When they came for the Simpsons, I didn't speak up because I didn't watch Simpsons...
When they came for the Britney Spears albums, I didn't speak up because I didn't listen to Britney Spears...
When they burned all the books in the whole wide world and replaced them with e-books that couldn't be copied or purchased, I didn't speak up because reading is for sissies...
When they introduced a drug that shortened the memories of everyone to a few seconds so that live theater could not be illegally "stored" in human memory, I didn't speak up because I'd seen Cats enough times already...
Then they came for my tinfoil hat and by that time there was no one left to speak up!
Though I don't advise anyone else to sell / do without their television (in my experience, people get very defensive and personal about it very quickly, as if you're attacking a member of their family), I have been without it for a few years now, and I don't miss it a bit.
I used to be a big-time TV junkie. I thought I couldn't live without Star Trek, Simpsons, Homicide, whatever... to the point where I would pass on social engagements to watch the shows, fly into rages when the VCR didn't record the show correctly (or it was pre-empted), etc. etc... and then I just stopped watching it and found out that yes, I could live without it, pretty easily.
I still do have it, for occasionally watching the movies that I own, or playing some Dreamcast when friends come over, but that's about it. But in the meantime, I've caught up on my reading, the house is quieter, the nights are longer (it's true) and I actually talk to my SO during meals again. Not a bad trade.
Oddly enough, the biggest hassle I get from not watching television is from people who can't believe I don't. I've seen reactions ranging from shock and disbelief to anger and hostility. The thing I hear most often is "Oh, so you're one of those KILL YOUR TELEVISION people?" No, I just killed mine, you can let yours live if you want.
Well, don't feel bad. Some of the "deleted scenes" were added back into the movie. Beats me why they are in the "deleted scenes" section, too. Why have it in two places? It's a mystery.
There is. There is a longer "air-taxi" scene on Coruscant, when Anakin and Jar Jar are on their way to see Palpatine. Also, the second lap of the pod race is extended by a few scenes.
It doesn't really amount to very much -- probably less than a minute or so of new footage overall. But it's enough to bug me, mostly because I don't like any of the stuff they added to the podrace.
Except for the casual, non-fanboy consumer who just wants to pay $20 or $25 for a vanilla version of the DVD and have done with it, and have no interest in 6-disc sets, extra footage, or whatever.
Yes, exactly... I imagine it's the same reason you can't fast-forward through the ads, or that you have to look at ads in the first place even though you've purchased the movie... big $$$ for the studio.
The DVD revolution isn't really all it's cracked up to be, sadly.
I will be purchasing both versions of the movie, if for no other reason than I want to see the version of Fellowship that I saw in the theater.
While I am glad there will be some extra footage and other good stuff added to the November disc, I have been disappointed by "special editions" in the past. The Phantom Menace DVD, for instance (save your wisecracks), adds a lot of footage that I don't care for -- and there's no way to see the version I saw in the theater, save watching it on VHS (which I shouldn't have to do after shelling out the cash I did for the DVD).
Similarly, the Aliens Special Edition adds a lot of footage that's cool, but I feel it mars the pacing of the film and isn't necessary -- but there's no option to get rid of it and watch the film in its original form. (Unlike, for example, the Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition, which has an option to watch both versions.)
I have very fond memories of watching Fellowship in the theater, and while I am excited about the prospect of new footage, I don't really know what it's going to entail or how good it's going to be. And I want to be able to recreate the theater experience if I want to -- so I will be purchasing both, just in case.
If it turns out I have no use for the first DVD after November, I can always give it away or sell it on the cheap. It's less than the cost of one evening dining out. No big deal.
PS, is anyone else out there upset that his plan to do The Watchmen fell through? That would have been a fantastic film!
No, because I feel the great strength of Watchmen is in how perfectly suited it is to its medium. I think Watchmen is a damn near perfect example of what a graphic novel ought to be. And I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that most of what I love about Watchmen would not survive the transition to film. Hollywood has never hesitated to take a chainsaw to a good story.
