TheBoost

xhonzi said:

She is killed off like 20 years afterward, right?  I mean, all of the characters have to die sometime.

Not that I've read any of that storyline.

 Yeah. She and Luke had a boy in his early teens. I think Mara should have been in her mid 60s.

Not that characters age in the EU. Han should be in his 70s and it never slows him down in the slightest. And not one hero of the Rebellion has died of disease or old age in the 50 or so years since the OT.

This thread is currently about... ...

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nothing

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Warbler said:

if Johnny Depp plays the Riddler, I'm not going to see it.   I can't stand him.

 But Depp can play anything! As long as the character struts around, is vaguely feminine, and and gives lots of really wide-eyes takes, Depp can do it!

Vincent Cassel though? I don't think I could handle a French Riddler. A French Tickler maybe, but not a French Riddler.

hairy_hen said:

 

I never remotely thought of the Jedi as being constrained against relationships, which was one of my biggest complaints about AotC and a major factor in turning me against the prequels.

 It seemed natural to me. They're space-monks. In the OT the two Jedi we meet are hermits Even as a lad I figured the reason Vader didn't know he had twins was because there was something shady about their parentage.

Given that the dark side feeds on emotion and how Zen and monklike Lukers was in ROTJ living an ascetic lifestyle seemed appropriate.

Chris Rock in Lethal Weapon 4.

He might have been enjoyable, but his presense was the tipping point from an action series with comedic moments to a comedy film with some action.

xhonzi said:

 

1. Does Luke dedicate his life to the Jedi order and become celibate like a monk?
2. Is he some kind of space pimp/James Bond character that is too dedicated to his life's work to settle down, but catches some action from time to time as the mission allows?
3. Or does he get to have a wife and kids?

I figured Luke dedicated his life to the difficult task of rebuilding the Jedi.  I have no problem with Jedi not being allowed to marry and I think Luke would go along with that. On the otherhand, There's deffinitly something of an old James Bond in Obi-Wan, so it's not out of hand that Luke may score some lovin' here and there over the course of his adventures, but the rules of his order and his overwhelming mission would stop him from getting too seriously involved with any one woman.

1. Star Wars
2. Empire
3. Jedi
4. Sith
5. Menace
6. Clones

Anchorhead said:

I think it very much represents the disposable film mentality of the last decade or so. Film as product, as opposed to film as art.

No doubt there are plenty of great films being made, but the eye candy CGI-fests are the mega-earners. Complete with their sequels being planned into the story before shooting. Quick consumption at the theaters and start on the Extended DVD version at the same time (with scenes shot specifically for the DVD "special Edition" marketing push).

Label me a cynic who remembers when it was story first - box office classic second.

Yeah, but the same year that gave us "Star Wars" also gave us the trend-capitalizing "Saturday Night Fever" the sequal to a sequal "Airport '77"" and tenth in the increasingly ridiculous and formulaic James Bond series. Were any of those 'art'?

Just spent half my lunchbreak trying to categorize movies. Bored to death. Headache.

...

It seems even in 1986 we saw popcorn action and franchises dominate the list. Genre adventures tend to be in the top, with the occasional raunchy comedy or romantic comedy

1993 was interesting with two legal thrillers on the list, and 1996 has "A Time To Kill" which of all the films listed probably the most unusual, lacking almost any action or thrills. Schindler's List is also notable, and "The Blind Side" is the only "feel-good drama" on any years list.

In 2001 8 of the 10 are big special effects romps, and the other two (Rush Hour 2 and Oceans 11) are zany cops-and-robbers fiascos.

In 2005 "Wedding Crashers" is the only non-special effects extravaganza, and 2007 goes 10/10.

While some trends can be noted it is difficult to quantify the 'quality' of films like "Crocodile Dundee" compared to "The Hangover" and to draw fair comparisons between the changing states of special effects between 1986's "Aliens" and 2005 "War of the Worlds."

The next step would be to increase the sample size to the Top 20 films over every year, and to make a time-graph of what types fo film are represented. It should stretch back to the early 80s, generally considered the era of the modern blockbuster movie.

Are movies dumber? Are they just CGI popcorn fests with no plot or character? It's fair to argue that there are still many intelligent films being made, even if they aren't huge hits ("The Hurt Locker" comes to mind) but if we accept the premise that the top grossing films influence what other sorts of films get made, what kind of trends are seen when we examine the data.

