JsARCLIGHT

Things in hollywood don't have to be "greenlighted" at the same time or even in production or release at the same time to have bearing on each other. Remember that scripts flow through the hollywood culture years, sometimes even decades, before they get picked up and made. Some get picked up and then sat on for years or even decades. My point was that Reign of Fire's script was going through a lot of hands years before it was actually made. Chances are the D&D movie was picked up because they wanted RoF... or the other way around. You never know the backroom shenanigans with movie scripts unless the people responsable actually talk about them. Just look at the massive hassle the original Alien script went through in it's road to production. A lot of movies are like that. It's only after the script gets picked up or the story gets optioned does the real boardroom altering begin.

He was the voice of Lance Vance in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. We talk about Don Johnson being typecast, poor PMT suffered the brunt of it.

I did some quick searching on some industry sites and all signs point to the first having a production budget of $36 mil +. Add a very small prints and media advert budget of $10 mil + to that and the bankroll of the first movie is easily close to $50 mil. The movie hardly did $15 at the box office. $35 mil loss out of the gate. DVD rental sales and product sales on poor movies usually only recoup about equal to the box office release. Estimate another $15 mil from DVD rental and sales and the movie is still almost $20 mil in the hole. Very poor performance, even for a non-mainliner off season release. This movie did not warrant a sequel as it lost money, big time. It was a prime example of a "gamble picture" that gambled and lost. The studios made money on other projects so it's loss was offset. At the time the only close competition was Reign of Fire. I would go as far as to suppose the two where tabled around the same time and one or the other got the greenlight based on the other, you know how hollywood loves to "stable" their films based on what the buzz their competition is doing. MGM picked up a dragon pic? Tony! Get us a dragon pic! I stick my guns that the only reason you are seeing another one is because of the LOTR frenzy. Studio shirts think D&D = middle earth so they assume people will flock to their movie.

The first D&D movie barely turned $15 mil at the domestic box office (source: the-numbers) and the subsequent DVD release tanked like it's theater release. No hard figures have been found for actual budget but you can just venture even an uneducated guess that the movie lost massive money. I blame LOTR. Not so much LOTR but the "fantasy" fallout it has generated. Stupid producers and hollywood shirts see LOTR as "the viewers want more dragons and elfs and such" so they assume any old license will work, purchase it (or in this case dust it off and clean off the poo flug at it) and hurry it into production. This movie will flop and flop hard, most likely worse than the first one.

I have faith in Michael Mann but I have no faith in Colin Farrell. A similair situation to this was the movie Ali: I liked Michael Mann but hated Will Smith. I went to see Ali based souly on my like of Michael Mann and thought the movie was average and Mann's worst effort to date... mostly due to Will Smith's mugging for the camera. I consider that movie (Ali) to be a prime example of Michael "failing" to get an actor to accell in a role... and especially a movie like Ali that hinged entirely on the main character and the actor that played the part it just caused a large breakdown for me. Will Smith simply was not Muhamed Ali, he was Will Smith pretending to be Ali... almost mocking him. I fear the same for Farrell and the character of Crockett. What makes Mann's feature movies accell so well is he creates worlds and sets his characters loose in them. The audience while watching must come to terms with the world and the characters during the movie. Mann is a master of the short subject character study. The hazzard of Miami Vice the movie is that almost all of america (and definately the fans of MV) already know the world and the characters thus our expectations are very, very high. Almost impossible you might say. It's Star Wars prequel syndrome all over again just this time in loafers and driving a ferrari. The originals we love but the new offering just seems so "different", alien and "not what we imagined". It is the omnipresent danger of digging up old skeletons... when a story is started, people expect continuity. When presented with large gaps in time, large changes in context or story or re-visionings some of the fanbase will not react well to it. If Michael Mann changed only the names and title, but kept the story, I would most likely have no problem with it as I would see it as him "making something like his seminal series Vice" but at the same time not actually being Vice and drawing all the direct comparisons. As for Don Johnson's "music" career all I can say to that is ugh. He tried. I guess only he and Eddie Murphy know what that is like.

My current TV is a Phillips 42" 16x9 plasma. I'm not so happy with it as I would like to be (she has developed a few quirks that irk me from time to time) but it is a nice solid television. At my new house that is under construction I'm looking at a new Mitsu 62" DLP for the main "viewing theater"... but my wife has other thoughts for that money. I also recently bought a 20" widescreen LCD monitor for my computer. I've caught the flat widescreen bug.

Don Johnson was Sonny Crockett and still is... I think that is why he stinks at everything else because we all still see him as Sonny Crockett. Typecasting kills yet another career... too bad it didn't happen before Miami Vice II: Nash Bridges.

