fantastic_four

Got the Marvel Select Mr. Fantastic this week pictured below. I was hoping to use the wrap effect in one major way, and that worked out great--wrapped around Galactus's forearm. It fits great as shown in the second pic below. It can also fit around beefier characters like the Marvel Legends Thing, at least below the shoulders which are too wide to fit in. But poses with Thing's body and legs wrapped up by Reed with his arms sticking out of the top work great. Marvel Select is a different scale than Marvel Legends so in general they're too tall to fit with Legends, but when it's an oversized character then it can work out great. Their Destroyer, Titanium Man, Super-Skrull, Juggernaut, and Colossus all fit fine with Legends, and so does Reed here with his stretchy accessories installed (neck, torso, legs, and arms) since the scale of stretched body parts is irrelevant.

I just got that too after receiving it a few weeks ago.

The Ghost Haslab has win written all over it. Great detailing, cool ship design, plenty of interior space that's easy to access, and if they're lucky it will appear in the first few episodes of the new Ahsoka show that releases a few weeks before the campaign ends. I won't be shocked if this even out-sells the Razor Crest, but I wouldn't put money on it. No room for it for me, but as was true with the Razor Crest I'll consider buying a few just to re-sell later or keep for myself if I just can't resist. Probably won't just like I didn't with the Razor Crest, but I'll be thinking about it.

Even though Sweet Baby Jesus enjoyed it too?

I'm a huge astrophysics fan, but Interstellar was disappointing. Relying on wormholes to travel between stars is quite a stretch given that there's no real indication we'd ever be able to use them like a magic portal if they even exist at all. They're theoretically possible, but there's no evidence they actually exist or that anything could go through them and still be intact on the other side. But hey, it's sci-fi, and I can easily suspend my disbelief with a wormhole as easily as I suspend it for the Enterprise going warp speed. But the trailer misled me--it referred to how people are disillusioned with space travel, and it will take something like the possibility of interstellar travel to get them excited about it again. That sounds AWESOME...except that wormholes are essentially fiction for now, so I don't see how they would get anyone excited about space travel again. The main Rotten Tomatoes score for Nolan films I'd contest is Batman Begins. That movie is one of the top five superhero films ever made, so I can only assume it was baggage from past Batman films that caused 16% of critics to pan it. I know I was a bit skeptical going into it and was surprised at how good it was, and it became even better the more I re-watched it so I kind of get why some critics didn't like it at release.

Review embargo is now lifted and reviews are pouring in. Rotten Tomatoes is 95% so far on 83 reviews with an average score of 8.90 out of 10. The average score so far is particularly impressive. For comparison some of Nolan's other scores are 8.60 for Dark Knight, 8.70 for Dunkirk, and 8.10 for Inception.

Not a film most of us would typically enjoy, but I was hopeful just knowing Greta Gerwig directed it. Looks like it turned out much better than I would have guessed. Wasn't looking forward to it, but now I am.

I'd pick Einstein as the most significant scientist. The impact of the Manhattan Project is far more significant socially and politically than anything Einstein did though since it ushered in the longest period of relative world peace in human history. Fusion is my favorite future technology, but even with the incredible advancements that will bring it's hard to imagine it being more significant than what Oppenheimer's bomb has done. It's not obvious that nukes have led to peace, but that's the effect it has had. Before 1945 there is no period in all of recorded human history where the most powerful nations went more than 30 years without going to war with each other, but since 1945 it hasn't happened at all. The closest we got was during the Korean War with China and the US being the backing powers that were taking each other on through North and South Korea, but luckily China backed down and it didn't escalate.

Fantastic Wired interview with Christopher Nolan: https://www.wired.com/story/christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-ai-apocalypse/ I have long considered the Manhattan Project humanity's largest, most ambitious, and most impactful project, but Nolan's claim in the interview that Oppenheimer is the most significant figure in human history is bold. I don't know a lot about the guy so maybe he's right, but I'm skeptical. Germany was already out of the war by the time the Manhattan Project completed, and Japan would have inevitably been eliminated even without the bomb. And if Oppenheimer had never worked on the project there were half a dozen other scientists working with all of the major nations who likely would have figured it out as well. Certainly he saved millions of lives though given that the casualties in taking Japan down would have been in the millions without the bomb.

How are supposed to know what Ken is even like? He's a motionless doll. I've seen they way he's depicted in the "Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse" cartoon as my kids watched it and he's ditzy/goofy there. He mostly looks that way in the trailer as well, so I guess that cartoon depiction is what he's referring to and went for. Not sure where that take came from. Review embargo lifts Tuesday at 7PM. Or at least I think it does, it was supposed to lift July 13th but got rescheduled to the 17th. Usually that's a bad sign, but this time I suspect there's some other reason than the usual one of the studio being worried about critics hammering it.

