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Bootleg Star Wars AotC Debuts on Internet
Arctic Fox writes "Matt Drudge is reporting that bootleg copies of the new Star Wars movie have been appearing on the internet one week before the movie's big screeen debut. The article says that they have used a tripod mounted camera at a pre-screening to tape it. Not known is if anyone is seen walking in front of the camera."
I gotta admit, I find this amusing, although I'd never bother downloading it:
I've had 12:01 tickets ready to go and there is no way I'm gonna spoil it watching
a low quality divx.
Maybes it George wanting to get some more publicity ?
This is one case where I wish the DMCA WOULD swing into action...
Yeah but to watch it now and then go to the first screening and ruin all the good parts for those sitting near you might be a kick.
befre anyone says "we don't need no stinking movie news! i'm here for /computer/ stuff!", we should suggest a movie box?
what's next? "new movie, blah is to be released in 8 weeks. the first copies of it on divx are already appearing on the internet. this release beats the old record by 3 and a half hours."?
moox. for a new generation.
ARG...Taco, you keep bragging about that damn ticket, I am gonna have to drive over to the west side of the state and take it just so you won't brag any more.
:-) have fun.
you still suck though for having it
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
For those who haven't caught on yet, this is why the MPAA and RIAA dislike technology so strongly.
--
Damn the Emperor!
Yeah, some reviews are saying it's going to be bad.
Oh, wait... you're talking about the image quality?
I downloaded a bootleg version of LOTR when it came out. It realy spoils the awe that accompanies seeing the film on the big screen for the first time. Having made the mistake once, I won't do it again. After all, the wait is just like waiting for Christmas as a little kid.
Thats what I think, anyway.
SPOILER WARNING FOLLOWS
I just downloaded it off Napster, and it is not that great. Jar-Jar gets trained in the ways of the Jedi, which is cool, but then he gets killed by Yoda.
:(
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I bought some 00.01 tickets for me and my friends, and I'm not willing to destroy all the tension and curiousity about it by such a f****** divx.
Tend to post comments only when drunk
I gave up on downloading cams when someone promised "Spider-Man - 1 of 2 - Real!!" And it was ACTUALLY Part 2 of Changing Lanes. Man, KaZaa is a mixed blessing.
:(
On the other hand, I am fortunate enough to live within close proximity to one of the "sacred places" specified by Wired that have digital projection. Cinemark started selling tickets Monday morning, but didn't advertise them until Tuesday. By then, word of mouth had already sold out the 12:01am show online, and I had stopped down Monday afternoon to the kiosk in the Valley View Cinemark lobby to claim my tickets.:)
Next thing you know, I'm EVERYONE's best friend. I ordered 12 tickets (the most I wanted to spend on tickets on my credit card wa $100) and they were gone to friends and co-workers in 2 hours. The next day and a half, I got 4 calls from people BEGGING me to bump other confirmed viewers!
I just told them to pre-order for Thursday or Friday night. In the mean time, I'm taking a Jedi Holiday on Thursday, with my boss'es blessing, because Wednesday night I'm lining up! I may not own any Star Wars costumes or merchandise, but the movie is going to rock, and the cultural experience of being there opening night with the HARD CORE SW folks is too unique to miss.
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
Now, I forget exactly which slashdot editor it was that posted "the lone gunmen are dead" several hours early...
... but whoever they are they should be forced to watch the divx BEFORE being allowed to see the movie.
And the divx should be as grainy, low quality, and stuttery as possible.
Poetic justice.
Having lived in Asia for 15+ years, I can say that this is the way that almost all new movies makes if over there.
Somebody sneaks into a screaning with a camcorder and films the movie. It's always fun to see whether the guy will use a tripod (most don't for fear of getting caught), who's going to stand up during the movie, whether the dude will be eating popcorn (always a little hard to hear the dialogue), and what the audience finds funny.
These bootlegs are almost always sold as VCDs instead of DVDs and they are so low quality that if you have a prayer of seeing the movie at the theater, you don't touch them. Sometimes you get the ultimate surprise of watching "It's a Bug's Life" instead of "Jurrasic Park III", but it's all part of the experience.
P.S. to the MPAA - if you actually sold movies in China that were legal, this sort of thing would never fly with the public.
$45 per U Colocation Special
The movie is completed already. The MPAA refuses to sell you a CD copy of it, so they are leaving it up to the pirates to fill a market demand that they don't want to bother to satisfy.
