Wait for it...
What really staggers me is how little boom there is for the bombs' size. They're bigger than some cities, yet the explosions they make are barely big enough to destroy their own mass, if that.
I mean, obviously, they're weapons of intimidation rather than anything else. "Look how much we can waste throwing at you, you guys, you're so [insert crass adjectival verb]."
(This is from the apparently ongoing Space Battleship Yamato remake. Space Battleship Yamato is known in the US as "Star Blazers.")
-Signing off.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#94)
931. Saheelindeeli. Saheelindeeli are supposedly, by description, green-furred and "ape-like." The picture on the page for them illustrates two individuals, neither of whom display any green fur or look any more "ape-like" than a human being. More reliable information is that they aren't especially advanced technologically.
And that's about it.
Rating: 2/5. Also, Han Solo visited their planet once, and dumped manure on somebody's stunt plane to tender his resignation from his employment. (It makes sense in context.)
932. Sakiyans. Sakiyans have huge brains that let them process massive amounts of sensory data from their very acute senses (they can see into the infrared spectrum and have senses of smell and hearing that appear almost supernatural to other species) and have musculature that make them half again as strong as humans of equivalent size (and presumably build). They may or may not have claws or fingernails (continuity hiccups, no doubt) and four or five fingers per hand (more hiccups). They have a wide variety of skin colors; apparently, lighter-skinned Sakiyans are on the receiving end of prejudice from darker-skinned Sakiyans. (Each of those terms, it should be noted, covers most of the rainbow, just in different shades.)
The Sakiyan homeworld is in Hutt space, but unlike most inhabitants of Hutt space, the Sakiyans resisted all attempts at military conquest by the Hutts. Instead, the Hutts eventually forced them into fiscal dependence through tricky business practices.
Rating: 4/5. Sakiyans are fairly interesting.
933. Sakuubians. Sakuubians have "blue" (the picture indicates purple) skin, cat-slit eyes, four small horns on their heads, and supposedly have facial ridges. And... there are two named Sakuubians.
And... that's it.
Rating: 2/5. Because one of the pictures is rather fetching, even if she's apparently the wrong color.
934. Samarians. They wanted to make a trade agreement with their neighbors, the Roshans, but the Empire didn't let them. The end.
Rating: 1/5.
935. Samhari. The Samhari apparently considered themselves aloof from galactic affairs at least at one time. That time, it should be noted, was known as the "Dark Age of the Republic," wherein the Old Republic had nearly ceased to exist and was brought to its knees by the Sith. (This was the same group of Sith who would, at the end of this time period, be destroyed by the machinations of Darth Bane.) That's all we know.
Rating: 1/5.
936. Samuac. Samuac apparently are nearly human in appearance, only distinguished by red eyes similar to a Chiss' eyes. They "managed to avoid" being subjugated by the Galactic Empire.
Rating: 1/5. ...A lot of "blehs" tonight.
937. Sanyassans. Oh. Heh. The Sanyassans are the species known for years only as "Marauders."
The Marauders were most famous for being the murderous villains of the second Ewok TV movie, killing all but one of the human characters from the first Ewok TV movie in the first ten minutes.
Apparently, all those individuals were well over a century old, having been part of the original crew that had been shipwrecked a full hundred years before the events of that movie. It's not unlikely that many of them later died of old age, as they apparently tend to retain their combat abilities and considerable durability even into their last years.
They supposedly were poorly known throughout much of the galaxy, and the name "Marauder" was used even by seasoned anthropologists to describe them because of their very strong tendency to practice piracy. Their civilization stretches back at least five thousand years, and apparently it had a fallback of some sort or something fairly recently.
Rating: 3/5. They're reasonably amusing.
938. Sarafurians. They apparently existed long enough ago to be called "ancient," and went extinct when their planet stopped rotating for some reason.
Rating: 1/5. It'd sure be nice to know why their planet stopped rotating, but I guess we can't have everything.
