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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    To be fair, the site did and still does have the general rule "No Robotech"... and it wasn't exactly unjustified for Macross fans to take a dim view of supporting a company that was, at the time, actively working to keep legitimate Macross releases out of western hands. 🙄 With the legal dispute having effectively ended in a way that makes the distinction between the Japanese and western-licensed Macross toys academic, I don't see any reason to object to having those in the same area. I think it would be better to keep content from unrelated properties like MOSPEADA separate however.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    I'm not much of a toy collector, but isn't the reason for the seemingly incongruous approach is that it predates the settling of Big West and Harmony Gold's rights dispute by like 20 years? Y'know, back when there was an abundant wellspring of ill will towards Harmony Gold over their Macross licensing embargo? Standards have just gradually relaxed over the years as various methods to circumvent the problem emerged and Robotech's toy line began producing products other than copies of official Macross goods. Now that both parties have buried the hatchet and Big West has partial control over Robotech, the reasons to make a firm distinction are fewer and farther between.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Hrm... ordered my copy of the Artistry of the First Macross book (Deculture Ed.) from CD Japan and it arrived today in pristine condition via FedEx. CD Japan seems to be pretty paranoid about shippers, since they packed it in a plastic sleeve inside of a bubble pack bag inside of a cardboard box padded with packing paper.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    I could buy that, given how Fett is treated in The Book of Boba Fett. That's not even close to what was being talked about, though. "Getting into trouble" is expected, Mando's a bounty hunter. The problem is that The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett both write expositional checks the story can't cash. Everywhere Din goes in The Mandalorian, he's preceded by the Mandalorian reputation for stone cold badassery. He's actively trading on it anytime he goes somewhere new and every time one of his former employers appears they act as though he has absolutely lived up to that reputation in their past and present dealings. Yet this amazing reputation that allegedly inspires fear and awe gives absolutely nobody pause for thought in the story. It'd be one thing for experienced bounty hunters to think they could take him despite the reputation with planning, teamwork, and numbers like in the third episode... but most of the time he's assailed by people who explicitly know that reputation and still act like he's just some idiot tourist and not supposedly a member of a feared warrior race wearing a fortune in exotic armor and weaponry. There's precious little reality in "Reality TV"... but there are also very practical reasons that "Dog the Bounty Hunter" isn't taken seriously. Namely, that "bounty hunting" is not legal everywhere, that "bounty hunters" have no legal authority or standing to speak of in some jurasdictions, they generally can't legally detain or question anyone, their use of force is heavily restricted or outright prohibited depending on location, they're required to carry various insurances to cover damages they may cause, and they can quite easily end up in jail themselves on charges of kidnapping, assault, etc.. "Dog" himself was arrested and charged with felony kidnapping in 2003 while apprehending a bounty head in Mexico. He skipped bail himself and fled back to the US, where he was arrested for extradition in 2006. He only avoided extradition because the statute of limitations of the charges expired. That seems to be very different to bounty hunting in Star Wars, where the distinction between "bounty hunter" and "assassin" seems to be either purely academic or whether one belongs to the trade association. If Mando is any indication, there don't seem to be any real restrictions on how much force they can use or against whom... up to and including lethal force against unrelated persons. There also don't appear to be any restrictions on how a bounty head may be restrained, given that Mando uses methods that can cause lasting physical harm like carbon freezing. Local governments seem to be either disinterested in, or unable to, regulate or restrain bounty hunter activity. Even if we were to assume that the galaxy looks at the Mandalorians as gung-ho yeehaw lunatics despite the series waxing lyrical about how they're seen as the deadliest warriors around, a Mando bounty hunter is still a gung-ho yeehaw lunatic whose only disincentive to murder people at will with his extensive collection of personal weaponry is that, outside of the occasional "alive only" warrant, proof of decease doesn't pay out as much as delivering a living prisoner. That's still something most people would be supremely cautious about, IMO. It's the same with Boba Fett in The Book of Boba Fett. Just five years ago, he was the most feared enforcer for the most feared crime boss on Tatooine. He was good enough at bounty hunting (murder) that he was on Darth Vader's short list of The Best of the Best in his field. Days or at most a few weeks earlier, he waltzed into the palace of Tatooine's leading crime lord, murdered him and his retainers with impunity, and announced he was now In Charge. Everyone knows who he is, but the only one who seems to be even the slightest bit afraid of this legendary contract killer turned crime lord is the Mos Espa mayor's secretary... and only then when there is the imminent threat of violence. The writers clearly want these characters to be carried by their reputations for supreme badassery, but the story has absolutely eveyone treat them like jobbers of the lowest order. That's a possibility... though one could also look at the same situation and easily conclude that the Mandalorians are as dangerous as advertised because the Empire felt that even Mandalorian civilians were enough of a threat to justify destroying their planet, and that cornered with nothing left to lose the Mandalorians would be even more dangerous than they were when they were just elite mercenaries.