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Opinion on the 1998 Godzilla movie?Well.
The profanity filters here won't let me tell you my ACTUAL opinion, so I'll summarize.
It is my least favorite movie. I came out of the theater actively wanting to punch someone.
Worst.
Movie.
EVER.There are very few movies that leave you with that intense a feeling when you leave the theater. For me, the final insult was the remix of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir that played over the final credits. Kashmir, great song, right?
Kashmir + PUFF DADDY (uhhh... yeah... ) =
Let me put it to you this way: It knocked Highlander 2 to a distant second in my "most awful movie I ever paid money to see at a theater" list.
The only good that came out of the '98 Godzilla movie was the Rage Against The Machine track No Shelter on the official soundtrack.
You know your movie is bad when one of the songs on the offical soundtrack contains the line:
"Godzilla? Pure mother*****n' filler. Get your eyes off the real killer."
That movie is even mocked by its own soundtrack. :)
Creative Director
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What's one theory?Why do science-fiction rpgs not sell as well as fantasy role-playing games?If I knew that, I'd be able to fix things so a Sci-fi game COULD sell. I have plenty of theories, though... too many to go into here.
That sci-fi games don't embrace the "Kill monsters, take their stuff, get more powerful" concept that well.
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Creative Director
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What are you thoughts on the movie Stardust?
what are the best fairy tail moves?
And How often do you use Fairy tails when you Write adventures both home and Professional?
I was kind of bored by "Stardust."
Best Fairy Tail movie: "Pan's Labyrinth."
Fairy tails are a relatively constant source of inspiration, but especially when it comes to adventures that deal with fey.
Does the spectacle of beating a hostile alligator to death with another hostile alligator justify its lack of efficiency?No, because hurting alligators is wrong.
What if you are going to take their stuff and get more powerful?
Or better yet, fry them?
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Creative Director
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What are your general thoughts on Hollywood re-doing foreign films?
Depends on who's redoing them.
The remake of "Ringu" into "Ring" was phenomenal; I like the remake a LOT better, and the original is HARDLY a slouch.
The remake of "REC" into "Quarrantine" resulted in a good movie, but I like the original better.
Most of the time, though, remakes are less good than the original, whether or not the original was a foreign film. Because remakes generally don't attract visionary directors. When they DO, the result is usually a better movie than the original (such as you see with "John Carpenter's The Thing" or Scorsese's "Cape Fear.")
We'll see how my attitude toward this category changes in the next few months as "Let Me In" and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" show up...
What are your general thoughts on Hollywood re-doing foreign films?Depends on who's redoing them.
The remake of "Ringu" into "Ring" was phenomenal; I like the remake a LOT better, and the original is HARDLY a slouch.
The remake of "REC" into "Quarrantine" resulted in a good movie, but I like the original better.
Talk about different strokes for different folks- I feel the opposite with respect to those movies(Prefer quarantine to REC, think Ringu runs circles around the acceptable Ring).
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Creative Director
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Any such that you really hated (with the exception of Godzilla) but liked the original?
The Vanishing. The original was REALLY good, but the remake was terrible. DESPITE the fact that Keifer Sutherland (an actor I quite like) was in the remake and DESPITE the fact that the director was the same for both movies.
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Creative Director
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Hmm. Good call on the dinsaurs.
Given that I am currently more irked by the (ongoing) computer absence, (the builder situation has, touch-wood, resolved itself at last) can you recommend a bona fide supplier of velociraptor eggs?
I need those velociraptor eggs; I can't give out the source's contact info as a result.
And Erik will not be returning to his original avatar. By the end of the year, ALL Paizo employees are supposed to have unique avatars in fact, so that it's easy to tell at a glance if the person posting is actually the for real Paizo person and not someone else's sock puppet. It's cute when folks use our avatars and pose as us, but it's also dangerous.
I have my new image picked out, but it's not ready yet to be put up. It'll still be a Tyrannosaurus, though.
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Creative Director
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Which AP, in your opinion, seems to have been most disappointing among Pathfinder gamers?Second Darkness, hands down, seems to have disappointed the most folks. Which is a shame, because there's a lot of cool stuff in that one. That said, I do know WHY it disappointed folks, and hopefully we won't be repeating those choices.Could you go into a little more detail? I think that would be helpful for lots of people, GMs, people running that AP, people running other APs.
I've always admired Paizo's lack of arrogance when it comes to experimenting and admitting mistakes.
One of the big errors was making Riddleport too interesting. Players wanted to stay there and have more adventures there, but the adventure path didn't stick around.
Another error was to start the AP with a vibe of "you can be scuzzy folks because you're starting in a piraty town, but half-way through the AP you need to become good guys." We should have pushed the "You should play nice characters who are eager to leave Riddleport" and should have made Riddleport less "fun" of a place to live, perhaps.
And the penultimate adventure was WAY too railroady. It could have benefited TREMENDOUSLY from another few weeks in development and/or rewriting.
And while I still really like the element of disguise your PCs as drow for part 4, and think that adventure is one of the most interesting ones we've done... we probably should have made a few more concessions toward lawful characters and how awkward they'd feel toward becoming what basically ammounts to spies. I think a single sidebar that effectively would have said: "It's okay to be spies in a chaotic evil society even if you're a lawful character" would have done it.
And finally, we were hoping that by returning to the original super-evil version of drow that we could recapture the magic of drow as bad guys... but I fear that too many years of gamers assuming all drow wield scimitars and have angst on the surface world might make that impossible.
All that said... I still quite like Second Darkness; it's certainly not my least favorite AP. And no, I'm not going to call out my least favorite one! :)
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Creative Director
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James, any chance of allowing me to re-post my Summon Monster/Ally pdf's? There were up for 11 months before someone took them out, and you even posted on one!
