It is apparently in North America and Europe (from the article):
"most countries in North America and Europe" saw revenue decline "10-15% from record highs in 2008,"
Either way, the concept of a PC game is changing. It's not the retail box (or digital distribution) but "high end subscription gaming" that is driving the PC market. So games may not be altogether dying on a PC, but the concept of a game that we all recognize is changing for PCs...
A year or two vs. 5-6 years on a console. It's pretty obvious why consoles are taking over the game market. I gave up the patch/upgrade/tweak cycle a long time ago and pretty much only game on consoles. It hasn't really gotten better, and the PC games that I miss are games that I could still play on 5 year old hardware...
YMMV, but the upgrade wagon got old a long time ago for me.
As you get to the "max capability" of a graphics chip (or series), you decrease the amount of computers that are capable of that maximum capability. (Crysis comes to mind... how many machines when it first came out could run Crysis in its full glory?)
Theoretically capable and practically capable are two different things. The Amiga was capable of displaying 4096 colors (HAM mode), but there wasn't much in the way of video games that could access that capability (because of the trade-offs HAM mode had for the architecture.)
The same holds true for the maximum capability for a PC graphics card, too. Other limitations of the PC's architecture are more likely to hamper smooth implementation of the "max" settings of a GPU. And then couple that with market share and you begin to see the law of diminishing returns kick in.
I remember the days when hardware was more static that as time went on, developers learned the architecture better and learned to tweak it, and as such, late-generation games were many times more realistic and graphically appealing than their early cousins. PC gaming has created the "moving target" of advancements that cripple the ability to do just that, tweak the setup and learn the inside tricks to make the game run beautifully on 2 or 3 year old hardware. For years it was "requires super-fromigating-cell-exploding QXZ graphics" which was just beyond the capability of someone's current or year-old rig. People would rather have fun (and yet beautiful) games on stable hardware than having to spend $200 a year or more to upgrade their machines just to play game X. That is why consoles have taken the front seat.... and PC gaming companies are not getting that message.
Come to think of it... consoles are the new "stable" hardware platform like the old days. I rather like that.:)
Technically, no. The definition is free to do with YOUR code what YOU please, but for other's code, you are not free do trample their freedoms to satisfy yours.
That's always the problem in these sorts of things, because there is always going to be more than a "stink" if you scuffle with officers, even if they're being assholes.
I remember one 4th of July night I was stopped by a State Trooper and I immediately was required to step out of the vehicle. If I had been a dick, I probably would've been in jail for a few days. They were looking for a vehicle like mine, and when they found it wasn't mine, I got a "warning" of going over 60. The officer looked in the bed of my truck (it was a Red truck, go figure) and I must've stood on the side of the highway for oh, 20 or so minutes while they conferred and other nonsense. It was bullshit, and they knew it... but other than me having to stand on the side of the road, it was just an inconvenience. (They never asked to search inside the vehicle...)
Moral of the story: Most cops are okay... but there are dicks and bitches in uniform. Getting frisky with them will do nothing but make more trouble for YOU, and the dipshits in uniform will continue to be dipshits. It's best to handle this from outside the incidents in question, rather than escalating an already asinine situation.
I'm not saying that Watts was right or wrong... just the circumstances of "penises with badges" always end in disaster for the victim if they escalate it. *shrug* I don't have a perfect answer for the problem either.
Just don't count Alien:Resurrection. Still, the world created in Aliens is still "earth"... Everything in your list (I don't know about Cowboy Bebop) originates on earth... not "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away."
I know you put Mork & Mindy in there for the laugh track, and it doesn't diminish Alien or Trek... but Star Wars was something else... it wasn't earth. They looked human, and the world was fully realized. There was stuff going on, even before the S.E.'s. It was grimy, dirty, and lived-in. It wasn't 2001. And for that, Lucas should be praised.
