in mind. Only the difference is his lust for revenge fuels the hate, more than a disgust for human weakness.) Whereas the anti-un could provide the brains of the operations, helping to design new variable mecha, the rebel Zentreadi could provide the muscle and thier advanced knowledge of war tactics to fend off any resistance to thier growing power. The UN, having been complacent over the years will not know what to expect because it was a force that was growing in secret and the newer generation will be ignorant of what happened in sw I, too sheltered from war to be battle ready.

Almost the same if I remember. What was all that stuff in macross plus about guld surpressing his "zentreadi fighting instincts"? Has it been scientifically proven that zentreadi are more likely to cause trouble than humans? And why did Guld say that Isamu "felt sorry for the poor zentreadi"? during the apology scene when those two had finished thier dogfight? Was it because zentreadi have a history of violence more than humans? Why would he mention his race? Why not just say he felt sorry for "Poor schizophrenic Guld"? Another thing was the comment by the old guy to millard: "you would vouch for a zentreadi half-breed like Bowman?!" almost as if there was an assumption that Zentreadi were NOT as trustworthy compared to the more level-headed humans that wouldn't cheat because they are not itching to start a fight so much. There's also the flashback of guld losing his temper and almost hurting Myung. Again an indication that Zentreadi must fight or hold back thier inner urges to lose thier temper, so they can adjust to human lifestyle. Almost as if behaving warlike is a disability and humans need to feel sorry for them. You will pick these small clues up on racism and xenophobia in macross plus on repeat viewings. They are subtle but I gaurantee on further observation you will start to understand that trust between humans and zentreadi isn't as great as it would seem on the surface. On the surface we are all very politically correct and ignore that racism even exists today, but in the real world and in the back of our minds we can still sense it. (there will never be equality and some people will always have less opportunities than others, with people naturally having a tendancy to discriminate against anything that they are unfamiliar with) Now remember Zentreadi as I understand it were genetically modified super soldiers designed solely as the warrior class for the protoculture. They are bioweapons. Most of the desired traits related to warriors would be favoured and those that are less warrior-like would be left out and then they would clone varieties based on what worked for soldiers. The protoculture basically had thier own eugenics program to weed out the weak useless characteristics that weren't desirable in a warrior, in favour of ones that would enhance thier combat ability. So in effect they might be more fit, have more muscle mass, higher bone density (I clearly remember max mentioning this about his and millia's baby) Also there was never any indication that humans were better fighters, just that the main chracters in the series were great pilots. (one was a dardevil test pilot who had been flying planes all his life, the other was a acrobat, and the best one was an ace ala "red baron") I'm pretty sure the average battle-hardened zents would have easily beaten the vast majority of inexperienced humans had there not been a few lucky incidents (like Hikaru having an ace on his side) to tip the balance in human's favour. The zentreadi were holding back half the time anyway. Only allowed to "play" with the humans because half the time thier superiors wanted to study them. They could see themselves as the warrior elite and like what we have today where people still think that thier race determines superiority, (proud of themselves and wanting to be seperate from society or secretly plot to rule over them - I wil not name names) these zentreadi would convince themselves that they had to preserve thier races' bloodlines and purge human blood from the genepool. Of course this untrue doctrine is helped along by a corrupt leader who manages to make a religion out of his belief. The anti UN would ally themselves with this person and it would be a major problem for the UN. There would be other reasons for the break up of the UN (by humans who conspire against it) like people just wanting absolute control over resources which would represent a future threat to the un in the form of armies that were secretly being built up. Not everyone is going to automatically agree to be obedient. This is the nature of man. He is corrupt, rebellious, and has his own ambitions too. The idea that adjusting to human life because peace is plain boring to a warrior class is another thing to consider. This theme was in the original series where after a time, kamjin could round up any defectors and start a rebellion. Of course, my idea is a little different. Some time has passed, the zentreadi have lived amoungst humans, (learnt thier ways, educated themselves) and after all this pent-up racial tension, along comes a charismatic leader similar to kamjin who rises up to fight for independance against the un. (like the principality of zeon in gundam but without the newtype power ) He wants to bring back the strength the zentreadi once had and promises to make a much better world if they grant him the power to fix the imbalance. This idea would appeal to all those pure blooded zentreadi who society constantly sees as too much a threat to the humans (discrimination?) and so these people allow this madman to get into power somehow. So in summary: Even though our dna is almost identical, Zentreadi would