A large percentage of the piracy situation involves just this exact sort of situation: the material is out there, and the company won't sell it, so piracy flourishes. This has nothing to do with denying profits to creators, since they have decided that they don't want the profits by not selling it.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-051002starwars. story?null
which is rather extensive, but is somewhat of a showcase of antipriracy arguments.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
So someone took a camcorder and filmed AOTC. They did it before, and they'll do it again. When TPM came out, I managed to get an early camcorder VCD copy and sat and watched it at home and was totally thrilled - not by the film itself, but by the fact that I was able to watch this film early, and that finally a new Star Wars film came out.
When it was released, I went and saw it at our local cinema, and it was obvious that a huge number of the people queuing to get in had also seen the film early, and yet we were all still lining up to pay money to see it again (I copied the AVIs from the CDs to my laptop and had watched it lots of times.) Sure, it made the cinema trip less of an occasion, I pretty much knew the film line for line, but the bootleg film, for me, was a huge part of the whole Phantom Menace experience, and I'd do it again (and probably will as soon as I find a copy online.)
This time though, I won't follow it up by going to the cinema as well. I felt that the fact that the sound was kind of ropey for the first half hour or so, and the picture was washed out and less than perfect added to the story - it was supposed to be set decades before ANH and the copy I had actually looked like some kind of archive footage.
Now wash your hands.
The AP is also running a story.
--
silence is poetry.
It is if the source medium is shite - which it is!
Will this have any impact on ticket sales? Obviously not! I would dare anyone who would trade a grainy 320x200 shot of the movie for the real thing in the movie theaters.
LOTRs was out on Morpheus before the movie came it, and it still had amazing revenues.
...that nowhere in any of the existing StarWars movies (don't know about Episode II yet) does there appear a "marketing droid". I mean, how could George Lucas do without such a potentially important character! "Marketing droids" would be crutial to the development of the plot line... perhaps they would be responsible for funding the Evil Empire...
Why bother.
Each and every time I see something like this I want to say, "Show me the money."
How do we know this isn't disinformation from the MPAA?
I have looked on all the normal underground channels for it, but haven't seen it. There have been filenames that would make you think it is it, but it's a bogus file.
Has anyone actually seen this?
I wouldn't waste my time if I were you. The ending doesn't make any sense, it's just some crazy lady dancing.
So, to see these you need to incur a gig of download and all you get to see is two crappy VCD's of a movie that's coming out next week.
These are obsessed people, my friends. Nobody is doing this to avoid paying $8 at the box office. The people who download this will probably be first in line, dressed up as their favorite StarWars character. And they'll probably see it 6 times, even if it sucks.
Noone is loosing money here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Those guys who have been waiting outside since february?
Are they still there?
Maybe we could give them a laptop and a DivX...
Have you actually downloaded it and watched it?
Has anyone?
In looking around I have seen files with the name, but they are always bogus. Big time bogus. Different movie, not large enough, etc.
Has anyone for a single second considered that this could be a disinformation campaign created by the MPAA?
Other news, more digital theaters, unfortunately shy on details, but there's a listing of some on DLP.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Seems it's an early revision of the script, as some scenes from the trailers don't appear or an elaborate fanscript simulation: who would print some 100 pages, then scan them back in, them run them thru OCR.
I'd drop an extra $20 on a DVD if I could get it within, say, two weeks of the premier - even if there were no extras to speak of. I'd much prefer to stay at home rather than go to the theater. Why? For the price of a good HDTV, I put in a 1366x768 HiDef Projector and 120" 16:9 screen. Hooked up to my audio system, it's every bit as good as the movie houses, and quite better in most cases. Plus, I never have to deal with the hour spent in the car, uncomfortable seats, sticky floors, $5 drinks, and the kid behind me who likes kicking my seat!
They still get the first couple of weeks for the hard core viewers, and they get my money directly (rather than filtering it through the traditional disto channel). Are they worried about pirates or "personal" showings which they won't get a cut of the profits? Well, piracy obviously exists despite their best efforts and public showings of the discs are already illegal.
As an added bonus, the hard core DVD watchers will purchase the later-released, Special, Collectors, and Mutli-disc Ultimate editions when they come out.
*poof*
Oh forget about all that, I just woke up. Nice dream, though...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"Damn this digital copying technology!" cries the MPAA. "It makes it really easy for a single copy to be rapidly distributed to many sites!"
