ID4 2: Dead. Another sad day.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Looks like they did plan to make a sequal for some time but it got canned and yet we have this new disaster movie which doesn't look that interesting even though it has Dennis Quaid so I may give it a shot anyway.


http://www.hsbr.net/servlet/readGenome?stock=IDAY2

Man, I've been hopeing for ID4 2 to happen but at least they put some thought into their work and decided not to ruin the first movie by makeing a crappy sequal.

[Nexus_One]

I really don't see how a sequal would work for that movie anyways. They already blew the whole world to sh!t in the first movie, what's left to do?

[[]V[]essenjah]

Not really. They managed to save the world at the end but I was thinking of maybe a little ground war sorta thing would be cool.

[Testiculese]

You're kidding. ID4 is one of the most pathetic movies ever. It should have never been released!

[[]V[]essenjah]

Tops out, Star Wars (even though I like them, the originals in particular), Stargate (was kinda cool), and JP on my list.

It also beats out LOTR. (I hate those movies accept for the last one) and Harry Pothead.

I liked it because it was actually pretty realalistic.

At least we attempted to fight back in that movie and you could relate to it without knowing all the nerd mumbo jumbo.

I hate most disaster movies but I loved ID4.

[Topher]

I liked it because it was actually pretty realalistic.

oh my God...I should smack you...so hard.

Ok, list one thing in that movie that was realistic.

I dare you.

I dare you to think of one solid fact so that I can say "Hey! It was in ID4 so that means it's true!"


...

Double dare you.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Well, some things were a bit far fetched but not any more than most good movies.

Lets see here:

First off, unlike in most invasion movies, we actually fought against the Aliens. When they started attacking, we pumped out everything we had at them. Nukes, some of our best fighter jets, whatever we had. Another good point is that the president actually tried to lead his country the best he could. He didn't just attack the aliens. He held back until they struck. He increased the security but he didn't attack. He stood his ground until they had solid evidence that they were going to be attacked.

Here are some other Examples:

War Of The Worlds:

How did that story end..... the aliens died off. Some disease killed them. Now, you would think after flying as long as they probably have, that they would have at least known a little bit about diseases and the like. This movie, it wasn't disease that killed them. It was about a bajillion missiles and a nasty computer virus that wiped them out.

Next up:

Now, yes the aliens had big guns, and the ships weren't reallalistic but who knows what another being in search of a planet would have up his sleave.

What did we have? Everything we have now, fighter jets, nukes, tanks, satellights, and other such stuff.

Now, some of the stuff wasn't reallalistic but was still pretty cool such as Area 51 which is actually rumored to be real even though I highly doubt it myself.

We weren't fighting with crappy sci fi mumbo jumbo. We were fighting with technology that we HAVE. Other than the alien ships of course.

Next, we have the aliens. Now, they weren't that reallalistic but who knows how they live or what they look like. As they said though, they were pretty much like us other than haveing no vocal chords and being telepathic. They had a heart, brain, lungs and other features. Unlike the aliens movies where they could bleed acid and had metal jaws and were pretty much animal-like creatures. These aliens seemed to actually be somewhat intelligent.

I find it funny how people go nuts over LOTR yet it has not one reallalistic thing in it. Not anything seen in those movies exists or ever will exist other than the actors and Australia.

So name a Sci Fi movie other than Space Odyssey that is a good Sci Fi action movie that is more reallalistic.

[fliptw]

The only good thing about ID4 was Will Smith.

Wow.. the President Of The United Stated held back a military response until most of the major cities of the planet were wiped out.

You know what got the aliens in the end... a mysterious computer virus that shut down their shields... pretty much the same manner the aliens in war of the worlds died - a mysterious dieases killed them off after the hulls of the ships managed to get breached.

The reasons Emmerich listed were valid... it be nothing but a typical rehash of ID4.

[Avder]

There were plans for an Id4 2? Ooooook. That really makes no sense, but ok.

It might have made sense in like a freespace2-ish sort of way, occuring like 50 years later, but I cant really see a ground war sort of thing.

[Liquid Fire]

They didn't send up a computer virus. They just installed windows 95 on all the alien computers

[Top Gun]

Messenger, you dare to call some run-of-the-mill armageddon movie greater than an epic trilogy based on the greatest work of English literature ever? I hope you're either deluded or joking, because if you're not.... Seriously, though, you said that LOTR has nothing realistic in it. Have you seen any huge alien motherships that spawn city-destroying disks? I sure haven't . As you might have guessed, the easiest way to raise my ire is to in any way malign the works of Tolkien or the land of Middle-Earth.

And now, for something on topic: I enjoyed Independence Day, but I wouldn't rank it up there as one of my favorite films. The whole "aliens in Area 51" bit seemed a little cheesy. However, the scenes of cities being blown apart were pretty well done . Funny side note: on the way to Washington, D.C., for our 7th grade field trip, we were watching ID4. Just after the White House was ripped to shreds, we looked down a side street and saw it .

[[]V[]essenjah]

Greatest work in American Literature? LOL!!

I'll bet the guy was on weed the whole time he wrote it!

