Many moons ago when I suffered under the illusion that I knew something I took a course on comparative political systems wherein our class had to determine the best one. As our class, and many other people, have discovered, the best government is a benevolent dictatorship. The problem with this model is that there are so damn few benevolent dictators.
It'll be a difficult job, running everything for the benefit of my fellow man, but I am willing to shoulder the burden. Just let me know when I can start.:)
I guess I'm kinda confused by this whole privacy issue. It seems to me that the lack of it only leads to more efficient prosecution of lawbreakers.
And more efficient persecution of non-lawbreakers.
Why do you care who finds out how you live your life? If you don't want everyone to find out what you've been doing, why not just not do it?
There was a document, written some years after the Revolutionary War that forms the basis for our federal government; it's called the Constitution. The first ten amendments to this "Constitution", which were adopted shortly after the adoption of the document itself, are collectively known as "The Bill of Rights". The fourth of these "Amendments" says:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It's gotten perverted from its original intent, but what it says is that, unless a warrant is made to search for evidence of a specific wrongdoing (and ONLY that), the government and law enforcement officials working in its employ are not allowed to conduct to searches of my person or property.
But you have to ask yourself, "What is it that I'm doing that I don't want people to know about?"
I have. The answer is, "stuff that is none of their business unless it affects them directly or is illegal."
It's not a question of "why do you care about your privacy if you've got nothing to hide?"; the question is, "why does government want to strip me of my rights if I've done nothing wrong?"
As they say in all of the cop shows, if you're going to press charges, do so and let me call my lawyer; otherwise, get the hell out of my face.
Jay (= (Whose parents are both ex-law enforcement and agree with me, for the most part...)
In another message on this topic, I commented that search engines should be a commodity. It shouldn't matter what engine you use, so long as you get the most, best results.
Could we turn web search engines into a distributed hierarchy like DNS? I don't expect my ISP's DNS server to have every IP address on the planet, but I expect it to be able to find the ones I need.
Have each of the major ISPs (expecially those that give their members web space!), free web page providers, companies that do virtual domain hosting, and large corporate/education/organization sites maintain their own index of web pages.
There could be generic, "top level" engines like Yahoo and Altavista (which could choose to exclude indexes of porn sites) but also more focused engines -- educational sites, business sites, scientific and technical sites; hell, why not a porn engine?
To make what I'm thinking of possible, you'd need to have a standard indexing format. I'm sure Microsoft has one we can use, as long as half the links point back to them:)
Isn't that part of what the META tag is for? Or the LINK tag?
Looking over my copy of the HTML 4.0 specification, there's not a specified list of META attributes, but maybe the following should be considered standard for search engines:
"description": for an overview of your page
"keywords": give something for spiders to index by
The following LINK attributes should be set also:
"home": Topmost level of your site
"copyright": Copyright info
"made": Author information
That way, a search result could take the format of:
Page Title
META description
URL
Home LINK attribute
Author name (or webmaster of a larger site)
Copyright information
Keyword relevancy
The best thing about the LINK attributes is that at least one browser, iCab, provides a set of buttons for several LINK attributes -- start, end, next, prev, home, search, help, made, etc. Too bad it's MacOS only; maybe someone could create a similar set of buttons for Mozilla?
Anyway, Altavista, Yahoo, Infoseek, etc... could make deals with the big ISP's/web host services such as Mindspring, Netcom, Earthlink, Geocities, Tripod, etc... Those sites would then index their own sites, which would save your spider/crawler a lot of time.
Now there's a thought! Then meta-search engines like Metacrawler could have more meaningful returns.
Am I the only one that thinks a search engine should be a commodity? I don't care which search engine I use, so long as I get the best results. (Keeping paid advertisements out of the search results would be a benefit, too...)
There is still the issue of other sites not located on these big ISP's, like.edu's and ibm.com's.
Maybe someone should consider an EduSearch search engine, indexing only sites under the.edu domain? (Especially if its index can be used by a larger metasearch engine...)
As for ibm.com and the like, large corporate web sites should have some form of search facility; an Alertbox column from UseIT.com discussing corporate intranets says that having some form of search facility should be considered essential -- I don't see why the same shouldn't be true for their Web shingle as well.
Scary how the AntiOnline version is tweaked just enough to make Ken Williams seem vengeful and juvenile.
And what's funny is that the version on HNN is apparently PGP-signed (the signature is at the bottom of the message!), where the (edited, I assume) excerpt from AntiOnline is not. Gee, wonder which one I'm going to believe?
... of the attitudes of the people behind this site:
(Note: I haven't seen the movie yet)
"*South Park* is an *incredibly dangerous* movie for those who do not understand or are developing an understanding of the Gospel.......INCREDIBLY dangerous."
How can a movie be "dangerous"?
I can see "offensive"; I can see "disgusting"; I can see "perverse"; but "dangerous"?
Because it makes you think? Because it might make you question your trust in hyper-sensitive, self-appointed "guardians of morality"? Because it shows that you can't expect the whole world to raise your children for you, and you might have to put some time in for yourself?
The only "danger" is to the agendas of certain self-righteous, repressive factions of our society...
Because Harvard is not only shutting the site down, they are deleting all of the material on his machine (including 7 weeks of schoolwork for the classes he was taking at another school -- he wasn't a Harvard student) and destroying the backup tapes as well.
He wants a job in IT but he doesn't make backups of his important data?
If you'd take a second to read some of the links about this, you'd see that Harvard is destroying the on-site backups of Packet Storm Security as well.
"I was told by Leo Donnelly at Harvard, via phone, that ALL of the content AND the backups made are either destroyed, being destroyed now, or will be before I can do anything to prevent it. All 4+ GB of files in the publicly accessible directories, over 45,000 files collected and archived over the years, are gone." -- Ken Williams, from a letter at attrition.org.
Given that the Slashdot blurbs appear to be from the story submitter and may reflect a lack of understanding of the issue (like the one about Yahoo "owning" all of the GeoCities content) you'd think reading the corresponding links wouldn't be too much to ask before commenting.
I think the "right to edit" thing stems from the fact that they append all of the annoying Javascript code to the end of the HTML files they serve that gives us the banner ads and watermarks.
But as any sensible person knows, you should always look at how such agreements can be misused...
Also on Slashdot: IBM & Microsoft rift (discussing a deposition by IBM execs over Microsoft "punishing" IBM for selling products that compete wth Windows)
Come on, people. Stop whining. Ads are not so bad. Just look up at the top of this page. Slashdot.com does ad. I don't see you whine the ads here. You bunch of hypocrites.
Actually, to me the fact that it's yet more advertising isn't the big deal. The fact that it's going to add unnecessary bloat to their BIOS is what I'm worried about.
On a more vicseral level, the concept is so damned annoying! How would you like to have your dash display showing ads for Pennzoil or Texaco every time you started your car?
Life is not about being some "buying profile" or data statistic. Just because corporations and ad agencies want to be able to save a few bucks "by more effectively targetting our advertising" or "building brand recognition" doesn't mean I have to sit around like a sheep and take it.
(As for your comments about banner ads, they're a joke. There's a column at UseIT that says that clickthrough rates hover around 0.7% at this point, and other such articles say they decline by 25% every year. Slashdot might as well be getting free money from those companies for all of the benefit they're having...)
what an evil dirty word... What makes you loosers think you deserve to go into a library to get your dose of porn?
As with all of this "family values/harmful to minors" stuff, it's not about me being able to head down to the local library and gettin' me a batch of skin pics. As with all of this hysteria, how many actual cases are there of this going on?
The "censorware" has an established track record of being overly broad in what it blocks, the people who install it have no control over what it's supposed to block (and often, they have no way of determining what is or isn't blocked since the information is often encrypted), and in many instances the "censorware" has an explicit "blacklist" of sites, which can be (and has been) used to block sites the makers don't like; in some cases, the "censorware" was blocking sites that criticized the makers of the the program.
