C3PX

Yeah, I rarely watch the tele, and have yet to turn the thing on since this happened. I can imagine they are obsessing over it non-stop. Everytime a younger celebrity dies they do that. Man, don't people get sick of hearing the same thing over and over again?

I have a bit of a feeling that now that he is gone, a lot of stuff is going to start leaking in the next few years.

CO said:

Pre-1993 is one of the most influential people to music ever.  I equate his impact to Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, and Elvis, they all have stood the test of time, and didn't cater to one market of fans.

Certainly can't disagree with this. But I do believe a lot of people try to make it out that he was completely normal in his pre-mid-nineties state, and somehow became very stange after that. 

You've got to admit, the fellow was always a wee bit odd... I mean, there is the crazy crotch grabbing bit for starters... and you have to admit, as cool as it was back in the day, thriller is pretty fucked up!

I think the guy was always a bit off, it just wasn't until his cool/odd balance began tipping heavier on the odd side than the cool side that people began taking a few steps back, judging, and mercilessly cracking jokes at his expense.

He has certainly earned a dedicated chapter all to himself in America's pop culture history. "He was big in the eighties and nineties" will hardly even begin to explain the half of it to the next generation of kids who grow up and ask, "Who was Michael Jackson?" He was frighteningly beyond big, I don't think a word even exists to justly describe how big he was. I cannot think of a single celebrity before or since who has made an impact and been obsessed over as much as he was. 

Yeah, I kind of felt that way too. Here George was trying to make Sidious super mysterious, yet it was painfully obvious. Why was it painfully obvious? Because we had already met the Emporer in the sixth episode. I actually think, despite it being painfully obvious to us, that George was actually going in the right direction on this one. Imagine if he had never heard the name "Emporer Palpatine" before, or seen ESB or ROTJ. Would the connection between the two characters still have been so obvious? Not really. Perhaps internet whinning about this particular situation is what encouraged George to drop the necessary idea of making as if they would be viewed 1-6.

Dr. Who?

Madonna is a member of the GLBT community.

Jonno said:

Ah, he was referring to 'fags'. I was really struggling with that one...

Ah, yeah, I didn't get it either until now. The word "cigars" threw me off. I was thinking along the lines of phallic imagery, not their use of the word "fag" which is far more etymologically accurate than the American homophobic insult.

I have one more bit of advice to add. Stay out of the red phone booths! Scary stuff goes on in those things!

(Been a few years since I have been to the greatest city on earth, do they still have the phone booths? In the states pay phones have become extremely rare thanks to cell phones. Wouldn't be surprised if other cell phone heavy countries in the world also did away with them, but the red phone booths are such an iconic part of London, it'd be really a shame to see them disappear.)

Several years back, I stayed in a brilliant little bed and breakfast right around the corner from Paddington Station. It was pretty reasonable priced too, and they had an espresso machine. There were several B&Bs all clumped together there in a row. If you find a situation like that (several right next to each other) you can just ask at each one and find out who is the least expensive.

Whoa! I bought Left 4 Dead at Target for $12.48 on clearance. Interestingly, they were also selling the game of the year edition of Left 4 Dead for $59.99, the only difference was that the GOTY edition includes the DLC for the game. Turns out the DLC for Left 4 Dead is completely free to download anyway. Hehe. Kind of funny.

Probably too late, but if anyone really wants this game, you might go to your local Target and browse the clearance aisle. Small chance you might find a stray copy or two that have yet to be snatched up.  

EDIT: Just did a google search on "Left 4 Dead 12.48 target" just for kicks, and some people suggested asking the target employee to look behind the game of the year editions (they keep them behind glass) for the old regular editions. I guess there have been several cases were they stocked the GOTY editions over the regular ones. Since Target has everything computerized, if you are lucky enough to find a non GOTY edition of Left 4 Dead, it should be $12.48 regardless of whether it has a clearance sticker on it or not.

vbangle said:

Copy and pasted from here

 

The worst summer in recent memory continues as Michael Bay brings his slow push-ins and Lazy Susan dolly shots back to the cineplex with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (hereafter Transformers 2), the ugliest, most hateful, most simple-minded and incomprehensible assault on art and decency since the last Michael Bay movie...

