I trust that most, if not all, of those reading this post realize that this constitutes an advanced stage of the death of the Original Series, if not the ideals that it stood for. The final movement began, naturally, with the death of Gene Roddenberry, and entered the final downward slide with the subsequent death of DeForest Kelley. Furthermore, we all recognize that Scotty was the first among equals of the non-Kirk-Spock-McCoy segment of the original cast. Mr. Doohan, we hardly knew ye. Thank you for representing my country on the beaches of Normandy. I hope that I and mine shall not neglect your sacrifice in days to come.
I think we should all boycott any TV show, or any other enterprise (no, not a pun) for that matter, which employs people who profess a religion we don't like. The people who profess the religion we don't like should be hounded out of most professions, and be required to wear, say, some kind of symbol on their sleeves to identify them. They might be invited to move into new homes where they can all be together, and their own homes and possessions be given to people we do like. Most likely, the people who profess the religion we don't like will ultimately just disappear in some mysterious fashion, out east.
This article (and any number of other tech articles from the NYT) has the byline Jennifer 8. Lee. Would someone mind explaining to me why her middle initial is a number? Did she name herself after the movie with Andy Garcia and Uma Thurman? Is Neuromancer involved in any way? I wanna know!
Actually, this movie has already been done. I haven't seen it myself, but I believe it covers his years working on the Manhattan project, including the death of his wife.
Let me fill in the blank: This kind of targeted audio advertising will make e-mail spam seem about as obtrusive as a notice from the local council, prominently displayed at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, inside a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door reading "Beware of the Leopard".
I think that Merry and Pippen were portrayed as bumbling idiots.
Pippin certainly was, although I think Merry comes off as the more sensible of the two. Every film needs its comic relief; Pippin is Peter Jackson's Jar-Jar, that's all. And I'm sure his character will grow in subsequent films, especially when he has to start dealing with actual responsibility (to Denethor and Minas Tirith) in the third film.
I never saw the original Channel 4 series, but I do have the original TV movie (d/l'ed sometime back as an MPEG file), plus all the episodes taped. Haven't watched them for a while. Here's a really good idea: Rhino Video should release this show on DVD. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Yup. I saw the commercial, and it was definitely the battle of Helm's Deep, with ladders being raised to try to get over the walls. They also showed what I took to be Edoras (the hall of Theoden, king of Rohan).
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the new reels which contain the extra four minutes have been distributed to 40 markets around North America. Since I live in a medium-size Canadian market, I wonder if I'll have to cross the border to Detroit to see the preview. What with bridge tolls and exchange rate it more than doubles the already-excessive cost to see a movie. But then, geek is as geek does...
Buy a used copy - Disney won't see a cent of your money. Of course, you could construe this as an indirect subsidy or endorsement, if you'd a mind to... Just a suggestion.
Really? I have an original Apex AD600A player, and the goldurned thing won't recognize the anamorphic flag on this movie - I end up with tall-skinny-Boxleitneritis. If I want to watch it in the correct aspect ratio, I have to use my computer because there's no way to override it on the Apex. It's probably time to replace the thing anyway. It was a good deal when it was new, but it really is cheap - it overheats, it won't handle seamless branching correctly, and various other problems as well.
Certain DVDs incorporate widescreen menus - _Tron_ is one, _Gladiator_ is another. It uses the pan-and-scan flag to tell the player to zoom in on the menu image when playing on a 4:3 display. These menus usually don't have actual selectable menu items on the sides which would get cut off, just extra background image. It sounds like your Samsung isn't getting the pan-and-scan flag right. (This flag was supposed to enable anamorphic DVDs to act like cropped discs so that both crowds could be pleased by the same disc, but a lot of players don't seem to get this right.)
My favourite part of the extras on this disc is when someone describes generating animation frames by hand. He actually had to write down the camera coordinates on paper - six spatial and angle coordinates each for hundreds of consecutive frames - to be manually input into the system that rendered the images, because apparently there was no mutually compatible storage medium (floppy discs, etc) between the system they used and the rendering system! Compare that to, say, _Monsters Inc._ - talk about stone knives and bearskins...
I thought the Oscars were awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, not the Motion Picture Association of America. Or is there a difference?
