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Rocksicles posted:If they used a Man o War, they'd also have to crew it. Yeah, for Man o War's you're talking a crew of 800 for a first rate. Even 40 gun ships would carry at least 200 men.
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Mar 17, 2014 18:56
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Axel Serenity posted:Really can't wait for next season, but a part of me died with Gates. Such a great loving character. I do hold out hope that Billy is around, but goddamn. Gates, man. I was so sad to see Gates go. This show has been great and might get me to go back and watch Spartacus. I remember watching the first couple episodes of Spartacus but not really getting into it, this show had me hooked(no pun intended) from about episode 3. I was a big fan of pirate stuff growing up though so I probably would have watched the whole season even if it was terrible. Also, high fives to people playing Sid Meier's Pirates!, I played that back in the days when you had to boot it up off a floppy disk. It was an amazingly detailed game for the time, and I was happy that the rerelease captured most of the original quality of the game(dancing not withstanding)
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Mar 17, 2014 19:21
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The thing I remember most about Pirates! was: Player: "Chewbang!"(points) Villain: "Urgbhhh!"(pulls sword)
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Mar 17, 2014 19:39
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Pirates! is an absolute classic, and the remake is pretty solid, but if you just want to play a game where you're a pirate then AC: Black Flag is definitely the way to go.
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Mar 17, 2014 19:55
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What about other good pirate movie/tv shows? Or just naval combat in general. It's really fascinating.
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Mar 17, 2014 20:55
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The ITV Horatio Hornblower series was pretty fun, albeit about the British Navy, as opposed to pirates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornblower_(TV_series)
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Mar 17, 2014 21:01
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CODChimera posted:What about other good pirate movie/tv shows? Or just naval combat in general. It's really fascinating. The Hornblower series is very good.
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Mar 17, 2014 21:01
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PaybackJack posted:I was so sad to see Gates go. This show has been great and might get me to go back and watch Spartacus. I remember watching the first couple episodes of Spartacus but not really getting into it, this show had me hooked(no pun intended) from about episode 3. Like Black Sails, Spartacus takes three or four episodes to get rolling. The Thing in the Pit, episode four, is where I got hooked (and so did some of the victims lol; tell me that isn't intentional). Stick it out. It's worth the watch. The back half of the first season and the prequel (Gods of the Arena, which you want to watch after the first season) is where the show fires on all cylinders. Season 2 is the low point for a number of reasons, but if you can get through that and into season 3, you're in for some absolutely crazy poo poo.
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Mar 17, 2014 21:07
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The first episodes of Spartacus are notoriously bad. It starts finding its groove midway through first season and it's all good from there.
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Mar 17, 2014 22:36
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I'd have a hard time arguing that season 2 of Spartacus is the low point considering what had happened with Andy Whitfield. Liam took what he had to work with and ended up knocking it out of the park just like Andy did. It was a slow start but he had such enormous shoes to fill I can't lay any sort of blame at his feet. The worst I can say about season 2 is that Andy had died and that Navia had been replaced and I wasn't a huge fan of the actress but she did ok trying to go from broken woman to a relatively bad rear end killer. Looking back I'm not sure the first actress could have done any better.
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Mar 17, 2014 22:47
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Spartacus doesn't take a few episodes to get rolling because the story demanded it, it too a few episodes to get going because the first two episodes are just bad. The third episode isn't amazing but is a visible u-turn in terms of direction for the show.