It's about having someone else impose their will on me as to what I can and can't see on the internet. Installing "censorware" means I give up my right to choose what I want to see to the makers of the program, who can then use it for their own ends as well. (How soon before these companies start accepting money to have a site blocked? I bet Microsoft would pay big bucks to block www.microsoftsucks.com)
Maybe then you can enter the real world and not have so much time to complain about my taxes not paying for your habits.
I don't need a job, I run my own business, thanks. As for "complaining about your taxes", those are MY taxes going to this as well.
I get sick of hearing all these ingrates whining whenever our leaders decide to restrict handouts. Here's a clue or two. Cruising the web for free in a public or school library is NOT guaranteed by the Constitution.
So what about all of those books and periodicals the libraries give out to those slackers, huh? Should the government be able to decide which of those we can look at, too?
You just really don't get it.
It is very unlikely that the valuable data that would be restricted by filtering software isn't available in other places!
At more cost or difficulty. I love the fact that I can sit at my computer and find the information I want (or at worst, find out where I have to go to get it). It's freedom to learn, to expand my horizons, and hell yeah I think people should be able to go to the library and do the same thing I do at little to no cost to themselves.
And finally, it is not your RIGHT to have me and other American taxpayers pay for your entertainment
That's my tax money going to pay for this nonsense, same as yours. And it's not about "entertainment"; frankly, I'd be worried about a person who goes to the public library with a bottle of hand lotion to look up www.flamingtitties.com. The fact is, you cannot give the government any opportunity to chill free speech without them trying to exploit that freedom.
Does this mean that duly appointed government leaders and officials get to decide what is proper to be destributed on government funded networks? Yeah, so what? He who pays the piper gets to call the tune.
Yeah, and as you're so fond of pointing out, WE'RE paying the piper with our tax dollars, not them! Most of those guys can't balance their own checkbook; many of them can't tell you how much a gallon of gas costs.
This is so almost completely off-topic it's not funny, but I saw it as I was waiting for this page to load...
Can I say that I hate deceptive-looking banner ads? It's a gray, dialog-box looking thing and the only words are "Are you on the list?", something that looks like a text-entry box, and a "sign up" button. I grabbed the image, and put it here if you want to see what I'm looking at.
What is this an ad for? Do I want to be on the list in the first place? Considering that some companies are coming under fire for improper uses of email address and other such personal information, why would anyone want to "join the list" without even a clue?
Yes, I know I can just click on the banner to find out, but the beauty of hypertext links is that I have an idea of what I am linking to in the first place!
It's ads like these that are causing clickthrough rates to fall through the floor (not to mention some companies coming up with banner-blocking software). One of Jakob Neilsen's recent Alertbox columns talks about "the top ten new mistakes of web design" and number 10 is "Anything that looks like advertising". People are becoming to desensitized to and even developing aversions to banner ads, pop-up consoles and the like.
Verging back to the topic, I suppose since we're talking about a 3D information space on the heldheld, we can expect this bad advertising trend to evolve into ads literally flying at us on the screen in the future...
Moderators should not punish people attempting to help others. Help is not redundant. This is absolutely moronic. They ought to have their moderator status revoked.
This is why we have so many moderators, I think; to help curtail any abuse of moderation. I also think it's a failure of the moderator "buzzwords" -- I never considered looking at replies as "Redundant" until they were introduced.
Too many moderators means = greater chance for irresponsibility. They have no respect for their obligation/opportunity.
Oh, please. It seems to be a largely self-correcting situation; when I read the comment it had been moderated back up to 1. So it seems like "Too many moderators = greater chance for fixing mistakes" as well.
Go ahead moderate this down. Squash my opinion. Squelch my voice.
Get over yourself already.
If you really think Slashdot is becoming some kind of oppressive tyranny, then leave. It seems kinda ironic that people are crying censorship after more people have been introduced into the moderation process...
Um... you are aware that The Onion is, like, satire?
Now, I'll admit that it could be a fun mental exercise to take her essay seriously and rebut it, but I'm wondering why you took the time...
Jay (=
Re:Some usability suggestions
on
Slashdot Tweaks
·
· Score: 1
PS: Rob!! here are some features that would really help this site's usability.
Woohoo! I'm not the only one who reads UseIT on here! Jakob Neilsen gives some good, free advice on that site.
HTML validation, link validation, spell checking, and grammar checking.
Are you talking about spelling and grammar for comments, or in general? I've seen some scary typos in story titles...
I wonder how much overhead adding pelling/grammer checking to the "Post a Comment" functions?
I just switched to iCab on my Mac, and it's a great browser that also does HTML checking on pages you're looking at. (Make iCab smile!) It also has a button bar for the new HTML 4.0 attributes (UseIT does a good write-up on it.
The problem is not me (or dare I say us) using it, the problem is the rest of the world, especially the non-clued suits using it and bringing it to the fore.
Aren't "non-clued suits" already using it? Isn't the fact that Perl is so widely used and accessible one of the reasons Microsoft is doing this?
WinPerl will not be totally compatible with our current incarnations of Perl, and that will be the problem.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the licenses Perl is distributed under the GPL?
If so, then aren't any of the modifications that ActiveState/Microsoft makes to the Perl interpreter itself also covered under the GPL (which, I beleive, they state in their FAQ)? That is, we can pick it apart, correct "intentionally broken" functions and the like?
I don't know how or if the GPL covers modules, so it could be possible that ActiveState/Microsoft could write a proprietary Win32 module and restrict our ability to dissect it, but as someone else said, don't write scripts using that module and you should be okay.
I mean, gimme a break. If you write cross-platform code, then don't use any modules that gives advantages to one OS over the other -- I could be wrong, but I think MacPerl has some of those (especially for mac Toolbox functions). If you want to write platform-specific code (optimized for performance on a given OS/application combination) then use their stuff and be bound by whatever restrictions thay come up with.
Where's the source, Rob? I thought this site was about open source? CVS? something newer than 0.3? Purty plz?!
I, pesonally, want to wait until he's got it a bit more stable. (Documented, too!)
At the same time -- Rob, maybe set a "feature freeze", finish tweaking the moderation, Slashboxes and stuff? Maybe some of us can help fix some of this stuff for you as well.
We all know that that Alaska is easternmost state in the union
By latitude, maybe; by the international dateline and Alaskan politics, no.
and I guess if there were any theaters out there they could have shown the movie almost a day earlier.
I was born and raised in Nome, Alaska and we would have gotten the movie last (if we had a movie theater, that is). When I was a kid, the state legislature voted to put Alaska all on one time zone (GMT -9); it's been this way for at least a decade.
Before people jump in and flame, this is a different product than the other article Taco posted.
As for the products themselves, I dunno -- maybe I'm not enough of a geek to be thrilled by this (although the applications for military HUDs on soldiers' helmets is kinda science-fictiony...)
Programming in multiple languages and writing device drivers at 17? Geez! I wish you had been my dad!
...on second thought, that's not true. Computers weren't my parents' thing, but they did enough by encouraging me to read and study what I was interested in.
Jay (= (who may someday catch up with the teenagers of today...)
Instead I think it was a festering piece of Jar Jar poo and Lucas should let others direct and write the next two stories since he obviously doesn't get it anymore.
This has got to be the most egotistical piece of whining I've ever head.
It's his series! If this trilogy has a different tone, then it's possibly because he's refined (and yes, even changed) his opinions on some of the elements of the series.
I think it's more likely that you've built up a huge expectation as to what the series is supposed to be about and are upset because it isn't playing the way you want it. If this movie upset you, then I'll take your tickets for Episodes Two and Three because you probably won't want to see those either.
Remember, this is only one-third of the prequel story. I'd love to see how many of these people will be saying "God, 'The Clone War Strikes Back' doesn't live up to the promise of The Phantom Menace! This sucks compared to episode one!"
