>> CLONE is literally one of the worst movies ever made.
>That sounds like an opinion. Here's another one: AOTC was perfectly enjoyable.
Yes, mine is a thought-out opinion of a guy who knows a little bit about movies. Here's some more opinions:
"Acting? Hard to tell. McGregor comes off best, and Lee is always a pleasure to watch. Poor Samuel L. Jackson, as the Jedi Mace Windu, mostly has to stand around looking stoic. Christensen may be a pretty good actor, but nobody could be expected to deliver these lines without looking like an idiot."
-- Kansas City Star
"I spent half an hour after the screening chattering away in an embarrassing spasm of denial--breathlessly fixating on the stuff that worked, hoping that maybe sheer willpower would carry me over the finish line into the bliss I had so dearly anticipated. But the long drive home was a solitary, unpleasant one, and I eventually mustered enough gumption to admit the ugly truth--my precious new Star Wars movie is a lumbering, wheezy drag.
This film is a mess. It's dour, unpleasant, badly acted and revolting to look at."
-- Philadelphia Weekly
"very close to the most inept piece of hubristic garbage I've ever had the alarming misfortune to see realized."
-- Film Freak Central
"in a film with a built-in audience, why not go for the high notes? Why not allow the dialogue to be inventive, stylish and expressive? There is a certain lifelessness in some of the acting, perhaps because the actors were often filmed in front of blue screens so their environments could be added later by computer. Actors speak more slowly than they might--flatly, factually, formally, as if reciting. Sometimes that reflects the ponderous load of the mythology they represent. At other times it simply shows that what they have to say is banal. "Episode II-- Attack of the Clones" is a technological exercise that lacks juice and delight."
-- Roger Ebert
CLONES fails on nearly every cinematic level except production.
The actors deliver their lines like it's their first run through the script. The only one with any life in him is Lee. The body language is non-existant like a high-school play (remember Han Solo running around in Empire, ducking, weaving, waving his finger, barking his lines -- NO actor in CLONES delivers this kind of energy).
The pacing of the picture is frigid -- it is such a colossal bore, plodding from one fx sequence to another. The pauses and gaps between every line of dialoge are exhausting. What ever happened to Lucas' famous direction "faster and more intense"?
Beloved characters like Yoda are characitures of their former selves ("really says EVERYTHING backwards, Yoda does?"), the beloved wise, mysterious wizard from EMPIRE was once awe-inspiring but is now laughable. (Go back and watch the scene from EMPIRE where he's telling Luke about the force and raises the X-WING from the swamp -- it's compelling and inspiring, there's *nothing* in the prequels that comes close to that scene.)
The "lead" actors Christianson and Portman... <sigh>... there's better acting on SAVED BY THE BELL. And their romance is painfully trite. In their defense, they had nothing to work with as their script was pathetic; the most hackneyed writing in recent memory.
The entire plot is an uninspired first draft of a second rate saturday morning cartoon. Each and every sub-plot is completely contrived; Boba Fett and son, Threepio's partnering with R2, the intro of Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru, Shme Skywalkers death. This is all bad, bad, amateur stuff.
I can't wait for the scene in Episode 3 when Anakin says "I want my son to have my light-sabre when he's old enough." Owen replies, "I WON'T ALLOW THAT!". Kenobi whispers to Anakin, "Give it to me, I'll care it" and winks.
Give me strength, honestly.
Factoring in budget, talent, and expectations, CLONE is literally one of the worst movies ever made.
I hate the way Canadians despise risk-takers, business men, and entrepreneurism. Then when someone with ambition heads south and makes good, Canadians embrace them and tout them as "icons".
Steve Case (AOL) is Canadian, James Gosling (Java) is Canadian... yet none of them had success IN CANADA. Why do you think that is? Because the people that do stay in Canada and make a success of themselves are usually berated for their ambition and because Canadian investors don't take risks. Canadian financiers don't know how to build anything, they study for a living rather than build things.
