C3PX

rcb said:

the only book i understood was the hobbit. fun little adventure to read about.

If you liked The Hobbit, I'd highly recommend Tales from a Perilous Realm to you. Specifically the stories Leaf By Niggle and Farmer Giles of Ham (one of my all time favorite Tolkien tales), which are both included in the previously mentioned collection. Personally, I didn't care too much for the other two stories in the Perilous Realm collection, but having all four works in one volume is an excellent value. The Father Christmas Stories and Roverandom are two other fun little works written by Tolkien. None of these stories take place in Middle-Earth, but they all share the same fun and charming adventure element found in The Hobbit that many felt was absent in The Lord of the Rings.

TheBoost said:

But it seems to me if it's kosher to change the entire appearance and culture of the main antagonists, why is it sacriligious to redesign the spaceship (which looks pretty darn identical to me)? Uhurua is serious, beutiful, and brilliant. Spock is half-human... why wouldn't they dig eachother? Is flipping out and denying what I thought was a couple nice character moments based on the nebulous concept of 'canon' really worth it?  

I really am not interested in a canon debate, the recent one I had in an SW thread was more than enough for me. I really don't care about canon, I really don't care if they redesign the Enterprise or if Uhura and Spock like to get a little bit of cross species funk on with each other. I have never flipped out about these things. I didn't particularly like the new movie, it has a very different feel to it than the Trek I grew up with (and I am not suggesting that original Trek was always perfect, some of it down right sucked, but as a whole I really have enjoyed it through the years). The bottom line is that to me, this new film just doesn't fit with the others. Not saying this in canonical terms, but more in the terms of tone, style, feel, everything about it really. And in reality, it really isn't suppose to.

This new film is a reboot without balls. It just wasn't quite bold enough to come out and say, "Hey old Trek, I am starting over." but instead decides to become an alternate time that exists along side the original. I think the film would have been better without that, the reality is that this is a reboot. That is just fine with me, it was about time they rebooted the franchise. I don't think there is anything wrong with the fact that I am not all that interested in this new rebooted series.

In the text you quoted from me, I was simply saying that technological evolution in story telling can hardly be considered cananical issues. All the aliens all look extremely different in the latest ST TV series (Enterprise) than they did in their original incarnations. This isn't altering canon, this is the evolution of story telling. These species become more indepth and fleshed out, and more time effort, and technological innovations are put into their costumes. Canon has nothing to do with any of it.

skyjedi2005 said:

Am I the only one who finds Chris Pine to be even more obnoxious and annoying than Hayden in Trek 2009?

Nope, right there with you pal. Couldn't have disliked Pine's Kirk more if I tried. And actually, Quinto's Spock really got on my nerves the second time I watched the film, while I didn't mind him so much the first time. Pine's Kirk was obnoxious and annoyed be the first time I watched the movie, but I could barely stand him the second time through.

I liked Pegg's Scotty quite a lot more the second time through though. I also didn't mind Chekov or Sulu the second time through either (still think Chekov's accent is over the top and unnecessary).

I still maintain that the Klingon foreheads is by no means a continuity issue, but rather a simple evolution of technical abilities. Originally to make different aliens they just dressed them differently and gave them different ears. Some got masks, but they looked awful. By the time the Motion Picture came along, the money and technology was there. Why not take advantage of it?

You could easily say the Andorians are also a continuity issue, since they looked ridiculous on TOS and pretty damn good on Enterprise (even though I didn't like the show, Andorians looked good).

Axia, it is clearly explained as alternate and not altered. Spock couldn't go back because of the whole convoluted red matter thing. The time travel was an accident, he wouldn't be able to choose when and were he wound up. And ultimately, Volcans are an endangered species, so the "logical" thing to do would be to go back in time and prevent Volcan from being destroyed, and even stop Nero from going back in time in the first place, as well as prevent Romulous from being destroyed stay in the alternate future and help rebuild and preserve the culture.

I am not a big fan of this new Trek either, but I do find your reasoning on the matter interesting, Axia. This new Star Trek is a take it or leave it sort of thing. Sure, the half-assed "rebooted" story line completely changes forty years of ST history. But all that ST history is availble not only in beautiful, digitally remastered anamorphic DVD of the highest quality, made with true loveand care, but it is all also making its way to us in HD glory. Even if the contrived new films were to be bold enough to come out and say, "Forty years of Trek now means nothing! Mawhawhawhaw!" your DVD collection can boldly tell it to go screw itself while it continues to be an awesome collection.