They are still my favorite movies of all time, and I saw A New Hope at a DRIVE IN theater in Santa Clara, California for crying out loud.:) No movie, not even the mighty Blade Runner has stuck with me and fully enveloped my life like Star Wars. All other movies I watch are compared to them. I grew up living, breathing, and experiencing Star Wars. Sure I made Lucas rich, but I thank him for some great stories (so they were old hat) set in a universe that was cool. There was no Prime Directive... no one was attempting to make out with the green alien chick, and the menace was larger, more sinister and more expansive than Aliens who suck your face. (That's not to say I don't enjoy Trek and Alien... Aliens is my favorite of the series, and I love the director's cut of Alien 3). I just love Star Wars MUCH more. I am truly a Star Wars fanatic.
This reminds me of the "must be connected" to XBox Live to play the arcade games you purchased after you had the RRoD.
It took a while, but Microsoft gave in and made an incredibly convoluted solution to "fix" the DRM being tied to a console that died. This error is a bit more than "no trophies at this time".... but like Microsoft, Sony's DRM has showed us all the dark side of this whole "you don't own anything" mantra of this generation's consoles... (Including the Wii...)
Most users on corporate IT networks aren't allowed to install another browser. Even those "smart enough" to do the right thing are often hamstrung by corporate network policy. Even with local admin privileges, am I willing to get fired for installing my own browser? Fuck no. Not even in a good economy. I got a waiver, donated two pints of blood, a stool sample, and some naked photos of Ernest Borgnine. Don't ask me how I got the blood. Some IT departments are strict... very strict. That "ten minutes" mentioned above can get some folks fired. And I don't really think IE 6 is the watershed moment for worker's rights we on Slashdot think it is.
That's why I am amazed more games don't have a better single player component. Take Fallout 3 (or Oblivion for that matter) AMAZINGLY vast game-world... single player. These two games alone have racked up YEARS of play on my PS3 and 360 respectively.
(and I'm STILL not done with Fallout 3, but I'm a completist with these sorts of games) Games with no single player component? (Warhawk, or any game that is meant to be a "connected multiplayer") I tend to avoid them... It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with the concept, but like EA and their server pruning (and now XBox "1" Live), I tend to avoid games with such a short shelf-life. It's not terribly short, mind you, if you are willing to spend the full price for the game at launch (and it's not a dog of a game)... but if you wait for a "Greatest Hits" or a used version, you are playing Russian Roulette with the game's usefulness (not every game's online component can be a Halo 2...)
I like Demon's Souls concept of online. It doesn't really require there to be anyone else there, but when there are, you can see nasty deaths ahead, and read some (sometimes) handy hints.:)
Do you even remember the reporter who posted fake news IN PRINT for I forget how long, and the much-vaunted editors didn't even CHECK? What's the editor's job again? If a paper can let this go on with one that we KNOW ABOUT, how much more is hidden? Give them the benefit of the doubt? No... DO THEIR FUCKING JOB. You cannot tell me that you TRUST a news organization that allows this (the one we KNOW about) to go on....
Come back when you've got a clue... and then we'll talk. Blow your NYT love out your ass, because it's obvious, no FUCKING obvious, that you are one of the sheeple that will believe anything someone tells you. If you think that it was an isolated incident, well... you're more naive than I thought. That holds true for the rest of the journalistic world. When you lie... it takes a LONG time to regain the trust of the public... but not with you. I get that. Stop defending the NYT... I don't care how much you love it.
1993 - 2006... that's quite a gap. (I suppose you're meaning that in 64-bit versions of Windows, the exploit doesn't exist?) So, my point is, people who decry Apple for "glacial" speed in patching vulnerabilities, we have many other examples (this one from MS being the most fresh in the news) of slow patching, and I further would say that it's alright. Responding to real, in-the-wild, exploits in a timely fashion is commendable, as is not rushing to patch a vulnerability that is either difficult to exploit (or not exploited in the wild at all), or does not pose an immediate threat.
