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ThunderPeel2001

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Posts posted by ThunderPeel2001

    Mojo Book Club | On Stranger Tides | Chapter 17

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    4 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

    Oh, Chapter 11 has one of the quotes that I wanted to post!

     

    They're following this river to some sort of supernatural nexus, and the environment starts to develop noses, eyes, and generally faces. If Ron Gilbert says he got inspiration from this book, then I'm sure the fungus faces on this path were an inspiration to the mushrooms and face parts under the Monkey Head.

    IMG_1648.jpeg

     

    Yep, aside from the general pirate/voodoo setting, this was the only real reference I noticed.

    The Mojole Results Thread

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by ThunderPeel2001

    Baaaaaahhhh...

     

    Eep ook ack! I failed at #Mojole #487.
    💛💛🖤🖤💛💚
    🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
    🖤🖤🖤💚🖤🖤
    🖤💚💚💚💚💚
    🖤💚💚💚💚💚
    💛💚💚💚💚💚
    https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

    16 hours ago, Gins said:

     

     

      Hide contents

    Who stranded on Monkey Island but wears socks with sandals? 💚💚💚💚💚💚 Toothrot!

     

     

      Hide contents

    And who rules under the sea with one-legged lederhosen? 💚💚💚💚💚💚 King Triton!

     

     

     

    And who's an American comedian with no connection to LucasArts whatsoever? Shelley 💚💚💚💚💚💚

    Doh.

    • Like 1

    Indiana Jones 5

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Threepwood4life said:

     

    I bet thats why he didnt want to direct it and he passed on it, ever since Schindlers List hes never felt comfortable with using Nazis in his films (although an exception for Saving Private Ryan) I think Crystal Skull was supposed to have ex Nazis as villians but changed to Soviets

     

    Yep, exactly. After Schindler's List he said he couldn't make light of them again.

    Indiana Jones 5

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by ThunderPeel2001

    Yeah, it’s definitely interesting watching with the balance of time. It’s almost a really good movie. 
     

    And watching the extras I get why they added aliens, too: By the 1950s the serials of the time had shifted to aliens. It actually made a lot of sense… except they couldn’t let go of the 40s. Even the poster could have been made to look more like a 50s b-movie and help the audience make the mental shift. Except the film still would have failed because they got so much wrong. Sigh. 
     

    Oh, and the extras reminded me that Spielberg never would have directed Dial while there was Nazis in it.

     

    • Like 1

    Mojo according to ChatGPT (aka "ChatGPT is dumb")

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by ThunderPeel2001

    19 minutes ago, Serge said:

    Yeah, pretty much all my points, explained in more depth. 🙂 Although, we are at the dawn of a new era - whether "AI" is stupid or not. The only thing that really matters is whether decision makers are stupid or not. And we know the answer to that one.

     

    As I say in my post, I thoroughly believe ChatGPT will be the butt of jokes soon enough (I saw a news article only yesterday indicating usage has recently dropped because people are unhappy with the answers they're getting). I'm hopeful that people will see sense, and it will be a shared learning experience for us all.

     

    Personally I think the only thing we're on the brink of is a spam and misinformation tsunami. (The next major election is going to be a fucking shitshow.)

     

    Time will tell, I'm crap at predicting the future.

     

    Mojo according to ChatGPT (aka "ChatGPT is dumb")

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by ThunderPeel2001

    42 minutes ago, Serge said:

    Every actual AI researcher worth their salt says this. 🙂 Rant incoming...

     

    Yep, nice rant. I was biting my tongue. Allow me offer my own rant, mirroring just about everything you've said (although in a less learned manner), that I wrote yesterday...

     

    https://thunderpeel2001.blogspot.com/2023/07/why-ai-is-bad-joke-or-why-i-think-bill.html

     

    • Chef's Kiss 1

    Indiana Jones 5

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by ThunderPeel2001

    Ok, well damnit, let's do this: I'm throwing my fedora into the ring and declaring that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull IS NOT THAT BAD.

     

    I've just re-watched it for the first time in 15 years, and well, fuck. It didn't bother me nearly half as much as the first time I watched it. And the things that did bother me, weren't the same things as in 2008.

     

    Gophers? Didn't give a fuck. Monkeys? Didn't give a fuck. Ants? Didn't give a fuck. Been caught in a test site (and yes, they really did make a model street filled with houses and dummies and blew it up just to see what the US family unit would look like after a nuclear megaton was dropped on them). It was tense! They even telegraphed that aliens were real in this story in the first scene, so I don't know why I was so surprised at the end, the first time around.

     

    None of that bothered me at all.

     

    Watching Dial of Destiny (which I also enjoyed) the one thing I really missed was this (Spielberg's beautiful direction). And the first half of Skull has a ton of Spielbergian flair. He knows how to let the quiet moments breathe, and still be interesting. He knows how to make the camera be a funny participant in the storytelling. The guy truly is a master (the older I get, the more I appreciate him).

     

    The bad parts of Skull this time around? Well the second half of the movie is quite dull. The CGI smothers the world and makes it feel less exciting. Although Dial was riddled with CGI, too, there's something about Skull's world that just feels... dull. It might not even be the CGI. It just feels as though we move from one sound stage to another.