No, you don't see alien motherships but you see every other nerd thing you could think of.

Wizards, dragons, gaint sea monsters, elven women, giant ghost guys with armored black horses with glowing eyes, armies that fill up half the size of the planet fighting each other.... a giant evil magic eye an army of flying magic skeleton guys with crowns, city sized elephant creatures with multiple trunks, walking and talking redwood sized trees, giant eagles, gusy fighting giant demons for a long crapping time, giant spiders.... all obsessed with a tiny gold glowing ring.....

I really haven't seen any of those either.... dunno if you have. If you can, you must be one of those nerds that they made fun of on King Of The Hill that think they are wizards

[Tyranny]

messenger, he said English literature, not American literature, and he is correct. LOTR is considered one of the best literary works in history. Some people may consider it THE best, but they of course are entitled to their own opinions.

The events of LOTR were considered so epic that it was once believed there would never be a live action motion picture made that would do it justice. Hence why up until Peter Jacksons attempt there had never once, other then in animated form, been an attempt to bring it to life.

Anyways, the things you guys are arguing about aren't "real" no matter how you look at them. The whole point is to make them believable for the 2 or 3 hours you're sitting there watching it. You have to remember there was a time where the thought of Dragons and Wizards and magic was very much real and a big part of human culture until we educated ourselves with science.

SciFi then is the "what ifs" of that science, mix that with a little bit of Fantasy and you have a pretty good picture of what SciFi is all about. Sure, it isn't real, but what about the possibilities? The events of things like Stargate or StarWars or StarTrek aren't anymore "real" then ID4 or LOTR when you get down to it though. I just find it funny how people can like a movie for the very same reasons they hate another

On-Topic: It doesn't surprise me that they would attempt or had attempted to make another Independence Day movie for the simple reason that riding the success bandwagon of Will Smith was the "IN" thing to do at that time. To be honest I don't think it would have done even remotely as well as the first one. It wasn't really necessary....sort of like MiBII.

[[]V[]essenjah]

I will give it some credit though. It was a fun movie but it was just a 1 time see flick. The first two I just sat and stared at my watch hopeing it would end at points.

The last one I did enjoy but it wasn't like the best movie I've ever seen but it was fun.

I certainly never felt really any emotional level while watching it and I figured the whole plot before events even took place.

It was a good big battle scene and monsther fighting movie but it was like most others.

ID4 had at least some emotional value because you learned to like the characters.

Now, perhaps the book was well written by Tolken but I never really read the books and I wasn't really that impressed by the movies other than the final part and I still don't buy that it is the greatest work in Literature.

[Tyranny]

Read the books. Atleast that way you'd have an educated arguement

[[]V[]essenjah]

Actually, about the Will Smith thing. I did some extensive reading on it and apparently, they wanted Smith to join up in 2002 but he wouldn't so the went ahead and wrote the scripts without him useing only Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman as the main characters. They wrote the scripts dureing 2003 and I haven't heard much about Will Smith in a while. It looks like they canned it sometime in 2004 though.

[Krom]

The whole thing in ID4 showing one of those ships surviving a nuke attack was just stupid. If you had a ship that was shaped like that and 15 miles wide, detonate a nuke directly under the middile of it, I dont care what kind of 'shields' it has, nothing could absorb that much energy.

-Krom

[Top Gun]

Thanks for the backup, Tyranny . Messenger, I second reading the books; at least then you'll have an informed opinion, and I can at least promise that it won't be a boring read . Personally, I feel that the movies are much better after reading the books; much of what is portrayed in the movies wouldn't seem to fit without reading them.

P.S. It's funny you should call LOTR the terrain of "nerds," because all of the stereotypical "nerdy fantasy" elements from such areas as Dungeons and Dragons are taken from LOTR. Where do you think orcs, or for that matter wizards who wear blue pointy hats, came from? That's right; it was Tolkien . Also, I can't see why you deride things that are not real. Fantasy is my favorite literary genre precisely because it details things that could never happen. Who wants to read some "same-old" realistic fiction, taking place in our world and entirely plausible, when you can explore places and meet creatures concocted entirely by the mind of some "zany" author? Call me a dreamer, but I know where my choice lies .

[kurupt]

from a literature stand point, they are indeed considered of the best. i thought the movies were entertaining but i wouldnt go any further than that. but hey, i also think star wars was entertaining but i wouldn't go past that either. ID4 was entertaining and it served its point.

its a shame that they canned it, i would have gone to see it.

[Beowulf]

well messenger, you have officially moved to the next level in total stupidity

[Avder]

Greatest work in American Literature? LOL!!

I'll bet the guy was on weed the whole time he wrote it!

No, you don't see alien motherships but you see every other nerd thing you could think of.

Wizards, dragons, gaint sea monsters, elven women, giant ghost guys with armored black horses with glowing eyes, armies that fill up half the size of the planet fighting each other.... a giant evil magic eye an army of flying magic skeleton guys with crowns, city sized elephant creatures with multiple trunks, walking and talking redwood sized trees, giant eagles, gusy fighting giant demons for a long crapping time, giant spiders.... all obsessed with a tiny gold glowing ring.....