Which is true, but these early copies are all taken from pre-release showings of celluloid. Given that the studios clearly can't keep control of the celluloid, it's no longer giving them any benefit. In fact, they're a bloody liability, as it takes time to make many celluloid copies and to distribute them, worldwide in this case. Consider the problems of trying to make and ship thousands of celluloid copies all around the world, weeks before the first screenings, while trying to keep an eye on them and stop reviewers filming the showings (or people in the distribution chain just pocketing copies).
Hey, here's a solution that I can think of. Give up on it. Keep a single digital master, say "FUCK the reviewers" ('cause half of them don't watch the damn film anyway before writing their review, and some of those who do are filming it!), transmit digital copies the day before showing start, and only start your celluloid printing there and then. Digital copying technology makes it really easy for a single copy to be rapidly distributed to many sites, remember? Hey, we can figure that out.
George wants to encourage more digital screens, right? Great, do something about it. (Assuming Episode 2 doesn't suck), then consider if Episode 3 screen times were:
Get the point? The digital genie is out of the bottle, and it can't be put back. Celluloid is a security liability. Distributors might as well get with the 21st century and start using digital technology rather than weeping over how much it's costing them.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
What the hell is the point? Episode II is going to suck just as bad as Episode I did, therefore, it isn't even worth downloading.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Being that Mr Lucas filmed the entire movie in a digital format, the preview showing (which this would be a copy of) almost certainly was in a digital projection theater. Perhaps the projectionist merely copied the files and downconverted them to VCD? :-)
Seriously, I wonder how big the digital projection files for this would be. Would they fit onto an iPod?
Edonkey 2000, there is your fort knox.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Is this just a trick of the MPAA?
Think about it - make a honeypot and see how many people stick to it.
Star Wars : Episode II - Attack of the Clones could be the MPAA's poster child, just like Metalica was the RIAA's poster child.
I'm guessing this was all set up by the MPAA, and that they've figured out how to track who downloads it - just like the RIAA figured out how to track who downloaded Metalica.
Of course, I could just be paranoid...
Education is the silver bullet.
But from the reviews, it looks like this bootleg of ATOC isn't worth your download time. It's currently polling at 5.7 out of 10 for image quality, and 6.2 out of 10 for sound. Even for a VCD, that's pretty low. And of course, the JPG screen cap looks like a blurry mess. However bad the quality is, it is impressive that FTF was able to release SW Ep2 so early. Check out the comments forum to see what people (well, if you consider "5kR1p7 k1DDi3z" to be actual people) are saying about this bootleg.
Bragging rights is EXACTLY right!
I was just about to email a buddy who's set up for downloading movies, and have him get this for us. I don't plan on watching it until after I've seen the theatre screening, and if it's any good I'll want a DVD of it most likely.
However, I'll be able to show it to people later and say, 'check out what we used to do. Isn't that cool?'
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
...that they're selling the movie theater experience as much as the actual movie? Like Taco said, even if somebody plunked a DIVX copy of AOTC in my hands right now, there's no way I'm gonna watch some shitty DIVX when I can pay 8 dollars for to watch it on a screen that's bigger than my apartment, in a comfy chair, with booming digital sound.
:) I'd pay a few extra dollars for a ticket to a more upscale theater.
In any business, you think about what you're offering that's UNIQUE, whether it be price, quality, features, or convenience. What do theaters have that's unique? Certainly not the movies, since they're freely available via the Internet, or cheaply available via rental several months later. It's the theaters themselves (and the associated trip-to-the-movies-with-friends experience) that are unique. Now, this experience SUCKS in some ways (lines, rude employees, partially-chewed Goobers under your feet in the theater) but that's all the more reason to improve it.
Theaters ARE starting to catch on, with features like comfy stadium seating. I'd like to see them take it a little further. A lot of art-house movie theaters have nice interiors and lounges, with food that's nicer than the usual horrid crap at large theaters, and it often costs less. It would be nice to see slightly more upscale mainstream theaters. Also, they should sell beer.
Sure, lots of people are gonna download this flick off the net, but I really don't think many of those people were gonna PAY to see the movie in the first place.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
I think we all pretty much know how the story is going to end.
Here in the UK, we're getting it eight hours before our friends across the pond.. Hurrah!
I like to watch my tv on a fairly big screen while relaxing on the sofa. My flatmate likes to download lots of tv, and I've watched a few episodes of Futurama and the Simpsons that he's grabbed.
