Deadzone

Finallly got one at Walmart in Anaheim. Yesss!

Where in the valley? I went to the walmart past sherman way and they had none. I went to TRU and Target in Burbank and came up with squat. I do hear of people getting them, but where?

Doh, I went to the walmarts, targets, and TRU in my area and couldn't find one. I think toy collectors and scaplers are buying them up hoping for them to go up in value. Of course, sounds like there will be plenty in a couple of weeks at least I hope so. Thanks for the info for everyone who posted.

Thought I would bring this topic out from the dead. Does anybody in the Southern California area know where to get a prime anymore. I went to the brand new target store opening on La Brea and Santa Monica and the prime was sold out the day before it opened. Apparently, they had friends of employees get first crack at merchendise the night before and the Primes were sold out in an instant. I'm not too worried, but I just hope the prime will be released like Unicron. At first he was impossible to find for me, but now Unicron is readily available everywhere. Is the 20th prime going to be limited release, or will what happened to Unicron happen to Prime? I know smokescreens were hard to find at first, but they are everywhere now too. Anyone with info, please help.

Yeah, my sister has one and the stripes are black. Those almost look like arms from the Transformer Jetfire. What's going on?

I am really hoping these MPC alphas will drop the prices of the Gakken version. None of Toynami's toys have done it for me so far. The only good that comes out of them is some people may decide to sell their old alphas and pick these up. One can dream.

Hey, How much are those things going for? I saw them selling on the TRU site for eighty bucks! I was hoping that was a typo or something. Are they really $80.00?

If toy wave is run by Ken, who I met in Hong Kong through Neova, I would say he is the nicest, most reliable seller you can find. The guy actually got on the subway and brought the toys I wanted to me. I would have no problems buying from him again. I wonder if he's on the SS list yet?

Good to hear from you again. Any chance you will be finishing the project to show Toynami how an Alpha/Legioss should be done? I sincerely hope so. In terms of the MPC Alpha, I am in agreement with the general consensus. The toy is okay at a lower price point. I would be willing to pay $25.00 for it if the thing shows up in a bargain bin. The final product just looks too cheap with the low quality plastic, ugly seams, and a painted canopy. Reminds me of the childrens toys kids played with when they were three or four (the canopy I mean). Funny thing is, the Gakken Alpha was made several years back, and I still think that toy kicks ass. The proportions are wrong, but the scale and ABS plastic more than makes up for it. How come in our age of technology, remakes are getting crappier? I just hope that the prices for the Gakkens start coming down as a result of the MPC release. Of course if the good Captain decides to finish his project, I would start saving up money for that instead.

You might have me confused with someone else. The only thing I could say in Cantonese was: "Where is the bathroom?" In terms of bargaining, Neova was a big help. You seemed to do pretty well too with the MPC Primes. BTW: You said you lived close to LA. When are you going to have a get together again?

I actually liked hearing about how the toy companies came to be. Being the newbie it gave me a better understanding of the toy industry as a whole. And as for my thought bubble, it should read: "I wonder if anybody realizes there is five thousand dollars in this black bag?"

Sorry I am replying so late. I just hooked up my DSL today and got on line. I woke up at 5:00 in the morning and drove down here to LA. I am very tired and catching a cold so I'll just say, it was great seeing all you guys and checking out the toy shops in Hong Kong. Special thanks to Graham and Neova for being our toy tour guides. I'll be posting again soon. Later...

Alright, 11:00 am on friday Jan. 9 2004. I can make that. This better be the final date. I am leaving for HK on monday and won't have internet access at the place I am staying at. In fact, I don't even have good internet access at my parents place. I'm typing this from my sisters computer. I just don't want to show up at kowloon hotel and twiddle my thumbs for three hours only to find out the meeting date got moved to Thursday or Saturday. So, if everything goes as planned, I will be seeing you guys on Friday. Safe trips to all.

That scene and line was right out of the book, FYI. Don't fault the filmmakers for sticking to the source. Well, Like I said. I never read the books. However, the scene was extremely predictable in terms of what happened. So, If that is what happened in the book, I will fault the writer.

