JB0

On the toy? It does. Without even a flip-down cover plate over it. ... Even as a kid that struck me as stupid. "Wait... do they WANT the autobots to know what their weaknesses are?"

Fine. Then my wolf jammed for other reasons. It still got stuck. David: I remember it as looking diffrent. *rummages through list* Yeah, I had the OTHER wolf(-ish thing). "Fangry." Great name... *rolls eyes* http://www.tfracetrack.com/instructions/g1...icon/fangry.jpg

Maybe because it was overcast outside and they needed extra light? Sorry, not a photographer, so that's just my guess. 409283[/snapback] But they're shooting inside. After having read the first novel now, I think the filler was necessary. Otherwise, the series would only have been about six episodes long. 409409[/snapback] Well, the "filler" comes from stories written after the first novel anyways. They just don't get the big dramatic finale if they air things in order.

Micloning functions that way. It's unclear how regular cloning works. I would assume it works more conventionally, since otherwise deaths are a far bigger issue to the zentradi. And there winds up being confusion and a lack of low-ranking troops as multiple troops "did" the same prior experiences and remember holding certain ranks. It won't maintain morale very well if troops keep getting busted back down to the bottom rung for no reason other than the higher-ups need more bottom-end guys. On the other hand, the zentradi almost certainly DO accelerate the growth so clones come out as adults, and implant SOME brain templates, as they lack any knowledge of raising children. So it's an intermediate.

*cries over the Energon Shockwave toy again* I only ever had one headmaster. Was the wolf-ish decepticon thing. The transformation lock broke, so it was stuck in beast mode forever. 409082[/snapback] Only Powermasters had Transformation locks. 409094[/snapback] I'm pretty sure my headmaster did too, though I no longer have the manual to prove it.

GAH! Yah, that was pretty blatant filler. Some fun stuff(and me criticizing AFK for flagging the reflector a mirror*), but they spent almost half the episode just showing Yuki reading. I mean, I like Yuki as much as/far more than the next guy, but... that was a complete waste of time. Not even a good screenshot in the scene. *Can anyone figure out why Haruhi is using a reflector in that photo sequence anyways? They won points for including it and using it appropriately in the movie(Koizumi is seen using it to get sun onto Mikuru's face in the scene he's not supposed to be in), but I can't figure out why it's there in Rain. I suppose Haruhi might just be thinking "Pros use reflectors, so we need one too!" but they still used it RIGHT in the movie.

We have been since the '60s. And non-combat is misleading. They're trying to boost troop strength so they can carry more gear for more time without tiring. They already carry more than they're supposed to, and it greatly limits how far they can move on foot. So they may not be intending to use it in combat, but it's certainly not for pacifism. We will not see a government-sponsored guy run out in powered armor and try to stop the war with rock music... or the resulting doggie kibble when he takes an anti-tank round to the chest. And rest assured, once they get the speed and responsiveness up, we WILL see the things in combat usage. Screw bullet-proof vests, we have infantry tanks!

*cries over the Energon Shockwave toy again* I only ever had one headmaster. Was the wolf-ish decepticon thing. The transformation lock broke, so it was stuck in beast mode forever.

What's wrong with the movie?

It's because Haruhi is director. Seriously, it's because they want to close the series out with the ending of the Melancholy story arc. It gives them a story arc to sustain through the entire season and a big dramatic finish without signifigantly altering the original source material. On the down side, some episodes just don't make sense as-is. I think the baseball episode should've aired after episode 4, so all the major characters at least had their backgrounds established. Beyond that, it works. You generally have enough knowledge to know what's going on, though you'll be left scratching your head at a few references. Bah. Go read the translation of the first book, and then watch everything with full comprehension. It makes things more enjoyable, at least to me. I have to give the animators credit though... they pulled the Yuki fight off pretty well, and it's hard to vizualise, much less draw.

Yah. The genetic defects were due to inbreeding, not a side effect of cloning or size shift. There were just too many "twins" running around, so the odds of accidentally marrying* a cousin you didn't know you had crept up fast. And the population was large enough for good ol'-fashioned sexual reproduction to sustain growth at that point anyways. *Or not marrying. I doubt a society trying to build itself up from the threshold for survival is going to place too much emphasis on traditional monogamous relationships.

