Radd

As for who the show is aimed at, well it doesn't trike me as something intended for toddlers, if that's what people mean by "kiddie", but I can certainly see this aimed at the highschool-to-college age range.

Just watched the first episode and I rather like it. I definitely enjoy series with odd looking mecha. I can definitely appreciate Graham's feelings, Valkyries these are not. They're not sleek. They're not at all practical. Nothing about them is remotely realistic. But damned if I don't think they're cool.

I wanted to see just how bad the trailer looked, the YouTube comments were in fine form.

We're watching it fairly irregularly. We were watching 1-4 episodes a night, four nights a week when going through SDFM. With Macross 7 we're going through much faster. She's been off on spring break, she mentioned today that she's been resisting the temptation to watch the rest without me. Well. That sucks. Well, here's hoping for the best.

If we get an improved version of the VF-0A I'll definitely pick one up. I'm still sad we never got a VF-0D.

Right now I'm currently re-watching all of Macross, beginning to end, with a friend of mine who'd never seen any of it before. I've watched SDFM, DYRL, Flashback 2012, and Macross Plus. At the moment I'm about 20 or so episodes in to Macross 7. One thing I've noticed about M7 is that the animation is better than I remembered it being. Ja, there's lots of still frames with only the mouth moving, and the reused battle footage (with the exception of Battle 7's great transformation footage), but other than that it's well drawn and decently fluid. It's certainly not fantastic animation, but it's better than a lot of people let on. I suspect if they had made better footage for the recycled bits then the animation would be remembered more fondly. After that, we'll be on to Dynamite 7, The 20th Anniversary Special, Macross Zero, and then Frontier. Heh, I'm wondering if we'll be finished before the Frontier movie comes out. Still, we're going through everything at about 4-8 episodes a night, four nights a week. On my own, I just wrapped up Tytania. It's odd though, the series, since the beginning and right up to this last episode, has constantly felt like it's on the verge of something. I can't help but feel that the entire series so far basically amounts to prologue, and hope they continue on with another season. From what I understand, the book series isn't finished yet. I hope that doesn't become an issue down the road.

For me it's a mixed bag. The VF-1 is only my second favourite VF, my favourite being the VF-4 which has both my favourite fighter and battroid modes. I have to say, though, that the VF-25 has my favourite gerwalk mode, the VF-1 coming in second for that category. I love designs like the VA-3 Invader and the Variable Glaug. Not every VF has to be the prettiest princess at the ball. And I really love some of the later designs, like the VF-17, the VF-14, and the Advanced Valkyrie designs. I still don't think the VF-25 is a very cluttered design. I really believe that misconception stems from the CG models retaining so much more detail than line art. Also, the promotional shots of the models we've been seeing tend to be poorly lit and posed.

I got my RVF-25 today as well. I was surprised, I suppose I hadn't been following the thread too much but I expected the discolouration to be between the plastic and metal parts. That's not the case with mine, the wings are a different green than the wing sleeves and backplate, the forearm shield is different from both. The armour exhibits the same issues which convinced me to cancel my order for Alto's armour. I do enjoy that both Michel and Luca's Valkyries came with stands. I'm overall pleased with the set, though as I said I've canceled my order for Alto's armour, and I'll likely skip Ozma's Full Armour unless I hear great things. I am still interested in seeing what Bandai does with the VF-171.

I really want the line to hold out at least until the VF-4 is released. I might pick up the Fire Valkyrie to display with my Koenig Monster, though. Right now I have an ancient Bandai snap-together Emerald Force kit.

The VF-0 was never shown to have tech more advanced than what we can reasonably assume the VF-1 had. Anything that appeared more advanced about it can be chalked up to both more modern animation, and a design aesthetic more similar to contemporary planes. As someone else mentioned it is larger, bulkier, and overall clunkier looking than the sleeker, smaller VF-1. It helps to compare the two in respective scale. I can definitely see what people mean when they say it looks more advanced, overall it has a more modern design aesthetic. It seems to me that a lot of the comments regarding the "slimming down" of Valkyries are exaggerated to an extreme. The YF/VF-19 and 21 aren't any slimmer than the VF-1's overall design. Neither is the VF-17. Comments about "wasp waisted" Valkyries are pretty funny considering the VF-1's waist consists solely of the nose of the fighter, not exactly bulky. I would agree that the VF-25 has an overall leaner appearance. It seems designed with FAST packs in mind. And the 25 has the bulkiest FAST packs yet. Unless I'm misremembering, the VA-3 shows up in Macross 7 Dynamite.

The prudent choice would be to wait and see if there's any glaring problems with the VF-11B. Personally, I've had really good luck with Yamato, and they seem to have improved in the QC area as far as I can tell. Still, better safe than sorry, right?

Nah. Gotta save up for Yamato's Macross.

I do like the 1A style head. I hope we get a VF-25 cannon fodder like that. Actually, do we ever see a transformed VF-25 cannon fodder in Frontier?

Also, the easily scratched paint rears its ugly head again. Sloppy paint apps aside, mine came with the paint job pre-scratched up. Also, playing with it a bit more, yeah, already sent the message to Overdrive to cancel my order for Alto's armour. I'm almost glad Ozma's armour is a package deal, makes me a lot less inclined to want one right away as I already have the first run Ozma. Better off to wait and see if it has the same issues.

