C3PX

No need to feel like an idiot, this is the internet after all. The internet is so chock full of complete and total idiots, a small semi-idiotic slip up every now and then hardly gets noticed. :)

Just out of curiosity, how many volumes is that encyclopedia? I would have killed to have something like that when I was a kid.

rcb said:

as u can see my friend, i do know a little about the SW universe.

I can certainly see that you do. When it comes to knowledge of the SW Universe, I have no doubt that you have me bested. Perhaps you misinterpreted my previous post, I was agreeing with you in telling TheBoost that he ought to read an SW encyclopedia.

skyjedi2005 said:But Salvatore proved he was a better author than George Lucas in His novelization of attack of the clones.  The book was many million of miles away from being stellar, but he clealry understood the human element better than george.  George only knows how to do dumb action movies.  Without his ex wife Marcia, without Kasden, Kershner, or Kurtz, or the Huycks he could not write his way out of a wet paper bag in the middle of a blizzard.

I made it a point to read all three prequel novels. I wouldn't have read TPM's novel if it had not been written by Terry Brooks, and I probably would not have read the other two had I not read TPM. I feel Brooks did a decent enough job given the material he had to work with, but I'd say it is probably the weakest of the three prequel novels.

I have never read any of Salvatore's other books, but I enjoyed The Attack of the Clones novel, which is saying something, because I cannot stand the movie. He did a great job with characterization and like sky said, the human element. Anakin's insecurities and actions made a lot more sense when explained through the words or Salvatore, he is still a total loser, but at least Salvatore manages to make you feel sorry for him rather than just wanting to slap him on the side of the head. The character of Count Duku was much imporved, and much more emphasis was placed on his relationship with Qui-gon, and his departure from the Jedi order. Even the plot made some kind of semi-logical sense, while the actual film was missing enough pieces of the puzzle to render it almost entirely nonsensical.

Stover's ROTS adaption at parts felt like pure poetry. Not taking the story into account, I don't think I have ever enjoyed reading an SW novel that much, or at least not in that way. I really enjoyed the words and style he would use to explain things. The basic story is the same, and it still sucks well enough, but the added emotion and rationalization as Stover constantly jumps into the heads of various characters and throws you into their boots for a page or two really made it work a lot better than the film did.

These are the last three SW novels I have ever read, and probably will ever read. Just don't have any interest in any of the new ones, and my list of more important works to read is already really long and constantly growing longer. I have toyed with the idea of reading some of Zahn's later SW books, but probably never will.

Jay said:

C3PX said:

Seriously, if that is your game Jay, then ban me, do you really need a reason?

That's usually the way it works.

Just because I rarely agree with the Four Amigos doesn't mean I go ban crazy. If that's the way you think I operate, then you haven't been paying attention for the last five years.

I also wasn't aware that our "feud" was affecting the online health of those who post in this forum. As I've done in the past, I suggest anyone who doesn't like the atmosphere here go elsewhere. I certainly wouldn't want anyone's mental health to be at risk because their feelings were hurt by someone on teh innernets.

As a matter of fact, the only complaints I've received recently are about a certain group of very insistent members who seem to think Off Topic is a place for them to express their very strong and obviously correct opinions and react with outrage and mile-long posts when others do the same.

And yet those accounts are still active. Know why? Because the people I tend to agree with are free to take a hike too if they don't like things around here.

I have been paying attention for the last five years, and I know that isn't how you work.

And again, Feud probably wasn't the right word, but it does feel like you have been going out of your way to call out or nitpick some of us in non-political threads. The recent "spoilers" incident in the video game thread is a good example. You and I both know I didn't post any spoilers, but you still took the time out to complain to me about posting spoilers. If that was a spoiler, then quite honestly over half the posts in the video games thread have been spoilers. By that criteria for spoilers, you could say someone asking for help beating the mutant shark in Resident Evil 4 was posting spoilers by spoiling the fact that at some point in the game you fight a mutant shark. Plenty of real spoilers are posted in movie and tv show threads by other posters and nothing is ever said about it.