100 UNFORGIVABLE THINGS ABOUT EPISODE I *** WARNING: MEGA SPOILERS BELOW! ***
The list writers cheated -- there were at least two references to Darth Maul's under-use, and the rest of it was an exercise in nit-picking.
My comments as appropriate -- if I don't mention one, I either agreed or was indifferent.
2. The Virgin Shmi and the "Immaculate Conception" of Anakin
Actually, this doesn't bother me so much as the "child of destiny" thing as a whole.
Why does it need to get pounded into our heads from day one that Anakin is going to be Darth Vader? We KNOW that already, by the force of history (no pun intended). People are complaining that the explorations of the Force in TPM are more scientific, but the notion that the Jedi had a "prophecy" about "a chosen one" -- this is hack sci-fi, Mr. Lucas...
7. Two-headed sports announcer with cliché voice (esp. line "That's gotta hurt in any universe")
That was BAD. No question.
9. Watto's line "you think you some kind of Jedi" - unnecessary cheap joke - pokes fun at Jedi, who should not be the butt of any jokes
Says you. They established that Tatooine is out on the edge of the galaxy, with little to no contact with the Republic (and, by extension, the Jedi). They probably hear stories about Jedi being able to read minds, catch blaster bolts (remember, Han didn't think the Force was any match for "a good blaster at your side") and take them with a grain of salt.
10. Battle droids aren't threatening enough
Well, I wonder if the Trade Federation was supposed to be a huge military power. They probably use the droids to run ships and handle intenral and external security, and their idea of "gearing up for war" was churning out more of them.
Also, they're not threatening enough because they're up against Jedi, who did a lot more with the Force in one movie than I saw Luke use in all three!
16. Weak "Running Man" plot device of having a transmitter implanted in Anakin and his mom so they can't leave Tatooine
Oh yeah, people should just let their slaves around around willy-nilly with no measure of control over them. Would having them in leg irons been better?
17. Nicknaming Anakin "Annie"
Which brings up another gripe about people's gripes with the movie. Why can't Anakin be a nine-year-old kid in this movie? He's not a young Darth Vader, people. Why can't his mom have a pet name for him, why can't he be allowed to say "yippee"? He was an ordinary kid (much like Luke was in A New Hope) until circumstances thrust him into extraordinary situations.
18. Introducing the concept of slavery to the Star Wars universe - what are droids for then?
Um, what do you think Leia was to Jabba in ROTJ? (Or most of his dancers and babes, for that matter?)
19. The Gungan City and underwater chase, which look like scenes out of "Little Mermaid", totally incongruous with rest of SW universe
What rest of the universe? We see an abandoned temple on Yavin's moon, a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" (two of them -- Mos Eisley and Jabba's palace) on Tatooine, a cave on Hoth, a swamp on Dagobah -- that's four planets. We never saw Alderaan, and both Death Stars were totally artificial.
The only thing that comes close to the Gungan city is Cloud City in Empire Strikes Back (especially in the special edition) and Coruscant in the special edition of Jedi (which was almost a preview of TPM).
21. Bizarre dolly shot with Sidious's hologram talking to Viceroy on weird spider droid
Well, the fact that the hologram platform lurched around was annoying, but I liked the fact that the holograms were more in tune with their environment (specifically, the hologram of the Queen's ship in Qui-Gon's hand).
22. Having Anakin be the creator of C-3P0 - adds nothing to other films and introduces an unrealistic coincidence - C-3P0 and Vader are NEVER in a scene together
Not true. C3PO is in the scene where Han gets frozen in The Empire Strikes Back.
And so what? Why does TPM have to be filled with foreshadowing of what is to come? Someone else pointed out that it isn't ever really common knowledge that Vader is Luke's father, so what would C3PO have to say? "Would you like some asthma medicine, Master Anakin"?
23. Qui-Gon's wussiness - why doesn't he just take the part from Watto? - because they need a speeder race.
Or he doesn't want to stir up troubles with the Hutts, who in ROTJ are shown not to be influenced by "Jedi mind tricks". Gotta figure that two Jedi and a ship which doesn't have any weapons might not want to attract attention to themselves. Bodyguards tend to want to prevent fights, not start them...
He also runs away from Darth Maul and cuts a cool fight short
Yeah, better that Darth maul skewers him then so he can't stand up for Anakin in the Jedi Council. And the second fight scene was even better.
24. Story point of having to get money to pay for hyperdrive part - more fitting in an adventure game. Why doesn't Qui-Gon commandeer the part? What authority does he have? Aren't the Jedi supposed to be guardians of some kind?
Yeah, guardians of peace and justice, but he's on a world that doesn't recognize the authority of the Republic. ("Republic credits are no good here", remember?)
25. Anakin's L.L. Bean knapsack
Sorry, I must have missed the L.L.Bean logo. I suppose little kids should have backpacks at all, huh? You know, he's running errands for his mom or Watto, needs to have something to carry parts back with...
26. Darth Maul getting chopped in half - was it really necessary?
This bothered me more beause I wanted to see more development for Maul -- he had like two or three lines in the whole movie!
32. Jar Jar accidentally destroying half the battle droid army
I put that right up there with the Ewok scene in ROTJ, both good and bad.
33. Gungan bubble shield - this is a device unlike anything we have ever seen in SW.
Oh god, we can't show other parts of the galaxy or technology except what was in the original trilogy, can we? I suppose people are pissed because Darth Maul has a two-bladed lightsaber, too.
Besides, what was the force shield generator the AT-ATs destroyed in Empire but a larger one of the Gungans' machine? Methinks it was to prevent the Star Destroyers for simply pummeling them from orbit. (Or as the list writer would have it, "because we needed to have an AT-AT scene.")
37. Anakin's blowing the station up by accident
I just figured is was some stirrings of the Force that caused him to launch the torpedoes. But you're right, it was kinda cheesy. At least Luke had some competence as a pilot -- Anakin in that scene was trying to figure out the controls!
39. Boss Nass' agreeing to help humans just cause they kneel
Well, except for the fact that he didn't like the humans because he thought they thought they were superior, and Amidala showed them otherwise. Besides, it's kinda cool to have a queen bowed to you (not that I've had it done to me)...
40. Qui-Gon requesting Jar Jar as a navigator then never even using him to navigate
I figured he used it as an excuse to keep Jar Jar from being punished, since it was their fault he went back to Gungan city.
41. Darth Maul never does anything evil - he just looks cool
I agree. He needed more screen time (either in this movie or later ones -- I figured Episode II would have had a killer lightsaber battle between Darth Vader and Darth Maul for the right to be Palpatine's apprentice.)
46. Dumb-ass ESP test the Jedi give to Anakin
Should they have put "Several hours later" at the top of the screen? I figured that was only part of it. Besides, Anakin probably can't levitate items or use a lightsaber because he hasn't been trained yet.
47. Token P.C. female pilot in Naboo fighter
Gee, and others are complaining there weren't enough females in the movie. You can't please anyone...
48. Lack of activity for Jedi and Mace Windu - Why don't all the Jedi ever go and kick ass?
Um, because they're the Jedi Council (e.g., the guys in charge) and the Clone Wars haven't happened yet?
52. Lame-ass foreshadowing, like Ric Olie teaching Anakin to fly fighter
I don't remember Ric showing how to fly the fighter. The transport, yeah...
54. Confusing plot device of Queen and her double
Well, considering the early rumors for TPM had Natalie Portman playing "Princess Padme" I figured that rather quick. Besides, I thought it made lots of sense -- more so than having the Queen wearing those gaudy outfits that screamed "SHOOT ME!" I was waiting for the "Queen" to get killed, only to have Padme reveal herself then.
56. James Bond "Thunderball" scuba mouthpieces that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan just happen to have -(Why would they bring those to a negotiation on a *spaceship*??? Do they carry them around in their utility belts???)
