Bliz

http://www.businessinsider.com/disney-world-star-wars-starship-luxury-resort-hotel-2017-4

Quote

 

When the theme park known as Star Wars Land opens its doors at Disney World in 2019, it promises to be an immersive experience that any fan of the beloved saga will go crazy for. 

 

Over the weekend at Star Wars Celebration, we saw some teases of what will be available in the park, and now it sounds like there could be a resort inside the land that will be a must-stay for "Star Wars" fanatics. 

 

According to Walt Disney World News Today, Disney has sent out a survey to guests gauging their interest in a possible hotel resort experience inside Disney World, most likely located in Star Wars Land, which would be designed to look like you're staying on a starship.

...

The survey also highlights the unique experience you would get out of the two-night, all-inclusive package that will cost roughly $900 to $1,000 per guest, including a two-day story set in the the "Star Wars" universe, personal interactions with "Star Wars" characters, live performers throughout the starship, plus the ability to engage in the story by doing flight training, ship exploration, lightsaber training, and personalized secret missions (both on the starship and throughout Star Wars Land).

 

 

 

 

10 minutes ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

 

Well, I thought the Vader initially killed many of the main Rogue One squad as well but in the reshoots he killed the nameless rebels shown in the final version. 

 

Also, I can still notice a difference in tone in the first trailer compared to the later trailers after the reshoots apparently took place. More emphasis on Hope and a less 'we're all ****ed" scenario. 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

with all the talk of the Han Solo name not being his original name...what are the odds his last name was originally Ren and that will be revealed in the Solo movie? Or better yet, his name is something else that we find out is Rey's last name? I don't know if they would want to spoil that reveal for the Han Solo movie though. But maybe it was a child Han had after he and Leia split so she isn't a Skywalker and he gave her the last name Ren, his original name, to keep her safe and a secret and dropped her off in the safest place he could think could of, Luke's academy. 

I hadn't heard that re Vader.  This is what I was thinking of:

Quote

 

However, that climactic scene, which reestablishes Vader’s dark side bona fides and has quickly become a fan favorite, almost didn’t exist. According to editor John Gilroy, the badass action scene was one of the key late tweaks arising from the film’s infamous reshoots. “What was added — and it was a fantastic add — was the Vader action scene, with him boarding the ship and dispatching all those rebel soldiers,” he tells Yahoo Movies. “That was something conceptualized a little later.”

 

With the Star Wars standalone providing the connective tissue between Revenge of the Sith (which ends with our first glimpse of Anakin-as-Vader) and A New Hope, director Gareth Edwards always intended to bring back the dark lord. As initially conceived, though, Vader was more threat than death agent in his brief appearances — an ominous warning here, a nonlethal Force choke there.

 

Gilroy, who came aboard the production late in the game to help incorporate the reshoots overseen by his brother, Tony, alongside Edwards, explains how that final scene changed over the course of the summer. Reverse-engineering the opening of A New Hope, Edwards and the Rogue One screenwriters had plotted out the ending almost precisely as it was rendered onscreen: Jyn and Cassian steal the Death Star plans from the Imperial archives on the tropical planet Scarif, and, with the help of their crew, manage to beam the data to the Alliance fleet orbiting above. From there, a hard copy is passed along until it winds up in the hands of Princess Leia, with Vader in hot pursuit. “As far as I know that was always the plan… the main structure was there,” explains Gilroy.

 

But then the Rogue brain trust decided to up the dark-side-of-the-Force factor and allow Vader to reclaim his Sith cred, storming the Alliance flagship, wiping out the crew, and nearly preventing the plans from getting to Leia. “It was a really great punch in the arm and something I think fans wanted to see,” the editor continues, again using “fantastic” to describe the inspired addition.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/how-darth-vader-got-his-groove-back-in-rogue-one-thanks-to-last-minute-tweak-123552848.html

 

As for the reshoots focusing more on hope, I don't know.  Trailers can be misleading, and maybe it was more about how the trailer was edited than what was in the movie pre-reshoot.  But as far as Disney wanting to make the film lighter, here's the money quote from Edwards about his assumptions re Disney, and how they ended up changing the ending:

Quote

 

A totally changed ending could hint at a fundamental misunderstanding between director and studio, but rather than a sop to a playing-it-safe company that wanted a softer conclusion, Rogue One’s ending was tweaked to make it darker.  Edwards says the original script had the main characters survive, rather than die during the battle of Scarif — not because he wanted to keep them alive, but purely because he had assumed Disney wouldn’t let him kill them off.

 

Speaking in the now-pulled podcast (which Empire says will reappear online on December 26th), Edwards says that after reading the script, the production staff saw only one way out for Jyn and friends. “Everyone read that and there was this feeling of like, ‘They’ve got to die, right?’ And everyone was like, ‘Yeah, can we?’” But with the famously family-friendly Disney in charge, Edwards originally looked for another, lighter, more survivable ending.

