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Slashback: Mods, Books, Checkmate 335

Posted by timothy from the bingo-bingo dept.
Slashback tonight with more book reviews, more on the Human vs. Machine Duel in the Desert, more on the Star Wars sequel name -- just generally more.

Quick, Danny, write faster! Danny Yee has written additional reviews of Jessica Litman's Digital Copyright , Naomi Klein's No Logo , and John Sundman's Acts of the Apostles . (You might want to flashback to earlier reviews of these by Michael Sims and Jon Katz, Warren A. Layton, and Hemos.)

From the Persian for "King" Frederic Friedel of Chessbase contributed some links which are especially interesting in light of the recently announced match between Deep Fritz and Vladimir Kramnik. He points to this link and this other link, saying "The latter has some nice quotes from Kramnik."

In addition, Frederic has links with more on Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, and Fritz in Space.

But the name is already perfect for a MAD parody ... RFINN writes: "If you haven't heard by now, Lucasfilm announced the name of Episode II. It's going to be called 'Attack of the Clones.' If you're like me, this stirs up pictures of Jedi running from giant red tomatoes and such. Do your civic duty and help change the name that has become the laughing stock of the sci-fi movie going community (and some of the actors themselves) by signing a petition to be sent to George Lucas."

Sold! to the man with the large contingent of lawyers! ncmusic writes "For all of you readers that have been following Bid For Power the DragonballZ Q3 mod. Funimation has issued a cease and desist order to the group. Funimation has excluse rights to DBZ in the US (and EU I think) and has sold exclusive video game rights to Infograms. Below is the announcement made on the site about the order. My question to the slashdot community is do you think this is fair? BFP is a FREE mod to an already existing game. Have their been any other precedence set for making mods based on characters from copyrighted work? And what advice do you have for the Bid For Power group?

'As many of you know Funimation owns the copyrights to Dragonball Z in the USA and has sold the exclusive rights to publish video games to Infogrames. On December 1st, 2000, the Bid For Power team received a cease and desist order from Funimation.

However, they seemed receptive to the notion of allowing Bid For Power to be released so long as certain conditions were met. We were put in touch with Infogrames who asked us, among other things, to recreate Bid For Power on Wild Tangent, a java-based engine, which would then be posted on the Dragonball Z website for people to play. This engine is incapable of running something as detailed as Bid For Power and we would have had to start work from scratch. Most of the team rejected the idea and talks went downhill from there. Without contact with Infogrames or Funimation the progress of Bid For Power slowed down even though we were sitting on a finished product and had been for some time.

We began dealing with Funimation directly in April when they asked us to send videos of gameplay to them so that they could have TOEI Japan review it. We sent the videos and heard nothing until we emailed them in July asking that we be allowed to release in August, since no objections had be made from TOEI Japan that we knew of. We were then sent another Cease and Desist order by way of Funimation.'"

So the confirmed-as-rumor rumor has become real? This is the sort of thing that would be best kept in the realm of rumor.
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  • Does anyone remember this? The whole map was the enterprise, down to a T. Well, it wasn't a mod, it was a level, but it was pretty damn cool :) Even the transporters worked, but they always beamed you to engineering.

  • Video Game Copy Rights (Score:4, Funny)

    by NateTG ( 93930 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:41PM (#2111456)
    Funimation/infocomm has the rights to DBZ video games. TOEI (sp) does not, they've aleady sold them and could care less.

    However, if the game qualifies as a parody then most of the copyrights are extremely difficult to maintain. Having had some exposure to DBZ, i'm sure that it won't be that hard to get from serious DBZ to a Parody of DBZ.
  • "You might want to flashback to earlier reviews of these by...Jon Katz" Now that's a scary thought. Bad drugs that make you read Jon Katz reviews instead of just the normal spiders crawling in your mouth and melting walls. *Shudder*

  • Christ, get a life (Score:5, Insightful)

    by p3d0 ( 42270 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:28PM (#2117226)
    You're going to sign a petition to make him change the name from "Attack of the Clones"? Really, is that any worse than "The Empire Strikes Back"?

