Radd

And flight sims. X-Wing just would not work on a console, and the Rogue Squadron and Jed iStarfighter series are just gimped arcade shooters.

I agree and disagreewith some of the statments since my own last post. I just think medichlorians were unneccessary, and seemed far too much like a Star Trek pseudo-science contrivance. That's just how they came off to me in the movie. It ca n be rationalized after the fact, but the way it was presented in Episode i did not sit well with me personally. An older Anakin would have sat better with my suspension of disbelief. You can argue it's fiction all you like, but the limits and touches of realism applied to the most fantastic and unreleasitic stories are what allow us to enjoy them without going, "That makes absolutely no sense." Having Jar-Jar as comedy relief is fine, I have no problem with that, and as stated before I loved his role in Episode II. I just felt he was overdone in Episode I, far more than any other comedy relief in the OT. 3PO was equally overdone in EpII. It seemed out of place compared to the OT, it really was different. Different isn't always bad, but I personally thought it was overdone here. If anything, I think 3P0 and R2's roles should have been considerably smaller, and kept to specific characters, with Jar Jar as the primary comedy relief for the entire PT, just reel it in a little. Enough to get a laugh here and there, but not enough to make today's kids groan as they grow older and look back on these movies. Again, just my opinion. I liked the pod race. It was cool. I liked the Senate scenes, I'm actually dissapointed that they removed a Senate scene from Episode II. I don't think Anakin should have been completely dark, perhaps leaning towards good but with a dark streak. They did that much with Episode II so I'm fine with it. Yoda's fight kicked complete ass. Not just part of the ass, but the whole, entire ass. Anyways, with any misgivings I might have, I see no compelling reason to sit and fret about it, wishing Lucas would go back and redo Episode I or anything like that, nor do I think he is raping my childhood. He's certainly not doing anything as bad as Starship Troopers or I, Robot. I enjoyed Episode II enough to pick up the DVD, and I'm looking forward to III. I might pick up Phantiom Menace someday just to complete the set, or more likely in a giant box set of all the movies combined, that we all suspect Lucas will eventually release.

You're probably not good at model because you buy Bandai kits. They have been slowly destroying the craft by making it too easy for customers. The PL Enterprise is less expensive than the Bandai kit to boot. No, not at all, quite simply model building is not my thing. I've always had a casual interest in it, but it's never been a priority for me. There's not enough hours in the day for me to get everything done that I'd like to, so I doubt I'll ever get into model building seriously. Drawing is my thing. Truth be told, I'd rather just have a prebuilt, sturdy toy of the Enterprise that lights up and I can have on display somewhere in my room. Preferably with an Excelsior and Reliant right next to it. I wouldn't say Bandai is "destroying the craft", as it appears to me that they build model kits for many levels. From simple snap together kits, to huge, complex kits with hundreds of pieces. Besides, Bandai isn't the only model kit company out there. However, as the Bandai kit is only availabe in Japan for a rather high price for it's size I may very well look into this Polar Lights kit and possibly take a slow, casual approach to building it. Looking at Stamen's post, I might even look into the possibility of lighting it up. Might as well do it right if I decide to invest that kind of time and energy.

Also, I'm a sucker for political stories, so while many complain about all the political talk and Senate scenes in the PT, I actually enjoy them quite a bit, on a level that the OT never addressed.

Episode I was less than stellar, easily the worst of the Star Wars movies. Not because of bad acting, it was no better or worse than A New Hope in that regards except for possibly the kid. They could have put Anakin in his early teens, and it wouldn't have been any less believable and the story would not have suffered at all. I daresay it would have benefitted if anything. I hear that Lucas originally wrote EpI with a 14 year old Anakin in mind, but was swayed by someone. That could simply be rumour, though. Episode I suffered from kid Anakin, overuse of Jar-Jar and medichlorians in my eyes. It unfortunately suffered in a big way due to these things. Episode II on the other hand, no kid Anakin, and no mention of medichlorians. Unfortunately, it seems painfully obvious that Lucas is not at all good handling a love story. Anakin's goth poetry dialogue was especially bad. Also, though Jar-Jar was reduced to a role that was actually pretty good and definitely entertaining, C-3PO and R2-D2 got stuck with some horrible moments. However, I was pleased with the majority of the movie, that which did not directly deal with Anakin Vader's angsty teen goth leanings. I expect all Episode III has to do to be every bit as good as the OT movies is to move far away from the love story, continue to make no mention of medichlorians, not go over the top with any comedy relief roles, and end on an Empire Strikes Back ending note. Feel free to disagree, this is simply how I see things.

"Oh man, we're gonna burn in the fire!" 1111010101101010101010101 *ZOIP*

hmmm, doesn't strike me as good news as all... for me, good star trek news would go something like this: Rick Berman, who has been steadily driving the Star Trek franchise into the ground with recycled plot lines and flat/stereotypical characters has stepped down from his position. that would be good news. 100% agreement. I happen to think that there is plenty that could be done with Trek, but Berman has mishandled the entire franchise from the moment he got on board. Another prequel is a terrible idea, I have absolutely zero interest in the idea already. Either advance the series into the future, or pick a time period between TOS and Voyager and place a series in there somewhere. Anything! I mean, geez, a series featuring Sulu and the Excelsior would probably be a better idea than anything since DS9. DS9 was a great idea, but unfortunately done poorly, same with Voyager. You want to go in a new direction? Forget everything you know about the Trek franchise and make a movie set in the Starfleet Battles/Starfleet Command universe. Certainly plenty of room for interesting happenings there.

