As opposed to the Halo gaming community which is scratching their heads wondering why another one is even necessary.
Well considering the cliff-hanger ending from Halo 3, unless you consider the lead protagonist being cryogenically frozen in the middle of nowhere to not be a giant "to be continued", many Halo fans, myself included, are probably going to be quite jazzed to see how the the next chapter in the chief's story plays out.
If anything this fan, and probably others, is wondering why Bungie decided to use its two last forays into the Halo universe by creating an unnecessary pseudo-sequel to Halo 3 and an equally unnecessary prequel to Halo 1, really people just go read Eric Nyland's book "Fall Of Reach" if you really want that backstory, when they could have used that creative talent by continuing the story we'd grown to love from the first three games.
my biggest issue with it is the price -which is largely a function of it being an Apple product...
I've been reading around a bit on these tablets, a lot of people are talking about the Motorola XOOM as being the big iPad competitor.
When I went to the Motorola website to check it out I found the XOOM costs $799.00 and while the screen is a bit larger, making it true 720p, and appears to have a built in HDMI output, it also has half the storage space of a top of the line iPad 2 which only costs $30.00 more.
Hell, if you were looking for a better deal you could get the 32GB iPad 2 for $729.00 and use the $70.00 you'll save from buying the XOOM to buy a couple of months worth of wireless services, or buy an HDMI adaptor if you need to play out to a TV, or buy a tonne of apps on an App Store that has more than a few hundred or so apps on it, or simply pocket the money and treat yourself to a fancy dinner to celebrate the fact you just saved $70.00.
I didn't look into it too much, in other words I don't know if the iPhone 3g applies, but Apple does swap out the battery if you take to an Apple Authorized Repair centre.
You should also have looked into whether or not you could have had the battery replaced for free, a year seems a little too short for the battery to lose more than half its operational life. My third gen iPod touch, obviously not the same thing, which I've owned for more than a year still gets me more than 12 hours of music playing time and nearly eight hours of music / web browsing time, I use it all day every day too.
Now my 5th Gen 30Gig iPod Video doesn't get more than 5 hours of playback, even less if I have a rousing game of Tetris.;-) Luckily I have an independent Apple Authorized Repair Centre in town so I can get the battery replaced whenever I want but since I use it mainly in the car now anyway, my car adapter doesn't sync up correctly with the Touch, its always hooked to power so I haven't had much of a need to replace the battery.
I don't mind "movie hacking" screens, lets face it watching people typing into a static terminal window and reading cryptic error codes isn't exactly exciting so I chalked those "movie hacking" scenes as creative license to further the plot. In other words they're not supposed to be accurate because the vast majority don't understand computers to that level, including myself (thought I do know enough to know how they "hack" in movies is a load of shit), and the ones who do should have a sense of humour and just laugh at it.
No, what bugged me about Hackers was the nausea inducing hacking session in the centrifuge. Every time someone was "seriously" hacking there'd be this sequence where the computers, chairs, and the actor would just start spinning like a top... WTF...??!!!
Though I do give props to the movie for having the Angelina Jolie nude scene which was pretty good for a PG13 movie, these days a film that flashes a bit of breast gets an "R", or do you Americans call it NC17, rating.
A Volkswagen Beetle in a NASCAR race has already been made. Talk about unrealistic!
Even though it was unrealistic doesn't change the fact that an anthropomorphized Volkswagen Beetle from a cheesy 1960's Disney children's movie had a deeper range of emotion and acting ability than what was demonstrated by the actors in the Phantom Menace.
Samsung, Pioneer, Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony, LG, etc... all make Flat Panel TV's with HDMI ports, TVs they want to sell you because it contributes to increasing the value of their shareholders. If your Blu-Ray player continues to work on equipment that you already own then you're not buying a new TV with the HDMI ports and therefore not contributing your hard earned dollars to their shareholder's value.
The whole copying / piracy thing is just a smokescreen, its really about them getting you to buy new stuff you don't need on a timetable that suits them.
Most don't realize it, but this Wikileaks thing is the beginning of World War III.
Your attempts to mislead your fellow Party members with such blatant lies have been reported to the Ministry of Love to arrange for your re-education. The Ministry of Peace assures all members of The Party that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and that Julian Assange, like Osama bin Laden before him, are known to be high ranking members of "The Brotherhood" as well as advisors of the traitorous Emmanuel Goldstein.
As an Upper Party member you are aware that without the daily "two minutes hate" the proles, and Lower Party members, might stop being scared long enough to think they actually have rights, not just illusion of rights we permit them to have; remember that Big Brother is always watching.
From my own experience as lacto-ovo veggie for 10 years, lentils provide just as much or more proteins as meat
I respect your choice to be a lacto-ovo veggie but even my most basic of investigations into the vegetarian "protein substitutes" also tend to show they are monstrously high in carbohydrates. As a diabetic on a restricted diet of 60 grams of carbohydrates per meal I could have a single scoop of Lentils and then be hungry and risk snacking, or I can have a balanced diet that includes grains, meats & fish, milk and milk products, and vegetables that is more filling and provides a better mix of nutrition providing a more stable blood sugar level while allowing me to feel "full" between meals.
