Anchorhead

Warbler said:

I hate the Rangers and the Twins for stealing their teams from Washington as well. 

How long do you expect owners to keep a team in a city when they are losing money? And don't say it's the fault of the owners or the city, that's a cop-out and you know it.

Do you really think the Marlins are going to remain in Florida when this is their average crowd?;

Some of those 3,000 nightly fans may be disappointed, but what about the thousands of fans in another city who would love to go to a major league game every night?  Should they be deprived?  Is that the honorable, right, non-sinful thing to do?

The level of fan support for the Marlins and Rays - two teams who have been successful, even making it to the World Series - is despicable.  Those cities don't deserve teams.

Warbler said:

I will not forgive San Francisco of the sin of stealing their team from New York 

You need to do your homework, Warb,  before you start frothing-off about cities stealing teams.  Toward the end of their time in New York, the Giants were playing in a dilapidated stadium with dismal attendance. Neither New York, nor Brooklyn with the Dodgers, made anything other than token gestures to keep either team.

 It would be like hating the Brewers because Milwaukee stole the Pilots, or hating the Rangers because Arlington stole the Senators.
Please.

ChainsawAsh said:

This whole "tainting the legacy of past works" thing reminds me of something Stephen King said when asked if it bothers him when bad film adaptations ruin his books (paraphrasing here):

"They're not ruined.  They're sitting on the shelf right behind me."

That's a great explanation.  I worded my thoughts incorrectly.  Even though to me it's the Legacy, it's really the direction at the time.  To better explain my thoughts, this statement by me;

The legacy of Star Wars was tainted a long long time ago (marketing tie-ins & Return).

should really be more like this;

For me; after Return was released, the franchise became something I wasn't interested in following anymore.

What was a deal-breaker for me, was a deal-maker for millions of others.

I will say, however, that where the first three films are concerned, I think Lucas actually is tainting their legacy.  He's altered the special effects, altered the characters, and altered the entire story, while suppressing the originals. The originals won the awards, grabbed the public consciousness, became part of our culture, forever altered the way outer space science fiction would be presented on film, and very much altered the technology of special effects. Weirder still, he's succeeding in that revised\suppressed history - that tainting.

In that regard, he may be one of the few people who has actually succeeded at tainting a past work. At the very least, he's the first artist I can think of who actually works against his fan base.  They express a desire and appreciation of something - and he intentionally gives them something different, while lying about why. An extremely odd situation indeed.

Darth Solo said:

Coov made a lunchbox set with the image

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/660/lunchbox41.jpg

Thanks, DS.  I haven't been able to locate the raw scans yet.  Glad he was able to use them.

What an atmosphere it must have been at the stadium last night.  Good stuff.  On to game two.

My condolences and prayers on your loss, Sluggo.  These are the moments on our journey where we can refocus on what's truly important in the world.

Warbler said:

*enters thread, tries to be happy, fails, leaves thread*

Dammit! - He was so close.  :-(

I mean...uh...That's great! - he is really getting better.  :-)

I could see Penguin as a wealthy, sophisticated criminal who dresses in a hat and tails. Maybe even have him carry a sort of weaponized umbrella - knife or gun charge in the end.  It's back to my wanting a more grounded, cerebral villain, not the scene-chewing Joker of Dark Knight.  It was fine and there were some great moments, but I grew tired of him after a while.  That deeper character was what I really dug about Ra's al Ghul in Begins.

  I absolutely fucking loathed Burton's take on Penguin. A mutant with - yet again - pale skin, messy hair, and red around the eyes.  We get it Tim, it's your signature.

Riddler idea

So much for my Riddler casting and design.  Man, the release date is so far off it's hard for me to get too excited.  Oh well, it'll get here eventually.

CO said:

Why didn't the Beatles continue making music together after 1970 up until John Lennon's death in 1980?

Because they couldn't get along anymore, couldn't write together anymore, couldn't decide which songs they wanted on an album anymore, didn't like each others' wives, didn't really like each other anymore, and their financial & management problems with Apple Corps.  Leaving a respected legacy was the least of their concerns.

