Tyrphanax

Tallguy said:

While I'll admit, we're obsessive (it's why we're here) I'm getting tired of the "Star Wars was always for little kids" crap I hear in the media and from GL.

I bet Lucas doesn't say "Hey look at my little kids version of the Oscars!"  In 1977 Star Wars was still escapist fantasy but it was considered the best of it's kind.  

I wonder if Woody Allen went crazy(er) and started mucking with Annie Hall every few years if we'd be hearing this "get a life" thing.

I can accept "Get over it.  It's just a movie."  But instead we get "Get over it.  It's just Star Wars."

In answer to the question?  Star Wars stops being fun every time this nonsense comes up.  It starts being fun again every time I can watch the movies.

This.

To address Frink and Anchorhead: I certainly wasn't surprised by the fact there were changes. The changes were not what I expected and they sucked and I have and will gripe about them, but I knew going into the Blu-Ray hype that we'd be getting yet another dose of the "same-ol', same-ol'" that we've been getting since 1977. Perhaps this expectation of nothing new is why I'm less disappointed than some of the others here.

I still love every minute of my Star Wars fandom, though.

I've spoken with Katie over Twitter (somewhat) extensively in the past, and she seems like she has a good head on her shoulders and that her heart is in the right place.

Now, whereas Star Wars is concerned, neither of those apply, and it's because she doesn't see our perspective. Which is understandable. She did, after all, grow up with the man who created it. Even if George never changed the movies, her perspective would be different than ours.

Let's play a game. Imagine that your father invented one of the biggest pop culture/cinematic/toy/everything franchises in the world, and then was constantly hounded by strangers from all over the world because he changed a few things about it. Wouldn't you also defend your father vitriolically? He's your dad, after all. I assume he was a good father to her. I assume he treated her well and that she grew up in a loving household. I assume she grew up, like most kids do, idolizing her parents, and that, being George Lucas' daughter, that the changes he made make sense to her because what he says goes, and she never saw the movies as they were in 1977, I'm sure. Of course she's going to defend her family when a bunch of strangers attack them for what is, to her, no reason.

Attacking her or her father through her is silly. She has no clue where we're coming from, even less than George himself. She has no idea the impact the OT had on all of us when we first saw it, because she never experienced it. The only thing that attacking her serves is to do is polarize the next generation of LucasFilm against our cause. Instead of possibly being nice and communicating to her how things used to be and making her go "Daddy... why did you change Star Wars?" she has always seen this side of the Star Wars fandom as angry, profanity-spewing, violent, hate-machines who have it in for her and her family.

It's disgusting.

Now, that doesn't excuse her flipping out and confronting violence with more violence, but it might help us understand her point of view on the matter. Is she close minded about it? Yes, she is. But when you're the child of the Pope, you're damn right you're going to be Catholic. When people attack you for your beliefs, you're damn right it only serves to strengthen your resolve. All she's ever experienced with Star Wars is misguided, irrational hate for no reason, so it's really no surprise to me when she comes out swinging against people who have hated her family for her entire life. Instead of trying to maybe reach her, maybe make her think about the situation rationally and communicate our grievances calmly and intelligently, maybe she would have come to wonder why her father didn't release the movies as they were originally.

Instead we have slowly, over the years, created someone who will one day take over LucasFilm and remember how the OT Preservationists treated her family as she was growing up, and be even less likely to release the films we love in any form than George is now.

I could be wrong, yes. Maybe she would be like this anyway, no matter how nice we were as she was growing up. But I can guarantee you that the relationship between LucasFilm and the OT Preservationists has only suffered, and will only continue to suffer because of it.

I still love being a Star Wars fan. This whole Blu-Ray deal sucks, yes, and it's really annoyed me and gotten me more active in raising awareness of the issue, but at the same time, I still love Star Wars.

