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M'Kyuun

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  1. M'Kyuun
    Yeah, now this gets back to the heart of what made the Predator so intriguing in the original film as well as following Anna's description to Dutch's team concerning her people's history with it. Kinda wonder if this is going to be a female Predator hunting these female warriors. Seems the PC thing to do.
  2. M'Kyuun
    Another great character actor lost to us. RIP, Fred.
  3. M'Kyuun
    I saw this over on Twitter- brilliant reuse of that mold. I also saw someone's custom Terradive (can't find the pic now), as well as this custom Bayformer Vector Sigma. If Hasbro is smart, they're taking notes. Man, I'm trying not to get sucked into the legends rabbit hole too far, but dagnabbit!, they just keep pumping out awesomeness that often rivals or betters the main line and MP stuff. My soul cries out for it, but my left brain whispers, "you have no more room for this s##t!". If they do Dinobots and they're on par. it's gonna be a mighty internal wresting match between logic and lizard to resist getting them.
  4. M'Kyuun
    I have it POed, but I'm still waiting for it. I don't think any of the US sellers have it in stock yet. Love the Harrier, and there are so few decent transforming versions of it. This one is pretty well done, so I'm getting it and the F-16, another jet that seldom gets a decent transformable toy. This one's bot mode looks pretty sweet, as well. Dream Star did good with all the limb bots' jet modes. They're not perfect, there are concessions, but compared historically to other TF jets, these are among the best I've seen. That gave me hope that finally we'd get a Silverbolt with a clean and fairly accurate Concorde alt, but no- it's the same old block-o-bot dangling obtrusively under a Concorde treatment that nobody seems to be able to improve upon. They can do crazy origami for any other vehicle, but not a huge streamlined jet. It makes no sense to me. There's a lot of fuselage and engine on this bird, so why not make use of that real-estate to integrate the robot into the alt instead of just folding it up into a giant cube that hangs off the bottom of the plane? Gah, frustrating!
  5. M'Kyuun
    I never got the Hybrid Style; the bot mode wasn't bad, but that truck mode was all sorts of wrong. Part of the appeal to me has always been the ability to change into a believable alt mode. Granted I've a number of them now that have Cybertronian alts or just weird alts, but for the most part, if a TF is supposed to turn into a real world vehicle, licensed or not, I expect it to look like said vehicle and not be all misshapen and obviously compromised. It's why I take such umbrage with most jet TFs, as they're generally so far from accurate with all sorts of egregious concessions and bot kibble hanging out. V2 does tend towards Sunbow, but IDK, I don't mind it at this scale. Too, I believe the articulation is improved over V1. Anyway, I also chose Magic Square's Light of Freedom over MP-44 for all the same reasons you listed. So I have a less toony Prime for my MP collection, and I'll have a more toony one for my seemingly and reluctantly ever-growing legends collection. Can't help it, though- some of these things just blow my mind with how well they're designed and engineered. IIRC, MS' Jazz is on his way to me now. These things are more addictive than opium. Need my fix.
  6. M'Kyuun
    "Origami and fake parts"- had a good chuckle at that, but it's so true. Looking at this figure, it's so damned impressive how far design has come in just a decade or so, especially at the legends scale. Anybody remember Hybrid Style Optimus by Kawamori? Yeah, I try to forget it, too. I've got Magic Square's regular V2 Optimus POed with Showz. Hoping it'll release soon. Your pic only whets the appetite.
