Gaffer Tape

Well, I would call Masters of the Universe more of a lame attempt at a He-Man movie than a ripoff of Star Wars, per se.

Even if I am to believe that... that's neither a Darth Vader or a Luke Skywalker!  It's a lame clone!  Why can't you people understand that?!  Why would anyone want to be an expendable mook of a clone of all things?!  *gasp**pant**huff*

Please don't kill for me resurrecting this, but I just noticed I passed 6,000, and without the old visible post counts, no one would ever know if I didn't point it out!  So, if you think about it that way, the new forum actually needs this thread.  ^_^

It was really good.  I got to talk to the orchestra for a while afterwards, and they were really nice people.  My only gripe, I suppose, is that they create their own, original scores for the movies they accompany (that are certainly good), and, while there are a lot of strings, it also contains some modern instruments like electric guitars, heavy percussion, and synthesizers that feel a bit out of place, in my opinion.  I have to say it was quite a shock.  The first act of the film was nearly all violins, and it felt very much like being in the 1920s.  But once the count showed up, there was suddenly electric guitar, and it was very jarring.  So, to sum up, I thought they were great, and I hope they can continue doing what they're doing, but I would have preferred a more "traditional" score.

On the film side, though, it was a restored 35mm projection, and it looked fantastic!  Obviously it was full of scratches and deterioration, but the level of detail was amazing.  I'd never seen a film so old... on film in a theatre, and it was certainly an experience on the visual side.  I'd love to see more.

I'm not a fan of horror, but the local college was showing Nosferatu with a live orchestra last night, so I decided to go.

Point taken on that end.  I'd forgotten you were also specifically complaining about the "new" Bond films, I thought you were just complaining about Judi Dench playing M in general.

Warbler said:

M was originally played by a man,  and M was a man in the books. 

Yes, I am aware of that, but, again, it's a title, not necessarily a specific character.  Therefore, it seems that they are open to changing facets of "M" when it's a different "M."  Believe me, I feel the same way you do.  When Justice League first came on, and Green Lantern was a black man, I was a bit annoyed that they were being politically correct and changing the character's race.  I eventually learned more about Green Lantern (not knowing much at all) and realizing that there have been several Green Lanterns, and one of them was black, so it's not so much of a big deal to me.

Let me see if I can be clearer.  I know there's a fan theory that even James Bond is just a title used for several different spies in order to rationalize how Bond can continue on for so many decades (and obviously look so different in various appearances).  But let's forget about that.  If we are to assume that Bond is a singular character, that there is only one James Bond, then, yes, I would feel it to be quite irritating if he suddenly became a middle eastern woman and treated as if he/she was always that way.  But conversely, in GoldenEye, they specifically address the fact that Judi Dench's M is a brand new character with references to her male predecessors.  New person, doesn't retcon the old Ms, so I'm okay with it.

Doesn't keep them from being lame.  They're still clones!

Well, I like Judi Dench's M, and while I generally agree with you, I feel they get a pass on this one since M is a title and not a person anyway.  I have to say that I think making M a woman opposite the playboy Bond creates an excellent foil situation.

Heh, maybe one day I'll be awesome enough to get that mostly ineffectual e-mail.  But not today apparently.  ^_~

bkev said:

Warb... Dench is M, not Q.

 Wow, I read through that whole convo, and I never noticed the mistake!

But why would anyone want to dress up like a lame clone?!  Why wouldn't they want to dress up as Luke Skywalker or Han Solo?!

Wouldn't Wood be a bit young in '85 even to play young Anakin?

Haha, yeah, it is kinda funny that "Ignore" as right next to "Add to Friend List."  One slip of the wrist, and your best buddy becomes your hated enemy.

TheBoost said:

Gaffer Tape said:

Well, yes, it's certainly not a character study, but if you establish the precedent that a character can make a choice between good and evil, and that they are not simply stuck on one side of the line or the other, it implies that the characters themselves are not inherently one or the other.  You say Vader is non-relativistically evil, but Luke constantly says, "There is good in him."  And it turns out he is right, which means that Vader has both good and evil traits.  True, there is not really any good example to show this.  We don't see any struggle until the very end, so I'm not arguing that it did a good or deep job from a relativist angle, but the concepts certainly existed.

 Perhaps we're not in sync as to the use of the term 'moral relativity.'

I'm referrinig to the philisophical conceit that good/evil are not universal truths, that situation, culture, and tradition are part of what is categorized as 'good' or 'bad'. I'm referring to the idea that morallity is subjective.

No matter Vader's personal journey from good to bad to good again, the lines of good and bad are still very sharply defined and objective. "Star Wars" never asks us to see the destruction of Alderaan as a 'good' thing from Vader's point of view, nor is torture and casual murder that Vader does somehow justified from his religious views ("The Sith Antidiscrimination League"). These are all universally seen as 'bad.' Vader himself would probably see them as 'bad' and just not care, given that he's down with the Dark Side.

