Jump to content

Seto Kaiba

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    12776

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Seto Kaiba

  1. Seto Kaiba
    I'd wager it will be... likely YouTube/Google TV. They have the rest of the series in "digital library" form IIRC.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    I have a REALLY hard time believing that claim. Not just because this looks like the output of an AI art generator that scraped the #macross tag on DeviantArt and a few hundred bargain bin sci-fi novel covers, but because that first image is so blatantly and obviously derivative of Big West's copyrighted Macross IP that Harmony Gold can't use or authorize the use of that this would be a smoking gun for ANY potential copyright infringement lawsuit against the film if it got made. Harmony Gold has been extremely conscious of the limitations of their license for the last twenty-three years and have diligently adhered to them. If this were real, professional concept art commissioned for a movie pitch, the artist would've been given clear direction that they absolutely cannot base their work on Big West's IP the way this stuff obviously is for easily understood "We don't want to get sued" reasons. There's no way in hell this would have got past anyone's legal department. If this were real, this project wasn't merely asking for a lawsuit... it was down on all fours pleading for one in a disturbingly undignified, profoundly upsetting, and possibly sexual manner.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    A major shipyard was destroyed. Utopia Planetia wasn't even the only Starfleet shipyard in Earth's solar system. It's implied that it was the largest and most prestigious shipyard in the Sol system and possibly in the Federation as a whole, but it's one of at least 19 shipyards that have been mentioned over the years. Captain Sisko's USS Defiant was built at the Antares shipyards for instance, and quite a lot of ships were built in the San Francisco yards in Earth orbit including several of the Enterprises and the Titan. As to why Geordi appropriated the stardrive section from the USS Syracuse, that probably has less to do with resources and more to do with the fact that the Galaxy-class was old, obsolete, and quite rare to boot. At least one Galaxy class ship was lost before the Battle of Wolf 359, and that battle was what prompted Starfleet to radically rethink its approach to starship design. Several more were lost after that point, including the Enterprise-D and the Odyssey, and it's likely several more suffered critical damage or were lost in the many fleet engagements of the Dominion war. With the class already considered obsolete and many examples no longer in service, building a whole new stardrive section to complete a museum piece was probably considered a waste of resources when they could simply pull a complete one from a decommissioned sister ship and just repaint its markings. As far as raw materials go... It's worth remembering that quite a lot of starship construction involves industrial replicators. They're very likely recycling garbage, wreckage, and other salvage into fresh starship parts
  4. Seto Kaiba
    If DYRL? is any indication... Budweiser. (One of the gag missile shots in the movie depicts one of the missiles as a can of regular Budweiser. The other, if memory serves, is a canned cocktail.) I honestly had to rack my brain for memories of characters consuming alcohol in this series, because I don't recall that many examples of it. Probably something to do with many of the protagonists being only 16 or 17 years old at the start of their respective shows. Aside from Ray Lovelock being shown with the occasional indistinct can, they seem to favor their beers on tap? When Kate and Myung go drinking in Macross Plus, they're served their beers in pint mugs rather than bottles or cans. The same is true in Macross 7 when Mylene pretends to be Max's mistress to troll him. He orders a non-alcoholic beer and it's served to him in a tulip glass. I am not a beer drinker myself, so I referred the question to a friend who is an experienced brewer and he suggested that whatever it is is probably an aromatic beer like a double IPA, Belgian ale, or barley wine based on the particular choice of glass and the assumption that the bartender at that fancy bar knows his business. I'd presume that whatever it is is probably brewed locally in any given emigrant fleet's environment ships. If Macross Frontier-era materials are any guide, beer is probably a foodstuff subject to the divide between cheap and easily produced synthetic foods and more expensive and resource intensive natural foods. It's kind of frightening to think of someone selling beer made from industrial alcohol and artificial flavors, since real beer would be rather resource-intensive to make for a fleet with very limited agricultural space. Considering that the Zentradi had alcohol rations even before being exposed to Earth's culture, and the number of them developed substance abuse problems after defecting and living among humans for years, I'd assume it's probably safe to say that there are Zentradi in the liquor industry the same as there are in every other industry. As to your last part, I have absolutely no idea. If such a thing exists, it would probably be a menu item at FirebomBAR, which I have never been to. If they ever do a Macross signature beer - if they haven't already - I hope its quality is better than the desperately tragic wine collection that Star Trek rolled out for Star Trek Picard.