lordjedi

shimy said:

state constitution vs federal law, how is there a conflict there?

Here's the relevant article http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00E5DF113EF933A2575BC0A960958260

And here's the relevant portion:

The constitutional provision, Amendment 68, was approved by voters in 1989. At the time, its ban on public money for abortions except when a mother's life was endangered was in harmony with Federal law.

But in 1993, Congress extended abortion benefits to poor women who were victims of rape or incest.

In addition, there are those people who don't think tax money, which is essentially what Medicaid is, should be used for abortions period.  People like me don't really like it when our tax dollars are used to kill an unborn child.

It all comes down to States rights vs Federal rights.  Once again, the Federal govt needs to get its hands out of where it doesn't belong.

C3PX said:

Kind of weird about the Clone Wars cartoon series, it is used to show how Palps got kidnapped and how Grievous went from being a real villian to a crippled coughing idiot, and yet is not cannon. Seems like since you almost have to see it for the Grevious thing in ROTS to make since that it should be more cannonical than it is. Pretty poor planning, but then again, who has time to plan when you are swimming in cash.

I was one of the few people in my crowd of hardcore friends that didn't "get it" when Grievous was couphing.  I kept thinking to myself "Why the hell does he sound like he has a smokers cough?"  After the movie, my friends informed me "Don't you remember that he got squished in the Clone Wars series?"  Oh yeah.

sean wookie said:

They could always grow it at home or have a dealer.

Remember part of freedom is being responsible.

 

Yep, they could.  You'd still, likely, have to pay tax on the seeds and your dealer would probably charge you tax as well.  Seriously sean, if the feds legalized it tomorrow, do you think they wouldn't come up with some way for them to get a take of every sale that took place? If they legalized it tomorrow, then the smugglers would stop bringing it in since the street value would drop to almost nothing.  Once the supply dries up, everyone will have to buy it from reputable dealers who probably had to pay tax on it somewhere down the line.

These are the same people who are trying to introduce taxes on just about everything out here in California.  The latest was an idea to charge a 25 cent fee for each plastic bag you need at the grocery store.  That was an effort to get people to stop getting "one use" bags.  I don't know about you guys, but we usually end up using the bags as trash can liners, so they aren't really "one use".

shimy said:

Mike hucabee comes to mind here a man that talked about love, kindness and charity but that pulled medicare from a teenage girl cause she got raped became pregnant and wanted an abortion.

There's a little more to it then that.  The State constitution, at the time, was in conflict with Federal law.  Huckabee chose to side with State law.

Another point i wanted to talk about was this, I noticed someone say that when taxes are low charity donations go up. I always thought that it was the same in the US as in canada but i guess it isnt. Here in canada when you fill your taxes out, you get certain deductions from the money you pay. Just to make it easy ill give an example. If i make 100 000, I am in the highest tax bracket, so i pay 50% tax. So my bill to the gov is 50 000. Now say during the year i made 5000 worth of donations. Most if not all of the 5000 is deducted from my taxes, so i only pay 45 000. Is that not how it works down south?

 

That was me that stated that.  The problem is that there's usually a cap to how much of donations can be deducted.  With lower taxes, people generally give more because they don't have to worry about the cap and they don't have to worry about getting hit with a huge tax bill at the end of the year.  It's also a proven fact that tax receipts go up with lower taxes in place (thank you JFK and Reagan).  Of course, it helps to cut spending at the same time.

skyjedi2005 said:

 

 

There are those that smoke a single joint and chill and have fun with their friends on weekends and who work and contribute to society and those who smoke 24/7 and only take away.

Of course Americans do nothing in moderation so legalizing it would probably make it too hard to control people who do it to extreme.

We are always worried of keeping up with Japan and other nations, giving our citizens another excuse to get drunk, high or lazy might be bad.

Actually, if you legalized it, you could then tax it.  Look at the price of cigarettes.  The cost has more than doubled in the last 10 years as they keep adding taxes to them.  If pot were legalized, they'd just start taxing it to death.  Then at least all the pot heads would have to pay taxes on their habit.

