Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the hope-they-sell-billions-and-billions dept.
calags noted that CNN is reporting that the very cool "Cosmos" is finally going to be available
on DVD. I'm curious to see how well the 20-year-old mini- series
has aged. I loved it when I was little tho. They're also going to
air an hour "Highlights" show on PBS.
I have to agree in part. I was very excited about this release and bought a copy. I got it a few weeks ago and watched some before I gave it to my brother for Christmas. We then watched some more together.
Viewing it this time was quite different for both of us than watching it when it first aired when we were kids. This time I could plainly see how he stressed the wonder and amazement of all we don't know as opposed to telling me a bunch of interesting and exciting stuff we (humans) do know.
That aspect of the series may be one thing that made it so memorable. It may have helped a lot of my generation become scientists of some kind by increasing our curiousity. I, however, found it to be a bit annoying, and frankly a bit boring.
Additionally, viewing this series again some 20 years later did give me a few good laughs at the special effects of the Spaceship Imagination or whatever it was that he flew around the Cosmos.
Those complaints aside, I found that by viewing this series again, I did learn some things and it may have rekindled a passing interest in astronomy I have. I also forgot how much history was in the series. Some of that was pretty interesting.
I would reccommend this series to young teenagers who have never seen it before, but not to those who wish to see the series that they enjoyed in childhood. Unfortunately, I don't think that it will live up to your memories of the series.
Re:Do Slashdot care about their own rights at all?
by
IronChef
·
· Score: 3
I'm going to voice a very unpopular sentiment: I am OK with region encoding.
I'm not saying you all have to roll over and take it. I am not saying that it should be the law that players are region encoded. I am not saying that as a consumer I LIKE it. I AM saying that a publisher has the right to protect their deals by restricting where the content can be viewed, as long as that restriction is done in accordance with the law.
If I publish a movie, and I cut lucrative distribution deals in other nations, why shouldn't I use the region coding mechanism to protect that? That's what it's all about, you know; "They" don't want foreign DVDs from wrecking a theatrical release in yet another country. It is all about control. Yes, it sucks for the consumer. I know that, and I fully expect clever, motivated people to circumvent the region coding, and I think that should be allowed. But if the content publishers and the hardware makers want to work together to make playing foriegn media harder, that is their right. At least in the US.
I know that in other countries region restrictions are illegal in the hardware. Good for them. If US citizens want that as well, they need to start using the political process to make it happen.
I used to be on the other side of the fence, ranting about how region coding shold be illegal. Then I started a publishing company, and we are approaching a foriegn licensing deal. Now I understand why region codes exist in a very personal way.
OK, mod me down. My karma can take it. C'mon, HIT ME! DO IT!;)
> The ironic thing is, when you say "too much trembling awe at the majesty of the heavens," >I think
you forget that Sagan lived and died an aethiest. Don't these two things contradict?
As Sagan himself put it:
How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science
and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is
much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more
elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god,
and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that
stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern
science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and
awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
- Carl Sagan
I see no contradiction whatsoever. You do not need to be a theist to understand awe.
Cosmos was a financial disaster
by
Mr.+Protocol
·
· Score: 4
KCET, the PBS station here in El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, was flying high at the time Cosmos was made. This big, fancy production was supposed to be their crowning achievement and make them all a boodle of money, or rather, make back the boodle they'd spent producing it and a bunch of other expensive stuff.
It cratered in.
The disaster was so great that, combined with the other losses, it drove the station into near-bankruptcy. Everyone running it was replaced and the new regime turned it into a standard, fiscally responsible PBS station, i.e., everything was subordinated to begging and pleading for membership subscriptions. Paradoxically, that's when I allowed my membership to expire. Although they have always claimed that they show things "complete and uncut", they started dropping off introductory material from at least one program and replacing it with begging and pleading.
Several years later the station finally managed to claw its way out of the hole.
I'm still not a member.
No one around KCET mentions Cosmos any more.
