Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

Height.  Can't watch scenes on a ski lift or a cliff edge.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, but not as much as the first two seasons.

1 - didn't like the over-long drawn out "thinking" scenes set to music... seemed like padding, and had over-emphasis on special effects.  Also didn't like the over-acted agony by Watson when Sherlock returned.  Yeah, I'd be mad, but it was just so over the top that it lost credibility with me.

2 - didn't like that they made Sherlock so nice, especially at the end.  Some scenes were drawn out way too long, such as some of the scenes at the wedding.  Seemed like padding, again.  The murder method was also not believable.  Some nice script writing, however.

3 - better character development than in 1 or 2.  The villain was wonderfully slimy.  I also really liked the sorta homeless guy that claimed Sherlock was training him - he could have had more screen time.  The plot started out great but became jumbled and in the end there were just too many plot holes.  Also suffered from the "closed universe" problem -- too many people we already know were involved: Mary and Mycroft both.  And then at the end, yet a third.  Ugh, too much.  The end fell apart so badly that I wasn't sure anymore why Sherlock hated the guy SO much.

I hope that they go back to just having Sherlock solve crimes.  Season 3 seemed to be trying to do too many other things.  Many great moments, though.  After seeing these episodes, I went back and re-watched season 1.  Wow, the show needs to get back on track.  Shades of Red Dwarf, a great show that fell apart badly after the first couple of seasons.

It also made me appreciate how well the Jeremy Brett series was able to sustain its level without slipping down some rabbit hole.

NFL helmets changed to SW themes.

http://www.nfl.com/photos/0ap2000000323761

Curious anyone's impressions of Season 3 ?

jankatana said:

Sorry to cut in, but i totaly agree with you. For the past couple of days ive been hunting around for the best version of the original trilogy all cleaned up and remastered, but its impossible without all the goofy lucas additions, now i have found this place it confirmed my worst fears, that star wars is gone.

 Not entirely.  Peruse the restorations section of the forum.

I invent a small board game, usually a reduced version of chess, and they have to implement both the rules and the AI.  They use minimax, alpha-beta pruning, and then whatever optimizations they have time to throw in, such as bitboards, transposition tables, multithreading, and other methods.  Then at the end of the 4 weeks we have a tournament between all the programs.  It's quite fun and challenging.  This year will be the 12th annual!  I'm thinking of assigning a reduced version of refusal chess.

I haven't read the book you describe.

I should mention that there are actually two forms of refusal chess... the version I learned and prefer is where a player's only move can be refused. The other version is that a player's only move must be accepted.

Interesting thing about progressive chess... it turns out that underpromotion is a key strategic tool.  That's because once you call check your cycle ends.  Promoting to a queen or rook often results in check, but underpromoting to a knight or bishop usually doesn't, and can extend your attack.

Self-eliminator sounds fun.  I teach an AI class, and one of the assignments is always to implement a board game with adversarial search.  In some semesters I have assigned games that included the self-eliminator feature, and it invariably leads to some clever moves, while not changing the fundamental nature of the game all that much.

A few other variants that I like are:

Krigspiel - takes separate boards and a mediator.  Players are given hints as they are moving, and they need to deduce where the opponents pieces are. This is a famous and old variant.  I've only played it 2 or 3 times in my life, as it isn't as convenient as other variants.

Progressive - In this game, the first player gets one move, then the opponent gets 2 moves, then the first player gets 3 moves, etc.  In 1996 I played in the first World Progressive chess championship - organized over the internet, and it drew some 60 players ranging from masters to duffers.  The results and all the games are still up on web.  I made it through to the final round, and ended up in something like 8th place.  It was the most nerve-wracking experience I've ever had in chess, and I'll never play that game again unless it's blitz with a clock.  Interesting trivia, the winner of the tournament, Fred Galvin, is credited as the inventor of refusal chess!

Smess - Not really a chess variant, but a chess-like board game in which the pieces move according to arrows drawn on the squares.  A fun and easy game to play.

I've played a lot of refusal chess over the years.  Back when I used to be active in local chess clubs, it would invariably sweep through the club for a while (like bughouse, another great variant).

First of all, if you have only one legal move, your opponent CAN refuse it, in which case you lose.  However, that is offset by the fact that the previous move that put you in that predicament, might itself have been one you could have refused.  Also, it IS common to "bluff" about half of the time, by playing your second-best move first in the hopes it will get refused.

The game ends up very interesting, as "looking ahead" requires you to, in effect, consider the consequences of each player's second-best move.  Counter-intuitively, this can lead to very lively positions, since both players can leave a piece unguarded (the capture would just be refused)... but if you have a piece unguarded, you don't have the luxury of refusing other moves.  Sometimes the resulting positions can look very odd, and tricky to calculate.

It's also great for speed chess - to refuse you just punch the clock.

My favorite chess variant is "refusal chess".  Ever played that one?

The more interesting question, of course, is, does he still have it?

NeverarGreat said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

LexX said:

Tatooine could be bigger than Jupiter all we know.

A solid, rocky planet larger than Jupiter? Don't think that's possible -- from a real-world perspective, anyway.