I think that to assemble the movie like that would be pretty poor filmmaking. I can think of a lot of things in Lord of the Rings that I consider important to preserve, but that is not one of them. The story will be the same either way.
Yes it does, and how. In fact, immediately upon reading this story, I went to the Wayback Machine and checked out my personal website archive. There it was, material dating back to 1996 ("Oh God, no, not the digging man GIF!"). I made a new robots.txt file:
User-agent: * Disallow:/ # BITE ME WAYBACK MACHINE
... uploaded it, went back to the Wayback Machine, and got:
Robots.txt Query Exclusion.
We're sorry, access to [site] has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt. Read more about robots.txt See the site's robots.txt file. Try another request or click here to search for all pages on [site]
So, yeah, they seem to check the site for the most current robots.txt file before they show the archive. And if the robots.txt disallows archiving the site, ALL the entries are marked unavailable, not just the current ones.
So, it's pretty easy to solve the problem of the Wayback Machine -- and probably without going balls-out with the "disallow everything everywhere" like I did.
For some, that may not be the source of their negativity. For others, it is. I've talked to more than one person who believes movie FX should go back to stop-motion and puppets en masse.
There was a CG Yoda in Episode I. When he walks, in the Jedi council, that's CG. There's a distinct lack of puppeteer in that scene.
Yeah, I remember that. The difference being that he was only CG for that one scene, and a puppet for the rest of it. Also, in the E1 scene, he's just walking -- not talking or engaging in any facial expressions -- I would surmise, because they were still experimenting with Jar Jar to see if a CG character could work (and for obvious reasons, not wanting to screw Yoda up.) Good call, though.
Did you actually read the article? The rough flow (if you slog through all five pages of it) is: Animators make CG Yoda, Lucas tells them to make CG Yoda fight, animators whine, audiences love the scene, animators admit they were wrong. The point of the article is that that fight was a good scene. It's not clear that the submitter made it to the final page of the article, either.
I was speaking more to the reactions I read on/. than the article itself. My bad for not making that clearer.
Tuesday afternoon matinees at our local theater cost five bucks. I like Star Wars, but I've yet to pay for an evening showing (which is more like eight bucks).
... instead of drawing lightsabers, Yoda (who would be a puppet, because believing a CG image is Yoda is so much harder than believing a wad of latex with Frank Oz's hand up its ass is Yoda) should have fought Dooku by using the Force to summon a clunky ethereal knight (done in cheap front projection of course; matte lines just look more -real-, and matching color palettes are for sissies), who then fight in jerky slow-motion.
During this battle, there is much groaning, pantomiming, and grimacing (except for Yoda, who has only two expressions: "furrow brows" and "lower ears." That's okay though, because PUPPETS GOOD.) Then, at the end, when there is a big flash of light (all done with squibs), Dooku says "You never could beat me, Egg Shen."
Yeah, that totally would have been worth my five bucks.
(Oh, and bring back Mr. Perfect, Irvin "Empire Strikes Back, Robocop II, SeaQuest DSV" Kershner to direct, because that man can do no wrong. Just watch that Amazing Stories episode "Hell Toupee.")
Please, take off the rose-colored glasses. The special effects technology of Star Wars has always, always, always been a work in progress. Watch the difference in space battles, and the lightsaber battles, between Episodes IV-VI. They make a quantum leap in sophistication, complexity, and speed.
That's because FX technology was, and is, always developing. This expectation that CG is somehow infallibe, and all its imagery should somehow be perfect and consistent, is rubbish. There's probably a very good reason there wasn't a CGI Yoda in Episode I -- and he will probably look much better in Episode III -- just like everything else.
Star Wars has always been about pushing the technological envelope as far as it will go. Sometimes it works. Sometimes they drop the ball. This has not changed since 1977. Look at any of the movies and you will find places where the special effects are truly great, and places where they stink on ice. Why all of a sudden this warrants another "George Lucas sucks" troll of a story is beyond me.
