Chronocidal

Yeah, DHL's service depends on whether they decide your region is worth supporting as an actual service area. That's why they've been a disaster so many times for me. I live somewhere "too remote" for them to support fully, so they only send things my way via a third-party carrier hand-off that generally results in a complete loss of tracking and communication regarding my packages.

I will give Bandai backhanded credit for one thing.. their pilots are always so tiny, the 17 almost looks the right size.

Youch. That doesn't give me any warm fuzzies about getting the rest of the VF-19s.

Yeah, I kind of hate that I was considering ordering two of these after the holiday rush, specifically to have the spare parts to make that version. Looks good though. Maybe funny to say, but I think the up-greebling of that design actually helps the ship look better overall. At least with the giant phaser cannon in place, the underside of the saucer is supposed to look blocky. Franchise-wise, I have to wonder if this one will have the same longevity that Star Wars has had. It's taken them four or five iterations of a UCS X-Wing before they made some of the changes it needed from the first version, but I'm thinking it's unlikely we'll be seeing that many redesigns and re-releases of Trek ships over time.

Hilarious that they blurred that, but I guess they want people to have to think about what it could be.

Ok, seeing the original original in theaters would be worth it, maybe even in the unrestored state. I'll have to keep my eyes on this. Maybe after this they will FINALLY release the full restoration. Not getting my expectations up, but fingers crossed they'll finally do it. Even if not, there are always the other unofficial releases, and I still have my DVD dual-pack releases from 2006, which I think uses a transfer of the old Laserdisc master from before the special editions happened. They're not great quality, and only standard resolution, but to this point I think they're the only official unaltered theatrical version release. Episode IV in particular is pretty degraded from the age, with a few classic VHS-style audio tracking issues, but officially it's not even "Episode IV," since it's from before the subtitle was added.

Hah.. I love the fact that he's got Herbie's number just brushed on the hood XD

As much as the completionist in me wants a PF VT-1, I feel like the Bandai DX kind of satisfied that itch for me. Wouldn't mind picking one up if it existed, but it's not a priority anymore.

It's definitely not the same, but my thought is mostly on the side of how much return they can expect to see on their investment. Without going too deep into details I don't know a ton of, I've always been under the assumption that Yamato's success with the VF-1 funded all of their more expensive ventures (VF-19s, VF-17s, and VF-4), but there wasn't enough demand to keep up with the higher production costs, and the VF-1 market got entirely saturated, so they couldn't use it as a reliable funding pool. In terms of Macross7, I think the only Yamato release to get multiple production runs was the Fire Valk (not counting bundle re-releases for the VF-17 packs). It's also the only one Arcadia reissued, and it made sense for the Japanese market, because yeah, it's iconic for that series. In Bandai's case though, making another Fire Valk at this point feels like a bad one to start off with, especially if they're interested in actually selling to international markets. There are just so many factors working against it: - Both Yamato and Arcadia have sold multiple runs of that specific valk in that same scale, so the market is fairly well saturated in both regions - There is so little difference between the two different products that probably only hard-core collectors are going to think "I need both" - Macross7, Basara, and the bright red and yellow scheme are all what I'd just call "acquired tastes." On top of that, they're actively sabotaging their own releases, by selling the HMR version so close. Throw in the tariff situation, and you're going to lose even more customers, because at least some existing fans who would otherwise happily gobble up duplicates are probably going to just convince themselves their old Yamato/Arcadia is good enough. Like, I get it, the Fire Valk is the icon of the show, so not making it first would feel dumb too. But trying to sell it again feels like a bad bet to make. I would love Bandai to start offering up more polls to see what people want, but I also don't think they have the mentality to make those polls effective on the international market. If I'm remembering correctly, we did have a poll long ago to help decide what the first international releases should be, but I think all it really covered was which series people wanted products from, not anything as specific as characters or paint schemes. I think that was one of the factors that led to the weaponless YF-19 re-release. (I also think this was before the licensing fiasco was "settled," so a lot of people blew their feedback comments on wishes for SDFM/DYRL products that we still can't get.) I will say though.. the Kairos getting a reissue is a wild card, and I'm really surprised they would even consider it. I don't want to get my hopes up, but I would love someone at Bandai to make the mental bridge between cool transforming aircraft and military aircraft collectors. People gobbled up the Kairos, and the prices stayed sky high from the get-go. I would love them to experiment that way with the VF-19, or pretty much any other Macross product they can sell here.