still be more warlike because they were designed for 1 purpose and genetically altered that way. This idea of racism between the two different species is promoted in macross plus quite a lot if you know where to look. And if the zents start to think they can rule themselves independantly from what they see as some corrupt humans keeping them down, then it would be a good idea and excuse for another war imo. Not everyone's cup of tea, but still at least I'm trying to throw some ideas out there. I just don't want another macross 7. I want something similar to saving private ryan where we are focused on a small group of soldiers and are stuck with them for the series and because they are risking thier lives, they all are reluctant to work together at first. The music would be thier morale boost and they would question themselves about why the hell they were even there, (most characters in SDF macross just got caught up in the war and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time so they wouldn't automatically care about fighting for freedom) and whether they would even survive and what thier families could be thinking. Something a little more serious, a little more human, where the introspection leads us to an eventual solution to the problem of human-alien relations and the discrimination that will always exist by humans who are scared of the warlike zentreadi melding too much in human society out of fear they will turn against them. Just an idea from the impression I got in macross plus which I thought had the right balance of battles and character development. In macross plus, there was no need to dwell on the theme for too long, just hints that these things were within the background of the story. Things like: 1)Racial tension exists, 2)UNG doesn't give a poo about the test pilots or respect them like we are led to believe, 3)millard was a reckless youngster himself once, 4)not all singstars reach thier dreams like minmay without obstalces getting in the way of thier career, 5) Guld has fits of rage when he thinks of isamu that when combined with his zentreadi warrior instinct make him dangerous to society etc The stereo-typical characters are far from what the audience immediately expects and we grow to like them more when we see these things. These are not things that take over from the love triangle and music theme, but they provide little bits of information lurking in the background that provides some clue/hint as to how the fictional world may really work. (if you want to get realistic) If mech battles are going to get lots of attention, I would like to see realism in characters with thier own failings and weaknesses as well. Not just "look at me. I'm invincible and kicking ass because I'm the central character who wins all the battles and gets through unscathed." With the saving private ryan idea, there would be rescue missions, struggles for control over certain areas, no help from above for a long time, there would be disagreement within the groups and cynicism and skepticism over the cause. People would be forced to create the resistance all on thier own and fight on the ground but with the odds against them all over again. It would not always be a united effort though (humans have thier own interests) and unlike the UN there would be no incentive to be on the side of the good guys since they have worse chance of winning. This inevitable war would be the very reason why global warned that the human race needed to spread itself in order to avoid extinction again, due to the disagreements man will always have with himself and our need to fight all the time like the zentreadi. That divide only allows us to be manipulated by more sinister forces and risk collapse of the central controls we have and into a slow, gradual move into anarchy. (helped along by an ambitious slightly-mad, kamjin-style character of course.) Keep in mind: I'm not saying that the idea that zentreadi being superior to humans has to be necessarily true, just that a dictatorial evil character could propagate such a message and get sympathisers to his cause. (the mad character in fact is just trying to do what he sees as a legitimate cause) When I said it would be the counterpoint to the original tv series, I meant that characters like admiral hayes would look a lot less useless when put into a situation where the humans are in a war to survive against enslavement. The message wouln't be: "War is bad, love is good, stupid!" It would be: "Some wars have to be fought to defend against dissenting powers who will change the fate of future (more complacent) generations if left alone to have thier way for too long". The sword can be used to protect/defend as well as attack/kill. The build up of weapons and the arms race towards destruction is inevitable and can't be avoided. Just like the protoculture before us, we will always be at the risk of extinction from our own weapons and and can't do anything about it, just as in the real world. Satan always eventually gets what he wants: death. Regardless of who is suffering (losing the war) and whether 1 side is right or wrong, somebody will die if he can get us to divide and kill each other no matter the reason, putting us in a constant need to fight, rather than allowing us to have complete peace and love tha can last forever. The ambtions of the power-grabbing characters are just the means to attain Satan's need for more deaths. After all, a destructive god would have nothing to destroy if there wasn't anything that we created (like music, culture, art, more people) for it during peacetime, for him to delight in then taking it away from us. It's an endless and cruel cycle of create-destroy. Not even Love lasts forever.

