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JB0

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Everything posted by JB0

  1. JB0
    Given Hasbro's focus on price, I'd expect they would want a license to make their own VF-1. Which I'd be fine with, as long as they didn't try to tech up the skin with widgets like they did with Siege. I think they'd have to go through Harmony Gold. Far as I know, HG still has exclusive SDFM and DYRL merchandising rights outside Japan. This DEFINITELY won't sit well with Takara, no matter who they get the license from. Generations Jetfire is probably the closest we'll ever get. Le sigh.
  2. JB0
    I really hope this becomes a trend where there's an arsenal variance. Packing in both styles of weapons is really nice.
  3. JB0
    I'm really glad there's a toon-accurate Skyfire toy out there. Always thought Skyfire looked really cool. I'd also really like to see a modern VF-1 toy painted in Jetfire colors released in the crossover line, but there's pretty much zero chance of that.
  4. JB0
    Copyright is not as broad as all that. They can't use the specific molds of those toys without a license. Nothing stops them from making their own similar toy, as long as it isn't a direct 1:1 copy. The liberties taken with Roadbuster and Whirl were in the name of making them more resemble fictional depictions of the original toys. Were the original toy concepts anywhere close to as legally protected as you allege, the modern versions would not be changed enough to avoid issue. Classics Jetfire is a special case for several reasons. The Classics line was very much about not being slavishly accurate to the toon or original toy, but creating updated and modernized versions of the concepts. For a more slavish homage, they had the GI Joe Skystriker remold. (Harmony Gold DID file suit over that one, which isn't a surprise but also isn't strong evidence of anything.) The VF-1 design might be trademarked, which would gain it a much stronger level of legal protection. But it is the only one of the above designs that would have an active trademark(and frankly, the only one that would've ever been trademarked in the first place). Coincidentally, the VF-1 is also the only one that has any relevance to Bandai today. Odds they remember owning the Deluxe Insecticon molds are slim. Odds that they would notice a vigorous homage are even slimmer. Odds they could do anything about it if they did notice are very close to zero. ... And odds that they WOULD do anything about it if Hasbro steamed ahead without them are exactly zero. I'd actually forgotten until I was poking around just now, but they HAVE remade one of the deluxe insecticons twice(the first time as a ridiculous targetmaster partner, the second time as a surprisingly effective repaint of Shrapnel). http://tfu.info/1985/Decepticon/ChopShop/chopshop.htm http://tfu.info/2013/Decepticon/GenLegChopShop/chopshop.htm http://tfu.info/2016/Decepticon/CWChopShop/chopshop.htm
  5. JB0
    I mean, they've made updated Jetfire, Whirl, and Roadbuster before. Bandai owning the original molds doesn't stop them.
  6. JB0
    My insecticon wvs Shrapnel, but I think Kickback was the coolest-looking. And that one sure tickles my interest.
  7. JB0
    The most important feature! I actually like the extra lines and knobs in his boombox mode. They make him look more like a real boombox.
  8. JB0
    How different that might've gone if Sound Force had been active... Actually, ignoring that the entire thing is non-canon, could that have also been an impetus for the military's funding of Sound Force? The desire for a weapon more effective against the zentradi than reaction warheads, and that can't readily be turned against other humans.
  9. JB0
    Except the DS9 Defiants.
  10. JB0
    If the released toys look like that, I'm down for a few.
  11. JB0
    I dunno... with as much smug self-righteous arrogance as their leftovers display, the protoculture might've needed LESS Jeff Goldblum.
  12. JB0
    Also, Phantom Menace was NEW STAR WARS OMG! Lucasfilm and Fox weren't telling people to hit the theaters en masse just to watch the trailer. And they darn sure weren't telling Warner to advertise it in their ads for "competing" films("If you see one movie this summer... make it Star Wars. But if you see two movies, see Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me."). You can't exaggerate how big a deal it was, because things that actually happened sound like wild hyperbole. The hype was through the roof, and it was impossible for Phantom Menace to live up to it even if it had been good. I don't think the demand was there for a new Matrix in the first place.
  13. JB0
    So... did they ever explain how those prosthetic runes they were wearing were supposed to work? Because it seemed on the face of it to be an INCREDIBLY bad idea to wear prosthetic replicas of an organ designed to facilitate some level of empathic communication. My impression was that every windermerian they walked past should be going "wait, I can't feel their rune... is that actually just a chunk of plastic?", but no one blinked twice. I don't really want to just bag on the show for the sake of it, but that was actually the point at which I stopped cutting the writers any slack because it made so little sense, and I'd like to know if this is a case of "there is a perfectly logical explanation for why this worked that was buried in one of the tie-in comics" or if they really did just completely forgot that the windermerians don't wear costume jewelry in their hair.
  14. JB0
    ESPECIALLY if the resulting mess involves a protoculture relic that might cause galaxy-spanning disruption. Earth is going to want to have words with you afterwards. Lots of words. Most of them harsh, and delivered to the inside of a thoroughly unpleasant cell.
  15. JB0
    Yeah, I think that's one where the writers expect us to take away "Look at these windermerian jerks using legal nitpickery to deny our heroes their rights!" and didn't really consider what they actually just said was "our heroes are literally war criminals".
  16. JB0
    Same. I hadn't actually realized how very off-color the US DVDs are until I pulled them out recently. Hooray for fansubs, right?
  17. JB0
    I mean, there's a lot of modern Macross problems that seem like they could've been solved by the protoculture going "Hey, instead of burying this horrible doomsday device under ice/dirt/fold space/a different horrible doomsday device, why don't we drop it straight into a black hole and reduce it to subatomic particles? Or set off some dimension eater bombs? We can do that. Just turn the entire goddamn planet into a black hole, don't even have to take the trash out. A planet is a small price to pay." But noooooooooooo, they just hid them in a cave instead, like a kid about to get caught with the cookie box.
  18. JB0
    I love how the protoculture went from "let's build a time machine, what could go wrong?" to "hide the time machine under a pile of gray goo nanomachines to ensure no one ever uses it!" Because self-replicating murdermachines NEVER go wrong!
  19. JB0
    As I recall, the threads got renamed very shortly after Hasbro started licensing stuff. Basically, as soon as "third-party Transformers" had an actual valid meaning and wasn't just the polite wink-nudge way of saying "pirate goods". Dang, he bends almost as much as Shockwave and Jetfire! I'm impressed. I actually picked up a copy of The Newest Cyclonus. I really like the toy, in general. Both modes are solid, he's got a pretty impressive finish, and features some pretty neat engineering that makes for a fairly smooth transformation with clean results in both modes, rather than just different for the sake of being different. I always appreciate seeing that. The toon-accuracy approach isn't a winner in my eye(he feels like they forgot to detail the design to me), but I can't deny he's well-built. I'd really like to see a repaint homaging the original toyt(maybe for the inevitable targetmaster redux?).
  20. JB0
    Some day... some day.
  21. JB0
    In fairness, "a computer AI pop star brainwashed the planet and hacked the defense network" and "a colony fleet full of cyborg puppets tried to conquer the galaxy with giant teleporting lobsters" SOUND like ridiculous conspiracy theories.
  22. JB0
    Same. Meant to comment on that too, but...
  23. JB0
    Are those... seeker-girls that Iron Factory's turning out? That's really weird... and I'm in.
  24. JB0
    Oh, cool! Another Cresta game is a surprise, and this looks really interesting!
  25. JB0
    Surely they would just use AR to make the table look like it doesn't wobble. Overtech fusion generators can probably get some power outta paper, though!
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