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Post by thekeeper on Jan 10, 2018 17:00:30 GMT -5
Anyone watch ghost hunting shows? Currently going through the Ghost Adventures seasons. Had already seen 7-9, so I'm working from the start again (save for season 1 which will be last in line for the sake of seeing the difference). About to start season 4. I watched Ghost Hunters when I was a kid, and I remember when Ghost Adventures first came out. Ghost Adventures crew seems to get a lot more activity than TAPS, which I'm chalking up to the energy of their characters. Paranormal Lockdown is fantastic too. Nick started it after he left GA. Him and another investigator stay in a place for three days to investigate, sleeping and eating there and everything. It's gotten pretty intense and they've actually uncovered skeletal remains from a previous cold case. New season comes out this year (returning to the house where they found the body, too).
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Post by andrewwerdna on Jan 11, 2018 3:11:06 GMT -5
I used to watch Ghost Hunters as well, over a decade ago. Oddly enough I think I believe in ghosts less after watching it, because you'd think after spending so much time in the supposedly "most haunted" places on earth, they'd have caught some sort of conclusive evidence. And I have a hard time suspending my disbelief for stuff that's easily explainable, like "orbs" or "evps" where it's obviously just a recording artifact. However I have heard "evps" that would need to be either legit or hoaxed, but I have no reason to trust any of these kinds of people because they obviously have incentive to hoax.
That said, I definitely watch a lot of bad youtube ghost story top ten shit, and I usually end up a bit jumpy for an hour or two afterward.
Do you believe in ghosts?
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Post by andrewwerdna on Jan 11, 2018 3:15:12 GMT -5
Right now I'm rewatching Sword Art Online. I'm not a big anime fan, but anything involving virtual reality is fascinating to me, so I also quite like .hack//Sign.
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Post by thekeeper on Jan 11, 2018 11:04:14 GMT -5
andrewwerdna , I honestly don't remember too many episodes of Ghost Hunters. The main standouts ones in my memory are the Birdcage theater episode, where they saw a full-body apparition but before saying anything to each other they had themselves be questioned by others to make sure they weren't just piggybacking off of each other's excitement by agreeing with what was seen, and an episode where they brought a psychic on, where on the thermal camera you could see an energy transfer from the the other person into the psychic's head. I think a lot of people sensationalize orb photographs and aren't very good at discerning them from other things, but there are definitely a good amount that can't be explained by normal dust, bug, lens smudge, etc. They're much better to discern on live recordings, especially if bugs and dust have also been previously captured in the session to compare size, lighting, trajectory, and single frame stills. I actually don't think anything in Ghost Adventures is staged, or at least the vast majority isn't. There have been a few episodes though were you could tell people who called them in staged things, and they found little to nothing. Can't comment on the validity of Ghost Hunters since I haven't seen it in a long time. Even 'most haunted places' can take time for activity to occur, they're only in a place for 12 hours after all, and they cut everything they found down into half an hour (first half hour is interviews and destination info), which is really just how things happen, very unpredictable, compared to the reputation places acquire over years and years. But I have perfectly good reason to doubt the shows as well, since by nature they are shows, but I'm really only watching for entertainment and not looking to find out anything new, although I do like seeing the different equipment used. I don't really need shows to confirm anything for me, I've had a heavily paranormal life thus far. Would rather talk about it in PMs than in this thread, if you want.