GhostAlpha26 said:

lordjedi said:

Uh, yeah, I'm sure he was "moderately" drunk after graduating.  Most recent grads I've know don't get "moderately" drunk after graduating from anything.

Well now that you have made a generalized statement about something you knew very little about, it can hold up for any situation.

People can  drink responsibly but no one graduating college can drink moderately

Of course they can.  That's the point.  People can drink moderately and responsibly.  Your ridiculous comments suggesting that people can't drink responsibly are totally asinine and are only based on your anecdotal evidence.  There's plenty of other evidence that shows people are more than capable of drinking (and doing drugs) responsibly.

The point is that just because you think "responsible" drinking is a joke, doesn't mean it is.  It just means you've seen some seriously bad shit happen to people that also happen to be drinking.  Bad shit can happen to anyone whether they're walking down the street totally sober or sitting on the couch at home watching TV.  I can safely say that I'm more than capable of drinking responsibly and drink one or two beers 3 nights out of the week.

GhostAlpha26 said:

A long time family friend who graduated with High Honors from Harvard happened to be moderately drunk one night after graduating, fell off over a balcony and died. So to say that these “causal” drugs are harmless is profoundly stupid to say. It takes nothing more than a slight mishap while drunk or high for some serious bad sh!* to occur, but by all means think of drug use as a casual thing to do, but don’t think you cant be just another statistic because of your “casual” lifestyle, and because you do it “responsibly” Hahanah so ridiculous.

Uh, yeah, I'm sure he was "moderately" drunk after graduating.  Most recent grads I've know don't get "moderately" drunk after graduating from anything.

Drinking and smoking pot can be done "responsibly", whether you want to believe it or not.  Plenty of people do it every day.  Do accidents happen?  Sure.  But they're easily preventable when you aren't so drunk that you throw common sense out the window.  If you're so drunk that you can barely walk, the balcony probably isn't a good place to be.  Most people know that even if you're only "moderately" drunk, it's not a good idea to be outside if you're not on the ground floor.

skyjedi2005 said:

Dark Knight's biggest failing is the fact that it is a Nolan original script and does not adapt a comic.

Batman Begins was so successful because it adapted the best batman comic ever by Frank Miller, Year one.

Uh, for those of us that haven't read that Batman comic (and didn't even know it existed), BB was so successful because it rebooted the franchise and returned it to what it should be: a dark toned movie about Batman instead of the Schumacher crap we were fed for a few years.

Judging from the reviews and box office, TDK's failing is that a few people don't like the direction it went in.

Nanner Split said:

In all seriousness though, most of the time alcohol is what causes people to lose their inhibitions. Weed doesn't, for the most part (because there are always exceptions). At least personally-speaking; with alcohol I want to wander off and do something ridiculous (I believe I jumped off a friend's roof into his pool once when drunk, although to be fair this roof in particular was quite close to the ground), whereas when I'm high all I want to do is sit on the couch and eat.

How drunk were you when that happened?  The last time I was that drunk, about 2 years ago, all I wanted to do was keep drinking and watch movies.

I don't really have a problem with most adults that smoke an occasional joint.  The problem is usually when you have someone underage that starts smoking it occasionally, but then it becomes an addiction.  Most peoples brains haven't fully developed until around 18 years old and anything that alters your mental state before then is just asking for trouble.

You should get a Costco membership Janskeet.  You can buy those things practically by the case from there.  Mmm, Gummy Bears.

PSYCHO_DAYV said:

THE FACT IS FOR THE MOST PART THIS ENTIRE SITE IS REPETITIVE,  THAT'S THE WAY IT IS.  IT'S BEEN LIKE THAT SINCE DAY ONE, AND I WOULD KNOW.  I WAS THERE.  STOP PISSING IN SKY'S KOOL-AIDE.  HE'S TELLING IT LIKE IT IS.  THIS WAS A COOL SITE BACK IN THE DAY BEFORE ALL THE LUCASS KISSERS FROM TF.N CAME OVER HERE.