Why not? They're small. Maybe they carry them in case of problems with the atmosphere on a starship, or for excursions to planets with hostile atmospheres? (Maybe the ones on the Falcon in Empire were older, or had a longer capacity.)
57. Terence Stamp being completely underused in just one mediocre scene
I agree. This time the action figure thing worked in reverse -- rather than having the figures coming out afterwards and fleshing the background characters out (did anyone care what the name of the band in the cantina was originally?) it created misleading expectations at to the importance of various characters (like Darth Maul, for one) Did they ever actually say the names of these characters in the movie?
Shmi Skywalker
Ric Olie (the pilot of the transport and "Bravo One")
Darth Sidious (aka Palpatine)
Sio Bibble (the Naboo "governor")
58. Absolutely no background given about Sith Lords - what was the "Mystery of the Sith"?
Sounds like a plot device for Episode Two to me.
59. Lack of interaction between Obi-wan and Padme/Amidala and other handmaidens - Is he gay?
No, nor is he a pedophile. (Amidala is 14-16, remember? I assume the handmaidens are as well).
Hey, do we ever see any Jedi expressing interest in the opposite sex? Does Obi-Wan senior ever leer at Leia's hologram? "Woo, nice cans!"
60. Convenient location of blanket near Queen (when Anakin tells her he's cold)
Jesus, could we nitpick any more? I suppose Luke's lightsaber laying within eyesight in the Wampa's cave (as opposed to when he fell off of the tauntaun) was similarly "convenient".
61. Lack of epic cliffhangers (a la trash compactor, space slug escape, walking plank of Jabba's skiff)
Well, it's kinda hard to have cliffhangers when we know Anakin, Obi-Wan and Amidala are destined to survive Episode One. But the pod race was exciting, and the lightsaber duel at the end was fantastic -- Qui-Gon Jinn's death didn't surprise me, but Darth Maul's did.
63. Centering a major section of the film around the pod race stalls the story
As does following Luke on Tatooine in A New Hope before looking for R2D2, as does watching Luke and Han twiddle their thumbs in stormtrooper outfits on the Death Star. There's the Wampa scene in Empire, most of the Ewok stuff in Jedi...
66. Yoda's defeatist attitude - no good explanation is given about his fears about Anakin. Wouldn't it be more troubling if Anakin wasn't afraid about his mother???
I look at it this way -- Yoda probably does recognize Anakin's inherent strength, and would rather leave his abilities untrained and unfocused rather than run the risk of him being seduced by the dark side (which his fears provide a possibility of happening -- that whole litany about "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering").
Hey, let's bring up something else that bugs me. What, does "a prophecy of a child who brings balance to the Force" mean to you? What is "bringing balance to the Force"? To me, I don't see this prophecy as a positive one (of course, I know what end up happening in 4-6...)
67. It's never made clear whether people were being killed on Naboo
True, though they figure that Sio Bibble's message was either coerced or faked to draw Amidala out of hiding.
68. Slapstick during Gungan battle undercuts drama of final confrontation with Darth Maul
As does the slapstick of the Ewok battle does to the confrontation with Darth Vader, to pick more nits.
72. Goofy, mistaken identity rescue sequence of the Queen by her double
Why is it goofy? They established her double is assigned to keep her alive, through misdirection when and if possible. I think it worked better than they hoped in this case.
76. Serious underuse of Ewan McGregor
Ahem. Episodes Two and Three? He was a "padawan" in this one. I suspect he's being a good student and staying in the background unless necessary.
79. Slapstick sequence of Jar Jar trying to eat a rubber fish
So, I take it Jar Jar Binks isn't the list writer's favorite...
80. Underuse of Darth Maul
No kidding!
81. Concept of "Jedi Trials" for Obi-Wan is dropped by the end of the film
But it sets up the Jedi trials for Anakin -- if they hadn't then people would say "Why does Anakin have to go through trials? Obi-Wan didn't!"
84. Portrayal of Republic as ineffective and bureaucratic will reduce the significance of its collapse in upcoming films. Isn't this the film where we were supposed to see their civilization at its height?
Well, look at it this way; maybe Palpatine and Vader ARE restoring order to the galaxy -- only it's their order? It'd explain why so many systems have gone along with a Republic/Empire that seems so evil. "Mussolini was bad, but he made the trains run on time" and all that...
85. Introduction of Battle Droids appears to be an attempt to reduce the number of deaths shown in the film, yet they are killed in an extremely violent and destructive manner. Also, use of such a device is inconsistent with the notion presented in the other films that droids have humanity.
Yeah, that's why they put restraining bolts on them, the Rebel tech suggests that Luke trade in his R2 unit for a new one, the comedy about C3PO being dismembered, and Jabba's supposed penchant for dismantling protocol droids.
We see R2D2 and C3PO have humanity, but I got the impression it was because they haven't had their memories wiped in a while -- C3PO makes reference to not knowing who "Obi-Wan" is, Obi-Wan doesn't recognize R2 as the droid from TPM (does he ever hear him referred to as "R2D2"?)
86. Lack of a protagonist
I figured it was Qui-Gon Jinn, and his goal was 1) doing his job in regards to Naboo and 2) after finding Anakin, pushing to have him accepted as a student.
87. Anakin fixes engine and wins pod race by flicking switches, apparently at random (and without any use of the force)
Um, I don't think he can do the things Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan can do until he's been trained to. Luke didn't show much facility with the Force until being trained by Yoda (the lightsaber in the Wampa cave being the only exception) except for communing with Obi-Wan and sensing when to fire at the Death Star.
88. Why does Qui-Gon sense such power in Anakin? What does Anakin ever do to suggest he has powers? Wouldn't a demonstration be in order?
What evidence did we see that Luke had powers in A New Hope (aside from Vader's "The Force is strong in this one")? We don't know why Luke is hearing Obi-Wan's voice...
89. Design of all CG characters did not match anything we've seen before in the SW universe (except maybe in the Special Editions). They were totally incongruous.
So it should have been all Hutts, Wookies, Ughnaughts, Gamorreans and Ewoks?
91. No explanation for red force shields at end. It was cool, but confusing and contrived. Were the characters controlling them or did they time-on and time-off like in a video game?
I think they were timed. There was no explanation, but I thought it looked like they were in the central reactor of the palace, so maybe they were meant to allow brief periods of access to the core.
92. Watto's stereotypical Jewish Shylock attitude and accent.
I must not spend much time around Jewish shylocks, because I never interpreted his accent like that.
93. Captain Panaka's blandness
I thought of him as a talking fixture, like the various Admirals and Captains in the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
94. Lack of camaraderie among characters - they didn't seem like a team
And I suppose Han and Luke bickering and Leia shreiking make them more "team-like" in A New Hope? They had three movies to develop a camaraderie, where these guys have had one.
99. Jar jar offers to be Qui Gon's slave
I didn't think he had a choice. They made reference to a "life debt", which is supposedly why Chewbacca pals around with Han Solo.
100. Lack of any anti-hero to create character tension. Han Solo did this in IV, Lando did this in V, Vader did it in Jedi. In Episode 1, everyone did EXACTLY what was expected of them. No plot twists or surprises.
Well, the trick is, no one knew who the anti-hero was. Palpatine (aka "Darth Sidious" -- why give him another name? I never heard him referred to by name when he was in the cloak) used the Trade Federation / Naboo crisis to get what he really wanted -- the Supreme Chancellor position. I wonder who starts the Clone Wars; the Republic or their enemy?
Slashdot Mirror
Many moons ago when I suffered under the illusion that I knew something I took a course on comparative political systems wherein our class had to determine the best one. As our class, and many other people, have discovered, the best government is a benevolent dictatorship. The problem with this model is that there are so damn few benevolent dictators.
:)
According to the Kingdomality Test, I am a benevolent ruler.