Re:Do Slashdot care about their own rights at all?
by
ElrondHubbard
·
· Score: 5
Are you guys aware that the _Cosmos_ DVDs are *not* region encoded? One set, one world. Get informed before you start bitching.
http://www.onecosmos.net/
-- "The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis."
-- Nutritionist Ann Ralph, on the Scottish diet
Slashdot Mirror
Sagan is one man who was taken from us far too soon.
---
seumas.com
Viewing it this time was quite different for both of us than watching it when it first aired when we were kids. This time I could plainly see how he stressed the wonder and amazement of all we don't know as opposed to telling me a bunch of interesting and exciting stuff we (humans) do know.
That aspect of the series may be one thing that made it so memorable. It may have helped a lot of my generation become scientists of some kind by increasing our curiousity. I, however, found it to be a bit annoying, and frankly a bit boring.
Additionally, viewing this series again some 20 years later did give me a few good laughs at the special effects of the Spaceship Imagination or whatever it was that he flew around the Cosmos.
Those complaints aside, I found that by viewing this series again, I did learn some things and it may have rekindled a passing interest in astronomy I have. I also forgot how much history was in the series. Some of that was pretty interesting.
I would reccommend this series to young teenagers who have never seen it before, but not to those who wish to see the series that they enjoyed in childhood. Unfortunately, I don't think that it will live up to your memories of the series.
I'm going to voice a very unpopular sentiment: I am OK with region encoding.
I'm not saying you all have to roll over and take it. I am not saying that it should be the law that players are region encoded. I am not saying that as a consumer I LIKE it. I AM saying that a publisher has the right to protect their deals by restricting where the content can be viewed, as long as that restriction is done in accordance with the law.
If I publish a movie, and I cut lucrative distribution deals in other nations, why shouldn't I use the region coding mechanism to protect that? That's what it's all about, you know; "They" don't want foreign DVDs from wrecking a theatrical release in yet another country. It is all about control. Yes, it sucks for the consumer. I know that, and I fully expect clever, motivated people to circumvent the region coding, and I think that should be allowed. But if the content publishers and the hardware makers want to work together to make playing foriegn media harder, that is their right. At least in the US.
I know that in other countries region restrictions are illegal in the hardware. Good for them. If US citizens want that as well, they need to start using the political process to make it happen.
I used to be on the other side of the fence, ranting about how region coding shold be illegal. Then I started a publishing company, and we are approaching a foriegn licensing deal. Now I understand why region codes exist in a very personal way.
OK, mod me down. My karma can take it. C'mon, HIT ME! DO IT!
Sure, Carl Sagan stuff and anything ANIME you post. But that The Prisoner is finally available on DVD, that you ignore???
No justice, I tell you.
--
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
>I think you forget that Sagan lived and died an aethiest. Don't these two things contradict?
As Sagan himself put it:
I see no contradiction whatsoever. You do not need to be a theist to understand awe.
KCET, the PBS station here in El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, was flying high at the time Cosmos was made. This big, fancy production was supposed to be their crowning achievement and make them all a boodle of money, or rather, make back the boodle they'd spent producing it and a bunch of other expensive stuff.
It cratered in.
The disaster was so great that, combined with the other losses, it drove the station into near-bankruptcy. Everyone running it was replaced and the new regime turned it into a standard, fiscally responsible PBS station, i.e., everything was subordinated to begging and pleading for membership subscriptions. Paradoxically, that's when I allowed my membership to expire. Although they have always claimed that they show things "complete and uncut", they started dropping off introductory material from at least one program and replacing it with begging and pleading.
Several years later the station finally managed to claw its way out of the hole.
I'm still not a member.
No one around KCET mentions Cosmos any more.
Are you guys aware that the _Cosmos_ DVDs are *not* region encoded? One set, one world. Get informed before you start bitching.
http://www.onecosmos.net/
"The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis." -- Nutritionist Ann Ralph, on the Scottish diet