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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    It does... but Harmony Gold seems to have given it a pass given that it's outside the scope of what they have licenses to, similar to how the provision that rules out using the designs from the original series in new works only applies to new works created after the agreement. Harmony Gold has the merchandising rights. They got them back in the early 2000s after their original bid to stop imports of Macross toys from Japan failed, as a way to prevent the importation of VF-1 toys that might compete against their Toynami MPC line. They've also trademarked the key art for several characters and so on from the original series. They do... but, based on statements at the last few quarterly earnings calls, Disney's seniors execs and board of directors have cooled on the idea of acquiring outside companies for their IP and audiences. They've spent a combined $88.705 billion on acquisitions since 2006 just between Pixar ($7.5B), LucasFilm ($5.905B), Marvel ($4B), and Fox ($71.3B). That doesn't include the organizational debt they acquired in the process too, which puts the total cost over $100 billion. They're still paying that down, and they'll be doing so for years to come... with even major brands like Star Wars or Marvel only starting to break even ~7 years after being acquired.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Finally getting back to this one after a couple months off. Watched the first couple episodes of The Mandalorian season three last night, and I'm still having a pretty good time with it despite not being entirely conversant in the lore behind the Mandos. The visual effects are as stunning as ever, but I'm a bit disappointed how quickly Din managed to deal with last season's big talking point of being excommunicated from his little fundamentalist cult. I'm hoping a more cogent explanation of that point comes along later. Many jokes were had in my watch group that the Mythosaur that is apparently central to their symbology is... The day in the life segment for that one Imperial scientist from season one was a nice touch too. It makes the galaxy feel much more lived in when we get to see things besides the crystal spires of the elite and the wretched hives of scum and villainy (TM). The spacecraft boneyard is a magnificent VFX sequence and it's weirdly charming to see something like an in-universe tourist trap when they visit the peak of the tallest mountain on Coruscant and it's just... a rock sticking out of the floor of a plaza. Grogu's inclusion still feels kinda forced and unnecessary, but he's not really getting in the way of the plot yet. It just feels like we get periodic reminders that he's still around because they want to sell more dolls.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Nah... Disney's been pretty clear that their main focus is still very much in developing original IPs. Their efforts to merge with Hulu and diversify their streaming portfolio are all about trying to steer a streaming service to profitability like what Netflix had before the bubble burst and the marget segmented. Not to mention you can't force a private owner to sell if they don't want to... and if the previous investigations and prosecutions for tax evasion are any indication, Harmony Gold's owners might not want to risk a more financially literate firm examining their books too closely.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Wait and see is the only sensible approach... Disney+ is currently running around coin-flip odds of a series being either terrible or actually pretty good. It's just a matter of being patient until it comes out and we see if it's either another story that didn't need to be told like Obi-Wan Kenobi or The Book of Boba Fett or an actually-pretty-good addition like The Mandalorian and Andor. Given that it's pitched as a Jedi-heavy story, I'm strongly suspecting the former... but I could be wrong, and will be delighted if I am. It wouldn't be the first time Disney Star Wars did that for me.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    I can think of only a few people whose opinions on the matter would be even less relevant than his... and they're all Harmony Gold employees. 🤣 Harmony Gold still has the exclusive rights to the original series outside Japan under their license with Tatsunoko, and they need to keep the Robotech franchise limping along so they can keep the trademarks that are the only reason Big West has to deal with them. So in order to protect their Robotech franchise, they added into the contract with Big West that Big West would not use designs from the original series in new works meant for global distribution. Presumably the reason Flash Back 2012 is in the clear is that the main characters were redesigned for it and are "different enough" from the original designs used in the TV series and in DYRL to be considered legally distinct.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Ech... yeah, it looks pretty. Shame that it's from the Zeon perspective... being veteran foot soldiers of the bloodiest and most evil regime in Gundam's human history is Nightmare difficulty for making your protagonists relatable or sympathetic or anything other than arsehole victims when the Gundam comes calling.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    That's probably not going to happen... mainly because nobody involved has any idea how this thing is supposed to transform. Kawamori's VF-X-4 design from Super Dimension Fortress Macross didn't come with a transformation already figured out, and nobody working on the Robotech license over the years has had the design chops to come up with one. The reason they've only started using it recently is that they didn't have alt-modes for it at all until Ninja Division designed them for it while working on that failed Robotech tabletop game ten years ago. Even then, Ninja Division never figured out how to get from Point F to Point G to Point B. They just came up with something that looked about right for the modes themselves... and subsequent commercialization ground to a halt when the game's publisher overestimated demand and spent the remaining development budget on retail stock, the Robotech Academy Kickstarter bombed, and they more or less sold control of the franchise to Sony Funimation.