Dare I say that both sides of that debate are wrong?:) Too fast opens up stability issues and too slow draws the ire of people who think you don't care about security... It seems like a lose-lose. But as long as it gets patched, I'm okay with it.
I thought the same thing when I read the headline vs. summary.:) Still, they are serious bugs, and I applaud Apple for patching them. Some feel they didn't do it in a timely manner, but I think I'd rather have a working patch than a quick "panic" patch like we have seen from other vendors. And since there are no recorded exploits in the wild, at least none that I've heard of, the timing of the security update isn't an issue with me. There is no perfect OS. But some are made better than others. I'll leave that to others to decide which. Actually there is a perfect OS. AmigaOS 1.3. Can't get much better than that on cheap, yet capable for its time, hardware. There, my Amiga bias is showing!:-)
paying the price for what? Because it took Apple so long to patch them? *shrug* I guess if you want to think of it like that, I can see your point. My question is how long was it in test? I don't know if there's a way to find that out. Did they just roll up the fixes into one large one, or was it just a long time testing in the field? I am always more likely to immediately install a security patch than a bug fix... we've seen from Microsoft and Apple that sometimes they should let their fixes percolate a bit longer..:)
Personally, I always prefer they get the patch right before releasing it... and if there had been anything in the wild exploiting these bugs, I'm sure we'd have seen a patch sooner. (At least I hope so...) I don't love Apple (or Microsoft for that matter), but I give them both credit for not completely ignoring security... even if they're glacial about it from time to time.:) Microsoft's really coming around, but there's still much to do to make sure the gotchas don't return for the sake of backwards compatibility...
That's why they get away with it. So they've been publishing 160 years. Just take their most recent debacle with the fake journalist who punked the entire paper. That's just in the last 5 years or so. This isn't about getting someone's name wrong and having to read the corrections page. This is about total disregard for anything but the bottom line. A news outlet has no credibility (Dateline NBC comes to mind... rigging truck explosions) when they do this sort of thing with impunity, and the NYT thinks they can and we will all just come back for more because they've been in business 160 years. Good luck with that paywall, NYT. Maybe hiding your news for subscription only will help journalism heal its two black eyes and bloody nose.
I think the key is to be skeptical... even if it's the New York Times. Don't assume good journalism because it's an established newspaper or news outlet. Don't assume it's good journalism because you agree with the article. And most importantly don't assume it's good journalism because it's in print. We've seen that in the Information Age no fact can be accepted without corroborating evidence. I never said in my original reply that the NYT was now off the "good" list (whatever that is), but what I really intended it to mean that even the "big" newspapers and so forth are not infallible... I contend they never were, it's just that we as the public didn't call them to task on it as much as we do now. (And we should... we really should.)
Depends on the gravity and the extent of the failure. It's not a one-time event with the NYT... they've been embroiled in this sort of thing more than once. How many passes do you give them?
Considering the recent scandals the NYT and other "prestigious" newspapers (and so forth) have been embroiled in... having a direct quote isn't an automatic "free pass" to good journalism.
It's not George.. he's only the apprentice. It's really Steven Spielberg... He's the real power behind all this. Didn't you watch South Park's expose'?:)
That's what I get for editing poorly...... (I'm a big PKD fan.... but not necessarily a fan of his kids after this... heh.) The book took an entirely different approach and was entertaining as sci-fi novels go... most people who read the book after seeing the movie were understandably lost... what with Mercerism and the numerous Rachels floating about... heh.)
I forget where it was mentioned, but Ridley Scott (probably in the commentary) told us why he didn't use Android.... for the life of me, I can't remember why...
So very true. I mean, it's been a while since I read the book (or saw the movie), but I don't seem to remember ANY mention of anything prior to Nexus 6. It's implied, I suppose, but it's not mentioned. So if there's no MENTION in his work of Nexus 1 relating to REPLICANTS (not Androids... he doesn't use that term either, IIRC), how is someone going to say "oh, I remember Nexus 6! This must be PKD's phone!" Sorry, Ms. hyphenated Dick... no reasonable person is going to look at a mobile phone and somehow be confused with a science fiction book that most people haven't read (rather saw the movie instead). Yeesh!