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    OK, help me out here... Based on the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, the Mandalorian people are supposedly widely reputed to be elite warriors of the highest caliber, right? And despite his profoundly uninspiring performance in the original trilogy, Boba Fett is supposed to have been one of the most elite and feared bounty hunters that the galaxy had, right? He had enough street cred to be on Darth Vader's short list of bounty hunters in Empire Strikes Back and to be Jabba's favorite bounty hunter in Return of the Jedi. If they have these reputations for elite badassery, why does seemingly nobody in The Mandalorian or The Book of Boba Fett take either Din Djarin or Boba Fett seriously? It was odd enough in The Mandalorian that everyone from other bounty hunters to information brokers and random fishermen was willing to take a whack at Din Djarin despite the exposition's assertion that Mandalorians are feared and respected, but now that I know a bit more about the mythos The Book of Boba Fett might as well be be titled The Disrespect is Real. It's weird that Boba Fett would suddenly pivot to wanting to be a crime boss and he sure as heck doesn't seem to know HOW to do crime boss things despite having been a member of Jabba's retinue as far back as A New Hope, but everyone from rival crime bosses to juvenile delinquents and random shop owners seems quite comfortable sassing, ignoring, and even actively provoking a guy who was a top bounty hunter known for his viciousness just a few years ago and his bloodthirsty assassin Girl Friday. I'm struggling to reconcile the reputational claims the shows make vs. how the characters are actually treated. Surely everyone in the galaxy can't have THAT much of a death wish, right?
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Not s'much, no... the reason I find the Jedi so boring is present in the original, prequel, and sequel trilogies. Namely, their preoccupation with destiny. The adventures of regular joes like Din Djarin and Cassian Andor and even Han Solo as they make their own way in the galaxy are a lot more fun and interesting to me than any of what the Jedi get up to. The stakes are generally lower, which means the characters can screw up and learn without it being The End of The World as We Know It, but also there's none of that noise about how such-and-such an outcome is their Destiny. It's no fun to watch a character march in lockstep towards a fate that's preordained in-story because it robs the character of all their agency. They might have a little leeway in how they get from Point A to Point B, but going off the rails is Not An Option for them. The Jedi also all suffer from a real bad case of Main Character Syndrome, but that's a correctable writing issue whereas the Force steering its users towards an ultimate confrontation is more a thematic one. It doesn't help that the force-wielding side of Star Wars exists as moral absolutes... you can either be a Saint or Eat Babies, no middle ground. The normal people of the galaxy who aren't being railroaded by the Force get to have shades of gray, and that makes the much more believable and interesting characters who can go on much more complex and compelling stories with themes beyond simply "Good vs Evil". The Mandalorian's not the best example, but a pretty damned good one, of a story that can go to places the Jedi-centric stories can't.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Messily and violently dismembering a bunch of battle droids in a Darth Vader-esque rampage might make for an impressive action scene, but is that really "growth" for a Jedi? I mean, aren't they supposed to be calm and in control? Really, I think I hit on it earlier... this scene is never gonna work for me because, as a casual, I'm not that invested in Luke Skywalker. (Well, that and I stand by what I said over on the Andor topic about how IMO the Jedi are the least interesting part of Star Wars because they're just puppets of fate marching toward a preordained destiny.) Even with my very limited experience with the Star Wars expanded universe, that sounds like a very bad idea to me. The sequel trilogy isn't great cinema, but then neither was the prequel trilogy, and I'd take either over the EU-style bad fanfic nonsense of Solo: a Star Wars Story. And Solo: a Star Wars Story, The Book of Boba Fett, and The Last Jedi are the best argument anyone could hope for in terms of reasons to leave the original trilogy characters well enough alone. Boba Fett's involvement in The Mandalorian works mainly because he's a flat character in the movies and had no prior character development to derail. The respected (acting) Senator for Naboo, Jar-Jar Binks? I wonder how long it'll be before they're digging deep enough in the nostalgia mines to unearth him again.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    I'm not sure we really needed to see Luke tear through a collection of battle droids to establish his Jedi street cred. Vader, on the other hand... after the prequel trilogy, that poor guy needed a moment of being genuinely scary to remind audiences WHY he was feared. Given that Disney is following the old EU down the "Luke wasn't really the last of the Jedi c.Return of the Jedi" slippery slope... it almost feels like a trick question. Jar-Jar Binks isn't in this one, though! (Kidding!)