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    ... oh it's "number two" all right, in a sense other than the strictly numerical. 🤣 In a way, it's kind of impressive what an equalizer the Robotech license manages to be. It doesn't matter if the writer is a slumming industry professional or a rank amateur who'd got the license because literally nobody else wanted it... it somehow drags them all down to the same level. Truly, this is the duality of Robotech's licensed works... Robotech desperately wants to be seen as "American Macross", but outside of the daring-but-doomed piss-take that was Robotech Remix the franchise can't conceive of a happy future at all, never mind one where Humanity voluntarily coexists with aliens the way it does in Macross. It goes back at least as far as the New Generation, where Scott implies the Zentradi were driven to extinction and wishes the same on the Invid. Subsequent works just made it worse with each iteration. Robotech II: the Sentinels had Humanity effectively expel the remaining Zentradi from the planet by drafting them into the Expeditionary Forces so the Robotech Masters could finish the job, which one of their own rogue officers ended up doing instead post-reboot in Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles. Scott's very specific trauma WRT the Invid was distorted by licensee writers until it became an article of faith that Humanity in general was openly, unapologetically, and militantly xenophobic outside of a few painfully naive people in senior positions. It hit its apex in Prelude and the accompanying Shadow Chronicles "movie" with the story depicting the few pro-coexistence top brass as almost suicidally stupid and the bigoted villain being objectively correct that aliens couldn't be trusted as the Haydonites backstab everyone in turn.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    The REB-22 beam guns and AMG-30 machine guns are for the gun mounts on either side of the cockpit. The AAB-7B/AAB-9A beam cannons are on the monitor turret (head) as coaxial guns. The official writeups note that the original VF-17's forearm-mounted beam guns are not present in the economized VF-171.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    If what you're envisioning is a remake of Super Dimension Fortress Macross akin to what Sunrise did for Mobile Suit Gundam: the Origin... then no, there's no legal obstacle we know of that would prevent them from making it. They just wouldn't be able to distribute it outside Japan if they used the original designs at all. Part of their distribution agreement with Harmony Gold was that they wouldn't use the OG designs going forward... which is probably a dealbreaker for it now that they're focusing on an international audience.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, well... the answer is technically "All of them" and "None" respectively. The pre-war Earth Unification "UN" Government was a world government that was proposed, negotiated, and ultimately established through the modern United Nations. On paper, and for most intents and purposes, every nation was a member. The Earth UN Forces that were established to oversee planetary defense were, in theory, open to any nation. The dominant players were, of course, the nations that had the largest and/or most advanced militaries like the G8. Many of these same advanced nations were also the founders of OTEC, the international NGO that was set up to study and reverse-engineer the technology of the alien warship. Many fans look at the abbreviation "Anti-UN" for the Anti-Unification Alliance and assume that it was a Legion of Doom-esque "evil UN" rival to the Earth UN Gov't. That's giving it quite a bit more credit than it deserves. The Anti-Unification Alliance was something akin to the early Rebel Alliance in Star Wars's Rogue One and Andor... a loose association of nationalist partisans, anti-government militias, terrorist organizations, out of work mercenaries, and other flavors of armed and dangerous ne'er-do-wells from all over the world who found common cause in opposing the Earth Unification Government despite their separate sociopolitical agendas. They weren't tied to, or openly backed by, any specific nation... though it's indirectly suggested in official material and outright stated in Master File that the largest and best-supported groups in the Alliance were from former Soviet republics like Russia and Poland. The defense companies selling arms to them that've been named in official materials are in Russia (Sukhoi, Mikoyan), Germany (Dornier and Daimler), and Israel (IAI).
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, that doesn't so much look like it takes inspiration from the alien isolation game as it does just straight up taking every aspect of its set design. Not the worst move they could make, considering that's basically the only good title the franchise produced after Aliens.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    It says in the announcement: "(*Some works are only available in Japan)" Since the original series and DYRL? are ruled out of western markets by their agreement with HG, we presumably get the sixteen titles from Flash Back 2012 forward: Macross Flash Back 2012 Macross II: Lovers Again Macross Plus Macross 7 Macross Plus: Movie Edition Macross 7 the Movie: the Galaxy is Calling Me! Macross 7 Encore Macross Dynamite 7 Macross Zero Macross Frontier Macross Frontier the Movie: The False Songstress Macross Frontier the Movie: the Wings of Goodbye Macross FB 7: Listen to My Song! Macross Delta Macross Delta the Movie: Passionate Walkure Macross Delta the Movie: Absolute Live!!!!!!
