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xhonzi

User Group
Members
Join date
30-Oct-2005
Last activity
13-Oct-2020
Posts
6,428

Post History

Post
#572432
Topic
Info: 50% Star Wars Toy (not lego) Coupon at Target this week
Time

You might have gotten a bunch of Easter coupons with your Target ad this week.  One of them is for 50% off a non-lego Star Wars toy.

If you don’t have the coupon, they might have some at the store, or you can text EASTER to TARGET and get the coupon on your phone.

I got a couple of the normally $35 ultimate fx lightsabres for my kids for $15 each.

Post
#572426
Topic
Question regarding PT filming in Tunisia
Time

Bester said:

TheBoost said:

...a huge ammount of model work, puppets, masks, etc.

Not enough, in most people's opinion.  The extensive use of CGI in the PT gave a cartoon-y feel, especially in the space battle sequences (the opening shot of Ep3 springs to mind).  It's hard to argue with that assessment.

I don't think it was the CG that made the opening shot of RotS seem cartoony.  I think it was the cartoon mickey mouse robots making cutesy noises and prancing across the wings of the fighters that made it seem like a cartoon.

Post
#572171
Topic
Last movie seen
Time

doubleofive said:

 

xhonzi said:


doubleofive said:

The Hunger Games (2012)
Am I to understand you went and saw this before you saw John Carter

I am disappoint.  You gave into the machine.
I haven't been to a theater since Breaking Dawn 1 (which I watched for a podcast), and it took us all weekend to convince ourselves we wanted to go to the theater to see this movie we were actually anticipating. Can you imagine how much it takes for us to see a movie neither of us (and indeed, the rest of the world) cared about besides xhonzi?

;-)

 

 

Hmmm... 005 goes and sees Twilight 4 in the theatre.  Doesn't go back to theatre until Hunger Games, an event ENGINEERED IN A LAB to repeat the success of Harry Potter AND TWILIGHT

I rest my case.

(Almost anyways.  I think if you saw John Carter, you'd be on here trying to rouse the rest of the silent geek fan base with me.  Because you'd dig it THAT MUCH.)

Post
#572156
Topic
Which Cut?
Time

Bingowings said:

The new dove and the stunt replacement were fine but changing the dialogue so that Roy says "father" and says sorry to J.F. changes the dynamic of that scene so radically that I think it undermines the whole film.

 I'm pretty sure both "father" and... the other one were both filmed.  I have no source for this other than my memory, but I'd heard about the f'er/father thing way before the Final Cut and thought it was interesting.  Perhaps it was only shot for TV/Airline use, but my rough understanding is it was something other than that.

Maybe the book Future Noir could be of use here.

Post
#571495
Topic
What do you LIKE about the EU?
Time

theprequelsrule said:

I like the idea of the Emperor moving his consciousness from clone to clone, or potentially another individual. It fits in with the dark side philosophy of defying the force (using the force in a very Daoist sense). Obi-wan tells Luke in the beginning of Heir that he has already stayed too long. The Jedi accept death as part of life.

DISCLAIMER: Holy shit! I just realized that what I wrote above could be used by prequel lovers to justify some of the horrible ROTS dialogue! I do not, in any way, condone ROTS dialogue. END DISCLAIMER

I also like the Sith saying "May The Force serve you well" that was introduced in KOTOR as a nice expression of their philosophy and counter to the more familiar Jedi refrain. Disappointing that this was never uttered in the prequels.

I agree.  I wrote my Death and the Force and the dark side stuff here:

 http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-Emperors-New-Clones/topic/11008/

(especially post 5)

Post
#571494
Topic
The Prequels as Envisioned by the (Pre-PT) Expanded Universe
Time

Tom Veitch referred to "Prison Ships used to Transport Jedi during the Clone Wars" early in Dark Empire.  It boggles my mind what he might have been thinking when he wrote that.

Zahn wrote that the Dark Side cave on Dagobah was so since several Dark Jedi from Bpfassh (sp?) died/were destroyed there.  Kind of an interesting thought.

Of course the spaarti cylinders are an interesting item.  The whole bit about how it took a year to grow a full blown clone and the issue with the force driving them mad...

I get the impression from Zahn that cloning Jedi was definitely a big goal during the Clone Wars, but was darn near impossible.

I think Luke&Leia's mom gets a name in one of the books.

I think Luke's dad was called "Tam Skywalker" in one of the early Marvel comics.  But he was called Anakin before the OT was over (at least according to Kenner), so you can probably safely throw that out.

Post
#571063
Topic
Random Thoughts
Time

bkev said:

If there's one thing I'm jealous of my father for it's that he got to go to the 1964 World's Fair.  I can't explain my fascination with it other than the spirit of optimism it must have provided, and the wonder it created - not only for children, but for adults alike.  I have seen the Unisphere, but I was there before I realized its significance.  One day I'll probably walk Flushing Meadows and only try to imagine what it was like.

Have you read Devil in the White City?  It is, in part, about the Chicago World's Fair or 1893.  Pretty fascinating stuff

Post
#571047
Topic
John Carter of Mars
Time

SilverWook said:

Haven't seen the Disney version yet. I did see about half of the SciFi version, and it was pretty awful. The alien makeup was literally falling off an actor's face in some shots.

They also managed to make the most iconic movie location of all time look drab and uninteresting.

