xhonzi

^Get Dan Brown on this right now!

doubleofive said:

I understand it as:

Old Republic
Clone Wars/Prequels
The Dark Times (forbidden by GL)
The OT
New Republic Era (dates are given by ABY, after the Battle of Yavin)
Legacy Era (I think this is a comic series)

I think that's pretty much it.  There are Legacy books and then there are Legacy Comics, which aren't related.  I think the "Legacy Era" refers to the comics.

CP3S said:

I definitely appreciate not having to deal with MS points and only being able to spend certain increments of money. Nice being able to pay exactly $5.99 for something that costs $5.99.

But I've never paid $5.99 for anything that should cost $5.99 on the xbox.  What I mean is, I get MS Points when they're on sale and save 20%-50%, which I can't do on PSN.

That along with the ability to copy folders of MP3 files straight onto the hard drive are two places where it really owns the Xbox

That is nice.  I have my both my ps3 and my 360 set up to stream mp3's from my media server, so they have access to 1000's of hours of music there.  I have a few songs on each HDD, but I don't really ever use it.  I've never noticed if I can play music in games on the PS3.  Can you do that?

I have however copied some videos to the PS3 HDD across my home network.  That's nice.

I'm glad this thread is still going, because I was catching up- reading page 3 and was afraid I wouldn't be able to add my worthless comment:

Someone (I think it was page 3) said that the "walking carpet" line was unbecoming or out of character for Leia because she was a Royal Princess.  That reminded me of a bit from Wishful Drinking by Princess Leia Carrie Fischer herself.  She wrote of her "mom" and "Debbie Reynolds" being two different people.  The dressing room had two doors- through one her mom entered, and hours later Debbie Reynolds, the movie star, exited through the other.  At the end of the night, Debbie Reynolds would return and the process ran in reverse.

Reynolds was born/raised in El Paso, TX, but had diction training to remove her Texas accent.  Carrie wrote that her mother used the queens English at home as well... unless she had a particularly bad day and the Texas came out swinging.  That's when she and her brother knew they were in trouble.

It doesn't seem incorrect to me in the least for a Royal Princess to have quite a mouth on her when she wants to.

CP3S said over in http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-Empire-Strikes-Back-is-the-best-Star-Wars-movie-Or-is-it/topic/12848/:

miker71 said:

Leia's "walking carpet" line has always bugged me, do we even see a carpet anywhere in the trilogy? It's an instant back-to-Earth-ism for me that line. And it's not even funny...

 

That part of it has never bothered me, while I am not sure if we ever see a carpet in the trilogy (Ben's hut? Yoda's hut? Jabba's palace? Owen and Beru's? Bespin, perhaps.

Page 15 of "Creating the Worlds of Star Wars by John Knoll" book shows Ben's hut did indeed have a fur rug of some kind (wookiee?) on the floor.  I've never noticed it in the film itself.

CP3S said:

I'll be able to snag a bunch of demos and be blown away by this machine that only does everything. Or maybe I'll continue to be underwhelmed.

 Get the demos for Flower, Trine, and the Back to the Future game, assuming you haven't played the first episode on PC.

And LBP.

captainsolo said:

So where did it all go wrong? Is there an easy spot to pigeonhole as the downturn that led to where the EU is now?

2 Points:

1. To the degree that Kevin J. Anderson took over.

2. To the degree that George Lucas took it back.

Ah... it's so nostalgic to remember when Kevin J Anderson was my most hated SW writer and George Lucas was my favourite!

CP3S said:

Anchorhead said:

 

Heir to the Empire
Dark Force Rising
The Last Command

Specter of the Past
Vision of the Future

Sounds like you've really been on a kick to branch out lately. I generally don't like EU novels with few exceptions, but I love the first three Zahn books. Those are good reads, all about Luke, Han, Leia, and the gang several years after Return of the Jedi. Specter and Vision continue the story a few years later, I heard they are good, but have never read them.

From all I have heard, pretend the others don't exist.