     

    And if the world isn't interesting, then the inter-character drama had better be... but it isn't. Despite there being the opportunity for some fantastic Connery/Ford style banter, it falls flat. Harrison Ford is the only person truly in the movie. And, I have to say, Shia LaBouf, too. 

     

    Whatever you think LaBouf as a person, he easily gave the second best performance in Crystal Skull. He fully commits to every scene, and makes it work... unlike (astonishingly) John Hurt, Ray Winston and Karen Allen. The three of them all look like they're on a film set. It's so weird (although Hurt improves).

     

    Ray Winston's character, "Mac", is unbelievably uninteresting. He is such a lazy writing device for why Indy is in Location A and then Location B. "Cor blimey, I'm a traitorous scamp!" then "Just kidding, let me give you a reason to go over here instead" then "Nah, I really was! Tee hee!". Easily the worst character in the film.

     

    Karen Allen's Marion is just... off, too. She doesn't seem like the angry, strong-willed woman we all know and love. She should be looking out for her son, and angry with Jones for the fact that he abandoned her. But she looks like Karen Allen, happy to be working on an Indiana Jones movie again. She's having far too much fun.

     

    Watch the scene where Mutt finally sees the fractured mental state of Oxley. He can't believe how much his father-figure has lost his mind. Watch Marion... she just looks lost in the background. As if it's the first day on set and Karen Allen hasn't figured out who Marion is yet. Shouldn't she be comforting her son??

     

    (One of the reasons why I loved the final scene in Dial was that Karen Allen knocked it out of the park -- Marion was truly back. Even in that tiny moment, she was there again. It was glorious.)

     

    And Cate Blanchett is utterly wasted... no threat, no charm, no sex. Her character an accent in a wig. 

     

    The secondary characters seem like they're in a cartoon. Ford must have noticed it! Why was it allowed to continue?

     

    When Karen Allen was working on Raiders, she talks about how she did her best to ensure Marion was real in every scene. Not just a helpless damsel in the background. She suggested things to Spielberg and he went with them.

     

    The best example of this is the fact that, in the original Raiders script there's no scene in the tent with Marion and Belloq. She's just captured. Belloq says a line or two, she puts on a dress, and Toht turns up. Allen didn't think it felt real -- and why did she put on the dress? Her co-star, Paul Freeman, agreed. So they both went off and wrote a scene together. They gave it to Spielberg, he loved it and added it. It's one of my favourite scenes in the film.

     

    Everyone (except Ford and LaBouf) on Skull seems like they just turned up to work and expected Lucas and Spielberg to have figured everything out. Like they're not invested and phoning it in. Or maybe there was behind the scenes problems that I don't know about. Either way, the difference is stark.

     

    And the ending... sigh.

     

    Ok, so the ending isn't shit because there's a UFO in it. The ending is shit because I didn't care about any of it. I didn't care about the MacGuffin. I didn't care about the aliens. I didn't care what happened to Mac or Oxley. I didn't care what happened to Cate Blandchette. I barely cared about what happened to Marion and Mutt. It was boring as fuck.

     

    So rant, over. Yes, Skull isn't great, but... it's also not terrible. The first hour is actually pretty good. The major problems only really rear their head in the second half. And it's still fairly enjoyable until the damn ending.

     

    Oh, and one final thought: Unlike in 2008, Harrison Ford looks young in Crystal Skull now 😅

     

    For any nerdy Indy scholars, here's the original tent scene from Raiders as scripted -- what a difference Allen and Freeman made!

      

    INT. MARION’S TENT
Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has
removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable.
Caught between two forces.

BELLOQ
Believe me, you made a mistake. If
you would just give me something to
placate them. Some bit of
information.

MARION
I swear to you, I know nothing
more. I have no loyalty to Jones.
He’s brought me only trouble.
He wants to believe her.

BELLOQ
I cannot control them.

Marion’s frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of
the tent. There are a few new arrivals there -- Shliemann,
Govler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He
steps forward and smiles at Marion.

BELZIG
We meet again, Fraulein.

     

    • Like 1
    • Chef's Kiss 1

    Mojo according to ChatGPT (aka "ChatGPT is dumb")

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Huz said:

    My baby-like understanding of ChatGPT is that it only has a limited, superficial understanding of a huge number of topics, which is only good enough to give convincing answers until you start to get into specifics. Then it will happily start making stuff up, or "hallucinating", in a way that seems plausible unless you already know it's talking rubbish.

     

    My baby-like understanding says that ChatGPT has zero knowledge of any subject. It's auto-complete on steroids. It literally knows nothing at all about anything. (And there's quite a few AI researchers and linguists saying this, including Noam Chomsky, but they're getting drowned out by the hype machine.)

     

    3 hours ago, Huz said:

    But here's the fun part. If you open a new chat session and paste in a walkthrough for the game - I've gone for Grim Fandango Network's brilliant walkthrough, voted "Walkthrough of the Year" 17 years running by What Walkthrough Magazine - its response to the same question becomes a lot more insightful and, well, actually correct:

     

    That is interesting. (Of course, if you have the walkthrough already... I digress.) When you say "open a new chat session and paste in a walkthrough for the game" -- what exactly do you mean?

