JB0

As I understand it, repulsors don't spew smoke and fire. The glove beams are repulsors and the boot jets are something else. The big problem(at least for a basic powered exoskeleton) at this point is energy density. It's very difficult to get something that can carry a load AND use a compact power source. If you could make a multi-gigawatt can of beans like Stark did, we'd have powered armor now. Hell, they're small enough that if you run up against the limits of the "reactor", you can just add a second, and a third, and a fourth... A large backpack could carry enough electrical power to supply an entire nation(remember, EACH ONE outputs more electricity than the largest nuclear reactors on Earth.). Certainly flight and palm guns present other issues. But you could probably slap a small railgun along the forearm with a power supply like that(another tech on the verge of feasability, waiting for the right power supply). Or mount it on the shoulder(hello, War Machine), though that makes for more difficult aiming. You MIGHT could set up a Macross-style jet engine for flight. Use electricity from the arc reactor to create heat instead of combustion. But there's a lot more problems with humanoid flight that raw power just won't solve(hence why Stark needed the glove repulsors in the first place). That's part of what makes Iron Man so interesting. The concept is approaching the upper bounds of reality.

You forgot the computer virus. Oh, it certainly helps, and I'll readily roast movies for bad tech. Especially if it's done in a serious context. But comic book movies are pretty much technically unsound by definition. Spiderman 2 was one of the rare instances of me getting really worked up about comic-book-movie physics. Largely because their depiction of fusion was wrong on so very many levels. Though I thought Doc Ock's plot-device chip existed solely to avoid doing character development with him(there were plenty of perfectly good reasons for him to snap WITHOUT the robot arms taking over his brain). They still don't have any source of fuel, with the possible exception of Stark's booze breath. Or space for a reaction chamber or rocket nozzle. I give Rocketeer(and the long line of rocketpacks before him) more realism points just for that. It may cook the legs off, but it at least stands a chance of working(for a minute or so).

Someone should write a fanfic about that.

Yeah. And there's not any room for shock absorption in the final suit either. The Iron Monger suit is the only one that's got ANY room for shock absorption. If you're gonna crash, THAT'S the one you wanna crash in. But it's a comic book movie. Physics stops at the door. Otherwise... there's no room for any reactant, so you can't fly in the first place. And the mini-arc-reactor has WAY too much power output to be cool to the touch. It should've roasted Stark's heart. And the utter absurdity of building ANY of that in a cave with 80s electronics hobbyist... Yeah. Suspension of disbelief is your friend.

Right. If he'd been trying to commercialize it, he'd've offered up the blueprints himself, and Stane wouldn't have had to shout at his goons and then attempt to murder Stark to get it.

Saw the movie earlier today. It is awesome. Given my QUITE loose standards for realism in comic book movies, I only saw one real flaw. Stane and Stark are both looking for a way to keep the business profitable after Stark freezes their weapons production, both of them know about the arc reactor in Stark's chest("Proof that Tony Stark has a heart")... And neither one of them considers for the briefest of moments that a device the size of a can of beans with more wattage than a large nuclear power plant and no significant thermal, radioactive, or toxic chemical byproducts MIGHT have commercial applications? Yeeeeah....

Y'all better respect my Texan "y'all".

He also uses them to perform some repairs on Hikaru's battered 1D shortly after the crash, if I recall.

The DYRL shot was also likely impossible, given the VF-1 design. The gunpod would have to be attached pointing backwards in fighter mode for that to work.

I believe the aerial snatch and grab is standard, as unpleasant as it is. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I was thinking similar, actually. It looks to me like it's blonde with an iridescent coating, giving it a purplish reflection when the light hits it right.

It wasn't really clear if they were worn out or just being pushed to the limit, but folding the factory satellite to Earth from... wherever it was... stressed the fold generators pretty hard, based on the chatter on the bridge. That's really the only established upper limit that I know of.

The flipside is.... they're also a lot more fragile than a planet. We've already seen two decompression incidents in Frontier. And while the main dome has enough volume that it was relatively safe(as safe as you can ever call a hull breach in deep space on a long-range colony ship), the one in the smaller dome was pretty serious. 'Sides, they didn't kick giant alien ass to become a bunch of wandering space nomads.

