Messages

31

Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread

« on: 04 October, 2019, 08:35:44 pm »

Brexit is God's way of making the British finally understand what went wrong in Northern Ireland.

If, because of Brexit, Ireland eventually ends up doing a swapsy where it loses northern partition only for Britain to gain its own iteration with Scotland, we'll be able to power the national grid with the sheer power of irony.

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Film & TV / Re: The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance

« on: 29 September, 2019, 05:37:07 pm »

I downed it the first weekend – so many great scenes: backstory related as puppet-show-within-a-puppet-show and SkekMal becoming a puppet, literally and spiritually, are up there.

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General / Re: Things that went over your head...

« on: 29 September, 2019, 05:17:01 pm »

I doubt all those kids in 80s US sitcoms 'hooking-up' meant they were indulging in horizontal refreshment.


"Hooking up" was a term known in the year 2000 to almost every American child over the age of nine, but to only a relatively small percentage of their parents, who, even if they heard it, thought it was being used in the old sense of "meeting" someone. Among the children, hooking up was always a sexual experience, but the nature and extent of what they did could vary widely. Back in the twentieth century, American girls had used baseball terminology. "First base" referred to embracing and kissing; "second base" referred to groping and fondling and deep, or "French," kissing, commonly known as "heavy petting"; "third base" referred to fellatio, usually known in polite conversation by the ambiguous term "oral sex"; and "home plate" meant conception-mode intercourse, known familiarly as "going all the way." In the year 2000, in the era of hooking up, "first base" meant deep kissing ("tonsil hockey"), groping, and fondling; "second base" meant oral sex; "third base" meant going all the way; and "home plate" meant learning each other's names. – Tom Wolfe, Hooking Up: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the Second Millennium: An American's World

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wolfe-hooking.html

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Film & TV / Re: Star Wars Episode 7 and Disney buy Lucas Film

« on: 29 September, 2019, 04:58:39 pm »

I doubt he is going to take over Lucasfilm or Star Wars. I'd assume if he's going to make a big move it'll be up in the Disney ranks rather than sideways and he's already done/doing the whole cinematic universe thing, with F4 and X-Men still requiring a reboot – although his lieutenants will eventually take-over.

I surmise this is him wanting to make a Star Wars* film/films while he can, Lucasfilm needing to fulfill a release date but other productions not being ready, and the cachet and efficiency that a Feige produced film brings to Star Wars post Rise of Skywalker.

*apparently Star Wars is closer to his heart than Marvel.

35

General / Re: how to do a prog slog

« on: 28 September, 2019, 04:52:32 pm »

Anyone know if all the Tornado Blackhawk episodes are in the Rebellion collection?  I think I need to read them!

They are and they're great.

36

Film & TV / Re: Star Wars Episode IX

« on: 26 September, 2019, 03:12:04 am »

'Star Wars' Shocker: Marvel's Kevin Feige Developing New Movie for Disney

Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy "is pursuing a new era in 'Star Wars' storytelling, and knowing what a die-hard fan Kevin is, it made sense for these two extraordinary producers to work on a 'Star Wars' film together," Walt Disney Studios co-chairman Alan Horn tells The Hollywood Reporter.

37

Prog / Re: Prog 2150 - You want Thrills, Earthlets?

« on: 25 September, 2019, 08:47:53 pm »

So there's some doubt over the origin of the pathogen thst killed Hershey (quiet grizzle). And Pancho El Presidente is a remaindered robot chef with singularly ruthless ambition for power. With an army of robots and nice human hair. In South America. And PJ Maybe had that odd voice in his head back there before he was killed. I wonder if he was backing up his brain into one of his beloved robot chassis, and deliberately junking his fleshy body - after all, it was his DNA that kept shafting him. And I wonder if a President holding the world at bay with nukes is the step beyond Mayor he was looking for.

It had crossed me mind; also because PJM had a thing for Babs.

38

Film & TV / Re: Star Wars Episode IX

« on: 24 September, 2019, 08:23:20 pm »

Whereas I'd have the opposite view: Last Jedi was for me the most genuinely Star-Warsy Star Wars since Return of the Jedi

39

Film & TV / Re: Star Wars Episode IX

« on: 24 September, 2019, 02:48:59 pm »

This explains to me why the latest Star Wars movies felt like it was created by people whom never really cared for the franchise. They saw $ signs and that is it.

