ewilen

Try searching on "panel lining" (with the quotes) make sure you have the date range set to "any date". Here are some threads: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=8789&hl= http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=8802&hl= http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=6774&hl= http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=5549&hl= http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=2873&hl= http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=2152&hl= http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=2448&hl= http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=2003&hl= http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=809&hl= I've seen mention of mechanical pencils (graphite), oil washes, sharpies (permanent markers), gundam markers, pastel dust, etc. Personally, I don't like the lines when they're too dark. You might use photos of real aircraft as a guide.

1/48 vs. 1/60...if you get just one Valk, make it a 1/48. The 1/60's are quite nice, but the 1/48 beats them hands down for detail and poseability. Personally, I have one 1/48, then a bunch of 1/60's because the latter are easier to collect (based on price, the space they take up, and somewhat greater variety). Some people do like the 1/60's overall sculpt a little better. For views of much of what's out there, see http://www.menet.umn.edu/~ngo/frame.html A little out of date, but still the most comprehensive visual comparison.

Yup. I like M7 & M0, but as I've said before, the "rules changed" significantly, and I can understand why it might put off some fans of the earlier series. I'm sure there are people who are fans of both The Exorcist and The Godfather, but they'd be awfully pissed if a future Godfather movie had the Don fighting a bunch of devils.

I'm sorry, I respect your opinions, but I disagree. The movie employs a thought-provoking issue as part of the plot. It could handle the issue comedically, or it could engage it seriously, but ultimately the movie just turns it into a muddle and discards it. This is similar to the uneven tone with regard to death: much of the movie is presented as light family fare and a loving parody of four-color comic book conventions, but there are numerous gruesome (albeit off-screen) deaths, some played as dark comedy, which is mildly jarring, others as straight-on post-80's action movie kill-or-be-killed, which is disturbing. There are even scenes where kids and mom kill bad guys then cheer each other with bright shiny smiles. Even modern grim 'n gritty action movies generally give a sense of the protagonists' fear and horror at the nightmare they're going through. The Parr family on the other hand zigzags unevenly between happy comic book crime fighting and real death-dealing, giving the impression that they enjoy not only fighting for truth justice etc., but offing bad guys. To me, this unevenness means, at best, that the screenwriters didn't think their material through and/or were victims of writing-by-committee. (We know that the movie was originally intended for 2-D animation; maybe there were even more changes forced on the creative team due to marketing, etc.) At worst, they're aware of these issues and really intended to convey the message that (as one critic unkindly put it) "the family that slays together stays together". Or possibly, possibly, there is a degree of satiric intent (along the lines of Verhoeven's Starship Troopers), but if so it's buried so deeply as to be practically invisible--again, Watchmen or Marshall Law (at least the original GN) are far better critical/satirical takes on the basic concept of the superhero.

Yes, it could be done in that sequence, but it's complicated to the point of muddiness, and the line about "when everyone is super" then loses its impact and becomes a distraction. Let's go beyond his plans and look at what they say about his motivations. Greed--okay. Revenge--okay. Hunger for celebrity--okay. And then there's this heavy philosophical underpinning of not only wanting to kill superheros, but to actually destroy the concept of superherodom. The scene where Buddy reveals his plan builds this up as if it were acme of his evil. It echoes the important themes from early in the movie, so I know I'm not barking up the wrong tree: mediocrity and the denial of "specialness" is a key theme. But just as the seriousness of the theme gets ratcheted up, it's undermined by the fact that a megalomaniacal techno-genius is claiming to champion "non-superness" by carrying out a typical supervillain-type attack on a big city. If anything, Buddy is far less of a threat to the concept of superheroes than Mr. Incredible's boss at the insurance company. (The theme of specialness struggling against democratic mediocrity is handled much better in the other works I mentioned; I should also have mentioned X-Men.)

I liked the short.

What I got from the movie is that he: a) Wants to be a super hero by any means possible. b) Hates super heroes (because he doesn't have real powers, and in particular, he was rejected by Mr. Incredible). So he wants to take revenge on them by killing them. c) Wants to eliminate the concept of being "super" by selling his inventions. ("When everyone is super, then nobody will be.") d) Seems to generally want to get rich by selling his inventions to various countries. It's a mishmosh of motivations, some of which are at war with each other. The worst of it is (b) and ( c), both of which tie into the "mediocrity" vs. "superness" theme--partly lifted from Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and perhaps Mills & O'Neill's Marshall Law, but unlike other borrowed comic book elements, the theme doesn't lend itself particularly well to parody or humorous tribute. What's so bad about wanting to give people super powers through technology? Is it better to hope that a limited population of "supers" will always use their inborn talents for the good of the human race? If you take the matter seriously, it's too serious for the movie. On the other hand it's vaguely disturbing if the movie wants us to see Syndrome's plan to "democratize super powers" merely as comic villainy.

