VFTF1

Yeah. Enjoy. I'm going to be late this weekend too...as usual recently... I missed my work out routine at the gym last weekend due to a series of unbelievable predicaments that coincidentially foiled my every attempt to go to the gym. I'm determined to go tomorrow, and afterwards I'll once again fall into the clutches loving embrace of my girlfriend, who keeps me away from the computer ... So I'll likely be back on Sunday night to see what everyone's had to say about episode 10! Pete

But in Robotech, Protocultures trumps newtons, Jouls, Kg and everything else. The equation for Protocultures is as follows: (Necessity x infinite depth of ass hole) + (broomstick + random anime - good plot) = 1 Protoculture/plot dilemna In shorthand that's: Carl Macek Pete

Anybody care to share some common sense tips on keeping an old car alive and healthy for as long as possible? I'm not having any trouble with my car whatsoever - and I change the oil every 10 thousand Kilometers, I've gotten its' break thingies changed and generally it works great. But given that it's punching 10 years, is there anything I should look out for? It's a Mazda 626 Sedan. 135 thousand KM (not miles!). Just asking to maybe pick up some wisdom from people with experience in stuff like this. Pete

D'oh! You're right. What am I saying...I don't collect Transformers anymore...and my goal was Ideon...Ideon...Ideon... and Ideon it shall be. Transformers are the stuff of a childhood deprived the awesomeness of anime! Recalling to mind the experience of watching Star Dub Headmasters on VHS a long time ago reminded me of that crucial fact. I really need to finally sell my TF comics and be rid of it all.... Pete

Oh. Ok. I misunderstood you - I thought you meant the velociraptor... but yeah - Wing Gundam turns into a bird like thingy. I remember once, long ago, I was in a KB Toy Store back when there still WAS a KB Toy Store and I saw a big ol' honkin' toy of the Wing Gundam. And I looked at the robot and thought "hey...coooll.." and then I looked at the box where it showed the Transformation and I thought "what the hell!? That's so lame. Transformers are so much better!" And in a sense - they were. Transforming Gundams have usually been major failures. I'm not really sure why they even bother... The ONLY transforming Gundam that seems to be successful is Zeta Gundam. But everything else has just been a "why?" after thought... The virtue of Gundams rests elsewhere, beyond them Transforming or not... Anyways... I'm still wondering what to do about my Transformers collection in the future. For now it's ZERO. At first I thought that I'd collect just Masterpiece...but then...you know...that's problematic. Transformers are no fun unless there's LOTS of them. And lots of them means the regular mass produced stuff. Maybe I should just get select TFs from differene series? Maybe Henkei for G1 characters and then various from .... ah...I dunno... Life's problems, eh? Pete

I wish I were... Pete

We need to also be careful to distinguish between consistence inconsistencies and inconsistent inconsistencies. If a source other than the anime is consistent in its' presentation of the anime's inconsistencies, then the inconsistencies of said source are consistent with the anime's inconsistencies, and therefore the source IS consistent despite its' inconsistencies, since those inconcistencies are consistent with the anime's inconsistencies. However, if a source other than the anime is inconsistent in its' presentation of the anime's inconsistencies, then it has introduced a new layer of inconsistencies that is not consistent with the inconsistencies of the original anime, and therefore said source is truly inconsistent not because it's simply inconsistent but because its' inconsistency varies gravely from the inconsistencies of Macross itself. Pete

Whos'a is you'sa? Me'sa no thinkin' backs to this'a pilot mayhaps not rememberin'? Meanwhile - since we haven't had much good art lately - I created this mega artistic rendition of the 1/8 Sheryl Nome NA version. Those in the know can tell it's based off the NA Sheryl. Just to make sure people didn't accuse me of making a half ass MS Paint piece of crap, I wrote something in French on it - that makes it True Art: Pete

For all these reasons -I predict the new Spiderman movie will be brilliant. Maybe Marc Webb is big talent and this is his big break? Pete

