TheBoost

OK....

Slight change to the scoring.

3 for within 5 minutes.

2 within 10

1 with 15

-1 per thing out of order.

I eliminated the "Inavasion of Naboo" because it was too ambiguous, referring to either the initial invasion or the subsequent liberation.

You know what?  Just to be different I WILL intentionally slight someone.

After lunch I'm starting a "Should I Stab Bingo In the Eye?" thread. And I'm going to mean it. 

ps.

I have a grass front lawn that I hate. I live in the desert, so it sucks on water use, and it's slopey towards the street, so I can't let my toddler play on it lest he tumble into traffic.

C3PX said:

 

I was never saying that fan edits are not "work" or "effort". I was just saying that, personally, I found the vast majority of them to be a waste of time and effort to obtain. What spawned Fink's offense and the continuation of this conversation was my comment that so many people have gotten into the fan editing thing that it has become a joke, like kids scribbling on pictures and suggesting that they are improving them.

 I don't know about "art" or "work" but over at FE.org, there seem to be noticeable hunk of the available edits that look like they lacked a high ammount of either rigor or forethought.

I dont think every edit needs a full length commentary track a la Phantom Editor carefully justifying and explaining each change, or a discussion thread 15,0000 posts long harranguing over every frame, but quite a few fanedits seem to be variations of "I cut the parts I didn't like" or "I added music from bands I prefer"

Anchorhead said:

It's my post, but sort of got lost because I started getting a little wordy...

Instead of letting the character remain a little mysterious and larger-than-life, he insisted on giving us too much information. No more pondering how he may have grown into the character we'd loved for years - turns out he got the hat, the whip, the jacket, the scar, and the fear of snakes all on the same day, within a few minutes of each other, when he was just a kid.  Lucas story-shrinking at it's finest.

It's story-shrinking back-story that insures the viewer doesn't get to use his\her imagination.  Lucas can't have any of that.  Not only will he control what the fan base gets as far as quality of releases is concerned, he also has to control every minute detail of every character.

 

 I see your point, but its funny. I never even think of those moments. When I think on the opening of "Crusade" mentally I must gloss over those "Oh, so THAT's why" moments and just rememeber how fun the train chase is.

I was a member of a band once... does that count?

Anchorhead said:

 

 

Now, in the interest of disclosure;  I should point out that I really like all four Indiana Jones films. I'm an ongoing, from-the-start, fan of the franchise. However, the opening prequel portion of Crusade was done....poorly.

 I dig all four Indy films as well. I'm curious what you dislike about the opening to Crusade? 

OK... crap. I'm the worst.

I'm scoring them right now.

Not at all.

I wouldn't trade ESB or ROTJ (or the Han Solo adventures or the Marvel Comic) for anything. I can always ignore what i don't like.

C3PX said:

First off, yay! TheBoost is back!

 

 You warm my heart.

C3PX said:

 

TheBoost said:

-The chief drops the line "There are five skinjobs"

Actually, the slip up was the chief saying that there were "six skinjobs", they did bother to dub that line to fix the problem, which is why the he says "five skinjobs" in whatever version it is you watched. Early in the film he clearly tells Deckard that one of the five replicants that escaped was killed before they reached Earth. The craptastic sequel novel (not written by P.K.D.) was about the sixth replicant, .

No, you have it right. i just misremembered when typing.

Watched BR last night. One of my favorite movies.

But seriously, what's with the overwhelming glitch fest. How could a film so intricately detailed have so many blatant mistakes.

-Scene with Deckard and the snake dealer. The worst overdubbing of all time. Ive seen Godzilla films with better sync.

-Zhora running through the glass is one of the most blatant stunt people I've ever seen. Looks nothing like the actress, and it's in SLOW-MO!

-The chief drops the line "There are five skinjobs" when there are only four, leading to both the craptastic novel-sequals, and theories about Deckard is the replicant he meant. I know there was a deleted scene of another replicant dying, and they just didn't bother to dub that one word to fix the problem.

All I can say is Whassupwitdat!?

Bingowings said:

It's more historically accurate and visually arresting than Braveheart and much more entertaining that Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves.

The movie does indeed have a nice feeling of 'historiocity' but one thing has always bugged me.

WTF is Kurrgan's helmet supposed to be? Where did he fight a snake big enough to have a skull like that? Is he from Conan-world?

xhonzi said:

Oh, and welcome back Boost.

Thanks.

Update! "Fatal Alliance" also contains a wisecracking cynical smuggler!

(Interestingly no mention is made of his smuggling any form of contraband. The only crime shown is blatant piracy, but the book keeps calling him a smuggler)

I started reading the first EU novel set in the “Old Republic” MMORPG setting.