  7. M'Kyuun
    The Optimus Prime review is up on Brothers Brick, the culprits for yesterday's early leak. The reviewer is a big TF fan who knows his stuff, which is refreshing compared to some of the other reviews I've read. Quick Disclaimer: I've met a number of the Bros Brick members (both guys and gals) and they're a good lot w/ a great respect for The LEGO Group. They're one of the most popular LEGO blogs with a long-time relationship with LEGO, as well as major sponsors for BrickCon in Seattle. While I don't know the facts, per se, IMHO their too-early posting was a miscommunication, as, unlike a lot of other reviewers jockeying to get their reviews up first, they tend to very stringently observe TLG's wishes concerning all things LEGO over being first or getting the most views. OK, on to the set. For me, a lifelong LEGO fan since the tender age of six, and a Transformers fan since about twelve, the marriage of these two properties is by no hyperbole a dream come true. I've longed for LEGO Transformers for almost forty years, and it's a bit surreal that it's actually happening, but I'm elated that it finally happened within my lifetime. So, my bias is certainly overwhelming in this instance. On to the good stuff: So, IMHO, the set looks pretty darned good, all things considered. I've seen many an Optimus MOC over the years, some good, some ok, and some, well, you know. By that standard, this is a good showing. I'm actually impressed that it turned out this good as a first Transformer release. Lack of knees notwithstanding, it's pretty well articulated, especially the arms, transforms without partsforming, captures all of the design cues of our favorite red and blue Autobot leader, and while it hues closely to the G1 toy's design, it throws in some additional complexity to the transformation. It also presents well in truck mode, which in my experience, isn't the case in the vast majority of MOCs. So, on the whole, a great effort by LEGO. It's not without its flaws: the face looks odd, mostly I think, b/c of the bracket creating too much space between the eyes and the mask (which is a dedicated new piece made for this set), the aforementioned lack of knees (which hopefully will lend themselves to modding), and the thin unsightly midsection (which harkens back to the G1 toy). Hopefully some modding can fix all of these, but even with the warts, I'm impressed by how well this turned out. So, as a transforming mecha MOC builder myself, parts are always of paramount interest to me when anything creature or mecha/robot related is released, and Optimus brings some awesome to the table: These parts debuted in the Tallneck set in dark bley. They're a godsend for their compact form. Prior to that, all we had were this and larger variations of the same. The only other alternative was this retired piece from the early 2000s. This new 1x2x 1 1/3 clicky-joint brick is, with no exaggeration, a game changer. Dare I say, hallelujah! Another new part of note is this light bley Technic disc joint. This is the part I vehemently hoped and prayed for when this new beefier black rotation joint was introduced earlier this year, itself yet another godsend for mecha builders. Someone at LEGO loves us with this new spate of heavier duty joints (which I've been clamoring for for the last decade or so). Prayers answered. I hope these things turn up in tons of sets, and I hope a few of them are other Transformers characters. If you didn't bother reading the review, one interesting tidbit concerning this set is that the LEGO designer, Joseph Patrick Kyde, once worked for Hasbro in the Transformers Brand. It doesn't get much closer to the source than that. I hope he'll be involved in bringing us more Cybertronians in LEGO form. I'm ready!
  8. M'Kyuun
    If you build a mini-Stargate, you'll have to post some pics. This thing is based heavily on the G1 OP toy, with some exceptions: the fists fold somehow to stow during transformation, the front panels of the truck fold into the body, the grill & bumper section is jointed so that it can form a taper from the chest down to the groin, and the chest contains a Matrix, which leaves no room for a minifig, at least not in a sitting position. If you remove the Matrix, I think a minifig would fit in there laying down, but that's not really the ideal. Even though he can't accommodate a minifig, I wish he at least came with Spike, but my hope is that there's a G1 Bumblebee in the works that will come with Spike, and that they can figure out a way to actually fit him in the car mode (no pressure, LEGO). Alas, this is LEGO, and I'm sure this kit is going to see no shortage of mods to 'correct' its various shortcomings. At the very least, I want to give my copy some proper knees.
  9. M'Kyuun
    Nope. They swivel at the knee, and the hips are jointed, the ankles tilt, but unfortunately, likely for the dual reasons that the thighs slide into the lower legs and for stability, there are no knees. I intend to remedy that shortcoming posthaste when I get mine.
  10. M'Kyuun
    Roll out! It's official. Set 10302, 1508 pieces, fully transformable (no partsforming), releases 1 June 2022.
  11. M'Kyuun
    Agree- little too narrow and the eyes are too high- price of using a plate with the eyes printed on the side and a bracket below it, which has that little bit of offset that makes the eyes appear too high above the mask. I'm sure folks will mod it, but from a set perspective, there aren't many alternatives in such a small space. I see people complaining about the neck too, but I'd rather the head was on a ball joint than just a rotational joint. I can accept the gap. Not sure why they couldn't put knees on him, but I'm sure it'll be clear once reviews are cleared to be posted. The cat's out of the bag, so I don't know why LEGO doesn't just put the official pics up on their site/social media and clear all the reviewers. G1 Optimus was a good choice- not too complicated as far as transformation goes, and he presents well in both modes. I noticed that his gas tanks are turned 90 degrees in bot mode, and I wonder if that's some sort of locking mechanism for leg sliders. Again, wait and see. I'm saddened to think, however, that we'll never get a proper G1 Megatron to go with this, unless they just do him as a non-transforming model. That would suck, IMHO, but at least you'd have both leaders in scale for display. Most peeps are gonna keep Prime in bot mode anyway, so it's a good compromise. I'm excited for what this means going forward; are they going to do more like this, or maybe shrink them down to the size of the Speed Champions? I hope Prime isn't a one and done deal- I want a whole collection of brick-built Cybertronians to build, play, and display. Fingers crossed.
