M'Kyuun

Way ahead of ya, watched Fall last night, and yeah, it was good. Excellent cinematography really makes you feel the height at times. Guess the tower doesn't actually exist, but it sure looked real in the fim. SFX are best when they don't look like SFX. That said, ya have to wonder how many similar towers exist around the world and whether something like this has occurred.

Yeah, kinda feels like the writers were like, "what's the coolest stuff in action movies ever?!!!" And then, with their low budget and mediocre skills, they made this. 😄 I have zero recollection of this film having ever been advertised, nor do I recall ever coming across it at old VHS rentals back in the day. Pretty obscure I'm guessing.

OMG, the 80s cheese! Thought that was Denise Crosby. Saw her in person at a convention here in Spokane years ago. She seemed very grounded and genuinely nice, relating anecdotes from her life and career. Her grandfather, Bing, was a notable alumnus here at Gonzaga University, and she talked about him a bit as well. Been meaning to watch Woman of the Hour and Fall popped up on the movie list recently. Gonna have to watch them. Saw Predator : Badlands the other night. Kinda prefer Prey or something more like Killer of Killers. I thought Prey was awesome, my second favorite Predator film next to the original. Predator 2 is third runner up.

Like others here, my only concern is whether or not they're making Macross toys. With Arcadia silent these days, it'd be nice to have another company competing with Bandai in the Macross market.

The speed at which this disease overtakes its victims is frightening. It makes Dr. Hawking's comparatively long life with the disease all that more curious and amazing. I wasn't aware of Eric's work, as I only watched a handful of eps of Grey's Anatomy when it first premiered. I had to Google him as his name wasn't familiar to me. Nevertheless, at 54, this strikes close to home for me as well. Dane's commitment to his craft in the face of his suffering and deterioration are commendable. He's lost to us, his family, friends, and fans, far too soon. RIP

This topic devolved quickly....🤣

Indeed he did. I'm quite frank about my vehement dislike of the Bay films; I think they're utterly irredeemable as entertainment, let alone Transformers media. However, there are those who like them, quite a few I've gathered, which led to their making bundles of money for Hasbro, who in turn, funneled some of that cash back into toys. The overcomplex, illogical, mechanically unfeasible, and shardy look of the Bay-bots forced Takara to push the boundaries of their engineering skills resulting in some of the most complex toys we've ever seen from the company. Moreover, those funds helped pay for excellent shows like Prime and Animated, each of which explored unorthodox aesthetics which informed the toys, which also benefitted from Takara's stretching their engineering skills for Bayformers toys. Additionally, as you said, it drew new generations of kids into the Transformers fandom and the results are manifest in the still thriving franchise we have today. For that, Mr. Bay deserves thanks. I just hope Hasbro reconsiders letting him direct another film, as I doubt it'll end as well as they're anticipating. I think they should focus on doing quality animation. Quality. It's a terrible shame that Transformers One did so poorly at the box office; I hope it'll redeem itself on streaming. It was a good Transformers film, light years better than all of Bay's movies put together.

Ah, elucidation most appreciated. I wasn't sure what size/price class these were in, and forgive me, but I likely didn't read your review of the core-class Dinobots, as I've no interest in core-class. Either way, these aren't for me, but as you say, it's cool of Takara/Hasbro to retool these guys into Monstructor, combining gimmick and all, for those to whom they appeal.

Sheesh! These look like cheap toys you'd get out of one of those coin-operated dispensers where the little toys come in plastic bubbles. Can't believe these are part of AotP line. Fortunately, I've no interest, so money saved. Lots of vitriol and criticism toward SS86 Astrotrain, much of it earned, alas. As more pics of it surface (especially screenshots of Hasbro's stop-motion video) showing it from different angles, I fear I must agree with a great deal of the criticism. I'm coming around to wishing they'd done a heavy retool of the Siege toy to address its most glaring deficiencies instead of producing this figure. SS86 Astrotrain is simply not a good capture in virtually any context. Train mode is his only redemption, and only just.

Well, we can argue the impracticalities all day. 😄 No denials here. But, to my very core, I have always loved the idea of robots, especially bi- or multi-pedal ones, and most especially, those that transform from one form into another. A real-life valkyrie would likely inspire an aneurism of pure joy in my brain were it to manifest for real. For me, that would be the pinnacle of technology- nothing else would summit that advance except perhaps cybernetics at the GitS level. I'd love to see either-or come to fruition in my lifetime, but I'm dubious of both. I definitely don't trust Elon Musk's Neuralink, mostly due to my distrust of Elon Musk and his motives. If this was happening at MIT or some other high-level institution of learning and science, I'd be less apprehensive. However, even if Neuralink proves moderately successful, we're still in the embryonic stages of that technology. We're still a loooong way from GitS level cybernetics, although folks like Tilly Lockey and her incredible cybernetic arms developed by Open Bionics are advancing the technology in impressive ways. Ms. Lockey strikes me as a rather impressive young woman; she's conquered what for most would be a debilitating condition and with incredible optimism, grit, and technology, has emerged as a positive and capable influence for amputees and those born with congenital lack of or disfigured limbs. I think it's no hyperbole to say she'll be a leading figure in the advancement and co-opting of bionics as we've only known it in sci-fi.

