skyjedi2005

Actually a Monopoly is bad for free economics because they can charge more money and have less or zero Competition  When the companies compete it is better for the consumer.

That is why the government has anti trust laws in place forbidding monopolies yet Billy Gates has so much money Microsoft does not have to play by the rules.  They can buy up all their competitors legally.  Bad for everyone except Bill Gates wallet and his shareholders wallet and the wallets of the lobbyists and politicians in Washington who grease the wheels and allow illegal monopolies to continue.

Where i live Verizon has the monopoly on fiber optic lines so they can charge whatever they please when if there was competition the costs would be less.

Monopolies are almost always bad for the consumer and i don't know of a single one in history that has been beneficial.   

Now Microsoft OS is under a patent does not prevent other companies from creating their own operating systems, but the little startups being bought up by gates does.   Bad for Us the consumer bad for free thinking and development of competing technology. 

I find it funny that the Pirates of Silicon Valley as that movie pretty Much states we will always only have Apple and Microsoft competing.

I cannot stand Jobs or Gates.

I like the PC better than the Mac.  The mac is designed for ease of use and to be retard proof.  PC has better games.  Better Software.  Better customization.  More overall processing power, can build better gaming rigs.   Mac Good for editing video, or for rendering that's it as far as i know.   Well the new ones supposed to be an entertainment machine playing Video and audio from the itunes store.   Shitty quality movies and audio i call a de-evolution not a revolution.  Not when i can have DVD quality movies and CD quality music why get mp3 at 320 kbps garbage.  Worse quality than a casette tape, lower quality than even broadcast radio.

I still stick by my statement though Despite the very personal Connection Tolkien had to the Silmarillion the real meat of the story come into play in Lord of the Rings.  Similar to the Meat of the Story in Star wars Being the films now known as IV-V-VI.

People like me who are huge tolkien fans and go for source hunting and enjoy the backdrop of feigned history in fiction may get into the Silmarillion, though the Majority of Readers love The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and cannot abide the Silmarllion.  Christopher Tolkien said they call it the Old Testament.

Someone like Stephen King gives no apology over his literary Critcism that Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece and reading the Silmarillion was a bore like reading a dictionary.  I don't agree with his statement but it seems to fall in line with the general opinion of readers. 

Tolkien Believed the same people who hated and could not understand Beowulf would also hate The Silmarllion. I like beowulf and the Silmarillion myself so i come down on Tolkiens side and not the side of the Literati as they call themselves who choose what is literature and what is not.  They banished LOTR as being not real literature so they can go fuck themselves as far as i am concerned.

If they prefer Joyce Ulysees to Tolkien then thats their problem.

Now all Lucas had to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision. LOL!

The Cgi version of Himself will direct the movies at the same quality as he does now without him being there.  He can have the cartoon cgi version of Himself yell at the computer graphic artists and tell them which scenes he wants jar jar inserted into.

To answer your question Ziz the Yoda from the 80's the Stewart Freeborn/ Frank OZ one was better than the Rob Coleman cgi one.

Puppets look more real than a computer graphic.  They are not ones and zeros.  You can actually see them, the puppeteers put a lot of their own humanity into them.

Yoda comes out of the genius that was Jim Henson.  Henson was not available because he was doing pre production on the dark crystal so they had Frank Oz do it.

He would have been busy Finishing up the muppet movie for its 1979 release and working on the pre production of dark crystal which was released in 1982.

More boxes of drink coasters. Without a fixed 2004 dvd, and an unwatchable gout. 

Messed up colors, messed up sound, and lack of anamorphic originals in good quality. 

And the black Mattes around the tie fighters are now much more apparent because of Lowrys cleanup and Lucasflims could not use computers to fix those issues.  What about fixing the lightsabers that had poor quality control on the 1997 special editions and were even worse on the 2004.  The 1977 original had prototype Lightsabers not at all consistant with Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi.  whats up with Lukes Greenish white sword on the millenium falcon.  The original was blue white.  In empire it became a more bluer color.

He wrote a series of Medical Novels under a fake name that enventually got made into the show E.R.

He also wrote a book that was his vision of the Beowulf story called Eaters of the Dead, which Became the Film The Thirteenth Warrior.  The Rough Cut of the Film was also called eaters of the dead and followed the book closely, the final film is not as good supposedly as the authors cut.

The novel Jurassic Park was a spectacular work of real science fiction meaning there was actual science involved and Crichton delivered a thriller which was speculative fiction.  Better than the movie.  sequel book The Lost world was not as good and was a letdown when i read it.  Anyhow the sequel movie was worse because it did not even follow the book.  JP Lost World to me is equivalent to Jaws II.

The novel Spectre and Congo both good reads were horrible films.

By the time he got around to that time travel story that was made into a bomb of a movie he was washed up as a writer.

Even as a fan of Crichton's in the 90's now i realize just how overhyped his works are.  His body of work is slim compared to other writers.  If Spielberg did not make films of his books to make him an overnight celebrity would he have tried harder to write some more good books?

John Grisham wrote more novels than he did and had more bestsellers.  That lawyer writer guy and his law thrillers.  Still i Like Crichton Better. 

Who are the new Speculative Science based science fiction authors to follow Crichton?

