Chronocidal

You know, I hate to make a Star Trek reference here, let alone one to Voyager.. but this whole situation is really giving me an "Equinox" vibe. I really don't like making predictions as to the next episode title; I'd hate to see Ozma get knocked off now... however, seeing Grace's reaction to Ranka's "emotion level" makes me think she's going to pull something underhanded to try and raise that. Setting up Ozma to get killed by the Vajra just to make Ranka want to fight them sounds just like something she'd do. However, even in that scenario, I'd half expect something to not go right, Ozma get saved from Grace by the Vajra, and he comes back to warn SMS about what's really happening. I still hope it's just something about him acknowledging that she's growing up, and deciding that he can't protect her anymore. What I do wonder about though is that Grace seems to have shifted her entire plan over to Ranka, leaving Sheryl to fade away. Her original idea was to kill off Sheryl to spread hatred for the Vajra. When that fell through, she switched. I could be completely wrong, but it seems to me like she wouldn't change her plan now.. if she wants to spark a war with the Vajra, killing off their "little queen" would certainly do it, and the more she pushes Ranka into the spotlight, the better, since it'll raise hatred for the Vajra. I'm waiting for her to set up Ranka to die mid-battle. If that is the case, the title may actually be referring to Brera, not Ozma... Brera seems to remember her, and has protected her against Grace's plans before. If Grace tries to kill her, he might defy her outright, and sacrifice himself to save Ranka. Anyway, loved the ending. I didn't see anything to directly suggest Sheryl joining SMS yet though, aside from the VF-25s and the Isamu hand bit. She does seem to love flying though, so it wouldn't surprise me, and I hope it happens. There's even a paper airplane throw mid-song, which seems to change into a VF-25. But the concept art seen through the ending all looked like outfits we'd seen her wear before in the series. I saw the holosuit from the first episode, and the suit she wore to Gallia 4, but nothing to suggest a combat flight suit. This particular ending really focused on the AltoxSheryl angle though.. wouldn't surprise me if we see a Ranka version in the same style later on.

You know what, I saw this, and my jaw hit the floor a few times, but none so much as the Louis Armstrong wasteland montage. I don't understand it, and probably never will, but nothing says "post-apocalyptic wasteland" like Satchmo. Granted, it wasn't a nuclear wasteland, but I applaud Pixar's nod to the Fallout games, even if it wasn't intentional. On a side note, the cartoon at the intro was probably the best Pixar short yet. Someone at Pixar must be a portal fan.

By all means, go for it I really don't care much for cockpit work, though with FSX it is getting a little better, since the cockpit is a separate model now, with less detail restrictions. I just wish I knew enough about the gauge programming system to come up with a decent set of working cockpit instruments for it. If you want the original model file to play with I think I can dig it up for you, or it may still be linked somewhere on the forum. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up since I've just graduated college and will be moving soon to a new job, but I do have a new exterior built with FSX in mind. It's still untextured, but if I find time in the next few months I may see about updating the visual model for FSX, fixing the texture bugs, higher detail textures, things like that. I'm hoping to add a few of the new FSX bells and whistles as well, like bump mapping, flexing animations, etc. It'll just be a while before I can work on that, I've got a pile of unfinished things to take care of before starting another project.

This thread did die, but I posted an update a while back, with a download. It's in a new topic, I wanted to give the download it's own announcement. I'll see if I can find it though. Edit: Here we go Download YF-19.rar

I love crazy theory time... Let's just say the SDF-1 did another crazy mis-fold... only this time, it took the whole planet with it. So, the planet really IS Earth, but relocated to a different star system. (please ignore the fact that the city around the SDF-1 is now missing ) I can't wait to see this explained really... I guess depending on how the SDF-1 disappeared, Global may still be alive. If he happened to be aboard, imagine how much time distortion would be involved in such a long distance fold. He may have only aged a few years in the time since he left. Which gives me another interesting thought.. the fold engines of the SDF-1 were not human built, and not completely understood. What if the originals never had problems with fold dislocations, and this was a flaw in the human reverse engineering process? On the licensing front though.. If they really intended to remove most references to the original Macross to simplify a transfer to the US market, that boat may have just been blown out of the water, as soon as the SDF-1 appeared. The SDFM references have been pretty low key up to now, but there's no way they can hide the connection anymore.

actually.. considering the of the situation, I think this one went up to

Hmmm... quick thought.. could Leon and co be trying to set up an encounter with the Vajra on the planet? I don't know how much anti-alien sentiment there may be on Galaxy.. but it's possible that they want to use them as bait, and let them do the fighting, away from the colonization fleets. Looking forward to seeing the sub on this one, so much dialogue is hard to keep up with.

