Linkstew

I enjoyed it for the most part, but I can't help but think Lucas saw Return of the King and got jealous; "I can end my epic with a battle to the death above glowing lava too!"

Hippo Star Wars?

Make sure to peruse the links at the bottom of the page, too. Oh, and the babelfish translation of the page contains the choice phrase "He is not a straight nice contemporary," which I'm afraid I'm going to have to work into a conversation now.

IGN XBOX reviews Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

This is the first game I've found myself really wanting to play for the Xbox. But I'm either going to wait until the Xbox gets a remodeling so it's smaller, or see if I can borrow my friend's Xbox for a few weeks.

So one of my biggest issues with Episode II was how disjointed it felt. Every time I started to feel like a scene was being established, it was gone. It just didn't flow. And whether that was the fault of too many characters doing too many things in too many places, or the fault of bad directing, I won't speculate.

But Episode II's problems pointed me at a more troublesome question: How on earth is Peter Jackson going to handle the transitions in The Two Towers? The Fellowship of the Ring flowed very easily and obviously as a movie, because they were all together. But the fellowship has been broken, and now the screen time is going to have to be split between three different parties that have practically no communication for the duration of the story.

So I've got a few ideas about how to handle to handle The Two Towers:

• The Two Towers: A Tale in 3 Acts. Theaters will love the intermissions, because they'll triple the opportunity to rip off moviegoers at the snack bar.
• A highlights reel, Olympics style, for those folks who thought the first movie was too long.
• When Frodo isn't on the screen, the other characters should be sad, look around, and say "Where's Frodo?"

My roommate finally saw Episode II this weekend, and he offered up this follow-up quote:

"Not even muting could save this."
-- my roommate, on Episode II's love scenes.

On a related note, I'd like to point out that Lucas is at least consistently ridiculous in his scripting of Anakin:

In Episode I, Anakin asked Padme "Are you an angel. I've heard the deep space pilots talk about them. They live on the moons of Iego, I think. They're the most beautiful creatures in the universe."

Meanwhile, in Episode II, Anakin says to Padme "I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft. And smooth."

In hopes of forgetting about how unhappy I was about my final, and in hopes of making me like Episode II more than I did, my roommate and I watched Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace last night. Here are a few choice quotes from our MST3king of Episode I:

"If it was muted, I might be feeling something right now."
-- michael, on Anakin leaving his mother on Tatooine.

"Ah, suddenly happy memories of that first trailer."
-- michael, on the Gungans in the fog

"This is going to be traumatic for him when he's older. I mean the actor, not Darth Vader."
-- michael, on Anakin
"Heh, I can see Vader watching home movies... 'My god, I was such an idiot!'"
-- me

"Sure, everyone thinks they'd want to be a Jedi if they were in the Star Wars universe, but the obvious question they're overlooking is 'Do Jedi get to *drink*?'"
-- me

The verdict on Episode I versus Episode II? Honestly, even after watching Episode I again, I still feel each movie had highs and lows, and I think the peaks and valleys canceled themselves out. I maintain that I liked both movies about equally.

As far as feeling better about the final? Episode I didn't need to distract me that much, because half way through I found out that I somehow got an 81/100 on the test, despite not answering a 4 point question and totally guessing on a 16 point question. That puts me at an 86% in the class, which probably means I'll get at best a B+ after the curve is applied.

So as I was walking to the BART station to go to SF to see Gigantic last night, it occurred to me that if the theater wasn't sold out, I could watch Episode II after Gigantic. So I dropped by the UA on Shattuck, and bought a ticket for the 10:45 showing of Episode II.

I figured the timing would be perfect: Gigantic was to start at 7pm and run for 104 minutes. Factoring in the QA sesson with the director afterwards, I figured I'd be leaving for BART at about 9:15 pm, which would give me plenty of time to get back to Berkeley, get dinner, and go see Episode II.

What I didn't factor into my plans were "technical difficulties." Apparently the sound guy showed up half an hour late, and then there were sound issues that had to be resolved, and after everything was said and done, Gigantic didn't start rolling until nearly 8pm.