    I swear, Lucas can do nothing right anymore.

    • Re:Christ, get a life (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cretog8 ( 144589 )
      > Really, is that any worse than "The Empire Strikes Back"?

      ...or "Return of the Jedi"?

      Star Wars has always been sci-fi space opera fluff--GREAT sci-fi space opera fluff. It's the stuff of cheap, easy teenage male fantasy, with slimy green aliens keeping our women in bondage fetish wear, big explosions, simple farmboys secretly being born to be galactic heros, etc.

      "Attack of the Clones" is a perfect title in this tradition.

      • > Star Wars has always been sci-fi space opera fluff--GREAT sci-fi space opera fluff. It's the stuff of cheap, easy teenage male fantasy, with slimy green aliens keeping our women in bondage fetish wear, big explosions, simple farmboys secretly being born to be galactic heros, etc.

        (You are L. Ron Hubbard, posting from Mars orbit, and still bitter about Heinlein being a better writer than you. Lord Xenu demands that you take back what you said. "Friday" was not space-opera fluff, and the aliens in it were neither slimy nor green!

    • I swear, Lucas can do nothing right anymore.

      Funny, I was just thinking how Lucas can do no wrong. He is absolutely masterful at keeping the Star Wars hype going with pre-release rumors. In other words, he gets to keep selling action figures by the ton, with little promotional expense. Hell, he doesn't even have to make a good movie any more and it grosses $430 million [imdb.com], nevermind the action figures.

      Come on, why do you think he re-re-released the original trilogy? Just to make the public happy? Do you think it was coincidental that shortly after he re-re-re-released the same triology but now in a gold case with new scenes and animated critters? Why do you really think the DVD isn't coming out yet?

      He knows he's got a pile of suckers and is milking us for all we're worth. Personally, as long as he keeps entertaining me (via the movies, the pre-movie hype, or the action figures, I don't care), I'm more than happy to keep playing the sucker.

    • I agree. "Attack of the Clones" is just fucking fine. It's only a movie!

      Even "Star Wars" is a hokey name. That's the point, isn't it?

  • WildTangent, Programming, And Q3A mods. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Draeven ( 166561 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:31PM (#2118663)
    WildTanget ( http://www.wildtangent.com ) Is not a necesarrily a Java engine. It is a graphics module useable in just about any programming language, this includes C++ and Visual Basic. The team wouldn't have to start from scratch, they'd just have to clone the Q3A engine. The WT object is very flexible and could very well make a game like Quake3. It just wouldn't be as fast. Don't diss the WildTangent =P
  • Please correct the petition to state "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" rather than "Attack of the Killer Tomato's".

    It's already extremely unlikely Lucas will pay any attention, but we might as well be grammatically correct in our attempt, so as not to be discarded before he even sees the petition.

  • Grammar Nazi, again. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sudotcsh ( 95997 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:28PM (#2124468)
    Good god. Did they let Cmdr Taco write that petition? How do they expect Lucas to take it seriously when there are apostrophe issues everywhere?!

    I refer them to this handy guide: Bob The Angry Flower's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots [angryflower.com]

    Hopefully that'll clear things right up.

    ---

  • Bloody Petition (Score:3, Funny)

    by vulg4r_m0nk ( 304652 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:33PM (#2129320)

    My first response when seeing the petition to change the god awful name of Episode II was happiness at being able to voice my mind and support an effort to improve a series I care about.

    On consideration however, I think that signing that thing ignores the real problem -- quality of content. It is my expectation that Ep II will suffer a weak storyline, lame characters, jackass explanations (i.e., the Force comes from bugs in your cells or whatever the hell that was) just as Ep I did. Given this near certainty, I think the title is great. Let shit be called shit and we can save ourselves some grief.