    Mojo according to ChatGPT (aka "ChatGPT is dumb")

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by ThunderPeel2001

    I paid for a ChatGPT 4 subscription to see if it got any better... nope.

     

    Quote

    How does Otis use the file (found in a carrot cake from the prison) to get out of jail?
     

    Otis, one of the characters Guybrush Threepwood needs to recruit as part of his crew in "The Secret of Monkey Island," is found in the jail at the Scumm Bar. When Guybrush gives Otis the carrot cake, Otis discovers the file inside and gets excited about the possibility of escaping.
     

    However, the game injects some humor here: rather than using the file to saw through the bars of his cell as you might expect, Otis uses it to pick his teeth. He complains that the carrot cake is dry and the file helps him to deal with that.
     

    Although it seems like a missed opportunity to use the file for escape, the fact that Otis doesn't escape doesn't prevent him from becoming part of Guybrush's crew. When Guybrush asks him to join, Otis agrees and simply walks out of the apparently unlocked cell, joining Guybrush's crew for the journey to Monkey Island. It's one of the many humorous moments in the game where the storyline doesn't follow the traditional logic you might expect.

    What does Otis say when he's complaining about the carrot cake being try and using the file to pick his teeth?
     

    In "The Secret of Monkey Island," when Guybrush Threepwood gives Otis the carrot cake with a file in it, the conversation goes as follows:
     

    Otis: "Hey, a file. I'd better be careful not to cut myself. Boy, this is a sharp one. Wait a minute. What am I saying?? I can't take this. It might be useful. Hey, this is really good cake! Hey, this might work on the cell door! Ah, it's a raspy metal file. I can't do it. Those crazy spaghetti brothers are still out there. Hmm, I think I'd better just stay in here, where it's safe."
     

    Guybrush: "Would you like to join my crew and sail to Monkey Island™?"
     

    Otis: "Sure, but I can't right now. That darned Largo has thrown me in here again. If you can get rid of Largo, I'll be happy to come with you."

    From this dialogue, it's apparent that Otis, while recognizing the file's potential usefulness for escape, decides to stay put due to fear of Largo, the antagonist of the second game "Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge." Guybrush must first deal with Largo in order for Otis to feel safe to join the crew.

    This dialogue may vary somewhat depending on the specific version of the game you're playing, but the gist remains the same: Otis is hesitant to leave the cell due to fear of Largo, and the file's potential use for escape is downplayed in favor of humor.

     

    And yet people I know are using ChatGPT in their daily jobs. WTF?!?

     

    It's interesting how close it gets sometimes:

     

    Quote

    What are some shocking moments in Monkey Island?
     

    The "Monkey Island" series is known for its humor and wit, but there are indeed some surprising moments sprinkled throughout the games. Here are a few:

    1. LeChuck is a Human (The Secret of Monkey Island): After spending the entire game fearing the ghost pirate LeChuck, the final confrontation reveals that LeChuck was actually a human all along, disguised as a ghost. This is a big twist as the player is led to believe throughout the game that LeChuck is an otherworldly entity.
    2. LeChuck is Guybrush's Brother (Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge): In a shocking twist at the end of "Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge," LeChuck reveals that he is Guybrush's long-lost brother. This twist was surprising and left players wondering about the true backstory of these characters.
    3. Guybrush Dies (Tales of Monkey Island): In the episodic "Tales of Monkey Island," one of the most shocking moments comes when Guybrush actually dies and comes back as a ghost. Players are used to Guybrush getting into all sorts of danger, but he always manages to survive. His death was a big shock.
    4. Elaine is a Demon (Escape from Monkey Island): In "Escape from Monkey Island," Elaine briefly turns into a demon after a voodoo spell goes wrong. This was a surprising and comedic twist.
    5. Marrying Elaine (The Curse of Monkey Island): Guybrush proposes to Elaine using what he believes to be a diamond ring, which turns out to be a cursed ring that turns Elaine into a solid gold statue. This leads to a major questline where Guybrush has to find a way to break the curse.

     

     

    Ghost beard...

     

    Quote

    Was there a moment where Guybrush disguised himself as a ship?

    As of my knowledge cut-off in September 2021, there's no instance in the "Monkey Island" series where Guybrush Threepwood disguises himself as a ship.
     

    However, in "The Secret of Monkey Island," Guybrush does disguise himself as a ghost pirate to sneak onto LeChuck's ship unnoticed. He does this by using a ghost costume made out of a white bedsheet and a bottle of ink for the ghost beard. But again, this is disguising himself as a ghost pirate, not a ship.

    What's a ghost beard?

    In the context of "The Secret of Monkey Island," a "ghost beard" refers to the beard that Guybrush Threepwood paints on the bedsheet he uses to disguise himself as a ghost pirate. He uses a bottle of ink to make the beard, creating a spooky face on the sheet to help sell his disguise.

     

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