Exactly. This is what I can't seem to get into some peoples' heads. I don't have an 'MTV attention span,' I understand spirituality quite well having been taught in catholic schools, I read plenty of philosophy and literature and all the rest of it. But I still found GitS boring, monotonous, over-long, and vague.
Dude, I have a pretty good attention span and am pretty well read thank you very much. I'm all in favour of movies that dig into philosophy, but in my opinion GitS was just overlong and not a little pretentious. There are better ways of doing philosophy than putting the audience to sleep.
First, please don't mod me into oblivion, I know a lot of people swear by this show but I'm one of many people who just didn't get it and I'm entitled to explain why.
That said, I saw Ghost in the Shell 1 and never was as bored in all my life. Sure the animation is good and the visuals are atmospheric, but the English dialogue was bordering on the hypnotic. Big overlong monologues that go on and on and on..... zzzzzz. And I got halfway through the film and still hadn't figured out what the hell they meant by a 'ghost.' I kept asking, 'okay, ghosts are an important part of all of this, I get it, now will you kindly tell us what the f@*# a ghost is please?' But no. Just more pseudo-intellectual waffle.
I strongly warn against anyone watching this stuff if you want to get into anime for the first time. This yawn-fest is not representative of anime. Watch Cowboy Bebop instead. It's a lot more fun, the animated cityscapes are stunning, and it doesn't take itself very seriously.
This is exactly what happened when I had an AOL account. Every day I'd get the 'You've got mail' mantra depite me never having used or distributed my aol email address to anyone. I even used their email client once to have a look at how many messages were in there just out of curiosity. There were about 600, all spam, and that was after about three months.
..the TSA or its contractors may have violated the Privacy Act, which prohibits the government from compiling secret databases on Americans
I thought that under the 'Patriot' (sic) Act it was perfectly legal for information to be handed over to federal agencies without their knowledge. Is there some sort of conflict between the 'Patriot' (sic) Act and the Privacy Act?
I take your point, but I wish people would stop citing 'of all the people I know' as if that were a representative sample. If you work in desktop publishing, then it's a good bet that most of the 'people you know' will be Mac users. If you work as an accountant, then most of the 'people you know' will be PC users. If you're a TCAD software developer then most of the 'people you know' will be UNIX users.
It's like the people who bitch about authorities going to the expense of building bicycle lanes because "I never see a bike using that lane when I drive past every morning."
I was just wondering how far down the page I'd have to scroll to see another "hold everything and feed the children first" merchant. Looks like the concept of a country full of people being able to tackle two problems at once still hasn't sunk in on/.
Indeed. How did the Klingons ever develop space travel if everyone was so busy being warriors and dying in battle? How did the Ferrengi ever build big ships if they were all retailers and wholesalers? How did the Cardassians make any technological progress if they were all sadistic interrogators? How did the Bajorans ever get into orbit if they were all priests, monks, and other assorted religious nuts? And another thing, how come each race only has one language and not many like on earth?
Babylon 5 suffered from having the axe constantly hovering over it. That's why season 4 seemed a bit rushed. The Shadow war and the Earth Alliance civil war were both compressed into this season with the telepath problem and introduction of the Drakh being used to pad out season 5. It would have been better to take more time to flesh out the Shadow war in all of season 4 and sort out the Earth problem in season 5, but JMS had to tie up those arcs in season 4 or risk them being unresolved if they didn't get a 5th season. Pity, that.
"From:jmsatb5@aol.com (jms at b5)
Subject:re: various from jms
To:rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date:6/17/2004 2:43:33 PM
>> John W. Kennedy wrote: >>> Over on one of the British B5 groups, they've been speculating that >>> you're about to take over "Enterprise", but unless you've suddenly >>> started using the word "series" in the British TV sense (i.e., what US >>> TV calls a "season [of a series]"), that's out. >> >> Enterprise has already been taken over by Manny Cotto. And why would jms >> go and work for Star Trek?? >Manny Coto is, I believe, show runner; not EP.
