No need to get all French about it, it's just Roshambo.
Then again maybe the "kick in the nuts" is the French variant?
Re:Deja vu, MSN
on
AOL's $299 PC
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· Score: 4, Informative
I can personally attest to the fact that MSN most assuredly did not just start letting people out of their contracts. (Don't ask... I regret it to this day...)
Mr. Slippery writes "According to this Yahoo! News story, L.A. County did not ban the use of 'master' and 'slave' in labeling, but made more of a polite request to vendors. A subtle but important distinction.
Now see... a lot of Slashdot folk, when they say "too much time on their hands," they're talking about G4s being made into aquariums, or dropping thousands of rubber balls down a stairwell, or ganging up to kill an unkillable Everquest monster, or something.
When I think of "too much time on their hands" I think of these people.
Well, about as accurate anyway...
on
Online! The Book
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· Score: 1
Ah, you beat me to it. And thank God for it, too... the d20 rules were not impressive, to say the least.
Some dolt at my local gaming store tried to tell me that Chaosium was "out of business" and WOTC had "bought them out" and ALL Cthulhu products were going to be d20 from now on. I told him this was not the case, but he insisted. Not only that, but he told some friends of mine as well, so he actually lost sales because they were looking for the BRP Cthulhu rules and "couldn't" buy them.
What a load. I stopped shopping there, since the way I see it I really shouldn't know a lot more about the business enviroment of gaming than the guy who sells me all my materials.
In the audio commentary to the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD, Peter Jackson mentioned that he asked to keep the set of Bag End completely intact and in storage rather than having it torn down like most of the rest of the Lord of the Rings sets. New Line agreed, and Peter Jackson said that he has a complete, life-sized Bag End sitting in storage, ready to reassemble on the side of some hill.
I think he cracked a joke about building it somewhere and living in it, but hey, this way they can just break it out of storage and rebuild it and it will be the same set from Fellowship... instant continuity.
I like the "happy anime face" on the Dreamcast (last pic down).
Also, I wonder how long it will be before someone decides to one-up this effort and make functional plushie versions of these. Now THAT would earn you bragging rights. Or, well, eternal shame, depending.
Sadly, I'm so out of touch -- it's been so long since I've been to Disneyland, I never realized they shut this ride down (Inner Space). This and Space Mountain were my absolute favorite rides as a kid.
I'm sad to find out (very belatedly) that it's gone, but happy to see that someone is doing something to preserve it. Even looking at those images of the huge ice flakes brings back a lot of very old memories.
I have a question. I'm no network engineer, so I don't really know... how would ISPs enforce something like this? Isn't the whole notion of a P2P network that you can't really control it? How would ISPs monitor when users are sharing files and put a stop to it?
Or are we talking about something that's essentially unenforceable, but ARIA wants it enforced anyway?
This is funny considering that consoles are becoming more like PCs all the time. The X-Box especially, with its hard drive and modified Windows OS, is a herald of things to come. As users demand more complexity and sophistication from console games, the consoles themselves will become more sophisticated, which means more chances for things to go wrong.
I have a friend with an X-Box who's already had to exchange it because the HD on it went kablooey. Remind you of any PC users you know?
Also, I've often predicted that once internet connectivity becomes the norm for consoles, game companies will slip into the "ship now, patch later" mentality that so far console gamers have escaped from -- but I believe those days to be numbered.
I will agree that it seems extremely unlikely. The last thing Return of the King needs is a shot of hype in the arm to generate more revenue. The article points to it being a $3 billion franchise. I think they're doing ok for themselves.
And as for not wanting any loose ends in ROTK... he's got one. Saruman's final scene in Two Towers isn't substantive enough to infer that he's been thoroughly defeated, despite what Jackson says. I just wish he would have had the foresight to decide which movie it WOULD have been workable in, and left it in there.
I should mention too that this is not all principle talking; I am a huge Christopher Lee fan and I want to see him in the movie, dammit:)
I agree with you, and I am glad he's putting the scenes back in the extended edition, I just think that as an actor Christopher Lee does not deserve to be cut from the theatrical release. Not everyone is going to buy the extended edition.
Of course, based on the success of Lord of the Rings we can probably expect a truly God-awful movie adaptation of Dragonlance to roll into production pretty soon.