More ballsy than that. It has to be "Good Bye Pussies!" When you stroll into a battle scene and want to clear the field of as many of the ugly zentreadi mofos in as little effort, and as much style, within as short a time as possible, you smile devilishly, warn your friends to get out of the way, then shout: "Good Bye Pussies!" taunting whatever targets were unfortunate enough to be within the range of your present, all the while letting all the hounds loose while you concentrate on more important enemies (dogfight with Qraus?) This is followed by shrieks of terror as they cannot find any holes in the mess to fly through to escape, only to be blown into oblivion. Then whatever secondary explosions you couldn't avoid due to lessened maneuverability will have been absorbed by the armor only to be ejected after max damage has been taken. With you being ready to take on the weakened forces that have managed to outmanueaver the first wave of your attack.

Keep in mind these new enemies resemble vampires. I'm not sure if this is a correct description but they may be 'undead' creatures who are seemingly invincible and can't be killed using conventional weapons? Otherwise the zentreadi would have wiped them out ages ago with no probs. I'm also assuming here that this was the "legendary power" that exedol and Breetai were so scared about when they saw Lynn Kyle in the movie "Little White Dragon" (or whatever it was called) because it may have tricked them into thinking we humans had that same power that these demons/vamps posess. lol I have not watched it all so I don't have the full story. But my main point is that is not how basara sees it, ('killing' being the only way)because he wants to spiritually heal and make the enemy understand, rather than eliminate them from existiance which is easy for the military to do. Normally when something gets in your way you destroy it. Say for example your family members were mind controlled and became a hollow shell, would you want to kill them for being one of the baddies, or want to help them awaken from thier mind controlled state of manipulation as a zombie with a lack of a soul? (that's what zombies are, you can't kill them in rpgs because they are already spiritually dead, only healing them by using a healing spell kills that state because it brings them back to "life") No amount of weapons is going to bring them back but in the context of using music to heal as opposed to a mere distraction (space war I) or as a weapon (macross plus where sharon apple uses hypnotism which puts the listeners into a mind controlled trance), this could work. War protestors want others to understand they are only fighting out of fear for each other and it wasn't always like that. There was a time when people of 2 different religions/races/cultures could get on perfectly well (even in the middle east believe this or not!) and co-exist but they are only fighting because corrupt leaders and politcians have sent them to kill on command out of thier own personal interests and have misled them. Like in star craft: a stronger race has every intention of taking a weaker ones belongings and this is what powerful people do: take power no matter what race you are. If somebody can command armies and get rich/powerful in the process they will continue to do this while spinning thier own version of reality on to the masess to make them agree that war is good, good, good. It is not new. And consider this: the humans would not have stood a hope in hell without music. They all would have eventually been killed if they didn't give this wacky idea a chance. Music was what saved the day and bought the opportunity to use the weapons on the target. Of course you don't have to kill the person, just capture and imprison them once you had them in a vulnerable position. But it just wouldn't have looked as cool onscreen so they chose to end it with a big explosion. If I saw an action movie I would want to see big explosions and stuff to get my money's worth, so that's what we were given instead. About "flying around without weapons and singing being too unrealistic" comments others have made? Well consider this: hikaru was in the flying circus as an acrobat. There is a lot of danger and recklessness involved in that. But if the character is good enough to tame the beast whether it be a lion or a crocodile or a plane, to make it do what it wants, I don't see how basara is being reckless so long as his skills are up to the task to calculate those risks and danger to himself. I see the soldiers as being crappier pilots than him the way a matador sees a bull as being too easy to predict and therefore not such a threat given the skill of the person. To an untrained person it is hella dangerous though. Basara could be seen as a type of croc hunter. We never stop to think why the person is not able to be shot down and whether that person considers the people attacking him as being a real threat. Yes guns are dangerous but if you are better than your opponent with them or at avoiding fire it might seem harmless. Given the skill of the person's flying ability then, is it not reasonable to assume the person has opportunites we normal people don't? If you could say, master a martial art where you were as harmless to your opponents as they were to you (because they just couldn't manage to hit you and even if they did it would result in negligible damage that was easily recoverable from) that resulted in nobody getting killed, wouldn't that be great that nobody could be harmed? You could avoid every attack and destroy thier willingness to go on by tiring them. Simply put: a character that is confident enough in thier own ability but restrains themselves from being violent is seeking a higher purpose. It sounds unreal but so was max when he was unable to be killed in swI because his skill made him unbeatable. Miriya made a good point to him (this was after they hooked up) about only disarming the enemy by shooting them in the lower legs of the pods if possible. Wasn't that enough if your skill afforded it? Why punish them if they are only doing thier duty as soldiers and not thier fault they are forced to fight? Why do you necessarily need them to be dead? Is it for revenge to make you feel better for the people they took from you? They are just doing thier fighting duty like you! These were her own people after all. Maybe they deserved a chance like her? At the time, this to me would have sounded as unreasonable as basara singing to people who want nothing more than to see him dead. This is miyiya we are talking about who has nothing but contempt for weaker underlings before she met max. But as I get older I realise it is way more juvenile and immature and unrealistic to expect miriya NOT to feel any sympathy when firing and killing her own kind. That kind of character depth is what I mean. Beyond all the politics, spin and reasons people give to themselves to justify killing, in the end just about all the sane characters in the original macross tv series wanted to "end the war" for peace reasons, not for power reasons. (like admiral hayes or bodolza who are the evil controller types who dont give a crap about those suffering in the wake of thier ambitions) I'm not saying that I like or support the idea that future macross series should preach to us in exchange for making a series less entertaining and that we should all like it; with characters so extreme they won't fight or do something cool that we can be comfortable with, but I'm just giving my own reasons to why this series does in fact fit in with the original tv series, just in a unique (not necessarily better) way. It may not be my thing, (I like the macross plus aproach of physical battles over spiritual battles) but I'm one of the few that do apreciate that this tried something different is all I'm saying. edit: Sheesh my posts are getting too longwinded. I better take a break from the boards for some fresh air.

