a zombie is disturbing, but it's bogus to claim that it's purely for aesthetic or "how much it resembles humans" reasons. There's a whole bunch of cultural and emotional meaning tied to that But the cultural meaning of zombies is of very recent inception. The concept of modern zombies is just a corruption of certain Vodoun beliefs and the real popularity of the idea really only just arose with the film industry. There were prior beliefs in some forms of the undead such as the Middle Ages' beliefs in revenants but they were thought of as emaciated corpses or skeletons. Nothing as almost-human as a zombie. I'm cribbing the hell out of the zombie wiki here, but the point is the cultural associations with zombies have only just come about. Are you going to tell me that a zombie would not be found creepy to an ancient people with no concept of "zombie" per se? And as for the "emotional" meaning, well isn't that what we're talking about here in the first place?
It's really not helpful to use modern film and video games for comparisons here, because most of these stories have added baggage that clouds the picture. Sci-fi or fantasy or other time periods, these are outside of our everyday experience anyway. The uncanny valley would be more applicable to say a CG drama or the introduction of robots in the workplace or at home. Someplace where you're already expecting just plain reality. Say you're riding in a cab, and are initially unaware that the driver is a robot. Or your new babysitter agency unbeknownst to you sends an android. I think there could be some application of the theory to these situations. We may well know soon enough.
And for what's more, Legolas was pretty creepy to me at times. It's not the ears so much as the eyes.
If like myself you didn't know what hell uncanny valley meant, here's the skinny:
The Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis about robotics concerning the emotional response of humans to robots and other non-human entities. It was introduced by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970, although draws heavily on Ernst Jentsch's concept of "the uncanny," identified in a 1906 essay, "On the Psychology of the Uncanny." Mori's hypothesis states that as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to become less distinguishable from a human being's, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-human empathy levels. The wiki has a picture which illustrates the name. Now you can go back to arguing esoteric robot hypotheses.
You're over-generalizing a little. Self-censorship is a misnomer. You're making a choice to filter out information that you don't find relevant to your life. No one else is affected by this action. Censorship in general, and particularly in the current discussion, is about limiting someone else's access to information. Removing their choice. As for whether anyone in modern America would actually make the choice to receive more important information about their world, well that's another more depressing matter entirely.
I read somewhere about a theory that any complex system evolves parasites (a very simple example I like to think about are the piddling small fees on ATM use which I often incur in my personal banking). It's unnavoidable, but manageable so long as the parasites don't overrun their host system. One could apply this argument to your less than a tenth of a percent. Think of it as friction. Every system loses some energy to heat, but it's worth it if you get useful work done.
cartoon series, and it was overall pretty meh but had some fun stuff in it. The only thing I really remember was Mace Windu actually having a pair of balls. He went absolutely apeshit and started punching robots in the face. He just ran around bare-fisted punching metal. I mean I know he's Jedi and all but you can't just punch robots in the face. There's no give at all man, that's metal. Unless you're Jude Law, and you're in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Then by all means, punch away.
I think that's why Lucas killed him like such a little bitch, because he was in real danger of becoming the greatest Star Wars character of all time. The point is, if you make Clone Wars CG, you have to have Mace Windu punching robots in the face. But instead of Mace Windu you call the character Superfly Hurricane Fantastic. And instead of the Emperor, you just call him The Man. And instead of space the setting should be an abandoned warehouse. And instead of robots, it's George Lucas's face he's punching. Hard. With malice. Delicious chocolate malice.
Wow. Now that is good news. I'm surprised they can even do that. Do they just treat the DX10 features as extensions on XP or what? I don't see my negative attitude towards Vista changing anytime soon, so I actually had no reason to upgrade to a new DX10 card, but if this is true then I sure would. I think it might even be smart for MS to migrate DirectX as a multi-platform graphics API, though I'd still rather the world just use openGL...
What is so horrible about Steam anyway? Really? I always hear people complaining about it but what is the big deal? When I fire up Counterstrike, it does just that, launches Counterstrike and Steam launches in the background. When I leave Counterstrike, I go down to the system tray, right-click, press exit, boom, Steam is gone again. Wtf is so hard about that? Oh yea, sometimes it pops up an ad about some new game that 9 times out of 10 is actually something interesting to me. In fact, I can think of no other advertising in my life that is more targetted to my tastes then that little window that occasionally pops up from Steam. Hell even most gaming sites don't advertise games that I find remotely interesting.