If they use computer graphics instead of actually filming it, not only will people be completely unimpressed, but they will bitch about how fake the CGI looks, regardless of how fake it actually looks, and talk about how much better it would have been if it had been made with stop-motion by Ray Harryhausen himself.
I think they're going for "actually filming it" as a more impressive effect than using CG.
The affects of environmental damage are incremental, so it will take an enlightened authority to force these changes on society.
Our society being what it is, I think it's a question of profitability rather than enlightenment. Enlightenment (in regards to environmental well-being) generally means nothing to anybody's bottom line and thus, in terms of capitalist society, is meaningless.
Corporations and / or government will do something about environmental damage when it becomes profitable, or when it becomes too expensive NOT to do anything about it, or when it's too late. Not before.
That's not the future, that's just the past coming full circle. A lot of the old radio programs from the 40s would do just that -- stop the story in the middle so the characters could talk for five minutes about how great Rinso White laundry soap or Borden Powdered Milk was.
I've spent more time than I like to think about defending Star Wars on Slashdot over the years, but if he puts Jar Jar in Episode IV, I'm going to drive out to Skywalker Ranch and throttle him with my bare hands.
Even the most die-hard Star Wars sucker has his limits.
I liked the Yoda lightsaber-fight scene for precisely that reason: everybody expected Dooku and Yoda to have a "Big Trouble in Little China" style fight where they point their fists at each other and make straining faces.
"You never could beat me, Egg Shen."
Anyone I talk to says that's how they imagined Yoda fighting. His fight scene flew straight in the face of that assumption, and showed that Yoda is definitely not to be underestimated -- even when it comes to lightsaber fights. I appreciated it for that.
Slashdot Mirror
When they came for the Simpsons, I didn't speak up because I didn't watch Simpsons...
When they came for the Britney Spears albums, I didn't speak up because I didn't listen to Britney Spears...
When they burned all the books in the whole wide world and replaced them with e-books that couldn't be copied or purchased, I didn't speak up because reading is for sissies...
When they introduced a drug that shortened the memories of everyone to a few seconds so that live theater could not be illegally "stored" in human memory, I didn't speak up because I'd seen Cats enough times already...
Then they came for my tinfoil hat and by that time there was no one left to speak up!
Though I don't advise anyone else to sell / do without their television (in my experience, people get very defensive and personal about it very quickly, as if you're attacking a member of their family), I have been without it for a few years now, and I don't miss it a bit.
I used to be a big-time TV junkie. I thought I couldn't live without Star Trek, Simpsons, Homicide, whatever... to the point where I would pass on social engagements to watch the shows, fly into rages when the VCR didn't record the show correctly (or it was pre-empted), etc. etc... and then I just stopped watching it and found out that yes, I could live without it, pretty easily.
I still do have it, for occasionally watching the movies that I own, or playing some Dreamcast when friends come over, but that's about it. But in the meantime, I've caught up on my reading, the house is quieter, the nights are longer (it's true) and I actually talk to my SO during meals again. Not a bad trade.
Oddly enough, the biggest hassle I get from not watching television is from people who can't believe I don't. I've seen reactions ranging from shock and disbelief to anger and hostility. The thing I hear most often is "Oh, so you're one of those KILL YOUR TELEVISION people?" No, I just killed mine, you can let yours live if you want.
Well, don't feel bad. Some of the "deleted scenes" were added back into the movie. Beats me why they are in the "deleted scenes" section, too. Why have it in two places? It's a mystery.
There is. There is a longer "air-taxi" scene on Coruscant, when Anakin and Jar Jar are on their way to see Palpatine. Also, the second lap of the pod race is extended by a few scenes.
It doesn't really amount to very much -- probably less than a minute or so of new footage overall. But it's enough to bug me, mostly because I don't like any of the stuff they added to the podrace.
Sorry, you said something positive about George Lucas, please turn in your Slashdot license at the desk on your way out. Thanks.