I am sure the guy called he sequel to Jurassic Park the Lost World because he was aware of the novel By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of the Same name that starred professor challenger.

you know the famous quote from doyle's lost word preface.  "I've wrought my simple plan.  To give one hour of Joy.  To the boy who is half a man, or man who is half a boy"lol.

The one thing i guess that i could say positively about the 1997 special edition was the X-wing and Tie fighter dogfights at the end were made to be Less static.  They tried to make the ships twist and roll realistically and not be seen as following a pre determined motion control track.  Similar things have been done with CGI on Star Trek remastred original series where they Get the Enterprise to actually move in space and not look like a static object moving on a string in front of a backdrop.

They get the movement right with the cgi but i prefer the old Style Models.  Perhaps modern day moviemaking needs to use a bit of both approaches.  I know of one visual effects artist who actually tries to make his effects look like the old models.  He worked on the directors cut of star trek the motion picture.  Darren Dochterman i believe his name is.  He is now doing the cgi effects on the fan production called Phase II formerly known as the New Voyages.

I don't know I think i actaully prefer the newer look of edenfx done on enterprise for the in a mirror darkly.  Fans get all kinds of cgi effects to look at.

Star Wars fans don't have any fan productions as far as i know trying to emulate the Look of the oot and do it all with models and or cgi to look like models.  Seems Like only trek fans are doing it.

Maybe the best star wars fan films are Probably Troops.  gets the oot look. 

All the rest seem to be prequel trilogy wannabe films produced by the tfn crowd.

A backstory is just that a backstory.  It is notes that the novelist or screenwriter writes down to give the stories a kind of historical depth.

Like Tolkien had ages of middle Earth before you get to the story of Frodo in Lord of the Rings.  A fictional backstory is a framing device of sorts.  It tells you about the world its people, who they are what they are etc.  These are usually only for the authors benefit and never shown.

The original 400 page Rough Draft script is the actual Blue Print for the entire star wars saga. 

It stars Annikin Starkiller as the Hero.  Whose Father is Kane Starkiller.  Who's Love Interest is a Princess Leia but not the sister Leia.  Who's father Kane Starkiller entrusts the training of Annikin to his friend Old General Luke Skywalker the protype of Obi wan Kenobi.  Han Solo exists in the script as a spice runner and is a slimy alien with gills and no nose and in another draft called Jabba the Hut.  The lightsaber Is called a lazersword (lucas spelling).  There is an evil dictator with a wicked moustache called cos dashit.  His right hand men are general Vader and Prince Valorum a Black Knight of the Sith, who in the end switches sides to join the good guys because the bad guys lack an honor code.

Lucas never actually wrote the young days of ben Kenobi or Lukes Father and just thought it might make a neat idea for a film somewhere down the line.  When he mentioned this idea back in the seventies to the person Interviewing him for Rolling Stone magazine Luke's Father and Darth Vader were still 2 seperate people.

Prequel to the Prequels have already been done in books Like the Darth Bane trilogy, the Kotor games, the star wars chronology, The Knights of the Old Republic Comics, Tales of the Jedi and Sith War comics. 

In novels they uncovered the Machinations of Papatine to Unseat Chancellor Valorum through lies and treachery.  That novel i believe i cannot recall the name was the prequel to episode 1.

The Prequel to episode 2 was written by Alan Dean Foster.

Labyrinth of Evil i believe was the Prequel to Episode III.

The prequel in book form to episode IV is Dark Lord the Rise of Darth Vader, and a further prequel to episode IV was delivered in the forms of the Force Unleashed Game, and Purge comics.

The far future Series which would be set more than a hundred years after the Legacy of the Force Novel series is the Legacy comics.

The skywalker Bloodline continues into this series.

Any farther back than Anakin Skywalkers birth would there be stories of an Earlier Skywalker bloodline was Shmi the first Skywalker to give birth to a force sentitive Like Anakin or did anakin have jedi ancesters or whatever the force users were called before the existance of jedi.  I think they were called Whills, or WHill users and also called the ashla. The ancestors of the sith were called the Bogan.

negative1 said:

 

 i mentioned in another thread that the Star Wars franchise has generated over US$20 billion

dollars... i'm not sure how much the Trek series has.

 

but there's no way you're going to stop something with that much financial momentum..

unless peoples interest go away like they did in the late 80's-late 90's..(but even then

there was still merchandise)..

 

will the new tv show, and live action show coming out, books, comics, action figures, etc

for star wars... i doubt it will EVER end......

trek, i'm not so sure about, they've done a pretty good job of killing off interest in the

series ever since they went overboard with all the spinoffs.. if 'enterprise' hadn't been

cancelled maybe there would be more fans? but i think this new movie is the last gasp

of the trek series..... its possible it might come to an end (but not the merchandise though)...

 

later

-1

Yeah except Lucas had to destroy the original star wars trilogy to get rich.

As for the JJ trek film Paramount does not care if it is garbage as long as it makes money like That piece of shit Cloverfield did.  MIII was totally a boxoffice bomb according to the Suits at Paramount.  Though they blamed that on Tom Cruise.  Just like they blamed the bomb of a speilberg film war of rthe worlds on cruise.  Instead of Spielberg.  They allowed him and Lucas to destroy the Indiana Jones franchise to make 700 million worldwide.