War Within Jetfire.All new G1-universe and G1-related alternate universes have a combination Jetfire/Skyfire design. 408697[/snapback] Ah. Pity Skyfire's never had a proper toy. ... But then, he never really got a lot of screentime, did he?

Interesting question... A lot of the zentradi didn't assimilate well into human society to start with. That's the first big source of trouble. The new UN wasn't very strong, at least at first. There were major population centers that were independent, and proud of it. If someone tried to force the issue later(as they apparently did, since the UN in Macross Plus seems to own the Earth), it could have generated a lot of animosity, especially in predominantly-zentradi regions(see next point). We also know the new UN is prejudiced against zentradi, or at least non-micloned zentradi. They restricted access to micloning facilities post-war, and being restored to full size was very difficult. The zentradi on Earth post-war viewed micloning as a basic right, which provided a lot of support to Kamjin's rebellion. Non-miclones are actually banned from the Earth after 2030. And the Macross 7 has very minimal zentradi-size facilities visible, despite having full-size zentradi on-board. The fact that virtually everything shown after the original series is human/miclone-only indicates that AT BEST full-size zentradi have "seperate but equal" facilities off-Earth(an option made possible by the fact that the stars of Mac7 were all human-size). It's Jim Crow all over again, only now he's 30 feet tall. That certainly hasn't calmed anyone down. Of course, most of the viable space ships around post-war became UN property as far as we know, which would greatly limit off-Earth rebellions, especially well-equipped ones(like the QRau squadron in Macross Plus OVA). But it's possible a few ships mutineed some time after the final battle(possibly many years after, if it was motivated by UN prejudice), or just never joined the human-zentradi alliance(Kamjin himself tried to skip the system before the fighting started, and it was never really clear why he turned around).

Isn't that Skyfire?

Yes. Yes it is. But it's an awesome kind of bizarre.

Won't the UK version will be encoded for a 50Hz display instead of the glorious 60 that US and japanese televisions use.

And knowing is half the battle. 408231[/snapback] GI JOE! ... Wait, this is a Transformers thread...

Okay, last question. I'm not trying to be a pain here and after this I'm just going to start googling this stuff on my own (I've been remiss in keeping up with this stuff). . . If HDCP won't work over analog, and therefore someone with only component (analog) inputs on their HDTV can't use it, what is the point of there being analog/component outputs on a Blu-Ray DVD player? 407913[/snapback] Because they like to point and laugh? The currently-available HD-DVD players have composite outputs too, and those are a sick joke by any standard. Seriously, there's 2 reasons. First is that 512p is a little bit better than the current 480p cap, and you'll still benefit from better encoding regardless. Second is that HDCP is set on a per-disk basis. If the disk doesn't activate HDCP, you can use component, RGB, or DVI for HD signals. But if the disk DOES activate HDCP, you can't. With luck the HDCP flag will wind up like the Macrovision flag on DVDs, and almost never be used. But you shouldn't have to count on luck.

And now I know.

That's also where it lands with Seamonkey, and probably all Gecko-based browsers. On Internet Explorer(and apparently Opera) it rests nicely above them. There's a bit of discussion about it in the site updates thread in the news forum. I DO like that this one is actually a special MW promotion instead of just a random "buy our stuff" link, or even a random "buy our Macross-related stuff" link.

Ya know, I've never seen anything past Beast Wars, and only two or three episodes of that. Can someone explain Evil Prime/Black Convoy/Whatever? He looks pretty nice every incarnation I've seen, but I have NO idea how he fits into the story.

The OVA isn't NEARLY as bad. It's not a direct-from-VHS rip and has half-decent image quality(and no hard subs). It DOES suffer from some issues, most notably a way-too-dark transfer. Someone neglected to tell Manga that Colonel Millard is a black man, not a sihouette. But next to the movie, it's golden.

What does Kyon's sister have to do with anything? 408073[/snapback] Took me a second to get that. Yeah... At least there's people putting an effort into translating the print stories too. So there's a bit of extra stuff to look forward to.

Yes. And it rules.

Just saw this. It is pure awesomeness.