C3PX

Hmm, today I had the thought that it might not be a bad idea to buy a copy of The Secret History of Star Wars for my local public library. It would be there accessable to anyone who happens across it, potentially reaching people who would never happen across it under other circumstances. Anyone who sits down at one of the library computers and searches the database for "Star Wars" (something that is bound to happen fairly often) they would find TSHOSW listed, possibly be intrigued by the title, and check it out. I was thinking about posting here and encouraging others to do the same, possibly even scribbling "Donated by a member of originaltrilogy.com" inside the book.

While I was seriously considering buying a copy to do this with, I remembered that if there is a book they don't have, you can request it and they will get it for you. First, they will try to find it through interlibrary loan from a nearby library, if they can't get it that way, which is quite likely as I doubt to many libraries have this book at the moment, then they will order a copy.

So, my proposal is to go to your local library and fill out a request form for The Secret History of Star Wars, whether you already own the book or not. In this manner the book could find its way to many library shelfs that it might not have found its way to otherwise.

dark_jedi said:

"how about if you have it already on the gamecube with a real game controller, or the ps2 and do not want a gimmicky wii mote annoyance."

Damn Sky my friend,what in the hell happened to you LOL,you friggin hate everything,so now do you hate all things Nintendo because of the cool Wii-mote and Nunchuck?

 

 

Seriously, the Wii version of RE4 is the absolute best that game has to offer. Don't want to use the "gimmicky" Wiimote? Then just don't use the damn thing! You can use the classic controller to play it as well. The original GameCube version had superior graphics to the downgraded PS2 port, to make up for a delayed release and lesser graphics they added the bonus stuff. The Wii version has GameCube graphics, PS2 features, and gimmicky or not, a freaken sweet control system with the Wiimote and Nunchuck.

I have a theory about complainers. They start off with ligit complaints, then they become so well adjusted to complaining, suddenly everything deserves to have the crap picked out of it. Sooner or later you just have to say to yourself this is the way it is and it is what it is. If it is a gimmick to you, just leave it and don't mess with it, kick the dust off your feet and have nothing to do with it, plenty of others get a thrill out of having a unique new way to play their games.

To address Sky's comment on wanting to play Twilight Princess in HD. Twilight Princess is a GameCube game with a Wii port, even if the Wii had been an HD system, not likely LOZ:TP would have been in HD. I am sure I'd love to play A Link to the Past or Chrono Trigger in HD, but it sure ain't gonna happen.

No, they fixed the all black zombie thing (they are not really zombies actually), now it is kind of funny as hoards of black guys jump out of nowhere and back you into a corner and you spot a random white guy or two mixed in there just for good measure.

I remember back when you'd here people complain about the absence of black people, now if there are too many you are in trouble. I mean, you are in some remote African village, that is the only reason everybody was black at one point. Nothing at all to do with racism.

skyjedi2005 said:

Could the psychic creature that is not in the movie be ripped off of the film forbidden planet?

 

No, I really don't see any connection. It feels much more H. P. Lovecraft inspired.

How do you do spoiler tags? Hmm, after reading the explaination of the new ending, I still think the original ending as a reason to accomplish what was meant to be accomplished works better, but we will see.

As for Heroes, I really felt both seasons one and two did more than a little "barrowing" from The Watchmen. Not sure if it can be called a ripoff since it is not exactly the same story, but there are several elements that are clearly taken from the graphic novel. Sylar being a watchmaker's son was a pretty obvious homage. The end plot twist was shamelessly blatant. And in season two, all the flashbacks to the old has-been super heroes, whose children are now the current heroes, felt very much inspired by The Watchmen. Glad they gave it a rest with season three, you can only ripoff another franchise so much before people start accusing you of having no ideas of your own (which is an accusation I think Heroes deserves to be accused of, as I don't think that show has had one original thing about it from the very beginning).

