let's resurrect

[Joshi]

Who the hell is that?

[Samnmax221]

Sulu of course.

[Joshi]

Of course... although having almost never watched Star Trek I still don't care.

 

It is quite funny that someone screwed up on that Wiki article and stuck a picture of a Tawny Owl where his pic is meant to be.

[Ray Jones]

And that is?

0 = ifnifity.

 

 

Only 24 viewers could believe that (I mean they take 40 minutes for an hour too).

[elTee]

You can sit down and watch an entire season of 24 without getting bored? Jesus. In my experience 24 works in sort of four-episode cycles - for three episodes a plot runs along and ends on major cliffhangers making you pull your hair out, but by the fourth episode it kind of resolves and something new starts up which allows you to get away before you get sucked in again.

 

The thing with the Harry Potter series is that they would make seven excellent mini-series of about ten or twelve hour-long episodes each (the same goes for Lord of the Rings, really.) This would be far too expensive for anyone to really do of course, and as it would make much less money than a single movie it's bad business too. Order of the Phoenix, compared to Goblet of Fire, is really a less eventful book. I'm sure they can fit quite a lot of what happens in the novel into the movie without having to cut entire storylines (like the 'SPEW' thing in Goblet) just by converting three separate scenes/conversations into one.

 

And I read that Kreacher had to be in the movie, because he still has some kind of important role in the last book. I can't remember where I saw that though so take it with a pinch of salt.

[Fealiks]

Take out the adverts and you have 40 minutes per episode. Not as realtime as we think.

 

There's no way they can get away with a third of the hour being filled with adverts... Are you sure that this is true?

 

Actually, Now that I think about it, when I used to watch Lost (when it was good(ish); the first season) the adverts came on before the title sequence and after, with frequent breaks throughout.

 

I was made to watch the disgraceful Stormbreaker today. Please don't watch it, it will make you cry. The fact the Ewan McGregor was in it was really sad, he was superb in Trainspotting and now... this...

Anyway, the product placement in this film is terrible and blatant. One of the "gadgets" given to the main character (a secret agent...) is a "Nintendo DS Game system" given to him by Stephen Fry (Stephen F*cking Fry). The games are all "gadgets" too, utilizing the console's wireless capabilities as a bug-tracking device, and somehow getting the DS to emit smoke by inserting a cartridge into it. The last game presented by Fry, however, is Mario Cart. When asked what benefits this game has, Fry explains that it's just a game for if he gets bored on the flight, doing nothing for the plot or the development; the whole scene cshould have been avoided. There are other instances too, although this one was timed with the release of the DS, boosting the potential income from this scene. I wonder how much money they got from the product placement in that film. That really pisses me off, they knew it would be a successful, profitable film anyway because they had enough money to launch it properly. The obviously didn't have enough to make a good film, though. Arseholes.

 

Now, On the topic of book to film projects, I was disappointed with the made-for-TV Hogfather (Pratchett). In my opinion, Night Watch would make an epic film; much more potential than Hogfather. As is the way with Thud! in my opinion.

[Joshi]

There's no way they can get away with a third of the hour being filled with adverts... Are you sure that this is true?

 

I have 5 seasons on DVD... yes, I'm sure it's true.

 

Ad breaks in the states are actually quite long compared to ours. It's somewhat ridiculous, I stayed with an American family in Ohio over Christmas and a single ad break (of which there will be about 3 or 4 in one half hour programme, so you can guess how bad hour long ones would be) can last very very long.

 

Also you should remember, we basically do the same thing here (although with only one ad break in a half hour program and a basic 3 in an hour long one), we don't have as many adverts, but because we get a lot of our programmes from the States, we have to have basic fillers, most if not all hour long TV shows from America are about 40 minutes long without ads. As an example, here in the UK, we used to show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a US hour long TV show) on Sky One and BBC 2. As the BBC don't air adverts, it filled a 40 minute timeslot on BBC2, but because Sky did, it could fill an hour.

 

Actually, Now that I think about it, when I used to watch Lost (when it was good(ish); the first season) the adverts came on before the title sequence and after, with frequent breaks throughout.

 

Yeah, that's kind of how they did things, it annoyed the hell out of me in the states. The program would start with a cold opening and then as soon as the opening credits sequence passed, they'd go into advert for a good 5-6 minutes (no joke), back to the program for a while, another couple of ad breaks and then a final adbreak before showing the closing moments of the show OR just showing us the credits outright at which point it'll launch straight into the cold opening or opening credits of the next show on and then once the credits are over, go to ad break where it'll start all over again.

