Scott Ruggels

I saw 2001 in its first run when I was about 13.  I do not consider it a bad movie in any way.  I agree with the review of it published ten years later (on the anniversary of its release, IIRC) in the campus paper, where the writer's key line was, "I didn't understand a d----d thing in it, but I knew it was cool as s--t."  Which it absolutely, thoroughly was in the late 1960s.
 
OTOH, one of my favorite things back in the day was reading Joe Bob Briggs's reviews of bad movies, for comments like
I'd never watch any of those movies, but the reviews were a high point in my grad school week.

The only way to watch 2001 is with the remote in hand and your thumb firmly on the FF button.  Every time the classical music starts hit that button like it owes you money.  This brings the running time to 30-45 minutes.  After that the whole thing is just bad Star Trek.....The Original Series.    Kirk would have whooped HAL the same way he beat Landru and the M-5 computers before him.🖖

I always believed that those two movies were horribly misunderstood.
Hudson Hawk was incredibly mis-advertised.  The studio bought what they thought was going to be another Die-Hard.   What they got from producer Bruce Willis was a modern version of a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby “Road” picture. Silly plot, lots of gags and musical numbers. The whole schmere.
    So they just advertised it as another Die-Hard anyway and the public who were expecting chocolate cake but got tutti-frutti ice cream instead were upset.  They didn’t understand what was going on and trashed the film.
   
  WWW on the other hand.... I have said that the only thing wrong with that movie was the entire script.  Casting...Good. Set Design....Great.  Music...All right.  The idea of upping the Steampunk quotient...Fantastic.  Even the giant mechanical spiders...Acceptable.
 Both stars in drag, Ted Levine’s Southern General that made you long for his reserved dignified portrayal of Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs,  Mr Branagh’s awful accent and scenery chewing and sequences like escaping from the buzz saw shurikens of doom...........What brand of crack were you people smoking?
   The shooting script should have been used to smack the writers, producers and directors into unconsciousness and after they were released from enforced drug rehab they could take another shot at the whole thing.

It is a movie that is far beyond merely stupid. The main point of contention is that Ms. Lopez plays a lesbian who falls in love with Ben even though his character is an idiot.  (That’s not just an opinion, it’s a plot point that he’s stupid and inept.)  
    However there is a scene in this film that make it VERY rentable. In it Jenny from the block delivers a very seductive soliloquy on why she finds women desirable while doing yoga in tight exercise wear.
    Guys...find this on YouTube,  trust me.

I have seen some dreadful films, ones that have won Golden Raspberries and ones that have won Golden Turkeys.
Godzilla vs the Smog Monster is pretty bad. And Plan 9 From Outer Space is bad. This is the standard that I measure bad films. I can watch and rewatch the Star Wars prequels (Phantom Menace at al) and sequels (Force Awakens et al) so I do not count any of these as bad.
There is only one film that I went to see at the cinema that I came close to working out on. That was Hook. Take everything you know and love about Peter Pan and take a dump on it. A low point for Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman although that latter comes off worst. The whole thing with the Lost Boys was lamentable. Trying to make them more American. Trash.

I don't really think this is a factor, just as all the US original movies and series remade by other countries.
 
But I will say this thread invokes too much garbage to be able to list them all out, especially the lion share of everything out of Hollywood in the 2000's.
 
Things have gotten so bad that the vast majority of what I watch now is K-Drama and Anime. 
I will occasionally watch a US release movie if people I actually know rave about it, but I haven't gone to the theater in a while, even pre-C19.  Just not worth it.

Yeah, there's a lot of movies which are deliberately bad. Or which have tiny budgets and can't accomplish whatever they wanted to accomplish based on the money available.
 
But The Last Jedi was just bad. And not in a way which had anything to do with not being able to afford good actors, good writers, good directors, or good special effects.
 
It violated the universe's own rules about how the universe worked multiple times. And not only that but made those violations into major plot points. And not just how the Force works but also how hyperdrive works because apparently you can no longer go faster than light to get ahead of a starship you're very, very slowly chasing across realspace.
 
It made no sense, objectively.
 
The military leaders on both sides of the fight have less of an idea of how a military conflict should happen than 5 year olds playing with plastic soldiers.
 
It stole scenes from the previous Star Wars movie as if the writer was too lazy to come up with new scenes.

So I'm going to add a bit if my 2 cents from a different perspective. Played champions 20 years ago, but moved back to D&D once the group Broke up. I'm pausing D&D because I'm a but bored with it and having like its direction and what products the put out. I've had a Champions campaign idea for years so now I felt was time to jump back in for something different. So I started building characters and villains I needed.
 