An interesting theory, but not quite right. The true power of the Ring is to give the wearer dominance over the will of others. This was Sauron's purpose in creating the Ring - to rule other wills "by force and fear", to use Tolkien's preferred phrase. It represents the tendency of all those who seek power, even for just reasons, to overreach and end up pursuing raw power for its own sake. This is why Tom Bombadil is thematically important even though he's a distraction to the plot: he has no interest in power whatsoever, only in seeking knowledge, and therefore the ring has no hold on him.
The fact that the Ring makes its wearer invisible is a side effect of the fact that it connects the wearer to the "other world", where the Ringwraiths live. This world is where the power of the Ring lies, and the longer he possesses the Ring, the more Frodo enters it. When Sam intimidates the Orc in the tower of Cirith Ungol, he is not wearing the Ring but only holding it in his clenched fist. Having returned to Mordor, the Ring has grown in power and seems to cast an aura around Sam that contributes to the effect, but that's all.
Keep in mind that at one point Frodo asks why no one ever did what he said when he happened to be wearing the Ring, and Gandalf points out that he's never tried to make them. If he had tried, Frodo would have found even his most well-intentioned efforts succeeded only by intimidating or terrorizing people, one way or another. By the same token, if Frodo had wanted to be visible while wearing the Ring, most likely he could have been; but likely the Ring's malign influence would have made him appear as some kind of evil spirit (like a miniature Balrog, perhaps).
Bilbo, Frodo, and particularly Sam, all survive being Ringbearers with only minimal corruption because they keep it not in order to use it, but to prevent it being used. All this is in keeping with the idea that the Ring is the physical manifestation of the kind of power that corrupts absolutely.
Two words: keyboard navigation. In the Windows world at least (yeah yeah, bite me), anyone who bothers to learn the relevant keystrokes and combos can whoop the pants off a mouser in basic, nuts-and-bolts text editing tasks like selecting ranges, cutting and pasting, applying attributes, etc. Why? It's not the amount of time it takes to reach for the mouse; that is as nothing against the amount of time it takes to orient hand/mouse to screen/pointer, navigate the pointer to the appropriate button by eye, and click. I type 100 wpm on a good day, and my fingers know exactly where to go at all times. The visual interface is fine, but (for me at least) it lacks the benefit of proprioception. When I use the mouse, I am forced to stare at the screen in order to be sure of the result of my mouse movements, whereas I always know exactly what my keystrokes are doing without having to look.
For example, in most Windows text editors, pressing Control-left-arrow moves back one word. Further, holding Shift while using any navigation key combo changes the navigation action to a select action. Therefore if, for example, I want to select the paragraph I am currently editing, all I have to do is press Control-Down (end of paragraph), Shift-Control-Up (Select to top of current paragraph), and it's done. Elapsed time, about a tenth of a second. A couple more keystrokes and I can cut or delete the paragraph, add formatting (B/U/I, justification, etc.), and so on. Compare that to the time it takes to lay your hand on the mouse, move the pointer to one end of the paragraph, click and drag to sweep out the paragraph by eye. No contest.
Heck, my typing speed wouldn't even be what it is if it weren't for keyboard shortcuts. As an instinctive touch-typist, I seldom miss a typo as I go along, and by now it's a perfect reflex when I notice I've just mistyped to press Control-Shift-Left and retype the word - elapsed time, maybe half a second; expended effort, negligible.
ISTM I read an article (on The Digital Bits, I think) that said the DVD was going to include two versions of the film: the release version, plus a second version that's identical except for having *no special effects* (i.e., all blue screen). Maybe that's the kind of thing only a film student would care to see, but I'm kind of disappointed that this won't be part of the package. I would pay extra to have both versions to compare side by side. In fact, if there is anything to the rumour, I hope Lucas announces it before October 16 so I can decide whether to hold off for that version.
I just don't understand what you mean when you say the film is poorly done. Obviously you don't mean on the technical level; the effects are all but flawless.
"No plot"? Episode I has a plot that works on a number of levels: straightforward adventure, political intrigue, character interaction... The film is very well constructed. Look at the ending: four separate plot threads taking place in separate locations are intricately intercut and interwoven seamlessly. I also want to draw attention to the mystery aspect of it: that is, the mystery of Darth Sidious' identity. Of course everyone knows who Darth Sidious *really* is, but imagine you'd never seen the previous movies -- could you figure out the truth just from what's on the screen in Episode I? You can if you're paying attention, all the information is there, hiding in plain sight. Likely as not I would have missed it if I hadn't known.
