Awesome! Life saver, on my device the connection to his website isn’t secure so I’m a bit wary of putting my details on there but if it’s vouched for I’d be inclined.[/QUOTE]

 

 
Evening all!

Just watching GotG Vol 2 which is just as funny as I remembered! Also watched Avengers Endgame again yesterday afternoon which made more sense as I didn't fall asleep before the end of it!  

I've just dug up my old Sales Thread which I've started updating with new prices and removing old Photobucket links which are dead. Need to take some new pics and that. Link below!  

Robotmel's UK Junkyard: Transformers Masterpiece, CHUG & more!

Twitter link to movie sales with pics!
Mel Murray on Twitter

 

 

[/QUOTE]

I've used it twice before with no problems and there's a few on here used them too (this thread is how i first learnt about it.)

Mind you, i always use paypal for it. But i will vouch for his service.

 

Well, having their own joint subgroup designation as the Horrorcons somewhat undermines your assertion. Or am I having a sarcasm detection failure?

 

They've come back more often than Jesus.

 

Right, so thoughts on the Rise of Skywalker. Non-spoilery comments first, then non-non-spoilery comments underneath.

First off, it was a Good Film. It wasn't a Great Film, but then the only Star War that comes close to capital-G Greatness is ESB, and even then it's debatable. What they are is a fun ride, and TRoS is no exception. I had fun, I was excited by the exciting bits, laughed at the funny bits. There were flaws, but pretty much each one of these is utterly inconsequential to the film as a whole. It'd just be nitpicking to hold these flaws against the movie, which managed to act as a decent enough film in its own right and a good send-off for the series.

And really it's just reaffirmed my belief that the worst thing about Star Wars is its fans. From the reaction I was expecting to be a bit let down by the whole thing, that it would utterly shove aside everything that TLJ did and acquiesce to the lowest common denominator by just lazily rehashing TFA again. If anything, the story structure of TROS is the biggest departure from the norm out of the entire trilogy. But from the huffing and puffing over Twitter and Tumblr you'd think that this was the final season of Lost all over again. Once more, this was a fun adventure movie and it's every bit the equal of TFA and TLJ.

Spoiler: Non-non-spoilers

I mean, I rolled my eyes a few times. Chewie getting a medal was pure fan service, as was Rey and Ben sharing a kiss before he died, and that sort of thing can really spoil the immersion when you feel like the filmmakers are talking directly to you rather than the characters talking to each other. But here's the thing. These things don't matter. They have no real effect on the film at all, especially if they happen right at the very end. On the other hand the way Leia's death was handled first raised my eyebrows but then fitted so intricately that I ended up loving it - that she gave her life to help redeem her son, but it wasn't until he died that she could accept her place as a Jedi. That's actually pretty cool, that you can turn Jedi even after death. Yeah, you can point out that the fade-out force ghost business had been set up as a special skill that Obi-Wan needed to go study for years before he got it right, but that would just be nitpicking again. It's made up space wizard powers, you've got to be flexible.

And in general I liked the way that Abrams continued to develop the way the Force was used. The connection power between Kyle Ron and Rey that was set up in TLJ was developed further and further until they learned to exploit it at the very end with Rey passing Ben a lightsaber behind her back. And the little shrug that he gave to acknowledge that yeah, it kinda was cheating, was a nice little cherry on the top.

Probably the biggest criticism I could level at the film was that the fetch-quest plot was weak. It really was. Find the glowy crystal thing so you can find the temple so you can find the Emperor and the fleet. Other than a few minor bumps along the way they just... did that. But after TLJ's big casino-planet diversion which went nowhere just to make a point that it had gone nowhere it managed to serve its purpose. And more importantly, the fetch-quest was just the framework over which the real story, that of Rey and Kyle Ron confronting their respective pasts and futures together, was hung. Plus it felt a bit Indiana Jonesy and that's one of my top 3 nominative-deterministic genres.

Finally though I will admit to being a little uncomfortable about the tepid love interests that were thrown into the mix for no real reason. Partly because I rewatched TFA this morning and the ho yay subtext between Finn and Poe is super-real and those two deserve to get it together, but also because it felt for a while that they were bringing in a new black female character just so that Finn could have someone of the same ethnicity to pair off with at the end, conveniently forgetting not just Poe but also Rose, who he was already paired with in TLJ. Like, someone was concerned that an interracial relationship would be a bit too racy for audiences in 2019? Luckily it was never explicitly moved into proper relationship territory and may well have just been there for the implied-to-be-Lando's-daughter scene at the end, but the character and her role was so clumsily handled I wish they just hadn't bothered.

Oh, and Merry off of Lord of the Rings is in it. I like to imagine he was just wandering through Pinewood one day and got roped in.

ANYWAY! Top of the Bots time!

