John_Anderson

<<Writers Note: This took me a few hours to do on Word thanks to my stupid Dail-up connection. Which will soon be gone when I get my cable back on Saturday. :lol: >>

Alright, I'll be crazy and throw my hat in. I don’t know if this will hold any water since I personally need to see how well the teams do during the season, but oh well, I had to throw my hat in. I feel I know enough where I can put some guesses out there.

Let's see how they hold up.

AFC East

*1. New England (All the teams in this division have stepped up their game, but I still have faith in the Pats, and still believe they could do the impossible and go onto a three peat)

2. NY Jets (They'll be in contention for the Wildcard, but I don't think they'll make it. The AFC is going to be tough this year.)

3. Buffalo (Another team that'll be coming in a close second. Greatly improving)

4. Miami (Also improving, but not there yet)

AFC North

*1. Baltimore (It's either them or Pittsburgh, but I'll go with them. I don't see much coming from Pittsburg. And Baltimore still has a great defense. Remember, Offenses win games, Defenses win Championships. Enough said.)

W2. Pittsburgh (They'll make the playoffs, but won't be doing anything special.)

3. Cleveland (Yea… enough said.)

4. Cincinnati (Ohhh no…)

AFC South

*1. Indianapolis (Great team in a weak division. I don't expect much from the other teams. This may be there year the Colts may make it all the way. I’ll wait and see if Peyton can hold up)

2. Jacksonville (Improving, and they'll probably be in the wild card race. But nothing special)

3. Houston (Meh...)

4. Tennessee (Needs some major help.)

AFC West

*1. San Diego (This was too tough to call, but I gave the nod to San Diego. They're a solid team, and expect they'll do well in one of the toughest division in the league this year)

W2. Denver (Ditto. They've improved, and they too will be a force to reckon with, they’ll be in the close Wildcard race as well as in the race to win in the division. I think they’ll make it)

3. Raiders (They have Randy Moss now, but I don’t know if he’ll be a major factor in this division.)

4. Kansas City (Solid team that needs work on its defense. If they hold up, they might do well this season, if not… well, you see where I put them)

------------------------------------------------------------

NFC East

*1. Philadelphia (I think they’ll make it, but I don’t see them making it to the Super Bowl again, especially with all the drama going on. They’re still a solid and balanced team.)

W2. Dallas (They’ve got a solid defense and an alright offense. They’ll make it to the playoffs.)

3. NY Giants (Working… and still need some help.)

4. Washington (Yea… needs some MAJOR help.)

NFC North

*1. Minnesota (I think they’ll make it this year. They’ve be working hard, and they did make the playoffs last year, so I can see them winning)

2. Green Bay (Yea… Brett should go the way of Jerry Rice *now*… he’s had his glory, but now he’s just stretching it. Sorry.)

3. Detroit (Eh, somewhat good, but nothing special)

4. Chicago (Yea… no.)

NFC South

*1. Atlanta (They still have Vick, and they’ve actually gotten some other good players! Vick won’t have to carry them completely to the NFC Championship… again.)

W2. Carolina (I still like this team. I think they have a tremendous potential to do good this season.)

3. Tampa Bay (It hurts me to do this… but they need some help)

4. New Orleans (My heart goes out to them… but yea… it’ll be a tough year for them.)

NFC West

*1. Seattle (This division just stinks… I still don’t see anything special in any of them. I’ll just give the nod to Seattle cause they’re probably do the best in this division)

2. St. Louis (Yea… no)

3. San Francisco (They might do somewhat better with their new QB, but not that much better.)

4. Arizona (Still need help here.)

*= Division Winner

W= Wildcard

(I too in no way claim the following *will* happen)

AFC Championship Game:

Indianapolis at New England

Winner: New England

NFC Championship Game:

Philadelphia at Atlanta

Winner: Atlanta

Super Bowl 40

New England vs. Atlanta

Winner: New England.

If not a three peat, then the Colts are going to make it this year and win. The AFC is just far superior to the NFC once again this year.

Check back midseason and I’ll probably be tweaking my picks like I always do. ;)

<<EDIT: I know that my Championship picks are basically like last years, but I really think that those teams are the really the only ones with the potential to make it that far.>>

::Murmmers:: More like a golf clap if you ask me...

