crazy customizing and creativity questions and discussion

[Gustavo]

Seriously, Gustavo, Dom may have his quirks, but he's actually a pretty decent guy. We recently had an arrangement that he was going to send me the Free Comic Book Day issue 80.5 of Regeneration One, for free (which is pretty awesome unto itself) but do you think he stopped there? Oh no. This package was packed full of stuff. Including a very good run on GI Joe Cobra and I think an exclusive Joecon comic? Anyway, yeah, Dom's silly, but that's what makes him unique.

Never said he wasn't a pretty decent guy, just that he's silly.

[Gustavo]

Well, "Return of the Jedi" kind of sucks.

At some point or another, I might sit down and watch Episode III again. I have watched it several times. But, at this point, I am done with "Star Wars". So, if I do watch Episode III, it will be "watching a good movie" not "watching a Star Wars movie".

ROTJ is the weakest of the three originals, sure. But Ep. III as a "good movie". Oh, you poor deluded boy...

There's a very nice set of fanedits of the Star Wars movies that radically transform the entire thing into silent movies, about 40 minutes per episode. The prequels are greatly improved by having the dialog ripped out and replaced with cards...

Dom's objection to fanfic isn't because it's too creative. It's because it usually involves the worst parts of various fandoms (and believe me when I say that the fandom has a BIG influence on him!).

And, it just makes the fandom my insular. I might be the only one here who remembers the days of UseNet, when fanfic cults would spring up around certain fans and fanfics.

Some of us are still on Usenet, and have been for over a decade.

And what's wrong with that? What's wrong with actually playing with your toys?

Who was playing with the toys? I actually wrote those stories out.

How is that not playing with the toys? The toys come with characters and an entire universe attached to them, and a multiverse behind that -- they're not just lumps of plastic. How do you play with characters and settings? By poking at the boundaries and seeing how they interact. It's a different way of playing than grabbing Optimus in one hand, Megatron in the other and smashing them into each other while making laser noises, but it's still play.

[Shockwave]

I'm disagreeing with both of you. Jedi was fucking awesome and the best SW movie in the series. I mean, it's the movie where all the plot threads finally come to fruition. Everything else up to that point is just building to that. Jedi is the payoff. The moneyshot. The coup de grace. Episode III on the other hand is the one where Lucus finally killed the continuity completely. Just freakin lightsabered it through the face. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the prequels, but it's a bit like Star Trek Enterprise. Good, but does not fit with continuity.

[Gustavo]

I'm disagreeing with both of you. Jedi was fucking awesome and the best SW movie in the series. I mean, it's the movie where all the plot threads finally come to fruition. Everything else up to that point is just building to that. Jedi is the payoff. The moneyshot. The coup de grace. Episode III on the other hand is the one where Lucus finally killed the continuity completely. Just freakin lightsabered it through the face. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the prequels, but it's a bit like Star Trek Enterprise. Good, but does not fit with continuity.

Structurally ROTJ is weak. The first third (Tatooine) has very little to do with the rest of the movie. None of the conflicts from that part of the movie are extended into the main part of the movie -- there are no villains who appear later, there are no emotional themes that are resolved later.

It's like two movies shown back to back, rather than one cohesive movie.

The latter chunk, where you have three different plot lines tracking along (battle on endor, Luke and and his daddy, and the assault on the Death Star II) was amazingly well edited, though. But then you have Ewoks.

I don't mind the Ewoks, I just find the structure of the movie a bit jarring. Had Luke been tempted by anger in Jabba's Palace, or shown a level of power that frightened his friends, then it would have led into the Luke/Vader storyline later, and fit better.

[Tigermegatron]

Regarding the star wars episode IV,V & VI movies.

I think star wars should have ended at episode IV. The movie itself seemed pretty self contained & didn't need sequels.

Star wars episode V was okay but nothing to write home about. having luke learn a life time's worth of jedi training made zero sense & was a weak plot from the start.

Star wars episode VI had way too much going on. if it was suspose to be a wrap up movie. then their was no need to introduce a whole planet full of ewoks. the ewoks got introduced because george lucas was greedy & wanted to make merchandise money off of the ewoks. their was far too many new elements introduced & newer characters,in a wrap up movie that needed to have less of a cast. all these extra cast members got in the way of the ending plot.