It's sad some people have no idea how many stories and films have taken their inspiration from Edgar Rice Burroughs' source material. Disney is probably in shock over getting edged out at the box office by yet another Dr. Seuss movie, and yet another joke fest based on an old tv show.

Meanwhile, that teeny bopper Running Man clone I never even heard of prior to a couple weeks ago, is probably going to gross even more obscene amounts of money than all of them. ;)

And who's fault is that, Silverwook?

SHUNNED! (and IGNORED!)

Post
#570879
Topic
John Carter of Mars
Time

I can't be the only one here who has seen this...  What did you think?

I thought it was fantastic!  I understand that not everyone is the audience for it... but if you're reading this, I'm guessing you're the target audience.

I've never read the novels, so I can't compare there.  It's possible it will offend the purists.  But since most of you aren't JCoM purists, you'll probably enjoy it as much as I did.

If you don't go see it, I might have to start IGNORING you.  Yes, that tactic went over like a lead balloon with Inception.  But it's back, baby!

Post
#570431
Topic
Question for HDTV experts.
Time

djchaseb said:

Yes, HDMI, (ps3).  I've played around with all the settings in both my TV, and PS3, as well as my Sony Blu Ray player and I'm still not seeing the "whole picture".  After doing some reading my DLP TV isn't capable of 1:1 pixel mapping that would enable the whole frame to show up.  It's a rear projection and from what I read, they all have overscan issues.  Saving my pennies for a new 1080p TV that has the 1:1 pixel mapping feature.

720p TV's don't usually support 1:1 pixel mapping for 2 reasons:

1. There isn't a ton of content that is 720p.  It's mostly 480 or 1080p.

2. More importantly, there are virtually no 720p TVs in existance.  Almost all of them are 768p TVs, and whatever dearth of content there is for 720p, there is truly almost none that is 768p.

Of course, you can hook up a PC and run at the native resolution of the screen.

Can you tell you PS3 to account for overscan?  If your TV has overscan, sometimes you can set the device (PS3) to shrink the image so you can still see all of it.

Post
#570430
Topic
Question for HDTV experts.
Time

Ziz said:

All else aside, Hz rating only matters for sports and live events.  Higher refresh rate (120/240/480 Hz) makes things look "live", which doesn't really work for movies and some TV shows.  Most sets have a way to disable the increased refresh rate so play around with the menu controls or download the instruction manual before you buy.

bkev said:

^Yes, be wary of the refresh rates issue.  It essentially "guesses" how inbetween frames would look, so - in short - if a film was originally created at the standard 23.976 (somebody correct me on that if I'm incorrect), when shown on a TV player with a refresh rate of 120/240/etc. it will look like it was filmed on video.  Star Wars moves like an episode of a sitcom!

I personally adore this feature when playing old video games that have a tendency to lag, but with movies it tends to be really jarring.  If you're asking us about what kind of TV to get then it would probably bother you; make sure you can get one that turns off that feature, or doesn't have it at all.

You're both wrong.

You're talking about Creative Frame Interpolation/Creation or "Smooth Motion" or other brandings like that.  CFI is made possible by high refresh rates, but it isn't caused by high refresh rates.

It's probably hard to find a TV today that does less than 120hz, but for movie watching you don't want less than 120hz.  This why: 99% movies are at 24hz (24 FPS) and televisions have historically run at 60hz interlaced, which is comparable to 30hz non interlaced.  Since these frame rates/refresh rates aren't related to each other by This leads to the dreaded 3:2 conversion where every the even frames of your movie are shown 3 times and the odd ones are shown twice.  3x12+2x12=60.  You've been watching 24hz films at 60hz all of your life, so it probably doesn't really bother you... but it's one of the reasons movies look different on your TV than they do in the theatre.

They could make a 24 hz TV, but this would suck for pretty much everything besides 24hz movies.

Enter the 120hz (and 240hz and 480hz etc.) TV.  To start, no media is at 120hz.  But it's the only refresh rate that can properly display 24hz, 30hz, and 60hz material.  For 24hz material, each frame is shown 5 times.  5*24=120.  4*30=120. 2*60=120.  Integer scaling is important because it basically means you don't notice the scaling at all.  The same frame shown 5 times for 1/5 of the original length is equivalent to the same frame being shown once for the original length.

However, there are algorithms that try to interpolate between 2 frames and insert new frames between then instead of showing the same frame multiple times.

For example, a 24hz movie could have 3 frames, we'll call them A, B, and C.

At 24 hz, it would look like this:   A                    B                   C

At 120hz, it would look like this: A A  A  A  A   B B  B  B   B  C C  C  C   C

With CFI turned on, this             : A A1A2A3A4B B1B2B3B4C C1C2C3C4

Notice that only 1/5th of what is being displayed is original content.  As was said, this effect is most bothersome on film derived sources, because losing the 24hz rate makes them cease to look like film.

If you want the benefits of 120hz in 3D, you need a 240hz tv (at least) and due to frame blanking, 480hz is even better.  This is still true with no CFI. 

And, as a total aside, Plasma sets that claim to be 600hz are full of crap.  The screen is divided into 10 sectors that update at the speed of 600 hz, but are only updating 10% of the time.  Each sector updates in serial to the other sectors, so the entire screen is refreshed 60 times a second.  But it's true, each pixel updates at 600hz, when it's updating.

Buy a 120hz or 240hz tv.  Just make sure you can turn CFI on/off and you will have made the best decision.