I also always liked Shadows of the Empire, which most people hate. But I think falling in love with the video game and the story has a lot to do with that. I actually haven't read the book since it came out, so I don't remember how bad it was in writing. Every so often I listen to the abridged audio book, my preferred way to experience the story. It leaves a lot out and cuts the story down to the very basics, but I think it does an excellent job of doing so.

The Tales of books have been others that have always stood out to me. Personally, I think they get silly at times, but that is to be expected from any anthology of short sci-fi stories. Surprisingly, my favorite of these was Tales of the Bounty Hunters.

I was a teenager when I read any of these last, Revenge of the Sith (love the way it is written, story still sucks though) being the only SW novel I have attempted to read as an adult (if you exclude listening to the full unabridged audiobook of Attack of the Clones). So, I might feel differently about them if I were to encounter any of them today.

 

I'd say give Heir to the Empire a chance, if you don't mind reading a story where you have to take the events of Empire and Jedi into account, it can't hurt.

I'm a lot like you C3PX (we should splitscreen again sometime!) though I can't follow you to Shadows of the Empire.  I really enjoy the soundtrack, but that's about it.  I recently listened to some SW audio books, SotE amonth them, and found I couldn't believe how crap it was.  I also re-read the comics and found they didn't fare much better.

EDIT: I also really dig the "Luke in Red Trooper Armour" POFT2 that was produced as part of the SotE figure line.

I listened to the Duology as well as Survivor's Quest and didn't really care for them.  But then I listened to the Thrawn Trilogy, which I remember loving, on tape (3 hours per 300 page book) and found them to be quite bad.  I have experience with how a poor audio abridgement can really ruin the quality of an otherwise very enjoyable book.  So I made the Mrs. read them out loud with me in the car.  I found them to be every bit as good as I remembered and perhaps a little better due to my own increased maturity and especially in the light of where Star Wars has gone since

Awesome.

TV's Frink said:

doubleofive said:

Did you get to the part where the creepy baby doll sheds a single tear and makes everything float?

Can I get some of your drugs?

You need to watch more PS3 Launch commercials:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJaGScKpZuU

EDIT: Missed it by that much.

First: Woohoo! DarkSiders 2!  Looking good!

Next:

The Mrs. and I finished Monkey Island 2:SE last night.  I was hoping she'd have more of a reaction to the ending... but she took it in stride.  I guess Monkey Island is pretty whacky to start with...

Did anyone play this with the commentary?  I would really like to listen to it, but it's the sort of thing I'd rather listen to in my car on my drive to work than give my valuable xbox time to.  I tried to find clips of it on youtube, but was unsuccessful.

I did find some interesting videos on the subject though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-CTx-S9f-8 - Benny Hill inspired alternate ending to MI:2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bInZ7_y4Lw - Monkey Island 2 sets recreated in CryEngine.

CP3S said:

Been playing more Resistance. Really getting into it now, kind of like a really watered down Half-Life. Strips the RTS genre down to its core (or takes it back in time ten years) very straight forward shoot and be shot at, but I really appreciate the storyline. Almost to the infamous Manchester Cathedral part.

 RTS?  Surely you mean FPS?

How long did it take you to get into it?  I've given it maybe 3 hours and it never hooked me.

BloodnoseThePirate said:

I'm currently reading the phoenix arc. which is what 'Last Stand' sort of took from a little, I guess. then I'm planning on skipping to uncanny number 475. I hear that's a decent spot to start. 

Do us both a favour and make sure you read from the beginning of the Phoenix storyline (issue ~100 or so) through Inferno.  And also X-Factor from the beginning until about 68 or so.  For best enjoyment, you can read New Mutants where it intersects with those stories, and make sure you read Magik and X-terminators minis too.

I like a lot of the stories after that (X-Tinction Agenda, X-Cutioner's Song, Summer's Wedding, Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix) but there's a lot of crap in there too, so you have to cherry pick.

If you do pick up at 475, make sure you've read Deadly Genesis.  475 and on are really a sequel to that mini.  And then that all continues/colides with Annihilation... so be prepared for that.  As I mentioned before, Annihilation, its sequel, and the resulting Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy series are some of my favourites from the past couple years.