Are the M7 P*L*U*S shorts included?

I enjoyed it, too. But some elements struck a sour note with me. The deaths (cape flashbacks with Edna Mole, dead superheroes on the island, and the ending) didn't quite fit with the rest of the movie in terms of tone. The underlying message about "being super" vs. "being mediocre", which is touched on at several points, also comes off as half-baked, even though it supplied some good jokes. Ditto on related issue of the villain's motivation. Just a few nitpicks. Overall, I loved the movie, as did the other people who saw it with me.

That sounds like a pretty good strategy, but I punched out after Season 2 and I haven't missed it.

The MAHQ.net owner has requested a list of which ships & mecha appear in the PS2 game, so let's see if we can name all of them. (The Zents shouldn't be too hard--mostly all you have to do is look at the grand summary screen. But I'm going to do it from memory since my wife is watching TV at the moment.) Zentradi: Glaug (Does Kamjin's get special colors? What about the stage one boss?) Regult (Do these only appear in the missile form, and if so, Heavy, Light, or both? I'm pretty sure I don't ever see any scouts.) Gnerl Queadluun-Rau (Both the Green and Millia's DYRL red version appear. In the TV stages Millia's is Green but I don't know if it differs from the standard issue variety. In the DYRL stages I don't recall if the standard issue is Green or another color. Also, I'm pretty sure that aside from colors, all the details in the game are based on the DYRL version, e.g., in the shape of the antenna.) Nousjadeul-Ger (I'm pretty sure the DYRL design is used on both the TV and DYRL stages.) Quel-Quallie Golg Gants Charts Salvage Ship (? the ship that captures the Catseye, listed on mahq.net as "Recovery Pod") Fulbtzs-Berrentzs (in the final TV stage) Bodolza-class mothership (in the final DYRL stage) Nupetiet-Vergnitzs Queadol-Magdomilla Thuverl Salan (I'm pretty sure the Quitra Queleual does not appear in the game.) Picket (? the ship that fires missiles at the SDF-1 in the Daedalus Attack TV stage near Saturn) Meltrandi: Gunship (from DYRL) Queadluun-Rau (see above) UN Spacy: VF-1A (also Super version) VF-1J (also Super and GBP-1S versions) VF-1S (also Super and Strike versions) VF-1D (also Super version) VT-1 (Super only or does this come in the non-Super version?) VE-1 Catseye VF-4 (exact variant unclear but it's not the VF-X-4. It's been noted that, in the game, the twin beam cannons aren't properly represented and instead fire exactly like twin gun cannons) SDF-1 (TV and DYRL versions) ARMD (as part of the DYRL-version SDF-1) Daedalus and Prometheus (as parts of the TV-version SDF-1) (I may be mistaken but I don't think any destroids actually appear in the game.) Any mistakes or omissions?

I was going to say the same thing, but I wasn't sure if that warning only applied to bike helmets. Anyway...yeah...it looks cool.

Not a real military guy, but I think citizens are well advised to inform themselves on military matters. Debate is good; I'm just a little tired of this particular one since the same points & rebuttals keep popping up whenever people talk about the Super Hornet, so my comments tend to get briefer and briefer.

u should? Where? Does it store in the armour somewhere? couldn't it just hold one in its hands? Indeed. In the TV episode where the GBP-1S appears, it's armed with a gun in the hands. The VF-0S with prototype GBP in MZero has the same, and so do the GBP-equipped Valks in the PS2 Macross game. In the split-second cameo appearance of a VF-1J with GBP in DYRL, though, it's shown without a gunpod. Re: missiles magically disappearing in battroid mode--if it does happen, yes, I would guess it's just an oversight/animation error. There are definitely moments in the cartoon where the wings are kept extended while the battroid still has missiles. You can see this with the RMS missile-armed VF-1S Super in the TV version, and with the UMM-armed battroids in DYRL. I would assume that, generally, all missiles are expended before switching to battroid. But I think I've read that the 1/72 Bandai HCM toys are able to fold their wings without removing the AMM missiles.

Thanks, David. That's even clearer with regard to what the "rule" is, but I still don't understand why they have the rule. Is it just that it looks cool to have a big number on the plane that happens to be the same as the squadron's? Hmm...while looking at various VFA colors, I came across this http://user.chollian.net/~xtlove/sims_reso..._VF103_shot.jpg Hard to tell, but this might be a little better than the current VFA-103 colors. Anyone have Janes F/A-18 and care to take a few more shots with the skin? (The main page where you can get the skins is here; click on the FA-18E skins link at the left. There's also a VFA-111 skin there; personally, I'd like to see a bigger shark mouth. At least as big as this Phantom II.