Except for the casual, non-fanboy consumer who just wants to pay $20 or $25 for a vanilla version of the DVD and have done with it, and have no interest in 6-disc sets, extra footage, or whatever.
Yes, exactly... I imagine it's the same reason you can't fast-forward through the ads, or that you have to look at ads in the first place even though you've purchased the movie... big $$$ for the studio.
The DVD revolution isn't really all it's cracked up to be, sadly.
I will be purchasing both versions of the movie, if for no other reason than I want to see the version of Fellowship that I saw in the theater.
While I am glad there will be some extra footage and other good stuff added to the November disc, I have been disappointed by "special editions" in the past. The Phantom Menace DVD, for instance (save your wisecracks), adds a lot of footage that I don't care for -- and there's no way to see the version I saw in the theater, save watching it on VHS (which I shouldn't have to do after shelling out the cash I did for the DVD).
Similarly, the Aliens Special Edition adds a lot of footage that's cool, but I feel it mars the pacing of the film and isn't necessary -- but there's no option to get rid of it and watch the film in its original form. (Unlike, for example, the Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition, which has an option to watch both versions.)
I have very fond memories of watching Fellowship in the theater, and while I am excited about the prospect of new footage, I don't really know what it's going to entail or how good it's going to be. And I want to be able to recreate the theater experience if I want to -- so I will be purchasing both, just in case.
If it turns out I have no use for the first DVD after November, I can always give it away or sell it on the cheap. It's less than the cost of one evening dining out. No big deal.
I have a feeling they may have been saving the Sword of Anduril bit for The Two Towers... you know, when he actually goes to war.
I could be wrong, it's just a hunch.
No, because I feel the great strength of Watchmen is in how perfectly suited it is to its medium. I think Watchmen is a damn near perfect example of what a graphic novel ought to be. And I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that most of what I love about Watchmen would not survive the transition to film. Hollywood has never hesitated to take a chainsaw to a good story.
I seriously hope Watchmen never becomes a movie.
I wonder if the time is approaching that mainstream America is ready for a superheroine movie that isn't a joke or B-movie trash...
God, I hope not!
Working title: "Superman Vs. Batman: The Last Thing You'd Ever Want To Sit Through."
I think that to assemble the movie like that would be pretty poor filmmaking. I can think of a lot of things in Lord of the Rings that I consider important to preserve, but that is not one of them. The story will be the same either way.
Yes it does, and how. In fact, immediately upon reading this story, I went to the Wayback Machine and checked out my personal website archive. There it was, material dating back to 1996 ("Oh God, no, not the digging man GIF!"). I made a new robots.txt file:
/
User-agent: *
Disallow:
# BITE ME WAYBACK MACHINE
... uploaded it, went back to the Wayback Machine, and got:
Robots.txt Query Exclusion.
We're sorry, access to [site] has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.
Read more about robots.txt
See the site's robots.txt file.
Try another request or click here to search for all pages on [site]
So, yeah, they seem to check the site for the most current robots.txt file before they show the archive. And if the robots.txt disallows archiving the site, ALL the entries are marked unavailable, not just the current ones.
So, it's pretty easy to solve the problem of the Wayback Machine -- and probably without going balls-out with the "disallow everything everywhere" like I did.
For some, that may not be the source of their negativity. For others, it is. I've talked to more than one person who believes movie FX should go back to stop-motion and puppets en masse.
Yeah, I remember that. The difference being that he was only CG for that one scene, and a puppet for the rest of it. Also, in the E1 scene, he's just walking -- not talking or engaging in any facial expressions -- I would surmise, because they were still experimenting with Jar Jar to see if a CG character could work (and for obvious reasons, not wanting to screw Yoda up.) Good call, though.
Did you actually read the article? The rough flow (if you slog through all five pages of it) is: Animators make CG Yoda, Lucas tells them to make CG Yoda fight, animators whine, audiences love the scene, animators admit they were wrong. The point of the article is that that fight was a good scene. It's not clear that the submitter made it to the final page of the article, either.