*edit*  ^ Sorry, I see that was already addressed by Frink.

Regarding the tainted legacy\decreased enjoyment of the past factor;  I see both sides (I'm a cubist).  The legacy of Star Wars was tainted a long long time ago (marketing tie-ins & Return).  If the films would have been good, I wouldn't really care too much.  However - they were crap, so I let nearly all of it go (actually all of it for about 12 years).  So in that respect, I did let the present (at the time) affect the past. 

I eventually ignored all the ridiculousness and went back to the only story that had ever really moved me, Star Wars77. 

That said;  I have grown somewhat tired of the 1977 story again and at least a touch of that is the way the franchise is now being handled\tainted\weakened\developed\falsified\viewed\suppressed\etc.  However, it's mostly because I want more story & depth than just the Star Wars77 story.

EyeShotFirst said:

ABC, you or anyone else for that matter, wouldn't happen to have a decent sized picture of this. I just want the image on the lunchbox, preferably in colour.

Though if not, I could probably work with it. It is the image I originally wanted for the back of my Star Wars ANH cover.

P.S. if it is a picture of the lunchbox, that will work too.

Man, I am way late to this thread - but if you still want this in high-res, I may still have it on my work machine.  I took my lunchbox to work and scanned it a few years ago for someone here.  I forgot what they needed it for, or who it was, for that matter.

Anyway, if I can remember tomorrow, I'll look for the scans.

I was 15 in 1977, so of course I think that's a great age to really get into the adventure and may have helped me understand the depth of space a little better than a really young kid.  However, as others have pointed out, younger is certainly not a problem.

Welcome aboard, by the way.

Warbler said:

I think they played overconfident.   

 

I absolutely agree.  I felt the same way about the Yankees.  Complacency cost both teams.

I and think most other fans, wouldn't mind blowout ball at all, as long as it is our team doing the blowing out.

Comfortable going into the 8th, sure.  14 to 1, not for me.

On a somewhat related note;

I think Utley handled himself very well with regards to Sanchez trying to start an incident when Utley underhanded the ball back to the infield. I really doubt that was any sort of message or comeuppance. Sanchez was clearly rattled already.  Glad Bochy took him out of the game when he did. Seems like he spent the rest of the game pouting in the dugout. 

Freeman looks perfect for the part.  Glad they seem to be getting the holdups ironed out.  Not sure about the whole 3D thing though.  Guess that's where some films are headed.  Oh well.  Jackson didn't disappoint before, so I'm not worried.

Warbler said:

  Not sure what to do about it..... Don't know what to do, but something needs to be done about our lack of hitting.   There is no reason we should have lost this series with the kind of starting pitching we had.

Man, the Phillies made it to three LCS in a row & two WS.  At that level, there isn't always a tweak that can be made to guarantee or improve. Sometimes teams are evenly matched and one of them has to lose.  I think that's what we saw in both leagues this year.  It made for some edge of your seat baseball.  Personally, I don't care for blowout ball - games or series.  Fans aren't into it, teams aren't into it, and it makes for a boring game. 

We're all there together, pick-wise. The two teams I wanted to go, did - but the two teams I was sure would go, did not.  Us, the "experts" from all the sports mags and shows - and even the Yankees & Phillies themselves - all sold the winners short. 

One of the things my wife & I discussed during the playoffs as they progressed was that the Yankees and Phillies seemed to play with an air of entitlement, as though they just assumed they would automatically win again.

I saw what I felt was a noticeable lack of seriousness on the part of both teams (Yankees\Phillies). I think the Yankees left pitchers in too long in crucial situations and I think the Phillies assumed a win every time they took the field. 

Under no circumstances can I even fathom leaving the bat on your shoulder when it's a full count, runners in scoring position, ninth inning, two outs, down by a run, in an elimination game.  WTF???  If I were facing The Beard in that situation, I'd have swung at the thing twice before it hit the catcher's mitt.  