I’m glad that setting the story 40,0000 years before “Star Wars” frees the creators to be bold and original. Now that their not tied to the same characters and situations, I’m excited to see what brilliance we’ll get.

There’s this Evil Empire, and a villain is a Sith Lord with a breath mask!

There’s a shady Mandalorian with awesome battle armor!

There’s a Hutt crime lord with a palace full of weirdos!

and this is just the first 30 pages!

Go originality!

Sorry if I've missed it, but going back over 20 pages of R2 Sock conversations made my head ache, but has Mr. Wan made a statement on whether he's interested in using what might be on the upcoming Blu-Ray releases?

zombie84 said:

I guess the bottom line is that for a mulit-billionaire to be so concerned about profit when the show is guaranteed to be at least modestly profitable, it just smacks of unnecessary greed, and it frustrates me that this is really what the bottom line has come to mean for Lucas and his projects.

But what does Lucas see as the bottom line?

He wants to make feature film quality "Star Wars" on a TV budget. That's his goal. Really it's been what he's been working on for decade. If his goal is to make something that's "literally Star Wars" for television, consequently opening doors and pushing boundaries for all filmmakers, is that so unworthy?

The guy with a hand in developing virtual sets, HD filming, CGI, EditDroid, THX sound and all these things, has a goal he wants to achieve in the technology of filmmaking, if that's the "challenge" he's facing is it fair to say "Greedy jerk should just throw more money at it and stop being a jerk."

In his own words:

"I love television. It's a lot more fun than features." Elaborating, he said that he felt in film, there was too much risk involved, and that you give three years of your life to a project, in a medium where only 10% of projects break even, and even less truly are deemed successful.

"TV isn't like that. It's lots of fun," "If one show doesn't work, oh well, next week you're on to the next!"

"For me, the future is in television."

Note he never says TV's a lot more profitable than features, because TV isn't, even on a TV budget.

And as for Lucas's profit motivations, I wouldn't claim to know the man's soul, but somehow I doubt "Red Tails" is going to be the year's biggest blockbuster, but if it does make money, it will be largely due to the work Lucas has done in facing the challenge of making huge screen epics on modest budgets using technology.

twister111 said:

 

I just wanted to point out that there is a billionaire out there that is risking millions of his own money to produce entertainment. That fits your question.

 

OK, but Sabin doesn't expect to LOSE that money. He thinks (I assume) it's a sound investment. I'm assuming he's a billionaire (and many billionaires do this as well) because he spends money in order to (hopeful) make money.

George Lucas says cant make the show he wants on the budget he wants, and people are saying he should suck it up and just spend more money, his financial/technical goals be damned. That strikes me as a very odd expectation.

Anyways, your question didn't discount a profit. Just that a person spend millions of thier money to produce entertainment.

I did say "loss."

Erikstormtrooper said:

If he has money to give away, his refusal to do things like release the OOT make no sense. Until of course, you realize it has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with ego.

Has Lucas ever claimed the suppression of the OOT was due to money? Hasn't he always been pretty clear it's about ego and "his vision"?

"Sorry you fell in love with a half-done movie" and stuff like that?

(to be clear, I think it's a douchy thing to do, but I don't remember him ever saying it was about money)

twister111 said:

 

TheBoost said:

How many other artists do we expect to work and provide us with entertainment at a loss of millions of their personal money?

Haim Saban
Definition - Man who became a billionaire off the selling of properties including Power Rangers. He has recently rebought Power Rangers for 100 million and, released a dvd exclusive at Comic Con. That dvd exclusive is said to be the original first episode before the recent Disney reversioninig. He's also going to produce a live action season 18 of Power Rangers while reairing the original episodes. This is all very risky finacially given Power Rangers isn't as beloved as Star Wars. Oh, yeah and, he also plans to release the series on DVD and, Blu-ray. Presumably the original versions. Plus, there's plans in the works for a possible new Power Rangers movie.

 

But he obviously is trying to recoup the investment.

If Saban DIDN'T buy Power Rangers back because he didn't think the property would be profitable enough, would we fault him for that? Would that somehow prove he's greedy and doesn't care.

zombie84 said:

 Money isn't an issue with Lucas. He's a billionaire. Can mere mortals like us even grasp what that means, how much money that is? But besides that, lets say he was just a regular producer. This is Star Wars. Its going to make its weight in gold. As for the technology--I know Lucas wants to make very high quality shows, technically speaking, so that its basically like an hourly feature film. Which would mean a lot of special effects. But look at the last two seasons of Battlestar Galactica. It's been done. Probably Star Wars would require more than that even, maybe, but the Star Wars audience is about five times the size of the Battlestar audience. Again: it's not about "can we do it". It can be done, and they can make a lot of money off of it. Its more about "can we do it for this amount of profit percentage".