Hero/champions is not user friendly to novices. Its been slow going building what I need. Spencers quote above is just a symptom. Not just no examples of characters, but adventures, creatures and Villians. Traps or mooks.  When I played D&D its easy to get some monsters, basic adventure, a village or dungeon and go. No so with champions
 
Sure I had the ability to dig out some other books to make comparisons or power examples and other things. But I have those resources. I couldn't imagine someone grabbing a 6th, 5th, or 4th edition book and just going forth. Not without some resources to help them.

Somehow I managed to escape having Catcher in the Rye as assigned reading.  People's opinions of it are all over the map.
 
One of the odder things I tried reading voluntarily was In Watermelon Sugar because a friend raved about it, but at least at the time (1971) it didn't do much for me.  The book is very clearly mid-1960s post-apocalypse stuff, though from a perspective more than 50 years later the idea that the residence of the primary characters is named iDEATH is riotously funny and appropriate.

To be fair, bayonet training is nothing like sword fighting. It's actually the modern equivalent of a spear.
 

Agreed with LL.
 
I always liked Conan specifically because he was a cut above his stereotype.
 
Violent?  Yes.  Murderous?  Yes.  Barbaric?  It's in his name.  But "on a broad scale" does not mean "indiscriminately," and- admitting I cant remember everything- I can't at the moment think of an incident that could be considered unjustified.
 
Specifically because of Conan, most of rare fantasy characters are "noble barbarians," even the more tongue-in-cheek Koloth the Virile. (Yes, if you remember that thread, that is /was a real character that I played for quite some time.)
 
 
 

Yeah, but he was an entertaining thug

Armour weight is a weird beast in general, even in real life. There is definitely a difference between carting around a bag/box of armour and walking around *in* it. Lugging my armour chest from my trunk to a camp site might wind me pretty bad, but I could walk around in it for quite a while before I started to fatigue from the extra weight. Fighting in it is, honestly, only slightly more fatiguing than going with just a gambeson.
 
So, the idea that worn armour should have a lower cost towards encumbrance penalties jives in my head. Particularly if you are well trained in its use. I have definitely seen people sprint 20 yards in plate to exploit a break in a line, fight through, and be perfectly ready to keep fighting.
 
What it really comes down to, is what kind of effect do you want in your game? Do you want people to armour up? Do you want more cinematic blade-dancing? Do you want people to be able to negate armour penalties to represent their increased skill with the armour? I love representing armour in a more realistic way, but sometimes that isn't what I want. Tweak those dials and find what you like best.

Introduction to Algebra

Libraries have the best signs. 
 

 
So, what else goes on this display? I'll start. The Scarlet Letter

I made a comment one day to a former co-worker that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings, and he replied, "What's 'Wings'?"
So I said, "Do you know the song, 'Live and Let Die'?"
And he answered, "The Guns N' Roses song?"
"That's a cover. Wings did the original one for the James Bond movie."
"Oh, what's the name of the James Bond movie?"
 

The Branagh version of Henry V is worth the price of admission just for the St. Crispin's Day speech. And the music.

Like discovering that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings...?

I watched the discussion of Elves on the other thread, and only had limited interaction.  I am not a fan of the "Better in every way" Tolkeinesque Elves. Having them in games was a hold over from D&D, and everyone moving from D&D to any other Fantasy Tabletop expected the races to be included, mostly because folks moving away from D&D wanted a more "realistic" and "Less Arbitrary" rules system, but still wanted the background. At least that is how I remember it from the 70's and early 80s.  Some of use got so sick of it, that we changed Genres, going to FGU's Bushido, or Traveller, or others at the time. The time was right for the launch of Champions at the time.

My first Campaign in Fantasy Hero was sort of the usual N/W Europe based Fantasy, with the Tolkien races about, just because it was Tradition, but There were a few twists.  The Current Campaign has no Tolkien races, and has large human empires, but low to no magic.  (What magic there is is alchemical based, so no spells or spell combat. Without Magic based healing, players tend to be extremely risk averse, and take few chances and flee from foes that do not prefer diplomacy. Not a whole lot of fun for me to run.) 
 

Exactly!  Either the PCs are the city's first hero team, or the previous team nobly sacrificed themselves stopping some horrible threat, or were disgraced and disbanded and left, or had some internal disagreement and disbanded or left.
 
Ready to use heroes will be a good draw (I think) as well as giving concrete power level examples.

I watched the discussion of Elves on the other thread, and only had limited interaction.  I am not a fan of the "Better in every way" Tolkeinesque Elves. Having them in games was a hold over from D&D, and everyone moving from D&D to any other Fantasy Tabletop expected the races to be included, mostly because folks moving away from D&D wanted a more "realistic" and "Less Arbitrary" rules system, but still wanted the background. At least that is how I remember it from the 70's and early 80s.  Some of use got so sick of it, that we changed Genres, going to FGU's Bushido, or Traveller, or others at the time. The time was right for the launch of Champions at the time.

