Titans Terrors and Toys

When I was growing up, I was a big fan of the Zoids robot kits . Still popular today, the Zoids kits are produced by Tomy and allow people to build small, motorized toy robots that are shaped like some kind of animal (usually dinosaurs). Along those lines is the Mechanical Chameleon brick set, which was recently released by JMBricklayer. JMBricklayer's Mechanical Chameleon isn't a complete robot kit; it takes a cutaway approach , with the inner workings of the robot chameleon revealed on the left side and the robot's "skin" on the right side. As such, most of the kit's parts are used articulate the robot's inner workings. Below is a picture of the kit's box, as well as a page from the kit's instruction manual that outlines different parts of the robot's build. In terms of details, the Mechanical Chameleon kit knocks it out of the park. The pictures below show the completed kit from different sides--from its extended, semi-transparent tongue to ...

I got around to watching M3GAN last weekend (the unrated cut--why bother with anything else?). I enjoyed it very much, although I can still understand the skepticism of some horror buffs over this movie. Yes, it was marketed hard as a "killer doll" movie because that's exactly what it is, so it inevitably invites comparisons to other killer doll movies (particularly Child's Play (1988) and its antagonist Chucky). Yet what surprised me about this film is how much it reminded me of RoboCop (1987) in terms of its satirical approach. The titular doll in M3GAN is a creepy and intimidating killer, one that easily earns her place in the horror icon hall of fame. What sets this film apart from other killer doll movies is that director Gerard Johnstone and screenwriters Akela Cooper and James Wan use the killer doll plot structure as a means to skewer the toy industry, which is represented in the film as the fictional company Funki. One of the recurring themes in MEGAN is...

If you're a fan of classic video games and consoles like me, then you've noticed the steady stream of plug-and-play console emulators that have appeared on the market, emulators that are frequently sold as smaller versions of the original console and come pre-packaged with a number of the console's games. What has been missing in these emulators are lightguns that were made for both arcade and console games. Thankfully, somebody else noticed this absence and did something about it--thus, we have the Sinden Lightgun by Sinden Technology Ltd. I didn't know the Sinden Lightgun existed until I saw a post about it on Facebook. It started as an Indiegogo campaign, and Sinden Technology Ltd. went online during October 2022 to accept orders. The lightgun can be ordered in different colors (red, blue, black or gray), and you can also order a Sinden Arcade Pedal for arcade games that included a pedal feature. The Sinden Lightgun doesn't need a sensor bar, so all the hardware...

When life hands you bricks, make an anime-style brick mech. I picked up a brick kit a few weeks ago that looked fantastic on the box. Unfortunately, the build didn't come together properly: pieces kept popping off and falling inside of the build, which made the pieces harder to find. However, the pieces that were part of the kit were too colorful to let them go to waste, so I decided to use them for a different kind of build: a brick mech. As a kid who grew up during the Japanese robot invasions of the '70s and '80s, I've long admired the mech designs from anime series such as Mobile Suit Gundam , Super Dimensional Fortress Macross , and Fang of the Sun Dougram . Unfortunately, my admiration didn't translate to competent model construction when I tried to build Macross and Dougram kits that were sold in the U.S. though Revell's Robotech line. Thankfully, a group of Lego fans have been creating their own mech kits, so I decided to take a shot at one of my own w...

As someone who grew up before streaming services took over popular entertainment, I'm still reeling from the recent cancellation of Star Trek: Prodigy . Not only will the second season episodes not be aired, but the entire first season of the show has been removed from Paramount's streaming service. I was initially astonished at how much Paramount had embraced Star Trek as a source of content for its streaming service. (I've been very satisfied with all of the new Trek series, and my personal favorites are the animated ones: Prodigy and  Lower Decks .) Even if fans weren't completely satisfied with all the new Trek content that was being offered, at least Paramount appeared to have a vested interest in building upon the franchise through a selection of new entries produced by talented casts and crews. This new expansion also looked more coherent and organized than when Paramount previously used Trek to provide "flagship" shows for the United Paramount Network...