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Mar 17, 2014 23:27
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HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:I'd have a hard time arguing that season 2 of Spartacus is the low point considering what had happened with Andy Whitfield. Liam took what he had to work with and ended up knocking it out of the park just like Andy did. It was a slow start but he had such enormous shoes to fill I can't lay any sort of blame at his feet. The worst I can say about season 2 is that Andy had died and that Navia had been replaced and I wasn't a huge fan of the actress but she did ok trying to go from broken woman to a relatively bad rear end killer. Looking back I'm not sure the first actress could have done any better. I'ma throw my reply in spoilers for the guy who hasn't watched it yet. Sorry for the black bars. (And for clogging this thread with Spartacus chat yet again.) I liked Vengeance, but I found it the weakest of all the seasons, which is why I call it the low point. There are some pretty lol parts to it, don't get me wrong--the fall of the arena, spartacus.jpg, and the face-chop all come to mind--but it was missing a lot of what made the first season and the prequel so good: the upstairs/downstairs story that oozed class warfare, the fights that held different meaning for different characters, and loving John Hannah owning every scene he was in. Blood and Sand--and to a greater extent, Gods of the Arena--were paragons of tight plotting and organic story that rose from character desires. Except for the green-screen scenes, it could've been a play, and that's a huge compliment. Vengeance lost a lot of that. It was a transition season, taking the story from small and intimate scenes to battlefields south of Rome, and while it wasn't bad, it felt more functional than anything: it was about Spartacus finally getting revenge on Glaber, who was the weakest villain of the series, and raising an army in the process. Replacing old roles with new actors and actresses was the least of the season's issues. War of the Damned, on the other hand, was balls-deep from the first episode to the last. Crassus, while not as comically hedonistic as Batiatus, was a really great antagonist. Caesar got rear end-raped by Justin Bieber. The constant chess-match between Spartacus and Crassus was fantastic, and that fight at the end between them was probably the greatest moment in the series, barring the fight at the end of GOTA. Vengeance was a bridge, and again, it certainly wasn't bad, but compared to what came before and after it, it's by far the weakest.
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Mar 17, 2014 23:28
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That whole post could just read "more fighting and that slave girl from the bath. Every season."
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Mar 18, 2014 00:15
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CODChimera posted:What about other good pirate movie/tv shows? Or just naval combat in general. It's really fascinating. Master and Commander is a pretty damned awesome movie. Don't know how historically accurate it is but it shows a bunch of life on a war ship and has some awesome battle scenes and cat and mouse tactics.
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Mar 18, 2014 01:53
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I'm thinking about wandering into random waiting rooms in childrens' hospitals just to read Stephen Biesty's Man-Of-War cross-section book. Of course I could just buy the book, but it's not the same as reading a torn-up, heavily weathered copy since those books were obviously the best thing in the waiting room.
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Mar 18, 2014 02:05
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3Romeo posted:I'ma throw my reply in spoilers for the guy who hasn't watched it yet. Sorry for the black bars. (And for clogging this thread with Spartacus chat yet again.) I agree with this 100% By default if we're ranking seasons one of them is going to have to be the low point and I'd agree that was it. It was the 2nd act and had issues a lot of shows and movies suffer from in that it is as you said a bridge. So yeah, I do agree with everything you've got from. Crassus and Batiatus were both amazing and totally separate villans. The latter seeing him as a money machine and the other as an equal makes it at least in my mind that you can't even really compare the two. When Crassus and Spartacus finally meet in battle I do quite like that writers found a way for Spartacus to beat Crassus while losing to him. The moment Spartacus catches the move that killed off Crassus first champion, Spartacus was proven superior AND the story remained steady from a historical standpoint. The writers didn't have to do that, but in retrospect that was probably the best thing they could have done to cap off a series that will be talked about for years to come. So yeah that was just a lot of words to say that I agree with you even if I don't like that I do.
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Mar 18, 2014 02:21
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CODChimera posted:What about other good pirate movie/tv shows? Or just naval combat in general. It's really fascinating. If you want to branch out to books, David Weber (yes, that Weber, the Honor Harrington guy) has the Safehold series which is pretty good and features a good bit of naval action. Along with court politics and intrigue and stuff.
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Mar 18, 2014 04:53
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Besides Treasure Island, Captain and Commander and that Horatio Hornblower adaptation already mentioned which I liked, what I know about the age of sail comes from books and their adaptations to the screen. Herman Merville's Moby Dick is a great primer for how a whaling ship was run, John Huston's film adaptation with Gregory Peck as Ahab is considered a classic, the miniseries starring Patrick Stewart is really good, and Bill Sienkiewicz's Moby Dick graphic novel is really good. Herman Merville's Billy Budd I vaguely remember was about politics at sea. I never bothered to watch a screen adaptation of it yet. Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling is about a spoiled rich kid acclimating to life aboard a merchant ship. Ugh, I still remember reading about the salt burns, which happens to your skin where it meets clothes when you are new to sea life. It makes me wonder how all those people on Black Sails manage to wear the same clothes after they've taken a dip in the ocean. The Bounty starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson is about the mutiny on the Bounty, a British naval warship. But none of these deal with pirates or have ship to ship battles.