:blink: :P

::Still waiting for Serenity::

 

...

 

::Still not caring about Trek::

Josh Whedon is the man. I just wanted to throw that out there.

And if Berman is attached to anything Trek related. It'd be a definite no from me.

Woot Woot. Gooooo football. The last seven months have left me empty and now I'm back in the swing of things.

In college football. I gotta root for my three big Florida teams (Miami, Florida, and Florida State). Although I always root for FSU (Go Noles!). College Football sure can confuse me at times, but gosh darn it, it's great football. :P

Pro football, I'm still sticking with the Pats, gotta love them. (::Gives Dak the eye, cause he's sure he has some smarmy comment to say about this:: ) And I'll keeping hoping that the Bucs get their stuff together and go back to level they use to be at.

And I have no idea who's probably going to the Super Bowl. There are a bunch of teams out there who have stepped up their game and are definitely in contention, but ask me half way through the season, by then I'm always 99% sure who's going and who's not. :blink:

Yea... gotta love Football :)

Ugh... for real. I just want to see the shuttle launch already. I'm lucky cause I just look East from where ever I'm at and see the shuttle go flying into the air.

One of the few good things about living here in Central Florida. ;)

SPOILERS to preceed. Go with your own caution.

Alright, I saw the movie and I enjoyed it. It was just a fun and suspenseful movie. It did have some flaws and some minor problems that you could just pick apart (Like, how did the family in the end in Boston appear unscathed and perfectly fine in thier little brick house, when the aliens took out almost all of Jersey as it appeared. I'll make sure to make a note of this if and when an alien invasion ever occurs, cause I now know where to go...).

Tom Cruise did his thing, even though I think he's a nutter at the moment, and Dakota Fanning came across a little annoying, and the teenage kid with the angst did what all teenage kids with angst do... come off as whiny. Another thing that bothered me was how the kid survived... I won't go any futher, but I wanna know how and when he got his NAVY Seal traning, cause that was the only way he could have survived what had happened in that field.

I will say that the ending felt a little rushed, and that an extra ten minutes or so probably would not have hurt, but that's just me.

Concerning the whole Tripod thing in Osaka, I remember watching the movie and just thinking at that moment Kamikaze... That's my theory as to how the Japanese took it down.

Anyways, like I said before, War of the Worlds was a pretty good film. Even though you could pick the problems in the film apart till the end of time.

It get's 3 and 1/2 stars out of 5 from me.

Um... I dunno if this is a good thing.

Yea know... I always thought that Nicholson did a good job as the Joker, but he never really fit the look I've always thought of the Joker... but that's just me.

Him and Michelle Pfeiffer both did the best jobs as villians in the Bat films. Uma did a good job too as Poison Ivy... even though the movie was just awful.

Begins, hands down. Bale was the best Batman by far, as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. My problem with Keaton was always that he was A) Old, B ) Too short, and C) Not the best looking Bruce Wayne IMO.

Keaton was good, but I mean come on, he was no Bruce Wayne. Christian Bale did very well as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Look at the scene with Detective Flass... I mean come on! How was that not the coolest Bat moment in the film. That was Batman dead on.

So Begins gets my vote. :P

All the stars save Liam Neeson due to his characters death have all signed on for three more Batman Films.

Come on Jerry, any comic book fan would know that you can never truly kill Ra's Al Ghul. He'll be back, mark my words, he'll be back. And you better believe the Lazarus Pit is gonna be involved. ;)

::Wound go into the techincalities of it all, but know's it's too late to do so... ::

Your Lightsaber is Blue Blue is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, and truth.

Sounds good to me. ;)

Actually Carmine Falcone, who was played by Tom Wilkinson, and Scarecrow is played by Cillian Murphy are two of the villians in Batman. Not to mention Ra's Al Ghul (Who's now pronouced as "Raz" as most people thought) by Ken Wantanabe. All of which did a spectacular job.

And I was one of those special people that caught the premiere of it around here on Monday... and then was naughty and saw it at midnight on Tuesday (Shhh. Don't tell Huff). But the movie was faaaannnntastic, I mean wow, I had to see it again. This film does a tremendous service to Batman, and it's Batman the way he should have been done 16 years ago under Burton.