I actually also find that picture pretty nifty. Looks good. Pete

Hey man, don't know us for providing the goods and services people actually want!! Harmony Gold's problem is not that they are "businessmen" - if anything, the problem with the specific people at Harmony Gold who are now responsible for the Robotech franchise is that they put deluded Robotech fanwanky-ness over any business sense. Business sense like mending relations with the Japanese, with Big West, and normalizing things. I know people have said that BW is probably so pissed at them that they won't do it...but...in business, being pissed only goes so far. I'm sure if HG actually tried something more than maybe a memo or a phonecall then they might make progress. But they are too busy sitting around debating whether Rick Hunter should be stuck on the left side or the right side of a black hole in whatever Robotech production ISN'T going to get made in the future, while running around like kings of the universe because Tobey Macguire once said something about Robotech a year or two ago which, according to them, translates into Warner Bros. making them famous - that they fail to actually do anything that makes business sense. Whatever the sales figures are for Robotech and Robotech related merchandise - they aren't good enough. They weren't good enough to even produce a series - which is what Robotech would need to really launch itself - a syndicated television cartoon...a comic book...not a direct to video Movie. But these guys seems to be, above all else, hardcore dedicated fans. They will keep at this no matter what the numbers. Fine by me - as long as they stop harrassing other people who happen to be successful in making video games or Macross products etc or selling them... Pete

Re: G Gundam Mecha and G1 Transformers .... You know... I'm a sucker for both types of mecha. Of course they're unrealistic, over the top and silly. But I like those kind of robots too. On that note - what are the criteria we're using for "ugly" with regard to mecha? What makes a mecha ugly to people? I like laughing at wierdo mecha as much as the next guy, but I also like discovering the virtue in them - seeing them in action or discovering something neat about the story behind them makes them less "ugly." I'm thinking here of Gurren Lagann mainly... I remember when I first saw Gurren Lagann (the Revoltech figure) I thought.... is that kind of like Brave...where they have animal heads on their chests? But then I looked more closely at some of the designs...like Tengenn Toppa Gurren Lagann...(again Revoltech)...and I was like...dude...there's faces all over ...in his stomach...on his knees...his arms are faces...wtf? ... I thought they were just crazy, thoughtly, pointless "wacko" designs. Then I saw the anime and it ALL made sense - given the importance of faces, the Mugen... it all made perfect (albeit insane) sense... So...I think in judging a mecha you need to keep context in mind. Pete

Good point! I love it when small diversions lead to plot-illumination So that's why Misato kissed him ... kind of...sub-consiously anyways... Although...I think Asuka's attraction to Shinji was more remote...that is to say - she is the kind of girl that will grab the nearest guy handy...? If it can't be Kaji...might as well be Shinji-baka...? Asuka's hard to explain because she doesn't behave like a normal girl should... come to think of it... she is possibly the wierdest character I've ever encountered. It's not on account of her fighting spirit - lots of anime girls have that and there's nothing wrong with it... It's also not on account of her somewhat overbearing "look at how pretty I am!" in your face way of being... again - lots of anime girls like that... But there's something about her... I think the fact that Kaji doesn't show even the faintest interest in her really pains her - and I don't think it's so much because Kaji is into "older" women (Misato) - because he was with Misato when she was younger too. Kaji is just into Misato mainly... and Misato acts like a "little girl" when she's drunk and admits to him the real reasons for breaking up with him (and Kaji doesn't like her acting like that...so I guess he's into MATURE women - but mature in the sense of character and not necessarily age)... Asuka is...hm...Asuka is like Shinji actually...Kind of like Shinji lacks experience with women...so Asuka lacks experience with men...the difference is that Asuka doesn't show it as easily - she's full of bluster and stuff...but in the end - as Shinji says when lying next to her at night "you're just a kid too." In fact - Shinji says that to a lot of people - to Misato in episode 1 for instance... Hm... Interesting... Pete

They could have just gone the Batman route and changed the actors every new movie...I don't think it hurt Batman THAT much... Tobey doesn't have to enternally be Spiderman and you don't need to do an origin story every time you change the lead actors. Everybody and their grandmothers know that there have been a zillion Spiderman movies. They need to start treating this stuff like theatres treat Shakespeare. When you go watch Hamlet at a theatre nowadays, chances are it won't even have 90% of the original dialogue from Shakespeare in it - instead it's usually a director's fresh interpretation, commentary, playing with the original...here and there they do the "original" work - but really it's gotten to the point where that's just old hat and boring. It should be the same with Spiderman and other super hero franchises - we don't need a twelve millionth attempt to make it "true" to the "originals" because it never will be. People worry too much about this. Just make a good movie. The romantic comedy angle might work - why not? Sounds fun. Don't take it too seriously - you know...comedy...romantic comedy...it's not like this one movie will define Spiderman forever. I say go for it - make it a romantic comedy - play around with it. Why not? What have they got to loose? Pete

