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M'Kyuun

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  1. M'Kyuun
    That's good scaling, although he'd be literally hard pressed to fit in the slave mode's cockpit. That Garland is so pretty; can't wait for the Proto to release.
  2. M'Kyuun
    Regardless of the whole romance story and the typical Tom Cruise inner turmoil schtick that became a hallmark of many of his movies throughout the 90's, Top Gun was one of the best recruiting vehicles ever made for the Navy. Jets are cool, and the movie did a good job of glamorizing the fighter pilot life. I'm not sure it'll have the same effect on today's generation of young men and women, as they're more interested in the next version of iPhone than jumping into a fast plane. Moreover, I think today's youth are a little more savvy than we were in the 80's, due to social media saturation, Google, and Wiki at their fingertips; I assume more kids are aware that only a small percentage of people ever see the inside of a cockpit, and the vast majority , regardless of branch, end up working on the ground. As a hydraulics specialist in the Air Force, the only time I ever flew was when I went on TDYs , and later in my career, deployments to nowhere noteworthy or glamorous, packed into a KC-135 (with a really crappy environmental system) along with about twenty or so peeps, and several palettes of cargo. It made for a long, uncomfortable ride across the pond. So, if any of you guys reading this are aspiring jet jockies, know that it's a tough career to get into, but if you make it, the fact is, the military accommodates you very well. It's a good life, and it's a powerful, nigh requisite, stepping stone to achieving rank and greater positions of authority in those services that fly. If you can't be a pilot, go medical, finance, or personnel (non-ers, as we in the aircraft world cheekily call them)- avoid CE, aircraft maintenance, and security forces, where long thankless days in any conceivable weather are your destiny. There's a reason you don't see movies about the latter three.
  3. M'Kyuun
    FT's Thomas just looks mazing to me. Blitzwing has always been my favorite triple changer, but over the years, Astrotrain has grown on me, probably b/c of his shuttle mode more than anything, but I like the look of his bot mode, too, and FT nailed it. From all the pics I've seen, they did an excellent job on both of his alts, within the context of maintaining a nice marriage of toy and toon that that's pitch perfect to me. Their minibot figs are all looking good to me, too. Phoenix and the Dibots are my only FT figs to date, but Thomas is almost certainly bought, and their Brawn and Warpath are looking good to me, too. Gonna have to make some room in the ole Detolf. Props to FT for the hand gestures of their Stunticons and the Aerialbot dude- nice bit of humor there while showing off the hand articulation. Little disappointed that MMC's cassette figs are taking a backseat, but I understand; TF fans love their combiners. I prefer the cassettes, but I'm in the minority, methinks. I can wait. I just hope they don't cancel them in the interim. I'll also give your dedicated site for reviews a thumbs up, Mike. It'll give you freedom to be more expansive with both pics and writeups. Good luck! The pics on TFW from SGC seem to be very focused on TW and Unique Toys with some legends stuff and a couple others thrown in, but not much else from third party. Does anyone know of links to other pics from the con? I tried Google, with zero results.
  4. M'Kyuun
    FT's Astrotrain, Brawn, and Warpath have my interest. I haven't seen those pics posted on either TFW or Seibertron; I'll have to do some more looking around. While I don't collect a whole lot of legends stuff, I'm always interested to see the engineering these companies are pouring into these things, especially Magic Square and New Age, since both seem to be trying to make accurate G1 toys at that scale. Iron Factory kinda does its own thing, and I think a lot of them are adorable, but they just don't check the accuracy box like MS and NA. I own NA's Prowl and Cosmos, and MS' s Huffer, which is a really nice figure, although he doesn't really scale well with CHUG legends. But, he looks really good, nonetheless. MMC have been rather silent concerning those Autobot cassette figs since they unveiled them some time ago. Waiting patiently. If I had the room, I'd consider their Bruticus, as the engineering is hitting all the right notes with me, I absolutely love the integrated combiner parts, and Bruticus happens to be my favorite combiner. I already have Toy World's Devastator, and I just have nowhere to put another team of these combiner guys. I need a second house just for all my collectables, but I can't afford that, so I need to chill on the acquisitions. I always appreciate the amount of work you put into your reviews, so yeah, keep 'em coming. Vid reviews are nice to see the engineering in action, but photo reviews give a closer critique of the details and paintwork, so both are valuable to me. While the Aerialbots haven't interested me since I was a kid (I think the blocky aircraft modes just ruined them for me), I do appreciate that these third parties are trying to make better jet modes for these guys. They're still not perfect, but better than anything official.