Are you a PS3 user or a 360 user dark_jedi? As far as I know only the 360 has the demo. The demo was released exclusively on the Xbox 360 in Japan though Xbox Live. Crafty RE fans in the US began signing up for Japanese Live accounts in order to download and play the thing, but MS somehow blocked that so it doesn't work anymore.

Now it is even easier though. You can download the demo from several places on the web (the kinds of places you might dl fan edits from), burn it on a DVD or CD-r and play it. It is only four hundred and some mb. I downloaded it, burnt it on a CD-r, and it plays just fine, it is all in English too. Once the disc is in the drive, instead of loading it from the disc as you would a retail Xbox game, go to "Game Library" and you find it magically listed among your demos.

Hope you have an Xbox dark_jedi, because this sure helps make the wait a bit easier. This demo is very much worth the small effort it takes to get to play it.

The demo was released in Japan on December 5th. Not sure if/when they intend to release it in other parts of the world or for PS3. It plays great though, it even has co-op mode, but only through split screens. The real game will have co-op story mode via internet, which will be kind of cool.

rcb said:

the symbolism is religious and i don't want to offend someone.

Holy shit man, we are not that PC around here! How unbelievably worthless is the world we are living in becoming!!! If you offend someone by explaining the symbolism in ROTS on a public forum, then quite honestly, the offended party needs to get a life.

Just went to read the change you were talking about. Yeah, I guess it works well enough to the same effect without needing as much buildup, and being a little more believeable.

Still, I don't think there was anything wrong with the original ending. I don't think it is that far out there, plenty of people believe in aliens, and you have plenty of conspiracy nuts out there who claim the US goverment is planning on pulling pretty close to the exact same thing Ozy Mandias did and for the exact same reason. I think the original ending would have worked well enough, but I don't think I really mind this minor departure and simplification too much.

I take it Sky is not an MST3K fan.

Personally I think there was a lot of talent put into that show, and rifftrax does a decent job of carrying on that tradition. Though I must admit, crappy movies make for much funnier riffs than good ones. Which I think is one reason I don't find rifftrax nearly as funny as MST3K. Most the movies rifftrax does are typical hollywood regurgitation, none of it very good, but none of it even close to half as bad as films like Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, or Mano: Hands of Fate.

dark_jedi said:

ALL I want at the moment is Resident Evil 5!

 

Me too! I cannot wait for that game. I have been playing those two demo levels over and over and over again. It is awesome. Can't wait to spent that time playing the actual game. Full game is still nearly three months away! :(

And Lj, $5 for Bioshock!!! Wow, you really ought to get it. That game is well worth five bucks, especially if you have never played it before.

Whoa, I didn't even know this was going on. I hope it still gets released, I was looking forward to it.

I keep hearing everyone say that there is no way it will be any good because it will be so different from the original. Is there reason to believe this? 300 pretty much contained every frame from the graphic novel, though with several additions to make it longer and give it more story, and a few nonsensical things put in there just to remind people it was a comic book adaption, regardless of the fact that those things were not actually in the comic book.

Every single scene in both The Watchmen trailers matches up almost 100% with scenes from the comic book. Since many of the same people are behind this who were behind 300, and judging by how accurate the scenes from the trailers are, I am predicting this thing is going to be pretty close to spot on.

Yeah, I think it is awesome they are doing the OT. Now we'll have the entire PT, the HS and the OT with riffs.

I read the book. But it has been quite some time ago. Could you take a few seconds to explain the symbolism of Mustafar and any other important symbolism we may be missing. Who knows, maybe it will help us appreciate the movie more.

I think there is some knew trend of hating film makers. What is with you guys. Lucas, Spielberg, Abrams. What other film makers do you guys hate with such passion?

Ah, denial. It is an amazing coping device, so I hear.

SilverWook said:

The other problem was Disney had run the "Last chance to own this movie on video forever!" gimmick into the ground already, so any cynical consumer would take Lucasfilm's marketing with a big block of salt. ;)

See, that is exactly why I am surprised some people realized that the intention was to give the originals the boot (heh, but not without milking one last drop of blood from them first!) I seriously took it to be hyperbolic marketing exactly like Disney's. Oops.