It'll be a difficult job, running everything for the benefit of my fellow man, but I am willing to shoulder the burden. Just let me know when I can start.
Jay (=
I guess I'm kinda confused by this whole privacy issue. It seems to me that the lack of it only leads to more efficient prosecution of lawbreakers.
And more efficient persecution of non-lawbreakers.
Why do you care who finds out how you live your life? If you don't want everyone to find out what you've been doing, why not just not do it?
There was a document, written some years after the Revolutionary War that forms the basis for our federal government; it's called the Constitution. The first ten amendments to this "Constitution", which were adopted shortly after the adoption of the document itself, are collectively known as "The Bill of Rights". The fourth of these "Amendments" says:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It's gotten perverted from its original intent, but what it says is that, unless a warrant is made to search for evidence of a specific wrongdoing (and ONLY that), the government and law enforcement officials working in its employ are not allowed to conduct to searches of my person or property.
But you have to ask yourself, "What is it that I'm doing that I don't want people to know about?"
I have. The answer is, "stuff that is none of their business unless it affects them directly or is illegal."
It's not a question of "why do you care about your privacy if you've got nothing to hide?"; the question is, "why does government want to strip me of my rights if I've done nothing wrong?"
As they say in all of the cop shows, if you're going to press charges, do so and let me call my lawyer; otherwise, get the hell out of my face.
Jay (=
(Whose parents are both ex-law enforcement and agree with me, for the most part...)
In another message on this topic, I commented that search engines should be a commodity. It shouldn't matter what engine you use, so long as you get the most, best results.
Could we turn web search engines into a distributed hierarchy like DNS? I don't expect my ISP's DNS server to have every IP address on the planet, but I expect it to be able to find the ones I need.
Have each of the major ISPs (expecially those that give their members web space!), free web page providers, companies that do virtual domain hosting, and large corporate/education/organization sites maintain their own index of web pages.
There could be generic, "top level" engines like Yahoo and Altavista (which could choose to exclude indexes of porn sites) but also more focused engines -- educational sites, business sites, scientific and technical sites; hell, why not a porn engine?
Would this work?
Jay (=
To make what I'm thinking of possible, you'd need to have a standard indexing format. I'm sure Microsoft has one we can use, as long as half the links point back to them :)
Isn't that part of what the META tag is for? Or the LINK tag?
Looking over my copy of the HTML 4.0 specification, there's not a specified list of META attributes, but maybe the following should be considered standard for search engines:
The following LINK attributes should be set also:
That way, a search result could take the format of:
The best thing about the LINK attributes is that at least one browser, iCab, provides a set of buttons for several LINK attributes -- start, end, next, prev, home, search, help, made, etc. Too bad it's MacOS only; maybe someone could create a similar set of buttons for Mozilla?
Anyway, Altavista, Yahoo, Infoseek, etc... could make deals with the big ISP's/web host services such as Mindspring, Netcom, Earthlink, Geocities, Tripod, etc... Those sites would then index their own sites, which would save your spider/crawler a lot of time.
Now there's a thought! Then meta-search engines like Metacrawler could have more meaningful returns.
Am I the only one that thinks a search engine should be a commodity? I don't care which search engine I use, so long as I get the best results. (Keeping paid advertisements out of the search results would be a benefit, too...)
There is still the issue of other sites not located on these big ISP's, like .edu's and ibm.com's.
Maybe someone should consider an EduSearch search engine, indexing only sites under the .edu domain? (Especially if its index can be used by a larger metasearch engine...)
As for ibm.com and the like, large corporate web sites should have some form of search facility; an Alertbox column from UseIT.com discussing corporate intranets says that having some form of search facility should be considered essential -- I don't see why the same shouldn't be true for their Web shingle as well.
Jay (=
Scary how the AntiOnline version is tweaked just enough to make Ken Williams seem vengeful and juvenile.
And what's funny is that the version on HNN is apparently PGP-signed (the signature is at the bottom of the message!), where the (edited, I assume) excerpt from AntiOnline is not. Gee, wonder which one I'm going to believe?
I think that qualifies as a Perry Mason moment...
Jay (=
... of the attitudes of the people behind this site:
.......INCREDIBLY dangerous."
(Note: I haven't seen the movie yet)
"*South Park* is an *incredibly dangerous* movie for those who do not understand or are developing an understanding of the Gospel
How can a movie be "dangerous"?
I can see "offensive"; I can see "disgusting"; I can see "perverse"; but "dangerous"?
Because it makes you think? Because it might make you question your trust in hyper-sensitive, self-appointed "guardians of morality"? Because it shows that you can't expect the whole world to raise your children for you, and you might have to put some time in for yourself?
The only "danger" is to the agendas of certain self-righteous, repressive factions of our society...
Jay (=
Because Harvard is not only shutting the site down, they are deleting all of the material on his machine (including 7 weeks of schoolwork for the classes he was taking at another school -- he wasn't a Harvard student) and destroying the backup tapes as well.
Jay (=
He wants a job in IT but he doesn't make backups of his important data?
If you'd take a second to read some of the links about this, you'd see that Harvard is destroying the on-site backups of Packet Storm Security as well.
"I was told by Leo Donnelly at Harvard, via phone, that ALL of the content AND the backups made are either destroyed, being destroyed now, or will be before I can do anything to prevent it. All 4+ GB of files in the publicly accessible directories, over 45,000 files collected and archived over the years, are gone." -- Ken Williams, from a letter at attrition.org.
Given that the Slashdot blurbs appear to be from the story submitter and may reflect a lack of understanding of the issue (like the one about Yahoo "owning" all of the GeoCities content) you'd think reading the corresponding links wouldn't be too much to ask before commenting.
Jay (=
I think the "right to edit" thing stems from the fact that they append all of the annoying Javascript code to the end of the HTML files they serve that gives us the banner ads and watermarks.
But as any sensible person knows, you should always look at how such agreements can be misused...
Jay (=
Thats one big company bullying another big company.
Good point. The Windows Refund Day would have been a better example of consumers being bullied by MS.
Jay (=
MS harmed consumers? I mean these laws are meant to protect the consumers from getting overcharged
On Slashdot: Microsoft Overcharged Computer Industry US$10 Billion
or bullied
Also on Slashdot: IBM & Microsoft rift (discussing a deposition by IBM execs over Microsoft "punishing" IBM for selling products that compete wth Windows)
by big companies.
Jay (=
Come on, people. Stop whining. Ads are not so bad. Just look up at the top of this page. Slashdot.com does ad. I don't see you whine the ads here. You bunch of hypocrites.
Actually, to me the fact that it's yet more advertising isn't the big deal. The fact that it's going to add unnecessary bloat to their BIOS is what I'm worried about.
On a more vicseral level, the concept is so damned annoying! How would you like to have your dash display showing ads for Pennzoil or Texaco every time you started your car?
Life is not about being some "buying profile" or data statistic. Just because corporations and ad agencies want to be able to save a few bucks "by more effectively targetting our advertising" or "building brand recognition" doesn't mean I have to sit around like a sheep and take it.
(As for your comments about banner ads, they're a joke. There's a column at UseIT that says that clickthrough rates hover around 0.7% at this point, and other such articles say they decline by 25% every year. Slashdot might as well be getting free money from those companies for all of the benefit they're having...)
Jay (=
what an evil dirty word... What makes you loosers think you deserve to go into a library to get your dose of porn?
As with all of this "family values/harmful to minors" stuff, it's not about me being able to head down to the local library and gettin' me a batch of skin pics. As with all of this hysteria, how many actual cases are there of this going on?
The "censorware" has an established track record of being overly broad in what it blocks, the people who install it have no control over what it's supposed to block (and often, they have no way of determining what is or isn't blocked since the information is often encrypted), and in many instances the "censorware" has an explicit "blacklist" of sites, which can be (and has been) used to block sites the makers don't like; in some cases, the "censorware" was blocking sites that criticized the makers of the the program.
