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JB0

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Everything posted by JB0

  1. JB0
    Did someone ask for the Stampede Valkyrie? (No joke, I really do want to see this guy rendered in plastic)
  2. JB0
    Trademark. Big West still holds the copyright. Trademarks can definitely be challenged, but how successfully is up in the air. Particularly as US law designates "intent to use" as a valid reason to hold a trademark, and they have enough historical usage of it to make a believable case that they intend to do so again. And, well, they DO still use some of the Macross trademarks. The UN Spacy kite appears on all their VF-1 toys, as well as the singing Minmay doll toy. That they seem to be backing off of the phrase "Macross Saga" on their newer merchandise comes as a surprise to me, admittedly, but it still appears on some of their older merchandise that's currently available .
  3. JB0
    Pretty sure the answer is a big "nope". I think they're just in a "sue everyone for everything" phase. It happens every few years.
  4. JB0
    Good. Very good.
  5. JB0
    I believe World Event Productions actually bought Golion outright a few years back. My understanding is after one too many times in court over the issue of sequels and remakes, they decided enough was enough. Edit: Easy confirmation. Grabbed the Soul of Chogokin Golion/Voltron box. The legalese line on the front of the japanese box says Golion is copyright World Event Productions. They own it now. It was probably a cheap purchase, given how little it was making Toei outside of Voltron licensing.
  6. JB0
    I think that if HG loses the licenses to the Robotech shows, Robotech as we know it is dead. No one can do anything with it. The closest example I can think of is the video game Pac-Man Jr. Midway created it while they had the Pac-Man distribution license, which has since reverted to Namco. Right now Midway owns the game, Namco owns the name, and no one can do anything with it.
  7. JB0
    Wet blanket time! Even if HG loses the license and Robotech dies, we still have to wait for their trademark on the Macross name to fizzle out, because that is independent of licensing(and was filed out of spite; but that's irrelevant).
  8. JB0
    Pretty sure that black strip is supposed to be the track that the van door slides on. Odd place to start caring about detail, since he doesn't much look like he HAS a sliding door through all those panel lines.
  9. JB0
    I believe the kids these days say "quoted for truth"? I honestly thought someone had bumped a fifteen-year-old thread at first. This is an entirely different, and MUCH more entertaining, spectacle.
  10. JB0
    I enjoyed Robotech too. Used to have a complete set of the novels. Even enjoyed The Sentinels. But End of the Circle was, ummm, kind of awful.
  11. JB0
    I had successfully forgotten End of the Circle until just now. THANKS A LOT.
  12. JB0
    That was what I was afraid of. The market just won't tolerate a Prime that isn't "anime accurate".
  13. JB0
    So I had a thought kicking around in my head, and I'mma bounce it off you guys. Basically, every Optimus Prime toy suffers from one of two problems: 1. There's no trailer. Truck mode is lonely and incomplete without the iconic box trailer. 2. There IS a trailer. There's a big chunk of plastic just sitting there wasting space in robot mode. So here's the thing.... OTHER characters have large superfluous parts that origami down to become a part of the robot. Why doesn't anyone take a cue from some of these OTHER robot semis and do a Motormaster, Ultra Magnus, or God Ginrai-style transformation for Prime? Particularly as Ultra Magnus has already made the transition from separate trailer to Motormaster-style. Is it just because "if he combines with the trailer he's not Optimus", or is there some really good reason not to do it?
  14. JB0
    Quite possible. He's definitely made an attempt to be a real shuttle. I generally prefer that when they are supposed to have real-world forms, they look like the real thing. The original Blitzwing toy always struck me as a really janky plane, though I admit there's a certain bit of nostalgia for that chunky bijet, just because it was so far away from what it should be that it sort of became its own thing, more like a proto-cybertronian mode than a real F-15*. Astrotrain, though, always landed in that "wants to be a shuttle, can't quite pull it off" zone, so there's not a lot of nostalgia for his specific shortcomings in my heart. *I'm a lot more forgiving of the sci-fi cybertronian modes, as long as they don't just look like robot parts slapped together into a new arrangement. But even then, for some of them to be viewed as functional vehicles beggars imagination.
  15. JB0
    I just can't abide that shuttle, man. I mean, it isn't the worst of the legally-distinct convertible robots(or the Classics thing), but... It isn't any better than the original toy, either. Surely we can get a decent STS orbiter out of a triple-changer with 21st-century toy engineering.
  16. JB0
    Man, Astrotrain... 'S amazing how many really bad shuttle modes have come out of him. After all the attempts, official and unofficial, at all sorts of price points, you'd think there'd be at least one or two hits.
  17. JB0
    In fairness, the Decepticons had all the GOOD molds.
  18. JB0
    I think so, yeah. Conventional wisdom was that badguy toys don't sell, so there were more autobot toys early on.
  19. JB0
    Instead of Excalibur, it should've entered service with the name Reaper.
  20. JB0
    As I recall, a few had crashed, at least one fatally. The YF-19 was a bloodthirsty little jet.
  21. JB0
    You can still fight get dressed when you're drunk.
  22. JB0
    It raises the LCF* of the class if it can transform. *Look-Cool Factor
  23. JB0
    I think you are missing the important thing. FT included THREE energon cubes instead of one. That is triple the value right there. THAT'S why they command a premium.
  24. JB0
    I don't think it is nostalgia. He looks very technically sound, and the extra girth doesn't hurt here near as much as it did on Kickbutt. Not-Shrapnel doesn't really do much of anything to disguise the arms(in fairness, neither did the original, but it was a lot cheaper), and the rear deck doesn't line up the way it should. Technically-speaking he's probably the worst of the three, but he's Shrapnel and slavishly toy-styled so I give him a huge pass. Also, the headgun swap at transformation is super-clever of them.
  25. JB0
    Quite understandable. Protection of colony fleets and planets should be a very high priority. There's no sense in leading an antagonistic force with the firepower to glass an entire planet in seconds to your front door, even if the chance to wipe all humanity out of the universe has long passed. Though.... it seems a fleet with a suitably tactical commander could go on a good-sized rampage if they gained access to the galaxy network broadcasts. I admit that falls in the realm of Clarke's sufficiently advanced technology, but it is hard to imagine that one can't extract or extrapolate broadcast locations from the GN datastreams and generate a hit list of cultured planets, making the potential damage FAR greater than a single lost fleet or planet. Another good reason to keep non-assimilated zentradi in the dark. (Aaaand now I'm trying to work out how one would obscure spatial origins while operating a reliable and maintainable network infrastructure. I think I just nerd-sniped myself.) I second this.
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