The film has some obvious flaws. Plainly the first hurdle that most people face is Jar-Jar. This isn't a problem for me, since I don't care about Jar-Jar one way or the other; I just accept him as what he is, which is comic relief. And yes, some of the dialogue his hokey, particularly Anakin's. How much of the dialogue in the previous films was *not* hokey? A worse flaw is the missed opportunity to establish Anakin's anger management problem: specifically, there was a scene cut from the film where he attacks a much younger Greedo after the Rodian accuses him of winning the pod race by cheating. I don't understand why Lucas left that scene out; maybe the movie was running long.
Sometimes I just get the idea that the people who heap scorn on Episode I are just disappointed that it didn't overwhelm them like Episode IV did back when they were ten years old. Either that or I wonder if they saw the same film I did (several times, I might add).
I stopped reading Suck several years ago, around the time they discovered how easy it is to bait Canadians for cheap laughs. It wasn't until recently that us Canadians stopped getting mad and started getting even.
From the article: "We think culture is what causes things like France to happen."
DOWN WITH CULTURE!!!
But seriously, for a while there I was heavily into Civilization. One night I sat down at about 8 p.m. for a game and five minutes later, it was 1:30 in the morning. I had to cool it around then.:-)
What you're saying is perfect common sense, and I couldn't agree more. But so what? Read this paragraph from the article:
"Among the many battles over bandwidth that have captivated Washington's lobbyists and policy makers, the Northpoint fight is particularly notable. The company has spent more than $10 million in lobbying and legal costs, and its opponents have spent considerably more. Both sides have raised large sums for campaign contributions in an effort to influence important lawmakers." [italics added]
Unfortunately for the American people, their political system is so corrupted by money that the newspaper of record can print a statement like the above as a bald statement of fact, and no one bats an eye. Likewise for leased spectrum: it's the best thing for everyone except the ones who can afford to make sure it doesn't happen. Common sense has precious little to do with the outcome in such a case.
I think a similar argument applies to, say, safety regulations. Let's say that, in order to reduce costs, someone proposes to loosen safety regulations in such a way that a power plant will release slightly larger amounts of some toxin -- radiation, PCBs, what have you -- into the environment in a given year. A study establishes that, if the change goes forward, the amount of toxin released will result in an increase in the local death rate of one tenth of one percent per year. Does that sound all that bad? Maybe not, if the relevant local population is, say, 10,000 people and the area sees maybe one hundred deaths a year. In that case, the increase of the death rate disappears into the noise. But what if the population is 100,000? That translates to one extra death per year. In a large city, there will be ten extra deaths per year; in a major metropolitan area, maybe one hundred extra deaths per year. You get the idea. If the change in regulation goes through, does that make the person who proposed it a mass murderer? Well, does it?
Violence breeds violence. Exposure to violent media may not cause violence, but I'm certain it makes it easier to condone certain kinds of violence: revenge killings, capital punishment and other kinds of retributive justice, and so on. Are the people behind the Nuremberg Files any different?
The general public is, well, stupid and impressionable. European governments have recognised this for sometime, and take care of these issues for them by implementing strong censorship of violence. Hence there is little violence in European countries.
Aside from being one of the worst defenses of censorship I've ever heard, that's a very bad argument. Logic 101: correlation is not causation.
When I read simpleminded arguments like this that claim that exposure to violent or irresponsible imagery leads to violent or irresponsible acts, I tend to wonder whether countries with really high rates of violent crime -- like, say, South Africa -- have similarly high rates of violence in media. If they do, then are their violent media homegrown, or imported from Hollywood? Or is it just from watching TV news?
Slashdot Mirror
I woke up next to it.
If it's anywhere near this place, it should be very popular. If you're ever in Mabou, be sure and stop in.
So there's my question: what happens if a brain slug latches on to a hypno-toad? Who would win? My guess is, we all would lose.
