Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - Gone-zo
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Yuki_Kun45
Exempt from Grammar Rules
 Posts: 725 Location: U.S.A. |
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I think the worst panel I went to at a convention had to be a rant based panel about the annoying aspects of fandom. It was billed as that but in the end most of the rants were the annoying weeabo fandom stuff I can find online anyway. thought about making an argument my self but meh was too beat to bother.
Best panel I attended was a Yuki Kajiura panel which I figured to be just a simple "talk about why we like Kajiura" but ended up being almost more of an insightful lecture from a music professor. Might sound boring to some but hey if it's a subject I find interesting like music in general or Kajiura music I don't mind if it's a bit lecture-esq especially if the lecturer himself is enthusiastic about the subject. Who thought you could go to a convention and learn 
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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Yep, David Goyer is a horrible writer. A hack, really, but the studios and many, many comic fans haven't figured that out yet... and no his being attached to the last Batman series doesn't count for much, either. I HATED those films, too! There have been people attached to super-films that were Academy Award winners (Akiva Goldsman wrote horrible scripts for the last two Burton-era Batman films and The Lost in Space feature) but still did subpar work so take that as you will! Yeah, only Donner has done Superman right. In addition to the 1978 film, the Donner cut of the sequel, Superman II, isn't half-bad. It's better than many people give credit for... As for the Batman series, the only films I've cared for are the animated features with Mask of the Phantasm standing far above all the other films including the far overrated Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. I'll admit a fondness for the Adam West Batman (it's really closer in tone to the 1940s and 1950s Batman) but all the other live-action Batman has just been plain awful and joyless. So far, only the 1992-1995 Batman animated series and its offshoot films and sequel series have the right tonal balance (although I'd argue 1997-1999 animated series is a wee bit TOO dark and the character designs in that show are ugly for the most part). The rest is either too silly or downright depressing to sit through...
I think the author here meant to say analog. Digital Sound is compressed, period, whether we're talking DVD, Blu ray, OR laserdisc. I know laserdisc -- I still own several hundred I would get rid of if people actually still bought the darn things in the US! LD has two tracks (four, if you count the ability to split to mono Left and Right audio tracks in both analog and digital sound with some films) -- digital AND analog. The video on LD is all analog. Before MPEG-1 and -2 came along, they figured the LD format could hold a few minutes of digital video. Ha! How things change... IF you used a 12-inch disc today, it could fit hours upon hours of program easily accommodating at least a half-season's of most TV shows on one side of the huge platter (disc) at full hi-def resolution (1080p). However, I've really grown to despise laserdisc just for sheer size's sake and am glad I never got into the vinyl record format! It's a pain to have to carry 12-inch discs around with you every time you switch homes... |
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DavidShallcross
 Posts: 1008 |
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In what way is linear pulse code modulated digital sound necessarily any more compressed than analog sound? Sure there is an upper frequency limit set by the sampling rate, but actual physical analog sound recording also has an upper frequency limit. And, looking up the specs, I see that laserdiscs had a number of options for sound. What is most prevalent in your collection? |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8501 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Man of Steel was an excellent Superman movie. It was the first live-action Supes movie capable of making me feel the exhilaration and impact of Superman's powers and the new dynamic between Clark and Lois is handled very well. Superman actually does Super things for once. Everything is very palpable. It far, far, FAR surpasses the cheesy, poorly-acted comic relief and plot hole-filled Donner/Lester movies, and frankly, I always thought Christopher Reeve was overrated. There's no stupid amnesia kisses, turning back time, Lex Luthor the Clown, "You've saved the country, Superman." "We're all on the same team, warden.", "Can you read my mind?" embarrassing schmaltz, either. Go read a Superman comic made anywhere before the 50s and after the early 70s and you won't find any of that crap. Donner's movies were entertaining on some level, but crappy.
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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Otakon panel roster is out? Neat!..... and once again I am disappoint by the lack of manga centric panels (and me and someone else submitted two, dammit!), but a Digimon panel, I simply must!
