To do so would be considered a "spoiler" by most movie fans.
I will only suggest that it is a clue that complements the oragami figures which Gaff (Edward James Olmos) keeps leaving all over the place.
If that is not enough to figure it out, you can certainly find out from other sources. (Or three of four helpful trolls who are probably already giving it all away to you as I write this.)
Oh, I almost forgot to mention... one example of a director's vision being changed (perhaps) for the better:
Clerks - When it was first shown to a festival audience, it ended with Dante getting shot during a hold-up. One of the money people convinced Kevin Smith that it did not really fit with the lighthearted tone of the movie (although it fit perfectly with Dante's insistance that "down endings" are more life-like). In hindsight, Smith is convinced that cutting it was the right decision, although you can cue it up and watch it on the Special-Edition DVD.
Making movies is an expensive and collaborative project, and few directors ever really get everything their way during filming. When a director is forced to make a compromise and it works, you seldom hear them complain, but when it fails, it offers them a chance to say "see, I told you so".
I think it is great, if a film was truly mangled, for the director to be able to go back and restore it. Other times, producers force changes for the sake of what they think mass audiences will like. Other times, it is just a matter of minor changes that the director really objected to.
Some examples:
"The Natural" - The shlocky, happy ending to this otherwise interesting film was not in the original novel, not in the screenplay, but was the result of audience focus groups not liking the tragic version. It wrecked the movie for me, but the Home Run Knocking The Lights Out scene is, for some reason, often the only clip used when critics discuss what a great movie it was. To the best of my knowledge, no "Director's Cut" of this movie has ever been done.
"The Abyss" - When Cameron was told to cut the film for time, he was so angry that he chopped out 20 minutes from the CLIMAX of the movie, which not only removed the most expensive footage from the whole film, but wiped out the explanation as to why the aliens were there in the first place. The Director's Cut makes more sense, but the tired "we are troubled by seeing humanity hurt itself" theme, done much better more than half a Century earlier in "The Day The Earth Stood Still", convinced me that ruining this story was really not that big of a tragedy.
"Brazil" - One of the most famous fueds in Hollywood history, the producers insisted on screwing up the ending, Gilliam refused, the release was stalled, and even when it was finally released properly (to massive critical acclaim), the chopped-up version was still used for a TV broadcast of the movie. The Criterion Collection disks offer both versions, complete with Gilliam's bitching.
The Empire Strikes Back - Lucas desperately wanted you to see the monster that attacked Luke on Hoth, but the money was not there to make it look good, so he settled for an off-camera beast, which made the blocking of the scene kind of confusing to follow. Of all the "Special Edition" changes made, putting the monster back into the shot was probably the only one that was actually a good idea. (Don't even talk to me about the Jabba & Han scene from Star Wars.)
"Blade Runner" - Released with overdubs that Ridley Scott did not really want, and with an up-beat ending that was made using left-over helicopter footage from The Shining. Defenders of the theatrical version insist that the overdubs really added to the classic Noir feel, but others insist that the over-explanation of everything wrecked it. The Director's Cut does not really have a alternate ending, but instead chops to cheap white-on-black credits right before the escape scene. Also, a "unicorn dream' (probably using leftover footage from "Legend" is added to cram down your throat the true nature of Ford's character). Personally, I think most people should see the overdubbed version first, but having done so, repeat viewers will probably enjoy the Director's Cut more.
The Exorcist - Nearly perfect in its original form. The added footage was a marketing ploy, and nothing more. See the original, if you can get your hands on it.
As for your first question, ST:TMP ended up being released for two reasons... 1) It cost a fortune to make, and they needed to get something back off the investment. and 2) Trekkie hype was becoming a cultural fixture, and "I Grok Spock" t-shirt were becoming more ubiquitous than Greatful Dead bumper stickers. Hard-core fans had been clamouring for a new Star Trek project for years. The pressure to release something, just to throw the trekkies a bone, was overwhelming.
It is nice to know that the director has a chance to go back and fix the dreadful pacing of an unusually disappointing film.
At the same time, is there really much here to save? One of the biggest criticisms of the film was not so much the mind-numbing dullness, the self-congratulatory character introductions, or the ambiguous special effects, but the total lack of any real creativity. It was a re-telling of an old TV plot, padded out into a 2-and-a-half-hour orgy of blueish-white light and slow tracking shots of the Enterprise.
I recall my local paper's review headline was "Where NOMAD Has Gone Before".
I will probably rent it and watch it once, just as I watched the re-cut of "The Abyss" once, but I'm not going to go out of my way for it.