    • Re:Bloody Petition (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Compuser ( 14899 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @09:46PM (#2169773)
      IMHO, the reason why people complain about lame content in Ep. 1 is because they ... grew up. I came to the US when I was a grown up and saw Star Wars episodes for the first time when I was older than 20. I see no difference between the episodes in terms of quality. How is an animated Jamaican-spouting goon worse than a metal wizard-of-oz'ish charicature of a robot, or a rolling trash bin with blinking lights? I am not trying to troll, I am just saying that SW is aimed at kids and is not bad in that realm. Ep. II will probably not deviate from this money making scheme, but where is the grief?
      • Nah, with the advent of the Ewoks, Lucas moved his focus toward a decidedly younger audience. I saw RotJ when I was a kid too, and those fuzzy, cutesy, JarJar precursors absolutely ruined the movie for me.

        There are other qualitative and quantitative differences between the first movies and ep 1, but I've spent enough time discussing what went from a series that was targeted at 14-20 year olds to a series that's targeted for 6-12 year olds.
      • But did you see the first 3 movies (episodes 4,5, and 6) as a grownup when they were new and not already an indelible part of the culture, before a bunch of other movies, television shows, and who knows what all else influenced by those first 3 movies were created?

        I did. Phantom Menace just wasn't as good. At least not if judged as a movie intended for adults.

      • I don't like to admit it, but I grew up. And I still like Empire Strikes Back. So just because something is aimed at kids, that doesn't mean it has to suck. A good storyteller can go after the kids and still be attractive to other groups as well. But somewhere along the way, Lucas forgot how to do this, or decided that it wasn't important.

  • There are better things to petition (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:17PM (#2129603)
    There are better things to petition than the name of the next star wars. Sorry, but they screwed you on the last one -- now is the time to give in.

    What might be better? Well, for one:
    Anti-DMCA Petition:
    http://www.dibona.com/dmca/

    Programmers speak in Code.
    http://www.anti-dmca.org

    You really need to start acting or there won't be any net...
    • I don't see why anyone who has ever worked on fiction / science fiction / any creative work of their own, would even consider to sign the petition to get George Lucas to change the name of HIS movie. Make fun of it all you like, but it his movie. Just because you might not like it, and some other people agree with you, doesn't mean you should try and force him to change it. There is a good reason why you can't force him, it is because it is his creation and if you can't respect that then just don't go watch it. Don't read anything else about Star Wars. I am sure George Lucas wouldn't care, his movies aren't targeted at the majority of people who read and post to slashdot anyway. They are targeted at a generation of younger kids who don't have the experiences and knowledge it is hoped that we do.

      Do something useful with your time instead of bitching about someone else's story. Write your own or read one who's title you can live with.

      Harbinger

  • Dragonball Foxed? No, stupid developers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zalgon 26 McGee ( 101431 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:15PM (#2129912)
    Let's face it: if you know it's someone else's property, why spend thousands of hours doing development without securing permission to use it?

    Stupid people get no sympathy here.

    (Karma, goodbye...)

    • Re:Dragonball Foxed? No, stupid developers (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:32PM (#2151792)
      Not so fast...I think this is not as simple as you make it sound.

      I think there is a case to be made that this mod would fall under the category of parody. This means that it is protected from claims of copyright infringement under the first ammendment.

      Besides, if you want to take such an exclusive view...where do you draw the line? Can I use a DBZ skin for my player? Can I use a DBZ character name for my player?

      IMHO, if there is no profit involved then the courts, society, and all of us should be giving people wide latitude when it comes to these kinds of creative endevours.

      - JoeShmoe
      • IMHO, if there is no profit involved then the courts, society, and all of us should be giving people wide latitude when it comes to these kinds of creative endevours.

        So if I take something of yours and give it away, but I don't charge for it, that's ok, right? Because there's no profit involved, right?