Well, one way to look at it, at the beginning of the Clone Wars and before then, the Republic was rich and powerful, and also weapons were built as status symbols as much as for fighting. Those Naboo fighters, for example, fancy royal escort. As the war goes on, a lot of the fancy dressing is dropped in the designs, as the Empire concentrates on building cheaper, yet more effective weapons. There's also the matter of the cost of the war. Things aren't so clean and well kept on the front lines. Another way to look at it, compare a 57 Chevy to an 84 model. Mmmmmhmmmmmmm. I hope they do as well, though this design for the Jedi starfighter makes sense, as it's the precursor to the TIE fighter.

We covered that already.

If I were any good at model kits, I'd probably grab one of these baby's. Since I'm not, at all good with model kits, I'll probably get the Bandai kit.

The XBox is a dedicated gaming console, with hardware specifically optimized to run games, whereas the PC is a general purpose machine, running not only the game but an operating system, ad-wares, spy-wares, and god knows what else. It's like the thing with an NES and an NES emulator. My TI-89 probably has a better processor than the NES, yet you may still need a computer much faster than that to run an emulator. Compared to modern PC's, gaming hardware is generally pretty pathetic, yet most of the time, they run games more quickly and reliably than you can on a PC. Though they're usually lower resolution, with less impressive graphics. Halo looks much better on my PC than on the XBox. In additions to consoles hardware optimized and dedicated to games, games are also in turn dedicated to the console hardware they run on. XBox and Gamecube games always look better than their PS2 equivilent, and a high end PC will beat either of those hands down as well.

Hey Radd, where do you buy gear that cheap? If I can build a decent system that cheap... it looks liek it will be upgrade time! http://www.pricewatch.com/ http://www.slickdeals.net/\ I know the question wasn't for me, but I was able to get mine to Radd's level a year ago for the same price. You have to be patient with slickdeals, but you can really luck out if you watch it.(got my 250 GB HD for about $100) Add http://www.newegg.com/ to that list. Everything I have was picked up there, aside from a couple hard drives I grabbed on sale at CompUSA and Best Buy.

This is either the third, possibly the 4th thread about this movie. Wacky. I agree with Knight26, though. Filmmaker's need to stop relying on CG for everything, in case no one has noticed, CG still looks more fake than using actual models or mockups in most cases.

You haven't upgraded in quite a while have you? The system required above is still less powerful than my computer from two years ago, which only cost me about 500 or less to build. About a year later I build a better computer AMD 2600 1 Gig RAM GeForce 3 (carried over from the old computer, still want to buy a kickass new card when I can afford it) All in all, this newer computer still cost me around 500 bucks.

I used to be a huge Transformers fan (though I hate Armada and Energon, and Think Beast Machines, while well written for the most part, was not a good Transformers story and mangled the characters presented in Beast Wars), but I've got to agree with Graham. Live action is not the way to go with this. All CG, including CG for any human characters, would be more in the right direction, though I still don't see it topping a well animated 2D movie. Also....for a final confrontation, and a main villain...just how in heck do you top Unicron?!?

Wow, I just picked up Silverstreek at Walmart and got home. I was expecting him to just be a repaint of Smokescreen...but he's actually got a lot of nifty little improvements! The head is different, more detailed too. The car interior is more detailed as well.All in all, I'm glad I picked him up.

I dunno, as much as I usually like to see the characters look as close to their original G1 counterparts as possible, I'd say the blue lines would ruin the classiness being displayed here. I mean, Jazz is back in style!

WOAH! cool Megatron avatar! What they need to do is make a new animated Transformers movie, in which Megatron and Optimus Prime team up and curbstomp every single character from Beast Wars to Energon. "Their defenses are broken, let the curb stomping begin!" "Hasbro must be stopped, no matter the cost." That would make a great movie.

No sir, I don't like it. Well, ok, I do like the F-22 look to the fighter mode, however I really don't see the appeal of battroid mode. I especially don't see how people can like this fighter's battroid mode, yet proclaim to dislike the VF-4 which I feel has far more appealing proportions, and a transformation that is both original and stylish. This mecha also has a generic quality to it that does not appeal to me. It seems to lack character. It looks like j-random konami mecha and would not really stand out from that crowd.

When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth. Somehow reading this all I can think of is http://steampowered.net/photoshop/curse.jpg

<murphy> There go my nipples again. </murphy>

I gotta agree, in my half asleep state it looks a helluva lot like a VF-0. I'm surprised none of us (that have played the game at least) noticed this before.

How do people get smooth, natural movement exhibited in games like Mechwarrior? Or anyu videogame for that matter? A lot of this can be done with preprogrammed routines that kick in for certain circumstances.

It's right around that time that we first see a transformation sequence that, to me anyways, never gets old, and some of the best battle animation in the series. "I will let them see my Genius battle strategy." Heh... I like the end of that story arc. I was on the edge of my seat!!! Especially Diamond Force's involvement. Oh man, now I may just have to break out the DVDs...

It's right around that time that we first see a transformation sequence that, to me anyways, never gets old, and some of the best battle animation in the series. "I will let them see my Genius battle strategy."