canofhumdingers

generalfrevious said:

I think Hollywood has entered an irreversible decline and American cinema is dead. It's like all the good movies ended with the 20th century and they studio heads focused on making shlock. Film has become an obsolete medium like drama because no one knows how to make a film anymore. Look at the imdb bottom 100. Most of those films were made less than 10 years ago! Even in the late 90s there used to be a classic film released in the multiplex every week; now it every other year that we see film that can even barely compare with the older classics. The film business sinks to a shockingly low nadir every 30 minutes. There is no point in going on anymore. It will be a matter of time that your local multiplex will be stuffed with so much bullshit that we will start comparing Michael Bay to Orson Welles.

 I used to feel this way (maybe not quite so strongly), but I've really started to re-evaluate my stance.  First off, all the lowest rated movies are fairly new b/c the largest chunk of internet users who do stuff like rate movies on imdb are probably teens who've never seen or don't remember older crap movies.  Sure the old classics get remembered, because they're GOOD.  Not many people go "hey, have you ever seen [insert obscure old movie that sucks but not enough to be "so bad it's good" ala Plan 9]?  It's terrible & I wish I never wasted my time! You should watch it!"

And if you go back & pick a particular year & look at what was released,you'll see it was a lot like now where you'll see a few good or maybe an occasional great movie along with a lot of shlock you've never heard of b/c it wasn't any good.  Sure, every once in a while you'll get a year like 1939 where an unheard of number of classics all came out in a row, but that's a rare exception.

But we still get good movies out of Hollywood.  I know not everyone agrees, but I'd argue pretty much anything Chris Nolan has done is great.  The King's Speech was fantastic.  The most recent Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader was really enjoyable & felt a great deal like a classic Harryhausen Sinbad movie.  And the most recent X-men is fantastic.

I still like old movies & I love "old Hollywood" from the 30's through the 50's.  Those films do have a certain charm & charisma that's not been recaptured.  But I'd argue a lot of that has to do with the times &, well, times change.  The studio system that existed back then couldn't function forever & eventually collapsed under its own weight, allowing people like Spielberg & Lucas to make the films we all grew up with....  So it's not all bad...

The one thing I think old Hollywood had that we could but don't is the actors.  There were SO many great actors & actresses back then & I really don't think there are as many today.  Maybe it's just because when we think of great old actors, we think of several decades worth...  Seriously, get people to start naming great actors & actresses & they'll start naming a lot of people, but those people will often span the 30's through the 50's or even 60's...  It's not really fair to compare that to just the current crop, or even the crop from the last 10 or 15 years....

So all I'm trying to say is, I don't think Hollywood sucks SO MUCH MORE now than it did back in the "glory days".  It's just our perception of it.

CATG?

Yeah, I should've looked through more of that "before & after" photo set before I posted.  I've never actually watched the 2004 versions...  But you're right, the lightsabers here DO look better than in 2004.  But they were clearly different from what I was used to with the GOUT (& laserdiscs, & vhs, etc., etc....) so I guess I assumed they were the 2004 versions.

And perhaps the flashes stood out to me b/c the colors are just so much more vibrant than the practically black & white GOUT that I have been watching...

Never the less, still just astounding work!  My mind has been blown!

I just popped this in my PS3 & spot checked it (will have to watch it in full later when I have time).  All I can say is WOW!  I really can't belive how good this is.  & I was stunned at how well the non HD material was blended in.  I mean, yeah you can spot it if you're looking for it, but it's done so well that it doesn't jump out & scream "I'm not in HD!!!" like I feared it might.

If we are providing constructive criticism, there's a few things I'd mention.  The thing that bugs me the most is the SE lightsabers remaining.  They just look SO different than the original ones and I'm a big nerd about lightsabers, so anything "off" about them jumps out at me instantly.  But I'd imagine it would be quite difficult to put the old sabers into the HD footage (then again, based on some of the other amazing stuff you did, maybe not?).  Also, some of the smoke in the explosions/laser flashes on the Blockade Runner are still pretty bright pink.

But those are really the only significant things that "jumped out" at me, if you will.

Overall I'm just overwhelmed with the awesomeness here.  Like someone else said, this is really the first preservation I've seen that will actually replace the GOUT for me (not that I won't still watch that on occasion, but this will now be my "go to" copy of Star Wars).  Really great work! 

On a final note, it's work like this that makes me confident that within the next 5 or 10 years we'll see a fan preservation of the OOT that is absolutely on par in every way with what an official release should be. 

Sorry for the double post, but my technological ignorance strikes again.  I read the guide to burning an ACVHD to disc with IMGburn that was linked in the ESB DeEd thread, but I'm a little confused.  The files for SW DeEd have extracted into an ISO file, not the CERTIFICATE and BDMV folders that the guide talks about.  If I'm not mistaken, an ISO is an image file...?  So do I just use the "write image file to disc" option then, like it's a normal dvd, or do I follow the AVCHD writing guide?