Walter Chaw

I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt, this Walter Chaw fellow is a complete retard. Why the hell would you go see a Michael Bay film, if you don't like Michael Bay? Michael Bay films suck. I don't like Michael Bay, I don't go see his films, and I live happily ever after. Walter Chaw is a retard if he was expecting anything more than more of the same. Pointlessness and explosions. It tickles the fancy of some, and it just pisses others off.

Mr. Chaw obviously fits into the later category, so seriously? Why is he even watching, let alone reviewing this film? Let's say I absolutely hate sci-fi of all sorts with an extreme passion, and I am sent to review sci-fi films. You can guess my reviews would always be rather negative and biased against the sci-fi films I am reviewing. They would be useless to sci-fi fans who want to know if the movie is worth a watch or not. And it would essentially be worthless to other sci-fi haters, though they would probably get off on it and enjoy it, not because it is informing them of anything, but because it is bashing something they enjoy bashing. 

Anyone who reads through Mr. Chaw's entire review is just wasting their time, unless they only desire to caress themselves while getting off on his hatred of this film. The first paragraph where he admits to hating Michael Bay and this film is all that is needed.

Also, I am getting really irritated with people calling bad movies an insult to the art of film making. There have always been bad movies, there will always be bad movies. Shall we get grossly offended everytime a 7 year old pulls out his water colors and paints an absolutely awful drawing? It's an insult to art! Poor Van Gogh is rolling in his grave right now! Clearly, seven year olds should not be allowed to paint! And lousy directors should not be allowed to make movies, even when those movies are what the masses demand and for some reason find very entertaining. Que sera sera. The fact that McDonald's exists is absolutely no determent to fine dining.

I forgot the 04 discs even had a commentary. I have yet to listen to them, but now it sounds like I have not missed much.

Can't imagine a commentary recorded twenty some odd years after the making of a film could amount to much. How great would it have been to have had them recorded shortly after the film was made? Remember those old interviews where Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford seemed excited when talking about Star Wars? Commentary in those days would have been epic. That was, after all, when the movies actually mattered.

What is the file extension?

xhonzi said:

C3PX,

Please elaborate more on the shocks and twists you thought you might see.  I was thinking along similar lines recently that there were no twists.

Maybe Luke had an older brother?

Maybe Vader wasn't actually the father?  Obi-wan?

I don't know.  But you're right, the Panda Bear Shuffle was not much of a twist.  I was expecting some intrigue in RotS about the whole Sifo Diyas thing.  I went to the theatre hopeful that the turn would be done well, that the space battles would be thrilling, and that I might actually like the movie.  It took me a couple days to get over my disappointment for those other things, but then I realized the "mystery" elements of AotC weren't revisited at all.  Oops?

I can't say any twists I had expected to see. I was just surprised there were not any. I expected to meet a lot more characters I'd care about along the way. And hear a lot more interesting stories along the way as well. Instead, we basically got told the same story we already knew (as told by Obi-Wan and Yoda in the OT), and a ton of padding and hot air filling in the gaps in order to bloat it out into a three movie trilogy. Ultimately, there is only a few paragraphs of story in the entire PT.

I figured there would be more story there, and that George would work a few crazy twists in along the way. When I first saw ROTS, I actually excitedly thought he had pulled something like this off. I was so dumbfounded at Anakin's turn, I couldn't believe it. When he walked into the room of small children who come out of hiding and look up to him for help guidance as he ignites his lightsaber, I just couldn't accept that what I was being lead to believe was about to happen was really what was going to happen. I figured clever old George (oh how much misguided faith I had in you) had just tricked us. Anakin had not yet turned to the darkside at all, but was playing the hero. He saw what happened to Mace, and knew the Sith had to be stop, so he pretended he was on his side, and was really had some plan up his sleeve. When I saw the young Jedi come running out and kill a Clone Trooper, I was sure I was right. Anakin was leading the children in some crazy plan to fend off the attackers and keep the kids alive. Surely even Darth Vader wouldn't be so cruel as to hack up a bunch of 7 year olds.

