C3PX

The real question is, how do people accept such lousy quality releases and act dumb founded when others don't like it?

Ever heard the phrase, "The customer is always right"? LFL apparently has not. From a company with a reputation such as LFL's, you would expect quality product, regardless of a crappy PT, their physical products have always been solid. Seemingly they, or George, has decided they are above the necessity of making quality products, and strangely, they have a massive army of people who seem as if they would defend them to the death on their decision.

Makes sense people like us would complain to hell and back about a DVD set featuring only the special edition, and not even the special edition we knew, but an even more special special edition. We'd sift through the thing with a fine toothed comb and fine the tiniest flaws to rip it apart with, but the errors don't take a fine toothed comb, they are glaring! It seems like people who were perfectly fine with the PT and the SE ought to take offense to such a poorly done release. It is a huge insult to anyone who spend their money on it really. A recall should have been issued.

When the Back to the Future Trilogy was released it suffered from some minor matting issues, and yet Universal saw fit to immediately fix the problem, and allow unsatisfied customers to have their sets replaced. Why did they do this? Because people noticed the errors and complained about them, and Universal cared about their customers. Notice how there is not a site that is dedicated to finding the highest quality version of the Back to the Future trilogy that nitpicks the crap out of the errors that were made on the DVD release? One doesn't exist, because there is nothing left to complain about, it was fixed. People don't shut up about the crappy 04 release of SW, because it has been rererereleased and it STILL has the glaring errors glaring as bright as ever.

LFL's mistakes were FAR more serious than the issues with the BTTF trilogy, and all they saw fit to do was give people the middle finger by saying that all the errors were creative decisions, that apparently only applied to the English language track :). I for one feel that making Luke's saber change colors was a very bold and kick ass creative decision to make. I was kind of hoping Revenge of the Sith would explain the deeper significance to changing of the blade's colors, and was disappointed to see that it was not addressed. I am sure Lucas has a very good reason for this, I can't wait to hear what it is though... four years and still not a word about it...

FanFiltration said:I loved season one, but found season two very weak, un-inventive, and much too repetitive. The whole idea of the no one can die if they get a bit of super blood takes so much away from the drama and fear of losing one of our heroes.

Yeah, I agree with you. Season two lost a lot of what made season one enjoyable. Hopefully they gain that back in season three. I only got to see the first half of last nights two part opener, but already we can see that the drama and fear of potential danger to anyone is lost entirely. It is becoming a joke, this show has more people coming back to life than a Soap Opera. It really takes away a lot IMHO. Heroes' changeable time line took this away from the very start, and the Clair blood just added to it.

At the end of season one, I really thought they were going to kill off Nathan, it made since, the guy sacrificed himself to save the world. Would have been much more effective had he really died. At the end of season 2 when they killed him off again, the first thing I thought was, "Yeah, ten minutes into season three and the guy will be perfectly healthy again."

Heroes is a pretty big rip off of just about everything else anyway, season one started off feeling like X-Men, and ended feeling like the Watchmen. Season 2 had some very obvious Watchman themes to it, especially the whole "old" heroes thing. I still enjoy the show well enough for what it is, but season two was pretty lackluster, and felt almost like season one all over again, but with different twist (S1 city destroyed by explosion; S2 destruction by plague; S3 looks like destruction by Suresh's mutant maker), I hope season three gets more interesting and original, but from the previews and what I have seen so far, doesn't seem likely...

Oh yeah, and how dumb can Suresh be? Seems like he is always doing something stupid and being an idiot.

Are you kidding! That whole game is well worth playing, again and again and again and again... which is exactly what I have been doing since it came out, that game never gets old to me, not sure how many times I beat it, but I still absolutely love it.

Funny that you mention hunting down the PC version, I just came across it and obtained it a few weeks ago after years of searching (literally, it tends to be pretty uncommon, even on ebay last time I checked). The PC version is exactly like the N64 version. Instead of the animated cutscenes of the N64 version, the PC version has 3D cutscenes with voice acting. Other than that the levels are the same. Actual in game graphic really are not much better from the N64 version as far as I can tell.

