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dolariWith Emily's money situation finally settled down, I finally splurged on myself for once. I scouted around on Amazon.com to order a few things I wanted. I picked up a copy of "The Nag Hammadi Library" and "The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden."
One of the only good things I got out of my Cathechism classes was the bibles we used had copies of the Apocrypha. Books of the Bible that weren't holy enough to be in the main course of the Bible, but not pedestrian enough to not be of note.
When I started playing around with comparative religion (while I was a devout athiest, of all things) I poked around some of the Gnostic Christian Church stuff, which I really liked for a Judeo-Christian Religion. Basically Christian Feel Good Hippies. :) I'd heard about the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, and all these other cool books.
I never actually thought to buy books on them. I found the Nag Hammadi library on Amazon, along with some of the other lesser known religious works and snapped it up.
I also finally replaced my long dead printer. I am now the owner of a brand new Xerox 6110 Laser Printer. FINALLY, I can print graphics intensive comic pages without having that "soaked paper" feel to them, and get some serious quality like when I'd scam Kinko's by printing up stuff there. My only regret is that it doesn't do 11x17 (The price immediately jumps up to the thousands for those). My only worry is that I won't use this enough that when I do run out of toner or the fuser blows out, or the image unit goes out, they won't be made anymore. I should get at least one toner refill for each ASAP.
So here I am poking around and I'm getting ready to hit checkout, when something pops up in the corner of my eye: "Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles."
Immediately, I'm intrigued. To the point that I bought it on the spot. And paid for next day shipping. ;)
I'd know this was coming for a long time, and in fact, was thinking of making the four hour trip to Houston to catch a theatrical showing. I didn't know the DVD would be out Right This Minute.
I got it this morning. From the time it was delivered to the time the DVD player was playing was about six or seven seconds, I'm sure. So what's the verdict?
Well. It's Robotech. :) Specifically the 3rd Generation of Robotech. With a lot more space battles.
THe good: It's very well done, totally Robotech to the core. It starts up roughly halfway through the last episode of the original series almost flawlessly. Some of the dialogue in scenes that takes place in the the last episode and in the movie are slightly expanded, but with the same voice actors and sound effects! It's really faithful to the series, and looks like Robotech with a Budget. It also brings back a load of the original series characters (mostly with their original voice actors) and the new ones are very well fleshed out. The story is Yet Another Alien Invasion, but it's not on the level of the Zenraedi/Masters/Invid. This is an attempt that is foiled pretty quickly. It also SCREAMS "Pilot Episode" as the end is a setup for obviosu "further adventures." The animation is top notch, too, while remaining faithful to the original series. The original 3rd Generation characters show up in their original costumes, and are "bumped up" to the new costumes as the show goes along. The Mecha looks good, but then, it always looked good, even in the 80s. :) All in all, I'm REALLY impressed by it.
The Bad: A small quibble, and a major nitpick. The quibble: The show has a LOT of spacebattles. They're all CGI, they're all gorgeous and fluid. After smooth CGI animation, you suddenly drop to cel animation, and everything feels so jerky as the frame rate drops. The major nitpick...well...it really isn't one if you're a fan. But looking at this movie with fresh non-robotech eyes, you have NO IDEA what's going on. It's mostly assumed that everyone already knows who is who and has an excellent grasp of the original series. Not everyone does, so they lose out. On top of that, a lot of the backstory comes from the cancelled 80s Robotech sequel. While they did release the first three episodes that were produced as a special, not many people saw it. The sequel was done in comics (which were never finished) and in novels (which had even less circulation). Even some fans don't know the Sentinels storyline, so some fans lose out on who is who. Outside of the Sentinels, no one knew what a Haydonite was. Some events are obviously based ONLY on the novel versions of Robotech, such as having Louie Nichols show up on the Tirol Fleet headed to Earth, when last we saw him in the TV series, he was left on Earth. If you didn't read those novels, you lost out. AND. Even if you DID read them...some changes from the novels/comics/sequel have been changed and not explained. A good example is Janice Em, who shows up here as a robotic humanoid given to the fleet by a Haydonite, where in the Sentinels, she was a robot designed as a duet partner for Minmei (and secret spy for a scientist in the fleet). A small little piece of that duet thing exists in the movie when Janice just starts singing an old Minmei tune...but in this new rewrite, it doesn't make sense. However...if you remember the series...and you've watched the sentinels....and read the novels...and are willing to fudge some history...like me...it's good. If you haven't done ALL of that...you're going to be lost. And that could be a lot of people.
The Ugly: The vacuum machine they must use to make the uniforms as skintight as possible. And poor Rick, he looks like he's been through hell.
I ended the day playing around on SL (after that really dissapointing dinner), and spent time making a table for the backyard that looked a little better than the plain old dinnertable I had back there. Here're the results.
If you can name the pattern the table top is based you, you, my friend, are a geek of the highest order.
And the day ended with a group photo. :)
Me (as Carrie Talaj), Emily, Lissa, Luna and Aspasia - trying our best to actually pose for a group photo...or a movie poster. We can't figure out which. IF only we'd had Mari, Obake and Katrus, we'd have had the full crew! (Click for full size)
Another attempt
And another
Life is much more fun as a redhead.