Yep. Seemed clear to me from day one it would hit all of the stretch goals. Hasbro's GI Joe team has been killing it since the line started a few years ago.

Review embargo lifts Wednesday at noon last I heard. Definitely the movie I'm looking forward to the most this year along with Dial of Destiny.

Yea I've heard people say they didn't get notifications as well with Pulse. Maybe check your spam folder? Or maybe they just never send them sometimes. Either way signing up for UPS and FedEx for free accounts means they email you when they receive a package for your address.

My Temple Escape Indy showed up this week as well, but I got all notifications. And by all I mean a Pulse email two weeks before saying it was about to ship, an email saying they had charged me, and an email from FedEx informing me of the incoming shipment, which they send out if you have a free account with them.

Got a box in from Japan yesterday--Mafex Magneto, Mafex Thor, Mafex Scarlet Spider, and Kaiyodo Revo Geo carpenter ant 2-pack. The Ant-Man between the two ants is the Target exclusive classic Ant-Man released a few months ago. As usual three more Mafex releases that represent the pinnacle of each character in twelfth scale action figure form. Medicom is on absolute fire the past few years and is the undisputed king of this scale. The cream of this crop is the Magneto--absolute perfection. Beautiful in every way, and the cape in particular is just gorgeous. Scarlet Spider and his cloth hoodie with the wired hood is really good too, and the ants are a bunch of fun. Thor is solid, he's just too short and should be a half-inch to an inch taller, plus his hair makes his head almost impossible to move. Had to get him though because he looks like he's right off of a page of Kirby art.

Wait...I forgot that sometimes theatres don't list showtimes for weekends until around Wednesday. Dial of Destiny showtimes may pop up tomorrow for the weekend.

Wow, Dial of Destiny is almost completely exiting my area starting Friday. Right now it's showing every hour on the hour everywhere, but starting Friday it's going from around a dozen theatres down to just two of the smaller ones. I know it's struggling relative to expectations, but is it struggling THAT much relative to everything else they could be showing? Very odd to see it exit theatres here so fast when it was still the #2 movie this past weekend.

I've never seen Amazon put up the types of order limits that other retailers like Target or Walmart do where they will limit collector's items to max quantities of 2 to 5. If anyone has seen that please do share.

Fun pic of Mads Mikkelsen trying to out-flex the huge goon Olivier Richters from the film. Mikkelsen is 6' 0", so it's easy to see how massive Richters is at 7' 2" 350 pounds. It's fun watching him repeatedly lift adults in the film like they're little kids. Richters also played Ursa Major in the Black Widow film who is shown briefly in the prison scene where Red Guardian arm wrestles him and wins. Richters is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's tallest bodybuilder. In the second pic he's standing next to Hafþór Björnsson, the third actor who played the Mountain from Game of Thrones for the last four or five seasons who is 6' 8" and 340 pounds.

I'm still poring over the Wikipedia page today about the real-world Dial and probably will still be doing so next week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

I went nuts during last week's Hasbro Pulse sale as well, spent around $500. Got four of the Starting Lineup figures plus the basketball hoop...they're excellent! Also bought a bunch of Legends and pre-orders like Jabba the Hutt and Indy Temple Escape. My room is really getting cluttered so I'll HAVE to slow it down pretty soon.

Just saw it and liked it a lot. That original ending would have been better for me, but the ending they gave us instead was OK, just overly sentimental. I really liked the Dial as a McGuffin, MUCH better than the Crystal Skulls. Not as good as the Grail, but probably second although I need more time to think about the Ark as compared to the Dial. It's particularly interesting given that the Dial is a real artifact currently in a museum with some mystery surrounding it, and the film's story fits with that real object VERY well making it even more compelling. Definitely going back to see it in a few weeks. It lacked the humor Spielberg put into the previous films, but it was still really good, felt very much like an Indy adventure.

The Wolverine is what I suspect most people want the most. I know I loved that thing FAR more than all of the other vehicles due to all of those removable rockets it has. I'd bet money on that thing selling over 20K units. I don't follow the vintage market but I suppose that's a good indicator of what Haslabs might sell well. What are the most expensive Joe vehicles on the vintage market? I'm sure THE most is the Flagg, but that's more due to the low supply than high demand.

The Dragonfly definitely looks great, but I just don't have room for twelfth scale vehicles.

Thank you for your input. It may be best to leave alone and not sweat the small stuff. That's what I do. Just slide the label in the bag with the slab in case the future owner wants it and done.