This is the proper direction for scientific inquiry to take. Pete

Not in this thread Robotech, Battle Fortress, Protoculture Matrix, La la la! Robotech, Battle Fortress, Protoculture Matrix! La la la! Hm... As for the Shrewdildo, or whatever that airplane is called: I actually think that asking a member of the Ku Klux Klan how Obama is on Race Relations would be a GOOD idea - because the whole IDEA of improving race relations means that you want people who seemed to be stuck in their racist rut "forever" to learn how to get along with other races...so...you know...you kind'a want to reach out to people instead of forever write them off as hopeless.... I mean...what else is the point of efforts at reconcilliation? So... that analogy is kind of silly. As for the Shrewdildo - In Robotech - you can say it transforms or does cartwheels - who cares? In Southerncross - if it doesn't transform and the creators/official sources don't indicate it transforms - then it doesn't. Robotech is by definition like a 5 year old taking his imagination to random anime and saying they're all connected that that whatever his whim tells him is so about the anime IS so...today at least...if he changes his mind tomorow - then it retcons today - and so on. Pete

Yeah, but the thing is - whenever I tell my Misa what characteristics her movie choices consist of, she vehemently denies it, like it's some big surprise to her that there's sex, violence etc....and then she says "so anyways - I bought a new movie for us to watch with Jeremy Irons/Robert Redford (her favorites) called Seduction/Dying for Love/Broken Heart-Broken Bones (I'm paraphrasing)..." And off we go! I dunno. I think she just doesn't like super robot battles, or monster battles and so when she saw the first couple minutes of episode 1 - which basically consist of no plot, and just a big monster fighting some helicopters ... she was like "I don't care." It was really my fault. I should have started her off on episode 2 or something like that - although I can imagine she wouldn't have liked Misato, who never cleans... She WOULD however say "there's a girl for you! Never cleans and drinks bear in the morning!" Meanwhile - I'm sure she would have LOVED Shinji, who was so proper and attentive to cleanliness.... Alas... Pete

Oh. Oh well. Poor Marx. Search function is your best friend Pete

Ok... So the following question just came to me: Why is it that the Japanese seem NOT to have any trouble with the name 'Sheryl' ? I've never seen Shelyr or heard Shelyr. It's always Sheryl - and yet you'd think we would have seen or heard something about Shelyr Nome... Then again - I never heard of Rynn Minmey either... Could it have something to do with the "Y" ? Does the presence of the consonant Y...or more likely the SOUND associated with it somehow make it easier to place and pronounce the R and the L sound in Japanese, and when Japanese see R and L somehow connected with Y (Lynn, Sheryl) - then they never switch the two? Pete

Yeah - but I also like how apparently Macross continuity isn't so explicit, and sometimes it's just...vaguely esthetic. Like - that scene with Myung that is pictured above - I mean...we don't know for sure what that beam is doing, but in light of Macross 7, we can certainly say that this was an early form of tapping into spiritia - even if they didn't call it that - it was borrowing SOMETHING from Myung to make Sharon more human and therefore give Sharon a connection to her human audience that a "mere" computer couldn't create... The fact that later it turns out that Sharon absorbs Myung's love for Dyson is just a nifty side-effect... But it's never stated, never really said... the only hint we get about scientific thinking from Macross Plus is the one evil dude with glasses saying "I disagree with Aristotle about the body and the soul." Now - this is very interesting. For people who don't know - Aristotle posited that the soul is intimately connected to the body. His predeseccor, Plato (via Socrates - sort of) claimed that the Soul existed eternally and that Souls "participated" in bodies in a process that could be called "becoming." Plato (as usual) told a myth whereby Perfect Souls drank from a well of forgetfulness before being born into bodies, and the life of embodied souls was a life of trying to remember everything they forgot. Thus, they start as children and mature - and the more education they get, the more they remember things. Learning is remembering - since once you learn something, you realize that it is logical (since all knowledge is logical) and therefore you realize that it's something you knew by nature but seemed to have forgotten. In death, the body decayed, but the soul would never die. Plato (again via Socrates) gave a mathematical proof for the immortality of the soul. He argued that by definition, for something to Be, it must exist eternally, for if we say that a thing 'is' and yet then admit that at a certain point in time it stops being, then it both "is" and it "is not" - which is not the same as Being 'as such' (Kath Alto was the special little ancient Greek term he used). So, Plato argued, the soul Is - and yet due to it having been corrupted while drinking from the well of forgetfullness, it must Become again. As usual with Plato, his mathetmatical proofs are all based on inductive reasoning and intermingled with poetic explanations for those things which seem to be beyond the reach of human reason, but which are in fact quite reasonable. It's just that Plato seemed intent on replacing Homer with a new, more rationality-based poetry. Anyways...Along came Aristotle later and said that this is all absurd and that the Soul is forever bound up in the body. Aristotle also differentiated between different levels of Souls - souls had traits, and not all souls had the same traits... I forgot what all the traits were...but I think reproduction was one of them...oh...it should also be remembered that the ancient Greek word for "soul" was "anime" - as in "animate" as in "animating" as in "that which moves something" that which "animates" a living thing. I'm sure it's NOT a coincidence that in Macross 7 we have 'anime spiritia' - the animator of the spirit - that which moves the spirit. Anyways - back to Aristotle - Aristotle basically said - look - if you take a table and melt it down and make it into a chair, then once the table is melted down, it looses the soul of a table and once its' remolded into a chair then it gains the soul of a chair. That is to say, he tied soul to functionality. In terms of human beings, he would argue that without the body, the human soul would not be human, since humanity by definition consisted of embodiment and all of the limits that physical embodiment in this world consisted in. When the dude-with-glasses in Macross Plus says "I disagree with Aristotle about the soul" - he is explicitly talking about disagreeing with Aristotle that the soul is intimately bound with the body. This dude clearly thinks you can take Myung's soul and put it into a computer and manipulate it. And in Macross Plus at least - he's right. Sharon can't tell that she's just a program -she really thinks she loves Dyson and goes nutts trying to have him - which might indeed be Myung's sub-conscious desire. But the question of the extent to which Sharon is just a malfunctioning copy of Myung's soul or whether Myung's soul was perfectly replicated is an open one - and it hinges a bit on exactly what the dude in M+ says - namely - what is your view of Aristotle's idea about the soul? Pete