I couldn't agree more. When it came out I didn't know anything about it but when I got to the theatre and saw the movie I was going to see was sold out, I can't even remember what it was because Scott Pilgrim was so good, I saw the poster for Scott Pilgrim and figure "what the hell, this is the cheapy place so if I spend 6 bucks and I hate it no big" and decided to give it a go.
I have never seen anything like it: funny, witty, characters you actually care about, unashamedly Canadian (the film proudly takes place in Toronto), and over the top fight sequences that have you going "WTF!?!?" in a very good way when they're done. I've seen it twice, bought the Blu-Ray on release day, and its definitely one I'll be happy to watch again soon. If you haven't seen it and you're at all a geek you owe it to yourself to check out Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
11 episodes, 4 months, 11 more episodes. No. 22 episodes back to back.
No one does 22 episode seasons anymore, you're lucky if you get 19, or even more rarely 20, these days.
And its more likely you'll get a 2 hour season opener and 8 more episodes after that, expect at least a week or two off for some kind of "sporting event", then a five to six month hiatus (it usually ends in November and doesn't come back until April or May) followed up by another ten episodes. Then you wait another six months and the whole thing repeats again.
I really miss the days when you had ST:TNG with their 26 episode seasons so you'd get it pretty much straight through, with a break in December for Christmas, and then only have to wait the summer break while you were off school before you'd get to see it again. Nowadays the shows are so far apart, and they keep releasing those incredibly expensive for what they are 0.5 Season sets on DVD / Blu-Ray, I often forgot I was watching the show; note to show runners, if you end your show on a cliffhanger I don't buy them on DVD either, it'd be like buying a book with the last 5 chapters ripped out of it. Then there's the whole cancellation aspect, I've been burned on so many shows I like being cancelled at cliffhanger moments that I just can't get bothered to like a show anymore.
Unless you're into boring "reality" TV, there really isn't anything good anymore and what does look interesting I just won't take a risk on because I know if it looks even the least bit interesting it'll be cancelled before its even had its first year done. And don't even get me started on Fox, I steadfastly refuse to watch anything on that network anymore.
They pulled it at the last minute? You'd never know it from the way the show ended.
Really? The introduction of the Evil Asgard, the ongoing war with the Wraith that was really starting to pick up, the whole thing with Michael, etc... They were introducing all kinds of new plot lines for the future all throughout Season Five, luckily they found out early the show was being cancelled because very quickly they started to wrap everything up. Based on what I was seeing it was supposed to go for at least another year but they were so eager to get Universe started and after the whole SG1 / Atlantis at the same time deal MGM wasn't really interested in repeating that experience so they rushed the ending of SGA and green lit Universe.
Universe isn't favourite show, though Eli is definitely one of my favourite characters and I'd definitely like to spend some quality time with Chloe and Vanessa;-), but it doesn't bore me like Battlestar does (Universe actually moves at a decent pace in comparison) and I get the sense each episode is going somewhere. Its a nice distraction and I'll be sad to see it go, I hope they've been notified early enough that they can tweak the ending to give us some kind of closure, but I'm not going to get all "Lets do a campaign and save it" over it, its just not that good.
It hacked me off to no end how much they want you to trust and accept Hobbes in Wing Commander II only for him to turn out to be the traitor in III.
That was kind of the whole point. They worked so hard during Wing II to get you to trust Hobbes, that all the way through Wing III when they started talking about traitors Hobbes was the last person you ever though would do it.
I remember screaming at the screen in shock when it turned out Hobbes was the traitor, luckily I chose the Rachel story line rather than picking Flint (what teenage guy doesn't wanna vicariously bang a porn star?), that I ended up failing the next mission and had to replay it.
I'll grant you that playing Wing II knowing how Wing III ends would seriously lessen some of that impact, but the story overall storyline itself was actually really well crafted throughout the series, it was the first time I didn't see Mark Hamill and immediately think "What is Luke Skywalker doing here?". It would be worth playing through again.
I kind of liken it to how every 3 or 4 years or so I drop in my copy of Babylon 5 and watch it all the way through again, sure I know Sheridan is going to win the day while paying a terrible price, Sinclair becomes Valen, and Marcus is going to die, but the telling of the story is so good I watch it again anyway.
No, what Wing Commander needs is some new graphics, new sounds, and the use real instruments for the soundtrack (though it would be funny as an Easter Egg if they threw in "Soundblaster Legacy Mode") while keeping the same story. It was really quite good and I would dearly enjoy experiencing it again.
Hell, they could throw a full USB equipped HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) setup, including rudder pedals, in the Super Mondo Mega Awesome Spectacular Seriously Expensive Edition and I'd pick that up in a heartbeat. There is real money to be made in catering to the nostalgic mid to late 30's crowd wanting to remember a piece of their childhood's.
Unfortunately it doesn't look like anyone at EA is listening, but if they are then they need to reopen Origin, remake the first five games, finish the last that were planned for and be ready for me to give them gobs and gobs of money. I really, really, loved Wing Commander as a kid and I really, really, want to give Origin some money so I can play it again.
