Something about the haughty tone of this post makes me think the poster is a hearty advocate of abortion....but nobody wants to swim in these waters, now do they;)
This is 100% of the reason why I buy almost no anime, and watch tons of fansubs. The prices are ridiculous, and nowhere near fair. I wouldn't mind if it were a "mere" 100% price over the cost of an American show ($60 for 26 episodes of Excel Saga vs. $30 for 24 episodes of Seinfeld), but these things are costing 500% or MORE over the price of an equivalent American product. There's no reason behind this kind of price gouging.
And now for the skeptics...if it weren't for fansubs, how much anime would I buy? None. Because I wouldn't be watching any. The horrible edited and dubbed episodes on Cartoon Network never interested me before I caught on to fansubs. Only seeing them in their native tongue and in unedited form won my viewership. And now I do buy some anime, but not nearly so much as I would if it were priced fairly (I will note that sets such as Full Metal Panic!, priced around $50-$60 for 24 episodes, are the exception to the norm).
I don't know about you, but it seems to me that forcing all fans of a show to stop watching it for three years straight would kind of kill the fanbase. But that's basically what you're advocating should happen with Naruto.
If people who are current with the series in Japan stopped watching fansubs and just started watching it as it airs on American television, it would be three years until there was anything worth viewing, if not more (it's more likely there wouldn't be any new Naruto for them until 2009).
To me, that's just stupid. Let them watch their fansubs. They'll still buy the DVDs of the original episodes as they come out (they will likely NOT watch the televised episodes, as they will only feature the horrible dubbed version) and everyone's happy.
I never said anything about anybody not being "smart enough". I don't consider myself an idiot, and I didn't perceive even half of the things going on in the trilogy before I watched the extras on the box set.
I already gave you evidence that Neo controlling the sentinels was explained in the film, but what you seem to want is an immediate explanation right then. Well, that's just not the way good storytelling works. In fact, in many great films some things are never explained at all and just taken for granted.
Take Superman, for instance. How can he fly? Was that ever explained? And yet Superman was an excellent film. People just take it for granted that Superman can fly, because that's part of his character and it's a lot of fun.
So I guess the point is, if you're expecting every minute turn of the plot of every film to come packaged with instant explanations, get used to disappointment.
Whoops, since I don't post much I still wasn't quite sure if html formatting was necessary to preserve line breaks...I'm resubmitting my previous post in a readable form, feel free to mod down the original one. And now, on with the post:
The abundance of posts like this indicate that a lot of the criticisms of the sequels are generated by people who didn't really bother digging into the story and really paying attention to what happened.
The explanation for Neo's real world control of the sentinels rests in the Architect's explanation of the function of the One. Basically, the One gets his power from the machines themselves, the machine "mainframe". This is the thing that also controls all the sentinels. Therefore the One has the power to act against sentinels using the machine mainframe as a conduit.
Admittedly, there are a couple of small leaps you have to make along with this, namely that Neo's control is localized (he could zap the nearby sentinels but not every sentinel in existence) and that his brain can be connected to the network of the machines without being wired directly in to a computer (a wireless connection, in other words). But I think there were certainly explanations for this as well as for just about every other question raised by the skeptics of this trilogy, found right in the film. Definitely more than "well, just because."
I wish people would really take the time to explore what this trilogy was really about (the excellent DVD boxset contains a fountain of insight), and criticize the sequels for the things which truly deserve criticism; poor acting and dialogue, and an overemphasis on CGI special effects.
The abundance of posts like this indicate that a lot of the criticisms of the sequels are generated by people who didn't really bother digging into the story and really paying attention to what happened. The explanation for Neo's real world control of the sentinels rests in the Architect's explanation of the function of the One. Basically, the One gets his power from the machines themselves, the machine "mainframe". This is the thing that also controls all the sentinels. Therefore the One has the power to act against sentinels using the machine mainframe as a conduit.
Admittedly, there are a couple of small leaps you have to make along with this, namely that Neo's control is localized (he could zap the nearby sentinels but not every sentinel in existence) and that his brain can be connected to the network of the machines without being wired directly in to a computer (a wireless connection, in other words). But I think there were certainly explanations for this as well as for just about every other question raised by the skeptics of this trilogy, found right in the film. Definitely more than "well, just because."
I wish people would really take the time to explore what this trilogy was really about (the excellent DVD boxset contains a fountain of insight), and criticize the sequels for the things which truly deserve criticism; poor acting and dialogue, and an overemphasis on CGI special effects.