Money should never be a bar to the enjoyment of something or how great a piece of work, or art it is.  The old star wars trilogy would remain close to my heart even if it did not make tons of money.

Lucas is a good business man as far as the bottom Line goes.  His shareholders must be pleased.  But as a storyteller or being loyal to  his fans he sucks.

But also on the other side of the coin he is a very bad businessman because he does not give people what they want.  Also he keeps the one golden asset he has which would make him even richer the original originals from being released in anamorphic form. 

He refuses a fixed colors and sound version of the 2004 dvd's, he refuses the theatrical cuts for the prequels to people who want them.  He refuses the 1997 special editions to those who want him.

In other words the thing he is best at is f***ing over his fans.

The blu ray format won the format wars.  and Has the Amount of physical disc space and specifications to give the fans what they want.  Give them an Uber box set with 3 remastered and properly fixed versions of the trilogy.   For the fans of the prequels he can give them the 2 different versions and possibly give those who want a fixed Yoda in Episode 1 a third edit of the film. 

I personally don't care if the 2004, 1997, or prequels are ever released again.  I only  want the oot remastered and restored to its original state via the standards outlined by Robert Harris.

If the Ridey Scott's of the world, the Steven Speilberg's, and Francis Ford Coppola's can give people what they want on blu ray and dvd why cannot Lucas.

His stubborness is irritating and takes out any enjoyment i would get out of the prequels or special editions if i even get any from those films.  When the oot gets its due i will give the other films the status they deserve of a far far away second place in my collection.

As far as i know the Ayers thing is guilt by association. 

It is like if you drove your friend up to rob a bank, and you only drove the car and stole nothing still Guilty by association.

You could talk all day about Bush's ties and associations, but i don't see the point because he is on the way out.  He is not running.  Had a documentary Like farenheit 911 been produced before Bush was ever president Maybe he would not get elected.  The documentary made claims Bush family has ties to Osama's family, there we go with the guilt by association again.

The Barack osama thing i thought was a Romney thing. 

I guess he thought he was being funny i don't know.

Kind of reminds me of his tar baby remarks about MA.  Once is a mistake, twice you are a racist.  I believe that is the consensus.

Is it any wonder his Liutenant Governor Healey lost Against Deval Patrick an outspoken supporter of Obama.

Healey was not racist as far as i am concerned but her ties to mitt who some call "mutt" cost her.

Of course Mrbrown Racism is an issue.  What do you expect Obama is the first African American to ever run for President and receive the nomination of either party. He may be half white, half black.  Does not matter to me.  as long as he was really born in Hawaii then he is an American end of story. 

One thing you don't hear about are the racist Black People.  I bet you anything there are those who are against him for being a malado and not pure black heritage.  Their are racist black people as well as white people.

I am sure the Racism would insult Martin Luther King if he was still with us.  He would be quite pleased though with the giant leap forward of a African American being viewed as equal to a white man in the presidential race.   equality was something king fought for and died for. Because an Obama can run people should be proud to be American.  MLK's sacrifice was not in vain.

Martin Luther King should have been the first Black President, perhaps in fear of this he was shot dead.  Though he was a man of god and not a politician.  He put his faith into action it was more than just words.

Actually once Sylar turned out to be the third Petrelli Brother i stopped watching the show.  That was too much like a George Lucas-ism thing to do, totally jumped the shark.

Having The Cheerleader go bad, and Sylar is really her uncle and all that bullshit was stupid.

Hiro's still a good guy right?  This season and Season 2 sucked.   Good lord i'll just watch my dvd's of season 1 again.  Why Tim Kring needed to drag this show out and become a soup opera in season 2  and 3 when he could have told the storyline in 2 full seasons is beyond me.  I guess money is the only reason. 

The best new writer/director of sci fi tv sold out in the same way JJ Abrams and Joss Whedon have done previously.  Nowadays  that might as well be called pulling a Lucas or a Spielberg.

Hmm, so Lord of the Rings was actaully shot on film.  Another reason why it is so much better than Star Wars Prequels.  Yeah Episode 1 was shot on Film.  But after it was scanned and made into a digital copy they did the color grading and made it look overly bright like a video game.  The same thing was done with Indiana Jones IV.

Too much cgi, colorist should be fired.  Makes the average viewer think they were shot on HDvideo.  Well at least Indiana Jones IV had lots of defined film grain like Lord of the Rings though the finished movie left a lot to be desired.  Episode 1's dvd looks like it had been heavily dvnr and has bad edge enhancement.

I cannot remember if the theater i saw it at was different.  Mostly i remember fine grain and stuff during the tatooine scenes.  Not sure if this detail is brought out in the HD bootleg.

One thing i don't like about Lord of the Rings is its unnatural color which was obviously a choice made in the digital grading of the image.  Overly blue and green hues, mostly cold blues.  Goldish Tones in some scenes etc.

Something similar was done to the Underworld films and Pans Labyrinthe to give it that aged stroybook look.  I kept thinking to myself peter jackson's go a little wild with the blue filter,lol.

Some films that unnintentionally also have these problems are Lowry clean up jobs.  I noticed this on star wars and empire strikes back, and from russia with love.

