M'Kyuun

LEGO was already an expensive hobby, but the recent price hikes have been pricing fans out of the hobby, from what I've read. As for myself, due to space limitations and also the higher prices, I've cut down substantially from just three or four years ago. I'm also more apt to wait for clearances. At this point, the only UCS sets I think I'd buy are the Imperial Shuttle or the Republic Shuttle, although, TBH, given my space limits, I think I'd rather have them both at regular minifig scale albeit done very well. Alas, I'm thinking the Imperial Shuttle set we got in 2015 (75094 is probably the best version we're ever going to get at the regular minifig scale). The current trend is to downsize all the large vehicles even more than they were before which really limits interior space and features like landing gear and such. I love set 75094 and I have a copy on permanent display; it was also a really good parts set, and I have an extra copy for that purpose. The nose was a bit too angular and I'd love to see them release a set where the nose is more rounded and has the fins under the nose within that curvature like the filming model. No official set has done that...yet. I could MOC it, I suppose, but I've got other stuff I'm working on and I'm lazy. As for your shuttle project, I'm always impressed by your talent, dedication and meticulous approach. I wish you every success with it and look forward to seeing WIP and finished pics.

Contrarily, I love the entire nose section which no official LEGO model has gotten right. The whole thing, though, is brilliant. Some new sets have been revealed for August. Among them this new V-19 Torrent (with trans yellow windscreen sure to excite many a Classic Space/Blacktron fan) is a bit smaller than its 2008 original, which actually brings it closer to proper scale as it appeared in Tartakovsky's Clone Wars. The design is a bit different, reflecting how it looks in recent animated Clone Wars related shows, but I like it and have hoped for a release like this. Sadly, it doesn't appear that this model possesses gearing to allow the wings and central foil to rotate into flight/landing configuration like the OG set did, relying instead on ball joints. Disappointing, but I'm still gonna get it. 567pcs,; $65 While the LEGO SW team seems to be leaning heavy into the Clone Wars with the August wave, once again there is no new Republic Shuttle set. The last and only other minifig scaled set came out in 2009 and it is in dire need of a modern update. For some reason, even though it featured heavily in the excellent Bad Batch series, no set was forthcoming then either. It's such a great design and its omission is curious and dismaying. LEGO's 2009 release. Definitely could be better. there's also a new MTT coming. Like the majority of minifig scaled sets, it's been shrunk a bit compared to previous releases. I still have my 2007 MTT which is, IMHO, the best version that they've released. I like the colors of this version but given that the prices have risen on SW sets in particular, and all LEGO in general, I'll likely be skipping it. That droid rack looks a bit off. 976pcs, $160 LEGO's continuing their homegrown animated SW series Rebuild the Galaxy this fall and they've got another oddball release to accompany it. Behold the Force Burner Snowspeeder. Of note, that canopy will likely appeal to Blacktron MOCists. It's also a new mold which makes me think a regular Snowspeeder is likely not far behind. 349pcs, $55 Back to Clone Wars. there's a new, also shrunken, Republic Juggernaut (Clone Turbo Tank) coming. 813pcs, $160 There's also a new miniaturized version of Jango Fett's Slave I similar to Boba's version released in 2021. Notably, this is the first minifig of Lama Su, the Kaminoan Prime Minister. 707pcs, $70 And finally, the set that will likely appeal to a number of you guys here, a new UCS AT-ST. 1513pcs, $200 For reference, the previous UCS AT-ST, released in 2006, had 1068 pcs and originally sold for $80. Thanks to the addition of innumerable new parts over the last 19 years, the finer details are executed far better on this set, as they should be. I still wish they'd imbue these things with appropriate articulation, but I get why they don't. Oh, one more. LEGO's been knocking it out of the proverbial park over the last few years with their Creator animal sets and this one looks to continue the trend. Not sure how many Transformers fans there are here, but this totally gave me Rhinox vibes from Beast Wars. Now they need to make a gorilla that can ride on his back.😁

That was my initial impression, too, but it wasn't a good one. 😄 I'm not a big fan of the Orguss mecha anyway, but they are what they are and if that was the inspiration here due to its relation to Macross, it's a bit of a miss IMHO. I think they were just trying anything to shoehorn that stupid trailer/stage accessory in there to justify a higher price. I would have been far more impressed had they figured out a way to transform him so that Prime's chest at least forms a somewhat passable truckish looking front end, but I'm guessing they didn't even try.

Different strokes, truly. Personally, not a fan, but glad you dig it and if you order it, I hope it brings a smile for, if for no other reason, just how ridiculous it is.