Other than that I don't do anything with Steam. I don't leave it running, I don't launch games from it (I launch them from their own icons like any other game), it doesn't eat my lunch, it doesn't date my sister, it does download patches for you, it does mitigate somewhat the prevalence of cheaters and griefers, it does promote independent games to some extent, but for the most part, it doesn't do anything much at all but sit in the system tray until I right-click/exit it after a game. Why so much whining?
That is awesome. Add that to the earlier story about how Valve doesn't want to charge for extra content on XBox Live and you're doing a great job of making Microsoft look bad. I wonder if MS will try to sabotage Steam within Vista as from what I've heard there is a lot of emphasis on locking down gaming and promoting Windows Live in the new OS. I've always really liked Valve and it would be interesting if they got to a point with Steam where they had a real centralized chunk of the PC gaming community and could do something with that like say, promote gaming on Linux as an actual viable alternative. There is no doubt they are fully backing DX10 for the foreseeable future, but that's a business decision. Valve was formed by two ex-Microsoft employees, obviously not happy working at the company. Just wild speculation there, but in the very least Steam could turn into something that can throw its weight around with the likes of Microsoft. The less power Microsoft has over PC gaming the less relevant they become to a lot of people stuck with Windows for little other reason at the moment.
Is the "Off-Topic" moderation broken today? Pretty soon we'll be singing football anthems here. Oh hell, here's a few I googled:
Inger-land, Inger-land, Inger-land
Inger-land, Inger-land, Inger-land
Inger-land, Inger-land, Inger-land
Inger-land
INGER LAND
Da-da, da-da da Da-da, da-da da Da-da, da-da da-da da-darrr ENGLAND
Give me St George in my heart, keep me English
Give me St George in my heart, I say
Give me St George in my heart, keep me English Keep me English to my dying day
No surrender No surrender No surrender to the IRA (scum)
If it wasn't for the English you'd be Krauts
If it wasn't for the English you'd be Krauts
If it wasn't for the English
Wasn't for the English
If it wasn't for the English you'd be Krauts
If you expected the Wii's controller, you will be dissapointed. It's a brilliant piece of innovation, but there simply aren't enough games to judge it against the best controllers ever. I can agree with that statement, but then you have to go and be an asshole and say the 360 is the best of all time. wtf? How many games does the 360 have again? Is there some massive fucking library of games hiding somewhere? That system is still wet behind the ears. In fact, why even do a dumbshit article like this if 2 of the newest systems (both with motion sensing technology in them, what some might call a paradigm shift) haven't had time to prove themselves? Then they say this:
...but this is about serious man-gaming -- there's no time for moving your arms when your thumbs are tapping this fast. Give me a fucking break. Give me two. For one, I'm pretty tired of this attitude, there is nothing manly about sitting on the couch and playing video games. Just give that up right now. I don't care how many aliens you're eviscerating with hot plasma or how many game-winning hail-marys you're throwing up on that screen, it's all fantasy and in the real world you're just wasting time better spent on getting ahead in the world. Grow up and realize it isn't about being grown up, or macho for cripes sake. It's a video game, a toy. Nothing wrong with that. And second, if you're talking about FPSes, and you are, it's obvious to anyone coming from a PC background that mouse/keyboard kills thumbsticks any day. Like, Mike Tyson vs. Terri Schiavo kills. In fact, that little scenario also illustrates the gaping chasm between using your fingers and using your arms in play. I can't play Wii without breaking a sweat, I could physically break a 360 without sweating. I think I read somewhere that sweating is manly.
All that said, I still prefer the original xbox controller, if we're talking straight up old-fashioned non-motion sensing controller. It's a solid little design, the perfect evolution of all traditional controller technology up to that point. Doesn't cramp my hands like the PS controllers, has a good weight, and damn it has long wires. I'll take long wires, no batteries over wireless, "ah shit I'm outta batteries, well I think I'll go play outside" any day. On the 360, I welcome the extra shoulder buttons, but they neutered the triggers (which were better bigger, especially for racers) and they really screwed something up with the shape of the controller. It wants to leave my hands for some reason. The new d-pad sucks too. It's a d-pad! Stop melting d-pads into one monolithic piece of plastic, they're meant to give a solid tactile feeling of 4 separate directions!
I normally don't complain about the writing of articles presented here, and this is a contentious subject for gamers, but this article is just insulting. c|net is just blowing kisses at Microsoft. Thanks for reminding me why I don't read that rag site.