Oh, and while you're at it Origin (EA), please remake Privateer and if you're really good add a multi player component that doesn't require it to become a second full time job (I really just want to run a couple of ferry mission and take on the odd sector patrol with friends).
100% agreed. They could repackage the exact same story, missions, everything (throw in some voice overs with Malcom McDowell, Mark Hamill, and John Rhys-Davies to maintain consistency with Wings 3, 4, and 5, which would also be released with remastered footage on a Blu-Ray disc so I could play the whole thing without swapping discs) and I'd pre-order right now and be there opening day to pay full retail for all 5 of them. Also, if possible, I'd love to see a Mac port, I hate dual booting though I totally would for Wing Commander.
Even better though would be if they decided to finish off the Nephilim triolgy introduced in Prophecy, I still want to know what the frack happens to Blair after being captured.
Its been a while since I've gone to a Blockbuster or Rogers Video but I do remember paying upwards of 5.99 the last time I went, throw in gas money there and back (the Blockbuster is up the street but has shitty new movie selections, they're always gone, and the Rogers Video is an hour and a half round trip walking) and its easy to get that up to 6.99 easy.
Or for a dollar more I can use Netflix to watch a couple of movies a month, sure I don't get the same selection as the BB or RV but so far I've managed for find movies I've been interested in watching. I think I'm going to check out Iron Eagle next, its one of my favourites and I haven't seen it in a few years; hopefully they'll work on licensing the sequels soon.;-)
Nothing half-decent is listed apart from a few dozen movies.
Based solely on the browsing interface I'd agree with you, its horrendous. You get to see perhaps two or three dozen movies, depending on the device, and have to search for everything else. Problem is I never know what I want to watch until I actually see it so I end up spending most of my time typing in names of stuff I want to see in the hopes they have it.
I'm not saying its super decent because I do agree with you that the pickings are slim and if it were 19.99 a month I'd agree that the price is way too high for what it is, but at 7.99 there is enough content there to justify spending that to get access to the service. Or putting it another way, despite the fact they didn't have stuff I really wanted to see they did have enough for me to watch half a dozen movies, some Red Dwarf, Doctor Who's, and Sponge Bob and Curious George for the nieces; I only signed up two weeks ago. I would have spent far more than 7.99 if I'd have had to buy, or rent, all those discs outright and I didn't have to go to Best Buy / Future Shop or Blockbuster / Rogers Video to get it.
I'm going to keep it for six months and see where the service goes and as long as I watch at least one movie per month it'd be the same as going to Blockbuster / Rogers Video, though I have a feeling I'll be watching a lot more than that. Who knows, if it starts getting better, I might just give up cable!;-)
While I agree with you in principle, greater selection is often a good thing, the selection available now is actually quite decent for the 7.99 per month price point.
I've been enjoying re-watching older films that I would never consider buying on DVD, but are still good enough to watch every once in a while. Been catching up on the old Doctor Who's I haven't seen since I was a kid, Tom Baker is still the man, and watching old episodes of Red Dwarf, there were a bunch of episodes I'd missed over the years. My nieces, when they come to visit, are loving it as the children's selection is quite robust and has a lot of their favourites.
Sure its frustrating to see the "Not Available" showing when you search for an old show, I've really been wanting to watch Space 1999 again now that I'm old enough to understand what the hell is going on, but hopefully if the service takes off in Canada they'll be able to work out the licensing issues. As it stands now its worth it based on their current selection and I'll continue to pay the 7.99 per month for the foreseeable future.
a true replicator society would leave most jobless
If you count the mundane "nine to five" jobs the vast majority of people have now then yeah, most people would be "jobless". I say good riddance!
and prone to destruction out of boredom.
I can think of at least fifty different things I'd rather be doing in a day than working, none of which I could ever get paid to do but a "true replicator society" would let them become my new "job", I can guarantee I'd never be bored and most people I talk to are the same. Hell, if you want to get some perspective on the "replicator society" talk to most any retired person who wasn't a workaholic, since their material needs are met by a pension they don't have to work for its the closest analog we have, you'll hear of days that were fun, busy, and constant complaints of not having enough time in the day to get everything done. In fact I often find any negativity comes from the workaholic, or those with no imagination, as they will constantly regale you with stories of how boring retired life is and how much they miss work.
They didn't, for some reason. For the series to make sense, this reason needs to exist. In both iterations of the show, it's been pretty weak.
Actually, even though it was the "cheesier" show, the reason from the original Battlestar made a lot more sense, and was way more evil, than the remake.
Original:
Using Baltar's insights of Commander Adama we will root out the last pockets of humanity for extermination. We'll follow just outside of their sensor range and if the Colonials stop for too long we will merely send a patrol, make it look like Baltar's idea so he is none the wiser, to spook them into moving. Lets not bug them too much though, we don't want to tip them off we're following. Wow, look at all the human colonies for us to destroy!
