But it was GOOD tripe. Also, this post is full of spoilers, so if you're going to whine like a crack-addled rhesus monkey, just skip it.
From the previews, I thought it was going to be bad tripe. My roommate asked me if I wanted to see it, and I was reluctant. I agreed because it was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and I figured it'd be good for a laugh - I'm always up for a B movie. Boy howdy, was I surprised, and pleasantly so.
On its own, the movie is poor indeed. Full of cliches, painfully inaccurate science, and plotholes large enough to drive a Star Destroyer through. I started the movie expecting crap, so I kept pointing out references to other movies. Look, dad is the Obi-Wan. Cale's Luke, Akima is Leia, Korso is the scummy Han Solo, that little turtle is Yoda, the Drej are a cross between the Protoss from Starcraft and the aliens from Independence Day, etc. I lost track after a dozen movie references.
That's when I started enjoying it.
When Cale held his hand up to the moon and saw the starmap, I thought "Indiana Jones and the golden disc atop the staff in Raiders of the Lost Ark." When the Drej copied the map from his hand, but got a flawed copy, I thought "Ha! Belloq, you Frenchman! Cheese-eating surrender monkey!"
When Korso and Cale were fighting in the control room of the Titan, I thought "Hey, Cloud City. Where are the lightsabers?"
When Gune (the little green Yoda-clone) came roaring out of the stars screaming "I've finished my nap!" I thought "Wow, it's the deus ex machina from the trench run in Star Wars, except Yoda wasn't flying the Millenium Falcon then."
The animation by Don Bluth reminded me of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace throughout the movie. I wanted to start pressing 'sword' to get Cale to fight his way through the Drej. "No, crap! Down! Down! Left! Sword!"
The movie appealed to me simply BECAUSE it was a ripoff of other movies. It shamelessly adapted from all the other sources and didn't even bother to cover them up. True, some of the similarities were vague (the "Cloud City" duel between Korso and Cale) and some were obscure (Belloq's/the Drej's flawed map) and I'm sure I missed others, but the ones I saw made me laugh _with_ the movie, and not at it. That's what surprised me, and made me feel like I got my money's worth. The plot, the special effects, the actors; all of that was secondary to the feeling that the director and I were enjoying a series of inside-jokes.
And that's what it was, really. A series of inside-jokes that wouldn't be funny on their own, but when strung together like that, they were great. Was it trying to be a summer blockbuster like Independence Day, or a timeless epic like Star Wars? I doubt it, so why judge it on those merits?
...is to place a bulk order for several thousand pieces - no special ones necessary, just the standard 2x4 peg blocks.
Build them into a lawn chair (reclining ability optional).
Take to beach and impress babes.
After all, what most of us need are babes, along with some natural light (eeeagh) after spending sixteen hours each day bathed in the glow of a monitor.
Fraud Prevention, the ol' fashioned way
on
A Matter Of Trust?
·
· Score: 2
There was a (relatively) recent article in the E-Commerce Times regarding online fraud with some commentary from Alvin Cameron, credit/loss prevention manager for Digital River, an e-commerce provider. The article is somewhat sparse, but it has some interesting points.
Among these are the mention that 'identify theft' is a federal felony that's slowly becoming more and more prosecuted, and that "an estimated 20 to 40 percent of online purchases are fraud attempts." It's nice to see that someone would be penalized for illegally using my credit card online, but it's also disheartening to see how prevalent fradulent attempts are, especially when we see how difficult they are to prosecute currently.
I've purchased online extensively over the past few years, usually without any apprehension. The sites that give me reason to pause are the small shops - someone selling CDs of their band, what have you - that really don't have the funds to provide any sort of fraud protection. When a site is able to provide even basic information to assuage the concerns of a potential customer (see Digital River's information about fraud here) then they're better positioned to take advantage of the situation.
To stay on-topic for just a moment, I consider it doubtful that e-commerce companies would share information regarding fraudulent attempts with their competitors. If your company is losing money hand over fist because of fraud, I'll happily take whatever future customers you may have for my company. There may be an advantage in mutual benefit here, but I doubt many companies will see it that way.
Really, though, disheartening is the only way to look at it - being able to purchase anything online without any fear of loss of privacy would be a wonderful thing, but that's just being a bit too idealistic and naive. I guess we just need people like Mr. Cameron to try to minimize the damages.
On a whim I plugged my name into various search engines and saw how amazingly easy it was to track me down and get reams of information about me. It didn't bother me too much - I could have done it with a phone book and a decent library. It did reduce the time, though. This would reduce it even further, and probably be a bit more accurate.