I doubt it's dead. Basara Prime is on the Takara side of the fence, although it wouldn't surprise me if Hasbro had it on Pulse for a very limited time. Anyway, I'd say the crossovers are popular with the majority of fans (I have absolutely no evidence or stats to back that claim, but merely my own interest level and the fact that they've been making these for some time now, and with budgets tight, I doubt they'd invest in stuff that they think is going to fail or has no track record of success). With a Tron film around the corner, I think they'd be very smart to have a lightcycle in the pipeline. Even if the movie tanks, Tron has enough of a fan following to make such a release profitable, methinks. I'd certainly buy one. I want a Batmobile, too, or several, as well as Airwolf and maybe Blue Thunder. I think the former helicopter has a better shot than the latter and that's fine; I'd buy it! Anyway, there are still IPs to plunder for crossover figs so I doubt Hasbro's done doing them. OMG. It's an abomination!

Gotta LOL looking at comments here and elsewhere on the interwebs concerning Basara Prime. Some things just should not be crossed. Looking at the general shapes of Prime and the VF-19, these things are so incongruous that no amount of wonky engineering can satisfactorily merge the two. I will concede, however, that the fighter mode, especially in light of Takara's usual fare, turned out better than I expected. However, I imagine one need only turn it over to be confronted with blocky Prime's chest where the actual VF-19 is all sleek complimentary contours. The addition of Hot Rod's retrofitted trailer is pure money grab; it's superfluous, adds nothing to the core character, certainly does not a good combination make so far as a ground vehicle, and exists purely to increase the price of the figure. The only way I'd ever consider getting it is if it was sold at retail as a voyager or deluxe minus the trailer. It would make for an interesting oddity among my other crossovers, but I imagine this is going to be much more expensive and exclusive, so I'm going to pass.

That's a good approach; as much fun as cliffhangers can be, they sow only disappointment and even resentment when there's no follow-up. Those harsh feelings are only intensified when the show's actually enjoyable and the cancellation seems unwarranted or unearned. Regarding your earlier comment to my comment about the LA Ghost in the Shell, I'm going from memory, which admittedly does not serve me well. I think I own it, so I may have to give it watch to refresh my memory as to how bad it really was. 😄 I own Akira as well, and I've not watched it in years; I might have to watch that, too, just as a refresher. It's still a visual masterpiece of hand-drawn art.

Admittedly, I've never seen either the Japanese or the American versions of GoLion/Voltron, but I greatly enjoyed the Netflix adaptation. My perception is that it was pretty well received, but I don't know how fans of the OG feel. Except my wife who watched the OG show as a kid and then watched the Netflix show with me. We both enjoyed the Netflix show a great deal. While it's animated, I'd still consider this to be a Western adaptation of an anime. Hopefully, never, ever, ever a straight adaptation. It'll be completely unrecognizable, kinda like LOL. Yeah, it was terrible on so many levels. The abysmally stupid refueling dirigible thing just made me shake my head and wonder, "Why???!!!!" when we have a fleet of perfectly serviceable tankers at our disposal. I used to work on KC-135s- they're old but they still get the job done. Unfortunately, Stealth got linked to Macross, which was one of the reasons I wanted to see it. That and it was a futuristic fighter jet movie, which also appealed. Too bad the movie was crap. Like, double flush just to make sure. Seto, your description of how it may have gone under the WB is apt. Along with the aforementioned actors, including Pedro Pascal, don't forget Giancarlo Esposito as the American version of Col Shikishima. Add a couple good kid actors to play the Espers and voila, a Hollywood adaptation that likely, due to the Production's insistence on "creativity" would, despite the heavy star power, resemble Akira in name only, cost approx $200M, and totally flop at the box office b/c it made little sense to non-anime fans, was too convoluted, and strayed so far from the source that it pissed off anime and manga fans. In every way, it would miss the mark, tie-in merchandise would linger on shelves and get clearanced, and Blu-ray sales would be decent, but not great either. Referring to the live action Ghost in the Shell, I don't think who they cast as the Major was as big a blow as the reworking of Motoko's origin. Moreover, I hated that they just called her Major, like it was her name and not her rank. Coming from a military background, it bugged me throughout the entire film. I thought they did a good job with Batou, and the mecha looked good. The action was good. The Major's origin subplot was the biggest headscratcher- it wasn't necessary- just give her a good case to solve and let her and Section 9 do their thing. Anyway, I thought it was pretty close to being a good LA adaptation. Alita still gets my vote for best, or at least the most enjoyable. Looking forward to the sequel.