  5. M'Kyuun
    After watching your Fewture review, I went back and watched your Arcadia review. I'd liken the comparison between a Hasbro CHUG figure (the Arcadia) with a MP figure (Fewture), such is the extent of detail and complexity involved in the latter. I love the detail of the Fewture, but I think I prefer the simpler transformation of the Arcadia. I find as I get older, I'm less inclined towards all the small fiddly bits that need to be aligned to get the bigger stuff into place. Too, the Arcadia skews much closer to the lineart, and I like the chunkier Slave proportions. Both are beautiful toys, but the Fewture by far outclasses the Arcadia in just about every other area.
  6. M'Kyuun
    It's easy to criticize HasTak, but they're designing a mass retail toy on a fixed budget intended for children ages 8+. Third Parties are under no such constraints, and generally intend their products to be bought by adult fans with a fair bit of disposable income, not to mention the skill and dexterity necessary to manipulate their far more complex mechanisms. Apples and oranges, my friend. I'm a little dismayed that just about everything on display is either Bee Movie or Bayformer related, with the notable exception of the Prime figs, and some of the Iron Factory guys, which are, like the majority of their figs, G1ish, albeit very stylized. I guess the G1 teat is about milked dry, if you'll excuse the vulgar analogy. It's funny that Animated, although received mostly positively after folks got into it, just hasn't had the toy love since the original line. I'd love to see an Animated Omega Supreme fig from one of these third parties, since HasTak seem to have no intention of revisiting the theme. I'd love to have a Slag and Sludge in that style, too, just to round out the team. Zeta's Bee looks really nice. So does the Aoyi Prime. Great time to be a collector if you've got the finances and the space for all these things. Space is my biggest hurdle, so I tend to enjoy the majority of these figures vicariously via reviews. I hope all this COPPA stuff doesn't put a kibosh on vid reviews, as they're my window to a lot of this stuff, and it'd be a terrible loss if it went away. I doubt I'm alone in that sentiment.
  7. M'Kyuun
    Well, I'll give Toy World props for tackling a triple changing Shatter; it's honestly not too bad, but not great either. the car just looks odd, like the sides are made of a single sheet of cardboard with no panle lines for doors. The harrier is far better than the dedicated Harrier mode of the HasTak version, but, due to the triple changing nature, still not perfect. It's missing its main gear, which come out of the belly just aft of the aft Vernier nozzles, but has the mid-wing outriggers similar to the American AV-8B Harrier. I guess most folks won't notice, though. I wonder if those Transformer: Prime figs transform. No alt modes are shown, but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't. Bumblebee Movie Bee looks good, esp that bot mode. Looks better to me than any of the official toys thus far.
  8. M'Kyuun
    Our 'newest' fighters, the F-22, and her baby sister, the F-35, are over twenty, and 14 years old, respectively. As tech progresses, the time period for development seems to expand, and it's especially visible when looking at military hardware. It's crazy when you consider during WWII aircraft companies could pump out a new aircraft, from concept to full production and flying missions in a matter of months. Now the same process takes decades. Concerning software, that's one area of improvement that's continuous throughout a military, and I'd assume commercial, aircraft's operational life. I worked on KC-135s with 50 years of service, and they still would receive the odd upgrade here and there. Likewise Vietnam era MC-130Es at Hurlburt Fld, which I'm sure have been retired to the Guard at this point. So yeah, black boxes, and other add-on electronic tech continue to find their way into aging aircraft. Back on topic, Tom Cruise seems to be a rather accomplished pilot; he was already multi-engine certed, and learned to fly a helicopter, which he did solo, for his last MI film. So, I tip my hat to the man, as he has demonstrated, in my mind, the competency to take a fighter for a spin. I very strenuously doubt they'd allow him to fly an F-18 solo- quite an expensive and sensitive war machine to put in the hands of a novice (compared to highly trained Naval aviators, who rank in my book as the best in the world) just to make a film. So, I'm thinking they used twin seaters for the shots of Tom in the plane flying. That's not to say they didn't give him stick time; I've known AF folks who got to take incentive rides in fighters, and they were allowed to fly the plane for a bit, and these are non-pilot maintenance folks, so an experienced pilot like Tom would have little trouble conducting himself professionally in that situation, methinks. I'm kinda curious what kind of story they're going to cook up; I guess they could always go after some fictional Middle Eastern group , but given the eponymous title, and Tom's hubris, I'm thinking it's all about Tom.