Is there any phrase for something so out there "grasping at straws" doesn't encompass the logical leap this idiot mooching kid is taking?
WELL put! Although I wasn't as put off as you on the 3rd movie (I enjoyed it a bit better than ATOC), I echo the sentiment. I think the pacing problem was Lucas' inability to show sufficient time passing in the movie... don't know why.
The prequels were for kids, no doubt about it. And all these whiners who are talking about how Lucas raped their childhood (and so on) are forgetting one important thing... they were KIDS when they saw the first trilogy. The only problem with the 2nd set of movies is that after the first Trilogy, everyone and his sister tried to re-capture the model Lucas used to achieve blockbuster status. There have been DECADES of also-rans, improvements, and the entire hollywood system has morphed into the "blockbuster channel" (with some Oscar stuff thrown in like sprinkles on a sundae). Before A New Hope there wasn't much in the way of epic Space Opera storytelling (the storyline was pretty standard and had been done to death in books before and in movies/games/books since), now with the likes of Terminator, Alien, etc. we have been accustomed to the epic blockbuster sci-fi movie. The new Trilogy from Lucas did not open in the same atmosphere as ANH did.
I for one enjoyed the movies for what they were... another trip into the Star Wars universe. I didn't expect Shakespeare, nor did I expect Oscar quality acting (let's face it, Mark Hamill was a whiny bitch in the first movies...) I just wanted a fun ride with awesome effects that let us know how it all started. Was it perfect? Far from it. But then again, if we are honest with ourselves, neither was the first Trilogy.
Slashdot Mirror
"most countries in North America and Europe" saw revenue decline "10-15% from record highs in 2008,"
Either way, the concept of a PC game is changing. It's not the retail box (or digital distribution) but "high end subscription gaming" that is driving the PC market. So games may not be altogether dying on a PC, but the concept of a game that we all recognize is changing for PCs...
A year or two vs. 5-6 years on a console. It's pretty obvious why consoles are taking over the game market. I gave up the patch/upgrade/tweak cycle a long time ago and pretty much only game on consoles. It hasn't really gotten better, and the PC games that I miss are games that I could still play on 5 year old hardware...
YMMV, but the upgrade wagon got old a long time ago for me.
Is MP3 holding back the CD?
there's little point in buying equipment capable of reproducing that nuance.
That was true even before MP3s, since most people couldn't hear the nuance anyway.
As you get to the "max capability" of a graphics chip (or series), you decrease the amount of computers that are capable of that maximum capability. (Crysis comes to mind... how many machines when it first came out could run Crysis in its full glory?)
:)
Theoretically capable and practically capable are two different things. The Amiga was capable of displaying 4096 colors (HAM mode), but there wasn't much in the way of video games that could access that capability (because of the trade-offs HAM mode had for the architecture.)
The same holds true for the maximum capability for a PC graphics card, too. Other limitations of the PC's architecture are more likely to hamper smooth implementation of the "max" settings of a GPU. And then couple that with market share and you begin to see the law of diminishing returns kick in.
I remember the days when hardware was more static that as time went on, developers learned the architecture better and learned to tweak it, and as such, late-generation games were many times more realistic and graphically appealing than their early cousins. PC gaming has created the "moving target" of advancements that cripple the ability to do just that, tweak the setup and learn the inside tricks to make the game run beautifully on 2 or 3 year old hardware. For years it was "requires super-fromigating-cell-exploding QXZ graphics" which was just beyond the capability of someone's current or year-old rig. People would rather have fun (and yet beautiful) games on stable hardware than having to spend $200 a year or more to upgrade their machines just to play game X. That is why consoles have taken the front seat.... and PC gaming companies are not getting that message.
Come to think of it... consoles are the new "stable" hardware platform like the old days. I rather like that.
