Jump to content

Seto Kaiba

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    13761

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Seto Kaiba

  1. Seto Kaiba
    Star Trek is a big franchise with a well-established multi-generational fanbase, so there are always going to be at least a few fans willing to tune in and check out any new project no matter how obviously ill-considered. That there will initially be an audience is guaranteed. No guarantees are made with respect to the size or continuing existence of that audience after the first few episodes. Well, no... no it doesn't. After all, it'd be a spinoff of Star Trek: Picard and that series was neck-and-neck with Star Trek: Discovery in the race to be the worst-rated Star Trek title of all time for most of its run. It was only saved from winning that race by being shorter and going all-in on fanservice in its third and final season. Trying to build a new series around a character whose development in the prior series was one of the most harshly criticized aspects of its story and a ship that was also poorly received for its unnecessary redesign and overall aesthetic is probably not a winning strategy. We already have a series about the Enterprise exploring the cosmos, though. That's Strange New Worlds. Concurrently running two different shows with the exact same premise is probably not a winning strategy either. Variety is the spice of life, and the Star Trek franchise is big enough to accommodate more than that one type of story. Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks are both very well-received on average. Not always. TOS didn't have one. DS9 only got one in its fifth season when Nog came back for sophomore year field study. ENT's eager young ensign was also the most experienced person on the ship by a huge margin. PIC didn't really have one either. Enterprise wasn't Uhura's first assignment even as a cadet on training rotation in SNW either. It's really just TNG's Wesley, VOY's Harry, and DSC's Tilly. Lotta -y's. I guess that makes those know-it-all fresh-outs a pack of Y's guys. 😜 Lower Decks's whole premise is seeing these space adventures through unjaded eyes, since the senior staff (and Beckett) have seen it all before. They're still good and experienced at most of what they do, because they've still got four years of Academy training plus mentoring and training from more experienced officers. Even people who are in their final year at the academy don't really stretch credibility IMO since they've got years of training under their belts (e.g. Tilly, SNW Uhura). It's more of a problem when you've got characters who've never been and have no training (e.g. Wesley, the Prodigy crew) or have been in Starfleet for all of five seconds (the Academy cast and the Academy cast) out saving the galaxy and never attending class.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Well, yes. The YF-24 program's stated objective was to develop a next (5th) generation main Variable Fighter for the (Earth/Central) New UN Forces. Based on what Macross Chronicle, Master File, and the Macross Frontier novelizations have had to say on the matter it does appear that a VF-24 was produced and was in the process of being adopted by the New UN Forces at the time things went to hell at the end of the Vajra conflict in 2059. Given that the only variant we've heard mention of is the VF-24A and presentation-wise it's basically a delta-wing VF-25 my inclination would be to suspect that it has an A-type head similar to the VF-25A and VF-31A. "Visor" type optics tend to be more of a "hero" option.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Caught the latest episodes of Let This Grieving Soul Retire, Mechanical Marie, and Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota. Pretty mediocre television, all told. Not bad, but just unremarkable. For Mechanical Marie...
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Let's hope Season 4 is a return to form, because the scores for Season 3 are in and the news is not good. A 25 point plummet relative to Season 2, putting Season 3 on par with Star Trek: Picard's oft-mocked first season and only slightly better than Discovery's much-maligned first season. Paramount and the producers are blaming the broadly negative reception of Season 3 on the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in '23, though they seem to at least be willing to admit the season went too hard on comedy and too hard on La'an and Spock's dance-focused relationship. Apparently Frakes et. al. were a bit surprised that "A Space Adventure Hour" and "Four and a Half Vulcans" were not as funny as they sounded in the writers heads.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    It'd probably be more accurate to say that the 5th Generation VFs like the VF-25, VF-27, and VF-31 are derivatives of the YF-24 Evolution rather than direct descendants of it. The VF-25 and VF-27 were developed using the YF-24 Evolution as a starting point. However, the design was adjusted accordingly to suit the unique requirements of the emigrant government defense forces soliciting the new development and to either replace omitted Earth-proprietary technologies with locally-developed alternatives as well as the addition of locally-developed proprietary technology. The YF-29 and YF-30 are a bit more distant, since the YF-29 is a branch of VF-25 development that shares a lot of parts in common but also includes a lot of proprietary parts that were developed for its different operational profile, and the YF-30 is more a derivative of the YF-29. Probably worth noting that the art being referenced here is from Master File, not the series proper. The blisters on top of the head are present on the VF-25F type. I've seen nothing to that effect... aside from a brief note in Macross the Ride's Visual Book Vol.1 that the YF-25's composite sensor cluster is set up for data collection.