This is offically my favorite film of 2005 so far. The sets, the fights, the chases, the Villians, and the heroes were all wonderfully done. They cast all the right people for all the right roles, and everyone did very well in them. I could not have asked for a better film. I had very little problems with it, as some of the flaws were just very minimal in my eyes. And don't let the Burton fans dissuade you, this is the film Burton wished he did those years ago. :P

Go see it, it really is worth it. I can't wait till the sequal (As Christopher Noland has a trilogy planned for the Bat films)

And yes, these films are going to reboot the series and try and erase the bad taste that "Batman and Robin" left in people's mouths... so the Batman from before... well, never really happened. We'll just say that was Batman from Earth-2 in the DC Universe. ;)

Batman Begins: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars. Those flaws were small, but kept it from getting that full 5 out of 5, it's still worth it. :)

I've been getting the same news off of Newsarama and IGN. Not to mention a handful of my customers that like to tell me about all this cause they literally live in their parents basement. ;)

I keep forgetting if it was December of 99' or 00' that I first joined the Arcadia, I think it might have been 2000... regardless, I feel older and older as the days go by.

::Sniff::

So that means it's either my five year anniversary coming up, or my four. I'm sure Moose knows. He's good at keeping track of all that. ;)

As someone who is both a movie geek, and gets bombarded by information at work, I can tell you this, as confirmed by the brains behind every Marvel film, Producer Avi Arad:

-Director Bryan Singer has jumped ship, leaving X3 for "creative purposes" to direct... Superman Returns, slated for May 2006 release, for Warner Brothers. This has resulted into what seems like a war between Superman Returns (WB) and X-Men 3 (20th Century Fox). Who will be on top?? Guess we'll have to wait and see. :P

-Singer took with him James Marsden (aka Cyclops) to play a supporting role in Superman Returns. He was in talks with Famke Janssen to possibly cast her in Superman Returns, but that fell through the cracks and she will be returning in X3 as the Phoenix, more than likely as the Dark Phoenix as fans (And myself) believe, but Arad has been mum on the plot.

-Mardsen will apparently be in the film, playing a small role hopefully, if his Superman/X-Men schedule can work out.

-Matthew Vaughn was slated to direct X3, but quit for "personal reasons", so X3 will be directed by Brett Ratner, director of the Rush Hour films and Red Dragon.

-It has been said that two major characters WILL die in the film, as to who it is, no word yet (This isn't coming from Arad, but someone close to the film). Another X-Men, a minor one of course, is also apparently going to die. Whether or not this is the script that was finally agreed on by Arad and Ratner remains to be seen.

-In casting news; Beast will be in the next X-Film and he will be played by none other than... Kelsey Grammer. ;) Shocking I know. Apparently he will be placed in "make-up and prostheses. It will be a combination of artforms to bring it to life, but a lot of it will maintain around his face – his eyes, his mouth, and so on. It will be very much like the kind of stuff we did with The Thing" as Arad said. Interesting to see how this will work.

-Kitty Pryde, Gambit, Angel, and Colossus are confirmed as being in the next film. If they'll play a major role in the film remains to be seen. Casting is continuing on for these roles, except for Kitty Pryde, who was recently given to "Lost" star Maggie Grace.

-Most of the cast is confirmed as coming back to X3, with the exlusion of Halle Berry, who has not agreed yet to return to X3.

-The ony confirmed Villian that will appear in the next film is Juggernaut, played by Englishman Vinnie Jones

-X-Men is slated to start filming in August, with a release of Memorial Day weekend, 2006, to keep up with it's major rival "Superman Returns". Many people are skeptical about this, but Marvel and 20th Century Fox swear it will be released on time.

As that the news up to now. Keep those eyes peeled, as I'm sure more news will be sure to come. :)

::Knows way too much about all this for his own good... ::

EDIT: Concerning the Dark Phoenix part, Arad has stated that the Phoenix will play a major part in X3, but that the whole focus will not be on this story, but several, focusing on all the X-Men. I dunno how Marvel/Fox plans on doing on that, but I guess it'll all be up to Ratner.

