Because Spiderman is pure and simple popular story-telling, while AOTC was full of histrionics and exposition, much of which would probably be useless and/or confusing if you hadn't seen all of the other films.
I know this is going to sound strange, but as far as ease of digestion goes, it's almost as if AOTC is the art house gourmet movie and Spiderman is the summer popcorn movie.
I enjoyed AOTC, but with some huge reservations, mainly due to the lack of depth in the film. I'm not trying to compare 'Clones' to any of the older SW movies - I'm just concerned that as filmmakers become better and better at creating artificial life using CGI, they seem to get worse and worse at giving us real human experiences in the movies. Think about it this way:
As we're watching this movie, do we really care about Anakin, Padme, or any of the other characters? I know I really didn't. I enjoyed the visuals and I loved seeing the whole SW saga start coming together. But the HEART was missing - the human factor - and so the movie came across as a little more than a great fireworks show: I was thrilled while I watched, but my life wasn't changed by the experience and I'm not going to walk around for days thinking about it.
And so my point - what is missing from this movie is ACTING. I'm not sure who's to blame, but it seems like a lot of time was spent on how this film LOOKED and very little was spent on how it FELT, and so all the moviegoer gets is visual stimulation. And I'm just very afraid that this movie will do well at the box office and future films (not just SW films) will follow the precedent, and we'll continue to be fed mega-blockbusters about space and explosions and guns and cars, instead of movies about people and life and love. And as movies like this continue to succeed, the ancient art of acting will continue to die away.
I know when I'm writing web content, I try very hard to make it as difficult as possible to view my web pages. With bandwidth so expensive these days, who can afford a million hits on their website every day? I hadn't thought of this trick yet... perhaps if I prohibit ALL browsers, I won't get any traffic and I can finally stop updating my website every day!
But seriously folks...
Perhaps the Open Source community (and Slashdot) can respond by prohibiting IE users from viewing Slashdot, high-traffic Linux sites, and Google? That'll show 'em!
About a month ago, I was one of those mis-informed "Just get DSL" folks, enjoying my $40/month DSL line from Verizon, getting spoiled by the bandwidth and the seeming wide availability of the service, and wondering why anyone would use AOL dial-up when this was available. And then I moved... and everything changed.
I moved literally a stone's throw from my old house, across a city street and a creek (I can still see my old house), but because there are not enough copper wires to go around, I cannot get DSL in my house and will probably NEVER have DSL (I even told Verizon that I would pay for the installation of new copper in my area). I am now stuck with dial-up, just like all the other poor saps who don't get DSL, can't get cable, or simply don't know broadband exists.
However, about a week ago, I finally found an alternative - A WIRELESS ISP that is erecting some towers in a neighboring town. As soon as those towers go live (any day now!), I will be erecting an antenna on my roof and PRAYING that the trees in my backyard are not in my line-of-sight to the tower. And if those tress are in the way, or if there is anything else obstructing my view of the tower, I have NO other options for affordable home connectivity, even though I live in a well-populated, well-wired communtiy.
So please don't tell me that wireless is dying... for every geek out there with a T1 running into his basement, I'll bet there are 100 people like me who are at the mercy of the telco and their treelines.
All this talk of antennae and cabling and routers has me a bit perplexed -
What ever happened to the block party and the neighborhood cook-out? Do people ever talk face-to-face anymore, leaning across the fence and sharing stories, or is all of our inter-personal communication limited to IMs, MP3s and frags?
Don't get me wrong - all of these beautiful technologies are wonderful for helping us to stay connected, but they can also cause us to get more dis-connected.
All that said, I completely understand the usefulness of a NAN to share an Internet connection - I've had a VERY hard time trying to get DSL for the last month - and if there's anyone in Normal, IL who wants to help out a guy who's stuck with dial-up, I'm all ears.;-)
I was hired as the "Webmaster" for a non-profit organization in DC about a year and a half ago, and doing web design and some small development projects was wonderfully easy, even though I lived 2,000 miles from the home office. I had to travel to DC about once a month to synch up and attend various meetings, but email and phone calls were sufficient otherwise.
However, now I'm in a "whole new world" - we re-designed our staff structure in May, I was promoted to a management position, and now I supervise two staff and a consultant (our SysAdmin and two developers). My phone bills have tripled in size and I've been doing my best to stay "plugged in" to my staff through email and instant messaging as much as possible. But sometimes I wonder - would my team be more or less productive if I was sitting in the same building with them? How much do they miss the opportunity to walk into my office to discuss problems or concerns? Or is this an ideal situation for both of us? In this arrangement, I can stay focused on my work full-time with limited interruptions, and they can come in late without worrying about angering The Boss.;-)
I can't imagine that this kind of remote supervision is a common practice... or is it? If anyone else out there has had this kind of experience, I'd love to hear about it. I'd also be curious to know how people communicate with their staff - is everything done via phone and email, or are there other media that you find useful?