  9. Seto Kaiba
    It's a completely separate craft from the Quel Quallie theater scout, but yeah that's what I was referring to as a purpose-built attack unit. It's called just "Heavy Attack Craft". It's actually a bit smaller than the Quel Quallie and has a two-man crew instead of three, but it also punches WAY above its weight class since its primary armament is a guided focusing beam cannon. In short, this is an aircraft built around the kind of long-range particle beam cannon that would ordinarily be mounted on the gun turrets of a Zentradi capital ship. Yes, this is a naval cannon with wings and an AA gun for self-defense.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    The Legendary Hero is Dead isn't bad... could be better. The story's premise would be more interesting if handled differently. Namely, that a standard fantasy anime Idiot Hero is accidentally slain when he blunders into an anti-monster pitfall trap on a random farmer's property and his body is reanimated by a necromancer using the soul of the farmer in question, who has to impersonate the hero on his mission to save the world. The series is pretty fanservice-heavy, but once it gets about halfway into the season it finally starts dropping the hero's extremely specific obsession with stockings it becomes a lot more tolerable. If it weren't so devoted to its fanservice, it'd probably be a lot more interesting than it is since the protagonist has to think his way around problems instead of relying on the brute force of the Chosen One's overwhelming power and hide the fact that he doesn't even have enough magic to properly maintain his undead body.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    ... ok, I might have to look that one up later because that actually sounds kinda funny. FWIW, I've been enjoying The Mandalorian as well. The visuals are basically flawless, and while the show's writing does have some issues none have been enough to impair my enjoyment of the series in a significant way. It was definitely a "by fans for fans" sort of production, but through the end of season two its presentation has remained accessible enough that casuals like me aren't shut out of the story in any meaningful way. I'd say its biggest weakness is that its protagonist is almost always masked and the stakes in his story thus far haven't really been his. It is, but I feel like even that could have been handled better. Setting up a final confrontation between Din's rescue party and Moff Gideon's Dark Troopers only for a character who had, up to that point, never even been mentioned in the series to show up uninvited and unannounced to demote the season's final threat to an afterthought feels a bit cheap. I kind of suspect that it gets a pass mainly because the Jedi who shows up is Deepfake Luke Skywalker. If it's been anyone else, would fans have been as excited to see the show's protaognist demoted to spectator for the final fight of the season?
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Two reasons: Design. The Quel Quallie was designed to be a reconnaissance/electronic warfare/signals intelligence platform and equipped appropriately. Its armor is heavy to protect the specialist crew and sensitive electronics, but its armament is light for its size and mainly defensive. Most Zentradi equipment is engineered with a specific purpose or role in mind, so presumably the role of a larger attacker would be given to something like the heavy attack craft seen in DYRL?. Cost. Presumably due to its multitude of high-precision, high-sensitivity sensor systems and the high degree of automation necessary to support them, the Quel Quallie is said to be expensive enough that each (branch) fleet only has around a dozen of them.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    OK, that would have been a useful detail to have in the series... given that the previous exposition in The Mandalorian only indicated that the Mandalorians regarded the Jedi as an ancient and sorcerous foe, it did strike me as odd that what is for all intents and purposes Mandalorian Excalibur would be a lightsaber. That their legendary founder-king WAS a Jedi... that at least explains why the key to their entire civilization is the signature weapon of their ancient enemy. I figured as much, given that Bo mentions it was taken from her and is a legendary relic of her people there'd have to be some involved backstory to that. He did and he didn't... yeah it pummeled his head into a wall and he's mysteriously concussion-proof now, but armor really does seem to still be useless unless it's beskar as he stabs it to death(? deactivation?) with a spear and that works where no amount of fire or gunfire did. Though, admittedly, that's beside the point in my opinion. If the droids are a major threat that's fine... but it's kind of bad form, narratively speaking, to have an outside-context solution arrive and neatly resolve the problem without your characters actually having to do anything. Having a character who's never even been mentioned up to that point show up in the nick of time and do all the heavy lifting is a bit cheap, y'know? Wouldn't it have been more thrilling if the Mandalorians fought their way out, or Luke at least showed up mid-fight to save them in their daring last stand. It's not as exciting for the heroes to just sit there and watch someone else have all the