The Star Wars prequels on the other hand do literally try to erase 30 years of Star Wars history, and are beyond a doubt revisionist bull shit. They very visibly and tangibly change parts of that history. Not only that, but these revisionist films also attempt to completely remove the original films form existence (because if any of us are dumb enough to still want them, we can kindly go watch them on obsolete equipment in an obsolete format). The only half way decent version of Star Wars on DVD, and likely the only version that will ever be on BD, is this revised version that effectively kicks aside 20 + years of Star Wars history. And even those three altered films in all their anamorphic restored glory are perfect examples of rushed and poorly done DVDs, while the prequels are quite honestly, to their credit, some of the finest, best value, two disc collections I have ever seen.

Imagine all the original ST stuff only existing on outdated formats, and the J.J. Trek being given a fantastic DVD/BD release. It would piss you off wouldn't it? Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

More manly in a "hey, we don't need to hid behind protective gear", sort of way. I dunno, I guess it is the difference between the dork on a Vespa with a massive helmet, and a guy on a Harley with the wind whiping through his hair.

For me it is the intensity the Europeans (and other countries that are not the US) bring to the game. I can see that not just being reflected in the players, but in the announcers too. Obviously someone will speak much more enthusiastically about something they are very passonate about. Another cool thing is they are not all decked out in armor, makes it much more manly to me. It isn't uncommon to see vast amount of blood and snapping limbs during a foreign football match. There have even been cases of guys dying on the field and being carried away on a stretcher while the game goes on (okay, so one instance that I know of, could have happened more than once). To some people that might sound cold and disrespectful, but I am sure his team mates went back out there thinking, "Let's win this thing for Alberto!" (or whatever his name was). Also, the guy wasn't killed from injury on the field, but some medical blood/heart related issue. Don't remember the details. In America we stop our American padded rugby matches every five minutes for commercials. Some one gets injured we have to stop the game, zoom in on them with the camera, tell their life story, talk about how much that injury "has got to hurt!", explain a bunch of other stuff, and then if we are lucky the game continues after a plug for some sponsoring product.

I can respect that. I admit I am a lot harder on sports than I should be. I guess my problem is I can't really see anything all that intelligent about a bunch of guys throwing a ball around. But, I don't hesitate to admit that it is a perspective problem on my part. As you said, it is something you understand, and I don't. Not because I lack the ability, but rather, because I lack the interest.

I guess it is really the sports loving morons who enjoy being morons that you mentioned that turns me off of sports so much.

Baffling even to myself, I do somehow enjoy real football, i.e. what everyone else calls football and Americans and Aussies like to call "soccer" (I don't care a thing for it when played by Americans though, they have a weird way of making it less entertaining IMHO). Not sure why, but I could hardly find anything less enjoyable to watch than American padded rugby, this probably has a lot to do with the fact that everyone has always expected me to like it. I am tall and wide shouldered, so during my school years it seemed people were always bugging me and asking why I never tried out for the football team. Now in my adult life I am always asked what team I like, or what I thought about "the game last night". People just assume it is the sort of thing I should be into, and for some reason that makes it feel more like a bother to me than something I am content to follow my usual live and let live philosophy with. Kind of like the fly, I have nothing against flies, but I resent them when they are buzzing in my ear or drowning in my beer... or beating their heads on my window.

Going to live baseball and basketball games on occasion can be quite enjoyable to me. And of course I enjoy playing baseball and basketball myself, though a quick paced game of racquetball is more my thing.

lordjedi said:

I think his writing can be pretty good and funny in context and with the right deliveries (probably why I liked FireFly so much).  The only issue I have with Whedon is that he uses the same actors in everything he does.  It isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it ends up looking like a reunion of characters.

A lot of directors/film makers do that though. Like Lucas with Harrison Ford. Spielberg has his "special actors". I guess just like any other job, you find some emplyees are better than others, and you'll be quicker to hire them next time.

Makes sense to me.

DarkFather said:

I had read The Hobbit before I saw the LOTR films. It was peculiar to me that the tiny plot point of Bilbo's ring was expanded into an epic trilogy. It irks me when minute points in a story are later so elaborated upon, when the story the point originated from worked so well as a stand-alone, and the point as a minute point.

...

Am I the only one annoyed by things like this? It's cheap.

I actually think what Tolkien did was rather clever. And while I am really fond of The Hobbit, I feel LOTR is a far superior work. I don't think this can be compared to EU running amok with detailed stories about every background item. That shows an obvious lack of ideas, when you have to take the most miniscule parts of someone elses story and expand on them. The fact is, if half the EU stories out there didn't have SW in the title, they would never even get published, let alone read. 