 Yeah, it would probably lead to humans evolving into small, child-sized creatures with high pitched voices just to negate the stronger gravity. Either that or large sluglike things that can hardly move.

 Hmm, that explains both Jabba, and whiny young Anakin.

Leonardo said:

For "atheist explanation", you mean "unbiased by religion and only based on fact", right?

Here is an example of how atheists are all individuals.  An atheistic point of view might or might not be a scientific point of view.  I bristle at atheistic arguments that claim to be based on "facts"... scientific arguments rarely assert facts, they assert observation and reasoning.  It is religion that usually claims to have facts.  A proper scientific point of view understands the limitations of our observational powers, and offers only the strongest analysis currently available - the one that is considered most likely.  Most science is eventually superceded by increasingly better analysis over time, and therefore is loathe to casually claim either its observations or its claims as fact.  It is religion, by contrast, that is based on the concept of "facts".

As such, a huge percentage of both theists and atheists fail to understand what a scientific proof is (and isn't).

My own personal atheistic explanations of things would be based on scientific method, and would always be open to ANY possibility, including that of divine intervention by a monotheastic holy trinity (although the latter I currently consider to be vanishingly unlikely).

In the PT the Jedi seemed guilt-ridden and confused.

I found the Jedi of the PT unimpressive.  Perhaps Alec Guiness and Yoda got my hopes up.

Also, why would the Jedi exile/hide someone (Luke/Leia) on the PT version of Tatooine?  I can understand that for the OT version, but if you wanted to exile someone, you wouldn't hide them in such a hub of activity where they could get into the kind of trouble young Anakin did.

In the OT, Tatooine is basically a desert planet without much going on.  Luke wants to "get off this rock".  Most of the inhabitants seem to be Jawas or sand people.  There is one city, Mos Eisley, which basically seems to be a transfer point for pilots.  Tatooine is hardly what one would consider a destination.

But in the PT, Tatooine is a hoppin' place.  It's actually a bit like ancient Rome.  The pod races are like gladiator contests with tens of thousands of screaming spectators.  There is clearly an established, legal slave trade, and bustling markets where you can buy rare spaceship parts.  It's hardly a "rock".

According to the "original vision", did Tatooine become a dead place only after the empire took over?  If not, why didn't Luke enter a pod race?  Why did uncle Owen need Luke and droids, when he could have just had a couple of slaves?  I'm just having trouble equating the two Tatooines - they seem like very different places.

"somnabulist line readings" - good description!

I still think that an ideal villain is Leia.  In a way, it's a chance for the idea of the prequels to be redeemed... that is, unlike PT Anakin, we actually LIKE Leia. For her to turn to the dark side would be tragic.  Also, I can see her made up like the Emperor, shrieking maniacally - would be scarier than the Emperor, actually.  The sibling square-off could be interesting, too.

Maybe it took him watching them a few times to appreciate their genius.

OBI-WAN37 said:ed when I bring that up.

Ok, I don't know what you're talking about when you say your first post, but as to what Pluggo said,

 Meant to mention that I rather like your spin on my name.  I may need to adopt it as an evil twin or something.

I actually enjoyed TPM when it first came out.  It was after about the 3rd viewing that I started realizing what rubbish it is, as a movie.

It is one thing to enjoy a movie, and another thing to declare it to be a "good" or "great" movie.  I enjoy quite a number of movies that I also admit aren't good movies.  For instance, I enjoy "Rookie of the Year" quite a lot.  It just makes me laugh.  But frankly, it isn't a very good movie.  It just happens to tickle my funny bone.  Rocky IV is a guilty pleasure, but objectively, it's really terrible.  There are also some great movies that I don't enjoy all that much - "Sound of Music" is one of them (although I love "The Music Man" - go figure).

Similarly, I still enjoy TPM, mainly because the lightsaber duel is fun, and it's great to see Tatooine.  I watch it occasionally and enjoy it when I do.  But a quality movie it is not - the script, acting, editing, and story are simply not good movie-making.  The script alone is probably irreparable.  There is a reason it gets the ratings that it does.  And likewise, there is a reason that Star Wars ("ep.4" for the younglings) is perennially on AFI's top 20 list of all time greatest movies.  Script, character development, timing, editing, score, all impeccably done with timeless effect.

I have no doubt that there are many people who enjoy the prequels, just as I enjoy "Rookie of the Year".  There's nothing wrong with that, and far be it from me to tell someone what to enjoy.

Someone here (I can't remember who) summarized best the failure of the PT to portray Anakin's fall to the darkside.  Paraphrasing, it went something like, we see a whiney, arrogant, unlikeable, sniveling jerk turn into the universe's most awesome badass.  Not the effect the authors were intending.

Having said that, the OP should realize that there IS some love for the PT here at OT.com... specifically, it is here, and ONLY here, that one can find and become a member of the CPY fan club.

SilverWook said:

Awesome shot out. How did you find out about it?

 The Phantom Editor emailed me and told me about it.  Google did the rest.

Oh - nice upgrade.