I really haven't seen any of those either.... dunno if you have. If you can, you must be one of those nerds that they made fun of on King Of The Hill that think they are wizards

Its a FANTASY novel. Its supposed to contain a lot of FANTASY. Its also the best work of fiction Ive ever read. Ever read a book? Books are fun. They can be a LOT more entertaining than ANY movie if they keep your interest. Then again, books arent for those with the attention span of a gnat.

[Cougar]

I love the part where they hack into the alien ship with the apple laptop.

[Top Gun]

I don't remember that in LOTR .

[Cougar]

It's my favorite part.

[viscerebral]

personally, i can't remember an antivirus update for the apple at that time either. should've checked the AVG site.

[viscerebral]

personally, i can't remember an antivirus update for the apple at that time either cougar. should've checked the AVG site.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Ummmm.... attention span of a knat.....


You know that I actually was awarded by a teacher as the student who read the Star War's books as a kid the most times in a row.....

I played D3 for 5 years.... 2 of those with rarely a break.



I never really liked Dungeons and Dragons either..... or Warcraft.... or the other five billion boreing novels with dragons and wizards and orcs oh my! Every fantasy novel/movie has the same crap.... orcs, dragons, knights, wizards.... bla bla bla....


Now, I sat through 9 hours of LOTR. Yes, I watched the whole thing.... I have friends that told me the whole background of all the cast members and all the things in the books that weren't included in the movies.... played the games.... I'm not going to spend another lost hour of my life on that stupid series. I actually might buy the last one because it was a good action and entertainment flick but that's all it was.


For something to be considered one of the greatest works in Literature, I would have to say that it needs to have some sort of emotional level. Something that really gets your mind going. Now, a movie I would consider an excellent work, is a movie such as K-Pax. Yep, no battle scenes or monsters, just an interesting plot formed simply out of two guys talking that forms a lot of emotional value and interesting plot twists and turns. Not, oh no, another monster after about the 500th monster the hero has fought off....


I guess it's a matter of opinion. My opinion is that LOTR was not what people make it out to be. It was ok, but that is simply it. I'll bet in 10 years it fades out like everything else.

Ever notice how no one cared about it until it was displayed by the media as cool?!

Of course, people like Harry Potter too. I read half way through the first book because I was bored one day and had been told by my friends about how wonderfull it was. I read most of the way through and then trashed it.

You guys are mostly dissing ID4 most likely because I said it was cool being that most people here just hate me because they have had a bad attitude since the moment I said hi 4-5 years ago.

Beo, I've always figured as an ass anyway.

I just wish everyone didn't have to knock everything I even mention that I like down.

Now, I'm not saying ID4 was a great work in Literature, but I thought it was an excellent sci-fi/fantasy style movie and at least something that the non-nerds could somewhat relate to.

I couldn't relate to a single character in LOTR.

Although it was funny when Golumn talked to himself.

It's a great movie if your into that sort of thing.... but I really can't relate to it.

I guess it's because I'm more into space and technology and mind blowing theories. Not, Gandalf the White Wizard....


As for Great English Literature.... whatever happened to Shakespear? Never heard of him?

As for Fantasy, it's been around for ages. Back in the days of the Odyssey. It was another interesting fantasy movie and people never made a big deal about that. I never really cared for it but I watched it and read the book. Yet, it had about the same value as LOTR for me....

[Lothar]

For something to be considered one of the greatest works in Literature, I would have to say that it needs to have some sort of emotional level.

And because the LotR *movies* didn't have this, you think LotR itself (ie, the books) must not? This is why people are calling you names. The movies are beautiful and epic, if you've read the books -- but they do not do the books justice.

My opinion is that LOTR was not what people make it out to be. It was ok, but that is simply it. I'll bet in 10 years it fades out like everything else.

LotR was not what a lot of the media made it out to be -- the movies were not great, wonderful epic standalone movies. The movies were great, wonderful epic visual aids for some of the greatest works of English literature. In 10 years, of course, the movies -- and the books -- will fade from "pop culture". But the books will still be widely read (see below) and the movies will still be considered required viewing for fans of the books.

Ever notice how no one cared about it until it was displayed by the media as cool?!

This is an ignorant statement.

The "Lord of the Rings" series is and has always been one of the best-known fantasy series. It's the classic -- it's the *reason* all the other fantasy series have the orcs and elves you hate so much. People cared about these books long before the media thought it was cool. You can find a thriving culture of those who've been fans of the LotR books for decades -- go play Nethack for a while, and note the tons of LotR references, most of which were in the game back in the 80's. People have cared about LotR for a very, very, very long time -- long before the media ever did -- and they'll continue to care for a long time after the media no longer does. The books are just that good.

All that will fade is the pop-culture "I don't read books but I like movies" fascination with LotR. Among those who love great literature, the books will remain as popular as ever.

Seriously... if you're judging the series by the movies, or what your friends said, or what the games said, you're making a very flawed judgement. It appears to be just an "action and entertainment flick" only because they can't include the immersive history and the complete world of Middle Earth in 9 hours of movie, and you don't know what wasn't in the movie.

