Chronocidal

lol..pretty close match actually.. Heheh.. as long as the topic's headed down this route.... don't ask me why.. I saw this picture pop up on Yahoo once, and didn't even bother to look who it was until I'd already changed it.. something about the pic just seemed very Millia-ish... There are FAR too few Millia cosplayers.

Hmm.. personally, I think the balance of the force thing has a lot to do with the way it is used, and not so much good and bad.. more like passive and active... sure, the force is powerful, can burn things up, lift things, choke people, shoot lightning... but it doesn't have to. Tim Zahn I think put this REALLY well in his Spectre of the Past/Vision of the Future books.. It's not a big spoiler for those books if you haven't read them, but Luke realized sometime during those books that the force can work two ways.. either you control it, or it guides you. Luke had been using the force for various random tasks in everyday life to make things easier, ie, lifting R2 out of his ship, floating drinks to people, etc.. not anything that would lead to the dark-side, but still really pointless stuff. But he also realized that he was rarely getting any sort of guidance on what to do from it. It wasn't until that he kind of laid back, and cut back on his usage of the force that he was able to sense what was going on in the universe (past present and future), and what he should be doing. It's like he was using up his force-quota on meaningless junk, and not for what was needed. So, it's like you can use the force, good or evil, in two ways.. I'll just call them passive and active modes. Palpy lives in passive evil, planning ahead with the force, only pulling out his powers for special occasions. Vader's more active evil, choking people and generally using his powers whenever he feels like it. Luke was a good guy, but still uses his powers actively, ie the double torpedo hole-in-one and the lightsaber in the ice. Then, at the top of the heap is Yoda. He almost never uses his powers for anything except wisdom and foresight, and only fights when threatened. He only lifted Luke's X-Wing to teach him a lesson. If we want to hold up Yoda as the epitomy of force-wisdom, then ideally, you would use the force ONLY for foresight. The actual usage of the force for telekinesis, strength, healing, etc should be like a backup plan, since, if you were really in-tune with the force, and knew how things would turn out, you would be able to plan ahead, and not have to use it at all physically. So, the ideal setup is to use the force for guidance and knowledge, and only turn to it's actual physical power when it's unavoidable. It's like the universe is in balance when the force isn't being used selfishly to change the way the universe is spinning. That being said, the force would probably be seriously out of "balance" as long as Palpy's in power. You've got a serious force-psycho ruling the universe, using the force to bend events and people to his will. If we define "balance" as having the universe running without being unnecessarily influenced by the force, then Palpatine was tipping the scale on its side. In that light, the prophecy was true. Anakin DID bring balance to the force when he killed him. Note, I have no literature to back up what I'm saying, this is just coming out of novels I've read that do appear to agree with the movies.