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Post by thekeeper on Jan 11, 2018 11:08:56 GMT -5
Right now I'm rewatching Sword Art Online. I'm not a big anime fan, but anything involving virtual reality is fascinating to me, so I also quite like .hack//Sign. I liked SAO when I watched it, around the time it was new but I think I just liked the character relations for the most part. I rewatched it more critically at one point and it was not as good as I remembered. Haven't seen the second season. Have you seen Log Horizon? I haven't, but it seems to be the same kind of thing. I only played the first .hack game, but I really liked it. Great premise, and it's kool for a game to be faux-online, also faux-digital-crossing-reality-threshold which is probably difficult to pull off. It was a very engaging game. I've only seen like two episodes of Sign. Have you seen Serial Experiments Lain? |
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Tyrannus
Verified Account
Knowledge is Night
Posts: 806 
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Post by Tyrannus on Jan 11, 2018 14:40:54 GMT -5
Just came to say I approve of any and all anime discussion
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Post by andrewwerdna on Jan 13, 2018 12:21:11 GMT -5
andrewwerdna , I honestly don't remember too many episodes of Ghost Hunters. The main standouts ones in my memory are the Birdcage theater episode, where they saw a full-body apparition but before saying anything to each other they had themselves be questioned by others to make sure they weren't just piggybacking off of each other's excitement by agreeing with what was seen, and an episode where they brought a psychic on, where on the thermal camera you could see an energy transfer from the the other person into the psychic's head. I vaguely remember those, but not enough to comment on them. There's a couple that stick out in my mind. I remember one time they actually caught somebody trying to fake ghost stuff. I don't even remember what it was about, but good on them for exposing it, although that puts a lot of what they find into question, even if you think they're honest, because who knows how many times they didn't catch on. One bit that sticks out in my mind is there was a chair moving in an attic or something. The chair definitely moves on its own, and so there's only two explanations: 1. It's a ghost, and 2: It's a hoax. Unfortunately I have to assume the latter, because yeah it's supposed to be an entertaining show, and so they have incentive to do that. That's not to say I don't believe in ghosts. I definitely do, at least in the sense that I think dreams and hallucinations are real, but perhaps there could be something externally supernatural. But I used to like to imagine that there are places in the world that are festeringly tainted by supernatural magic, like the Necronomicons of haunted places. But unfortunately, for me, what shows like the Ghost Hunters impart is a sense that if ghosts exist they're pretty boring. Right now I'm rewatching Sword Art Online. I'm not a big anime fan, but anything involving virtual reality is fascinating to me, so I also quite like .hack//Sign. I liked SAO when I watched it, around the time it was new but I think I just liked the character relations for the most part. I rewatched it more critically at one point and it was not as good as I remembered. Haven't seen the second season. Have you seen Log Horizon? I haven't, but it seems to be the same kind of thing. I only played the first .hack game, but I really liked it. Great premise, and it's kool for a game to be faux-online, also faux-digital-crossing-reality-threshold which is probably difficult to pull off. It was a very engaging game. I've only seen like two episodes of Sign. Have you seen Serial Experiments Lain? I never played any of the .hack games, but I've thought the show was great for a long time. It's very slow and atmospheric, I'd definitely recommend .hack//Sign to dungeon synth folks over Sword Art Online, although SAO is probably more entertaining. Never heard of Log Horizon. I'll look into it. I started watching Serial Experiments Lain some months ago. I made it a handful of episodes in, but didn't really have the focus for it. I'm going to come back to it eventually. It's really cool how much it predicted before it's time, and there seems to be a lot of trippy concepts. What I saw reminded me a lot of the book Neuromancer (which I also did not finish). |
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Post by thekeeper on Jan 13, 2018 20:47:17 GMT -5
andrewwerdna , I honestly don't remember too many episodes of Ghost Hunters. The main standouts ones in my memory are the Birdcage theater episode, where they saw a full-body apparition but before saying anything to each other they had themselves be questioned by others to make sure they weren't just piggybacking off of each other's excitement by agreeing with what was seen, and an episode where they brought a psychic on, where on the thermal camera you could see an energy transfer from the the other person into the psychic's head. I vaguely remember those, but not enough to comment on them. There's a couple that stick out in my mind. I remember one time they actually caught somebody trying to fake ghost stuff. I don't even remember what it was about, but good on them for exposing it, although that puts a lot of what they find into question, even if you think they're honest, because who knows how many times they didn't catch on. One bit that sticks out in my mind is there was a chair moving in an attic or something. The chair definitely moves on its own, and so there's only two explanations: 1. It's a ghost, and 2: It's a hoax. Unfortunately I have to assume the latter, because yeah it's supposed to be an entertaining show, and so they have incentive to do that. That's not to say I don't believe in ghosts. I definitely do, at least in the sense that I think dreams and hallucinations are real, but perhaps there could be something externally supernatural. But I used to like to imagine that there are places in the world that are festeringly tainted by supernatural magic, like the Necronomicons of haunted places. But unfortunately, for me, what shows like the Ghost Hunters impart is a sense that if ghosts exist they're pretty boring. Should I make a dream thread? Would people post their dreams or discuss dream phenomenon stuff, speculative, scientific, or otherwise? I had a strange one last night. I have this weird dream dynamic where my dreamworld is a fully interconnected world with reoccurring characters, locations, etc, like some kind of Lovecraftian dream cycle-style thing. I need to map everything out some time. The games are kool. There's even a faux-player trading dynamic that's as if you're trading equipment with online players even though they're just generated NPCs. There's apparently a new one coming out this year. SEL is wonderful, one of my favorites. Surprised to find out is was a point of inspiration for The Matrix. Neuromancer was great. Try reading Burning Chrome, if you ever get back to Gibson. It's a bunch of short stories. Actually just watched Johnny Mnemonic last night. Cyberpunk rules. |
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Post by ranseur on Jan 15, 2018 1:09:12 GMT -5
Started watching xena on hulu, not sure I'll watch it all but i haven't seen it since it was tv. Brings me way back.