That is the dumbest explaination for the switch from flippers to two disc sets I have ever heard. It has nothing to do with idiot proof, and more to do with people wanting nice looking sets instead of lame two sided discs. 2 sided discs are also a lot more prone to damage, especially when you have siblings, kids, room mates, or whoever who tend to toss the disc on the top of the DVD player instead of putting it back in the case. And seriously, it is not like it costs a whole lot more to produce a set with two discs as opposed to a flipper.

skyjedi2005 said:

...and People waited sixteen years for episode 1 absolutely pathetic.

Dammit sky, you don't have to remind me!

HA! And I was only fooled once! I saw Phantom in the theater, but NEVER ONCE did I see AOTC in the cinema. Though after hearing everyone raving about how Lucas "finally did it!" and how he "made a prequel that is WAY better than Return of the Jedi" and how it was "so much better than the other two you can't even compare it!" I had to go see for myself (so, it was really those idiots who fooled me that time, not Lucas). And as for FU, I bought a used copy from Gamestop (fancy that, a few days out and already a used copy!), and will be returning it within the seven day "no questions asked" return policy for used games. I never expected much out of it, especially not the PS2 version, and since they just happened to have a used one, I bought it simply to check it out with the intention of returning it. As for Clone Wars, never even had the slightest desire to see it, and I sure I never will. When the actual TV show starts and I happen upon it by accident, I might quit changing channels for a second or two out of curiosity. 

I am sorry for all the folks who have constantly been fooled, but I learnt my lesson early on.

sean wookie said:

. If it wasn't for the DRM and not being that good me and a lot more people would of bought Spore.

I dunno man, that is a pretty weak excuse. "I only pirate games because of the publisher's anti-piracy attempts, and the games suck."

If Spore isn't good enough of a game that you'd be willing to pay for, why do you need to play it at all? Seems like if a game is worth your time, then it ought to be worth your money. If you don't feel it is a good enough of a game to pay money for, why the need to pirate it? If Spore was a pretty good game, and if it didn't have any sorts of digital rights management crap, would you have paid for it?

Kind of like saying, "All Hollywood movies suck these days, so instead of paying money to see them, I have torrent them." If they suck, why the need to do something illegal in order to see them? Why not just give them a pass? Isn't that what 99 cent rentals, netflix, and cable TV are for?

As for DVD prices, Blu-ray discs feel really expensive to me at $30 each. I have never paid more than $20, unless it was some sort of boxed set. I mean, I paid $28 for the four disc Blade Runner set on DVD brand new, I guess I buy my movies at some pretty inexpensive places, but I am pretty surprised to hear some people pay close to $30 for 2 disc DVDs when I usually get them for $16 - $20. The players will eventually get cheaper, that is a given, but what is the point in buying a cheap playing if you are paying so much more per disc.

Yeah, Internet Explorer is pretty gay.

I have had that problem in Internet Explorer for weeks, but through Firefox or Safari it all looks fine. I assumed I just needed to empty my temporary internet files to fix the problem, but have been too lazy to try that.

Loved Revenge of the Sith, major improvment on the actually film. This is now my definitive version of the PT. I am going to save these, burn them to a DVD, make a nifty case for them, and make a spot on my DVD shelf right in front of the SW trilogy.

edskizzorhands said:

Thanks guys, I knew GOUT was the original versions of the films. I just couldn't think of what it stood for.

As Mielr pointed out, GOUT is not the original versions, but specifically refers to the crappy official LD transfers that were included as bonus disc in the 2006 rererelease (hence the "George's", since they are the versions he released). Any other version of the original pre-1997 trilogy should be refered to as the OUT or OOT.

Asteroid-Man said:

It's from the Special Edition VHS releases.

Actually, those were the movie posters for the 1997 re-release/Special Edition release, before they were the VHS covers. I suppose they were originally suppose to be lined up together in movies theaters, but every theater I saw them at only displayed one poster at a time, since they were released a month apart from one another.

Man, I remember how exicted I was back then to see SW in the theater again. Change didn't bother me a bit then, at the time it was merely an alternative and not "the only version". It was the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, which lived in harmony beside the real Star Wars Trilogy. It was when they removed the "Special Edition" and tried to pass it off as the originals that I developed a strong dislike for it. 