I am sorry to hear you get complaints about us. I do find it really funny though. I can only imagine the content of those complaints, "OMG! I can't believe you let all these neo fascist conservatives run amok on your site spreading lies and hate! As a tolerant liberal, I cannot stand for this kind of behavior. Until you clean the vermin from your site, I shall be fulfilling my off-topic discussion needs elsewhere!"

We do not think the off-topic section is here just for us express our views. We keep our politics to the politcs thread or spin off threads where political discussion is taking place. We do have very strong political opinions, and like to discuss why we do and do not believe in certian things. While I cannot speak for the other guys, I enjoy the debates and discussion, especially when there is a diversity of opions, and hold no ill feelings toward those who do not agree with me. I don't think my opinions are always correct, in fact, I am sure I am wrong on many occasions. I have a great deal of respect for opposing views, and I like the fact that we are all free to express our various opinions.

Many forums are very restrictive and have a great many regulations, restricting things such as political discussion. I didn't join OT.com to talk about politics, but over the years I have found it an enjoyable place for doing so. I have always appreciated your hands off approach to moderating this forum. Everybody enjoys a great deal of freedom, and yet nobody gets away with stuff they shouldn't.

The last paragraph of your above quoted post is one of the reasons why I have come to respect you so much over my years as a member here.

I will definitely tone down my participation in political discussion on these boards, if not stop it completely, since you seem to feel as strongly about it as you do, and since you seem to feel it is hurting OT.com's off-topic traffic. In the recent discussion with Taolar, he took the time to respond to one of my typically long winded posts and asked for example/sources on a few things. Since he took the time to respond to my post, I have been meaning to take the time to reply to his questions. I will do this, then I will be done with political discussion here.

If you'd like.

Seriously, if that is your game Jay, then ban me, do you really need a reason? Judging by your previous post, you obviously seem to think it would be in the best interests of your little site and everyone on it if I were no longer around, so do it. You really seem to resent having some of us around, but it is in your power to get rid of us forever. A permanent ban, and you never have to worry about me again.

Your attitude toward me and a few others here obviously isn't going to change, seems like it is getting miserable for everyone, especially those outside of all this who have to put up with this silly feud, or whatever the hell it is, making its way into every thread of the off-topic section. You might as well take action and bring it to an end.

Then I suggest you refrain from responding to our posts, because it makes you sound like an idiot when your response has little to do with what you think you are responding to. Just a thought.

Pretty sure you didn't even read my post. Oh well.

Not sure why you went out of your way to bring Obama into the discussion, or what he has to do with the discussion at hand, but I do find it amusing. Anyway, it isn't buying into any kind of bullshit. I explained a rational reason for feeling distrust toward things you don't understand. I never said I had this kind of distrust, I don't mind hooded kids lingering outside my home, and my handguns are right where they belong and it isn't under my pillow.

Glade to see you feel sorry for people who think differently than yourself. Just as you reason and think the way you do because of the things your life has brought you, so do others. To some people there is no room in life for foolishness, and to others life is nothing but foolishness, and others fit anywhere in between.

The same reason an elderly person may find distrust in young men in hoodies, is the same reason someone might see old people who have such distrust are old and weak. It all comes from a lack of understanding.

I hear stories about black people selling drugs and shooting each other. I guess I should be afraid of black people.

Also, I can understand someone hearing stories of black people shooting each other and selling drug and thus being weary of black people, or believing that many black people exhibit this behavior. I can understand it, note the incredible difference between "understand" and saying someone "should" do something.I never suggested anybody should do or act any certain way in my previous post, all I ever said was that I didn't see that sort of behavior and attitude to be 100% unreasonable. You can just as easily flip this on its head and say that just because some white assholes treat black people badly because they are black, doesn't mean all white people are like this. I certainly don't think darker skinned people should feel that all or most lighter skinned people are going to treat them badly, but I can understand it if they do. Especially if they have been mistreated by a white person or if they keep hearing about whites mistreating blacks on the news. Not saying it would be right, but it would be understandable.