I have a feeling you'll leave here and never read the books, or pick them up and read a chapter and decide it's boring, just so you'll feel like your opinion was justified. But here's the thing: your opinion of the LotR series (specificially, the books) can not be justified if you've never read the books. No matter what you think of the books, if you haven't actually read them you're not justified in any opinion of them whatsoever. If you've read them and you still think they're not worth your time, that's a valid opinion. If you've read them and you think they're great, that's a valid opinion. But if you haven't read them, no matter what your opinion of them is, it's an invalid opinion.

Anyway, back on topic: I could see the interest in another ID4 movie. It doesn't particularly interest me right now, but depending on what they did with it and what other people thought of it, I might go watch such a thing.

[Sage]

I thought ID4 was a good movie. And I was actually thinking about making a mod for Battlefield Vietnam for it duh! but I dunno if I want too... It would just be another piece of ★■◆● mod that gets crapped on by the popular ones (a.k.a. Desert Combat).

But it would be cool at least to get an Alien Attacker in there like I got the Pyro-GX in the game. Yeh that'd be sweet...

But yeh it sucks that the sequal was cancelled! DAMN! I loved the first one (went to see it in the theatré like 12 times) and I always thought a sequal would be cool.

The whole thing in ID4 showing one of those ships surviving a nuke attack was just stupid. If you had a ship that was shaped like that and 15 miles wide, detonate a nuke directly under the middile of it, I dont care what kind of 'shields' it has, nothing could absorb that much energy.

The reason why it didn't kill the ship is because it had shields, and this is a known fact. The aliens hath be researching the humankind since a long time ago, so they knowed what they's up against and had many, many years to perfect their shields against something weak and terdy as a simple nuke.
Then again, I remember that part in the movie where that alien attacker got blasted to the side by a missile from an F/A-18, it didn't kill it cuz it had shields, but it knocked it to the side. So maybe a nuke WOULD at least blast the big space ship off the planet. But the aliens probably thought of this and stole the Image Stabilizer code from the Sony handycams so it can't be knocked and/or rocked by anything.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Ok, perhaps the books are better than the movies but I'm still not going to read them being that I really just don't like the genre period. It really doesn't catch me at all. And the movies still had to hit on all the primary points in the storyline and we have the basic idea of what it was about and it really didn't get me interested, so no, I probably won't.

Now, this argument really isn't about the books themselves anyway, my beef is with the hype on the movies period.

And maybe there were some references and such on the movies before but I must have never noticed being that I never really even payed attention to Nethack, Warcraft, Dungions and Dragons or whatever else was out there. I played Warcraft though for a while but I got bored with it after a year of playing Warcraft 2. It is kind of fun but it never really hit the spot for me.

Now, it may be a great work in Literature in my book, but I wouldn't consider any fantasy-type movie to be the greatest work in English Literature period. That I leave to something with a greater power. Something that would influence our lives and something that could help us to look at tommorow differently. This is simply my opinion. Maybe epic battle scenes of totally unreallalistic proportions and lots of explosions is what marks greatness in literature for you but it doesn't for me. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't.

Back on topic, I think a sequal may have been cool but I'm glad that they decided not to fly with it since they figured they couldn't make a storyline that would have been something other than a repeat. It's better to leave a great movie alone and not ruin it with cheesy sequals that do nothing other than degrade the original. Although I was really hopeing that they could have come up with something.

[Tyranny]

Now, it may be a great work in Literature in my book, but I wouldn't consider any fantasy-type movie to be the greatest work in English Literature period. That I leave to something with a greater power. Something that would influence our lives and something that could help us to look at tommorow differently. This is simply my opinion. Maybe epic battle scenes of totally unreallalistic proportions and lots of explosions is what marks greatness in literature for you but it doesn't for me. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't.

Someone needs to take Cinema (Movies) vs. Literature (Books) 101 again...

The movies don't make it one of the greatest literary masterpeices of all time. The books themselves do that, thats what literature is. This isn't just the opinion of people that don't matter either. This has been the opinion of Scholars and other Authors for half a century. The Hobbit and the LOTR Trilogy single handedly shaped the face of the Fantasy genre as we know it today in some form or another. The fact that you missed the emotional drive of the story and some of the underlying messeges conveyed in the movies that were true to the books just shows how blinded you were by the fact that you "don't like the genre".

You didn't have an open mind going in. The actual scenarios in the movies were fake, the plight of the characters couldn't have been more straight forward. The fight of good vs evil is cliche, but the raw emotional situations portrayed in the movies apply to real life easily.

The witnessing of dark and dangerous times. The world thrown into chaos. Individuals fighting against impossible odds to prevent certain doom. The pain of loved ones lost or those whom you might never see again. Friends and family left behind. Yet, when all hope seems lost....you must prevail. The utter joys of victory. The reunion of lost friends and family. Paving the way for a better future and a brighter tomorrow.

