Jake

Idle Thumbs 297: Patent Pending

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4 hours ago, Flay said:

After catching up on a few podcasts I missed, I'm really interested in learning more about the layout of Disneyland and the psychology behind theme parks in general. Does anyone know any good podcasts or books on the topic?

I think there was actually a GDC talk about it. I haven't seen it but I've seen it cited: http://gdcvault.com/play/1305/Everything-I-Learned-About-Level

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Regarding Star Wars: A New Hope in relation to when it was released, I urge everyone to go and find a copy of J.W. Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars, this triumphant, in-depth book about the story behind that movie. It really puts the entirety of the film into context, looking at how a young film student lucked into making this ultra successful wacky nostalgia film about his youth in the 50s and used that fame as leverage to just make his dream sci-fi mashup. Nothing at the time was in any way as bold as Star Wars was; my dad tells me about how he went to see Ralph Bakshi's Wizards like, multiple times in the theatre just to see the trailer.

 

The book has so many incredible stories. Nearly final versions of the film Lucas showed to his friends (you know, "Steven Spielberg" and "Francis Ford Copolla") still didn't have the X-Wing and Tie Fighter shots finished, so he had spliced in 1950s WWII film shots. The film had its budget just slashed repeatedly by Fox, and individual executives had to continually fight to get it made. Hell, there's even a picture of the original hand-written version of opening crawl, which fucking Brian de Palma ended up having to edit down to what ended up in the film. It's nuts. Go buy the book. 

 

Also, you get a full description of the evolution of the weird ass script, so you can be one of those nerds who gasps excitedly when a character is described as a "Guardian of the Whills" In Rogue One

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Oh man I am so jealous hearing about that Zadie Smith talk. I just read her collection of columns (Changing my mind) which had, I think, a similar effect on me - just hearing/reading someone talk deeply and articulately about many subjects that I care about, and some that I didn't know I cared about, is incredibly soothing.

 

I think you lucked out a bit by having Eggers replaced by Chabon, Eggers is kind of shallow comparatively, at least from what I've read of his.

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