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ADigitalMan

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Join date
26-Sep-2004
Last activity
22-Dec-2025
Posts
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Web Site
https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalMan-jc3xy

Post History

Post
#212294
Topic
The Da Vinci Code Movie
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/212294/action/topic#212294
Time
I saw the film last night. Here be spoilers. Read at your own risk.












I liked the book. I liked the film. I found the film to be rather faithful to the book. A time-compressed telling of a detailed page-turner that actually works.

My one beef: There was absolutely, positively no good reason for them to have changed Sauniere being Sophie's real grandfather. This actually did the story a great disservice. In both the book and the film, Sophie was emotionally scarred from having witnessed her grandfather in the middle of a sex rite. But in the book, this is germane to the plot, as either her grandfather or grandmother (we don't know which) was part of the actual bloodline of Christ. Therefore, their coupling around the time of the equinoxes would have been celebrated. In the film, these flashbacks were never expounded on and therefore, without the explanation AND by changing Sophie's grandfather to being an adoptive grandfather, Akiva Goldsman really screwed the story up.

Also, I would have added in a single line when Teabing first defends the honor of Mary Magdelene. When Sophie repeats the long-held misconception that she was a prostitute, Teabing simply said "She was no such thing" without backing up his assertion. While the book expounds on this for a couple of pages, including the fact that even the Vatican reversed the edict in the 1960s, the film doesn't touch it. A simple line could have distilled all of this down to a few words: "Re-read the story ... Mary Magdelene doesn't show up until several verses after the prostitute's story." It would have probably even sent neophytes to the story to their bibles to see it for themselves. (Personally I've known about this misconception far longer than Dan Brown wrote about it so I wish more time had been spent on it in the screenplay.)

Other than that, I had no beef with what was added in and what was taken out. The subplot of Langdon falling into the well when he was a kid was great from a theological perspective. The notion of immersion in water, praying to Jesus, and ultimately being saved was not overt, but I got it. Also, I particularly liked how Langdon was a little more skeptical of the Magdelene/Sangreal theory, as he played the part of the masses, who are given no real voice in the book. He either brought up or answered many of the legitimate factual criticisms about the book, making the script that much more airtight. For example:

1) Constantine did not pick the books of the bible, the Council of Nicea did.
2) Jesus' divinity was not a "new idea" brought forth by the Constantine or the Council. Many held Jesus to be divine. Many did not. The Council merely codified the notion. But it was certainly believed since the time of the Resurrection, not just the council.
3) Opus Dei is not a villain; Aringarosa merely uses his Opus Dei to carry out his dirty work. The people of Opus Dei are strong believers in what they are doing. But I'm glad they pulled no punches showing the kinds of corporal mortification and blind adherance to the will of the clergy that Opus Dei are willing to commit.
4) They even handled the admitted hoax of the Priory of Sion very well. In typical conspiracy theory fashion, the film addresses the "hoax" as exactly what "they" want you to believe. Simple, but genius. It gives the skeptic nowhere to go other than faith.

On the whole, it's a very enjoyable film. Not earth-shattering (at least, not to me, because I've studied these plot points and lost gospels academically for far longer than Dan Brown has been writing), but certainly not worthy of the bile the press has spewed its way. Casting was excellent, Direction was sharp, and the writing was above-par for Akiva, whose dreck I usually cannot stand in the least. No Oscar material here, but worth the price of a ticket nonetheless.
Post
#212079
Topic
Make your voices heard! (again) - re the 2006 GOUT DVD being in letterbox format
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/212079/action/topic#212079
Time
Shim, we are not "lucky" to be getting this. This is not a gift from Lucasfilm. This is a product, made for sale to the general public. We the consumers are being asked for our hard-earned money in exchange for essentially the same release as before, with different bonus material according to Lucasfilm's view. So if that is the expectation, the Bonus Material had very well better be worth it. Content alone does not justify a $90 sticker price. Content plus presentation are at issue, and presently, the presentation is a complete embarassment for all involved in the project. Lucasfilm is spitting in our faces with this release.
Post
#211815
Topic
Make your voices heard! (again) - re the 2006 GOUT DVD being in letterbox format
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/211815/action/topic#211815
Time
Don't just stop at Lucasfilm. Start emailing about this grassroots campaign to every media outlet you can think of, from your local newspaper to Entertainment Weekly. The latter can be reached at letters@ew.com and I'm certain if they get cc'ed on all your correspondence, they'll take note and run something about it.
Post
#211450
Topic
Should Lucus make 4,5 and 6 over?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/211450/action/topic#211450
Time
TheCassidy, I'm right along with you on your thoughts. I'll add my $0.02 to the mix.

Originally posted by: TheCassidy

-Obi-Wan doesn't "remember" the Droids because he is covering up. Obi-Wan's words say one thing, but his face says another.
It's even simpler than that. He says, "I don't recall ever OWNING a droid." Which is the truth, however misleading. Artoo didn't belong to Obi-Wan. As a Jedi, NOTHING belonged to him except for his clothes and his saber. The novelization of III goes into this quite well, discussing how Anakin gave his one other material posession, Threepio, to Padme as a wedding gift. Artoo belonged to Padme, and was transferred to the House of Organa along with Threepio after her death.

-Obi-Wan told Luke that his Father wanted him to have his lightsaber because it was less painful than the truth, and a convenient plot device to get Luke a lightsaber.

Agreed. And Episode III taught us something we didn't know ... that Anakin did know of his pending fatherhood. Therefore, it is a safe assumption on Obi-Wan's part that had he known about Luke, he would have WANTED him to have it.

-What do you want? Obi-Wan doing backflips when he's like, 80 years old? The Jedi/Sith are aging and less powerful than they were during I-III. No leap of faith there.