And you know what? There's no way I'd watch a downloaded film, because watched fullscreen, the quality is shit. It's bad enough with Futurama, which is nice and simple most of the time, without realy fast changes, but almost anything else tends to be blocky and pixellated and low res.
I think I'll stick to buying the DVDs
My Journal
Check out this story: Between 19 and 60 theaters could show ATTACK OF THE CLONES with digital projectors, but of them, none in Southern California had yet booked the movie. (We'll see if that stands. Remember the "no Sony theaters will show Episode I" rumor from three years ago?)
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
In order to find the trailer you have to know that the letters are mixed to prevent easy sighting by the MPAA.
.rar, zip or other preferred archive format extension.
Instead of AoTc, it is TAco or coAT with the respective
.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Fodder to support their nefarious schemes.
Will this affect ticket sales? No.
Will this cost Lucas anything? No.
Will this in any way directly damage anyone? No.
Will the RIAA/MPAA use this as a scare tactic to ramrod any legislation they happen to want? You bet your bum.
Right or wrong, harmful or not, giving your enemy ammunition is a pretty stupid idea.
gm
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
Or has it been too long since we've seen one of those "Natalie Portman naked and petrified" trolls? Anybody else miss them?
Ahhh, 1999. So long ago....
This tagline is umop apisdn.
MPAA : But, but you don't get it! Those who would have watched twice will only watch *once*! And those that would have watched ten times will only watch *nine*! That's lost revenue! We're going down the drain!
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
So ha!
The .nfo has plenty of information reguarding their release, if you desire to see how things are done among the warez groups. I find it interesting that even among warez groups theres a spirit of compitition, rather than a sort of unionized communism("Hey, releasing video's is Bob's job. YOU'RE TAKING RESPECT FROM HIM.")
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
... the more bootlegs will slip through their fingers.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
This is either a prerelease screener for review or for movie theater employees (I'm guessing the latter)... It's good quality, not fantastic, obviously made from a quick and dirty optical print dubbed to VHS... Not shot in a theater or with a camera...
If you look at the sample MPEG, you'll note a fuzzy edge to the bottom and right side of the video, which indicates masking that normally occurs in a film to video direct transfer- They usually invest more effort in making retail versions cleaner...
A camera captured version would usually be a little off kilter, chop off a significant portion of the screen, and as was mentioned, occasionally have another audience member either walking through a shot, or coughing, or their cel phone would be going off here and there...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
"Films are constructed. Every element is precisely inserted for greatest effect. Find out what it's like, drop the $9 and get your ass in line."
Hilarious! You believe that, and you call me an idiot! Rich!
Lucas makes it up as he goes along! He "inserts" things to appease his daughters and his bank balance, that's why every film after the first has been aimed at a younger and younger audience, and that's why his re-released versions took out the parts that made Han seem like a guy who sometimes did bad things.
After the nice lady at your Anger Management Therapy slips you the pink pills, get her to read my comment to you.
I said nothing that was an "attempt to legitimize crap presentation" I merely told how I enjoyed watching my crappy looking VCD copy, and explained how it, in TPM's case, looked appropriate, in my opinion.
If you find that "offensive", too bad. It's only a film, not a religion.
And try to chill out a bit, eh?
Now wash your hands.
I gotta admit, I find this amusing, although I'd never bother downloading it: I've had 12:01 tickets ready to go and there is no way I'm gonna spoil it watching a low quality divx.
So I take it you don't object to the bootleg on ethical grounds?
(Somewhere on Sepulveda Drive in L.A.)
.02% of the American population, sir!"
RED ALERT! RED ALERT!
"Boss! We've got a problem! There is a crappy copy of the new Star Wars out a week early on the internet! And people who have cable modems or better, underground internet connections, an interest in seeing it, the understanding of what an alternative media player codec is, big enough hard drive space left, a file sharing app that still works, the knowhow to get it to run, and the interest of watching it early on a computer monitor are STEALING OUR MOVIE!"
"So how much of our movie audience is that?"
"Well, probably
"Oh. HEY! Look at this! We just made all the papers across the country. Man you just can't buy advertising this good! Get my clubs. We're going golfing lackey."
"Right on it, sir!"
Augh, attack of the clones?