        Something tells me this viewpoint is just a little bit simplistic.
        • Distributing DBZ eps...you have a case. Distributing fan scripts and stories? Then I don't think you should, even though the laws say you do.

          The whole purpose of the copyright laws were to encourage creativity. Things that extend or add to creative works (as long as their are clearly labeled to identify origin) should be allowed.

          - JoeShmoe
      • IANAL. That out of the way, the line for parody is that it must use only as much of the original to be readily recognizable. I suggest that a good parody that knew how to stay on the line was Spaceballs. They could even gat away with Dark Helmet's...er...helmet, plus the Alien re-enactment in the diner. Mad Magazine also knows its way around how far it can go and come in under the parody clause.
  • Look, "Attack of the Clones" is cheesy, I admit, but a whole lot less chessy than "Star Wars" or "The Empire Stikes Back". We've just gotten used to those being the names of great movies.

    People keep getting upset about the Star Wars films having Lucas fingerprints all over them, and for the life of me, I can't understand why! Star Wars is Star Wars, and it should not suprise you that there are things as painful as Ewoks, as predictable as light-sword fights, as broken science as ships meant for vacuum with hinged hatches. These are the hallmarks of the fun-but-essentially-fluff science-fiction-fantasy that Lucas creates. It's decent fantasy, but with high (and almost certainly accidental) camp value.

    Go see the movie expecting a Lucas film, and I guarantee you will not be disappointed. Go expecting the next 2001, and you will be an unhappy camper.

  • Let's stop this ludicrous Lucas-bashing.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by cyberon22 ( 456844 ) on Friday August 10, 2001 @01:17AM (#2131603)
    I'm disappointed that slashdot is endorsing this ridiculous petition to Lucas. Especially since the new title makes perfect sense.

    The Phantom Menace refers to the underlying theme of the SW films: evil lies within. It showed its characters embracing violence (Amidala), deceit (Qui-Gon) and anger (Obi-Wan) in order to do what they considered to be the right thing. Intelligent film-watchers who have seen ROTJ should be aware of this. It is only when Luke renounces violence at the end of ROTJ that the tables turn and the "good" side wins. Coincidence???

    Consider the end of TPM. All three contingents are effectively "disarmed" (sometimes forcibly) before they achieve victory. And the moment they give up their weaponry -- they win.

    But what does this all have to do with clones? Thematically, TPM is full of "doubled images" (handmaidens, Sidious/Palpatine, droids) which are associated with order falling apart. Even the planet Naboo is split into two halves (the ego and the id - diplomats and warriors), etc. And so if you actually bother to reflect on it, the new title makes perfect sense. These bad decisions our "protagonists" will make (out of - no doubt - a desire to do good) will begin to backfire on them badly.

    As much as people may dislike Jar Jar (I found his presence objectionable myself), doing idiotic things like signing this petition is just foolish.

    • Let's see now..... the parent said [/me cracks open economy-size BLOCKQUOTE tag box]:
      It showed its characters embracing violence (Amidala), deceit (Qui-Gon) and anger (Obi-Wan) in order to do what they considered to be the right thing.
      and:
      All three contingents are effectively "disarmed" (sometimes forcibly) before they achieve victory. And the moment they give up their weaponry -- they win.
      Heh, tell that to Qui-Gon : )

      But aside from Qui-Gon becoming a double-ended shish-kebab (and forgetting to become one with The Force), Obi-Wan was only briefly disarmed, before picking up Qui-Gon's sabre and finishing the job. And I recall Amidala fighting her way into the throne-room where she could point a gun at the Trade Federation guys. Neither really gave up their weapons. And the whole battle was eventually resolved when Anakin fluked the destruction of the control ship (man, they had light-speed travel, but didn't know about redundancy) using a Naboo ship he'd borrowed.

      I suspect that you're reading just a little bit too much intentional sub-plot into the movie.

