It's an interesting theory that you provide, but "it was all a dream" is not what I'd call a hallmark of cinematic greatness either. It would negate a lot of the (apparently) illogical things about the movie, but not really absolve it from laziness in the writing.
Wow, I didn't think anyone else in the world saw that movie.
I actually saw it on TV, with no 3D effects, but all the 3D "moments." I was about twelve years old, and I thought it was terrible. My "favorite" moment was when the "key" was floating in midair, and you could very plainly see the wires holding it up -- I mean, they didn't even try.
Only later did I learn that it was a foreign film with a budget of six-fifty.
Interesting point, but I think that reasoning is a bit flawed. A game that requires you to go slow and take your time as part of the gameplay, and the fun, isn't artificially inflating its play time. If it takes you 20 hours to finish it, playing it the way it was meant to be played, then it's a 20-hour game.
Now, a game with no way to save except between missions, or ridiculous caveats that hinder or reverse your progress -- that's artificially inflating play time. So far as I know none of the Thief games have ever done this.
Well, interestingly enough, back in the 60s, Gene Roddenberry's one-line summation of Star Trek was "Wagon Train to the Stars." Firefly is far more "Wagon Train to the Stars" than Trek ever was. It's very much a space Western.
Not that this makes Trek bad, or Firefly derivative, by any means, just that Firefly is very much in the "pioneer spirit" vein of sci-fi; something that I think Trek has been missing for a long time.
It must be hell not to have any free will or control over your own own fine motor skills, that you are compelled by some unholy force to read this story beginning to end, despite the fact that it doesn't interest you. You have my sympathies, and I hope that you overcome this terrible affliction soon.
It's animated mass entertainment. Looking for anything beyond shallow philosophy is asking too much of the medium, IMHO.
I agree with you about Final Fantasy, though I think it's a poor example -- a lot of anime "philosophy" goes little further than skin-deep, but Final Fantasy didn't even try. Though I would hardly call GITS a philosophical exercise, it does bring up some interesting points about what it means to be human, which is more than I can say for most animated entertainment.
I don't blame the developers for anything. In fact, I totally agree with this statement:
Games suck because of bad timing, bad management, and bad decision making, not a lack of developer attention and intent.
I don't doubt it's ultimately the bean counters that spell the doom of many a game. I've seen it happen many times. I'm sure most developers don't go into a game thinking about how shabby an effort they can make out of it, but circumstances push things in that direction sometimes.
Sorry if you took that personally, or aimed at developers specifically; please rest assured I didn't mean it as such.
I agree. What I'm saying is that those days are numbered. Once the capability exists to patch console games the way they can PC games, we're probably going to start seeing the same shoddy workmanship in console games. Because the game companies know they can get away with it.
Granted, having a hardware standard counts for something (the massive variety of available sound / video / other hardware in PCs is one of the primary reasons there's so many bugs), but I think a lot of what it boils down to is plain old corporate shortsightedness and greed, and the console market is only going to be immune to that a little while longer, IMHO.
...and this is why, when people start talking about how consoles are going to kill the PC gaming market, I don't get all that worried.
One of the big advantages PC gaming has now is the ability to fix bugs after the game has shipped. Even if that does lead to some greedy and short-sighted business decisions. "Ship now, patch later" is a lousy way to run a game company, but at least, with a PC game, you can patch later. With consoles, you're generally going to get the shaft.
But as consoles get more sophisticated and come with internet connectivity as a requisite, this problem is only going to get worse. So the big advantage of consoles, "just stick a disc / cartridge in and play" is going to become "just stick a disk / cartridge in and wait an hour for the latest patch to download." Because the bottom line is, game companies won't ship a finished, polished game if they don't have to.
Sorry, Hugh Hefner is not responsible for other peoples' stupidity and ignorance. If someone is so gullible that they get plastic surgery because a "magazine made them do it," then they have some serious problems, and the problem is not the magazine. It's a fundamental lack of judgment.
Years ago I spent hours on Omikron: The Nomad Soul only to be totally stymied and frustrated by the ending. I never could beat it, no matter how long I played it.
