Well, that'd be funnier if Star Wars wasn't one of the only movie franchises left in the world that doesn't have any product placement at all in any of the the movies, ever. Lord of the Rings is the only other mainstream movie in recent memory that doesn't.
So, I don't know if that is supposed to be a wry criticism of Lucas, or what, but there isn't much to go on from that angle. Now, if you want to make fun of massive merchandising outside the movie theater, then you've got grist for the mill.
And "Greedo" isn't? Seriously, though, that kind of stuff has been all over Star Wars ever since the first movie. They give a lot of the background characters goofy names. I doubt Sleazebaggano will actually be mentioned by name in the film.
Comic relief was definitely part of the original vision, but many people here believe that EP 4, 5 and 6 were not just kiddie movies, but appealed to adults as well.
I don't think they actually appeal to adults all that much, but to overgrown kids. Don't get me wrong, I don't see that as a bad thing -- but the Star Wars movies are not "adult" films. They're adolescent pablum.
That's interesting. I often find the reverse to be true. I've seen knockout trailers for movies that turn out to be junk -- so often, in fact, that I have very little faith in trailers anymore.
The Time Machine strikes me as one of those "adventures beyond your imagination!" which is not only not "beyond" or an "adventure," but also contains no "imagination."
I don't mean to be snide, but I can't imagine how anyone could watch that trailer and think for one second that this movie would be any good. First is the opening scene with Orlando Jones (isn't he the "7-Up Yours" guy?) as Computerized Annoying Moron. Okay, singing computer guy! Jokes about recombining DNA! There's the red flag! Stop! Go no further!
One could lull themselves into a false sense of security by thinking it's just a gag made for the trailer, but he shows up again in the movie trying to be spooky ("the truth is beyond your wildest nightmares of CGI Rorscharch blots etc."), so, at that point, shouldn't huge warning bells be going off in your head? They sure were mine. I was only slightly more inclined to see this movie than Queen of the Damned with Liberace Alia.
As for the Morlocks, they look just like the animations in Planet of the Apes. I remember when the awful Roland Emmerich Godzilla came out in 1998, and all the "baby Godzillas" came out, tripping on gumballs, looking exactly like raptors from Jurassic Park -- I strongly suspect they just lifted the kinematic libraries wholesale. I wouldn't be surprised to learn The Time Machine did the same thing, ripping off Planet of the Apes instead.
I will probably see this on rental, just for grins (and I have a friend who works at a video store and gets all her rentals for free, so I'll bum it off her... there, no money to the MPAA, my Slashdot-social conscience is satisfied! Whew!)
In the meantime, all I want to know is, did Guy Pearce punch out Jeremy Irons, or knock him off a cliff, or impale him on a piece of broken machinery, then say, "Time's up, asshole!"? Because I have this bet going and I don't want to have to sit through the movie to know if I won.
It is, but tacky and successful are often anything but mutually exclusive, as American Pie, South Park, and any and every reality show on television will readily demonstrate.
I have to agree with that last part. I fought with chronic insomnia for months, until I started exercising regularly. After that, my sleeping problems disappeared -- until I stopped working out, at which point they returned. There's your scientific method at work!:/
Judging from the number of married people I know whose spouses spend lots of post-argument time "on the couch," I'm not sure the distinction changes much.
Of the three women in my guild, two have husbands - you know, real ones they sleep with - who play the game.
Married people, sleeping together? Okay, now who's living in a fantasy world?
Re:You might be a JonKatz article if...
on
Heart of the Net
·
· Score: 2
Dammit! I knew there was something.
You might be a JonKatz article if...
on
Heart of the Net
·
· Score: 5, Funny
You might be a JonKatz article if your article...
Starts with a sweeping generalization based on nothing but a vague idea of Katz's ("It seemed the Net always had a heart... like the Tin Man.")
Asks histrionic, theoretical questions by the end of the first paragraph ("Is this culture dying out? Is the world about to change forever? Is Technology X dead? Will Flash Gordon escape from the Pit of the Morlocks?")
