Gaffer Tape

Okay, then, I'll rephrase that:  "Once it's abandoned for the first time, it should stay abandoned."  Happy?

Yeah, I noticed that too.  Since I was already having a hard time paying attention, I didn't notice what it was that seemed off, but I guess that was it.

I'm more curious as to how the ratings are in Japan.  I don't know whether or not it'd be a shame if this ended up being cancelled before it was finished.

Honestly, I only care about this for curiosity's sake, and that's in terms of what's going to be changed and by changed I mean cut.  So far the only major change we've had is the horrible Bardock introduction.  But other than that, it's all been minor snippets here and there.  Since these first few episodes are so full of needed story elements, not much is going to be cut.  So my only draw to this series is just to see what isn't there, which is a bad sign, but I think I'll find myself more interested when they get into more filler-heavy areas of the show, just to see what they do with it.

Yeah, that pisses me off too that they are just skipping to Z.  Although, ironically, it's kinda like how FUNimation ended up doing it.  You know, they dubbed 13 episodes of DB before skipping to Z.  Granted, I'm sure the Kai audience knows the story, but it's still just jarring, having Bardock fight Freeza, then having some three minute recap of DB and suddenly... oh, we're supposed to care about this?  Sigh.  Why does this exist?!

So has anyone seen the first episode of DB Kai?  I have... and so far I'm not impressed.  I continue to fail to see the point.  The new score isn't memorable.  I found the whole thing extremely tedious and waiting for it to be over.  The new opening and closing animation is nice... but it doesn't in any way match the animation in the actual episode!  And I hated, absolutely hated, the decision to start the series from the point of view of Planet Vegeta.  Sigh.  Why does this series even exist?

Oh, yeah, I remember that.  All those idiots saying completely ridiculous things like, "Anamorphic didn't exist back then, so these DVDs shouldn't be anamorphic!" and "Movies didn't look good 30 years ago, so this is the way it looked back then!"  Man, what tools!

DarkFather said:

Extremely minimalistic. Sounds all right, but Dragonball Z would be the last thing I would think about if I had listened to it without any context.

Here's another great one. Piccolo's Theme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_2BSHbv3SY

Sigh.  I've always been partial to my own Piccolo's theme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U8FdCPrMaU

Especially from 4:30 onwards, that's the music I've always associated with Piccolo, the last couple of minutes being from DBZ movie 2, which was actually my first exposure to the Japanese score (the original dub actually used it).

See, our problem comes from what C3PX was talking about a while ago.  Even if I did believe that Faulconer's score was superior, I would still prefer the original music simply because that's what Dragon Ball is.  Remember when skyjedi was totally bashing Kevin Kiner's soundtrack for The Clone Wars?  That's because, to him, any score that isn't John Williams simply isn't Star Wars.  Now imagine if someone took the Star Wars movies and completely rescored them with a different composer.  Even if you liked the new score and thought it was good, I doubt you'd be pleased or be able to associate it as Star Wars, would you?

EDIT:  Oh, found another good selection, although one part repeats some Piccolo stuff from the last video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoilWsJI0Eg

Don't get me wrong.  I'm really enjoying this.  It's been a while since I searched for DB BGM, and if you continue to post links, I will continue to listen to yours as well. ^_^

Heh, I knew it was going to be that one.  I don't know why, but I just knew.

I did read your post. It's just that you happened to post yours right before I posted mine. I was responding to bkev. I've edited that post to clarify. And I did check out the link. I do remember that part, and while it has some nostalgic response in me, I just have to say it's not really my thing. But that particular piece is admittedly better than most I remember. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm curious, though. What are your opinions on the original score, the Shuki Levy dub score (the original DBZ dub), and Mark Menza's music... eh, what am I even asking about him for? I'd long stopped watching the dub when he came into the picture, but what little I've heard doesn't sound any different from Faulconer's music, if you ask me. Anyway, just curious.

EDIT:  Oh, and I have to posit a guess that Faulconer's melodies might have sounded much, much more tolerable if they didn't sound so incredibly synthesized.

No.  I wasn't trying to be confrontational, but I certainly do stand by what I said about Faulconer's music, and I would honestly love to know what exactly it is that DarkFather loves about it so much.

EDIT:  Whoops.  You beat me to the punch.  I can see how my post might might be looked at as extremely livid, but, no, I was mostly being facetious, and I apologize if I appeared to be belittling you.  You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but there are few things that evoke as much irritation to me as that pitiful excuse for music, especially when it's replacing an absolutely AMAZING score that fits the material so much better.  And this isn't some "elitist" attitude either.  I was introduced to the dub long before I saw the original version, and I hated the season 3 music the first time I heard back in '99.

DarkFather said:Glad you aren't trying to debate me on my own preferances. Bruce Faulconer filled DBZ with music masterpieces. There are few who can even hold a candle to what he did.

Wait.... what?  You're serious?  Music masterpieces?  Preference is one thing, but I can't even begin to wrap my head around that.  How does the same droning synthesized note for 18 minutes straight constitute music at all, let alone a masterpiece?

What that quote should say is this:  "Shunsuke Kikuchi filled DBZ with music masterpieces.  There are few who can even hold a candle to what he did."

DarkFather said:

I personally can't stand watching subbed anime. It detracts from the visuals if I have to read all of the dialogue. Some elitists say that "That is the way it was meant to be experienced, in the Japanese language!" Well, if I don't know Japanese, which I don't, then I can't experience it exactly how it was meant to be. The director obviously didn't mean for all of the dialogue to be read. So it's a moot point to me.