 

And we thought we had it bad.

 

I was made to watch the disgraceful Stormbreaker today. Please don't watch it, it will make you cry. The fact the Ewan McGregor was in it was really sad, he was superb in Trainspotting and now... this...

Anyway, the product placement in this film is terrible and blatant. One of the "gadgets" given to the main character (a secret agent...) is a "Nintendo DS Game system" given to him by Stephen Fry (Stephen F*cking Fry). The games are all "gadgets" too, utilizing the console's wireless capabilities as a bug-tracking device, and somehow getting the DS to emit smoke by inserting a cartridge into it. The last game presented by Fry, however, is Mario Cart. When asked what benefits this game has, Fry explains that it's just a game for if he gets bored on the flight, doing nothing for the plot or the development; the whole scene cshould have been avoided. There are other instances too, although this one was timed with the release of the DS, boosting the potential income from this scene. I wonder how much money they got from the product placement in that film. That really pisses me off, they knew it would be a successful, profitable film anyway because they had enough money to launch it properly. The obviously didn't have enough to make a good film, though. Arseholes.

 

Every so often good people do bad films. :|

 

As for product placement, the same happened (although not as bad) in iRobot... so much so in fact that I actually own a pair of Converse All Stars now. Same happens with loads of other films, but none so much as actually making me buy the damn things (yes, I was suckered in). I seem to remember the game Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory having a thing with Airwaves Gum...

 

Now, On the topic of book to film projects, I was disappointed with the made-for-TV Hogfather (Pratchett). In my opinion, Night Watch would make an epic film; much more potential than Hogfather. As is the way with Thud! in my opinion.

 

Agreed, Hogfather only worked for people who'd at least read the book and even then, it was fairly poorly executed. Night Watch, like Thud, I don't think would work that well, both excellent books, but Thud in particular came under scrutiny because to fully enjoy the book, you'd need to know about the past of at least the 4 main characters out of Guards! Guards! (not so much Carrot in Night Watch). I figure Mort would work well, but the only problem there's been so far with the screen adaptions is that no ones yet been able to capture Pratchett's humour on screen properly. Hogfather in particular took a very childish view of the humour which annoyed me, and Death wasn't done as well as he could be (please bring back Christopher Lee for Death, he did him wonderuflly in Weird Sisters and Soul Music). If they can do that, they've got it made.

 

You can sit down and watch an entire season of 24 without getting bored? Jesus. In my experience 24 works in sort of four-episode cycles - for three episodes a plot runs along and ends on major cliffhangers making you pull your hair out, but by the fourth episode it kind of resolves and something new starts up which allows you to get away before you get sucked in again.

 

In all fairness, I can sit through an entire season of anything (as long as it's good, mind) without getting bored. I went through 2 seasons of House in a weekend, I can do about 3 of Family Guy in one sitting and all of Futurama.

 

The thing with the Harry Potter series is that they would make seven excellent mini-series of about ten or twelve hour-long episodes each (the same goes for Lord of the Rings, really.) This would be far too expensive for anyone to really do of course, and as it would make much less money than a single movie it's bad business too. Order of the Phoenix, compared to Goblet of Fire, is really a less eventful book. I'm sure they can fit quite a lot of what happens in the novel into the movie without having to cut entire storylines (like the 'SPEW' thing in Goblet) just by converting three separate scenes/conversations into one.

 

I also had the same idea with the mini-series, this way you can deal with individual storylines per episode and a year per season. As for the cost thing though, considering the budgets of a lot of TV shows these days it wouldn't be too bad. Simply put, as long as it's picked up after it's first season, it shoudln't do too badly. There are loads of long running effects ridden TV shows out there.

 

I don't think SPEW was needed in Goblet of Fire, it would have slowed things down tremendously. As for not much happening in OotP, granted, there aren't a lot of events, but I think there are a lot of emotional cues, especially for Harry that need to be put down and the story is quite rich. Myself and a group of people on another board did actually attempt to adapt this and the Half Blood Prince to screen (us all being major fans of screenwriting) and found that whilst you're right, larger book, not as much story, there was still a lot we had to try and get into 2 hours.

