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'Sith' Already Found Online
ScentCone writes "Of course it was bound to happen, so now it's mostly a matter of discussing why Lucas does or does not deserve to make the proceeds, or whether people would or would not have gone to see it now that the usual path has been carved around the opening weekend box office." I've yet to find a blockbuster movie that isn't readily available on the net after it opens, but somehow this is still news. It's still usually worth shelling out the cash to see a version that isn't fuzzy with garbled sound, though.
Actual damages from bittorrent have to be very small. Most people simply don't even know what bittorrent is. I know what it is, but I've only used it to grab large demos/obviously free stuff. I have better things to do with my time than wander through various video files in various states of compression (almost all lossy).
They are just being greedy for the small amount of money they might be losing. The lawyers likely take far more than that amount. The path to transhumanism won't require much money anyway. And that is what counts.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
I've just got back from seeing RotS. The sound in the theatre (yes, I'm in the UK) was appalling and the print was dusty and scratchy. Sadly many films seen at my local cinema and at others don't seem to be 'clean' prints and I'd have expected better of an opening-night showing.
;)
Y'know, I actually believe that had I seen a torrent it would have been *better* quality, sadly. Maybe I've just got used to DVD quality and stuff.
(Wakefield Cineworld, UK, please take note).
Oh, as a film, the first 2 hours sucked ass. The rest of it was cool. But that's a conversation for another thread
Smegma.
The copy that's on the web (yes, I know where it is, no I won't tell you) is a direct copy from a work print. Thus, it's not a "crummy handheld in a theater". So it's more than likely that Lucas is going to be really peeved about this.
Considering that it has the time-code on the bottom, I'd imagine it's uniquely coded so that Lucas knows exactly who leaked it.
And no, I haven't downloaded it, although my eleven year old will probably try and "whine" his way into it.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
The sound in the theatre was appalling and the print was dusty and scratchy
This can happen to the most pristine of prints when put in the load end of a projector in bad need of maintenance/tuning/etc. And movies are prescreened by at least the projectionist (all) if not also the rest of the employees (blockbusters) before the first public screenings.
I wear thick glasses (-14), I dont drive, I dont go to a theater, I watch tv and movies on one of my laptops, because I can keep the screen close to my eyes. I've been wearing glasses since I was 6 (now I am 53)
Because my eyes are bad, according to MPAA I am supposed to wait for months (or years) until the DVD comes out. Why? Sure I will download the bootleg. I am doing nothing wrong, when the dvd comes out, I will buy it.
They should offer downloads for visually impaired the moment the movie is out in the theaters. For Star Wars, I would pay twice the price of a movie ticket, even if the download were copy protected.
very quickly after it was released to the net, about 2 weeks before it was supposed to be out. Of course, all my friends wanted to see it and I burned them copies. Usually they will keep the cds so they can watch them again, instead they gave them all back, insisting that not only did they not want them, but nobody else could possibly want them. I ended up paying to see it just for the quality, and never again will I. Posted AC thanks to this shiny tin foil hat!
Consider this. Doing a google search for torrents shows most are shut down. Go ten pages deep in the searches, and there is alot of spam and bs.
Second, some websites that were torrent lists, are not MPAA websites. They track IP addresses. Can they do anything to you for just looking at a website? No. Are they trying to intimidate people? Hell yes!
Second, With all the torrent websites down, how many people are seeding? I found one website, just one with a link. It required a registration. It then required waiting 24 hours to use the website. It is a pain in the butt.
After the 24 hours were up, I tried to download a file at a whopping 0.7 k/s. And to top it off, for all I know I just tried to d/l from the RIAA. Who knows.
So what is the moral?
1) It is hard to find torrent listing websites. Good luck. Chances are most are secretive and closed to new members, they are well hidden and happy with their current members
2) Use protection. Use a proxy. You don't want to get one of those letters from the MPAA or RIAA or any **AA telling you that you owe them $10,000 or they will take you to court for some multiple of that.
What we need is an out-of-the USA filesharing network. We need a slashdot like moderation system, to mod files as +1 good quality or -1 MPAA crap.
I remember Napster, it was easy to use. I now use WinMX, but the good old days are gone. Only way out is for someone in a country where file sharing is not illegal, for them to host a service.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
No, trust me, they had a review screening before that as well. Theatres sell tickets to midnight "prescreenings" as a gimmick. My brother manages a big theatre in LA and watched the movie in question last week. The logistics involved with getting prints to 3600 screens is too staggering for them to have all arrived exactly the day before public opening.
Well, the print being projected is only as good as the projectionist who builds the film. I have only very limited experience with this through a friend who is a projectionist. I actually got to watch him build RotS. It came on 7 small reels which have to be spliced together into one long version. This is typical of about any movie currently. If the film is wound too tightly then you can get scratches which make the film look 'dusty'. Over time, if this continues to happen then the film continues to degrade at an accelerated rate. Don't blame the film in all cases, blame the theater. I, for one, went to an extremely crappy showing. The 12:00 showing ended up being a 12:50 showing with several major problems causing some very irate fans. They oversold the viewing and had to string the film through multiple projectors. So, they start one movie, wait a bit so they have plenty of reserve then string what has already been through projector A over to projector B and start the film there. It was a very disappointing showing and I plan on getting a refund.
