Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I have a vague recollection of this as well, but I don't think it was 
>> planned out in detail.  But originally, it was 9 films, and the first 
>> three released were the middle group.
> 
>   Given that all six films are basically about Anakin Skywalker, I wonder
> what the films 7-9 would have been about. Ewoks?
> 
Those would likely have been some variation on what appeared in the 
games Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith, and Jedi Academy. 
I.e., the rebuilding of the Jedi order, and its continued conflict with 
trying to prevent the reawakening of the Sith in the process.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:55:23 -0500, Warp wrote:
> 
>> Nowadays when you
>> can control absolutely everything and have whatever you might want show
>> up on screen, no matter how crazy, it easily derails the directing. The
>> director might get so enthralled by his own omnipotence to get whatever
>> he wants on screen that he forgets that he should actually be filming a
>> story, not a computer graphics demonstration.
> 
> Well said; one of the things I really like is when the effects are 
> invisible.  We just watched the first and second Bourne movies again, and 
> I was quite amazed watching the credits to see ILM credited with VFX 
> work.  I couldn't name a scene with ILM VFX in it, that's how well done 
> the effects were - they didn't jump out and scream "I'm CGI!  I'm a 
> special effect, look at me!" - they helped tell a very well-written story.
> 
> Jim

This is pretty close to what someone recently wrote as a review of 
Avatar. After a brief case of, "Wow, there are vines hanging all over 
the place.", you forget that you are looking at something CG at all. The 
problem, as he pointed out, is that the next guy to use what made it 
amazing will be used to make something that **won't** spend time on the 
story, and *will* scream CG because of it. It will be all about, "See, 
we can do this level of CG too!", and not about the story.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:24:53 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> This is pretty close to what someone recently wrote as a review of
> Avatar. After a brief case of, "Wow, there are vines hanging all over
> the place.", you forget that you are looking at something CG at all. The
> problem, as he pointed out, is that the next guy to use what made it
> amazing will be used to make something that **won't** spend time on the
> story, and *will* scream CG because of it. It will be all about, "See,
> we can do this level of CG too!", and not about the story.

Interesting.  I'm somewhat apprehensive about Avatar myself; my wife's 
got friends who are disabled, and they're quite unhappy about one of the 
central the ideas behind the film being that if you're disabled, you 
couldn't possibly live a normal life and the pinnacle of hope is that you 
could do something that made you not be disabled.

Needless to say, my wife's friends who are disabled are fiercely 
independent and find that premise to be quite offensive.

I may rent it on Netflix once just to see the effects, but I don't have 
high hopes for the story.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

oh, BTW, just found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQyuIQmVelA&NR=1

the rest of the series is far more fun, though.  Like the LOTR one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yqVD0swvWU

Post a reply to this message

>> The Matrix is just the prison where they put the humans. If Smith takes 
>> over that prison... so what? Why would the Architect care?
> 
>   They built the enormous life simulator, and it's about to get destroyed,
> and the billions of humans with it. Why would the Architect care?
> 
>   The Matrix exists for a reason, and it's about to get destroyed.

Ah, well, if Smith is actually going to *destroy* the Matrix rather than 
just take control of it... yes, that would be bad.

>>>> Seriously, it looks like "OMG, this film was so popular! We MUST make a
>>>> sequal! Hey, why not make it a trilogy?"
>>> Except that isn't how it happened; they planned to do 3 from the start, 
>>> AFAICR.
> 
>> Yeah, that's puzzling.
> 
>   It's puzzling that they wanted to make a trilogy?

No, it's puzzling that there's such a big variation in quality.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Didn't Lucas claim he actually had the story for all 6 films planned 
>> out from the beginning? (Which is why the very first film is Episode 
>> IV.) And yet, the first three are celebrated classics, and the 
>> prequals are all almost unanimously regarded is inferior?
> 
> This is actually BS if you ask me.  No author is ever 100% sure of where 
> the work will lead them.  This is valid to Lucas, Tolkien, Toriyama or 
> whomever claims a huge friggin work is all in their heads already in 
> pristine form.

Oh say, I'm just saying what Lucas claimed to have, not what he 
*actually* had. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>>  From what I've seen, it's more like Smith hates having to stay in the 
>> Matrix, and he really wants to leave it. So he's taking over it... why?
> 
>   Wouldn't it be slightly easier to escape if you control the prison
> completely?

Well, perhaps...

>   Besides, he really hates humans, so it's a bonus.