  9. M'Kyuun
    Your first comment is correct. When the govt makes a contract with the manufacturer, it's for 'x' amount of aircraft and 'x' amount of spare parts, and you're talking about thousands to millions of parts, test equipment for many of the high end parts, special tools, training, technical literature for test/inspection/repair, not to mention money paid to subcontractor higher end maintenance for those things that can't be rebuilt or repaired at the field level. The rabbit hole for a new piece of equipment is deep and labyrinthine. Add to that politics, and then you see the agreed upon number of acquisitions fluctuate, usually lower, to much lower, than initially agreed upon, which serves only to raise the cost of each unit. Additionally, if the aircraft in question is intended to be a multi-Service aircraft, then each branch contributes it's own requisites to a growing list, and the manufacturer has to somehow try to meet all those demands. I'm currently reading about the development of the Osprey, so while I have tangential knowledge from working on military aircraft, the book delves much deeper into the process than my meager experience offers, and these are some of the issues which accompany the process. Once an aircraft contract is met, and all spare parts have been produced, that's usually it for inventory. In many cases, all tooling is destroyed, and the only recourse for introducing spare parts into the supply system is to retire a number of aircraft and cannibalize as much useful stuff off of them as is feasible. However, sometimes something like a fuel or hydraulic line will burst, one that's incredibly difficult to make, and Logistics will order one removed from a plane in the boneyard to either use outright or to use as a sample for the sheet metal folks. Same goes for skin panels, and other structures of a nature that make them difficult or impractical to remove for preservation. Concerning the sky-genitals, I believe it was our Navy folks here in WA that did that bit of artistry. Naturally, I think somebody complained b/c people love to be offended even when they're not. It's harmless and funny- have a laugh and carry on.
  10. M'Kyuun
    Thanks! According to BBTS, it was projected to release this month. Guess that's not happening. All things being equal, if they need more time to put finishing touches or address quality issues, I'm more than happy to wait. At the prices these things go for these days, I'd just as soon give the companies time to work out the bugs instead of issuing lemons. That Fewture Garland is a beautiful piece. I think the stylized sculpt works, especially the angle of the legs in bike mode to give it that swept back wedge look. I prefer the larger legs of the Arcadia, though. Too, while metal content feels good in the hand, all it says to me is greater wear over less time in the joints, so I think I prefer the higher plastic content overall for durability. Once the Proto-Garland releases, it'll be my first Garland toy, one I've been waiting for for a long time. I just want it to be as polished as it can possibly be.
  11. M'Kyuun
    This is what I'm waiting for. Anybody care to translate the post for us kanji-illiterate types?
  12. M'Kyuun
    Very true, and oft pointed out in the reviews of these things. I wonder if they work at the factories, know someone who does, or have some sort of agreement with Hasbro to get them early for review. It's good PR for Hasbro. I know LEGO gives advanced copies of sets to a number of the more high profile LEGO reviewers/bloggers, so I could see Hasbro doing the same. What I can't understand is that months out from release, and Pulse is already showing sold out on a number of Earthrise figs. It just seems odd that they can't meet demand this far out from release. I procrastinated on getting Prime and a couple of the other deluxes, and when I finally made up my mind to get them, they were sold out. I was taken aback, it's being their own shop. So, now I guess I'm at the savage mercy of Retail. I hate those odds.