Whoa.. ok.. I REALLY like what Williams did with this one.. a lot of the tracks aren't particularly memorable yet.. but they probably will get there after a while. The battle music was just awesome. What really amazed me though was the final track, with the ending credits...wow. I think he used this last movie to slip in a bunch of material that hadn't been used for the first movies... Did anyone else notice the extended throne room/medal ceremony sequence from ANH? I think that's the ORIGINAL version of that piece, as in, the way Williams composed it. A few years back, I went mp3 hunting for SW music, and thought I found the normal throne room/credits track. Well, the one I found was anything but normal. It's a good two minutes longer, and included that entire center section with the oboe and strings, as well as going right into the ANH end credits. I get the feeling that was the way that track was meant to be played, but the center section got cut in production.. maybe part of a deleted scene or something, but it didn't make it into the movie. Didn't really fit the mood of the ending anyway. But anywho, I don't know about anyone else, but that has got to be my favorite piece of orchestral music PERIOD. I can honestly say I'd go to this movie just to hear the music. Heck, I'd stand in line on opening night just to hear the end credits in the theater. Even if this one blows chips, I'll consider my money well spent to hear that piece played in the theater. If this one turns out well, it's just icing on an already sweet cake. You know what though, one thing has occurred to me as to why the new trilogy soundtracks haven't been as memorable as the originals... Williams used to write specific themes for specific events/characters, and they used to be very distinct.... You had specific songs for specific characters, and sometimes events. And, really, you could easily hum or whistle them. Not so much anymore. Now it seems as if all the music is really chaotic, with random tempos and sounds all over the place, with no actual melody. Aside from small bits, this is still a lot like the other two prequels.. one or two tracks that are memorable, and a lot of filler for the action sequences. Why didn't Jango Fett have a recognizable theme? How about Mace Windu? Palpy, sure, he's already taken care of from ROTJ. He's got a theme. But for cryin out loud, Anakin didn't even have a theme. Padme didn't either, really.. well, she did, but that scene got cut. You had the Padme/Anakin love theme from AOTC.. that was okay, but being the ONLY theme you insert into other moments has a way of getting old. It got pretty repetitive The variation for the picnic was good, but there was too much of the main theme. I think there should've been a theme for Padme based on Leia's theme, and maybe one for Anakin based off of some of Luke's, mixed with some original ANH Vader. I haven't noticed anything like that with the new movies. Mostly, it's just been random battle music, or background noise. Maybe a little mood music, but not many recognizable themes that left me humming. Even the battle fanfares in the OT had more structure somehow, and a melody all their own. I don't really get why Williams changed his style for these 3 new ones. I dunno, I'm probably ranting about something that I can't change.... But I really miss the specific themes in the OT. I think they added quite a bit to the overall impression the movie made. Course... when you have so little actual character interaction, the specific themes probably wouldn't have much of a place to go anyway. There haven't been many talking/conversation scenes in the new trilogy.

Well, at least the Hasegawa kit can.. you just have to leave off a dozen odd pieces. Can't say it'd look very good that way though... probably just kind of skinny. You could probably do that with the Yamato, but you'd have to unscrew a lot of stuff, and hope it all holds together.

Heh.. more major nitpick.. it's not a VF-22... No canopy. it's a YF-21 all the way.

Well, here's the deal with SP2. It freaking RAPED my computer. AGAIN. That's right folks, it happened again. The other night, I tried to install RealPlayer. After that, I restarted. Then Virus-Scan wouldn't load. Probably a driver problem. I thought it was a virus, but there were no viruses detected. So, I ran a system restore from about an hour before (you'd think I'd learn not to do that). The system restore looked fine, and the system reset itself. Then all hell broke loose. I saw the windows loading screen pop up with the little loading bar... then the screen went black.. then it went solid blue, with big white letters saying "FATAL SYSTEM ERROR." Yeah. For those of you who've seen the Strongbad about the computer virus, it was more like "FLAGRANT SYSTEM ERROR. COMPUTER=OVER PROBLEM=VERY YES." Safe mode, Dos mode, etc, all useless. Windows refused to load. Computer=dead. Now, for the good news (yes, there is good news in all this). My hard drive wasn't fried like I thought. I just recently finished pretty much clearing my secondary hard drive off (the one I bought to backup my files during The Big Crash Part 1 last fall), putting files back in place and removing duplicates. So, it was practically empty when this happened. Which turned out to be a very VERY good thing. When the techie on the phone said the only thing left to do was to reformat my C: drive I almost panicked...I literally had about 100gb of files on it. So, I improvised. I swapped drives. I unplugged the bad one, and put the nearly blank one on the first slot on the motherboard. When I booted up now, I just got the message "Error loading OS".. which is good, since there was no operating system on that drive to begin with. Long story short, I basically installed windows on that secondary drive, and my computer is now running entirely off of it. Now, for the best part, and the main reason I'm not dead or in a mental institution: My main hard drive is still entirely intact. After installing windows on the second drive, I plugged the supposedly bad drive into the secondary slot... and it ran fine. Apparently, the only thing that got screwed up was Windows. The hard drive itself, with all my files, directories, etc. is just fine. It just wouldn't boot up correctly. So, it's back to the backups again. This time, I'm playing it safe, and I just finished filling about 15 blank DVDs with file backups. I won't be losing stuff like the first time again. Buuuut..... I've gotta reformat again. Or, rather, reset to the factory partition on the main drive (provided it still works ). I've been running off a bare-bones install of Windows the past few days, running virus scans and burning backup dvds. I don't even have real sound (can't find my sound card driver disk). I don't plan to stay on this drive for long. Once I've got my files safely stored away, my main drive's getting set back to square one again, and I can start rebuilding this system from scratch. Now, on a slightly unrelated topic, SP2.... Essentially what I've heard and learned.. don't install it on a computer you've used for more than a few weeks. The only way SP2 will really work well is if it is the FIRST thing you install on a brand new system. Once a system has been running, and things have been installed, programs run, etc, SP2 is one of the worst things you can install. I found that out the hard way, which is why this whole thing started last fall. I was getting blue-screen errors from plugging in headphones for crying out loud. It seriously screwed up my drivers and files, and half of my programs wouldn't run. Now, on the other hand, when I installed it on my newly blank system (right before the first crash involving system restore) it worked fine. But don't use it on an old system unless you like reformatting disks a lot. ANY-who... None of my files were lost, so the YF-19 will get out as you see it here. But now I need to finish backing stuff up, and then resetting my drive to factory settings. Once that's done, I'll have to rebuild all my programs from scratch, and reinstall everything AGAIN. Let's just hope this time nothing goes wrong like last time, but if it does, I've got backups this time. Final word: NEVER use System Restore with SP2 if it can be avoided. Just don't do it. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble and pain. It should be a very last resort.