Insists on using phrases like "cyber", "cyber-geeks", and "Wired magazine guru", when even Dateline NBC's Jane Pauley finds them too unhip to say anymore.
Features the Bleeding Obvious lead sentence. ("The Net has evolved, and radically. Bears are shitting in the woods, and in great numbers. Despite the machinations of cyber-geek hack information guerillas everywhere, the Pope is still Catholic.")
Sports CmdrTaco style proofreading ("Briefly, Napster was the heart of the Net, and the Napster era -- now over -- one of it's [sic] most pivotal periods.")
Maintains four-color, Jack Kirby philosophy of good vs. evil (Napster good, corporations bad; Napster frees us from the "hoary grip" of the record companies, much like the Fantastic Four escaping from the clutches of Mole Man.)
Uses lots and lots of passive voice
Wraps up with a nattering, waffling conclusion ("It isn't yet possible to know if this is a good or bad thing. The flowering of individual ideas is astounding; it's also a cacophony and something of a trap. Have you ever looked at your thumb? I mean really looked at it? Do you think bees dream?")
You don't have to be a mechanic to drive a car, but it is helpful when driving a car to know how the car operates.
When learning to drive a vehicle, people usually don't flap their hands and refuse to learn anything about how it works, claiming "oh, I'm just no good with cars," and then, after driving it into a telephone pole, exclaim "but it should have worked! Why didn't it to what I want?" Yet I see this kind of philosophy all the time when it comes to computers.
Also, people who own vehicles usually don't drive it for years, refusing to put in gasoline or oil, or have any routine maintenance performed on it, even when danger signs start cropping up, then express amazement and disgust at Bill Gates when the thing finally breaks. Yet, again, I see people treat their computers like this. These aren't stupid people, either; these were the Ph.Ds I worked with at my school.
You don't have to be a musician to enjoy music; however, it does help to know how to operate a CD player. And it doesn't matter how idiot-proof it is, some people just do not have what it takes.
I know plenty of people who aren't "technically inclined" who function perfectly well with their computers and their Eudora or AOL. I also know people who aren't "technically inclined" who can't resize their browser window without calling the help desk -- every time. Yet, they refuse to learn. This isn't elitist, it's just the way things are.
I think a great deal of the charm Indiana Jones is that he isn't (and never was) a young, virile, squeaky-clean hero. Witness the scene in Raiders where he is wincing as he takes off his clothes, groaning "it's not the years, it's the mileage." He gets beat up, shot up, and sometimes limps or blunders his way through his adventures.
If Ford is willing to do the role, I have no issues with his age. I think it'd fit right in the role.
Actually, I thought both Mummy movies would have been significantly improved by casting someone other than Fraser. He tries hard, but is too goofy-looking to be convincing as a hero.
Plus, it would help to have someon who even remotely resembles Harrison Ford. River Phoenix wasn't the spitting image, but he could pull off a convincing imitation. I don't think Brendan Fraser could.
I don't have any problems with him as an actor, but I don't think he's suited to the role.
I think the more interesting question is, "George Lucas actually listened to his fans? Does this mean his fans will stop whining and / or give him a couple points for backtracking on this one?"
I'm guessing not. Putting N'Sync in must have been a greedy publicity stunt (and not an attempt to please his daughter), so pulling them out must also be a greedy publicity stunt (and not actually listening to his fans).
I actually kind of feel sorry for N'Sync. I've never seen them and don't listen to their music, so I don't give a flying leap about them as a boy band -- but if I got a chance to be in a Star Wars movie, even for a few seconds, and then was told "no, sorry, you don't get to after all" because one long wail of fanboy outrage went up around the world -- well, needless to say, 1) I'd be pretty disappointed and 2) wouldn't think much of Star Wars fans in general after that.
Always assuming Lucas just genuinely wanted to do something nice for his kid and not rake in mad dough. Could be either or both, IMHO.
But Saruman was always a more interesting breed of evil than that...
I agree, but I really look to the books for that level of characterization. It may sound like a cop-out to say so, but there's no more detail of Saruman's evil than there is of Gandalf's good.