What? There are only two 16x9 HDTV owners on this site? I know I'm one... Who is the other one? HDTV is like getting the internet, an MP3 player or a phone for the first time... you don't know how you lived without it before.

I actually saw SWAT with a bunch of ERT cop friends and we went MST3K on it... it was one of the funniest nights of movie watching I had in a while. Our row had the whole audience laughing... except for one guy who made the mistake of saying "what are you guys, cops?" only to have a flock of badges come out in the hallway after the movie. The look on that guy's face was priceless. I also know I'll go see MV the movie... I just want to go without the airsick bag.

Another strange X-factor in my mind (but not as troubling as Farrell) is that Michael Mann was the EP of the original Miami Vice so this is his first time actually "directing" the characters. I am hoping on some level that we will see differences in the characters somehow... Then again I just don't want Farrell and Foxx to be Crockett and Tubbs. They just don't fit at all... I hope this movie is so far away from Miami Vice that Mann actually wakes up and changes the names to protect the innocent.

My personal reasons for not liking Colin Farrell in anything he has done: - Tigerland. His "breakout" movie. He sucked. Anyone can play a self-centered a-hole, but it takes a great actor to play one that has depth. Colin's leading role in Tigerland was one dimensional. He nailed the a-hole part but failed at giving the character any more depth than simply being a jerk. Some critic somewhere loved the movie and thus Colin was hailed as the next big thing... meanwhile you can buy the Tigerland DVD at walmart for $2.50. - American Outlaws. This whole movie blew and he was but one element in a giant suckball or horror. - Hart's War. Yet another one-dimensional character in a flop movie. When you get out-acted by a very stale and almost drunk Bruno, that is a sign... Right next to Tigerland on walmart's discount rack for $2.50 - Minority Report. Yet another one dimensional jerk character. Gee, I see a pattern here. Once again, the character had no depth and came off as a simple cookie-cutter hollywood role. Totally outshined by Tom Cruise. - Phone Booth. OK, finally we see him acting as something other than an a-hole. In this taught movie he is a ... gasp... scared a-hole! Once again his acting prowess in being a tough jerk seems to be his limits. - Daredevil. Wow, another one-dimensional role where he plays... a jerk! Damn! - Veronica Guiren. Background fodder and yet another one-dimensional character. His range is impressing me. - SWAT. Could it be? Could he be playing yet another pompous, self-centered jerk character? Naaaahhh... couldn't be. He has such range. - Alexander. Wow. The top dog of all historical megalomanical jerks. He played the roll stale, not that he had much material to work with, but his ability to transcend the "a-hole jerk" acting type that he fills out so well was once again beyond him. I equate Colin Farrell as a very shoddy character actor. When you need someone to play the role of a jerkwad punk or a complete a-hole... you get Colin Farrell. Other character actors like Tom Cruise and George Clooney (also known for their constant casting and playing of a certain "type" of character), Colin has never shown the ability to act outside of his role. Many people (myself included) think that actors who always seem to play one type of person are in actuality "playing themselves". I've always seen Clooney as a smooth ladies man slash charismatic devil and he plays that part very well... the same could be said of Cruise (with a dash of pompous jerk). So it is not too far of a guess to call Farrell a tool in real life as well... and from what I have seen and heard about him that is about right. Now on to the character of Sonny Crockett: Crockett is not a jerk, but rather a hard nosed, streetwise by the book cop slash beach bum. Crockett values his honor and law above all else even though he has a laid back attitude and boxed wine tastes. He knows he is a everyman playing the role of a glitzy coke baron and he revels in it. You never see Crockett being a "jerk" or "a-hole" just because it suits his needs. The role of Sonny Crockett is going to require a massive "stepping up to the plate" by Farrell to pull off and in my opinion it is beyond him at this point. Farrell has been railroaded into Hollywood because they needed a new hunky leading man person to replace the aging Cruises and Clooneys of the world and he was the only one in line. I think of Farrell as a Vin Diesel type actor: he does one thing well and that is play jerks and a-holes that are usually self-centered, vain and egotistical. You know the type, the guys that girls fawn over and parents hate. Rebellious bad boys who almost never actually become cops. Farrell is no Sonny Crockett. My personal choice of modern actor for the role of Sonny Crockett is Hugh Jackman. He has the looks and the acting range. But I fear Jackman may be getting railroaded as well and we may never see another Hugh Jackman serious role again.

Don't forget the Browning BDA .45 (Euro 220) that he had in the pilot... ... as well as the blowed up Jimmy Smitts pieces he keeps in his pocket.

