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zombie84

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21-Nov-2005
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12-Jan-2024
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Post
#590686
Topic
Save Star Wars Dot Com
Time

TPM didn't cost 100 million to convert. How could any movie make money in 3D if it cost an additional 100 million? Next to that figure it is relatively cheap, which is why so many films do it.

The 3D conversion of Episode I, based on my own experiences and research in 3D conversion, cost about $15 million or so. The film made healthy profit, just not nearly as much as what they expected. Much like the 2008 Clone War film. By most standards, and x10 by SW standards, it was a bomb. But it wasn't. It was a cash cow. Hell, the Holiday Special was probably fairly lucrative. But yeah, I agree it was a bomb, in the sense that it was a huge disappointment. But at the same time, it came out in the black financially (as far as I can tell, but not by much mind you). I guess it depends on what your criteria is.

Post
#590572
Topic
Raiders of The Lost Ark in IMAX!
Time

Never saw it in IMAX but I would venture it was the same reason that it had a two hour limit, in that it was one of the first IMAX conversions ever done. Besides which, it would not surprise me if that was justr the way AOTC was and the IMAX format made it obvious: one of the reasons Lucas liked the not-ready-for-prime-time HD television cameras that they shot the film with was because he liked to blow up the image and do in-frame zooms and pans, which are in a million damn scenes in the film, and he felt HD gave better leeway rather than film. He said he was able to artificially blow up the image and do digital pan and scans 20% more than with film. He was basically nuts in all his opinions regarding digital video photography in the year 2000 when the movie was put to camera. So, without having any real frame of reference, my first instinct is to say it was just the movie itself. For anyone who worked in cinematography (eg me) AOTC is a complete clusterfuck, but then a lot of the movie is like that.

Post
#590571
Topic
What Brand Blu ray player should I get?
Time

Right now at Gamestop you can get a used PS3 for about $120. The disc tray will probably conk out in ten or twelve years, but for an extra $40 compared to a stand alone player that's a pretty good fee to get access to the great PS3 library. For all anyone knows standalone BD players have the same lifespan.

If you have the original models from first release they even were PS2 compatible but these probably aren't what Gamestop sells used these days.

Post
#590537
Topic
Spielberg: "I'm no longer a digital revisionist."
Time

I think that Spielberg's best stuff has been since 1993.

-Schindler's List

-Jurassic Park

-Saving Private Ryan

-The Terminal

-Catch Me if You Can

-Munich

-Tintin

-Minority Report

I even think Lost World, Amistad, War of the Worlds, A.I. and Crystal Skull are really decent films, despite their problems. As much as I love the trio of Jaws, Close Encounters and Raiders, I think overall his output of 1993-2012 is stronger than his output from 1974-1990. Although Jaws and Raiders are two of his best films.

Post
#590528
Topic
Spielberg: "I'm no longer a digital revisionist."
Time

Raiders looks more or less the way it ought to from the footage I've seen. Contrast and colour are pretty similar to prints I've seen, and the sharpness is probably just due to being a 4K neg to IMAX digital conversion, which means we are basically seeing a print from the negative. They may have given it a bit of extra help but these are things that happens in every restoration. No one can really even say if it's too far or not enough because there aren't surviving materials that are reliably definitive.

The small digital erasures confuses me though. Did they do them again? That seems a bit odd. This was a brand new transfer right?

 

Post
#590432
Topic
Kubrick's The Shining Analysis - What he wanted us to Know
Time

DominicCobb said:

Warbler said:

zombie84 said:. It strikes me as similar to the likely scenario of how the Beatles started playing on the Paul-is-Dead theory

I just did a quick internet search to find out what the Paul-is-Dead theory was.   I had never heard of it before.    So let me get this straight,  some people actually believe that Paul McCartney died in 1967 and a look-a-like has been posing as McCartney ever since?    So they believe that the guy performing at Olympics opening ceremony was not Paul McCartney, but a look-a-like?   My god, people are crazy. 

If I'm not mistaken, people don't really believe this anymore. I think it was just a side-effect of Beatlemania - some people looked for meaning in the songs, and a select few thought what they found meant that Paul was dead. I'm also pretty sure that it quickly became little more than a joke after the Beatles heard of it.