I've found Marvel's 7 or so years of summer events to be pretty good, if somewhat fatiguing.  Start with Avengers Disassembled and start reading New Avengers.  Then get into House of M, then Decimation, (Annihilation and Planet Hulk) then Civil War, (World War Hulk) then Secret Invasion, then Dark Reign, then Siege, and now Fear Itself (which I haven't read).  It's nice to see a constantly changing baseline in the Marvel Universe as opposed to the "every issue ends on the bridge of the Enterprise" model that's been status quo for so long.  But each event has been marketed as "The one it's all been leading to!"  You can only hear that so many times before it's run its course.

And finally- comicvine.com is my favourite source comics info.  It's not the first comics database I've used, but it's the best/one that's still up.

*whew* Did I write all of that?

RedFive said:

xhonzi said:

I was really enjoying Green Lantern from Reborn -> the start of Blackest Night.  Can't say I really enjoyed Blackest Night, though I did read almost all of it.  I read Brightest Day 0-8 and determined to give up on it.

Do you mean Green Lantern: Rebirth?

Probably.

 Cause if so I've read it too and I thought it was awesome. 

I enjoyed Rebirth.  As far as Green Lantern goes, I think I enjoyed the stuff betwixt the events moreso than the events themselves.  Sinestro War was pretty good, but the stuff (Rage of the Red, Agent Orange, etc. storylines) that came between that and Blackest Night was most enjoyable to me.

I read it from the Death of Superman storyline, which I can't recommend highly enough.  The Death of Superman graphic novel is pretty good, but The Return of Superman/Reign of the Supermen is one of my favorite graphic Novels of all time,

I quite enjoy this event myself.  I didn't read any Superman for a long time after the event was over... so it didn't really make me a long time reader, but I collected some of the issues as they came out and have the trades.

and it's the beginning of the whole Emerald Twilight > Rebirh storyline with Green Lantern

Really?  I never knew that.  How does Death/Rebirth of Superman tie into Emerald Twilight?

Of course, if you're reading DC, you should definitely read Crisis on Infinite Earths.  In the late 80's DC decided to clean up their convoluted, confusing comics history with one huge, overarching storyline.

Just to offer a differing opinion: I read this a couple years back and found it pretty unwieldly for a casual DC fan.  I'm not sure how convoluted and confusing DC universe was before this came out, but I found this product to be convoluted and confusing all on its own.

Of course, they ruined their cleaned up universe very shortly,

Aint that the truth.  Supergirl is dead.  Long live Supergirl!  And Comet, her Superhorse!  (That she made out with) 

On a positive not, I forgot though that Barry Allen was dead from CoIE until recently.  That's got to go down in the books as one of the longest sabbaticals for a major name like that.  However, there doesn't seem to have been any Flash shortages in that time, so I'm not sure how much it really counts.

They were the first to do this, and they did it right.  The art was amazing, some of my favorite. 

Who else has done anything like it?  The closest comparison (company wide event in the mid 80s) that I can think of is Marvel's Secret Wars, but that wasn't a retcon of any parallel universes or alternate histories.  And I've often seen it go unchallenged that Secret Wars was a pale imitation of CoIE, but Secret Wars started in May 1984 and CoIE didn't start until April 1985.  So... huh?

Marvel recently retconned a huge chunk of stuff in the Spider-Man books.  Is that what you mean?  Or when the original Avengers series ended and was replaced with New Avengers... but those don't quite seem like the same thing.  ?

But if you're interested in X-Men, then do I have a comic for you.  Astonishing X-Men. [snip] it's brilliant, won some Eisner awards even.   Read Whedon's run, #1-24, if you get the chance.

 

This I can agree on.  Whedon's X-Men are really fun and aren't steeped in that much continuity- usually the barrier to reading any X-books.  Parts of this run were used for the basis for X-Men 3 as well.

