Kracker Jack
@comcast.net
| Legal Star Wars torrents
It amazes me with all the discussion of the Episode III torrents that nobody brings up the for-free fan film Star Wars: Revelations. A 40-minute Quicktime that runs 242MB was released a few weeks ago. Without BitTorrent, most of us would still be trying to download it - people who make and distribute movies for free can't afford mega-bandwidth. With Bittorrent, I was watching it an hour after I heard about it. This is why the **AA will never stop BitTorrent as a whole - there are legitimate uses for it, even outside the sphere of Linux distribution. This is what the judge ruled in a recent case regarding BitTorrent piracy - just because the system can be used against the law is no reason to scrap the system.
I downloaded a few movies a loooong time ago, but I quickly realized it was a lot of trouble for something that would be pretty pointless after the DVD came out. One exception to this was Star Wars: Episode 1. The downloaded version I kept because it is the exact film that I saw in the theatres on opening day. The DVD version never played in a theatre, at least not prior to the DVD's release. (Is it the version they show nowadays, like in the pre-III marathon screening?) I like the original versions - I haven't bought the new OT DVDs because I have the $250 "Definitive Collection" laserdiscs, and -those- are the films I remember from my childhood, and -those- are the films I want to watch again and again. If Lucas would give us "Original" and "S.E." DVDs, then this argument would be moot, but as long as he monkeys with the films, I want a copy of the original theatrical releases. (Of course, this argument falls apart with a "workprint" of III, but whaddayagonnado.) And, unlike downloading MP3s of an album, which means I'll probably never buy the CD itself unless I really really like it, downloading an inferior quality pre-release movie bootleg means I like the movie enough to probably go buy the DVD when it comes out. (Although wouldn't it be nice if by the time Sith was ready for official home-video release it came on a dual-sided disc with a regular DVD version on one side and an HDTV version on the other? Please??)
Star Wars - Revelations link: »www.panicstruckpro.com/revelations/
My favorite fan film of late has to be the parody trailer called "Episode III: A Lost Hope": »www.sequentialpictures.com/movie···de3.html |