Bringing a dying friend who is a fan of the oot to see the Phantom Menace would be cruel in the extreme.  First they would see their beloved saga actually die on screen when Jar Jar first pops up on screen.  Then the person would actually die later in the hospital with visions of Jar Jar in their head.  The last living memory the person has on this Earth is George Lucas raping their childhood.

The only possible positive here is that if they also happened to be a Fan of Indiana Jones and Died in 1999 they would not have lived to see The raping of Indiana Jones via Kingdom Of the Crystal Skull. 

Those south park guys went to far but man was that Howard the Duck Pinball machine a bit funny. Also a Willow pinball machine but i like Willow,lol.  Also i only liked Howard because of the Lea Thompson character.  Other than that man that was a bad movie and the Villain was played by the Principal from Ferris Buellers day off.  You have Rooney turning into an alien,lol.  But of course the principal out to get Bueller put on a couple hundred pounds and gained a fat neck and ended up on deadwood,lol.  They could have always had George Lucas play the part of the newspaper press guy, instead.  Rofl.

I love how Negative 1 has something on Gout in HD.  Because everytime he posts on the gout.  some advertisement comes up on how there is a cure for gout.  This gout has a cure it is called George Lucas gets off his fat ass and pays money to have an anamorphic scan done of the film prints.

Actually the HD releases did not happen as soon as some would have liked because Jackson had a lawsuit against newline over the dvd sales royalties and airing on television and what not.  That case has since been settlled and the Hobbit Films production is moving forward.  Yet New Line and Sael Zaentz Never payed the Tolkien Estate their royalties that were due.  Manches and Co has been pursuing a lawsuit in the British Court system to get the tolkien rights back from Tolkien Enterprises owned by Saul Z obviously and has nothing to do with Christopher Tolkien or J.r.r. tolkien's heirs.

If the rights revert to Christopher Tolkien not only will the 2 hobbit films never get made.  But their will be no more home video releases on blu ray or dvd of a trilogy that was produced in Breech of contract with the story authors heirs.

If the Estate receives their money their should be no foul right?

But in this case Christopher Tolkien did not like the artistic License Jackson and New Line made to his fathers books.  He believes they were butchered. 

Amazingly enough Simon Tolkien, Christopher Tolkiens eldest son from a previous marriage who never talks to his father and has a strained relationship with him Is one of Jackson's supporters and thinks Jackson kept the heart of his Grandfathers tales intact.

Turns out that The Silmarillion and all its parts have been protected by being sullied by Hollywood.  These works are protected except for the bare mention of them in the LotR, or the Hobbit plot,or lotr appendices.

Now i believe Christopher Tolkien has always been against his Fathers sale of the Rights to the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, since his father could not have predicted fifty some odd years after publishing the book it would make billions of dollars for a film studio at the expense of the Books being sullied.

Tolkien's Master work that was the work of his heart was the Silmarillion and remains Unfinished,  Lord of the Rings has become known as his Master work because it was finished and published and remains Consistant, mostly between its different parts.  Only certain little odd things remain in the final book that the average reader would miss like remnents of discarded drafts.  The beginning being mostly Light hearted and clearly a sequel to the hobbit still remains into the book.

Keith Olberman.  I can't seem to really recall.  Is he the nut that thinks Bush should be tried for War Crimes.  and that Bush is Un-American then no he would not be a fair and balanced reporter as he is playing to the very far sociialist left.  Only Liberals could say with a straight face that Bush should have been Hung Side by side with Saddam.  That was not spoken by Olberman but must be implied.  That quote actually comes from Imus.   You know that idiotic Liberal who also made the nappy headed ho remarks, and other racist stuff like the thing about the black quarterback.  you know the comment where he asked was he black when he was arrested.

Their are factions of nutcases in both Parties one Side leans all the way to the left, the other all the way to the right.  We need to return balance to politics and the white house.   At the same time it would not hurt to get back to non biased fact based journalism something that has been missing from America for a long time.

Even a far left liberal like Cronkite had class something someone like Olberman will never have.

McCain is a Moderate and is closer to what i am looking for.  Obama too far to the left and Bush now Considered to be so far to the right he may as well be a loon.  Democrats have to Make an enemy out of McCain who has reached across parties lines in the past and wants more Bipartisanship.  They have to make him Look Like an Arch Right Wing Conservative Extremist Christian to meet their goals of having Obama take office.

The problem that Conservatives has with McCain is that he is not one of them, Because of that he has my vote but they see that as a stumbling block.  Too bad he has had to play to the Republican Faction of Reactionaries, when he should be more clearly targeting middle America and not just the rich.  Obama has done a better job doing the targetting of the average american.  Even though he is not one of them he has to pretend he is to get elected.

Who were the last Presidents who were able to inspire hope in this nation.  I know JFK of course was president around the time right before the country went all negative starting in the 1960's.  The Sixties and Seventies were a nonsensical time and are very much a blur in this country except for the vietnam war, hippies and drugs and music.  I guess the first President who Inspired the same Optimism as Kennedy was a Republican by the name of Ronald Reagan.  And then Bush Sr. became President and it has been one negative slope from their on down, even though Clinton Tried the Optimism thing in his first years in the white house scandals already wrecked anything good he could have done.  Bush Jr's Idealism Strengthened the nation after blowjobgate and 911 but then collapsed under a war poorly planned and executed proving he was a nincompoop.