Oh crap, they figured out we're following them. No problem, we'll just tell Basestar 5 to let itself get destroyed, we can always rebuild it, because our newly updated scanners will let us hide further back and the Basestar's destruction will lull them into a false sense of security; hopefully they'll stop looking for us. Once the Galactica has led us to Earth, the evidence we found on Kobol was pretty convincing for its existence, we will send the rest of the fleet to crush it with overwhelming force and finally remove the scourge of humanity from the face of existence.
Remake:
We hate our creators because they treated us like slaves! Though we fought for our independence and beat them they might try to enslave us again so we better kill them all off! Oh crap, the biologicals we created to infiltrate the Colonies and prepare for our invasion now feel all bad about killing the creators. Now they want to procreate with them and help repopulate the species but unfortunately there are no humans left.
Wait, no, there are some left! Whew! Turns out Commander Adama wasn't as gullible as the rest of them and managed to escape with a few, lets tell the Humans we're really really really sorry about the whole blowing up their planets and trying to kill them thing and try to make friends. Okay, so they're not buying it.;-(
Hey Cavil, go pretend to be a dick so the other models will hate you and go whining to the humans about how it was really all your fault for the holocaust, hopefully the humans will feel sorry for the rest of the models and they will join forces to fight you! It'll really help if you start complaining about wanting to be a robot instead of a human and if we're lucky they'll feel sorry for the other biologicals and want to make babies with them, we can then build you a nice robot body after we've dumped them all on some planet somewhere while we take the rest of the fleet and go exploring!
Actually Battlestar: The Remake stopped being good around the middle of Season Two, right around the time they found "New Caprica". After that it got ploddingly slow, even more so than it already had been, and simply became infuriating to watch; I fell asleep numerous times due to boredom and found myself constantly having to rewind to watch what I'd missed. It was only because I'd already invested two years of my life into the show, and my fervent hope they would somehow manage to go back to the exceptional quality of the mini-series and first season, that even got me to watch the final two seasons.
I shouldn't have bothered. Seeing Ron Moore turn the once scary genocidal killing machines with a plan into inept whiny melodramatic losers who couldn't plan themselves out of a paper bag, they were too busy standing around talking about their feelings for hours on end with not only themselves but also the people they wanted to kill, made it really hard to enjoy the show. It also became apparent, very quickly, that Ron Moore had no idea what the hell to do with the show after a while. Incomprehensible story lines, the large portions of cannon that were completely retconned, the bordering on incredibly stupid waits between episodes, the almost Soap Operaesque story lines all made for a show that only got worse as time went on but, like a train wreck in slow motion, really really slow motion, it was just too hard to turn away. And don't even get me started on the completely pointless 3 hour "Lord of the Rings" ending that really only had about 35-40 minutes worth of value in it.
The show was so bad it soured me on all things Battlestar: The Remake that I couldn't even stomach the idea of watching Battlestar: The Prequel (Craprica). Of course if they wait a few years and give Richard Hatch the go ahead to produce his Battlestar: The Second Coming series to continue the story of the original, I'd be all over that in a heartbeat.
Anyone can create a giant undulating phallus. To truly spark the deep seated jealousy of your peers you must have the depth of vision to create an immense masturbation simulator then place it in the middle of a family theme park where the proles will spend countless hours waiting for the opportunity to ride it!
Would it be possible to create a version of Nemesis that doesn't suck?
Nah, it would be hard to make a Nemesis that doesn't suck. Instead just re-watch, or check it out if you've never seen it, what is arguably the best film in the franchise and try to forget Paramount's lame remake attempt.
We have a much better chance of handling an 'Extinction Level Event' if we a) don't completely trash the planet so there are some habitable areas left by the time the big ball hits
If an ELE occurs it won't matter how nice to the planet we've been, the entire ecosystem will be thrashed and the survivors are going to wish they had died. The life they will have to live will be so incredibly hard; war for the scant resources remaining will be common, many will die of starvation, and simple diseases easily curable before the impact will claim many.
b) try to figure out how to run civilizations so that even trivial little things like earthquakes, floods and rush hour don't cause major issues
If you think an earthquake or flood is a trivial event, you're not paying attention to recent events. Five years later they are *still* putting New Orleans back together. Haiti is still a mess, I remember reading estimates its going to take years and at least 14 Billion just to put Haiti back the way it was.
When an event like this happens even the concerted effort of a group of nations, and Billions in donations from a concerned public, can only alleviate some of the suffering and it will take years rebuild their lost infrastructure.
An ELE event, if it doesn't outright kill you first, is going to catastrophically cripple everyone.
We'd lose our global manufacturing base, the one thing that could help clean up the mess, and effectively put us back to the early stone age. In a North American society, and a good chunk of Europe, few of us know anything about basic survival. Do you honestly expect the majority of survivors from a "modern" society to know how to eke out a basic living when we're so used to the conveniences of take out, fast food, gourmet restaurants, and grocery stores?
c) learn how to maybe, perhaps, get along with ourselves and our current lifeboat.
It won't matter if everyone is all fluffy bunnies and roses when an ELE event occurs.