  • This may be a little bit before some of you, but Lucas refered to Return of the Jedi as Revenge of the Jedi to the press as to make it more dificult to find out info on it, and He has a long history of Misinformation, Misdirection, and Tentative Title names to keep people on thier toes.

    I expect this to be no differant.

  • FEAR (Score:2)

    by gnovos ( 447128 )
    Jar Jar clones...

  • Funimation (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by q-soe ( 466472 )
    The question if it is fair is not relevant unfortuantely - i know that this an unpoluar opinion in some quarters of /. but funimation holds the copyright on Dragonball Z and thus they have the right to control its usage and appearance, thus if they say cease and sesist you cease and desist - its the law and the law has nothing to do with fairness. You could argue fair use and no profit but i fear that wont work as they have proven themselves to be aggresive in defending their copyrights (and it is legal for them to do so)

    • Re:Funimation (Score:2, Interesting)

      by faldore ( 221970 )
      Heh. Really. So you believe that simply because a corporation bullys you you should believe everything they say? There *is* a legitimate question here as to whether they have the legal right to control in any way the actions non-profit, free mod of an existing computer game. Saying that they have a legitimate claim is like saying that someone who wrote a school essay on Microsoft Windows deserves to be sued by Microsoft for using their "copyrighted" material in the essay. It falls under fair use. They are not profiting from it. They are not "photocopying" original material. They are simply designing a free mod using ideas that have been aired on television. I believe there are also laws that anything aired over public airwaves becomes fair game. So just because Funimation claims they have the right to stop these people doesnt mean that in fact they do.
      • Umm no

        But they have the right to protect their trademarks - it is the Law - Dont like it - go to university and get a law degree, or run for government and change it - dont sit there and whinge. Legally they have a perfect right to control the actions of a non profit mod - the own the character rights and thus they can legally say how and where the names, images and concepts can be used - end of story.

        The MS comment is childish - you are talking about 2 different licenses and 2 different laws - MS license you to make USE of their product thus you can write letters on it etc etc.

        Fair us unfortunately has NOTHING to do with copyrighted images etc, the company could choose to not block or to block it - they have chosen the latter - and Funimation have total right to stop them as they own the characters (legally)

        Check out the MS license and then do a search on copyright laws.

        These guys have wasted their time and they lose out -they should have gotten a clearance in writing before starting - thats what BUSINESS people do - and even if its not for profit the company can argue the very reason they chose the Dragonball Z characters was to get the considerable fan base intersetd that is they used the funimation copryrighted material to attract customers to their product - whether they make money of not is a moot point really.
      • They are simply designing a free mod using ideas that have been aired on television.

        Profit isn't the deciding factor. If Microsoft decides to clone StreetFighter and give it away for free in an effort to kill Capcom -- like they killed Netscape by giving IE away for free -- is that okay? They're not making a profit on it!

        The issue of damage to the copyright holder has to be part of the discussion.

        Liberalism is socialism. Conservatism is fascism. Vote Libertarian.

        Amen, brother. I can agree with that one.

    • Re:Funimation (Score:3, Informative)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )
      Whatever your opinion on whether it was right or wrong, I don't think it's outrageous for Infogrames or Funimation to think it might cause competition to them; I mean, you're basically creating a game based on a story you don't own. And anyone who doesn't consider a mod a real game must not have hit the computer game store lately. Look how many mods have hit the shelves as retail games (and are presumably making money). Personally I think Infogrames was acting pretty cool in offering the developers a chance to get involved in legit, paid work.
    • 'fanfic', or other sorts of 'takeoff's arn't covered by copyright.
    • > ... received a cease and desist order from Funimation.

      "Do not taunt happy Funimation ball Z."

  • Giant Red Tomatoes (Score:3, Funny)

    by piehole ( 512670 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:20PM (#2152479)
    I'm sorry but did you see that last movie. Giant Red Tomatoes would be a huge improvement. I think the petetion should be to replace Jar Jar with a Giant Red Tomato.
    • > I'm sorry but did you see that last movie. Giant Red Tomatoes would be a huge improvement. I think the petetion should be to replace Jar Jar with a Giant Red Tomato.

