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(24 replies, posted in Episodes)

1,252

(1 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I just found out Ann McCaffrey passed away Monday.

Sigh.

Met her at the very first science fiction convention I ever went to, at a small hotel in Niagara Falls in the mid-late 80's. Her later books did nothing for me, but the early Dragonrider novels have been reread countless times. Sure, there's continuity problems galore, and some of the themes, once you look at the series as a whole, are quite unexpected (women are strong characters until they find a man, then she becomes subordinate to him). But, that's just facts. These are my comfort books.

Time to reread Dragonsinger.

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(15 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I found this quote from, iirc, the AP review in the local paper, interesting:
"The plot parallels the real-world state of the Muppets -- relics testing the waters to see if anyone will watch, if anyone still cares"

1,254

(49 replies, posted in Episodes)

Agreed. Here's the thing: both the Bruce Timm animated Batman and the Nolan live action Batman take advantage of their mediums. It would be foolish for Nolan to copy what Timm and company has managed to do, and visa versa. Now, personally, I love the animated Batman and have only seen one and a half of the Nolan films (fast forwarded through most of Begins). But, I have no problem with his version. Hell, their success probably helps keep the new animated movies coming.

(they're doing an adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns next, which with luck will be better then the Year One adaptation)

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(13 replies, posted in Episodes)

Speaking of movies Priest reminds you of, the opening animation reminded me of the opening of an animated movie that WASN'T animated smile The Ralf Bakshi movie "Wizards" has an intro about how things divided into good and evil, and evil lost and wasn't much of a threat anymore. As usually happened with Bakshi they ran out of time/money, so just show still art depicting those scenes.

1,256

(1,019 replies, posted in Episodes)

Any word on what this week's release is, so I can quickly change my netflix queue?

Listening to the episode, you had a good talk about today's continuing story lines being made possible by DVR's and such. This is actually the second wave of such shows. As Babylon 5 came to an end, there was a brief fad with "5 year story arcs" and several shows made it to air with that intent. However... it was too soon, and all failed to survive more then a year. Also, Roseanne did some incredible story arcs in its middle seasons. They managed to make each episode self contained, but watching in daily syndication you see all these plot threads coming together. It's amazing. Call it "stealth continuity".

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(67 replies, posted in Episodes)

My sister does that all the time at home, only half watching something then demanding to know what's up smile

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(38 replies, posted in Episodes)

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(198 replies, posted in Episodes)

What event finally crushed your soul, and made you realistic about Hollywood and film making in general?

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(67 replies, posted in Episodes)

He did say it was his first episode since the pilot. See, that's the problem with having continuity: casual viewers can't jump in unless you basically restate the premiss every episode (which some shows actually manage to do rather well).

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(67 replies, posted in Episodes)

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(67 replies, posted in Episodes)

I'll just add that I've come to hate story arcs. Oh, they were great at the beginning. Loved the continuing story lines on the NBC dramas like LA Law, Babylon 5's 5 year arc was a great experiment, etc. But, now? EVERYTHING has story arcs! You can't turn on a drama seemingly without it expecting you to catch every episode. Even the new Doctor Who has been infected. Can't we just have ONE season of the Doctor where each episode stands on its own? It would be so refreshing!

(My sister over the years has stopped watching all TV dramas, as she'd always be behind. Now, unless it's on Netflix she won't see it)

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(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

There is something wonky about Nielsen, or maybe they've improved. It was a shock to local TV here when they switched to "people meters", and the news ratings were suddenly all different. I'd pay more heed to them if there was a competing service to keep them honest.

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(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

It's been brought up before, but among other things not only do they have a large backlog of movies to get to, but Dorkman is the type to want to ALL of a series once it's started. So, unless it's something short best not to go there smile

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(67 replies, posted in Episodes)

For whatever reason, this episode showed up in the feed with a date of 12/31/10. Not a big deal, but it means iTunes felt it was an old episode and thus didn't automatically download it.

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(24 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(24 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I think the problem here is, it's too soon. People have been awash in Potter books and movies for a decade or two. Give people, even hard core fans, an excuse to say "no more!" and I think they'd have a good chance of doing it. Now, ask the question in five years, when people have had time to suffer Potter withdrawal, or think to themselves, "I wonder what other stories could be told...", and maybe there will be a market.

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(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

They have a large list of movies they want to do, which occasionally gets posted here in this thread, and it's a matter of who's around that weekend and what they want to do. As for releasing a long range recording schedule, remember the live streaming is just a bonus they're doing as a favor to us. I'd rather get a week's notice on what's being released for the podcast then for the weekend recording.

You don't shut down a product line that's growing in sales and market share. Most likely, this is speculation by some outside annalist. You know, the type who's been predicting the end of Apple since 1977.

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(38 replies, posted in Episodes)

The US Godzilla film is an interesting case because its badness depends on what you were expecting. I mean, the Japanese public (not the fans, the public) loved it because it was it was so much better then the 90's Godzilla films they had been given by Toho. We didn't see those films, so compared it to what we thought a good modern Godzilla film would be like. It's not as good as the three 90's Gamera films, but I don't think the US Godzilla is BAD. Overhyped, yes, but not bad in the way something like The Scorpion King is.

The example I use for a so bad it's good is the anime Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight. A team of talented creators who had worked on Yamato (Star Blazers) come up with the brilliant idea to do a modern, 80's, version with hair metal music! The result just HAS to be seen, as every creative choice was wrong, every plot point either telegraphed an hour ahead of time or just randomly appearing. It feels like it was condensed down from a TV series but wasn't. They only had the metal group do two songs, in English, and they play each three or four times.

It's brilliant.

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(56 replies, posted in Episodes)

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(12 replies, posted in Off Topic)

The sound tended to waffle, though.