Okay, that was a bad one...:)
People who pirate movies like SpiderMan and Star Wars: Episode II (to name tow recent ones) only undermine the efforts of the EFF and groups like them to reign in copyright protection. Even if copyright were returned to 14/14 like the copyright act of 1902, these would still be gross violations of intellectual property rights. Think before you download this movie REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE GOING TO SEE IT IN THE THEATERS!!! By downloading this movie or engaging in file sharing of copyrighted material you are spitting in the face of those in the EFF who are trying to protect our rights.
Please don't take my comment to mean that real fans will be downloading the VCD. I agree with you completely - that would be ludicrous.
On the contrary, there appears to be a separate set of people who are simply obsessed with the movie, based on very little data, mostly all on the hype.
Based on your description, though, maybe there's a third group, the hype-driven fan, who is both a fan and taken up by the hype.
I ask this seriously: Why would you dress up as Darth Maul before you saw TPM? What if you found out that he was a kitten-eating child molester during the course of the movie? If you dressed up as Obi-Wan, that I could understand, we all knew Obi-Wan rules, but how can one be a Darth Maul fan before knowing who Darth Maul is?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The "Phantom Menace" bootleg I saw on a friend's computer at college had turkish(?) subtitles. It was so cool - to my admittedly western eyes it made the damn thing look really alien.
triv
Funny how times change. It used to be said that widescreen movies were unwatchable on any TV 20" or smaller. Now it's up to 40"?!
Hardly. My 27" does quite fine thank you very much. Is it perfect or just like a theater? Of course not. But unless you build a theater to scale in your house, nothing will be like a theater. Even the 61" screens are still smaller than a movie theater.
My so-called too-small TV works as well as it does because of the room it is in. That's an important factor here, room size. Or, more precisely, how far away from the TV you are sitting. If you can't get very far away then a 40" is, in my experience, worse than something smaller.
It's all about perspective and environment. Screen size is a factor, but it's not the only factor.
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
The DMCA is not the solution here.
The DMCA is not the "DMCA".
There are two laws both called the DMCA. One DMCA consists of 17 USC chapter 12, which prohibits cracking 8-bit XOR encryption used as an access control device. The other DMCA consists of a takedown procedure (17 USC 512) that ISPs can follow to maintain a safe harbor. There are also several riders on the DMCA that reverse MAI v. Peak, protect vessel hulls, and affect some operations of the U.S. Copyright Office. See this PDF for more information.
It is simply copyright infringment. Plain, old fashioned copyright infringment. Its illegal, period.
I agree 100%.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I didn't have any desire to see Blow. Then I got a shitty bootleg from gnutella. It looked like a very good movie. So I paid the NYC theater mafia $9.50 to see it on the big screen. So they actually profitted from me downloading a bottleg. I may even buy the DVD one of these days.
But the MPAA doesn't want you to know about people like me.
Certainly the special effects will be lacking on the divx, but one has to ask the question: Are you paying $8 to see special effects, or are you paying $8 for a good story?
If the story is good on the divx, then it may be worth seeing again on the big screen with the good sound and great video.
Personally, I completely expect Lucas to do quite well with video and sound. But the story, is where he fell apart in Phantom.
In the U.S. the DMCA is already stifling free speech, and possibly putting the country at risk because academics can't work in many areas to improve security (becasue they can't publish their results). The proposed SSSCA (recently renamed) is also awful; it tries to turn PCs into TVs that have no ability to process information. And all of this is worthless.
It's worthless because anyone can just use a camera and record a movie straight from the audiovisual output, and then distribute the results. That bypasses the "don't describe how to decrypt" provisions in the DMCA, and it bypasses the "require untamperable decryption" clauses in the SSSCA. As long as humans use ears and eyes for observing audio and video, movies have to come out of the machines sometime.
Many technology-based solutions are worse than the current problem. You could make cameras or distribution of videos illegal - but they have many legitimate uses, including recording family scenes, recording illegal/terrorist acts for later prosecution, and so on. The DVD cabal would like to make sure that only they can create video information, but that's also clearly not in society's best interest. We make sure that anyone can write a book; there is too much danger in trying to prevent that. Even if DVDs could only play them, someone can always write another program to display video data, and we WANT such programs to view material we create. Even if you could insert digital brain implants to watch movies, someone will just record the electrical signals from the brain implants. Besides, the risks of mandating brain implants if you want to watch movies (even if we HAD the technology) exceed any societal benefits for "unbreakable" security.