BAH! Collin Farrell... as stated elsewhere I agree with Chris Rock 100%: "If you want Russell Crowe... and can only get Collin Farrell... WAIT!" My big gripes on MV the movie are about the context and the name... Miami Vice is as tied to it's decade as Vision Street Wear, the Bangles and Keytars. The root essence of the show is about the great "coke scare" that america was frightened and at the same time enthralled by. Unable to get inside these uber rich and powerful coke baron's world to bust them cops of the day went undercover as coke barons themselves. They had the designer clothes, hot cars, fast women and slick style that all that coke money could buy. A lot of people ask "what wasn't the show called 'Miami Narc' rather than Miami Vice?"... because in the early '80s drug dealers were under the juristiction of Vice cops most of the time... it was not until the great drug explosion of the mid eighties did departments have to dedicate entire sections (narcotics) to the pursuit of drug dealers. Anyway back to my point... this world, this "era" of coke barons smuggling giao in hot cigarette boats, living in mansions in plain view and spending their mountains of cash on everything they wanted only exsisted for a short period of time. In the mid to late eighties Uncle Sucker got wise and in some cases even declaired outright war on drug barons and coke lords. The era of the millionare drug runner vanished as quickly as it rose. Today's drug dealer media image is one of the "Thug", the gang memeber who sells rock on his street corner and buys his "bling"... the biker cooking meth in a trailer... the raver club kid selling ex tabs... the war on drugs made the drug dealers smarter. The big boys no longer flaunt their excess and most of the times cops today go undercover as jittery crack whores and low level street pushers rather than the slick deconstructed linnen suit wearing, $250K italian sports car driving walking GQ model. The '80s, the decade known for immense greed, corruption and wealth was just that... on all fronts. When the '80s ended that whole image ended. This new Miami Vice movie is somehow trying to transplant the image of the '80s undercover coke baron cop into the new millenium and it just doesn't work. A true Miami Vice of today would be more like "White Trash Biker Cops" or "LA Thug Life" than the high style, well financed, all image undercover roles of the past. All one has to do is watch COPS or know real cops to know the days of pretending to be a high roller dope buyer in order to bring down a coke baron are over. Miami Vice was about the time, the place and the era as much as it was just another cop show. You cannot remove Miami Vice from the '80s without it losing a good piece of it's soul, that thing that made it snap. I personally would rather see Michael Mann make this new "Miami Vice" movie accurate to today and write a modern cop vs. drug dealer movie rather than try to revive past glories. He can make a movie about a while cop and a black cop that pose as drug dealers to bust the bad guys just don't call it Miami Vice, don't try to pass it off as Miami Vice and please don't "retro" it. The original Vice was a creature of the '80s... it was born of the glitz and glamour, the pomp and greed, the self-centered pursuit of money and possessions and the general vibe of the '80s. It needs to stay there lest it become just another "joke" like Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels and the new Dukes of Hazzard promise to be. Please Mikey Mann... do what you do best: make a period piece in the here and now and please remove the name Miami Vice from it. Calling this movie MV will only cause it harm as people like me will say "Collin Farrell is NOT Sonny Crockett".

Every time I see a reaction to Duke Togo I am reminded of one of my favorite moments in TV history: The Playa Hater's Ball Duke Togo... you are a reprehensable bastard and I hate you... but you make me laugh. ~ JsARCLIGHT: Most Peaceful Hater 2005

Can't go wrong with the original Alien and Aliens... but stop watching after Aliens lest your rage get the better of you. Also not so much sci fi as it is comedy but check out the BBC miniseries "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" as well as Ice Pirates (finally on DVD!).

I'm going to go douche bag on you and say that the best rifle there is is the one custom built either by or for you. The only way to ensure quality and craftsmanship is to build your own... but many people don't think they have the skills to pull off something like that. I've built all the current AR's I own all the way down to installing the barrels myself. Once you know what you are doing you can tweak and tinker on an AR until it is an extension of your arm... the same goes with any weapon. The trick is getting a good rifle off the bat to "learn on" so you don't spend all your time trying to keep it running. My personal opinion is that you cannot go wrong with one of the big four AR's: Colt, Bushmaster, Rock River Arms or DPMS. Colt and Bushie are on the high end of price while RRA and DPMS are "more reasonable". Stay far away from the discount no-name bargain basement AR's unless you personally know the person who built it. Also, never pay "retail". You can get a good Bushmaster at 2/3 the price they show on their website on any given day if you look. If you do eventually go the "build your own" route then you could easily buy a cheapie no-name milspec stripped forged or milled lower and use quality parts on it to make a nice weapon. The secret to a good AR is in the parts and the barrel... anyone can cast or forge a receiver these days but it takes a quality maker to turn out a good rifle. I would also say don't get too wowed and buy into all the current hardware jazz. You really don't need all those laser scope, red dot, flashlight, forward grip, hologram shenanigans on your gun. My personal opinion is less is more. Old A1 Irons and a reliable magazine is all that a quality weapon should need to tack drive at 100 yards+ for me. I'd say get yourself a nice A2 carbine or full rifle as a "learning gun" and when you have gone as far as you can with a stock weapon you can trade up to a fancier piece or even just mod out your stock rifle. That is the glory of an AR, the whole "plug and play" drop on uppers. Start simple and with practice see what you need. No need to spend, spend, spend on something you may end up hating. AR15's are an aquired taste. I know I say this every time but if there is anyone out there who wants to build their own AR I gladly help people out with info and instruciton. Heck, a month does not go by that I don't IM instruct someone through building out an AR lower it seems.