Lol.. well, if you can get past the disturbing part, and not think about the pictures (most of which thankfully don't even load) the engrish translated version is worth a good laugh.

Go watch Macross Plus again, then go study the YF-19 lineart in detail and then compare the Yamato toy to both the anime and the lineart. If you still think the Yamato toy looks nice, may I respectfully suggest getting your eyesight tested LOL.. this is so true.. .I showed a friend of mine the YF-19 online once.. the first thing he said was along the lines of "someone get that goose some x-lax." It was just really fat in fighter mode, and the hideous bolts sticking out of the wing mounts kinda ruined that part.... just all around fugly. I agree that a 1/48th would be huge compared to the VF-1, there's no arguing against that. But, really, that's what I have the most of. I build a lot of 1/48th models, and I'd love to put a YF-19 up next to them, right next to my row of F-14s. The 1/48th is big, but not too big. It's around the same length as a Tomcat, and I've got bunches of those. Also, the main reason I'd go for a 1/48th is the mechanical aspect.. there is only so much you can cram into a 1/72 plane, let alone a 1/100, without making it look fat and unwieldly. The pieces have to be bigger to support the structure. If the YF-19 were made in 1/48th, the interior structure could be more efficiently designed, and take up much less room, while still giving the same strength. It's the same problem I run into with Legos.. the mechanisms I try to build work perfectly.. but they don't fit in the shell of what they're made for. Imagine if a YF-19 had a metal framework that all the pieces attached to and rotated around, while locking into place on it when needed. In 1/48th, this frame could be very small portion of the airplane's volume, and still give it adequate strength. Then, you might be able to get accurate appearances by modeling the actual plane around this frame. They managed to make an aerodynamically sound (roughly) VF-1.. I want a YF-19 that's the same way.

