Kind of amusing for those that have seen Captain America:
Agent Peggy Carter once had a (much) younger sister named Sharon who hooks up with Cap when he comes out of the ice 20 years later.
Currently in Marvel Comics: Peggy Carter has a niece who hooks up with Cap when he's taken off ice 35 years later.
Now that Cap has been in the ice 70 years... who is Sharon Carter to Peggy?
zombie84 said:
Prequelsrule, I think you raised a good point about suspense. It's predictable that Han will return to save the day, but you forget about it at the time because the trench run holds your attention.
Thats like any film, too. If you stopped and thought about it, obviously Indiana Jones will survive any calamity thrown his way no matter how absurd, you know he won't die, but the film tricks you by engaging you so you can't stop and realize that. It creates the suspension of disbelief, not only of the film's world, but that the character is mortal and could die.
Any prequel film is the same. You know Obi Wan will die on the Death Star helping Luke escape so they can take stolen plans to the rebel base. But you aren't thinking that when you watch the prequels. Well, maybe you are, but if so its because the film is boring and that's the problem, not that you know where the characters end up.
Is it boring to watch Robert DeNiro in Godfather II? You know he's just going to end up chasing a kid around a garden with an orange in his mouth and plop to the ground dead as a doornail from a heart attack. Yikes, no dignity there. But no--those DeNiro prequel scenes are the best in the entire 9-hour Godfather saga.
Agree.
zombie84 said:
If I were to do ROTJ, I wouldn't include a single scene from the actual film, except maybe the conversation between Luke and Vader on the Endor base and the "I am a Jedi" moment. I would throw away the entire film and start over. You probably wouldn't see Tatooine, you wouldn't see Endor, and you wouldn't see a Death Star, and none of the character arcs would be the same either. And with that, you wouldn't have Return of the Jedi, you'd have something totally else, a Sequel to Empire Strikes Back.
It's easy to say what you wouldn't do. Do you have more on what you would do?
theprequelsrule said:
xhonzi said:
That's like saying there's no drama if you watch the film a second time.
And there's more to drama than when a given character will die.
I perhaps overstated it a bit. But there is certainly less drama.
I will admit that there is inherently less drama if you know for sure that someone won't die in a scene that is basing its suspense on the question: Will he die?
However, I still think you are overestimating it. I think it's extremely common to create suspense that is 100% contradictory to what the audience knows.
doubleofive said:
Good to know, my friend. You just seemed defensive. ;-)xhonzi said:
005- did you think I pirated anything? Because I didn't. I looked up the songs where they were available on Amazon for $.89 per.
I thought it might have across that way... I was mostly trying to get across the love/hate relationship I have with those songs. They play them so much I am sick of them. But... a couple hours go by and I can't wait to hear them again.
I forgot to also mention: the "More where that came from" pack also included some cool radio commericals that are in the mix along with the songs. (And all of those songs are public domain, just in case we get back into shaming 005 territory again).
xhonzi said:
Star Wars is xhonzi
Star Wars:SE is TV's Frink
Prequel Trilogy is C3PX
and
Indiana Jones IV is skyjedi2005
That's like saying there's no drama if you watch the film a second time.
And there's more to drama than when a given character will die.
That "Star Wars is Oasis" comment meant more to me before I realized it came from the guy who started Oasis.
zombie84 said:
That's also one reason why it was downright shocking when Luke got his ass kicked in ESB and all the good guys lost--that's not supposed to happen!!
Yes!
A good example of this in my mind is Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge!. From the very start of the movie, Evan MacDonald tells you that Satine is dead at the end of the story. Then it flashes back and we see a very lively Satine, and we forget that she will die. Then they show her coughing up blood and fainting, and we kind of remember. Then they flat out tell us she is going to die again. Then more coughing- more blood.
Then, at the end... SHE DIES! And it takes most of the audience by surprise and it is very sad and very emotional.
Sure, it's not a direct analogue of "fear of death" for the main character... but I think you are overestimating the effects of a small % of possibility that a main character will not win the day and may not live. I think, as RLM said, the "Obi-Wan recklessly jumps out a window on the 182nd floor and flies through space-traffic, is shot at, falls several more stories, and lands comfortably in the passenger seat of a space convertible with a quip already on his lips" scene does far more to damage your sense of fear for these characters than the fact that you know he lives to die as an old man.
TV's Frink said:
Yes...he's experiencing racism.
...
Er...speci-ism?
I meant ageism against the old, not against the young.
Johnny Ringo said:
Keep rambling nutter xhonzi. I'm interested in all the BS talk I just can't be bothered chiming in all the time - at least til I'm up to speed good and proper.
*whew* Glad someone is reading it.