TV's Frink said:

xhonzi said:

dark_jedi said:

So does anyone here have a 3D set up? I am in the process of getting the gear I need for my 3D ready HDTV, have a nice Panasonic 3D Blu-ray player(and going to get Avatar 3D for FREE)a Mitsubishi 3D Starter Kit, and getting 2 more pairs of glasses, I can't wait, but LOL, I only have 3 3D movies counting the free Avatar that is coming, and they are Resident Evil Afterlife and Drive Angry.

[blah blah whining about having nice things]

*looks at own setup*

...

*sob*

...

*kicks X square in the nuts*

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Bobby Jay said:

 free copy of Wipeout HD to test out the 3D gaming experience!

Don't forget Super StarDust HD too!  That has a 3D mode and is one of the other welcome back games.

CP3S said:

Bioshock theme park would be amazing! I'd walk all the way to it just to see it if I had too.

I knew I could count on your business!  Unfortunately... I'm not sure very many other people would really care that much.  Maybe I'll make this themepark in my basement and backyard.  Do you think my HOA would go for that? 

I noticed on amazon that a Bioshock novel is coming out in July and even though I don't know the author and imagine it will probably suck, I've already as good as bought it in my mind. Mmmm, Bioshock!

 Yes, I have that book in my wishlist as well.  Here's hoping that it's awesome!

ferris209 said:

xhonzi said:

My 8 year old son also got in some trouble for wearing a Mario hat and t-shirt one day.  "THERE'S NO MARIO at DISNEYLAND!" he was bluntly informed.

Are you serious?

Not very.  A shop clerk was mostly just making friendly banter and maybe trying to make a sale by saying, "Mario, eh?  Hmm... I don't know if we can let you get away with that... maybe your dad will have to buy you a Mickey T-shirt and cap!"

TheBoost said:

TV's Frink said:

Is it a classic?

Ender's Game is, but I didn't realize any of the sequels/prequels/parallels/whatever are.

Someone at the library told me "Speaker for the Dead" was "brilliant". I almost hit her. 

I read that Card only wrote Ender's Game as a means of setting up the book he really wanted to write- Speaker for the Dead.  After reading Ender's Game and finding it mildly enjoyable- though not the masterpiece in my opinion that it is in so many others, I decided to give SftD a try.  I couldn't get past the first few pages.  It had a significant impact on my brother, so I tried... but I just couldn't get into it.

CP3S said:

RedFive said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

I'm going to bitch about money. Yeah, goddamn motherfuckin' money. The world would be better off tossing the shit in the recycling bin and adopting a gift economy.

I concur.  Trade-based economy.  Or even better, no possession.  Native American style.  Life would be so much better.

Would we really though? Hippies say this shit all the time, hell, even I spent way more time lamenting the ills of materialism than I care to recollect without feeling embarrassed for myself. But if you really stop and think of the implications of that, do you really like that idea that much?

As Rob pointed out, big screen TVs are kind of fun when you can afford them. And I am pretty fond of my car, my music collection, my personal library of books, and my computer. "It is all just baggage" is the usual retort, but so what? What is wrong with baggage? What is wrong with working forty hours a week and being able to eat whatever the hell you want and buy/collect whatever kind of worthless things you are into? Would the alternative of growing crops, hunting, and gathering really be preferable? I think most people who say things like this are talking out of their ass.

And a trade-based economy would be sooooo much better than the current BS we have going (which is BS), there'd be no poverty and everything would be so much better, fair, and more equal... because... well... you know... everyone always has something valuable to trade, and it isn't like one person would ever grow a particular crop (or produce a product or service) that comes out more plentiful and more appealing looking than his neighbor's making him... you know... more wealthy than them...

 Well said.

Are you other guys joking?  Because I can't tell.

dark_jedi said:

So does anyone here have a 3D set up? I am in the process of getting the gear I need for my 3D ready HDTV, have a nice Panasonic 3D Blu-ray player(and going to get Avatar 3D for FREE)a Mitsubishi 3D Starter Kit, and getting 2 more pairs of glasses, I can't wait, but LOL, I only have 3 3D movies counting the free Avatar that is coming, and they are Resident Evil Afterlife and Drive Angry.