THX and Graffiti are two that have always puzzled the hell out of me. What was the reason for that singular CG shot at the beginning of Graffiti? Would it have really made a difference if he'd not bothered with it? Did he just want to leave his signature on it? Hi, I am George Lucas, I put CG in all my old films!

I really like to watch older movies with the period it was made in in mind. To view them as a product of their era. I will watch a bunch of movies made within just a few years of each other and take note of the styles and trends popular at the time. Behavior like George's really knock this out of wack and irritates me to no end. And for what? Yeah, nobody can really say. Err, yeah, George updated American Graffiti because... well, because... er... huh. THX 1138? Yes it was imperative George added CG effects to this film, because it was so outdated looking and it would make it more acceptable to the masses. Nobody likes THX 1138, and the types that do like it and watch it are not the types that get bored unless they are wooed by colorful CG graphics and explosions (like the masses of new "SW fans" who think ANH is extremely boring, but ROTS is the end all be all).

I agree that every kid will and should go about making their own mistakes. I don't see anything wrong with warning kids though. Obviously they are not always going to listen, but on some accounts they will. Some of the things I did landed me in so much trouble, I'd wished someone had tested the waters for me and let me know I might regret it.

To say that any kid who listens to what the adults in his life tell him is either really stupid or scared is a pretty dumb statement. I didn't always listen to my parents, but on many occasions I did, not because I was scared or stupid, but because I had a great deal of respect for my parents and didn't want to disappoint them.

It would be irresponsible parenting to not warn your kids about some of the hardships you have gone through on account of stupid things you have done. By sharing with them your own experiences you cannot expect them to learn 100% from your experiences, but the hope is that they will take them into account and possibly save themselves some trouble.

I wouldn't say YIYF is immature for not wanting to conform to standards and dress the way most other adults around him do. But I also wouldn't say his friends are scared weak old men. Seriously, why does this make them scared and weak? Come on! 

My grandfather felt comic books and video games were foolish wastes of time (and I actually agree with him 100%, though they were things I felt worthy of wasting my time on as a kid). The idea of calling my grandfather scared and weak for his feelings on these things would be absurd! The man survived WW2, was tough as nails, could work from sun up until sun down without taking a break, and was afraid of nothing as far as I could ever tell. These were things he didn't understand, they were things that had no use or merit in his eyes. Wasting hours staring at the TV making a little plumber run around and squash turtles just didn't make any sense to him. Reading stories in colorful books about people who wear tights and have magical powers didn't make any sense to him. Zipping around on skateboards, wearing baggy clothes and refusing to get a hair cut didn't make any sense to him.

So what? It is a generation gap, it is a differing of values, a difference in culture. It is normal and to be expected. When he was that age, he was getting up at the break of dawn everyday and helping to run his families farm. Of course he is going to look at me sleeping in until noon every time I got the chance, waking up and sitting in front of the Nintendo for a couple of hours before donning my backwards hat and baggy clothes and running off with my other baggy clothed friends as a complete waste of time and as being up to no good. Ha, half the time I was up to no good! So his feelings seem to have been pretty air tight.

And in all fairness you do have youths who go around and vandalize, thieve, and carry out other thuggish acts. When I was a youth I was looked upon with distrust by older people, but why not? When there are stories in the news about kids who dress and act like me doing these sorts of things. It bothered me a bit when I was a kid, but I always felt it was perfectly reasonable for them to feel this way.

I feel it is rather closed minded to hold these things against our older generations. The best you can have done was to show them there is nothing to worry about, and to keep your mind open when a younger, stranger generation than yourself comes along. 

rcb said:

TheBoost said:

It seems that alot of material in the EU is just an echo of what the movies do.