  13. M'Kyuun
    Oh my goodness, I was so stuck on the 'fin' thing that I forgot about the 'everything is a flap' , and ,ugh, 'tail wing' (that's the worst!) I have the advantage, I suppose, having worked in aviation for twenty years, but I find it simultaneously fascinating and frustrating that more reviewers don't do a little homework before doing a review so they can speak somewhat intelligently about the subject. Before I make comments about something of which I'm unfamiliar, I try to Google or Wiki it for some background so I don't sound as if I'm speaking from my backside. And if it's something completely outside of my realm of understanding, I keep mum. As Mr. Lincoln said, "Better to remain silent and be thought a l fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Wise words. TBH, with all the innovations in aircraft design, there are any number of flight control surfaces that lay people wouldn't know: slats, leading edge flaps, elevons, spoilers (also known as speed brakes), inboard and outboard spoilers(which operate independently of each other), trim tabs (used for minute adjustments to improve stability of an independent flight control), and so on. The refueling boom used by the USAF has ruddervators to control both pitch and yaw, which may have been the inspiration for the canted vertical stabs on the YF-23, where the entire surface moves rather than just a small rudder mounted within the larger surface. The B-1 Lancer has two rudders, an upper and lower, operated by two different hydraulic systems for redundancy. It also uses spoilers in lieu of ailerons. I could go on (love this stuff), but at the risk of waxing pedantic, I'll stop. Besides, I'm woefully off-topic. To that end, Ton Ton once again regales us with a review of Siege Earthrise Ironworks on the TFW boards. I haven't watched the vid yet, but perusing the pics, and having seen earlier pics, despite my misgivings with partsformers, I kinda dig this one. I like the utilitarian look and feel of it, and while I don't care for the more vertical combo, his crane platform mode just hits all the right notes. Scalewise, he's kinda small, coming up shorter than Ironhide. I'd like to see a version of him in voyager scale, and fully transformable. I also watched a vid of Earthrise Cliffjumper by PrimevsPrime, and to my dismay, the entire back section of his car partsforms. I'm not sure why they couldn't have had an armature for it to swing on, but Takara didn't bother. Overall, though, it's the most G1 CJ since the original, and it comes with his large cannon from the very first episode, and his water skis from a later ep of first season. Good stuff. And finally, PrimevsPrime also did a review of Earthrise Hoist, which looks fantastic. I'll agree with the reviewer that the way the arms/hands stick out of the bottom of the truck isn't the best, but in all other regards, Takara pretty much nailed it. The articulation is excellent, and I'm so glad that , after so many years of mediocre articulation in the mainline, they've really improved articulation throughout the deluxe and larger figs in Siege. I'm anticipating their Trailbreaker release now. I'm definitely enjoying the G1 love in this line. Hope they keep 'em coming.
  14. M'Kyuun
    No truer sentiment. I'll never understand why Spielberg and Co hired that egotistical douchebag when he had zero history with the franchise. It's like hiring a guy to build a nuclear reactor who never took physics.
  15. M'Kyuun
    Ton Ton has a video review for Studio Series Shatter up, where she converts to a Harrier, or an approximation thereof. First of all, as Ton Ton points out, her plane mode is way under-scaled relative to the rest of the line. I can't really fault Takara for that, as I'm guessing they try to scale the bot mode, and the alt mode scale is a concession. Moreover, I blame the Bumblebee Movie producers/director for choosing alt modes that are severely out of scale with each other. Had they had her become a much smaller aircraft, I think the disparity would have been lessened, but when you're dealing purely with animation (be it cell or CG), then scale can be fudged wildly, as we're all aware from the good old G1 days, to Macross, to Bayformers, and so on. Unlike Dropkick, whose helicopter mode betrayed no signs of his car mode, Takara put forth an effort to incorporate some of Shatter's car details in bot mode, which of course, need to be hidden in plane mode, requiring more design concessions. Honestly, though, I don't think they did a half bad job of it. If I had my druthers, however, they would have eschewed the car bits altogether and focused on making the best Harrier possible. Which brings me to my biggest gripe; it's a really fudged Harrier. I'm biased, as the Harrier is one of my favorite aircraft, and so , much like our esteemed Mr. Hingtgen, I tend to wax critical of the details, or lack thereof. The front of the plane doesn't look too terrible, although the intakes' inner detail portrays two fan blades, when the real aircraft has a single large fan that spans both intakes. Considering