Well, I too saw the movie at 12:01 am. Not because I'm a big fan, but my friend bought an extra ticket and needed someone to go or take the loss. I thought I would help him out since I wanted to see the last one eventually anyway. I never read any of the books so watching these movies was a completely new experience for me. I was hoping that the movies would get increasingly better, but I think the overall quality remained the same between the first one to the third one. I didn't dislike them, but I wasn't as impressed as some of my friends. The Good: Like the other two movies, Return of the King has amazing visual effects. The sets, the castle establishing shots, the armies of orcs and humans all look very real and bring you into the moment. The fighting sequences are well choreographed with multiple parts of action happening in the foreground and background which punches home the chaos and brutality of a battle. I also got a better sense of the threat of the orcs in this one. In the previous movies, the orcs were threatening mainly because of their numbers. However, most of them fought with poor skills especially when fighting the heroes. (I was beginning to think that the dwarf and the elf could stop the whole army by themselves). In the third installment, I thought the orcs were more menacing partly because they attacked this time with all sorts of strange and imposing creatures. Something about a fifty foot tall ogre and an airforce of dragons seems scarier than a bunch of guys dressed up in Halloween costumes. The journey of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum particularly interested me. You knew Gollum would turn on them at some point, but the question was when. It aslo had a Star Wars feel in how an epic battle was going on while the fate of Middle Earth rested heavily on a small group trying to accomplish their mission. Return of the Jedi comes to mind. A band of soldiers had to take down the shield before the main force could attack the Death Star. The parrallel stories allows the movie to intercut between them and keep the pacing going without bogging down the story. The Bad: One of the biggest problems I had with Return of the King is the same that I had with all three. The movies seem like they are trying to cram everything from the books into a three and a half hour movie. Characters, plot lines and such are introduced without proper background information and development. For people who have read the books, they may think this is fine because they are coming in with a good knowledge of all the characters and storyline. For a newcomer like me, I felt like the characters didn't really have any sort of an arc. From the first movie, I found out that the heros were honorable, brave, good fighters, and loyal. In the second second movie, they were honorable, brave, good fighters, and loyal. Not much has changed in the third one. I don't know what made them this way. They just are. In addition, many of the scenes appear cut short and lack the dramatic effect they could of had because the movie was trying to get through so much information in the allotted 3 and a half hour time frame. So what's the answer. There is a reason books are abridged for movies. Die hard fans would of course complain, but I think for a movie to be really good it has to stand on its own without having to read the books. I have yet to read Mario Puzo's the Godfather, but I love watching that movie over and over again. Peter Jackson shows that he is skilled in terms of staging action, but he does need to work on directing drama. Several scenes come off as hokey with the slow motion shots (ie Frodo waking up and all of his buddies joining him on the bed). Some of the writing does not help either. For example, when the evil knight on the dragon comes to kill the king of Rohan, he has been established as one of the deadliest fighters. Then he decides to walk over to the woman soldier and tell her no man can kill him. Of course, she stabs him and says "I am no man." I can usually predict what will happen in these types of stories, but when I start predicting the lines the characters will say, something is wrong. Overall, I think this is probably the best fantasy adventure movie people will see in awhile. It provides all the visuals, kicks, and excitement that most movie goers want. Also, do yourself a favor and see it in the theaters. I saw the Two Towers on DVD and the visuals and sound just don't have the same effect. Personally, the movie falls short for me because I prefer films that concentrate more on the characters than just moving through the plot with extravagent action sequences. Two of my favorite films are One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Shawshank Redemption. So your enjoyment of this film will rely heavily on what you want out of the movie going experience. My three cents.

Wow, I thought this thread was dead. Seems like people who do everything but hold mock battles is the majority. I may start holding mock battles when I finish my 1:1 scale valkyrie and fly bombing missions over Hollywood... Oh.... I've said too much.

Hey I can meet you guys for one of the days. Which day would be the best for hitting toy shops? Is there somebody I should contact and be talking with? Thanks.

It's Crantastic! (Simpsons ref) Great work. I too also want to know how you did the panel lines. They don't stand out as much as some other pieces I've seen which is a good thing. I always liked the subtle panel lining opposed to the hard dark lines.

Damn, do they make Freespace for the Macintosh. It probably wouldn't run on my old PC.

I was going to get a smokescreen but now I'm waiting for this guy. The colors to me look much much better. I think I'll customize one into a brown Subaru and call it Brownstreak. Wait a minute. Maybe that's not such a good idea.

Yeah, my sentiments exactly. The Macross FAQ works for some of the obvious threads being locked, but for some of the not so obvious ones, we really are clueless why they are being shut down.

I get some of my post locked for some reason. I have no idea why. Alot of other people get their post locked for some reason. They have no idea why. Then they come here bitching and moaning about what happened. I was wondering if the mods could just provide a one sentence explanation on why a thread is locked before locking it. It would help guide the members on what they are doing wrong. Also, it saves you guys the hassle of having to answer these members questions individually. How about it? Thanks.

Yeah I checked out that thread. However, I will be going to HK with my mother, and I don't want to ditch her to go toy shopping although that does sound like fun. I don't think she would fit in well with a bunch of Macrossworld members. I think I have to do some research into the Gundam thing. I'm looking for stuff that is small so I can put them in my suitcase but have good resale value. Thanks for the advice guys. And if anybody has anymore ideas, they would be greatly appreciated.

I just wanted some people's opinion on what the best toys are to buy in Hong Kong for resale over here. I am going this coming January and I had to buy a ticket for $700! That means I will be extremely broke. So I figured I would buy some toys over there and resell them on ebay or something to try and make some of my money back. The only problem is, I'm not exactly sure what are the best toys to get in Hong Kong to do this. Any suggestions?

People tell me to be fair. They say I can't bad mouth something until I actually see it. So, I'm not going to bad mouth Last Samurai, but I will bad mouth Tom Cruise. The guy is an ego maniac who seems to want to make movies that try to promote him as a great actor. What's wrong with that you say? The problem is he is more interested in trying to make himself look good as opposed to making the movie good. The results are movies that lack any heart. Instead of rooting for his character naturally because the character is genuine and a descent person, you find yourself feeling rather dettached because the movie is telling you to root for his character usually through several contrived scenes where the hero faces phony baloney "hardships". Of course, some people will say that I have to give him another chance. Maybe he has changed in his latest picture. Sorry, at $9.00 a pop, I'm tired of giving him chances.