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    It seems to be aimed at an audience of people who enjoyed Star Trek: Discovery and thought it was a worthy installment in the Star Trek franchise. Watching this teaser, I was struck again by the same thought that struck me after I watched Section 31. Paramount seemingly doesn't understand that most Star Trek fans did not like Discovery and were either hate-watching it or holding out hope that it would Grow The Beard like TNG did after its lamentable first season. It's following Discovery's formula in pretty close formation. The protagonist is a resentful kid full of unprocessed childhood trauma who joins Starfleet via nepotism rather than talent. There's a giant alien category traitor from a one-temperment species (a Klingon med student), a girl with apparently-untreated severe autism, and some legacy characters who are there to convince fans to tune in (USS Voyager's EMH Mk.I and Jett Reno), and a ridiculously scenery chewing villain with no redeeming qualities whatsoever from a TOS-era species to make an unlikable main character seem less awful by comparison. You'd think Paramount would take stock of the audience review scores at some point and realize the pattern. Of the 64 seasons and movies put out so far, the 15 bottom ranked titles include all five seasons of Discovery, both seasons of Short Treks, Section 31, the first two seasons of Picard, and Strange New Worlds season 3. The only other titles on that list are the worst of the Old Trek movies... 5, TMP, Insurrection, and Nemesis. It seems to be a very similar premise to the unsuccessful Star Trek: Starfleet Academy comics from the 90's. That is to say, a diverse squad of freshman cadets including an everyman, an admiral's kid, proud warrior race guy, a Betazoid, and the clearly autistic one from the incoming class at Starfleet Academy's San Francisco campus are assigned to a supervising officer with multiple lifetimes of experience and pretty much never attend any classes because they're giving a ship right off the bat and spend all their time fighting threats to the Federation. The Starfleet Academy TV series has the everyman (played by Sandro Rosta), the admiral's kid (Bella Shepard), proud warrior race guy (Karim Diane), the Betazoid (Zoe Steiner), and the clearly autistic one (Kerrice Brooks). They've traded the Trill in for a half-Lanthanite played by Holly Hunter, added a spoiled rich kid (played by George Hawkins), and for a ship they have an actual starship not a Danube-class runabout, but the rest seems pretty on the nose. Having read the comic, I should probably just be grateful that they've skipped the inclusion of the other character archetype from the comic's cadet squad who was killed off and replaced by the Betazoid. The preachy Soapbox Sadie girl with the implausible backstory whose entire identity and character was tied up in oversimplifying a politically charged topic. Anson Mount carried the second season, that's why they gave him his own show... so he could carry the franchise.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    The Banished Court Magician Aims to Become the Strongest is probably going to be the first title I drop this season. The writing is beyond terrible. It's bad enough that it's one of those isekai-adjacent Gary Stu power fantasy titles full of thinly-written characters and cliched interactions. The worst part is that, as of just a couple minutes into the second episode, it's clear that the entire premise of the series is itself a gaping plot hole. The translation quality is AWFUL too.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Boldly written by Pakleds, for Pakleds. 🤮 If that trailer was supposed to make me want to watch the series, oof... mission failed with distinction. That just looks like more of everything that already wasn't working in Star Trek: Discovery.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    May I Ask for One Final Thing? is the gift that keeps on giving. Scarlet has the most delightful take-no-sh*t attitude as a protagonist and her motivations are both hilariously self-centered and delightfully effective. Her newfound pursuit of justice and desire to root out villainy is motivated by hilariously enlightened self-interest. To use her own words: She delivers that last part with a beatific smile atop a sparkling pink background framed by roses that would not have been at all out of place for a confession of true love in a romance series.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    I wonder if they're changing up the art style a bit? Or maybe they're deliberately being conservative with the action scenes they choose to cut into the teaser?