fun. At the very least, maybe be a bit more proactive about his own defense? Come to that... Mandalorians have an in-story reputation as basically the most feared and respected elite warriors in the galaxy, right? Isn't it kind of weird how ready even randos off the street are to take a swing at Din? It's one thing for bounty hunters looking for a big payoff to do it, but a pack of fish-man fishermen who apparently live near enough to the Mandalorian commune on their world to eat with them and ought to be aware of how stupidly dangerous they are... Yes, I have been well and repeatedly warned about the series. Thus far, it really hasn't lived down to the warnings I've been given about how it'd become more difficult to follow and probably put me off the series. The areas that have actually required outside exposition that I was warned would be more common in season two never really materialized... or whatever it was was clear enough from context that I failed to properly notice most of them. What little needed explaining thus far could probably have been addressed with ~5 minutes of additional exposition spread across the whole show thus far. Either way, I'm gonna give it a fair shot and see.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    So... I've finished season two of The Mandalorian, and all in all I didn't really have many issues following the storyline even though there was clearly some required reading involved. I feel like the second season had more of a sense of direction to it, if only because the second season manages not to forget about the main quest for multiple episodes. Mando's quest pivoting from keeping the child safe to delivering it to the Jedi makes it a bit more focused when he then has to go looking for other Mandalorians who could possibly know where to find a Jedi. Mando's still kind of an idiot protagonist though. A lot of his problems are caused by the fact that just blindly trusts everyone he meets even though he gets betrayed and mugged with monotonous regularity. It does help a bit that the ridiculous honor code Mando lives by is revealed to be an extreme version adhered to only by a small group of regressive crazies. Considering how often it gets brought up this season, it seems like the showrunners looked back at their season one concept and decided "Wow that sounded way cooler in my head". This season did a much better job with character development, albeit again almost entirely for secondary/supporting characters. Bringing Boba Fett back from the dead was a mistake, IMO, and from what I've seen of The Book of Boba Fett previously I stand by that remark. Talk about character derailment. Orange Rosario Dawson I gather is an older version of a character from an old cartoon, and there's horrifying deepfake Luke Skywalker at the end reenacting a heroic version of Vader's hallway rampage from Rogue One. While I'm sure that was a huge moment for fans, I can't help but be annoyed by how Mando and crew are saved at the last minute by someone who literally wasn't involved in any part of the plot up until that moment. It's the most blatant kind of deus ex machina short of involving an ACTUAL god. Moff Gideon kind of takes one on the chin in this season. Previously he'd been made out to be a really competent and effective Imperial leader. Here, he's... well... he's got great intel but it's really obvious he's what happens when you order your Imperial boss from Wish. He goes everywhere dressed like Great Value Darth Vader, his ride is a regular TIE fighter, his flagship is a tiny and understaffed light cruiser, and his evil secret weapon is... a slightly less terrible version of the Confederacy's battle droids, that are so inefficient he's unable to field more than a platoon of them? Dude should just give Bo Katan her glowstick... er... I'm sorry... the Darksaber... back. The Mandalorians consider the Jedi an ancient foe... and Mandalorian Excalibur is a lightsaber. I know it's probably from some expanded universe novel from the 90's or something, but wow does "The Darksaber" not hold up as the amazingly cool artifact it's supposed to be.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    In a word, "messy". Long story short, the specs for the YF/VF-19's engines have been presented very inconsistently over the years. Originally, the YF-19's two models of engine had separate specs listed and even slightly different designations. This is Animation Special: Macross Plus OVA Edition lists the YF-19's engine as "FF-2200" was provides its output only as 56,500kgf. This is Animation: the Select: Macross Plus Movie Edition conflicts with itself over what the YF-19's engine is called and offers two separate ones. Page 36 mentions a "FF-2200B" rated for 56,500kgf and a "FF-2500E" rated for 67,500kgf... but page 37 refers to the first engine only as the "FF-2200" at 56,500kgf and mentions the FF-2500E not at all. Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur and Macross Chronicle decided to be as unhelpful as possible and ignore one engine or the other while effectively treating both of those numbers as valid for the same engine at different regimes. So instead they listed the 56,500kgf figure as the engine's output in atmosphere and listed its performance in space as 64,700kgf but either ignore the FF-2500E altogether or treat it as functionally interchangeable with the FF-2200 or FF-2200B. Master File also invents several types of engine that weren't in the original spec that are used for things like the VF-19A. Then there's Macross Plus: Game Edition and the Macross Plus Blu-ray booklet, which offers a THIRD interpretation where both the "FF-2200B" and "FF-2500E" have the same atmospheric operating output of 47,200kgf and their maximum output in space is 56,500kgf for the FF-2200B and 67,500kgf for the FF-2500E. So... now that we've established that, and let's not get into the mess that the 2nd mass production type is thanks to Master File and Macross Chronicle... The VF-19A Excalibur specification comes to us initially from the Macross Digital Mission VF-X Flight Manual, which lists the engine used as "FF-2200" and lists the only output as 56,500kgf, similar to This is Animation Special: Macross Plus. It's possible that, somewhere along the way, some of these differing interpretations got mixed together in the writer's head and produced that questionable statement. TL;DR: That article may need revisiting/revision.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    So... I've been poking more at Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II. This time in the section about the FF-2450B engine. Project Super Nova's requirements initially called for both the YF-19 and YF-21 to use the FF-2200 thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engine, and the section basically starts on that topic. Rather than focusing on refining previous generation engine designs, which according to this book owned some of their issues due to a short development cycle and a decision to adapt existing turbofan jet engine designs, the developers of the FF-2200 decided to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch. The new engine design that team came up with prioritized efficiently extracting the energy from the thermonuclear reaction and emphasized ease of assembly and maintenance. This same situation is also described in the Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur book, which goes further into the idea that previous-gen engines were essentially the same design just scaled up or down depending on the application with occasional improvements in materials and the like. While the FF-2200 proved adequate for the YF-19's needs, the YF-21 was heavier and had greater energy requirements due to its size and the new technologies it adopted and the design team opted to tweak the design to increase its output. The tweaked design became the FF-2450. The basic structure of the FF-2450 is the same as the FF-2200, though the performance of the reactor's GIC has been improved slightly with additional fold carbon to allow the reactor to run hotter and the body of the engine has been lengthened 50cm to accommodate a longer thrust-increase section where the reaction plasma is allowed to mix with intake air. The end result is a 15% increase in total output, paid for in a 33% reduction in operational lifespan. This is followed by an interesting note that the non-standard systems like the Brainwave Control System and various stealth measures leave the YF-21/VF-22 needing twice the power generation capacity of the YF/VF-19. This need is apparently addressed by doubling the number of Hamilton X-Ash 4 thermoelectric converters in the turbine body from four to eight, which has the side benefit of further reducing the exhaust temperature and thus the fighter's infrared profile.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    That particular tidbit comes to us from Macross Chronicle's DYRL? Mechanic Sheet 02A for the Zentradi.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Whether she's a pure Star Singer clone or Xaos's illegal clone lab had to fill in some gaps Jurassic Park-style we don't know. Mikumo Guynemer may not be engineered specifically for combat like the Zentradi, but she is a clone (of the Star Singer) that Xaos created specifically for combat use to support their PMC Division's Var suppression operations. Until the end of the main story, she was treated like company property and kept in a lab most of the time when not on duty so no prolonged socialization wouldn't reveal the defects in her implanted knowledge and out her as a clone created just three years ago. It's not really explained properly. "Runes" are sense organs that contain biologically-produced fold quartz and fold receptors, which seem to have been designed into the Windermereans by the Protoculture to give them a very mild, short-ranged empathic ability based on biologically-produced fold waves. My guess would be that, given that resonance between fold wave sources has been a theme in Macross Delta, that runes "blooming" is some kind of resonance effect that occurs when large numbers of Windermereans are broadcasting the same strong emotion at the same time causing constructive interference (amplification). Given that using Var-like effects to boost physical ability was shown to be "Cast from Hit Points" even for Windermereans, causing them to age rapidly, that was probably never in the cards. For Humans, it seems to be similar to hysterical strength and has all kinds of nasty physical consequences resulting from exceeding the structural limits of the body. Hulking out like that just a few times was enough to put Messer Ihlefeld at death's door until Keith mercy-killed him (TV) or he just straight-up died (movie).
