Dream

Those two read more like selfish people seeking to further their own power through good publicity.

But by the time you're even able to fight Kangaxx you'd have already played through a significant portion of the game and by definition are no longer a newb.

The whole concept of having an "evil path" is juvenile though.

Says you.

I couldn't help but crack up at the whole eugenics bit.

That game had the worst control scheme I'd ever seen in a game. 5 bucks (or however much I paid for it) was too much; Super Hexagon was a better investment.

I'd still rather play WoW.

If you want to play an Ultima game Richard Garriott recently did a kickstarter. Go there.

What's wrong with having deep combat in a RTwP game? Pretty much.

I will admit that the start of Origins was better than the start of BG, but once you got rolling I enjoyed the combat in the BG games more.

Fair enough; my bad if I came off as a bit of a **** at the end there.

So let me get this straight; you're now saying that your original stance was that this movie has themes (something that every single movie ever made has). Okay, well while I get that shifting the goalposts is a fun activity and all; thankfully this is the internet so we can look at what your ACTUAL stance was: Unfortunately, now you're contradicting yourself by admitting that the themes were maybe just there simply so Gerard had something to scream in between all the action. In the end what your actual issue is is the fact that you're trying to argue about something you haven't even seen. Maybe (crazy idea here) you should go and a watch the movie before trying to have a discussion about it. Just a thought.

You know what? You're right. The producers probably felt that the role of diplomats in the middle east was a discussion worth having and so to facilitate that they added a scene about it into a movie that was marketed as 70% action, 20% screaming, and 10% nude chicks. Or they just wanted to show Gerard Butler kicking a dude down a well while yelling the film's iconic line. Just out of curiosity, what was your degree in?

It's not that those themes being dumb; it's the fact that those lines were put into those movies simply because they were catchy. Some works were created with deeper thought and should be analyzed and discussed, but when you slave over every minute detail of every single movie (including those that were clearly made to be carefree popcorn entertainment) all you do is dilute the actual meaningful discussions that should be had. Not wanting to over-analyze everything under the sun isn't about being anti-intellectual; it's about not being a pretentious snob who thinks he's better than everyone else because he can see the "deeper meaning" in everything.

Yes, and Animal Farm was just a book about animals, and The Great Gatsby was just about some jerks doing jerky stuff to each other in the Twenties, etc. Just because some people overanalyze small details doesn't mean there's nothing there to analyze. Anti-intellectualism of the sort you're engaging in is why we can't have nice things. And I suppose Transformers 3 was an opus on the battle between technology and humanity, Bad Boys 2 was designed to ask the question of when excessive force is acceptable, and Shoot 'Em Up discussed man's inhumanity to man. Some things do have deeper meanings, yea, but a lot of things are exactly what they appear to be.

You guys sound like English teachers talking about a novel. It was just a movie about a bad ass battle.

300 was a comic book movie; not a historical one. You wouldn't go to see Captain America for an accurate portrayal of WW2; why expect that from 300? So what if I made a movie about WW2 with the only difference from history that there were no genocides, and the Allied bombing of Germany and Japan were the significant atrocities of the war. Even if I stated it's fictional people would surely accuse me of trying to change our view of history. There's a common interest in knowing our shared history. It's hard to say what is OK and what is not, I would say the only way we can determine that is by looking at the effects of movies such as 300. Obviously there are a lot of stupid people and 300 did not do anything to help them with an accurate picture of history. The effect can only be reversed, in my opinion, by criticizing 300 for it's detrimental effect on our knowledge of history. If you did it in 2500 years I doubt many would care.

I'm not taking a side when I say this, because I haven't actually seen 300, nor do I care to. Also, I have very mixed feelings about film adaptations of historical events in general, especially when the portrayal of the events being adapted is itself filled with errors both accidental and deliberate. So I'm not saying "300 bad, Captain America good" or anything. But I believe the flaw in your argument there is that Captain America does not purport to be a true story in any sense. 300 does. So there is a reasonable expectation on the viewer's part of some historical accuracy, even if artistic license has been taken. Whereas I don't think anyone of reasonable intelligence would assume the real World War II was won when Captain America defeated the Red Skull. Anyone who goes to see a movie that has this: as advertising for it and expects ANY degree of historical accuracy is out of their god damn mind.

300 was a comic book movie; not a historical one. You wouldn't go to see Captain America for an accurate portrayal of WW2; why expect that from 300?

I guess you thought lord of the rings was awful then because Sauron didn't make one necklace (or helmet, or gauntlet, or just about anything other than a ring) to rule them all because, you know, more mass. The way magic is used (or what it's used for) opens up a can of worms. In essence, if magic is (ab) used without thought, just as a justification/handwave for something "cool", that opens up a can of worms. When exactly has magic been used for anything other than to justify fantastical **** happening in the story? That's kind of the whole point of it.

The existence of magic opens that can of worms; not a skimpy piece of clothing. But in a world of magic you're not really risking your life. That's kind of the point of magic; to have the best of all worlds. Are you under the impression that ego stroking is some modern development? We're not talking about what would be the theoretical maximum in magical protection, but in what opportunities the existence of magic opens up. For instance, if the enchantment provides the equivalent protection of a foot of steel I doubt it really matters what the base item is; yea, 101 > 100, but not enough to matter.

Pretty sure there are more practical uses for carbon fiber than a Ferrari, but what the hell.

If that was the case, we should also have males running around in chainmal speedos. Wait..why chainmail? It would chaif. Let's just enchant a silk thong or a big codepiece. Hm..come to think of it, if magical protective any-shape fields like that exist, why even bother with heavy swords? Let's have an enchanted ring that projects a magical sword-shaped field with steel durabiltiy and sharpness.. Wait, I got a better idea. If rings can be enchanted...if any obejct can be enchanted..why not simply enchant the body..or a tatoo? Let's have a mass of naked people running around in invisible armor fighting with invisible weapons. Very cheap on the art department to boot. Becase MAGIC is the solution to all problems. You could have all those things, yes. But I get your point; having an all powerful ring that grants amazing powers would be a pretty stupid... oh, wait.

And I'm equally sure that a simple mask won't interfere with his combat efficiency. Aesthetic touches in finish and color are all to the good; however, pauldrons the size of a kitchen sink and chainmail bikinis the size of a large postage stamp are decidedly not. Preposterous arms and panoplies on a mortal are just...preposterous. A battle bikini won't interfere with combat efficiency either if it's enchanted to provide full body protection (which is what that conversation was about), but good try.

The way I see it whether a story is good or not is independent of how many arcs it has. If the story calls for multiple arcs then do that, but if it only calls for one then that's cool too. What I don't want to see are narrative elements shoehorned into the plot simply because they are considered "good writing."