I agree that there are a few problems with Yahoo Music, however I still definitely prefer it to iTunes for various reasons.
One of which being the situation yesterday where I forgot to bring a cd burned from iTunes from home to listen to at work. I figured ok, sure I'll install iTunes here and just download the music I *paid* for to this computer as well. After I go through the install process (which takes a while), get a password reset (I forgot the username on iTunes is an e-mail address and not a typical username), I finally get it up and working, try to get my music. "We're sorry, you can only download music once." So, after all that, I can't even listen to what the music I paid for.
Sorry Apple, I think I will stick with Yahoo Music (whose purchase prices happen to trump Apple as well) from now on. I'll take a few irritating pack-ins (such as Yahoo Messenger, which I uninstalled immediately) over a near-crippling lack of features.
There will come a day when there will be a device that you can carry around in your pocket which will play movies, tv shows, music, video games (and emulate old systems), allow you to surf the web with minimal hassle and carry a low pricetag. The iPod ain't it.
Wait a tick...are you actually trying to make the argument that most people say "boxen" when referring to more than one pc case? Hahahahaha....brilliant.
Yeah that's true, there's really a bigger issue regarding format conversion in general, I just object to anyone advocating the continued patronage of VHS as it was a format that did a lot of damage to the appreciation of film in America. How many times have you heard someone complain about "those darn black bars" on DVDs? VHS is to blame.
As much as I hate to advocate giving the MPAA more money, those "enhanced" DVD versions of old movies, in almost all cases...ARE enhanced. The picture quality is much better, the movie will usually feature a surround sound audio track or two, there might be some extra features, and best of all...it'll be in widescreen (if the original movie was filmed in widescreen). So in this case, they're actually worth what you plunk down, at least if you care about seeing movies the right way.
One anime that features mostly adult characters that is currently airing is Monster, a suspense thriller about a Japanese doctor living in Germany who saves the life of a serial killer bent on some type of world domination (or possibly something more sinister, we don't know yet).
I may be missing the obvious, but are Debian releases supposed to be named after characters from the classic Pixar animated film Toy Story? Woody, Sarge, etc...will the next one be Buzz Lightyear?
I know one big barrier, and heck probably an unpassable barrier, for me against ever using a Mac is the fact that I can't just load OSX onto my WinTel hardware. There's no way I'm going out to buy overpriced all-new hardware when I don't have significant problems with my Windows PC as it is. Now Linux, on the other hand...that's free, and I don't have to change my hardware. It's an easy choice. As a matter of fact, I think I will load some version of Linux on my old PC this weekend as a test. The most I've done with Linux is play around with Knoppix a bit, so this should be interesting.
What, you mean like all those Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid, etc. games that they remake for every single console they put out? Not to mention the Gameboy versions of these games which don't even get the benefit of a graphical and gameplay facelift for new hardware. Nintendo is just as guilty of software stagnation as anyone else.
You're right about the Maximum Overdrive thing, but I can personally vouch for the fact that when I bought Pink Floyd's The Wall album on cd, it cost at least $5 more than the movie The Wall on DVD did(these purchases occurred around the same time, several years ago). The two-cd album is $30 frickin' bucks MINIMUM, anywhere you go, all because it's packed in that stupid huge double case. There are very few packages like this (the White album is another), but the fact that any exist at all is infuriating to me.
That's definitely possible, though without overstating the significance of iTunes I think that it will only provide the RIAA with an example of possible internet-based revenue in the future, and not as a serious competitor. In other words, there will never be a case where it's RIAA vs. iTunes and iTunes wins. RIAA will just have to get in on the game eventually and compete.
Naturally, there is only one solution to this....POW! Yes, Power Over Wireless! If only it were possible without turning any human beings in the vicinity into walking baked potatoes...
Jaywalking and breaking the speed limit in your car are also illegal. Should everyone who occasionally does these things go to jail? It would be kind to call the current penalties for copyright infringement excessive, and there is no proof that online piracy significantly hurts sales of music and movies. This is not to say that media piracy is moral or correct, but we're talking about 13-year-olds downloading the latest Usher song, not hardened criminals.
Was there an effort made to appeal equally to both fans of the original books and those who have not read the books, or was it slanted towards one group over the other?
