xhonzi

For those bemoaning the fact that this isn't a single player game...

I'm relatively sure you can play it like one.  If you never want to talk to/interact with a real person... I don't think you have to.

asterisk8 said:

xhonzi said:

Other than Han Solo?

I guess. The great thing about Han is that he may have acted the outlaw/gunslinger part, but nobody in 1977 was foolish enough to put him in a duster and chupalla. This guy's outfit is just too on-the-nose Old West.

Agreed.  That's my biggest complaint about Firefly.  Just takes the Old West motif too far for my tastes.

Really?  We ate there once and haven't been back.  It's strange these attachments we form to these things...

Oh man, if I got sick every time I went to Taco Cabana... it wouldn't change much but I'd just get sick a lot.  Assuming in this fantasy I also lived near one.

We were in Dallas last fall and ended up visiting my Sister-in-Law and family before we flew home.  When she was driving us back to the airport, we insisted on lunching at Taco Cabana.  She didn't understand the appeal since she could have lunch there any day of the week and never does.

We got cabana bowls (steak fajita for the win!) and she thought it was alright...

Some people.

RIP Taco Cabana.

Well, what I mean is that I don't live near one anymore.

:(

TV's Frink said:

xhonzi said:

Well... it sure appears that no one else really cares.

I care.

 But do you really care?

doubleofive said:

I have an SVHS player and the means to digitize things.

Yes, but you're long ago and so far, far away.

I mean, my friend lives down the street.

Not to be confused with:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/What-happened-to-CO/topic/10962/page/1/

Though it appears I started that thread too.

Ot.com's equivalent of the side of  a milk cartridge. 

Currently featuring:

Whatever happened to Slugoo?

Other than Han Solo?

Honestly, I thought it was Cad Bane at first.  And I don't even watch that show.

zombie84 said:

xhonzi:

Name one other thing that's in the same ballpark as good as ESB that Kersh had ANYTHING to do with.  If he'd made 10 awesome movies, and then one stinker, then I would be dropping the "as good as your last" argument.  I was more making a "if he was able to wrest ESB from Lucas and actually make it a good movie, he should also have a deep history of other awesome work" but I've never seen it.

I would ask anyone who says this to name any other film they've seen of Kersh's other than Robocop 2 and Never Say Never Again (which is actually quite decent).

-Raid on Entebbe

-Flim Flam Man

-Return of a Man Called Horse

-Hoodlum Priest

-The Luck of Ginger Coffey

All terrific, terrific films. Kersh was a great director, but had one mainstream film that was taken out of his control (Eyes of Laura Mars) and chose one poor film that everybody saw (Robocop 2). His career after ESB was poor, I suppose, but one of the films was decent IMO so it's really only one true stinker with his name on it.

Yes, all classic films irreversibly engraved on all of our minds.  An average of about 6.5 on imdb (for what that's worth).  The highest was a couple of 6.9s, the lowest in the 5's. 

I'm sorry, but I don't think your argument did much for me.  A couple films I've never heard of and several I know of while I haven't seen (scene?) them.  And then the two I have seen... and they are 'meh'.

My point is not that he's not a decent director.  My point isn't that he didn't do a fantastic job with ESB.  My point is that there's a lot of credit to go around in ESB, and I think so many of us are so disgruntled with GL, that we'll put all of the credit at Kersh's feet instead of spreading it around where it's due like SilverWook pointed out. 

Lol at the featured comment on Hoodlum Priest:

imdb guy:

Irv Kerschner, who was George Lucas' teacher at USC and later directed one of his pupil's Star Trek features, made this glossy well-meaning melodrama released by United Artists in 1961.

zombie84:
And yes, I think he would have made AOTC a great film. The actors look bored in George's versions because George is a boring director who doesn't know how to communicate or inspire his actors. They wouldn't be bored with Kersh and he might have even inspired them to invest in the film itself.

From what I know- only based on behind the scenes of ESB- Kersh really was an actor's director.  I do think you're correct when you say he probably would have pulled incredibly better performances from his actors.  And I don't think he would have let a lot of the stale dialogue stay in the picture.  Both of those things would have improved AotC.

Would they improve it enough?  I don't know.

TV's Frink said:

xhonzi said:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Article-Kershner-Would-Have-Directed-One-of-the-Prequels/post/453493/

Allow myself to requote myself.

 

Yeah, but have you *seen* AOTC?

Those Shakespeare-writing monkeys could do a better job on it.  Of course they'd need a little longer than three years...

Yes, I've scene it.  What's your point?