The wierd thing about that (the whole "Girlfriend thinks NGE is not for her" bit, which I get from my girl too), is that when SHE makes me watch a movie of her choice, the movie usually has: 1) Graphic adultery/sex (but usually it's adultery) 2) Graphic murder with sexual motivation 3) Children in psychopathic situations Seriously... Every time she gets to pick a movie, it's usually titled "Deadly Lust," "Deep Thrust of the Love Knife" or something with double entente and it absolutely must contain lots of sex and lots of grizzly violence. She generally likes psychological thrillers.... Like lately we watched Hole in the Floor, which is all about a 15 year old boy who comes up to stay with some writer as his intern and his wife seduces him while he almost gets murdered by a model who he tried to sleep with...Before that it was a movie about a member of parliament who seduced the fiance of his son, who then saw the two of them having sex and was so shocked that he fell down 10 flights of stairs and broke his neck...Before that it was Lolita (also with Jeremy Irons, who she likes)...Before that it was a movie with Demy Moore in which a guy and his wife decide that she'll prostitute herself to a rich dude so they can buy a house but then of course the rich dude seduces the wife (although the guy does get his money)...Before that it was a movie about a woman who has a steamy affair with a young student and then her husband murders him in a fit of rage and the woman helps her husband bury the body and hides it from the police... But I'm wierd for watching anime and liking Evangelion Pete

It would explain the divorce/seperation in Macross 7 Pete

He even gets a case to carry him in Pete

This is why I never pay attention to numbers in an anime... Besides - the numbers in a script (and therefore in a show bible) should just be treated as very rough outlines for animators to know what proportions things need to have viz-a-viz one another... I mean....EVEN something as detailed as Mr. March's compedium - now...obviously the data there are official/correct but... has anyone checked? CAN any one check? And by "check" I don't mean that Mr. March might have gotten something wrong. Nope. But rather - what if the data don't hold together - or at least kind of hold together real flimsy like? Kind of like these weights/heights for the characters. I mean -seriously - Roy is taller than Kakizake, and Kakizake weighs THREE TIMES Hikaru Ichijo, who is himself shorter than Misa and weighs less than Claudia but whose feet are bigger than a micronized Breetai? This is why we should just stick to the love story in Macross. I am very happy that Macross fandom in general does not have a tendency to have SERIOUS discussions about these kind of subjects. Pete

I personally think it's popular for the story. Kind of like Optimus Prime is pretty banal as a mecha, but he's iconic. So too the RX-78-2. Mobile Suit Gundam as a story was interesting enough that when you see the Mecha you're supposed to have nostalgic flashbacks to Amuro duking it out with Char in space or with the Gouf in the desert etc etc. ... In fact - I wonder to what extent our perception of a mecha as ugly is influenced by the extent to which we liked/disliked the story it featured in... Pete