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MaximRecoil's Replies
Who the hell wants to watch a movie full of douchebags who never get their comeuppance? This turned into a revenge movie near the end, and a revenge movie where the protagonist fails to get revenge would be pretty damn stupid.
[quote]Americans are idiots[/quote]
Comical irony coming from a plebeian from some unspecified pissant country who arrived here via TCP/IP* over the internet*, using a PC* or smartphone* (which were made possible by the integrated circuit* and microprocessor*), containing a hard disk drive* or solid-state drive*, controlled by a mouse* or touchscreen*, viewed on an LCD*, and made usable (even by idiots such as yourself) with a GUI*-based operating system* (probably Windows*, iOS*, or Android*).
* Denotes American inventions.
I believe he was Wade's business partner, rather than his lawyer. Either way, mentioning him in this episode was fitting because the deal in the movie that Jerry pitched to Wade and Stan was a parking lot, and it was Stan who decided it was a "pretty sweet" deal. And of course, the thing mentioned in this episode that they wanted to run by Stan also pertained to a parking lot.
[quote]Obviously this story occurred before Stan had his run in with Carl Showalter. Man, Minnesota is a dangerous place, eh?[/quote]
Fargo, the movie, was set in 1987. The setting is 2010 in this episode where they mentioned Stan Grossman. Also, Stan never had a run-in with Carl. There's nothing in the movie to even suggest that they had ever met each other.
[quote]Your comment just shows that you missed an important story element. Or you just don't understand it.
So yes, it is a critical scene in the overall movie and I am always amazed when I come across people who watched the movie but were not able to recognize that.[/quote]
LOL @ your unwarranted smugness. What you posted is nothing more than a fan theory, and it isn't even a good one. So you think that Mike was the first person who had ever lied to her? Prior to that, she had no idea that people were capable of lying?
Also, she didn't suspect that Jerry was lying; she merely suspected that he may not have actually verified that there were no cars missing. She asked him, "How do you know?" and then asked about their methods of keeping track of all their cars and such. Had she suspected him of lying, she wouldn't have been satisfied with him going and doing a lot count by himself, because he could just lie about the results of that too. She didn't suspect any intentional deception/wrongdoing on his part until she saw him "fleeing the interview".
I doubt highly it will never happen. Even on IMDb the vast majority of the movie and TV show boards weren't very active, and IMDb is one of the most visited websites in the world. I wish it were possible to send out a mass email to all of these IMDb usernames informing them of this place.
<blockquote>the first one I can tell was the basis for the old pan and scan dvd box cover.</blockquote>
The 4:3 (1.33:1) versions (VHS, DVD, TV broadcasts) weren't pan & scan. Sam Firstenberg shot the movie on 35mm film with a flat (spherical) lens, so the true aspect ratio of it is 1.375:1. To make the 4:3 versions they simply cropped a little bit off each side; no panning and scanning needed. When shown in the theater, they used an aperture mask, which blocks off part of the top and bottom of the image, to present the movie in 1.85:1. This method of filming is known as "soft matte". The idea is to film with both theatrical "widescreen" and home TV "fullscreen" presentation in mind, which avoids the undesirable pan & scan process when making the TV broadcast and home video release. Of course, that isn't an issue today, because nearly all TV broadcasts and home video releases are "widescreen", but it was an issue back then.
Here's a comparison of the 4:3 DVD and 16:9 Blu-ray:
http://i.imgur.com/6KcolOE.jpg
As you can see, the 4:3 version actually retains more of the image from the original negative. In comparison to the 1.85:1 version, it is missing a bit from both sides, but has a lot more on the top and bottom.
Here's an email Firstenberg sent to me when I asked him about it 7 years ago:
<blockquote>First I am happy to hear that you enjoyed "ROTN" so much through the years. Second all that you wrote about the ratio issue is right. At that time we use to photograph in full aperture or full screen 3 by 4 for the traditional old TV screens but at the same time the cinematographer was required to frame also 1.85 for theatrical projection. In the camera's viewfinder there are two horizontal lines marking that ratio. It is correct that in the theater projector there was a mask or "gate" that blocked some of the top and bottom to fit the ratio of the theater screen. Most of the new TV screens are "wide" 1 by 1.85 and at a click of a button you can blow up the picture to fit the screen and view the theatrical framing. Some new computers monitors are "wide" as well. Attached is a photo of Sho and I on the set of "Ninja"
Best regards
Sam</blockquote>
The only movies which require the pan & scan process for a 4:3 release are ones which are shot with an anamorphic lens, which "squeezes" a wide (typically 1.85:1 or 2.35:1) image onto the 1.375:1 film. Then, when projected, another anamorphic lens "unsqueezes" the image into the wide format. Since there is no excess picture on the top and bottom, the only way to make it 4:3 is to crop the hell off the sides, and with extreme cropping like that (it is especially extreme with 2.35:1 movies), they have to simulate camera panning to keep important things fully in the frame. For example, if there is a 2.35:1 stationary shot through the windshield of a car showing the driver and passenger having a conversation, if you simply crop equal amounts from both sides to make it 4:3, you'll end up with a view of mostly the empty space between the two people, with most of the two people being cropped away. So what the telecine operator will do is do all the cropping on the right-hand side when the passenger is talking, and then do all the cropping from the left-hand side when the driver is talking, making it look like the camera moved to focus just on the driver or just on the passenger.
I was 12 in '87 when this movie came out, so we're about the same age. My first exposure to it was the TV trailer, which I thought was hilarious. The scene I remember most from the trailer was Miracle Max's line about the paper cut and lemon juice. I tried to get my older brother to take me to see it at the theater but that never happened. I kept looking for it at the video store though, and at some point in '88 it was finally there. I rented it and watched it with my best friend Corey, and we both ranked it among the funniest movies we'd ever seen. For example, the Impressive Clergyman scene had me laughing to tears, and Corey was laughing so hard I thought he'd fall out of his chair.