Idiots. I haven't downloaded it, but I do know that it's good quality - as good as or even better than DVDs. Heck, even TFA says that "it may have come from within the industry rather than from someone who videotaped an advance screening." Of course, there are other reasons why you might watch it in a theatre - the sound is better and the screen is bigger. (These might not be very appealing to you if you have some home theatre though.)
Because I feel like taking a piss, I am lacking attention span?
I have to agree. Those Lord of the Rings movies were just too much. You couldn't drink your beverage until half way through the show if you wanted a hope of not missing part of the show for a trip to the can.
In the old days movies had intermissions. Live shows still do. What happened to those?
The rip is a work print encoded to MPEG 2 (the format used on DVDs). So you could burn it to a DVD-R and toss it in your DVD player to watch it on your TV if you like.
Not to mention if you have a media pc (i.e. XP Media Center, MythTV, modded Xbox with XBMC etc.) you could play directly to the TV off the hard drive.
Downloaded of the net onto a computer does not mean you have to watch it on a computer.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
"Oh, as a film, the first 2 hours sucked ass. The rest of it was cool."
Let's look at that, shall we?
First off, you must be off on that time estimate... are you saying that the film only got good in the last 10 minutes (no spoilers here, but that pretty much covers the tail end of the "wrap-up" scenes)? It was a 140min movie.
Now let's look at your claim that "as a movie" this "sucked ass"... If you had said, "as a Star Wars movie," then I might have accepted it (though even then, I think it's clearly better in many measurable ways than eps 1 and 2, which puts it at at least 4 out of 6, so "sucked ass" might be a bit strong)... no, you're comparting it to movies in general.
Let's JUST look at this year to see what you're comparing against:
Monster-in-Law
House of Wax
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
xXx: State of the Union
Are We There Yet?
Son of the Mask
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous
Ice Princess
I just want to be clear that these were all released this year (2005), and you are claiming that, compared to the general field of movies being made (see above) Star Wars Ep 3 "sucked ass".... I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you.
Yes, it had flaws (most of which are present in Episodes 4-6 as well), but it was a crowd-pleasing, fun film that brought back much of the excitement of the first three films.
Back when I was working in the movie industry, Studios have people watch reels and give them a rating of "A", "B", and "C". We wouldn't watch the reels in order but just gave them the rating.
Then they would give the "A" prints to the best theater houses and the "C" prints to the multiplexes and the crappy theaters.
So they do give preferences to movie theaters. You want the best presentation, see it in a first-rate theater.
You know, the majority of movies are crap. Coming up with a bunch of examples of shitty movies does not in any way contradict the prior poster's comment. Of course, it's all subjective anyway, making the whole argument basically a big fat waste of time.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I am the booking agent for a theater in a metropolitan market in Florida. Our Friday/Saturday after 6:00PM ticket is $8.25. For every Start Wars III ticket we sell, we get to keep $0.06 of it. Yes, six cents. And originally we were going to lose money on it--the negotiation took a lot of time. We have 6 prints, BTW. I just ran the report for tonight, and we had 14,000 or so people come and see it. We made a profit, but not from ticket sales. Ticket sales don't even cover the people in box office, not to mention booth, concessions, ushers, and management, overnight janitors, and maintenance.
There is also the practicality of how they sell the film to the cinemas. Last I noticed the selling mechanism was going to run contrary to the way cinemas currently operate. I believe cinemas hire the film for a certain length of time, and are free to make their own choices about the number of screenings, and whether to cease showing a flop early to free up screens for better performing films (though they're stuck with their initial hire.)
The digital version was going to be streamed and paid for per showing, all tied to an identified projector. I believe the concern was that cinemas would be forced to schedule showings and lose the control the currently possess. Basically, the system was going to annoy cinema operators in a similar way to how individual consumers are frustrated by the limitations of DRM'd content.
Actually I have downloaded it and seen it - and will also go to the cinema today and see it there.
:) Will still consume the stuff they sell though - as many other pirates do. The RIAA/MPAA thinking that piracy = stealing is flawed.
Reason for downloading and watching it? Just wanted to see the movie asap.
Why must everyone need a love scene to be some sort of suave Bond or Hugh Grant garbage, instead of an awkward misguided lust that is the relationship that Lucas is portraying? I liked the awkwardness, it was refreshing.
He does yeah. Not so much difference here.
But still, the french version brings some new insights: in Episode IV, when the Falcon needs to flee from an ISD, Solo calls Chewbacca "Chico", hence betraying some very secretly kept latino origins of the wookie.
This post is awesome.
Actually, it looks like it is the same people. Nearly everyone agrees that Episode 2 wasn't as bad as Episode 1, but the box-office numbers were much lower due to fewer people doing repeat viewings.
Partly this is down to the fact that people are more used to the idea of seeing things once and then waiting for the DVD, but it seems there are a fair number of geeks who'll see it once then get a rip to tide themselves over until a legit copy can be had, rather than going back to the cinema.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"