I think it would be great if we had more full time paid jurors. One time I was called into the box for selection but they didn't keep me. It's an intriguing job and I would personally enjoy doing it full time. Imagine all the different cases and discussions one would have.
Snapes. Why'd it have to be Snapes?
In a Better World (Hævnen) - Swedish/Danish flick. Very good.
The Thing (2011) - not as bad as people said, but mostly a retread prequel to the amazing 1982 flick. Decent.
Birthday suit.
The last 40 min or so of Empire are cinematic perfection.
Because I provided an opinion different than yours?
You don't seem to like people who disagree with you.
Warbler said:
Georgec, I think you're a very rude person.
I don't think you understand sports ;).
Harmy said:
Adywan just posted this:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/93945
It's a comparison between the Blu-Ray and a 35mm scan of the original version. The Blu-Ray fails miserably.
You know, the dust has settled after the BR release, but seeing that image made me shudder. How awful! Not only that, most people have been raving how great the movies look on BR but it's obvious that these transfers are extremely faulty.
That new comparison shot won't change any minds, but it's another confirmation of how sad this whole debacle has been for the preservation of the OT.
Warbler said:
*sigh* I give up C3PS will never understand about sports.
And what do you know about sports, huh? Very little, I'm guessing. Quit trying to arrogantly present yourself as "understanding" sports above others.
This story transcends sports. When I was 20, not too long ago, I wasn't such a dumbass who would defend a long-time football legend if he were involved in covering up child rape.
You sympathize with those stupid students because they lost their beloved coach? What would the response have been in 2003/2004 when PSU was losing games and everyone wanted JoePa gone?
Anyone who sympathizes or condones the PSU community reaction is an idiot. End of story. No gray area. PSU officials and coaches from top to bottom allowed child rape to happen for over a decade and they did nothing to stop it.
Those idiot students weren't rioting because they care about the real victims, the kids. They did it because they wanted an excuse to cause uproar. Had that protest occurred directly in response to the charges against Sandusky and PSU officials, then it's an entirely different issue. But they didn't do that. They felt sorry for themselves because PSU probably won't play in the Big Ten championship game now.
JoePa and PSU officials aren't victims. Only the kids are.
So, I think Warlber should be quiet about this because he's the one who clearly doesn't understand anything about this situation, feeling sorry for JoePa and the PSU students. What a warped point of view...
Now I wait for a post with all my sentences separated into various quotes with the skewed responses in between them.
I like teal snow, too.
TV's Frink said:
I recently received a $25 Amazon gift card, which I put towards the purchase of a fantastic Blu-ray box...
...the LOTR extended trilogy. :p
Enjoy the green tint on FOTR ;).
nightstalkerpoet said:
Probably just burning old prints of the OT...
(I hope everyone there is alright)
Beat me to it, and OH MY GOD YOUR AVATAR IS DISTURBING.
Somebody reads reddit ;)
Harmy said:
Nope. 1995 was probably the last time he gave a rats ass about his fans.
I think he stopped caring about fans in 1981/'82 when according to Gary Kurtz he began to favor merchandising and toy sales instead of storytelling.
1995 was simply the last time the fans got what they wanted or expected, in my opinion.
George Lucas is really good at taking sole credit for the contributions of other people.
I recently watched Mario Bava's Black Sabbath (amazing movie) and was struck by how effective the visuals were. These shots are more atmospheric and interesting than anything in the prequels.
It's only a matter of time before they reanimate old/classic episodes, Lucas-style.
Bingowings said:
I've finally started watching Breaking Bad and loving it.
Best show on tv.
I'm currently watching Dexter, The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, Boardwalk Empire, New Girl, Bored to Death, Up All Night, South Park, The Office, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League, and Beavis and Butthead.
I'm interested in Homeland, Boss, and American Horror Story, but I'll save those shows for the offseason.
I blame myself for reading this stupid thread.
TV's Frink said:
I think Jackson and his co-writers did a great job of cutting a bunch of crap out of the novels.
I haven't read LOTR but everyone I know who has read them says the same thing.
Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut
Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis?
Just look at Spielberg's filmography - he has arguably had the most commercially and critically successful career out of any big-time director. He's tackled so many genres and types of filmmaking.
Lucas is like the candle that burned brighter but for a shorter time. Mad respect to what Lucas envisioned, but he became lazy and complacent once he realized SW was a cash cow he could milk forever.
The interesting thing to me is that the Lucas-produced Red Tails comes out a couple of weeks before TPM 3D. That's not to say these movies will be in competition in terms of their target audiences, but nevertheless Lucas will be in the news for a few weeks time.
Harmy said:
I don't know, I just watched it the other day and while I liked some parts, I have a feeling that it doesn't help our cause at all, because I think that to an outsider, it really makes us look like whiny fanboys.
Because instead of showing someone calmly stating what the problem is and why we're so upset about it, it shows a bunch of nerds ranting very loudly about Han shooting first.