Hell, I was just watching DJs V3 ANH as I was doing some math homework tonight, and I can look over at my dresser and see all my Boba and Jango Fett figures chillin' there with Mandalore, a Phase I Clone Trooper, and Tor Vizsla and Mandalorian Galactic Heroes. My ASUS Transformer has a photo of the giclee Boba Fett (the one with the Solo-on-the-rocks reflection in the visor) as its background, probably half of the pictures in my desktop backgrounds folder (Windows 7 cycles through them all) are Star Wars-related, there's a RMQ tribute Star Wars poster two feet to my left, all my Star Wars shirts and my Boba Fett hoodie are in my closet and get weekly wear (except the hoodie in the summer, ugh).

I've never not had fun as a Star wars fan, except when I was reading a bad piece of material, or watching the PT or the non-OUT versions of the OT. And in those cases, I just finish the book or movie (I hate leaving loose ends generally) and then never pick it up again and eventually it fades away. I've read all those "Tails of..." books, and aside from one or two of the better ones, I don't remember any of them. In fact, I don't remember most of the content of the bad Star Wars things I've experienced, save for a few cool ideas that I take and add to my canon.

That's why Jango Fett is right there on my dresser with Boba. Not as cool a character, but pretty badass nonetheless. He did headbutt Obi-Wan Kenobi after all.

Maybe it's just me and I'm just weird, but I've always loved being a Star Wars fan. When times are tough and there's a wave of shitty content (and with a media behemoth as massive as Star Wars, there's a lot of it, believe me, I edit Wookieepedia) you have to wade through, just go back to the stuff you enjoy about it. Binary Sunset still gives me chills whenever I hear it. The magic is still there, you just have to unlearn what you have learned and you can see it again. Don't dwell on the bad, but focus on the good.

The second one.

Red pill or Blue pill?

"Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time it's enemy action.'"

Wow. Looks like Bieber has almost completed his metamorphosis into Rachel Maddow.

metaender said:

(Bad things!)

To a dark place this line of thought will carry us. Great care we must take.

The music just made me feel like I was in "Buy Mode" of the original Sims game.

darth_ender said:

Tobar said:

skyjedi2005 said:

Am i the only one who liked the Shadows of the Empire N64 game?

Not that i would add it to me personal canon.

I also did not care much for Dash Rendar ripoff of Han, or his outrider ripoff of the falcon.

But i liked the hoth level.  The train level against ig 88, the battle with fett etc.

I really did not appreciate the added shadows of the empire CGI to star wars in 1997 however like the cgi bike lifted straight from the same files used in the game.

I read the book but never played the game. You forgot to mention that the Outrider and the ASP droids also made it into the SE.

I don't care for Dash either. Instead of creating that copy cat they should have opted for utilizing an already existing character, namely Kyle Katarn. He's perfect for that role being a mercenary working for the rebellion and already had a cool sidekick and ship.

 I couldn't agree more.  So we get an antihero Han ripoff, only he's younger, cockier, more self-serving, fliesa newer Corellian ship that's almost as fast as the Falcon and looks very similar, and finds his redemption at the end of the story.  I know Perry wanted someone to fill Han's big shoes while he was stuck in that slab, but that was pretty lame.  Nevertheless, the story was decent, and it's nice to have a little filler between the two films.

It's like when a production studio sends out casting calls for an "Adam Carolla type" and then when Adam Carolla shows up to audition, they reject him and cast someone almost exactly like him, but who isn't him.

The fact that everyone ignores everyone else really puts a damper on communication here. The following rant is not directed at anyone, just the idea of the ignore option...

I find it kinda sad when we can't all put differences aside and attempt to understand one another like human beings instead of just having (and taking) the option to stick our heads in the ground and pretend it isn't there.

I mean, to each his own and if it avoids pointless arguments, flamewars, teeth-gnashing, and ragequits, so be it. But it's going to be ugly for everyone involved when the time comes when there isn't an ignore button and you're forced to deal with something that doesn't jive with how you'd like to pretend the world is.

People will say "well I shouldn't have to be forced to listen to something I don't want to!" and I suppose that's true, but at the same time, if you make an effort to communicate and understand things... perhaps the problem wouldn't be as large.