Either an XB-70 or a B-1B Lancer. The Lancer makes more sense as s serviceable combat platform plus it shares numerous similarities with the Concorde. I'll never understand why they used a Concorde in a group of military fighters in the first place when the Bone existed. However, in terms of their completely ignoring a huge chunk of fuselage and just compacting the entire robot into an enormous rectangular cube on the bottom of the plane, it would certainly be closer to the XB-70 than either the Concorde or the B-1 and they wouldn't have to exert any additional effort at good engineering, innovation, or regard for accuracy in the least, as usual.

Brilliant review as always, Mike. Whilst my criticism of Takara's approach to jetformer designs hasn't changed, what I can say is that they're consistent in their approach and they delivered what most fans want, a toy that looked like it walked right out of the Sunbow toon. Beyond my less than ecstatic view of Silverbolt himself, I can't say that I like the implementation of his combiner kibble in the least whereas in the cases of Motormaster (by all means the best implementation, I think most would agree) and Long Haul's questionable winged battle trailer I take a less critical view. I think your idea of turning it into a terminal or some other stationary accoutrement not attached to the jet itself would have served far better. I get why, but in this case, further compromising an already compromised Concorde wannabe with a giant ugly add-on pancake does not make for an appealing jet. At all. For me, however, it's neither here nor there as I'm passing on the entire team for lack of appeal. I'm just grumbling to grumble b/c I'm old and that's what us old fogies do- offer unpopular, unsolicited opinions free of charge. You're welcome. 😄 I will levy an extra criticism that Silverbolt doesn't have rotating wrists. That, at minimum, should be standard at this class/price point, but really he should also have hinged fingers like SS86 Prime. Despite my dim views on the Legacy Aerialbots, I'm still going read your review on Superion. Overall, I think they've done a pretty good job with the combiners thus far, and while I opine that they've leaned perhaps a little too much on the frame system, I can't argue the vast improvement in stability that it offers compared to the Combiner Wars gestalts. If I was only into the combined forms, I'd likely get these guys, as I could overlook the egregiously compromised jet modes and just enjoy the giant hunk of articulated plastic before me, but such is not case, and I would always notice the inaccuracies and imperfections thus eroding my enjoyment. I'm hoping there'll be a better legends scale team at some point. MS did a great job with their Bruticus, so hopefully their Aerialbots aren't far behind and their jet modes are at least marginally more accurate to their RW counterparts. I digress, but anyway, I image Takara's Superion will deliver another show-accurate combiner and I'll check out the reviews in spite of my leanings.

That'd impart a whole new interpretation of Long Haul's, erm, dumping capacity.

Long Haul has always been my favorite of the individual Constructicons, followed by Scavenger, both of whom I owned as a kid. They were the only Constructicons I owned, however, which means I waited decades before buying Toyworld's version making them my first and only complete set of the team to date. That'll change by the end of the year, and I'm happy about that. While they have their warts, the SS86 toys overall have been pretty well executed. I wish more of the vehicle functionality was present among the various team members. A non-tipping bed has always been my biggest gripe for nearly every version of Long Haul, including my TW version, since the original G1 toy and unfortunately the trend continues with this guy. I'm also afraid that SS86 Scavenger's boom deck isn't going to rotate either, a downgrade from his G1 toy if so. I do, however, love how closely this Long Haul skews aesthetically towards his G1 toy, and I like the arm solution even if it does leave some ugly black openings on the sides of the front, which really affects the cab side more than the exhaust side. Shame they couldn't make a hinged panel to cover that, but oh well. The highly noticeable gap between his pretty obvious feet and the extended cab guard is also another unfortunate holdover from the G1 toy, although the original did a better job of hiding it. I wish they'd deviated from the OG design and incorporated that into the feet so that the bed at least looked like one solid piece. On the whole, though, this take on Long Haul is a definite improvement over the CW version, and that makes me very happy. I'll be happy to have him in hand. As for the kibble trailer, while I'm not opposed to making it look utilitarian for use with Long Haul or one of the other team members, I don't like that it required the use of two large folding panels to form a sort of tonneau cover for the thighs only to become an industrial sized butt plate for Devastator. If I had my druthers, I'd just rather they let the thighs be thighs and omit the superfluous panels and accompanying wheels. I will, say, however, that at least the wheels match Long Haul's, complete with silver painted rims, and that helps to sell it as a purposeful accessory for Long Haul. However, the big purple wings on the sides and the black missile pods made up of Devy's arms kinda ruin the illusion that this is just a piece of construction equipment. but at least it's storage! 🙄😄 One last niggle: I wish he had the dual back wheels like the OG toy. Dump trucks, by the laws of nature, should have dual back wheels. It's also the rule of cool, and probably in the ancient Sumerian texts, the Egyptian hieroglyphs, Archimedes' treatises, and somewhere in the Bible. " Before thou hitcheth thine ox unto thy dump cart, maketh certain to affix dual wheels to each side" or some such verbiage. Probably in the Proverbs; they say Solomon was a smart dude. 😜