Referencing the download speed...  I should've let it run overnight as I would've had the whole thing, but I don't leave my computer on overnight so I had pause jdownloader & just now got around to picking it back up.  I got the first 7Gb in about 2 hours & now my dl speed has plummeted (i agree it's probably due to traffic) and it's going to take another hour & a half to get the last 0.8 Gb.   Ah well, I've still gotta go grab some dvd9s anyway...

Gaffer Tape said:

Forgive me for my ignorance (as I've never seen 2001)

 Holy crap.  Stop everything & go get the bluray NOW (last time i was in Target they had it for $10, IIRC).  No self respecting geek can really call themselves self respecting & not see 2001.  It's fantastic.  & the bluray is spectacular.  Seriously.  Go get it!

When I tried (& failed) downloading the links directly from the site, it was taking forever & eventually froze up.  But now that I've put the links in Jdownloader it's going insanely fast!  It's downloading all 4 pieces at the same time & going over 200KB/s per file!  I've gotten over 7 GB in about 2 hrs & only have about 30 mins left.  I need to go grab some dvd9's...

Wow, i feel dumb....  Shows how computer-illiterate I am.  I've only used Jdownloader with rapidshare, & mostly with whatever those files are people make that automatically add all the links to the queue.....  Thanks!

I tried getting it via the instructions in the first post, but after several hours, my computer quit at around 200 mb...   The links work, but is there a way to use jdownloader or something to get this?  It'd be really helpful to be able to pause & restart where I left off as needed...

you must be much more proficient at searching than me, I searched for hours (seriously!).  At any rate, THANK YOU!!!!!

Sorry to make a whole thread for this, but the forum search and google have both failed me.  I'm trying to locate that recent quote from James Cameron about George changing his movies & altering history....  Thanks!

check your pm's

No reason to be reluctant.  Every collection starts somewhere.  Mine's been ongoing continuously for decades (ok, basically since I was old enough to play with action figures).  And I know many would consider my collection quite excessive & want nothing to do with it (which is somewhat ironic considering that's exactly how I feel when I see some other peoples' collections that are significantly larger than mine, or just really disorganized...).  And I like how you have one shelf for the heroes & one for the villains.

Is there any word on a possible fix for this, or what might be causing it?  I travel for work & can now only post here when I'm at home & can use my other computer b/c I don't really want to go back to IE8 on my laptop.  Plus I'm afraid my other computer will auto update & install IE9 while I'm gone & then I won't be able to post here at all.  This seems to be the only forum that I visit that has had any issues since my laptop updated.

I finally got the last bit right before I had to leave home on business.  I just had time to spot check it before I walked out the door.  IT looks great & I can't wait to watch it in full!  Thanks Harmy!

Yeah, I figured you didn't have the original files anymore.  Just venting some frustration mostly...  I just hope it really is only "temporary"...

This is getting frustrating.  I let it run all day & it's still "temporarily unavailable."   sigh...  & all I need is the last 26.40 Mb file.

hmm.  It's been trying pretty much all day but still "temporarily unavailable"...

bizarre.  Any idea how long it usually takes to become available again?

Thanks for the help!  It was almost finished downloading, but seems to have run into a snag.  the last file (26.40 megabytes) has become "temporarily unavailable" on megaupload...  jdownloader keeps saying to retry in 8 or 9 minutes & counts down, retries, and fails again with the same message.  It's been stuck in this loop for a while now....  Trying to reset, force, resume, etc. does nothing it seems.

Hey, I saw this in person last month!  I was on vacation in L.A. & we went to a convention called Monsterpalooza one day.  This sculpt was one of the many many incredible things on display there!  It seriously looks real, even in person.

Could someone show me the way to the NTSC DVD5 of this (prefereably on rapidshare or the like, I don't do well with torrents)?  Thanks!

My computer recently auto-updated and installed IE9 (yeah, yeah, I should be using Firefox/Chrome/Safari/Netscape....blah....blah...blah...).  When I try to post here with that computer, it gives me an error message saying both the topic title and text must be filled out.  But both already ARE filled out.  I've tried & retried to no avail.

Also, I'm unable to click in the topic text field with my mouse (such as to reposition the cursor, or click & drag to highlight something).  But I CAN click in the topic title block...  I'm having to use my wife's computer, which hasn't updated to IE9 yet, to post this.

Ripplin said:

Call me crazy, but I'd have that saber pointing the other direction, just to be safe. :p

 I assume you're referencing the possibility of the door swinging into it?  Luckily, doorstops work great at doing just that, & the door can't swing far enough to actually touch it...  ;)

And no, I don't play with them.  Well, not the way a little kid would at least...  I do take them down & re-pose/rearrange them periodically.  & who can't resist transforming a transformer on occasion?  And it's always fun to scare the cat with spring-loaded missle firing action....