Hmm, don't know why that would make me an "elitist," as I agree with C3PX on all above points.  I've just never understood this argument.  Is it really that hard to read the subtitles and still keep an eye on the action?  Then again, I watch all television and movies with closed captioning on, just to make sure I don't miss anything, so it's really six of one, half dozen of the other to me.

Yeah, I can't remember who it was who posted that link to confused matthew's youtube video about ROTS, but he did reviews on all the prequels, and he really did a great job of pointing out a lot of the intrinsic plot flaws about them all.  He was amazing explaining the lack of sense in AOTC!  "The senate just passed a motion to circumvent itself!  If Jar-Jar's speech was so amazing that it convinced them to give the chancellor emergency powers to approve a clone army... why didn't they just approve the clone army?!"  "You know what?  Fuck this movie!  They were investigating a conspiracy!  They found a clone army created by a rogue jedi without authorization!  It's tied to a bounty hunter who can be linked to Senator Ooba-Dooba's assassination attempt when she was returning to vote against an army!  This same bounty hunter can be linked to the Separatist movement, which is led by a rogue jedi!  They have more than enough evidence to confirm the clone army is evil and should be destroyed.  So their plan is to completely play into its hands?!"  Everyone should check out his reviews.  They are perfect!  thanks to whoever it was here who put me on to this guy!

www.confusedmatthew.com

It does.  I've read some EU that refers to time.  And I read somewhere (either on wikipedia or on a Star Wars website) that a standard day is equal to about 20 earth hours, I believe?  Again, this is EU, and I could be misremembering.

Hey, Yoda's been on Dagobah for a looooong time.  Luke crash landing "by accident" is just the conjugal visit the little green man needs!

But seriously, re-reading the lines from the script, I guess I overlooked the description of the gimer stick, which makes the whole thing make much more sense.  I just couldn't shake this image of Yoda with a cane sticking out of his mouth!

Continuing on this tangent for another moment, I was thinking of his cane.  I thought they were the same thing.  What's his gimer stick if not his cane, and, whatever it is, what logical purpose would it serve to be in his mouth?  Unless Yoda's into that sort of thing...  "Tie me up, you will!  Put phallic-shaped objects in my mouth, you will!  'Tauntaun' the safe word is!"

Wait... so... why is Yoda carrying his gimer stick in his mouth?  That's a very weird mental image.

Alright, alright, alright.  This is getting nauseating!  I initially abstained from posting in this thread because I, like apparently everyone else, thought Vaderisnothayden was reaching quite a bit for a reason to take the mickey out of the prequels.  But apparently he does seriously carry this opinion.  And it is his right to do so.  It would be fun to debate, but I don't see anybody bringing anything to the table but, "You're crazy," and other such things, and I really don't see any point to just bitch him out about it.  He has this opinion.  We know this.  Most everyone else disagrees.  He knows this.  What is the point of continuing?  His opinion is valid.  Everyone else's opinion is valid.  The end.

Heh, it's about damned time!  You've been beating me to the punch on far too many things lately.  We need a balance of spewing out our unavoidably similar thoughts.

EDIT:  But I'm going to go ahead and call myself out before somebody else gets the chance.  There are elevator-like lifts in Zelda II, but there is no indication that they are electronically-operated.  But they do exist, so I'll go ahead and throw that one out there to be fair.

Well, Chalts, I'm glad you said that since I'm working on my own fantasy story right now that has technological progression different from that of our own.  And don't think I didn't see the potential hypocrisy in my earlier statements as I was writing them.  However, The Legend of Zelda has classically represented itself as a world nearly analagous to a medieval fantasy world.  It wasn't until Link's Awakening (a side-story) that any kind of anachronistic technology was introduced.  Since then, there have been neon lights, complicated machinery, and now trains.  While Zelda technically can get a pass on these things by sheer logic of it being fantasy and not tied to our world, it seems to be trying to be too many things at once lately. 

The most interesting defense I've seen of Spirit Tracks is that technology would progress from the first game, so trains would eventually be feasible.  I would like to take a moment to say that the Mario games seem to be subject to the same technological ramifications, where the Mushroom Kingdom seems to be quickly evolving from an old-fashioned fantasy kingdom to a much more modern one.  While that occasionally seems a bit difficult for me to swallow, I can more easily go along with it for two reasons:  lack of continuity and lack of attempt of realism.  The Mario series is intentionally goofy and cartoony to a much greater extent than any entry in the Zelda series, and hardly any Mario game has any kind of narrative connection to any other Mario game.  Therefore, Mario is much more of an open slate, and they can pretty much do anything with him.

As for Zelda, while they don't maintain a heavily-connected timeline, they have created a timeline and, in recent years, connections between entries in the series.  While it's never been presented overtly or as a huge deal, it is something that significantly separates the Zelda series from the Mario series.  Continuity does exist.  To that end, the argument I mentioned above falls apart since most Zelda games of recent years have been prequels or put towards the beginning the established timeline.  In fact, the oldest games in the series seem to be the most chronologically recent.  And we've seen the world they established:  extremely medieval-like with no anachronistic technology save for magic.

Granted, my entire argument could easily fall apart either by my lack of knowledge of the actual game or by future retcons in Nintendo's arsenal.  I don't know where on the timeline Spirit Tracks is supposed to be (although I assume it connects to Wind Waker Link), and, even after all these years, I don't know how the split timeline/Hyrule flooding created in Wind Waker will ultimately connect to the older, chronologically-later Zelda games.  It could be that a whole new Hyrule had to be created in wake of the flood and that, therefore, everything is technologically rebooted, explaining why there is less technology in the future of the Zelda universe.  I don't know.  But I still think trains in the Zelda universe is weird.