that they split into identical engine pods for bot mode, it gets a soft pass. The intakes also have a canard of sorts that , AFAIK, has never appeared on any model of Harrier, and thus constitutes artistic license. Moving on, the wings should cant downwards at a greater angle and they lack outriggers for landing, although it does have aft and nose retracting gear. They're not accurate, but points for at least including the feature. Once we move beyond the intakes, the illusion falls apart entirely, as the fuselage area where the vectoring nozzles are located is truncated and dominated by a huge section of red robot thigh, followed aft by mechanical leg details, terminating in what looks like standard dual engine jet engine exhaust augmenters. Just...terrible. Due to my preference for the Harrier, I was looking forward to this figure, especially seeing how Dropkick's AH-1 mode turned out. Movie accuracy be damned, I'm glad they completely eschewed the car mode to focus on his helo mode, as it's the most accurate version of that chopper in TF toy history. I wish Shatter Mk2 had been given the same treatment, focusing entirely on making the most accurate Harrier possible. Alas, no. So disappointing. Ending on a positive, I will say that the transformation is interesting, especially the way the car torso is folded and hidden within the plane, so kudos to Takara for fun factor, even if their take on the Harrier is pure fiction. One final thought; I wish someone would create and disseminate an aircraft nomenclature tutorial to video reviewers; it bugs the hell out of me every time they refer to stabilizers, or stabs, as we in the field call them, as 'fins'. They're aircraft, not fish. It'd be like referring to car tires as donuts. Big sigh. Just needed to get that off my chest.
  16. M'Kyuun
    Continuing the train discussion, there's an article on the TFW frontpage saying that the recently announced Raiden train combiner will indeed be part of the MP line, and it seems that Takara are putting their "A" team of designers on it. Personally, I have no connection to Raiden- in fact, while I was aware that a train combiner existed (I saw them when I was stationed in Okinawa back in the early 90's), I didn't know what it was called, or from what series it came. I think it's an odd choice, as I'm guessing few but the most die-hard of TF fans outside of Japan have ever heard of it or know what it is, so Takara is definitely catering to a small slice of the fandom. I haven't read the article yet, but I'm assuming this will be a Takara-Tomy Mall exclusive. I'm wondering if they're using this as a testbed to see how viable a large scale combiner is, both physically and financially. Obviously, we know it can be done, as third parties have been producing them for years (I own Toy World's Constructor), and even now there are a number of MP scaled Bruticus figures in the works by different companies. It's an interesting, if unexpected, toss of the hat into the combiner ring, and I'm curious to see how it turns out. I doubt I'd get it, if it's even practical to do so, but I'm hoping it'll pave the way for some of the more popular combiners.
  17. M'Kyuun
    I have to give props to Unique Toys for turning something that looks absolutely nothing like a Transformer into a proper looking truck. I'd love to see them apply this level of engineering to G1 triple changers.
  18. M'Kyuun
    I'm not a train guy, although I did know that the car, for lack of a better term, behind a steam engine was called a tender. I wasn't aware that it was considered part of the engine, so I learned something new. Anyway, just to fan the flame, I recently got the new Steam Robo (Loco Robo for Gobots fans) from Action Toys, and it's a pretty neat figure. It doesn't come with a tender, though. And, unlike the majority of figures in the line, no discernable spot for his weapon in locomotive mode. All his wheels turn, though, so that already raises him a notch in quality above Siege Astrotrain. Moreover, his wheels line up beautifully with the rest of the engine, imparting a much more accurate and believable aesthetic that nobody who does an Astrotrain can seem to capture, even with all the panel-formery magic that seems to grace recent TFs. I guess it's a little unfair given the concessions for a second alt mode, but I think it'd be possible to do both alt modes believable justice given modern techniques, materials, and such. +1 for criticizing Takara for not making at least a part of Astrotrain's tender become a gap-fill for his shuttle mode. It boggles my mind that it was released like that. The train mode is pretty poor, with the wheel base sticking way out away from the body as it does, but the incomplete shuttle mode is where it just flat out fails , and that's my favorite of his alts. To their credit, they did do a great job on his bot mode, but it just seems like the rest got an 'eh, good enough' pass. Really wanted this to be the definitive mainline Astrotrain after waiting thirty plus years, so I'm rather disheartened that it has so many flaws.