  19. Seto Kaiba
    In hindsight, I suspect a fair part of that is the changes that were made in the movie's story to accommodate the passing of Ernest Johnson's voice actor Unshou Ishizuka. They likely retooled the story quite a bit when they opted not to recast Ernest Johnson and settled on the retired Maximilian Jenius as a suitable substitute. There's a fair amount of Max-centric moments in the movie that probably weren't a part of the original story concept, and a lot of the more out-there exposition about Lady M is delivered by Max's right hand man Exsedol. It probably incentivized the particularly contentious connection the film ended up drawing WRT Lady M since both Max and Exsedol have got some personal connections with the notorious missing persons on that ship. You're close. In 2060, a government agent named Sydney Hunt stole Star Singer cell samples from the shrine on Windermere IV and traded them to the Epsilon Foundation in exchange for a high-ranking position in the megacorporation's management. He used his new position to sponsor research into biological fold waves and fold wave resonance effects with the goal of applying the results to Lady M's theories regarding songs as weapons in order to weaponize cloned Star Singer cells. The Siren Delta System was the end result, a next-generation quantum AI virtuoid system that could excite the cloned Star Singer cells to produce extremely powerful biological fold waves for a variety of purposes including the remote operation of large numbers of Ghosts (the unmanned Sv-303 Vivasvat), boosting the performance of systems that use fold waves, and even traversing fold faults. It is essentially a better/more stable version of Sharon Apple with more abilities. The bloke in the rose pastel suit and pince-nez hanging around on the Battle Astraea's bridge is Sydney Hunt... or at least one of his remotely-operated cyborg bodies. Like Grace O'Connor in Macross Frontier, he's heavily cyborged and has a bunch of spare bodies he can operate from afar. He's the one responsible for arming Cromwell's anti-government organization and using them to test the Siren Delta System in the field, and late in the movie when the Siren Delta System starts misbehaving he tries to take it and go home but Cromwell's men take violent exception to him bailing on them at the 11th hour. The movie puts a different spin on Wright's actions. Instead of being the thief who stole the Star Singer cell samples for Lady M, he tried and failed to recover the cell samples that Sydney Hunt stole and the one sample that he was able to recover from Sydney ended up in Xaos's hands after relations with Windermere IV soured too much for him to be able to return it. Xaos then used that stolen cell sample it obtained from Wright to illegally create clone soldier Mikumo Guynemer as their trump card against Var syndrome. (There's a remark from Berger Stone that suggests both the Siren Delta System AND Mikumo Guynemer were experimental weapons concepts of Lady M's.) Exposure to Walkure's songs and the accompanying biological fold waves interacted with the Siren Delta System's self-learning functions and the Star Singer cells in some weird ways throughout the film, resulting in the creation of Yami_Q_Ray and the cloned cells developing into a baby. Presumably the influence of Walkure is why it looks like Freyja. That would've made him look too much like the hero instead of a minor supporting character. It also wouldn't have meshed with the other Delta Flight color schemes, since the VF-31 had a more subdued color scheme and the VF-31AX went even lower key with it. (Also, red was already taken... that's Mirage.)
