Category: movies

Toy Story 3

Looks like Pixar is going to do “Toy Story 3” – in 3-D! In fact, they’re going to convert “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2” to 3-D as well.

Pixar has long been a favorite company of mine, and I’ve been a fan since long before “Toy Story” came out. I was able to see John Lasseter lecture at Siggraph in 1994, and was able to speak with Ralph Eggleston at first Automous Agents conference in 1997. He gave a speech where he spoke about the technology they were developing to control the ants in “A Bugs Life”. I asked him a few questions afterwards, and when I gave him a business card, he noticed that the web site I had at the time was named “lightyear” (after Buzz, of course). That was when I was working on Mosaic. I had done a few 3D products before then, but didn’t start to do anything serious with 3D graphics until a few years later when I started working with Java 3D.

Thanks to Andy for pointing me to the info about “Toy Story 3” via Ain’t It Cool News.

Why We Side With the Writers During the Writer’s Strike

Writer’s Strike
Variety is reporting that a study shows that public is siding with the writers during the writer’s strike.

Part of that is that it’s the beginning of the strike, and nothing except the late night shows (and fake news programs) have been hit by it. Those shows are in reruns, and pretty soon, all those shiny new shows the public has been watching since late August will start drying up. What will the public’s reaction been after a couple of months of “no more new episodes”?

I hope the public sticks with the writers throughout the whole strike. If you look at the small amount of money they’re asking for per DVD (they want 8 cents per DVD, up from their current share which is 4 cents), and they want to be paid for streaming video shown over the Internet. (There are more similar demands, but I won’t get into that here).

Writers got rotten deal back in the days when VHS and cable were new. Hollywood has a bad record of how it treats writers period. Sure, the writer gets paid, but once that script is written, particularly for movies, that’s it. The writer is out of the loop and the bottom of the food chain. Directors and actors come in, change things around, and get all the credit when the movie comes out and it’s a big hit. The writer might get some credit, but usually the original script has very little to do with what ends up getting shot. The writer rarely gets credit for the movie.

Think about that a minute. Think of the last couple of movies you enjoyed. Do you know who wrote them?

In television, I imagine it’s similar, although you can see that some writers (on “LOST” for example) do have a greater influence on what happens on the show. Lost is a special case, since there’s a lot going on that even the actors don’t know about.

Anyway, I’ve never liked the way Hollywood has treated writers. Without the writers, there would be no stories to tell, and it’s time that the studio execs face up to the fact that writers need to be treated a lot better than they are.

Original Star Trek Series on the Big Screen!

Mark your calendars for November 13! Almost 300 theaters will will be showing Star Trek’s “The Menagerie” parts 1 and 2 in digitally remastered High-Def and Cinema Surround Sound, an intro from Gene Roddenberry son, and a behind-the scenes look at how the footage was remastered!

About a week later, they’ll release the high definition DVD of the first season of Star Trek The Original Series!

Thanks to Andy for pointing out this article at Ain’t It Cool News.