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Something about the haughty tone of this post makes me think the poster is a hearty advocate of abortion....but nobody wants to swim in these waters, now do they ;)
This is 100% of the reason why I buy almost no anime, and watch tons of fansubs. The prices are ridiculous, and nowhere near fair. I wouldn't mind if it were a "mere" 100% price over the cost of an American show ($60 for 26 episodes of Excel Saga vs. $30 for 24 episodes of Seinfeld), but these things are costing 500% or MORE over the price of an equivalent American product. There's no reason behind this kind of price gouging.
And now for the skeptics...if it weren't for fansubs, how much anime would I buy? None. Because I wouldn't be watching any. The horrible edited and dubbed episodes on Cartoon Network never interested me before I caught on to fansubs. Only seeing them in their native tongue and in unedited form won my viewership. And now I do buy some anime, but not nearly so much as I would if it were priced fairly (I will note that sets such as Full Metal Panic!, priced around $50-$60 for 24 episodes, are the exception to the norm).
If people who are current with the series in Japan stopped watching fansubs and just started watching it as it airs on American television, it would be three years until there was anything worth viewing, if not more (it's more likely there wouldn't be any new Naruto for them until 2009).
To me, that's just stupid. Let them watch their fansubs. They'll still buy the DVDs of the original episodes as they come out (they will likely NOT watch the televised episodes, as they will only feature the horrible dubbed version) and everyone's happy.
I never said anything about anybody not being "smart enough". I don't consider myself an idiot, and I didn't perceive even half of the things going on in the trilogy before I watched the extras on the box set.
I already gave you evidence that Neo controlling the sentinels was explained in the film, but what you seem to want is an immediate explanation right then. Well, that's just not the way good storytelling works. In fact, in many great films some things are never explained at all and just taken for granted.
Take Superman, for instance. How can he fly? Was that ever explained? And yet Superman was an excellent film. People just take it for granted that Superman can fly, because that's part of his character and it's a lot of fun.
So I guess the point is, if you're expecting every minute turn of the plot of every film to come packaged with instant explanations, get used to disappointment.
Whoops, since I don't post much I still wasn't quite sure if html formatting was necessary to preserve line breaks...I'm resubmitting my previous post in a readable form, feel free to mod down the original one. And now, on with the post:
The abundance of posts like this indicate that a lot of the criticisms of the sequels are generated by people who didn't really bother digging into the story and really paying attention to what happened.
The explanation for Neo's real world control of the sentinels rests in the Architect's explanation of the function of the One. Basically, the One gets his power from the machines themselves, the machine "mainframe". This is the thing that also controls all the sentinels. Therefore the One has the power to act against sentinels using the machine mainframe as a conduit.
Admittedly, there are a couple of small leaps you have to make along with this, namely that Neo's control is localized (he could zap the nearby sentinels but not every sentinel in existence) and that his brain can be connected to the network of the machines without being wired directly in to a computer (a wireless connection, in other words). But I think there were certainly explanations for this as well as for just about every other question raised by the skeptics of this trilogy, found right in the film. Definitely more than "well, just because."
I wish people would really take the time to explore what this trilogy was really about (the excellent DVD boxset contains a fountain of insight), and criticize the sequels for the things which truly deserve criticism; poor acting and dialogue, and an overemphasis on CGI special effects.
The abundance of posts like this indicate that a lot of the criticisms of the sequels are generated by people who didn't really bother digging into the story and really paying attention to what happened. The explanation for Neo's real world control of the sentinels rests in the Architect's explanation of the function of the One. Basically, the One gets his power from the machines themselves, the machine "mainframe". This is the thing that also controls all the sentinels. Therefore the One has the power to act against sentinels using the machine mainframe as a conduit. Admittedly, there are a couple of small leaps you have to make along with this, namely that Neo's control is localized (he could zap the nearby sentinels but not every sentinel in existence) and that his brain can be connected to the network of the machines without being wired directly in to a computer (a wireless connection, in other words). But I think there were certainly explanations for this as well as for just about every other question raised by the skeptics of this trilogy, found right in the film. Definitely more than "well, just because." I wish people would really take the time to explore what this trilogy was really about (the excellent DVD boxset contains a fountain of insight), and criticize the sequels for the things which truly deserve criticism; poor acting and dialogue, and an overemphasis on CGI special effects.