Agree. Regarding the SAP, I had some trouble getting it to wrap around the back jet boosters in fighter and GERWALK modes. I finally managed to get it to stay on, but it didn't give that satisfactory feeling of being completely secure. Today I transformed it from G mode to battroid, and that antenna finally broke. Fortunately, Bandai must have been aware of the issue (those parts really should have been made of metal for durability) and gave us two extras, so that problem was remedied. Anyway, once I got the thing into B mode, the SAP went on perfectly, no issue. Ironically, I figured I'd have a worse time in battroid, but nope. Even with all that weight, it stands and poses like a champ. Having been handling Macross toys for 20+ years, I was a bit surprised that the arms just float in fighter mode without any method of securing them into a "proper" position. Like I said earlier, it's purely up to the handler's discretion how high or low those arms hang, and subsequently the legs by din of their tabbing into the arms. The legs don't have a hard tabbing point either, merely tabbing, just barely, into the arms, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I try to keep the arms up as tight as I can under the body so the legs follow suit. I keep enough space for the wings to sweep freely without hitting the legs, and that looks right to me. Everything regarding the build does feel good. The central metal frame was indeed a smart decision. The knees, too, benefit from some metal parts, so this toy, far more than my VF-4 or VF-0D, lives up to the "high-metal" name. Screws don't count. Welcome. Cheers! While I don't think it's an impossibility, I do think that this particular design is very well served at this scale where smaller metal hinges can be utilized to bear the weight of the entire toy. On a larger scaled toy, common sense and physics dictate that more robust joints will be needed, and as those joints become larger, so too does their obtrusiveness as they impact aesthetics and the overall mold. This toy was executed very well. It's not perfect, but what is? I'd still love to see companies like Sentinel, Moderoid, or Arcadia tackle it. Heck even a company like Touch Toys, with their proven track record of innovative transforming aircraft, would likely produce a pretty good toy. Since Macross II is pretty much the black sheep of the franchise, I doubt they'd take as much issue letting other companies outside of Bandai make toys or models of it. The backpack on mine closes fine so long as the long double-hinged panel within is situated properly depending on the mode. Perhaps check that hinge to make sure it's not getting jammed up on something. I do find it odd that it has no latching or tabbing mechanism to keep it securely closed. Like the design itself, this toy is an oddity amongst its valk brothers and sisters.🙂

Good catch! Hope you enjoy it!

😄 Yeah, there was a lot to be desired with that figure. The cringe was strong with that toy, and it only grew cringier with every new review. I suspect a lot of fans bought it out of desperation, just that desire to finally own a fully transforming toy of it. I won't lie; I had my eye on it initially, but right outta the gate, there were issues, inaccuracies, niggles that weren't resolved (kinda like Bandai's YF-21, but I bought it anyway- so much for will power 😜). I did pass on the Evolution Toy VF-2 though. It just didn't come close to matching the level of quality or design that we were used to from Yamato/Arcadia or even Bandai. Admittedly, as you said, it's a challenging design to accomplish in a functional toy. The team that designed the HMR earned their kudos for making everything work as it should mechanically (other than landing gear- SMH) which means there are a lot of moving parts on this little toy. Not only did they nail the functionality, though, but the aesthetics are largely uncompromised, AND they included the SAP, with its own functional bits, as an independent piece that can snap on to the plane unlike a lot of earlier toys and models. If I have one complaint, and it's minor, it's that the HMR fixed pose hands are always a bit too large for the figures generally dwarfing the retractable hands that also come with them. They're an unfortunate bit of necessary partsforming, like the gear, if you want to take full advantage of the figure. I wish there was a happy medium where the retractable hands were just a tiny bit bigger and capable of holding the weapons. It's but a small grievance, as I'm quite impressed with all three of my HMR valks and the levels of mechanical functionality they enjoy as compared to their larger more expensive counterparts. With my available display space all but gone, I welcome these smaller alternatives to the 1/60 scaled toys and hope Bandai will continue to develop other valkyrie designs in the line.