Chris

Idle Thumbs 277: Coming Attractions

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'Hidden my game by mom' was pretty funny and definitely an enjoyable way to spend 20 minutes, I'd definitely recommend it. Also, just to confirm, it is available on Android. I'm not really getting the impression that the translation is purposefully shaky though, I think the game is just weird in general.

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About the reason behind Hidden My Game By Mom translation quality: like WickedCestus said, it's really hard to tell! It's definitely some genuine-feeling bad translation, so I don't think it was manufactured by someone who can secretly speak better English. But my gut take on the situation is they knew their translation was probably bad, and also knew it would probably be funny if they didn't bother to fix it, and that happens to be a wonderful excuse not to invest in doing it "properly".

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About the reason behind Hidden My Game By Mom translation quality: like WickedCestus said, it's really hard to tell! It's definitely some genuine-feeling bad translation, so I don't think it was manufactured by someone who can secretly speak better English. But my gut take on the situation is they knew their translation was probably bad, and also knew it would probably be funny if they didn't bother to fix it, and that happens to be a wonderful excuse not to invest in doing it "properly".

That explanation sounds entirely reasonable and I am very willing to get behind it. I definitely can't imagine it being 100% intentional, as the translation isn't that bad

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I love that Jake lists Half-Life, which made you learn in the Hazard Course to use a long jump module that many players had completely forgotten about by the time they actually found one on Xen, as an example of a game that didn't feel the need to teach you every single system before letting you play the game.

Of course the Hazard Course was optional and also better world-building than the mandatory tutorial sections in most games.

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I love that Jake lists Half-Life, which made you learn in the Hazard Course to use a long jump module that many players had completely forgotten about by the time they actually found one on Xen, as an example of a game that didn't feel the need to teach you every single system before letting you play the game.

Of course the Hazard Course was optional and also better world-building than the mandatory tutorial sections in most games.

No one I knew played the hazard course. And yeah it's true I forgot about the end of Half Life :(

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This Franz Xaver Messerschmidt sculpture from around 1770 is called The Grumpy Old Soldier and he does squint menacingly, i think. But who knows what Messerschmidt had in mind with.

 

logo_d52021.jpg

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No one I knew played the hazard course.

 

That's crazy talk.  The Hazard Course was part of the whole scene/mood-setting intro.  I remember being enthralled with it the first time I played Half-Life because I'd never played a game with a diegetic tutorial and because of the little glimpses it gave you of pre-disaster Black Mesa.

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The one thing you guys forgot is that, over the plinking piano, you always hear a little girl's voice singing "I heard the news today, oh boy..." super slow.

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I feel like within the last couple years that a number of trailers have shown scenes that are either not in the movie at all or are different from the actual scene.  I imagine these are unused takes, different camera angles, or scenes cut from the final product.  I have no idea if this is intentional or not on the part of the filmmakers.  Maybe the trailer was made before the film was in its final form, maybe they're aware of trailers giving away too much.  What I'd like to see is a trailer that contains no scenes found in the actual film while still telling you what the film's about.

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About the reason behind Hidden My Game By Mom translation quality: like WickedCestus said, it's really hard to tell! It's definitely some genuine-feeling bad translation, so I don't think it was manufactured by someone who can secretly speak better English. But my gut take on the situation is they knew their translation was probably bad, and also knew it would probably be funny if they didn't bother to fix it, and that happens to be a wonderful excuse not to invest in doing it "properly".

 

Oddly enough, when I tried to find this game in the Play Store, I ended up finding it by its Dutch title - 'Verborgen Mijn Spel Door Moeder', which is the literal translation of Hidden My Game By Mom. I doubt that the developer has translated the title for each country themselves, so maybe there's some Google translate formula at work here? One that the devs couldn't care less about, or maybe found out along the publishing process and decided to implement/go along with?

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I feel like within the last couple years that a number of trailers have shown scenes that are either not in the movie at all or are different from the actual scene.  I imagine these are unused takes, different camera angles, or scenes cut from the final product.  I have no idea if this is intentional or not on the part of the filmmakers.  Maybe the trailer was made before the film was in its final form, maybe they're aware of trailers giving away too much.  What I'd like to see is a trailer that contains no scenes found in the actual film while still telling you what the film's about.

 

Essentially you want film trailers to learn from the Stanley Parable demo.

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I feel like within the last couple years that a number of trailers have shown scenes that are either not in the movie at all or are different from the actual scene. I imagine these are unused takes, different camera angles, or scenes cut from the final product. I have no idea if this is intentional or not on the part of the filmmakers. Maybe the trailer was made before the film was in its final form, maybe they're aware of trailers giving away too much. What I'd like to see is a trailer that contains no scenes found in the actual film while still telling you what the film's about.

I think trailer houses are increasingly getting access to all raw footage and not just the film. I think you're right also that people are increasingly shooting extra takes for trailers. I know that was the case with the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer for instance.

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Years ago a friend and I went to see The Minus Man, based on a cool trailer, which was original scenes of people talking about the movie, which I didn't realize at the time, and left feeling a little baffled

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I feel like within the last couple years that a number of trailers have shown scenes that are either not in the movie at all or are different from the actual scene.  I imagine these are unused takes, different camera angles, or scenes cut from the final product.  I have no idea if this is intentional or not on the part of the filmmakers.  Maybe the trailer was made before the film was in its final form, maybe they're aware of trailers giving away too much.  What I'd like to see is a trailer that contains no scenes found in the actual film while still telling you what the film's about.

 

Yup, this is correct! Oftentimes big budget films start cutting trailers as soon as dailies are being shot. So it's common to have different dialogue takes, action takes, shots that get cut from the film, jokes etc. Sometimes they get taken out of the trailer if they're not in the film, but usually they don't care.

 

Another thing is sometimes dialogue takes work better in the context of a trailer than in the film because the energy level or nuance is different. The filmmaker generally has very little to do with making the trailer until late in the process when they get sent cuts to approve or disapprove of.

 

Some films do shoot stuff specifically for the trailer. For example, the rotating shot in this

isn't in the film at all because it was made for the trailer.
 has shots made just for the trailer to make up its structure. Of course, one of the best is the
that depicted the factory making the Terminators.

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You want a trailer like 

 

YES!  I totally think this could sell a lot of movies, even by directors/producers/stars who aren't as charismatic as Albert Brooks.

 

Or maybe Albert Brooks just does the trailer for every movie!

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Downloaded Hidden My Game By Mom which is really great. Recommended it to a few friends, and now one of them got her entire office to download it. 

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