Ack, just received mine. Turns out it was the Michel version after all. The armour is a floppy mess and hardly any of it feels at all secure. I'm still intending to get Luca's but I'm thinking I'm going to cancel my order for Alto's super parts. With Michel, once you put the armour on, it becomes a "don't touch!" display piece. Also, is it just me, or does the back leg armour prevent you from bending the leg back at the knee?

That I can definitely agree with. Even better if it's in scale with Yamato's Macross.

So, wait, Mikhail's VF-25 ships later in the month, right? I ordered both at once, but it seems HLJ is shipping Luca's and still listing Mikhail as "March release". Kinda figured they'd hold Luca's and ship both to me at the same time. They sent me a payment notice for both a few days earlier.

I get kinda the opposite impression. The Macross itself looks like a space ship to me, in "robot" or "ship" mode. The "head" never looks like a head, it's a command tower. "robot" mode just looks like a ship with a vaguely humanoid shape. If anything, it looks like a ship stood up on its engines. The same goes for Battle 7 and Battle Frontier, though the change is a lot more emphasized between the two modes. Ship mode looks like an aircraft carrier in space. "Robot" mode looks somewhat more robot like than the original Macross, but still looks more like a fortress to me. The Quarter is the first Macross I've seen that looks more robot like in robot mode. The bridge tower looks much more like a head. The arms and legs seem to have a lot more articulation, and it uses that articulation. Take off the main gun and the flight deck and it looks even more like a robot. In this case I would agree that the ship mode looks more like robot mode on its belly, much more-so than any previous Macross. I dunno. I really like the Macross capital ships, though, transforming or not.

In the "real" Macross universe, neither the tv series nor the movie are exactly what happened. I think it's a pretty safe bet to say the flashback scenes, which are not from DYRL, are pretty much from the true events.

Actually, in at least one Macross 7 flashback to SW1 you do see Hikaru and Max both sporting a VF-1S, in battroid mode standing right next to each other.

I've got 17-18 Yamato toys right now, though my old 1/72 VF-11 and YF-21 have been relegated to the closet to make room for the 1/60 Macross Plus toys. My 1/60 v.1 Elintseeker and Super Ostrich will join them when the v.2s come out. The entire run of Bandai 1/55 and 1/65 rereleases from around 2004, which is 9 more Valkyries. One of the larger Matchbox Spartans, and four of the smaller destroids. Two Defenders and two Tomahawks. A 1/100 Toynami VF-1A. A 1/100 VF-19 Bandai snap together kit. And two of the 1/60 Bandai DX Frontier toys, with Mikhail and Ruca on the way. I've also got the new VF-11 ordered. Probably going to order a Yamato Defender soon. Love the Destroid toys.

I have an Ivanov. No complaints. Considering getting a Nora. I really wanted a cannon fodder, too, but the colours they went with are just really, really, really not good in my opinion. Well, I shouldn't say "no complaints", the joints are really loose. Not so much that you can't pose it, but it is a bit annoying.

Critics are just supplying opinions and observations about a given film. Good critics can convey their opinions in such a way that one can understand where they are coming from, what their priorities and tastes are like, so that if someone with very different tastes reads the review, they can get an idea of how the critic arrived at their conclusions and decide for themselves whether or it it sounds like they would share those feelings. Even then, there's a bit of hit or miss. It's never an exact science. As for good or bad Trek movies, I'm kinda odd about it. I liked the Motion Picture well enough. Kahn was fantastic, and to me The Search For Spock is a good continuation of those events. IV was campy, but fun enough. Not one of my favourites, but I don't completely dislike it either. V I hated, but it's been so long since I've seen it that I can't recall just how awful it really was. Undiscovered Country I really liked, not as much as II, but more than most of the others. Of course, I haven't seen VI since the 90s, so I might not like it as much if I see it again. I really don't like any of the Next Gen movies. Generations was like a long, decent episode of ST:TNG, but I'm just not a huge fan of TNG, so decent is still pretty mediocre. First Contact had some really good points, and some really bad points. Overall I dislike it. The borg were one of the most interesting parts about TNG and they really removed a lot of what I liked about them and reduced them to just another bad guy. Not to mention again and again they show weapons like machine guns working fine against the borg, but Starfleet never seems to run with that idea. The movie after that was like a mediocre and not very memorable TNG episode. I didn't bother with Nemesis.

So, has there been any confirmation as to whether or not the movie will be something entirely new, or is it going to be mostly footage from the tv series, edited down and spliced together with a small amount of new footage? Considering how quickly it seems to be coming, and what we see in that movie promo, I'm getting the impression that it's the latter, and not Frontier getting the full DYRL treatment. Of course, I'd be more than happy to be wrong on that, but if it is mostly existing footage touched up and a bit of new footage thrown in, I think it would be a bit much to expect a whole new VF to appear.

Sorry, still gotta root for the movie version. I'm unlikely to ever get my dream toy, a 1/48 VF-4, so I want this at least! Still, I hope the tv version fans get their toy, too.