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Worst panel was probably any panel in the vein of "Twilight and Beyond: A Look at Vampires in Anime!" or "Harry Potter VS Madoka, Who Would Win?!" or "Anime Characters in the Homestuck Universe!" which seems like bad fanfiction that somehow got accepted as a legitimate convention panel. They really make me cringe when I see them. Also I guess any panel about "internet celebrities" who have nothing to actually do with the industry at all but get name-dropped on the guest list for some reason.
Best panel was probably meeting any of the seiyuu or directors behind some of my favorite series. Meeting Takuhito Kusanagi who does character designs for a lot of stuff I like was pretty nice. Also that was probably one of the last times I ever went to a convention because they just seem to get worse and worse and more in line with the above panels. I think that was back when I was in high school, which was too long ago. Maybe I just got too old for conventions. |
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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Uh-uh... You really don't understand what Superman is about. He's a source of inspiration NOT a demon in the dark that scares the hell out of people. Have to see the film for myself but from what I have been hearing from people whose opinion I trust is that they made Superman darker which is the exact direction they should have been running away from. Also, Amy Adams wasn't given much to work with and it sounds like she may have been miscast, too... Definitely not hearing great buzz about her unlike the case with past Lois's (excepting last screen Lois, Kate Bosworth, who was too young for the role back then). Sorry, you think the older films were just schmaltz. It's a difference in mentality over what a hero is... I grew up before the characters became "stock commodities" and long before the movies degenerated into high-budget B movies. The last 20 years are a huge difference from the previous 20 years, and it hasn't been for the better, IMHO.
There are a number of well-known musicians older than you or me who prefer to work with analog equipment. Why do you suppose that is???? Is it the fact that the analog isn't as easily manipulated as digital and has a quality that's not as flat as digital? Is it that they're hearing a significant difference in the quality of analog versus digital reproduction? At any rate, they feel it's more legitimate, authentic, and less likely to be screwed with. Keith Richards and Billy Joel, for instance, both prefer analog and I think they've been around recording studios long enough to know. In all these years of home and cinema sound, the main thing I've heard is sound becoming omnidirectional because of the increased number of speakers and their new positioning AND sound becoming louder in general. (There was a joke about that years ago that parodied the old thanks commercials that used to run before thanks-mastered movies. "The audience is deaf...") The sound quality really hasn't improved that much. People still make lousy recordings today but you can go back to 1940s sources and listen to recordings which sound better than 80% of what people capture today. They have been finding that old vinyl has captured more sound than initially thought. Played back on better equipment, the audio enthusiasts (disclosure: I'm NOT one of them and don't lug around 12-inch discs; never got into that with audio records) are saying the same thing -- the playback from vinyl is warmer, more organic than digital/CD. Whether people hear it or not, the upper and bottom wavelengths aren't being automatically chopped off to save space on analog. That still happens with digital recordings regardless of recording at 44 kHz or higher. When recording digitally, you still have compression. Digital in general has not been about higher quality with regards to entertainment; it's been about convenience (saving space) and money (saving more money on productions) but it has come at a price in sacrificed quality. \With few exceptions, most of us still download mp3 or convert to mp3 for portable listening. I'm not entirely crazy about that myself but since no standard was agreed upon to succeed mp3 let alone audio CD, and the portable player manufacturers decided on proprietary formats instead of a common standard, mp3 is still around two decades later despite the fact that those of us with decent ears hear a difference between CD and mp3. As for LD -- It's true that most films used the digital audio for the main playback track... in stereo/2.0 ch sound. What people don't appreciate about film tech is that it's almost never about