Your idea and why it sucks

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, June 02, 2013, 06:17 (3983 days ago) @ narcogen

For a guy who calls out sources he barely understands, you've got a lot of gall to suggest that what this is is Bungie being pretentious. Then, to back that up, you spew some pseudophilosophy with a side order of Matrix references. Good grief, who do you think you're kidding?

That is a completely different thread and I have not applied any of it here.

Kipling, in 1894, was not writing with Bungie in mind-- a company that would not open for another hundred years? You don't say. As for how it is relevant, you can't say, because it isn't. There is no prerequisite for a work to be created with the intention of later being referenced or modified in order for that work, in whole or in part, to be employed for other purposes. One might as well say that Marathon and Halo are intellectually bankrupt and unoriginal because Greek epic poems weren't written with video games in mind.

Not going to address that first point, eh? Thought not. That last point is first class, grade A rhetorical nonsense. Are all of Shakespeare's plays inferior to the Italian originals he ripped off, then? Not to mention that it creates an infinite regression, where the only actually GOOD work is the very first one, since everything else is a reference to it.

This is not true and you are missing the point. If your work ADDS something to the original it's worthwhile, either by extending the original with your own insight, applying it in a new way, or negating it.

So what are we talking about again? You brought up the casting. But now you're not going to criticize it? Which is it? Maybe they thought he was right for the part? Equal amounts threatening and avuncular? Someone with a distinctive voice? I'm still really not sure what you're getting at, except to say that if they wanted somebody like him, they should have just cast somebody like him, but not actually him, because of course to hire an A list TV actor is putting on airs.

I like his casting… he does have a good voice for reading this. That's awesome. I'm talking about Jon Favreau.

You're being a snob, pure and simple. You're essentially saying that Bungie is casting talent out of its pay grade by hiring a good actor and a good director to do a TV commercial for a game that you don't think is worthy. Which is ridiculous, since Favreau is best known for pop entertainment: two out of three good Iron Man flicks, Zathura, which I liked, and Cowboys and Aliens, which was dreck.

Isn't that validating my point, where even the name they could get is in your opinion only capable of pop entertainment and dreck?

Also let me remind you of the shitty job Laura Prepon did in Halo 2 as a marine.

I disagree completely and wholeheartedly.

http://halo.bungie.org/misc/h2dialogue/marine_sassy/marinesassy01_20070724.mp3

That's your idea of not bad?

That the industry is itself going through certain transitions, and has individuals in it who aspire for their creations to be classified more as high art than commercial art, is one thing. To come to the conclusion that an increase in budgets and production values amounts to delusions of grandeur is quite another, and I would say is unsubstantiated, especially when you try and lump in Bungie's literary references as well, which is a trend that has been going on for far, far longer.

Where exactly did I say that more production value and budgets is delusions of grandeur? Properly applied, that's actually how you get a better game.

Bungie's old references were fine, since the focus was on the game and the story was a fun backdrop to play around in. The fun was deciphering the story, and in that regard references can be fun because it's like a clue of sorts. The marathon story was not a masterpiece of literature, but it was a masterpiece of video game fiction, and that comes from deciphering and discovering its secrets. I can't remember Bungie ever hyping up Marathon through literary references or by hiring a name to direct a commercial. In fact most of Bungie's ads for marathon were pretty crass Actually.