 

And I read that Kreacher had to be in the movie, because he still has some kind of important role in the last book. I can't remember where I saw that though so take it with a pinch of salt.

 

SeaTurtle already linked to that a few posts back, yes it's true. The thing is, whilst I have nothing much against Kreacher being in the movie (in fact it's just easier to have him in anyway from a plot point of view) I don't like the reasoning given here. Whether they'd have had difficulty introducing him in the seventh movie or not is irrelevent, you can't include scenes in a movie purely for the purposes of a movie that will, in all likelyhood come out about four years in the future, by then most of your audience have forgotten about it (movies like the LOTR or POTC don't fit into this because the sequels came out only a year after each other with the exception of the first POTC which was meant to be a standalone movie anyway, and even still, LOTR made a few small mistakes in that area... not as much in the last POTC, but it had it's reasons and they're not good ones).

 

Kreacher works because he actually has a purpose in this film (Chekovs gun will be mounted on the wall in the first act and fired in the third, if you don't know what Chekovs gun is, look it up), but if he didn't (like the Howler) he shouldn't have been included.

 

 

God that's a long post...

[elTee]

I used to watch Lost (when it was good(ish); the first season)

Man, anyone who gave up on Lost after that admittedly slow second season is too flippant. The third series - especially the final ten episodes or so - was some of the best Lost since it began, and it's certainly heading in an interesting direction. Now they've plotted out exactly how many more seasons/episodes there are going to be (three seasons, sixteen episodes each) they can really start answering some of the big mysteries. It should be great!

[Fealiks]

I just couldn't handle the gradual downplay of realism and the obvious fact that the writers either hadn't come up with an ending or were still tinkering with ideas, the story got progressively more far fetched as new exciting twists and turns were being added and played around with. They should have quit while they were ahead.

 

Joshi, were the adverts in the States like that on all channels? I don't know how they could cope with that, it's bloody rude. I have to say that I too bought a pair of black Converse All Stars trainers after watching iRobot, although to be fair it was probably the work of other films too; In my experience, Converse All Stars are easily the most advertised shoe in films. I still love them, though. And how could they fit chewing gum into a game about being a secret agent? There is such a thing as going too far and making your film/game look cheap.

Having said that, I can't help but watch films with a lot of product placement in them and noticing a more true-to-life feeling, making me feel more at home. I know this is what they want. It's working. I don't care.

 

Edit:

Oh, and while we're on the subject, does anyone know whether product placement can exist in song form? I remember watching a film (although I can't remember which one) with that annoying Pizza Hut song in it. I can't remember the context but it may have gone with a scene set in [/i]McDonalds.[/i] I doubt that Kevin Smith would do such a thing, but I also wonder if Chewbacca (or whatever that song is called) was there for advertising reasons (the doubts for this in my mind are huge but I couldn't think of another example)...

[Brighteyes]

To Joshi:

 

Um....first time was at the book signing where i said he had an interesting watch. Was about the size of a sundial and had more gadgets than Q and Batmans utility belt put together. He replied "alot of deep sthea divfers haff them"

being the old guy he is i wondered why he had one and asked. Apparently i was taking the "pith".

 

Second encounter - he had a gaggle of bearded geeks and smitten female fans with too many bangles on clustered around him. He was gloating that "in the offith we listhen to the thong (I love that he said this) FISTHCE HEADS (Fish heads)." Apparently by Reel big fish.

Me being a panikity sod corrected him saying it was Barnes n Barnes. He also took offence to this and told me i was wrong repeatedly (much to my amusement) so i emailed proof to his agent.

 

Lastly at the last con i went to i was a crew member filming the convention DVD and needed him in the hall quickly, as 200 people had been waiting 15mins for his arrival. As he presumably didnt like me he then proceeded to take a further 10 minutes adjusting his ****ing hat!! Whilst i waited at the door.

 

Thats why we don't get along.

[Joshi]

Joshi, were the adverts in the States like that on all channels? I don't know how they could cope with that, it's bloody rude. I have to say that I too bought a pair of black Converse All Stars trainers after watching iRobot, although to be fair it was probably the work of other films too; In my experience, Converse All Stars are easily the most advertised shoe in films. I still love them, though. And how could they fit chewing gum into a game about being a secret agent? There is such a thing as going too far and making your film/game look cheap.

 

1) Yes, almost all channels, I guess Americans are just used to it.

