I Want My MTV

For a little stretch of this timeline, everybody who had haircuts like Luke Skywalker could get laid.

And there were plenty of guys that were probably forced to have Luke Skywalker haircuts, like the dudes on Battlestar Galactica heh.

Now, back in the days when Star Wars came out, there wasn't any such thing as VCRs, so if you wanted to see Star Wars, you had to go to a movie theatre and just remember the stuff you saw there, y'know, 'cause you couldn't just purchase it and watch it over and over again as many times as you wanted and totally desensitize yerself to the shit.

And that made things even worse for TV shows like Battlestar Galactica, 'cause if you missed one of those shows, that was it, baby, I mean, who knows when the TV was gonna play that show again heh.

But nowadays both of them things is no big deal, y'know, 'cause you know you can always record junk or buy the DVD or catch it the next time they play it or watch it on On Demand or whatever.

Its not "special" like it used to be, where it was sorta a big deal to go out to the movies and see Star Wars.

It was more like going to the circus, it was more like Star Wars was visiting your town or something.

Or, in the case of Battlestar Galactica, you knew every other Battlestar Galactica fan in the world was out there somewhere in the dark watching the same show as you.

Well, mebbe not in the whole world, but whatever, you know what I'm saying, it sorta explains what the appeal of watching something playing on TV is even though you own the DVD and you coulda watched it whenever you want.

Its that old fashioned movie magic heh.

Saturday morning cartoons were another thing like that, before there was a bunch of cartoon channels and the Disney DVD babysitter, there was only a couple hours a day you could watch cartoons, and there wasn't jack shit to watch as far as cartoons went on Sunday.

And the only times they played cartoons during primetime was a "Special Presentation" reserved for holiday junk like that Charlie Brown Christmas thing, and we'd get all excited and shit, 'member?

I mean, we liked that Charlie Brown Christmas shit even though it sucked some serious ass, that's just how starved for cartoons they kept us ahaha.

But now its like, shit, there's cartoons everywhere, man, big deal.

I have no idea how to recapture some of that old fashioned movie magic and apply it to games (or anything else), I mean, I thought about it for at least thirty seconds now and I got nuthin.

Mebbe Live Events could be sorta like that, if they were done a little better, y'know, like, "its Friday Night Online!" or something.

But it made me think that you COULD recapture some of that old fashioned movie magic in games by having movies play in a movie theatre inside a game.

Y'know, 'cause you can't record those or buy 'em on DVD unless the game has that innit too.

Although I guess you could "bootleg" it with a screen capture program or something, but whatever, the point is you could play old (or new) episodes of Battlestar Galactica inside a game no prob.

And sorta simulate that 70s movie magic.

Oh sure, it wouldn't make sense in an Ork game, but its kinda weird to think about all the scifi games that don't have anything like that, seeing as how TV screens sorta pervade our current universe.

And sure, it takes "extra effort" to implement something like that in a game, especially if you are gonna create your own content, insteada just managing your players creating content, or getting a deal with whoever to "relay" episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard or something.

Same thing with radio and shit.

Another thing it made me think of is the way a game that does have TV or Radio or Movies and ads in it always tries to do comedic little things with it.

Y'know, 'cause they know they don't have time to do anything good, so they just make a quick little joke out of it.

Or they figure people are here to play a game, and not watch some damn thing on TV.

But what if somebody did do something really great with it.

Something that was even better than the game you were playing heh.

Something that would turn all those lame-ass "adventurers" into proper couch potatoes like us.

But you had to play the game to watch it.

That kinda shit almost did happen in Max Payne and Vampire Bloodlines, I mean, I know I never missed a show in Max Payne heh.

Hey man, they could have real live commercials and everything, skies the limit, really, I don't have anything invested in this dumb little idea that ain't got nothing to do with the stuff that really matters to me.

Y'know, like helicopters.

I just think its weird that people got their own personal houses in games but no TV heh.

No wonder nobody wants to hang out there, its like spending some end-of-the-world break-out-the-acoustic-guitar hello-silence-my-old-friend sent-to-your-room time or something ahaha.

"Hey, wanna come over to my cave and stare at the wall?"

See, something like that makes me think that maybe the sword-n-orc games ain't got it so good afterall.

I mean, I sure as hell don't wanna hear a bunch of goddam minstrels play anything on Minstrel Radio or whatever they had back in them days heh.

When we could be watching Southpark or the New Battlestar Galactica or whatever on our virtual couches with our virtual buddies.

Heck, there's no reason that virtual movie theatres couldn't charge real money and play real movies.

Don't ya think Tarantino or Elvira or somebody would be turned on by the idea of "virtually" hosting some kinda limited-audience Grindhouse thing like that?

There's bound to be some out-of-work aging actor dude or something totally willing to host that kinda in-club shit heh.

I mean, worst case, think Danny Bonaduce and Gary Coleman or something ahaha.

And fer the love of mike, if people with Luke Skywalker haircuts can get laid, anything is possible, y'know?