  12. M'Kyuun
    Catch-22 with that sort of proposal; On one hand, it was such an excellent game with an engaging wonderful sci-fi story and a very likeable protagonist. OTOH, the scope of the game was so broad, with so much stuff going on that to try and capture it in a film, even a 3-hour film, would boil it down to a rather thin essence of what the game offered in totality. IMHO, I think it would be better served either as a live action series, or an animated series, with at least two guaranteed seasons to tell the story while delving into some of the peripheral side stories, mostly those involving the more important NPC characters, as well as flashbacks to the old world and their actions that led to the current world of all these hostile machines everywhere. I'd love a series like that, but I don't think a film would do it justice.
  13. M'Kyuun
    The only positive I can say about Kingdom Arcee is that her bot proportions were better, especially in the hips. But, she didn't transform so much as hide under her car, so her bot mode was pretty much uncompromised. T30, and now her somewhat improved Doppelganger, SS86 Arcee at least have the distinction of actually transforming, although, TBF, SS86 is more shell-formery than T30 since her thighs will no longer form the rear fenders of her car mode. Hence my preference for T30. I like that her legs are part of the car mode. It reminds me of this art 😍: SS86 would have been greatly improved had they used MMC's technique of overlapping the aft half of the car bits with the front fenders to coalesce them into smaller pods that manage to look more accurate to her G1 toon appearance while greatly reducing the backpack volume. Not sure why Has/Tak didn't do it to make a more definitive Arcee (probably that old nemesis, Budget), but I would have gladly paid a voyager price for a deluxe Arcee fig done as close to perfect as absolutely possible. This is the time and the line to do it, so this is rather disappointing. Maybe a third or fourth party will come up with a new backpack set that does just that to drastically reduce its volume and improve her profile. every little bit helps. Sigh. I will echo your sentiment about Has/Tak's willingness to make improvements to earlier releases; I'm a fan of that move. In Arcee's case, they came close but stopped short of excellent by not shrinking the backpack. But I'm a fan of the additional articulation. TBF, though T30 didn't have all the hollow spots in the legs like SS86. It's the tradeoff these days for improved articulation, and I'm sure third parties will make fillers. I'm also hoping that we'll get new improved Vanette bros with completely new molds that better capture the Earth mode vans w/out all the crappy partsforming. Likewise, a new improved Astrotrain (also a completely new mold with far more attention given to the alt modes, i.e. a complete shuttle and a locomotive where all the wheels are in alignment) and a whole new set of Constructicons, hopefully in voyager scale, would be nice additions to the SS86 line. As to the new Bayverse figs, not much interest. Regarding Trailbreaker, I think TT did good with this fig, all things considered. If I didn't already have Terraegis, I wouldn't give getting him a second thought. But I do, and I like the design aesthetic MMC went for more than the totally-toon look of the MP. I never bought a MP Hoist {my MP collection mostly centers around first season characters and a few 86 Movie figs, w/ a few outliers: Delta Magnus in lieu of UM, and MMC's Ater Beta (Drift's former Decepticon alter-ego Deadlock)}, but if the eventual Hoist repaint/retool looks good to me, and the price remains around $160 or lower, I may go ahead and pick up a copy. Other than Skids, it's been a few years and several releases since my last official MP purchase. Just not a fan of the toon look or some of the convoluted engineering/compromises they've been employing to have a realistic vehicle turn into a toon-centric bot with low detail, as well as compromises like Hound's floating head. Terrible shame that Jeep insisted on keeping the hood intact. In my mind, having a MP level toy made of a company's vehicle is up there with Weird Al wanting to do a parody of your song- let them do what they will b/c it'll turn out better. Both are a badge of honor of sorts, at least to this old 80s nerd.