The act of distributing this copyrighted material is already illegal; there's no need for new laws. Just work to find and prosecute those who perform illegal acts. Perhaps watermarking would be appropriate, since that would aid in finding perpetrators without stomping on legitimate use. We already have forces that search for illegal material and go prosecute them; it doesn't stop it completely, but neither do the other laws, and at least that doesn't fundamentally interfere with the right to create and distribute other audiovisual material.
Yes, it's understandable why the movie industry is worried about digital technology. But so far, it looks like they're learning the wrong lesson. RIAA wants to turn back the clock on technology, and try to force users to accept absurd conditions ("you must pay whatever monthly fee we choose, forever, to hear music"). We can hope that the movie industry will start working on how to work with, not against, digital technology.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
I think you're talking about uniquely watermarking each individual film before they get transported to the theaters. I don't see why this couldn't be done, a handful of companies do audio watermarking that survive mp3 compression*. Making it work for video where the capture medium is a crappy VHS camera should be feasible.
The question is can Lucasfilm (or whoever) recover enough from the effort of adding watermarks to make it worth the effort. Let's assume they add put X dollars into making the technology possible and watermarking to copies of their next movie. Now they find someone pirating a movie, what do they do? File suit against the individual? The l33t h@x0r that uploaded the movie has $3.87 to his name. How about the movie theater? They could very well put the theater out of business, or at least not give them the next Star Wars movie. Now what theater will want to play hardball with a film producer that takes such tactics?
* Liquid Audio supposedly had an audio watermark where you could playback the source on a boombox, record it with a microphone, and still have the watermark intact. No, I never saw it done.
much prefer to stay at home rather than go to the theater. Why? For the price of a good HDTV, I put in a 1366x768 HiDef Projector
You do realize that DVD resolution is quite a bit less than that, don't you? DVDs are not considered high definition (that is reserved for 720p and 1080i/1028p24) Granted, DVDs don't look like ass after 25 showings and having been handled by 18 year old "projectionists" at the local cineplex.
I enjoyed the first 3 star wars movies. Lame, goofy, immature, weak story, poor acting... they were excellent "B" movies. Some of the best of the genre. And, best of all, they were fun to watch.
The last one was so horrible, so poorly constructed, so poorly written, so self-important, Jar Jar so flabbergastingly offensive... I half expected that it would be the end of the series. But tell people "it's the biggest movie event of the decade" and they line up to see it. Fortunately for the economy, people are morons.
A review I read not too long ago gave the best praise possible to this movie "Spielberg is too good a director to release two horrible movies in a row."
Well, some reviewers disagree; I'll definitely be taking my time thanks to this review (reg. required, blah blah).
Of course if it was legal to check out a crappy preview on-line at some fan's expense and the review turned out to be wrong, I'd be in line on opening day. I guess that epitomizes the MPAA's fears: we might see the crap for the hype before they get their cash... better put those pirates in jail - they're threatening the whole economy!
Oh, that's smart: show it early to the one person in the country most likely to give it all away for the rest of us. :)
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
And the divx should be as grainy, low quality, and stuttery as possible
Wow! They've translated it into Gungan already?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Consider this for a second. Could it be possible that this was an insider job by the MPAA? I mean, they already know the Star Wars is going to get a huge amount of money anyways and that people are going to see it in the theatres regardless of whether they saw it before hand. Now, someone at the MPAA (someone at the top), decides to do this so that they can build a huge amount of publicity about movie piraters to the general public. Think about this, this has been the biggest thing in recent news about movie piraters and how it gets on the internet before a movie is released. All they have to do is take the numbers of estimated downloads to congress and show that ... they lost xx billions of dollars because of this thing called the In-ter-net. I mean, lots of movies have been released onto the internet before they come out in theatres, but none have received as much publicity as this...
Just a thought...
Also..to those who think that gnutella and kazaa and all the P2P services are the only way to get movies, you're an idiot!
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Better watch out, I smell a rat. Those who have run the VCD diagnostics on it have said that there was a direct line for the sound... doesn't that sound a little suspicious to you? What a better way to prompt for more legislation than getting a highly publicized case of bootlegging. CNN, Yahoo are all reporting. Don't think that your senator will hear about this? Lucas can now show how widely and how quickly his movie was pirated and then create an arbitrary loss of sales number. It's a trick, don't bite.
While I'm happy with a 57" TV (I saved up for five years to get it, so don't assume I'm a rich pretentious prick, because I'm a poor pretentious prick), how big is big enough for you? Some people have theater-size (albeit small theater) projection systems in their homes, is that what you want?