Opus is correct that most "mil spec" AR15 rifles use cheap cast internal parts... thank uncle sucker for that one. There are lots of nice high quality forged and milled internal parts sets around to replace your stock AR guts if need be but I should point out that an AR10, while similair in design and function to an AR15, does not take AR15 parts most of the time. Especially the newer AR10's being offered on the market. Most of the current issue of AR10 made by several different makers are sort of "hybrid" weapons. They feature the action and semi-direct function of the old classic AR10 but they have several new "enhancements" that have changed them into new beasts. Take for instance the new Bushmaster BAR10 series... they have a lot of altered design elements that benefit their newly "retasked" nature as target rifles. Owning and operating a new generation AR10 clone is about the same operating cost and commitment as owning a good brand name AR15. The downside is that aftermarket and mod parts are not as available due to the design differences between makes and the inherant differences between the 15 and the 10. As for the overall build of an AR15/10, this picture says a thousand words. This is an x-ray of an AR. The "see through" parts are all plastic and hard forged alluminum. The opaque parts are cast steel. Kinda freaky.

I myself was waiting for this game with such jacked-up glee... only to have all my hopes and dreams smashed when I finally bought it and played it. This game on PC is abysmal. Bugs, glitches and an overall terrible, shoddy, half-assed effort from start to finish... of course, that would imply that I actually got to finish it. After about the tenth time my game crashed to the desktop, locked up or crashed to the title screen and locked up it corrupted my savegame and prevented me from playing any further. I do not see how a game that used the same game engine as KOTOR 1 can become so inconceivably buggy and crappy overnight? I have a very high end machine and it held down KOTOR 1 and beat it to a pulp... I was running almost max resolution with max pretties with not a single problem or hiccup. This game is almost unrunable in spots. Framerates for some reason go from smooth as silk to garbage (causing crashes of course), camera work in cinematics seem to always put the camera inside something like a character or wall and the enemy and NPC AI is abysmal. I'm not even going to comment on the story because I was severely unimpressed until my game ceased to let me play it. All I can say is it took Bioware to make a wonderful game and it took Obsidian to ruin it in a day. Perhaps years down the road if they finaly actually patch this POS game I might give it another look-in but as of right now I will avoid it like the plauge.

The way I see it you have not been at MW long enough if you have not drawn the wrath of Jemstone for something you said or did at least once. Having gone into the "offending thread" and looked at a few of the supposed "offending remarks" I myself see nothing worthy of a giant hullabaloo. Typical internet banter and opinion. Like I said earlier, it takes two to fight and most of the time the true instigation of a fight is not the person who says the original "inflamatory" thing but rather it is the person who is deeply insulted and throws down the guantlet... nine times out of ten most fights are misunderstandings and can be easily avoided if you just "agree to disagree".