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Article-Kershner-Would-Have-Directed-One-of-the-Prequels/post/453493/

Allow myself to requote myself.

skyjedi:

Unfortunately for Kersh the only good mainstream flick he ever made was Empire.  Robocop 2 and Never say never again were awful.

xhonzi:

It's true.  We tend to put Kersh up on this pedestal like he's God's gift to film directing, or to Star Wars at least...

But what else did he do that's worth a darn?

SilverWook:

The old "you're only as good as your last movie" argument, eh? ;)

<snip>

xhonzi:

Nah... I didn't really mean that.  What I meant was: Name one other thing that's in the same ballpark as good as ESB that Kersh had ANYTHING to do with.  If he'd made 10 awesome movies, and then one stinker, then I would be dropping the "as good as your last" argument.  I was more making a "if he was able to wrest ESB from Lucas and actually make it a good movie, he should also have a deep history of other awesome work" but I've never seen it.

I think we're all maybe suffering more from the "Anyone but George" argument.  Not that Kersh didn't do a great job... but maybe he doesn't deserve as much credit for ESB as we all want to give him.

SilverWook:

The late Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan deserve some kudos for crafting a great script to begin with.

Gary Kurtz for being a good producer and not a yes man.

Mark, Carrie, and Harrison, who in spite of their personal problems public and private at the time, gave it 110%, and didn't phone it in.

Frank Oz, for making us believe a little green rubber puppet was a living creature.

And the rest of a great cast, who made you believe in those characters even if you never saw their faces or heard their real voices.

This could potentially be a really long list. Just watch the closing credits of the film instead. ;)

xhonzi:

100% agreed. 

Well... it sure appears that no one else really cares.  I did finally order a VHS of this and I'll have to see if a friend can do a DVD of it for me.

Private yay!

TV's Frink said:

*face asplode*

Be careful!  It might stay that way.

theprequelsrule said:

bkev said:

I think the saying means that when the exception is contrasted with the rule, it makes it all the more apparent. Hence, the saying makes sense.

Yes.

 Huh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule

He would have refused to make it as it was.  So... yes?

CP3S said:

xhonzi said:

Half Life 2: Episode 3

SCREW YOU, XHONZI!!!!

Oh! Erm... you see I...  Well, I meant to say that it's disappointing that it's, er... not out yet.

Spoiler:

Yeah, dat's da ticket!

And, uh, I kind of liked the third Anne of Green Gables movie... (for my sister)

 ;)

BloodnoseThePirate said:

Okay, now that I've read a bit of the x-men I thought I'd give a few words about what I thought of the story arcs.

I've found myself reading more of the newer issues maybe just because of the faster pace and they're just quicker reads in general.

There's a lot less text in modern comics.  And a lot more splash pages.  Depending on the kind of reader you are, they can be much quicker reads.  I tend to read the text and let my eyes sort of pick up the pictures in periphery.  Actually, I'm sure when I turn a new page, my eyes do a quick one-over of the pictures and then I read the text.  The less text there is, the less time I spend on that page.

Then there are people (I've heard of them) that will stop and look at the pictures for several minutes.  And read the text as an afterthought.  These are the people that know the pencilers better than the writers.  The amount of action, detail or pure awesome in a picture is what lenghtens their visit to each page.  Potentially their reading time has gone up, what with modern comic art being much more sophisticated than it used to be.

Then, The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire. I just finished it and I have mixed feelings.  Has the X-men always been this... Spacey? I mean it was a fun ride but it felt like a little too much Star Trek in my X-men. I guess its just me.

X-Men is almost never that Spacey.  That storyline eventually gets picked up by the Annihilation Crossover and the X-books more or less completely ignore it.

As I keep mentioning, the Cosmic (spacey) stuff at Marvel is some of my favourite.  So I really enjoyed Rise/Fall.  But it sort of goes nowhere if you don't start reading Annihilation.  It's kind of odd that they ran that story through Uncanny X-Men for a year.  The sequel to Rise/Fall is, if I'm remembering correctly, Emperor Vulcan. 

Harmy said:

Well, if something is an exception, it has to be an exception from something. So if there is an exception from something, that something is logically a rule :-) 

Ah, so the exception proves the rule of exceptions... is that it?

theprequelsrule said:

There is a saying; "the exception proves the rule".

I was just thinking about that expression this morning and how it doesn't make any sense.  Are there proto-rules waiting around for exceptions to be found so that the rule can be proven and graduate to full "rule" status?

Is having exceptions a requirement for rules?  When did this happen?

I echo most of your sentiments.   The spaceship stuff is cool- straight outta RotJ.  The design is neat.  Doesn't really fit with 4000 years before the OT, but whatever.