Utterly awesome. Now I guess the big question... are you calling them finished, or will you keep adding details to them, refining them, etc?

Aside from the various inconsistencies... I find this section to be rather interesting... 2036 02.13 Planet-Avimaria Dispute 08.09 Planet-Hydra Civil War 10.30 Moon Base 2037 01.23 Earth Defense Force 06.07 U.N. Revolution War 2038 02.09 Europa Base-7 05.25 Planet-Salvation War 11.01 The Galaxy Patrol I'd be interested in seeing the official opinion on these things listed... and whether they may fit in with the current situation in Frontier.

On that note though, I wonder if they aren't going to play mixup with the next episode.. Wasn't it Hikaru who missed Minmay's birthday? While it'd be easy for them to do that again, I kind of hope they mix it around some... like, maybe have Ranka missing a birthday due to work.. I kinda doubt it, but it sure would be a different twist. Btw, the stone that Leon got tossed to him by... hmmm... (is tempted to call him Neo).. anyway, it didn't look at all like the earring, it looked like a rough cut shard, not at all polished. The jewels in the earrings were perfectly smooth. Now, it might be that the shard is all that's left of the earring, and was recovered.. but I seriously doubt it, given what was left of that vajra carrier.

Crap... that explains what Sheryl was there for, as well as the EX-gear pics she had. Sheryl must've been playing Nora... So, midway through the movie, some vajra must've popped up and tried to make contact with the fake APHOS prop, so Sheryl jumps in her custom pink VF-25/SV-51 replica, goes completely berserk, and bum rushes the vajra yelling "GET OFF THE SET, YOU'RE SCREWING UP THE MOVIE!!!" She gets nearly wiped out, and crashes the plane on the island before Alto catches up and wipes the floor with the vajra, but the battle turns out so well that they scrap the original effects sequences and use the real stuff, wiping the fake APHOS out, and CGing the vajra into a new and more sinister looking APHOS, which Shin defeats in a crazy blaze of glory, leaving his VF-0 in tatters from when he shoved a nuke down it's throat for killing Sara before he could save her. Oh, and Sheryl's singing the whole time.

Grrr...now I'm gonna be wishing the whole time that we could see the full movie, just so we could know what major changes they made in the story.. The fact that they portray Mao as just fine at the ending, and standing on the shore, rather than in a hospital gown and on the deck of a carrier, makes me wonder what all they changed. The revival of Mao with APHOS blood was a pretty big plot point in Zero... it's probably still completely classified, but I'd love to see what they came up with instead.