Race is an issue people would like to ovoid but it is an issue.  We are at war with Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.  People have a fear of having someone with a Muslim name and looks like a muslim during these times.  Would it not have been similar during world war II have a japanese or German sounding name and looking like the face of the enemy?

Is if fair no i would say not.  But people cannot take a chance that he might be a communist plant or a islamic radical, or at least has any ties to these things at all.

As racist as it is White people did not fly those planes into the buildings on 911 so americans feel safer voting for someone who does not have dark skin.

To me personally The fact that he is a malado or comes from mixed heritage has nothing to do with who i vote for.  Even if his middle name makes him seem to be related to Saddam that is not why i would not vote for him.

His very ideas are the same as those the Russians imposed on their people during the cold war that is why i will vote for McCain.

Our enemies are hoping for an Obama prisidency because they want the downfall of the west.  We don't need to talk to terrorist nations or terrorist states that Harbor ill will and want to kill americans and our allies.

We have always sent a clear message not to sit down and have nogosiations with terorrists.  Obama would set a bad trend by doing so.  One of the dumbest things Clinton ever did was try something similar with North Korea and because of that Americans or Jews could be nuked from the face of the Earth.  They have Nuclear capability and it happened on Both Clinton and Bush's watch.

Actually my statement about not Nogosiating with terorists seems to be in Error.  Generally it is Democrats who have no such problems.  Presidents Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton all did this mistaken thing.

The enemy understands and repects fear and force.  They will see us as sheep to their being wolves if we sit down with them.  Also this gives them the advantage.  The thing that needs to be done and bring the terrorists to their knees and then unconditional surrender like we did with Japan.  okay i'm not saying we need to nuke Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea.  We also have enemies in the chinese and the russians.

Good god if Bush actually went after the so called "axis of evil" we would be at war with most of the world, truly scary.  Also our once allies are one step away from Turning traitor.  and have been called Traitors by the Us mainly the French.

That being said i am not against Diplomacy with Terms and conditions.  Depends on what these very things mean. 

So Obama has Christian teaching on his side when he wants to make peace with our enemies.  "Blessed are the peacemakers because they shall be called children of God"

Good Luck most Americans will believe the guy is a muslim even if he professes faith in Christ and is a baptist.   If Obama would actually talk about Religion, about Christianity and make a case for the end of the war and economic return to normalcy i would vote for him.  So far i have heard nothing at all of the kind out of his mouth.

Is he pro choice It is against Christian teaching to be so.  Many have been kicked out of the Church for that.

I truly believe the Christians were the deciding Factor in the Last election and that Kerry Could have won if he had only been Pro life.  I would have voted for him if he was as that was the Deciding factor for me voting for Bush.  Supposedlly Millions of Christian Vote went to Bush.  Kerry could have done what democrats normally do and lie or flip flop, but at least he was honest with the people of this country over his beliefs.  Whether that belief got his excommunicated form the Catholic Church he worshipped at is another thing altogether.

I would ask Americans what does Liberty and its definition mean to them.  Muslims and people of all walks of life etc deserve to be treated equal.  Regardless of Race, creed, Religion or sexual preference.

The forefathers may have not intended for the "  all Men are created equal"  to extend to Black people and Woman but i believe strongly in the newer adoption that does include them.

I also believe in the pledge of allegiance it says "with Liberty and Justice for all".  Not for the few.  I am wholheartedly against the racial stereotyping of American Muslims and Believe this Practice by the homeland defense should stop.

I may not  agree with someone elses beliefs but also my beliefs are neither recognized or denied under american Law because of seperation of church and state.  Similarly to how you may get married in a Church before god.   The state  does not care for any silly belief as they call it, only the legal Marriage License is recognized.   Nor can one be in state or Federal Government Let their holy book or religion Determine their actions there, only The contitution matters.

American Citicen's who are Relgious can vote based on their faith, even though it is supposed to be against the constitutional laws.   It is kind of a contradiction.  You have freedom of speech and religion to do vote your choice, even though they would prefer it if people knew more about the consitution than they did the bible, the Koran, torah. whatever.

I remember years ago reading a comment Joseph Campbell said.  He said we had lost our liberty by rejoining the greater british empire and in our expansion we became an empire to conquer the world.

So according to him the colonials with the french's help freed us from the british for nothing.

This is like during the 1980's.  i wish i could find the direct quote.

Anybody who saw the Batman movie with the wiretapping phone listening knows what  Liberty is.  lol

Turns out hunter6 was right.  I posted some criticisms on the trekmovie.com site and was automatically banned no warning from a mod or an e-mail, nothing.  But my posts don't show when i post them.

So much for free speech.  The forums nazis over there must love their little nerd life of banning people for no good reason.

Perhaps i should go to TFN and get banned there as well for saying how shitty the clone wars is.

I just hope the worst does not happen and star trek Branches off into another continuity, the JJ verse of trek.

It is either in the Spirit of Roddenberry or the Trekkies will boycott on opening day.

I mean their are so many subdevisions of the continuity already the pure roddenberry one.  The Nicholas Meyer and Nimoy one, The Shatner verse which is thankfully mostly kept to the novels except for star trek V.  The Berman/moore verse.

