SOCL

Seems to me that is an improvement!

A scale model is currently displayed on the lawns of the National Mall. I hope to go see it tomorrow. I'll do my best to remember to get some photos. UPDATE: So I went to the National Mall in DC yesterday... Apparently it was there only for last week, so by the time I got there, it had already been packed up. All that was left were an Abrams tank, Bradley fighting vehicle, a few other armored tracked vehicles, an Apache and a Cobra attack helicopter, and a Little Bird helicopter. Nothing too exciting.

Always amusing, Tofu, though you missed the part where I punch you and smile.

I just stop acknowledging the existence of certain pieces of canon after a bit. For instance, the prequels.

This is rather late, but I saw Hot Fuzz sometime back. Bloody fantastic film!

SPOILERS FOLLOW I didn't like it. Well, not as much as the first two. The amount of potential they had, I think they threw it away. I believe the film's greatest weakness were too many villains. Two alone is pushing it, but trying to mix in three villain storylines, not to mention whatever Peter Parker has going on in his personal life. You have Harry Osborn getting revenge for his father's death, Venom thrown in for good measure, and then, for no good reason, Sandman. Venom was awesome, but I think they wasted an opportunity by having the useless Sandman storyline in there, which just diluted the drama and clarity of the movie as a whole. You look at the level of character development present in the first two films, especially for the Green Goblin, and anyone can tell it was significantly higher than anything else. Certainly, I understand why they put in so many characters. Harry Osborn was simply inevitable following the second film's cliffhanger conclusion. Then the director had it in his mind they had to bring back the whole Ben Parker's deaths bit by bringing in Sandman as the apparent real killer. Then they tossed Venom in because...well, what would a The Amazing Spider-Man be without Venom coming in at some point? Here's the issue, you have the film running from dealing with one fellow to another to the point that it doesn't even give someone to process and let sink in the motivations and such like we were able to do with the Green Goblin and Doc Oct. Sandman came across two-dimensionally whose motivations were sympathetic, but then again, you have the ending where Parker forgives him and he floats away... What the hell? Doesn't he still need that money? Peter Parker had, literally, nothing to do with Sandman's search for money to save his daughter from imminent death. And then Venom would have been awesome, and I think a lot of people were expecting a very dramatic and climactic fight between Spidey and Venom, and yet... It left much to be desired. The character Venom himself isn't actually in the film for more than half-an-hour! In my opinion, if they were so determined to bring the story full-circle with Ben Parker's killer, fine, so be it. And sure, Harry Osborn has to show up as a villain. That's fine, but in all honesty, despite my own desire for Venom's presence in the film, Eddie Brock's transformation to Venom was essentially useless. One of two things should have happened. Either Peter Parker gets rid of the symbiote and leaves it as a cliff-hanger for a fourth film with Brock as the obvious next victim and deal with Sandman, or cut Sandman out completely. Hell, I'd venture to say that you could probably cut all of the Sandman's parts in the movie out and the plot itself would not suffer at all. It'd be awkward, sure, and shorter, but it would make more sense and leave more time for you to concentrate the main villains. I was actually rather disappointed. It was a good movie, but not as good as the previous two. Literally, towards the end of the movie, when Harry Osborn dies, I was impatiently awaiting the film's ending. And it took three endings, at that! Far too long. It left much to be desired.

Sometimes it's hard to define a good thing, so you define the good moments by identifying the bad moments. I guess that way everything that wasn't bad was good, eh?

I'll post this here so that attention continues to be drawn to Mitth rather than Tofu. Oh, Mitth, it's good to have you back: someone to target Tofu without hesitation or redemption.

Honestly, I think the best thing Mr. Lucas could have done for Star Wars would have been to retire or outright pass-away. No, no, I am not proposing Lucas die. All I am trying to illustrate is that Lucas should have kept out of Star Wars after the release of Jedi and let someone else write, produce, and direct the prequels, if at all! I hope that one of these days Star Wars will be remade, just like all classic movies are remade. Granted, most remakes can't even come close to the originals (i.e. King Kong), but I'm not sure if you could ever screw up by remaking the prequels. I doubt it could get an worse.

I didn't see Lord of the Rings until they came out on DVD. Well, except for Return of the King, but that nearly killed me sitting through all of that with my girlfriend-of-the-time, her brother, and his girlfriend.

It's coming out this weekend? I really hope you're being sarcastic, SOCL... Nope. The Army keeps me pretty busy. Odd because I saw Hot Fuzz about a week or so ago and didn't see an previews for Spiderman 3...