That's really not fair. Mario first appeared in Donkey Kong in 1981. Sony didn't even break into the video game business until 1994 with the original PSX. That is a lot of time to grow up with your gamers. Think of all the various iterations that Mario and co. have gone through, we've literally seen them grow up, from tiny pixel glyphs to full-fledged, hi-poly 3D characters. I think Sony has done a pretty good job of 1st party development, certainly better than Microsoft, although the same late-starter argument could hold there I suppose.
There is a certain solemnity in Sony's games, but that doesn't make ICO or Shadow of the Colossus any less a masterpiece. And where is Okami on that list anyway?
Why does "bad physics" line up solely on the Matrices side anyway? Where you awake during DMC? Half its running time was spent persuading the audience that: pirates + large rollable wooden structure = perpetual motion machine.
Right, but Microsoft is also trying to build a new revenue stream by charging for things that PC users have grown accustomed to getting for free. This flies in the face of that and if I'm a customer I'm wondering why game X charges for new levels while game Y (HL in the example, no slouch of a game) does not. Why would I buy Halo 3's new levels, when I'll be getting Teamfortress 2's levels for free? Judging from each company's respective history, I can bet those free Valve levels are going to have way better design than Bungie's mirror-command abortions. I know Microsoft enjoys the licensing revenue from Half-Life 2, but Valve is also pissing all over their shiny new "community" driven micro-economy.
Microsoft feels about this. Doesn't it make them look greedy and well, childish? I mean, the Live microtransactions always did sound like nickel-and-diming to me, coming from a PC gaming background. And here's good old Valve promising to avoid such a strategy, but will Microsoft try to pressure them in the coming months? I remember them charging for those Halo 2 multiplayer map packs when, in the face of a very underwhelming multiplayer game, one might say they already owed those to the community anyway. Say what you will about Steam, but I really like Valve's style.
I for one do not care what you say about what someone else says about what MS says about Vista sales or about what MS marketting says about Vista sales. Now quake in the shadow of my apathy!
I know, it's ridiculous when clearly they could instead be picketing the funerals of veterans of the Iraq war for, uhm enabling gay people to be gay in America, or hmm. What was the reasoning behind that whole thing again? Oh yea media exposure. For God and stuff.
I bought Paper Mario a week ago. I love platformers, so I was pretty psyched about this game. I was lead to believe this game would be much less RPG and more straight up action than its earlier outings, which I welcomed. Wrong! God it takes like 20 minutes to actually get into the game and I was mashing buttons ignoring as much inane character text as I could. I dread the thought of ever starting over again, just like that damn Twilight Princess game. I was also lead to believe it was a good old 2D platformer with the option of switching to 3D, but alas, you actually have to switch to 3D often to solve puzzles, gah. Last time I played, I found myself begging for a save point so I could just turn the damn thing off. I anticipate really getting into it eventually, unlike Twilight Princess which I finally just traded in, but I was definitely left cold the last time I played.
OTOH, I found the little bit of footage that I've seen of Little Big World to be very interesting. I'm sorry but it just strikes me as odd that anyone could say PS3 has nothing like Paper Mario when it has this great little gem coming out exclusively from a solid little dev house with a bit of indie cred. I for one won't be buying the PS3 unless someone drops a steaming dump of greenbacks on my chest, but I really don't wanna buy a 360, especially if they're half as loud or likely to breakdown as I hear online. If Sony doesn't lower the damn price maybe I'll just sit this generation out and play with my Wii, but at least they seem to realize it's all about the games. Here's hoping Sony pulls their heads further out of their asses than the people at Microsoft can.
Anymore, when I see a story title that has even the possibility to turn into an all out flame war I take a quick look at the comment count. If it's over 150, my ears suddenly ring with the curious sound of scores of old men coughing and foaming at the mouth, apparently a mental cue my mind has assigned to the concept of a heated slashdot discussion. In short, I know it's worth 10-15 minutes of company time. Thank you all.