That was my macross 7 impressions after having just spent a few hours watching about 20 eps to see what was so crap/good about it since you hear about how crap it is almost every week, so I was curious and posted my thoughts, criticsms, hates, likes, disapointments about it. This series has a good and relevent deep message that is, I believe, overlooked. Glad I got that off my chest finally hehe. In case you were wondering I am new and have never seen macross 7 so all these ideas just came to me after just watching it and sampling some of what people are bagging it out for. (esp repetitive tunes, lack of good battles, characters that weren't as likable, story that "isn't realisic" and garish colours for the valks compared to other macross series) I never really got a chance to talk about this before and pull it apart so that was my first impression of it so far. The story is much better than macross II which I am glad to finally find out. The music sucks more, and the battles no where near as exciting. It was a major downgrade coming off of mac+ but after getting used to that you see the characters are not typical stereotypes like we are used to but, unique kids with issues that lie deep within them and take time to come out. Basara sounds goofy and unrealistic on first impressions but I can really imagine people in real life like that, which brings substance to this series and puts something new to the macross table I've never seen before while remaining consistant with other series. (music being central to everything and being a saving grace. Even macross plus had music as a saving grace when myung sang her song to wake Isamu up, which one guy claimed had no meaning to that story)

I've only seen a bit of m7 (about 20 eps in) and I find it more humourous than serious. Whereas the Zentreadi seemed warlike and conditioned to behave as soldiers 24/7, these vampiric alien beings are just naturally seeking an energy source to maintain thier existence. That just so happens to be souls to feed upon. But are they really bad, or just victims who are cursed and in need of help? The idea is that even exedol could not have prepared for them, so any method for dealing with these aliens must have sounded plausible enough as past methods, (well, as plausible as culture shock was to the zentreadi) so why not music? Young people are usually very antiwar because they just want peace and are driven by thier ideals and willing to take stupid risks. Look at antiwar protestors who are brave enough to line up in front of tanks or journalists trying to gather the truth by going to a country whereby they may get captured and killed. This is part bravery, part stupidity. But they deserve as much respect as anyone else we look to as courageous and bold. They are, in thier minds pioneering or doing something about it instead of sitting on thier butt wasting away or allowing the problem to grow worse, hoping it won't effect them and that death will just go away if they ignore the problem as if nothing is happening. I don't see anything strange about basara using pop culture shock to try to persuade these beings that it is unecessary to attack if the people are peaceful and mean no harm to begin with. Just because a nation is at war with another in the real world doesn't mean there aren't peaceful sectors who can see the futility of fighting on both opposing sides. (eg the few responsible religious leaders and activists who have not let politics poison thier beliefs by setting a bad example and starting to actually condone war and killing when it suits them) I find this part quite "real" even if I'm personally turned off by the more kiddy appearance of the valks compared to other series. I think the problem with a lot of people is they like to see the music as an actual weapon used merely to disarm the "pest" (so long as they, the enemy, are out of the way of the military, this method is just a means to an end, not an end in itself; that of sprirtual awakening and healing the victim) more than an attempt to actually help people, even aliens who are ignorant of the fact that they need help. Maybe by seeing the music under the context of a "religious healing" and exorcism of habits and 'sins' that damage the individual, as opposed to a method to harm or merely pacify the enemy, (music in SWI was used a 'distraction' only) does the story start to seem more plausible. Hating the sin and not the sinner is crucual if you want to truly clean yourself from the cycle of bloodshed without looking like a hypocrite who won't practice what he preaches, or sings for. Whereas minmay was popular and she never intended to sing to end wars in the first place, basara aims to end war using his singing to achieve this and actually prefers NOT to become famous by boycotting gigs if