improving technology; it's mostly a matter of convenience for the studios AND especially reducing production costs if at all possible. Much better technology has been abandoned all the time in favor of another just because the other is cheaper. Technological advances in film generally only come about because of specific needs (documentation on space flights, novelties like IMAX format) and the wants of industry people with clout -- ie, the Lucases, Spielbergs, and Camerons. IF the person lending the star filmmakers with money believes the potential pay-off is greater than the investment in developing new tech, those filmmakers will get the money, otherwise no... The businessmen in entertainment are short-term focused and rarely think long-term. Many, many of the serious LD collector editions used the analog track for director/actor/producer commentary and in a very few cases alternate language audio. For the higher quality LD box sets like Disney's Alice in Wonderland, depending on the disc you happened to be playing, you could listen to radio shows promoting the movie on one or the other directional analog (stereo) channel, OR switch to digital and listen another program. They could do this today on either Blu ray or DVD but they rarely have extras that aren't visual-based and the newer formats are more directed at the masses than LD was. The general public is extremely ignorant where movie tech is concerned, far more so than the LD collectors I ran across...! (Well, if I had to work in a video store and explain widescreen let alone audio track switching to most people ---! It wouldn't be pretty.) I never got beyond 2-channel stereo on LD despite the beginning of 5.1 AC-3 and DTS audio formats on LD. 5.1 sound was very new and only the later (post 1995-1996) LD players had it... Since players were still generally around $500 on up, and I had a perfectly working stereo LD player and all-stereo LD's (for the most part), there was no point in upgrading where I was concerned. |
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penguintruth
Posts: 8501 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Don't presume to lecture me on Superman. I've been a Superman fan for more than a decade, I've read hundreds of Supes comics, seen all the movies, TV shows, grew up watching the Max Fleischer shorts over and over again. Superman is inspirational, but not schmaltzy. There's a difference between inspiring hope and trying to be a Rockwell painting. Siegel and Shuster's comics didn't revel in that kind of nonsense, and even the later Silver and Bronze Age comics before CoIE didn't (and certainly after). The Donner movies were more like the old black and white TV show than the long running comic book. Man of Steel had plenty of wonderment and a sense that this is a man who has an intense desire to help people. And it did it without a lot of stupid winking to the camera like those cheese fests Donner made. There's been plenty of excellent Superman stories written in the past few years (well, at least until New 52). Jurgens, Simonson, Johns, Kelly, Byrne, Morrison, all still know, understand, and celebrate Superman. MoS isn't perfect, but it blows those crappy, overly sentimental, jokey Superman movies out of the water. |
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Saturn
 Posts: 513 |
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I agree Brian, Man of Steel was baaaaaad. And on top of the terrible writing, the relentless shaky-cam made me feel like I was going to vomit. Even when people are sitting still chatting, the screen was wobbling all over the place. UGH.
Anyway I meant to write a reply about light novels. My thing with them is that they have to have some style in the writing; too often translations are so dry. I tried a BL light novel recently and was really disappointed by the writing style: he did this. They did that. Then this happened. I realize that good writers probably cost more, but I'm not going to pay for something that's written on the same level as 7th grade fanfic, even if it does tie in to a show I like. |
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Kerberous
 Posts: 107 |
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Gonzo might be doing better, but they're still dead to me. They cancelled Five Killers and haven't made anything good since 2007.
You can always count on IGN to give good ratings to anything. How bad did Man of Steel need to be for them to say it sucks ? |
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Rahxephon91
 Posts: 1859 Location: Park Forest IL. |
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I really don't quite understand the Man of Steel reactions.