I figured somewhere along the way the whole setup of Anakin's jealously of Padme and Obi-Wan's friendship would pay off, and he would slip off to the darkside after playing the hero and helping fend off the invasion on the Jedi temple.

Instead it turns out I was completely wrong, Anakin really did turn to the darkside with a snap of Palpatine's figure even while second guessing himself he commits himself to do whatever Palp's might possibly ask him to do. Anakin did hack up the children, and the whole Obi-Wan/Padme thing never really played off, and the movie really, really sucked.

The DLC Dilemma.

1998, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina to Time came out. Me and all my closest buddies had it, beat it, and immediately started playing it through a second time, despite the fact that the game gave no incentive to do so. We all enjoyed it that much. And it wasn't that it was a particularly short game, it had some pretty good length to it. We just liked it so much, we didn't want it to end.

There was that whole Nintendo 64 disk drive thing, and an expansion pack for Ocarina of Time was announced for it. Disc drive plugs into the bottom of the console, your original cartridge in the top, the expansion disk in the disk slot, and now you have new content on your old game. We couldn't wait for this thing to come out, only, it never did. At least not in North America, and from the sounds of things, what Japan got was nothing as great as a lot of us had imagined. Long story short, Majora's Mask came out not too long later, and that held me over long enough to completely lose interest in the series (still am only a few dungeons into Wind Waker with no interest to continue, and have yet to play Twilight, though I'd kind of like to).

During my second play through Ocarina of Time, while eagerly awaiting the 64DD's US release, I began thinking about how great it would be to have a game that never ends. Developers throw together a game with a beginning, and middle, and an end. Once you beat it, you can pay to subscribe to a continuing series of stories, delivered to your doorstep monthly or bimonthly. With every new issue of the game, you start on the next chapter of your journey, meets some new character and some new enemies, maybe so new weapons and items. While I thought this would be great, I had no idea how much of a reality it would be ten years down the road with downloadable content. Telltale games actually does do the whole subscribtion thing with their games, you can pay up front and get the new chapter as soon as it is released. Game add-ons through PS3 Network and Xbox Live are not all that much different, pay for it through your console the day it comes out, and be playing it a few minutes later, no need to even leave your TV set.

I've noticed, however, that the consumer view of DLC ranges from outright gleefilled to extreme resentment. Any time I read up on some new DLC for a game, I read a lot of user comments complaining how they are being ripped off and having their money stolen from the game company because they released this new piece of downloadable content. That kind of puzzles me. You payed for a whole game in the first place, you played it through and enjoyed it, were perfectly contented. So why get all pissy when the company brings out some optional add-on for the game that they want to sell you? Just don't buy it.

The first DLC I ever purchased was Operation Anchorage for Fallout 3. I really enjoyed it, but I am not sure it was worth ten bucks. I saw advertisements for Fallout 3's second DLC, the Pitt, and decided I didn't need it and gave it the pass with no regrets. Fallout 3's third add-on, Broken Steel with the ability to play beyond the end of the game and lifting the level cap was definitely worth a couple of fivers to me, so I got it. Both Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta look/sound incredibly awesome, I already bought Point Lookout from Gamestop and don't think I am going to be able to resist Mothership Zeta. 