Top of the Bots 2019 #5



2019 was the year of crossing bots off my bucket list. Characters and moulds I always wanted but had either missed or simply had never been released outside of the US or Japan. Hence Mindwipe. But let’s be honest here, he’s no Mindwipe. He’s more Falcon than anything else. But it’s Christmas, so let’s not fight over it darling.

2009′s Revenge of the Fallen line was the pinnacle of the Bayverse. Yes, Studio Series consistently gives better toys, but they’re only ever revisions of things that have come before. ROTF was a time when Hasbro still believed that the movie aesthetic would take over from the blocky old G1 designs, and were riding high on their creative inertia. New supplementary characters were thrown onto the shelves with gay abandon, including this mean old bastard.

In robot mode he strikes a convincing balance between Bayverse and general Generations, so he’s equally at home with both, but it’s his gorgeous alt mode that sealed the deal for me. The F117-A Stealth Fighter is the single sexiest jet to ever exist and I will fight you on this. That there’s been only a handful of Transformers to take on this mode, and an even smaller fraction that are any good, is an absolute travesty. Mindwipe isn’t perfect - his head peeking out from the underside is a shame - but it’s a small price to pay for one of the best transforming robot toys in my collection.

Oh, and he’s the perfect scale for Diaclone pilots to pose with him. They seem to get along.

Nope. Just that the Horrorcons really aren't much of a thing. It's not like the Insecticons or the original Seekers or anything, they weren't so much of a team as a couple of similar toys with the same gimmick that were made and released at the same time. By not getting one or the other you're not missing out on a complete set.

 

Ok then. What evidence aside from Apeface?

 

Oh, I forgot my favourite thing about TROS.

Spoiler: Dewit

Sheev’s personal male voice choir! I assumed at first that the robed dudes in the stalls were just visions of the dead Sith that Sheev was talking about, but then at the end when rocks started flying it seemed to hit them anyway. And they sang along with the whole thing! Palps has clearly been spending the last few decades working on his...

 

@Imperator

It was widely reported John Warden got "Shushed" by a fellow Hasbro staff member at one of the Toyfair or Con's Hasbro panels (sorry, can't recall exactly which it was but the one the wave 5 extension was announced IIRC, SDCC maybe?) after mentioning that Apeface's "partner" would be turning up "soon".

 

This.

Plus previous promises to complete teams.

Plus a few Titans Return rumours from 2017 which had Apeface and Snapdragon in them, which turned out to be partially true (clearly something went awry in the transition from TR to POTP which necessitated a reboot, but it is clear that Apeface is a holdover from that era).

 

Sat here with a good whisky playing Ori And The Blind Forest with tears in my eyes. What a game this is! @Large - you played this?

 

And G2 Defensor.

Both back in the day and Combiner Wars. Stoopid Hasbro.

 

I missed that.

 

I always thought, and thought it was written somewhere, but maybe not, that the Horrorcons were scorponok's bodyguards?

that is what I have always seen them as.

 

My OS Studio Series Aoyi Mech LS-11 Ancient Leader Scorn turned up from TF direct. Good going in just over 2 weeks given Christmas.

 

Nemesis Prime shepherds his charges to make their weekly obeisance to their sensei, Flight Instructor Springer.

 

Is that.... MP11 Green Scream??

 

@Underlord,
Newage Jazz has really surprised me in how much I like it . The Martini deco was a big selling point but the overall design of the figure is so damn good that it's got past all my usual bias for other characters and is up there with Iron Factory Megatron as my favourite figure of the year.

I was initially not going to get any of Newage's larger characters due to the scale not working with the other companies doing traditional G1 style designs but they're giving people all options in terms of deco and not just the cartoon style and the alt modes on their carbots are all leaning towards the realistic which is a big preference for me so I'm open to others should they be made.

MFT Huge Dragon is a great figure with a lot of presence on a Legends shelf. I think it's aesthetic works best with Iron Factory figures but is still right at home with other Legends so I think you'll have fun with it.

 

Almost! It's Robot Hero OSKO MP-11 Green Scream. Individually articulated fingers, modified torso, alternate head and extra weapons but the wing flaps don't really have the clearance to fold down flush. Rather nice when all's said and done. In a fit of originality I've still been calling him....Greenscream. But I suppose 1) that's his name; 2) any version of Starscream is going to have that suffix, as Megatron derivatives get "-tron" and Optimus clones get "Prime".  

 

My man ! Whisky, Ori, and tears ? This is what I call, I fucking brilliant sunday.
I played Ori in 2015 when it came out, I played it again a year later when the Definitive Edition came out. Then re-played it again because it's beautiful.
Finally played it again some months ago on Switch when it's been port on it (and it's a great port, a great surprise, Moon Studio upscaled the game in 60 FPS and it's so fluid, even more beautiful).
Fantastic right ? I'm actually thinking about you smiling and crying with Ori and Naru, Gumbo and even, yes, yes, Kuro. You go save Nibel Jon, and I'm loving it.

Can not wait for march and ori and the Will of Wisps.


Mood.