So when I left Gigantic for BART at 9:55pm, I knew I'd be pushing my luck. After a brisk walk, I got to the BART station at 10:07, but the next train didn't show up until 10:23. I got to Downtown Berkeley at 10:47 and jogged down Shattuck. Thankfully there was no line, because I sat down just as the last preview was starting.

As for my impressions of each movie, that'll have to wait until tomorrow, after I turn in my project tonight. Though I also have a final on Monday (and two more before next Saturday), so updates may be sporadic for the next week.

Remember the one where I claimed I had a ticket for Episode II at 12:30 am on the 16th?

Yeah, well, the person who'd offered me the ticket completely failed to qualify the time, and I just assumed it was AM, when it was actually PM.

Honestly, if someone said "Hey, bsii, do you want a ticket to Episode II on the 16th at 12:30?" when would you think they meant? Especially if you were only paying half attention because you were working on a gigantic CS project when the offer was made?

So since I can't make it in the middle of the day, I've been left in a lurch when it comes to seeing Episode II. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see it a little later. If it weren't for the fact that it's going to be impossible to avoid spoilers, I'd just wait and see it after my last final on the 25th, because I figure the Berkeley theaters will be less busy once the students abandon the ship.

Surprisingly, I care about this setback less than I would have expected. I suspect that this is because I'm actually less excited about Episode II than I am about Friday night, when I'll be watching Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns) at the SF Indie Festival. Thankfully, I've already got my ticket, because it looks like they've already sold out.

Based on what I've seen, I'm getting the feeling that I'd choose to watch Tobey and Kirsten a thousand more times rather than watch Anakin and Amidala once.

Well, more the Kirsten than the Tobey, but the point's the same.

Oh man, I might've been willing to install Windows to play Jedi Outcast, but to play multiplayer, I would have to use MSN's Gaming Zone. And to use MSN's Gaming Zone, I have to have a Microsoft Passport. And I don't have a Microsoft Passport, and I refuse to get one, even if it means I can't play Jedi Outcast online.

Let it be known that I do have some standards that I won't violate, even for the chance to duel with lightsabers against someone online.

And another thing about Jedi Outcast: I hate turrets. They're a total waste of my time. As soon as one opens fire on me, I'll either back up out of the door I just went through, or if I got hit I'll restart from my last quick save.

Either way, from there the plan is the same: Inch forward very slowly, testing the turret's line of sight, until I find the point where I can shoot at the turret but the turret can't hit me. Then, I just shoot it until it's dead.

It's not like that's exciting, or even fun. It's just tedious. ::sigh::

So as planned, I went out and got Jedi Outcast and installed Windows and installed it and played it all afternoon and all evening and all night, and I've got five impressions for you:

1. The levels are long. In all that time I played (though admittedly I was doing laundry and some other things) I only made it through the first three levels. Of course, now that I think back, Jedi Knight had very long levels, too. This isn't totally a bad thing, but I was getting sick of the interior of that Imperial base by the end of the second mission, especially considering there will almost certainly be more missions in Imperial settings later in the game.
2. The in game cut scenes are really scary looking, because of something to do with the way they animated the teeth. Mon Mothma, especially, has huge scary ugly teeth that are going to give me nightmares.
3. Just like Jedi Knight, where you shoot your enemy matters. Sure, blasting a storm trooper repeatedly in the crotch might be fun for a little while, but it's so much more satisfying when a nice precise shot to the head drops a storm trooper with just one blast.
4. I've been getting huge flashbacks of Half-Life from the first three levels, what with the labs and the mines and the face crabs. Man, I hate face crabs. Not only are they cliche, but they freak me out. I can't wait to get to some more exotic settings.
5. Even just on the third level, what exactly I'm supposed to do can be a little obscure at times. "What do you mean it was obvious that I needed to drop onto that retracting pipe below the grating that I couldn't even see because it was so dark, wait until it retracts, crawl into the pipe, and then blow up the power supplies of the smelting machine?" I expect this is only going to get worse, but I'll manage.