::grins:: Giving in to the truth?

Please, this is so easy. A9 is Chewie. It's obvious. ;)

All we gotta do is hear him roar.

As for me, I'm so Lando Calrissian. And if you doubt that, I'll put you in Carbon freeze. :P

The guy had nothing that would need organs to support other than the organs themselves.  What the heck did he have them for?  I could see it if he was a Terminator-like robot and needed to support a skin or something, but he didn't.  What function did the organs serve?

Grievous is suppose to be the precursor to what Anakin would become, half man, half machine. Grievous was once an alien on some planet (Can’t remember the name, it was in Star Wars Visionaries the Graphic Novel if anyone saw it) and he was taken by the Separatists, after they nearly killed him, for his amazing tactical skills and turned into this droid like being who would be General Greivous. That;s the reason why he coughed all the time. ;)

But yea… his was just a guinea pig for what the Emperor would wind up doing to Anakin after the Mustafar fight.

I could not understand Anakin's feelings or motivations clearly. As an actor Hayden is not all that convincing. He has the looks maybe but not the skills. They should have replaced him for part III with a more seasoned actor.

 

You couldn't really feel Vader's anger enough. Hayden didn't portray an intense hatred like the Emperor did so well in Return of the Jedi.

I actually do not blame Hayden for this, I blame Lucas's directing. If you've seen "Shattered Glass" you'll know what I mean. I knew all the actors in the movie had the chops to give spectacular performaces, but when you have weak dialogue in the script, and bad directing, there is nothing they can do. I leave the blame soley on Lucas for this.

They should have absolutely! cut the Younglings scene. It was totally sick and completely unnecessary.

I cannot disagree with you more. It obviously show's Anakins desent to the Dark Side, and we all know that he and the Emperor were responsible for wiping out all the Jedi anyways. It's as simple as this, if your name isn't Obi-Wan or Yoda, and your a Jedi, you're cannon fodder. So, sadly enough, the Younglings had to die. It was either going to be at the point of blaster or Anakin's Lightsaber.

They should have included more of the Wookies for the kids sake and make it family oriented. There were two year olds in the audience. I would not let my children see this movie. And what happened to Vader on the hill side, come on you can't let kids see that. Even I'm going to have nightmares about General Grievous.

I would not recommend a single parent to take any small child to see this movie. There's a reason why the MPAA gave the film a PG-13 rating. :P

Lucas had given fair enough warning to parents that this movie was not going to be kid orientated, and that it was going to be terribly dark. War is never meant to be kid friendly. We do, after all, witness the total destruction of the Republic and the Jedi, as well as the rise of Darth Vader.

I applaud Lucas for this, even though it might hurt him a little, this movie just had to be darker if it was going to be a sucess.

I wouldn't take a little kid to see Return of the King, which had the same rating, but I'd let them wait until they were a little older, you see where I'm coming from? :D

I would love to have seen more about Princess Leia's parents the King and Queen, that was a very touching moment. After all, wasn't it their planet the Death Star blew up?

Aye, it was. Senator Organa was the Senator from Alderran, and him and his wife sadly parished when the Death Star destroyed Alderran. B)

<<Wow... I just made a lot of posts on this thread... the most I've done in a while ;) >>

Who is this guy Tion Medon? And where are the rebel troops Obi-Wan asks him to prepare against Grievous?

Tion Medon is simply the man who runs Utapau, during post production people were wondering who this guy was too, but the only information available on him was that he would help the Jedi somehow, and he did this of course when he confirmed that Greivous was actually on Utapau.

I thought I saw Tions troops fighting against the droid army on the lower levels, since that's where they were located, while the Obi-Wan/Grievous fight took place on the upper levels.

* An unanswered question:  WHO THE HECK IS SIFO-DIAS?!?!?!?

Okay... this is gonna take a while...

Sifo-dias was an actual Jedi Master on the Jedi Council who died around the time of Episode I. Now, strangley enough, this was the time that Count Dooku left the Jedi order, over his fustration with the council and their response to the death of his former apprentice, Qui-Gon Jinn. Mmkay, from what I understand, Sidious impersonated the newly deceased Sifo-dias (Notice the similar sounding names?) and had the order placed in, and had his new apprentice, Count Dooku/Darth Tyrannus, who is loaded mind you thanks to his title, find Jango Fett and use him as the basis for the new clone army.