That was, until Disney gave him the green light to kill everyone. 

 

http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/20/14022380/rogue-one-ending-original-different-gareth-edwards

 

That kind of stuff is why I am quick to write off the idea that Disney would veto it solely based on marketing/family-friendly type concerns.  All indications are they're thinking at a higher level than that.  Now, I think your other points are certainly valid.  Disney might think it was simply bad storytelling to have her go to the dark side and swap roles with Kylo Ren.  If they did veto it, I think it's for a better reason than being overly concerned with their marketable female star.  

I like where you're going with the theory.  But one potential flaw is in the timeline, and how big of an age gap between Rey and Kylo Ren we're willing to believe.

1 hour ago, drowland said:

 

I hope they turn her dark.  Not sure if Disney is willing to do it with a female lead though.  

The concerns about Disney marketing corporatism and general touchy-feelyness preventing the right story from being told need to be thrown on the scrap heap.

Remember last year?  The Rogue One reshoots?  The internet collectively **** itself over what Disney was doing.  "They're making it less gritty!  It was too dark and the Disney execs are making them lighten it up!  They're going to ruin the tone!"

Then what happened?  Turns out the reshoots added Vader going ham on the Rebels, and everyone dies in the end.  And all the concerns were over nothing.

Kathleen Kennedy is a legend.  You couldn't ask for a better steward for the franchise.  Whatever flaws any of these movies have or end up having, blame does not sit in Disney's lap.

5 hours ago, Riggo#44 said:

Requires spound and familiarity with Steven Sterling, goalkeeper extraordinaire.

 

I also like the self-pwnage of his asking "who made this"... when it has the attribution right there in the bottom left corner of the video the whole time.

On 3/25/2017 at 1:19 PM, visionary said:

 

This is my district.

"poised" is far too optimistic.  This is Chamber of Commerce republican territory, with a population that is affluent and well educated.  Trump may have only squeaked by with a 1 point win, but that's because of his own flaws and troubles connecting with that demographic, not because we have a tight electorate overall.  Don't forget Price won by 24 points.  

Ossoff seems a lock to make the runoff.  From there I think it depends a lot on his opponent.  A "check on T" opponent will be tough to beat.  A down the line T supporter will be much easier for him.  

If Ossoff gets 40% in the runoff, he'll be the first D to break that barrier in 20 years.  If he wins, he'll be the first D to do so in almost 40 years.  Nothing is "poised"

Sadly I was at work yesterday and not able to take advantage of this:

I can't watch at work.  Has he said when we will get the missile parade?

15 hours ago, twa said:

 

That doesn't make sense, one person can own/control two different companies w/o the employees of one being employees of the other.

True.  This only looks upstream at obligations the employer has to meet to satisfy govt regs, not downstream effect on employees.  As far as the govt is concerned, if you own and control multiple companies, they get combined for these purposes.  They do the same thing to prevent big companies from cheating the system on a bunch of programs, like opening separate divisions that could qualify for SBA set-asides.

http://www.trinet.com/documents/aca/trinet_aca_group_overview.pdf

1 hour ago, twa said:

Always loopholes

simply starting a new LLC with slight difference in name is probably the simplest I'd think.

Lulu's hair salon vs Lulu's hair styling.

 

 

Not unless she wants to give 51% ownership to someone else.

IRS does the same sort of thing, looking for common ownership.  There are loopholes, but it's not quite THAT easy.  Or wasn't, when the feds were actually looking for rule-breakers.  Now...<shrug>

1 hour ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

She said she had 5 shops with 48 employees.

That makes more sense.  Thanks.

I wonder if there aren't loopholes around this.  Like, could she say that now instead of paying people $25/hour, because we have to comply with Obamacare we're cutting salaries across the board to $22/hour, but, anyone who chooses to forego health insurance through the company will get an additional $6,000 in compensation, because we don't want anyone to be "punished" with a less lucrative compensation package just because their spouse has a better plan than us or you found something cheaper on the Exchange.  

Basically structure something like that so you're pushing on to the employees most or all of the cost of having to offer health insurance that wasn't part of the compensation package before

4 hours ago, Mooka said:

 

Yea, not much of a debate. I think Bernie almost answered a question. though.   

 

Highlight of the debate for me was the lady that with the hair salon business who claimed she can't afford to expand her business and be Obamacare complaint with her small profit margins. 

...

...

Wtf lady... why would you expand your business if you're not making any money????

 

 

50 full time employees seems like a lot for a hair salon, no?

Perhaps there are other issues here.

On 1/23/2017 at 8:37 AM, visionary said:

 

 

It is a pretty interesting proposal they've put together.  I forwarded to a friend of mine who works in healthcare policy and his summary take was:

22 hours ago, codeorama said:

 

It should be focused on Luke because according to Yoda in ROTJ, Last of the Jedi he will be... (when Yoda is gone).