      I know I felt like pelting the ugly motherfucker with tomatoes when I saw Episode I. (Jar Jar, not Lucas. But the title of Episode II is making me question the wisdom of that choice.)

      I guess Lucas figured that if we wouldn't let him ruin Episode II with Still More Jar Jar Binks, he'd self-destruct the whole franchise by turning it into a series of 50's B-movies.

      On the other hand, at the current rate of decline in the Star Wars franchise, there's hope that Episode III will be entitled "Planet of Hot Grits" and feature plenty of gratuitous wet-toga-and-jewelry shots Natalie Portman getting her hair done. Wooooooooooooo-hoooooooooooooo!

  • Lucas Arts and naming the movie (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09, 2001 @08:22PM (#2156565)
    Umm am i missing the point here ? maybe cause as far as i can see Lucasarts can name the movie anything the like - they own the property after all, they appeal of phantom menace i think has shown that they no longer rely on the fanboi element for survival and they could really call it Star Wars Three - Obi One sucks Yoda's cock and they would all still go and see it.

    Dont you think its a bit childish to have petitions to change the name of a movie that a company has decided on ? What about world hunger? civil rights ? rape? Nope were gonna protest about a movie

    I give it approx 10 minutes befors some ethical person posts email addresses for lucas arts staff or george lucas himself - that wayy all of you can mailbomb them to death in the reponsible adult way you all practice
    • Dont you think its a bit childish to have petitions to change the name of a movie that a company has decided on ? What about world hunger? civil rights ? rape? Nope were gonna protest about a movie

      Man, that means you must be extra childish since instead of spending your time helping out the homeless, downtrodden, or battered, you're here ranting about people ranting about a movie.

      Sorry sir, stop looking down your nose as people; not everyone has to devote their lives to the 'important' causes. Life would be pretty damn boring if nobody took the time to deal with some of the 'frills'.

  • Y'know... (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Tthe "UPDATED" feature in Slash is there for a Reason. Why don't you slashdot-editor-people ever seem to *use* it?

    If you're going to put up a link to a petition which is closed *before a single comment has been posted*, then wouldn't it make sense to alter the article and note in it "oh, btw, you can't sign the petition anymore" ?

    What's up with this wierd aversion to updating the article to reflect important details that are A) in h2 type at the top of the link B) noted in cid #12 or so..? I mean, it isn't a big problem.. i'm just curious.
  • I'm not a fan of dragonball Z (sorry Taco I just don't like it) but this whole thread brought to mind fan fiction. I have every feeling of certainty that some company has the book rights for dragonball z and I'm sure that there are books out there based in the DBZ universe that can be had at any waldenbooks. just as easily I'm sure i can search google for DBZ fanfics. so when is someone going to start CandDing fan fic sites?

  • Whatever happened with history.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HIghoS ( 177655 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @09:16PM (#2169700) Homepage
    Did anyone even bother to listen to the little bit of history the original movie presented itself with? do you guys even *remenber*? (the ones always bitching about E1 being crap ;)

    If they are making the movie after the Clone Wars, the title is perfect..perhaps it is 50-60ish, but so what, it's better then watching the Trade Federation and the annoying droids do all the fighting ;)

    Then again, i'm use to reading the Star Wars books, which are as we all know, books are always twice as good as movies ;)

  • Attack of the Clones (Score:5, Funny)

    by csbruce ( 39509 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @09:19PM (#2169709)
    Well, movies frequently have fake names while they are still in production. ROTJ was once called "Revenge of the Jedi" while it was still in production. In any case, Lucas should have embellished the title a little more to "Attack of the Killer Clones from Outer Space", though hopefully it won't be quite that hokey (cross fingers).
    • Lucas should have embellished the title a little more to "Attack of the Killer Clones from Outer Space", though hopefully it won't be quite that hokey (cross fingers).
      That suggestion is too close to the runner-up tittle of "The Empire Plan 9 from Outer Space" which, after much heated debate and several small skirmishes amoung the writers, lost out to the current tittle. We can only hope this doesn't come up again less we have yet another "Retro SciFi" jihad amoung Lucas' staff. There's still "double latte white chocolate mocha" fallout in the conference room ceiling tiles from the last one.