  14. Seto Kaiba
    One can only admire their commitment to maintaining a bell curve, quality-wise. Eventually, I'm sure... but it's going to be the same zero-sum game the pre-Disney material was playing. In the grim darkness of the *checks notes* distant past there can be only war. War... and constant political upheaval with a new government every thirty years or so because the galaxy absolutely cannot get its sh*t together under any circumstances. All things considered, they'll have to introduce the live action canon's fourth galactic government in the next feature moving the story forward. We've already had Republic Classic and New Republic... what's next? Diet Republic? Wild Cherry Empire? Vanilla Republic? The Second Order? Republic Zero? That's probably why they're faffing about in the pre-prequel era instead of setting up the story going forward past Episode IX. It's in the fan-heavy writers room's comfort zone and they don't have to come up with anything that might have actual implications for the setting down the road.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    When all's said and done, this is still the era of the Jedi Council blindly marching towards its own destruction thanks to that heady mixture of arrogance and overconfidence in their abilities... It wouldn't exactly be off brand for them to miss the Sith Lord in Plain Sight. It'd just mean Palpatine wasn't the first time they rolled a critical fail on a Sense Motive check.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Hrm... the Andor route. I hope this doesn't mean another 2-3 episodes of people dramatically walking from place to place before the plot starts so they can show off the sets. 🤣
  17. Seto Kaiba
    That's the whole IX Legion, you're gonna have to be more specific. 😛
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, well... there's their easy fanservice. Supposedly the Jedi believe the Sith have been extinct for over 1,000 years as of The Phantom Menace. Sounds like it will, yeah... though admittedly just being a Star Wars title seems to invite INTENSE scrutiny and criticism. Or maybe it's just a Jedi who goes bad without a Sith intervention? IIRC the venn diagram of "dark Jedi" and "Sith" isn't a circle... or at least, so I have been told.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Nice. It's hard not to feel bad for Sigismund in the Horus Heresy novels... or respect him for being one of the few people who made Abaddon the Despoiler sweat post-Heresy. Definitely a must have if I'm getting an Abaddon.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    I suspect the response will be a rousing rendition of Pinocchio's "I've got no strings".
  21. Seto Kaiba
    's probably the case for a lot of Star Wars fans, though as a filthy filthy casual I didn't really find any of the shows I've seen so far to be out-and-out bad. There have definitely been a few stories that didn't need to be told - like The Book of Boba Fett or Obi-Wan Kenobi - but they weren't necessarily told poorly. Disney Star Wars just needs to get away from fanservice as a plot device. Putting 100 years between themselves and the other stories should help a little, but the Jedi are far and away the worst offenders. There's a lot more to the Galaxy Far Far Away than the Jedi, and the Disney+ Star Wars shows made me want to see more of it without all the moralistic baggage the glowstick society brings wherever it goes. Indeed, I have not forgotten... but with a lightsaber on prominent display in the promotional material, it seems probable that this will be Jedi-heavy.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Hrm... I know I'm an outlier, but I've got mixed feelings about The Acolyte. On the one hand, that Star Wars is putting some distance between its new stories and the so-called "Skywalker Saga" films feels like a very good idea indeed. I feel like they could stand to go a bit farther out than 100 years, though. Google tells me the Republic was around for approximately 25,000 years. That's a lot of time to play around in, so it's slightly disappointing that The Acolyte is sticking close enough to the time of the films that the visual aesthetic doesn't seem to have changed any. Mix it up a little, guys! On the other hand, it's another bloody Jedi-centric story. I know the Jedi are the main draw for a lot of Star Wars fans, but I've always found them less interesting than the normal people in the stories. That feeling got a lot more pronounced in the wake of Rogue One, Andor, and The Mandalorian... all of which were able to explore much more of the Galaxy Far Far Away in a more nuanced way than the the Jedi-centric narratives with their moral absolutes. There's so much more to explore in the setting beyond the laser sword antics of a pack of ascetic space monks.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Do we know anything about what the story's supposed to be? As long as it's not messing about in the space between movies, that'd be a huge breath of fresh air.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    The Mark II, Mark III, and Mark IV armors used by most of the Horus Heresy miniatures are the same armor used during the Great Crusade. The only real difference would be the paintjob and unit markings in most cases... the exception being the XVI Legion Sons of Horus, who changed paintjob AND heraldry after the Triumph at Ullanor. Swap out the green for white and the Eye of Terra for the Moon Wolf and you're there. The only miniatures that aren't pre-Heresy appropriate are those using Mark V and Mark VI armor, the ones with the big studs embedded in the pauldrons and greaves (Mark V) and the iconic "beakie" (Mark VI). Mark V was a catch-all for post-Istvaan improvements that literaly just bolted extra layers of armor to the plates, while Mark VI was developed before the Heresy but first put into use during it by the Raven Guard who helped develop it.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Hm... dunno if I'd go that far. The .hack// franchise definitely had far more of a cultural impact than any of those titles will have in the short run or the long run, it was more of an acquired taste where these shows are unimaginative and formulaic but intended for a very wide audience. It definitely popularized the "VR-MMO" schtick that has become such a staple of isekai and isekai-adjacent titles like Overlord, Skeleton Knight in Another World, Phantasy Star Online 2: the Animation, Gundam Build Divers, Sword Art Online, How Not to Summon a Demon Lord, etc. I know a lot of viewers struggle with .hack//SIGN because of how bleak and depressing it can be thanks to Tsukasa's circumstances, and I'll admit I suffered a bit of darkness-induced audience apathy for it myself. I guess that's why they tried to go lighter and softer with Legend of the Twilight Bracelet and such. Hokkaido Gals are Super Adorable! is trying to jerk the audiences heartstrings and not doing a great job as it nears its conclusion. The Will They or Won't They waveform has begun to collapse towards "Won't", with the main girl planning to... ... leaving just one week together with the luckless protagonist. It lacks impact because they haven't even reached the point of a confession never mind dating, and he has two other nearly identical love interests who aren't leaving. It's mildly enteratining but as romcoms and such go it's very much in "You tried" territory IMO.
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