939. Sareeta. Sareeta are kinda weird and ugly-looking. (Not a value judgment, just a statement of fact. It's not helped by the fact that the one image of one appears to be a blurry black and white photograph.)
Apparently, the Sareeta in charge send out Sareeta to the wider galaxy in hopes that they'll learn awesome things which they will then bring back to enrich their homeworld with, but the individuals they send out at least occasionally decide they've got other plans.
Rating: 2/5.
940. Sarkans. Sarkans are reptilian aliens that have rather iguanodont-like faces.
There are a number of other things about them, but the main thing to take away is this: They are dinosaur people who aren't based on carnivorous dinosaurs, long-necked dinosaurs, armored dinosaurs, or dinosaurs with large, ornate heads.
Cool beans, I like 'em just for that.
Rating: 4/5. There's more to them than that and some of it is pretty interesting, but I saw the iguanodont faces and I was sold.
-Signing off.
And that's about it.
Rating: 2/5. Also, Han Solo visited their planet once, and dumped manure on somebody's stunt plane to tender his resignation from his employment. (It makes sense in context.)
932. Sakiyans. Sakiyans have huge brains that let them process massive amounts of sensory data from their very acute senses (they can see into the infrared spectrum and have senses of smell and hearing that appear almost supernatural to other species) and have musculature that make them half again as strong as humans of equivalent size (and presumably build). They may or may not have claws or fingernails (continuity hiccups, no doubt) and four or five fingers per hand (more hiccups). They have a wide variety of skin colors; apparently, lighter-skinned Sakiyans are on the receiving end of prejudice from darker-skinned Sakiyans. (Each of those terms, it should be noted, covers most of the rainbow, just in different shades.)
The Sakiyan homeworld is in Hutt space, but unlike most inhabitants of Hutt space, the Sakiyans resisted all attempts at military conquest by the Hutts. Instead, the Hutts eventually forced them into fiscal dependence through tricky business practices.
Rating: 4/5. Sakiyans are fairly interesting.
933. Sakuubians. Sakuubians have "blue" (the picture indicates purple) skin, cat-slit eyes, four small horns on their heads, and supposedly have facial ridges. And... there are two named Sakuubians.
And... that's it.
Rating: 2/5. Because one of the pictures is rather fetching, even if she's apparently the wrong color.
934. Samarians. They wanted to make a trade agreement with their neighbors, the Roshans, but the Empire didn't let them. The end.
Rating: 1/5.
935. Samhari. The Samhari apparently considered themselves aloof from galactic affairs at least at one time. That time, it should be noted, was known as the "Dark Age of the Republic," wherein the Old Republic had nearly ceased to exist and was brought to its knees by the Sith. (This was the same group of Sith who would, at the end of this time period, be destroyed by the machinations of Darth Bane.) That's all we know.
Rating: 1/5.
936. Samuac. Samuac apparently are nearly human in appearance, only distinguished by red eyes similar to a Chiss' eyes. They "managed to avoid" being subjugated by the Galactic Empire.
Rating: 1/5. ...A lot of "blehs" tonight.
937. Sanyassans. Oh. Heh. The Sanyassans are the species known for years only as "Marauders."
The Marauders were most famous for being the murderous villains of the second Ewok TV movie, killing all but one of the human characters from the first Ewok TV movie in the first ten minutes.
Apparently, all those individuals were well over a century old, having been part of the original crew that had been shipwrecked a full hundred years before the events of that movie. It's not unlikely that many of them later died of old age, as they apparently tend to retain their combat abilities and considerable durability even into their last years.
They supposedly were poorly known throughout much of the galaxy, and the name "Marauder" was used even by seasoned anthropologists to describe them because of their very strong tendency to practice piracy. Their civilization stretches back at least five thousand years, and apparently it had a fallback of some sort or something fairly recently.
Rating: 3/5. They're reasonably amusing.
938. Sarafurians. They apparently existed long enough ago to be called "ancient," and went extinct when their planet stopped rotating for some reason.
Rating: 1/5. It'd sure be nice to know why their planet stopped rotating, but I guess we can't have everything.