I agree that some things were excessive, like that home video of the woman yelling at George and making him write a new script. Yet, the director seemed to balance the fanboy rage with other opinions of people explaining why all the changes make the films worse, change the characters, and basically make no sense. There were even a couple people saying the "r'ed my childhood" analogy was nonsense, which I liked since that's a foolish thing to say.
I liked everyone's responses to The Phantom Menace. They all kind of sat there recalling their first viewing experience how shortly into the movie they began to feel intense disappointment.
I rewatched the first TPM trailer after the documentary, and I had a rush of nostalgia for being 14 years old, seeing that trailer, and being blown away. Watching it now, I saw elements that looked interesting if done correctly and others that looked stupid (Binks).
There's a good interview with the documentary director at RedLetterMedia, but I'm guessing everyone here has seen it.
wwsd said:
It's not really a fatal flaw, but the worst thing about the prequels is their effect on the original trilogy, as seen in the post-1997 new editions. The 1997 SE already made a lot of unnecessary "additions", but in the releases afterwards, the original films were mercilessly slaughtered on the altar of the prequels. The true problem with those editions is not that they changed stuff, but that they did so to serve the prequels.
Just consider: Anakin's eyebrows get burned in Episode III, so they have to be airbrushed out of VI. Hayden Christensen plays Anakin in the prequels, so Sebastian Shaw has to be erased from the very ending of the film in which he was the redeemed Anakin, to be replaced by Hayden looking goofy. The prequels added Gungans, so the ending of VI needs Gungans. And of course Boba Fett and the Emperor both get replaced in ESB; and let's not get started on "No... NOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
Apart from the general problems of all kinds of "special editions", all these prequel insertions into the OT add one thing that is even worse: the great films of the OT actually get degraded down to the level of the prequels. The OT thus gets turned into a vehicle for the prequels, a useless piece of crap to be preceded by the prequels with their *~amazing~* CGI.
In George's great artistic vision, new fans will not watch first the OT and then the prequels, but they will watch the films in Episode order, with one (voice) actor playing one character as much as possible, and they'll be like: "Hey, you can tell Boba Fett is a clone because he has the same voice!" He'll probably never have the guts to airbrush Alec Guinness out of history, so that's one thing, but it is these smaller things (Boba Fett's few lines, the Emperor's one dialogue in ESB, etc.) that slowly chip away at the edifice of the OT.
It's one of the best examples of the pig-headed megalomania that defines the prequels, along with the assumption that the potential viewers of the series are all drooling retards: we can't have the Emperor portrayed by two different actors, that would just be confusing! When of course, in reality, that's just how it sometimes goes with film series stretching over decades. Nobody necessarily likes it, but, for instance, the plot of Episode VI required an expansion of the Emperor's role, so they had to get McDiarmid instead of a woman with chimp eyes and a voice actor. That's just how things develop naturally. Trying to pretend that never happened is just clumsy.
The stubbornness about the prequels is the most peculiar, though. Instead of self-critically analysing the prequels and understanding its problems, they said: the prequels are not crap, but to make things more coherent, we must downgrade the original films to better reflect the prequels!
In itself, this wouldn't even be an incredible disaster. If Lucas or anyone else wants to mold all the films into a coherent "saga", then whatever. Maybe he could remake the OT into true "sequels to the prequels", with Hayden and Boba Fett with Jango's voice and all the other prequel goodness, naming it "Star Wars Reloaded", "Star Wars Advanced Generation". "Star Wars X-treme", "Star Wars - the TOTALLY RAD AWESOME Trilogy (TRAT)" or something. Just don't bother the rest of us with the suggestion that it is the original trilogy!
As it is, the prequels and their role in the degradation of the OT do pose a problem, because of the very openly stated desire to erase the OT from public memory instead of marketing it alongside the "Badass CGI Saga" and letting the viewers decide which one they like best (if the prequels and SEs are so good, what are they afraid of?). If you want to modify your own films like that, sure, that's up to you; but when you also want to control the perception of the audience as a whole, when you want to determine what they should see and how they should feel about that, then yes, you're being a bit megalomaniacal.
So what does any of this have to do with the prequels, apart from their unnecessary insertion into the OT? Well, for one thing, without them, there wouldn't be any need to insert prequel stuff into the OT if there weren't any prequels. Some of the worse features of the prequels could already be seen in the 1997 SE (or even in the original RotJ!), but they are all quite explicable and do not ruin the entire experience, even though they deserve criticism. Whereas the prequels mark a very clear and explicit break with everything that made the OT good.
And of course, considering that the prequels do exist, then it is the inexplicable and completely illogical confidence in their qualities that push Lucas to try to jam them into the OT. Without that, subsequent re-releases of the OT would simply feature further tinkering of the 1997 SE variety, but without necessarily eliminating all the good things about the OT.
Great post.