Tolkien's retcon of the ring was brilliant actually. He was expanding on his own story, and was wholly original. Originally the ring was this really cool thing that could turn you invisible. That is a pretty impressive piece of treasure, not just some tiny meaningless object. When I first read The Hobbit, I thought it would be great to have a ring like that, it was the most interesting part of the story to me. The second book follows up on this amazing little treasure, and shows us that it isn't just some fun little toy you can play around with, but a very powerful and dangerous artifact.

I have never been able to get into ST:TMP. It has always been a really dull film to me, and not in a non-action packed kind of way. I am all about substance over style, but I feel ST:TMP lacks both substance and action. Its story is far shorter than its run time, resulting in an awful lot of padding. It isn't due to it being an old film either, as plenty of films contemporary to it and older than it don't suffer from the same issues. Like Gaff said, a lot of that stuff was cool the first time, but after it didn't age well. Every time you watch that film it literally screams out at you, "Look at me! I am so pretty!" When it first came out it was like a gorgeous twenty year old shouting that out, now it is like a ninety year old woman who still thinks she got it.

Star Trek V is the other one I have never liked much. VI is probably my favorite right after II. III is alright, IV pretty much sucks, but for some reason I still enjoy it from time to time, pretty goofy though, really comes off as a parody of itself.

DarkFather said:

I sense ageism.

From me? No, wasn't ageism. It is just that there used to be a bunch of us Tolkien fans who really enjoyed his writing, it was always kind of cool to run into someone else who was a Lord of the Rings fans. Then the movies came out, and everyone and their brother we not only LOTR fans, but they were downright obsessed with it, but only the movies. Most of them had zero interest in reading the book. Nothing wrong with this, but it is a lot like OT fans and PT fans. Seemingly the same fan base, but literally fans of two entirely different things. 

Wow, I really hijacked this thread. Sorry about that.

Octorox said:

 I was too....still haven't read the books. Will get around to it at some point...

Don't bother getting around to it. I am pretty sure you wont like them.

Whoa, it is so weird to hear from people whose first experience of The Lord of the Rings were the movies. It blows my mind. Almost like a long time SW fan meeting someone who was first introduced to Star Wars through the Clone Wars tv show.

Sorry, back to the topic now.

ChainsawAsh said:

I finished the [second] pilot of Dollhouse.

Which one is the first pilot? The one that never aired right? From what I heard, the original pilot no longer even fits with the series. Has that [first] pilot been leaked online at all? I heard it had, but never found it.

I am pretty sure Nintendo didn't actually owned Rare. Rae was a third party developer with a good deal of loyalty toward Nintendo. Hands down, the best games of the N64 era game from Rare. Microsoft bought them out, which effectively cut off the relationship with Nintendo. Nintendo had nothing to do with this move. Before the buy out, Rare was big stuff. Now I never even hear that name anymore. Guess they just made a new game in the Banjo series, but that is the first time I heard their name for a long time.

Shadow of the Colossus does have a very impressive score, it really works with the gameplay increasing the overall experience of the game (which is brilliant).

Gaffer Tape said:

Chainsaw and 3PX seem to think that if fans of the show are happy, then the show should be allowed to remain.  I don't see what's wrong with either of these opinions...

...

Here's my opinion:  I wish shows like American Idol would be cancelled, despite the fact that millions of people apparently love it.  I can't stand it and think it's representative of the mentality that gets shit renewed and good shows cancelled.  I guess then that I'm falling on VINH's side since I want a show cancelled despite the fact that fans enjoy it.  But then again, I don't exactly lose any sleep over its existence, and my opinion that I want it gone isn't going to make it so.  I just don't like the show.

Of course there is nothing wrong with either of those opinions. It was never said that there was. V just felt burnt by my example of how futile it is to be bothered about money and resources, I was trying to reassure him no burn was intended, but he is having none of it. There is really no dabate or argument beyond that.

Hmm, I guess I kind of have to contradict myself in light of your American Idol example. While fat guys with Big Macs and prats on skis don't bother me in the least, the sickening obsession that is reallity tv bothers me to no end. Even those worthless CSI, NCS, Law and Order and other members of the endless mass of homicide TV shows, which I dislike very strongly, don't bother me in the least. If people enjoy them that is fine with me. But I do think reality TV needs to die. Sports too. Televised sports piss me off. Two dumb, meaningless obsessions that have the uncanny ability of making people dumber.

Guess I can live with their existence, but man do I get annoyed at contantly being asked if I "Caught such and such a reality show last night" or "How about them -insert random sports team here-! Pretty great game wasn't it? What did you think when so and so made that such and such and won them the game?" Usually I have to say something along the lines of, "Yeah, that was really something." to appease them, everytime I say, "I dunno, I didn't watch it." they look at me like I just told them I enjoy humping dogs.

skyjedi2005 said:

As for Whedon i heard Dollhouse was good so i bothered myself to watch the first 20 minutes of it and it was shit.