Honor, dignity, loyalty, friendship, devotion, patience, hope, trust, love and faithfulness...etc...
To say that the story doesn't have power, or that it lacks the ability to influence lives is misinformed at best. It has influenced lives since the first book of the trilogy was released in 1954 or else all these other things we've seen today, such as D&D or Warcraft or Harry Potter would not have taken the shape, a shape crafted by Professor Tolkien, that they currently have.

The list I mentioned is even a small list compared to all that was expressed in only 9 hours of the movies and most definitely the books. Tell me that these messages, these examples of the very things that define us as people didn't fall on deaf ears, because it seems to me they did...and that's sad IMO.

If only more people today held dear the same values as the people of a fictional middle-earth, values that once defined a very real Europe at one time, one could only imagine how different things might be.

Anyways, the point is don't be confused by all the flashy imagery. There was much more to the story then huge armies of man, orc & other beasts fighting eachother

[[]V[]essenjah]

Ok, I'm gonna sit through the last 6 hours of the movie again. Not the first part because I have seen it 3-4 times allready and I didn't really enjoy it the first time.

My main problem with the series is tha they mish-mashed everything together and nevery focused enough on any one subject to really give you a true feel for the situation. That's the problem with so many movies because you have to figure out what the crap their talking about, and try to decifer all the fantasy jargon before you can ever find the story and once that's thrown at you with too many things happening at once with not enough focus on any one subject, it really doesn't give you a good feel for the characters. It just makes a mish mash of bland characters. Now, they were better than the characters in the new Star War's movies but I really never got anything more than what I got out of the original Star Wars movies. And yes, the original SW movies I loved and probably are equal if not marked higher on my list than ID4 in sci-fi action movies. Even though ID4 was much more reallalistic than SW.

Now, take a story such as Braveheart or the Patriot. They really made you feel what those characters felt and spent enough time on the characters and used real events and things so that you could still relate to the events enough to understand fully what was going on. You felt a certain rage and anger when their families were killed in those movies in very brutal forms that no one should go through. You felt the hatred they felt when they finally took up arms and fought back. They also really let you know who these people were before they got into it.

Then take a movie such as K-Pax again. Probably one of the most emotional thinking movies I have ever seen. You had a lot of these same messages within it and it really stirred your imagination in a fairly reallalistic form. You could also tell that whoever wrote it, must have really researched their stuff. It had fantasy and two extremely good actors with no action sequences. Just a good story. It also left a lot to the imagination and let you decide the ending for yourself. I'm not sure if this was a novel but I loved it very much. Something like this is what literature should be about. Not saying that K-Pax was the best movie or story ever. Just that I consider it much more emotional and it contains a lot more character work.

[kurupt]

For something to be considered one of the greatest works in Literature, I would have to say that it needs to have some sort of emotional level. Something that really gets your mind going. Now, a movie I would consider an excellent work, is a movie such as K-Pax.

sorry to burst your naive little bubble, but the literary and the educational world couldn't give a ★■◆● what you think is a great work in literature. the LOTR books are classics, and ID4 or k-pax is not. probably never will be. there is a reason for this. LOTR has shaped the fantasy genre into what it is, ID4 just followed some rules of sci-fi already in place and added its own specifics. you see what i'm getting at? LOTR created those rules. Harry Potter followed them. Some early work that i couldn't say created the rules, ID4 followed them. I don't really get into the sci-fi thing as literature, its just entertainment. just off the top of my head... terminator? aliens? predator? they all had common traits with ID4, ID4 just altered the specifics enough to slap a new title on it and make some money.

Yep, no battle scenes or monsters, just an interesting plot formed simply out of two guys talking that forms a lot of emotional value and interesting plot twists and turns. Not, oh no, another monster after about the 500th monster the hero has fought off...

my naive bible thumping friend, where do you think all of these modern day movies get their ideas from? you could name just about any popular mainstream movie made and i could tell you exactly what work they took and changed a few details, slapped a title on, and put in the theaters. every moster movie, every k-pax with its dialogue and its plot twists and turns. none of them are original, just like your sentra with its duct tape racing stripe is not original.

I guess it's a matter of opinion. My opinion is that LOTR was not what people make it out to be. It was ok, but that is simply it. I'll bet in 10 years it fades out like everything else.

Lothar summed up my exact reply quite nicely.

Ever notice how no one cared about it until it was displayed by the media as cool?!

not true at all. millions of people have studied these works of literature. ask any doctor, lawyer, teacher, professor, judge, etc and i'll bet you anything i have that they've studied at least one classic thouroughly. for a real world example, a psychiatrist would know of oedipus rex very well i'd imagine, there is a famous syndrome named after him. do you know who he is and what the syndrome is? to be a good psychiatrist you'd have to.

You guys are mostly dissing ID4 most likely because I said it was cool being that most people here just hate me because they have had a bad attitude since the moment I said hi 4-5 years ago.

Beo, I've always figured as an *** anyway.