When it does happen our fluffy bunnies and roses mentality will get pushed aside and our base instincts will take over. The only reason "modern" societies are even able to function is because our manufacturing and infrastructure base allows even the weakest amongst us to survive without too much struggle. Take that away and it quickly will devolve into a "survival of the fittest" situation.
Our best hope for survival as a species is to spread out to as many places as we can, as far away from Earth as we can, so if something bad happens to any one of those colonies the rest of the species has a fighting chance for survival and can use their infrastructure and manufacturing bases to help the others pick up the pieces.
Slashdot Mirror
Well considering the cliff-hanger ending from Halo 3, unless you consider the lead protagonist being cryogenically frozen in the middle of nowhere to not be a giant "to be continued", many Halo fans, myself included, are probably going to be quite jazzed to see how the the next chapter in the chief's story plays out.
If anything this fan, and probably others, is wondering why Bungie decided to use its two last forays into the Halo universe by creating an unnecessary pseudo-sequel to Halo 3 and an equally unnecessary prequel to Halo 1, really people just go read Eric Nyland's book "Fall Of Reach" if you really want that backstory, when they could have used that creative talent by continuing the story we'd grown to love from the first three games.
I've been reading around a bit on these tablets, a lot of people are talking about the Motorola XOOM as being the big iPad competitor.
When I went to the Motorola website to check it out I found the XOOM costs $799.00 and while the screen is a bit larger, making it true 720p, and appears to have a built in HDMI output, it also has half the storage space of a top of the line iPad 2 which only costs $30.00 more.
Hell, if you were looking for a better deal you could get the 32GB iPad 2 for $729.00 and use the $70.00 you'll save from buying the XOOM to buy a couple of months worth of wireless services, or buy an HDMI adaptor if you need to play out to a TV, or buy a tonne of apps on an App Store that has more than a few hundred or so apps on it, or simply pocket the money and treat yourself to a fancy dinner to celebrate the fact you just saved $70.00.
I didn't look into it too much, in other words I don't know if the iPhone 3g applies, but Apple does swap out the battery if you take to an Apple Authorized Repair centre.
You should also have looked into whether or not you could have had the battery replaced for free, a year seems a little too short for the battery to lose more than half its operational life. My third gen iPod touch, obviously not the same thing, which I've owned for more than a year still gets me more than 12 hours of music playing time and nearly eight hours of music / web browsing time, I use it all day every day too.
Now my 5th Gen 30Gig iPod Video doesn't get more than 5 hours of playback, even less if I have a rousing game of Tetris. ;-) Luckily I have an independent Apple Authorized Repair Centre in town so I can get the battery replaced whenever I want but since I use it mainly in the car now anyway, my car adapter doesn't sync up correctly with the Touch, its always hooked to power so I haven't had much of a need to replace the battery.
I don't mind "movie hacking" screens, lets face it watching people typing into a static terminal window and reading cryptic error codes isn't exactly exciting so I chalked those "movie hacking" scenes as creative license to further the plot. In other words they're not supposed to be accurate because the vast majority don't understand computers to that level, including myself (thought I do know enough to know how they "hack" in movies is a load of shit), and the ones who do should have a sense of humour and just laugh at it.
No, what bugged me about Hackers was the nausea inducing hacking session in the centrifuge. Every time someone was "seriously" hacking there'd be this sequence where the computers, chairs, and the actor would just start spinning like a top... WTF...??!!!
Though I do give props to the movie for having the Angelina Jolie nude scene which was pretty good for a PG13 movie, these days a film that flashes a bit of breast gets an "R", or do you Americans call it NC17, rating.
Even though it was unrealistic doesn't change the fact that an anthropomorphized Volkswagen Beetle from a cheesy 1960's Disney children's movie had a deeper range of emotion and acting ability than what was demonstrated by the actors in the Phantom Menace.
Samsung, Pioneer, Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony, LG, etc... all make Flat Panel TV's with HDMI ports, TVs they want to sell you because it contributes to increasing the value of their shareholders. If your Blu-Ray player continues to work on equipment that you already own then you're not buying a new TV with the HDMI ports and therefore not contributing your hard earned dollars to their shareholder's value.
The whole copying / piracy thing is just a smokescreen, its really about them getting you to buy new stuff you don't need on a timetable that suits them.
Your attempts to mislead your fellow Party members with such blatant lies have been reported to the Ministry of Love to arrange for your re-education. The Ministry of Peace assures all members of The Party that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and that Julian Assange, like Osama bin Laden before him, are known to be high ranking members of "The Brotherhood" as well as advisors of the traitorous Emmanuel Goldstein.
As an Upper Party member you are aware that without the daily "two minutes hate" the proles, and Lower Party members, might stop being scared long enough to think they actually have rights, not just illusion of rights we permit them to have; remember that Big Brother is always watching.