I'd ask what technologies Canada has produced but some whiney Canuck will likley answer Avro Arrow (a state-of-the-art jet fighter project the people of Canada shut-down in the sixties) and the Canadarm (that space-shuttle claw NASA out-sourced to us 20 years ago). Wow, that's an impressive output for thirty years.
Even Speilberg sometimes blows it. "Jurassic Park III", anyone? That effectively went direct to video
No, no! I'll not have that!
Jurassic Park 3 is a very under-rated movie; an excellent little short and sweet picture.
The director courageously did a great job with the pteridactyl sequences (which Spielberg didn't include in the first movie because he said they were too hard to film).
BTW, Spielberg wasn't involved in JP3. But he has ideas of JP4.
I loved 'x-wing' when it first came out, and I liked 'x-wing vs tie fighter' too (except that the sequel had too many non-movie related ships). I liked that it was a "simulation" rather than an arcade shoot-em -up. Really felt like I was flying a real ship from the movie.
I'd love an updated version of X-Wing with state-of-the-art graphics and game-play. What is the closest thing to X-Wing out there today?
Also, I love Call Of Duty. Is there a "Call Of Duty"-type game set in the Star Wars universe?
Okay, so now we know iTMS is geared towards 16 year olds. What a strategy. No, it doesn't rock.
It neatly lets me import all of my CDs to my computer at home and work. It lets me assemble playlists and burn mixed discs. It lets me easily share playlists or my whole library to others in my home and at work. It all "just works", with a slick interface, and it's a FREE download.
You're wrong. That rocks.
You pay *more* for your songs than if you had purchased the CD. The songs aren't as good as the CD, you get no liner notes, lyrics, and when you're tired of the music, you can't resell it.
Firstly, I've never bought a song from iTunes Music Store. Even without that feature, the software rocks.
Secondly, how are they more than CDs? I can buy most full albums for $9.99 at iTunes. That's cheaper!
Besides, 99 cents for a good quality music file I'm legally allowed to burn on as many CDs as I want is a great deal. *Especially* if I just want to buy one song.
By the way, used to be you could walk into any record store and buy a single in the form of a 45rpm. Throughout the history of the music industry, charts listed the best-selling SINGLES -- no jackets, liner notes, or lyrics -- this has been happening since the 1950s and it was never considered a rip-off before.
No son. No they didn't. There was virtually no risk, because they didn't invest that much in infrastructure.
Apple invested *plenty* developing a cool, tiny, stylish piece of hardware with GIGA-byte capacities. That's a major undertaking for any company.
And I was there when the web-cast was shown; guys like you *laughed*! They laughed at everything: its size, the price, and the massive harddrive -- "who wants thousands of songs?", they laughed and laughed and laughed. And now they're all talking about how obvious it all was.
Sonny-boy, even Walmart has the equivalent of iTMS.
Yeah, *EVEN* Wal-mart. That tiny mom-and-pop outfit that sells 25% of all the CDs in the USA. Wonder why they want in.
No, apple didn't create this market, in fact, Napster created this market.
Steve Jobs begged and pleaded with the record executives to sell their music on-line. All they wanted to do was *shutdown* all web-based music distributors like Napster.
Apple is a small player in the "market"
Jobs had the vision and the drive to make it work. And now Apple *owns* this market.
Apple fanboi-ism is like a brain tumor.... Please. Come back to the planet and smell the coffee.
You wouldn't know a good product if you saw it, and obviously even your *hind-sight* isn't 20-20.
Well, here's yet another reason not to use iTunes... I think iTunes sucks.
Good for you! (Not being sarcastic) If you don't like something don't buy it. That's the right attitude.
I, for example, love Apple products but bought a VAIO instead of an iBook because Apple caps the video out of the iBook at 1024x768 and the equivalent PowerBook was far too expensive. If Apple wants me to buy their hardware they'll have to do something about the price/feature match-up with their competition.