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Post by andrewwerdna on Jan 15, 2018 10:10:18 GMT -5
I haven't seen Xena since the stays of tv static. That's something I'm going to have to re-experience at some point I think. About dream thread, I started that lucid dream thread awhile back but I think I was too specific. Regular dreams are often more interesting, but something most people take for granted. I have been obsessed with dreams all my life, on and off with a dream journal all that time. I'll certainly contribute whenever I have a particularly interesting dream, and I'm always interested to hear about dreams. |
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Post by thekeeper on Jan 17, 2018 11:49:55 GMT -5
I finally got around to watching this after years and years of knowing about it but just putting it off:  And it's pretty over-hyped for how many DS fans recommend this in movie threads, film discussions, etc. About as stereotypical of a fantasy plot and characters as you can get: (Ambiguously gay) evil ice wizard is destroying stuff (his mom is in on it too), blonde muscle man must fight the evil guy and his vaguely neanderthal brown minions referred to as 'sub-humans' (who are practically just depicted as like Aztecs?), basically nude and helpless boob princess is stolen and muscle man loves her, ultra metal batman helps muscle man fight minions and ice wizard, muscle man and nude woman kiss at the end. All of these tropes would set the movie up as a kind of animated exploitation film where it's very aware of the kind of stereotypes it's employing and it's all deliberate for a certain effect, but I can't help but get the sense that it's not trying to do that, that the plot and characters are kind of silly simply because they are in fact just ignorantly created as silly, which is particularly strange considering most of Ralph Bakshi's work (save for LOTR) is deliberately kind of over the top and crude, if not vulgar, yet that doesn't come across in the atmosphere of the film despite having these kinds of stereotypes acting the story out. There's a good amount of fan-service that puts it on the level of a lewd anime, but it just seems so simultaneously serious that I'm not sure what to think of the countless butt shots of Teegra, whether it's supposed to be ridiculous, if they're doing a 'sex sells' thing, or what. It's almost as if a hormonal 15 year old metal boy wrote the movie but had someone pretty skilled animate it for him. It takes a lot from fantasy comic art with the inclusion of Frank Frazetta's role in it's illustration and art direction, but I don't think it's something that translates well into a full-length film. This probably would've made a fun comic, but the only re-watch factor as a film is the art. It all looks very nice, the backgrounds are beautifully painted, and I do love the old rotoscope animation style effects, but it's brazenly lacking substance. Some of the dialogue is next to pointless. There was one point soon after Teegra and Larn meet that was funny. Teegra: "It's getting cold" (no clothes), Larn: "It's because of Nekron", Teegra: "I know". I don't know, one on hand I kind of like it for it being ignorant to how ridiculous it is, like way you'd like some b-movies; on the other hand, it's just not as over the top or ridiculous enough to fully be one of those "so bad it's good" movies. It's in this nebulous middle tier. I wouldn't rate it more than a 5/10 if I had to choose. Probably 4/10, maybe 6/10 if I'm feeling real generous. I'm likely being too critical of this movie and it might just be something you just have to take for what it is, an animated rendition of what you'd find in your average mass market pulp fantasy novel. Forgettable, but also what would you expect from something that was made to ride off of the popularity of other S&S films? Anyone have polar opposite thoughts to mine and totally love this? I've read some reviews to see how well this did and what people thought. Apparently, didn't do well on release. Some people think it sucks, some rate this really high. |
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Post by nahadoth on Jan 17, 2018 12:47:24 GMT -5
I'm likely being too critical of this movie and it might just be something you just have to take for what it is, an animated rendition of what you'd find in your average mass market pulp fantasy novel. Forgettable, but also what would you expect from something that was made to ride off of the popularity of other S&S films? Anyone have polar opposite thoughts to mine and totally love this? I've read some reviews to see how well this did and what people thought. Apparently, didn't do well on release. Some people think it sucks, some rate this really high. I haven't seen Fire and Ice but it is on Amazon Prime, along with a billion other cash-in low budget S+S films from the 80s. Judging from the S+S films I've seen, all your criticisms seem to be tropes of that genre, particularly how it is represented in 80s films. Doesn't mean all those films are bad, but when the writing or story doesn't keep you engaged you REALLY notice those tropes. And my guess is that it's a nostalgia thing. If you saw it as a kid or when it came out, then you may be willing to look past the flaws. |
