Tale

I saw Days of Future Past and I did like several of the previous X-Men movies. I loved it. It's the perfect capstone on the original X-Men trilogy and a good First Class sequel as well.

Not quite. He's talking about his Awakened. He stops them from hearing the call of the Old Gods, which has all sorts of other benefits like them being able to take control of their own behavior. Or just go nutters. The Architect is essentially an awakened emissary who has never heard the call. He never said anything about "we were always like this." Edit: He might have questioned doctrine though, it's hard to say. One theory is that he's a magister reincarnated since we know they can do that.

I bought a bottle of Courvoisier VS and Wild Turkey 101. This Wild Turkey could be what gets me into Bourbon. I'm cutting back on the drinking overall, though. Only one glass a night. Getting sloshed actually hinders my productivity I've found.

Not exactly. The only conclusion is that you shouldn't read too much into what he says.

New thread.

Last thread I saw Godzilla. A well made movie, but pretty dumb. The monsters bother me because they eat only radiation. Their digestion system must be a fusion reactor.

I haven't done enough lately. Mostly outline work which feels shamefully unproductive. But the changes to the outline are kind of hilarious in a big picture way. So the story was roughly about these two guys that know each other, but then get embroiled in big events that cause them to go their separate ways until the end. And I'll decide if they reconcile or try to kill each other as I get further in the process. Then I got rid of one of those guys. So it became about a single guy who gets embroiled in big events, meet new people, and try to find his place. And along the way, I added new people for him to meet. But I still didn't like that guy, so the new characters started stealing the spotlight and I got rid of him. It became about two people that meet amongst big events. Then I had an idea. What if those two people knew each other already! And I'm back to "Two guys that know each other, but then get embroiled in big events. I'm still not sure if they're going to try to kill each other at the end." But I like the specifics more. I like the characters more, they're more opinionated and driven. The setting is a lot easier to work with. They have a firmer place within the setting. I mean, instead of just being coworkers at the beginning, they're trying to kill each other already. So they have that conflict right from the start. Now the struggle to get my butt in the chair and doing more than writing technical descriptions of made up gizmos begins. Anyone have experience with Scrivener?

Scott being forced to cut too much seems like a paradox to me. The guy is pretty notorious for putting pacing above even storytelling in terms of what gets cut. His "director's cut" of Alien, for example, is actually shorter than his preferred theatrical cut. And then there's the rumors around Prometheus.

There's a couple possibilities, the DVD non-anamorphic DVD releases from a few years back or one of the various fanmade despecialized editions floating around.

There's speculation that Fox still holds rights relevant to a rerelease of the OT. And that may interfere with Disney doing a despecialized release. A shame if true, that's about the only way I could consider buying a new copy and watching it.

I warned myself It would kill my momentum. I've spent the past two days adjusting my outline for this change. There's a couple of quibbles with the new outline, mostly an issue with whether or not I need a particular subplot. But I don't think I'll be able to figure that out until the rewrite stage.

My experience is that is people in general. We are social animals, prone to following shared ideas.

I'm going to take a step back here and see if we're saying the same thing in different ways. The stakes and threat have to be established. This can be seen as something happening to the protagonist and they have to respond. I can agree on that. But I still disagree that Anakin's failure was that he drove the plot. He was still reacting in that sense, just to things that didn't matter.

You could argue that, I don't think it rescues the situation though. There needs to be something at stake. Something the character is fighting to protect and that the audience can sympathize with. It can be pain, love, revenge, his best fiend, himself, whatever. But for the first two movies of the prequel, the only thing at stake for the climaxes are government bodies. The audience does not care about the Republic to any serious degree. We're not going to be tense about Naboo's trade policies either. If we want a mirrored arc, Dooku should have been the one to kill Shmi. Then he can really mean something.

I was responding to True Neutral with the false dichotomy comment. The reaction vs. driving. But there was nothing at stake for Anakin. Take the entire Attack of the Clones movie. They actually lose the fight at the end. And nothing you might care about was changed as a result. The Obi-Wan & Anakin vs Dooku fight was totally consequence free, aside from a superficial severed. And the Clones vs Droids is so inconsequential they don't even bother to show how it ends. Take the ending of Empire to contrast. Han, Leia, and Chewie fail to get to Boba Fett in time, so Han is kidnapped. And Luke shows far more pain and distress than Anakin did for the severing of his arm. And losing his hand actually ends up serving a thematic purpose, a warning about losing himself. Reflected in the "more machine than man" line from A New Hope and the recognition from seeing his father's cybernetic hand in Return of the Jedi.

That looks like a false dichotomy to me. There's lots of give and take in most stories. If there's one where the hero only reacts or a hero only drives things to where he wants it to go, that story can probably be dismissed summarily. Except in videogames. The try-fail cycle can occur whether you're reacting or you're taking the initiative. I'll agree with you to a point though. The hyper competent hero archetype is boring, but mainly because it ruins the tension and stakes. You're not going to worry about Superman losing. Anakin however does lose, he's almost never driving the action, but there's still nothing at stake.

I probably will. I'm just worried that it's going to kill my momentum to start over from chapter 1 instead of writing on through. If I push through with them I might actually figure out something interesting to do with them. And if I don't, then I might still be able to figure out the overall tone of the project which will better help me figure out what to replace them with.

I guess I've only recently been introduced to that distinction. See Mya in Bermuda Tentacles. Or preferably don't.

I'm going to say that Neeson's acting was awful in the prequels. And McGregor's was similarly awful in The Phantom Menace. It's not until Attack of the Clone that McGregor actually starts to express emotion and then it's mostly just him having fun. When he's not trying to channel Guinness, he's just having fun pretending to be a space knight. It's clear right before the General Grevious fight. He's standing right there about to duel some giant robot monster and he has this giant grin on his face. It makes no sense for the character, but I like to imagine that it's McGregor hyping himself up about stuff he can't even see.

The problem I was having with two characters might have been something far worse than I previously thought. The entire concept for the project was "two guys show up, cause problems, and try to run from those problems." Well, what I spent most of the time since doing is expanding that idea into "bunch of problems exist, two guys show up with one more problem that pushes everything over the edge." Now I've added a bunch of new characters and sideplots, backstories. I have these new and interesting characters that the second I introduced them into a scene they just just came alive with personality and quirks. And then there's the two guys who were originally intended to be the main characters and they kind of bore me. If I don't get somewhere with them soon, I'm going to have to cut them. I don't think I've had to kill my darlings before. It's a little exciting.

There are already plenty of male only groups. Which is why people would be outraged if one set themselves up with it as an intent.

Played a bit of System Shock 2. The respawning is annoying. One time I walked down a hallway and it seemed like the hybrid respawned right behind me out of nowhere. And that was my first encounter with the respawning so I had no clue why it was happening. But then I started running around lost and had respawned from where I killed them 10 minutes ago. So that was kind of disappointing.

Wow, did not see that coming. I thought the previous one was pretty much the most unneccesary film ever made, and didn't really offer anything that the previous triology didn't. What was good about this new one? Characterization and acting are way better than Raimi's films. I think the Green Goblin was a little rushed here, but it worked. Electro, on the other hand, was fantastic. And how they handled the music with him, including a vocal track that sounds like a schizophrenic inner voice, really helped display the emotion of the character. Garfield and Stone have a damned good chemistry as well. I'm always advocating for character development in stories. I think this one has it in spades for both the good guys and the bad.

Not always. Cut content doesn't always repurpose well, it might be too particular to a storyline of the main game or too small to bother with. And they might have other DLC plans. So it depends.