I will continue to use iTunes because I think it rocks. I think it's the best software of its kind.
Apple took a huge risk with their iTunes/iPod strategy -- lots of people I know laughed their heads off at the idea that people would *pay* to download music, and pay hundreds for an "mp3" player.
Apple has created a huge industry for itself, and if Real doesn't like it they should try and make a better product.
Someone may come along tomorrow with a product or service that will put Apple's music business in the toilet. It's way too soon for people like Real to be crying about monopolistic tactics. Apple's created their market and they're doing a great job nuturing it.
When I was growing up (in the 80s), there were two kinds of computers that my friends (or, more specifically, our parents) had at home: Apple and the IBM-Compatible
In the 80s, me and my friends had Commodore 64s, 128s, Amigas, and Atari STs -- there were a couple Apple IIs and one Mac, and one guy had a Tandy IBM-compatible PC.
It wasn't until the 386-era (with Windows 3.0 and/or Geoworks) that we all gradually migrated to PCs -- although some guys held on to their Macs and Amigas like their lives depended on it.
There's a reason Terry Guilliam opted out of working on a film adaptation of Watchmen. The man stated in a book dedicated to Moore's fiftieth birthday that he drew comfort from the fact that he wouldnt' be the one to fuck over the work.
I always felt Gilliam's TWELVE MONKEYS had a lot of Watchmen-esq elements; almost as though that movie used some of the left-over pre-production from the cancelled Watchmen project. There was more, but it's been a long time since I saw it.
Hey, how about Bruce Willis as Rorschach?
Let's see if I can remember -- the number "12" was prominent, the monkeys protest symbol was spray painted everywhere like the "WHO WATCHES THE..." graphiti. There was that scene with the big cat walking around in a snow covered city (reminded me of Ozzy's antarctic palace), and the time-travel twist ending was reminiscent of the rumored re-write of the Watchmen script (which had a time-travel twist that who make the big disaster in Watchmen never happen).
"Darren Aronofsky? I'm on the phone NOW!" said Law, clearly excited. "Adrian Veidt, King of Kings!" And then, as if to show off his Watchmen fanboy credentials, he whispered conspiratorially. "I'm tattooed with Rorschach, did you know that?"
I worked in a music store in the mid-late eighties when CDs first came out. Albums (12" vinyl) and cassettes were the same prices, ~$10. The CD versions were ~$20.
Over the years CD prices came down a bit, ~$15 these days. But they never came down to what LPs and Cassettes sold for.
Considering how cheaply CDs can be mass-produced, they should always sell for $10 or less.
By the way, in the 80s you could also buy your favorite song for about $2.50 as a 7" vinyl single. ($.99 for electronic versions of the songs from iTunes is the *right* idea.)
I'm one of the apparent few that thinks Dubya is a good, effective speaker.
Most politicians lose my attention five seconds into their answer, rambling on with same-old rhetorics. Dubya may have his share of rhetoric at times, but I never get tired or bored listening to his answers.
For me, there's a genuine sincerity in Dubya that rings true.
I don't read that much, really. I've read everything Michael Critchon has written, and I enjoy Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic books.
I picked up CRYPTONOMICON and I enjoyed the "Forest Gump"-like WWII encryption story the most. But the book sort of seems all over the place, D&D, shaving-videos, I had a hard time getting the flow.
So at about page 400 I got tired. Realizing this book was 800 pages (!) I put it down and never got around to picking it up again.
My question is, why don't you take the best elements of your vision and edit them down to a more concise read? You really had something there, but I wish it was one story instead of many.
Okay, I'm convinced. I've been programming in Java for years but C# sounds cool enough to try... where do I download it?
You mean, I have to buy it first before I can even try it?
I can get JSDK 1.5 and J2EE and a great IDE in Eclipse all for free. Heck, I can even download a free version of JBuilder. Why should I pay for C# when I don't even know if I like it yet?