I've selected the top 10 grossing films for a random sample of years between 1986 and 2009.

 1986

1 Top Gun
2 Crocodile Dundee
3 Platoon
4 The Karate Kid Part II
5 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
6 Back to School
7 Aliens
8 The Golden Child
9 Ruthless People
10 Ferris Bueller's Day Off

1990
1 Home Alone
2 Ghost
3 Dances with Wolves
4 Pretty Woman
5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
6 The Hunt for Red October
7 Total Recall
8 Die Hard 2: Die Harder
9 Dick Tracy
10 Kindergarten Cop
1993
1 Jurassic Park
2 Mrs. Doubtfire
3 The Fugitive
4 The Firm
5 Sleepless in Seattle
6 Indecent Proposal
7 In the Line of Fire
8 The Pelican Brief
9 Schindler's List
10 Cliffhanger
1996
1 Independence Day
2 Twister
3 Mission: Impossible
4 Jerry Maguire
5 Ransom
6 101 Dalmatians (1996)
7 The Rock
8 The Nutty Professor (1996)
9 The Birdcage
10 A Time to Kill
2001
1 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
3 Shrek
4 Monsters, Inc.
5 Rush Hour 2
6 The Mummy Returns
7 Pearl Harbor
8 Ocean's Eleven
9 Jurassic Park III
10 Planet of the Apes (2001)
2005
1 Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
2 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
3 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
4 War of the Worlds
5 King Kong
6 Wedding Crashers
7 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
8 Batman Begins
9 Madagascar
10 Mr. & Mrs. Smith
2007
1 Spider-Man 3
2 Shrek the Third
3 Transformers
4 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
5 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
6 I Am Legend
7 The Bourne Ultimatum
8 National Treasure: Book of Secrets
9 Alvin and the Chipmunks
10 300
2009
1 Avatar
2 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
3 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
4 The Twilight Saga: New Moon
5 Up
6 The Hangover
7 Star Trek
8 The Blind Side
9 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
10 Sherlock Holmes

Octorox said:

Anchorhead said:

 

Sad that story isn't part of the equation. Sign of the times, I suppose.

And for the record, Sky, that's not a slam on Bay. It's a slam on the state of cinema these days. CGI, pretty colors, shaky-cam, slow-mo action come first - acting, depth, & story come second - if at all.

The short-attention-span generation won't sit still for actual emotion. The scene stops moving or people start having conversations longer than quotable sound bites - and they have to occupy themselves by texting someone.

I have to disagree. There are plenty of great films with substance coming out every year. I don't think Bayformers is representative of modern film as a whole at all...

 Hmmm... intestesting point. Go see my exciting new thread on ARE AUDIENCES PICKING DUMBER MOVIES!

xhonzi said:

It's been an interesting read.  Really makes you consider the consequences of all of that power.

 If only there had been someone to tell this Marvel comics character that with great power comes with it more than normal the ammount of responsibility than an average person.

And whoever says it should phrase it more elegantly than I did. 

Ripplin said:

The EU is so much revisionist history. "Oh, look, shell casings in the movie. Uh, uh...yeah, they were always in the Star Wars universe. Yeah." :p

 As much as I'm down on the EU... the fact there are shell casings in the movies and the shell casings are also in the EU... ... how is that a bad thing?

xhonzi said:

This has been the main focus on Charles Xavier in the X-Men comics from the past year or so.  They reveal that he manipulated the thoughts/decisions of a lot of the X-Men over the years, "For the greater good."  Turns out a lot of them don't really like it that much.

 I havent read X-Men in years, but that is MESSED UP. (I like it)

Interestingly, I found this thread during one of my daily google searches for "zombie sightings."

xhonzi said:

What made Walt special?
Why did all of the babies/mothers die?

What connection did Ancient Egypt have to the Island?
What was the significance of the statue?
    Why did they call it Taweret when it didn't look anything like Taweret?
If the Island has generic healing powers due to its magical "life source well", then why did Ben need spinal surgery.
Why did Mikhail seem to die so many times, but then come back to life?

Why was there a picture of Anubis consulting with the Smoke Monster if he was created during the Roman years which most likely post-dated the Egyptian presence on the island?