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! is pretty damn adorable. I had a lot of fun with the second episode. Let's Play's second episode doubles down on everything negative I had to say about the first one. Avoid it like the plague. EDIT: It's like someone tried to make Ally McBeal into an anime, in all the worst ways. Like the surreal imagine spots and the protagonist being unable to confront the person who ruined her life simply because he's attractive. I can't recall the last time I cringed this hard.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash: the Sorcery of Nymph Circe is set to release on 30 January 2026 in Japan. https://natalie.mu/comic/news/643705
  13. Seto Kaiba
    My Awkward Senpai has hit its stride as of the second episode. That was quite a bit more fun to watch and the protagonist Azusa's social awkwardness is definitely handled in a way that's less rude and more cute. Seems like it's well on its way to being a fun installment in this season. Solo Camping for Two is trying valiantly to transition from a boring and poorly composed camping gear infomercial to a boring and poorly composed story about Gen's dream job of owning his own campground. The story changes gears with the kind of lurch and audible clunk that'd have you racing to the dealership if it were your car. They're doing a better job when it comes to selling the idea that Gen actually enjoys camping, but he still spends so much screen time hitting the sauce that I remain convinced he's a borderline alcoholic. The new plot development of a "romantic" rival for the main girl is some weak sh*t though.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess A slightly unusual twist on the oversaturated "reincarnated as the villainess of an otome game/novel" subgenre of isekai story. As per the usual, the protagonist has had a run-in with Truck-kun that ends in her demise and awakening to discover she has been reincarnated as the villainess character in an otome story. The twist is that... I have to admit, it's an unusual take on the genre and not one I've seen anyone attempt before. I am intensely curious to see what they do with it. The animation itself is pretty good, though the art style and presentation itself is a cliche storm (no doubt intentional stylistic suck given the subject matter.)
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Between you and me, I suspect it likely owes a fair bit to the fact that those ~1 million people who survived the First Space War by luck or good judgement ultimately spread out a bit rather than staying in a single large community. It's not just the survivors on Luna or in the space colony clusters at the Lagrange points. The survivors living on Earth spread out and founded a bunch of small towns and a couple small cities as we saw in the postwar arc of Super Dimension Fortress Macross. If the clones chose to live in or near those same small communities, you could end up with populations small enough for that to start to become an issue. (One male soldier in the postwar arc implies that men outnumber women after the war, so it's possible that a cloning with an eye towards rebalancing the gender ratio may have contributed as well.)
  16. Seto Kaiba
    I did some checking, and it seems that Predator: Badlands producer Ben Rosenblatt confirmed your hypothesis is correct in an interview with IGN published yesterday. Per Rosenblatt: TBH, that borders on "distinction without difference" in terms of my reaction. "No humans were harmed" is kind of the antithesis of a Predator movie, IMO. The Predator taking down a goofy all-CG space critter and getting splattered with food dye doesn't have the same visceral impact or invoke the same fear that seeing one kill and take trophies from actual humans does. The same goes for watching our intern space hunter whack a bunch of unfeeling robots. (There's a reason the Star Wars prequel trilogy used droids as the enemy... so they could be offed en masse without the audience sympathizing with them at all.) I'm not sure the comics, games, etc. have ever been canon there... but the second movie didn't really do anything except briefly let the protagonist into a misty, indistinct room on their ship for a bit so they could spook him, hand him a trophy for reasons unclear, and then go about their business. They stayed pretty inscrutable. It's not the same as having one of their interns spend two hours getting the snot kicked out of him as a focus character.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Inexpressive Kashiwada & Expressive Oota An odd-couple romance comedy about a pair of high school students: a hothead named Oota who has no poker face to speak of and the girl he lowkey likes, the phenomenally stoic Kashiwada. He's openly fascinated by her and is absolutely determined to do whatever it takes to crack her deadpan expression and get a visible reaction out of her, no matter how immature. Basically, the central premise of the series is one of those little kid crushes where they annoy the object of their affections as a way of showing interest. It's cute and refreshing, in a very innocent sort of way. Oota's such an open book that Kashiwada seems to have no trouble at all telling what he's up to and foiling his plans.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Wait, it's a PG-13 Predator movie? That definitely feels like a misstep. I might've been tempted to see it in theaters, but now I think I'll wait for the streaming release. Sounds like they're making the same mistake as the first Alien vs Predator movie too. Well, yeah... but that's not an indicator of understanding the content of what's being said. I can record and play back birdcalls and the vocalizations of primates, but that doesn't mean I know what they're actually saying. I'm definitely with you there. The less we know the better, because their inscrutability was the main thing that made them scary. They were the Unknown and the Unknowable. You can't make them scary again as an unknown menace once you've been to their home and met their mum.