I just wish everyone didn't have to knock everything I even mention that I like down.

sorry bro, but you bring it upon yourself. and beo is not an ass, i am an ass. nobody is dissing ID4 becuase you like it, they are dissing you because you tried to argue that this movie could be a classic work of literature becuase the LOTR is and you thought LOTR wasn't as good of a movie as ID4. thats some dumb ★■◆●, and when you say some dumb ★■◆● people here will let you know. just like we let you know that spending the money on that pimp ride of yours was incredibly stupid especially given your money situation. ID4 was a decent movie as entertainment, but its nothing better than that. you might like it better than others, and its your opinion and your right to have it. its also our right to think you're a dumbass.

you want to know why myself and probably many others think you're a dumbass?

Greatest work in American Literature? LOL!!

I'll bet the guy was on weed the whole time he wrote it!

besides the obvious ignorance and flat out stupidity of that statement, you also sound like a total geeker when you say "he's on weed." word up homie g thug, try he was smoking weed. you at least won't sound as white-catholic. its like saying he was on coffee.

but thats just nitpicking.

[Avder]

Ok, I'm gonna sit through the last 6 hours of the movie again. Not the first part because I have seen it 3-4 times allready and I didn't really enjoy it the first time.

We dont really give a rats arse if you see the movie again or not. What we want is for you to delve into THE BOOKS with an open mind. Go find a used book store and pick up a copy of Fellowship of the Ring and read it to the beginning of book 2 (Yes, theres two books per pert of the trilogy, meaning 6 books in total in Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return of the King). Or find a copy of the Hobbit and read it.

Movies are, imo, a very limited creative resource. Sure, you can get amazing visuals, great storyline, an epic sound score, but there is one extremely limited element: time. For any work of fiction to be realyl great, there needs to be adequate time alloted for all the aspects of the sotory to be placed on the metaphorical creative canvas. The best thing about books is that you can create whatever scene you like, whatever character visuals you like, based solely on the authors descriptions of everything. A good piece of writing will quite literally envelop you in the canvas of the story and make you feel as if youre almost there, watching the story unfold right before your eyes. Ive read several books like this, many of them have been Star Wars books (The Thrawn Trilogy is definatly one of the best trilogies ever written, imo), but nothing captured my imagine like the Lord of the Rings trilogy did. The amount of detail and development that is present in the books is just awesome. Compared to the books, the Movies were very lacking indeed. Sacrifices were made in order to make the movies a doable project. The main element that was sacrificed was -- tada! -- time. Nine hours is simply not enough time to adequately develop EVERYTHING that this trilogy encompases. In fact, the extended edition DVD's put the number closer to twelve hours and its still not nearly enough.

Because of that, you have a trilogy of movies that closely resembles the books, but is not a truely adequate mirror for them. I believe the movies were excellent works of cinematography(sp?), and ROTK was especially deserving of the clean sweep it made at the oscars this year. Compared to other Movies the LOTR trilogy is one of the best works created, imo. However an excellent movie cannot and simply will not compare with an excellent, or even a very good book for entertainment value. I believe that many of the Star Wars books completely own the Star Wars movies. If the writer of a movie does a good job, he will keep you in an excited "WHATS GONNA HAPPEN NEXT???!!" Mood for a good two hours or so. If a book writer has done his job, you'll stay in that mood for hours, maybe even days, depending on how fast you read and how much time you have to devote to it.

What I think you need to do, messneger, is forget the whole movie to movie comparison and give the BOOKS of LOTR a fair chance. Read the first half of FOTR. If you dont like it, fine, we'll stop calling you names. But if you just stick to watching the movies, well, you have the attention span of a gnat on ADHD medication then. And thats just plain sad.

Dont criticize a work you know virtually nothing about. All youve seen are the movies, and the books just blow them away.

[Kyouryuu]

I liked it because it was actually pretty realalistic.

Yeah. I know that whenever our world comes under attack from aliens, I'll buy an Apple Powerbook and upload a virus to the server on the alien mothership and kiss it goodbye.

War Of The Worlds:

How did that story end..... the aliens died off. Some disease killed them. Now, you would think after flying as long as they probably have, that they would have at least known a little bit about diseases and the like.

Not necessarily. The War of the Worlds actually had a rather realistic conclusion - Earth-born pathogens infected the Martians. When Columbus and his ilk came to the Americas in the 1400s, there was an exchange of diseases. Although the Indians had developed immunities to many of the domestic viruses, the Europeans succumbed to the same bugs they had evolved no defense for, and vice versa. More than just killing the Indians physically, the spread of sickness and disease (sometimes deliberately) was another huge factor in the colonists taking over.

There wasn't anything in the book to suggest that the Martians had attempted to conquer other planets as well. Being that Earth was their closest neighbor, it makes sense that they would be a nascent spacefaring race. Developing vaccines to viruses encountered on another planet just seems improbable - especially for a race that had yet to learn about the wheel (Martian architecture was marked by lack of circles and wheels).

[snoopy]

Messenger- you are official stripped of your voice until you go out and read the LotR trilogy. The movie did a decent job of doing them justice, (I still would have asked for more) but still fall quite short of the books. Believe me, if you actually sit down and read them, you will be hooked by the time you get half way through the first of the three (technically the end of the first book in Fellowship). LotR is like no other work in its genere. Like Vader said, your best resource when reading those books is your imagination- don't try to think back to how the movie looked, read Tolkien's description and come up with what YOU think its like. I remember when I read them- I read the whole trilogy in like a week when it normally takes me around a month to read a book- just give it a chance.