Only in the sense that it is "not implausible" that Mr. Katz could spontaniously combust within the next ten minutes.
Yes, Jon Katz articles in Slashdot might have an impact on society, which somehow impact this judge's decision to hear a liability lawsuit... and as Wayne and Garth would say, monkeys might fly out of his butt.
Personally, I think the fact that the courts have accepted the family's lawsuit against the school is proof that the system works.
Schools will drop this bad policy when they realize that they could be ultimately responsible for the costs of any damages done to the students as a result of the policy.
So, if the suit pans out, the eeeevil court system will have solved the "student profiling" issue within a couple years of going into effect, while Jon's brand of "activism" (i.e. writing lots of on-line columns complaining about it) might never have produced any results.
He said "I've been programming since I was 2 yrs old." I said, "Yeah, I've been programming since you were 2 years old too; I was working for Princeton U. at the time, who was your client?"
Thank you for that. Best laugh I've had all day... There's a t-shirt idea in there somewhere.:)
A bright kid can master most of the technologies that run the business world today, and might even land a job working on them at a young age.
But after "paying your dues" you will find that the most important lessons in the business world (be it big corporation or small dot-com startup) only come from years of experience... and what might look like a "no-brainer" solution to a wild-eyed Young Turk will often present a lot of real-world, non-tech related issues to a seasoned member of the Old Guard.
In other words, no matter how many servers you build or databases you have gotten your hands dirty with, your opinion will "matter" a lot more when you have spent a few years learning the business culture. When you have a full grasp of the money side and people side of the corporate landscape, your input on the tech side of issues will carry a lot more weight.
Sorry, but there are no shortcuts to credibility.
If you don't like it, and are so sure that you know better, go start a company (or two). Then, if you succeed, you can retire and not worry about what people think. Even if you fail, you will re-enter the workforce with the wisdom that can only come from clocking IRL business experience.
Nearly every player in the "soft" NFL has a compressed spine and severe arthritis by the time he retires. It is already a brutal game where broken bones and cripling injuries have become entirely too common.
I don't complain when I see a good quarterback slide rather than lunge, because seeing a guy like Kurt Warner get back up and continue to play is more entertaining (and better for his team) than the one or two yards he could get by bashing into a lineman that outweighs him by 100 pounds. The same goes for when Robert Smith runs out of bounds just before getting hit, or when Terrance Wilkins calls for a fair catch on a punt return. There are enough injuries without introducing foolish stupidity to the game.
It was demonstrated, long ago, that padding on the outside of the helmets would reduce both the number of concussions and the number of injuries from helmets hitting people, but the powers that be choose not to change, just because that "thunk" sound of helmet-on-helmet contact sells a lot of Budweiser ads. I would prefer to see the game become less injurious to the human body, not more.
If you watch football as a legal source of snuff video, I can see where you would be upset... but I watch football to see great athelets compete, not to witness a bloodbath.
Another USFL, and that might be an optimistic projection.
The NFL has already expanded too far, and diluted the talent too thinly, so it is hard to imagine that adding another 8 teams will be good for the game.
Nobody gets to that level of football competition without considering that sort of thing to be fun, which means that they are getting paid to have fun, so save your tears on those who deserve it.
Actually, since the NFL will never expand to Vegas in a million years, I could see the XFL remaining a popular draw there... but the NY/NJ team and the LA team are pretty much doomed. How many New Yorkers are going to bother following the "Hitmen" when they just got done watching the Jets and the Giants, are currently watching the Knicks, and have the Yankee spring training to look forward to?
Maybe the XFL should shuffle around a little. Have teams in Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, Havanna, and anywhere else that major league sports stay the hell away from. Then they would be filling a need that nobody else is addressing, and can carve a nice niche for themselves.
Cris Carter, Eddie George, Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice, Ken Dilger, Brett Favre... there is nobody in the XFL who is fit to carry towels for those guys, let alone claim they have a better league.
And don't kid yourself. If any XFL player was able to make the cuts on and NFL team, he would do so.
(Which is why the XFL will not improve. Any stand-out player is going to end up signing with the Browns, the Chargers, the Seahawks, or some other NFL team that is in need of good players, and be gone the very next year. The only way the XFL can avoid that problem is to pay the players more money, which takes away most of your arguments for why the XFL is so interesting.)
45k a year is a huge salary for a minor league ball player in any sport. Members of the Saint Paul Saints (the most successful minor-league baseball team in America) don't even make half that ammount.
45 grand for 4 months of work? Tell the guy who refills your mocha at Starbucks how rough those players have it. I'm sure he will weep for them.