939. Sareeta. Sareeta are kinda weird and ugly-looking. (Not a value judgment, just a statement of fact. It's not helped by the fact that the one image of one appears to be a blurry black and white photograph.)
Apparently, the Sareeta in charge send out Sareeta to the wider galaxy in hopes that they'll learn awesome things which they will then bring back to enrich their homeworld with, but the individuals they send out at least occasionally decide they've got other plans.
Rating: 2/5.
940. Sarkans. Sarkans are reptilian aliens that have rather iguanodont-like faces.
There are a number of other things about them, but the main thing to take away is this: They are dinosaur people who aren't based on carnivorous dinosaurs, long-necked dinosaurs, armored dinosaurs, or dinosaurs with large, ornate heads.
Cool beans, I like 'em just for that.
Rating: 4/5. There's more to them than that and some of it is pretty interesting, but I saw the iguanodont faces and I was sold.
-Signing off.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Poor Choice In Robeasts
So recently, I was looking at episodes of Voltron on the official posting on YouTube. Most specifically, I was looking at an episode titled The Sand People.
The funny thing about this episode is that they adapted its story for one of those radio play/storybook combinations. Having been more familiar with the Transformers iterations of these, I hadn't been aware that the odd little storybook was an adaptation; the Transformers audio storybooks always wereoriginal unique stories.
Anyway, the adaptation is notable because there was a certain amount of adaptation decay in the Voltron dub of Golion: If you watch the episode, it's pretty clear from context that the little mole person Sandy dies at the end, despite the Voltron dub's narrator vehemently insisting that Sandy recovered later.
In the audiobook version, Sandy unequivocally wakes up at the end. I almost wonder if they picked this episode to adapt this way so they could comfort the traumatized children.
Anyway, that's not really what I'm blogging about. What I really want to talk about are the sand people/mole people that are the subject of the episode.
Why? Because they're adorable. (I do have my weaknesses.)
In the art for the storybook, they were these weird, generic little football player guys with pointy fingers indicating their claws. This lost a lot of detail from the animation's character model:
Clearly, they're some sort of insectoid creatures with a relatively superficial resemblance to football players and moles.
What I really find interesting is that they actually have four distinct forms of locomotion: They burrow; they drag themselves on their bellies (presumably, this is related to their burrowing); they do a hilarious little waddle gait with their arms sort of akimbo; and when they're scared by the villain's tanks showing up to abduct them, they throw their arms up and do full-on cartoon wheel-leg runs (and some of them actually outsprint the tanks).
The reason the villain was after them, incidentally, was because he wanted to turn them into an army of robeasts (if you're unfamiliar with Voltron, that's simply the word for giant monsters used to fight Voltron). And the poor littledead sand person I mentioned earlier, Sandy, died got hurt because he actually got turned into one and they had to fight him.
What makes it really sad, of course, is that the reason the villains picked Sandy to transform is because he was wearing a bracelet that the princess had given him, so he was more identifiable than the others. The princess ultimately got this specific sand person killed. (Not that it was her fault, of course. But don't tell me she wouldn't be waking up from nightmares about it months later.)
Even sadder: There was a creature on this very planet that was a far more suitable subject for transformation into a robeast.
Seriously, don't tell me these big ugly horse substitutes wouldn't have made more powerful robeasts than knee-high mole people.
They're frikking terrifying.
...Perhaps it isn't fair to use this particular frame of animation as an example, but my point stands.
-Signing off.
The funny thing about this episode is that they adapted its story for one of those radio play/storybook combinations. Having been more familiar with the Transformers iterations of these, I hadn't been aware that the odd little storybook was an adaptation; the Transformers audio storybooks always were
Anyway, the adaptation is notable because there was a certain amount of adaptation decay in the Voltron dub of Golion: If you watch the episode, it's pretty clear from context that the little mole person Sandy dies at the end, despite the Voltron dub's narrator vehemently insisting that Sandy recovered later.