A while ago I happened to meet one of the developers of the game -- he told me that no one in the entire department could beat it -- i.e., the guys who designed the game couldn't beat it. Now that's too damned hard.
I asked him how they could design a game so difficult even the people who made it couldn't finish it, and how they expected the people who bought the game to do so -- he just shrugged. He didn't know.
Yeah, I've seen that gag... funny how no one ever comments on the irony of an aging, balding 40-year old man with a hand puppet mocking other people for how nerdy they are.
and I think I heard whispers of a movie of Half-Life...
Sadly, a Half-Life movie would probably have a much thinner, dumber story than the video game does. And at least one guy outrunning an explosion while yelling "It's gonna blow!"
I remember the naive days of my youth, when I used to wish they'd make movies out of my favorite video games and comics, instead of wishing they wouldn't.
Charlie Sheen would make a great Gordon Freeman though.
Yeah, I am aware AdAware is not a catch-all. I downloaded the latest reference file before scanning, but I realize any junk Real installs may not be in Lavasoft's database yet. Thus the "as far as I can tell" disclaimer above.
Believe me when I say I'm skeptical, but so far the player has behaved.
I was clean before and after RealPlayer, too, except for a couple of tracking cookies, which I tend to pick up anyway with as much websurfing as I do. So I'm under the impression Real isn't spyware-addled anymore.
Certainly one of those two cookies could have been from RealPlayer... I didn't look to find out.
I hate to say this, but after staying far, far away from Realplayer for years (I don't think I've used it since 1999), I finally found something I really, really wanted to listen to online that was RealPlayer only. All the alternatives to RealPlayer seemed like too much of a pain to set up (I'm extraordinarily lazy), so I decided, against my better judgment, to give the new player a download and see how it worked.
It's actually really not bad at all. The install is fairly short and lets you pick your media types, what shortcuts to install, etc. and unlike old versions of RealPlayer doesn't just DO IT ANYWAY. ("Would you like your homepage changed to real.com?" "No." "Homepage changed!") It doesn't ask for some obnoxious registration, load itself into my start bar, or do any of that other "helpful" BS that made the old RealPlayer such a dog.
So far it seems to be a small little player that does what it does, and nothing you don't want. Since I still don't really trust Real, I'm waiting for some popup to come up, or wake up one day and find "RealConsole RAM-Fucker Pro" installed on my desktop or something, but so far, nothing.
But for now, it just plays Realaudio files. What a novel concept for an application. It's actually been pleasant to use. (RealVideo still sucks, though.)
I agree. I own a TV, but I only use it to watch movies and to play my console games on. I still have plenty of egregiously time-wasting hobbies, but at least they're devoid of the kind of garbage television delivers.
On the infrequent occasions I see some serial television -- usually when visiting relatives or friends -- and I'm always shocked by how obnoxious it is now. Huge watermarks, commercials in the middle of programming, and completely brain-dead content. I don't miss it even one little bit.
I used to enjoy my share of tv, but when most of the sci-fi shows I liked got canceled and reality TV started to take over, it didn't take much for me to lose interest.
I also agree with you on the issue of backlash. I don't think not watching any serial television makes me better than anyone who does -- by all means, do what you enjoy, I just really don't enjoy it and find it hard to believe now that I ever did. What's funny is how many people I know who watch a lot of TV and complain ceaselessly about how crappy it is. "God this show sucks. It's so stupid. Why am I watching it?" Why indeed? Yet, mention you don't watch any yourself and they compare you to the Onion Doesn't Own a TV Guy.
I'd like to say something pretentious and highbrow like "I'd rather spend my time with a good book," but usually I don't.:)
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It's an interesting theory that you provide, but "it was all a dream" is not what I'd call a hallmark of cinematic greatness either. It would negate a lot of the (apparently) illogical things about the movie, but not really absolve it from laziness in the writing.
Wow, I didn't think anyone else in the world saw that movie.