I agree that there are a few problems with Yahoo Music, however I still definitely prefer it to iTunes for various reasons. One of which being the situation yesterday where I forgot to bring a cd burned from iTunes from home to listen to at work. I figured ok, sure I'll install iTunes here and just download the music I *paid* for to this computer as well. After I go through the install process (which takes a while), get a password reset (I forgot the username on iTunes is an e-mail address and not a typical username), I finally get it up and working, try to get my music. "We're sorry, you can only download music once." So, after all that, I can't even listen to what the music I paid for. Sorry Apple, I think I will stick with Yahoo Music (whose purchase prices happen to trump Apple as well) from now on. I'll take a few irritating pack-ins (such as Yahoo Messenger, which I uninstalled immediately) over a near-crippling lack of features.
Yahoo Music is so good I don't care if they never even had a good search engine to begin with. That's a great service.
Yeah, for now it's called a decent laptop, and the only requirement it fails to fulfill is fitting in your pocket.
There will come a day when there will be a device that you can carry around in your pocket which will play movies, tv shows, music, video games (and emulate old systems), allow you to surf the web with minimal hassle and carry a low pricetag. The iPod ain't it.
Wait a tick...are you actually trying to make the argument that most people say "boxen" when referring to more than one pc case? Hahahahaha....brilliant.
Yeah that's true, there's really a bigger issue regarding format conversion in general, I just object to anyone advocating the continued patronage of VHS as it was a format that did a lot of damage to the appreciation of film in America. How many times have you heard someone complain about "those darn black bars" on DVDs? VHS is to blame.
As much as I hate to advocate giving the MPAA more money, those "enhanced" DVD versions of old movies, in almost all cases...ARE enhanced. The picture quality is much better, the movie will usually feature a surround sound audio track or two, there might be some extra features, and best of all...it'll be in widescreen (if the original movie was filmed in widescreen). So in this case, they're actually worth what you plunk down, at least if you care about seeing movies the right way.
I thought nanogators were what nanopants were MADE of.
One anime that features mostly adult characters that is currently airing is Monster, a suspense thriller about a Japanese doctor living in Germany who saves the life of a serial killer bent on some type of world domination (or possibly something more sinister, we don't know yet).
So you're telling me the next one will be Emperor Zurg :)
I may be missing the obvious, but are Debian releases supposed to be named after characters from the classic Pixar animated film Toy Story? Woody, Sarge, etc...will the next one be Buzz Lightyear?
I know one big barrier, and heck probably an unpassable barrier, for me against ever using a Mac is the fact that I can't just load OSX onto my WinTel hardware. There's no way I'm going out to buy overpriced all-new hardware when I don't have significant problems with my Windows PC as it is. Now Linux, on the other hand...that's free, and I don't have to change my hardware. It's an easy choice. As a matter of fact, I think I will load some version of Linux on my old PC this weekend as a test. The most I've done with Linux is play around with Knoppix a bit, so this should be interesting.
What, you mean like all those Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid, etc. games that they remake for every single console they put out? Not to mention the Gameboy versions of these games which don't even get the benefit of a graphical and gameplay facelift for new hardware. Nintendo is just as guilty of software stagnation as anyone else.
You're right about the Maximum Overdrive thing, but I can personally vouch for the fact that when I bought Pink Floyd's The Wall album on cd, it cost at least $5 more than the movie The Wall on DVD did(these purchases occurred around the same time, several years ago). The two-cd album is $30 frickin' bucks MINIMUM, anywhere you go, all because it's packed in that stupid huge double case. There are very few packages like this (the White album is another), but the fact that any exist at all is infuriating to me.
If this goes on any longer they're going to be giving our eugoogley.
That's definitely possible, though without overstating the significance of iTunes I think that it will only provide the RIAA with an example of possible internet-based revenue in the future, and not as a serious competitor. In other words, there will never be a case where it's RIAA vs. iTunes and iTunes wins. RIAA will just have to get in on the game eventually and compete.
Naturally, there is only one solution to this....POW! Yes, Power Over Wireless! If only it were possible without turning any human beings in the vicinity into walking baked potatoes...
Jaywalking and breaking the speed limit in your car are also illegal. Should everyone who occasionally does these things go to jail? It would be kind to call the current penalties for copyright infringement excessive, and there is no proof that online piracy significantly hurts sales of music and movies. This is not to say that media piracy is moral or correct, but we're talking about 13-year-olds downloading the latest Usher song, not hardened criminals.
Was there an effort made to appeal equally to both fans of the original books and those who have not read the books, or was it slanted towards one group over the other?