Yeah, this has faded away now, but even in the 1980s it was at least remembered seriously, even if not taken that way. In 1998, my grade 8 teacher gave us a Beatles lecture shortly before we moved on to high school. He did this with every graduating class, a bit of a tradition for him, which speaks to how much the Beatles impacted the baby boomers. And at the end of it, he would walk us through every single Paul-is-Dead easter egg that had been identified. I really doubt he believed any of it himself, but it made for an entertaining presentation, complete with "I buried Paul!" sound clips and such. I already knew about it all though. I was really into paranormal stuff and cryptozoology in the early 1990s--almost assuredly due to the X-Files being popular--and would read a lot of books relating to stuff like that at the local public library. A lot of them would go on about the Paul-is-Dead theory. So it was a pretty big part of baby boomer culture and Beatlemania history. I don't know who actually believed in it at any point, but I'm sure there were enough who at least for a time recognized it as a real possibility. With all the JFK murder theories, moon landing hoaxes, Area 51 and Rosewell, etc. circulating at the time, and with stuff like Watergate coming out and all these crazy stories about Vietnam (agent orange) and stuff like Manchurian Candidate, it wasn't so unbelieveable. Plus the Monkees were still around, so you could see how easy it was to get a Beatles substitute.

Even today there are still some people who believe Tupac is alive and there are many books proposing Kurt Cobain was murdered, just as people years ago refused to believe Elvis died, so this isn't so out of left field. I mean, a significant proportion of Americans even believe 9/11 was staged. Heck, Dave Mustain, of Megadeth, thinks Obama staged the Aurora DKR shootings to impose gun control. Dave Mustain! People will believe anything. My parents to this day still believe JFK was killed by the CIA, even though it's been shown multiple times how a single gunman inflicted the damage from that vantage point through re-creations (wasn't there a Myth Busters episode about this?). My university had an entire course about rational thinking, where the semester-long example was a total deconstruction of the JFK theory showing how implausible it really was when you consider how unlikely it was to go off without anyone blowing the whistle, aside from the physics simulations. Yet lots of Americans, and even many non-Americans, will hear nothing of it. Like I said, people will believe anything. The Paul-is-dead connections actually hold together better than most conspiracies!

Post
#590419
Topic
What Brand Blu ray player should I get?
Time

In my opinion it really doesn't make much difference when it comes to brand, other than having the right features you are looking for. It's not like the analog days where you had to pay more money for a multi-head VCR with hi-fi sound and S-video output and get really good connectors, or what have you. The digital signal of a Blu-ray should theoretically be the same whether it is Sony or LG. I think the upscalers might be a bit different across brands but I've never heard of a DVD looking worse on a BD player than a DVD player so worst case it looks the same.

I've had experience with Sony, Toshiba and LG players. As far as I can tell they all work the same, but Sony is the most expensive, Toshiba is in the middle, and LG is the cheapest, simply because of brand name value. I'm sure if you got an LG player you would have no complaints. Check the reviews before you buy to make sure it is reliable though, some cheap models tend to skip or have long load times but LG is a pretty decent brand, especially for the price you pay.

Post
#590415
Topic
The Enderverse (WAS: Finally! Ender's Game emerges from Development Hell!)
Time

I read Ender's Game in 1996 and it's probably my favourite novel of all time. I read Speaker for the Dead and thought it was really weird and slow, and not like Ender's Game at all, but once I was older I learned to appreciate it a lot more. It's odder and deals with themes and ideas more than the slightly more visceral and character-oriented first book, but together they complement each other in a unique way, and I appreciate the original and surprising direction it went in. After the third book I lost interest but I read Ender's Shadow out of curiosity. I remember liking it but to be honest it had been a while since I read Ender's Game so any inconsistencies didn't stand out to me, I kind of just took it on its own.

The film version has worried me since day one. David Fincher was attached at some point, which I thought would have been interesting. I remember thinking it would be a good movie when I was first reading it but also remember thinking how in the hell someone would pull it off. It required a relatively big budget and someone who could do effects and action, but it's first and foremost a psychological character study that required an expert director, plus it needed an A+ cast who were also ten year olds, which you almost never see. Add to that the adult nature of some of the scenes, and the R-rated level of gruesomeness with the Giant subplot, and I just couldn't figure out how one would make a faithful, intelligent and entertaining adaptation. I still can't. In some ways it would probably be best suited as an anime mini-series.

