The "You know what?" thread

[minor muppetz]

So, see? What's so great about renting movies and TV shows online that you can only view for a certain amount of time and have to pay for each time? When you purchase a DVD, you make a one-time purchase to own for whenever you want to watch.

I wonder what the point is of renting physical DVDs online. I can see renting something through streaming (if you have to pay for each individual thing you stream, if you're paying for the service then I don't count it as a rental).

When you pay for Netflix or Hulu Plus or whatever, you can watch as much as you want for the price of one (or whatever) each month. I wonder how residuals and royalties are with streaming services.

It would be great if more would be online longer. There have been things I was aware were on Netflix but held off on only for them to eventually be taken off before I could watch them (and sometimes they do come back). There are certain things I regret not watching more of (like when the site had every episode of Saturday Night Live, albeit most of them being heavily edited... There were episodes I wanted to see but didn't).

By taking things down, at least temporarily, I wonder if that is to help the market. If everybody had an account and could just watch them for free (after paying their subscriptions), would they want to buy the DVDs or Blu-rays? Though one of the big advantages DVD and Blu-ray has that Netflix doesn't is that they have bonus features (though it would be great if Netflix could have commentary tracks for some of their programs).

 

[Drtooth]

The sweetheart deals are the biggest thing standing in the way of streaming. Stuff can get yanked off the service if companies feel they aren't getting enough out of the deal. So, +1 for physical media.

Indeed my biggest problem with streaming. DVD's can go out of print at any time. You can still get them if you want to pay a bleeding fortune for them, of course. To get any of the stuff you want you have to subscribe to so many obnoxious different companies like Hulu and amazon. Add to the fact that you have to have the internet and high quality internet at that, that's pricy.

That said, nothing on that list is a huge loss to me. I HATE Titanic with a passion. I'd rather see one of the two horrible Italian cartoons about the Titanic than that one. Plus, most of CN's shows and everything from Hasbro (minus TFP and Rescue Bots) disappeared last year (and those DVD's are getting hard to find, BTW) are already yanked. Fortunately most of the ones CN let them keep have the full series now (Courage is on there, so...yeah). Hasbro, on the other hand, wants their own service where you pay per episode! And you'd think with that massive Dreamworks deal, they'd put freaking Toonsylvania on the US page (it was briefly up on the Latin American page).

So, Seth McFarlane is now (executive) producing a live action series for Starz.

Executive producing is essentially nothing. It's giving money and maybe having some sway over the project. Maybe, and sometimes it's actually a decent amount. Personally, I'm surprised anyone's letting him near a live action TV show again, since the last couple of times he was associated with a live action TV series, the results were awful. Then again, I feel he took all the blame for Dads when even former Simpsons writers couldn't make the show funny.

Plus, I get the feeling it's the hip thing to hate on him now because he apparently "sucked" at hosting the Oscars (despite the fact that the Oscars sucked for years before, especially the telecast prior) and "Million Ways to Die in the West" was terrible for some reason. And the hipsters that loved Ted hated the second one because a second one exists, and they'll lose all their film school cred if they say anything positive about a sequel because it somehow stopped some lousy indie film from happening.

So basically if this show doesn't do well, he'll just be stuck joylessly doing the voice overs on the ever "should have been cancelled at least 5 seasons ago" Family Guy show.

 

[D'Snowth]

Executive producing is essentially nothing. It's giving money and maybe having some sway over the project.

I know that, and I don't understand why promos for shows and movies always so proudly boast, "FROM EXECUTIVE PRODUCER PHIL FROM ACCOUNTING!" In some cases, I think it's simply for the sake of attaching a big name to their project to get people to watch . . . I mean, who else would want to watch MIAMI BEACH TOW if they didn't boast, "FROM EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JENNIFER LOPEZ!" (On that token, why would J-Lo want to flush her money down the drain for a scripted reality show about towing in Miami?) To say "from the director of," "from the producer(s) of," and even, "from the creators of," makes sense, as they actually had something to do with their productions; to say, "from executive producer," makes no sense other than to attach a big name to the project.

Sometimes, executive producing credits are given to people simply for having input on something. Spielberg gets this a lot, because he's a big enough mogul to where if he advises you on something about your movie, they automatically give him an executive producing title in return.

 

[minor muppetz]

I just found out that Fox has decided to stop putting out season sets of The Simpsons (okay, not sure if this decision is from Fox or The Simpsons staff), with plans to just release future seasons digitally and to put bonus features on the Simpsons app.

But I feel that, if they are going to discontinue season sets, it would be great if they would do at least one more boxed set, with the most notable post-season 17 episodes, the ones most worthy of commentary and bonus features.

 

[minor muppetz]

In Super Mario 3D World, for most of the game it's just four playable characters, but Rosalyna can be played once you beat one of the special levels that comes after the final boss.... Wouldn't it be great if the game had a few more additional secret characters? Maybe there could be a similar game in the near future with more that can be unlocked. Mario has plenty of other good guys who could have appeared (Daisy, Pauline, Wario, Waluigi, Profesor E. Gadd, Yoshi).

 

[Harleena]

In Super Mario 3D World, for most of the game it's just four playable characters, but Rosalyna can be played once you beat one of the special levels that comes after the final boss.... Wouldn't it be great if the game had a few more additional secret characters? Maybe there could be a similar game in the near future with more that can be unlocked. Mario has plenty of other good guys who could have appeared (Daisy, Pauline, Wario, Waluigi, Profesor E. Gadd, Yoshi).

Why did we even need Rosalina? I like the idea of more secret characters, but 3D World was supposed to be like a reboot of Super Mario Bros 2. Rosalina was not in Super Mario Bros 2, because she didn't exist yet. It would be better if there were more unlockable characters rather than just Rosalina, since Nintendo kind overuses her a bit.

 

[minor muppetz]

Why did we even need Rosalina? I like the idea of more secret characters, but 3D World was supposed to be like a reboot of Super Mario Bros 2. Rosalina was not in Super Mario Bros 2, because she didn't exist yet.

Hmm... If it was supposed to be like Super Mario Bros. 2, wouldn't it have been great if it had more enemies from the game? I can't remember off-hand if it has anyone besides the Bob-Ombs, but it would have been great if it had featured the return of Mouser, Fry Guy, Triclyde, Clawgrip, Wart, Pidget, Ninji, Phantos, and others. Of course its good to also include Bowser and enemies from the other games as well.

 

[Harleena]

Hmm... If it was supposed to be like Super Mario Bros. 2, wouldn't it have been great if it had more enemies from the game? I can't remember off-hand if it has anyone besides the Bob-Ombs, but it would have been great if it had featured the return of Mouser, Fry Guy, Triclyde, Clawgrip, Wart, Pidget, Ninji, Phantos, and others. Of course its good to also include Bowser and enemies from the other games as well.

Well, Clawgrip (aka Clawglip, LOL!) was only in the American version, if my memory is correct. I think in Doki Doki Panic it was a white Mouser.

 

[Drtooth]

Found a Japanese Cartoon Network Promo.

They apparently had Toonami as well, and to no surprise they're American action cartoons. Except for one thing...

Japanese Toonami has American Cartoons that look like Japanese cartoons.

I'm...I'm dizzy.

 

[mr3urious]

Kinda reminds me of how Japanese food company House sells Asian foods like tofu over here, but Western foods in their home country like their version of Bugles called "Tongari Corn" (literally "pointy corn").