If memory serves me, I believe it was AT&T (?) that used to have a similar webpage with near-perfect text-to-speech, which is hardly the case of this project.
Yes, sometimes it is pretty blatant, but I wouldn't be so harsh on them. First of all, to get the kind of light and photography they want, sometimes digital keying is the only way to go, and it's gotten pretty fucking amazing now (Avalon). Second of all, in CG heavy blue screen shots, it's sometimes all you've got to make the background match the close-up on Viggo. And third of all, the shooting was this rushed thing done by several teams at the same time, and since photographing a shot is such a delicate thing to do which needs a really talented team that wasn't always available so you need to cut them some slack. No movie at all, let alone one with such a huge budget has been shot under those conditions, and overall it's technically better than most blockbusters now.
Weta was founded by Peter Jackson to handle the special effects for his previous movies, which were very gory action movies involving zombies and aliens (Bad Taste, Dead Alive) and required a lot of prosthetics, face masks, etc. so he started Weta with a few friends to handle that.
Obviously when he started LotR they hired a lot and Weta now is nothing like Weta back when Peter Jackson was this virtually unknown independent director of gory horror movies from New Zealand, but he's still got the same team, and that's why they joke (around the beginning of the second bonus DVD in the FotR Extended DVD edition) about LotR being the biggest small-budget film ever made.
The Windows architecture is fucked up at the core, and adding new features over it, even though it seems like an improvement, is really just a time saver. If MS wants to make a good Win, they need to rebuild it from the ground up instead of adding clutter after clutter which makes it into even bigger elephantine bloatware.
An other problem is infrastructure. The reason we have Internet is because we have phone lines, electricity, and on a larger scale all those infrastructures that come into play such as houses (as opposed to shantytowns), roads, etc.
Anyone who's played Sim City will know, Internet is one piece of a much larger puzzle. Or, to use a more potent metaphor, what would probably be more productive is to provide the *framework* for a modern society, and, with enough investment, they can fill the gaps and eventually become economically independent.
The problem is, we don't want that. Because that would make them rivals.
If you take a look at the financial exchange between the industrialized and emerging countries, you'll notice that there is more money coming from them towards us than from us towards them : we're not helping them, we're getting rich off of them.
Even without taking directing, environement, graphical style etc. into account, Program and Second Renaissance are very different movies because of their intent : while the latter is about exploring and expanding the universe of The Matrix, Program is merely about using it (as well as the medieval Japan theme) as a backdrop for a story. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just saying the two approaches are wholly different and therefore it's pointless to compare the two movies.
Anyway, Program is evidently great, and the challenge of making the universe of the samurai-type film (aside from the setting, the theme of enlightenment through the way of martial arts is underlying throughout the movie) and an universe like that of The Matrix come together in a homogenous work is brillantly met (see the end of the fight).
Besides, the feeling you get ealry on that using the Matrix universe is just a pretext for an other Kawajiri samurai story quickly vanishes when you see how he masterfully exploits every possibility of such an universe (i.e. not contending with mere wire fu and bullet time), and most of all are narratively justified : the fancy effects aren't there just to spice up the action, but are justified by the emotions of the characters (the shot of the statue in the crevace, or the change of places (metaphor for the change of emotions of the characters)).
One could still blame the slightly stereotypical end and some narrative shortcuts concerning the characters (mainly Duo's emotions and motives) : you can feel how Kawajiri was limited by the "short film" format.
Slashdot Mirror
...if you ever dislike someone, report his phone stolen.
I choked on my 2am coffee when I read that!
Same here. I'd bet there are a hojillion of us out there with that history.
The 'felony' he speaks of comes from a law that is of a special kind: the kind of laws that we need to have, but are also meant never to be enforced.
After altering sigs because of RMS, what should we do now?
"It's daemon not demon damnit!"?
If memory serves me, I believe it was AT&T (?) that used to have a similar webpage with near-perfect text-to-speech, which is hardly the case of this project.
What's so special about it?
Exactly.
I liked the first few eps, but I think it turned to trash halfway through the first season.
Yes, sometimes it is pretty blatant, but I wouldn't be so harsh on them. First of all, to get the kind of light and photography they want, sometimes digital keying is the only way to go, and it's gotten pretty fucking amazing now (Avalon). Second of all, in CG heavy blue screen shots, it's sometimes all you've got to make the background match the close-up on Viggo. And third of all, the shooting was this rushed thing done by several teams at the same time, and since photographing a shot is such a delicate thing to do which needs a really talented team that wasn't always available so you need to cut them some slack. No movie at all, let alone one with such a huge budget has been shot under those conditions, and overall it's technically better than most blockbusters now.
Samwise Gamgee" Gandalf said once I think. I wish he had added "And trolls should shut up."
Weta was founded by Peter Jackson to handle the special effects for his previous movies, which were very gory action movies involving zombies and aliens (Bad Taste, Dead Alive) and required a lot of prosthetics, face masks, etc. so he started Weta with a few friends to handle that.
Obviously when he started LotR they hired a lot and Weta now is nothing like Weta back when Peter Jackson was this virtually unknown independent director of gory horror movies from New Zealand, but he's still got the same team, and that's why they joke (around the beginning of the second bonus DVD in the FotR Extended DVD edition) about LotR being the biggest small-budget film ever made.
The Windows architecture is fucked up at the core, and adding new features over it, even though it seems like an improvement, is really just a time saver. If MS wants to make a good Win, they need to rebuild it from the ground up instead of adding clutter after clutter which makes it into even bigger elephantine bloatware.
An other problem is infrastructure. The reason we have Internet is because we have phone lines, electricity, and on a larger scale all those infrastructures that come into play such as houses (as opposed to shantytowns), roads, etc.
Anyone who's played Sim City will know, Internet is one piece of a much larger puzzle. Or, to use a more potent metaphor, what would probably be more productive is to provide the *framework* for a modern society, and, with enough investment, they can fill the gaps and eventually become economically independent.
The problem is, we don't want that. Because that would make them rivals.
If you take a look at the financial exchange between the industrialized and emerging countries, you'll notice that there is more money coming from them towards us than from us towards them : we're not helping them, we're getting rich off of them.
Do I hear neo-colonialism?
We've got no food, but now we've got BROADBAND! (First post?)
Even without taking directing, environement, graphical style etc. into account, Program and Second Renaissance are very different movies because of their intent : while the latter is about exploring and expanding the universe of The Matrix, Program is merely about using it (as well as the medieval Japan theme) as a backdrop for a story. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just saying the two approaches are wholly different and therefore it's pointless to compare the two movies. Anyway, Program is evidently great, and the challenge of making the universe of the samurai-type film (aside from the setting, the theme of enlightenment through the way of martial arts is underlying throughout the movie) and an universe like that of The Matrix come together in a homogenous work is brillantly met (see the end of the fight). Besides, the feeling you get ealry on that using the Matrix universe is just a pretext for an other Kawajiri samurai story quickly vanishes when you see how he masterfully exploits every possibility of such an universe (i.e. not contending with mere wire fu and bullet time), and most of all are narratively justified : the fancy effects aren't there just to spice up the action, but are justified by the emotions of the characters (the shot of the statue in the crevace, or the change of places (metaphor for the change of emotions of the characters)). One could still blame the slightly stereotypical end and some narrative shortcuts concerning the characters (mainly Duo's emotions and motives) : you can feel how Kawajiri was limited by the "short film" format.
The artist leaving artistic control in the hands of a Hollywood producter? Boy, I can't wait! ...Am I the only one who smells disaster?