Unfortunately, if they are trying to sell the spectacle rather than the sport... they need a lot more spectacle. The cheerleaders were nothing out of the ordinary, the camera angles were nice, but really just an incremental step ahead of where the NFL is going, the spontanious coaches interviews would have been interesting, except the coaches in the XFL are using the same old-school canned answers you get everywhere else: "They are a good team... We are beating ourselves out there... We just gotta play the way we know how..." etc.
If they want spectale, why not go all-out? For every third-down play, have the players leave the field and let the cheerleaders go out and play against each other to decide the outcome. Have the race for the ball at the beginning of the game come from opposite directions. Let the each linemen on both sides of the ball use a quarterstaff. Legalize kung-fu fighting between the WR's and the DB's. Hide a ten-foot-deep pit somewhere near each end-zone. Instead of kick-offs, fire the ball out of a cannon from the upper deck on the opposite side of the field. Use goal-posts that shatter into dust when a wide field goal bounces off them, and leave the safety net down so fans behind the goal can try to catch the field goal ball for a souvenier.
Without adding that kind of stuff, all they really have is a less-impressive version of the USFL.
But the o-line of the Denver Nuggets or the Baltimore Ravens is a joy to behold, while the sub-CFL calibur players of the XFL are not.
Let's face it, these guys would all be making much better money as the third-sting players for the Cleveland Browns or the Cincinatti Bengals. They are in the XFL because they were not even good enough to sit on the bench for those crappy teams. They may be better than a lot of college freshmen, but they are strictly semi-pro players, on teams that only had a few weeks to put their offenses together.
Except the cheerleaders were nothing that you can't already see in the NFL. The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders wear just as little clothing as the Las Vegas Outlaw Cheerleaders.
The only difference I could see was that the XFL cheerleaders were a little more skanky, and a lot more fuss was made over them.
I would not even put it up with good college play.
The marketing campaign for the XFL was, "this is Real Football".
If they were to tell the whole truth, they would have said, "Really Boring Football".
I think all the camera angles, being able to listen to the QB's audio feed, and the camera in the huddles would have all been really interesting, if it was done with professional football. Any NFL fan would love to hear what the Saint Louis offensive coordinator is saying to Kurt Warner.
Also, the on-field conferences of the referees on tight calls had always been off-limits to NFL broadcasts, and I thought it was very interesting to hear. I probably won't watch another XFL game (and the truth is I watched the first one on tape, because the Minnesota Timberwolves were winning their 10th straight game that same night, and I like basketball better anyway), but I would like to see the NFL steal some of the XFL's better ideas.
Also, do we really want to be outside the orbit of the bigger planets? I was under the impression that Jupiter and Saturn, with their huge gravity, reduce the likelyhood of a comet or large asteroid colliding with the Earth. Without them circling around outside our orbit, every last piece of juck from the Oort cloud would have an unobstructed shot at us, wouldn't it?
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that." - Bruce Campbell
Sorry, but anybody that was involved in the movie "Congo" is in no position to be critical of other people's movies. Bruce Campbell is a likeable guy, but everything he's done post-Army Of Darkness has been unwatchable crap.
Jack of All Trades? Xena? ELLEN!?
Go back to playing Ash, Bruce, or at least Brisco Frikkin' County, Jr.
Read the parent to my post again. The point was that people with bad memories are more likely to rely on PDA's than people who can remember all of their appointments and phone numbers... so a PDA is a "crutch" for people who have trouble remembering things. Since most people who use crutches are those who need it, you should EXPECT to see more bad memories among PDA users.
Slashdot Mirror
I will only suggest that it is a clue that complements the oragami figures which Gaff (Edward James Olmos) keeps leaving all over the place.
If that is not enough to figure it out, you can certainly find out from other sources. (Or three of four helpful trolls who are probably already giving it all away to you as I write this.)
Clerks - When it was first shown to a festival audience, it ended with Dante getting shot during a hold-up. One of the money people convinced Kevin Smith that it did not really fit with the lighthearted tone of the movie (although it fit perfectly with Dante's insistance that "down endings" are more life-like). In hindsight, Smith is convinced that cutting it was the right decision, although you can cue it up and watch it on the Special-Edition DVD.
I think it is great, if a film was truly mangled, for the director to be able to go back and restore it. Other times, producers force changes for the sake of what they think mass audiences will like. Other times, it is just a matter of minor changes that the director really objected to.
Some examples:
"The Natural" - The shlocky, happy ending to this otherwise interesting film was not in the original novel, not in the screenplay, but was the result of audience focus groups not liking the tragic version. It wrecked the movie for me, but the Home Run Knocking The Lights Out scene is, for some reason, often the only clip used when critics discuss what a great movie it was. To the best of my knowledge, no "Director's Cut" of this movie has ever been done.