See, if he really cared, it wouldn't matter if they only get $120 million in returns for every $100 million spent. But he wants to get $200 million returns for every $100 million spent. Why? There's no practical purpose since he's a freaking mulit-billionaire. It just becomes its own game. "How cheap can we make it? How much profit can we make?"

So yes, Lucas has more money than he could ever spend. You claim he has no 'practical purpose' for money.

Let's think about that.

Since he doesn't NEED to make any projects, whether for a 10% net profit of a 3,000% net profit, and since you insist that "Star Wars" will cut a profi, what is the exact cut off that shows Lucas "cares"? Is it a 5% profit? A one dollar profit? What is the fair profit for focusing his energy, time, talent, resources, and wealth on?

I have a hard time expecting a ground-breaking 40 year industry veteran to be on par with they guy who plays Jim Crocce songs at my local coffee house saying "Man, I'm glad I got 8 bucks tonight, but I'd do this for free."

(And to be fair, the production values on "Battlestar" aren't even near CLOSE to what "Star Wars" would be. Remember they did whole episodes where you didn't have to see spaceships in order to save cash. Not just avoiding space combat, but avoiding showing space at all. Not to mention the same sets, costumes, and every outdoor scene was miraculously in the same copse of trees.

And I can only imagine how ruthlessly guys like us would tear a "Star Wars" TV show apart if the special effects were one iota short of what we expected. We'd call Lucas a lazy cheap money grubbing bastard!)

Lucas saying in 1998 or so that you can tell a director's talent by if he can make a $50 million movie look like a $200 million dollar movie. Not whether he can actually make a good movie

Lucas has ALWAYS been about the technical side of film making. Always. This is nothing new. Watch THX 1138:Digital Labrynth. Watch the OT. Watch Radioland Murders or Young Indy. Listen to him talk. Aside from his wierd Joseph Cambell obsession 90% of what Lucas has to say has been about the visual and technical side of film. The technical aspects have always been what really got him going. Always. This is not some new idea he has now that he's rich and evil.

Given that the modern filmmaking world would in large part not exist without Lucas's efforts, even though I wish the PT was a better group of films, I can't act like Lucas's viewpoint is wholly without merit.

zombie84 said:

Do you really think he will LOSE money? Really?

No, it's a matter of: I thought I would net 129 million from this, but with the extra expenses I will only net 27 million. Re-think it to be cheaper boys!

Sorry, I don't buy this "he's providing us with entertainment as his personal loss" bullshit. He just realised his profit margins weren't as big as he was used to. He's just cheap. He was the same way on the prequels. Think about how many people are going to CV this year. Every single one of those people will drop between $10-$100 on various products related to this thing. Plus you have all the other non-hardcores, plus all the advertising revenue and network purchasing that will likely pay for the show as it because it is freaking Star Wars.

When Lucas makes a product, its cuz he's a greedy money grubbing bastard. When he DOESN'T make a product, it's because he's a greedy money grubbing bastard.

When he's hands-on, they suck because he's a talentless hack. When he's hands-off he's an even worse money grubbing lazy bastard, and still a talentless hack who's now exploitative to boot.

For the TV show, Lucas wants to make a movie-quality spectacle on a TV budget for TV. He doesn't currently think he can do that. Regardless of your opinion on how profitable it might be, I don't see why he's obligated to do so to prove his 'artist' nature.

zombie84 said:

Its been reported by more than just them.

Apparently, Lucas didn't make enough billions of dollars last year.

This just goes to show that it is all just a money making scheme, not art. Lucas is literally a billionaire. And his company profits annually in the billions. But if he has to lose one or two million to make actual films--god help him. Better make more Jar Jar Binks colouring books. It's pretty sickening, how ridiculous it has all gotten.

How many other artists do we expect to work and provide us with entertainment at a loss of millions of their personal money?

Bravo Zulu said:

What I find even more absurd than Amidala's purported age of 14 is that she was ELECTED to be Queen... seriously? A society "electing" a teenage monarch and giving her absolute authority? Good grief...

To be fair, there's nothing in TPM that really clarifies just how much authority she has.

There IS an animated "Shadows of the Empire" in Portugese or something, and done stop motion with action figures. It wasnt half bad.

Warbler said:

I guess what I'm saying is this, if Vatican II and the American council of Bishops really has a problem with the way the movie depicts the Jews, they should press for the removal of the parts of the Bible that  the depictions come from.    Its seem hypocritical to me to say "you can't use Matthew 5:40 and Luke 6:29 in your movie, but we're going to keep them in our Bible and call them the word of God"

Do you approve of Fred Phelps and the "God Hates Fags" Westboro Baptist church? The ones that protest military funerals?

If not, how can you disapprove of them without trying to change the verses in the Bible they cite as their theological justification? Is that hypocritical?