Now there's a warm welcome if I've ever seen one.

That's what's suppose to make this place better than TFN.  You can love the PT or hate it and voice your opinion either way without being shouted down or told to "GTFO".

Janskeet said:

Rob said:

Hey don't blame me for my constant typos, I didn't put the keys so ridiculously close together. Be honest, do you still believe in the flying man in the sky?

Rob, it's nice to finally find a demo to back me up, but for god sakes man, learn how to spell before you tell someone they need to be "edjucated". I thought you were joking when you did that. You should've pretended you were, it would've made you look wittier. I got exhausted trying to defend myself against these conservatives.

Wow!  That "edjucated" thing wasn't a joke?  LOL.

BTW Janskeet, if you need other people to backup your opinions, you have bigger problems.  You should be trying to convince others why your opinions are better than theirs, rather than simply looking for validation from others.

C3PX said:

I know this is a long ways off, and probably 100% inaccurate, but just to generate some discussion:

Batman 3 villian rumors.
http://movies.ign.com/articles/895/895689p1.html

 

Definately need someone British to play the role of the Penguin, if they decide to use him as the villian, I hope they don't screw him up as bad as they did with Batman Returns.

Depp as the Joker... I guess it could work... he is a bit too mainstream for my taste though... it would suck to basically get Capt. Jack Sparrow in Joker clothing.

As long as he doesn't play it the way he played Willy Wonka, I'd probably be ok with it.  The last thing we need is a Joker that was "abused as a child".

Gaffer Tape said:

Hmm, not that I plan to see this, but reading the discussion made me remember that it's not 20th Century Fox releasing this picture!  In that case, how is the movie going to open?  Presumably it will still open with the Star Wars/Luke's Theme fanfare, but won't it sound so strange without the 20th Century Fox theme immediately preceding it?

I think it will, yes.  Everytime I hear the 20th Century Fox fanfare, I immediately expect the Star Wars theme to follow.

Fang Zei said:

I read somewhere in an early review that they came up with some clever way to start the soundtrack in lieu of the 20th Century Fox Fanfare. There's also no opening crawl, apparently.

No opening crawl?  WTH?!

adywan said:

they have samples of the soundtrack here:

Clone Wars Soundtrack

The main tilte sounds like its paying at half speed. It just sounds so strange. I don't like it at all. So i guess that there is no opening crawl by the sounds of things. Also, to me, its sounds more like the soundtrack from one of The Mummy movies than a Star Wars one.

It sounds like it's got a sort of jungle style to it with the big beating drums in the background.  I almost expect to see troops or a battle being waged in a jungle.  I'll have to listen to them all later, but they don't sound to bad to me.  I think I do like that they mixed it up a bit.  They do the same thing, to an extent, for most of the games.

They may have made it with a wider aspect ratio in mind.  A lot of sci-fi tv shows have been doing that in the last few years.  I know the last season of Buffy was shot, at least somewhat, in a wider ratio and all last season of Smallville was shot in a wider ratio.

With widescreen tvs proliferating, it's not to much of a stretch to think that they filmed it in widescreen already.

I was thinking about why they made it a movie instead of going directly to TV the other day.  The only reason I could come up with is because they couldn't find a home for it initially.  I remember Lucas said in a recent interview that nobody wanted it.  That seems like a perfect reason for putting it in theaters instead.

I believe it's only the first couple of episodes that are tied together into a movie.  After that, the rest is suppose to be on TV.

Johnny Ringo said:

There's a much cheaper version of this available. It's called the internet ;)

 

 

LOL!  Yeah, and that'll probably still be more up to date than this book when it's released :)

Did you bother to add up your own numbers?  With the reissue and SE alone, Star Wars beats out TPM.  Not that that matters.  The only important numbers are the adjusted ones.  Star Wars comes in at 1.2 Billion.  TPM has about half that.