A while after that I found out that the Baptist minister who lived across the street had bought a copy of that movie, so we kept borrowing it from him. We watched it probably twenty times over the next couple of years.
I just watched it tonight at home on Blu-ray, through a 1080p projector on a 100" screen about 10 feet away. That made up for never having seen it in the theater. It beat the hell out of the 19" TV and VHS tape from when I was a kid.
[quote]I Must Not 'Get It'[/quote]
Agreed.
[quote]"Inconceivable!" is funny once, maybe twice.[/quote]
It isn't the "Inconceivable!" that's funny; it's Inigo's reply to hearing it once too often that's funny.
[quote]Same with "You killed my father, prepare to die."[/quote]
Again, that's not the funny part. "Stop [i]saying[/i] that!" is the funny part.
[quote]I just don't see what's so great about this movie.[/quote]
Obviously.
[quote] Now they're obsolete and now not only is there still no needle, but there's no disk! heh[/quote]
CDs aren't even close to being obsolete. Hundreds of millions of them are sold every year. Also:
[quote]According to a February 2016 report provided by media and technology analysis company Media Insights & Decision In Action (MIDiA), "CD buyers are the largest single group of recorded music consumers with 32 percent penetration compared to 28 percent for concert goers, 25 percent for music downloaders and 10 percent for subscribers."[/quote]
Not only that, but vinyl record sales are at their highest level since 1988.
He didn't need to know how to make it. Gasoline was already commercially available at the time. It was first sold as a solvent in 1870, and the term "gasoline" dates to 1863. Prior to being marketed as a solvent it was still being made, but it was considered a useless byproduct of making kerosene.
Raising the octane of late 19th century gasoline enough for a modern engine to run properly might have been an issue; it depends on whether or not Doc Brown could buy or make some tetraethyl lead (TEL). Making it is difficult, but it was first made in the mid-1800s, so it wasn't impossible to get in 1885. But even if he couldn't get any TEL, and couldn't come up with any other form of octane boost such as ethanol, he could have retarded the ignition timing enough to make it run well enough to at least get to 88 MPH.
Or, he could have simply siphoned some gas out of the DeLorean that he arrived in.
Had it been a diesel engine, there wouldn't have been any problems at all. He could have used plain old kerosene. In fact, it was a pretty big oversight on his part to not use a car with a diesel engine, considering he'd been planning for a while to travel to the "old west" time period. A diesel engine can run on not only kerosene, but vegetable oil too.
Another option would have been to simply drive the car into the ravine, or off any suitably high cliff. In freefall, the car would exceed 88 MPH after falling for about 100 yards (the length of a football field). However, he would have had to make a pair of parachutes for Marty and himself so that they could jump out before the car hit the ground in 1985. Making parachutes shouldn't be too hard for someone like Doc Brown.
<blockquote>Actually hold on a second, we do have hoverboards, they only work on metallic surfaces but we have them.</blockquote>
That was possible in 1985, and far earlier than that as well. It is just electromagnetism.
<blockquote>We have flying cars but they're still in the prototype stages.</blockquote>
In 1985, flying cars had already been around for decades. They weren't mainstream then, and they are no more mainstream today. They will never be mainstream as long as they depend on human pilots. Being a pilot is a highly specialized job, and it always will be. Just because you call something a "flying car" doesn't mean it's not an airplane by FAA standards.
<blockquote>We have electric cars. Have you ever seen inside a Tesla? Your 1985 teenage self would be positively giddy.</blockquote>
We've had electric cars since the late 1800s. They were once even fairly common, enough so that there were public charging stations in cities such as New York City.
<blockquote>What about the internet? There's too many things you can do online for me to list here, it's pretty incredible to be honest. That teenage kid would spend weeks exploring the web.</blockquote>
The internet has been around since 1983, and the precursor to the internet (ARPANET) had its origins in the 1960s. Granted, the internet is a lot better today. It didn't start to become mainstream until the World Wide Web, cheap PCs, and a user-friendly operating system came along, i.e., in the mid 1990s.
<blockquote>Compact discs? Pfft, everything is stored in flash memory now! Smart phones would blow you away.</blockquote>
No, not everything. Music is still widely sold on CDs, and movies are still widely sold on optical discs which look like CDs, i.e., DVD and Blu-ray discs. And "smart phones", while being technologically impressive, are a bane of society. People can't keep their face out of them for 5 minutes, even when they're in public or guests in someone else's house.
<blockquote>There's tons of technology like exoskeletons, mind controlled artificial limbs, artificially intelligent robots like ASIMO, spaceships landing on comets, rovers sending HD images from Mars and people working in an international space station.</blockquote>
Experimental novelties and/or trivia, i.e., nothing that affects the day-to-day lives of the vast majority of people.
<blockquote>I think that kid would be equally disappointed and fascinated with how the future actually panned out.</blockquote>
Mostly disappointed is more like it. Even big TVs and a lot of channels are nothing new. TVs as big as 60" or more and over 100 channels were available in '85, i.e., rear-projection TVs and satellite TV. The only thing that's really improved in that area is the picture quality of the source material, i.e., the best we had for home use in '85 was LaserDisc and NTSC television broadcasts. It's not that much higher quality didn't exist in '85 (and far earlier); 35mm movie film is on par with today's digital HD formats, and 70mm movie film blows today's HD formats out of the water. However, those were (and are) pretty much only available for viewing in movie theaters.