he isn't feeling like it meets his "end the fighting" goal. He looks far more happy singing to enemies than to fans! Comparing these two icons: who seemed less selfish and shallow to you? Minmay or Basara? If you take a religous view on this, maybe these aren't "enemies" to basara but potential victims he sees as needing healing and understanding. Words and music can be very powerfully persuasive (politicians play word games all the time to manipulate your emotions; same with ads and prepared speeches) as can specific frequencies or vibrations to living things. eg A soothing voice sounds more calming to a baby whereas sudden sharp loud noises can scare or frighten, causing stress or panic and an increased heart rate from stress. Watch a horror flick and notice how it is used to build tension if you don't believe me. It is powerful. Our subconscious minds pick up lots of information that is deemed useless, but I think over a long period of time it has a slow-acting effect which grows on people. (which is why the repetition in this tv series - haven't you ever heard a song you thought was crap, then over time grown to like it the more you grew to understand what the artist was trying to say in it?) I think this might be the goal of basara: Promote your songs but don't be a freakin hypocrite by not also going out there to play the activist role and risk life and limb to prove to others and to yourself that you mean business about trying to help others. There are some people in this world that believe no matter how far someone has fallen they are still worth trying to save and yo never turn your back on them or try to kill or harm them because in real life they have proof it can work. To me Basara is basically trying to save souls, not just physical lives, but the very spririts themselves. And by singing he "raises spirits" and heals the souls of those who have been empty shells from the horror of war and cycle of death. That's basically my own interpretation here. But that's art for you. To me artists are "creators", not destroyers and they can see the futility of fighting that us, less sensitive types choose to sometimes ignore out of conveniece because we hate to look at the big picture or see the plan in the future. And really despite being "right" in the war, and being on the side of justice, somebody is still dying in a fight or in war, so even if we are the good guys, we should STILL not be happy about death or enjoy and relish it by automatically concluding that we must always use force to solve the problem. Killing the wrong guy, is still a form of destruction no matter what. And that was the very reason we had to demonstrate to the zentreadi there are alternatives to fighting in the first war. In many cases we were damn lucky to have survived, being the much weaker force. We can't consciously allow ourselves to become like the zentreadi (who we initially thought were too evil to save or befriend) and merely rely on force as the solution to all problems. By doing this we are just becoming like them and losing a bit of our own soul/conscience each time and bit by bit, becoming more like a hollow shell with each kill we make: a mere goverment sanctioned killing machine ready to follow orders and commands without thought or check that we are still human and not one of "Satan's Dolls/puppets" as exedol so lovingly described his people as when bringing death and extinction to new planets/civilisations/cultures. Do I like macross 7 so far? Yes. But my personal preferences have always been in the style of a serious story with a good dose of drama in front of a backdrop of good action scenes (I'm sorry I've been spoiled by macross plus' awesome fights) with stylish mecha and epic space battles showing struggle between 2 sides. To me the tone of the series so far seems a little too happy imo (do we care as much about a overproctected bratty little 14 yr old just trying to be famous whos mum won't let her be what she wants?) but I won't bag it for that reason alone, because it is trying for something different. I think basara has way more substance than that pink haired chick who cares only for success and to be famous; a character trait that is very shallow and common in real life, seeing as this is not the most important thing in life. I find mylene more annoying than basara imo (but she is grounded in reality at least, and we love her on first impressions because she has valid complaints against Basara; her being the newest member of the band and all, kind of like what Scully the skeptic was to Mulder in the Xfiles in the early episodes, but who, over time slowly became annoying as she was only there to question mulder and has absolutely no faith at all, even if she had seen the proof and had a long history of sometimes being wrong! )

