TheBoost

Gaffer Tape said:

I don't really see that as a fair comparison because you're confusing people's independent reactions to the intent of the creator of a work.  I don't believe that The Bible has a verse where it advocates the murder, persecution, and hatred of Jews.  So just because certain people interpret it that way doesn't mean the work itself should be suppressed.

It sounds like the more modern video game scaremonger tactics.  Those kids who killed those other kids played Doom, so Doom is to blame, blarrrrggghhh!!!

There's a lot of things the Bible doesn't say that people have used to to justify. Those are questions of theology, not history.

Last I checked no one here is advocating suppressing the Bible. I'm not talking about any of the Biblical authors intentions, nor the intentions of the groups that put it together, or King James' translation teams, or Mel Gibson's father. The intention is irrelevant. I'm talking about fact. This is not a case of confusing correlation with causation.

It is UNDENIABLE FACT FROM THE HISTORIC RECORD THAT ALL SIDES, CHRISTIANS, JEWS, AND SECULAR HISTORIANS, AGREE ON that the Passion Play, and specifically the charge of deicide that many versions of it promote, has been repeatedly used to stir up and promote violence and murder against Jews.

Given that extensive history of bloodshed, to dismiss Jewish 'sensitivity' to this portrayal as somehow on par with videogame 'scaremonging' or German people being embarrassed by Nazis strikes me as either naive or irrational.

xhonzi said:

TheBoost said:

BUT, the Passion Play, and specifically the lines from Matthew have been used repeatedly for two thousand years to whip people into a frenzy to murder Jews with impunity. Vatican II and all the lengthy explanations about who really killed Christ (or why Christ died or this and that) don't change the actual history of bloodshed.

So when Gibson's movie comes out in our wonderful modern post-racial era and repeats what for twenty centuries has been real bad news for the Jews, and makes 600 million dollars, I can understand the Jews not being happy with the state of affairs.

Can you offer any examples of Jews being murdered linked to Passion Plays or Mel Gibson's movie?  I still have a hard time believing this one.  Does the number of murders of the Jewish people go up at the Easters?

I never said there was a murder linked to Gibson's film, only that given the materials history I can sympathise with the Jews not liking the film.

I don't have a page number, but Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religion contains a pretty good article on the violence linked to the Passion Play throughout European history. A quick google search gives me this from the ADL website:

Throughout nearly 1900 years of Christian-Jewish history, the charge of deicide has led to hatred and violence against Jews of Europe and America, and various forms of anti-Semitic expression. Historically, Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter Sunday) was a period when Jews were most vulnerable and when Christians perpetrated some of the worst violence against their Jewish neighbors.

and here's a bit from ChristianityToday.com

Unfortunately, deicide has not been the lone charge directed collectively against Jews. As recently as the early twentieth century, pogroms sometimes erupted during Holy Week in Eastern European nations when rumors spread about Jewish crimes. Inflamed by outlandish accusations, such as the claim that Jews killed Christian children and used their blood to make matzo bread for Passover, unruly gangs searched out Jews to kill and maim.

This style of pogrom dates back to the First Crusade. Until this point European Jews largely eluded organized violence, but marauding crusaders on their way to the Middle East in 1096 stopped to slaughter Jews in the Rhineland. One crusader's account recalls, "Behold we journey a long way to seek the idolatrous shrine and to take vengeance upon the Muslims. But here are the Jews dwelling among us, whose ancestors killed him and crucified him groundlessly. Let us take vengeance first upon them. Let us wipe them out as a nation."

 

Outbreaks of Christian anti-Semitism related to the Passion narrative have been so numerous and destructive that theologian and Holocaust survivor Eliezer Berkovits concluded, "the New Testament is the most dangerous anti-Semitic tract in human history."

It's because of that history of violence that things like Vatican II or the American Council of Bishops are so defensive about the meaning of the Passion Play and so specific about how it is performed.

xhonzi said:

TheBoost said:

 

But let's take a look at this comparison. Are you comparing NAZI's potentially being upset about portrayals of real history vs JEWS being upset about the bits of the Gospels that has been responsible for 2000 years of persecution, murder and genocide?

 *whew* This feels like something of a loaded question, so I'm going to try to step lightly here.

I am comparing modern Germans being upset by someone saying that Nazis were Germans with modern Jews being upset by someone saying that some of the people responsible for killing Christ were Jews.

I guess I don't really buy that the New Testament has been responsible or "the source" for persecution of the Jews.  The Old Testament is full of stories of people not liking the Jews too, so some of that rhetoric pre-dates Christ, or the writing down and widespread distribution of the Gospels.

