JB0

Just joking around. I actually recognized it. Heck, I even liked Macross 7. But I'm not above poking fun at it. Even for random reasons of insanity.

Not to mention the Jetfire paintjob is pretty close to the Hikaru DYRL scheme already. Ignoring FAST packs, you just add a red nosecone and visor.

I love that one of the Millia 1J and... I dunno, looks like some rowboat-eck thing behind it... The last one with the explosion rolling off the Skull 1 GERWALK's wing is beautiful too.

Sadly, there's a large number of people out there that believe Robotech = Macross. One more, right there.

Ah. ... The Glaug actually looks pretty sweet. Zillion! It's better than Lazer Tag!

Awesome! I missed it, somehow.

Huh. Guess I'll have to dig that old VHS out again. Taped it off teh air way back in the day. Think I stil have the tape.

I'm skeptical, especially since they're trying to make it a class-action suit. If it goes class-action, his windfall goes byebye. It's also not usually a tactic that works on large corporations anyways, since they can afford better lawyers. Certainly, I think it's a dumb case(if they were adressing the no-move scratches, it'd be a bigger deal). But I appreciate the punitive damage system being available. And I'm surprised no one's stopping him. Surely the judges should be aware he's gaming the system and just dismissing him outright by now. Especially as he readily admits it doesn't affect him.

I know I've said it a billion times, but... The Soundwave MP3 player would've been perfect IF it'd used CompactFlash cards and come with cassetebots that turned into (non-functional) CF cards. The legendary Dinobot Combiner!111111 ... Alongside Predaking? Well, so far we've got Prime and Magnus, Starscream and Skywarp, Megatron, and Grimlock... Teams are balanced. And don't you be dissin' Shockwave! MP Shockwave, with real working light and sound! Seriously, I'm surprised they're doing something with no repaint potential on Grim, so... If the next mold is repaintable(far froma safe bet), we get... Ratchet and Ironhide! With limited edition Movie Damage Repaints for posing with the MP Megatron!11111 .... Though MP3 Soundwave didn't get a black Soundblaster version, did it? That kinda torpedoes the repaint angle. (even if it did get iPod White) Ooooohhh, there we go! Next MP is actually a Music Label Blaster! Actually, my best guess WOULD be Ratchet/Ironhide. Sorry for the absurd level of dumb. I just watched more G Gundam than is healthy for one sitting.

Hear, hear! It's the way of the internet!

This one's actually kind of interesting, because zentradi regulds appeared briefly in the small portion of Sentinels that was animated, DESPITE it being in an era when HG wasn't fighting tooth and nail over everything(Macross 2, DYRL). I've always wondered what the heck happened there, especially when tehy went out of their way to redesign Britai/hit him with the ugly stick.

It's a side effect, and I certainly wouldn't mind if punitive damages were awarded to someone other than the suit-bringer. It was a flawed one. It's very clear from the word 'punitive' that the 50 grand is NOT compensation for his scratched disks. You know it, I know it, and he knows it.

It's not compensation. It's punitive damages. There's a big difference. Compensation means they're paying you for what you lost. Punitive damages are rewarded ON TOP OF compensation. As punishment for the company's misbehavior. 180 bucks is chump change for a large corporation. Doubly so for Microsoft. 50 grand isn't. And THAT is why punitive damages exist.

Masterpiece Ginrai/Powermaster Prime! ... What? It was my first Prime. And the lack of legs is appalling.

At least it's simpler. There's only three BluRay Disk regions, as opposed to the ... 14? Digital V??? Disk regions.