[Testiculese]

Uh, he liked ID4, what makes you think he'll get the LoTR books?

[MehYam]

ID4 was quite possibly the worst movie ever, and one of the biggest wastes of money in the history of the world, and other worlds. I seriously think it was meant for kids.

Here's a site listing the "realism" of ID4. A fun read (and much more entertaining than the movie was).

Just having the aliens show up would totally disrupt the natural order. Lawrence Krauss, in the book Beyond Star Trek, points out that an object with a quarter of the Moon's mass, parked in geostationary orbit would create a tide-producing gravity force twenty-five times higher than the one caused by the Moon. This would flood coastal areas and disrupt geological formations, resulting in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, not to mention extreme weather changes.

If it took the mother RV an hour to slow down, the energy released by its engines would be about ten times greater than the entire luminosity of the sun. We'd be fried before the aliens even arrived.

With respect to the fighter planes:

The lesser RVs are filled with alien fightercraft which swarm like bees to engage our fighters. The aliens rather incompetently fire bursts of blue lights from the wing tips of their fighters. These often miss their intended targets. Evidently no one in their race has yet discovered computer-controlled servo devices for aiming the blue lights. Nor have they discovered that drone craft or guided missiles can maneuver faster and shoot down enemy craft with greater efficiency. Perhaps downing Earthling fighters in person is just too much jolly good fun. The alien craft are, after all, equipped with shields, so it's not like there's any real risk involved.

Fortunately, the alien computer's operating system works just fine with the laptop. This proves an important point which Apple enthusiasts have known for years. While the evil empire of Microsoft may dominate the computers of Earth people, more advanced life-forms clearly prefer Macs.

Downing a fifteen-mile-diameter saucer would be a disaster. Krauss estimates it would weigh about 100 billion tons and that dropping it from a height of about a mile would release more than 10,000 times as much energy as the nuclear bomb used on Hiroshima.

...these, however, are not the sole reasons the movie was so stupid. If you can't tell the others, then there's no point in discussing them!

[[]V[]essenjah]

Now, Kyouryuu and Vader, I like your argument because at least you don't have to completely bash me, my beliefs, and what I like.

First off, it's been a while since I read War Of The Worlds and I read it when I was like 7 or 8. It was a fun little book so I didn't catch on to that part about the disease. That's pretty interesting. I might have to read through it again and see. Actually, I have a CD at my house with the original broadcast on it so I might give it a listen.

Vader, I think 9 hours of being bored and bathroom deprived in a theater and about 24 hours of the video game and about 3 years of hearing my friends tell me every friggen detail about the movie. I think that they practically believe that they are Frodo.... I actually spent from 6:00 P.M. camped out with my friends one night last winter until 3:30 A.M. to wait for ROTK to open up in the theater. Who knows, maybe one day far away when I get time though I might attempt to read my time through at least one of the books.

"Star Wars books (The Thrawn Trilogy is definatly one of the best trilogies ever written, imo), but nothing captured my imagine like the Lord of the Rings trilogy did."

This I agree with. I thought they were pretty good even though I only read the first two and never finished the last one. I got tired of the Sci-Fi mumbo jumbo. It would have made an awsome movie trilogy but the books were just too boreing too really read. For some it was great though. It also, however wasn't one of the greatest works in litterature though.

"the LOTR trilogy is one of the best works created, imo. However an excellent movie cannot and simply will not compare with an excellent, or even a very good book for entertainment value. I believe that many of the Star Wars books completely own the Star Wars movies. If the writer of a movie does a good job, he will keep you in an excited "WHATS GONNA HAPPEN NEXT???!!""

Actually, I never once wondered that while watching the LOTR movies. Only time I wondered was when Frodo got bitten by that big spider. The rest of it I pretty much had figured out clear until the end. I figured the primary chain of events out but the movie filled in the blanks.

Now Kurupt, some funny points in your argument:

1. "sorry to burst your naive little bubble, but the literary and the educational world couldn't give a **** what you think is a great work in literature. the LOTR books are classics, and ID4 or k-pax is not. probably never will be. there is a reason for this. LOTR has shaped the fantasy genre into what it is, ID4 just followed some rules of sci-fi already in place and added its own specifics. you see what i'm getting at? LOTR created those rules. Harry Potter followed them. Some early work that i couldn't say created the rules, ID4 followed them. I don't really get into the sci-fi thing as literature, its just entertainment. just off the top of my head... terminator? aliens? predator? they all had common traits with ID4, ID4 just altered the specifics enough to slap a new title on it and make some money. "


I never claimed that ID4 was a greater work of litterature. Just that enjoyed the movie itself better as an action based flick. I do not in anyway consider it one of the greatest works in litterature.


2. "my naive bible thumping friend"

Actually, never even read it for one. I haven't been to church in a long time and the times I did were extremely rare. I actually left because people treated me like I wasn't worth anything to them if I didn't join. I didn't want to join for the wrong reasons so I got quickly fed up.

