Slashdot Mirror
Kenny Baker Will Be In Ep2
linderdm writes: "It looks like, once again, we have been subject to misinformation concerning Episode II. According to the Official Star Wars Web site, Kenny Baker will indeed be returning to act in Episode II, making him and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), the only two actors to appear in all of the Star Wars movies to date."
Good to hear that the old bit was just a nasty rumor.
"The old Star Wars movies were made despite the System. The new movies are made by the System."
They've resurrected Kenny! You bastards!
Steven
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-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
These aren't the rumors we're looking for
You can go about your business
You can go about your business
Move along.
Move along.
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Gort! Klatu Barata Nikto!
Tom of Tom's Hardware writes a critical review of the 1.13 gigahertz Pentium III, and posters claim that there's no problem ("no other reviewers detected it") and slam Tom for anti-Intel bias. Tom is then proven right with an Intel recall, and Tom gets slammed with a "he might have been right, but he's biased anyway".
George Lucas is denounced for cutting Kenny Baker out of Episode 2, and a whole series of posts come out denouncing Lucas. Then it is announced that Lucas isn't doing that, and it is touted as proof that Lucas is as evil as the previous denunciations said.
Now, I'm not saying Tom isn't biased, or that Lucas isn't evil. But it does seem that there are people who are awfully eager to denounce others at the drop of a hat, and who don't have enough courage to admit that they were wrong...
Steven E. Ehrbar
I'm actually quiet upset that Mr Lucas has choosen to go with Kenny after all. I mean, when i heard that he had done the sensible thing, and gone with CGI, i was really looking forward to EP:2. After, all, if it was anything as good as EP:1, it's going to be briliant!
George Lucas should reconsider his decision not to use CGI for R2D2. It's not fair to abuse Kenny any farther by forcing him into that tiny costume to play a robot any more, when CGI can deliver the results much cheaper, and create a far more realistic looking robot than a costum ever could.
Oh well, i can only hope George comes to his senses.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
- Read the inbox for geek-interest press-releases or rumors
- Post highest hit-rate-potential press-releases or rumors as 'news'
- Ignore previous iterations of exact same or reasonably similar postings
- Editorialize upon said rumors - note comments need be only marginally relevant and may contradict source material
- When caught out in a particularly egregious mistake make an addendum or simply recycle the correction as a new item some hours or days later
Slashdot Discussion Process:I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
News for Nerds. Stuff that is unverified.
making him and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), the only two actors to appear in all of the Star Wars movies to date."
I guess you can really judge the geekiness of a movie when the only two guys that have a social life are a couple of robots. :)
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Young Anakin was annoying at times, yes, but I don't think it's entirely just to blame this on the "horrible acting" of Jake Lloyd. (Aside: am I the only one who thinks of another child actor, Danny Lloyd, _alias_ "Danny Torrance" from Kubrick's THE SHINING, when I see Jake Lloyd? They even look a bit the same. And some might say that young Danny was every bit as annoying as young Ani.)
:]
It's fashionable too to scorn Mark Hamill for his horrible acting, especially in A NEW HOPE; but is this entirely Hamill's fault? He was quite good in another film which appeared a few years later, Sam Fuller's THE BIG RED ONE; but then Sam Fuller was a better director by far than Lucas.
And this, I think, is the problem. To get good performances from actors, good direction helps, a lot. A good director can flog a decent performance out of a mediocre actor (consider Ray Liotta in Scorsese's GOODFELLAS, or Ryan O'Neal in Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON--they're good in those movies, and forgettable in almost anything else.)
George Lucas, though...consider, for example, Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor in PHANTOM MENACE. Both have superb performances to their credits (e.g. SCHINDLER'S LIST for Neeson, TRAINSPOTTING for McGregor.) But, if you'd seen these actors for the first time in PHANTOM MENACE, would you have seen _anything_ which suggested that they had great talent? Hardly! I can only conjecture that so uninspiring was Lucas's direction that Neeson and McGregor didn't feel themselves called upon to expend more than the minimum effort needed to act out their parts.
And now I'm remembering Hamill's words to the effect that if Lucas could make movies without actors, he would. I suspect that Lucas doesn't really know _how_ to direct actors, perhaps feels uncomfortable doing so; he'd rather play with computer graphics. It's not just the creation of fully animated characters like the androids or Jar Jar; if the IMDb is to be believed, Lucas also resorted to computerized "directing" (altering Natalie Portman's voice electronically, altering which way Jake Lloyd's eyes looked in a particular scene. And need I mention the alterations to the "Special Editions"?)