For years people have always said Superman is a boring character because he's simple. Now they don't like him because he wasn't simple? For years we've had light hearted almost comedic approach outside of comics with the character, and now one isn't and that's terrible. Why? Can't Superman be taken seriously? Apparently not, apparently people wanted him to be funny. People complained that the action scenes in Returns were boring "his enemy is a rock". Now we have something which presents Super powered beings fighting in a way never seen and it's bad? I will admit maybe the movie relished too much in the action. I understand that because of the movie's tone, perhaps its harder to just ignore the actual consequences of what that damage would be in real life. But jesus I've been watching action movies my whole life and I think I stretch my suspension of disbelief far enough to ignore that. I mean nobody seemed to complain about Fast 6's tank scene, where tons of people died and the movie did not at all dwell on it. I get it, not a great comparison, as Fast 6 can not be taken seriously, but even that movie plays it completely straight. It's not even a dark movie. It's a movie that takes itself seriously, I want to say it tries to ground itself somewhat realistically, but just in tone not actual action but it's not gritty. Gritty is something like Watchmen as far as Superhero things go. This movie never really goes that deep. It does not have random scenes of executions like say Transfomrers 3 did. Superman is not really presented as a dark hero. He's not tormented, he's never presented as amoral/morally questionable, no dark past, nothing. He's not Spawn. He's never close to an antihero. So I'm not sure where people are getting that from. Besides, the movie deals with an interesting thing that none of the previous movies touched, yes having a Superman on this earth is kind of scary and well even the damn Justice League cartoon delt with this same theme. So it's not even crazy in the Superman mythos. I mean hell, Kingdom Come exists, the whole meta humans can they be trusted has been done in the DC universe. The movie isn't terrible. It's not even that terribly written. Most of the plot of the movie makes sense is not pointless. It all basically works to form a tight narrative about Superman and him belonging on earth. And I find it hard to take seriously those who complain and then hold up the older movies which at many times just have Superman pulling stuff out of hist for the sake of the plot. Are there some problems? Of course. Lois Lane dosen't have much to do and she feels shoehorned into many scenes. Superman himself, still isn't that exciting. Yes there could have been more humor, but the lack of it is not automatically a negative. I guess Man of Steel just proves that people don't really want a Superman movie. They don't like it when he's taken seriously, because now there's no joy. There's not that much joy in the Nolan Batman movies, but those movies are good because of that. Because they take the character seriously, present him as a flawed character. Why can't they do that with Superman. A character that is powerful and because of that is somewhat removed from humanity. He's an alien on the world he grew up on and a piece of his own planet can kill him. Or he's the forever heroic symbol meant to inspire. Or he's an incredible renaissance man who constantly curious and adventurous. There's tons of material for the character, but I guess people just want a simple dude who saves people, but I bet when they do that people will complain as well. Or they will just continue to think he's a boring character for no damn reason. |
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Crispy45
 Posts: 363 |
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Because Superman is not Batman >_> Just because all the other DC movies bombed while Batman is the only successful one they've done doesn't mean they should just Batmanify every hero they have for the sake of appealing to the Nolan crowd. |
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Rahxephon91
Posts: 1859 Location: Park Forest IL. |
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And even then, they didn't appease the Nolan crowd completely. They didn't do Super realistic Superman. The Batman movies have no trace of wonder or over the topness in them. Man of Steel relishes in science fiction and the fight scenes that are over the top. The thing they take from the Nolan Batman movies is that they take the material seriously and present it in a more grounded way. But they didn't go so far as to make the villain Lex Luthor who's some evil CEO or something topical today. And I see nothing wrong with this, I don't want campy Superman. But even then, you're reply dosen't really say much. No they don't have to "batmanify", but whats wrong that they did? All these criticisms seem to be the complete opposite of what people wanted before Man of Steel came out. They all are "oh it's joy;ess" "it's too serious/dark". But why is that bad thing? Now maybe this movie did't do a good job, but fine I want more people talking about that, how it mishandled it's more serious approach. But I'm not getting that, I'm getting "Superman should be simple and save people". Which isn't really an argument, not when the character is rich enough that he can handle many types of stories. |
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malvarez1
Posts: 2102 |
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I personally loved Man of Steel, and I think it was much better than the snooze-fest that was Returns. Yes, the film wasn't as "happy" as the old films, but c'mon! That's like saying that Dark Knight was bad because it was "darker" than the Adam West film!
Also, those action scenes. FINALLY, a Superman film where he was able to let loose! My gosh, I loved those scenes. |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1052 |
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I think you need to read this article:
The fact that the film never addresses the amount of destruction inflicted in the final battle--much of which can be blamed on Superman--means that it is fundamentally non-serious. |
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