Slashdot Mirror
>That sounds like an opinion. Here's another one: AOTC was perfectly enjoyable.
Yes, mine is a thought-out opinion of a guy who knows a little bit about movies. Here's some more opinions:
"Acting? Hard to tell. McGregor comes off best, and Lee is always a pleasure to watch. Poor Samuel L. Jackson, as the Jedi Mace Windu, mostly has to stand around looking stoic. Christensen may be a pretty good actor, but nobody could be expected to deliver these lines without looking like an idiot."
-- Kansas City Star
"I spent half an hour after the screening chattering away in an embarrassing spasm of denial--breathlessly fixating on the stuff that worked, hoping that maybe sheer willpower would carry me over the finish line into the bliss I had so dearly anticipated. But the long drive home was a solitary, unpleasant one, and I eventually mustered enough gumption to admit the ugly truth--my precious new Star Wars movie is a lumbering, wheezy drag.
This film is a mess. It's dour, unpleasant, badly acted and revolting to look at."
-- Philadelphia Weekly
"very close to the most inept piece of hubristic garbage I've ever had the alarming misfortune to see realized."
-- Film Freak Central
"in a film with a built-in audience, why not go for the high notes? Why not allow the dialogue to be inventive, stylish and expressive? There is a certain lifelessness in some of the acting, perhaps because the actors were often filmed in front of blue screens so their environments could be added later by computer. Actors speak more slowly than they might--flatly, factually, formally, as if reciting. Sometimes that reflects the ponderous load of the mythology they represent. At other times it simply shows that what they have to say is banal. "Episode II-- Attack of the Clones" is a technological exercise that lacks juice and delight."
-- Roger Ebert
Sam
>Now you really went too far.
Okay, let me retract -- their acting is AS GOOD as on Saved By The Bell.
Sam
Me too.
The Attack Of The Clones was pretty good.
CLONES fails on nearly every cinematic level except production.
The actors deliver their lines like it's their first run through the script. The only one with any life in him is Lee. The body language is non-existant like a high-school play (remember Han Solo running around in Empire, ducking, weaving, waving his finger, barking his lines -- NO actor in CLONES delivers this kind of energy).
The pacing of the picture is frigid -- it is such a colossal bore, plodding from one fx sequence to another. The pauses and gaps between every line of dialoge are exhausting. What ever happened to Lucas' famous direction "faster and more intense"?
Beloved characters like Yoda are characitures of their former selves ("really says EVERYTHING backwards, Yoda does?"), the beloved wise, mysterious wizard from EMPIRE was once awe-inspiring but is now laughable. (Go back and watch the scene from EMPIRE where he's telling Luke about the force and raises the X-WING from the swamp -- it's compelling and inspiring, there's *nothing* in the prequels that comes close to that scene.)
The "lead" actors Christianson and Portman ... <sigh> ... there's better acting on SAVED BY THE BELL. And their romance is painfully trite. In their defense, they had nothing to work with as their script was pathetic; the most hackneyed writing in recent memory.
The entire plot is an uninspired first draft of a second rate saturday morning cartoon. Each and every sub-plot is completely contrived; Boba Fett and son, Threepio's partnering with R2, the intro of Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru, Shme Skywalkers death. This is all bad, bad, amateur stuff.
I can't wait for the scene in Episode 3 when Anakin says "I want my son to have my light-sabre when he's old enough." Owen replies, "I WON'T ALLOW THAT!". Kenobi whispers to Anakin, "Give it to me, I'll care it" and winks.
Give me strength, honestly.
Factoring in budget, talent, and expectations, CLONE is literally one of the worst movies ever made.
Sam
Twin Ion Engine ... why would a tank need such a propulsion system?
Oh yes, Commodore was Canadian.
... yet none of them had success IN CANADA. Why do you think that is? Because the people that do stay in Canada and make a success of themselves are usually berated for their ambition and because Canadian investors don't take risks. Canadian financiers don't know how to build anything, they study for a living rather than build things.