I understood your comparison and don't think it holds water. True points that the root cause of Antisemetism is complex...

BUT, the Passion Play, and specifically the lines from Matthew have been used repeatedly for two thousand years to whip people into a frenzy to murder Jews with impunity. Vatican II and all the lengthy explanations about who really killed Christ (or why Christ died or this and that) don't change the actual history of bloodshed.

So when Gibson's movie comes out in our wonderful modern post-racial era and repeats what for twenty centuries has been real bad news for the Jews, and makes 600 million dollars, I can understand the Jews not being happy with the state of affairs.

If for the next two millennia people show Shindler's List and then go out and murder Germans, I'll be sympathetic to them the next time it gets remade. Until then I don't really see a comparison.

xhonzi said:

I may be stepping out of line here, but at what point in time will Germans be all offended at the portrayal of Nazi's in WWII films, and start this kind of shenanigans?  (As I write this, I'm sure it's already started, but most people sort of ignore them)  I don't hold any malice towards modern Germans, or even 1940s Germans who weren't Nazis. 

Similarly, the people who were most responsible for the death of Christ, as far as the only records we have have to say, were Jews.  The New Testament tells us that the Romans only crucified Christ because the Jews, their tenants, demanded it.  However, it's not all bad... Christ himself was a Jew as well as all of his Apostles.  They are portrayed to be pretty good guys.  All of the followers of Christ at the time were Jews.  We seem to like them alright, too.

So I have nothing against 30s AD Jews, unless they were personally involved or supported the killing of Christ.  And I have nothing against modern Jews, unless they're sort of proud of what the 30s AD guys did.

And, while we're at it, I don't want anyone blaming me for slavery.  Bad people did bad things in the past.  Bad people today do bad things.  If I'm not doing bad things, I'm not a bad person, right?  That's what I offer to everyone else and what I expect them to offer to me.

OK Xhonzi. You're not a racist. You never had a slave. You love all men of good will. You're a great person. We all agree, so that's not an issue.

But let's take a look at this comparison. Are you comparing NAZI's potentially being upset about portrayals of real history vs JEWS being upset about the bits of the Gospels that has been responsible for 2000 years of persecution, murder and genocide?

I once got drunk and explained to a group of people how my whore of a mother caused the Vietnam war, and then confessed to the murder of my ex-girlfriend (who wasn't dead).

I'm glad I'm not famous.

I'm serious about persuing this, and am aiming for an achievable goal.

I'm not looking to make an animated film. Just a "Watchable Script."

Right now I'm taking the screenplay and turning it into an audio drama type script (mainly numbering all the lines. Ex: Luke#33 Minch#65). Casting calls coming soon.

Once there's an audio track of the whole thing, I'll be laying over shots from ESB that fit, lots of still pics of the actors talking, a few pieces of concept art.

Would anyone like to take a bunch of still pics of Yoda and Photoshop him blue, so as better to portray Minch?

To show the Wampa fights I'd need a bunch of pics of Wampas, but can't seem to find many

Most challengingly, I'd need some sort of visuals for the crazy "Luke tripping out being tempted to the Dark Side in the Stars" sequences."

Here’s a thought.

What about producing a watchable version of Leigh Brackett’s script for ESB?

We’d have to record all of the lines with voice actors. Use “ESB” footage where possible, lots of stills, and concept art and crude animatics at other points. I’m thinking of those recreation of old “Doctor Who” episodes.

(the hardest thing would be making visuals for some of those crazy Luke and Vader in the stars sequences)

Thoughts?

SilverWook said:

It's a dick move on Lucasfilm's part if true. Fans will still stand in line for Prowse's autograph after all these years.

Whether somebody else could have played the part is really not an issue. People want to meet the guy who originally did.

I just meant in regards to the royalties. With no face, no voice, and a considerable ammount of doubling for the fight scenes, Prowse was kinda a glorified stand-in. Even Peter Mayhew had eyes showing. Vader's most dramatic moments could have been done with a helmet on a stand.

I agree it sucks he wont be at events.

But is Prowse really getting it any worse (if its true he's never earned a dime) than any other actor in a similar position?

And in all honesty, given that he was frequently doubled for the fight scenes, is there much that Prowse did that any person 6'5" couldn't have done?

Gaffer Tape said:

Warbler said:

HotRod said:

Warbler said:

I seem to recall that originally in the comic books, Peter Parker was teenager in highschool.

Warb, man...The prize for the most obvious statement now goes to you.....Everyone was a teenager in high school!!!