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Post by thekeeper on Jan 17, 2018 13:04:00 GMT -5
I'm likely being too critical of this movie and it might just be something you just have to take for what it is, an animated rendition of what you'd find in your average mass market pulp fantasy novel. Forgettable, but also what would you expect from something that was made to ride off of the popularity of other S&S films? Anyone have polar opposite thoughts to mine and totally love this? I've read some reviews to see how well this did and what people thought. Apparently, didn't do well on release. Some people think it sucks, some rate this really high. I haven't seen Fire and Ice but it is on Amazon Prime, along with a billion other cash-in low budget S+S films from the 80s. Judging from the S+S films I've seen, all your criticisms seem to be tropes of that genre, particularly how it is represented in 80s films. Doesn't mean all those films are bad, but when the writing or story doesn't keep you engaged you REALLY notice those tropes. And my guess is that it's a nostalgia thing. If you saw it as a kid or when it came out, then you may be willing to look past the flaws. I do like the animation style a lot, but this could've been so much better with a story that wasn't generated from like a fantasy mad-lib; of if it did, it should've owned it and tried to be more over the top. I think I would've preferred the former strategy of a better story and better characters, though. Yeah, maybe its a nostalgia thing. I would think though for this film being one of the more well known, if not renowned, S&S films, it'd have something more to it. Give it a watch if you get the chance and let me know what you think. I should rewatch Bakshi's LOTR soon. |
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Post by ranseur on Jan 17, 2018 16:39:46 GMT -5
I haven't seen Fire and Ice but it is on Amazon Prime, along with a billion other cash-in low budget S+S films from the 80s. Judging from the S+S films I've seen, all your criticisms seem to be tropes of that genre, particularly how it is represented in 80s films. Doesn't mean all those films are bad, but when the writing or story doesn't keep you engaged you REALLY notice those tropes. And my guess is that it's a nostalgia thing. If you saw it as a kid or when it came out, then you may be willing to look past the flaws. I do like the animation style a lot, but this could've been so much better with a story that wasn't generated from like a fantasy mad-lib; of if it did, it should've owned it and tried to be more over the top. I think I would've preferred the former strategy of a better story and better characters, though. Yeah, maybe its a nostalgia thing. I would think though for this film being one of the more well known, if not renowned, S&S films, it'd have something more to it. Give it a watch if you get the chance and let me know what you think. I should rewatch Bakshi's LOTR soon. I didn't see it until too recently but I just watched it again. Totally flawed but I enjoy it. I very much think of it as an animated exploitation film. The characters are thin and there's some plot holes, but it's kind of unique in some ways. Honestly never seen any of his other films though. |
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Post by thekeeper on Jan 17, 2018 17:46:18 GMT -5
I do like the animation style a lot, but this could've been so much better with a story that wasn't generated from like a fantasy mad-lib; of if it did, it should've owned it and tried to be more over the top. I think I would've preferred the former strategy of a better story and better characters, though. Yeah, maybe its a nostalgia thing. I would think though for this film being one of the more well known, if not renowned, S&S films, it'd have something more to it. Give it a watch if you get the chance and let me know what you think. I should rewatch Bakshi's LOTR soon. I didn't see it until too recently but I just watched it again. Totally flawed but I enjoy it. I very much think of it as an animated exploitation film. The characters are thin and there's some plot holes, but it's kind of unique in some ways. Honestly never seen any of his other films though. Yeah like it really seems like it should be an exploitation film, but it's not over the top enough to be one, so its just kind of in this awkward middle ground. |
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i'm a newbie here, thanks for the approval!