I don't believe that to be wholly the case either. The Disney board/shareholders may have had other priorities but I think those making the films cared about making their Star Wars - even if it didn't fit with the multitude of fan expectations.

40

Film & TV / Re: Star Wars Episode IX

« on: 24 September, 2019, 12:43:34 pm »

If you sell the rights of a franchise unfortunately you sell you right to be listened to as well. 

Depends what the exact terms of the deal were - though for that much money you'd expect Disney would have all rights.

Bob Iger's public statements I believe make the nature of those terms explicit: George Lucas signed everything away in terms of the creative future of Star Wars. Expecting more adherence to his outlines after Disney spent 4 billion for the right to do as they please seems to me a bit naive, although going by the available concept work they didn't ditch it all. Lucas had planned to make the Sequels himself but a series of set-backs with Lucasfilm's expansion plans and fan backlash to the Prequels seem to have helped fast-track his philanthropical retirement, and he can't really be too vocal about his displeasure because he still owns 37.1 million Disney shares making him the second largest non-institutional shareholder.

I believe most of the dissatisfactions with the Sequels stem from Iger and Abrams going against Kathleen Kennedy and writer Michael Arndt's requests to delay Episode VII for another year and a half while they work out the storyline. The pressure of the deadline resulted in Abrams exercising greater control of the production from the offices of Bad Robot.

With the Oct. 24 exit of Star Wars: Episode VII writer Michael Arndt, the studio is under the gun to keep the film on course for a 2015 release despite a script that several insiders say isn't close to ready.

According to those close to the project, producer Kathleen Kennedy and most of the film's creative team have asked Disney to push the release to 2016, but studio CEO Robert Iger is adamant that Episode VII -- perhaps the franchise's most anticipated installment since 1999's The Phantom Menace -- not budge. That has created enormous pressure on all involved, with director J.J. Abrams stepping in to take over scripting duties with Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote 1980's Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, considered the best film in the series.

For his part, Arndt worked exclusively on Episode VII for most of the past year and already had penned a 40- to 50-page treatment before Lucasfilm was sold to Disney in October 2012. But as one of Hollywood's highest-paid screenwriters, who can command more than $300,000 a week doing rewrites, the Oscar-winning scribe (Little Miss Sunshine) was ready to move on to other projects.

Some sources say Abrams has become autocratic in recent months, wresting some casting control from Kennedy. But others disputed that notion, saying Abrams and Kennedy both have been involved in casting sessions. Unlike Kennedy, Abrams is said to be more in sync with Iger's desire to meet the 2015 release target -- which allows zero margin for error -- at all costs.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/star-wars-episode-vii-disney-651482

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Film & TV / Re: Star Wars Episode IX

« on: 24 September, 2019, 03:37:48 am »

Impeccable timing, Bob.

Disney CEO Says Star Wars Creator George Lucas Felt Upset and Betrayed When Told Sequel Trilogy Wouldn’t Follow His Plots

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Film & TV / Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

« on: 24 September, 2019, 12:11:31 am »

They're technically TV films (shot 4:3) made for ABC Sunday Night Movies that, like the CBS Spider-Man series, got cinema releases outside America.

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Film & TV / Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

« on: 23 September, 2019, 11:08:30 pm »

Don't start!  (IIRC only the former had a theatrical release, which must have been blink-and-you'll-miss-it, because I did).

Limited as it was, they both got a cinema release in certain countries, but I think we Paddies only got COC.

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Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...

« on: 17 September, 2019, 09:57:42 pm »

There's a much better movie to be had in just following Obi-Wan's story

... in all 3 Prequels.

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Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread

« on: 17 September, 2019, 02:26:17 pm »

Which lends weight to his version of events - that the Luxembourg PM planned this as an ambush, and BJ's lot weren't aware until the last minute.

It was BJ who requested the change of venue at the last minute not that the venue itself was sprung on them. Not that it really matters: he went to the EU with nothing to offer and left with nothing.