The closest the OT comes to moral relativism is Obi's line about "from a certain point of view" and even that is (I think) just meant to be his justification for his own lying.  In the PT Palpy tosses out some vaguely moral-relativistic concepts, but again I think that's meant to be seen as just him lying to Anakin, as Palpy's ultimate goal is simply revenge and 'unlimited power.'

No, I do understand the use of the term "moral relativity," and I will concede that in terms of actual, real world moral relativity, you are correct.  I don't think I've read enough EU (or at least not most of the ones you're talking about) to weigh in on whether or not the EU uses moral relativity, but, really, even the PT, from a real world perspective, has relatively simplistic uses of good and evil.  My point is that, as in a lot of things we criticize about the newer Star Wars films, you really have to look no further than The Empire Strikes Back to see where those ideas germinated.  I still believe that the concept of good and evil as displayed in all other films besides the first have less codified morality than the first, and are thus relativistic by comparison, yeah, you're right that they're not really relativistic.

C3PX said:

Gaffer Tape said:

Heh, yeah, my slight paranoia tends to make me check that feature every so often to see if I've pissed anybody off!

 

Let me guess, Mr. Peace Keeper, you have 0 users ignoring you? I think you are probably the last person on this entire forum to have reason to be paranoid about pissing people off.

Um, well... yeah, you're right.  X_x;;;;;;

Haha, good point.  I don't know.  I can't see me ever ignoring anybody.  Well, first off, no one here has ever really pissed me off, but, even if they did, I'd still want to know what they were saying, especially since it might be referenced by other people.

I vaguely remember that name, but it's not ringing any bells.  Hmm.

Well, yes, it's certainly not a character study, but if you establish the precedent that a character can make a choice between good and evil, and that they are not simply stuck on one side of the line or the other, it implies that the characters themselves are not inherently one or the other.  You say Vader is non-relativistically evil, but Luke constantly says, "There is good in him."  And it turns out he is right, which means that Vader has both good and evil traits.  True, there is not really any good example to show this.  We don't see any struggle until the very end, so I'm not arguing that it did a good or deep job from a relativist angle, but the concepts certainly existed.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on the film scene in general.  Remember, this is when the American New Wave was coming to an end, so uber-realism and grittiness was very much the norm at the time.  However, you are right.  Star Wars was not part of it, and it isn't expected to be overly-realistic.  But, come on, Anchorhead, you know nitpicking has to come up every once in a while.  We here at OT.com are so used to picking apart the prequels.  I think it's high time we admit that our golden cow isn't perfect.  It doesn't mean we love it any less, but nothing is sacred.  ^_^

Moral relativism entered Star Wars in The Empire Strikes Back, and it's been there ever since.  Yes, the original Star Wars was very black and white, but as soon as you reveal that the hero's father was a good Jedi who became evil, and that it's possible for him to be good again, you have moral relativism.

Interesting point about the tracking device.  Hell, it's been pointed out in discussion before how Leia was pretty damned stupid to lead the Empire straight to the Rebel Base immediately after lying (with her home planet and the lives of billions at stake) about its location.  So I guess that whole scenario could have been thought through a little more.  But I guess there was time between their discovery in the detention block to the time they got back.  Tarkin and Vader are even alerted that there is a disturbance in the detention block, to which Vader replies, "Obi-Wan is here!" and then leaves the room.  Tarkin could have after... but wait, in the dialogue after the Falcon leaves, Tarkin makes it sound like this is Vader's idea!  And like I said, he left to find Obi-Wan immediately after having found out there was someone on board the ship, so, yeah, I have no idea when that could have happened!

MY NAME IS GAFFER TAPE, AND I AM TALKING LOUDLY, AND IT FEELS VERY GOOD!  THANK YOU, DAYV, FOR MAKING THIS POSSIBLE!

Jay said:

Gaffer Tape said:

And do all of the newer users use the default colors?

OT Old Skool is the default for new members. The blue theme (or some variation thereof) will be the theme I release the software with Real Soon Now™. I'm working on another theme called OT Classic that will incorporate colors from the Old Skool theme, but with a brighter palette overall. Not everyone likes dark backgrounds with white text. (I find it a tad fatiguing after long reading sessions myself.)

I hope OT Classic will be an option in addition to OT Old Skool.  Like Nanner and Anchorhead, the dark background and white text has always been comfortable to me.  Conversely, I momentarily tried out the Blue last night (which is what prompted me to make this thread), and it hurt my eyes after only a few minutes.  Obviously, to each his own.  I'm just very partial to and comfortable with this color scheme.

Yeah, I know.  A bit less thought-provoking than my last thread, but I was screwing around in the preferences and remembered that there is more than one color scheme.  As soon as the new forum software launched, I immediately set the color scheme to OT Old Skool, which I have always kept.  But I wonder what you, the little people, use.  Particularly, I'm curious what "Old Skool" and "New Skool" people use.  Did all of the "Old Skool"ers immediately go to the Old Skool color palette?  And do all of the newer users use the default colors?  I wonder how many people see these forums in an entirely different color scheme than I do!