  14. M'Kyuun
    You're Takara's intended market. Hope Trailbreaker turns out great and he brings you joy. I'm not in the toon-accuracy camp, so the hybrid Skids MP and MMC's Terraegis represent what I want in a MP fig- more toy influence, especially in bot mode, along with as much detail as is possible crammed into both modes, as well as alt mode bits carried over into bot mode, b/c that makes mechanical sense. Clearer pic of SS86 Arcee just popped up on Twitter. Everything's new from just under her chest and down. Looks like they changed her backpack, too, not for the better. If anything, it's even chunkier than before. That's great with stew, but not with a G1 Arcee. Looks like they did away with the mechanism to spread her legs out for car mode. I wish they'd kept that and just let her thighs form the rear fenders. Not heartened at all by this, really. 🤕
  15. M'Kyuun
    Yep, that too. I prefer all the OG toy detail cross over to the MP figs, which is yet another reason why the toon-slavish direction doesn't really work for me.
  16. M'Kyuun
    I'll likely stick with my copy of Terraegis as well. The truck mode dominates the Takara with all that chrome finish and big rubber tires. I like the raised hood/engine detail feature of the Takara, but I like the ability to slim the torso in bot mode more. The legs on the Takara do look better, but I prefer the styling of Terraegis over the toony styling of the Takara. I like it when bits of the vehicle become parts of the bot mode; it makes sense mechanically, and visually reinforces the fact that this turns into that. In main line news, looks like SS86, which I think most fans were hoping would be a marked improvement over the lazy shellforming WfC figure, is going to be a retooled Thrilling 30 figure. Mixed feelings about that. I consider the T30 to be far, far superior to the abysmal WfC fig: she actually transforms, has decent presentation (giant backpack notwithstanding), and decent articulation, although she's missing the ankle tilts, waist and wrist swivels that are characterizing more and more of the Legacy/SS86 figs. That said, I was really hoping they'd start fresh with a completely new and improved mold that perhaps borrowed some ideas from MMC's Azalea so far as producing a fully articulated Arcee w/ minimal backpack whose chest forms the front of her car, thighs form the rear fenders, and shoulder pods form the front fenders. I really didn't want a retool of T30, but if they're not going to invest in creating a new improved fig and just rehash an old one, I'd rather it be the T30. NGL though, I'm disappointed. The other side of that coin is, many of us already own the T30, which we bought for less than what this rehash is going to sell for. Unless they made improvements all around to her articulation, I'm not feeling a need to buy her again. Too, from that pic, the backpack looks no better than the original; at the very least they could at least make an attempt to clean it up. I don't expect a G1 Arcee as clean as her toon model; you just can't squeeze that much plastic down to a couple tiny shoulder pods. But again, MMC did a great job minimalizing all that car body into reasonably sized pods, and it'd be great if Has/Tak took a cue or two from some of these third party designs where it was just simply done well. I'll also throw Dr. Wu's upcoming legends scale Arcee (Amie) in there as a an example of a G1 Arcee done well. If they can pull it off at this scale, why can't Has/Tak at deluxe? I wish Dr. Wu would upscale his design to deluxe- it'd be the better option for my CHUG collection.
  17. M'Kyuun
    I normally don't watch SNL, but if all their skits were written at this level, I'd be a lifetime fan. Such perfect ludicrousness w/ all the over-the-top reaction we see in regular films. This is high art. 😄 As to the Avatar sequel, I never saw the original in 3D either; I was deployed, and somebody brought a DVD of it for us to watch, so my first viewing was on a regular tv. I remember thinking it was an OK sci-fi film, certainly very pretty to look at, but not worth all the hype it had received. Still, I like it, and I'm not averse to revisiting Pandora in a new story.
  18. M'Kyuun
    I'll have to give that one a watch.
  19. M'Kyuun
    That's just gorgeous, and the articulation shames my NECA. If I was better at painting, I'd totally get this, but my crap skills would never do it justice. Really wish the NECA toy had been done this well. It's big, beautiful and presents well, but its articulation is pretty limited, especially the feet. So love the ED-209 design; def one of the all-time coolest robot designs in sci-fi.😍
  20. M'Kyuun
    The usual Cronenberg weirdness.