I respect your choice to be a lacto-ovo veggie but even my most basic of investigations into the vegetarian "protein substitutes" also tend to show they are monstrously high in carbohydrates. As a diabetic on a restricted diet of 60 grams of carbohydrates per meal I could have a single scoop of Lentils and then be hungry and risk snacking, or I can have a balanced diet that includes grains, meats & fish, milk and milk products, and vegetables that is more filling and provides a better mix of nutrition providing a more stable blood sugar level while allowing me to feel "full" between meals.
I couldn't agree more. When it came out I didn't know anything about it but when I got to the theatre and saw the movie I was going to see was sold out, I can't even remember what it was because Scott Pilgrim was so good, I saw the poster for Scott Pilgrim and figure "what the hell, this is the cheapy place so if I spend 6 bucks and I hate it no big" and decided to give it a go.
I have never seen anything like it: funny, witty, characters you actually care about, unashamedly Canadian (the film proudly takes place in Toronto), and over the top fight sequences that have you going "WTF!?!?" in a very good way when they're done. I've seen it twice, bought the Blu-Ray on release day, and its definitely one I'll be happy to watch again soon. If you haven't seen it and you're at all a geek you owe it to yourself to check out Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
No one does 22 episode seasons anymore, you're lucky if you get 19, or even more rarely 20, these days.
And its more likely you'll get a 2 hour season opener and 8 more episodes after that, expect at least a week or two off for some kind of "sporting event", then a five to six month hiatus (it usually ends in November and doesn't come back until April or May) followed up by another ten episodes. Then you wait another six months and the whole thing repeats again.
I really miss the days when you had ST:TNG with their 26 episode seasons so you'd get it pretty much straight through, with a break in December for Christmas, and then only have to wait the summer break while you were off school before you'd get to see it again. Nowadays the shows are so far apart, and they keep releasing those incredibly expensive for what they are 0.5 Season sets on DVD / Blu-Ray, I often forgot I was watching the show; note to show runners, if you end your show on a cliffhanger I don't buy them on DVD either, it'd be like buying a book with the last 5 chapters ripped out of it. Then there's the whole cancellation aspect, I've been burned on so many shows I like being cancelled at cliffhanger moments that I just can't get bothered to like a show anymore.
Unless you're into boring "reality" TV, there really isn't anything good anymore and what does look interesting I just won't take a risk on because I know if it looks even the least bit interesting it'll be cancelled before its even had its first year done. And don't even get me started on Fox, I steadfastly refuse to watch anything on that network anymore.
Really? The introduction of the Evil Asgard, the ongoing war with the Wraith that was really starting to pick up, the whole thing with Michael, etc... They were introducing all kinds of new plot lines for the future all throughout Season Five, luckily they found out early the show was being cancelled because very quickly they started to wrap everything up. Based on what I was seeing it was supposed to go for at least another year but they were so eager to get Universe started and after the whole SG1 / Atlantis at the same time deal MGM wasn't really interested in repeating that experience so they rushed the ending of SGA and green lit Universe.
Universe isn't favourite show, though Eli is definitely one of my favourite characters and I'd definitely like to spend some quality time with Chloe and Vanessa ;-), but it doesn't bore me like Battlestar does (Universe actually moves at a decent pace in comparison) and I get the sense each episode is going somewhere. Its a nice distraction and I'll be sad to see it go, I hope they've been notified early enough that they can tweak the ending to give us some kind of closure, but I'm not going to get all "Lets do a campaign and save it" over it, its just not that good.
That was kind of the whole point. They worked so hard during Wing II to get you to trust Hobbes, that all the way through Wing III when they started talking about traitors Hobbes was the last person you ever though would do it.
I remember screaming at the screen in shock when it turned out Hobbes was the traitor, luckily I chose the Rachel story line rather than picking Flint (what teenage guy doesn't wanna vicariously bang a porn star?), that I ended up failing the next mission and had to replay it.
I'll grant you that playing Wing II knowing how Wing III ends would seriously lessen some of that impact, but the story overall storyline itself was actually really well crafted throughout the series, it was the first time I didn't see Mark Hamill and immediately think "What is Luke Skywalker doing here?". It would be worth playing through again.
I kind of liken it to how every 3 or 4 years or so I drop in my copy of Babylon 5 and watch it all the way through again, sure I know Sheridan is going to win the day while paying a terrible price, Sinclair becomes Valen, and Marcus is going to die, but the telling of the story is so good I watch it again anyway.
No, what Wing Commander needs is some new graphics, new sounds, and the use real instruments for the soundtrack (though it would be funny as an Easter Egg if they threw in "Soundblaster Legacy Mode") while keeping the same story. It was really quite good and I would dearly enjoy experiencing it again.
Hell, they could throw a full USB equipped HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) setup, including rudder pedals, in the Super Mondo Mega Awesome Spectacular Seriously Expensive Edition and I'd pick that up in a heartbeat. There is real money to be made in catering to the nostalgic mid to late 30's crowd wanting to remember a piece of their childhood's.
Unfortunately it doesn't look like anyone at EA is listening, but if they are then they need to reopen Origin, remake the first five games, finish the last that were planned for and be ready for me to give them gobs and gobs of money. I really, really, loved Wing Commander as a kid and I really, really, want to give Origin some money so I can play it again.