Technically, no. The definition is free to do with YOUR code what YOU please, but for other's code, you are not free do trample their freedoms to satisfy yours.
That's always the problem in these sorts of things, because there is always going to be more than a "stink" if you scuffle with officers, even if they're being assholes.
I remember one 4th of July night I was stopped by a State Trooper and I immediately was required to step out of the vehicle. If I had been a dick, I probably would've been in jail for a few days. They were looking for a vehicle like mine, and when they found it wasn't mine, I got a "warning" of going over 60. The officer looked in the bed of my truck (it was a Red truck, go figure) and I must've stood on the side of the highway for oh, 20 or so minutes while they conferred and other nonsense. It was bullshit, and they knew it... but other than me having to stand on the side of the road, it was just an inconvenience. (They never asked to search inside the vehicle...)
Moral of the story: Most cops are okay... but there are dicks and bitches in uniform. Getting frisky with them will do nothing but make more trouble for YOU, and the dipshits in uniform will continue to be dipshits. It's best to handle this from outside the incidents in question, rather than escalating an already asinine situation. I'm not saying that Watts was right or wrong... just the circumstances of "penises with badges" always end in disaster for the victim if they escalate it. *shrug* I don't have a perfect answer for the problem either.
Neither did I, but I confess I was standing in line for what seemed like AGES before I got to sit down... :)
Everything was created from existing material. The "nothing new under the sun" is pretty commonplace in our Western Civilization.
That's not to say that Lucas didn't blend the existing material into a wonderful package that enthralled millions. (because he did. heh.)
Just don't count Alien:Resurrection. Still, the world created in Aliens is still "earth"... Everything in your list (I don't know about Cowboy Bebop) originates on earth... not "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away."
:) No movie, not even the mighty Blade Runner has stuck with me and fully enveloped my life like Star Wars. All other movies I watch are compared to them. I grew up living, breathing, and experiencing Star Wars. Sure I made Lucas rich, but I thank him for some great stories (so they were old hat) set in a universe that was cool. There was no Prime Directive... no one was attempting to make out with the green alien chick, and the menace was larger, more sinister and more expansive than Aliens who suck your face. (That's not to say I don't enjoy Trek and Alien... Aliens is my favorite of the series, and I love the director's cut of Alien 3). I just love Star Wars MUCH more. I am truly a Star Wars fanatic.
I know you put Mork & Mindy in there for the laugh track, and it doesn't diminish Alien or Trek... but Star Wars was something else... it wasn't earth. They looked human, and the world was fully realized. There was stuff going on, even before the S.E.'s. It was grimy, dirty, and lived-in. It wasn't 2001. And for that, Lucas should be praised.
They are still my favorite movies of all time, and I saw A New Hope at a DRIVE IN theater in Santa Clara, California for crying out loud.
This reminds me of the "must be connected" to XBox Live to play the arcade games you purchased after you had the RRoD.
It took a while, but Microsoft gave in and made an incredibly convoluted solution to "fix" the DRM being tied to a console that died. This error is a bit more than "no trophies at this time".... but like Microsoft, Sony's DRM has showed us all the dark side of this whole "you don't own anything" mantra of this generation's consoles... (Including the Wii...)
Most users on corporate IT networks aren't allowed to install another browser. Even those "smart enough" to do the right thing are often hamstrung by corporate network policy. Even with local admin privileges, am I willing to get fired for installing my own browser? Fuck no. Not even in a good economy. I got a waiver, donated two pints of blood, a stool sample, and some naked photos of Ernest Borgnine. Don't ask me how I got the blood. Some IT departments are strict... very strict. That "ten minutes" mentioned above can get some folks fired. And I don't really think IE 6 is the watershed moment for worker's rights we on Slashdot think it is.