I've actually never thought about it, which goes to show how indoctrinated this idea has become. It's pretty interesting actually. Imagine if all the characters that Disney creates were released into the public after 21 years. That would mean something like the Little Mermaid (1989), one of the last descent toons from that cursed studio, would almost be public domain today. Aside from all the tentacle porn past Disney characters would suddenly find themselves in, imagine the game of catch-up Disney would have to play. No longer able to simply rest on an ever engorged library of exclusive IP, they would be pushed to come up with more and more original material. All their previous stuff would be appearing in competitors' films and they'd have to actually work to maintain some sort of distinguising quality in their projects. And fuck Disney altogether, the original trilogy of Star Wars would have been completely available 3 years ago. We could have completely ignored the abortion of creativity that was Eps. 1-3. No doubt some community of people somewhere could come up with something much better independently. Public domain Jedi. I could almost run for president on the platform. Then again, it might possibly lead to a world of creative chaos with fictional universes clashing left and right. You wouldn't just be a fanboy of this or that mythology, but specifically this or that company's flavor of said mythology. No doubt the original proponents of copyright had no idea the iconic power that fictional characters would begin to take on in modern media.
Slashdot Mirror
It's really not helpful to use modern film and video games for comparisons here, because most of these stories have added baggage that clouds the picture. Sci-fi or fantasy or other time periods, these are outside of our everyday experience anyway. The uncanny valley would be more applicable to say a CG drama or the introduction of robots in the workplace or at home. Someplace where you're already expecting just plain reality. Say you're riding in a cab, and are initially unaware that the driver is a robot. Or your new babysitter agency unbeknownst to you sends an android. I think there could be some application of the theory to these situations. We may well know soon enough.
And for what's more, Legolas was pretty creepy to me at times. It's not the ears so much as the eyes.
For the last time. It's not pipes, it's a series of tubes! Now all your bad joke will be redundant!
You're over-generalizing a little. Self-censorship is a misnomer. You're making a choice to filter out information that you don't find relevant to your life. No one else is affected by this action. Censorship in general, and particularly in the current discussion, is about limiting someone else's access to information. Removing their choice. As for whether anyone in modern America would actually make the choice to receive more important information about their world, well that's another more depressing matter entirely.
I read somewhere about a theory that any complex system evolves parasites (a very simple example I like to think about are the piddling small fees on ATM use which I often incur in my personal banking). It's unnavoidable, but manageable so long as the parasites don't overrun their host system. One could apply this argument to your less than a tenth of a percent. Think of it as friction. Every system loses some energy to heat, but it's worth it if you get useful work done.
cartoon series, and it was overall pretty meh but had some fun stuff in it. The only thing I really remember was Mace Windu actually having a pair of balls. He went absolutely apeshit and started punching robots in the face. He just ran around bare-fisted punching metal. I mean I know he's Jedi and all but you can't just punch robots in the face. There's no give at all man, that's metal. Unless you're Jude Law, and you're in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Then by all means, punch away.
I think that's why Lucas killed him like such a little bitch, because he was in real danger of becoming the greatest Star Wars character of all time. The point is, if you make Clone Wars CG, you have to have Mace Windu punching robots in the face. But instead of Mace Windu you call the character Superfly Hurricane Fantastic. And instead of the Emperor, you just call him The Man. And instead of space the setting should be an abandoned warehouse. And instead of robots, it's George Lucas's face he's punching. Hard. With malice. Delicious chocolate malice.
Wow. Now that is good news. I'm surprised they can even do that. Do they just treat the DX10 features as extensions on XP or what? I don't see my negative attitude towards Vista changing anytime soon, so I actually had no reason to upgrade to a new DX10 card, but if this is true then I sure would. I think it might even be smart for MS to migrate DirectX as a multi-platform graphics API, though I'd still rather the world just use openGL...
What is so horrible about Steam anyway? Really? I always hear people complaining about it but what is the big deal? When I fire up Counterstrike, it does just that, launches Counterstrike and Steam launches in the background. When I leave Counterstrike, I go down to the system tray, right-click, press exit, boom, Steam is gone again. Wtf is so hard about that? Oh yea, sometimes it pops up an ad about some new game that 9 times out of 10 is actually something interesting to me. In fact, I can think of no other advertising in my life that is more targetted to my tastes then that little window that occasionally pops up from Steam. Hell even most gaming sites don't advertise games that I find remotely interesting.
Other than that I don't do anything with Steam. I don't leave it running, I don't launch games from it (I launch them from their own icons like any other game), it doesn't eat my lunch, it doesn't date my sister, it does download patches for you, it does mitigate somewhat the prevalence of cheaters and griefers, it does promote independent games to some extent, but for the most part, it doesn't do anything much at all but sit in the system tray until I right-click/exit it after a game. Why so much whining?