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Sort of? Yes and no? It's complicated. The toy company Bandai Inc. doesn't own Sunrise. Both Bandai and Sunrise are owned by the same holding company, Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., the top-level corporate entity that oversees the post-merger conglomerate Bandai Namco Group. Bandai Co. Ltd. had a stake in Sunrise big enough to make Sunrise an affiliate company since 1994, but Sunrise did not become a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco until March 1st, 2020 when Bandai Namco Holdings completed its acquisition of long-time Gundam sponsor and Sunrise major shareholder Sotsu (fmrly. Sotsu Agency). So in practice, Bandai Namco has only actually owned Sunrise for about three and a quarter years at time of writing... and they've spent a fair amount of that time on multiple corporate reorgs. The only Macross title to come out since that acquisition was Absolute Live!!!!!!. I guess it's not surprising that, now that longtime Macross partner Bandai and Sunrise are officially under the same umbrella, they'd make a play to have Sunrise work on Macross.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Kind of... There are only three actual examples of mind control in the Macross franchise thus far: The Protodeviln's/Supervision Army's mind control technology seen in Macross 7 and later in Macross R. The Macross Galaxy fleet's use of cybernetic implants to directly control their populace's perceptions of reality and even hijack their bodies. The Mardook's use of brainwashing and other technologies in conjunction with the songs of the Emulators to keep their Zentradi docile and obedient and directly control their fighting instincts through songs that act on them like a combination of strategic orders and battle drugs. The examples that don't fit the definition of mind control are: The Protoculture's indoctrination of the Zentradi to obey them, to not interfere with or harm them, and to avoid matters related to culture. A fair amount of it is simply never exposing them to those things in the first place, rather than any kind of actual coercion and they've lost swathes of those directives to irrelevance or the absence of their long lost creators. The Sharon-type AI's hypnosis capabilities, intended for use as a non-pharmaceutical mood stabilizer/elevator to make living in the early-type emigrant ships more bearable and prevent or stop the occasional riots on said ships. She wasn't controlling people's thoughts so much as getting them high and making suggestions. Macross Galaxy's implant network plan, which is nominally more of a human hive-mind than mind control... since in theory the human species would have a single will made up of the aggregate of the wills of the entire species. Windermere IV's delta wave network plan, which is basically just the same as the above but with some dodgy Protoculture relics instead of cybernetics. I'd assume it's probably partly a socio-political critique... especially considering the title that really threw it into sharp relief was Macross 7, with the vocally anti-war singer fighting an army of brainwashed mooks with the power of rock.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    After Delta, I think that's well understood by everyone... that message was delivered with all the subtlety of a saturation bombardment. Not to mention 7 was substantially more popular in Japan... it's the second-highest rated Macross overall based on fan polling. Now that is probably an unrealistic hope... esp. with the in-universe position on Destroids basically being that they were a mistake.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    They won't have truly hit that formula until/unless this new Macross series introduces a new model of VF every other episode and the protagonist's VF is upgraded at least six times in the course of the series... followed by a "Variations" extra file with approximately 300 new variants of the VF-1. Not gonna lie, I am not seeing it. Gundam's... Gundams... generally don't come loaded for bear like that. There are some that fit the bill like the Endless Waltz version of the HeavyArms, the Full Armor Unicorn Gundam, or the overequipped takes on the OYW designs in Gundam Thunderbolt's first half, but those are the exception and IMO only the Full Armor Unicorn comes anywhere close to the level of gratuitous dakka we see in the 5th Gen Armored Packs. Most Mobile Suits in Gundam can be counted on to be relatively lightly armed... a handheld gun, one or two blade weapons for close combat, and if you're lucky one or two built-in light machine guns seemingly for tradition's sake since firing them never seems to accomplish anything. If you want to see what Gundam-y actually looks like in Macross... well, look no further than the original Armored Pack, which is very similar in style and execution to MSV's Full Armor Gundam (FA-78-1), or the Macross II Valkyries. Especially the Macross II Valkyries, which were designed by Gundam veterans and boasted such features as bits and funnels, and had a prototype (albeit not a super one) that just straight-up had a Gundam's paintjob as @jvmacross pointed out and an enemy ace whose mecha was bright red, sported a horn, and a faster top speed than normal.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Kinda curious what this is supposed to mean, TBH. I mean, yeah... we've had a wildly impractical and impossible-to-mass-produce Gundam-style super prototype in the YF-29 but it's an isolated incident. It's not like new models are being introduced multiple times in mid-series or we're being hit with fifty slightly different variants to sell plamodels...