This didn't come across all that strongly. Certainly he enjoys killing 
them, but I didn't get the impression that he's that hell-bend on 
eliminating them all.

>> (Which is why the very first film is Episode IV.)
> 
>   It was renamed in retrospect. The original title was simply "Star Wars".
> It might even be possible Lucas hadn't plotted even the two sequels to
> that yet.

No, I'm pretty sure when the very first Star Wars film appeared, it said 
"Episode IV: A New Hope" in the opening title sequence. I remember 
wondering why...

>> And yet, the first three are celebrated classics, and the prequals are 
>> all almost unanimously regarded is inferior?
> 
>   There's a thing called nostalgia filter.

So you disagree with every point made in that review then?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> The "swarm of Smiths" in Reloaded was just silly. He's surrounded by 
>> 2,000 Smiths, and yet at any second only 2 or maybe 3 of them are 
>> actually attacking him. Um, why? But more to the point, about halfway 
>> through it goes into surprisingly poor CGI. You'd think these guys 
>> could do CGI so well you couldn't even tell, but this stuff looks 
>> worse than some computer games that are rendered in realtime. WTF?
> 
> You are obviously full of BS.

Look who's talking.

> Models and renders are friggin' well done 
> -- you can even see sweat in the skin.  The only reason you notice they 
> are CG is because they are moving like no human being could ever move, 
> even with the help of wires.

Do I have to go find a still from the movie just to prove a point?

> Kinda like the "Jurassic Park" syndrome:  "ah, that's obviously CG!"

I thought JP was actually pretty good, mostly. (Some of the big "oh 
look, it's a dinosaur" shots were a bit over-detailed, but that's about 
all.)

> I'm pretty sure you didn't notice most of the CG doubles when they are 
> not obvious.

Probably not. But in the Swarm of Smiths, I did, and it looked tacky.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>   You are doing a good job at making it sound like you have decided that
> since you didn't like it the first time, you will never give it a second
> chance and try to understand it better so that, maybe, you could perhaps
> start liking it in retrospect. In other words, "I hate it, and I will
> always hate it no matter what you say; I refuse to like it".

You realise I've watched it several times, right?

It contains all the right stuff. It's just... not entertaining. Until I 
watched this review, I couldn't really put my finger on why. Now I have 
a clearer idea.

I didn't expect to enjoy the original film, but I did. The trailer for 
the sequal looked great... but the actual film wasn't very good. Having 
been disappointed with that, I was reluctant to bother watching the 
final film. It turns out that it's slightly better - although still 
nowhere near as good as the first.

>   If you decide that you will never like it, that's fine. It's your
> prerogative. However, you shouldn't bash the film if you don't understand
> it.

Right. Because it's not a requirement for a good film to actually make 
sense.

Oh, wait... yes it is.

>> I'm told there are people who actually *liked* the X-Files, for example. 
>> I cannot begin to imagine why, but apparently some people really liked 
>> it. Good for them...
> 
>   Do you really think they would have got money for 9 whole seasons if
> people didn't like it?

I repeat: "apparently some people really liked it". It seems readily 
apparent to me that this is true, even if I have no idea *why* it's true.

>   I don't find it cryptic at all. It's quite simple and straightforward.

Fair enough. You're entitled to your opinion.

>   I enjoy movies which need some thinking.

I don't mind films that require some thinking. (Certain film producers 
seem to believe any film which isn't 100% blindingly obvious won't be 
popular - presumably because the audience are idiots.) What I detest is 
films which deliberately don't tell you what happened. Some people 
apparently think it's cool to make a movie where at the end the audience 
is like "So... was it all a dream after all? Or did he really save the 
world?" I really hate that.

I also hate films where everybody dies at the end. Or almost everybody. 
I really enjoyed the Final Fantasy film, but the ending was 
disappointing. (My collegue remarked that this is apparently *the exact 
plot* of the computer games - which I've never really played.)

Thinking about it, the subsequent Matrix films tick both boxes: At the 
end of the final film, almost everybody I was actually interested in is 
dead, and with the sun rising on a new day in an apparently unchanged 
Matrix, we're left wondering what the hell has happened. Is this just 
the start of another cycle? Or has the world actually changed?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Do I have to go find a still from the movie just to prove a point?

Yes, show me even a single one from the bunch which looks less detailed than a
videogame character in real-time.  Then, take your time to also show me how they
are so low detailed that you can do better just with povray superellipsoids
perfect curves.

Post a reply to this message