I can already see it now... Keanu Reeves as Tanis Half-Elven, Tara Reid as Laurana, a CGI-reduced Kris Kristofferson as Flint and Pauly Shore as Tasselhoff... okay, I have to stop, I'm making myself sick.
I know people are tired of hearing about this... but if the movie is going to be so huge, and so successful, and make such enormous bank for the studio and for Jackson, then please just put in Christopher Lee's seven minutes of Saruman footage.
It's not going to break the damn film one way or the other. Christopher Lee is a screen legend and reads Lord of the Rings every year. This is the culmination of a lifelong dream for him, and frankly, the man does not have a wealth of years left to him. So many fans want to see it, and if Peter Jackson idolizes Christopher Lee so much he should do him the courtesy and the honor of letting him appear in what may well be the last great film he will appear in.
I am not confident that he will, but I really hope Jackson changes his mind on this at the last minute. Seven minutes out of three hours, out of nine or twelve plus hours of movie total -- what in the hell could it possibly hurt at this point?
Sorry to belabor this point, but reading the review led me to read some other Return of the King news, and how Christopher Lee will not be attending the premiere of Return of the King because he is so upset. After all that talk on the commentaries and documentary about what a close-knit bunch of friends they are, this seems like a cruel and unecessary snub to Mr. Lee.
I agree with you. I should have qualified that as "from a film perspective" -- I think the parallel you're talking about is fascinating in the books, but nearly impossible to bring to a film such as this in any way that is both meaningful and can fit in the running time.
Well, I can't help you out much with the other things, but the Huorns are back in the film with the extended DVD cut.
I think they round out Faramir's character very nicely as well. He is much more three-dimensional in the extended cut and the added footage solves a lot of problems I had with his character in the theatrical cut.
Agreed, that is easily my least favorite scene in the movie.
Interestingly enough, in one of the documentaries, Orlando Bloom admits that the scene probably made "Tolkien roll over in his grave," but was true to the spirit of how Peter Jackson saw Legolas. Which is all it comes down to, really.
I thought that one was a bit much, but overall I have been a pretty big fan of Ass-Kicking Legloas and his bow that never misses. I find it a joy to watch.
Plus, saints who can do no wrong and can shrug off any temptation make pretty dull characters.
If you watch the extended edition of Two Towers, it outlines the tragedy of both Boromir and Faramir very poignantly -- Denethor puts all his faith in Boromir, and shuns Faramir as a failure and a weakling. Faramir desperately wants to "prove his quality" to his father, but doesn't have the opportunity.
Then Boromir goes off and fails, and dies -- and no doubt we will see Denethor saying his lines "why couldn't it have been Faramir?" somewhere in Return of the King.
So now Faramir finds the Ring coming into his possession, and finally has a chance to finish what his brother has started, redeem himself in the eyes of his father, and perhaps save all Gondor and Middle-Earth while he's at it (so he thinks anyway).
No slight intended to the great Professor Tolkien, but I found this much more interesting as a plot than goody-two-shoes Faramir who sits the hobbits down, has a nice chat, and then lets them go. It paints both Boromir and Faramir as wonderfully tragic characters, where in the books I found Boromir a tad unsympathetic and Faramir a trifle dull.
Because they aren't able to include the entire lengthy, involved Scouring of the Shire subplot in the third movie doesn't mean they won't do something to address the central theme of the book. They've shown themselves pretty faitfhul to the themes and spirit of Tolkien so far, in my opinion -- I doubt they will just gloss this one over.
He DID resist the Ring. Just not right away. He let Frodo go, presumably at the cost of his own life (though we all know that's not going to happen).
The main problem, I think, is that in a visual medium you have to be reminded physically of a threat as ephemeral as the Ring. In the book it's perfectly workable to say that the Ring is an evil influence and leave it at that; in a series of three-hour films, a general audience is going to need some kind of reminder that it's there. The Ring itself, the centerpiece of the movies, barely appears in Two Towers as it is.
I think also it ties into the Ring growing more powerful as it grows closer to Mordor, and also getting more desperate to find someone whom it CAN tempt. Galadriel's little spiel near the middle of the movie sets this up, and I think the conflict with Faramir pays it off.
Slashdot Mirror
No need to get all French about it, it's just Roshambo.
Then again maybe the "kick in the nuts" is the French variant?
I can personally attest to the fact that MSN most assuredly did not just start letting people out of their contracts. (Don't ask... I regret it to this day...)
