Vic Mancini

And you might be right, but it's a shame that we're left to conjecture. It would have been nice to have a scene or discussion in which Shepard says something along the lines of, "Gee, it sucks that the Reapers were able to get here in only six months of FTL travel, but it's a good thing we stopped their plan of coming through the conduit because then we would've had NO HOPE of winning this war. At least all those small victories in ME1 and ME2 gave us a fighting chance." And to be honest I still don't buy it. I think we were given the impression that the Reapers were trapped much further away than a six month FTL trip. Also, Hackett doesn't say, "They traveled here with their FTL drives to the nearest relay, and used it to spread to the rest of the galaxy." He just says, "They flooded through the relays." It just feels like the whole thing was an afterthought on Bioware's part.

@Knight26: I don't buy it. If the difference between coming through the backdoors and just FTLing their way to the nearest relay was only six months, then they would have no need for a backdoor in the first place. Six months is a blink of an eye in galactic terms. The Reapers hibernate for 50,000 years between cycles. They could just set their "alarm clock" six months earlier and skip the entire backdoor method all together.

I know everyone is fixated on the ending of ME3, but something that bothered me almost as much as the ending was how they totally glossed over the method of how the Reapers made it to the Milky Way so quickly. I've played through the game twice, and I think the only time when it's ever referenced is in a brief conversation between Shepard and Hackett on the vidcom. Shepard asks Hackett how it happened, and his reply is something along the lines of "they just flooded through the mass relays." No other explanation. The whole concept of the Reapers is that they are this unstoppable synthetic/alien threat just beyond the horizon, but they can only get into the Milky Way if they have an inside man to let them in through the backdoor. What the hell were we doing in the first two games if the Reapers had the ability to bring themselves through the Mass Relays all along? Why were we out stopping Saren, Sovereign, the Illusive Man, the Collectors, Doctor Kenson, etc, if it didn't matter in the end? In the Arrival DLC alone we sacrificed a few hundred million Batarians, and for what? The time gap between the end of ME2 and the beginning of ME3 was six months. So we sacrificed millions of Batarians to delay the Reapers for six months? And in those six months nothing was accomplished. Still nobody believed Shepard about the Reaper threat. No time or resources were put towards preparing for the war. And it's not even just the ArrivalDLC/Batarian thing specifically, but all of the victories and battles and sacrifices of the first two games. The mental investment we all made into stopping those indoctrinated inside men who wanted to let the Reapers in. It's all a wasted effort, and the significance of those victories felt counterfeited to me by the way ME3 handled their explanation of how the Reapers get here. The Reapers catch us with our pants down just as much as if all the victories and sacrifices made in ME1 and ME2 never happened. I understand that the Reapers have to get here. There is no epic conclusion to the trilogy unless we have a huge villain to battle. But (unless I missed it) they didn't provide a very good plot device to achieve that. In fact, I didn't see one at all. It's like they just glossed over it and expected nobody to notice. At least that's how I felt.

Killface: Why does it say "welcome to you are doom"? What does that even mean, and for God's sakes, why is doom in quotes? Is this some sort of ironic doom? Is the wink implied?

I see where you're going with it, and I actually do partially agree because I think that most adaptations are unoriginal and unnecessary, but I think you're pushing your point too far here. An adaptation of a book to a movie is taking a story from one format and putting it into a brand new format where the story/ideas can be explored in new and original ways. Example: 300. Even though 300 was kind of a stinker of a movie, it did allow the director to use the tools of film/computers to add things that Frank Miller simply didn't have at his disposal when telling his story through ink and paper. You can't lump remakes and adaptations into the same pile, because adaptations inherently allow for new avenues of creativity to be expressed. You could make a case that live action and animation are different enough formats to warrant a remake, but I don't agree with that, and it's been a long time pet peeve of mine to see this thirst in society for live-action versions of everything, as if animation is not good enough. I don't think Gary Oldman's live action face and some CG effects is going to contribute anything to Akira that wasn't already beautifully depicted with animation. That is part of what I'm saying, definitely. That's why a few posts up when I was musing about Kurt Vonnegut re-writing Lord of the Rings I included in brackets that maybe we would have been cheated out of Breakfast of Champions or Slaughter House Five if the publishing industry worked the same way the film one does. But stifling original stories is not my biggest problem with remakes. My biggest problem with them is when remakes are made for films that are already amazing and don't need a remake for any reason other than for a production company to avoid some financial risk on investment. And the apathy I see in people about that, and their thirst for summer blockbuster live action remake popcorn flicks, is something I resent. So if The Beatles' White Album was rerecorded and released by Rhianna, would it help culture grow? Would it maintain the cultural relevance of that album? It would certainly expose a few million young casual music listeners to The Beatles, but is that the same as contributing to culture? Is that something we really need or want? I dunno, I think it would border on sacrilege. The White album simply doesn't need to be rerecorded, IMO. It's already good. And it certainly doesn't need to be rerecorded by someone who probably wouldn't even understand/love/appreciate the source material.