I now realize I will have spent 40 USD on Fallout 3 DLC, which is quite a lot considering I got Fallout 3 for only $39.99 while it was on sale. If someone were to buy them altogether on the game of the year addition (coming sometime this fall, I believe), they would only pay $60 for the complete game and all DLC, if they wait a while they could probably grab a used copy or find it on sale for considerably less. If someone were to buy all five add-ons, they would have payed $50. Kind of crazy when you really think about it, but so far I have really enjoyed the ones I bought, felt they were worth ten bucks a piece (for some reason spending it all in little splirts instead of all at once makes it more painless). I remember back in my PC gaming days, I'd spend $30 on an expansion pack for a $50 game, and would usually have whipped my way through it in little more than a week. Interestingly, I had never heard any one gripe about expansion packs the way I hear them do for DLC. 

Anyway, all this to ask, what are your thoughts on downloadable content?

Darrell Kaiser said:

Everyone said the unaltered trilogy wasn't coming out on DVD. We got 'em.

Yeah, in VHS quality no less! Score!

When the fan made preservations are better than the official release, you know something isn't right. Sure "we got 'em", but only because we already had them.

I dunno. I do see the short comings of Jedi, but to me there is still an incredible gap between the quality of Jedi and that of TPM. And yet another smaller gap between the quality of TPM and those other two film.

Name one thing in all the prequels that came anywhere close (like as in, within the hundred mile range) of being anywhere near as impressive as that Jabba the Hutt puppet? Or all the other puppets and aliens in that film? Or the great scene with the Rancor? Space battle alone is more entertaining than all three prequels combined. Or what about the throne room scenes at the end? While I consider ROTJ by far the weakest link of the OT, I still find some of the throne room bits to be some of the best stuff in the trilogy. As far below ESB as I see it, I just can't find the PT even comparable to it.

Had we gotten a ROTJ quality PT, I would have been one happy fellow. To me the PT is made for TV Sci-Fi Channel original movie quality, and even saying this makes me feel like I may be making a big offense against Sci-Fi Channel  original movies.

LOL, funny to hear vbangle (beyond a doubt, the most useless poster I have had the pleasure of meeting), calling someone else out for a "useless" post.

"If Anakin killed Vader and took over his persona you could have both ideas reconciled."

See, I was half expecting something a bit like this in some way (not exactly that, but some sort of twist at any rate), to take place in the prequels. What we knew about Obi-Wan and Vader's past and the Clone Wars was very vague. George could have really taken the thing any which way he wanted. He made such a big deal about shocking twists in the first two Star Wars sequels, it was kind of surprising the best he came up with was "Padme was the queen this entire time!!! Whooooa!!! What a twist!!! 8O"

The prequels are a product of a very limited imagination. There is really nothing creative or fresh (what defined the first two films) about them.

Bingowings said:

T2 is possibly the most over-rated film in history.

 

Nope, the most over-rated film in history would most definitely be The Matrix. Hands down. IMHO, of course.

T2 was really just a rehash of the first film. Good guy and bad guy from the future duking it out to save/destroy a certain target. I really enjoy both the first and the second film. I think the second film is ranked as high as it is by so many people is because it managed to be more fun in the way it did it. The first film was very dark, the second film was much more light hearted (though it was still quite grim), I think in this way it simply appealed to a wider audience. I agree the first film works perfectly by itself, but I enjoy the second one too much to write it off.

Dammit! Now my life's ambition will be to break into Gaffertapes personal vault to retrieve that video. I may even make a couple of movies about, one will be a crappy unfinished controversial student film about a guy wanting to kill Gaffer Tape, and the other one will be a cheap low budget film that a big studio takes a liking to and completely rewrites it into a nonsensical typical teen sex comedy, then somehow it will revert more or less to its originally intended state before being released stright to DVD. The future will be disappointing for fans of Gaffer's original upload of his Batman tribute, but they will not suffer it alone.

Noooooooo! Is the old version at least availible on VHS? Or non-anamorphic DVD?

Whoa! Words cannot describe... I like it. Very creative. Makes me feel light I really ought to go out and buy the DVD for the 1943 Batman. Love the opening and closing bits.