Take your made up facts elsewhere.

Besides, you can't easily use Box Office numbers (for either series) to figure out how many times those movies have been seen.  I personally watched Star Wars (the original) everyday throughout summer when I was 10, so that's about 90 views right there that aren't going to show up in your list.  I haven't ever done that for any of the PT.

Mielr said:

Janskeet said:

I thought you guys were smart? I go into the politics thread and I see all this republican biased talk and people labeling Democrats as socialists/communists?

 

I was thinking the exact opposite-  there seem to be a lot of conservatives here, so it follows that there must be a lot of smart people here! (which I already knew, of course. Star Wars fans are naturally smart).

;-)

 

For the record, I'm as disappointed about what's happened to the Republican party as anyone. I'm voting for John McCain, but he was not my #1 choice for nominee.

Tiptup said:

"Sorry, no, these studies were done by media analysts. Your average american of the conservative persuasion is much more interested in the details of issues and the news than the other side for whatever reason. I'm convinced that's why Fox News made so much money and why the other news networks tried to have programming that would attract conservatives (at least for a while)."

Yup, that's why conservative talk-radio is so successful, and liberal talk-radio is failing miserably.

 

Well, I wouldn't say it's all failing miserably.  Air America has failed miserably yes, but liberals like Alan Colmes and a few others have pretty successful radio shows.  I don't personally listen to them, but I do appreciate their point of view (however wrong I think it might be).

It looks like it has some funny parts, but how did you get iron giant out of it?  It looks more like an animated version of "League of Extraordinary Gentleman".  They take all the campy scary movie classics from the 50s-70s and put them all in one movie to battle the giant alien.  The opening sequence of the trailer was a little overdone in my mind.

Other than that, like I said, it looks like it has some funny parts, but everything else looks like it's overdone.  Typical DreamWorks fare as far as I can tell.

negative1 said:

TheoOdo said:

@ Negative1

All of the OT is based on dichotomy, so all references to the political scene are there to expand upon the evil and undemocratic nature of the Galactic Empire. Although a backdrop which adds fullness to the setting, the references to imperial politics are not necessary to understand the plot of the film. In the PT they are. It's vital to the plot that we understand that Amidala wishes to discuss a treaty with the Viceroy in order to eject the Trade Federation from her planet. That's her motivation in returning to Naboo. It's not a particularly interesting motivation, but there you have it.

 

well,

ok, now that you've actually decided to be a little more descriptive, instead of being derisive (like you initially were),

and actually have some arguments/points to make......why didn't you just do that in the first place, instead of just

tossing out the off-handed brief commentary....................wouldn't that have saved you all the trouble of having to explain

yourself again, which you're doing now????????

 

i know the purpose, and intent of all the political scenes, i know their motivations, and in fact what they are allluding to in a larger picture...

 

not FOR ONE MINUTE , does it make it any easier, clearer, or strengthen the plot, or even add to its complexity for me.... it still boils

down to a backstory, that while mentioned in the crawl, doesn't need to be understood to enjoy the base level of the movie, it's an

adventure, its action, fighting, sneaking around, blowing up things, playing around with cool toys, seeing weird creatures,

and making some corny jokes, sarcastic comments, and having a good time overall......................................  i don't really want to

know about inter-planetary problems / alliances / issues etc..............it just bogs it all down....

 

And yet you enjoyed the PT?  How much time was spent talking about politics in the OT?  A short conversation in a hallway plus a couple of lines in a conference room.  How much time was spent discussing politics in the PT?  10 mins at the start of the movie, plus a whole scene in a giant Senate chamber.  And then there was even more in AOTC.