That is awesome. Add that to the earlier story about how Valve doesn't want to charge for extra content on XBox Live and you're doing a great job of making Microsoft look bad. I wonder if MS will try to sabotage Steam within Vista as from what I've heard there is a lot of emphasis on locking down gaming and promoting Windows Live in the new OS. I've always really liked Valve and it would be interesting if they got to a point with Steam where they had a real centralized chunk of the PC gaming community and could do something with that like say, promote gaming on Linux as an actual viable alternative. There is no doubt they are fully backing DX10 for the foreseeable future, but that's a business decision. Valve was formed by two ex-Microsoft employees, obviously not happy working at the company. Just wild speculation there, but in the very least Steam could turn into something that can throw its weight around with the likes of Microsoft. The less power Microsoft has over PC gaming the less relevant they become to a lot of people stuck with Windows for little other reason at the moment.
Inger-land, Inger-land, Inger-land
Inger-land, Inger-land, Inger-land
Inger-land
INGER LAND
Da-da, da-da da Da-da, da-da da Da-da, da-da da-da da-darrr ENGLAND
Give me St George in my heart, keep me English
Give me St George in my heart, I say
Give me St George in my heart, keep me English Keep me English to my dying day
No surrender No surrender No surrender to the IRA (scum)
If it wasn't for the English you'd be Krauts
If it wasn't for the English you'd be Krauts
If it wasn't for the English
Wasn't for the English
If it wasn't for the English you'd be Krauts
...but this is about serious man-gaming -- there's no time for moving your arms when your thumbs are tapping this fast. Give me a fucking break. Give me two. For one, I'm pretty tired of this attitude, there is nothing manly about sitting on the couch and playing video games. Just give that up right now. I don't care how many aliens you're eviscerating with hot plasma or how many game-winning hail-marys you're throwing up on that screen, it's all fantasy and in the real world you're just wasting time better spent on getting ahead in the world. Grow up and realize it isn't about being grown up, or macho for cripes sake. It's a video game, a toy. Nothing wrong with that. And second, if you're talking about FPSes, and you are, it's obvious to anyone coming from a PC background that mouse/keyboard kills thumbsticks any day. Like, Mike Tyson vs. Terri Schiavo kills. In fact, that little scenario also illustrates the gaping chasm between using your fingers and using your arms in play. I can't play Wii without breaking a sweat, I could physically break a 360 without sweating. I think I read somewhere that sweating is manly.All that said, I still prefer the original xbox controller, if we're talking straight up old-fashioned non-motion sensing controller. It's a solid little design, the perfect evolution of all traditional controller technology up to that point. Doesn't cramp my hands like the PS controllers, has a good weight, and damn it has long wires. I'll take long wires, no batteries over wireless, "ah shit I'm outta batteries, well I think I'll go play outside" any day. On the 360, I welcome the extra shoulder buttons, but they neutered the triggers (which were better bigger, especially for racers) and they really screwed something up with the shape of the controller. It wants to leave my hands for some reason. The new d-pad sucks too. It's a d-pad! Stop melting d-pads into one monolithic piece of plastic, they're meant to give a solid tactile feeling of 4 separate directions!
I normally don't complain about the writing of articles presented here, and this is a contentious subject for gamers, but this article is just insulting. c|net is just blowing kisses at Microsoft. Thanks for reminding me why I don't read that rag site.
That's really not fair. Mario first appeared in Donkey Kong in 1981. Sony didn't even break into the video game business until 1994 with the original PSX. That is a lot of time to grow up with your gamers. Think of all the various iterations that Mario and co. have gone through, we've literally seen them grow up, from tiny pixel glyphs to full-fledged, hi-poly 3D characters. I think Sony has done a pretty good job of 1st party development, certainly better than Microsoft, although the same late-starter argument could hold there I suppose.
There is a certain solemnity in Sony's games, but that doesn't make ICO or Shadow of the Colossus any less a masterpiece. And where is Okami on that list anyway?
Why does "bad physics" line up solely on the Matrices side anyway? Where you awake during DMC? Half its running time was spent persuading the audience that: pirates + large rollable wooden structure = perpetual motion machine.