If for some reason this doesn't come out, I am really really enjoying the game.
Okay, I confess... I didn't actually go see Transformers 3 five times. C3PX caught me- I was playing Fallout 3.
Here, in no particular order, are my thoughts:
1. GNR needs more than six songs. Though they have all grown on me (except for maybe the "Choppin' that meat!" song)
1a. I found a mod (http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1418) for the PC version that adds 100 more songs to their playlist, so I d/l'd it and put the MP3s in a folder which I turned into a playlist which I can play on the xbox in place of the radio. It isn't perfect, and I don't get to hear 3Dog extolling my virtures (which can be a + or a -) but I'm really enjoying that style of music when combined when this game and it's nice to have just a little more variety.
2. The thing that really turned me off of this game initially and also for the couple of hours I put into either FO1 or FO2 (can't remember which): The paralyzing fear of suffering unexpected consequences for my choices/actions/inactions.
2a.Oblivion was the first game of this type that I really got into... and I did everything. I have a friend who's played through Oblivion 8 times, roughly 100 hours per. I didn't have that kind of time to give to it, so I just made sure I did everything in the 120 hours I spent there. By the end, I was the head of every guild and I completed all of the DLC and every mission I could get my hands on. For an OCD completionist like myself, Oblivion was some kind of heaven. Key to this was that you could never really blow it in Oblivion. There was really no action you could take that would later prevent you from taking other actions? Don't want to become a vampire right now? You can always come back and do it later. You're done being a vampire? You can get healed. There were branches, but at any point you could go back to the trunk and try out a new branch. You could even defacto change your character type if you worked hard enough at it. You learned by doing, so you could theoretically learn to do anything.
2b. Fallout sets out right away to let you know that there will be consequences for your (in)actions and you may not like them. There are doors that, once closed, may not be reopened. Once you choose a branch, you may have lopped off several others. This idea is somewhat realistic, but it intimidates in a game in a way I can't fully grasp.
2bI. I was tracking down some Quantum cola bottles and one of the places I was directed to go was the slaver camp. They said I couldn't go in there without becoming a slaver... so I saved my game, ran through the slaver mission (got the nerd points!) and then reloaded since I didn't want it on my permanent record. While I was there, I found some young kids who needed me to rescue them... so I did, but then I undid that when I reloaded it. So this time, I rambo'd my way in and wiped them out. All of them. And then freed the kids and went on my way.
2c. Once I accidentally let the sherrif of Megaton die, I sort of made peace with the past and therefore the future and mostly decided to let the chips fall where they may. I've actually come to really enjoy this aspect of the game, though I have to confess I still find it a little intimidating.
2cI. I found the dog at the junkyard relatively early and thought it was pretty cool. I decided I'd do what I could to be a good master to the dog and keep him alive. He died a couple of times, so I reloaded and prevented his death that time. However, I had been trekking across the wasteland for about 20 minutes when I got a pop-up saying that Dogmeat had died, and I wasn't sure how or where. It was 20 minutes since my last save, so I decided just to press and that "I could just get another one". After not running into any more dogs and a fruitless return to the junkyard, google informed me that I blew my one chance of having a canine companion. Oops.
3. I think this game represents an intersting landmark in interactivity in games. I'm sort of compelled (that OCD again) to pick up everything I see to see if I can sell it or use it for something. Just like I'm compelled to open every door I see- go into every building I can, hack every computer and check every bathroom stall. I think I've pretty much talked to every person I've come across as well. How realistic is this, really? When I drive 25 miles home from work, I don't stop at every door or talk to every person I see, and ask them what the word around town is. Because there are as many as 'infinite' doors and people between here and there. In FallOut, there are a lot, but not so many as to be "infinite". I think as game tech progresses, we will get to the point that there are too many doors and the only way you can handle them is to have some idea of the ones you actually want to open. I posted a while back a list of features that I'd like to see be possible on the new gaming hardware of the coming years and that was one of them: Randomly generated rooms behind unimportant doors.
3a. Zombriend said to me, "I like to play games [like Fallout 3] like a role-playing game." Which made me say, "Huh?" What he meant by that, is that he likes to really get into his own character and come up with their backstory and motivations and make all of his decisions in the game based on that. That's why he never played the Assassin's Guild plot in Oblivion- it didn't fit his character. I have to say I don't do that- I just role play that I'm an OCD gamer sitting in my dark basement motivated by getting as many shiny achievements as possible. And quantum colas. That's probably why I never walk in a straight line across the wasteland. I zig and zag and occasionally do 360s while I'm walking to keep my eyes out for any of those little hollow triangles so that I can go discover them on my way somewhere else.