Jabba the Hutt is a big worm? How about an entire species of big worms that are all just like him, and are all gangsters too!

Jabba had a pet rancor? So what? Everyone has one. In fact, Rancors are about the most common animal in the galaxy. Right next to Banthas.

Greedo was a bounty hunter? So is every member of his species. He's like a halfling thief... rodians only have one potential life path.

Every criminal is a smuggler with a bounty on their head. Apparently the GFFA doesn't have any other crimes. Or any other way of dealing with criminals.

In a galaxy with millions of systems, every always seems to go to or have been to the same couple dozen.

Anakin had a secret wife? That's the Jedi equivalent of a priest with a drinking problem. Just look the other way.

Palpatine almost destroys the Jedi? Not a big deal. It had been done quite a few times before, and is done again a generation or two later.

Vader is a Jedi who falls to the dark side and is redeemed? Here's how "ROTJ" should have played out.

PALPATINE: "You must know now that your father can never be turned from the Dark Side."

LUKE: "Actually Empy, if you read up on your history, it's not at all uncommon. Darth Revan and Ulic Quel Droma come to mind. Someday my grandson will do it too."

VADER: "He's right boss. Maybe we should BOTH go back to the light side."

 

I don't know if it's writers or publishers afraid of inventing new ground, or Lucasfilm only approving things that have huge derivative elements, or what, but it's one of the reasons I just can't get into the EU. 

you need to read an star wars encyclopedia buddy. and i love the EU. it give me new ways to imagine the SW universer. btw, the final one there would make a good parody.

 

Yeah buddy! Read a SW Encylopedia for the Force's sake! If you had ever had the intelligence to read one, you'd have realized that it is a FACT that all Hutts are gansters (could of learned that from TPM too) and you'd have learned that all Rodians are by default bounty hunters, unless they are born female, then they are by default exotic dancers for Hutts. And all Gamorreans are guards, usually for Hutts. Eveybody who can afford it has a Rancor in their basement, only really rich people have Sarlacc pits for backup though. Rancors are actually rather cheap, but transplanting a Sarlacc in your back yeard will set you back considerably. You'd also learn that smuggling is among the worst of crimes under the Galactic Empire, and because the Empire covers such a large area, plenty of people feel they can get away with it, so millions of Rodians are hired by Hutts to go out and capture them.

You'd also have discovered that the official Jedi handbook actually has a loophole in it stating quite clearly that Jedi are allowed to have wives, as long as they are secret. Since most Jedi are nerds, very few Jedi ever manage to get married, so it is not a big deal.

Also, you'd have learned that there are only a handful of systems in the galaxy, but the Empire adds a bunch of fake systems to the star maps in order to make it look like the Empire is larger than it actually is.

You really should get yourself an SW encylopedia, you are clearly very uneducated and sound like an idiot posting on forums with people who have their doctorate in SW.

Okay, in all seriousness, it has been close to ten years since I have read any EU!!! :O   Can hardly believe it has been that long, but I am pretty sure I have not read anything Star Wars other than the prequel novelizations since 1999. I used to really enjoy some of them, and some of them sucked. Usually when they sucked I just put them down and grabbed another one. Sometimes they were cliched, but actually quite a few of them had some pretty original ideas in them, other than the fact that most centered around Han, Luke, and Leia. I have never heard of any other Rodians being bounty hunters (other than in SW: ANH SE) or any other Hutts being gangsters (other than when it was clearly stated that "the Hutts are gangsters!" in TPM).

The return from the darkside has always been really over done, one would assume it is a common occurance, since Anakin Skywalker did it, Luke Skywalker did it, and Kyle Katarn did it, as well as a few others I think, all before the dark times, before 1997.

From what I understand, the EU has become and even more tangled mess of crap in the years since. I enjoyed it in my day, but I have no desire to ever read one again except maybe some of the early ones I have already read and really enjoyed.