Oh, and while you're at it Origin (EA), please remake Privateer and if you're really good add a multi player component that doesn't require it to become a second full time job (I really just want to run a couple of ferry mission and take on the odd sector patrol with friends).
100% agreed. They could repackage the exact same story, missions, everything (throw in some voice overs with Malcom McDowell, Mark Hamill, and John Rhys-Davies to maintain consistency with Wings 3, 4, and 5, which would also be released with remastered footage on a Blu-Ray disc so I could play the whole thing without swapping discs) and I'd pre-order right now and be there opening day to pay full retail for all 5 of them. Also, if possible, I'd love to see a Mac port, I hate dual booting though I totally would for Wing Commander.
Even better though would be if they decided to finish off the Nephilim triolgy introduced in Prophecy, I still want to know what the frack happens to Blair after being captured.
Its been a while since I've gone to a Blockbuster or Rogers Video but I do remember paying upwards of 5.99 the last time I went, throw in gas money there and back (the Blockbuster is up the street but has shitty new movie selections, they're always gone, and the Rogers Video is an hour and a half round trip walking) and its easy to get that up to 6.99 easy.
Or for a dollar more I can use Netflix to watch a couple of movies a month, sure I don't get the same selection as the BB or RV but so far I've managed for find movies I've been interested in watching. I think I'm going to check out Iron Eagle next, its one of my favourites and I haven't seen it in a few years; hopefully they'll work on licensing the sequels soon. ;-)
Based solely on the browsing interface I'd agree with you, its horrendous. You get to see perhaps two or three dozen movies, depending on the device, and have to search for everything else. Problem is I never know what I want to watch until I actually see it so I end up spending most of my time typing in names of stuff I want to see in the hopes they have it.
I'm not saying its super decent because I do agree with you that the pickings are slim and if it were 19.99 a month I'd agree that the price is way too high for what it is, but at 7.99 there is enough content there to justify spending that to get access to the service. Or putting it another way, despite the fact they didn't have stuff I really wanted to see they did have enough for me to watch half a dozen movies, some Red Dwarf, Doctor Who's, and Sponge Bob and Curious George for the nieces; I only signed up two weeks ago. I would have spent far more than 7.99 if I'd have had to buy, or rent, all those discs outright and I didn't have to go to Best Buy / Future Shop or Blockbuster / Rogers Video to get it.
I'm going to keep it for six months and see where the service goes and as long as I watch at least one movie per month it'd be the same as going to Blockbuster / Rogers Video, though I have a feeling I'll be watching a lot more than that. Who knows, if it starts getting better, I might just give up cable! ;-)
While I agree with you in principle, greater selection is often a good thing, the selection available now is actually quite decent for the 7.99 per month price point.
I've been enjoying re-watching older films that I would never consider buying on DVD, but are still good enough to watch every once in a while. Been catching up on the old Doctor Who's I haven't seen since I was a kid, Tom Baker is still the man, and watching old episodes of Red Dwarf, there were a bunch of episodes I'd missed over the years. My nieces, when they come to visit, are loving it as the children's selection is quite robust and has a lot of their favourites.
Sure its frustrating to see the "Not Available" showing when you search for an old show, I've really been wanting to watch Space 1999 again now that I'm old enough to understand what the hell is going on, but hopefully if the service takes off in Canada they'll be able to work out the licensing issues. As it stands now its worth it based on their current selection and I'll continue to pay the 7.99 per month for the foreseeable future.
"Spock beats Lawsuit!"
If you count the mundane "nine to five" jobs the vast majority of people have now then yeah, most people would be "jobless". I say good riddance!
I can think of at least fifty different things I'd rather be doing in a day than working, none of which I could ever get paid to do but a "true replicator society" would let them become my new "job", I can guarantee I'd never be bored and most people I talk to are the same. Hell, if you want to get some perspective on the "replicator society" talk to most any retired person who wasn't a workaholic, since their material needs are met by a pension they don't have to work for its the closest analog we have, you'll hear of days that were fun, busy, and constant complaints of not having enough time in the day to get everything done. In fact I often find any negativity comes from the workaholic, or those with no imagination, as they will constantly regale you with stories of how boring retired life is and how much they miss work.
Actually, even though it was the "cheesier" show, the reason from the original Battlestar made a lot more sense, and was way more evil, than the remake.
Original:
Using Baltar's insights of Commander Adama we will root out the last pockets of humanity for extermination. We'll follow just outside of their sensor range and if the Colonials stop for too long we will merely send a patrol, make it look like Baltar's idea so he is none the wiser, to spook them into moving. Lets not bug them too much though, we don't want to tip them off we're following. Wow, look at all the human colonies for us to destroy!
Oh crap, they figured out we're following them. No problem, we'll just tell Basestar 5 to let itself get destroyed, we can always rebuild it, because our newly updated scanners will let us hide further back and the Basestar's destruction will lull them into a false sense of security; hopefully they'll stop looking for us. Once the Galactica has led us to Earth, the evidence we found on Kobol was pretty convincing for its existence, we will send the rest of the fleet to crush it with overwhelming force and finally remove the scourge of humanity from the face of existence.