4. I actually tried out the first 6 hours of Fallout a couple of years ago, decided I liked it and wanted to play the rest of it, and gave the borrrowed copy back and finished Oblivion. When I started playing it up again recently, I just picked with my last save and went on from there. Since I didn't redo any of the early part of the game, I had forgotten a lot of things... like how to turn my flashlight on... and that I could fast travel.
4a. I kind of wish these games didn't have fast travel. I liked in Morrowind how you had to pay a taxi if you wanted to fast travel, and not all taxis went everywhere. I mean, I know I could just not fast travel and pretend I really did have to walk everywhere... but I don't.
5. Back to the slavers- I thought this was a decent moral quandry for the game. I really did need those Quantum colas, and the only way to get them was to either go in guns blazing (I otherwise had no compunction to wipe the slavers from the face of the earth) or to take a slave in. I thought, "Well, Self, this is an interest sitiation we've found ourselves in! I sure have been killing a lot of raiders and mercs... is it more immoral to take them as slaves? In real life you don't believe in slavery... but you don't believe in wandering wastelands, shooting rabid dogs, eating said dogs, and killing raiders either..." Hmmmm... But then they wanted me to enslave some specific people whom I would not have just as easily killed... so that sort of stopped my consideration short. But when I thought I could go round up some raiders and get my Quantum colas... I was all for it.
5a. But then I saw those kids and I met the slavers inside the camp. Wiping them out (all of them) became an easy decision at that point.
WARNING: Massive Fallout3 post to follow:
(with spoilers-a-plenty)
I think Chuck has made many of the same mistakes that Lost made, in "revealing" the "big picture". But I don't really care so much in the case of Chuck... it's not that I don't like Chuck because I like it quite a bit. It's just that the show has always been more about its texture to me, than its substance.
Whereas I think the substance of Lost was more important to me.
So, yes... lots of groan worthy and convoluted contradictory elements on Chuck... but it's just fun so I just go with it.
And it has Timothy Dalton in season 4.
Hmm... stereotypes for the lose, I guess.
CP3S said:
Bingo is getting a lot of crap for his feelings on Aliens, but I completely agree with him. Alien really isn't much more than a silly horror film. It isn't even a shadow of the greatness of the second film, it really is just an horror flick set in the same universe and using the same main character as the second film.
Wrecked?
Do you know any old people? Any that like loud noises and movement?
theprequelsrule said:
Anchorhead said:
All goofing aside; Even though I do sometimes touch on it, you guys have no idea how much I hate the idea of the Prequels - as they were released. The story, execution, casting, Lucas' revision of history, etc. I find it all vulgar.
A prequel story? - absolutely. Prequel story Lucas released? - absolutely not.
The problem with the prequels - besides all the problems you listed - is that there can be no drama or tension when the outcome is already known to the audience. I mean, we know Obi-wan is not going to die in them right?
Bologna.
How likely is it that James Bond is going to die in any of the movies he's in, or Superman, or Luke or Han in the OT?
That fear of danger or death is mostly irrational in practically all of the movies we watch and enjoy. The fact that it's irrational and that we know better doesn't mean it can't still be suspenseful.
I too wanted a brown one. I settled for the Halo 3 one, really.
We still use Zip discs at work. Not that I'm proud of that.
doubleofive said:
Agree to disagree then.
I guess I'm an old man now, and not hip with it.
Frink, what's that like? ;-)
005: I'm with you too! <wrong pic of Luke>
I would probably give it 7.5 balls out of 10, 8 if I had to round up. I really enjoyed it and found it to be quite moving in places.
I think you have to post here whether you liked it and what country you're from, because I'm curious if the feared correlation actually exists, or if it's just a figment of the producers imagination:
xhonzi: 7.5/10 USA
005: 8.33 USA
Red5: 5.5/10 ?
FanFiltration: 5/10 ?
But I agree with some of the statements- the first half was stronger than the last half. Some of the "jokes" were a little too corny (fondue) and didn't play very well.
But I found the 3D to be subtle and enjoyable. And I found the CG to be at worst "good enough" and at best "how did they make skinny Rogers so skinny?"
If you doubt that Captain America can be a very compelling character, then you really need to read the first many issues (I've read through 50 or so) of this:
http://www.comicvine.com/captain-america/49-11499/?page=4
It might even make you a believer out of Bucky. Though the movie version of Bucky wasn't too shabby.
But it's a Halo 3 Zune.
C3PX, did you know that? Guess that? Or try to come up with something outlandish that also happens to be true.
005- did you think I pirated anything? Because I didn't. I looked up the songs where they were available on Amazon for $.89 per.
Did I ever ask for one?
I didn't realize that was Danny Kaye until I... er... was looking up the soundtrack so that I could put it on my MP3 player of choice.