Contrast that with Luke's motivation in destroying the Death Star; all his friends, and probably himself also, will die if he doesn't and the universe is doomed to endure constant tyranny, terror and genocide on planetary-scale for centuries to come. What would happen to Naboo if they didn't succeed? They'd, in all probability, have to wait for a commission to confirm that a droid army had indeed occupied Naboo and then hear from the Queen that she was forced to sign the treaty under threat of death, at which point it is rendered void and the droid army is expelled from Naboo with the assistance of the Republic.

 

speculation about the OT, once again not being demonstratable, struck down as a comment .................

speculation on the PT , struck down as a comment (unless theres some EU stuff that i don't know about)...

 

Speculation?  How do you figure?  The entire intent of bringing the Death Star to Yavin was to blow up the Rebel base, killing everyone on the moon in the process.  Based on the conversation in TPM, the commission was about to be a reality.  Chancellor Valorum himself asked the Queen to defer so an investigation could be made.

 

Scenario 1.) The universe is doomed. Scenario 2.) Naboo has a bad day.

 

that's a pretty loose interpretation of events , even with the 'star wars' closed universe of the PT, and the OT,

i would think it was doomed in both cases, or you could say 'alderaan' had a bad day couldn't you?

The entire universe was not doomed by having a blockade on Naboo.  The entire universe was doomed if the "small band of rebels" had not been able to defeat the Death Star.  If the Alliance had been destroyed once and for all, then no system would have stood up to the Empire for fear of being totally destroyed.

 

Also, the lines you picked out are character building. It informs us, first of all, of Darth Vader's name and also tells us that the white-robed woman is a politician, a royal and a sympathizer of the Rebellion mentioned in the opening crawl. It informs us that Vader is "bold" and that Leia is "merciful". Honestly, Negative1, you seemed to have picked out the only line in which the Imperial senate is mentioned, next to Tarkin's informing the other imperials that it's been destroyed which is there to further solidify our understanding that the Empire has no respect for even it's own spurious vision of democracy.

 

those lines didn't tell me more that what we already knew at the crawl (and honestly, by this point, i probably glossed over what i had seen earlier,

and was just trying to pay attention to the action)... and yes, they all have their place in adding to the commentary and viewpoints of the characters of course..

but the same is true in the PT, there were lines, scenes, and plot points that all had expository sections where they described events, attitudes, and similiarly

the context in which political climate were...[in fact, in much more detail]....

 

The spoken lines told you who was who.  The only thing the lines in the crawl told you were the current state of events in the galaxy.  We didn't even know it was Leia until later in the movie.  All we knew was that she was the Ambassador and a powerful individual.  We knew Vader's character because people kept addressing him as "Lord Vader".  Now obviously most people figured out who Leia was from what they read in the crawl and what they saw on screen.  She's not even specifically named until Tarkin addresses her before Alderran's destruction.

Johnboy3434 said:

Mielr said:

"Fanboys"? No, "fanboys" are people with their lips krazy-glued to Lucas' ass. In other words, people who can't think for themselves and frequent TF.N.

 

I disagree. You certainly are fanboys. Just not of GL. You see the OOT as the perfect version of the Star Wars trilogy, despite several (mostly unavoidable) flaws that were fixed in the SE's. Your ability to look past these technical flaws parallels the gushers' ability to look past GL's flaws as a storyteller. Hence, you are fanboys, and there'e nothing wrong with that.

Well, it's by no means perfect, but that doesn't mean it needs fixing either.  I was one of the ones that was perfectly ok with the 97 SEs.  I, like many others, drew the line at putting Hayden in at the end of ROTJ.  That has nothing to do with not liking Hayden though.  It had to do with many things, one of which is that many people would say "What the hell?  Who's that?  Didn't Luke just take off his helmet and he was old?  How did he get young again?"

As far as matte lines and other technical errors, I also didn't even know what they were until after the SEs came out.  I even saw the movies on laserdiscs and almost couldn't figure out what they were the first time I saw them.  I believe myself and a friend called them "matte boxes" or something like that.  We assumed, correctly, that it had something to do with the blue screen work from back in the day.