Yeah, that would be hard to top. For those who have not seen it, here is a youtube link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UyVmioeEHg

To me, this is the definitive version of Jar Jar's death.

Yeah, that time line is really cool. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Not just another SW video game, this is sort of Shadows of the Empire II as it were. It has a novelization, a role playing game, action figures, comics, a making of book, and a version for every current system. Only thing it is missing is a soundtrack and topps trading cards.

With the last so called "Star Wars multimedia project" which was Shadows, the central bit of media seemed to be the book. In this case, it is obvious everything is aimed at selling the games.

Well, I just spend the last forty minutes playing the PS2 version of The Force Unleashed. It really isn't as bad as it could have been (at least the PS2 version), but really isn't all that great either. Since the PS2 is the lastest and greatest console I own, and since not a whole lot of new games come out on it, it is kind of cool to have something new and entertaining for that system.

It is really just a button masher, played it for forty minutes and never once worried about my life bar, seemed like it was pretty much always full, just ran around pressing buttons and killing people until I got bored and shut it off. So far the storyline is about ten times more entertaining than anything in the prequels. It was really cool that the opening level depicted Darth Vader actually hunting down Jedi, something I really had always thought we'd get to see in the PT. The idea of him having a secret apprentice with the name Starkiller who he uses for hunting down Jedi so he doesn't have to do it himself is all kind of lame. Believe it or not, it really does feel slightly reminiscent of the older LucasArts titles; for some reason it really brought back memories of Tie Fighter, simply because you are going around killing Rebels, also reminds me a lot of Jedi Outcast for obvious reasons, though it is not half as fun as either of those games.

And I cannot believe how good it feel to see some damn Stormtroopers again! So sick of Clone Troopers... Seeing OT style Imperial Crusers, Tie Fighters and other ships adds a lot of coolness to it. 

The visit to Kashyyyk was cool, since in the PT all you get to see of the planet is a cartoon like CG blur.

On the other hand, I played a few seconds of the Nintendo DS version, and it absolutely sucked, like most DS games do. The stylus is the dumbest form of control imaginable. If you could use the buttons, and the DS has plenty of buttons to go around, I think it would have been a lot more fun. But tapping the action you want to do with the stylus is pretty retarded.

So anyone played any of the real versions of this game, for PS3 or Xbox?

kenkraly2007 said:

You call the force unleased a crappy product?

LOL, I have yet to hear much good about it. Just about every review I have read has been along the lines of, "Well, it is okaaay, but not really that great." I grew up in the days when a game had the LucasArts/LucasGames logo on it, you bought it, because it was going to be about 90% better than anything else out there. Now the name is a pretty big joke. The later Jedi Knight games were good simply because they were make by Raven software. The Knights of the Old Republic were good because they were made by someone else. LucasArts makes crappy products, The Force Unleashed most definitely included. Can't even get the lightsaber colors from cutscene to in game to be consistant, pretty lame.

I think it ought to be mentioned that LucasArts is a video game company owned by George Lucas. LucasFilm is a video production company, also owned by George Lucas. They are too separate companies, both of which currently dispense equally crappy products these days.

Two reels, couldn't possibly be the entire film, could it? I don't know a lot about super 8.

I don't think I am going to try to "brain wash" my kids into liking Star Wars by throwing it at them everyday in hopes they will catch onto it. I have a feeling they will end up liking it on their own, if only because they have fond memories of watching it with their dad when they were kids. I think by over saturating them with SW, it only stands to make them less likely to enjoy it in the end. Sometimes less of something is more.

In fact, after reading this thread, I have decided that the novel is probably the way I will introduce my kids to SW. I just pulled it off the shelf the other day and began reading it, and am really enjoying it. I can't help but think how cool it would have been to have read the book before seeing the movie, and to imagine all this stuff in your own head for the first time. My mom always read to me when I was a kid, and I loved those moments. In fact, I am going to start reading books like the Odyssey and The Lord of the Rings to my kids while they are still in the crib (mostly just to so they can hear dad's voice). I'll probably throw SW in their too. When they get old enough that they will be able to understand the stories, I'll read them to them again (maybe I will take some time and rewrite my own abridged version of the whole OT just for the purpose of reading them to my kids, I already though of doing that for Lord of the Rings, and other classics. I could even write a more serious abridgment of the PT).