That's why I am amazed more games don't have a better single player component. Take Fallout 3 (or Oblivion for that matter) AMAZINGLY vast game-world... single player. These two games alone have racked up YEARS of play on my PS3 and 360 respectively. (and I'm STILL not done with Fallout 3, but I'm a completist with these sorts of games) Games with no single player component? (Warhawk, or any game that is meant to be a "connected multiplayer") I tend to avoid them... It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with the concept, but like EA and their server pruning (and now XBox "1" Live), I tend to avoid games with such a short shelf-life. It's not terribly short, mind you, if you are willing to spend the full price for the game at launch (and it's not a dog of a game)... but if you wait for a "Greatest Hits" or a used version, you are playing Russian Roulette with the game's usefulness (not every game's online component can be a Halo 2...)
:)
I like Demon's Souls concept of online. It doesn't really require there to be anyone else there, but when there are, you can see nasty deaths ahead, and read some (sometimes) handy hints.
Do you even remember the reporter who posted fake news IN PRINT for I forget how long, and the much-vaunted editors didn't even CHECK? What's the editor's job again? If a paper can let this go on with one that we KNOW ABOUT, how much more is hidden? Give them the benefit of the doubt? No... DO THEIR FUCKING JOB. You cannot tell me that you TRUST a news organization that allows this (the one we KNOW about) to go on....
Come back when you've got a clue... and then we'll talk. Blow your NYT love out your ass, because it's obvious, no FUCKING obvious, that you are one of the sheeple that will believe anything someone tells you. If you think that it was an isolated incident, well... you're more naive than I thought. That holds true for the rest of the journalistic world. When you lie... it takes a LONG time to regain the trust of the public... but not with you. I get that. Stop defending the NYT... I don't care how much you love it.
1993 - 2006... that's quite a gap. (I suppose you're meaning that in 64-bit versions of Windows, the exploit doesn't exist?) So, my point is, people who decry Apple for "glacial" speed in patching vulnerabilities, we have many other examples (this one from MS being the most fresh in the news) of slow patching, and I further would say that it's alright. Responding to real, in-the-wild, exploits in a timely fashion is commendable, as is not rushing to patch a vulnerability that is either difficult to exploit (or not exploited in the wild at all), or does not pose an immediate threat.
:) Too fast opens up stability issues and too slow draws the ire of people who think you don't care about security... It seems like a lose-lose. But as long as it gets patched, I'm okay with it.
Dare I say that both sides of that debate are wrong?
I thought the same thing when I read the headline vs. summary. :) Still, they are serious bugs, and I applaud Apple for patching them. Some feel they didn't do it in a timely manner, but I think I'd rather have a working patch than a quick "panic" patch like we have seen from other vendors. And since there are no recorded exploits in the wild, at least none that I've heard of, the timing of the security update isn't an issue with me. There is no perfect OS. But some are made better than others. I'll leave that to others to decide which. Actually there is a perfect OS. AmigaOS 1.3. Can't get much better than that on cheap, yet capable for its time, hardware. There, my Amiga bias is showing! :-)
paying the price for what? Because it took Apple so long to patch them? *shrug* I guess if you want to think of it like that, I can see your point. My question is how long was it in test? I don't know if there's a way to find that out. Did they just roll up the fixes into one large one, or was it just a long time testing in the field? I am always more likely to immediately install a security patch than a bug fix... we've seen from Microsoft and Apple that sometimes they should let their fixes percolate a bit longer.. :)
:) Microsoft's really coming around, but there's still much to do to make sure the gotchas don't return for the sake of backwards compatibility...
Personally, I always prefer they get the patch right before releasing it... and if there had been anything in the wild exploiting these bugs, I'm sure we'd have seen a patch sooner. (At least I hope so...) I don't love Apple (or Microsoft for that matter), but I give them both credit for not completely ignoring security... even if they're glacial about it from time to time.
That's why they get away with it. So they've been publishing 160 years. Just take their most recent debacle with the fake journalist who punked the entire paper. That's just in the last 5 years or so. This isn't about getting someone's name wrong and having to read the corrections page. This is about total disregard for anything but the bottom line. A news outlet has no credibility (Dateline NBC comes to mind... rigging truck explosions) when they do this sort of thing with impunity, and the NYT thinks they can and we will all just come back for more because they've been in business 160 years. Good luck with that paywall, NYT. Maybe hiding your news for subscription only will help journalism heal its two black eyes and bloody nose.