Remake:
We hate our creators because they treated us like slaves! Though we fought for our independence and beat them they might try to enslave us again so we better kill them all off! Oh crap, the biologicals we created to infiltrate the Colonies and prepare for our invasion now feel all bad about killing the creators. Now they want to procreate with them and help repopulate the species but unfortunately there are no humans left.
Wait, no, there are some left! Whew! Turns out Commander Adama wasn't as gullible as the rest of them and managed to escape with a few, lets tell the Humans we're really really really sorry about the whole blowing up their planets and trying to kill them thing and try to make friends. Okay, so they're not buying it. ;-(
Hey Cavil, go pretend to be a dick so the other models will hate you and go whining to the humans about how it was really all your fault for the holocaust, hopefully the humans will feel sorry for the rest of the models and they will join forces to fight you! It'll really help if you start complaining about wanting to be a robot instead of a human and if we're lucky they'll feel sorry for the other biologicals and want to make babies with them, we can then build you a nice robot body after we've dumped them all on some planet somewhere while we take the rest of the fleet and go exploring!
Yes, that is true, but unlike Battlestar: The Remake, Stargate: Universe is actually entertaining.
Ummm, don't you mean yahren? ;-)
Actually Battlestar: The Remake stopped being good around the middle of Season Two, right around the time they found "New Caprica". After that it got ploddingly slow, even more so than it already had been, and simply became infuriating to watch; I fell asleep numerous times due to boredom and found myself constantly having to rewind to watch what I'd missed. It was only because I'd already invested two years of my life into the show, and my fervent hope they would somehow manage to go back to the exceptional quality of the mini-series and first season, that even got me to watch the final two seasons.
I shouldn't have bothered. Seeing Ron Moore turn the once scary genocidal killing machines with a plan into inept whiny melodramatic losers who couldn't plan themselves out of a paper bag, they were too busy standing around talking about their feelings for hours on end with not only themselves but also the people they wanted to kill, made it really hard to enjoy the show. It also became apparent, very quickly, that Ron Moore had no idea what the hell to do with the show after a while. Incomprehensible story lines, the large portions of cannon that were completely retconned, the bordering on incredibly stupid waits between episodes, the almost Soap Operaesque story lines all made for a show that only got worse as time went on but, like a train wreck in slow motion, really really slow motion, it was just too hard to turn away. And don't even get me started on the completely pointless 3 hour "Lord of the Rings" ending that really only had about 35-40 minutes worth of value in it.
The show was so bad it soured me on all things Battlestar: The Remake that I couldn't even stomach the idea of watching Battlestar: The Prequel (Craprica). Of course if they wait a few years and give Richard Hatch the go ahead to produce his Battlestar: The Second Coming series to continue the story of the original, I'd be all over that in a heartbeat.
Anyone can create a giant undulating phallus. To truly spark the deep seated jealousy of your peers you must have the depth of vision to create an immense masturbation simulator then place it in the middle of a family theme park where the proles will spend countless hours waiting for the opportunity to ride it!
Nah, it would be hard to make a Nemesis that doesn't suck. Instead just re-watch, or check it out if you've never seen it, what is arguably the best film in the franchise and try to forget Paramount's lame remake attempt.
If an ELE occurs it won't matter how nice to the planet we've been, the entire ecosystem will be thrashed and the survivors are going to wish they had died. The life they will have to live will be so incredibly hard; war for the scant resources remaining will be common, many will die of starvation, and simple diseases easily curable before the impact will claim many.
If you think an earthquake or flood is a trivial event, you're not paying attention to recent events. Five years later they are *still* putting New Orleans back together. Haiti is still a mess, I remember reading estimates its going to take years and at least 14 Billion just to put Haiti back the way it was.
When an event like this happens even the concerted effort of a group of nations, and Billions in donations from a concerned public, can only alleviate some of the suffering and it will take years rebuild their lost infrastructure.
An ELE event, if it doesn't outright kill you first, is going to catastrophically cripple everyone.
We'd lose our global manufacturing base, the one thing that could help clean up the mess, and effectively put us back to the early stone age. In a North American society, and a good chunk of Europe, few of us know anything about basic survival. Do you honestly expect the majority of survivors from a "modern" society to know how to eke out a basic living when we're so used to the conveniences of take out, fast food, gourmet restaurants, and grocery stores?
It won't matter if everyone is all fluffy bunnies and roses when an ELE event occurs.
When it does happen our fluffy bunnies and roses mentality will get pushed aside and our base instincts will take over. The only reason "modern" societies are even able to function is because our manufacturing and infrastructure base allows even the weakest amongst us to survive without too much struggle. Take that away and it quickly will devolve into a "survival of the fittest" situation.
Our best hope for survival as a species is to spread out to as many places as we can, as far away from Earth as we can, so if something bad happens to any one of those colonies the rest of the species has a fighting chance for survival and can use their infrastructure and manufacturing bases to help the others pick up the pieces.