It's about having someone else impose their will on me as to what I can and can't see on the internet. Installing "censorware" means I give up my right to choose what I want to see to the makers of the program, who can then use it for their own ends as well. (How soon before these companies start accepting money to have a site blocked? I bet Microsoft would pay big bucks to block www.microsoftsucks.com)
Maybe then you can enter the real world and not have so much time to complain about my taxes not paying for your habits.
I don't need a job, I run my own business, thanks. As for "complaining about your taxes", those are MY taxes going to this as well.
I get sick of hearing all these ingrates whining whenever our leaders decide to restrict handouts. Here's a clue or two. Cruising the web for free in a public or school library is NOT guaranteed by the Constitution.
So what about all of those books and periodicals the libraries give out to those slackers, huh? Should the government be able to decide which of those we can look at, too?
You just really don't get it.
It is very unlikely that the valuable data that would be restricted by filtering software isn't available in other places!
At more cost or difficulty. I love the fact that I can sit at my computer and find the information I want (or at worst, find out where I have to go to get it). It's freedom to learn, to expand my horizons, and hell yeah I think people should be able to go to the library and do the same thing I do at little to no cost to themselves.
And finally, it is not your RIGHT to have me and other American taxpayers pay for your entertainment
That's my tax money going to pay for this nonsense, same as yours. And it's not about "entertainment"; frankly, I'd be worried about a person who goes to the public library with a bottle of hand lotion to look up www.flamingtitties.com. The fact is, you cannot give the government any opportunity to chill free speech without them trying to exploit that freedom.
Does this mean that duly appointed government leaders and officials get to decide what is proper to be destributed on government funded networks? Yeah, so what? He who pays the piper gets to call the tune.
Yeah, and as you're so fond of pointing out, WE'RE paying the piper with our tax dollars, not them! Most of those guys can't balance their own checkbook; many of them can't tell you how much a gallon of gas costs.
Jay (=
This is so almost completely off-topic it's not funny, but I saw it as I was waiting for this page to load...
Can I say that I hate deceptive-looking banner ads? It's a gray, dialog-box looking thing and the only words are "Are you on the list?", something that looks like a text-entry box, and a "sign up" button. I grabbed the image, and put it here if you want to see what I'm looking at.
What is this an ad for? Do I want to be on the list in the first place? Considering that some companies are coming under fire for improper uses of email address and other such personal information, why would anyone want to "join the list" without even a clue?
Yes, I know I can just click on the banner to find out, but the beauty of hypertext links is that I have an idea of what I am linking to in the first place!
It's ads like these that are causing clickthrough rates to fall through the floor (not to mention some companies coming up with banner-blocking software). One of Jakob Neilsen's recent Alertbox columns talks about "the top ten new mistakes of web design" and number 10 is "Anything that looks like advertising". People are becoming to desensitized to and even developing aversions to banner ads, pop-up consoles and the like.
Verging back to the topic, I suppose since we're talking about a 3D information space on the heldheld, we can expect this bad advertising trend to evolve into ads literally flying at us on the screen in the future...
Jay (=
Moderators should not punish people attempting to help others. Help is not redundant.
This is absolutely moronic. They ought to have their moderator status revoked.
This is why we have so many moderators, I think; to help curtail any abuse of moderation. I also think it's a failure of the moderator "buzzwords" -- I never considered looking at replies as "Redundant" until they were introduced.
Too many moderators means = greater chance for irresponsibility. They have no respect for their obligation/opportunity.
Oh, please. It seems to be a largely self-correcting situation; when I read the comment it had been moderated back up to 1. So it seems like "Too many moderators = greater chance for fixing mistakes" as well.
Go ahead moderate this down. Squash my opinion. Squelch my voice.
Get over yourself already.
If you really think Slashdot is becoming some kind of oppressive tyranny, then leave. It seems kinda ironic that people are crying censorship after more people have been introduced into the moderation process...
Jay (=
[long rambling essay snipped]
Um... you are aware that The Onion is, like, satire?
Now, I'll admit that it could be a fun mental exercise to take her essay seriously and rebut it, but I'm wondering why you took the time...
Jay (=
PS: Rob!! here are some features that would really help this site's
usability.
Woohoo! I'm not the only one who reads UseIT on here! Jakob Neilsen gives some good, free advice on that site.
HTML validation, link validation, spell checking, and grammar checking.
Are you talking about spelling and grammar for comments, or in general? I've seen some scary typos in story titles...
I wonder how much overhead adding pelling/grammer checking to the "Post a Comment" functions?
I just switched to iCab on my Mac, and it's a great browser that also does HTML checking on pages you're looking at. (Make iCab smile!) It also has a button bar for the new HTML 4.0 attributes (UseIT does a good write-up on it.
Oh, and ditto on the code release. *grin*
Jay (=
The problem is not me (or dare I say us) using it, the problem is the rest of the world, especially the non-clued suits using it and bringing it to the fore.
Aren't "non-clued suits" already using it? Isn't the fact that Perl is so widely used and accessible one of the reasons Microsoft is doing this?
WinPerl will not be totally compatible with our current incarnations of Perl, and that will be the problem.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the licenses Perl is distributed under the GPL?
If so, then aren't any of the modifications that ActiveState/Microsoft makes to the Perl interpreter itself also covered under the GPL (which, I beleive, they state in their FAQ)? That is, we can pick it apart, correct "intentionally broken" functions and the like?
I don't know how or if the GPL covers modules, so it could be possible that ActiveState/Microsoft could write a proprietary Win32 module and restrict our ability to dissect it, but as someone else said, don't write scripts using that module and you should be okay.
I mean, gimme a break. If you write cross-platform code, then don't use any modules that gives advantages to one OS over the other -- I could be wrong, but I think MacPerl has some of those (especially for mac Toolbox functions). If you want to write platform-specific code (optimized for performance on a given OS/application combination) then use their stuff and be bound by whatever restrictions thay come up with.
Isn't that one of the meanings of TMTOWTDI?
Jay (=
Where's the source, Rob?
I thought this site was about open source?
CVS?
something newer than 0.3?
Purty plz?!
I, pesonally, want to wait until he's got it a bit more stable. (Documented, too!)
At the same time -- Rob, maybe set a "feature freeze", finish tweaking the moderation, Slashboxes and stuff? Maybe some of us can help fix some of this stuff for you as well.
Jay (=
We all know that that Alaska is easternmost state in the union
By latitude, maybe; by the international dateline and Alaskan politics, no.
and I guess if there were any theaters out there they could have shown the movie almost a day earlier.
I was born and raised in Nome, Alaska and we would have gotten the movie last (if we had a movie theater, that is). When I was a kid, the state legislature voted to put Alaska all on one time zone (GMT -9); it's been this way for at least a decade.
This World Time Zone Map shows it. in case you don't take my word for it.
Actually, looking at the map, we would have beaten out Hawaii (which is GMT -10).
Jay (=
Before people jump in and flame, this is a different product than the other article Taco posted.
As for the products themselves, I dunno -- maybe I'm not enough of a geek to be thrilled by this (although the applications for military HUDs on soldiers' helmets is kinda science-fictiony...)
Jay (=
Programming in multiple languages and writing device drivers at 17? Geez! I wish you had been my dad!
...on second thought, that's not true. Computers weren't my parents' thing, but they did enough by encouraging me to read and study what I was interested in.
Jay (=
(who may someday catch up with the teenagers of today...)
Instead I think it was a festering piece of Jar Jar poo and Lucas should let others direct and write the next two stories since he obviously doesn't get it anymore.
This has got to be the most egotistical piece of whining I've ever head.
It's his series! If this trilogy has a different tone, then it's possibly because he's refined (and yes, even changed) his opinions on some of the elements of the series.