But, Jedi could be plural and it could mean Luke and Rey (IF she becomes a Jedi). 

Good call on it maybe being plural.

It also looks to be a callback to Ep 7 crawl

18 hours ago, tshile said:

Yay free market solution for a problem that isn't free market.

 

For free market principles to work you have to be able to opt out of the service... you can't opt out of Healthcare. You can opt out of health insurance, but only if you think it's worth it to gamble on whether you'll need medical services or not...

 

 

Plus the barriers to entry are extremely high.  I can't just start up Bliz Insurance Co to offer what I feel is a superior product.  So you have a ton of demand, with only a few suppliers, and they're generally immune from market forces because there isn't really that much competition.

6 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

The mandate was the basis of EVERY GOP healthcare reform plan...until Obama adopted it. Then forcing people to buy private insurance from the marketplace rather than showing up in ERs at the expense of insured taxpayers become socialism, and the Heritage Foundation's plan became the worst thing since slavery.

the GOP didn't change.  It was the uninsured who changed.  Back then they were just trying to be freeloaders.  Now they're good independent Americans fighting for freedom from government overreach

14 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Defining Obamacare aside, there are many good parts and many bad parts.  Unfortunately it's the bad parts that pay for the good parts.  The basic premise of Obamacare (and I'm dumbing it down and using made up numbers for explanation) is sharing the pain.  A poor person who couldn't afford health care because they were sick would have to pay $20,000 a year for their treatment.  What the thought is that we will take the 20 grand and instead make 20,000 people pay an extra dollar.  Now most people are healthy so the extra dollar goes to pay for that other person.  And every person is required to pay for insurance so there is a lot of those extra dollars to go around.  A big problem is that the people who would have just gone without treatment now have insurance and seek treatment so costs go up.  So now you need more dollars.  There are many other details that go into it but the is some of the basic ideas and intents.  Great idea that everyone should have health care but the costs haven't worked out like one would hope.

 

 

I don't think this is a problem.  It's a forward-looking cost control measure, where we're spending more now on additional people getting treatment, which pays off later because we caught their problem early or gave them prevantative care that's much cheaper than waiting for an emergency and paying for the huge surgery later.

17 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

like..the Outsiders (look up that cast)..

...or True Romance

I get emails from slickdeals.net from time to time about popular deals or whatever.  Just received this one alerting me to this killer deal on a "heart shape" rear tail bicycle light.

POPULAR   HURRY, BEFORE YOUR DEAL EXPIRES!   MTB Bike Warning Heart Shape Rear Tail Bicycle Light For $2.99 + Free SLOW Shipping from China @ Gearbest.com     10 · $2.99         Change your Deal Alert Settings

^ A sequel that was any good anyway...

Off the top of my head, longest wait for a good sequel to a successful movie I can think of is terminator.  That was like 7-8 years

On August 30, 2016 at 6:52 AM, Bang said:

 

I saw Kobu and the Two Strings over the weekend.    Very good movie.. nifty and stylish animation. the story was pretty standard, but the villains were cool, the animation is overall very good, although in some close-ups, the lips look a little odd when they move to speak. (my guess is they re-dubbed the lips to match english words. When you first meet Monkey, you'll see what i mean. it does not detract from the movie.)

If you enjoy animation, you'll like it. If you have kids, they'll like it.

~Bang

 

I really liked it.  Not great for really  young kids.  I'd say about 5 is the cutoff, but that may be too young.   My 8 year old was clutching my arm during a few scenes.  There is nothing cutesy about this movie.  The fight scenes are intense.  The Sisters are genuinely creepy

Love the style.  The movie looks great and is really engaging.  They really nailed the tone too.  It's fantastical, melancholy and thoughtful, but still with a few laugh out loud moments.  A best animated film nominee for sure,  and will be a strong contender to win.  

First Justice League trailer

That disclaimer below "soon" though...

Pulled pork yesterday turned out great.

Brisket has been in since 930. At 1230 it was at 164 internal. Almost 3 hours later and the temp is 162. Either a long plateau/rendering phase or I had the probe placed poorly at 1230, because I've checked it in a few spots with 2 different thermometers now. It is a big cut - 7 lb flat

On the Boston butt reheat, I pulled it all Saturday night and refrigerated, and after doing more research, I heated 6 oz coke and 6 oz apple juice on high in the crock pot for about 45 min, then reduced to low, added the meat, and mixed periodically over the next hour plus. Worked like a charm

Pulled pork yesterday turned out great.

Brisket has been in since 930. At 1230 it was at 164 internal. Almost 3 hours later and the temp is 162. Either a long plateau/rendering phase or I had the probe placed poorly at 1230, because I've checked it in a few spots with 2 different thermometers now. It is a big cut - 7 lb flat