But on the other hand, feedback is nice. Nothing wrong with constructive criticism, as long as you keep it friendly.

Why play favorites? Watch the first one to come out, then watch the preferred one later. It's what I'd do if the raw image quality wasn't so much better than the pre-subbed video files. The image artifacting in the fansubs was sufficiently distracting that I swear by a raw + Gattai's subtitle file. No offense to everyone else.

It's also possible the VF-0 was testing the new simplified cockpit design as well as unspecified overtechnology. Officially, the Valks "used in the production of" DYRL were a later model than the ones seen in the original TV series. Yeah. It's pretty clear DYRL is the final desired visual style. I suspect the movie cockpit is a result of Kawamori continuing to tweak the design after finalizing it for TV series production, especially since in many respects it's EASIER to draw than the TV series one(a lot less parts to fidget with). I was quite fond of the Zero eye-tracker. Even if the pilots DID look like they were having a seizure. It's also one of those changes that doesn't conflict with anything, which is the best kind of retcon. Just because we've never seen it doesn't mean it's not there. And really, the specifics of targeting have always been a little vague, especially the rapid anti-missile fire. Though I will always wonder why Hikaru's 1S had a "cut a small circle out of a wall" targeting program loaded for the final battle.

True. But on the other hand... the Macross 5 fleet was predominantly, if not exclusively, zentradi. It's not like segregated fleets haven't happened before.

The drive's become a lot cheaper in the last year. And the format war is over. I'm not saying it wasn't the right thing to do at the time*, but the rumor is that they're integrating HD disk capabilities NOW. *I still think the entire generation launched 2 years early, but... meh.

She DOES have Basara's "magic band" power...

Probably covered already, but Ranka's sure got the Fire Bomber "magic band" effect going for her.

You mean like they do for DVD? Sony's a major part of the DVD Forum, too. So is Microsoft, actually. Ms would pay licensing fees to the Blu-ray Disc Association so they can have the HD movie bullet-point. Hell, they'll probably JOIN the BDA, just so they have a say in what goes on. Now.... if they make a 360 with integrated BetaRay... are they gonna offer an expansion for the older customers? Or are we just shafted?

Yeah. Especially for the ship hulls, in Macross' case. Though I never saw a really good reason for that, it at least made the destroids useful. Yeah. Of course, faster-than-light travel is the treknology we REALLY want. And then we can find some aliens to pick a fight with!

*laughs* Best remix ever.

Purely aesthetic. There's a convenient and easily-implemented low-tech solution. You just spin the ship. Unless you mean on the hulls. In which case I'd recommend magnetic boots/mecha feet.

I'd really hate to see them resort to that. Macross has always been a little more grounded in reality than most mech shows. There's no minovsky particles to justify melee combat, no superheroes with magic powers(despite the zentradi's belief to the contrary), no magic bullets. An inertial damper is a cheap excuse. Trekbabble, even. It's a field that Macross has largely avoided. The fold generators are a necessary evil for interstellar travel. The "shields" are quite limited in functionality. The big gun... is just a big gun, albeit one that uses "super-dimension energy." It lacks any particularly notable capabilities like homing or a stun setting. The zentradi guns have been shown bending, but only near the ship. Once they leave, they're always shown travelling in a straight line. Even when they dig out the superweapon, it's just a REALLY big gun. That can't even be aimed. Inertial dampers are absurdly out of scale with that. They fundamentally change everything. Imagine Macross Plus(movie edition, of course!) with inertial dampers. Guld, having a featherlight plane and body, could fly circles around the Ghost, transform, barrier-punch it, then wipe the sweat off his brow and hit the bar afterwards. Let the power suit stay an emergency survival mechanism. Don't make it a magic bullet. Right now, it's fairly well-grounded, aside from the fact that I don't know where they think they're storing the jetpack fuel. Besides, it'd be BORING if the pilots didn't get slung around the cockpit as they made high-G maneuvers.