<rant>
I hate the way Canadians despise risk-takers, business men, and entrepreneurism. Then when someone with ambition heads south and makes good, Canadians embrace them and tout them as "icons".
Steve Case (AOL) is Canadian, James Gosling (Java) is Canadian
I'd ask what technologies Canada has produced but some whiney Canuck will likley answer Avro Arrow (a state-of-the-art jet fighter project the people of Canada shut-down in the sixties) and the Canadarm (that space-shuttle claw NASA out-sourced to us 20 years ago). Wow, that's an impressive output for thirty years.
</rant>
Canadian Sam
I'm going to have to keep an eye on ebay for a Starbird so I can be 10 again. ;-)
Here's a Starbird Command Base on ebay now.
And here's a web site with more photos and an article about the toy.
Sam
No Micronauts? Come on! I lived for those things.
Starbird was easily my favorite toy at age 10.
Awesome memory surge -- this is why I read slashdot. Thanks!
Sam
No, no! I'll not have that!
Jurassic Park 3 is a very under-rated movie; an excellent little short and sweet picture.
The director courageously did a great job with the pteridactyl sequences (which Spielberg didn't include in the first movie because he said they were too hard to film).
BTW, Spielberg wasn't involved in JP3. But he has ideas of JP4.
Sam
I'd love an updated version of X-Wing with state-of-the-art graphics and game-play. What is the closest thing to X-Wing out there today?
Also, I love Call Of Duty. Is there a "Call Of Duty"-type game set in the Star Wars universe?
Sam
It neatly lets me import all of my CDs to my computer at home and work. It lets me assemble playlists and burn mixed discs. It lets me easily share playlists or my whole library to others in my home and at work. It all "just works", with a slick interface, and it's a FREE download.
You're wrong. That rocks.
You pay *more* for your songs than if you had purchased the CD. The songs aren't as good as the CD, you get no liner notes, lyrics, and when you're tired of the music, you can't resell it.
Firstly, I've never bought a song from iTunes Music Store. Even without that feature, the software rocks.
Secondly, how are they more than CDs? I can buy most full albums for $9.99 at iTunes. That's cheaper!
Besides, 99 cents for a good quality music file I'm legally allowed to burn on as many CDs as I want is a great deal. *Especially* if I just want to buy one song.
By the way, used to be you could walk into any record store and buy a single in the form of a 45rpm. Throughout the history of the music industry, charts listed the best-selling SINGLES -- no jackets, liner notes, or lyrics -- this has been happening since the 1950s and it was never considered a rip-off before.
No son. No they didn't. There was virtually no risk, because they didn't invest that much in infrastructure.
Apple invested *plenty* developing a cool, tiny, stylish piece of hardware with GIGA-byte capacities. That's a major undertaking for any company.
And I was there when the web-cast was shown; guys like you *laughed*! They laughed at everything: its size, the price, and the massive harddrive -- "who wants thousands of songs?", they laughed and laughed and laughed. And now they're all talking about how obvious it all was.
Sonny-boy, even Walmart has the equivalent of iTMS.
Yeah, *EVEN* Wal-mart. That tiny mom-and-pop outfit that sells 25% of all the CDs in the USA. Wonder why they want in.
No, apple didn't create this market, in fact, Napster created this market.
Steve Jobs begged and pleaded with the record executives to sell their music on-line. All they wanted to do was *shutdown* all web-based music distributors like Napster.
Apple is a small player in the "market"
Jobs had the vision and the drive to make it work. And now Apple *owns* this market.
Apple fanboi-ism is like a brain tumor. ... Please. Come back to the planet and smell the coffee.
You wouldn't know a good product if you saw it, and obviously even your *hind-sight* isn't 20-20.
Sam
Good for you! (Not being sarcastic) If you don't like something don't buy it. That's the right attitude.