It's coming out this weekend?

Very nice.

Classes or work?

I was walking around Crystal City in Arlington, on my way to my favorite bar to have some drinks, when I happened to spot something you guys might find of interest.

I suppose having a clear-looking Emperor in Empire made the point, but I didn't particularly appreciate it as it continues to be part of the "change it" campaign. I wouldn't be surprised by Ian McDiarmid acted the Emperor's scenes from Jedi on a blue screen set and was then computer-composited into the film for the next re-release. Really, I would not be surprised at all! Hell, I half-expect that by 2017 Luke will no longer be in the original trilogy because Anakin didn't become Darth Vader. The biggest issue with changing the Emperor in Empire hadn't much to do with who was in there, but rather what that actor said. I realize that after seeing Revenge of the Sith we all know that Luke and Leia are Vader's kids, but there really was no need to change the dialogue between Emperor and Vader just so we know how Vader knows about Luke. Lucas seems to have an obsession with explaining everything--nothing must be a mystery.

Nice to see you around, Mitth. I was beginning to wonder what happened to you. School be damned! Anything new for us, Tofu?

Yeah, there have been two original trilogy releases. The first came in 2004 (well, at least for the States; don't the dates elsewhere) and those had alterations done to them following the prequel rubbish. It has a new Palpatine holo-image in Empire, Vader finding out about Luke from Palpatine, and a Jango-Boba Fett. The latter DVD release was a version of the very original edit, but apparently the quality was rather bad as they used the 1993 laserdisc form, so the images are rather choppy, fuzzing, and the sound scoring is apparently quite bad; however, on that form of the DVD release, the title scroll for A New Hope as no "A New Hope" or "Episode IV" bit, as per the 1977 release, which was taken from an even older edit someone had lying around Skywalker Ranch. I hope they release the THX remastered form of the original trilogy! It's the one I watch on VHS. And maybe the 1997-cut of the Special Editions, before they changed Jabba the Hutt (again) and changed Boba Fett's voice. Personally, I think the 2004 DVD release, though cool because I don't have to rewind it and it has Surround Sound, was something a bust. I've seen some petitions around TheForce.Net for some time now about getting an "Ultimate Edition" form which comes with all the cuts of every movie. This would, for the first one, mean the 1977 cut without the words "A New Hope" or "Episode IV" at the start, the 1980 reedit with those words, the THX remastered edition, the 1997 Special Editions, and the 2004 basatardizations.

I just wonder if we'll ever find a satellite floating around in space with a weird cryptic message and some naked aliens on it... Wait, wasn't that what we point on one of the Voyagers?

I'm thinking we should petition to have the planet named Corellia! Fantastic!

BBC News website's "In Pictures" bit has a special today on Industrial Light & Magic with none photos of the studio. Here's the link. Some very interesting photos, including one of Jar-Jar in Carbonite, as featured in this thread. Enjoy! Here a few other articles of interest: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6587903.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6571491.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6584075.stm

And my home State of Virginia is one of the worst offenders of illegal firearms... My apologies to the rest of the country on behalf of my beloved State.

Sorry, JH, I didn't mean it to sound like I was going off on you. I just get very frustrated with people who question my support for troops just because I lack a magnet, yellow ribbon, and American flag. I probably did misunderstand what you typed and I apologize for coming across in such a mean way.

Here I do not agree with you. Yellow ribbons and American flag stickers don't mean anything, in my opinion. Too many people with "Support Our Troops" merchandise without even realizing what it means to serve. It really just makes me sick. Living on military bases, I saw a lot of people with this sort of merchandise, civilian mostly, but did any of them stay up until two in the morning to greet the soldiers at they came home? No. I'm not trying to say I'm more patriotic than people who have this stuff--not at all; I just find most of it rather ridiculous and overdone, like some fad. And did you know the person who invented the yellow ribbon car-magnet, despite making a fortune, has done no real work for the troops? If you want to support the troops, be a pen-pal or thank them. Just my two cents.

Sinister, Yeah, I collected the action figures back then, but sold them all since. If my memory serves me well, I had: -Han Solo in Carbonite -Dash Rendar -Chewbacca (Shadows of the Empire) -Luke Skywalker (Tatooine) -Boba Fett -Bossk -original Admiral Ackbar (80s) I don't remember any others, that was so long ago. My friend Matt had a ton of them, including the Millenium Falcon for the action figures, which was fantastic.