Johnny Ringo said:

I dunno, wouldn't that mean Cavil and co. knew all along that she was one of them? - seems a bit odd. IIRC the actress [Kate Vernon] mentions she was in a few episodes this season...

"Now I’m in seven of the last nine, and they are just absolutely brilliant. I can’t tell you how good they are..."

That would imply she is in every episode from this point on.

I am willing to bet Cavil and co. did know all along (or since the point she died) that she was one of the final five, but that they decided to keep it under wraps.

It feels like so long ago since I have seen season three and the first part of season four. So spread out it is hard to keep up with stuff, but if I remember correctly, the rebel models were the much more touchy feeling, emotional, religious models, while Cavil and the others seemed not to think very highly of this character trait in them, right? It has been since pretty close to their air dates that I saw any of the episode prior to this half of season four, so I am a bit foggy. Since the final five was something the religious Cylons were always prattling on about, I can see Cavil going out of his way to hide her from them, just like how he boxed up ol' Xenia for having seen the final five.

TheBoost said:

Gaffer Tape said:

Ugh, another irritating retcon.  It seemed so much cooler when it was always told that years of misuse of the dark side had deformed his face.  And, in another fun example of Lucas making this up on the fly, he was actually going with this story in AOTC, as Palpatine looks much more ragged than he did in ROTS, after Lucas changed his mind.

 

 Is it really a retcon? Where was it official that:

A: The 'Mask Theory' is legit.

or

B: That years of using the darkside had made Palpatine ugly.

I'd always though he was just really, really old in the OT. I don't know if different explanations for ambiguities count as retcons.

I believe "A" appeared in an SW coffee table style book (forget the title of it) where it alluded to the idea that Palpatine's disguise melted away during his fight with Mace, and his true face was revealed. Though I do not have the title of the book, I remember picking it up in the book store and thumbing through it and read this bit, then later I think someone on this site mentioned it. It is an official LFL book, so I suppose that makes it official, right?

"B" I am not sure about, I have never heard that one before. My assumption was that he used the darkside to keep himself alive to an unnatural age, which falls into the exact same thing you believed.

 I think the first two prequels were obviously going in this direction. Was really weird and disappointing to see it abandoned. In TPM we have an elderly gentleman, ten years later in AOTC we have an very aged all man. It was clear in AOTC that they were making an effort to make him look really old. Consider that ROTJ is over 20 some years after AOTC, he would be really, really old by then. It was odd that he looked so old in AOTC, and suddenly he looks considerably younger at the beginning of ROTS. More clear evidence of how poorly concieved this entire prequel affair has really been.

I think he means with the "evil Cylons" (as in not the rebellious Cylons who are trying to alliance with the humans), and I bet he is right. She is going to have to show up before the end of the show, I'd think. It would make sense that when Tigh killed her, her consciousness would have been transferred to the resurrection ship. After all, she is the only one of the final five who have died during the course of the series.

Damn, I just got done watching this episode. If I'd known it ended on such a cliff hanger, I would have held off a few more days for the second part and watched them back to back.

I kind of lost interest and faith in this show last season, I was getting sick of hearing about the final five constantly and while I don't mind the politics, it was getting to be a bit much in my opinion. I have been enjoying season four a lot though.

dark_jedi, are you getting the limited edition of this? Anybody else considering getting the limited edition? I was considering it, but at $90 it seems freaking expensive, the figurine and book are cool, but I could care less about the messenger bag and I actually really like the regular edition's box art over the limited's. The making of DVD is kind of a watch once sort of thing anyway, and those things always manage to make their way onto youtube.

Game-fanatix.com has an offer where if you reserve the regular edition at $59.99 (regular price) plus shipping you get a 10th anniversary Resident Evil figure (either Chris, Jill, or a zombie with a zombie dog). The figures haven't been in preduction for quite a while now, and seem to go for close to thirty bucks on ebay. This seems like a pretty good alternative to getting the limited edition while still getting while still getting some cool bonus with the game. Only problem is they say it won't even ship until the 14th, and the game will be in stores on the 13th. I'd be hard to wait a few extra days to get the game while everybody else will be close to beating it by then.