What I would like to see is the destruction of the UN by a new anti UN threat whereby the zentreadi (rebels who are like kamjin) rise to power somehow and manage to start thier own underground resistance to the UN and manipulate a great number to follow under thier rule. (this would be the backstory not the main story of the series) I think given that the zentreadi made peace in SWI there would be racism amoungst many humans and this tension could be manipulated to start more wars.(remember there was a hint of this in macross plus: "You would trust a Zentreadi Half-breed?!" I'm pretty sure people scrapped thier politically correct attitude when the time came to be serious or they weren't being watched in a public place) The music would be more melancholic and sad, and not happy like pop songs singing about love. I liked the stories in mospeada (I've only seen the robotech version) where the struggle to make do with nothing and keep up the fight on the ground is the emphasis of the series. They could do something similar to this where earth is ravaged by these neo zentreadi rebels who have taken control and humans become the weaker slaves to them (like planet of the apes? ) and must fight back using thier knowledge of mecha to stand a chance. It would be destroids only, relying on unorthodox tactics to outsmart the zentreadi and no flying around or fancy acrobatics. And there would be no time for culture since the old ways of the ancienct zentreadi would be revived and every effort and resource would be focused on manufacture of military weapons. It would also have some humour (the character would be like hogan's heroes just joking) and each character would have to be interesting to me. Ok so it's not original but its an idea. The idea of variable destroids would mean more toys. We are so used to seeing them get blown up I think they get neglected. the humans of course would not win the war against these zentreadi rebels since the rebels will be accustomed to our own culture and there would be much conspiracy and backstabbing and deciet where even some of the humans learnt to sympathise with these rebels for a good deal. (another theme explored in mospeada) These newer zentreadi would be much smarter than what they were in sw1 and more ruthless (they would consider themselves the pure race, the great survivors who should carry on the next generation and not mix with the weaker humans, because it would spoil and pollute thier race with weaker unecessary genes) It would not be as kiddy as macross 7, but really serious where the heroes actually die and nobody can predict anything. (no more max type characters taking all the glory, this is a war epic where the main characters are struggling for thier lives. All of max descendants would have been killed in a bombing or somehting heh) In summary it would be the "what if Kamjin ever rose to power and got his revenge on the weak humans after all, by starting his own underground cult, ideology and political party, and a great portion of pure zentreadi voted him into power?" story. The main theme of this story would be that the fight for independance from slavery is eternal vigilance. Love/peace can't last forever - the threat of human extinction would come back to haunt us once again and the enemies are more subversive and unpredicitable this time. It would be the counterpoint to the SW1 theme of trying to pacify the zentreadi, instead of accepting them as dangerous enemies and a threat to the control of power by humans at a time of human complacency. Not all sides would agree with the UN on many topics, and we would see a great divide and split of power once again just like the wars that were on earth before SW1 and the wars the protoculture were trying to escape in the macross movie. (with the rebels having helped start these wars in secret and manipulating leaders to thier causes) Of course the humans (and zentreadi allies who are against the powerful new cult) would beat them when they developed more advanced valkyries, but help wouldn't come till the very end of the series when only 1 main character in the story survives to tell the tale about the earth resistance. Either way it wouldn't be a happy story despite being a victory for the humans again. But this would at least leave the series open-ended. I would love to see the wars the aliens were having against themselves. Also to parrallel this I would like to see the wars we were having with the anti un. It's an excuse to keep the interest alive, and make money. If the Anti un had the transformable mecha before the UN it would mean some interesting fights imo. We would learn the value of weapons that could adapt to the environment and how this got incorporated into the earlier designs of future weapons but couldn't be made at the time due to costs or other reasons like human technology and knowhow slowing progress uintil alien tech came to speed up our understanding. (so it would be like these were the 'one of a kind' vehicles only the best could be trusted to use and show off. The unique nature of transformation would be treated like new subject matter again and the mystery of what the vehicles could do would hold the audience attention as opposed to having the transforms down to a standard science that is used in everything) I would like to see the experiments the protoculture were having with genetic engineering and modification to make super soldiers and how this affected thier way of life. Would all people in that civilisation agree with its use? Was there strong opposition? What happened when all this stuff was being done in secret (if it was't officially allowed? Could the different sides trust each other NOT to make weapons out of fear, sparking an arms race of bioweapons?) Lots of little details. In the original series the supervision army is something we never got to see. This could be confusing without some visual aids of what actually happened to make them extinct. Kind of the equivalent of tolkiens march against sauron in the first Lotr movie.