I wouldn't bet Shin had a biography so much as debriefing reports he and the other people probably filed during the course of Zero. Granted, he was a busy guy, but I'm sure after his initial rescue he would've been expected to give one massive report on what had happened on the island, and military regs probably would've dictated that he would have to give at least a brief rundown after every encounter. Of course, Mao obviously witnessed a good portion of what the movie was about as well. The whole movie could have been based on her notes about it. We only saw bits of the movie where Mao was involved anyway, so there's no telling what other large changes could have been made to the story. What I did find interesting were the changes to the final scene.. and not so much the lack of the VF-0 hitting the water (it actually made sense to remove that really, since it would've made a nasty break in the music at that point). Where was the carrier?? Mao and the villagers were singing from the deck, right after the Monster fired off the nukes. While it may have just been to simplify things, I still don't think they're telling the whole story. Without the carrier there, you can ignore Mao's transfusion (which may still be highly classified), the UN's plan for Op. Iconoclasm, plus any number of other things, and place the blame for the incident entirely on the Anti UN forces. We may never know for certain if the movie tells the truth or not. One other thing... about Mao suriviving SWI. I know the Zentraedi essentially leveled Earth... but what's never been clear to me is if they targeted all of humanity, or just the populated areas. It's probably unlikely, but one episode of SDFM with Kamjin had him fixing up a cruiser that crashed in a rather lively rain-forest-ish area. I don't think there's any way that could've grown up on it's own in as short a timeframe as we see in the show. So, likelyhood is that big areas with no major human civilization might not have been specifically targeted. That could leave any number of regions of Earth relatively intact, possibly including Mayan island. On the other hand, it does make sense that after Zero the entire population of the island would be moved for their own safety, or possibly study. Considering her family's background, I wouldn't be surprised if Mao and her father wound up advising the UN with what they knew about the Protoculture. Btw, one other thought.. if we do wind up seeing Frontier in the US in the coming years, do you think they'll see fit to release Zero here as well? I don't know if Bandai was involved in that at all, but with the connections this show is forming, I think it would only make good sense to make them both available.

rofl.. I just noticed the pineapple salad, missed the reference before (got too distracted by the rest of the shenanigans).

*nods* that one does pretty much blow the others out of the water.

Well.. wow. This series continues to surprise me, over and over again. I really did like the more tight timing of this, with the nonlinear stuff and flashbacks... made for great teasers of what was to come. Sooooo many little side plots that are all intertwining, and conspiracy theories all over the place.

WIN.

Whoa... well.. I wouldn't necessarily say that the AFOS looks like the vajra... But what I would say is that the head looks a bit like the VF-27's head in that particular pic. I don't remember if it did later, but the visor shape seems very similar just from that picture

Btw, that was the best eyecatch EVER. I musta watched it about 5 times Also.. after watching the preview, I'm not sure what "friendly fire" is supposed to mean...

Goofy thing that may have been asked before, but I don't remember.... Where did the red tail stripes come from?

Those models are still rough casts, I wouldn't worry too much. I would almost put them down as hand shaped, from the irregular surfaces. The parts are completely without shine, and completely unlike any kit I've ever seen bandai produce. Unless someone did a craptastic job painting the thing with a giant brush, that's still a rapid prototype version (looks almost like it's carved out of wood ), and not anything like what an injection molded kit will look like. The sheer amount of small details missing on the kit is kind of a giveaway.. for example, no upper intake vents, top leg details in fighter mode, or other fine details like rivets, scribed lines, etc, something I've never seen a bandai kit have any trouble with.

lol.. oh that's interesting.. looks like they forgot to flip the wing texture over on the VF-171.. the logos are backwards on one side. As for the backpack... I honestly don't know, but it kind of reminds me of one of the fighters we haven't seen in a series.. maybe the star mirage? Actually... now that I think about it, it looks like one of the advanced valkyrie designs... here we go, I would swear it's this one, right down to the engine mounted tails and jagged wing shapes. again for comparison

Ok, time for a bit of screencap editing... First, the wing logo. It's not so strange for aircraft to carry a logo on upper an lower surfaces of each wing... US military only does the top of the left wing, and bottom of right, but many others place an insignia on all 4 surfaces. The logo here is clearly the NUNS one, and the whiteout I used makes the diamond shape around it visible as well. The nose logo.. actually looks like another NUNS logo somewhat. It's got a wide blue diamond shaped patch, with a lighter blue circle-ish thing in the middle. I would say it's VERY close to the NUNS one, except the circle is bigger than the background patch. What I want to know is what these leg markings are. They look like letters, but nothing like English.. to be honest, they remind me of the computer screen text you sometimes see in Star Wars. Anyone have any ideas? I didn't see enough of the legs to know what this might be. Now, just for kicks, it was pure chance that I noticed this shot, but it's the exact same logo as on the wing. I guess the question now is where Ranka got her backpack from. Btw... I can't watch Bobby firing the macross cannon without thinking to myself "oh no, he crossed the streams..."

I had thought this earlier.. but after looking at it I'm not so sure... this might be a different logo than the one you're thinking of though.