No, just to clarify, though I got a call last year about coming onto Enterprise, offering an EP position, and declined, the series I mentioned has nothing to do with any current series, it's a new show. As for Manny, he's a good writer, and left to his own devices, I think he could be a big help over there without the other powers that be impeding the process.
Amusingly enough, on the Trek front, Bryce Zabel (the creator of Dark Skies) and I got together and wrote a treatment earlier this year that specified how to save ST and develop a series that would restore the series in a big way. I actually think it could be a hell of a show. Whether that ever goes anywhere with Paramount, who knows?
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com) (all message content (c) 2004 by synthetic worlds, ltd., permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine and don't send me story ideas)"
is that Gene Roddenberry's idea is revered too highly. His idea was that man is an evolving species that eventually reaches a state of perfection, where all war and poverty on Earth have been eliminated, where humans never even argue with other humans.
I remember cringing at some of the earlier TNG episodes that ended with Riker making some inane remark and Picard saying "Agreed!" * YAWN *
I find it very hard to believe that this state of utopia will ever be reached, because every improvement in society brings its own drawbacks. For example, the richest country in the world today has still not managed to find happiness, look at the sheer size of the shrink and self-help industry. The nation with the highest car-ownership in the world has brought with it an epidemic of obesity and enormous environmental problems. Bottom line, for every problem you solve in society, another is created. This is something that's missing from the humans in the Trek universe.
Lastly, from a drama point of view, people happily getting along makes for unbelievably boring TV. Remember the Itchy & Scratchy episodes where they became best friends? All the kids in Springfield started switching off their TVs and went out to play. We demand TV that keeps us indoors!!!
What Trek seems to suffer from is a lack of continuity, it strikes me as a show that was made up as it went along. Sure there was some continuity with series-long arcs and so on, but in general the overall story was not planned out because, well, there was no overall story. Except maybe for Voyager, but the plot of that overall story wasn't exactly a complex one.
No. What Trek needs is a writer of JMS's calibre to plan a five-year arc with all manner of arcs, loops, time-travel paradoxes, and an epic scope to blow the viewer's mind in the same way that B5 did.
In the Cowboy Bebop movie and TV shows the curtain seems to go up to a high altitude but not curving over the city to form a protective dome. It's not clear how it works or how high it goes, but supposing it was only a mile or two, I'm not sure if the carbon dioxide atmosphere outside would spill over into it. CO2 is heavier than oxygen, isn't it?
Slashdot Mirror
That's great. You're a real tough guy, aren't you?
Exactly. This is what I can't seem to get into some peoples' heads. I don't have an 'MTV attention span,' I understand spirituality quite well having been taught in catholic schools, I read plenty of philosophy and literature and all the rest of it. But I still found GitS boring, monotonous, over-long, and vague.
Browser maximising I'll give you. But Flash? See my journal.
Ah, another AC troll. Such bravery. Dick.
AC trolls like you are a waste of fucking bandwidth. Go and find a nice quiet corner and die, will you? Fucking dickhead.
Dude, I have a pretty good attention span and am pretty well read thank you very much. I'm all in favour of movies that dig into philosophy, but in my opinion GitS was just overlong and not a little pretentious. There are better ways of doing philosophy than putting the audience to sleep.
That said, I saw Ghost in the Shell 1 and never was as bored in all my life. Sure the animation is good and the visuals are atmospheric, but the English dialogue was bordering on the hypnotic. Big overlong monologues that go on and on and on..... zzzzzz. And I got halfway through the film and still hadn't figured out what the hell they meant by a 'ghost.' I kept asking, 'okay, ghosts are an important part of all of this, I get it, now will you kindly tell us what the f@*# a ghost is please?' But no. Just more pseudo-intellectual waffle.
I strongly warn against anyone watching this stuff if you want to get into anime for the first time. This yawn-fest is not representative of anime. Watch Cowboy Bebop instead. It's a lot more fun, the animated cityscapes are stunning, and it doesn't take itself very seriously.
Longer arms, more leverage?