The segregation wasn't as severe in the TV series as DYRL, though. There didn't seem to be any significant antipathy between genders in the TV show. In fact, Britai was shocked that the Lap'Lamiz fleet was replacing him. While post-DYRL, this could be seen as "Wait, wait... .you're sending a WOMAN to do a MAN'S job?", the original context was more along the line of "Holy crap, this is THAT big a deal?" And the spies were CLEARLY in awe that they were being delivered to the Macross by Millia. So the gender segregation didn't look to be any sort of dispute. You just didn't have co-ed ships. ... Personally, I thought it was interesting that the "elite" soldiers were women. I wonder if that's just the Lap'Lamiz fleet specifically is awesome, or if women were the "special ops" Zentradi forces. On the other hand, Milia and Chlore had maintained a rivalry all during her active Zentradi career. That requires a good degree of communication. Chlore may have assumed she was dead when she stopped sending kill updates. It's possible that Bodol was making some sort of power play by hoarding information. Or saving face by keeping his fleet's cultural contamination a secret. He may've intended to announce that he'd discovered and scoured a cultured world AFTER he came back. Because, really... what sort of backwater goofball planet could hope to resist an entire fleet? They could've also decided that when Bodol didn't come back, it was time to heed the ancient legends and leave the worlds of the miclones alone. Even when the jerks came back and jacked a factory satellite later. "Leave 'em alone. Let 'em have it. "They stole a factory satellite. Those things are hard to come by these days." "They also vaped a Fulbtzs-Berrentzs. Under full battle alert. They fought threw the whole attached fleet to get there. They threw reaction weapons around like ration packs in the process. Do you wanna be the guy leading the recapture mission?" "When you put it that way... " "Let 'em have it?" "Yeah..." And we DO know that the ships from Bodol's fleet retreated somewhere. Presumably, they would be joining up with some other force, not roving the galaxy as a lost fleet. Otherwise there's no point to retreating. Of course, there's no clue in the franchise either way. There may be even be something above Bodol, but not the top. It's.... an interesting topic. I DEMAND KAWAMORI ADDRESS IT IN HIS NEW MECHA BASKETBALL ANIME!

I gloat. TOLD y'all there was nothing 360-ish in there.

That's HG's official excuse, and it works for Macross Plus. Macross 2(as well as Clash of the Bionoids) were released in Robotech's prime, though. I'm fairly certain they originally understood that they didn't own Macross, and decided that much later.

The remaster was given to them by HG, who got it from Animeigo. So it's not only officially licensed, they got their source materials from HG. In fact, Animeigo did the hard part, the french company just retranslated and made a new package.

They haven't blocked importation of J DVDs. They have, in fact, made english-translated DVDs of that part of Macross they can get masters for readily available. In FACT, our SDF Macross DVDs are BETTER THAN JAPAN'S. How has free speech been violated? Other than HG's own boards, which last I heard, have dedicated Macross, MOSPEADA, and Southern Cross sections, where have they attempted to moderate speech in the slightest? Free speech is not license to pirate. Which is what undermining HG's alleged license would be: piracy(of the modern kind, of course, not the classical ARRR, MATEY! kind). Or are you also arguing that Disney's refusal to publish Song of the South on US DVD is in fact in violation of my freedom of speech rights? And if they'd covered their rears back in the 80s before they knew this was going to be a huge franchise, there wouldn't be any debate now. Arguably, it's not protecting Big West's rights. But that's dependent on Big West caring enough to make a case. Your twisting of free speech to include buying plastic toys is comical at best, and disgusting at worst. You're saying we need to write our congressmen and tell them they need to rewrite the copyright law to invalidate existing licenses because of a 20-year-old cartoon? Why not Macross? Are you guys getting your DYRL BluRay remasters and your 1/48 Yamatos? There is no court ruling. There IS a license, but no one knows what specifically it says(except the old FASA guys). The problem is no one actually affected cares enough to argue the point. WE are not affected, because WE are not trying to release Valk toys or licensed english DVDs. All it takes is ONE person pushing the issue to bring it to court. What legal battle? Cease and desist letters are cheap, and none have actually started a fight. Not even when they were demanding all infringing merchandise be shipped to HG headquarters(which is NOT part of US copyright law, in any way). More like doesn't care. Big West is being apathetic. Tatsunoko is very much on HG's side, as they're the ones benefiting financially(and as I understand it, Big West is a major shareholder in Tatsunoko nowadays anyway). Bandai has better things to do than fight Big West's legal battles for them. I can import my toys. I can import my DVDs. I can download subtitles for my DVDs. My enjoyment of the franchise is largely unaffected. And again, explain how this is an AMERICAN issue and not a GLOBAL issue. HG claims they purchased ALL rights outside Japan from Tatsunoko.

DVDs use MPEG2, at appropriate resolutions and refresh rates for their region's analog TV standards(some areas use PAL60 or NTSC50). As I understand things, most european TVs will take 60Hz signals, and the NTSC/PAL encoding is solely the DVD player's responsibility. And the cheap shitty Apex players I've had experience were capable of outputting either 50Hz PAL or 60Hz NTSC on any source disk. So if your player can read a region 1 disk, it SHOULD be able to output a usable signal. I make no guarantees, but... it's how I understand things to work. And if it doesn't... you can rip the MPEG streams to your PC and reformat them?