Yeah, they did.

Tiptup said:

If you are a person that has trouble communicating your thoughts then that's not my problem. You should have made it more clear that you didn't think I believed that.

I am not a person that has a hard time communicating my thoughts, the problem is you are a person that wants to pick fights all the time.

I am tired of explaining every sentence of every post I write that you don't understand. I said the N64 kicked the PSX's ass. You said, the N64 didn't kick the PSX's ass and that the PSX clearly won the war. I agree that it lost the war, when I said it kicked the PSX's ass, I meant because it is a better console and hardware/quality game wise it kicked the PSX's ass. That is why I wrote the offending line.

I said "outrageous assumtions" because you do that all the time. Like assuming Lj thought you accussed him of being a terrorist when there was absolutely no reason to assume he thought any such thing. Since there was no indication that I hadn't read your whole post, it is a funny thing to be worried about. Don't certain points in people's posts stick out to you at times? I see people only respond to one point made in someone elses post all the time, I don't see that as a reason to suppose they didn't read the rest of the post, just that that one sentence is what mattered to them.

This thread brings up something I have been meaning to ask for quite some time: Do we have preservations of the theatrical versions of AOTC and ROTS floating around? I am pretty sure there is an LD rip of TPM, which is the one with the most drastic changes, but what about the other two?

I have the ROTS screener lying around someplace, but the quality is severely lacking.

Wow, talk about having your hands tied. That is crazy your ISP doesn't allow IE. Pretty funny Microsoft's site doesn't support Firefox... heh heh. Good old MS.

That really sucks. Nice timing too, now that you are on a break from school and may possibly be getting 360 games for Xmas. :(

Hope you get it worked out alright.

"I said the PSX's success over the N64 was no fluke and I outlined specific reasons. I know you focused on one of my reasons (quite frankly the weakest: "long and involved games"), but are you now saying that you didn't read my other, more substantial reasons?"

I said nothing about not having read the other reasons you posted. Really not sure how/why you so often come to such outrageous conclusions. Perhaps I agreed with you on all other points, and that is why I did not comment on them. I certainly don't think that would be an unreasonable assumption to make.

But the idea of PSX games, which I personally have always found to be rather shallow and absolutely awful looking, being considered longer and more involved in general than N64 games really stood out to me. I have always felt the exact opposite way. I always stuck with the 64 because I liked the depth, length, and complexity of those games, which was something I never found in any of my friends PSX game libraries. I have always seen the N64 games as unique experiences not available elsewhere, while the PlayStation never felt like a unique experience to me, it felt like a silly little machine that played PC games on your TV set in inferior quality and longer load times.

I really do need to play FF7 sometime though, perhaps that would change my mind to some small degree. I have always felt that complex games are far from rare on the 64, but quite uncommon on the PSX. That is why that part of your post stood out to me, and why I commented on it.

Tiptup said:

C3PX said:

The N64 was on top as far as graphics went, PS couldn't touch it. But PS could do video and audio that the N64 could never dream of, not thanks to more power but thanks to a CD drive and 650mb of space. Even with PS's beautifully pixelated videos, the N64 still kicked the PS pathetic little ass.

The N64 did not kick the ass of the PSX (despite the fact that I would have wanted it to). In terms of sales, the Playstation won that generation of the console wars and that wasn't just a fluke. The CD drive afforded more than just easy video and audio capabilities. For instance, games with complicated textures or other pre-rendered images were simply not possible on the N64 without their detail being reduced to crap. What was the point of having solid rendering and softened graphics to display blurry textures? It was also rare to see an N64 game that was long and involved. CD was the format of choice at that time and Nintendo made a huge mistake. After the first few generations of PSX titles it was very rare to find a game that wasn't well optimized for quick load times. Nintendo was just being stupid.

 

I wasn't saying the 64 kicked its ass in terms of sales, obviously the PSX did better.

