The worst fanbases

[Xeogred]

The majority of the SHMUP fanbase. If you go to any shmup forum, or talk to people who plays a lot of shmups, it is impossible to talk about anything game related without them saying that they are/were more hardcore than you. (Some shmup fans, i.e. me and Rackateers are not like this.) They become overtly obsessed with the fact that they "beat X Touhou game on impossible difficulty while you're pussy ass is playing Radiant Silvergun."

I know a person in real life who's like this all the time. Everyone avoids talking about video games with him, so that he doesn't become an instant dick for 10 minutes.

I know a guy like this with fighting games. I'll never forget the night a bunch of my friends and I were hanging out somewhere playing Marvel vs Capcom 3, everyone was doing "random" just having a ball with the game while this guy of course had this 3 characters picked out EVERY SINGLE TIME and never tried out anything else. It was serious business, he had to win everytime and shove it in your face when it happened. Damn, it was annoying.

[flamepanther]

He never claimed he doesn't have the right.

I know that. I thought I made that clear, but maybe not. He appeared to take my claim that fans shouldn't say Lucas has no right to revise his own work to mean that I thought fans couldn't be critical of revisions they don't like. I was clarifying the difference between not liking the edits and saying Lucas has no right to make them.

Which is actually pretty debatable. Did Orson Wells have the right to destroy Citizen Kane?

If he owned the film, then yes.

And even if he did, why would it be good or moral to do so?

I can't say it would be good or moral. On the other hand, it wouldn't be good or moral to deny him his right to do what he wanted with his own work either. It's a difficult complicated issue.

We also have to remember that comparisons between us and him are kind of farfetched. The first film alone won no less than 7 oscars and the sequels would earn two more. It's loved by millions and has made millions and it's often quoted as one of the better films ever made*.

He's still just a human being, and a typical artist at that.

That said, other than the destruction of original film prints which is a big no for me, my issue is with the poor quality of his "revised" versions, not so much with him trying to change them.

I dislike some of his revisions myself. However, I think that overall he's made more improvements than detractions--especially in the most recent DVD releases.

Back to the destruction of the original masters... now that I think about it again, IIRC he didn't specifically destroy them for the sake of destroying them. Rather, he cut them up to re-edit the films from the original masters (for the early, pre-digital revisions), and didn't really consider preserving the clips in their original sequence. I think that takes a lot of the edge off of whether it was morally good for him to destroy the originals. Thoughtlessness or foolishness, maybe, but not vain selfishness.


@Xeogred: Lucas didn't direct episodes V and VI, but he did write the draft scripts and pretty much all of the editing. I feel that the story, dialogue, editing, and mood are fairly consistent across all six films--or as much as can be expected relative to what's currently happening in each chapter of the story. I think most of the ephemeral extra "charm" that the originals had was due to the exceptional chemistry between the cast members--not a change in the storytelling abilities of George Lucas. It's a happy coincidence of the originals, but not necessarily something that's missing or bad about the prequels. In fact, I would still rate Revenge of the Sith higher than at least one of the OT films despite the weaker chemistry between cast members...

[dunpeal2064]

@Xeogred: I hate that shit. My friends and I almost always pick random, and have tons of fun. When someone like that comes around, it ruins everything.

Like, what are they trying to prove?

[wootcube]

@Xeogred: I hate that shit. My friends and I almost always pick random, and have tons of fun. When someone like that comes around, it ruins everything.

Like, what are they trying to prove?

Competitive gamers + friends just wanting to have fun = nobody having fun

That bothers me as well, although not really a fan base issue :/

[AppleQueso]

Back to the destruction of the original masters... now that I think about it again, IIRC he didn't specifically destroy them for the sake of destroying them. Rather, he cut them up to re-edit the films from the original masters (for the early, pre-digital revisions), and didn't really consider preserving the clips in their original sequence. I think that takes a lot of the edge off of whether it was morally good for him to destroy the originals. Thoughtlessness or foolishness, maybe, but not vain selfishness.

I'm actually talking about how he recalled as many of the actual release prints as he could, and had them all destroyed personally. He did this around the time he started work on the '97 Special Edition versions.

[wootcube]

Back to the destruction of the original masters... now that I think about it again, IIRC he didn't specifically destroy them for the sake of destroying them. Rather, he cut them up to re-edit the films from the original masters (for the early, pre-digital revisions), and didn't really consider preserving the clips in their original sequence. I think that takes a lot of the edge off of whether it was morally good for him to destroy the originals. Thoughtlessness or foolishness, maybe, but not vain selfishness.

I'm actually talking about how he recalled as many of the actual release prints as he could, and had them all destroyed personally. He did this around the time he started work on the '97 Special Edition versions.

Have you heard of the Star Wars Holiday Special? I've always heard rumors he tried to destroy original copies of that as well, but haven't found any other evidence than a vague quote on wikipedia.

[Sideroller]

Back to the destruction of the original masters... now that I think about it again, IIRC he didn't specifically destroy them for the sake of destroying them. Rather, he cut them up to re-edit the films from the original masters (for the early, pre-digital revisions), and didn't really consider preserving the clips in their original sequence. I think that takes a lot of the edge off of whether it was morally good for him to destroy the originals. Thoughtlessness or foolishness, maybe, but not vain selfishness.

I'm actually talking about how he recalled as many of the actual release prints as he could, and had them all destroyed personally. He did this around the time he started work on the '97 Special Edition versions.

Have you heard of the Star Wars Holiday Special? I've always heard rumors he tried to destroy original copies of that as well, but haven't found any other evidence than a vague quote on wikipedia.

I actually got to watch part of that on the internet through a live stream! It's hilariously bad. And it even uses the original actors. The only copy that has survived is some video tape a guy made of it and other people copied it or something. Can't remember exactly...

Oh, and Han shot first.


EDIT: I watched a Rifftrax version of it, not sure how they procured a copy.

[flamepanther]

Have you heard of the Star Wars Holiday Special? I've always heard rumors he tried to destroy original copies of that as well, but haven't found any other evidence than a vague quote on wikipedia.

I would totally support him in that one particular endeavor.

[wootcube]

flamepanter - I never said it was good, I just thought it was relevant

[Erik_Twice]

Which is actually pretty debatable. Did Orson Wells have the right to destroy Citizen Kane?

If he owned the film, then yes.

Is it only because he owns them? Were I to destroy them, would the only issue be about theft? Why is he any more entitled than anyone else to destroy a valuable work of modern art?

I would say that his right as owner and his right as author to destroy Star Wars is simply not enough.

After all if Welles could destroy Star Wars. Could Fleming destroy penincilin?

I think it's the same thing, it's just a matter of magnitude. Rights are there to help humanity, the moment they cease to do so they are not useful anymore.

I think most of the ephemeral extra "charm" that the originals had was due to the exceptional chemistry between the cast members--not a change in the storytelling abilities of George Lucas.

Oh, I think that it's not that he got worse but mainly that he "forgot", so as to speak, why he started on part four.

How Anakin turns evil, how C3PO is made, how the Empire was made...It's not a good material, really. It's the weak part because it kind of explains the joke! I think that the great thing of the original film(s) is how they cut the crap and went to what is rally interesting in a Space Opera.

Laser guns, badass guy, evil guy, plot twist. Those are the good parts of any Space Opera. The part where the character expresses his fears or any other nonsense is a forced job to move the plot foward and to give some of that overvalued sense of "character development" without achiving it.

Man, really good conversation we are having. How about we split threads? This can get a lot of mileage =D