Hehe.. The N-1 actually looks EXACTLY like a hood ornament I saw on some old car once.. What's funny is that they used to make the ships out of parts from real model kits.. now they just look like weird computerized clones of em...See, by using real life PARTS of planes and cars, I think it actually made the ships themselves look somewhat more real. For instance: X-Wing: J-79 engines from F-4 Phantom, nosecone from some kind of dragster Y-wing: All the spare landing gear and car engine parts from COUNTLESS kits B-Wing: Wings taken from an f-18 (mounted backwards) A-Wing: Most of the body of the ship is made out of the upper halves of F-14 wing gloves. The vents on the back are two F-16 intakes mounted back to back. The canopy looks like it's from an f-86, mounted backwards.. Engines in general look like they were taken from the intake ducting of an F-16. All in all, it's got more real parts there than made up ones. You could probably scratchbuild your own A-Wing VERY easily from existing model kits. Now, for the prequels.. N-1= hood ornament Amidala's cruiser= Chromed SR-71 Gunship= Hind-D with mini-Death Star turrets Jedi Starfighter: Kind of like an A-Wing actually...but without sacrificing 1/32 scale F-14 kits. The designs haven't been bad, but overall, I think they lack the creativity of the old ships. I still think they should've had Z-95 Headhunters and brand new fancy Y-Wings in EpIII. Heck, the Y-wings were supposed to be OLD in ANH. As for the music, I've really missed some of the classic trilogy themes.. granted, with the style of matching music to characters, the music's gotta change.. but I can't say I've walked away from the prequels with more than one theme that I actually remembered. The music just isn't that memorable in the prequels, except for a couple exceptions. On the other hand, my internal mp3 player blasts out random bits of OT soundtrack in my brain for various random events in my everyday life... Midterms/Finals: Into The Trap Part 1 from ROTJ and/or DS Attack from ANH Anytime I see a cool sunset: Twin Sunset from ANH Math Homework: Forest Battle from ROTJ EVIL Math Homework: Imperial March Relaxing/celebrating after a test: Ewok Victory Celebration (the YUB-YUB one, not the SE version)/Throne Room March/End Credits from any of the 3 And while my brain doesn't readily play them at will, I love the Han/Leia and Luke/Leia themes. umm... yeah.. I probably listen to those cds too much. I was really hoping for THE DUEL they'd use some combo of the ANH Throne Room piece, and Duel of the fates... For the musically inclined, think of a 6/8 time remix of those two pieces, done with a french horn lead line, with choir inserting bits of Duel in between the main portions of the other theme. Best example of the sound I'm thinking of is probably the french horn solo when Vader tosses Palpy. That whole section of the soundtrack just gives me chills the whole way through.

Hmmm.. One more vote for 1/48th here, I want something big enough for detail on the same level as the VF-1. The hinges just have to be too big proportionately to hold something this small together, and the joints either tend to get too thick and ugly, or too fragile. For 1/100, we're literally talking about .18 meters.. that's around 7 inches. Sorry, I really prefer a plane that's longer than my handspan. Now, if Yamato resizes the design to 1/72, I'd gladly get one, since it'll likely be the biggest thing we're gonna get. But I'm still going to work toward making my own 1/48th one day... I just need access to one of those rapid prototyping machines. Now, that's not to imply that the LS -19 is ugly, far from it. They did a great job modeling it. But I don't think I'd pay more than about $30-$40 for one. I could probably build a custom Hasegawa kit for much less, and it'd be bigger.

Lol.. sweet.. so I'm not the only one who does this.. Well, I don't have any done with the YF-19, but here's one a did a long time ago... This one's limited to the cross-eyed method though, I never knew there was another way to do it. Just use the star as the focus point and it works pretty well though. I'll see if I can't get a YF-19 up here before I go on spring break and can't get to my computer.

Dang it, where did I see that pic.. I remember not long ago, there was a shot from SDF Macross where a valk was in gerwalk in a hangar, and someone (I think Roy) was inspecting it... you could see up into the feet, and there were box shaped exhausts in there. Odd... I'll see if I can find it. Edit: AHA!! I knew I'd seen the little box shaped vents somewhere... Not from SDF like I thought, but it shows the exhausts pretty clearly.

Hmmm.. maybe I need to make a VF-19 out of my flight sim model, and pop out a few renders of it Would probably take a while though sadly, finals this week.

I'd guess not at all canon.. considering that version of the -19 was never really seen outside of Mac+ (and a video game). The problem is the differences in the YF-19 and VF-19 are really difficult to bridge, so I guess people settle for inaccuracy so they can use the Hase YF-19 model. Actually, I'm not even entirely certain that a 1/72 VF-19 kit exists.. I'll have to check in the models section.