Unless you went to 90210, then you'd have to be at least 30+

people seem to be misunderstanding my point.   It seemed like people were complaining about the decision to depict Peter Parker as a teenager in highschool as opposed to a grown man in his 20's-30's.  I wasn't try to point out the obvious that he was teenager in highschool(I agree, everyone is), I was simply trying to point out that depicting Parker as a teenager would be accurate to the original comics.

Heh, I think we all do get what you were trying to say, Warb.  At least I know I do.  But I'm sure it was just too fun of a ribbing to pass up.

And for what its worth, I was being sarcastic.

"Food Inc."

Documentary that had some interesting points about the potential dangers of the extreme centralizing of the US food supply as well as a discussion about corn-fed vs. grass-fed cows.

Then it threw in some feel good hippy stuff about being in touch with your meat, and a one-sided anti-corporate pro-crime message that didn't actually seem to have much to do with food safety. Kinda ruined it for me.

Seriously! How dare they cast such a young looking and somewhat doofy looking guy as Spider-Man! The last thing Peter Parker should be is teenaged and awkward!

ps.

I'm back!

My computer is all fritzed, I'm guessing by what the kids these days call "Malware" but my generation called 'devils.' My various programs to protect me all say everything is fine, but in the last three weeks these symptoms have appeared in my Windows XP.

• First my DVD burner slowed to a halt (the last DVD took 8 hours to burn)
• MS Paint launches without any controls or color swatches.
• USB devices aren't detected anymore.
• Add Remove Programs in Windows lists no programs.
• Everytime I click a link in IE a new window opens.
• The clock is suddenly wrong, and I cant change it.
• It randomly beeps.
• I need to try three times to launch Photoshop, and the third time it works.
• After about an hour, all internet browsers just kinda stop working.
• The cursor doesn't appear when I'm posting on this board.

With it being summer vacation and being away from the office, with my homestation possibly being down (or me re-installing Windows and setting fire to my whole block) I may be incommunicado for a while.

To you all, I say "courage."

"Highlander" is a film that went from great to LEGENDARY thanks to its soundtrack.

"Batman Forever" has a truly enjoyable soundtrack, despite not being an enjoyable film.

xhonzi said:

And my point is this: we're not objective observers.  EVERY movie we see, we see subjectively.

Pity VIHN isn't around anymore.

The great and talented pro wrestler Hector Guerrerro picked the wrong time to come to the US. It was the late-80s and he was repackaged as...

LAZER-TRON!!!

Honestly, how many times do you actually go to something and expect NOT to like it? If you do, why do you go?

Excepting certain cases of being dragged in a group to see a movie  or the rare case of a film so inept it's enjoyable for it's overwhelming flaws I usually don't see any entertainment that I don't expect to at least get a kick out of.

I went into "Van Helsing" totally expecting to like it. I enjoyed "The Mummy" I loved Universal movie monsters, and I think Hugh Jackman generally rules.It seemed like a can't miss movie.

Perhaps it was a kind of self-hypnosis, because as my brother and I left the theater, we both were saying "well that was pretty good. Maybe not as good as I expected, but I dug it."

As we chatted casually about the movie walking to the car, over the course of about four minutes both of our opinions shifted to (I think the more natural state) "damn that movie sucked big time."

xhonzi said:

TheBoost said:

Saw "Pandorum"

Load of POOP. Interesting sci-fi horror premise.

Then out come the low-budget LOTR orcs moving in weird frame-rates so that the audience knows they're supposed to be scary.

Throw in nonspeaking Asian farmer so that he can have an 8 minute kung-fu fight with one of the space-orcs and a couple really predictable twists and you have a film that's biggest virtue was that it was relatively short.

Hmm... we'll agree to disagree here.  I really liked Pandorum.  Could you apply your synopsis to the original Alien movie?  It seemed to work for that one.

It comes to that (IMHO of course) Alien was scary. 

The Orcs in Pandorum were comical. In fact, the bad 28 Days Later jitter-frame that the film did when they were on screen made them even sillier. And that one line of technobabble they spit out to explain the Orcs was great: "We had drugs pumped into us to help us adapt to our new planet, but there guys adapted to living in a spaceship by becoming parkour athletes and looking like a bad Hellraiser fan-film! Oh yeah, and spikes out their backs."

If the Nostromo had some random Asian guy on it that had a karate fight with the Alien, I'd say that was crappy too.

I think this film had a fascinating premise: Waking up, no memories, where are we? Those goofy monsters and the kung-fu Korean-farmer just killed it for me.

The thing is, what if they HADN'T been orcs? What if the humans had survived being crazy scavenging cannibals for 800 years. Those would be some degraded SCARY FUCKING PEOPLE, and I wouldn't need shoulder-spikes and "The Ring" jerky movements to remind me they're scary.