Slashdot Mirror
Because Spiderman is pure and simple popular story-telling, while AOTC was full of histrionics and exposition, much of which would probably be useless and/or confusing if you hadn't seen all of the other films.
I know this is going to sound strange, but as far as ease of digestion goes, it's almost as if AOTC is the art house gourmet movie and Spiderman is the summer popcorn movie.
I enjoyed AOTC, but with some huge reservations, mainly due to the lack of depth in the film. I'm not trying to compare 'Clones' to any of the older SW movies - I'm just concerned that as filmmakers become better and better at creating artificial life using CGI, they seem to get worse and worse at giving us real human experiences in the movies. Think about it this way:
As we're watching this movie, do we really care about Anakin, Padme, or any of the other characters? I know I really didn't. I enjoyed the visuals and I loved seeing the whole SW saga start coming together. But the HEART was missing - the human factor - and so the movie came across as a little more than a great fireworks show: I was thrilled while I watched, but my life wasn't changed by the experience and I'm not going to walk around for days thinking about it.
And so my point - what is missing from this movie is ACTING. I'm not sure who's to blame, but it seems like a lot of time was spent on how this film LOOKED and very little was spent on how it FELT, and so all the moviegoer gets is visual stimulation. And I'm just very afraid that this movie will do well at the box office and future films (not just SW films) will follow the precedent, and we'll continue to be fed mega-blockbusters about space and explosions and guns and cars, instead of movies about people and life and love. And as movies like this continue to succeed, the ancient art of acting will continue to die away.
I know when I'm writing web content, I try very hard to make it as difficult as possible to view my web pages. With bandwidth so expensive these days, who can afford a million hits on their website every day? I hadn't thought of this trick yet... perhaps if I prohibit ALL browsers, I won't get any traffic and I can finally stop updating my website every day!
But seriously folks...
Perhaps the Open Source community (and Slashdot) can respond by prohibiting IE users from viewing Slashdot, high-traffic Linux sites, and Google? That'll show 'em!
About a month ago, I was one of those mis-informed "Just get DSL" folks, enjoying my $40/month DSL line from Verizon, getting spoiled by the bandwidth and the seeming wide availability of the service, and wondering why anyone would use AOL dial-up when this was available. And then I moved... and everything changed.
I moved literally a stone's throw from my old house, across a city street and a creek (I can still see my old house), but because there are not enough copper wires to go around, I cannot get DSL in my house and will probably NEVER have DSL (I even told Verizon that I would pay for the installation of new copper in my area). I am now stuck with dial-up, just like all the other poor saps who don't get DSL, can't get cable, or simply don't know broadband exists.
However, about a week ago, I finally found an alternative - A WIRELESS ISP that is erecting some towers in a neighboring town. As soon as those towers go live (any day now!), I will be erecting an antenna on my roof and PRAYING that the trees in my backyard are not in my line-of-sight to the tower. And if those tress are in the way, or if there is anything else obstructing my view of the tower, I have NO other options for affordable home connectivity, even though I live in a well-populated, well-wired communtiy.
So please don't tell me that wireless is dying ... for every geek out there with a T1 running into his basement, I'll bet there are 100 people like me who are at the mercy of the telco and their treelines.
All this talk of antennae and cabling and routers has me a bit perplexed -
What ever happened to the block party and the neighborhood cook-out? Do people ever talk face-to-face anymore, leaning across the fence and sharing stories, or is all of our inter-personal communication limited to IMs, MP3s and frags? Don't get me wrong - all of these beautiful technologies are wonderful for helping us to stay connected, but they can also cause us to get more dis-connected.
All that said, I completely understand the usefulness of a NAN to share an Internet connection - I've had a VERY hard time trying to get DSL for the last month - and if there's anyone in Normal, IL who wants to help out a guy who's stuck with dial-up, I'm all ears. ;-)
I was hired as the "Webmaster" for a non-profit organization in DC about a year and a half ago, and doing web design and some small development projects was wonderfully easy, even though I lived 2,000 miles from the home office. I had to travel to DC about once a month to synch up and attend various meetings, but email and phone calls were sufficient otherwise.
However, now I'm in a "whole new world" - we re-designed our staff structure in May, I was promoted to a management position, and now I supervise two staff and a consultant (our SysAdmin and two developers). My phone bills have tripled in size and I've been doing my best to stay "plugged in" to my staff through email and instant messaging as much as possible. But sometimes I wonder - would my team be more or less productive if I was sitting in the same building with them? How much do they miss the opportunity to walk into my office to discuss problems or concerns? Or is this an ideal situation for both of us? In this arrangement, I can stay focused on my work full-time with limited interruptions, and they can come in late without worrying about angering The Boss. ;-)
I can't imagine that this kind of remote supervision is a common practice... or is it? If anyone else out there has had this kind of experience, I'd love to hear about it. I'd also be curious to know how people communicate with their staff - is everything done via phone and email, or are there other media that you find useful?