ATown8814 said:

*The Godfather Part III NEVER HAPPENED.

There they go again Gaffer, just for you.

I am surprised the place isn't filled with people singing the praises of the Matrix and its sequels, since I have admitted to very strongly disliking them all.

EyeShotFirst said:

I thought I would get e-shanked for my list.

...

Have you seen any movie recently that didn't have explosions and car chases? Every movie I have seen is some nobody the government forces into doing their dirty work. I get so sick of that kind of movie. American cinema and television has really gone down the crapper. They honestly think that all we want to see is big loud explosions and car chases which most people do. Television is pure reality shows. Who gives a crap about who flava flav is banging. I get so pissed at television and cinemas I want to just yank out the cable on my TV and just watch movies I actually like. They are already destroying the internet. What next?

We really are not into "e-shanking" people here at OT.com, or any other forms of e-violence really.

To answer the, "Have you seen any movie recently that didn't have explosions and car chases?" question, as a matter of fact, I have. I particularly liked the two Clint Eastwood directed films we were treated to during the course of last year, Gran Torino and The Changling. Whether you liked them or not, they are most certainly two well written, directed, and acted films. Perhaps a bit sentimental and sappy, but since seeing Eastwood's A Perfect World, I've found that I enjoy Eastwood's brand of sappy.

I suppose it is easy to check the movie listings on most days and though your hands up in despair because there is nothing worth going to see. Hollywood continually turds them out, and like flies, we are all over them each and ever time. With "record breaking box officer numbers" having reached the point of being the norm, I guess you'd have a pretty hard time blaming Hollywood for pumping them out as quickly as they can.

I think the problem is more the demograph that guys like you and I belong to. The fact that we are having this discussion on a Star Wars forum says quite a lot about the kind of movies you and I are into. The summer blockbuster type movies are aimed at guys like you and I, and from the sounds of it, neither of us have been very impressed in recent years. But to be perfectly honest, I don't really remember a time when I was impressed. Summer blockbusters are typically high budget throw-aways. I think it has always kind of been this way. You win some and you lose some. Remember how every one was talking about Independance Day when it first came out? Or how they couldn't shut up about Armageddon? That is how it has always been, only now, we are all plugged in with the internet and have the ability to continually complain about it, when in the past we'd forget about the dogs and continue with our lives.

While there are a lot of turd being dropped, and enjoyable film makes its way into our lives from time to time. In recent history I will name just a few movies I really liked, and that I felt were pretty high quality. We had the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I thought was incredibly well done. The first two Spider-Man films which I also thought were great. Serenity, 300, The first X-Men film, Watchmen, Batman Begins, Casino Royale. And all those are just in one particular genre, and only off the top of my head. If we search outside films targeted at an audience of teens to thirty some year olds, you'll find plenty more that are pretty decent films, and are likely to be remembered way beyond their time.

Yeah, it would be a pain moving your hard drive back and forth from computer to console. I was doing that for a time, but then decided it would be worth it to buy a spare external hard drive just for my console. I got it for around $50 on amazon. At 500gb it holds everything I own. Of course, when you are use to having a 1TB hard drive, I can imagine 500 gb seeming small. I remember when I first got my first computer with over 10gb on it, it seemed massive! Now that is barely more than two DVD-Rs.

Networking would definitely be the way to go for playing media on your PS3. Just do some research on using PS3 Media Server while using yours computer as a network bridge. I have discovered tons of people use this method of sharing internet with their consoles, so I am sure there are answers out there.

Hmm, I am not sure on that one.

Since you are sharing the laptop's internet connection with the PS3, I imagine things work differently than if they were simply two units on the same network. 

My buddy uses TVersity for his PS3 to access media files on his computer, but he has it wired directly into a router.

I just keep all my media stored on a five hundred gb external hard drive I have dedicated just for use with my 360. For me this works fantastic, so I have never even bothered figuring out how to stream my stuff through the network.