I still think PlayStation games looked like crap. As for it being rare to see an N64 game that was long and involved? What do you mean? Maybe I am not quite understanding what you mean by "long and involved". In fact, I cannot think of too many of the games I owned that were not pretty long and pretty involved. 

I haven't played through too many PSX games, one of them I have played through was Tomorrow Never Dies, it was pretty linear and extremely short. I also played some of The World is Not Enough. I never beat it, but I remember reading the list of levels, and it seemed very short. It too was also pretty straight forward without a whole lot of variety. Oh yeah, and they both looked like total shit as far as graphics were concerned. Finally, I played 007 Racing, need less to say, it is not very involved at all, about as simple and uninvolved as they get.

Goldeneye for the N64 on the other hand, was very long, and I would consider it far more involved than the three James Bond games for the PlayStation. Different level objectives, and even sections of the level were availible on different difficulty levels. Four players could play simultaniously in multiplayer. I forget how many levels Goldeneye has, but I remember it having a very decent length. Certainly better than the PSX Bond games longevity. For every level there were also achievements you could complete in order to unlock secrets. Oh yeah, and unlike the PSX Bond games, Goldeneye didn't look like a pile of crap.

Both Zelda games had some pretty complex systems in them and were quite involved. In fact, I'd be interested to hear what PSX games are that involved beyond FF7. Perfect Dark was even longer than Goldeneye. Most of my friends who were PSX obsessed, tended to be into fighting games and sports games. Two of the least involved and complicated genres out there. Metal Gear Solid was pretty long and involved, I'll give that one credit, but you might as well have played it on the PC, as I, an N64 owner, did without needing to buy a PSX to play an inferior version of the game.

The PS2 outsold The GameCube, and I think even the Xbox (though I could be wrong), sales is not always an indicator of which console packs the most power or looks the best. The PS2 was an under powered piece of crap compared to its contemporaries, yet it is an awesome system and has an impressive library of games, and is the only one left from the last gen that is still selling decently today.

I still thing the 64's biggest problem lay in the fact that it lacked games. But as for the games it did have... well, Tomorrow Never Dies on the PSX may have wowed me with its opening sequence complete with title song ripped right out of the film, but at least Goldeneye was longer, fun to play through more than once, and the characters didn't look like they were built out of cinderblocks.

Badass? I recall some talk in the Clone Wars thread about how funny it is he is always abandoning ships and running away to save his own skin. Super badass.

I am with Gaffer. I mentioned before about my reaction to Jar Jar's introduction in TPM and how my heart sank at that moment. For ROTS, first the opening crawl started with the sentence, "War!", then the CG clone fighter pilots made me cringe, next the gay buzz droids came along, okay, okay, a few silly things but I can live with this! Then Grevious came along... and I realized that the last hope for the PT was an utter and complete failure. Grevious was such an awful, awful idea. I hate ROTS for more reasons than I can count, but Grevious tops the list... well okay, so he is after Anakin's turn to the darkside, the youngling slaughtering, and Padme dying of a broken heart (holy hell there are a lot of shitty things about that movie!), but he is still pretty close to the top of the list.

EDIT: Oops, now that I clicked on one of Oct's links, I realized he was talking about the original animated Clone Wars. Yeah, I agree with you. Someone showed me that first clip before Revenge of the Sith came out and I really thought he was going to be a cool villain on par with Darth Maul, then he shows up on screen as a hacking coughing retard.

Hmm, then back in 1997 would have been the time to kick and scream and protest. If we really did know the shape of things to come from way back then, we sure as hell let it happen without putting up much of a fight.

Gaffer Tape said:

Of course, I failed to mention the circumstances that led Yoda to be in bed with Padme...

 

Whoa! I have no idea how this conversation got to this point, but... wow... maybe Obi-Wan wouldn't have to have been the third point of a PT love triangle. Maybe YIYF's name is not really a joke after all...

"Sired twins I have. Lucky they will be to have ears like mine. Hmmm. Good breeding at its finest this is."