It's certainly a teaser! I'm quite impressed that they managed to show me all this footage and restrain themselves from revealing any of the story (I've not read anything about it so can't also put it into any context).

I have no feelings about it at the moment, it does look quite action-y, but no doubt I'll be there in line when it gets released.

Was this based on an internet search then? I'd be cautious of believing everything you read. I'm saddened that we're so quick to form judgements on people we've never met, which is all the more tragic given that we tend to latch onto a first impression we've borrowed from someone else (who often has an agenda) and that it's much harder to change this preconceived notion when we do read wider. Must we really in our minds make enemies of people we never knew existed and will likely never cross paths with? Can't we exercise restraint too in our rhetoric?

The internet's filled with so much vitriol, and it seems to me that most of it stems from people hating other people's hate.

I've never understood this sentiment at all, since the flaws of part 2 are painfully evident in the other 2 installments. What makes 2 shit also makes 1 and 3 shit as well.

I used to think that too until I actually watched it. 

The distinction isn't anywhere near as clear as you're making it out to be. Prejudice towards the person can stem from prejudice of the ideas that he or she holds and, further, a person's prejudices derive mostly from their own ideas about the target. You can't really separate the two like that. So yeah, you're intolerant of racists (who last time I checked are people too). Your intolerance is morally superior, but it's still intolerance. [And this is the part where I make sure everyone understands that I'm not FOR racism etc. because apparently on the internet being against A means you have to be for B]

Besides, the point was that nowadays people tend to knee jerk even potentially racist comments or such that could be racist when looked at in a way not intended. We're moving/have moved to being an over-sensitive society, as if that would solve the underlying and deep set attitudes. Such that a white person couldn't comment that he wasn't a slave to his boss, who happens to be black, without that being labelled as racist (true story for a friend of mine, which is really tragic when you think about it). Some overreact so much to perceived slights that when a person says something truly and intentionally despicable, they're not really able to express the outrage reflective of their hurt, so accustomed are they to crying wolf.

Not to say that there aren't racists and terrible people out there who say awful things. Personally, I'm far more concerned with what people do rather than the words they say.

Anyhow, more on topic, how do people feel about George Lucas? I felt that Leia was a pretty good female character, and she's possibly one of the first actiony females in Western cinema (just pre-dating Ripley by a couple of years). She rather intelligent hides the plans in R2, talks back to Vader, insults Tarkin, and even treats her captors with exasperation and aids in her own rescue. But then Padme came long, who I think is possibly one of the worst female characters ever written - essentially a walking and talking baby-maker.

I would love to see a series of animated films based on the various popular existing EU stories, imagine Shadows of the Empire or the Thrawn Trilogy fully animated with the voices of the actual actors?

I don't think there's actually any disagreement that you owe something, but the question could be 'what do you owe'? Just throwing this idea out there, I'm not saying I know the answer or if there even is one.

Obviously, our economy is way too complicated, and our lives too overburdened, to have a reciprocal service scheme (AKA you make me a spear and I'll sew you a wolfskin cloak). What did the communists do? Were all accomplishments just put in a well and then anyone could retrieve from that well whatever else they needed? I'm not sure welfare is practical given the size of populations these days...

 
This ignores the fact that a fair amount of Western society is a service-based economy. Everyone still has jobs in the future, the replicator machine still needs Bob the Builder to come in and keep in maintained, and  the expenditure of time and effort is still there, Kirk and co. still show up for work but don't get paid for it.  So no, I wouldn't say that technology/replicators alone have allowed that future to happen, a wholesale change has occurred in the manner in which people interact with each other, principally the need to exploit something and get rich. It's not precisely clear how this all works, as Picard says in First Contact, they work 'to better themselves' I guess.

It's not 'an incredible bargain', it's simply scale of economics, selling lots of items at a small price to offset a large upfront cost, and it happens in most industries and throughout history; it's not like technology has allowed this to happen. Elizabethans didn't pay the full cost of a Shakespeare production when they paid their entrance fee. Museums don't charge individuals the full cost of running the museum. The only time where this has ever occurred are custom-created/patronaged works involving a single customer with the finances to pay for it (which actually is one of the alternative models that TheGreg proposes).