  19. M'Kyuun
    This one hit home. It's a sad reality that all these wonderful people who entertained, taught, and in a way befriended so many children, including myself, eventually come to the end of their journeys, leaving both a lasting legacy, but also an unfillable void. Wherever he is now, I hope Jim Henson's there to give him a warm welcome. RIP, and thanks for so many fond memories, Big Bird.
  20. M'Kyuun
    Very sad news. She had a singular voice, certainly one of the best female vocalists to come out of the eighties. 'Listen to Your Heart' and 'It Must Have Been Love' are two of my favorite ballads from that era- just a beautiful voice that conveyed emotion so well in her performance. Alas, another huge loss to those who knew her, to her fans, and to music. RIP, Marie.
  21. M'Kyuun
    Been watching his work ever since Benson in the late seventies-eighties. I didn't watch deep Space Nine regularly, but I always enjoyed Odo's appearances. He was only a month older than my dad, so that hits home. RIP, and thanks for the memories.
  22. M'Kyuun
    Not just Prime, but pretty much every bot mode in the Bayverse, as well as some spillover to Bumblebee. It's an aesthetic that I just never found appealing, and I give props to all the toymakers, official or non, who've tried to make sense out of the chaos to make workable transforming figures from these CG monstrosities. The single positive that came out of Bay's involvement was that it challenged Takara to think in new directions, the influence of which we still see today across the MP and Generations lines. So, thanks Michael,- don't come back. Those are crazy prices for that Not-Devastator. I paid about $500 for ToyWorld's, and consider that a lot to pay for a toy, but it , at least, was a fair representation of G1 Devastator, which , IMHO, is the only Devastator worth mentioning. I'm unabashedly biased. For those that dig this new Bayverse Devy, and have the funds, more power to you. MMC/Ocular max have been awful quiet concerning their Autobot Remix cassettes; I'm hoping they'll lay some updates on us soon, as I want those guys.
  23. M'Kyuun
    Of the many sets I've built over the last 40+ years, the Saturn V stands out , both for the subject matter but also for the build experience. There were so many neat solutions employed to achieve the shape, as a large cylinder is difficult to do with LEGO. The fan submission was smaller than the production, and used existing 'macaroni' shaped bricks , which work ok, but limit size and offer limited stability since they essentially have to be stacked. The real beauty, though is how it achieved the look and functionality (splits into the requisite stages and also has room at the top for the LM within, with the Command and Service Modules capping it off) in a beautiful model that a kid can build for themselves. It's one of the crowning achievements of the IDEAS program. I hope your daughter enjoys it. (You too). I'm a little disappointed that neither the STS orbiter nor the NASA SR-71 submissions made production. Both would have made for nice companion pieces for the Saturn V, as well as offering cool build experiences, I think. Alas, not to be. However, there is another avenue through Bricklink, as they were selling MOCs, with LEGO's blessing earlier this year, and now that LEGO has acquired Bricklink, I hope they allow that to continue.
  24. M'Kyuun
    Trying to capture that curved edge is the challenge with the Animated Series Batwing, but I've seen a few MOCs that pulled it off pretty well using slope bricks. Brick becomes heavy pretty quickly, though, in a large MOC, so I can understand wanting to use plates. I feel you with those old notched wedge plates- really useful. However, there are quite a few new wedge plates that have come out over the last couple years, and a couple new 2x3 wedge plates that come to a point next year (take a look at the section around the cockpit). Been wanting something like this for a long time, so I'm pretty pleased to finally see them. Concerning the smaller '89 Batmobile set, LEGO has made the instructions available.
  25. M'Kyuun
    I complemented the engineering awhile back, looking at the individual bots, but that pic of the completed Devastator is indecipherable. Chronocidal's description is on the money- it just looks like a ball of mechanical stuff with the odd recognizable construction machine peeking through. At least with G1 Devastator, anybody can look at it and figure out what its made of- not so much this thing. I fail to understand the allure. Um, cool for those that dig it, though, I guess.
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