Saw "Pandorum"

Load of POOP. Interesting sci-fi horror premise.

Then out come the low-budget LOTR orcs moving in weird frame-rates so that the audience knows they're supposed to be scary.

Throw in nonspeaking Asian farmer so that he can have an 8 minute kung-fu fight with one of the space-orcs and a couple really predictable twists and you have a film that's biggest virtue was that it was relatively short.

Nicholas J. Michalak said:

My puzzlement isn't why Fett would take the job, but why would Jabba need a high priced bodyguard?  Who is he so afraid of that he needs one?  And if Fett isn't the most badass hunter in the galaxy, why would Jabba skimp on the protection factor if he did need a bodyguard?  This is my confusion.

-NJM

Given that Jabba previously employed Gringo I don't think we should place to much faith in his HR department.

Fett showed up with Han in a Box (good Alice in Chains song) and cool armor and Jabba said "I like the cut of your jib. Be my goon on call!" and Boba decided that a room in the palace and a hot showgirl beat tracking down another bail jumper. And Jabba obviously has at least a small army of armed retainers already seeing to his protection, so one more badass fits right in.

Or maybe the bounty on Han's head, coupled with what he got from Vader gave Fett such a surplus of cash he bought shares in Jabbacorp and is now hanging out in the shareholder's suite.

I mean look at the array of weirdees and circus freaks Jabba keeps around him. He's like Howard Stern! Who knows why any of those guys are there?

Nicholas J. Michalak said:

Just depends on how you want to look at it.  Just take it as it was when the film was released, or coupled with all the EU stuff.  If it's the latter, then Fett is proclaimed as the best bounty hunter in all the galaxy with Bossk, supposedly, right behind him (which Bossk conceits to).  So, if you take it that way, then, yes, Fett is an expensive guy to put on the payroll.  If you just take the films at face value, then, it's just whatever you want to make it.  Still, Fett could be out grabbing another bounty, and getting paid for it instead of lurking around Jabba's palace.

I seems with Fett and the EU we tend to put the cart before the horse.

The question seems to be

"Why is Fett, the King Badass of the Universe, behave in such an un-badass manner in the films?"

instead of more appropriately

"Why does the EU insist Fett is King Badass when in the films he's clearly not, and is perfectly happy to be sneaky, call for reinforcements, never shoots anyone, and take a job chilling full time at Jabba's palace before dying like a shmoe?"

If the EU told us Han Solo was a Jedi, I don't think we'd look at the films as say "Why doesn't he use his Jedi powers more?" We'd just say the EU was wrong. For some reason with Fett it seems to go the other way.

But even IF Boba is the top bounty hunter of the universe, that's no reason to assume he wouldn't rather take a high paying gig as Jabba's bodyguard.

xhonzi said:

I read the first book and quite liked it.  It wasn't the best, but it seemed to be good enough.  I started reading the 2nd, and so far I'm just not into it.  Then I made the mistake of reading Jedi vs Sith and finding them to tell the same story?  What happened there?

Should I push through the rest of two and get into three?  Or should I just quit while I'm ahead?

I'd say quit. It's an amusing yarn but it hinges on the Rule of Two, which dramatically doesn't work for me, as it depends on ALL evil Jedi-types to have more devotion to their religious dogma than they have self-preservation instincts.

BANE: "I am so freaking evil and I'll do anything for greater power and knowledge, especially my pursuit of immortality, in which I am unimpeded by scruples. On the other hand I need to train my apprentice to kill me."

Nicholas J. Michalak said:

Why Boba Fett is lurking around the palace in ROTJ?  Not sure.  Maybe Jabba put him on the payroll as protection, but Fett's an expensive professional.  From whom would Jabba be afraid of coming after him in his own palace to employ Boba Fett at such a high cost.  I'm sure the Hutt's got the money, but that's not the point.  Fett's not the type to just hang around out of luxury.

-NJM

I feel sometimes I come off as a "Fett-hater" but there's nothing in the movies to imply Boba is anything special that would be high cost. He's one of many bounty hunters Vader contacted to go after Solo. Fett was just on his game that day.

And there's also nothing to say Fett wouldn't much rather hang out in Jabba's opium den all day and flirt with dancers rather than gallivant around the galaxy in his uncomfortable little spaceship. Looks like a good gig.

xhonzi said:

You don't think Luke's receiving of the lightsabre is a Chekhov's gun?  He doesn't get to use it until the sequel, for crying outloud!

You misunderstand me. I don't think anything is a Chekhov's gun. I think the term is useless.

(although interestingly, according to Tone Chekhov himself, since Luke's lightsaber is never used in "Star Wars" he should not have received it at all)