This is exactly what happened when I had an AOL account. Every day I'd get the 'You've got mail' mantra depite me never having used or distributed my aol email address to anyone. I even used their email client once to have a look at how many messages were in there just out of curiosity. There were about 600, all spam, and that was after about three months.
Why not just close Hotmail completely? It hardly ever works anyway.
It's like the people who bitch about authorities going to the expense of building bicycle lanes because "I never see a bike using that lane when I drive past every morning."
Anecdotes do not trump statistics.
And don't forget to send your $699 to Darl McBride.
I could have sworn that said "Certified Addict Curriculum."
I was just wondering how far down the page I'd have to scroll to see another "hold everything and feed the children first" merchant. Looks like the concept of a country full of people being able to tackle two problems at once still hasn't sunk in on /.
There was this one time? At space camp.....?
B5's CGI was pretty advanced after the first season.
Indeed. How did the Klingons ever develop space travel if everyone was so busy being warriors and dying in battle? How did the Ferrengi ever build big ships if they were all retailers and wholesalers? How did the Cardassians make any technological progress if they were all sadistic interrogators? How did the Bajorans ever get into orbit if they were all priests, monks, and other assorted religious nuts? And another thing, how come each race only has one language and not many like on earth?
Babylon 5 suffered from having the axe constantly hovering over it. That's why season 4 seemed a bit rushed. The Shadow war and the Earth Alliance civil war were both compressed into this season with the telepath problem and introduction of the Drakh being used to pad out season 5. It would have been better to take more time to flesh out the Shadow war in all of season 4 and sort out the Earth problem in season 5, but JMS had to tie up those arcs in season 4 or risk them being unresolved if they didn't get a 5th season. Pity, that.
"From:jmsatb5@aol.com (jms at b5)
Subject:re: various from jms
To:rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date:6/17/2004 2:43:33 PM
>> John W. Kennedy wrote:
>>> Over on one of the British B5 groups, they've been speculating that
>>> you're about to take over "Enterprise", but unless you've suddenly
>>> started using the word "series" in the British TV sense (i.e., what US
>>> TV calls a "season [of a series]"), that's out.
>>
>> Enterprise has already been taken over by Manny Cotto. And why would jms
>> go and work for Star Trek??
>Manny Coto is, I believe, show runner; not EP.
No, just to clarify, though I got a call last year about coming onto
Enterprise, offering an EP position, and declined, the series I mentioned has
nothing to do with any current series, it's a new show. As for Manny, he's a
good writer, and left to his own devices, I think he could be a big help over
there without the other powers that be impeding the process.
Amusingly enough, on the Trek front, Bryce Zabel (the creator of Dark Skies)
and I got together and wrote a treatment earlier this year that specified how
to save ST and develop a series that would restore the series in a big way. I
actually think it could be a hell of a show. Whether that ever goes anywhere
with Paramount, who knows?
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2004 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)"
I remember cringing at some of the earlier TNG episodes that ended with Riker making some inane remark and Picard saying "Agreed!" * YAWN *
I find it very hard to believe that this state of utopia will ever be reached, because every improvement in society brings its own drawbacks. For example, the richest country in the world today has still not managed to find happiness, look at the sheer size of the shrink and self-help industry. The nation with the highest car-ownership in the world has brought with it an epidemic of obesity and enormous environmental problems. Bottom line, for every problem you solve in society, another is created. This is something that's missing from the humans in the Trek universe.
Lastly, from a drama point of view, people happily getting along makes for unbelievably boring TV. Remember the Itchy & Scratchy episodes where they became best friends? All the kids in Springfield started switching off their TVs and went out to play. We demand TV that keeps us indoors!!!
No. What Trek needs is a writer of JMS's calibre to plan a five-year arc with all manner of arcs, loops, time-travel paradoxes, and an epic scope to blow the viewer's mind in the same way that B5 did.
In the Cowboy Bebop movie and TV shows the curtain seems to go up to a high altitude but not curving over the city to form a protective dome. It's not clear how it works or how high it goes, but supposing it was only a mile or two, I'm not sure if the carbon dioxide atmosphere outside would spill over into it. CO2 is heavier than oxygen, isn't it?