I actually saw it on TV, with no 3D effects, but all the 3D "moments." I was about twelve years old, and I thought it was terrible. My "favorite" moment was when the "key" was floating in midair, and you could very plainly see the wires holding it up -- I mean, they didn't even try.
Only later did I learn that it was a foreign film with a budget of six-fifty.
Interesting point, but I think that reasoning is a bit flawed. A game that requires you to go slow and take your time as part of the gameplay, and the fun, isn't artificially inflating its play time. If it takes you 20 hours to finish it, playing it the way it was meant to be played, then it's a 20-hour game.
Now, a game with no way to save except between missions, or ridiculous caveats that hinder or reverse your progress -- that's artificially inflating play time. So far as I know none of the Thief games have ever done this.
Wow... you must be in the bathroom like twenty four hours a day!
Well, interestingly enough, back in the 60s, Gene Roddenberry's one-line summation of Star Trek was "Wagon Train to the Stars." Firefly is far more "Wagon Train to the Stars" than Trek ever was. It's very much a space Western.
Not that this makes Trek bad, or Firefly derivative, by any means, just that Firefly is very much in the "pioneer spirit" vein of sci-fi; something that I think Trek has been missing for a long time.
It must be hell not to have any free will or control over your own own fine motor skills, that you are compelled by some unholy force to read this story beginning to end, despite the fact that it doesn't interest you. You have my sympathies, and I hope that you overcome this terrible affliction soon.
It's animated mass entertainment. Looking for anything beyond shallow philosophy is asking too much of the medium, IMHO.
I agree with you about Final Fantasy, though I think it's a poor example -- a lot of anime "philosophy" goes little further than skin-deep, but Final Fantasy didn't even try. Though I would hardly call GITS a philosophical exercise, it does bring up some interesting points about what it means to be human, which is more than I can say for most animated entertainment.
I don't blame the developers for anything. In fact, I totally agree with this statement:
Games suck because of bad timing, bad management, and bad decision making, not a lack of developer attention and intent.
I don't doubt it's ultimately the bean counters that spell the doom of many a game. I've seen it happen many times. I'm sure most developers don't go into a game thinking about how shabby an effort they can make out of it, but circumstances push things in that direction sometimes.
Sorry if you took that personally, or aimed at developers specifically; please rest assured I didn't mean it as such.
I agree. What I'm saying is that those days are numbered. Once the capability exists to patch console games the way they can PC games, we're probably going to start seeing the same shoddy workmanship in console games. Because the game companies know they can get away with it.
Granted, having a hardware standard counts for something (the massive variety of available sound / video / other hardware in PCs is one of the primary reasons there's so many bugs), but I think a lot of what it boils down to is plain old corporate shortsightedness and greed, and the console market is only going to be immune to that a little while longer, IMHO.
...and this is why, when people start talking about how consoles are going to kill the PC gaming market, I don't get all that worried.
One of the big advantages PC gaming has now is the ability to fix bugs after the game has shipped. Even if that does lead to some greedy and short-sighted business decisions. "Ship now, patch later" is a lousy way to run a game company, but at least, with a PC game, you can patch later. With consoles, you're generally going to get the shaft.
But as consoles get more sophisticated and come with internet connectivity as a requisite, this problem is only going to get worse. So the big advantage of consoles, "just stick a disc / cartridge in and play" is going to become "just stick a disk / cartridge in and wait an hour for the latest patch to download." Because the bottom line is, game companies won't ship a finished, polished game if they don't have to.
Sorry, Hugh Hefner is not responsible for other peoples' stupidity and ignorance. If someone is so gullible that they get plastic surgery because a "magazine made them do it," then they have some serious problems, and the problem is not the magazine. It's a fundamental lack of judgment.
Years ago I spent hours on Omikron: The Nomad Soul only to be totally stymied and frustrated by the ending. I never could beat it, no matter how long I played it.
A while ago I happened to meet one of the developers of the game -- he told me that no one in the entire department could beat it -- i.e., the guys who designed the game couldn't beat it. Now that's too damned hard.
I asked him how they could design a game so difficult even the people who made it couldn't finish it, and how they expected the people who bought the game to do so -- he just shrugged. He didn't know.