Remember the Maine.....
I think the key is to be skeptical... even if it's the New York Times. Don't assume good journalism because it's an established newspaper or news outlet. Don't assume it's good journalism because you agree with the article. And most importantly don't assume it's good journalism because it's in print. We've seen that in the Information Age no fact can be accepted without corroborating evidence. I never said in my original reply that the NYT was now off the "good" list (whatever that is), but what I really intended it to mean that even the "big" newspapers and so forth are not infallible... I contend they never were, it's just that we as the public didn't call them to task on it as much as we do now. (And we should... we really should.)
;)
"Remember the Maine!"
Depends on the gravity and the extent of the failure. It's not a one-time event with the NYT... they've been embroiled in this sort of thing more than once. How many passes do you give them?
Considering the recent scandals the NYT and other "prestigious" newspapers (and so forth) have been embroiled in... having a direct quote isn't an automatic "free pass" to good journalism.
It's not George.. he's only the apprentice. It's really Steven Spielberg... He's the real power behind all this. Didn't you watch South Park's expose'? :)
That's what I get for editing poorly...... (I'm a big PKD fan.... but not necessarily a fan of his kids after this... heh.) The book took an entirely different approach and was entertaining as sci-fi novels go... most people who read the book after seeing the movie were understandably lost... what with Mercerism and the numerous Rachels floating about... heh.)
I forget where it was mentioned, but Ridley Scott (probably in the commentary) told us why he didn't use Android.... for the life of me, I can't remember why...
So very true. I mean, it's been a while since I read the book (or saw the movie), but I don't seem to remember ANY mention of anything prior to Nexus 6. It's implied, I suppose, but it's not mentioned. So if there's no MENTION in his work of Nexus 1 relating to REPLICANTS (not Androids... he doesn't use that term either, IIRC), how is someone going to say "oh, I remember Nexus 6! This must be PKD's phone!" Sorry, Ms. hyphenated Dick... no reasonable person is going to look at a mobile phone and somehow be confused with a science fiction book that most people haven't read (rather saw the movie instead). Yeesh!
Is there any phrase for something so out there "grasping at straws" doesn't encompass the logical leap this idiot mooching kid is taking?
You obviously don't remember a child's capacity to tune out boring and tune in when there are explosions....
WELL put! Although I wasn't as put off as you on the 3rd movie (I enjoyed it a bit better than ATOC), I echo the sentiment. I think the pacing problem was Lucas' inability to show sufficient time passing in the movie... don't know why.
The prequels were for kids, no doubt about it. And all these whiners who are talking about how Lucas raped their childhood (and so on) are forgetting one important thing... they were KIDS when they saw the first trilogy. The only problem with the 2nd set of movies is that after the first Trilogy, everyone and his sister tried to re-capture the model Lucas used to achieve blockbuster status. There have been DECADES of also-rans, improvements, and the entire hollywood system has morphed into the "blockbuster channel" (with some Oscar stuff thrown in like sprinkles on a sundae). Before A New Hope there wasn't much in the way of epic Space Opera storytelling (the storyline was pretty standard and had been done to death in books before and in movies/games/books since), now with the likes of Terminator, Alien, etc. we have been accustomed to the epic blockbuster sci-fi movie. The new Trilogy from Lucas did not open in the same atmosphere as ANH did.
I for one enjoyed the movies for what they were... another trip into the Star Wars universe. I didn't expect Shakespeare, nor did I expect Oscar quality acting (let's face it, Mark Hamill was a whiny bitch in the first movies...) I just wanted a fun ride with awesome effects that let us know how it all started. Was it perfect? Far from it. But then again, if we are honest with ourselves, neither was the first Trilogy.