This is how I understand it, and when you think about it, it does make some sense. ;)

Hope it helps

Whoo. I'm Yoda. Dang skippy. Although I tied with Anakin/Darth Vader ;)

Yoda

69%

Darth Vader

69%

Anakin Skywalker

67%

R2-D2

67%

General Grievous

64%

Chewbacca

61%

C-3PO

58%

Clone Trooper

56%

Mace Windu

56%

Emperor Palpatine

50%

Obi Wan Kenobi

50%

Padme Amidala

50%

I was torn between Vader and Sidious. I've never really been the hugest fan of the expanded universe Sith. Call me an oldy, but Vader and Sidious will always stay right next to me.

Vader has the Force choke, Sidious has the Force lightning. I just had to go for old pasty face. I've always thought he was so cool. To quote Nigel Powers "But those Belgians just made you so dang evil... and they share a border with the Dutch."

Pure evil is just too tempting to resist. ;)

As the resident movie geek, we all of course know that I must chime in. :D

I was fortunate enough to catch a midnight show last night, and even though I am a disenchanted Star Wars fan, thanks to the last two episodes, I thought Episode III was pretty solid. Not great, mind you, but the best thing since The Empire Strikes Back (I just cannot stand the Ewoks in ROTJ).

My only beef was some of the dialogue and acting from the stars. They all seemed pretty stiff at times, and sounded as if they were reading their lines off of cue cards, rather then with some flare. We all know they have the chops to do it, but when Samuel "I will strike down upon thee" Jackson seems stiff... you know you have a problem.

The opening battle was pretty good, all though Palpatine seemed a little strange during some parts on the ship... I dunno why. Everything else was great. Ian McDiarmid, Ewan McGregor, and Yoda (Okay... the guys at ILM) were awesome. I loved McDiarmid slowly corrupting Anakin, and I felt a little pang in my gut when Anakin joined Darth Sidious, you could just feel the reason why he was doing it and you couldn't help but pity him, kudos to Hayden. And yes, I did fell a bit of nostalgia when Darth Vader/Anakin did the notorious Force choke on someone, and the person had the silly face and everything, it was great... just loved seeing that again, and it's sad that I'm a big enough geek to get excited about that ;). McGregor just channels Sir Alec Guinness and does a great job in the role. Yoda… well… he’s Yoda… come on! Enough said. ;)

The lightsaber fights kept me on the edge of my seat, even when some of the "You are so beautiful" bits bored me. The Anakin/Obi-Wan fight was awesome, and was one of the few things that surpassed my expectations; as was the other fight that was woven in there, but I won't say since I don't wanna ruin a really awesome part of the movie for some people.

I especially enjoyed John Williams’s compositions, even though he wasn't as loud and grandiose as he usually is. "Hero Falls" the music that you heard during the Anakin/Obi fight was great, they have a music video to it on Star Wars.com and I've been humming it all day.

All in all, it was a good movie, it could have been polished a bit if Lucas would have left all the dialogue to someone else… but well all of course know he wouldn’t do that. On a scale from 1 to 5 it gets a 3 ½ from me. So yes… go see it, if not you’ll be missing out the opportunity of a lifetime. ;)

Eh, it was a disappointing ending. I'll just say that. I wasn't happy with the whole Shran plot, but what can I do? Just futher proof that the BB Twins just need to go.

Terra Prime was a far more suiting finale, excellent episode that made you feel for the characters far more than "These are the Voyages..." Oh well.

::Tosses a few bills into the jar::

I totally understand that some people are going to like ENT, and some aren't, thats natural. But I get the feeling that the peeps who post the ENT bashing topics or go into a ENT topic and say something derogatory, are Professional On-Line Bashers, and go around to all the popular pop culture / sci fi forums and just bash, no matter what the show or subject.

I just had to chime in for this comment... ya wanna know what they call professional online bashers??? Bloggers... I know, I know, off the topic, but I just had to say. :D

<~~~~ The one who is still reamining mum on the topic of Enterprise's cancellation <_<