One of the only good things I got out of my Cathechism classes was the bibles we used had copies of the Apocrypha. Books of the Bible that weren't holy enough to be in the main course of the Bible, but not pedestrian enough to not be of note.
When I started playing around with comparative religion (while I was a devout athiest, of all things) I poked around some of the Gnostic Christian Church stuff, which I really liked for a Judeo-Christian Religion. Basically Christian Feel Good Hippies. :) I'd heard about the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, and all these other cool books.
I never actually thought to buy books on them. I found the Nag Hammadi library on Amazon, along with some of the other lesser known religious works and snapped it up.
I also finally replaced my long dead printer. I am now the owner of a brand new Xerox 6110 Laser Printer. FINALLY, I can print graphics intensive comic pages without having that "soaked paper" feel to them, and get some serious quality like when I'd scam Kinko's by printing up stuff there. My only regret is that it doesn't do 11x17 (The price immediately jumps up to the thousands for those). My only worry is that I won't use this enough that when I do run out of toner or the fuser blows out, or the image unit goes out, they won't be made anymore. I should get at least one toner refill for each ASAP.
So here I am poking around and I'm getting ready to hit checkout, when something pops up in the corner of my eye: "Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles."
Immediately, I'm intrigued. To the point that I bought it on the spot. And paid for next day shipping. ;)
I'd know this was coming for a long time, and in fact, was thinking of making the four hour trip to Houston to catch a theatrical showing. I didn't know the DVD would be out Right This Minute.
I got it this morning. From the time it was delivered to the time the DVD player was playing was about six or seven seconds, I'm sure. So what's the verdict?
Well. It's Robotech. :) Specifically the 3rd Generation of Robotech. With a lot more space battles.
THe good: It's very well done, totally Robotech to the core. It starts up roughly halfway through the last episode of the original series almost flawlessly. Some of the dialogue in scenes that takes place in the the last episode and in the movie are slightly expanded, but with the same voice actors and sound effects! It's really faithful to the series, and looks like Robotech with a Budget. It also brings back a load of the original series characters (mostly with their original voice actors) and the new ones are very well fleshed out. The story is Yet Another Alien Invasion, but it's not on the level of the Zenraedi/Masters/Invid. This is an attempt that is foiled pretty quickly. It also SCREAMS "Pilot Episode" as the end is a setup for obviosu "further adventures." The animation is top notch, too, while remaining faithful to the original series. The original 3rd Generation characters show up in their original costumes, and are "bumped up" to the new costumes as the show goes along. The Mecha looks good, but then, it always looked good, even in the 80s. :) All in all, I'm REALLY impressed by it.
The Bad: A small quibble, and a major nitpick. The quibble: The show has a LOT of spacebattles. They're all CGI, they're all gorgeous and fluid. After smooth CGI animation, you suddenly drop to cel animation, and everything feels so jerky as the frame rate drops. The major nitpick...well...it really isn't one if you're a fan. But looking at this movie with fresh non-robotech eyes, you have NO IDEA what's going on. It's mostly assumed that everyone already knows who is who and has an excellent grasp of the original series. Not everyone does, so they lose out. On top of that, a lot of the backstory comes from the cancelled 80s Robotech sequel. While they did release the first three episodes that were produced as a special, not many people saw it. The sequel was done in comics (which were never finished) and in novels (which had even less circulation). Even some fans don't know the Sentinels storyline, so some fans lose out on who is who. Outside of the Sentinels, no one knew what a Haydonite was. Some events are obviously based ONLY on the novel versions of Robotech, such as having Louie Nichols show up on the Tirol Fleet headed to Earth, when last we saw him in the TV series, he was left on Earth. If you didn't read those novels, you lost out. AND. Even if you DID read them...some changes from the novels/comics/sequel have been changed and not explained. A good example is Janice Em, who shows up here as a robotic humanoid given to the fleet by a Haydonite, where in the Sentinels, she was a robot designed as a duet partner for Minmei (and secret spy for a scientist in the fleet). A small little piece of that duet thing exists in the movie when Janice just starts singing an old Minmei tune...but in this new rewrite, it doesn't make sense. However...if you remember the series...and you've watched the sentinels....and read the novels...and are willing to fudge some history...like me...it's good. If you haven't done ALL of that...you're going to be lost. And that could be a lot of people.
The Ugly: The vacuum machine they must use to make the uniforms as skintight as possible. And poor Rick, he looks like he's been through hell.
I ended the day playing around on SL (after that really dissapointing dinner), and spent time making a table for the backyard that looked a little better than the plain old dinnertable I had back there. Here're the results.
If you can name the pattern the table top is based you, you, my friend, are a geek of the highest order.
And the day ended with a group photo. :)
Me (as Carrie Talaj), Emily, Lissa, Luna and Aspasia - trying our best to actually pose for a group photo...or a movie poster. We can't figure out which. IF only we'd had Mari, Obake and Katrus, we'd have had the full crew! (Click for full size)
Another attempt
And another
Life is much more fun as a redhead.