Mr. Slippery writes "According to this Yahoo! News story, L.A. County did not ban the use of 'master' and 'slave' in labeling, but made more of a polite request to vendors. A subtle but important distinction.
Now see... a lot of Slashdot folk, when they say "too much time on their hands," they're talking about G4s being made into aquariums, or dropping thousands of rubber balls down a stairwell, or ganging up to kill an unkillable Everquest monster, or something.
When I think of "too much time on their hands" I think of these people.
I think it's already out, it's called "Hackers."
Ah, you beat me to it. And thank God for it, too... the d20 rules were not impressive, to say the least.
Some dolt at my local gaming store tried to tell me that Chaosium was "out of business" and WOTC had "bought them out" and ALL Cthulhu products were going to be d20 from now on. I told him this was not the case, but he insisted. Not only that, but he told some friends of mine as well, so he actually lost sales because they were looking for the BRP Cthulhu rules and "couldn't" buy them.
What a load. I stopped shopping there, since the way I see it I really shouldn't know a lot more about the business enviroment of gaming than the guy who sells me all my materials.
In the audio commentary to the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD, Peter Jackson mentioned that he asked to keep the set of Bag End completely intact and in storage rather than having it torn down like most of the rest of the Lord of the Rings sets. New Line agreed, and Peter Jackson said that he has a complete, life-sized Bag End sitting in storage, ready to reassemble on the side of some hill.
I think he cracked a joke about building it somewhere and living in it, but hey, this way they can just break it out of storage and rebuild it and it will be the same set from Fellowship... instant continuity.
I like the "happy anime face" on the Dreamcast (last pic down).
Also, I wonder how long it will be before someone decides to one-up this effort and make functional plushie versions of these. Now THAT would earn you bragging rights. Or, well, eternal shame, depending.
Well, if they're running IE, they'll have plenty of popups hawking merchandise... Nearly the same thing.
Sadly, I'm so out of touch -- it's been so long since I've been to Disneyland, I never realized they shut this ride down (Inner Space). This and Space Mountain were my absolute favorite rides as a kid.
I'm sad to find out (very belatedly) that it's gone, but happy to see that someone is doing something to preserve it. Even looking at those images of the huge ice flakes brings back a lot of very old memories.
OK, now THAT I'd actually pay to see.
I have a question. I'm no network engineer, so I don't really know... how would ISPs enforce something like this? Isn't the whole notion of a P2P network that you can't really control it? How would ISPs monitor when users are sharing files and put a stop to it?
Or are we talking about something that's essentially unenforceable, but ARIA wants it enforced anyway?
This is funny considering that consoles are becoming more like PCs all the time. The X-Box especially, with its hard drive and modified Windows OS, is a herald of things to come. As users demand more complexity and sophistication from console games, the consoles themselves will become more sophisticated, which means more chances for things to go wrong.
I have a friend with an X-Box who's already had to exchange it because the HD on it went kablooey. Remind you of any PC users you know?
Also, I've often predicted that once internet connectivity becomes the norm for consoles, game companies will slip into the "ship now, patch later" mentality that so far console gamers have escaped from -- but I believe those days to be numbered.
I will agree that it seems extremely unlikely. The last thing Return of the King needs is a shot of hype in the arm to generate more revenue. The article points to it being a $3 billion franchise. I think they're doing ok for themselves.
:)
And as for not wanting any loose ends in ROTK... he's got one. Saruman's final scene in Two Towers isn't substantive enough to infer that he's been thoroughly defeated, despite what Jackson says. I just wish he would have had the foresight to decide which movie it WOULD have been workable in, and left it in there.
I should mention too that this is not all principle talking; I am a huge Christopher Lee fan and I want to see him in the movie, dammit
What tools do you use to help you decide which movies to see?
A nickel.
Heads we see Daddy Day Care, tails we go home and pound nails through our hands.
I agree with you, and I am glad he's putting the scenes back in the extended edition, I just think that as an actor Christopher Lee does not deserve to be cut from the theatrical release. Not everyone is going to buy the extended edition.
Of course, based on the success of Lord of the Rings we can probably expect a truly God-awful movie adaptation of Dragonlance to roll into production pretty soon.