That has nothing to do with what I've said and I don't think it's TheGreg's argument either. It's important to distinguish here what the discussion is. No-one's arguing that copyright infringement is good or justified, it's simply a discussion regarding how the internet creates a world where everything can be given freely and whether this a model that a) is sustainable and b) should be adopted at some point so that knowledge, essentially, is free for all people for all time. It's about moving from a 'you must pay this arbitary amount' method of payment (which doesn't always reflect true value) to either a donation method or something else (a number of other methods were proposed).  In reality, the distinction may not be that apparent, and the amount people wanted to pay could end up just being the amount being asked for before, or it could just be a form of haggling (which for some reason we don't do anymore). But no seller wants to create a scenario where people pay what they actually think their digital product is worth. I believe TheGreg argues in the long run that the free and unrestricted availability of digitalised materials would be much more beneficial. Hard to say really but it's food for thought. And this is the part where I remind everyone that the discussion only pertained to digital content, physical goods keep coming up and I believe we all agree that free distribution is just not applicable to these. Now there's a good point raised about whether there's actually a difference, and I'd say that there is purely on the basis of a phsyical and finite resource being used though I'm not entirely convinced by that.

I repeat, this is not about taking stuff for free, it's about being given stuff for free by the creators, and those creators finding sustenance through means that don't rely on artifical scarcity or elusive rights created to protect profits. At least that's how I understand the gist of TheGreg's argument, which I interate, because apparently everyone turns fucking blind when they don't agree with something, isn't something I'm wholly on board with.

Wow, way to be mature guys!

It looks like someone of you are putting words into TheGreg's mouth now. It isn't as simple as everything should be free, that may be the ultimate goal in a Star Trek-like universe but it isn't exactly the business model he proposes in the interim and it clearly doesn't/cannot extend to every service. Yes, there's the aspect whereby if Person A cannot profit from a digital product then how can they employ Person B on an hourly rate to help create it. But then, I understand TheGreg's argument to be that ultimately, a good digital product will make a profit somehow. I find the fact that many companies can actually sell bottled water quite a compelling demonstration that it is possible, and I'm reminded of quite a few models I've seen whereby freeware and websites have been supported by donations. The principle fault with the 'donation model', which would practically be the main source of revenue for digital information, is that it is alien to most people and antithetical to the current mindset of the free lunch. I'd argue that we live in a society where people have grown so tired of paying for things, and for so many types of things (as someone mentioned before in the forum), that any opportunity to take something for free is snatched up. There's not really such a thing as a free lunch, but most people want one. They miss the point that a free lunch is part of an exchange of some kind (usually generosity), so instead of a free lunch being given, they think a free lunch should be taken.

Change this mindset, and you potentially change the main revenue model from something that only a few people do to something that most people do. I think we are all a lot more generous than we think, if only the environment encouraged and drove human attitudes rather than the other way around. That to my mind was Roddenberry's message in his Star Trek utopia. Instead we're ruled by our greed and short-term approach. I've not seen it, but I'm reminded of the concept behind that 'Pay it Forward' film.

I think it's interesting how the dynamics of the human way of life, and Western society especially, has shifted to such an extent that parts of the population can devote their lives to and gain sustenance from creating art and entertainment for the remainder. And that this proportion has grown in size to what it is today, and that we've made the selling of products an entertainment in itself. The exchange of entertainment for services or goods used to stem logically from live performances or the production of the physical item, which both placed value on time. With the advent of processes that allowed that service to be quickly and easily replicated, the printing press and the ability to record music and plays, value notionally became attached to the thing instead. Someone could be paid several times over for a single performance/work, and an legal framework came up around to protect that because our culture is capitalist. The thought that we could make something once and be paid every single time it's looked at was a marvel! And for a job that my grandmother would probably insist wasn't a real job in the first place.

On a side note, isn't it bizarre that we all pay for things before we experience them? (with a few exceptions like petrol/gas and food in restaurants)

I for one have to commend TheGreg for his arguments against allcomers. I don't necessarily agree with everthing he says, but he posts interesting food for thought.

I'm somewhat disappointed by the taste of some of the analogies being used. Are we sure we couldn't think of better ways to illustrate and support our arguments?

There was once a compilation video showing all the unanswered questions and dropped subplots of Lost, and it goes on for more than 4 minutes (it's fast).
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/60999 … -questions

Way too many for them to have any sort of plan in place.

Personally I stopped watching Lost after season 3 I think it was when it became clear that the writers were gleefully just stringing us along, when all the characters were holding the idiot ball, and when Locke throws a knife into a complete stranger's back and kills her, just a couple of episodes after we spent an entire episode showing him unable to kill a man he really fucking hated...

I thought the motorcycle chase on the rooftops was pretty poorly done, something about the compositing on the close-ups made it look very fake.

Now now, let's not diss GoldenEye people. I like TND quite a bit (especially it's engrossing White Bishop to White Knight opening and the aforementioned Michelle Yeoh), but it tends to ruin a lot of its great moments with pithy quips, which got worse and worse as the Brosnan movies went on, and Teri Pratcher is almost, almost as bad at being a Bond girl as Halle Berry. Mercifully, she's not in it for long. I liked the concept of her character though, as we'd not seen an old flame of Bond's before, and her death injects a burst of personal motivation.