Turn the board into a JK RPG level? I suppose somebody could write a bot to join the level and serve as a relay that forwards the in-game chat messages into forum posts, and then interacts with a COG in the game to render forum posts on some surfaces in the level.

Well, as long as someone brings up a German mental patient from the late 1800s, it's Massassi alrite.

"Get out of my horse stable, you always cause trouble!"

Also, I hate posting out of character (remember, FGR is to the "real-life FGR" (aka The Flesh Battery of the Nikumubeki Internet Konstruct) like Jerry Seinfeld (main character from the 1989-1998 TV sitcom Seinfeld) is to the real life Jerry), but for the record, I'm not really aiming or expecting for any kinda forum reorganization (nor should Brian or anyone conform or even acknowledge any of it just because a sweaty Finnboi made 100 threads on the subject). I'm just sad that it doesn't take long for every thread in this place to turn to the same Trump/social media pit that the Internet has become.

And for the (platinum?) record, the only remaining thing I want from this place is for Brian to remove the Massassi downloads of TODOA TC, since they're already available on ModDB (even worse, I can always update the ModDB downloads if I wanted to revisit/when revisiting the project, whereas I'd always have to contact Brian to update the ones on Massassi). Sadly for moi, Brian hasn't responded to my e-mails and PMs on the subject yet. Boh!

Be careful what you wish for, I guess?

Perhaps if you found ways to contribute that weren't non-sequitors, utter nonsense, or self promotion, there may be more topics in which you could participate?

I agree that it is frustrating when all the topics gravitate toward the same few subjects (e.g. the anything games thread, which is partly my fault), but if there's nothing else anyone wants discuss, can we really be annoyed by someone taking the threads in that direction?

Yeah, so far I've only managed to replace those posts with "oh, this convo again #trumpthread", which isn't an improvement.

Anyhow, resuming character: yo like this post be cool n stuff mangs

What? Discussing Valve's management is sooooo on-topic.

Medium really didn't manage to become the long-form Twitter that it was intended to be. I hardly ever come across Medium article anymore. Too bad.

Just admit that it's more likely for people to finish reading something as short as a Tweet than they are something as long as a blog post. I guess medium tried to solve this by making it easy to highlight parts of an article, but maybe they should have directly competed for the short attention span of Twitter users by also making it possible to embed JUST the highlighted part in arbitrary Twitter-like conversations.

At any rate, we should have all listened to Ted Nelson back in the `60's when he tried to explain that all forms of writing in digital media should be arbitrarily mashed up / compared / whatever. The problem with the present business model for the web is that they only have to work around the limitations of the web browser just enough to drive traffic to their site, rather than pushing the envelope of user interface design.

Not really arguing anything but just observing that, with exceptions, Disney Star Wars is a train wreck.



But why should they have assumed they were capable of creating more quality Star Wars? Many fans objected to the prequel trilogy but this sequel trilogy seems to elevate the prequels to masterpieces. One of if not the biggest film franchises of all time with a huge price tag and they let this crap hit the screens? And you can't take it back, this is Star Wars now just like all of the crap people didn't like in the prequels. It's not like you can just slap "Legends" on it and start over.

I wonder, Jon, do you think you enjoyed TLJ more because your expectations were so low? I fully expect to like it a little more whenever I see it again. TFA is kind of like that for me also.

They paid a lot of money for the rights to the franchise, but they don't really have any incentive to make them good. I think a lot of people see the movies because of FOMO or a sense of obligation, not because they think they'll enjoy them.

The prequel trilogy performed about as well as ESB and RotJ did. WE hated the prequels but they found a pretty reliable audience. The Disney movies seemed to have an audience too, but that goodwill seems to have been spent.

I mean, it seems pretty clear to me what the real problem is:





Their budgets are totally out of control. Star Wars movies seem to draw a pretty consistent crowd, but a relatively small one. You've gotta work inside that crowd.

Solo is the proof of this. TLJ/Solo is them deciding that they don't even want that crowd anymore. Poof. Market gone.

(Edit: Clone Wars was a made-for-TV CGI movie made from the first few episodes of the Clone Wars TV series. I included it for completeness but it doesn't really count.)

No. I didn't enjoy TLJ. I enjoyed some of the ideas and themes, and the execution in a very technical sense, but the movie was very, very poorly written. I'm able to appreciate the good things about a bad movie, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed it.

Actually they have an incentive to make them bad: they're trying to break the ceiling above Star Wars fans. Kathleen Kennedy has explicitly talked about this before; they're trying to make Star Wars movies appeal to people who normally don't like Star Wars movies. My previous post explains exactly why that's important for them. If Star Wars stays the way it is, appealing only to a core audience, it is a massive loser for Disney.

So they've gotta do something. They're just going about fixing it in the wrongest possible way.

Yes, the budgets are absolutely mind-boggling with so many films today and the environment to make money at the theater is getting worse and worse. Your charts are interesting. You can see some parallels between the prequels and sequels. I don't know if Solo was bad but TLJ, in my opinion is what killed it.

And, yes, Kathleen Kennedy is oddly hostile to Star Wars fans. Also interesting to note that the MCU films appeal to both the comic book audience as well as a mainstream audience. I actually find that a bit odd as some of the characters seem ill suited to block buster movie status. Thor always seemed risky to me. Guardians of the Galaxy also. Black Panther only really works because it's a relevant cultural work now which makes me think, there's a film that you know is inspired by the current times but isn't throwing anything in your face. Having said that, I do consider the movie the weakest of the MCU films. First half or so is mediocre at best and then it picks up fairly well.