^ I like you Eug, but I'm pretty sure you're the one who's butt-hurt. (So much hostility in those bolds). - I'm allowed to voice my opinion that I think remakes are generally cheap and unimaginative if I want to, especially in cases where the original was so good as is the case with Akira. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm "sooo up in arms over it", I'm just reminding people that the original is pretty darn good, and perhaps it doesn't need to be remade. - Also, just because remakes happen all the time it doesn't mean I have to be OK with them or that I have to "get over" something. - And even though remakes are very occasionally good it doesn't mean I'm a hypocrite for disliking remakes in principle, or that I have to jump the fence to your side and start endorsing them. If disliking remakes and preferring originals makes me a "fan boy", so be it. I don't even know what that means, but whatever. At the end of the day you don't see paintings being repainted, or albums being rerecorded, or books being rewritten, to nearly the same extent that you see movies being rebooted/remade/whatever. Perhaps where we disagree the most is that I don't think stories need to be retold to stay culturally relevant. I think it could be argued that retelling stories instead of creating new ones is what makes culture stagnant.

@Macross Junkie - That looks incredible!

Archer is amazing. Everyone should watch it. (Frisky Dingo was awesome too).

I might be totally and completely wrong, but I can't remember too many instances where YF-21/VF-22s used both gun pods "John Woo simultaneous style" even when they were both available. I thought it was more common to use one gun pod until it ran out of ammo, and then switch to the spare.

Congratulations on your dozen examples. I apologize if I hurt your feelings by not acknowledging them.

You don't see how it's different? Or you don't see how it matters? Because the difference is pretty huge. Imagine a world where new book releases were dominated by 30 or 40 mega franchises that were just recycled every 10 years or so by whatever author happens to be in vogue at the time. Lord of the Rings written by Tolken in 1954. Lord of the Rings re-imagined by Ian Flemming in 1965. Lord of the Rings re-booted by Kurt Vonnegut in 1973. (Maybe instead of writing Breakfast of Champions?) Lord of the Rings re-re-booted by Stephen King in 1988. Lord of the Rings re-re-booted by Tom Clancy in 1997. Lord of the Rings: MILLENIUM! by John Grisham, co-written by Michael Chrichton in 2005. Because this is pretty much the literature equivalent of what we've got going on in movies these days.

That's not really the same thing. You're talking about plays to books. Books to movies. etc. I'm talking about books to books. Movies to movies. etc.

I'm just saying, why do we need live action remakes of movies that are already good/perfect? Is anime inferior to live action in some way? Does it need to be fixed with a live action version? I think Akira is pretty good the way it is.

We already got a good movie out of it. It came out in 1988.

Thanks! I guess it doesn't display properly when you preview your post, and that's why I thought it wasn't working.

I just finished my first play through of MW3. Edit: Spoiler tags fixed.

It didn't run very well for me either, but then again nothing really did. I always longed to be able to play it with maxed out settings so it would look like the back of the box, but I never did. It still surprises me how obscure the game was. Everyone our age played Wing Commander 1 and 2, myself included. They were classics. But Strike Commander really flew under the radar, (pun intended), even though it was a better game in so many ways.

Wow, yeah. I'm watching some youtube vids of the custom home cockpits people have built for themselves and I can see the track IR thing in use. I don't think I'll get that hardcore. As long as there is a relatively easy way to pan around the virtual cockpit with a free hand, or sticky the camera onto a target, I think I'll be fine. Are the campaigns good? I'm more of a single player guy.

Looks pretty good from the youtube vids I'm watching. What's the learning curve like? I do like realism but I also prefer games that teach you a little along the way instead of having to read a manual as thick as a phone book.

Anybody remember this classic from back in the day? This was my air combat sim of choice way back when I was young. It was by the same makers as Wing Commander, but about a mercenary squadron of F-16s operating for hire out of Istanbul Turkey in 2011. A really good mix of semi-realistic flight physics, g-force, and accurate ammunition supply, as well as some morality choices in the contracts you chose to accept or refuse. I used to play this game endlessly when I was a kid.

Has anyone played JASF: Jane's Advanced Strike Fighters? I'm trying to find modern air combat games for PC that are worth a damn. It used to be such a popular genre back in the day, and I really have the itch right now. I would love something with a little more realism than Ace Combat arcade style shooters, but maybe a little less realism than Falcon. JASF looks more along the lines of AC, but I'm so desperate that I'm actually thinking about getting it, or Hawx/Hawx2 even though the physics are so god awful. I'd really prefer something with accurate ammunition and G-force effects, but I'll take almost anything I can get at this point.

I think this is the closest thing to official side view line art. (From Macross Mecha Manual...best site ever).

Just saw it. Two thumbs way up, for me. Very classy. Elegant directing that implies the events more than actually depicting them, which I love. And yeah, much more violent than I was expecting. Dead on with the Michael Mann similarities. But I didn't notice them until I just read Kanedas' comment. I resisted seeing this movie because from the descriptions I read I was expecting a craptastic over the top Fast and the Furious clone, but it ended up being unlike anything I expected. Ironically, I wish there was more driving, because the first driving scene was amazing in the most subtle and understated way I think I've ever seen a getaway scene. Anyway...great movie.

That's really cool where the arms go in fighter mode for that 21. Very original.

Those are actually pretty awesome. Very nice line quality. The gerwalk of that SV-88 is outstanding, and I love the SMG style gunpod. The nose cone on the battroid is the only thing I can criticize. It's a bit phallic. I really like what you did with the 19 and 21 too.