Continuity sucks.  Lightsabre battles are too choreographed.  Very derivitive of what we've already seen... but more classic Star Wars moments in 6 minutes than in the PT's six hours.

RU.08 said:

I find your list a little... strange. For instance:

Alien3: the ONLY reason people didn't like the movie is because they killed Hicks, Newt and then, eventually, Ripley.

That's a big part of the frustration early on... but I think the movie is way worse than that.

It's much better than Ressurection or AVP.

While I would agree with this personally, it has nothing to do with how good 1 and 2 are. 

Robocop III: Funny you put in T3, but left this out, this was a much worse movie - comparatively speaking - than T3.

Good catch.  I would have put this on the list had I thought of it.

Rocky III: As sequals go, this one was decent, nowhere near as bad as Rocky V.

RU.08 is TheBoost's sock CONFIRMED!

 What about Saw III - probably the best of the 6 sequals :) Certainly better than the disappointment of Saw II anyway!

 I haven't seen the Saw films.  So... No comment.

LexX said:

I have to disagree a little.

Well, then.  I'll have to disagree A LOT! :)

POTC 2 was way worse than 3. It was just boring right from the start. The worst of all POTC films. Third one may have made less sense but at least there was something new and it didn't revolve around Depp that much since his character has always worked better in the backround in POTC films.

Wrong!  Actually, it sounds like it comes down to taste.  In this instance, and the several following...  I'm on the verge of rewatching the PotC trilogy, but right now I think I think PotC2 is right up there with the 1st.  Moody, focused (complex, but consistent), expectation upsetting, funny, adventuresome, charming, etc.  The third one, in my opinion and I would guess also in common opinion, was an unfocused mess that just didn't work or make sense.  It also brought in too many new elements that were poorly handled.  Calypso?  Insanse Jack?  Davy Jones can be on land as long as his feet are wet?  A wedding in the midst of a ship battle circling the drain?  Really?

I also like BTTF III, because it's all fun and cool like a modern western. In my opinion it's better than II although I like them all because of different reasons. All of them have things I don't like, too. Hard to put them in any order, to me it's like a one big movie.

It's possible I haven't seen BTTF III since theatres.  I just remember being very disappointed by it.  Instead of having the thought provoking elements from the first two- about time travel, yes, but more importantly about how our parents and our kids would be at our same age...  Instead of exploring the complexities of time travel... it was more, I think, an excuse to let the primary cast do a western.  Which was what MJF had been wanting to do.

However, their scores on imdb are close (2=7.5 3=7.1) so maybe it was just me.

Matrix Reloaded is one of the worst films I've seen. Third one may not make any more sense but still, at least you can watch it through somehow.

Now these I have just recently watched.  I've always been a fan of all 3.  I know there are a lot of bad bits in them, and I know I've given those bad bits a pass whereas I wasn't willing to overlook the bad bits in the prequels...  But watching them recently was like watching them with fresh eyes.  And the one thought I had after watching Reloaded was: Why doesn't everybody love this movie?!?!?  Yes, the rave/sex scene is long and dumb.  I skipped that part, actually.  But everything else?  A very good movie in my opinion.  Revolutions- I still like it, but I think it needs a lot more good will to give it a pass.  The new Oracle is a fundamental problem, the action scene in the club is a little tired, the freaks in the club are disturbing, the "bring me the eyes of the Oracle" part is brought up and then completely dimissed, the Train section is weird, the "Love is a Word, Neil" part is pretentious, etc.  The tunnel scenes, battle scenes in Zion are really good, except for the kid=I believe, Neo! parts.  Neo and Trinity go to 01 is decent.  The Neo vs Smith battle seems to be a little off in places, but has some good stuff to it.  The rainbow finale is bizarre.  As I said, I still like the movie... it's just incredibly uneven to me.

(IMDB: 2=7.1 3=6.5)

I've always kinda liked Batman Forever, maybe it's just nostalgic for me. Of course it's more a kiddie film but still. I don't like Batman Returns that much so Forever is more fun to watch. The first one is the best of these 4.

Edit: forgot Indy. I'm one of those people who don't like TOD at all so TLC is better.

A lot of this just comes down to personal preference.  Therefore I wouldn't have listed the examples if I thought I could have asked the question without offering them.

But do you agree generally?  Is there something about Part 3's that's often more broken that Part 2?

Maybe I should have asked it this way:

What trilogies (quadrilogies) have satisfactory endings?

captainsolo said:

Why not simply make a comic book adaptation that was !Gasp!...the comic book?

The next X-Men movie should just be this:

 

I'm trying (and failing) to reconcile your two statements.  How would a movie that's like an arcade beat-em-up based on the cartoon be making the comics into a movie?