I agree that he's simplified, but 1) I consider that "the breaks" when viewing a movie adaptation, especially of a book so huge, and 2) seeing Christopher Lee in action makes me forgive the shortcoming.
Worse, it's looking pretty likely that he DIES in Two Towers: there is no Scouring of the Shire.
"9) Complete boxed set, the LAST TIME THE TRILOGY WILL EVER BE AVAILABLE IN THIS FORMAT!"
Ironically, after the Star Wars Special Greedo Shoots First Edition, I bet there are a lot of folks out there that wished they'd listened a little closer to that particular ad campaign...
I think Saruman's time to shine really comes in The Two Towers, where he delivers his speech to Theoden et. al. at Orthanc. He also gets a bit in Return of the King that will doubtlessly get expanded, if the first movie is any indication.
I think they knew they only had so much time to go around for character development, and focused on those characters that needed it most (Boromir, for example). Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas they can afford to gloss over a little -- they've got two more movies to develop their characters. No such luck for Boromir.
Once again the old adage proves true. If we fund fundamentalist, paramilitary, or resistance groups in far-off countries, they're "freedom fighters." If someone else funds them, they're "terrorists."
If someone puts a trojan or virus on your machine to spy on you, it's "cyberterrorism."
If the government puts a trojan or virus on your machine to spy on you, it's "domestic security."
"EverQuest will likely be around for at least a few more years, and its successors will probably take over the gaming industry for several reasons... oh, and third, there are the players who actually seem to enjoy adding more social elements to their gaming..."
I certainly hope you're wrong about persistent online gaming taking over the industry. If that's the case, I'm going to hang up the old joystick.
For me, socializing is socializing, gaming is gaming, and rarely the twain shall meet. I play games to enjoy myself and de-stress, and the last thing I really need is to do is log on and transport myself away to a magical faery world where "L0RDBADA$$23" and "SexyBiGrrrl8775" gather in Ye Old Inn and ask "hi how r u r u m or f? lol brb u sux." And then be PKed and have my corpse looted.
I've just never met an online game that I could get into. The plot and roleplaying elements are fine, but nothing I couldn't get from a single-player RPG, in general. And as for human interaction... while I'm sure there are a lot of intelligent players of EQ or UO out there who like to roleplay their characters, somehow I've never met them -- most everyone I've ever met playing either game has been the intellectual equivalent of the goatsex ACs or a deep-sea tube worm. Why would I pay American money to interact with people like that?
Single player games don't have server downtime, cheaters, whiners, politics, or require a credit card to keep playing them. UT bots don't try to crash the server when they start losing, or strip naked looking for cybersex.
I realize, of course, that I've probably just had one too many bad (and maybe even unusual) experiences that have soured me on the whole concept. I understand there are many people who have deeply satisfying and personally fulfilling hours of fun playing persistent MMORPGs. I'm very happy for them, but I prefer my games single-player, offline, and not charging me ten bucks a month for the privilege of continuing to play it.
I hope there are enough gamers out there with a similar outlook to sustain a market for single-player games. Because if persistent online worlds take over, I'm pretty much going back to chess.
Re:The Burning Question Everybody Wants to Know:
on
Good Games For Christmas?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
And exactly how smutty is the Sims Hot Date expansion? Personally, I'm hoping for Leisure Suit Larry-ultra. Maybe we can get the Linux community to create a Leather Goddesses of Phobos 3-d game.
Look, Sims Hot Date is $29.99. Penthouse will run you about five to six bucks. Just cut out the middle man.
I'm kidding. I actually own Hot Date, and it's entertaining enough (if a little buggy), but smutty it isn't, at all. Nor, I think, will the Sims ever be, as the "T" rating and lack of tit & ass / power armor / ludicrous gibs / seeing one's own reflection in the blood splattered on the wall from Sodomizer 5000 no doubt helps put Sims in the top ten sales rankings.
Not that I don't enjoy my Unreal Tournament, but the Sims is a nice change of pace from the usual fare of Decapitator III Online (now with bare-naveled mascot!) or what have you. I can get that kind of stuff anywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, that'd be funnier if Star Wars wasn't one of the only movie franchises left in the world that doesn't have any product placement at all in any of the the movies, ever. Lord of the Rings is the only other mainstream movie in recent memory that doesn't.