I'm a little saddened. STAR WARS holds a special place in my heart, all the more so because I'm a latecomer to it (I first saw all three films, in their entirety, only upon the theatrical release of the Special Editions.) But THE PHANTOM MENACE left me with little hope for the second and third films. I'm pinning my big-budget fantasy-film dreams to Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS movies
Hyacinthus
Consider some of the rumors floating around before Episode 1: the one that stuck up the most was that Lucas considered using a digital version of Sir Alec Guinness to play the young Obi-Wan. The fact the rumor spread around meant that people were excited at the upcoming special effects and dreamed of wild innovations.
Now, post-Episode 1, we get rumors that even R2D2 will receive an unwanted CGI facelift. This goes to show that people are now jaded of SW special effects, and fear the movies are losing their dimension of humanity.
By extension, these rumors then expose the bias a particular news source. How often do you see positive rumors about Episode 2, lately? What about the comments themselves?
I'm really confused about this whole "blacklash on slashdot" recently. People complaining that news items don't fit THEIR ideals for "news for nerds" or that Slashdot occasionally posts something that is wrong.
/. then don't complain about the content. If you want the content to be more "nerdy" then submit something. /. is NOT CNN, it is a COMMUNITY. I don't go to /. because I think they've checked all of the facts. (face it, even major world-wide news organizations cannot check their facts first, and if you think differently, why don't you try it out?)
First off, we "Nerds" are a pretty diverse group. Therefore your idea of "news" may not be the same as my idea of "news." If you are that pissed off about it, then DON'T READ THE TOPIC, let alone reply to it. It always amazes me how out of the way people go to make themselves and others around them miserable.
Second, tell me if I'm wrong, but Slashdot is NOT an associated press. They produce news items based on submitted postings and interesting tidbits that they find. So if anyone is to blame on the content, blame yourselves. And if you don't go as far to submit a story to
Of course, I'm being a hypocrite just by posting this, but I gotta vent my frustrations that have been building up for the past month. Sorry.
Vulgrin the MAD
I sig, therefore I am.
Judging from the story on starwars.com, it's not entirely clear whether Lucas is 100% disavowing this rumor or not. Take a close look at Lucas' exact words:
Lucas certainly isn't enthusiastically stating that only Kenny Baker can play R2D2. It sounds to me like Lucas is saying that most of the R2D2 shots can be done with robotic technology; he just wants Kenny to come in for a few specific shots that, for whatever reason, the robotics can't handle. (I'll leave speculation as to whether this is due to technical limitations or to avoid looking publicly like he was dumping Kenny Baker as an exercise for the reader.)
Truth be told, for all the to-do about this story, my sentiments are mixed. While Baker made a great R2D2, Terry Gilliam makes a great point in his commentary track on the Criterion Collection DVD of Time Bandits , which Baker starred in. He says that it's a shame that actors like Baker are forced by their height to spend their lives playing robots and Ewoks, hidden under costume and makeup, rather than playing actual human beings who just happen to be shorter than most. Something worth thinking about while we all wring our hands over whether Kenny gets to spend a week in a robot suit.
-- Jason A. Lefkowitz
Read my blog.
let this be a lesson to you! Next time when checking for valid information...USE THE SOURCE! :-)
And remind that Kurt the debian reviewer while your at it
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Cool! Will he appear in Robo World Cup as well now?
CGI Version:
o 1 part Cylinder,
o 1 part Sphere,
o Various Cubes,
o 1 part Chees-O(tM) blue and white random splotch texture map
Instructions -
1. Place Sphere on Cylinder.
2. Place Cylinder and sphere on Rectangles
3. Place Chees-O(tM) blue and white random splotch texture map on everything.
4. Hit Frapee!
Real life Version
o 1 part trashcan
o 1 part dome-thingy
o Various size shoeboxes
o VerySmallMan(tM) (note that midgets don't work in this recipe)
o Silver and light blue spray paint.
o Duct tape. Lots and lots of duct tape.
Instructions:
1. Place VerySmallMan(tM) in trashcan and place dome on top of trashcan. Seal with duct tape. Ignore ear shattering screams from VerySmallMan. Yes, he can breath, you did punch holes in the trashcan, right? RIGHT?
2. Duct tape shoe boxes to trashcan.
3. Spray paint.
4. Frapee!
Rami
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rJames.org - illustration
Isn't that a bit of a misnomer? After all, neither Kenny Baker nor Anthony Daniels actually appeared in either movie. Anthony wasn't even physically in Episode I, either, for that matter, just his voice.
Why are people here naive enough to actually believe anything they hear about the next Star Wars movie? It seems blatently obvious that all of these rumours are being put about deliberately by Lucas and co. just to drum up extra interest in the film without paying for it.
After all, he's already shown how little he cares for the people that buy his films with his DVD and "special edition" video policy, so what's a bit of public manipulation to him? Just ignore the hype, go see the film if you have to (it must be nice having fans that will go no matter how crap the film is) and then realise that it's another massively overhyped CGI-driven movie for ten year old kids with no tolerance for a plot.
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Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru