Not really. In the first movie they had but a fraction of that kind of power and didn't need nearly as much of it. No Gollum. No battles. You notice that nearly a third of their processors are brand new?
The Rangers are really just a whole bunch of people as cool as Aragorn that come to help in the huge battle. But I can see why they'd be left out, that battle could get hella confusing.
As for the removal of Saruman, I have my doubts. Though he is important in the third book, that's mostly in the Scouring. But if they go without the Palantir, I will be disappointed.
That didn't help you. My bad. Read the books. Heh.
Actually, I highly doubt that altruistic goals could ever accomplish as much as pure ambition. The most ultimately selfish person could also, in certain circumstances, be the most helpful to the world at large. Unless you envision some ridiculous world in which everybody is both altruistic and maniacally driven. Without ambition, there would be no/., or computers for that matter. Stupid altruism.
Ugh. I feel like Ayn Rand now.
Hey, yeah. That's true. It is a terrible movie. For a physics grad student.
As a person who's interested in physics, but also interested in many other things which I am MUCH better at grasping, this program was great for me. See, I don't know anything. Surprisingly little, now that I really think about it. I've heard of string theory, but never had the slightest idea what it was. The only thing I knew about Bohr was that he came up with the model of the atom, not that he was in any way involved in quantum mechanics. Which, of course, is ridiculous unless you consider that I had only a vague conception of what quantum mechanics really says.
In high school I learned basic motion equations, basic EM equations, a tiny bit of nuclear, and that's almost all. I took one full year (college-level, supposedly) class.
Say it didn't teach you anything, fine, say it didn't have any great depth. But don't be all elitist and say that makes it bad. That's like me saying a book on introductory programming is bad, because it's so shallow.
I think they just want to make it 'look cool.' Have you never ever done something just because it was kinda cool? Do those people that make openGL or whatever demos with the flashing lights and such do it because they want to make sure their audience pays attention? I do things all the time just because it's kinda cool.
That kind of breaks down when you enter a world where money matters, and I know that. But it's not as if any of the effects in that were particularly spectactular, I could probably replicate nearly all of those effects in a day or so.
This is PBS broadcasting. I think you may be looking a little too deeply. Like those people that try to determine what authors of books are "trying to say" when most of them were just writing some stories.
Granted, society is a little obsessed with eye candy, but I don't think this is an example of that. I doubt anybody watching this (if they were interested at all, otherwise...why would they even watch?) stopped paying attention to the people speaking and looking at the wall behind them.
A few parts of the videos did annoy me, like that part with the elevator. But it's somebody's job to do things like that, to come up with a way to represent everything going on. And it's somebody else's job to do all the visual effects.
Anybody can see the eye-candy obsession. Video games are rated as much on graphic quality as gameplay, CG movies tend to have an incredible amount of weight placed on the animation quality. To me, these things aren't too important. I like those new CG movies...because they're good movies. Most of my favorite games are at least five years old. Now, this doesn't really relate to this specific example, but more to the concept, this doesn't make eye candy BAD. In the movies it fascinates me, at the very least--I watched the Final Fantasy movie not for the plot, but to study the animation. And sometimes it can help in a game, when the game attempts to create an immersive environment, for example. (Doesn't have to be a realistic environment either...Tron 2.0 is a lot of fun partially due to the style.)
So, while the obsession with the visuals and the moving parts is something of a problem, that doesn't make the parts themselves bad. Stop being so angry. Enjoy that which is cool.
Though I have to agree with the other poster. You do seem old.
I'm not thinking that should have been modded 'funny.' Seeing as MS has no relationship to the software, and only Apple profits from selling a consumer another version of a product they've already bought, I'd say the blame is solely on Apple. You might as well say it's Windows' fault that this program I made deletes a bunch of files. Hah! Silly Microsoft! Allowing people to delete files!
Now the post may have just been a joke, but that's my point. It's not funny, just stupid.
I still agree with the way it was done, and I think I personally prefer Gimli as the movies' jokester, but I'll certainly grant you your point. Mostly because I have no reasons for that preference, and I have no idea why I have it. Seems strange even to me.
But I do have a bit of a problem with the last line of your post. Fistly, let's make it clear that as far as I'm concerned, Tolkien can have all the points he pleases, and each and every one would be well deserved. But that you imply that Jackson and I are in competition with him is absurd. I love the books more than anything else I've ever read. And the two movies are my favorite two movies of all time. I accept that Jackson is not translating the books to film, that would be madness. He's adapting them. In no way is he attempting to rewrite Tolkien. I'm sure that one of his hopes is that his movies will encourage more people to read those books that he himself cares about so much to put such an insane amount of effort into. Yeah, I'm sure money's part of it too, but when I watch the movies it seems to me like that's only secondary.
By the way, I really don't think comic relief is required in a book, and I say this from my own reading experience. Sometimes a book with no light at all can be absolutely fantastic. Pippin was funny in parts, yes, but (in my eyes) not very often. There were parts where it WAS completely dark and hopeless, and that works on paper. Just not on screen. Still, that's not at all in contradiction of what you said, just a clarification of my own statements.
Though I don't think he's been ruined, that point has already been refuted. So I'll say that it wasn't 'for no particular reason.' Why would they so drastically alter a character? I'll tell you.
One of the differences in literature and cinema is the way that emotion and feeling is conveyed. Read the books, and see what kind of feelings you get about the ring and its power. It's probably...pretty bad. You really understand the evilness of this thing, as when you read about Frodo it mentions it constantly, and so you see that Frodo can't ignore it, not only as part of his mission, but as a great burden.
In a movie though, you can SEE things. The things that become real become things that you can see. You might know that the ring is evil and can corrupt anybody, but you're not feeling it the same way as the books do. You have to create obvious effects of the ring's power. That's part of the nature of cinema, things must be more obvious. The best way to do that was to corrupt Faramir a bit. We can see that he is a good man by the end of the movie, he lets the hobbits go at risk of death, and all of the fans know that's who he really is. But seeing that he could be corrupted, too, helps the movie come closer to the book's wonderful portrayal of the Ring's evil.
That's the important thing, the feeling of importance and enormity and good and evil and hopelessness. Not little plot details.
And about Gimli...who do you approve of for comic relief then? It's needed, it really is. I think it's too bad that the dwarves are trivialized as a race because of it, but it seems that the only time that would be a problem in Fellowship, at the mines. I think it wasa good choice, personally, and it helps make the movie more watchable and entertaining. Well, as long as you're watching it to be entertained, and not to be an ass about the scriping decisions.
And that thing about it being a story told to his kids...The Hobbit was, probably. But not LotR. He hated writing it by the end, but he had more than one good reason to finish it.
I'm just glad he did.
Heh, okay, I'm sorry, but I think it's really funny that you, as a Mac user, can criticize any kind of computer package deal. Nothing against Macs as machines, but the price factor and the compatibility problem (I Am Gamer.) are my own two gripes.
*Hugs his $480 system that can play any game on the market without a hitch*
THe fee is not being appended! It's staying the same! $160 before, $160 now! Pay attention. Or did that bunny outside distract you too much?
Dealing with distractions is part of any work-oriented environment. That means college (just...don't argue, you know what I mean) and, gasp, the real world. It's not something that's going to go away. Therefore, it's something you have to deal with, not something others should be making accomodations for.
I don't know....I know a few of the smaller record stores around my own home are doing just fine. (We don't have any really small stores around here, they're all part of chains of at least a couple stores, and as far as I can tell it's because there have been no attempts, there is no need.)
Of course, they don't restrict themselves to those genres which are declining in popularity anyway. I'm not a fan of the rap myself, but its popularity continues to skyrocket. Manson and similar is doing pretty well itself. (If you really listened to the music instead of the image, you might find there's some meaning in there...but this is not the place for that discussion.)
All I'm really saying is that while many stores like your own are suffering (I do certainly acknowledge that), there isn't really any proof that it's from sharing at all. I'm not saying it definitely isn't the cause, but there are other possible reasons. I'm finding that I personally can't stand a lot of the new stuff coming out, though I don't know how much of the stuff in your family-type store I would have heard anyway, that's not really the stuff that gets played and promoted, so I can't say I know for sure. I know lots of people who will get songs online, but if they like them they WILL buy the CD. They want to support the artists they like in any way they can, even if only by adding to their sales, and they also want to avoid inadvertantly supporting bands they think suck. There are probably more people like that than you think--but the number is decreasing as the RIAA continues to soil its name with its business practices. A year ago I actually had a fantastic MP3 collection myself (I never cost the industry a dime, though, from my own point of view, since I never shared and honestly didn't have the cash to spend on a CD -- so I did recieve product without pay, but the pay wasn't forthcoming whether I could get the product for free or not.) but I've since then become disgusted with the industry in general. Most of the music is crap these days and it's not worth sifting through. I have maybe 40 or so MP3's on my hard drive, and only three I didn't legally rip from my own CDs, only because I downloaded them to see if I thought a bands' music was worth it. Now that I see that I still have those, I'll delete them after I finish this post -- my lack of MP3s isn't because I can't get them, it's because I don't want the music anymore, even if I don't have to pay for it. The blank hard drive space itself is more valuable to me.
I think it's very narrow-minded, and perhaps even thoughtless, to blame piracy alone for your store's problems. There are many other reasons for lack of demand these days.
Still, aside from all that, I am sorry about your situation and wish you the best of luck.
About the bookstore...books are better than CD's. That's all there is to it. Much better value. Also, I've downloaded far more books than I ever did songs. More than I could read in my life. I'll still buy books on occasion, though. Unlike music,they don't seem to suck these days.
Well, I do certainly agree with your point, but putting it to a congressional vote is just like releasing it anyway. SOMEBODY'S gonna tell. And they might not even tell the real story, if they're unhappy enough about it to actually tell people, they might even make it sound worse than it is.
Of course, the only ones I ever met were the ones who came over in an exchange program for a few weeks, and they were all total asshats. The kind of spoiled kids who could afford the trip. If I lived there, and could afford it, (if I wasn't an asshole, I mean) I wouldn't have gone, simply because it would have meant I'd have to spend time with all the others.
So these guys and gals come over here, they do all they can to get as much hot American sex as they can (They seem to think that's what this country's all about. Hmm.) and then they inevitably get drunk and break shit.
And they like to walk around naked a lot. Like, around their host family's houses.
And of course, there's that 'no shower' thing.
You can tell me this is all just a part of their culture and all that, but that doesn't make me stop hating these people who insulted me because they didn't realize I can understand French fairly well. It might be some other small group's culture to take a big bite out of my arm, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it.
And I'm not making a stereotype here. Read carefully. I never insult France or the French population directly. But they may be trying to ship the worst of them over here as often as possible./In a bad mood.
I'm on a college campus. We have to use phone cards or COLLECT or similar to make long distance calls from here. I'd MUCH rather just do it this way, with my wonderful connection (about 10Mbps in practice) that I have no choice but pay for.
Business is business. All big companies do stuff like this. Actually, all big companies regularly do stuff worse than this--this time, he didn't even lie.
I don't LIKE Microsoft, understand. But I think it's incredible how much people rip on those company practices that are pretty much standard. Aren't there plenty of pure-evil things for you guys to rip on?
The artists make their money by touring, putting on concerts. RIAA gives them practically nothing. The biggest contribution the RIAA gives is promotion. Which is accomplished much better by free distribution.
Granted, some artists really don't want their music stolen. Obviously, Madonna. But a lot (from what I've personally heard, it SEEMS to be the majority) don't really care. I remember reading an interview with the members of Offspring a few years back where they said they were just ecstatic that they were one of the most shared bands, because it meant people liked their music. I heard similar things from other bands, including a few who actually spoke in favor of filetrading.
Sorry I have no real, hard information. If you don't believe me, look for it yourself. I've seen it, don't care if you believe me, and don't really care to search it out again.
Slashdot Mirror
Sigh. Point made and made well. I'll expect it in EE, then.
Not really. In the first movie they had but a fraction of that kind of power and didn't need nearly as much of it. No Gollum. No battles. You notice that nearly a third of their processors are brand new?
The Rangers are really just a whole bunch of people as cool as Aragorn that come to help in the huge battle. But I can see why they'd be left out, that battle could get hella confusing.
As for the removal of Saruman, I have my doubts. Though he is important in the third book, that's mostly in the Scouring. But if they go without the Palantir, I will be disappointed.
That didn't help you. My bad. Read the books. Heh.
It is difficult, yet incredibly satisfying, to steal from Wal-Mart...
You read my mind, man. My 'toss won't stand a chance now!
Looks like somebody likes to pretend to be religious if you ask me.
Actually, I highly doubt that altruistic goals could ever accomplish as much as pure ambition. The most ultimately selfish person could also, in certain circumstances, be the most helpful to the world at large. Unless you envision some ridiculous world in which everybody is both altruistic and maniacally driven. Without ambition, there would be no /., or computers for that matter. Stupid altruism.
Ugh. I feel like Ayn Rand now.
Hey, yeah. That's true. It is a terrible movie. For a physics grad student.
As a person who's interested in physics, but also interested in many other things which I am MUCH better at grasping, this program was great for me. See, I don't know anything. Surprisingly little, now that I really think about it. I've heard of string theory, but never had the slightest idea what it was. The only thing I knew about Bohr was that he came up with the model of the atom, not that he was in any way involved in quantum mechanics. Which, of course, is ridiculous unless you consider that I had only a vague conception of what quantum mechanics really says.
In high school I learned basic motion equations, basic EM equations, a tiny bit of nuclear, and that's almost all. I took one full year (college-level, supposedly) class.
Say it didn't teach you anything, fine, say it didn't have any great depth. But don't be all elitist and say that makes it bad. That's like me saying a book on introductory programming is bad, because it's so shallow.
Good Christ, just calm down.
I think they just want to make it 'look cool.' Have you never ever done something just because it was kinda cool? Do those people that make openGL or whatever demos with the flashing lights and such do it because they want to make sure their audience pays attention? I do things all the time just because it's kinda cool.
That kind of breaks down when you enter a world where money matters, and I know that. But it's not as if any of the effects in that were particularly spectactular, I could probably replicate nearly all of those effects in a day or so.
This is PBS broadcasting. I think you may be looking a little too deeply. Like those people that try to determine what authors of books are "trying to say" when most of them were just writing some stories.
Granted, society is a little obsessed with eye candy, but I don't think this is an example of that. I doubt anybody watching this (if they were interested at all, otherwise...why would they even watch?) stopped paying attention to the people speaking and looking at the wall behind them.
A few parts of the videos did annoy me, like that part with the elevator. But it's somebody's job to do things like that, to come up with a way to represent everything going on. And it's somebody else's job to do all the visual effects.
Anybody can see the eye-candy obsession. Video games are rated as much on graphic quality as gameplay, CG movies tend to have an incredible amount of weight placed on the animation quality. To me, these things aren't too important. I like those new CG movies...because they're good movies. Most of my favorite games are at least five years old. Now, this doesn't really relate to this specific example, but more to the concept, this doesn't make eye candy BAD. In the movies it fascinates me, at the very least--I watched the Final Fantasy movie not for the plot, but to study the animation. And sometimes it can help in a game, when the game attempts to create an immersive environment, for example. (Doesn't have to be a realistic environment either...Tron 2.0 is a lot of fun partially due to the style.)
So, while the obsession with the visuals and the moving parts is something of a problem, that doesn't make the parts themselves bad. Stop being so angry. Enjoy that which is cool.
Though I have to agree with the other poster. You do seem old.
Actually, my 160GB hard drives fit nicely into my pocket.
I have a feeling that doesn't count.
I'm not thinking that should have been modded 'funny.' Seeing as MS has no relationship to the software, and only Apple profits from selling a consumer another version of a product they've already bought, I'd say the blame is solely on Apple. You might as well say it's Windows' fault that this program I made deletes a bunch of files. Hah! Silly Microsoft! Allowing people to delete files!
Now the post may have just been a joke, but that's my point. It's not funny, just stupid.
I still agree with the way it was done, and I think I personally prefer Gimli as the movies' jokester, but I'll certainly grant you your point. Mostly because I have no reasons for that preference, and I have no idea why I have it. Seems strange even to me.
But I do have a bit of a problem with the last line of your post. Fistly, let's make it clear that as far as I'm concerned, Tolkien can have all the points he pleases, and each and every one would be well deserved. But that you imply that Jackson and I are in competition with him is absurd. I love the books more than anything else I've ever read. And the two movies are my favorite two movies of all time. I accept that Jackson is not translating the books to film, that would be madness. He's adapting them. In no way is he attempting to rewrite Tolkien. I'm sure that one of his hopes is that his movies will encourage more people to read those books that he himself cares about so much to put such an insane amount of effort into. Yeah, I'm sure money's part of it too, but when I watch the movies it seems to me like that's only secondary.
By the way, I really don't think comic relief is required in a book, and I say this from my own reading experience. Sometimes a book with no light at all can be absolutely fantastic. Pippin was funny in parts, yes, but (in my eyes) not very often. There were parts where it WAS completely dark and hopeless, and that works on paper. Just not on screen. Still, that's not at all in contradiction of what you said, just a clarification of my own statements.
Though I don't think he's been ruined, that point has already been refuted. So I'll say that it wasn't 'for no particular reason.' Why would they so drastically alter a character? I'll tell you.
One of the differences in literature and cinema is the way that emotion and feeling is conveyed. Read the books, and see what kind of feelings you get about the ring and its power. It's probably...pretty bad. You really understand the evilness of this thing, as when you read about Frodo it mentions it constantly, and so you see that Frodo can't ignore it, not only as part of his mission, but as a great burden.
In a movie though, you can SEE things. The things that become real become things that you can see. You might know that the ring is evil and can corrupt anybody, but you're not feeling it the same way as the books do. You have to create obvious effects of the ring's power. That's part of the nature of cinema, things must be more obvious. The best way to do that was to corrupt Faramir a bit. We can see that he is a good man by the end of the movie, he lets the hobbits go at risk of death, and all of the fans know that's who he really is. But seeing that he could be corrupted, too, helps the movie come closer to the book's wonderful portrayal of the Ring's evil.
That's the important thing, the feeling of importance and enormity and good and evil and hopelessness. Not little plot details.
And about Gimli...who do you approve of for comic relief then? It's needed, it really is. I think it's too bad that the dwarves are trivialized as a race because of it, but it seems that the only time that would be a problem in Fellowship, at the mines. I think it wasa good choice, personally, and it helps make the movie more watchable and entertaining. Well, as long as you're watching it to be entertained, and not to be an ass about the scriping decisions.
And that thing about it being a story told to his kids...The Hobbit was, probably. But not LotR. He hated writing it by the end, but he had more than one good reason to finish it. I'm just glad he did.
Not intervention of the gods. The Ainur had nothing to do with it, aside from sending Olorin the Maiar to help.
*Revels in his geekery*
Heh, okay, I'm sorry, but I think it's really funny that you, as a Mac user, can criticize any kind of computer package deal. Nothing against Macs as machines, but the price factor and the compatibility problem (I Am Gamer.) are my own two gripes. *Hugs his $480 system that can play any game on the market without a hitch*
THe fee is not being appended! It's staying the same! $160 before, $160 now! Pay attention. Or did that bunny outside distract you too much? Dealing with distractions is part of any work-oriented environment. That means college (just...don't argue, you know what I mean) and, gasp, the real world. It's not something that's going to go away. Therefore, it's something you have to deal with, not something others should be making accomodations for.
*Snicker*
So you're saying that non-MS users are handicapped?
I don't know....I know a few of the smaller record stores around my own home are doing just fine. (We don't have any really small stores around here, they're all part of chains of at least a couple stores, and as far as I can tell it's because there have been no attempts, there is no need.)
Of course, they don't restrict themselves to those genres which are declining in popularity anyway. I'm not a fan of the rap myself, but its popularity continues to skyrocket. Manson and similar is doing pretty well itself. (If you really listened to the music instead of the image, you might find there's some meaning in there...but this is not the place for that discussion.)
All I'm really saying is that while many stores like your own are suffering (I do certainly acknowledge that), there isn't really any proof that it's from sharing at all. I'm not saying it definitely isn't the cause, but there are other possible reasons. I'm finding that I personally can't stand a lot of the new stuff coming out, though I don't know how much of the stuff in your family-type store I would have heard anyway, that's not really the stuff that gets played and promoted, so I can't say I know for sure. I know lots of people who will get songs online, but if they like them they WILL buy the CD. They want to support the artists they like in any way they can, even if only by adding to their sales, and they also want to avoid inadvertantly supporting bands they think suck. There are probably more people like that than you think--but the number is decreasing as the RIAA continues to soil its name with its business practices. A year ago I actually had a fantastic MP3 collection myself (I never cost the industry a dime, though, from my own point of view, since I never shared and honestly didn't have the cash to spend on a CD -- so I did recieve product without pay, but the pay wasn't forthcoming whether I could get the product for free or not.) but I've since then become disgusted with the industry in general. Most of the music is crap these days and it's not worth sifting through. I have maybe 40 or so MP3's on my hard drive, and only three I didn't legally rip from my own CDs, only because I downloaded them to see if I thought a bands' music was worth it. Now that I see that I still have those, I'll delete them after I finish this post -- my lack of MP3s isn't because I can't get them, it's because I don't want the music anymore, even if I don't have to pay for it. The blank hard drive space itself is more valuable to me.
I think it's very narrow-minded, and perhaps even thoughtless, to blame piracy alone for your store's problems. There are many other reasons for lack of demand these days.
Still, aside from all that, I am sorry about your situation and wish you the best of luck.
About the bookstore...books are better than CD's. That's all there is to it. Much better value. Also, I've downloaded far more books than I ever did songs. More than I could read in my life. I'll still buy books on occasion, though. Unlike music,they don't seem to suck these days.
Well, I do certainly agree with your point, but putting it to a congressional vote is just like releasing it anyway. SOMEBODY'S gonna tell. And they might not even tell the real story, if they're unhappy enough about it to actually tell people, they might even make it sound worse than it is.
I see yor problem, but not your solution.
I've just never met a French person that I liked.
/In a bad mood.
Of course, the only ones I ever met were the ones who came over in an exchange program for a few weeks, and they were all total asshats. The kind of spoiled kids who could afford the trip. If I lived there, and could afford it, (if I wasn't an asshole, I mean) I wouldn't have gone, simply because it would have meant I'd have to spend time with all the others.
So these guys and gals come over here, they do all they can to get as much hot American sex as they can (They seem to think that's what this country's all about. Hmm.) and then they inevitably get drunk and break shit.
And they like to walk around naked a lot. Like, around their host family's houses.
And of course, there's that 'no shower' thing.
You can tell me this is all just a part of their culture and all that, but that doesn't make me stop hating these people who insulted me because they didn't realize I can understand French fairly well. It might be some other small group's culture to take a big bite out of my arm, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it.
And I'm not making a stereotype here. Read carefully. I never insult France or the French population directly. But they may be trying to ship the worst of them over here as often as possible.
Only 20 years, eh?
I'm on a college campus. We have to use phone cards or COLLECT or similar to make long distance calls from here. I'd MUCH rather just do it this way, with my wonderful connection (about 10Mbps in practice) that I have no choice but pay for.
Business is business. All big companies do stuff like this. Actually, all big companies regularly do stuff worse than this--this time, he didn't even lie.
I don't LIKE Microsoft, understand. But I think it's incredible how much people rip on those company practices that are pretty much standard. Aren't there plenty of pure-evil things for you guys to rip on?
The artists make their money by touring, putting on concerts. RIAA gives them practically nothing. The biggest contribution the RIAA gives is promotion. Which is accomplished much better by free distribution.
Granted, some artists really don't want their music stolen. Obviously, Madonna. But a lot (from what I've personally heard, it SEEMS to be the majority) don't really care. I remember reading an interview with the members of Offspring a few years back where they said they were just ecstatic that they were one of the most shared bands, because it meant people liked their music. I heard similar things from other bands, including a few who actually spoke in favor of filetrading.
Sorry I have no real, hard information. If you don't believe me, look for it yourself. I've seen it, don't care if you believe me, and don't really care to search it out again.