I would really like to get one of those 42" or 47" Vizios that have recently come out.  The passive screens are pretty much superior to the active ones in my opinion.  And they're so cheap, to boot! (42" is <$700).

I just don't really have a place to put one.  Our family room entertainment centre can only hold a 27" CRT or a 32" LCD/Plasma.  We've had the entertainment centre about 8 years but have only had the 32" 720p LCD that's in it for about 2.5.  My kids have already taken a serious toll on it (with scissors) and so I really wouldn't mind replacing the whole outfit and putting a new 40-something inch on the wall.  But then we'd need some new media/equipment rack too...  It wouldn't end up costing that much, but I'll probably still save my pennies.

The real issue with that is that I don't do any "formal" watching in my family room.  We do all of the hardcore stuff in the basement with the big screen, big sound and the fancy chairs.  It might kill me to upgrade to 3D in the family room first, because I wouldn't know where to watch a movie anymore.  Upstairs on the relatively small screen in 3D, or downstairs...  :(  Darn.

However, there are some exciting projector solutions in the wings.  Not exactly plug and play, but you can set up some nice dual projector rigs with stuff that's just come out.  But it gets pricey pretty quick.  I'm waiting for some new stuff that might be cheaper to hit the street... still thinking I might do a 3D upgrade in the basement this fall.

THEN I can get a new TV in my family room.

And just like that, my Pitch Black Mountain Dew has disappeared again.  :(

Oh, and BladeRunner.

So... I just got back from DisneyLand.  I'm not the biggest of Disney fans, though I do like several of their properties.  I was most excited to see some non Disney stuff... like the Indy ride that opened right after I was last there, the new Star Tours, Captain EO, etc...

I was sitting on the Mostly-SubMarine (Mostly) when I had bathysphere flashbacks to BioShock.  In the space of about a second, I had a little daydream about how great a BioShock theme park would be.  Instead, this admarine took me back to Finding Nemo, which was fine... but not as good as the ride I'd just imagined in my head.

My 8 year old son also got in some trouble for wearing a Mario hat and t-shirt one day.  "THERE'S NO MARIO at DISNEYLAND!" he was bluntly informed.  So I can speak for my son and say that a MarioLand would be of strict interest to him.

What other attractions would you like to see at xhonziLand, xhonziWorld, or EuroXhonzi?

I loved Inferno (X-Men storyline) when I first read it several years ago.  In fact, everything from the Phoenix Storyline through Inferno is quite a good read.

In my mind, Inferno would make one mind-blowingly good film, but its so steeped in continuity (which the exists moives are so far off from) that you couldn't expect the uninitiated to really go for it.  It would be like, oh I don't know, starting Star Wars at Episode IV or something...

I've been reading the Fables and Jack of Fables books recently.  Those are pretty entertaining. 

Now that Star Wars Legacy War issue 6 just came out, I can go read those.  I am still sad that this series was cancelled.

I really loved Planet Hulk and was mildly disappointed with World War Hulk.  I didn't keep up with Hulk after that, but semi-recently I decided to get caught up.  The first 12 issues or so of "HULK" (starring Red Hulk) seemed pretty silly, but they actually led up to some stuff that was pretty great in Fall of the Hulks and World War Hulks.

I catch Deadpool from time to time.  He's always good for a laugh.

I'm way behind in Spider-Man.

I also recently read the first 20 or so issues of the latest Cable series.  I really quite enjoyed that.  I'm reading X-Men Second Coming right now.

I'm still really sad/mad that the latest Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova series were cancelled.  I'm hoping they don't stay away long.  Marvel's recent cosmic stuff starting with Annihilation has been really good.

I was really enjoying Green Lantern from Reborn -> the start of Blackest Night.  Can't say I really enjoyed Blackest Night, though I did read almost all of it.  I read Brightest Day 0-8 and determined to give up on it.

I bought a Captain Marvel and Thanos pack of Super Hero Squad guys at Target the other day for $1.  They're on my bookcase at work.  They're pretty sweet.

/END