As for kids and TV lj brought up a good point about the "boob tube'. As a guy who had lived most of his adult life without owning a TV, and not missing it one bit, I think when I have kids we will have very limited TV viewing times. I don't want to isolate them from the word of TV, they will learn about it and want it eventually, hearing about it from friends or seeing it at friends houses, but I don't think I will intentionally set them down in front of it to watch anything until they are old enough to ask for it. In fact, my wife and I, who watch very little TV as it is, will probably limit our TV viewing to nap times and after bed time, so that they don't see us watching it either.

I, like many others, do not own an HD TV. Not planing on buying an HD TV anytime soon. Since the whole HD thing I have slowed down my DVD purchasing to almost zero, figuring I will just get in it Blu-ray sometime in the near or distant future. If Blu-ray where comparable to DVD prices, I'd still be buying movies, blu-ray doesn't look any better on a TV screen the size of mine, but it doesn't look any worst either.

If they were comparable in price, many others like me would be buying them who are currently not buying them. Seems like an larger range of customers paying less would be better than a small group of customers paying more. As it is, they have effectivly knocked me out of the market for buying movies period.

And of course it is the damn pirates who are causing the drop in media sales...

I don't think Ady's version would be what this guiy is looking for. Ady's edit is great, but it is just another SE with even more changes.

I don't know man, if I were you, I would forget DVD quality and go for purity the with the GOUT or one of the previous fan made LD transfers. Perhaps a  At least then you know you are watching the originals. The DVDs are so messed up as far as sound and colors go, I'd stay away from them. Even a de special editioned version is still the special edition, no matter how much cutting you will still have evidence of added CG and special effects.

Save it as a jpeg and open in so you can zoom in.

Wow, I agreed with every single word Rob said in his post located four posts up. I almost forgot Rob used to post some pretty good stuff in the politics thread.

C3PX said: That comment very nicely sums up exactly why I am not a Democrat. That self righteous, we are so intelligent, if you think differently than us then you are by default an idiot, etc. attitude. It bugs the crap out of me, and most Democrats I have known have it. It is kind of like the popular kids back in high school, "if you don't wear __insert brand name here__insert product name here__, then you are not cool!" If you are not a Democrat, then you are not smart. Because all smart people are Democrats.

Sorry, just suddenly had the urge to quote myself.

It is ashame people have such a lack of understanding of how things work that they cannot separate party from policy. Bush made a lot of fuck ups during his time in office, increased spending through the damn roof and grew government. Things that are by definition very UNconservative. You guys seem to feel because Bush (a nonconservative) failed (in your eyes), that conservatism has now been proven as a failure. THat is a lot like saying, "I have tried a fried egg once and it tasted like crap, therefore I am certian that fried chicken also tastes like crap." That is a very dumb way of thinking. Perhaps the Democratic party is not the intellectual party after all.

Conservatism hasn't failed, nor will it ever. These things worked for the country in the past, they'll still work now. That is not to say all progressive ways of thinking are bad, but sometimes leaping into change for the sake of change is not the wisest idea. What we have had for the last eight years has hardly been the ideal Republican President. Maybe if you guys could come up with a single candidate who is not a freaking cardboard cutout of every other Dem candidate, you would not have had to suffer for eight years. Al Gore? John Kerry? Even Hilary Clinton was the same thing, only with a few different parts. It is about time you get someone with a little depth to them! You finally did that with Barak (though it is some pretty dang scary Marxist depth), and for your sake, hopefully that goes somewhere.

I really don't want to vote for McCain, I do not like the guy at all. I am not at all impressed with his track record, or many of his policies.

FanFiltration said:

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

By John Gray Cincinnati, Ohio -  jgray7@cinci.rr.com - July - 2004

Sigh... Not only is that inaccurate at parts, like lj pointed out, but it is retarded. Stupid articles like this really help support the massive gap between the two parties. I can imagine all this liberals reading that artiles and smiling stupidly, "Yah, take that you fing dumb Repubs!" Come on, you could just as easily knock that article on its ass and flip everything the other way around and write an article on "A Day in the Life of Larry Liberal". Hopefully you are smart enough to realize this FF, hopefully.