So, I don't know if that is supposed to be a wry criticism of Lucas, or what, but there isn't much to go on from that angle. Now, if you want to make fun of massive merchandising outside the movie theater, then you've got grist for the mill.
God save us all from Anakin/Amidala leaning off the edge of the death star. "I'm king of the world! YIPEEE!!!"
Uh, dude, the Death Star doesn't have an edge... it's a globe!!!
*cue burst of high-pitched, nerdy laughter*
And "Greedo" isn't? Seriously, though, that kind of stuff has been all over Star Wars ever since the first movie. They give a lot of the background characters goofy names. I doubt Sleazebaggano will actually be mentioned by name in the film.
Comic relief was definitely part of the original vision, but many people here believe that EP 4, 5 and 6 were not just kiddie movies, but appealed to adults as well.
I don't think they actually appeal to adults all that much, but to overgrown kids. Don't get me wrong, I don't see that as a bad thing -- but the Star Wars movies are not "adult" films. They're adolescent pablum.
That's interesting. I often find the reverse to be true. I've seen knockout trailers for movies that turn out to be junk -- so often, in fact, that I have very little faith in trailers anymore.
The Time Machine strikes me as one of those "adventures beyond your imagination!" which is not only not "beyond" or an "adventure," but also contains no "imagination."
I don't mean to be snide, but I can't imagine how anyone could watch that trailer and think for one second that this movie would be any good. First is the opening scene with Orlando Jones (isn't he the "7-Up Yours" guy?) as Computerized Annoying Moron. Okay, singing computer guy! Jokes about recombining DNA! There's the red flag! Stop! Go no further!
One could lull themselves into a false sense of security by thinking it's just a gag made for the trailer, but he shows up again in the movie trying to be spooky ("the truth is beyond your wildest nightmares of CGI Rorscharch blots etc."), so, at that point, shouldn't huge warning bells be going off in your head? They sure were mine. I was only slightly more inclined to see this movie than Queen of the Damned with Liberace Alia.
As for the Morlocks, they look just like the animations in Planet of the Apes . I remember when the awful Roland Emmerich Godzilla came out in 1998, and all the "baby Godzillas" came out, tripping on gumballs, looking exactly like raptors from Jurassic Park -- I strongly suspect they just lifted the kinematic libraries wholesale. I wouldn't be surprised to learn The Time Machine did the same thing, ripping off Planet of the Apes instead.
I will probably see this on rental, just for grins (and I have a friend who works at a video store and gets all her rentals for free, so I'll bum it off her... there, no money to the MPAA, my Slashdot-social conscience is satisfied! Whew!)
In the meantime, all I want to know is, did Guy Pearce punch out Jeremy Irons, or knock him off a cliff, or impale him on a piece of broken machinery, then say, "Time's up, asshole!"? Because I have this bet going and I don't want to have to sit through the movie to know if I won.
Yeah, I had "Thundertree" once. I was in the toilet nearly the whole day.
It is, but tacky and successful are often anything but mutually exclusive, as American Pie, South Park, and any and every reality show on television will readily demonstrate.
I have to agree with that last part. I fought with chronic insomnia for months, until I started exercising regularly. After that, my sleeping problems disappeared -- until I stopped working out, at which point they returned. There's your scientific method at work! :/
Judging from the number of married people I know whose spouses spend lots of post-argument time "on the couch," I'm not sure the distinction changes much.
If you haven't already, you might consider giving Hedwig and the Angry Inch a try. Great musical, great movie, in my opinion.
Married people, sleeping together? Okay, now who's living in a fantasy world?
Dammit! I knew there was something.
Starts with a sweeping generalization based on nothing but a vague idea of Katz's ("It seemed the Net always had a heart... like the Tin Man.")
Asks histrionic, theoretical questions by the end of the first paragraph ("Is this culture dying out? Is the world about to change forever? Is Technology X dead? Will Flash Gordon escape from the Pit of the Morlocks?")