The problem with confrontation is that it takes two to tango. Yes, there are a few hostile and bullyish folks walking the halls... and contrary to what you might think similair people were here years ago when I myself joined. MW is like life, there are always bullies and punks and jerks and tools who will say and do things that might insult you or make you feel bad. The trick, just like in life, is to not fuel their fire. Do not fight them back. This is the internet, not real life. If someone throws a punch you do not have to throw one back. Your "honor" is not at stake and the only people who will think less of you if you don't continue a fight are the little kids that like to look at car accidents and smash frogs with hammers. If anything has changed in MW it is that people seem to want to keep a fight rolling. No one seems to just accept that other people have opinions too, and sometimes their opinions are voiced in a hostile or mocking way. But they are just that, opinions. If you let everyone's opinion burn into your skull and make a little house in there and look out your eyes you will become either a wreck or you will lash out at everyone and everything. When you read someone type in a line like "X Sucks Donkey" or "Y is terrible and those who like it are terrible"... that is someone's opinion. It is not fact and until the federal goverment passes a law or amendment stating "Macross 7 is teh suck and anyone who likes it commits a misdemeanor crime of ghey in a no ghey zone" then you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Other people's opinions have no berring on you in any way. Only you can give someone else's opinion merrit and then only you can continue a hostile situation. I would like to see more MW members use this line: "I agree to disagree" then defuse the fight before it happens. Moderators can only do so much, they cannot sit next to members at their keyboards and say "No! No! Bad member! Don't keep that fight going! Bad!" Moderators are police, they can enforce the laws... but it takes people obeying the laws and being nice to each other to prevent police action in the first place. Responsability for making MW a kinder place lies in us, not someone else. When someone says something you violently disagree with, sit back, chill out. It is their opinion and it has no berring on you. Only by fueling the hate and anger of the hateful and angry can they be given warrant to surge and spread. It takes two to fight and three to make a porno... whoops... forget that last part.

Is this a sequel to B.A.P.S.?

A minigun is not actually a recoiless weapon, they do indeed produce recoil. What I meant was that your typical GE Minigun does not produce this horrendous massive "move the helicopter sideways when it fires" recoil. The appreciable recoil from a minigun is a bit more than 100 lbs or so of force. When you fire one "hand held" you cannot shoulder heft it like a normal rifle, it hangs down on a cradle that is suspended by your left hand which cradles it and your right hand which holds the trigger grip. This "apelike" shooting position basically allows the shooter to lean forward and "put their weight" into the firing of the weapon. The problem with this is that aim is out the window. I went to the Knob Creek Machinegun Shoot in Kentucky a few years back and two guys had their miniguns there. One of them actually fired his hand held like Jesse the Body just to show people that it indeed could be done without a mount. The trick was that he had the feed and ejector pipes on the weapon so it could draw ammo and power and then not spray casings all over the place (usually at a speed that could injure). So in a sense I sort of "mispoke" when I said a minigun was "recoiless", wrong choice of words. What I meant was that they do not have this massive vehicle moving recoil that people try to credit them with and they are indeed hand shootable, given the issues with power and ammo are taken care of.

Tracers are not meant to penetrate metal or armor, just burn and show you where you are shooting... and thus they just bounce off like rocks. The bullets those minis fire go into those targets like a knife in butter though. As for the portibility of a minigun the two big issues, ammo and power, have already been discussed. The guns are simply not man-portable. You can hold one in your hands and shoot it like Jesse the Body does in Predator as miniguns are almost recoiless weapons, they produce very little appreciable recoil... the problem is the ammo and power, they are not man-portable.

When I was in the 1st Armored they did indeed mount the GE Minigun on humvees... a few in my divison had them. The two main drawbacks to mounting a minigun on a jeep or humvee were: 1) the ammo and power situation, 1,000 rounds of mini ammo and the battery is about the size of an oil drum. Humvee units in the recon and escort squads that I was involved with needed to not only carry their weapons and ammo in their hummers but also their food, gear, four people and extra fuel. Something the size of an oil drum was prohibative. My unit in particular (Spear 2) was a two humvee recon/truck escort squad and one hummer had a 60 on top and ours had Ma Deuce. I bet my life on big Ma, she can dish some sh!t if you need it and her belts of ammo took more time to fire and took up less space in the back. 2) the main design of a minigun is primarily for air to ground support. When you are in a humvee hauling ass and needing to shoot while you scoot or just laying down suppressing fire to cover your boys while they flank and tackle the M-2 is more than adequate. That reassuring THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP rate of fire is more than enough to keep your beaten zone on target and still lay down some heat. A minigun is what is known as an "area coverage" weapon. It spews lead at it's target, relying less on accuracy and more on sheer volume of fire. Miniguns are best used on choppers when aim is a luxury. Just watch that video and you will see what I mean... a fast moving assault chopper or a Blackhawk laying down suppresing fire don't really have time to aim, the gunner just holds down the trigger and moves from target to target. All that spewing lead is sure to hit something. I have a Vietnam doccumentary DVD that has some footage of door gunners with minuiguns just plastering stuff... most of the time when extracting or inserting troops the door gunner with the mini would just hold down the trigger and move the weapon in a circular motion, creating a massive wall of fire that kept the enemy pinned down.

Nobody must read my posts in that thread... The main thing missing from that movie is the insane noise a real minigun puts out. I'll admit that the wailing guitars they dubbed in will give you a headache just as fast but that high pitched whine coupled with the skull shaking buzz those things make will drive you insane.