  21. M'Kyuun
    If you end up just brick building the canopy, it can be forgiven in this instance, barring any official part that works. Regarding the gear, here's how Bandai did it for their Chogokin model; the mains pivot up into the wings, which are relatively thick close to the fuselage. The blue seems darker than the medium blue that LEGO used- closer to standard blue. Comparing them like this, they look like two completely different ships with similar configurations. Again, I imagine that LEGO worked from very early drafts, and over time the design changed a fair bit to what we see in the film. It's still a pretty striking looking ship, but I'd love to have a more accurate version too.
  22. M'Kyuun
    Ah yeah, the lovely Jagd Mirage. 😍 Intersting vid, for sure. I never knew there were so many mecha larger than the Earth. I noticed the discrepancies with the VF-1 and Voltron, too. They were all over the place with accuracy. I was waiting for either the Monster or the Konig Monster in battroid to make an appearance, but sadly no. The scales of some of those things were a bit surprising- they always seem larger in whatever animation they appear. Regardless, that was a fun watch. Thanks!
  23. M'Kyuun
    Wow, man, you're going full-on UCS scale! Your shaping looks good. That mild slope for the intake is a tough capture, esp at the minifig scale, but building larger definitely gives itself over to more options. Your intakes and exhaust are both well done. And yeah, using plates for the fuselage thins down the skin appropriately and allows for more subtle shaping. Tiles would be even better, but unfortunately, LEGO doesn't make many wedge tiles, so you still end up with a lot of studs. I'm guessing you're going to use the UCS A-Wing canopy for this? Seems like the closest thing in terms of shape and size. Whatever you choose, every success! Hoping you'll eventually build it for real and share lots of pics. 😄 So, on the topic of the XL-15, I finally scored a copy yesterday, and built it posthaste. It is indeed a lovely model, and tho I know it's inaccurate, it's still quite lovely. I suppose one could think of it as the first draft before the final design- kinda like the YF-22 before it became the F-22, with all the changes thereof. Honestly, I think I like LEGO's engines over the actual- they're more visually interesting with those differentials, and from the rear, actually look more accurate to the business end of a jet engine. The canopy is the wrong shape, but far be it from me to bad-mouth a new trans-yellow Classic Space-styled canopy. Angus MacLane just made a whole lot of CS fans very happy, including himself. I have another copy of this beauty ordered from LEGO along with all my May 4th stuff, so I'm hoping I'll get up the motivation to try and rework it so as to more accurately represent what the film model looks like. Should prove to be an interesting challenge, especially those intakes. The canted wing solution is simple but brilliant. I'm always amazed at some of the angles possible. Anytime I try something like that, stuff never seems to align. LEGO actually has mathematical alignment specialists who look at designers' models and determine whether or not the angles are legal or putting undue stress on parts, and just to help with alignments in general. Quite the gig if you're really good at geometry and trig with a hands-on love of physical models. I'm not that guy- the math part anyway. Anyway, this set only reaffirms my hope that the rest of the Lightyear ships will eventually end up as sets. Some beautiful designs there, and the best part, they're not friggin' Star Wars.
  24. M'Kyuun
    I was all agog at the LEGO model initially, especially for the sublime shaping, but then I saw the Chogokin which proved all sorts of inaccuracies in the LEGO model. The engines are a cool enigma; not at all accurate to source, but very interesting for the parts usage. The exhaust is in fact a 4-gear differential, which allows for more torque using the existing small beveled gears. Don't get me wrong, I still like the LEGO model, but honestly, I think the film model looks better, and I'm probably going to keep a stock version, and mod the other set to more closely resemble the film model. I'll probably get a third set down the road for parts. It's one of those rare sets where you really can't have enough multiples. As to the inaccuracies, we've seen the same thing among Star Wars ships over the years, and I wonder if the source material LEGO was given early on (they design sets about 1.5 to 2 years ahead of release) was closer to what we got here and the film design underwent changes that the LEGO designers weren't privy to. Anyway, it's such a lovely design, and I hope they eventually do a UCS set that more accurately captures all those great shapes. I also hope there are more System releases of the other ships from Lightyear- some sweet designs as indicated by Mattel's Action Fleet toys.
  25. M'Kyuun
    I was surprised to see this at Wally a couple weeks ago. Not sure how they worked out the licensing, but it was one of those "weird Macross" moments.
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