I think we're making the same point, but about different markets. I'm mostly speaking from Bandai's perspective, so when I'm talking about the domestic markets, I mean Japanese customers. Everyone else is international customers. Maybe a weird way to say it, but it made sense in my head. But yeah, that's basically what I mean. Bandai's doing the stupid, and instead of making and selling products that they know would sell well both domestically and internationally, they're chasing the imaginary money of an international fanbase that probably does not even exist. Bandai isn't in the same financial position as Yamato by any means, so they aren't going to sink or swim based on this one franchise. But if you think of their product funding as a "Macross account," they're making the same mistake Yamato did. They built up a ton of profit and good will with products people really wanted (Frontier, Delta, SDFM, Plus), and now they're rapidly burning through it by making an entirely new line for the oddball sibling in the family. It's maybe over-generalizing, but I think Yamato burnt itself out making the Macross7 releases, because they were too expensive to produce, relative to the demand that existed. They hit the VF-1 out of the ballpark, but they over-produced it, and it couldn't support the rest of their production lines forever. The worst part is that now Bandai is doing a worse job at it than Yamato already did. Despite not being "allowed" to sell to international customers, nothing really stopped us from buying Yamato's releases, so while some of us will probably be suckers and buy everything anyway, I would expect a lot of the international demand for Macross7 is already "satisfied," and won't be motivated to purchase something that's either hilariously similar like the Fire Valk, or worse in pretty much every way, like Bandai's attempt at a "VF-17." And like you said, it sounds like even the Japanese customers are rejecting the line, so Bandai can't even count on the show's original audience to support it. The funny part to me? All of this is just making me think that the HMR route was the right way to go with Macross7 all along. Bandai's original 1/65 Macross7 line was absolutely a low-ball, but I think it says a lot that they were only willing to invest that level of development in those toys when the series was brand new. Granted, Bandai is coasting on Yamato's coattails with the HMR releases right now, since they already paid for the majority of the design work involved. But as much as I would love to see them develop a full Sound Force in 1/60, I'm thinking we'll probably be lucky to get them as HMR releases.

You know the really funny/stupid thing.. this is essentially the exact same mistake Yamato made: spending a mountain of money developing a line of toys so niche that they really didn't even have enough of a domestic market to turn a sustainable profit. Bandai could easily milk the market for all it has to offer if they focused on something there is an established domestic demand for... but no, they just want to chase a market that is likely even smaller than the one Yamato targeted, because apparently they're just completely certain Macross 7 will be profitable this time. In a market where it never originally aired, and is probably the most mocked in the franchise as a whole. But what do I know. I'm not one of Bandai's market analysts. Maybe they just know history better or something.

Yeah, the paint is really what sold me on picking up this one. I just hope Bandai gets a color that vibrant.. you know.. if they ever get around to it.

That's pretty much the only reason I bought the ones I have. They've got some nice features that improve battroid (minus the ugly elbows), but they just fall behind in fighter mode in general when compared with most of the other recent releases.

That just makes me wish Bandai had done a revival of the old 1/65 instead, that looks so much better in pretty much every way. I actually wonder if this will drive up prices for the old version. Wouldn't that be a kick in the head for Bandai's financial analysis department.

They're even more cramped and further out on the wing than on the Advance though, since I think the Advance used the innermost hardpoint to help hold the boosters on, and you could only make use of the outer two with them mounted, but they still had room for more than a single missile.