Insists on using phrases like "cyber", "cyber-geeks", and "Wired magazine guru", when even Dateline NBC's Jane Pauley finds them too unhip to say anymore.
Features the Bleeding Obvious lead sentence. ("The Net has evolved, and radically. Bears are shitting in the woods, and in great numbers. Despite the machinations of cyber-geek hack information guerillas everywhere, the Pope is still Catholic.")
Sports CmdrTaco style proofreading ("Briefly, Napster was the heart of the Net, and the Napster era -- now over -- one of it's [sic] most pivotal periods.")
Maintains four-color, Jack Kirby philosophy of good vs. evil (Napster good, corporations bad; Napster frees us from the "hoary grip" of the record companies, much like the Fantastic Four escaping from the clutches of Mole Man.)
Uses lots and lots of passive voice
Wraps up with a nattering, waffling conclusion ("It isn't yet possible to know if this is a good or bad thing. The flowering of individual ideas is astounding; it's also a cacophony and something of a trap. Have you ever looked at your thumb? I mean really looked at it? Do you think bees dream?")
You don't have to be a mechanic to drive a car, but it is helpful when driving a car to know how the car operates.
When learning to drive a vehicle, people usually don't flap their hands and refuse to learn anything about how it works, claiming "oh, I'm just no good with cars," and then, after driving it into a telephone pole, exclaim "but it should have worked! Why didn't it to what I want?" Yet I see this kind of philosophy all the time when it comes to computers.
Also, people who own vehicles usually don't drive it for years, refusing to put in gasoline or oil, or have any routine maintenance performed on it, even when danger signs start cropping up, then express amazement and disgust at Bill Gates when the thing finally breaks. Yet, again, I see people treat their computers like this. These aren't stupid people, either; these were the Ph.Ds I worked with at my school.
You don't have to be a musician to enjoy music; however, it does help to know how to operate a CD player. And it doesn't matter how idiot-proof it is, some people just do not have what it takes.
I know plenty of people who aren't "technically inclined" who function perfectly well with their computers and their Eudora or AOL. I also know people who aren't "technically inclined" who can't resize their browser window without calling the help desk -- every time. Yet, they refuse to learn. This isn't elitist, it's just the way things are.
I think a great deal of the charm Indiana Jones is that he isn't (and never was) a young, virile, squeaky-clean hero. Witness the scene in Raiders where he is wincing as he takes off his clothes, groaning "it's not the years, it's the mileage." He gets beat up, shot up, and sometimes limps or blunders his way through his adventures.
If Ford is willing to do the role, I have no issues with his age. I think it'd fit right in the role.
Actually, I thought both Mummy movies would have been significantly improved by casting someone other than Fraser. He tries hard, but is too goofy-looking to be convincing as a hero.
Plus, it would help to have someon who even remotely resembles Harrison Ford. River Phoenix wasn't the spitting image, but he could pull off a convincing imitation. I don't think Brendan Fraser could.
I don't have any problems with him as an actor, but I don't think he's suited to the role.
I think the more interesting question is, "George Lucas actually listened to his fans? Does this mean his fans will stop whining and / or give him a couple points for backtracking on this one?"
I'm guessing not. Putting N'Sync in must have been a greedy publicity stunt (and not an attempt to please his daughter), so pulling them out must also be a greedy publicity stunt (and not actually listening to his fans).
I actually kind of feel sorry for N'Sync. I've never seen them and don't listen to their music, so I don't give a flying leap about them as a boy band -- but if I got a chance to be in a Star Wars movie, even for a few seconds, and then was told "no, sorry, you don't get to after all" because one long wail of fanboy outrage went up around the world -- well, needless to say, 1) I'd be pretty disappointed and 2) wouldn't think much of Star Wars fans in general after that.
Always assuming Lucas just genuinely wanted to do something nice for his kid and not rake in mad dough. Could be either or both, IMHO.
I agree, but I really look to the books for that level of characterization. It may sound like a cop-out to say so, but there's no more detail of Saruman's evil than there is of Gandalf's good.
