jenius

I think there are a bunch of guys at WB that are essentially thinking they can get another Transformers style money-maker going. So they probably got the Kasdan script and said "What the hell, this is nothing like Transformers!" They then sent it to the younger guys and said "Hey, make Transformers out of this." That's my guess. If we're looking they go for the "Hey, make a slightly more mature Transformers out of this" but I think any movie like this has merchandising dollars written all over it so if you really want to dig into that potential you have to make a movie the kids keep wanting to see and wanting the toys to play with... I don't think we'll get anything too sexed up. I do hope I'm wrong, I hope instead WB goes for something aimed at adults with a PG-13 and the hope that the kids will love the flash enough to gobble it up. I also wonder if the title of the movie being ROBOTECH would hinder it? It just sounds so dated at this point.

I checked the RT forums to see what was said when Kasdan was dropped, found a direction to this site with this quote: http://www.canmag.com/nw/12820-robotech-mi...ar-alfred-gough

If Lawrence Kasdan did bail I doubt it has anything to do with HG, WB, or Robotech. I think it's more likely that he submitted a draft, collected a paycheck, and WB just didn't think the draft was guaranteed money so they continue their quest for more money.

Either James Cameron borrowed really heavily from those stories (like stole an entire scene) or a deal was cut just because it was going to cost less than a court battle. The spaceship crashing to Earth, humans learning from it, humans fighting aliens angle is a story line that existed before Macross and nobody sued Studio Nue.

The hurdle with Macross currently is how human culture screws-up the aliens attacking them. It'd be a simple matter to make a movie where an alien space ship crashes, humans get all sorts of tech from it, and the aliens show up to reclaim it and then get beaten back. Make that movie, even if the aliens are like 30' tall humanoids, and I don't think BW can complain in the least (you know, if all the characters are new and the mechs don't look familiar). Things don't get sticky until you have a little girl start singing and then all the aliens freak out, at that point you can easily identify it all as a Macross rip off rather than a rip off of many other alien crash stories. The trick for the writers at WB will be to come up with some other item that turns the tides against the alien and unites them in defending the humans.

Hit and miss. The BIG, really BIG, money goal is to make a series that creates a new fanbase. Trying to make RT for the constantly dwindling fanbase already out there would have likely foregone any ability to really grab that big dollar audience. RT:SC was crippled in that it had to try to appease the existing fanbase while attempting to go out and grab a whole new fanbase. Add to that the multitudes of fractures within the existing fanbase (the group that has a hard time looking past Macross, the fans of the other series, and what each potential group would like to see occur) to the intellectual property issues surrounding Macross and I think it's easy to say that RT:SC was starting off from an incredibly difficult conceptual spot. Unfortunately, RT:SC ends up being one apparently low budget compromise that really doesn't please many people since so many compromises were made. It seems likely that WB will not be so distracted by fan feedback as Tommy and crew were likely crippled with. WB is going to look at the property, ask itself "Where is the BIG money?" and then make a movie that appeals to the average American viewing audience and just hope those old fans come along for the ride.

It's the end of the Japanese fiscal year/beginning of a new one. It should be expected that at this time, pretty much every year, everything will slow down big time unless there are some products that were meant to make it in before the end of the year but got delayed. That's what somebody told me at least. I would expect kinda slow going for a couple months.

You know, Macross has an alternate universe, maybe we'll get an MIII some day, a sequel to MII that happens in that alternate universe. I'd be down for that.

I've tinkered with all my DXs a bit now. Unfortunately my Michel has the loosest crotch connector of the group. It poses well enough but definitely doesn't handle nearly as well as my other three DX toys. Getting him to stick together at the hip AND use the waist swivel takes a bit of dedication.

The fanliner is the plane Minmay wins and that Hikaru uses to escort her around Earth before the UN orders the SDF-1 back into orbit.

That mech we see for a split second having something in common with the VF-2SS, sure. The VF-25? No. If you look at the VF-1 and the VF-2SS you can see exactly where the VF-2SS comes from. If you look at the VF-1 and the VF-25 you can see a few little similariites. I think what you're seeing is some VF-1 in the VF-25 and attributing it to the VF-2SS instead of the proper source.

The crotch armor can stay on during transformation. I found that every time I left it on though I had a lot harder time getting things settled in fighter mode. Since it's completely concealed, I recommend just removing it in all non battroid modes. EDIT - since a number of people are having a hard time with it, I'm guessing it's one of those things where the clearances are so tight it might just be next to impossible to get it to work on some toys. Certainly if you're having problems keeping everything together in fighter mode, step one is to remove the crotch armor.

Great, now somebody at Yamato has fired up the airbrush machine to make an exclusive "weathering edition" VF-1D after seeing how well yours turned out.

NO! It's not the tail fins that need to be adjusted, it's the boosters on the wings. If it looks like your tail fins are behind the boosters than your boosters aren't attached properly to the spike.

Glad you liked the post. I do have Luca and Michael and am just about done putting Luca through his paces. I was thinking I'd post some other toy before Luca though so people didn't complain I was bludgeoning them with VF-25 reviews... Maybe I'll do Luca next and then do something else before putting Michael up.

Glad I could help! My review for the Alto parts just got published, here's a teaser pic: You can go directly to my post by clicking here.

You're thinking too hard about the Transformers. The original cartoon was about as dumb as it got and it was such a hit we're now getting dumb movies for it. If the movie was incredibly smart it probably would have been a failure.

Did HG ride the Transformers momentum to get their deal signed? If so, a big showing for Transformers 2 might help them keep it on life support.

This is not how it's supposed to be. The boosters are attached improperly on the wings in these photos causing them to angle in a tiny bit. It's a very very easy mistake to make. You have to push the booster in on the spike a bit, it's a little scary and hard to explain, but if you do things properly that part becomes very hard to pop off or move left or right and the fins also are clear of the boosters. When my review goes up i have one pic of Alto's parts on with the fins clear (although there's a bit of a camera angle issue making it look as if one fin might be getting hit by the imaginary boost). My Luca review will also have a picture from behind of the GERWALK where you can clearly see there is no issue with the fins being behind the boosters.

You painted Luca wrong... he's supposed to have at least three different shades of green randomly over various parts. That's a joke. Love that Luca with ghosts display, everything is very nice.

I should be posting a review on mine tomorrow. I hadn't heard anything about a missing triangle though, what piece are you talking about and how many people have had a problem with it?

I don't think scrapping it makes much sense because it would continually need to be rebuilt as shoulders will continue to break the longer people have the toys. If we scrapped it, everyone voted again, then once again six months later we'd be right back in this perdicament. I think we should just trust David's efforts to get this to as close to accurate as possible.

I think you're shoe-horning. Ranka isn't being used for culture shock (so definitely not the same function), she's being used as a control method like how Sharon controlled the masses. Again, the combination of a big trippy hologram and Luca setting the Ghosts free is a pretty tight parallel. The Minmay Defense was also a tired defensive system humanity had come to over rely on which contextually is about as far as we can get from what happens with Ranka. What happens with Ranka at first seems damn near magical which is again, Sharon territory.

I definitely would go with Mac Plus on the Ranka hologram... then we get Luca letting his Ghosts go in Mac Plus mode to boot.

Just an FYI, I got Overdrive replacement arms a week or so ago for my Roy 1S and they were fine. Still, I do half expect I'll be ordering another pair in another six months and hopefully those will be the "fixed" version.