Right, but Microsoft is also trying to build a new revenue stream by charging for things that PC users have grown accustomed to getting for free. This flies in the face of that and if I'm a customer I'm wondering why game X charges for new levels while game Y (HL in the example, no slouch of a game) does not. Why would I buy Halo 3's new levels, when I'll be getting Teamfortress 2's levels for free? Judging from each company's respective history, I can bet those free Valve levels are going to have way better design than Bungie's mirror-command abortions. I know Microsoft enjoys the licensing revenue from Half-Life 2, but Valve is also pissing all over their shiny new "community" driven micro-economy.
downloadable content for games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2...
Grammar police!
Microsoft feels about this. Doesn't it make them look greedy and well, childish? I mean, the Live microtransactions always did sound like nickel-and-diming to me, coming from a PC gaming background. And here's good old Valve promising to avoid such a strategy, but will Microsoft try to pressure them in the coming months? I remember them charging for those Halo 2 multiplayer map packs when, in the face of a very underwhelming multiplayer game, one might say they already owed those to the community anyway. Say what you will about Steam, but I really like Valve's style.
Drunk by 12:25pm on a weekday? Want a new job as my personal hero?
I for one do not care what you say about what someone else says about what MS says about Vista sales or about what MS marketting says about Vista sales. Now quake in the shadow of my apathy!
I know, it's ridiculous when clearly they could instead be picketing the funerals of veterans of the Iraq war for, uhm enabling gay people to be gay in America, or hmm. What was the reasoning behind that whole thing again? Oh yea media exposure. For God and stuff.
I bought Paper Mario a week ago. I love platformers, so I was pretty psyched about this game. I was lead to believe this game would be much less RPG and more straight up action than its earlier outings, which I welcomed. Wrong! God it takes like 20 minutes to actually get into the game and I was mashing buttons ignoring as much inane character text as I could. I dread the thought of ever starting over again, just like that damn Twilight Princess game. I was also lead to believe it was a good old 2D platformer with the option of switching to 3D, but alas, you actually have to switch to 3D often to solve puzzles, gah. Last time I played, I found myself begging for a save point so I could just turn the damn thing off. I anticipate really getting into it eventually, unlike Twilight Princess which I finally just traded in, but I was definitely left cold the last time I played.
OTOH, I found the little bit of footage that I've seen of Little Big World to be very interesting. I'm sorry but it just strikes me as odd that anyone could say PS3 has nothing like Paper Mario when it has this great little gem coming out exclusively from a solid little dev house with a bit of indie cred. I for one won't be buying the PS3 unless someone drops a steaming dump of greenbacks on my chest, but I really don't wanna buy a 360, especially if they're half as loud or likely to breakdown as I hear online. If Sony doesn't lower the damn price maybe I'll just sit this generation out and play with my Wii, but at least they seem to realize it's all about the games. Here's hoping Sony pulls their heads further out of their asses than the people at Microsoft can.
Worse yet, I was actually disappointed to find that the article was not in fact about the Wii. I'm hopeless...
Don't be ridiculous. The elephant sits on a turtle. It's turtles all the way down...
Citing something as informal as a user-created encyclopedia to prove this point approaches a strange level of meta...
Anymore, when I see a story title that has even the possibility to turn into an all out flame war I take a quick look at the comment count. If it's over 150, my ears suddenly ring with the curious sound of scores of old men coughing and foaming at the mouth, apparently a mental cue my mind has assigned to the concept of a heated slashdot discussion. In short, I know it's worth 10-15 minutes of company time. Thank you all.
I've actually never thought about it, which goes to show how indoctrinated this idea has become. It's pretty interesting actually. Imagine if all the characters that Disney creates were released into the public after 21 years. That would mean something like the Little Mermaid (1989), one of the last descent toons from that cursed studio, would almost be public domain today. Aside from all the tentacle porn past Disney characters would suddenly find themselves in, imagine the game of catch-up Disney would have to play. No longer able to simply rest on an ever engorged library of exclusive IP, they would be pushed to come up with more and more original material. All their previous stuff would be appearing in competitors' films and they'd have to actually work to maintain some sort of distinguising quality in their projects. And fuck Disney altogether, the original trilogy of Star Wars would have been completely available 3 years ago. We could have completely ignored the abortion of creativity that was Eps. 1-3. No doubt some community of people somewhere could come up with something much better independently. Public domain Jedi. I could almost run for president on the platform. Then again, it might possibly lead to a world of creative chaos with fictional universes clashing left and right. You wouldn't just be a fanboy of this or that mythology, but specifically this or that company's flavor of said mythology. No doubt the original proponents of copyright had no idea the iconic power that fictional characters would begin to take on in modern media.