In the audiobook version, Sandy unequivocally wakes up at the end. I almost wonder if they picked this episode to adapt this way so they could comfort the traumatized children.
Anyway, that's not really what I'm blogging about. What I really want to talk about are the sand people/mole people that are the subject of the episode.
Why? Because they're adorable. (I do have my weaknesses.)
In the art for the storybook, they were these weird, generic little football player guys with pointy fingers indicating their claws. This lost a lot of detail from the animation's character model:
Clearly, they're some sort of insectoid creatures with a relatively superficial resemblance to football players and moles.
What I really find interesting is that they actually have four distinct forms of locomotion: They burrow; they drag themselves on their bellies (presumably, this is related to their burrowing); they do a hilarious little waddle gait with their arms sort of akimbo; and when they're scared by the villain's tanks showing up to abduct them, they throw their arms up and do full-on cartoon wheel-leg runs (and some of them actually outsprint the tanks).
The reason the villain was after them, incidentally, was because he wanted to turn them into an army of robeasts (if you're unfamiliar with Voltron, that's simply the word for giant monsters used to fight Voltron). And the poor little
What makes it really sad, of course, is that the reason the villains picked Sandy to transform is because he was wearing a bracelet that the princess had given him, so he was more identifiable than the others. The princess ultimately got this specific sand person killed. (Not that it was her fault, of course. But don't tell me she wouldn't be waking up from nightmares about it months later.)
Even sadder: There was a creature on this very planet that was a far more suitable subject for transformation into a robeast.
Seriously, don't tell me these big ugly horse substitutes wouldn't have made more powerful robeasts than knee-high mole people.
They're frikking terrifying.
...Perhaps it isn't fair to use this particular frame of animation as an example, but my point stands.
-Signing off.
Friday, October 4, 2013
YO-YO ROBOT IS AWESOME
So the other day I was poking around on YouTube and came across a video which included the phrase "Combattler V 2012" in its name, and it had obviously new footage of the robot Combattler V, the yo-yo robot.
(That's not the footage in question [it's from a Super Robot Wars game instead], I'm just establishing that this is the yo-yo robot.)
My interest was piqued, and so I did some quick research. The results of said search blew my mind: The footage in question is largely from three promotional videos made by a pachinko company to promote their Combattler-themed pachinko machine. One of these videos, posted on the company's official YouTube channel, is below.
The videos seem to have created persistent rumors of a full remake.
This made me realize: As long as they toned down the gainaxing (I happened to choose the video that had the least, incidentally), I'd totally watch the heck out of a modern Combattler V series that didn't take itself too seriously.
But no, this is for promoting pachinko machines.
...Japan is a weird place, you guys.
-Signing off.
(That's not the footage in question [it's from a Super Robot Wars game instead], I'm just establishing that this is the yo-yo robot.)
My interest was piqued, and so I did some quick research. The results of said search blew my mind: The footage in question is largely from three promotional videos made by a pachinko company to promote their Combattler-themed pachinko machine. One of these videos, posted on the company's official YouTube channel, is below.
The videos seem to have created persistent rumors of a full remake.
This made me realize: As long as they toned down the gainaxing (I happened to choose the video that had the least, incidentally), I'd totally watch the heck out of a modern Combattler V series that didn't take itself too seriously.
But no, this is for promoting pachinko machines.
...Japan is a weird place, you guys.
-Signing off.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
So Much For That Secret Identity
(This post is more severely backdated than a lot of the ones I've been putting up lately. Sorry about that.)
This is a tokusatsu homage film titled "Secondary Education."
It's not bad, considering it's a no-budget little thing. I've seen people call it fantastic, and it's certainly pretty well-acted and decently written.
-Signing off.
This is a tokusatsu homage film titled "Secondary Education."
It's not bad, considering it's a no-budget little thing. I've seen people call it fantastic, and it's certainly pretty well-acted and decently written.
-Signing off.
Monday, September 30, 2013
ROCKETTO PAUNCHI
Pretty sure I've posted at least one of this videos before (probably with some variant of this exact title), but it's been a while so I don't care.