ACK! again... *smacks internet upside the hub* Eh, but anyway, I'll try and turn it into something useful... Somehow I kinda doubt that Obi-wan could possibly forget the droids.. he probably was just covering up the relationship for Luke's sake, so he didn't confuse the heck out of him. I mean, what are the odds of a blue R-2 unit pairing up with a gold 3PO, and landing in his lap? That had to set of something in his memory. He may not have been sure at first, but I'm pretty sure he knew who they really were by the time he viewed the message. The connection to Leia's adopted father probably should've made it clear who they were. What's kind of funny is the chain of events as they probably should have happened... if it hadn't been for the jawas, R-2 would've probably found Obi-wan, and alerted him to what was going on, in which case, Obi-wan would've probably had to pick up Luke on the way anyway... the implied reason for him staying on Tattooine in the first place was to watch over Luke, and let him in on the story at the right time (or shovel it off onto Yoda )

omg... it's Darth Potato-Head!! actually kinda reminds me of one of my first gif experiments in high school..

Or, if you just happened to be a good enough shot to nail a carotid artery, although that's really pushing it.

ACK.. stupid internet.. sorry, double post

Yeah, I can remember when a TRU was organized in nice long aisles... you had the video games aisle, the gi-joe aisle, one for board games, one for radio controlled cars, one for all the bikes and power-wheels things, one HUGE one for legos, plus the usual SW toys and barbies, sports equipment, etc... Then one day, all the nice aisles were replaced by a mish-mosh of angled displays, all disorganized, ridiculously set up, and the biggest waste of space I've ever seen. It literally took me half an hour to turn the right corner to find the Legos, cause they were in a weird nook facing away from everything. Ticked me off. I've hardly gone there since. It just got too hard to find anything, and it looked like the whole store had been redesigned by some neo-cubist modern artist.

Heheh.. so Vader isn't what Palpy was hoping for.. and he sets his sites on Luke instead. Which, if you think about it, is probably the only reason Luke and Leia even lived. I have a hard time believing they were actually able to fool Palpatine when hiding them. I mean, the guy fooled the entire republic for several years, and had things planned out from the beginning. Seen in this light, it actually DOES make sense that Anakin may be his son, however far fetched.. I mean, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to make Anakin's mother forget. If Palpatine had everything planned from the beginning (he keeps insisting he knows what'll happen in ROTJ) he may have planned to use Vader to get to Luke, and maybe Leia. The idea that he wasn't satisfied with Vader implies he probably has other motives for him, seeing as he went to all the trouble to repair him... but then, irony of ironies, maybe Vader pulled the same wool over the emperor's eyes that he had used on the republic, and hid his true intentions till the last.

You know, after reading this, I realized the one thing that would make most mecha designs, no matter how impractical, at least possible. In a lot of sci-fi genres, artificial gravity, or at least the ability to manipulate it, comes pretty standard, and isn't really explained. I know of a few series that don't rely on it, but if the ability to manipulate forces through energy were to exist, it'd be a simple task to negate the stresses and strains on a mech, and make it just as effective as the human body. Granted, it's still a huge bulky mass, and one huge target. But with gravity partially negated, it might work. Of course, then you get into the issue of, "if you can really manipulate gravity, why are you building a mech?? You could just make a giant floating weapons platform, and ditch the mechanical arms and legs." So, as cool as it would be to make a mech, I don't see much of a reason to do it, beyond maybe navigating nasty terrain, a-la AT-ST, but with a more stable design like that John-Deere thing.

*looks at shot of Grievous with lightsaber* Hmm. Looks like Anakin wasn't the only jedi to make his lightsaber out of a flashbulb handle.

Hehe.. if the old symbol had 7 branches, and the empire's has six, I'd bet the missing branch is the Jedi. But actually, I thought the old symbol had 8 spikes? It was printed on the AOTC ships. Or maybe that was just a jedi symbol?

Hmm.. whoa.. k, that's interesting. Look at the symbol poking out under the edge of the pilot's hoses. Or am I just seeing things?

Here's a shot of the new low-vis markings I'm making for it... I'm thinking this'll have probably between 6 and 10 skins, depending on how much I get done with finals coming up