I'm promoting the game,
I'm not making any money from it,
The Artist are getting their work seen by more people and more frequently!
We all win!
If you want to post something like that, you just have to abide by the Community Use policy. If I recall correctly, the previous PDF included a LOT of closed content stuff (monsters from WotC books that weren't open) and that's what made us nervous and uncomfortable about the PDF.
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Creative Director
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Does the spectacle of beating a hostile alligator to death with another hostile alligator justify its lack of efficiency?No, because hurting alligators is wrong.What if you are going to take their stuff and get more powerful?
Or better yet, fry them?
It's still wrong. You should do that to wolves or dwarves instead.
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Creative Director
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Talk about different strokes for different folks- I feel the opposite with respect to those movies(Prefer quarantine to REC, think Ringu runs circles around the acceptable Ring).What are your general thoughts on Hollywood re-doing foreign films?Depends on who's redoing them.
The remake of "Ringu" into "Ring" was phenomenal; I like the remake a LOT better, and the original is HARDLY a slouch.
The remake of "REC" into "Quarrantine" resulted in a good movie, but I like the original better.
Yup. I even know folks who don't like "Pulp Fiction" or think "Alien" is boring.
Some people are just crazy, I guess.
(The thing I like better about REC over Quarantine is that a religious/supernatural explanation for the events is MUCH more interesting than a scientific one... especially when you look at how they expanded the story in REC 2.)
It's still wrong. You should do that to wolves or dwarves instead.Does the spectacle of beating a hostile alligator to death with another hostile alligator justify its lack of efficiency?No, because hurting alligators is wrong.What if you are going to take their stuff and get more powerful?
Or better yet, fry them?
But what if dwarves taste yucky? Alligators have that yummy lizard flavor. Fried dwarf is too tough.
Why am I so ticklish? Why do I sound like the Wicked Witch of the West when tickled?
Why have movies decided to use CGI monsters/characters/background guys/Ninja Turtles/etc instead of the old-style Guy In Suit?
What's your take on it? Is CGI better than Guy In Suit? Is it a case-by-case thing?
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It's still wrong. You should do that to wolves or dwarves instead.Does the spectacle of beating a hostile alligator to death with another hostile alligator justify its lack of efficiency?No, because hurting alligators is wrong.What if you are going to take their stuff and get more powerful?
Or better yet, fry them?
But....alligator tastes like chicken.
Dwarf is just....a bit gamey.
Have you had the opportunity to watch Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legend?OMG! NO!
The local gaming group would like to clarify if that was a 'I have not seen the film' or an 'AIEEE!!! Not if it was the last movie on Earth!' "NO!". (Their words not mine)
Also, what is your take on the announcement of a Godzilla remake due in 2012?
The little golems next to your names already aren't sufficient to identify bona fide staff members?
Ho humm.
I gander because there's a number of other icons next to aliases and some of the greener folks may not be familiar with the product to make that distinction. It could be just another faction to them. I personally don't pay attention to the name and icons as I do to the avatar pics. There's a couple of others that use the same as I do, but c'est la vie.
Are Golarion terms like "Xin" and "Tian Xia" picked from chinese philosophy?
When terms like "Xin" (meaning the heart, feeling, thinking and disposition I guess) came up in my philosophy class, you know what I was thinking about.
Evolution: fact (mostly) or myth (taken on faith it might be fact)?
It has to be fact, otherwise it wouldn't be the core mechanic for the Eidolon.
What does 3rd party publishers mean?? I'm guessing WotC, as the official publisher of D&D would be first party, but apparently all others are 3rd. if that's the case, who are second party publishers??
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Creative Director
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But what if dwarves taste yucky? Alligators have that yummy lizard flavor. Fried dwarf is too tough.
Why am I so ticklish? Why do I sound like the Wicked Witch of the West when tickled?
The bitter taste of dwarf is punishment for anyone who thinks about eating alligators.
As for why you're so ticklish... Bad luck? Or maybe good luck?
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Creative Director
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Why have movies decided to use CGI monsters/characters/background guys/Ninja Turtles/etc instead of the old-style Guy In Suit?
What's your take on it? Is CGI better than Guy In Suit? Is it a case-by-case thing?
Probably because CGI is faster and cheaper to produce than practical effects, and because with CGI there's not really a limit to the scale of what you're producing, and perhaps because there's no clean-up afterwards.
It's just a lot more efficient in pretty much every regard when it comes to special effects. And done well, it looks really good. Done poorly it doesn't, but that's no different than poorly done practical effects.
My take: It's a case by case thing as to which method is better for what scene in which movie.
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Creative Director
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James Jacobs, James Jacobs - please tell me, do.
How best should one dispose of a grue?By fire, or acid, or maybe beheading?
Or maybe attending my sister's third wedding?Awaiting an answer, please tell me more.
The dead grue lies waiting, outside my door.
Whatever you do, don't speak in rhyme. Grues LOVE rhyme; it makes them SUPER HUNGRY... oh... uh oh... too late!
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Creative Director
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Ok was there a local area urban legend that creeped you out as a kid?
I grew up in northern California, in a town with a population of about 450. We didn't really have much in the way of "urban" legends. The legends that scared me the most, though, were generally stories of violent bigfoot behavior.
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Creative Director
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The local gaming group would like to clarify if that was a 'I have not seen the film' or an 'AIEEE!!! Not if it was the last movie on Earth!' "NO!". (Their words not mine)
Also, what is your take on the announcement of a Godzilla remake due in 2012?
It is: I have not seen the film but since I'm a big Ultraman fan, I wish I had.
My take on the upcoming Godzilla movie is relief and excitement; it sounds like the creators are treating the movie's mythos with a LOT more respect this time.