Yeah, I've seen that gag... funny how no one ever comments on the irony of an aging, balding 40-year old man with a hand puppet mocking other people for how nerdy they are.
and I think I heard whispers of a movie of Half-Life...
Sadly, a Half-Life movie would probably have a much thinner, dumber story than the video game does. And at least one guy outrunning an explosion while yelling "It's gonna blow!"
I remember the naive days of my youth, when I used to wish they'd make movies out of my favorite video games and comics, instead of wishing they wouldn't.
Charlie Sheen would make a great Gordon Freeman though.
Yeah, I am aware AdAware is not a catch-all. I downloaded the latest reference file before scanning, but I realize any junk Real installs may not be in Lavasoft's database yet. Thus the "as far as I can tell" disclaimer above.
Believe me when I say I'm skeptical, but so far the player has behaved.
I was clean before and after RealPlayer, too, except for a couple of tracking cookies, which I tend to pick up anyway with as much websurfing as I do. So I'm under the impression Real isn't spyware-addled anymore.
Certainly one of those two cookies could have been from RealPlayer... I didn't look to find out.
Two great articles on the sordid history of RealPlayer and their lows can be found here: Real Obnoxious and Real Proof.
Included are some testimonials from (allegedly) actual Real co. employees.
And thanks to Tivo, not even that.
Go here and click on the "Free RealPlayer" link on the right. Should start your download automatically.
And, FWIW, I ran AdAware on my machine right after installing the latest Realplayer. No spyware installed either as far as I can tell.
I hate to say this, but after staying far, far away from Realplayer for years (I don't think I've used it since 1999), I finally found something I really, really wanted to listen to online that was RealPlayer only. All the alternatives to RealPlayer seemed like too much of a pain to set up (I'm extraordinarily lazy), so I decided, against my better judgment, to give the new player a download and see how it worked.
It's actually really not bad at all. The install is fairly short and lets you pick your media types, what shortcuts to install, etc. and unlike old versions of RealPlayer doesn't just DO IT ANYWAY. ("Would you like your homepage changed to real.com?" "No." "Homepage changed!") It doesn't ask for some obnoxious registration, load itself into my start bar, or do any of that other "helpful" BS that made the old RealPlayer such a dog.
So far it seems to be a small little player that does what it does, and nothing you don't want. Since I still don't really trust Real, I'm waiting for some popup to come up, or wake up one day and find "RealConsole RAM-Fucker Pro" installed on my desktop or something, but so far, nothing.
But for now, it just plays Realaudio files. What a novel concept for an application. It's actually been pleasant to use. (RealVideo still sucks, though.)
And it goes:
a aaa....
Kaaaaaaaaaaaaa...
neeeeeeeeeeee....
DAAAAAAAa
Oh, shush, someone had to do it...
f you aren't run over by an SUV, suffocated by smog
Don't forget "mugged for your iPod"...
Mating? What? Huh?
I agree. I own a TV, but I only use it to watch movies and to play my console games on. I still have plenty of egregiously time-wasting hobbies, but at least they're devoid of the kind of garbage television delivers.
:)
On the infrequent occasions I see some serial television -- usually when visiting relatives or friends -- and I'm always shocked by how obnoxious it is now. Huge watermarks, commercials in the middle of programming, and completely brain-dead content. I don't miss it even one little bit.
I used to enjoy my share of tv, but when most of the sci-fi shows I liked got canceled and reality TV started to take over, it didn't take much for me to lose interest.
I also agree with you on the issue of backlash. I don't think not watching any serial television makes me better than anyone who does -- by all means, do what you enjoy, I just really don't enjoy it and find it hard to believe now that I ever did. What's funny is how many people I know who watch a lot of TV and complain ceaselessly about how crappy it is. "God this show sucks. It's so stupid. Why am I watching it?" Why indeed? Yet, mention you don't watch any yourself and they compare you to the Onion Doesn't Own a TV Guy.
I'd like to say something pretentious and highbrow like "I'd rather spend my time with a good book," but usually I don't.