  10. Seto Kaiba
    The yuri doujinshi fandom will be terribly disappointed? I'd joke about Sunrise taking that as a challenge and arm a mecha in the new series with actual scissors... but I remembered they did that quite literally in Iron-Blooded Orphans with the Gusion Rebake Fullcity. Joking aside, I'm down for whatever. All I want is a compelling story with interesting characters. Macross Delta's main weakness was that so much of its cast was underdeveloped and underutilized. If they can avoid that pitfall, they should do a fine job. I'm taking it as read that we'll get a soundtrack with some certified bangers and some gorgeous Valkyrie designs. Those go without saying.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    That link is the most recent one to cause a crash on my phone and tablet. Variously using a Galaxy S22 Ultra or Galaxy Tab S7+ with the latest version of the Chrome for Android browser on Android 13. Incidentally, Invision seems to have people reporting this issue on their own customer support forums: https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/473307-threads-with-embedded-tweets-crashes-android-chrome-browser/
  12. Seto Kaiba
    The last time it happened was the most recent page of the SCOOPDA thread, with the two tweets about the new series. I can't link directly to the post on this device because it'll crash my browser again.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, King Triton's based on the Greek god of the sea by the same name... there is no guarantee he was even partly humanoid when he fathered any of his kids. His uncle Zeus seduced or assaulted women while disguised as animals, other men, or even a "golden rain"... and his daddy Poseidon wasn't exactly a stranger to that routine either, having notably abducted or seduced women while disguised as a nymph, a dolphin, or even just "seawater". The rules of biological reproduction need not apply.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Not sure we have that long to speculate... The last two times (Frontier and Delta) they announced the existence of a new Macross series project in Spring/Summer, revealed the title in Autumn, and then rolled out the Episode 0.XX version of the first episode in December. I'd assume the Sv-303 was probably modeled on the McDonnel Douglas X-36 and Northrop Grumman X-47B based on structural commonality and the like.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    So, I've been having some issues browsing the boards lately resulting in Chrome-based browsers on mobile locking up and crashing and I think I've linked it to an existing issue. It seems that something about Twitter embeds is causing mobile browsers to crash when viewing the boards. Is there an option in the settings to disable embedding?
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Nope... the FANKY doujins are more like a historical view. Kind of like how the Master File books are written as in-universe mass-market publications with declassified information, the coverage in the FANKY doujins is written like a historical overview of the various ships. It does touch on capacity at a few points, though mainly to note that the form factor of mecha contributes to a ship's carrying capacity and that carriers have an operating capacity vs. a maximum capacity.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Finished unboxing the last of my artbook collection after the impromptu renovations, and I've been on a bit of a tech-doujinshi kick. Managed to secure another copy of Sky Angels for my archive, as well as R-AREA's rather odd series of Macross doujinshi. The first volume of that rolled in today. Both FANKY and R-AREA are definitely drawing pretty heavily on Variable Fighter Master File in their work, though FANKY's a lot more explicit about it. They directly reference the Second Battle of Spica, an event first described in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur, in their writeup of the fanmade Kaga-class space carrier (the jumbo version of the Guantanamo-class stealth carrier). R-AREA's Space Fan "2051 January" issue seems to draw a fair amount of inspiration from Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix in talking about initial development difficulties encountered with adapting the F-14's basic design into a variable fighter. Their YF-0 is broadly similar to the YVF-X-0 from Master File, though they get onto some weird topics like discussing the practical reasons for excluding horizontal stabilizers and an initial mechanism for storing the hand they came up wtih that has the hand flip out from inside of the forearm 180 degrees. They also came up with a "VF-1RR" presented as a late improvement of the VF-1 that has a VF-4-like cockpit transformation (the cockpit remains horizontal) and foldable wingtips. The art's pretty obviously traced from existing Macross artbooks in a few places, and the VF-1RR's head looks suspiciously like a lower-detail version of the VF-1SR Attack Valkyrie from Macross 2036. Despite the mention of the VF-19 and VF-22 on the cover, the book has basically nothing on them. It's surprisingly light at not even 40 pages, but for 1000JPY (shipping incl.) I'm not going to shed any tears. There are a couple fun tidbits I found in FANKY's Battleships of the Galaxy that I want to see if they have any official precedent, like the idea that the Northampton-class's radar cross-section is about the size of a battlepod. They have some interesting (and mostly accurate) commentary on the usage of high-angle beam guns and the reasons why the guns aren't practical.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    It's the only reason I've seen in writing from an official source: https://macross.jp/news-detail/81/ The uppercase delta Δ is also used as a mathematical symbol for change, so that's something I guess? It's also the only one of the lot that actually has a wing structure named for it... though Kawamori initially undermined it by giving the VF-31 Siegfrieds forward-swept winglets. Uppercase sigma Σ wouldn't fit nearly as well, since that's a summation operator... if you were doing an anthology show, that might be a good one to use for its title. W... well, there are other Greek letters that look more like a W including uppercase Psi and lowercase Omega.