Okay, guys. Yes, clyde01, I have heard it before. Just go to the airplane vs. thread and you can find me, Shin, David, and others going back and forth about it. So I'm not going to rehash the whole argument except to point out that the F-16 vs. Cobra issue is ancient history. F-14 vs. Super Hornet is a completely different issue even if you think that the F-14 got a raw deal. David's right, of course: surface attack is where it's at these days, and for the foreseeable future. So the crucial metric in the decision to go with the Super Hornet was the total surface attack ability of a fleet equipped with F-18E/F's vs. one that's equipped with F-14's. It doesn't matter if one F-14 can outperform one F-18E/F in a strike (less likely in any case now that the Hornets are getting ATFLIR); the question is, given X dollars to spend over the next Y years, how can the Navy deliver the most HE on target when called upon to do so? If the Super Hornet's superior maintainability means we can have more of them on hand, and if they can be turned around faster during a bombing campaign, then the Super Hornet is probably the right answer to that question. (And yes, probably the right answer if you put a navalized YF-23 onto the menu as well.) Anyway, this is far afield of the topic of this thread. David, did you miss my earlier question about why you can only have a "show bird" when the modex and squadron numbers match? Either warmaker misunderstood my question or I don't understand his answer.

Well, when they show the GBP armor in the TV show, it can be ejected leaving a fully functional Valk with nosecone. ("Miss Macross".) Same thing with the GBP prototype shown in Macross Zero. The GBP has no extra guns, so when it runs out of missiles you have a choice: either retain it for whatever residual armor it provides or eject it so that you can convert to Gerwalk or Fighter mode as needed. Either way, you should still have the Valk's basic gunpod. (Another consideration would be whether the GBP's boosters give it a greater total acceleration than a bare Valk, or if they merely compensate for the added mass. But I don't know the answer to that.)

(Repeating what's been said already in a dozen threads...) Yes, but "a big, stealthy, super manueverable, long range naval multiroler that had the punch of the F-14, and range and bombload of the A-6" simply wasn't on the menu. So the choice was between a big interceptor that takes a lot of manpower/time/money to maintain, and a big multi-roler with emphasis on surface attack, that is extremely easy to maintain. In the post-Cold War defense environment, the big interceptor role isn't needed, so the F-14's ability in that area is irrelevant.

Why do they have that rule re: the modex and squadron number? Don't know if this link has been posted before, but here is a nice history of the Jolly Rogers livery in USN squadrons. http://www.almansur.com/jollyrogers/jollyrogers.htm

I'm happy for you guys. I won't be getting it. Like Anubis, I'm satisfied with my 1/60 GBP. Although, to add to Graham's list of defects, another fault of the 1/60 is that it can't swivel the lower legs due to the 1/60 design, which puts the swivel inside the calf. This shouldn't be a problem with the 1/48's, where the swivel is in the knees. Also happy that Yamato is chugging along with more Macross stuff, even if the pace has slowed a bit. Here's hoping for a green Q-Rau...1/72 or larger MZero Valks...destroids...battlepods...

What about the sound boosters, and the "beam shots" that hit the enemy? And Dr. Chiba's sound detection system, not to mention his whole theory of sound energy? And Dr. Chiba actually seeing the "triangle" formed by visible sound energy at one of Firebomber's concerts?

Yup, it's not horrible, but it doesn't look quite right either.

If you take a picture, please don't post it here. Thanks. I agree with Mike Szekeley--the idea of doing a simulation/model which helps people understand the assassination is fine. But the way it's marketed is tasteless and strikes me as disingenuous. I haven't visited the website (it's been too busy) let alone downloaded the game but simply referring to it as a "game", giving scores, and offering a prize are all marks of exploitation. Furthermore, the notion that a video game can effectively simulate the difficulties faced by a sniper, to the point of proving or disproving the conclusions of the Warren Report, is asinine. To even begin to do that kind of simulation, you'd have to give the operators a real rifle, not a mouse and keyboard. Zentrandude...I finally got into the site, and here's what they say and

Ah, a little too subtle...I thought the "baked Hory Froating Head" was the only joke.

FV, do you know where that picture comes from? I asked in the thread it originally appeared in but I don't think anyone said it was from an official/canonical source. Even so, I think it's likely that Kawamori would say the VF-1 has essentially the same countermeasures as the VF-0. We keep going over the issue of whether the VF-0 is supposed to be "more advanced" than the VF-1; the last time was in the MZero spoilers thread, where I posted links to most of the previous discussions. Whether Kawamori et. al. successfully conveyed their intentions is another matter. Apparently not, or it wouldn't keep coming up.