2) True, but iRobot had the most blatant advertising of it ("What are those things on your feet?" "Converse All Stars, vintage 2005, you know you want em.") May as well have just been an advert. But yes, I also love em, even though they take about 5 minutes to put them on and take them off.

3)The Cutscenes featured them, the first instance of them I can remember is a radio report of something and the camera is focused on the radio where, sitting in front of it, in plain sight and focus is... a pack of Airwaves. Another instance is during the Hong Kong/New York blackout, we see the City go dark together with a giant blimp advertising... what was it again.. oh yes, Airwaves gum. Which leads me to ask exactly why a bilmp would go dark during a blackout.

 

Having said that, I can't help but watch films with a lot of product placement in them and noticing a more true-to-life feeling, making me feel more at home. I know this is what they want. It's working. I don't care.

As long as it doesn't go too far. Back to the Future 2 had a lot of it, but that just enriched the feeling of the future (I'm still waiting for those awesome looking Pepsi bottles)

 

Edit:

Oh, and while we're on the subject, does anyone know whether product placement can exist in song form? I remember watching a film (although I can't remember which one) with that annoying Pizza Hut song in it. I can't remember the context but it may have gone with a scene set in [/i]McDonalds.[/i] I doubt that Kevin Smith would do such a thing, but I also wonder if Chewbacca (or whatever that song is called) was there for advertising reasons (the doubts for this in my mind are huge but I couldn't think of another example)...

 

Justin Timberlake... "I'm lovin' it". Now the official tune for McDonalds, I haven't seen a bigger instance of someone selling out than that, especially since it seems he simply wrote and sung the song just for McDonalds.

[Fealiks]

I didn't even know Timberlake did that song...

 

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear, I meant use of song to advertise in films.

[Joshi]

Well I suppose any advertising jingle, those are still quite huge in the states, I wouldn't be surprised if they were found in movies.

[elTee]

I just couldn't handle the gradual downplay of realism and the obvious fact that the writers either hadn't come up with an ending or were still tinkering with ideas, the story got progressively more far fetched as new exciting twists and turns were being added and played around with. They should have quit while they were ahead.

They have come up with an ending - it's just that in the second season, they didn't know if they were going to last for another two seasons or another ten. They couldn't exactly reveal all their answers and then find out they'd been re-commissioned, could they? So they had to drag it out a bit instead of getting on with it, like in season three.

[Fealiks]

And that bugs me. I liked it when they were in a slightly plausible scenario; I haven't watched much of the second season and I haven't watched any of the third season, but if I did, I think it would ruin my experience watching the first one. It's not you, Lost.. it's me.

[Kjølen]

On the topic of "Let's ressurect," how about something ever so slightly Monkey Islandesque?

 

As I'm sure you are all aware, the demon-pirate LeChuck does not woo those he loves. Nay, the demon-pirate LeChuck takes what is rightly his.

 

 

© 2007 - Steven Kusnierek (Except for LeChuck, of course, who is © of LucasArts)

[DrPhil2501]

People! I have arrived!

 

Where have you been young man? Your mother and I have been worried sick!

[Samnmax221]

We kind of let this go.

[itchythesamurai]

Wait, when did we stop talking about the Bristol Stool Scale?

[Joshi]

When we realised we weren't all 6.

[JofaGuht]

gather up everyone that used to come here 3 years ago.

 

=)

I'm here.

 

What's up?

 

It's weird, the faces at the GF forums have nearly completely changed since when I left, and but everyone here looks mostly like the same cast as a year and a half ago. Most of you guys even have the same avatars.

[Joshi]

I don't be changin' my avatar too much me.

[itchythesamurai]

I only change my testicles for the occasional holiday.

[Fealiks]

I always change my avatar... The last one I remember was a walking mummy. It was a sprite from the Metal Slug series. I used them in my sig too. Hehe

 

Edit:

I was looking for GIFs to find that mummy I was talking about when I found Ulead GIF animator. It's the first GIF animator I have used and I just made (edited) these as a testers:

 

And now I'm thinking of what to do to the mummy... or whether I should just leave it as it is or not.

[itchythesamurai]

And now I'm thinking of what to do to the mummy... or whether I should just leave it as it is or not.

 

You should have Brock Samson urinate on it because we all know that you have to defile a mummy completely or they come back to life.