I trust that most, if not all, of those reading this post realize that this constitutes an advanced stage of the death of the Original Series, if not the ideals that it stood for. The final movement began, naturally, with the death of Gene Roddenberry, and entered the final downward slide with the subsequent death of DeForest Kelley. Furthermore, we all recognize that Scotty was the first among equals of the non-Kirk-Spock-McCoy segment of the original cast. Mr. Doohan, we hardly knew ye. Thank you for representing my country on the beaches of Normandy. I hope that I and mine shall not neglect your sacrifice in days to come.
I think we should all boycott any TV show, or any other enterprise (no, not a pun) for that matter, which employs people who profess a religion we don't like. The people who profess the religion we don't like should be hounded out of most professions, and be required to wear, say, some kind of symbol on their sleeves to identify them. They might be invited to move into new homes where they can all be together, and their own homes and possessions be given to people we do like. Most likely, the people who profess the religion we don't like will ultimately just disappear in some mysterious fashion, out east.
Sound like a plan?
This article (and any number of other tech articles from the NYT) has the byline Jennifer 8. Lee. Would someone mind explaining to me why her middle initial is a number? Did she name herself after the movie with Andy Garcia and Uma Thurman? Is Neuromancer involved in any way? I wanna know!
Actually, this movie has already been done. I haven't seen it myself, but I believe it covers his years working on the Manhattan project, including the death of his wife.
Movies have always partially made it into the Internet before they were released...
For very small values of "always", that is, approx two to three years now (and counting).
Let me fill in the blank: This kind of targeted audio advertising will make e-mail spam seem about as obtrusive as a notice from the local council, prominently displayed at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, inside a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door reading "Beware of the Leopard".
I think that Merry and Pippen were portrayed as bumbling idiots.
Pippin certainly was, although I think Merry comes off as the more sensible of the two. Every film needs its comic relief; Pippin is Peter Jackson's Jar-Jar, that's all. And I'm sure his character will grow in subsequent films, especially when he has to start dealing with actual responsibility (to Denethor and Minas Tirith) in the third film.
I never saw the original Channel 4 series, but I do have the original TV movie (d/l'ed sometime back as an MPEG file), plus all the episodes taped. Haven't watched them for a while. Here's a really good idea: Rhino Video should release this show on DVD. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Yup. I saw the commercial, and it was definitely the battle of Helm's Deep, with ladders being raised to try to get over the walls. They also showed what I took to be Edoras (the hall of Theoden, king of Rohan).
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the new reels which contain the extra four minutes have been distributed to 40 markets around North America. Since I live in a medium-size Canadian market, I wonder if I'll have to cross the border to Detroit to see the preview. What with bridge tolls and exchange rate it more than doubles the already-excessive cost to see a movie. But then, geek is as geek does...
Buy a used copy - Disney won't see a cent of your money. Of course, you could construe this as an indirect subsidy or endorsement, if you'd a mind to... Just a suggestion.
Really? I have an original Apex AD600A player, and the goldurned thing won't recognize the anamorphic flag on this movie - I end up with tall-skinny-Boxleitneritis. If I want to watch it in the correct aspect ratio, I have to use my computer because there's no way to override it on the Apex. It's probably time to replace the thing anyway. It was a good deal when it was new, but it really is cheap - it overheats, it won't handle seamless branching correctly, and various other problems as well.
Certain DVDs incorporate widescreen menus - _Tron_ is one, _Gladiator_ is another. It uses the pan-and-scan flag to tell the player to zoom in on the menu image when playing on a 4:3 display. These menus usually don't have actual selectable menu items on the sides which would get cut off, just extra background image. It sounds like your Samsung isn't getting the pan-and-scan flag right. (This flag was supposed to enable anamorphic DVDs to act like cropped discs so that both crowds could be pleased by the same disc, but a lot of players don't seem to get this right.)
My favourite part of the extras on this disc is when someone describes generating animation frames by hand. He actually had to write down the camera coordinates on paper - six spatial and angle coordinates each for hundreds of consecutive frames - to be manually input into the system that rendered the images, because apparently there was no mutually compatible storage medium (floppy discs, etc) between the system they used and the rendering system! Compare that to, say, _Monsters Inc._ - talk about stone knives and bearskins...
I thought the Oscars were awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, not the Motion Picture Association of America. Or is there a difference?