  20. Seto Kaiba
    I don't think so. Harmony Gold USA hasn't partnered with anyone to release a Blu-ray of Super Dimension Fortress Macross in its original form, AFAIK. Just the Robotech version. The Japanese domestic market's got it in Blu-ray, but that didn't have English subs IIRC. Last I heard, the only options for the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross were the Animeigo and ADV Films releases on DVD. In the Japanese domestic market, but same as the above... no English sub. Only one or two of the Frontier movie box sets had English subs, and then all the Macross Delta stuff.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Thanks for the head's up there. I watched some chunks of The Book of Boba Fett back when it was coming out, but didn't think much of it. For now I think I'm gonna stick with it. It's not a bad show by any means. I'm enjoying it, I just periodically feel like I'm missing some important context esp. with respect to the Mandalorians as a people. The series really clearly expects the viewer to be already familiar with, and invested in, them. AFAIK, the only ones that showed up in the movies were Boba Fett and his clone-father Jango. My read of them was basically that they were the "hero" version of a Stormtrooper similar to Cpt. Phasma. Aligned with the bad guys, but basically a miniboss at best. Yeah. Four was, at least, engaging in that it offered a little exposition about Mando and his part-time partner the drop trooper. It actually felt like there were stakes in that fight. Six... six is just a mess. The acting was absolutely goddamn awful from all of the members of the "rescue" team. There's hammy, and then there's that. I spent the entire episode wondering to myself what street corner they pulled those four actors off of. The betrayal was absolutely no surprise not just because the client was shady AF and every member besides the droid was presented as a complete psychopath, but because every every one of Mando's clients who isn't a regular civilian tries to betray him. It's telegraphed on an episode level AND a series level, and the whole thing is a veritable tornado of cliches. The worst is when they tried that lame horror cliche where Mando's only visible advancing on them when the lights flicker... if they were playing him as an unstoppable badass that could've built some tension, but he gets the sh*t kicked out of him more often than not so it loses a certain je ne sais quoi when his ambush just leads to him getting beat up again. (It also took me a distressingly long time to realize the droid's voiced by Richard Ayoade.) Season two jumped right onto my biggest pet peeve for Star Wars. Tatooine is supposed to be the middle of ****ing nowhere and home to nothing important. Why does every Star Wars story feel compelled to go there? This is Mando's second visit.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, you can't blame that one (entirely) on Robotech's indie comic book licensees. When Robotech II: the Sentinels was in development, it wasn't possible to use the original Haruhiko Mikimoto designs from Macross due to copyright and the project's budget from Harmony Gold and its partner Matchbox wouldn't stretch far enough for the studio to hire outside designers. The task of coming up with new, non-infringing character and mecha designs for Robotech II: the Sentinels was handed off to Tatsunoko's internal design team at Studio Ammonite. You may remember them as the masterminds of Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross. Presumably because Robotech was an "American series for Americans", many of the male characters picked up the stereotypical square jaw and a more angular face in general. The indie publishers who acquired the comic book license used the designs Ammonite produced for the cancelled series, so Rick's lantern jaw made its way into the comics and became much more associated with the comics because the comics lasted exponentially longer.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Is... is that the alligator from Happy Gilmore? Having just finished season one, to be honest I would call the episodic nature of the series up to the point I'm at its single biggest flaw. It's visually very impressive and the choreography and editing work is quite well done. Starting with a three episode setup and then switching to "villain of the week" just felt like the writers went "bored now!" and decided to do something else. IMO, it really hurt the season's conclusion because the idea that the Imperials were constantly hunting the child found itself on the back burner for entire middle of the season and then a greater scope villain rolls up basically unannounced for the denouement and kills everyone who's been driving the plot so far. If they'd been more serial with it, like Andor, they probably could've done a better job foreshadowing that. Big ol' exposition dump in the final episode notwithstanding, Mando's still pretty thin on character development too. Even that IG droid got more. A taciturn badass character works as a supporting cast member, and if you're going to make that the main character you have to have some other person or plot device to pick up the slack expositionally. IMO, the low point in season one is absolutely episode six "The Prisoner". Every aspect of the plot is telegraphed so hard that it was actually kind of exasperating. That may have been intended to be part of the joke, but IMO they didn't land it becuase Mando can't emote in a face-obscuring helmet.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    To be fair, that's not even that far off the pretty poor-quality animation reference for Sentinels...
  25. Seto Kaiba
    No worries. I'm watching the series as the suggestion/insistence of a friend, so I have a feeling bailing out now is probably not an option without enduring some reproachful glares. (That's kind of a theme with me and Star Wars... reading the Thrawn trilogy was done after enduring some arm twisting too.) The difficulty I'm having with the story is not so much what's in the story as what's not. The titular Mandalorian is just a taciturn guy in a mask who gets into a lot of fights. They haven't done anything to really explore why this cold-hearted contract killer decided to go on a John Wick-esque murder spree to rescue the child, or why the child was worth the apparently princely sum that was paid to the bounty hunter to bring him in. Or why the child's safety was more important to him than the safety of his foster family. There's not even really a sense that he has a goal right now. I assume at least some of these questions will be answered eventually, but it's rather frustrating to The story is very action friendly, but as of S1E7 I feel like it lacks a sense of direction. Mando's just kind of traveling from one fight scene to the next like the story mode of a fighting game. (I also have this repeated weird moment... Mando keeps holding scopes up to his helmet as though he were wearing a bucket with tinted glass on the front, but in other scenes he's got heat vision or something like it seemingly built in. It just seems odd to me.)
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