h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The best day for me was the day I saw the original Star Wars. It was the summer of 1977, I was 11 at the time, the perfect age for it really. From the moment the huge spaceship roared overhead, I was hooked. I had never seen anything like it before, and I walked out of the theater with my mouth hanging open in awe. I was especially impressed by the lightsabers, and the philosophy of The Force appealed to me. Star Wars opened up new worlds for me. It turned me into an avid movie fan, and fueled interests in filmmaking, photography, and painting. I don't think I'll ever be so swept away by a movie again.

Interesting selection. I certainly rememeber the first time I saw Star Wars - in the theater, with the big speakers, etc. I finally talked my wife into going - "I don't wanna see some sci-fi nonsense" - she was also immediately hooked by the opening with the big ship overhead, and has been a fan ever since. I remember thinking "We're not in Kansas, anymore." I've always been a fan of the cover art on sci-fi paperbacks, finally they came to life.

BTW, there's a great short documentary with interviews of people standing in line for "Episode 1". Some real characters and some great comments.

Phantom Menace didn't rattle my cage like the original did, and neither did Return of the Jedi for that matter. I'm always hoping that my best movie experience is still in the future, but maybe I've gotten too old and jaded to be so immersed in a film again.

Yeah, I remember.

" ... maybe I've gotten too old and jaded to be so immersed in a film again."

Right - for me it's been "Star Wars", "The Exorcist", "The Godfather", and maybe a handful of others that were truly engrossing.

An interesting point, though. The NY Times opined recently that movies will go the way of opera and ballet - special venues only for limited fans of the art. The general public will demand interactivity, i.e., high resolution, big screen "games" in which the plot is controlled by the viewer. The technology is getting pretty close.

I think like all "future predictions" this will turn out to be a load of old rubbish. Interactivity would ruin films, think about it.

What good's a plot twist when you come up with it yourself?

Yes, DVDs already offer alternate endings and deleted scenes for some films. But I think the whole theater going experience will continue too.

I don't know what's going to happen, but I may have misstated what the NY Times columnist (Bob Schwabach) said. Just to clarify, here is an excerpt:

QUOTE

The video game industry has been on the threshold of seizing dominance in entertainment for several years. Ultimately it will. It's inevitable: we play games. For the last couple of years, sales of movie tickets and video games have been in a virtual dead heat (no pun intended). Only books are holding their own, and that's because most books are nonfiction and not published for entertainment. Looked at from the entertainment aspect: about two decades ago, at the height of the craze, revenues from the Pac-Man game roughly equaled book sales from all United States publishers. The handwriting was on the wall, but it was in the form of zeroes and ones, and some people couldn't read it.

In the 20 years I have been writing about computers and software, I have read numerous articles and editorials predicting the imminent demise of video games. At one point in the early days of personal computing, when games accounted for an overwhelming majority of all software sales, the denunciation rose to a roar. There were critical editorials and articles in all the best places. A fad, they concluded. Continuing strength in game sales has proved to be an irksome reality, and subsequent critical commentary has declined.

Hollywood is moving to the position of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." This strategy will fail, and movies will move on into obscurity, a future entertainment category subsidized by taxes and private charity and viewed by a select audience, much like opera and ballet today. They, too, once dominated the entertainment world. There is a fundamental difference between movies and video games: the games are interactive, movies are passive. I don't see any way out of this. There have been several efforts to produce interactive movies, and they have failed miserably. No joystick, no joy. A movie is not a game.

END QUOTE

So, per Mr. Schwabach, movies won't become interactive, they will simply give way to interactive games. Or not.

Hmmm. I have never enjoyed any game as much as I do a good movie. I can't really buy that scenario of movies being forced into obscurity. Certainly, I plan to see movies as long as they make them.

I also plan to keep on enjoying movies, at least a few - even if I have to drive across town to the one place that still shows them. But I also agree with someone back there who has trouble getting immersed in movies anymore I have played games that were engrossing - the bad guy is not after the good guy, he is after ME. And I can even BE the bad guy, always the more interesting character. So when the Star Trek Holodeck becomes reality and the price is the same as the movies, I know which line I'll be standing in (if I can get out of my coffin). 8)

Yeah, and "cinema will spell the end of theatres", "talkies are a passing fad", "television will kill the movies", "home video will kill the movies", "now that we have radio, newpapers are obsolete", "the telephone will mean that letter writing will cease in the 20th century", "trips to the moon will be commonplace in the 1990s", "it is inevitable that capitalism will be overthrown by worldwide socialist revolution"

Remember these predictions? Now, how many came true?

If computer games were to kills the film making industry then most developers are going to high some decent scriptwriters first.

Personal involvement means games can grip you in a way that films don't, but I think only action films could really be beaten into obscurity by computer games as they stand.

Good points.

A few friends of mine are quite taken with the PC game series "Thief", which I guess could be described as an action game. But the real point is to avoid confrontation whenever possible by utilizing stealth - shadows, silence, etc. One friend vividly remembers standing very still with his heart pounding, while the armed guard walks right up and ... (users are writing new levels for this and other games, some get rave reviews)

Another friend got so wrapped up in a WWII fighter plane sim he had to walk around for a minute and cool down. I myself broke the joystick playing the same game (remember Yossarian's piloting technique in "Catch-22"? )

Yes, the gamers have a ways to go to match, say "Pulp Fiction", but they're getting there. I read a quote in Time Magazine by the Director of the London Museum of Design, who said the most innovative design recently in multimedia was "GTA: Vice City". Quite an accolade, IMHO.