Heh, twenty minutes is as far as I made it too. Turned it off with the intention of finishing it later but never did.

Vaderisnothayden said:

I'm sorry, but I think you're just not being clear with yourself about that post I felt was mocking. You may not have sat down and said "I am going to mock Vaderisnothayden", but the tone of the post was extremely mocking. And, having been mocked by you a number of times previously, I am sensitive to that.

 

For the record, I'd like to get into less rows with you, because I respect a lot you say. But you have to understand that you do sometimes make it difficult for me.

 

So what you are saying is that you biggest problems at this place come from when people misunderstand you, and when people misunderstand themselves. As you clearly understand my own posts better than I understand them myself. Whatever I type must be read through the eyes of Vaderisnohayden, any other take or spin on my posts, even my own, are clearly inaccurate. Just give me some time, I am clearly getting it.

There is no reason for us to get into rows at all. You've taken a hyperbolic post I have written with the sole intention of driving home a point, and you've regarded it as a personal attack. I can reassure you a million times it was not a personal attack, but it isn't going to convince you.

For the last time. I am not and was not mocking you.

I also did not intentionally throw any insults your way (I guess you took the 12 year old comment to be an insult, I should have realized it would be taken that way before I posted it, I was just speaking my mind and obviously shouldn't have). That one is my fault. I don't blame you for taking it as an insult. Sorry about that one. 

Your going on about how everyone is in the habit of misunderstanding you. I feel for you, I really do. That sucks to have people misunderstand you.

You've plainly misunderstood my intention with that post and strongly believe I was mocking you. Wanting to clear things up, I explained to you I was not mocking you, and you stubbornly continue to wail about being mocked. What is far more annoying than simply being misunderstood, is having someone stubbornly choose to misunderstand you. I wasn't mocking you. You can believe me or not, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

Vaderisnothayden said:

And you're trying to demonstrate my supposed immaturity by descending to puerile insults?

Not trying to insult you, just saying, you really come off as someone very young. I doubt I am the only one who feels this way.

And I wasn't having a broken record moment, I just didn't feel the need to retype what I already said. You clearly missed my point, and I was in no way making an attempt to mock you. Sorry you feel this way, but it simply was not the case. I was simply stating that money and resources are constantly spent by other people on things that make absolutely no benefit to you, why should this bother you?

You seem to hate Lost with a passion and think it is somehow unjust that it hasn't recieved the axe. I on the other hand absolutely love Lost. I enjoy it more than any other show currently on TV. To me it would be a huge disappointment if it got canceled. Same thing to many other fans of the show. I am happy they spend money on it because I like it. This money is not being thrown away or wasted, because millions of viewers enjoy it and the studio makes even more money through advertising and DVD sells, in turn, this money is reinvested into other shows.

I am sure there are things you like that I think are silly and don't deserve to exist, but I wouldn't begin to wish their destruction to the determent of the enjoyment of others. What would be the point?

That is what I meant by McDonald's burgers and skiing. I don't care one bit for either of those things. But plenty of other people do. Yet, I am perfectly fine with the fact that millions upon millions of dollars are handed over to McDonald's resturants and skii resorts everyday, regardless of the fact that this does absolutely nothing for me personally.

C3PX said:

I wasn't mocking you. I was making a point. Obviously it was completely missed on you.

Vaderisnothayden said:

And that post is supposed to mean something because... ? Maybe you should spend less time mocking people for having different views from you.

I wasn't mocking you. I was making a point. Obviously it was completely missed on you.

Sometimes you have me completely convinced you are a twelve year old, then you talk about being around back in 1977. You're a very confusing individual.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Shia is a talented actor who's very good at making his characters relatable human beings. He connects the audience to the characters' feelings. He's one of the best young actors out there.

Holy freakin shit could I not disagree with you more!... eerrr... I mean... I must respectfully disagree. I find that kid in no way relateable in the slightest sense. I do however find him extremely abnoxious with an uncanny ability to annoy me more than most working actors out there.

Absolutely not.

I guess I shouldn't say that definitively, because I really don't know all the technical aspect of either Portal or the Wii. But Portal is a pretty heafty game, I really can't imagine the Wii running it as is. But I have no doubt they could water it down enough to make it run.

It has nothing to do with problems. Portal plays fantastically with a traditional controller. Just as Resident Evil 4 and Twilight Princess play just fine with a regular controller.

The Wiimote just adds to the fun.

The Super Metroid soundtrack is still one of my favorites.