Good Luck on that! Lol.   Seriously though I too wish i could get my money back for Indiana Jones IV.  The critics in entertainment weekly gave it 3 out of 4 stars on their rating scale 4 of course being the highest.  It is the critics job to tell you how awful a movie is.  In the past they had lied about how great Revenge of the Sith was as well. 

Recently though Critics May be coming around with their reviews of Clone Wars 2008 movie.

I think critics find it easy to lash out at lucas but they give steven spielberg a pass because he directed Shindlers List, and Saving Private Ryan.  When Lucas was responsible for the prequels and Howard the Duck.

And up until War of the Worlds and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Spielberg made films not videogames, unlike Lucas all his movies starting with Episode 1 look like a videogame.

The thing is the Gout is already altered.  Grain removed by process of dvnr.  Letterbox 4:3 instead of Anamorphic, not the original techniclor, colors are faded.  Not the theatrical sound mixes.

Their is nothing original about it.  Its does not even make a Close Approximation of what people saw in the theater in 1977, 1980, or 1983.  Except it does not have cgi like the 1997 or 2004 versions.

Lucas did a cut and paste Job on the 2006 A new Hope bonus disc by adding the non a new hope crawl to the beginning of the movie in hopes of tricking people into thinking it was the original release.

But that did not cost him any additional money since the opening star wars crawl was already telecined for the Empire of Dreams documentary.  Therefore proving he could go about undertaking an entirely new anamorphic telecine of the originals, except he does not want to.

Well it really depends on if you go to the movies as a critic or as a person looking to be entertained for a couple of hours.

Still there are films as art form, films as social commentary.  And films with big budget special effects called blockbusters.  The difference Is Blockbusters today don't put the story first or use it as a driving force for the movie the cgi effects are the movie.  I mean it is absurd and stupid it would be like putting the carriage before the horse so to speak.

The Cgi, the sets, the special effects.  Lucas once called special effects the window dressing and stated that the plot and story and characters had to take center stage.

Films today are incredibly bankrupt in story creativity, whereas the effects are sophisticated Unlike they have ever been before.  The Nineties and early 2000's push the CGi and digital domain forward but at the cost of the characters and the script.

Today's Movies may not be remembered years from now like the films of the 70's and 80's i grew up on and that is okay to me, Forgettable popular entertainments and fads come and go.

Some things can have lasting popular Appeal even if one does not understand the reasons for them being so.  I personally don't get Harry Potter, or Pokemon but they are lasting franchises with popular appeal.

I understand Things Like Star Wars or star trek, or lord of the rings. 

I liked them as a kid and i still like them.  Other things don't survive adult sensibilties Like He Man, or Transformers.

I won't Lie their were entertaining Moments in the Star Wars prequels.  I was entertained by Kingdom of the Crystal skull but at the same time i left the theater feeling empty and betrayed rather than uplifted.  I had that uplifted feeling after watching star wars and return of the jedi in theaters, empire was the only downer of the three Emotionaly because the rebels lose and the bad guys win and Luke gets owned by Vader and loses his hand.

The only modern films that have come close to the tapping that emotion as the original trilogy is peter jackson's Lord of the rings trilogy.

The films connected with the audience the Viewer or at least me speaking for myself felt attached to the heros journey whether frodo, or Luke.

The prequels did not have that same kind of connection, they were more of a disconnect to me.

Lucas was supposed to build up a deep emotional sympathy for Anakin and i never felt that he did that.

If its supposed to feal like McCallum said Losing a son or daughter, or family member to drugs or some other evil circumstance Lucas failed.  If Lucas was going for the Same Sympathy for the devil as Milton did in paradise lost he ultimetely failed.  Not that is to be fair something within Lucas powers of a director or writer to do.  He is no Shakespeare, No Milton, not even on par with the Stage Playwrights who write for broadways dramas.

Someone i believe who could have pulled it off is Christopher Nolan.  George Lucas?  no way in hell.

It is interesting to think of turning the series on its head and trying to get people to root for the Villain Darth Vader as a hero.  The prequels were the opposite and antithesis everything the original trilogy was not.  You had a fall from grace instead of a heroes triumph Like Luke's in Return of the Jedi.

As a fan of mythology and Storytelling this idea had deep facination for me.  Luke and Are Basically the same prototypical hero but at some point there paths diverge. Luke rejects the dark side and anakin embraces it.

Its to bad Lucas could not put off anakins turn, it could have been the counterpoint to the original trilogy and created a 21st century myth.  Instead we got a mess.  I understand that is what Lucas intention was, he just executed it very poorly.  It was a heroic attempt but he needed to Hire a Director or other writers to help him, in the end he chose what we now have.

It may be the prequel trilogys biggest failing that Star Wars had to go dark and have anti heroes where the original you had all black and white good guys and bad except for the Chracter Han Solo who had shades of grey.  In the prequels the Jedi are Just as bad as the sith and the story plotting makes it confusing to the viewer being Morally ambigious and containing heavy shades of grey or darkness.

The Darkness and brooding prevalent in the prequels is the same mistake he made with THX 1138.   People want real heroes they can root for, they want to be a part of the story the want to chear when the Villain gets his comeuppance.