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Mar 18, 2014 05:50
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Can't believe we haven't mentioned Cabin Boy yet. It has everything. Basically a retold Odyssey. And the guy that played the manager in Major League is in it. So you know it's good!
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Mar 18, 2014 05:56
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Is AC: Black Flag really that good? My only experience with the franchise was the first game which was just like 4 missions rehashed over and over.
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Mar 18, 2014 06:45
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HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:Is AC: Black Flag really that good? My only experience with the franchise was the first game which was just like 4 missions rehashed over and over. The story missions are whatever, the real fun comes from sailing around and fighting sea battles. Also sea shanties.
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Mar 18, 2014 07:01
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Solice Kirsk posted:Can't believe we haven't mentioned Cabin Boy yet. It has everything. Basically a retold Odyssey. And the guy that played the manager in Major League is in it. So you know it's good! Yup, Cabin Boy was legit awesome
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Mar 18, 2014 07:05
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HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:I'd have a hard time arguing that season 2 of Spartacus is the low point considering what had happened with Andy Whitfield. Liam took what he had to work with and ended up knocking it out of the park just like Andy did. It was a slow start but he had such enormous shoes to fill I can't lay any sort of blame at his feet. The worst I can say about season 2 is that Andy had died and that Navia had been replaced and I wasn't a huge fan of the actress but she did ok trying to go from broken woman to a relatively bad rear end killer. Looking back I'm not sure the first actress could have done any better. I think Liam pretty much nailed it from the start, Andy did a decent job he just didn't have much to work with, and the character of Spartacus just didn't stand out much in the first season.
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Mar 18, 2014 07:38
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Kyle Hyde posted:The story missions are whatever, the real fun comes from sailing around and fighting sea battles. Also sea shanties. The story missions are usually a bit of a rehash here and there but some of them are loving sensational. The actual story is brilliant because of the voice acting of the Pirates. Blackbeard is awesome. Also... take the Spartacus over to the Spartacus thread, it could use the love. Rocksicles fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Mar 18, 2014 |
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Mar 18, 2014 08:50
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Some good old fashioned sea stories are the Captain Bligh trilogy. Especially the 2nd book Men Against the Sea. Having some 18 men on a 25ft open boat drifting about 4000 miles on open sea is amazing. They only lost 1 man because his head was smashed in by natives as they were running away. Good stuff.
George H.W. Cunt fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Mar 18, 2014 |
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Mar 18, 2014 09:51
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SaltLick posted:Some good old fashioned sea stories are the Captain Bligh trilogy. Especially the 2nd book Men Against the Sea. Having some 18 men on a 25ft open boat drifting about 4000 miles on open sea is amazing. They only lost 1 man because his head was smashed in by natives as they were running away. Good stuff. The mutiny on the Bounty is one of those true stories that makes fiction it's bitch. You couldn't write that poo poo and have anyone believe it if it wasn't so well recorded. It's seriously one of the most interesting events in history. Bligh's remarkable seamanship, being attacked by a native tribe, the mutiny being turned away at Tahiti, the fact the mutineers sailed off and started an island civilization that no one discovered for several decades and still exists to this day. It's just amazing. Wholeheartedly agree with that recommendation and would say that everyone should read it. Edit: Tahiti not Fiji. Been awhile. Solice Kirsk fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Mar 18, 2014 |
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Mar 18, 2014 13:19
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Solice Kirsk posted:The mutiny on the Bounty is one of those true stories that makes fiction it's bitch. You couldn't write that poo poo and have anyone believe it if it wasn't so well recorded. It's seriously one of the most interesting events in history. I like the Gibson/Hopkins version the best, as the older two movies, as far as i remember, heavily romantized Fletcher & co and kind of demonized Bligh too much or emphasized too much on certain aspects of his flaws as Captain (corporal punishment). The Hopkins version seems more true to the story and more accurately portrays Bligh's real flaws and abilities (great seaman, bad at people skills/disciplining). Also more watchable since it's also the latest of the three films with better effects. Been a while since i saw it, but from what i remember Bligh's problem was his bad personal skills; passive aggressive, verbally abusive but for his time very lenient on physical punishment. I.e flogging a sailor for desertion instead of the more common punishment which was death. Falukorv fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Mar 18, 2014 |
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Mar 18, 2014 16:31
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savinhill posted:Yup, Cabin Boy was legit awesome Fancy lad.