If one is a fan of Japanese mecha, Dai-Guard is a series that one is obligated to watch because of moments like this:
If you don't understand why someone would shout "rocket punch" while throwing his own robot's severed arm as an impromptu attack, it's because Mazinger Z, one of the super robots that inspired everything that came after him, has rockets built into his detachable arms so that he can throw punches over any distance. Silly, but fun.
And in the most recent Mazinger Z series, someone got the same idea as the guy from Dai-Guard did.
That's coming full circle.
(Incidentally, the titanic gold/yellow robot is actually supposed to be Zeus from Greek mythology. Yes, really. ...I honestly can't imagine mythological Zeus having that reaction to a rocket punch. One of the Viking gods, on the other hand, would have that exact reaction. Those guys had parties where they had the indestructible guy sit against a wall and chucked things at him. That happens to be how and where Ragnarok got started, as it happens. Vikings were metal.)
-Signing off.
If one is a fan of Japanese mecha, Dai-Guard is a series that one is obligated to watch because of moments like this:
If you don't understand why someone would shout "rocket punch" while throwing his own robot's severed arm as an impromptu attack, it's because Mazinger Z, one of the super robots that inspired everything that came after him, has rockets built into his detachable arms so that he can throw punches over any distance. Silly, but fun.
And in the most recent Mazinger Z series, someone got the same idea as the guy from Dai-Guard did.
That's coming full circle.
(Incidentally, the titanic gold/yellow robot is actually supposed to be Zeus from Greek mythology. Yes, really. ...I honestly can't imagine mythological Zeus having that reaction to a rocket punch. One of the Viking gods, on the other hand, would have that exact reaction. Those guys had parties where they had the indestructible guy sit against a wall and chucked things at him. That happens to be how and where Ragnarok got started, as it happens. Vikings were metal.)
-Signing off.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Giant Monsters And Lousy Cameras
The other day, I finally sorta watched the movie Cloverfield.
Unfortunately, the shaky-cam effect made it difficult for me to watch and nearly impossible for my sister to watch, and frankly I found the people story mostly kinda boring, meaning there was really only maybe twenty minutes of stuff I really liked in the movie, despite the premise sounding pretty neat.
Also, it has never not been stupid when ridiculously large monsters express interest in eating people when the monsters are actually animals. (If giant monsters are like Pacific Rim's kaiju or Attack on Titan's titans, it makes more sense, because those kaiju were weapons, not animals, and the titans are actually just zombies that range from car-sized to Godzilla-sized. Also, giant monsters that are sadistic sapient creatures eating people is something I'll give a pass, because they're not generally after nutrition either.)
Yes, I'm calling you out, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.
No, actually, I'm not.
(It's kind of amazing how well the Rhedosaurus interacts with its environment; this is a black and white film and the visual effects are still nearly on par with the creature effects from the original trilogy Star Wars movies. Although the black and white probably actually helps with the visual quality.)
-Signing off.
Unfortunately, the shaky-cam effect made it difficult for me to watch and nearly impossible for my sister to watch, and frankly I found the people story mostly kinda boring, meaning there was really only maybe twenty minutes of stuff I really liked in the movie, despite the premise sounding pretty neat.
Also, it has never not been stupid when ridiculously large monsters express interest in eating people when the monsters are actually animals. (If giant monsters are like Pacific Rim's kaiju or Attack on Titan's titans, it makes more sense, because those kaiju were weapons, not animals, and the titans are actually just zombies that range from car-sized to Godzilla-sized. Also, giant monsters that are sadistic sapient creatures eating people is something I'll give a pass, because they're not generally after nutrition either.)
Yes, I'm calling you out, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.
No, actually, I'm not.
(It's kind of amazing how well the Rhedosaurus interacts with its environment; this is a black and white film and the visual effects are still nearly on par with the creature effects from the original trilogy Star Wars movies. Although the black and white probably actually helps with the visual quality.)
-Signing off.
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