There are many other movies that have similar technical flaws, but most of them have received remastered, non fixed versions.  That's all we're asking for.  Nothing more, nothing less.  We don't want the story changed each and every time it's released (ala Greedo shooting first) because it's just not necessary.  If GL wants to change it everytime, that's fine, just give us one release of the OOT that's completely remastered and we'll stop bugging about it.  Since that's not likely to happen, we'll just continue with things the way we have been.

In my view, a "fanboy" accepts everything Lucas says or puts out like it's the greatest thing in the world.  Even a guy I use to be good friends with said "It was a deliberate creative decision" when I asked him about the reversed sound channels on the 04 DVDs.  He had finally bought into everything, hook line and sinker, despite the fact that it only effected the R1 discs.  To me, that's a fanboy.  I may have been like that up until the 97 SEs, but I'm not like that anymore.  No thanks George, I've had enough.

I hadn't seen that!  That was awesome!

GhostAlpha26 said:

 

HAHAHAHAHA. That was awesome. I have heard the alternatives from reviewers and fanboys (such as yourself) world wide. Maybe you are right about how truly amazing this film is its making ordinary internet users go crazy, The Joker has won. This movie is profound.

 

 

I'm not a fanboy (at least I wouldn't call myself one).  I only know Batman from the movies and the old TV show with Adam West.  I don't know the comics or most of the mythos.  I definitely don't know enough of it to know all the characters, especially by their real names (I had no idea Harvey Dent in Batman was suppose to be Two-Face, which is why I didn't know why it was a problem for B.D. Williams to be playing him until I talked to friends that have read the comics).  I wouldn't say the movie is "profound", but I think as a sequel to what was essentially a franchise "reboot" it was a very good movie.

GhostAlpha26 said:

 

lordjedi said:

Well, I guess you know me so well then, don't ya.  Here's a cookie

I was thinking more along the lines of, Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity, but its obvious we see things differently :p

lordjedi said:

Have we gotten to the point, again, where we need every little thing explained (bus coming out of bank, convict throwing away detonator, etc, etc)?

 

lordjedi said:

What other holes does it have?

No, I answered your question. Its often how things work.

 

I re-quoted myself showing you that I was not interested in your explanations to my reasons of why I did not like the movie after watching it twice. Especially seeing as the person providing the alternate explanations has shown on more than one occasion  he doesnt quite remember how all the scenes played out :)

Wow.  So you resort to name calling now?  Thanks for proving how much of an asshole you really are.

Yes, we see things differently.  I enjoy a good movie, even if it does have a few holes in it.  Apparently I enjoy a good movie more than about 90% of the population here.  It seems like most of you guys love nothing better than to tear the latest blockbuster apart when it doesn't match your vision of how the movie should have been.

Who gives a flying fuck how all the scenes played out?  Seriously.  Oh noes, I don't remember how a few scenes play out!  Guess what, it makes my opinion just as valid as yours, which is to say not very much anyway.  I technically was only mistaken on one scene since, after rewatching the fall scene 5 times, his cape does flare up and make sound, just like I said the first time.  I don't really care if it fits your vision of what's required to survive a fall like that.

I've said before that I don't care if something doesn't make sense.  I still liked the movie.  You have your opinion and I have mine.  Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink.  The difference is, I'm at least willing to hear alternative explanations for some of the scenes represented.  You don't seem to give a shit either way.  As far as you're concerned, the scenes were stupid and that's all there is to it.  I have often wondered why you even bothered to explain the problems you had with the movie with an attitude like that.  Most people would at least be willing to hear an alternative.

skyjedi2005 said:

To be fair to negative 1 the dialogue is different in the final film than in the shooting script.

You want the llines as they were delivered in the film you need the transcripts aka continuity scripts.

I disagree.  If you want the lines as they were delivered, you need to watch the movies.  Only then can you get the tone, inflection, and the actors ability in it's true context.  I'm sure if the lines had received the same delivery as the PT lines did, they'd be downright dry and boring.