God knows just about each and every one of you has annoyed me with something for some reason at some point, and yet my "ignored" list remains clean. For example, I find the fact that Anchorhead doesn't recognize The Empire Strikes Back in his own personal canon about the dumbest thing I've ever heard since I love ESB, but I'm not about to crucify him on my ignore list because he seems like a pretty sweet bro and his viewpoint, while different on a polar scale and contradictory to mine, is pretty damn interesting.

I find the fact that Ziggy is mature as he is just as interesting, because he reminds me of me when I was his age (only about eight years ago [though that seems like ages ago come to think of it]) and because that it just goes to show you that there's hope for the next generation. When I have a 13 year-old (that's right, isn't it?) I hope he's as adult as Ziggy.

Xhonzi's attempt to raise his child in a sheltered, PT-less world I see as strange, misguided, and ridiculous, but there are also quite a lot of good posts made by the man. Ideas I agree with fairly solidly, and humour I get a chuckle out of. I'm not about to ignore him because of the few disagreements I have.

Even Frink bothers me sometimes with his inability to let Twooffour (who also annoys me at times, but other times I agree with quite easily) off the hook. Same with the Great Adywan who has the same problem with Kenwhatever. Not even close to ignoring any of them.

Just because you may not agree with someone 100% of the time doesn't mean that they won't have a few good points now and then that you can use as common ground to build communication on. Hell, most times, being exposed to and dealing with differing opinions is what makes you grow and your own opinions evolve into stronger, more well-thought-out ones, or change into new ones completely. Personally, that concept excites me.

tl;dr: Let's give peace a chance. Why can't we be friends. Come on, people now, smile on your brother. People all over the world, join hands. If I could buy the world a Coke. Other touchy-feely bullshit.

Anyway, I don't really care who ignores who in the end (I'm sure I'll end up on a few people's lists because of this anyway). I'm just in a philosophical mood tonight. Refer to Frink's avatar.

Predators

I went into this film expecting something along the lines of Predator, or Predator 2. Just your run-of-the-mill cheesy, campy action romp.

Holy shit was I wrong on that one.

Predators is far from the run-of-the-mill action romp I was expecting, and more along the lines of a serious, Hollywood blockbuster action flick with a plot twist that seriously came out of the blue for me (and I'm one of those people who tries to figure out where the movie is going to end up as soon as I can). I was really on the edge of my seat the whole time with this one. I had no idea where it was going, and I loved every minute of it.

Predators is now one of my top few movies, and easily the best in the franchise. One out of one invisible friends.

Ziggy Stardust said:

I accidentally did something, and now everything on this site has been shrunken. I can barely see any text because it's so small.

You probably won't be able to see this, but if you hold ctrl and use the mouse wheel in most browsers, it'll zoom you in and out.

I can't think of a random thought.

TV's Frink said:

Tyrphanax said:

Now there are 20,000 of them!

POTT

CP3S said:

Oh hey, look, another thread devolved into dumb pictures for no apparent reason, yay!

Better than another threat devoted to inane, go-nowhere arguments about politics, religion, or any other kind of ideology!

darth_ender said:

Ziggy Stardust said:

Still trying to solve the mystery of why xhonzi is ignoring me.

 So what about it, Xhonzi?  I'm calling you out.  Why are you ignoring Nicola Tesla?

Yeah, why you gotta play a brotha like that? Don't make me come over there.

All of this "Noo!" speak reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZAmmIMzgRs&feature=player_detailpage#t=661s 

But you guuuuuuys....

I can only agree with theprequelsrule on all points, except that the prequels rule.

Man. Wish I had a TV now. Oh well, it'll be available on some site.

Monolithium said:

If true, I'm going to go with "No.  Nooooooooooooooooo!" Return of the Jedi: 2011 Edition.

POTY

Actually, these two blogs are really cool.

http://www.thisisnotporn.net/

http://awesomepeoplehangingouttogether.tumblr.com/

Now there are 20,000 of them!

You broke my post pretty hard there, Twister.