Actually, I haven't tried this myself, but I was reading somewhere that one of the improvements of RE5 over RE4 was going to be that you could move and shoot at once. This obviously wasn't the case with the demo, maybe by default the controls are set to the traditional RE4 style. I have been meaning to check the demo to see if there was an option to change them, because I have heard from multiple places that this was suppose to be the case.

The file size difference may just have something to do with the different file systems of the two consoles.

Hunter6 said:

Abrams seems to have turn Star Trek into just another Star Wars Rip-off.

Luke:
A farm boy who (thinks) father is killed by the main Villain.
Abrams' Kirk:
A farm boy who father is killed by the main Villain.

Luke:
has a want for a better life.
Anakin:
has a want for a better life.
Abrams' Kirk:
has a want for a better life.

Luke:
Gets show a better life by an old wise man (obi-wan).
Anakin:
Gets show a better life by an old wise man (Qui-Gon).
Abrams' Kirk:
Gets show a better life by an old wise man (Pike).

Luke:
Has dirty Blond and blue eye.
Anakin (ep2):
Has dirty Blond and blue eye.
Abrams' Kirk:
Has dirty Blond and blue eye.

Luke:
has trouble in a bar.
Anakin:
has trouble in a bar.
Abrams' Kirk:
has trouble in a bar.

Luke:
Fights a monster in the snow.
Abrams' Kirk:
Fights a monster in the snow.

Luke:
hangs over a pit with the Villain standing above him.
obi-wan:
hangs over a pit with the Villain standing above him.
Abrams' Kirk:
hangs over a pit with the Villain standing above him.
 
Anakin:
Blonder when he was younger.
Abrams' Kirk:
Blonder when he was younger.

Anakin:
Drove a high speed craft when he was younger.
Abrams' Kirk:
Drove a high speed craft when he was younger.

Anakin:
rides a hover-bixe.
Abrams' Kirk:
rides a motor-bixe.

Anakin:
fights an friend.
Abrams' Kirk:
fights an friend.

Anakin:
was an james dean want-be.
Abrams' Kirk:
was an james dean want-be.

han solo:
Woohoo.
Abrams' Kirk:
Woohoo.
--
Darth Maul: villain with an bald head, face taboos and staff weapon.
Nero: villain with an bald head, face taboos and staff weapon.

Darth Maul: kills obi-wan's father-figure (Qui-Gon).
Nero: kills kirk's father.

Darth Vader: uses a large laser weapon shooting down on to a planet.
Nero:  uses a large laser weapon shooting down on to a planet.

---

Star wars prequels: Bad Designs by ryan church.

Abrams' Star Trek: Bad Designs by ryan church.

 

Star wars prequels: Bad CGI by ILM.

Abrams' Star Trek: Bad CGI by ILM.

------

And so on....
This is just from the two trailers and some plot detail, the movie will more likely have more.
This Film is looking more and more like an Star Wars/Starship Trooper rip-off then a star trek film .

 

 

Wow, so many weird grammatical and spelling choices it make my head hurt...

Okay, I dislike everything about this movie as much as the next guy, but from browsing through those posts, I think some of these guys are freaking out way too much. Going on complaining about spending three million dollars to show us a Super Bowl commercial containing mostly no new footage. Come on, at that point it is obvious that we are to the point of finding everything to pick the movie apart about. Maybe the guy was disappointed that there was little new footage to pick apart. If someone doesn't even like the idea of the movie, why would they be so disappointed at a lack of new footage? At any rate, the point in spending three million USD on a Super Bowl ad is not to do people a favor and show them new footage, it is to promote the film and make people want to go see it. Since such a ridiculous number of Americans are obssessed with this handball sport, just about everybody in the states watches the Super Bowl, which means a hell of a lot more people have now seen an exciting short preview of the upcoming ST movie than they did before the Super Bowl ad. Plenty of people who don't care a thing about ST were likely to perk up and have their attention drawn in by this ad, and were likely to think "Wow! That is Star Trek? I never liked Star Trek, but this movie looks cool!"