"The Abyss" - When Cameron was told to cut the film for time, he was so angry that he chopped out 20 minutes from the CLIMAX of the movie, which not only removed the most expensive footage from the whole film, but wiped out the explanation as to why the aliens were there in the first place. The Director's Cut makes more sense, but the tired "we are troubled by seeing humanity hurt itself" theme, done much better more than half a Century earlier in "The Day The Earth Stood Still", convinced me that ruining this story was really not that big of a tragedy.
"Brazil" - One of the most famous fueds in Hollywood history, the producers insisted on screwing up the ending, Gilliam refused, the release was stalled, and even when it was finally released properly (to massive critical acclaim), the chopped-up version was still used for a TV broadcast of the movie. The Criterion Collection disks offer both versions, complete with Gilliam's bitching.
The Empire Strikes Back - Lucas desperately wanted you to see the monster that attacked Luke on Hoth, but the money was not there to make it look good, so he settled for an off-camera beast, which made the blocking of the scene kind of confusing to follow. Of all the "Special Edition" changes made, putting the monster back into the shot was probably the only one that was actually a good idea. (Don't even talk to me about the Jabba & Han scene from Star Wars.)
"Blade Runner" - Released with overdubs that Ridley Scott did not really want, and with an up-beat ending that was made using left-over helicopter footage from The Shining. Defenders of the theatrical version insist that the overdubs really added to the classic Noir feel, but others insist that the over-explanation of everything wrecked it. The Director's Cut does not really have a alternate ending, but instead chops to cheap white-on-black credits right before the escape scene. Also, a "unicorn dream' (probably using leftover footage from "Legend" is added to cram down your throat the true nature of Ford's character). Personally, I think most people should see the overdubbed version first, but having done so, repeat viewers will probably enjoy the Director's Cut more.
The Exorcist - Nearly perfect in its original form. The added footage was a marketing ploy, and nothing more. See the original, if you can get your hands on it.
As for your first question, ST:TMP ended up being released for two reasons... 1) It cost a fortune to make, and they needed to get something back off the investment. and 2) Trekkie hype was becoming a cultural fixture, and "I Grok Spock" t-shirt were becoming more ubiquitous than Greatful Dead bumper stickers. Hard-core fans had been clamouring for a new Star Trek project for years. The pressure to release something, just to throw the trekkies a bone, was overwhelming.
At the same time, is there really much here to save? One of the biggest criticisms of the film was not so much the mind-numbing dullness, the self-congratulatory character introductions, or the ambiguous special effects, but the total lack of any real creativity. It was a re-telling of an old TV plot, padded out into a 2-and-a-half-hour orgy of blueish-white light and slow tracking shots of the Enterprise.
I recall my local paper's review headline was "Where NOMAD Has Gone Before".
I will probably rent it and watch it once, just as I watched the re-cut of "The Abyss" once, but I'm not going to go out of my way for it.
Yes, Jon Katz articles in Slashdot might have an impact on society, which somehow impact this judge's decision to hear a liability lawsuit... and as Wayne and Garth would say, monkeys might fly out of his butt.
Schools will drop this bad policy when they realize that they could be ultimately responsible for the costs of any damages done to the students as a result of the policy.
So, if the suit pans out, the eeeevil court system will have solved the "student profiling" issue within a couple years of going into effect, while Jon's brand of "activism" (i.e. writing lots of on-line columns complaining about it) might never have produced any results.
Thank you for that. Best laugh I've had all day... There's a t-shirt idea in there somewhere. :)
Of course, that could just be spin coming from the 30 year old CEO's of the 90's, who now have grey hair.
But after "paying your dues" you will find that the most important lessons in the business world (be it big corporation or small dot-com startup) only come from years of experience... and what might look like a "no-brainer" solution to a wild-eyed Young Turk will often present a lot of real-world, non-tech related issues to a seasoned member of the Old Guard.
In other words, no matter how many servers you build or databases you have gotten your hands dirty with, your opinion will "matter" a lot more when you have spent a few years learning the business culture. When you have a full grasp of the money side and people side of the corporate landscape, your input on the tech side of issues will carry a lot more weight.
Sorry, but there are no shortcuts to credibility.
If you don't like it, and are so sure that you know better, go start a company (or two). Then, if you succeed, you can retire and not worry about what people think. Even if you fail, you will re-enter the workforce with the wisdom that can only come from clocking IRL business experience.