What made Aaron special?
How did Jacob have a magic lighthouse that controled time and space? 

xhonzi said:

TheBoost said:

 

If it was heaven/limbo all along, why did it have a sunken version of the island? Why did Juliet say 'the bomb worked?' What does Jack's dad know about anything, since apparently every time we ever saw him it was really the Smoke Monster? Nope. F that.

 Yes, this is my biggest problem with the "purgatory" explanation.  It really messes with the ending of season 5, if you think about it.  Why go to all of that trouble to create an alternate reality if it didn't work.  Though apparently Juliet's line: "It worked!" was about the vending machine.

I imagine they decided to "create this place for them to meet up before going to heaven" and Hurley was like,
...
HURLEY: Dudes... this is way too complicated.  Can't we just meet at baggage claim?

They created an afterlife where Sayid's girl was married to his brother, he hated himself, where Jin was captured and beaten, and Sun was FREAKING SHOT.

And how lame is Jack that his idea of heaven is to have a cordial relationship with his ex-wife and to slightly improve his tense relationship with his estranged son?

It seems that the 'ends justify the means' is almost the OPPOSITE of what the Jedi do.

Luke getting pissed and killing Vader and then Palpy would have served to protect the people he loved, but it was exactly what he WASN'T supposed to do.

Anakin justified all his attrocities because he wanted to save the person he loved. He was the bad guy.

I think Qui-Gonn was kind of a freewheeling Jedi hippy, maybe even a bit of an embarassment to the Order. He played fast and loose with mind-tricks because he was tuned to the "living Force."

Even if a hot chick had some effect on the Box Office, which I doubt,  it is not as if Megan Fox couldnt be replaced with one of 11,000 other hot chicks who look good sweaty.

So, they blew up a bomb and created an alternate timeline that for an entire season was totally consistent with being an alternate timeline, including Desmond who we've seen since season 3 can travel through time serving as kind of an intermediary.

Then with four minutes to go they have Jack's dad say "no, this isn't an alternate timeline, it's the afterlife." and before we can say "that doesn't make sense!" there's a cast party and a cliche white light.

In my mind... those 2 minutes Jack's dad talked didn't happen. THEN the show has an ending thats happy, and doesnt' require a whole new level of reality to be added in the SECOND TO LAST SCENE OF THE FINALE.

• The alternate timeline was created when they set off the nuke.
• Desmond, who's electromagnetically special, was able to mediate between the two.
• When a character was 'awakened' in the side-timeline, they were able to live out in peace the rest of their life in this better, island-less world, with full memories of the original timeline.
• Jack died on the island, and ALSO got to live out his life with Kate in the side-step timeline.
• Sawyer escaped the island with Kate and Mile, but ALSO got to be reunited with Juliet.
• With their memories restored, all the Losties reunite at the church and have a celebration. THE END.

If it was heaven/limbo all along, why did it have a sunken version of the island? Why did Juliet say 'the bomb worked?' What does Jack's dad know about anything, since apparently every time we ever saw him it was really the Smoke Monster? Nope. F that.

Ric Olie said:

Sluggo said:

Just dropping in to let you know that I am staying out of your thread.

Well well, nice to see you, Mr. Giant Head.  Let us see how it can stand up to me!

Crush crush crush!

 I've been trying to place it. Is your avatar the new Dr. Who?

TheBoost said:

Judge said:

Well, if we consider TFU to be EU and Dark Empire to be of the same EU then you could say that at least some of the cloning in Star Wars is of the 'magically make a dead character live again' variety.

 I started to read your post and all of a sudden my eyes started bleeding. Did you say Darsdsdgjkl ;asdgj ;sd;xbjxcvl;kxcvljk;

 Sorry. I tried to reply to your post, but my hands started convusling. It seems you brought up something that I have strong mental blocks against. This thread is becoming dangerous to my mental wellbeing.

Judge said:

Well, if we consider TFU to be EU and Dark Empire to be of the same EU then you could say that at least some of the cloning in Star Wars is of the 'magically make a dead character live again' variety.

 I started to read your post and all of a sudden my eyes started bleeding. Did you say Darsdsdgjkl ;asdgj ;sd;xbjxcvl;kxcvljk;