Gavin Hood is a good director, as I loved his film Tsotsi. A really underrated little gem. But then he made Wolverine and I lost all confidence in him. That film was a bona fide disaster, partly because of studio interference but ultimately the fault rests with him. Just badly written, little drama, weak performances, badly done action scenes, really watered down violence and conflict, etc. So if that's what he does with a studio film I'm definitely not having good feelings about him in the drivers seat for Enders Game. Especially when you consider the "hard" content of some parts of Ender's Game, I have this sinking feeling that a lot of the book will be watered down. That's why I couldn't figure out how they would make this when I was reading it in the 1990s: it's just slightly too hard for a PG-13, but making it R-rated might also be a bit unjustified considering it's a film about kids and really isn't that obscene or anything and it needs to make money too, yet cutting it for PG-13 would water it down just enough to take that little bizarre magic out that made the book so compelling. Speaker for the Dead was the same way, too weird to be PG-13 if you want to be totally faithful, but it would seem a bit odd to release it as an R, as I imagine a lot of people would be saying "why is this R?" and then blame the rating when it doens't make much money.

But maybe it will work. I definitely want to see it, whether it's good or bad. I have a feeling though that this will be one of those films where lovers of the book will continue to be lovers of the book and tell everyone who sees the film to read the original instead. It just seems like it can't not go that.

But Asa Butterfield is pretty much the best person for the role, Harrison Ford is in it, and Gavin Hood knows how to get good performances under the right circumstances. It really rests on the screenplay. Hood's writing it, and he wrote Tsotsi, so maybe this will be one of those rare slam dunks. It really depends on how much freedom the studio is giving him.

Post
#590411
Topic
Retro Gaming - a general discussion thread
Time

I've never had a problem with controllers, since they basically haven't changed since 1997, and even then that was just a modified version of the SNES controller. If you've been playing games since the 1990s you shouldn't have a problem IMO. The very low rate of change since the PS1 twin-analog pad speaks to it's versatility, there simply hasn't been a need to change it. Even the Gamecube controller was just a less-effective version of the PS1 controller. X-Box originally based it's controller on the Dreamcast one but everyone complained and what do you know, they re-designed it based on the PS controller and it's stayed that way ever since.

Keyboards and me don't work very well for most games, other than MMOs or real-time strategy games where reflexes are less important and you have more abilities and options. Either there is too many buttons to remember which ones does what or you can't move your fingers to the correct key in time and/or accidentally hit the wrong one next to it, it's too hard for me to do without looking down at the keys and making sure I go to the right one, as opposed to simply doing it reflexively by feel the way controllers work. A lot of people prefer them for fps games though, I can go either way as they both have pros and cons. The best aspect of the keyboard for me is the ability to recall a specific weapon/ability through the number pad as opposed to cycling through your inventory on controllers, which can often take long enough to lead to your death when you need a split-second switch.

Post
#590317
Topic
PROMETHEUS was (Alien 0?) NOW NO LONGER SPOILER FREE.
Time

Walking out I thought it was a pretty soft R too, but seeing it again since there's just enough gore and gruesome things to make it R. Ridley Scott or someone involved said the big split between PG-13 and R was the c-section scene, it would have had to have been cut down massively, almost to the point where it no longer was in the film, plus a few other scenes would have had to have been trimmed down (Fiefeld, Holloway being torched). I've heard that when they were filming they made in such a way that a PG-13 would be possible, like Die Hard 4 did, but opposite of that movie they decided to go dark rather than go for the money. The film looks poised to walk away with a $350 million worldwide theater gross, which is damn outstanding for an R-rated film like this, which I guess is why Prometheus 2 is in development.

Post
#590260
Topic
Spielberg: "I'm no longer a digital revisionist."
Time

FanFiltration said:

SilverWook said:

He did invent the "Special Edition" with Close Encounters though. Have people forgotten the "inside the mothership" ending already? ;)

I'll be happy to own 1941 on Blu Ray even if the wires holding up the models can be seen.

And he changed the title of "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

Not in the film itself! I could care less what the plastic case says. When Harrison Ford walks in front of the mountain it says RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and that's all that matters in the end. Marketing can do it's usual song and dance.

Post
#590242
Topic
Spielberg: "I'm no longer a digital revisionist."
Time

I wonder if it will contain the minor tweaks for the DVD like erasing the snake reflection. Those were HD transfers from 2003, so I assume those changes are only on the digital master. Going back to the negatives for a new 4K restoration--that would mean back to the original original right? I hope so. If he really feels "let films be what they are."

I noticed this: "and by the way, to George’s credit, he never once called me and suggested that I do any digital enhancements. He was not knocking on my door, saying, “Steve, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do this.” He never said a word."

Except for that sneaky digital shot they slipped in for the HD broadcasts a few years ago. Spielberg is doing his best to defend Lucas in this interview but it seems fairly clear that Lucas put in that digital shot, fans reacted negatively, so Spielberg took it out and said "no more changes, ever."