An interesting theory, but not quite right. The true power of the Ring is to give the wearer dominance over the will of others. This was Sauron's purpose in creating the Ring - to rule other wills "by force and fear", to use Tolkien's preferred phrase. It represents the tendency of all those who seek power, even for just reasons, to overreach and end up pursuing raw power for its own sake. This is why Tom Bombadil is thematically important even though he's a distraction to the plot: he has no interest in power whatsoever, only in seeking knowledge, and therefore the ring has no hold on him.
The fact that the Ring makes its wearer invisible is a side effect of the fact that it connects the wearer to the "other world", where the Ringwraiths live. This world is where the power of the Ring lies, and the longer he possesses the Ring, the more Frodo enters it. When Sam intimidates the Orc in the tower of Cirith Ungol, he is not wearing the Ring but only holding it in his clenched fist. Having returned to Mordor, the Ring has grown in power and seems to cast an aura around Sam that contributes to the effect, but that's all.
Keep in mind that at one point Frodo asks why no one ever did what he said when he happened to be wearing the Ring, and Gandalf points out that he's never tried to make them. If he had tried, Frodo would have found even his most well-intentioned efforts succeeded only by intimidating or terrorizing people, one way or another. By the same token, if Frodo had wanted to be visible while wearing the Ring, most likely he could have been; but likely the Ring's malign influence would have made him appear as some kind of evil spirit (like a miniature Balrog, perhaps).
Bilbo, Frodo, and particularly Sam, all survive being Ringbearers with only minimal corruption because they keep it not in order to use it, but to prevent it being used. All this is in keeping with the idea that the Ring is the physical manifestation of the kind of power that corrupts absolutely.
Two words: keyboard navigation. In the Windows world at least (yeah yeah, bite me), anyone who bothers to learn the relevant keystrokes and combos can whoop the pants off a mouser in basic, nuts-and-bolts text editing tasks like selecting ranges, cutting and pasting, applying attributes, etc. Why? It's not the amount of time it takes to reach for the mouse; that is as nothing against the amount of time it takes to orient hand/mouse to screen/pointer, navigate the pointer to the appropriate button by eye, and click. I type 100 wpm on a good day, and my fingers know exactly where to go at all times. The visual interface is fine, but (for me at least) it lacks the benefit of proprioception. When I use the mouse, I am forced to stare at the screen in order to be sure of the result of my mouse movements, whereas I always know exactly what my keystrokes are doing without having to look.
For example, in most Windows text editors, pressing Control-left-arrow moves back one word. Further, holding Shift while using any navigation key combo changes the navigation action to a select action. Therefore if, for example, I want to select the paragraph I am currently editing, all I have to do is press Control-Down (end of paragraph), Shift-Control-Up (Select to top of current paragraph), and it's done. Elapsed time, about a tenth of a second. A couple more keystrokes and I can cut or delete the paragraph, add formatting (B/U/I, justification, etc.), and so on. Compare that to the time it takes to lay your hand on the mouse, move the pointer to one end of the paragraph, click and drag to sweep out the paragraph by eye. No contest.
Heck, my typing speed wouldn't even be what it is if it weren't for keyboard shortcuts. As an instinctive touch-typist, I seldom miss a typo as I go along, and by now it's a perfect reflex when I notice I've just mistyped to press Control-Shift-Left and retype the word - elapsed time, maybe half a second; expended effort, negligible.
ISTM I read an article (on The Digital Bits, I think) that said the DVD was going to include two versions of the film: the release version, plus a second version that's identical except for having *no special effects* (i.e., all blue screen). Maybe that's the kind of thing only a film student would care to see, but I'm kind of disappointed that this won't be part of the package. I would pay extra to have both versions to compare side by side. In fact, if there is anything to the rumour, I hope Lucas announces it before October 16 so I can decide whether to hold off for that version.
I just don't understand what you mean when you say the film is poorly done. Obviously you don't mean on the technical level; the effects are all but flawless.
"No plot"? Episode I has a plot that works on a number of levels: straightforward adventure, political intrigue, character interaction... The film is very well constructed. Look at the ending: four separate plot threads taking place in separate locations are intricately intercut and interwoven seamlessly. I also want to draw attention to the mystery aspect of it: that is, the mystery of Darth Sidious' identity. Of course everyone knows who Darth Sidious *really* is, but imagine you'd never seen the previous movies -- could you figure out the truth just from what's on the screen in Episode I? You can if you're paying attention, all the information is there, hiding in plain sight. Likely as not I would have missed it if I hadn't known.