I agree that he's simplified, but 1) I consider that "the breaks" when viewing a movie adaptation, especially of a book so huge, and 2) seeing Christopher Lee in action makes me forgive the shortcoming.
Worse, it's looking pretty likely that he DIES in Two Towers: there is no Scouring of the Shire.
Where did you come by this information?
"9) Complete boxed set, the LAST TIME THE TRILOGY WILL EVER BE AVAILABLE IN THIS FORMAT!"
Ironically, after the Star Wars Special Greedo Shoots First Edition, I bet there are a lot of folks out there that wished they'd listened a little closer to that particular ad campaign...
I think Saruman's time to shine really comes in The Two Towers, where he delivers his speech to Theoden et. al. at Orthanc. He also gets a bit in Return of the King that will doubtlessly get expanded, if the first movie is any indication.
I think they knew they only had so much time to go around for character development, and focused on those characters that needed it most (Boromir, for example). Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas they can afford to gloss over a little -- they've got two more movies to develop their characters. No such luck for Boromir.
Once again the old adage proves true. If we fund fundamentalist, paramilitary, or resistance groups in far-off countries, they're "freedom fighters." If someone else funds them, they're "terrorists."
If someone puts a trojan or virus on your machine to spy on you, it's "cyberterrorism."
If the government puts a trojan or virus on your machine to spy on you, it's "domestic security."
Funny? Why is that funny? Is there a +1, The Very Notion Fills Me With A Cold, Abject Terror?
"EverQuest will likely be around for at least a few more years, and its successors will probably take over the gaming industry for several reasons... oh, and third, there are the players who actually seem to enjoy adding more social elements to their gaming..."
I certainly hope you're wrong about persistent online gaming taking over the industry. If that's the case, I'm going to hang up the old joystick.
For me, socializing is socializing, gaming is gaming, and rarely the twain shall meet. I play games to enjoy myself and de-stress, and the last thing I really need is to do is log on and transport myself away to a magical faery world where "L0RDBADA$$23" and "SexyBiGrrrl8775" gather in Ye Old Inn and ask "hi how r u r u m or f? lol brb u sux." And then be PKed and have my corpse looted.
I've just never met an online game that I could get into. The plot and roleplaying elements are fine, but nothing I couldn't get from a single-player RPG, in general. And as for human interaction... while I'm sure there are a lot of intelligent players of EQ or UO out there who like to roleplay their characters, somehow I've never met them -- most everyone I've ever met playing either game has been the intellectual equivalent of the goatsex ACs or a deep-sea tube worm. Why would I pay American money to interact with people like that?
Single player games don't have server downtime, cheaters, whiners, politics, or require a credit card to keep playing them. UT bots don't try to crash the server when they start losing, or strip naked looking for cybersex.
I realize, of course, that I've probably just had one too many bad (and maybe even unusual) experiences that have soured me on the whole concept. I understand there are many people who have deeply satisfying and personally fulfilling hours of fun playing persistent MMORPGs. I'm very happy for them, but I prefer my games single-player, offline, and not charging me ten bucks a month for the privilege of continuing to play it.
I hope there are enough gamers out there with a similar outlook to sustain a market for single-player games. Because if persistent online worlds take over, I'm pretty much going back to chess.
And exactly how smutty is the Sims Hot Date expansion? Personally, I'm hoping for Leisure Suit Larry-ultra. Maybe we can get the Linux community to create a Leather Goddesses of Phobos 3-d game.
Look, Sims Hot Date is $29.99. Penthouse will run you about five to six bucks. Just cut out the middle man.
I'm kidding. I actually own Hot Date, and it's entertaining enough (if a little buggy), but smutty it isn't, at all. Nor, I think, will the Sims ever be, as the "T" rating and lack of tit & ass / power armor / ludicrous gibs / seeing one's own reflection in the blood splattered on the wall from Sodomizer 5000 no doubt helps put Sims in the top ten sales rankings.
Not that I don't enjoy my Unreal Tournament, but the Sims is a nice change of pace from the usual fare of Decapitator III Online (now with bare-naveled mascot!) or what have you. I can get that kind of stuff anywhere.