I think it's more likely that you've built up a huge expectation as to what the series is supposed to be about and are upset because it isn't playing the way you want it. If this movie upset you, then I'll take your tickets for Episodes Two and Three because you probably won't want to see those either.
Remember, this is only one-third of the prequel story. I'd love to see how many of these people will be saying "God, 'The Clone War Strikes Back' doesn't live up to the promise of The Phantom Menace! This sucks compared to episode one!"
Jay (=
*** WARNING: MEGA SPOILERS BELOW! ***
The list writers cheated -- there were at least two references to Darth Maul's under-use, and the rest of it was an exercise in nit-picking.
My comments as appropriate -- if I don't mention one, I either agreed or was indifferent.
2. The Virgin Shmi and the "Immaculate Conception" of Anakin
Actually, this doesn't bother me so much as the "child of destiny" thing as a whole.
Why does it need to get pounded into our heads from day one that Anakin is going to be Darth Vader? We KNOW that already, by the force of history (no pun intended). People are complaining that the explorations of the Force in TPM are more scientific, but the notion that the Jedi had a "prophecy" about "a chosen one" -- this is hack sci-fi, Mr. Lucas...
7. Two-headed sports announcer with cliché voice (esp. line "That's gotta hurt in any universe")
That was BAD. No question.
9. Watto's line "you think you some kind of Jedi" - unnecessary cheap joke - pokes fun at Jedi, who should not be the butt of any jokes
Says you. They established that Tatooine is out on the edge of the galaxy, with little to no contact with the Republic (and, by extension, the Jedi). They probably hear stories about Jedi being able to read minds, catch blaster bolts (remember, Han didn't think the Force was any match for "a good blaster at your side") and take them with a grain of salt.
10. Battle droids aren't threatening enough
Well, I wonder if the Trade Federation was supposed to be a huge military power. They probably use the droids to run ships and handle intenral and external security, and their idea of "gearing up for war" was churning out more of them.
Also, they're not threatening enough because they're up against Jedi, who did a lot more with the Force in one movie than I saw Luke use in all three!
16. Weak "Running Man" plot device of having a transmitter implanted in Anakin and his mom so they can't leave Tatooine
Oh yeah, people should just let their slaves around around willy-nilly with no measure of control over them. Would having them in leg irons been better?
17. Nicknaming Anakin "Annie"
Which brings up another gripe about people's gripes with the movie. Why can't Anakin be a nine-year-old kid in this movie? He's not a young Darth Vader, people. Why can't his mom have a pet name for him, why can't he be allowed to say "yippee"? He was an ordinary kid (much like Luke was in A New Hope) until circumstances thrust him into extraordinary situations.
18. Introducing the concept of slavery to the Star Wars universe - what are droids for then?
Um, what do you think Leia was to Jabba in ROTJ? (Or most of his dancers and babes, for that matter?)
19. The Gungan City and underwater chase, which look like scenes out of "Little Mermaid", totally incongruous with rest of SW universe
What rest of the universe? We see an abandoned temple on Yavin's moon, a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" (two of them -- Mos Eisley and Jabba's palace) on Tatooine, a cave on Hoth, a swamp on Dagobah -- that's four planets. We never saw Alderaan, and both Death Stars were totally artificial.
The only thing that comes close to the Gungan city is Cloud City in Empire Strikes Back (especially in the special edition) and Coruscant in the special edition of Jedi (which was almost a preview of TPM).
21. Bizarre dolly shot with Sidious's hologram talking to Viceroy on weird spider droid
Well, the fact that the hologram platform lurched around was annoying, but I liked the fact that the holograms were more in tune with their environment (specifically, the hologram of the Queen's ship in Qui-Gon's hand).
22. Having Anakin be the creator of C-3P0 - adds nothing to other films and introduces an unrealistic coincidence - C-3P0 and Vader are NEVER in a scene together
Not true. C3PO is in the scene where Han gets frozen in The Empire Strikes Back.
And so what? Why does TPM have to be filled with foreshadowing of what is to come? Someone else pointed out that it isn't ever really common knowledge that Vader is Luke's father, so what would C3PO have to say? "Would you like some asthma medicine, Master Anakin"?
23. Qui-Gon's wussiness - why doesn't he just take the part from Watto? - because they need a speeder race.
Or he doesn't want to stir up troubles with the Hutts, who in ROTJ are shown not to be influenced by "Jedi mind tricks". Gotta figure that two Jedi and a ship which doesn't have any weapons might not want to attract attention to themselves. Bodyguards tend to want to prevent fights, not start them...
He also runs away from Darth Maul and cuts a cool fight short
Yeah, better that Darth maul skewers him then so he can't stand up for Anakin in the Jedi Council. And the second fight scene was even better.
24. Story point of having to get money to pay for hyperdrive part - more fitting in an adventure game. Why doesn't Qui-Gon commandeer the part? What authority does he have? Aren't the Jedi supposed to be guardians of some kind?
Yeah, guardians of peace and justice, but he's on a world that doesn't recognize the authority of the Republic. ("Republic credits are no good here", remember?)
25. Anakin's L.L. Bean knapsack
Sorry, I must have missed the L.L.Bean logo. I suppose little kids should have backpacks at all, huh? You know, he's running errands for his mom or Watto, needs to have something to carry parts back with...
26. Darth Maul getting chopped in half - was it really necessary?
This bothered me more beause I wanted to see more development for Maul -- he had like two or three lines in the whole movie!
32. Jar Jar accidentally destroying half the battle droid army
I put that right up there with the Ewok scene in ROTJ, both good and bad.
33. Gungan bubble shield - this is a device unlike anything we have ever seen in SW.
Oh god, we can't show other parts of the galaxy or technology except what was in the original trilogy, can we? I suppose people are pissed because Darth Maul has a two-bladed lightsaber, too.
Besides, what was the force shield generator the AT-ATs destroyed in Empire but a larger one of the Gungans' machine? Methinks it was to prevent the Star Destroyers for simply pummeling them from orbit. (Or as the list writer would have it, "because we needed to have an AT-AT scene.")
37. Anakin's blowing the station up by accident
I just figured is was some stirrings of the Force that caused him to launch the torpedoes. But you're right, it was kinda cheesy. At least Luke had some competence as a pilot -- Anakin in that scene was trying to figure out the controls!
39. Boss Nass' agreeing to help humans just cause they kneel
Well, except for the fact that he didn't like the humans because he thought they thought they were superior, and Amidala showed them otherwise. Besides, it's kinda cool to have a queen bowed to you (not that I've had it done to me)...
40. Qui-Gon requesting Jar Jar as a navigator then never even using him to navigate
I figured he used it as an excuse to keep Jar Jar from being punished, since it was their fault he went back to Gungan city.
41. Darth Maul never does anything evil - he just looks cool
I agree. He needed more screen time (either in this movie or later ones -- I figured Episode II would have had a killer lightsaber battle between Darth Vader and Darth Maul for the right to be Palpatine's apprentice.)
46. Dumb-ass ESP test the Jedi give to Anakin
Should they have put "Several hours later" at the top of the screen? I figured that was only part of it. Besides, Anakin probably can't levitate items or use a lightsaber because he hasn't been trained yet.
47. Token P.C. female pilot in Naboo fighter
Gee, and others are complaining there weren't enough females in the movie. You can't please anyone...
48. Lack of activity for Jedi and Mace Windu - Why don't all the Jedi ever go and kick ass?
Um, because they're the Jedi Council (e.g., the guys in charge) and the Clone Wars haven't happened yet?
52. Lame-ass foreshadowing, like Ric Olie teaching Anakin to fly fighter
I don't remember Ric showing how to fly the fighter. The transport, yeah...