Robotech: Protoculture is a magic power source(later revealed to be a plant?). Macross: Protoculture is an ancient alien civilization, literally the first culture in the galaxy.

It never was welcome. HG's been throwing hissy fits for what, fifteen years now? Yup. You mean like they did when they localized VF-X2, then bailed out on the release at the very last minute, after taking out multi-page magazine ads and demo disk space? No one will ever convince me that the official story about Bandai suddenly realizing THAT late that the game wouldn't sell is true. I think HG threatend to sue, and they decided it wasn't worth fighting. It wouldn't matter if HG's claims are valid or not. The cost of duking it out in court isn't worth it when they can grab a game/anime that ISN'T mired in a quasi-legal fiasco. It is, admittedly, ALSO possible that the game was vetoed by SCEA. It wouldn't be the only title to disappear at the last minute. Megaman Battle & Chase had a similarly late death, though the story on that one is much clearer. Yup. I suspect B. That's the usual problem. Ummm... I don't recall this being a free speech issue. No one's ever said anything about banning Macross. Besides, what about copyright law? I don't recall free speech extending to reproductions of someone else's work without compensation. Admittedly, the US constitution does not contain copyright, but free speech is not an absolute "say, draw, or make anything you darn well please" rule. Tangentally, free speech NOT a constitutional right, or a first amendment right. It's a pre-existing right, presumably one of the ones that people are "endowed by their creator" with in the Declaration of Independence, and the first amendment merely ensures that the federal government does not infringe upon it. The entire bill of rights is carefully worded to make it PROTECT rights, not GRANT them(and in fact, dedicates an amendment to saying as much, albeit in legalese). A. The courts aren't involved. The only time they ever got to a point where anything happened was in the BattleTech case. And even that wound up settled out of court. Sadly, one of the terms of the settlement was that the Battletech guys couldn't talk about it. Given they're the only people to have SEEN HG's alleged license... (I recall one of the guys saying in a somewhat vague fashion that the license wasn't as concrete as HG made it out to be, but it wasn't a direct statement of what they actually had) B. HG's argument isn't that Macross merchandise is infringing on the Robotech brand. Their argument is that they own exclusive rights to the Macross franchise outside Japan, via their contract with Tatsunoko. Which is questionable at best, given Tatsunoko doesn't OWN rights to the Macross franchise, and almost certainly has no toy rights to anything. Even assuming HG's license says what they claim it does, imported merchandise falls into a gray area. I gather it's dependent, among other things, on volume imported. But HG has never approached it in a proper manner. ... If the chinese bootleggers were actually legitimately licensed to produce Transformers products twenty years ago, and no one was really sure what their license said anymore. Certainly not. In fact, you're supposed to buy the licensed region 1 SDF Macross DVDs from ADV for the low, low price of ... well, whatever they go for right now. And then you're supposed to write Big West and tell them to quit refusing to send vidoe files to their licensed US distributor! YEAH! It's all Big West's fault for not acknowledging HG's exclusive international distribution contract! Or at least, that's Harmony Gold's take on things. LEGALLY, until the license issue is resolved, the only people that can successfully acquire a license to produce Non-SDF Macross merchandise are operating in Japan and officially targeting the japanese market. As Big West doesn't seem willing to come over here and sue Harmony Gold, or start distributing anime themselves and waiting for Harmony Gold to sue them, it seems unlikely that the issue will be resolved any time soon. The closest anyone's come is ... was it Tokyopop that licensed Macross 7 Trash? They got a license from Big West. Then got a license from Harmony Gold. Then Big West pulled their license because they were paying license fees to HG. And HG deleted the announcement of the manga release off robotech.com. So... how exactly does the Macross market look in Europe? You got any Macross Zero DVDs yet? Frontier toys starting to clog the local Toys R Us? Yeah. This affects you too. HG claims INTERNATIONAL rights, remember? Not US rights.

It's like Xerox machines. The PROPER term for a VF is Variable Fighter, but the first model to do it right had it's name applied informally to the entire concept.

They damn well BETTER!