I don't think Quake III was awful. id sought to create the ultimate pure deathmatch game, and Christ knows they succeeded. The original Unreal Tournament was a real kick in the pants that offered a more diverse array of options, sure, but at least under Windows if you weren't using the software or Glide renderers you had all sorts of thoroughly dreadful glitches, framerate hitches, and general graphical weirdness to look forward to. Even when using the Direct3D renderer with an Athlon XP 2500+ and a Radeon 7500 it's still intermittently choppy when things get complicated; that's simply not excusable.
This also doesn't take into account Unreal Tournament's unbalanced weaponry (if you had the flak cannon or rocket launcher you were often untouchable) or mediocre modeling. The sequels have righted a lot of the wrongs present in the series' progenitor, but sometimes I think Epic's still trying to outdo Quake III...
I wouldn't worry about Peter Jackson as a potential fruit loop burnout of a director. The fact that The Hobbit will very likely be made is probably a good thing, a way to tie up his stylistic indulgences in Tolkien's writings in a worthwhile manner. He would also probably refuse to do any more films, flat-out. What I'm worried about is the possibility of Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer being brought in to finish the job... Try imagining Ben Affleck as Frodo Baggins, J. Lo as The Woman He Loves, Nicolas Cage as Samwise Gamgee, John Malkovich as Gandalf, Val Kilmer as Strider (start the Willow jokes NOW), and various other godawful casting choices as they all square off against a new super-mechanized version of Gollum fused with the essence of Sauron, who intends to dive-bomb and burn all the cities. They could call it Pearl Frodo...
To be perfectly honest, I'm happy to see this. If it helps Microsoft's track record and in some small way prevents the widespread development of fiascos like Blaster, Nachi, et. al., then more power to the effort. Have I been the only one who's found the continued existence of the antivirus cottage industry mildly repugnant?
I can't say I noticed modified graphics from the video game anywhere in the film, and also don't remember being particularly floored by Teh Ugly. It looked a little bit plasticine, but most all CG effects still do to my eyes.
On another note, there wasn't much rushing; Revolutions was filmed simultaneously with Reloaded, so their six month separation was mostly an invention of the studio / publicity machine / primary profit-motivated entity. Note too that it doesn't hurt to keep them out of most of The Return of the King's way.
Ultimately what the Wachowskis (and any cohorts of theirs) do with The Matrix is their business. Given the moderately cerebral nature of the films on some levels and their decision / gumption to not dumb down those aspects to ensure broad market appeal, profit doesn't seem to be at the very forefront of their minds. The Animatrix covered the pre-film age rather thoroughly; consequently, any future cash grabs will very likely be focused on future hijinks.
The point of my rambling is this: if it stops being special to you, then it's perfectly all right to disregard that which would ruin your appreciation of the universe. Enjoy the good, disregard the bad. There's no sense in fetishistically deriding and railing against something that no one forced you to keep on your mind in the first place.
P.S. What's wrong with making a film of The Hobbit?
Doom 3 will ship with at least five OpenGL rendering paths to address the fragmentation of capabilities in the video card market: a failsafe path for the original Geforce and Geforce2s, an older Radeon-specific path, a Geforce3/4 specific path, a newer Radeon-specific path, and an OpenGL 2.0 path. The latter's probably the one in which you're most interested.:-) His tinkering with a prerelease 3Dlabs P10 board and the preliminary OpenGL 2.0 spec impressed him enough to convince him that this was The Right Thing.
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I don't think Quake III was awful. id sought to create the ultimate pure deathmatch game, and Christ knows they succeeded. The original Unreal Tournament was a real kick in the pants that offered a more diverse array of options, sure, but at least under Windows if you weren't using the software or Glide renderers you had all sorts of thoroughly dreadful glitches, framerate hitches, and general graphical weirdness to look forward to. Even when using the Direct3D renderer with an Athlon XP 2500+ and a Radeon 7500 it's still intermittently choppy when things get complicated; that's simply not excusable.
This also doesn't take into account Unreal Tournament's unbalanced weaponry (if you had the flak cannon or rocket launcher you were often untouchable) or mediocre modeling. The sequels have righted a lot of the wrongs present in the series' progenitor, but sometimes I think Epic's still trying to outdo Quake III...
I wouldn't worry about Peter Jackson as a potential fruit loop burnout of a director. The fact that The Hobbit will very likely be made is probably a good thing, a way to tie up his stylistic indulgences in Tolkien's writings in a worthwhile manner. He would also probably refuse to do any more films, flat-out. What I'm worried about is the possibility of Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer being brought in to finish the job... Try imagining Ben Affleck as Frodo Baggins, J. Lo as The Woman He Loves, Nicolas Cage as Samwise Gamgee, John Malkovich as Gandalf, Val Kilmer as Strider (start the Willow jokes NOW), and various other godawful casting choices as they all square off against a new super-mechanized version of Gollum fused with the essence of Sauron, who intends to dive-bomb and burn all the cities. They could call it Pearl Frodo...
Cthugha, baby!
To be perfectly honest, I'm happy to see this. If it helps Microsoft's track record and in some small way prevents the widespread development of fiascos like Blaster, Nachi, et. al., then more power to the effort. Have I been the only one who's found the continued existence of the antivirus cottage industry mildly repugnant?
I can't say I noticed modified graphics from the video game anywhere in the film, and also don't remember being particularly floored by Teh Ugly. It looked a little bit plasticine, but most all CG effects still do to my eyes.
On another note, there wasn't much rushing; Revolutions was filmed simultaneously with Reloaded, so their six month separation was mostly an invention of the studio / publicity machine / primary profit-motivated entity. Note too that it doesn't hurt to keep them out of most of The Return of the King's way.
Ultimately what the Wachowskis (and any cohorts of theirs) do with The Matrix is their business. Given the moderately cerebral nature of the films on some levels and their decision / gumption to not dumb down those aspects to ensure broad market appeal, profit doesn't seem to be at the very forefront of their minds. The Animatrix covered the pre-film age rather thoroughly; consequently, any future cash grabs will very likely be focused on future hijinks.
The point of my rambling is this: if it stops being special to you, then it's perfectly all right to disregard that which would ruin your appreciation of the universe. Enjoy the good, disregard the bad. There's no sense in fetishistically deriding and railing against something that no one forced you to keep on your mind in the first place.
P.S. What's wrong with making a film of The Hobbit?
Doom 3 will ship with at least five OpenGL rendering paths to address the fragmentation of capabilities in the video card market: a failsafe path for the original Geforce and Geforce2s, an older Radeon-specific path, a Geforce3/4 specific path, a newer Radeon-specific path, and an OpenGL 2.0 path. The latter's probably the one in which you're most interested. :-) His tinkering with a prerelease 3Dlabs P10 board and the preliminary OpenGL 2.0 spec impressed him enough to convince him that this was The Right Thing.