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    What I've read on the subject is that the Delta in the title was based on the letter Delta being triangular. Apparently it represents, or is evocative of, the three main aspects of the franchise as a whole: songs, wars, and love triangles.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Not in any explicit terms, no. In its heyday, the Supervision Army was an ad hoc force made up of the Protodeviln's spiritia-drained and brainwashed victims and whatever ships and equipment were available from captured facilities and enemy forces. Five hundred thousand years of dependence on captured factory satellites for their every need has probably seen what's left of them evolve into a force that's little different from the regular Zentradi forces in terms of their organization and equipment. They may have simply preserved some designs that were lost to the Zentradi and vice versa when it came to what factory satellites they were able to seize vs. destroy. Nope. Presumably they're still out there in force, given that Vrlitwhai and Exsedol note in the first episode of Super Dimension Fortress Macross that the Supervision Army withdrew from the region of space around Earth approximately 8 terms (40 years) before first contact... so in 1969.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    My guess would be probably not. Robotech is old and rather obscure, and the few attempts to tart it up for modern audiences have generally failed to capture the attention of potential new readers/viewers... or even satisfy the franchise's existing fans. The hype machine is basically nonexistent since the fans aren't hyping anything themselves and the only marketing the franchise really does is its annual convention tour that caters to fans only (and is just plain embarrassing). Most of the attention it gets is in the form of bile fascination from people who already know about it (and Macross). This new comic seems to be a pivot away from trying to make Robotech marketable and towards low-effort pandering to Robotech's existing fans by revisiting familiar stories. For their part, the fans seem rather uninterested in yet another "greatest hits" rehashing of Robotech's "Macross Saga", so it's anyone's guess if this comic'll even still be on shelves when the Macross shows drop. I'd expect there to be some understandable wiki-confusion once new Macross titles start dropping in earnest and viewers start looking up the backstory, but the concept of a bad or bowdlerized localization is familiar enough (thanks 4Kids) that it's unlikely anyone will be put off Macross by Robotech.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Indirectly, yes. They have to periodically release some SDF Macross-based merchandise in order to meet the US Patent and Trademark Office's requirements to renew the trademark they have on the word "Macross". If they lose that trademark, the 2021 distribution agreement is essentially meaningless. Big West would be able to release the Macross sequels in the US without any cooperation from, or royalties paid to, HG and they could even register that trademark themselves and forcibly shut HG out of marketing Robotech in the US.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Presumably no more than any other prospective Macross licensee. Given that it's been quite a few years since he stepped down as CEO of Harmony Gold, it's unlikely his passing will have any impact at all on the worldwide distribution of Macross and its sequels... or Robotech's glorified hospice care at Funimation/Crunchyroll. Presumably for the same reason Harmony Gold itself did... the potential value of the "rest of world" Super Dimension Fortress Macross license and the trademarks Harmony Gold used to keep Macross's sequels bottled up in Japan for 20 years far outstrips the value of Robotech itself. (It's also a fairly safe bet that the license was not exactly expensive either. Robotech is a dead property twice over after failing to launch in 1986 and 2007, it has no future prospects to speak of, and the potential return on investment has been greatly diluted by 20 years of oversaturating the market with re-release after re-release of the same content on home video and various streaming services. Its main value is as a way to maintain Harmony Gold's trademark on the Macross name that has now given it "a say" in Macross's global releases.) This new comic is almost certainly being made largely for the purpose of meeting the minimum obligations to renew the Macross trademark - i.e. active use of the trademarked term in commerce. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to exist.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, that's easy. Harmony Gold essentially outsourced management of the Robotech franchise to Funimation back in 2019. (It's believed that that transfer of managing authority and the collapse of Harmony Gold's licensing partner KMG were what killed Robotech Remix.) Tommy is an OK comic book artist, but he's no mechanical designer. That's the reason he dodged the question of transforming the YF-4 back when he was working on Robotech's comics himself. By all indications, he hasn't really had much authority over Robotech since Shadow Chronicles failed to deliver on the grandiose promises he made to HG's execs to secure funding. Considering this design was something Ninja Division slapped together for Palladium Books to use as a pledge bonus in a Kickstarter campaign for a tabletop game, I doubt they bothered to figure it out. Maybe so, but it's not a "Macross Saga" design so the Robotech fans don't care about it.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    They literally can't afford him. They never could. Beggars can't be choosers.
×
×
  • Create New...