Consider that in a theater you're a good distance from the screen. Not so in your living room, so a smaller screen is more appropriate there.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Do you work at the BSA, or perhaps Microsoft? :)
--Bruce
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
In the industry, we call them "Cigarette burns."
Username taken, please choose another one.
"I find your lack of faith in the DCMA....disturbing." quoth the MPAA lawyers
FreeBSD for the impatient.
Bah! Just grabbed "(smr) Attack_of_the_clones (1of2).avi" (136,856k) from Grokster.. it's a fake, looks like "Showtime" with De Niro and Eddie Murphy. Which I kinda wanted to see, but y'know.
I do wonder about the mentality of people who keep these fakes shared out though. You want your bandwidth sucked up by people leeching them from you?
Every time something new is announced, news-reporting agencies are stunned about with what speed it is being available on the internet. It doesn't matter if it is music, a film or a game.
This is no news anymore... In the beginning of the 90s people where running their ass off to get the hottests games as fast as possible through their warez-group hierarchy (or if you want a more innocent example, the latest shareware updates through their distribution methods (fred fish, fidonet-a-like file transfer networks etc)).
I'm not going with this ratrace anymore. Downloading for three straight days because the servers are flooded, seeing the movie on a 320x200 window, getting irritated by external events in the house. No thanks, I'll go to the theatre and spend three hours happilly(*) off this world.
(*) As far as possible with these stupid parents which take their 5-6-7 year old kids to these movies. Even at the 21:00 session you still have them.
bash$
I was planning on NOT going and seeing the movie, and now Lucas and the fucking MPAA are going to assume it was because I pirated the movie and have already seen it. It will never cross their minds that even if I didn't mind underwriting their increasingly aggressive assault on my rights, there's no way I would want to see this movie after the last one.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
if you don't value the movie AOTC enough to wait to buy a ticket to see it, why do you value downloading a copy on your computer?
...you'll see it at least five hours before Hemos and his magic ticket toting friends .
Take a camcorder...
Now wash your hands.
Sorry MPAA, I'm going to pay to see it... This really was shot off of a movie screen, but gave me enough incentive to pay to see it IN a movie theater, along with buying the DVD... Of course one could say that Lucasfilms deliberately leaked the video in order to get the geeks who hated Ep1 interested in Ep2, if I was a conspiracy nut...
It IS way better than expected, but then again, the folks who are reviewing it:
(a) Are avant garde movie buffs, who think that The Piano was the best movie released since Battleship Potemkin...
(b) Never saw the movie, and are basing their opinions on Episode 1...
(c) Have a policy of hating stuff the more they're told to love it, and vice versa, especially if they can justify it via mob rule...
That aside, however, there are a few things to keep in mind... It's FANTASY... Repeat after me, FAN-TAS-EEE... Got it? Good... It isn't supposed to be completely realistic or believable, it isn't always supposed to make sense (until a major physicist can explain to me how a roadrunner can run into a tunnel painted on a solid rock wall, and a coyote shortly thereafter slams into said painting, you should be willing to suspend belief and logic)...
As for the movie itself, it does a good job of inspiring the viewer to suspend belief... Almost continual action scenes in a mileau of exotic locations, a modicum of humor that doesn't go over the top, and Jar Jar is subdued whenever seen...
Hayden Christianson isn't as bad in his acting as he is unseasoned in his skill... Some of his scenes come across perfectly, others are like watching paint dry, but he shows promise as an actor... Unfortunately one review I've read hits it dead on, a human actor being upstaged by a CG Yoda...
As for the video, the sound was extremely choppy in spots, losing upwards of 5 seconds of audio, the video quality was adequate (watchable), but hey... It's free, (insert Eric Cartman voice here) so quitcher bitchin'!... Or better yet, pay the $8 to see it in a theater or buy the DVD...
Just like these directors and movie moguls figure out how much a product sucks by the money it doesn't make, they also figure out how good it is by how much money it DOES make...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Anyhow, I'm not going to watch it, but that's because I haven't watched the SE versions or EP 1, and I plan to stay a Han Solo Firstist and Jar-Jar free.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I looked them both up on the internet.
The death toll on the American side has been going down for some time, as many people who were feared dead simply turned out to be missing.
The Afghan death toll continues to rise, and will probably continue to do so for years, considering the amount on unexploded munitions that are lying around in Afghanistan.