Honestly that george hamilton guy did a awful job in his acting skills playing luke skywalker. i'd compare his poor acting skills to shia la beouf.

having luke skywalker become so powerful in a few months training made zero sense. especially since he lost in a big way to darth vader in the V SW movie.

the whole star wars saga made no sense. because in episode III,The emperor told yoda,that darth vader would be more powerful than yoda & the emperor combined. Sadly This was not the case. in Starwars episode VI,The emperor was stronger than darth vader. Because the emperor was power levels higher in the jedi force/dark force. because the emperor was able to have lighting/energy comes out of his body & use it as a weapon to attack his oponent. luke was clearly stronger than darth vader. the emperor was clearly stronger than luke. darth vader cheated,he grabbed the emperor from behind & threw him into that thing while he was distracted trying to kill luke.

[Onslaught Six]

Honestly that george hamilton guy did a awful job in his acting skills playing luke skywalker. i'd compare his poor acting skills to shia la beouf.

You mean Mark Hamill. George Hamilton was a totally different guy. Also, Mark Hamill is not a poor actor in any sense; he was the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series FFS.

[Gustavo]

Honestly that george hamilton guy did a awful job in his acting skills playing luke skywalker. i'd compare his poor acting skills to shia la beouf.

You mean Mark Hamill. George Hamilton was a totally different guy. Also, Mark Hamill is not a poor actor in any sense; he was the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series FFS.

Perhaps he accidentally watched "Zorro: The Gay Blade", and thought it was "Return of the Jedi". It's a pretty easy mistake to make, since the mute assistant does have a terrible bear costume that might be mistaken for an Ewok.

[Tigermegatron]

Honestly that george hamilton guy did a awful job in his acting skills playing luke skywalker. i'd compare his poor acting skills to shia la beouf.

You mean Mark Hamill. George Hamilton was a totally different guy. Also, Mark Hamill is not a poor actor in any sense; he was the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series FFS.

Perhaps he accidentally watched "Zorro: The Gay Blade", and thought it was "Return of the Jedi". It's a pretty easy mistake to make, since the mute assistant does have a terrible bear costume that might be mistaken for an Ewok.

No,I just got the names wrong.

I don't watch zorro.

[Shockwave]

I'm disagreeing with both of you. Jedi was fucking awesome and the best SW movie in the series. I mean, it's the movie where all the plot threads finally come to fruition. Everything else up to that point is just building to that. Jedi is the payoff. The moneyshot. The coup de grace. Episode III on the other hand is the one where Lucus finally killed the continuity completely. Just freakin lightsabered it through the face. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the prequels, but it's a bit like Star Trek Enterprise. Good, but does not fit with continuity.

Structurally ROTJ is weak. The first third (Tatooine) has very little to do with the rest of the movie. None of the conflicts from that part of the movie are extended into the main part of the movie -- there are no villains who appear later, there are no emotional themes that are resolved later.

It's like two movies shown back to back, rather than one cohesive movie.

The latter chunk, where you have three different plot lines tracking along (battle on endor, Luke and and his daddy, and the assault on the Death Star II) was amazingly well edited, though. But then you have Ewoks.

I don't mind the Ewoks, I just find the structure of the movie a bit jarring. Had Luke been tempted by anger in Jabba's Palace, or shown a level of power that frightened his friends, then it would have led into the Luke/Vader storyline later, and fit better.

The Jaba bit was there for two reasons: 1: To wrap up Han's storyline with Jaba and 2: To establish Luke's Jedi profficiency. We see him putting his skills into action rather than just more training. It was basically there to wrap up some threads left over from Empire and the rest of it was wrapping up the saga as a whole.

And Tigger, the Ewoks weren't created because Lucas greedily wanted to cash in on teddy bears. Endor was originally supposed to be Kazzhyyk, Chewbacca's home planet. But, he didn't have the budget for that many wookies, so he cut them in half and made them Ewoks on Endor.

[Dominic]

"Return of the Jedi" suffers for being unfocused and giving so much time to the aboriginal hairballs, aka the Ewoks. It had maybe 20 (non-consecutive) worthwhile minutes. Episode 3 was good enough for me to watch more than once.

And Tigger, the Ewoks weren't created because Lucas greedily wanted to cash in on teddy bears. Endor was originally supposed to be Kazzhyyk, Chewbacca's home planet. But, he didn't have the budget for that many wookies, so he cut them in half and made them Ewoks on Endor.

And, they sucked. Oh, how they sucked.

How is that not playing with the toys? The toys come with characters and an entire universe attached to them, and a multiverse behind that -- they're not just lumps of plastic. How do you play with characters and settings? By poking at the boundaries and seeing how they interact. It's a different way of playing than grabbing Optimus in one hand, Megatron in the other and smashing them into each other while making laser noises, but it's still play.

I guess you could say it was playing with the characters. But, it was not playing with the actual toys. (I am not sure that I even had a Thundercracker figure at the time. It would would have been logically impossible for me to play with the toy in that case.)


Dom
-concedes that Takara made it official for SG Tracks to be RoadRage.