At the end of the day Luke's story is one i could identify with as if it was the story of me, Anakin's Story i could not give 2 shits about.

But then again i never was a goth kid or misunderstood emo whiny bitch.  Anakin has to be for a different generation than mine.  We wanted to have an active role in things and go out and change the world kind of Optimism.  Anakin is the 90's kid anguished and venting his personal hatred living in his parents basement wearing all black and nobody understands that goth dude,lol.

The prequels seem to me to come out of a deep sense of pessism for humanity and the world.  Perhaps the Lucas with the Sunny Dispostion who made the original trilogy changed or his heart died.

Episode III seems to be quite Fatalist and saying no matter what Anakin could not change his fate.  Indeed he is damned because he tries to take an active role in changing it.  Much like the story of Oedipus.  Anakin's fate as the chosen one was to destroy the sith from within as seen in Return of the Jedi.  Though the force seems to not have cared about Padme, all the butchered Younglings, or the countless million or billion killed in the galactic civil war and before during the empires rise.

Actually to be honest the only reason everything goes dark and evil is because it is in the script, talk about Lazy writing and directing.  Because Anakin has to go bad for episodes IV, V and VI to happen.  If he did not those movies would not exist,lol.

The prequels did not need to be made period.  You could figure out about the empires rise and vaders fall from the original trilogy alone through inference it did not have to be shown.  The prequels had to be written as a backstory for the original trilogy to exist.  But the Original trilogy was the real meat of the story.

You could make a much better case before the prequels were ever made to Figure out what happened to Luke after Return of the Jedi and the Empire's remnant. But that story does not need to be told because the original trilogies story is self contained and in Return of the Jedi Lucas seemed to put a neat little bow and tied everything together.

The Clone Wars which were mentioned in a conversation between Luke and Ben in Star Wars which sounded so intensely Interesting Because of Alec Guiness Oscar worthy performance.  Ended up being the least interesting part of the prequels, at least to me.

Okay it helped Lucas show where the stormtroopers came from and where Boba Fett came from but i don't care where the fuck they came from, geez.  So the Cloned Men and Conscripts made up the Military in the oot who cares.  The fake war between the seperatists and the Republic was the Revenge of the Sith to try and thin the jedi's ranks.  They lost the war as soon as they started fighting it.  Jedi are keepers of the peace not soldiers.  I would find it hard to find a more boring and mundane sci fi trilogy than star wars episodes 1-3.  The entire plot is filler and backstory for 4-6.

It amounts to Along with the 2008 clone wars movie a couple to a few exciting Space battles and Lightsaber duels,but zero substance.  seven and a half hours of your life wasted thats about it.

It seems to me  the existance of Lucas's prequels Trilogy is to strip the Lustre and Magic away from the original trilogy and ruin it.

I mean it would be like a kid who has a facination with magic tricks for instance, and then the kid learns how it is done and it is ruined for him.

Episode 1-3 were to deconstruct the original trilogy and show how everything came about.

You have to remember Lucas in college was about film without story.  He was into the french New wave and something called Cinema Verite where filmed are composed with montage and can resonate themes and ideas with the viewer but often no script is needed or just a bare plot.  Lucas never was about story he was always about plot.

I think People got confused because Lawrence Kasden Wrote 2 brilliant scripts with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Empire Strikes back.  The Huycks wrote the best dialogue of the first star wars.  Lucas credits them with 30% of the final screenplay.  Not sure how much of Graffiti is theirs also.  I know Walter Murch helped Lucas write THX 1138.

He always had friends helping Him with Scripts Until he made the prequels and Indy 4 he became obstinate and set in his ways that he had to write, edit and direct them himself to not get his vision muddied.  He believes Both Kurtz and Kershner ruined and Muddied Empire strikes back.

The idea that a writer, director, editor, and producer all in one the one man filmaker is from the french new wave and they called it auteur theory.  Truffeut, Goddard and others followed this.

Now to be Fair to Lucas all his companions have also had their share on failures and flops.

Indiana Jones Temple of Doom, Radioland Murders, and Howard the Duck were written by the Huycks.  Kershner ended up directing Never say never again.  Kasden never wrote another good script after Empire and Raiders, and ended up later making a bad stephen King movie.

Other than the Dark Crystal and Return to OZ Kurtz went nowhere after he was kicked out of Lucasland.

I should add:

The mummy  3

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D

Hulk Remake with Guy from Fight Club and Girl from Lord of the Rings

I must Put Indiana Jones Kingdom of the Crystal Skull up here again that movie was all kinds of awful.  The Kind of Bad that comes along once in a lifetime like seeing Plan 9 from outer space part 2.  When does a series get so retarded that it becomes self parody.

T-3 Rise of the Machines

Clone Wars 2008 if i forgot to add it lets make sure i list it several times in the same thread since it was pure turkey.

Episodes 1-3   belong on this list. 

Phantom Menace mostly because of Jar Jar binks.  Clone and Sith because it was an Emo Bitch Drama.

Jumper, my god i thought sam Jackson and Hayden were only horrible in the prequels boy was i wrong.

I still have not given my verdict on Iron Man or the Dark Knight yet.  But man is that Wolverine movie going to suck, and that Underworld prequel without that hot chick that made the first 2 worth watching. That will suck.