Well, a lot of what makes sci-fi fun is indeed its speculative nature. In other words, the concepts proposed are cool, but often have a dark bent to them, especially in the hands of unethical corporations or politicians who'll take even the most benign technology and find a way to twist it for gain at the expense of society's welfare. In a fictional setting, that's great fun. However, when those technologies emerge for real, caution and apprehension are necessary lest we find ourselves collectively in a quagmire. I think a lot of these corporate execs and politicians feel like they're above it all, as if their wealth can insulate and protect them, and in the short term, it likely can. But they're human, too, they have families, and we all live on this ball of rock with no other options. Eventually, the consequences will reach them or their successors, and that's reality. One need only consider the proliferation of micro-plastics in nearly every body of water on the planet or climate change (I don't believe for a second that thousands of scientists got together to create a phenomenon on false pretenses. There may be a bad egg here or there among them, but I'm inclined to believe that most scientists are diligent in their methods, well-meaning and honest in their ethics, and are evidence driven. They're curious by nature, guided by the scientific method, and interested in putting forth the data as they make discoveries. OTOH, a bellicose wealthy politician with no scientific background nor interest therein, but only an interest in furthering profits for fossil fuel companies, with a long history of prevarication and convictions for fraud inspires no confidence whatsoever).

Man, sci-fi is becoming science reality way too soon. In a way, I'm excited to see it, but OTOH, there's an element of fear that the price of ignoring countless tales of rogue A.I. and robot uprisings may be dire consequences for humanity if these advances continue to progress. Perhaps that's all the dystopian sci-fi that's coloring my perceptions, but maybe it's better to err on the side of caution. I'd love to see bipedal battle mecha become a reality, though. Totally impractical compared to wheeled and treaded vehicles, but just so unbelievably cool!

That is a historically poignant observation. For nigh everything that man has invented, if it could be weaponized, it was or has been. It's not for nothing that we regard a great deal of science fiction as prescient warnings- it oft speaks more about the mind of man than the technologies involved.

Both impressive and just a little unsettling. Imagine those things connected to an advanced AI. At that point, you're not far from a Terminator-like potential. I do have to wonder if the robots are acting under programming, or if they're being motion controlled by haptics or some other remote technology.

For some reason unknown to me, neither Robotech nor Voltron played on any of our stations. Granted, this was the 80s, channels were quite limited, and the channels you got depended on the cable company you bought your cable subscription through. I know my friend got channels we didn't, as that was how I was able to see Galaxy Rangers clearly and in color. I had a small B&W tv in my room, as I recall, and I had to meticulously arrange my 'rabbit ears' just to get a grainy staticky signal to watch it. Needless to say, not all cable packages were equal, not then, certainly not now. My wife watched Voltron, and she grew up about an hour north of me, so again, cable varied. While I watched a few eps of RT when I was stationed in FL in the early to mid 90s, I caught it midstream and never got into it. I ended up renting it from the Shoppette at Mildenhall, England in the early 00s to assail both boredom and morbid curiosity, as by that point, I'd already become a die-hard Macross fan via Macross Plus in the 90s, fully aware of Harmony Gold's shady shenanigans and editing to the original SDF:M for the RT series. At that point, I believe I had yet to see the original SDF:M, so I got through the entirety of that part of RT and enjoyed it for what it was. Once I moved on to the Southern Cross portion, it completely lost me, as the blocky transforming conveyances seemed like such a step backwards from the gorgeous VF-1 that I immediately lost interest and never finished it. Moreover, I never moved into RT's Mospeada portion. I've since watched the original Mospeada and enjoyed it. I also eventually bought ADV's dubbed version of SDF:M, with Mari Iijima reprising the role of Minmay, and I enjoyed seeing the OG series as intended by its creators, English dub notwithstanding. Circumstances being what they were, had I seen RT as a kid, I very likely would have become a fast fan of it, of the SDF:M portion, anyway. having now seen both versions, I'm glad I own the original take; I don't own RT at all and never will. I continue to hope for HG's demise and the freeing of Macross in its entirety. I still have memories of seeing Jetfire both on shelves at the store and once at a neighbor's. house. They were rough kids and chances are their Jetfire didn't survive long intact. He was, however, still in one piece and functional when I got to see him, and yeah, he was f##king glorious. Alas, I never had him as a kid. I did, however, find a well-preserved copy, still with his box, insert, accessories, at a used toy shop in Pittsburgh back in the early 00s. Still have him tucked away in storage. I also bought a brand new 1/55 VF-1, "J" series I believe, which has also been tucked away. So, I've a couple of the old "Chunky Monkey" valks. Cool old toys. I definitely hope Takara will do a Missing Link version of Jetfire, although they may have to make some sort of deal with Bandai to do so. And, of course, b/c of HG, no US e-tailers will be able to sell it. Grrrr! As to the toon, the first season is my go-to. It's the only season I own or have seen in its entirety and it pretty much informs my love and good feelings towards the Sunbow cartoon. Second season drifted too far from the more focused and mature overarching narrative of the first season, added silly characters, and just became so frivolous that I lost interest. I didn't get to see the Movie in the theatre, so it was probably a year or so after that I saw it at a friend's house on VHS. I remember not being too impressed with a lot of the silliness in the film (nothing's changed in that regard), nor how easily so many beloved characters were so easily dispatched. I continue to cling to my first season characters as the core of my G1 fandom, with a smattering of S2, 3 and Movie characters thrown in for good measure. Sometimes a cool design stands on its own merits regardless of lore or characterization, and for me, it has always been about the robots, first and foremost, although many of those S1 characters remain near and dear.