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Mar 18, 2014 18:19
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Man, that was a fantastic finale! I've always loved pirate stuff, and I remember how psyched I was when there was a pirate exhibit at a museum here in Louisville. This show makes me feel like a kid again! I do have a sort of odd question for Five Cent Deposit, though: I love the credits in the show. Is that a model of some sort, or all just CGI?
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Mar 18, 2014 20:37
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10 Beers posted:Man, that was a fantastic finale! I've always loved pirate stuff, and I remember how psyched I was when there was a pirate exhibit at a museum here in Louisville. This show makes me feel like a kid again! It's CGI. I found this article when looking for high res screenshots, it's pretty good.
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Mar 18, 2014 20:43
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AFewBricksShy posted:It's CGI. I found this article when looking for high res screenshots, it's pretty good. Thanks! Sorta makes me sad, though. I wanted that to be a real thing sitting around somewhere.
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Mar 18, 2014 20:52
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It's been several years since I've seen it, but I'd also recommend The Bounty. It has gently caress-all to do with naval combat, but in terms of showing a slice of sea life during the era, it's pretty good. And from what I'm aware of, it sticks fairly close to the historical event, without lionizing or demonizing either Bligh or Christian. There's also a lot of class conflict at play between officers and enlisted, which helps explain the kind of royal naval culture that the pirates were rejecting, and which Black Sails alludes to, but never really tackles head-on.
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Mar 18, 2014 21:31
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HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:Is AC: Black Flag really that good? My only experience with the franchise was the first game which was just like 4 missions rehashed over and over. Black Flag is good because it's a huge departure from most of what made AC AC. There are still lovely forced stealth missions. If you're willing to put up with some major bugginess and older graphics the Pirates of the Caribbean game, no really, hear me out, is pretty great. It originally wasn't a movie tie-in! Basically all they did was add in a Black Pearl ship and other minor hooks. There's a huge mod for it that's great too. Way more ship stuff than in AC.
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Mar 18, 2014 22:07
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IRQ posted:Black Flag is good because it's a huge departure from most of what made AC AC. There are still lovely forced stealth missions. You're talking about the Bethesda game for Xbox right? I agree with you 100%. It had nothing to do with the movie, but was all sorts of fun to play and explore.
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Mar 18, 2014 22:27
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10 Beers posted:Man, that was a fantastic finale! I've always loved pirate stuff, and I remember how psyched I was when there was a pirate exhibit at a museum here in Louisville. This show makes me feel like a kid again! That reminds me that there is a pirates exhibit at the museum here in Houston going on. I definitely need to check it out now. Oh and it closes Sunday so I guess I need to hurry.
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Mar 18, 2014 22:31
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10 Beers posted:Thanks! Sorta makes me sad, though. I wanted that to be a real thing sitting around somewhere. Yeah, I agree that the opening titles are gorgeous. Some of the shots do look absolutely real, too, and I know exactly what you mean about wishing they were photographed models. Of course I can't ever share the other concepts with you but this one blew everything else out of the water. Every time I watch our opening titles I think "God drat that kicks rear end!", love our theme as well. Five Cent Deposit fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 01:21
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Solice Kirsk posted:You're talking about the Bethesda game for Xbox right? I agree with you 100%. It had nothing to do with the movie, but was all sorts of fun to play and explore. I guess it came out on xbox too, but Bethsoft just published it. I actually didn't know either of those things. The PC version allowed for a ton of modding that really helped with bugs, cut content, etc.
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Mar 19, 2014 02:00
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The theme is amazing. Makes me want to dance a jig, or whatever you do with that style of music. Great show. Came for the Spartacus comparisons, stayed because it's not like Spartacus at all.
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Mar 19, 2014 14:11
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Yeah this show has exceeded my expectations by a wide margin. I've loved pirates since I was a little kid so would have watched it all the way through no matter what, but it helps that it's legit entertaining and keeps me guessing even though I know Treasure Island and what happens to the real pirates.
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Mar 19, 2014 14:27
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We knew what became of Spartacus and it was still a wild ride
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Mar 19, 2014 17:38
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