54. Confusing plot device of Queen and her double
Well, considering the early rumors for TPM had Natalie Portman playing "Princess Padme" I figured that rather quick. Besides, I thought it made lots of sense -- more so than having the Queen wearing those gaudy outfits that screamed "SHOOT ME!" I was waiting for the "Queen" to get killed, only to have Padme reveal herself then.
56. James Bond "Thunderball" scuba mouthpieces that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan just happen to have -(Why would they bring those to a negotiation on a *spaceship*??? Do they carry them around in their utility belts???)
Why not? They're small. Maybe they carry them in case of problems with the atmosphere on a starship, or for excursions to planets with hostile atmospheres? (Maybe the ones on the Falcon in Empire were older, or had a longer capacity.)
57. Terence Stamp being completely underused in just one mediocre scene
I agree. This time the action figure thing worked in reverse -- rather than having the figures coming out afterwards and fleshing the background characters out (did anyone care what the name of the band in the cantina was originally?) it created misleading expectations at to the importance of various characters (like Darth Maul, for one) Did they ever actually say the names of these characters in the movie?
58. Absolutely no background given about Sith Lords - what was the "Mystery of the Sith"?
Sounds like a plot device for Episode Two to me.
59. Lack of interaction between Obi-wan and Padme/Amidala and other handmaidens - Is he gay?
No, nor is he a pedophile. (Amidala is 14-16, remember? I assume the handmaidens are as well).
Hey, do we ever see any Jedi expressing interest in the opposite sex? Does Obi-Wan senior ever leer at Leia's hologram? "Woo, nice cans!"
60. Convenient location of blanket near Queen (when Anakin tells her he's cold)
Jesus, could we nitpick any more? I suppose Luke's lightsaber laying within eyesight in the Wampa's cave (as opposed to when he fell off of the tauntaun) was similarly "convenient".
61. Lack of epic cliffhangers (a la trash compactor, space slug escape, walking plank of Jabba's skiff)
Well, it's kinda hard to have cliffhangers when we know Anakin, Obi-Wan and Amidala are destined to survive Episode One. But the pod race was exciting, and the lightsaber duel at the end was fantastic -- Qui-Gon Jinn's death didn't surprise me, but Darth Maul's did.
63. Centering a major section of the film around the pod race stalls the story
As does following Luke on Tatooine in A New Hope before looking for R2D2, as does watching Luke and Han twiddle their thumbs in stormtrooper outfits on the Death Star. There's the Wampa scene in Empire, most of the Ewok stuff in Jedi...
66. Yoda's defeatist attitude - no good explanation is given about his fears about Anakin. Wouldn't it be more troubling if Anakin wasn't afraid about his mother???
I look at it this way -- Yoda probably does recognize Anakin's inherent strength, and would rather leave his abilities untrained and unfocused rather than run the risk of him being seduced by the dark side (which his fears provide a possibility of happening -- that whole litany about "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering").
Hey, let's bring up something else that bugs me. What, does "a prophecy of a child who brings balance to the Force" mean to you? What is "bringing balance to the Force"? To me, I don't see this prophecy as a positive one (of course, I know what end up happening in 4-6...)
67. It's never made clear whether people were being killed on Naboo
True, though they figure that Sio Bibble's message was either coerced or faked to draw Amidala out of hiding.
68. Slapstick during Gungan battle undercuts drama of final confrontation with Darth Maul
As does the slapstick of the Ewok battle does to the confrontation with Darth Vader, to pick more nits.
72. Goofy, mistaken identity rescue sequence of the Queen by her double
Why is it goofy? They established her double is assigned to keep her alive, through misdirection when and if possible. I think it worked better than they hoped in this case.
76. Serious underuse of Ewan McGregor
Ahem. Episodes Two and Three? He was a "padawan" in this one. I suspect he's being a good student and staying in the background unless necessary.
79. Slapstick sequence of Jar Jar trying to eat a rubber fish
So, I take it Jar Jar Binks isn't the list writer's favorite...
80. Underuse of Darth Maul
No kidding!
81. Concept of "Jedi Trials" for Obi-Wan is dropped by the end of the film
But it sets up the Jedi trials for Anakin -- if they hadn't then people would say "Why does Anakin have to go through trials? Obi-Wan didn't!"
84. Portrayal of Republic as ineffective and bureaucratic will reduce the significance of its collapse in upcoming films. Isn't this the film where we were supposed to see their civilization at its height?
Well, look at it this way; maybe Palpatine and Vader ARE restoring order to the galaxy -- only it's their order? It'd explain why so many systems have gone along with a Republic/Empire that seems so evil. "Mussolini was bad, but he made the trains run on time" and all that...
85. Introduction of Battle Droids appears to be an attempt to reduce the number of deaths shown in the film, yet they are killed in an extremely violent and destructive manner. Also, use of such a device is inconsistent with the notion presented in the other films that droids have humanity.
Yeah, that's why they put restraining bolts on them, the Rebel tech suggests that Luke trade in his R2 unit for a new one, the comedy about C3PO being dismembered, and Jabba's supposed penchant for dismantling protocol droids.
We see R2D2 and C3PO have humanity, but I got the impression it was because they haven't had their memories wiped in a while -- C3PO makes reference to not knowing who "Obi-Wan" is, Obi-Wan doesn't recognize R2 as the droid from TPM (does he ever hear him referred to as "R2D2"?)
86. Lack of a protagonist
I figured it was Qui-Gon Jinn, and his goal was 1) doing his job in regards to Naboo and 2) after finding Anakin, pushing to have him accepted as a student.
87. Anakin fixes engine and wins pod race by flicking switches, apparently at random (and without any use of the force)
Um, I don't think he can do the things Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan can do until he's been trained to. Luke didn't show much facility with the Force until being trained by Yoda (the lightsaber in the Wampa cave being the only exception) except for communing with Obi-Wan and sensing when to fire at the Death Star.
88. Why does Qui-Gon sense such power in Anakin? What does Anakin ever do to suggest he has powers? Wouldn't a demonstration be in order?
What evidence did we see that Luke had powers in A New Hope (aside from Vader's "The Force is strong in this one")? We don't know why Luke is hearing Obi-Wan's voice...
89. Design of all CG characters did not match anything we've seen before in the SW universe (except maybe in the Special Editions). They were totally incongruous.
So it should have been all Hutts, Wookies, Ughnaughts, Gamorreans and Ewoks?
91. No explanation for red force shields at end. It was cool, but confusing and contrived. Were the characters controlling them or did they time-on and time-off like in a video game?
I think they were timed. There was no explanation, but I thought it looked like they were in the central reactor of the palace, so maybe they were meant to allow brief periods of access to the core.
92. Watto's stereotypical Jewish Shylock attitude and accent.
I must not spend much time around Jewish shylocks, because I never interpreted his accent like that.
93. Captain Panaka's blandness
I thought of him as a talking fixture, like the various Admirals and Captains in the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
94. Lack of camaraderie among characters - they didn't seem like a team
And I suppose Han and Luke bickering and Leia shreiking make them more "team-like" in A New Hope? They had three movies to develop a camaraderie, where these guys have had one.
99. Jar jar offers to be Qui Gon's slave
I didn't think he had a choice. They made reference to a "life debt", which is supposedly why Chewbacca pals around with Han Solo.
100. Lack of any anti-hero to create character tension. Han Solo did this in IV, Lando did this in V, Vader did it in Jedi. In Episode 1, everyone did EXACTLY what was expected of them. No plot twists or surprises.
Well, the trick is, no one knew who the anti-hero was. Palpatine (aka "Darth Sidious" -- why give him another name? I never heard him referred to by name when he was in the cloak) used the Trade Federation / Naboo crisis to get what he really wanted -- the Supreme Chancellor position. I wonder who starts the Clone Wars; the Republic or their enemy?
Jay (=
... the people who say "it sucked, but I'll go see it again."
Maybe it's me, but I tend not to watch movies that I don't like more than once.
Jay (=