    • heh... (Score:2)

      by Danse ( 1026 )

      I was kinda thinking along those lines myself. If I was Lucas, I KNOW I wouldn't be able to resist the chance to fuck with the heads of a bunch of Star Wars geeks :) For all we know he could be laughing his ass off right now.

  • Attack of the fans (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nom_Anor ( 442769 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @09:23PM (#2169721)
    it's incredible how people are always bitching about StarWars! First you complain about The Phantom Menace title, next about JarJar, next about Attack of the clones. Since the SW prequels resurfaced, the only thing people are doing is critisizing George on every thing he does. You really think The Empire Stikes Back was such a great title?? Come on! If I was George Lucas I would stop right after Attack of the clones and NEVER make the 3rd one. How cruel would that be?
    • If I was George Lucas I would stop right after Attack of the clones and NEVER make the 3rd one. How cruel would that be?

      Oh, please, Jesus. Make him stop before releasing this one.

  • What BFP should do: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Omerna ( 241397 ) <clbrewer@gmail.com> on Thursday August 09, 2001 @09:34PM (#2169739) Homepage
    They have four options:

    1) Change the game to a Dragonball Z like mod. All they would have to do is change the faces of the characters. Just so they are not immediately recognizable. They would also have to change a few maps (like Kami's house).

    2) Ask for donations. Check out the forums over there (links at the top of their page) and if everyone only sent $5 dollars they'd probably have enough for legal defense. Some lawyers might take it pro bono for publicity.

    3) Get whichever company makes Quake (don't own it so I don't know) to help them. This is a mod for an existing game, so Funimations licensing may not cover it.

    4) "Sneak" a copy or several hundred thousand out to the general public. Once it's out (and I've heard copies are already floating around) what is Funimation going to do? I envision an ICQ/ email/ etc distribution campaign. This is what I would do.
    • 5) acknowledge the fact that yes, they're trying to take somebody else's creation, and exploit the franchise for their own uses. They're not getting money for it, perhaps, but the point is that they're using somebody else's work without asking.

  • If Attack of the Clones wasn't bad enough (Score:4, Funny)

    by MeowMeow Jones ( 233640 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @10:01PM (#2169802)
    Lucas announced that after finishing episode three, he plans to film Episodes 1-1137 of THX.

    Dude's got to lay off the crack.

  • to change their name to Attack the of the Alien BFP Clones just to piss everyone off

  • Lookey what I found! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Fatal0E ( 230910 ) on Thursday August 09, 2001 @10:21PM (#2169843)
    This is the RC3, so it says on [flasheur.free.fr] the page where I found it [5u.com]

    two links!

  • Lucas Film name (Score:3, Insightful)

    by child_of_mercy ( 168861 ) <johnboy AT the-riotact DOT com> on Thursday August 09, 2001 @11:23PM (#2169980) Homepage
    doesn't Lucas have a history of messing around with his film names to slow the pirates down?

    He did it with Jedi

    Imagine the t-shirt presses of Shenzen are whirrin up right now with "Attack of the Clones".

    Be a bit of a blow to them if he changed the name a month before it opened.

  • If you really think about it, "Star Wars" sounds sort of silly to begin with.
    • I do not agree. I think Star Wars was perfect for the time in which it came out. Sure, it may sound "hokey" now, but come on, it was produced in 1977. I am sure that half of the people reading this reply weren't even born yet. This was made (and named) well before the mass producing of B grade space films in the mid 80's, which Star Wars set the precedence for.

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