Zactly! Makes me really, really hate the stupid backflip that Tyrannus did in III. I wanted so badly to cut that out of my edit, but it wouldn't explain how he got from point A to point B.
Post
#211181
Topic
How to make non-anamorphic OOT DVDs anamorphic?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/211181/action/topic#211181
Time
This is a much, much, much more detailed process than something that can be done On The Fly. For those thinking about it, you'll best be served by Learning how to use Gordian Knot's implementation of VirtualDubMod and AVISynth. Even still, you're upsizing a non-anamorphic picture to an anamorphic picture, so the computer is only making a best guess. However, the results can look pretty good. I used this technique on Hannibal and Harry Potter 3 in specific.

You'll need tons of drive space for the resulting AVI, which will then need to be re-compressed back to M2V. If you can frameserve, you'll be able to cut out the drive space need. I, however, always have messy results from frameserving. You'll probably need, what 200GB free for the AVI alone? Can anybody confirm that?

We still don't know if this will be progressive, interlaced, telecined or what. I'm hoping the material is at least 23.976 fps progressive, because IVTC'ing a 2 hour film will be a total mess.
Post
#210997
Topic
New DVDs NOT 16x9
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/210997/action/topic#210997
Time
An open letter to Star Wars fans:

Shame on Lucasfilm. SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! It's amazing that some people are calling us complainers and that we should be grateful we're getting anything when it comes to the Unaltered Trilogy. They speak as if this is a gift and not a product for sale, for which we are being asked to fork over our hard-earned money.

Would anybody be "grateful" if asked to fork over Camry prices for a Yugo simply because it sported a new design? Or more analagous, a "retro" design? Would anybody feel grateful if asked to pay full price for a house that was missing a back wall? The audio and video were bad enough on the 2004 release, but this ... this is unforgivable. THX used to stand for the ultimate quality in a video release. Now they are just embarassing themselves.

Make no mistake, the Unaltered Trilogy release is an inferior product. Two-channel AC3 audio means, if nothing else, half the RESOLUTION of the Special Edition release. No original uncompressed PCM audio means the original mix is NOT being presented. No anamorphic transfer means any widescreen TV will make the picture look terrible. Inferior audio. Inferior video. These are both indicative of a half-assed release by LFL designed either to make a quick cash-grab or to make the Unaltered Trilogy seem inferior by comparison to sate Lucas' ego -- or both.

Between casual fans not willing to shell out more for what is perceived to be the same release, and videophiles (whose numbers have grown exponentially since the 1993 Laserdisc set) jaded by the lousy transfer being released, Lucas is doing everything in his power to make the unaltered trilogy pale by comparison. The content is no longer at issue, but quality is. It doesn't matter if it is Star Wars or LOTR or Harry Potter or Spider-Man, ANY new release with these limitations would be worthy of serious criticism. SHAME, I say. SHAME!!! A pox on Lucas' house!

Now that you've uncovered that it's non-anamorphic, you need to uncover whether it is progressive or interlaced. I'm willing to bet on top of it all, we'll be given an interlaced transfer, halving what remains of the video quality.

Call for Lucasfilm to release the unaltered version separate from the special editions. Then we'll really see where demand is. Assuming that dream will never come to pass, I have an idea for how fans can strike back against Lucas' evil empire:

1) Sell your 2004 sets on Amazon or eBay today so that the value plummets. How many times are you really going to watch Empire of Dreams anyway?
2) Purchase the new set in September to replace it.
3) Keeping the unaltered "bonus" discs for yourselves, mail back the 2004 DVDs to:
Lucasfilm
P.O. Box 29901
San Francisco, CA 94129

Be sure the 2004 disc is rendered unusable so they don't just re-sell it!

Include a note saying "Even your horrible non-anamorphic transfer of the unaltered trilogy means more to me than your special editions. It's a shame THX couldn't do a better job of preserving the most important films in history."

If thousands of people all do this in September, LFL will HAVE to take notice. The front office will be swamped with packages.
Post
#210973
Topic
The Official 2006 Discs Will Be No Better Than What We Have!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/210973/action/topic#210973
Time
Jay, if you're reading, I do think that your writeup needs to be updated and, along the lines of Bill Hunt's latest comments from this morning (he's updated since yesterday's report), shout a big "SHAME SHAME SHAME" out to Lucas. Your home page for OriginalTrilogy.com has tremendous power as the default page people will likely see when they google "Original Trilogy."

Meanwhile, I recommend everybody put their 2004 set up for sale on Amazon or eBay to flood the market and make the value of the discs plummet. Re-buy the new set in Sept., mail the 2004 discs back to Lucasfilm, with a note saying "Even the shitty non-anamorphic transfer of the O-OT means more to me than your Special Editions."

Jay, if the home page explains how to do this, Lucasfilm will be inundated come September. If only three dozen die-hard forum members do it, we'll be a punch line. But if all 60,000+ petitioners did this, LFL would be swamped and maybe finally get the message.
Post
#210510
Topic
What is the rarest video in your collection?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/210510/action/topic#210510
Time
I have the 1977 BBC Presentation of "Count Dracula" in PAL format with Louis Jourdan as the titular nemesis. This is perhaps the most faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel ... far more so than Coppola's film. This was briefly available but to my knowledge, remains OOP and is very difficult to find.

Edit: Oh, and silly me, I forgot Jean Shepard's four "Ralphie" films that appeared on PBS' American Playhouse. These are more stories about "Ralphie" from "A Christmas Story" at different times in his life. One of them, "The Great American Fouth Of July ... And Other Disasters" stars Matt Dillon as Ralphie in his High School years. The four films are:
The Phantom of the Open Hearth (1976)
The Great American Fourth of July ... (1982)
The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski (1983)
and
Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss (1988)

Look 'em up on IMDB for details.