I can already see it now... Keanu Reeves as Tanis Half-Elven, Tara Reid as Laurana, a CGI-reduced Kris Kristofferson as Flint and Pauly Shore as Tasselhoff... okay, I have to stop, I'm making myself sick.
I know people are tired of hearing about this... but if the movie is going to be so huge, and so successful, and make such enormous bank for the studio and for Jackson, then please just put in Christopher Lee's seven minutes of Saruman footage.
It's not going to break the damn film one way or the other. Christopher Lee is a screen legend and reads Lord of the Rings every year. This is the culmination of a lifelong dream for him, and frankly, the man does not have a wealth of years left to him. So many fans want to see it, and if Peter Jackson idolizes Christopher Lee so much he should do him the courtesy and the honor of letting him appear in what may well be the last great film he will appear in.
I am not confident that he will, but I really hope Jackson changes his mind on this at the last minute. Seven minutes out of three hours, out of nine or twelve plus hours of movie total -- what in the hell could it possibly hurt at this point?
Sorry to belabor this point, but reading the review led me to read some other Return of the King news, and how Christopher Lee will not be attending the premiere of Return of the King because he is so upset. After all that talk on the commentaries and documentary about what a close-knit bunch of friends they are, this seems like a cruel and unecessary snub to Mr. Lee.
I agree with you. I should have qualified that as "from a film perspective" -- I think the parallel you're talking about is fascinating in the books, but nearly impossible to bring to a film such as this in any way that is both meaningful and can fit in the running time.
Well, I can't help you out much with the other things, but the Huorns are back in the film with the extended DVD cut.
I think they round out Faramir's character very nicely as well. He is much more three-dimensional in the extended cut and the added footage solves a lot of problems I had with his character in the theatrical cut.
On the list of things in a fantasy movie we can list as impossible and / or unlikely, that particular scene is a pretty obscure nit to pick.
Elves are immortal beings who don't sleep, I think we can fudge reality enough to say he can jump onto the back of a moving horse.
Agreed, that is easily my least favorite scene in the movie.
Interestingly enough, in one of the documentaries, Orlando Bloom admits that the scene probably made "Tolkien roll over in his grave," but was true to the spirit of how Peter Jackson saw Legolas. Which is all it comes down to, really.
I thought that one was a bit much, but overall I have been a pretty big fan of Ass-Kicking Legloas and his bow that never misses. I find it a joy to watch.
Plus, saints who can do no wrong and can shrug off any temptation make pretty dull characters.
If you watch the extended edition of Two Towers, it outlines the tragedy of both Boromir and Faramir very poignantly -- Denethor puts all his faith in Boromir, and shuns Faramir as a failure and a weakling. Faramir desperately wants to "prove his quality" to his father, but doesn't have the opportunity.
Then Boromir goes off and fails, and dies -- and no doubt we will see Denethor saying his lines "why couldn't it have been Faramir?" somewhere in Return of the King.
So now Faramir finds the Ring coming into his possession, and finally has a chance to finish what his brother has started, redeem himself in the eyes of his father, and perhaps save all Gondor and Middle-Earth while he's at it (so he thinks anyway).
No slight intended to the great Professor Tolkien, but I found this much more interesting as a plot than goody-two-shoes Faramir who sits the hobbits down, has a nice chat, and then lets them go. It paints both Boromir and Faramir as wonderfully tragic characters, where in the books I found Boromir a tad unsympathetic and Faramir a trifle dull.
Because they aren't able to include the entire lengthy, involved Scouring of the Shire subplot in the third movie doesn't mean they won't do something to address the central theme of the book. They've shown themselves pretty faitfhul to the themes and spirit of Tolkien so far, in my opinion -- I doubt they will just gloss this one over.
A little sarcasm-deficient I see.
He DID resist the Ring. Just not right away. He let Frodo go, presumably at the cost of his own life (though we all know that's not going to happen).
The main problem, I think, is that in a visual medium you have to be reminded physically of a threat as ephemeral as the Ring. In the book it's perfectly workable to say that the Ring is an evil influence and leave it at that; in a series of three-hour films, a general audience is going to need some kind of reminder that it's there. The Ring itself, the centerpiece of the movies, barely appears in Two Towers as it is.
I think also it ties into the Ring growing more powerful as it grows closer to Mordor, and also getting more desperate to find someone whom it CAN tempt. Galadriel's little spiel near the middle of the movie sets this up, and I think the conflict with Faramir pays it off.