The film has some obvious flaws. Plainly the first hurdle that most people face is Jar-Jar. This isn't a problem for me, since I don't care about Jar-Jar one way or the other; I just accept him as what he is, which is comic relief. And yes, some of the dialogue his hokey, particularly Anakin's. How much of the dialogue in the previous films was *not* hokey? A worse flaw is the missed opportunity to establish Anakin's anger management problem: specifically, there was a scene cut from the film where he attacks a much younger Greedo after the Rodian accuses him of winning the pod race by cheating. I don't understand why Lucas left that scene out; maybe the movie was running long.
Sometimes I just get the idea that the people who heap scorn on Episode I are just disappointed that it didn't overwhelm them like Episode IV did back when they were ten years old. Either that or I wonder if they saw the same film I did (several times, I might add).
I stopped reading Suck several years ago, around the time they discovered how easy it is to bait Canadians for cheap laughs. It wasn't until recently that us Canadians stopped getting mad and started getting even.
From the article: "We think culture is what causes things like France to happen."
:-)
DOWN WITH CULTURE!!!
But seriously, for a while there I was heavily into Civilization. One night I sat down at about 8 p.m. for a game and five minutes later, it was 1:30 in the morning. I had to cool it around then.
What you're saying is perfect common sense, and I couldn't agree more. But so what? Read this paragraph from the article:
"Among the many battles over bandwidth that have captivated Washington's lobbyists and policy makers, the Northpoint fight is particularly notable. The company has spent more than $10 million in lobbying and legal costs, and its opponents have spent considerably more. Both sides have raised large sums for campaign contributions in an effort to influence important lawmakers." [italics added]
Unfortunately for the American people, their political system is so corrupted by money that the newspaper of record can print a statement like the above as a bald statement of fact, and no one bats an eye. Likewise for leased spectrum: it's the best thing for everyone except the ones who can afford to make sure it doesn't happen. Common sense has precious little to do with the outcome in such a case.
I think a similar argument applies to, say, safety regulations. Let's say that, in order to reduce costs, someone proposes to loosen safety regulations in such a way that a power plant will release slightly larger amounts of some toxin -- radiation, PCBs, what have you -- into the environment in a given year. A study establishes that, if the change goes forward, the amount of toxin released will result in an increase in the local death rate of one tenth of one percent per year. Does that sound all that bad? Maybe not, if the relevant local population is, say, 10,000 people and the area sees maybe one hundred deaths a year. In that case, the increase of the death rate disappears into the noise. But what if the population is 100,000? That translates to one extra death per year. In a large city, there will be ten extra deaths per year; in a major metropolitan area, maybe one hundred extra deaths per year. You get the idea. If the change in regulation goes through, does that make the person who proposed it a mass murderer? Well, does it?
Violence breeds violence. Exposure to violent media may not cause violence, but I'm certain it makes it easier to condone certain kinds of violence: revenge killings, capital punishment and other kinds of retributive justice, and so on. Are the people behind the Nuremberg Files any different?
The general public is, well, stupid and impressionable. European governments have recognised this for sometime, and take care of these issues for them by implementing strong censorship of violence. Hence there is little violence in European countries.
Aside from being one of the worst defenses of censorship I've ever heard, that's a very bad argument. Logic 101: correlation is not causation.
When I read simpleminded arguments like this that claim that exposure to violent or irresponsible imagery leads to violent or irresponsible acts, I tend to wonder whether countries with really high rates of violent crime -- like, say, South Africa -- have similarly high rates of violence in media. If they do, then are their violent media homegrown, or imported from Hollywood? Or is it just from watching TV news?
To quote (perhaps misquote) the late Dr. Asimov:
"Oh give me a clone,
A-a clone of my own,
With its Y chromosome changed to X;
And when we're alone,
O-oh me and my clone,
We will both think of nothing but sex.
Clone, clone of my own
With your Y chromosome changed to X;
And when we're alone,
O-oh me and my clone
We will both think of nothing but sex!"