Someone in that mess of other posts you posted said this movie was being made for the Transformers crowd. I think that is a rather good way to put it. The movie is being made. It is done. Nothing can be done about this now. It sucks. A sequel to Nemesis, the Romulan war movie, or a whole new Trek taking place farther into the future, or even one taking place between Kirk's era and Picard's would have been a much better. But they feel they have exhusted the ST fanbase, and are looking for fresh blood in the Transformers/SW prequels crowd. This last trailer really reminded me of The Attack of the Clones trailers for some reason. It does feel like an attempt was made to follow their lead as the new style of sci-fi action flick. That is a huge shocker, I used to always argue that the prequel style was one that would never be emulated. Turns out I was wrong.

Anyway, there really isn't much reason to continue on complaining about this. It is a means to no end. Purhaps the only purpose it serves is to make you feel better by venting how much you dislike it, and having others jump on the wagon with you, but at the end of the day nothing will change. A ton of the idiots who say they hate it will still toss their money at it by going to see it on opening day, so it is not like you are going to be knocking down ticket sales by any significant numbers. When all is said and done, you will have just invested hours of your life, permanently lost forever, on a movie you don't even like. Hours wasted posting and reading posts. At least the people who go see it in the theaters will only waste a couple of hours of their life, and around $10 so they can say, "eh, it sucked" and move on.

I agree with a lot of your sentiments Hunter, but is it really worth all this effort? You are not going to like this movie, neither am I. You are not alone. But there is nothing we can do about it.

Octorox said:

I have to disagree. Jackson was going for more surreal fantasy "monster" type Dinosaur's while Spielberg was going for realism. They don't look like cartoon characters at all IMO.

 

I dunno man. Sounds like a lousy excuse for some poorly rendered and lazily done dinosaurs to me. Can't be a surreal fantasy and still have decent looking CG? The realism of JP makes it a much more "surreal" viewing experience in my opinion. The monkey looked real enough. It is just the other creatures that looked poorly done, obviously a lot more time would be spent on Kong's model, but those dinos looked pretty lame for such a big budget movie.

Wow, that new ST trailer, if you cut out McCoy's line, and removed the words Star Trek from the end, you could watch the thing and think you were watching the trailer for some generic action sci-fi flick.

sean wookie said:

You guys are whiny bitches. You can't ruin childhood memories. As a kid I had a good time watching Batman and Robin and did finding out it was horrible bother me? No it didn't. All my memories of Star Wars are still good memories. A lot of directors start sucking after a while not just Lucas.

Dude are you even following this thread? Because this post having nothing much to do with what is being discussed would indicate otherwise.

It is not that it is going to be ruining anybodies childhood memories. It is the future anybody that is whining about this is worried about. And it is nothing to do with a movie that sucked all along, but whining parties were to young to realize, it is a totally new film.

Gaffer makes a good point about adaptions. It is hard to think of this as a new adaption of the old series though. Mostly because they based some major plot points around not making it to.

Gaffer, imagine if J. K. Rowling had felt it nessecary to tie the books in with a film in order to explain away their variations. Let's say the Harry from the book went and somehow met the Harry from the movies, and they had a discussion about how things might happen differently in each of their timelines for some reason or another. Kind of silly isn't it?