3. "you could name just about any popular mainstream movie made and i could tell you exactly what work they took and changed a few details, slapped a title on, and put in the theaters. every moster movie, every k-pax with its dialogue and its plot twists and turns. none of them are original"

There's another K-Pax movie? COOL!!! WHERE CAN I FIND IT!!!! I WANNA SEE IT OR I ACTUALLY MAY EVEN LIKE TO READ IT!! WOOT WOOT!!

4. "a psychiatrist would know of oedipus rex very well i'd imagine, there is a famous syndrome named after him. do you know who he is and what the syndrome is? to be a good psychiatrist you'd have to."

No, I'll look it up. I'll bet it doesn't help in cureing it though. Nor am I a sphychiatrist or even interested in the subject.

You pay a guy who really doesn't give a crap about you tons of money to find answeres you should allready know the answere too. I'll bet Dr. Phill knows what that is.

5. "sorry bro, but you bring it upon yourself. and beo is not an ***, i am an ***"

Hmmmm.... your half true. Beo might be a half ass but I kinda agree with you that you are an ass since you really never payed attention to what I said.

6. "nobody is dissing ID4 becuase you like it, they are dissing you because you tried to argue that this movie could be a classic work of literature becuase the LOTR is and you thought LOTR wasn't as good of a movie as ID4. thats some dumb ****"

As I allready stated, I never said that I thought ID4 was a one of the greatest works in litterature nor did I ever mean anything by it if I ever said anything that even slightly indicated that and I don't recal that I ever did. I do agree that I thought ID4 was more enjoyable to watch as a movie than LOTR. Maybe there's something to the book that's not in the movie that makes it special. But as a movie, it really wasn't that impressive. It was a fun one time only special effects show but not really a movie I would want to see more than once and I have been forced to see them many times by my friends.

Apparently the book and the movie are two entirely different things according to those who have spoken here. So, I will give it the credit that others believe that but that I wouldn't really know.

7. "just like your sentra with its duct tape racing stripe is not original."


"people here will let you know. just like we let you know that spending the money on that pimp ride of yours was incredibly stupid"

And yet another account of you insulting my personal life. I never thought my ride was pimp, just that it was kind of a fun project to mess with. Most people around my town think it's pretty cool and they know me personally enough to know that I am certinally not a ricer. They also know that I don't really care what people think of my car or what I do as fun little hobbies. Why should anyone care what others do. It's their buisiness. Just like when people at church try to act like I'm a horrible person just because I rarely even go to church. it's not their buisiness. Actually, if you saw me in real life, I would most likely give you a soda, have a good laugh with you about my "pimp" ride and invite you in to play some Halo on X-Box unless you think your too cool for that.

8. "you also sound like a total geeker when you say "he's on weed.""

That was a sarcastic remark. When I state something such as, "he was on weed" I was meaning it as being sarcastic. I coin such phrases as a joke. Not because I was takeing myself seriously.

What you should have poked fun of is the fact that I used LOL. Now that is a geek statement but I'm gonna hang on to that one anyway being that it is a good way to express that I do have a personality.

8. "you at least won't sound as white-catholic. its like saying he was on coffee. "

And yet another 2 insults to my personal life. Wow, what a way to make friends.

a) I'm not Catholic. I'm actually LDS standing for Latter Day Saints. Don't know who they are? Look Utah up on the map. I'm actully considered probably a jack-mormon being that I have LDS blood in my family but I rarely go to church. Not that there is anything wrong with Catholics. If you believe in it, and feel it's right, go for it. I have some friends that are Catholic, Jewish, and many other beliefs.

Also, so what if I'm white? BIG deal. I never knew color had to do with how intelligent or smart a person is. Besides, I give everyone fair warning to turn away from me when I take off my shirt (because the sun tends to reflect off from my white flubber, causeing people to go blind)

9. "well, you have the attention span of a gnat on ADHD medication then. And thats just plain sad."

Actually, I do have ADHD. The part your wrong on, is that I am not a gnat (you had the white guy right but you seemed to forget that pretty quickly and I couldn't really type that well if I was) and that I am not on medication. I have actually have managed to use my ADHD constructively. What you missed though is that I also have OCD (Obessive Compulsive Disorder). The only thing my concentration really stays on that much is working on mods and 3D models on my computer and anything that furthers that, such as education and reading through text books.

Anyway, in conclusion, maybe one day I will get around to reading the books.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Meyham:

I did actually read that website a long time ago. Been around for a long time.


Now, it discusses physics. When in movie history other than Space Odyssee did we see an action movie with real phsyics used? In particular, the sci-fi/fantasy genres. Not one uses real physics.

People still Mark the Matrix (teh first one) and Aliens as some of the best movies in sci-fi yet it probably had less realalistic physics than ID4.

What I'm saying, is that the humans at least used something that someone could relate too. Yes, real exhisting weapons. Yep, yep, yep.

Now, the laptop thing confused me as well but I figured he probably somehow connected it into the alien attacker some way?

At least it had a plot that was more interesting and a solution better than the same old same old same plot every movie, Aliens Quadrilogy everyone thinks is wonderfull. Yes, I saw those movies.