Post
#590088
Topic
Last movie seen
Time

This is an aside since I already mentioned watching this movie last week. But I'm watching Romancing the Stone again, and I now recall, as a child I never got the joke that Joan Wilder is actually a terrible writer. The opening scene dramatices one of her novels as she writes it and her narration is absolutely terrible, hugely cliched for romance novelists, the type of thing that makes you roll your eyes...and then we cut to her writing it and she's bawling her eyes out as though it's the most beautiful thing ever written. For some reason I just remembered that as a kid I thought that scene was about how awesome a writer she is and that's why she's so famous. But she's actually more like a 1980s Stephanie Meyer.

Post
#590033
Topic
Kubrick's The Shining Analysis - What he wanted us to Know
Time

The idea that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings is so incredibly absurd it practically makes anything this guy say irrelevant.

BUT...

I believe his interpretation of the film is mostly correct. He makes a pretty compelling case that Kubrick altered elements of the source material to make way for a symbolic commentery on the popular myth that was circulating at the time.

Obviously, this doesn't prove the moon landings WERE actually faked by Stanley Kubrick. It's funny how otherwise smart people can put on logic blinders when it comes to certain things. Practically every conspiracy theory ever proposed breaks down entirely once you apply cold logic to the situations.

But anyway, this is more likely an example of Kubrick having fun and teasing the audience. It probably amused him that a small segment of conspiracy theorists believed he helped fake the moon landing. So he put these elements in his film as a riff on that. It strikes me as similar to the likely scenario of how the Beatles started playing on the Paul-is-Dead theory, which of course conspiracy nuts took to prove the theory was true instead of the more reasonable answer that the Beatles were playing into it for fun.

But anyway, this guy has a good eye for detail. I thought some of his analyses were reaching at first but the more connections he points out the more it seems to make sense. I don't think this is why Kubrick made the film, but he does seem to have used the opportunity to put these references in there. Some of them, like the hotel symbolizing America, might actually be unrelated to the lunar subtext though. And some of his other ideas are a bit off, like some of his cold war references. But stuff like Danny wearing an Apollo 11 shirt and travelling to room 237 (in thousands, the number of miles to the moon) to witness things that aren't real is probably spot on.

Post
#590028
Topic
Retro Gaming - a general discussion thread
Time

Heavy Rain probably isn't the best example since it's basically an interactive movie. Bioshock is a good example of a game with a great story and cinematics but also great gameplay. But the problem I find is that in half of the games that have made this "shift," the storylines or acting aren't good enough to justify putting gameplay to the backseat. Games shouldn't be something that you just walk through, but even first-person shooters like some of the Call of Duty entries, which don't have much in the way of story or character beyond the basics, you just kind of sit there and go through the levels. It's like that map image posted in the previous page, you just go through the motions to get to the next cut scene. Stuff like that works in really cinematic games like Heavy Rain, but the problem is that almost all games today have this issue, and it's hard to justify having that kind of approach for 85% of all games. It should be the reverse if anything, games like Bioshock and to some extent the Uncharted series can justify it because the story, characters and cinematics are designed so well and integrated into the gameplay very fluidly. But most games, in my opinion, either don't warrant it or don't do it well enough to justify it. Games with great storylines and cinematics actually have more permission to be above-average in difficulty since gamers will want to see how the story unfolds, but usually they are easier.

It's like how a lot of companies in the early 2000s started putting profanity in games for no real reason other than to sell you the idea that they were "more mature," or whatever. But half the games that did that were so mediocre and ham-fistedly conceived that any adult would stay away from them anyway. That was the impression I got on Area 51 for the X-Box, for example. Entertaining for a few minutes but the thing is bogged down in endless cut scenes with awful writing and acting, really nothing much better than you find in a kids comic book, and then they throw in strong profanity to try to make it seem more serious. If you're going to design a game that way, make sure it's done well, and make sure the gameplay is good too (Area 51 had pretty lousy gameplay at times). I was surprised to find the game was rated half decently.

Post
#589916
Topic
Name three films that should have an IMAX upgrade
Time

SilverWook said:

The chances of seeing a 70mm print outside a film IMAX venue is getting slimmer all the time though.

Given the time limitation IMAX used to have, wouldn't JP have been cut down shorter the way Episode II was?

I was going to suggest Plan 9 get some IMAX love. ;)

Some of the better 70's disaster flicks would be awesome too.

At 7 minutes over the 2-hour limit, I doubt my 20-year-later rememberance of my 10-year-old self could remember anything cut out since I only saw it once before. Maybe they just snipped out the credits! Or just blown up the 35mm size to fill the IMAX screen. It didn't completely fill the screen after all.