I, for example, love Apple products but bought a VAIO instead of an iBook because Apple caps the video out of the iBook at 1024x768 and the equivalent PowerBook was far too expensive. If Apple wants me to buy their hardware they'll have to do something about the price/feature match-up with their competition.
I will continue to use iTunes because I think it rocks. I think it's the best software of its kind.
Apple took a huge risk with their iTunes/iPod strategy -- lots of people I know laughed their heads off at the idea that people would *pay* to download music, and pay hundreds for an "mp3" player.
Apple has created a huge industry for itself, and if Real doesn't like it they should try and make a better product.
Someone may come along tomorrow with a product or service that will put Apple's music business in the toilet. It's way too soon for people like Real to be crying about monopolistic tactics. Apple's created their market and they're doing a great job nuturing it.
Sam
In the 80s, me and my friends had Commodore 64s, 128s, Amigas, and Atari STs -- there were a couple Apple IIs and one Mac, and one guy had a Tandy IBM-compatible PC.
It wasn't until the 386-era (with Windows 3.0 and/or Geoworks) that we all gradually migrated to PCs -- although some guys held on to their Macs and Amigas like their lives depended on it.
Sam
jed@rightclick.ca
No, Sandman would definately have to be played by Robert Smith of The Cure. ;-)
Seriously, though, I think The Rock would be an awesome Shazam/CaptMarvel.
SS
I always felt Gilliam's TWELVE MONKEYS had a lot of Watchmen-esq elements; almost as though that movie used some of the left-over pre-production from the cancelled Watchmen project. There was more, but it's been a long time since I saw it.
Hey, how about Bruce Willis as Rorschach?
Let's see if I can remember -- the number "12" was prominent, the monkeys protest symbol was spray painted everywhere like the "WHO WATCHES THE..." graphiti. There was that scene with the big cat walking around in a snow covered city (reminded me of Ozzy's antarctic palace), and the time-travel twist ending was reminiscent of the rumored re-write of the Watchmen script (which had a time-travel twist that who make the big disaster in Watchmen never happen).
Just saying, SS
perhaps "greatest" is subjective...
Time to expand your horizons, fan-boy. THE WATCHMEN is the "War And Peace" of the comics world.
"Darren Aronofsky? I'm on the phone NOW!" said Law, clearly excited. "Adrian Veidt, King of Kings!" And then, as if to show off his Watchmen fanboy credentials, he whispered conspiratorially. "I'm tattooed with Rorschach, did you know that?"
Here you go: ebay item
SLL
Over the years CD prices came down a bit, ~$15 these days. But they never came down to what LPs and Cassettes sold for.
Considering how cheaply CDs can be mass-produced, they should always sell for $10 or less.
By the way, in the 80s you could also buy your favorite song for about $2.50 as a 7" vinyl single. ($.99 for electronic versions of the songs from iTunes is the *right* idea.)
Sam
Most politicians lose my attention five seconds into their answer, rambling on with same-old rhetorics. Dubya may have his share of rhetoric at times, but I never get tired or bored listening to his answers.
For me, there's a genuine sincerity in Dubya that rings true.
Just saying,
Sam "A.D.D." Seaborn
Sam
I don't read that much, really. I've read everything Michael Critchon has written, and I enjoy Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic books.
I picked up CRYPTONOMICON and I enjoyed the "Forest Gump"-like WWII encryption story the most. But the book sort of seems all over the place, D&D, shaving-videos, I had a hard time getting the flow.
So at about page 400 I got tired. Realizing this book was 800 pages (!) I put it down and never got around to picking it up again.
My question is, why don't you take the best elements of your vision and edit them down to a more concise read? You really had something there, but I wish it was one story instead of many.
Sam
You mean, I have to buy it first before I can even try it?
I can get JSDK 1.5 and J2EE and a great IDE in Eclipse all for free. Heck, I can even download a free version of JBuilder. Why should I pay for C# when I don't even know if I like it yet?
Sam