I predict Transformers 2 will Nuke the Fridge in all sorts of ways.  I am split on Whether Star Trek 2009 is going to suck.  The new bond supposedly sucks.  Oh well maybe they will have to recast him again and reboot again in 2 or 3 films time.

I say how about the Matrix Revolutions was by far the worst of the three movies. 

Oh shit sam Jackson again Triple X state of the Union without Vin Diesel and some rapper,lol.

Every Fast and the Furious film except the first 1.

The Chronicles of Riddick

I thought Hellboy II sucked just not as bad as the first.

My thoughts on the Terminator Movies by James Cameron.  The first one a balls to the wall low budget b movie with tons of action, a bit of a horror movie here and thriller there.  It does not strike the same emotions as Part 2 did.  Part 2 took the concept of the first and made it into an allegory on mans self destructiveness.

Part 3 started the trend with the terminator babe that continues on the tv series.  Otherwise neither have anything to do with James Cameron as far as i'm concerned either he made a canon T-3 or all that shit is alternate universe stuff.

They can make Terminator Movies without him.  Kind of Like Universal Pictures has the right to make Back to the Future sequels without the director or writers.

Paramount can make as many derivative Star Treks as they want because the Roddenberry family does not own the property gene r created.

The one Person i know of they cannot make movies based on his stories without his consent is George Lucas.  No Star Wars by some no name writer or director upstart.   Plus once he is gone i believe he has it written into his will Iron clad that no new star wars can be made.  Most Likely also in his will to prevent the oot ever be restored.

oops double post.  Post comment below.

Sourced from the D2 gout master tapes without question.

That does not mean Lucas could spend millions of dollars to do a restoration of the originals for blu ray, he just does not want to. The guy is a billionaire believe me he can afford it he already spent millions on a 3D process for 3d jar jar and episode 1,lol.

As Robert Harris once stated it may be difficult to restore the oneg to the shape it was in pre special edition but would be worthwhile.  Those missing segments would have to be replaced with footage an internegative or interpositive i believe.  I think Lucas still has the YCM color seperation masters and is just lying to us because he does not want us to have the originals in as good quality as the 2004 edit.

Of course it is also entirely possible that the story of the negative being in awful shape when then went back to it is true, but Lucas did further damage to it to create the special edition when his original intention was just to repair the damaged segments, clean up the effects like matte lines and such, and produce a cleaner soundtrack on modern equipment.  The greedo shooting first thing was done later.

Again as a privately owned Business by Lucas it was his and Lucasfilms reposnsiblity to see to the storage of such an asset as the original camera negative.  For a rich dude to let it sit in a vault unseen for twenty years go back and find out it was stored and or cared for impoperly is pathetic but not unheard of in Hollywood.  But this was not Hollywood Lucas owns the negatives to his own films and is solely repsonsible they they are kept in their original state.  Recutting the oneg has to be the biggest crime in cinema history.

Supposedly the First film was in the worst shape because they continued to print off the negative which is something you never do.  You are supposed to create dupes for those purposes you never should print straight off the negative for a home video release, Harris has said people who do that should be fired.

Harris was able to bring back Lawrence of Arabia, and the Godfather back to their original state he could do the same for star wars.  All Lucas had to do is give the guy a call.

Though i doubt the guy would he is such a stubborn ass.  Calling Harris now would be like Lucas admitting he was wrong, something that is not allowed in Lucasland.  He is either right or you can hit the road.  So much for absolutes , only the sith remember believe in absolutes,lol.  Call him Darth Lucas and call it a day.

I have heard the site will get a relaunch in 2009 with the new movie.  If it does well than perhaps the site will stay if not dark days ahead for trekkies.

Who knows maybe the site was to expensive to maintain Like the StarWars.com site was before the premium content was charged for i hope startrek.com does not become a paysite like that, we shall see.

If the JJ picture fails star trek is officially finished.  you cannot spend 150- 200 million dollars on a movie and have it be a massive flop and expect a franchise to be reborn out of that.

They have not gone with the edenFX guys who did tests for tos reamstered but were dropped in favor of cbs in house inferior cgi work.  The edenFX guys did the mirror universe enterprise episodes with The consititution Class defiant .  They also did less than stellar work on nemesis when the effects in nemesis are compared to those ILM did for First Contact.  So ILM got the new film and the cgi budget for the effects is something like 60 million dollars.

Star Trek has always been about the Starship Enterprise if the trailer comes out in november and ILM nails the design the movie will at least get the trekkies into theaters.  Though that alone won't carry a film of this magnitude they have to get general film audience like with star trek IV, and First Contact.

If the enterprise is botched and looks nothing Like the one seen in star trek the motion picture refit, the tv series, or the enterprise A (my personal Favorite) consider this a movie that i will not go to see.

I hope the Enterprise does not look More advanced in trek 2009 than the enterprise E looked, lol.

I remember one of the complaints about the NX-01 was that it looked so much more advanced and newer than the 60's tv enterprise.  This had nothing to do with continuity and everything with the difference in production from the sixties to the 2000s a huge leap forward in effects.  People that expected the effects to be even more primative than the first tv show to make it fit continuity could never be pleased.