My point, I guess, is that we all underestimated the Rangers & Giants.  You guys, Warb particularly, I can see - you were pulling for the team you follow.  Me - I'm really disappointed with myself.  I didn't even predict the two teams that I actually wanted to win. Two teams I follow closely, two teams I'd watched in person several times this season. Shameful.

That's the NyQuil talking.

Anchorhead said:

Speaking strictly as a fan,  my preference would be Rangers-Giants.

Now who the hell am I going to root for?  Probably lean toward Texas, even though I went to more Giants games this year than Rangers games.  Oh well.  either way, the only sport I follow is winding down for the year and then it's quiet until April of next year.  Here's hoping for seven games at least.

Might have to get me one of those World Series shirts with both teams on it.

TV's Frink said:

If only Lucas had obtained a neck, we'd have the OOT by now.

I think...

Not my best work.

Not even remotely interested.

It's like Emmylou Harris said about why baseball is her favorite;

"Anything can happen. It probably won't, but it might"

Neither of my picks for American League champion won.  Instead - it was the team I wanted to win that took it.  Crazy stuff.

Sluggo said:

What's your opinion?  I think less is definitely more. 

My opinion mirrors your own. 

Less is most definitely more where Star Wars is concerned.  It is, however, a concept that Lucas simply can't grasp. From what I've read in interviews, it's a concept he's never even understood. In the 70s, Marcia and Kurtz had to constantly reel him in and fix his mistakes where his poor choices of story telling & editing were concerned.

As soon as they were out of the way, he went right back to explaining everything ad nauseum - whether it was a character who happened into the adventure (C3PO) or something as simple as a sentence from a brief conversation ("...years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars").

When I was a kid, I thought the Clone Wars sounded interesting and mysterious and my imagination came up with a story\visual picture kind of thing.  What I didn't really want or need, even back then, was that entire ordeal over-explained. It was great as a mysterious event from the characters' past.

That's not to say a great film couldn't be made about it, but that didn't happen.  What we got instead were hours of needless & poorly written exposition in the form of a movie and a cartoon series. All of it - just from a single line in a film. Less would have absolutely been more. There are, of course, several other examples of the same ham-fisted treatment (3PO, R2, Vader, The Force, Jedi Knights, etc).

it really seems to discourage a fan from using his own imagination

More than anything, that statement perfectly sums up why I have such a different Star Wars world compared to most others around here.  Lucas not only seems to frown on his fan base using their imagination, he seems obsessed with making sure they don't even attempt it. 

They start doing some thinking, and the next thing you know - they figure out how much of a snake oil salesman he really is.  Original Vision - please. George, give it a fucking rest, man.  No one is buying it.  Even his most loyal followers must know deep down that he's a liar. They can't be that stupid.

The myriad of EU books are sort of a take it or leave it deal for me.  I have an idea of what fits my canon and what I needn't bother with. The mega-merchandising empire and branding are also something I've ignored.  It's just noise.

Anyway.  In answer to the original question;  It stopped being fun for me around 1983.  I just couldn't get past Return.  For me, Star Wars became a single film, seldom watched.  After I discovered this board several years ago, I started to carve out my own canon - with the help of several of you folks.

Star Wars is fun for me again, but it's a much different Star Wars than George intended.  It's one film, one radio program, and a handful of books. It's a deeper, more vast, and more mysterious universe. It's the way it was for me in 1977. I disconnected from the machine a long long time ago and took very little with me.

twister111 said:...didn't want to be disturbed. Turned off any cell phones. Used the restroom beforehand. Ate beforehand. Took a nap beforehand. Used headphones and, sat in a comfy chair. Put the rented DVD in. Turned off the lights.

 

That's how a great many movies should be viewed.  Total focus on the experience of the film.  There are a few that I absolutely will not watch unless similar conditions can be met.  A select few are also day\night\weather\season dependent.

ChainsawAsh said:

THEATRICAL!

Sorry, I hate the Redux version with a fiery passion, but the theatrical cut is one of my favorite films of all time.

Agree 100%  Top 10 for sure.

"Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission -  and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service."