I was speaking more to the reactions I read on /. than the article itself. My bad for not making that clearer.
Tuesday afternoon matinees at our local theater cost five bucks. I like Star Wars, but I've yet to pay for an evening showing (which is more like eight bucks).
... instead of drawing lightsabers, Yoda (who would be a puppet, because believing a CG image is Yoda is so much harder than believing a wad of latex with Frank Oz's hand up its ass is Yoda) should have fought Dooku by using the Force to summon a clunky ethereal knight (done in cheap front projection of course; matte lines just look more -real-, and matching color palettes are for sissies), who then fight in jerky slow-motion.
During this battle, there is much groaning, pantomiming, and grimacing (except for Yoda, who has only two expressions: "furrow brows" and "lower ears." That's okay though, because PUPPETS GOOD.) Then, at the end, when there is a big flash of light (all done with squibs), Dooku says "You never could beat me, Egg Shen."
Yeah, that totally would have been worth my five bucks.
(Oh, and bring back Mr. Perfect, Irvin "Empire Strikes Back, Robocop II, SeaQuest DSV" Kershner to direct, because that man can do no wrong. Just watch that Amazing Stories episode "Hell Toupee.")
Please, take off the rose-colored glasses. The special effects technology of Star Wars has always, always, always been a work in progress. Watch the difference in space battles, and the lightsaber battles, between Episodes IV-VI. They make a quantum leap in sophistication, complexity, and speed.
That's because FX technology was, and is, always developing. This expectation that CG is somehow infallibe, and all its imagery should somehow be perfect and consistent, is rubbish. There's probably a very good reason there wasn't a CGI Yoda in Episode I -- and he will probably look much better in Episode III -- just like everything else.
Star Wars has always been about pushing the technological envelope as far as it will go. Sometimes it works. Sometimes they drop the ball. This has not changed since 1977. Look at any of the movies and you will find places where the special effects are truly great, and places where they stink on ice. Why all of a sudden this warrants another "George Lucas sucks" troll of a story is beyond me.
If they use computer graphics instead of actually filming it, not only will people be completely unimpressed, but they will bitch about how fake the CGI looks, regardless of how fake it actually looks, and talk about how much better it would have been if it had been made with stop-motion by Ray Harryhausen himself.
I think they're going for "actually filming it" as a more impressive effect than using CG.
Actually I think it was not "the Mantis" but M.A.N.T.I.S. Gotta love a superhero who's an acronym.
The affects of environmental damage are incremental, so it will take an enlightened authority to force these changes on society.
Our society being what it is, I think it's a question of profitability rather than enlightenment. Enlightenment (in regards to environmental well-being) generally means nothing to anybody's bottom line and thus, in terms of capitalist society, is meaningless.
Corporations and / or government will do something about environmental damage when it becomes profitable, or when it becomes too expensive NOT to do anything about it, or when it's too late. Not before.
That's not the future, that's just the past coming full circle. A lot of the old radio programs from the 40s would do just that -- stop the story in the middle so the characters could talk for five minutes about how great Rinso White laundry soap or Borden Powdered Milk was.
Okay, stupid question time... why not?
I've spent more time than I like to think about defending Star Wars on Slashdot over the years, but if he puts Jar Jar in Episode IV, I'm going to drive out to Skywalker Ranch and throttle him with my bare hands.
Even the most die-hard Star Wars sucker has his limits.
I liked the Yoda lightsaber-fight scene for precisely that reason: everybody expected Dooku and Yoda to have a "Big Trouble in Little China" style fight where they point their fists at each other and make straining faces.
"You never could beat me, Egg Shen."
Anyone I talk to says that's how they imagined Yoda fighting. His fight scene flew straight in the face of that assumption, and showed that Yoda is definitely not to be underestimated -- even when it comes to lightsaber fights. I appreciated it for that.