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, that's the problem with having a limited breeding population with limited genetic diversity. You end up reinforcing recessive traits, some of which are potentially detrimental. Fortunately there were about a million surviving Humans after the war so the genetic diversity wasn't catastrophically low. The Zentradi ran into their own problems once they started reproducing naturally too. Like Klan Klang's "clumsy" genes that affect her usage of the miclone system. (Given that Master File indicates the New UN Gov't eventually solved the Zentradi "fighting instincts" problem with gene therapy, one has to wonder if they solved the problems from that initial extensive use of cloning Humans the same way. They could potentially wipe out all kinds of diseases and potentially-fatal conditions that way, as we're starting to do now in the real world with potential gene-editing cures for things like HIV and Down syndrome.) They compressed the range of heights for the Zentradi a bit in the movie version, yeah.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Evolution Toy's VF-2SS is 1/60 scale, so it's about 50% larger than the Bandai Hi-Metal. I'm not a toy collector by any means, but my wholly subjective impression is that the Evolution Toy VF-2SS is lower-quality than the Hi-Metal R despite its larger size. It has some joint problems particularly around the hips and struggles to stay in fighter mode due to the tabs that hold the legs up being a poor fit. IMO the main advantage of the ET one is its larger size + the availability of the Fairy Platoon variant with decals to do the other three members of Sylvie's unit. Neither toy is truly screen-accurate though. They both made the same design compromises to have the removable Super Armed Pack so the pack itself is a lot bulkier and sits a lot higher on the airframe. Neither one has the correct number of Squire bits either. The VF-2SS normally has five, but the Hi-Metal R has four and the Evolution Toy only two.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Ouch. Yeah, it is about that bad isn't it, if we've gone from "inscrutable alien spree killer hunting the most elite soldiers in the world" to "alien hunter intern tries to prove himself and land a full-time position". Makes you wonder how they can even understand each other, since the Predators don't exactly speak English and have tried to avoid contact with Humanity except on the hunt.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Mechanical Marie Multiple kidnapping and assassination attempts orchestrated by his own relatives have turned the Zebes corporation's young heir Arthur Louis Zetes into an extreme misanthrope. For his own safety and convenience, he commissioned the Zetes corporation to create a robot maid to tend to his home and personal needs. Faced with his impossible sci-fi ask from the company's next CEO, the Zetes corporation hires the legendarily stoic martial arts champion Marie "the Robot" Evans for her combat skills and unshakeable poker face and asks her to play the role of said robotic maid and bodyguard in exchange for clearing her parents debts and paying for her education. For the sake of her future and family, Marie has to keep her charge safe and convinced that she is the robot the Zetes corporation claims she is. So begins an unlikely romance comedy as Arthur quickly develops a bodyguard crush on what he firmly believes is an inanimate object and Marie struggles to cope with Arthur's very unpleasant and fratricidal family. It's fun in an odd couple-y sort of way. A bit like Spy x Family, if Yor were Loid's bodyguard.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Hmm... I dunno, my hopes are not high for this one. After rewatching the first couple Predator movies, I feel like it's not a great idea to make a Predator the protagonist of the movie. IMO, what makes the Predators work as the sci-fi horror movie monsters they were/are is that they're inscrutable. They couldn't be communicated with or understood. They were just these aliens hunting people for sport because they could. Once you give them dialog and have them explain their culture and the context of their actions to the audience... they're just rubber forehead aliens like in Star Trek and there's no pivoting back to horror after that. Basically the same mistake Alien: Earth made by revealing you can absolutely just talk to Xenomorphs and control them with language.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    A Mangaka's Weirdly Wonderful Workplace A slice-of-life comedy about the trials and travails of a novice mangaka's daily life as she produces new chapters of her shogi manga Dear Subaru for a shoujo manga magazine. Given that this kind of thing is well-trodden ground, I'd kind of expected the series to make the hilariously toxic work dynamics of the professional mangaka the focus of the humor in the series. There is a bit of that but most of what passes for humor in this series is the titular mangaka being a womanchild who breaks down in hysterical tears over every little inconvenience and has to be bullied into and/or mercilessly handheld through every aspect of doing her job by her assistant. It's more depressing than funny.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai definitely ain't beating the "boring, lazy, painfully derivative form letter writing" allegations by trying to be self-aware about how its plot developments don't make sense. 😆 If your story's barely gotten started and your only recourse to trying to make the story's events fit together and flow is to have your protagonist acknowledge that random bullsh*t just keeps happening and none of it makes sense, maybe consider a career other than "professional writer"? Seriously.
×
×
  • Create New...