And, of course, another easy way around the problems at the end is simply to have one officer at the bridge who outranked Hanks. Given how scattered everyone was, as the movie showed, you made up units of whoever wandered by. Hanks and friends show up? Guess what! You're holding the north line, and you're not getting Ryan until we're relieved.

Actually, that would make a fun movie: start with them FINDING Ryan, and on the way back they keep bumping into units where a half dozen more soldiers are the key to holding out.

I think I only saw it when it aired, but Eddie Murphy's guest host bit on Saturday Night Live told the whole Best Defense story. He was asked to come back onto SNL, and he said "No", because he was now a movie star. Then Best Defense happened, and he said "Yes" to SNL, because he now had no career. Then Beverly Hills Cop came out, and he was suddenly a star again... but had already committed to do the show, so there he was.

That episode also has Eddie Murphy ranting on the then new small GI Joe action figures, who are way too small to give Barbie the kind of loving the 12" Joe's could.

Oh, man, can you imagine the fun things you'd find on an investment kickstarter site? Goldmines! Perpetual motion machines! David Finch movies! It will have to be set up to allow "knowledgeable" investors to put more money in as time goes by, because those really great inventions are always going through their financing, needing just ONE more infusion of cash before that energy producing black box is ready for serious testing!

I think part of it is the difference between a donation and a payment. Every kickstarter I've taken part in, apart from Trey's, I haven't considered a donation. I gave the same money I would have given if I had seen the "reward" on a store shelf. Given that, there is no further contract between me and the creators. I give them money so they can afford a print run of their books, they send me the books. It's over.

If the money is more of a donation, things get nebulous. Amanda Palmer said, from the little I read, that all the kickstarter money was spent on the album, so she was now back in the same position she had been at the start. Given what she had taken in was so much more than what she had said was needed, fans probably just expected that extra money to be plowed back into the music scene (lower concert prices, higher pay for opening acts, etc). Exactly what constitutes getting your money's worth in such a situation becomes more personal.

I think that's a general rule of story telling. One or two samurai, wandering the countryside, occasionally meeting others, works. Showing thousands of them in the service of some lord, not so much, unless they're quickly slaughtered and we get down to just a couple wandering around. Same with guns. An army? Boring. Armed former soldier who's a bit insane? Fun.

I thought it was Lensmen Lucas couldn't get the rights to. Or maybe I'm just influenced by the fact the Japanese animated version of Lensmen was a Star Wars ripoff

(It it only remembered today because a) it had once of the first Japanese CG scenes, and b) the Japanese sold the comic book rights to a US company, infuriating the Doc Smith estate and souring them to all licensing deals)

What he's basically doing, for those who don't feel like clicking the link to the crazy, is taking all the in-jokes and easter egg references to other Pixar films and building a theory on how it all fits together. A stark warning against putting such things in your own work (says the author who ends up merging all his series together)

Tom Hanks fell victim to the whole "if you say something's incredible, don't show it" thing in the movie Punchline. He plays a standup comic on the rise, with Sally Field as a wannabe who does open mic nights. Neither is good at standup, really, and the movie suffers because of it. You sort of have to pretend their act is what the movie is saying it is, the same way you have to just accept a Doctor Who special effect.