I don't complain when I see a good quarterback slide rather than lunge, because seeing a guy like Kurt Warner get back up and continue to play is more entertaining (and better for his team) than the one or two yards he could get by bashing into a lineman that outweighs him by 100 pounds. The same goes for when Robert Smith runs out of bounds just before getting hit, or when Terrance Wilkins calls for a fair catch on a punt return. There are enough injuries without introducing foolish stupidity to the game.
It was demonstrated, long ago, that padding on the outside of the helmets would reduce both the number of concussions and the number of injuries from helmets hitting people, but the powers that be choose not to change, just because that "thunk" sound of helmet-on-helmet contact sells a lot of Budweiser ads. I would prefer to see the game become less injurious to the human body, not more.
If you watch football as a legal source of snuff video, I can see where you would be upset... but I watch football to see great athelets compete, not to witness a bloodbath.
The NFL has already expanded too far, and diluted the talent too thinly, so it is hard to imagine that adding another 8 teams will be good for the game.
Nobody gets to that level of football competition without considering that sort of thing to be fun, which means that they are getting paid to have fun, so save your tears on those who deserve it.
Maybe the XFL should shuffle around a little. Have teams in Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, Havanna, and anywhere else that major league sports stay the hell away from. Then they would be filling a need that nobody else is addressing, and can carve a nice niche for themselves.
And don't kid yourself. If any XFL player was able to make the cuts on and NFL team, he would do so.
(Which is why the XFL will not improve. Any stand-out player is going to end up signing with the Browns, the Chargers, the Seahawks, or some other NFL team that is in need of good players, and be gone the very next year. The only way the XFL can avoid that problem is to pay the players more money, which takes away most of your arguments for why the XFL is so interesting.)
45 grand for 4 months of work? Tell the guy who refills your mocha at Starbucks how rough those players have it. I'm sure he will weep for them.
If they want spectale, why not go all-out? For every third-down play, have the players leave the field and let the cheerleaders go out and play against each other to decide the outcome. Have the race for the ball at the beginning of the game come from opposite directions. Let the each linemen on both sides of the ball use a quarterstaff. Legalize kung-fu fighting between the WR's and the DB's. Hide a ten-foot-deep pit somewhere near each end-zone. Instead of kick-offs, fire the ball out of a cannon from the upper deck on the opposite side of the field. Use goal-posts that shatter into dust when a wide field goal bounces off them, and leave the safety net down so fans behind the goal can try to catch the field goal ball for a souvenier.
Without adding that kind of stuff, all they really have is a less-impressive version of the USFL.
Let's face it, these guys would all be making much better money as the third-sting players for the Cleveland Browns or the Cincinatti Bengals. They are in the XFL because they were not even good enough to sit on the bench for those crappy teams. They may be better than a lot of college freshmen, but they are strictly semi-pro players, on teams that only had a few weeks to put their offenses together.
Watching and doing are the same thing now. Didn't you read yesterday's article about mirror cells? ;)
Very little? Most of them make more in a week than a first-year C programmer makes in a month.
They make less than major league athletes, but that's because they are in a minor league. They still are very well paid for playing a game.
The only difference I could see was that the XFL cheerleaders were a little more skanky, and a lot more fuss was made over them.
But with Apple it's a ten, not an x.
The marketing campaign for the XFL was, "this is Real Football".
If they were to tell the whole truth, they would have said, "Really Boring Football".
I think all the camera angles, being able to listen to the QB's audio feed, and the camera in the huddles would have all been really interesting, if it was done with professional football. Any NFL fan would love to hear what the Saint Louis offensive coordinator is saying to Kurt Warner.
Also, the on-field conferences of the referees on tight calls had always been off-limits to NFL broadcasts, and I thought it was very interesting to hear. I probably won't watch another XFL game (and the truth is I watched the first one on tape, because the Minnesota Timberwolves were winning their 10th straight game that same night, and I like basketball better anyway), but I would like to see the NFL steal some of the XFL's better ideas.
Also, do we really want to be outside the orbit of the bigger planets? I was under the impression that Jupiter and Saturn, with their huge gravity, reduce the likelyhood of a comet or large asteroid colliding with the Earth. Without them circling around outside our orbit, every last piece of juck from the Oort cloud would have an unobstructed shot at us, wouldn't it?
- Bruce Campbell
Sorry, but anybody that was involved in the movie "Congo" is in no position to be critical of other people's movies. Bruce Campbell is a likeable guy, but everything he's done post-Army Of Darkness has been unwatchable crap.
Jack of All Trades? Xena? ELLEN!?
Go back to playing Ash, Bruce, or at least Brisco Frikkin' County, Jr.
Or to put it another way: "duh!"