It shouldn't bother us. Faster and more reliable searches will keep coming, and people will keep screaming about how their privacy is intruded upon. Other people will say "Forget it, I don't care if I get junk mail" and then even others will say "You don't understand! A stalker can come find and kill you now!"
I think I had a point to this at the start, but it's disgustingly early in the morning, and I still need to get my breakfast from the vending machine here at work.
I'm just concerned about the poor teenagers driven out of work by this - and what happens when we get the next generation of robots and these robots lose their jobs? We'll have articulating robot arms roaming the streets, harassing innocent people, saying "Hey - buddy - can - you - spare - a - quart - of - oil?"
Slashdot Mirror
From the previews, I thought it was going to be bad tripe. My roommate asked me if I wanted to see it, and I was reluctant. I agreed because it was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and I figured it'd be good for a laugh - I'm always up for a B movie. Boy howdy, was I surprised, and pleasantly so.
On its own, the movie is poor indeed. Full of cliches, painfully inaccurate science, and plotholes large enough to drive a Star Destroyer through. I started the movie expecting crap, so I kept pointing out references to other movies. Look, dad is the Obi-Wan. Cale's Luke, Akima is Leia, Korso is the scummy Han Solo, that little turtle is Yoda, the Drej are a cross between the Protoss from Starcraft and the aliens from Independence Day, etc. I lost track after a dozen movie references.
That's when I started enjoying it.
When Cale held his hand up to the moon and saw the starmap, I thought "Indiana Jones and the golden disc atop the staff in Raiders of the Lost Ark." When the Drej copied the map from his hand, but got a flawed copy, I thought "Ha! Belloq, you Frenchman! Cheese-eating surrender monkey!"
When Korso and Cale were fighting in the control room of the Titan, I thought "Hey, Cloud City. Where are the lightsabers?"
When Gune (the little green Yoda-clone) came roaring out of the stars screaming "I've finished my nap!" I thought "Wow, it's the deus ex machina from the trench run in Star Wars, except Yoda wasn't flying the Millenium Falcon then."
The animation by Don Bluth reminded me of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace throughout the movie. I wanted to start pressing 'sword' to get Cale to fight his way through the Drej. "No, crap! Down! Down! Left! Sword!"
The movie appealed to me simply BECAUSE it was a ripoff of other movies. It shamelessly adapted from all the other sources and didn't even bother to cover them up. True, some of the similarities were vague (the "Cloud City" duel between Korso and Cale) and some were obscure (Belloq's/the Drej's flawed map) and I'm sure I missed others, but the ones I saw made me laugh _with_ the movie, and not at it. That's what surprised me, and made me feel like I got my money's worth. The plot, the special effects, the actors; all of that was secondary to the feeling that the director and I were enjoying a series of inside-jokes.
And that's what it was, really. A series of inside-jokes that wouldn't be funny on their own, but when strung together like that, they were great. Was it trying to be a summer blockbuster like Independence Day, or a timeless epic like Star Wars? I doubt it, so why judge it on those merits?
Build them into a lawn chair (reclining ability optional).
Take to beach and impress babes.
After all, what most of us need are babes, along with some natural light (eeeagh) after spending sixteen hours each day bathed in the glow of a monitor.
Among these are the mention that 'identify theft' is a federal felony that's slowly becoming more and more prosecuted, and that "an estimated 20 to 40 percent of online purchases are fraud attempts." It's nice to see that someone would be penalized for illegally using my credit card online, but it's also disheartening to see how prevalent fradulent attempts are, especially when we see how difficult they are to prosecute currently.
I've purchased online extensively over the past few years, usually without any apprehension. The sites that give me reason to pause are the small shops - someone selling CDs of their band, what have you - that really don't have the funds to provide any sort of fraud protection. When a site is able to provide even basic information to assuage the concerns of a potential customer (see Digital River's information about fraud here) then they're better positioned to take advantage of the situation.
To stay on-topic for just a moment, I consider it doubtful that e-commerce companies would share information regarding fraudulent attempts with their competitors. If your company is losing money hand over fist because of fraud, I'll happily take whatever future customers you may have for my company. There may be an advantage in mutual benefit here, but I doubt many companies will see it that way.
Really, though, disheartening is the only way to look at it - being able to purchase anything online without any fear of loss of privacy would be a wonderful thing, but that's just being a bit too idealistic and naive. I guess we just need people like Mr. Cameron to try to minimize the damages.
It shouldn't bother us. Faster and more reliable searches will keep coming, and people will keep screaming about how their privacy is intruded upon. Other people will say "Forget it, I don't care if I get junk mail" and then even others will say "You don't understand! A stalker can come find and kill you now!"
I think I had a point to this at the start, but it's disgustingly early in the morning, and I still need to get my breakfast from the vending machine here at work.
Won't somebody please think of the consequences?