Haha, I love all that violence and the detail it was animated at. The movie is not for little kids. It makes miriya seem twice as badass and scary. It just seems to me the zentreadi are treated more like monsters in a horror movie more than they are in the tv series where they are more cerebral and civilised, holding back thier forces because the "ship is too precious" and them not bothering to take earth hostage. They are more warrior-like in the series (sometimes questioning thier superiors and thier code of ethics) and less mindless to me. (with the exception of Kamjin) After all, these are supposed to be cold-blooded killing machines whose only purpose is to kill, kill, kill. If she came off as a pussy (oops she is one!) in her opening into the movie, it wouldn't have the same impact on the audience. (assuming nobody has seen the tv series) I don't consider violence like that gratuitious if it served a purpose. If there is a war, you would expect blood and guts and peoples limbs and heads to be cut off. I think it would only add to the dark gritty feel and realism. (action movies from the 70s and 80s are some of them most violent imo, just watch robocop 1 for violence mixed with humour) Yes it would be unecessary to the furthering of the story but not when manipulating the emotions which is the aim of putting that extra stuff in there. It might be funny to some, (some deaths just are) but it has its place when used in the right way to show the effect weapons have on the victims. (seeing some of "saving private ryan"s gory images imo was pretty disturbing but it got its point across better this way by showing the more horrific 'meat grinding' side to war, rather than: dude gets shot, falls over, goes to sleep.) In the movie, you can sense immediately that miriya hates the soldiers for being weak and not challenging enough to be worthy opponents for them to be given the privledge to fight against her. In the tv series it takes time for that idea to come across becasue she doesn't kick that much ass. But in the movie that is achieved with just a few actions and her attitude. It wasn't just her doing her duty and stroking her ego like in the tv version. She actually despised the weakness in the opponents and needed to demonstrate that ruthlessness to shock the audience and make us scared of her in a short space of time to give the hardened image. But the impression I got in the tv series, was that she was much less a threat, and as a warrior, needed to prove she was stronger. (and she never got that chance to show it, thanks to max taking the spotlight away)

These would look good on the sides of the koenig monster.

*she was wearing colored contacts that day. *may not be true

just a little bit on the bottom eyelash. shiny bit on cheek = indication of moisture. Great attention to detail! Very subtle Oh and the eyes are brown aren't they?

Well its in the cartoon and the first time I saw it, I thought: WTF, that's from macross isn't it?! I don't think it has arms though.. http://www.nefkom.net/amarillo/gallery/gallery.htm ^ There might be something there resembling the jet fighter mode, along with some robots that look similar to things from various other popular shows you might have seen. heh ^ Here's a kid's regult. jk ^ something from battletech? ^ it would be cooler is this converted

There are gerwalks everywhere these days, even sonic x has one:

I like the little sweat/teardrop coming out of one of them.

I like the detail of the 1/48 but the scale and proportions of the 1/60s. If only there were someway to make a 1/60 with 1/48 details. Barring any limitations: my ideal would be 1/60 scale and proportions (more playable size) with 1/48 detail and maybe even combined with some features of the banpresto shoulders and independant-from-crotch leg movement (to allow more space to rotate each leg outward) when in battroid mode.