I'm trying to remember, is Kathleen Kennedy the same woman that was in charge of coordinating all of the extended universe canon for so long?

Don't forget, Marvel has taken a lot of tries to get their formula right. There were some ****ty X-men movies, two ****ty Hulk movies, two ****ty fantastic four movies, a ****ty daredevil, a ****ty electra, two ****ty wolverine movies, and a handful of ****ty blade, ghost rider, and spiderman movies. People have short memories and forget the terrible spiderman dancing scene in Spiderman 3.

That's decades worth of ****ty movies, before the current MCU showed up and has produced some decent movies. We'll, they're not even very good movies, but they make a lot of money and don't get mercilessly mocked. I think that they discovered the lowest common denominator: pretty colors, loud noises, big fight scenes. Thats actually kind of the opposite of what star wars and DC have done. Marvel just gives the fans big dumb fan service eye candy, while star wars and DC are still trying (unsuccessfully) to be thoughtful and provocative. The best DC movie is about a hot chick in a short skirt beating up proto-nazis.

We'll probably have some disagreements about which of the non-MCU movies are bad or not but all of those are specifically not MCU films. It's not like those were trial runs and then they got it right. Also, I think your opinion of what makes people like MCU films is off. Yes, they have pretty colors, loud noises, and big fight scenes but they also don't lecture. They're unapologetic. But, yes, the best current DC movie is Wonder Woman although I think the DC movies really don't get a fair shake. They absolutely screwed up but I don't think any of them are completely bad movies.

MCU sucks.

I liked the Spider-Man movies with Kirsten Dunst and James Franco and the kid from Pleasantville.

Toby Maguire.

Also, I liked Jerry Maguire.

I really doubt Marvel Studios spent much time thinking about the "lessons" they could learn from the Brian Singer X-Men movies, FanFourStick, etc.. None of those movies were filmed with what I'd consider meaningful oversight from Marvel. The people who made them weren't total idiots, but they also weren't part of the everyday success of the franchises.

As far as I can tell, Marvel Studios is just making comic books... except on screen, using living actors. That's pretty much it. They're striking the right tone and are respectful of the source material. Management understands what comic books are and how to make them: for example, Kevin Feige, the studio head, literally broke into the film industry because of his encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel comics. That's the guy in charge of making Marvel movies! Whoa-ho!

In other words, Marvel isn't really even trying to make their movies appeal to a broader audience. They're giving comic book nerds a comic book nerd movie, and then they're dragging their SOs and siblings to see them and, well, hey, fighting! and pew-pew! and charismatic actors named Chris!

The audience for their movies grew organically from a really small core. Iron Man 1 had a $140m budget and grossed $585m worldwide box office. Box office return of 3.2, way way way worse than any Star Wars movie (except Solo). But that audience grew, and by Avengers 1 it had a $220m budget and grossed $1.5b worldwide (return of ~5.8), which is pretty much in line with what Star Wars was delivering.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I'm sorry, this is what the numbers are saying. Marvel doubled down on Marvel-ness and turned a niche product into something with consistently awesome returns and a broad, durable audience. Star Wars eased up on Star Wars-ness and they turned a product with consistently awesome returns and a small, durable audience into a niche product. Their approach is exactly backwards.

I'm looking forward to the new Dragon Ball movie, though.

Also, none of the movies mentioned on this thread are as good as Cool Cat Saves The Kids.

I know you're right with regards to the budgets and revenue. It killed me that TFA had such good reviews and revenue because that guaranteed another crappy Star Wars film. Interesting too that people rarely discuss the net marketing cost which from what I heard can often equal a film's budget.

i just want iron man dressed up like darth vader. idk why they even try anything new. smh

I still dont get Marvel movies, except for Guardians of the Galaxy which I really liked. They arent bad, it's just not my thing. What's the appeal of superheros? I can never get into a battle scene when the rules feel arbitrary, if there's no laws or principles governing who can do what and it's just made up, I don't feel tension when something happens. It's like "oh I guess that guy can do that thing" and "the music tells you obviously how to interpret every scene".

I never got terribly into superhero movies either, but maybe it's like a little bit like dating women: you just have to try experiencing it (even if the rules don't make sense all the time), and even then maybe still not your thing, but if it does appeal to you, then you know what you like when you see it.

Why don'tcha try going on a DATE with a LADY to a SUPERHERO movie and see how that feels, huh?

They are fun to watch.

A war that's been going on for 30 years with the same participants, not so much. I mean, isn't that what's leading up to in the third film of this trilogy? More war? It's like WWI in space.

You should go see Cool Cat Saves The Kids instead.

and this is why I mentioned dating rather than marriage

you might not have to choose if the date goes well

I think it's more like GWOT because of all the sand

I Don't Like Sand

How do you think I feel? I'm from a desert, and I went to a desert for spring break 2009. And then I went to a jungle for like a month and now I like sand again lmao **** the jungle

it's coarse and rough and irritating







like my wife

I just have to turn my brain off and not think about it that much. They're better to watch when I'm tired and just want to kill some time more than something to watch on any analytic level.