My first Campaign in Fantasy Hero was sort of the usual N/W Europe based Fantasy, with the Tolkien races about, just because it was Tradition, but There were a few twists.  The Current Campaign has no Tolkien races, and has large human empires, but low to no magic.  (What magic there is is alchemical based, so no spells or spell combat. Without Magic based healing, players tend to be extremely risk averse, and take few chances and flee from foes that do not prefer diplomacy. Not a whole lot of fun for me to run.) 
 

I would recommend minimizing NPC heroes in Coastal City, including any example hero team. The PCs should be the new cadre of heroes becoming the city's chief defenders. Rather than a default official team, write up a set of heroes that players can not only use as examples, but can play themselves right away if they don't want to deal with chargen. Perhaps one of each of the character archetypes described in Champions (ten or eleven, depending on whether you include "Patriot" as one of them), which players can pick and mix-and-match as they choose, alongside any player-created heroes.
 
NPC heroes should be the type who would make useful contacts or support, but not powerful enough to overshadow the PCs when it comes to significant threats, e.g. scientist, mystic, detective, etc.

Updating the previous rough proposal...
 
Product: Coastal City Champions (working title).
 
Purpose: Bring new players into Champions. Hopefully get them interested in broader Hero System products.
 
Method: A single book that provides a ready-to-play campaign with all the toolkit settings specified (a 'campaign+game' not a 'toolkit') plus tips on how to play, power levels, attacks and defenses, a sample hero team and villains, including an organization (Viper?) and master villain (Dr. Destroyer? Mechanon? New?), and a city setting developed enough to start a campaign (Mark Rand is considering the Pittsburgh area, transplanted to the West Coast) with a ready-to-run scenario that launches the players and GM into that city. Brief info on the larger world.  In D&D terms - Champions Complete is the DMG and PH, Coastal City Champions is the setting (i.e., Greyhawk) and MM.
 
Power Level:  Keep attacks at the standard 60AP/12d6 and defenses at the standard 20-25 to maintain parity with previously published material.  BUT:  simplify.  Maybe 350CP and 60 Complications??  The beginning superhero has (at a baseline) a single attack rather than a Multipower or a Unified Power.  Simpler builds; keep Advantages and Limitations to a reasonable minimum.  Let the characters (and players) grow into 450CP supers with Multipowers, etc. - *and* a better idea of adn appreciation for how to play and use those additional abilities.
 
Funding: Kickstarter. Start with a nice color cover and minimal B&W interior artwork; stretch goals would add more artwork and then upgrade it to color. Mention (and have) plans for future supplements: more linked adventures, a city development book; also to use Kickstarter.  Maybe have a second adventure, linked to the first, at a high enough stretch goal to fund it.
 
Staff:  Writer (Mark Rand for the setting, either Mark or someone else for the non-setting content). Editor. Proof-reader. Artist(s). Project coordinator.  There are several pro-level, accomplished Hero authors.  I am neither a writer nor an editor, but I can proof-read and coordinate.

Maybe  use Lord Liaden's Rule of X? criteria? Starting points, is a good baseline, but there has to be a  mention about Defenses, Maximum DC, Highest allowable speed, and that sort of thing. Maybe disallow powers like Clairvoyance, or Megascale Teleport? Again, because there is no class system, power level kind of has to be back calculated.  The Original Adventures were made for 250pt. Heroes and 10DC for the adventures up to 4th Edition.
 
 Agreed. to make the editing easier, we will need a set of guidelines. What structure thought?  Comics?  Television? Movies?  Sandbox?  What? 
 
 
In other projects I have worked on, and also the book covers I have worked on as well, has set "cover dress".  They are a set size.  and are usually made, and provided from  The Art department, and are set up so that it makes pre-press easy for the printers, and for the artists to keep things within spec. These will usually contain the cover graphics, a space for a title, with a font specified, and a place for the ISBN Bar code, and/or the Price.  These REALLY Help for layout. 

Inside the format should be specified. One  or two column.  Illustration size. illustrations border, or borderless,  fonts, and numbering.   In broad terms a format for presenting the material should be worked up, as well, so that authors can work from an outline, and then fill it out. I suppose follow a Paiso-like approach once again, as that seems to work.

But the page count needs to be very limited, again to keep things short and expenses low. Sound good?
 
I guess in out case was that the GM would not allow buying up attacks, or defenses. If we saved our XPs, we could buy another power, or buy off disads, but 10 dice was 10 dice.. But getting more skills was very helpful as was buying more and different defenses.