Now we have not seem the new Trek, but this plot point of Spock time traveling and the explaination of the differences has been public knowledge for sometime now, and it hardly even considered a spoiler. If it really is how it seems it is, it is pretty silly, and it tries to make this a sequel to Nemesis, when that is exactly what it does not need to be. They tied Generations in with the original crew, to make it more of a sequel to The Undiscovered Country instead of a new series. That was kind of cool, sort of provided closure to the TOS series of movies. I respect that is what they are trying to do with the new one, but it still feels cheap to me, and it keeps this from being a true reboot or adaption, which it should have been in my opinion. I am not really still complaining about it. I have said how I felt a few pages back and I am good to go. I am not going to see it in the theaters, because I don't want to waste money on it. When it comes to video I will probably barrow it or rent it.

Sky's post reminds me of an observation I made earlier this week. I decided to finally sit down and watch Peter Jackson's King Kong remake. I was actually really enjoying it for the first hour or so, slow moving, but interesting enough. Then they landed on the island and it got really boring as we spent the next hour or so watching a well rendered CG monkey dance around, small things, and fight dinosaurs, in a series of action sequences that get so boring and repetative I have no idea how anyone could stand to watch the movie more than once per lifetime. Sad thing is, I was actually enjoying the movie up until that point, but for the sake of my own sanity I turned it off and went to go do something else and have yet to finish it. Do people really find watching what is essentially computer generated cartoon characters beat the crap out of each other in endless and meandering battles to be entertaining? I just don't see it. 

Alright, back to my point. My point is back in 1993 I went to see a film called Jurassic Park, it pretty much defined awesome to me at the time. I had always loved dinosaurs, but I never really ever had a solid image in my mind of what a real dinosaur might have looked like, after seeing Jurassic Park I was convinced beyond a doubt that that is exactly how a real one would look. Any movie I had seen before with dinosaurs in it contained dinosaur models that were far from convincing. Jurassic Park mixed real physical animatronic models with CG elements, and it was down right amazing. I could care less about the later two films, but I still watch the first one sometimes, and am still impressed with how damn awesome those dinosaurs look. Maybe it is just my bias from having seen it in theaters back when it was state of the art, and thus is cemented in my mind as I originally saw it, I don't know, but I still think it looks amazing.

Now, flash forward to the year 2005. Over ten years later. Take a look back at 1993, remember those things people called cell phones? Remember those bricks people use to carry around on their hips called pagers? Look at cars, computers, televisions, cameras, and every piece of technology you can imagine. It was a different world, if we could zip back in time we would feel like we were in the stone age! 16 bit graphic consoles, PCs running Windows 3.1, no mp3 players, but kids carrying around massive clunky Walkmen with massive clunky headphones. Technologically, the difference is extreme. So why is it that in this massive budget movie we are back to having dinosaurs that look like cartoons? If a movie from the archaic early nineties managed to pull off dinosaurs that could make a 12 year old nearly pee his pants, why are we now making movies that look like Roger Rabbit or Pete's Dragon? How have we regressed so far in the evolution of special effects?

rcb said:

idk. that helment can be intimidating

 

???

Helmet? Are we still on the subject of Jabba the Hutt?

Or leave gapping wide wholes to be explained in future made for TV BSG movies or the Caprica show.

Yeah, I can see his "insane fanatic" comment getting a lot of people irritated. ST has a lot of "insane fanatics" when you come out and and essentially say, "Well, it was a good thing I wasn't an insane fanatic, or I might have made a movie catering to them instead of to the people who don't give a damn about Trek and will forget about it the second they step out of the theater." You are stepping on a lot of toes, while almost sounding as if you are belittling "insane fanatics".

That was pretty funny. The guy has got the voice down, but he sucks at the Yoda syntax errors.

Another really great puzzle game that'll only set you back fifteen bucks is Braid on Xbox Live. Sometime this year the PC port is suppose to come out. At times the puzzle solutions are so far out there it'll make your head hurt.

Yay, I have been educated in the dumbing down of the English language! And strangely I now feel smarter somehow. Of course I am not one to talk, having used the term "lol" in my previous post, something I used to refuse to do but for some reason have let it slide lately. Just so long as I don't sink to the level of using single letters to represent whole words (R U OK? Wht R U doing tmrw?), can't stand that!