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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

Attack of the Clones to Cost Economy $300m 379

Posted by timothy from the but-think-of-the-toy-revenues dept.
Audent writes: "Attack of the Clones may make you sick but according to this story, it will cost the US economy $300 million in lost productivity what with all the nerds calling in with a bad case of midiclorianitis. ... Nerds and geeks and propellorheads are singled out as being most at risk. Take your medication now! dammit." A nameless reader also points to a review (looks like two, but only one is up at the time of this writing) up at http://www.pstwo.net/.
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Attack of the Clones to Cost Economy $300m More

Attack of the Clones to Cost Economy $300m

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  • bad assessment (Score:5, Funny)

    by flynt ( 248848 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @08:41PM (#3454823)
    I'm sorry but if I'm not waiting in line for this movie, I'd just be playing solitairre at work. So really the economy is being spurred by me going out and spending money, no?

    • Re:bad assessment (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not bad. Personnally I have 7 "appointments" with Star Wars fan's girlfriends on that day. I'll go see the movie on the 17th and Natalie Portman won't excite me at all.

    • Re:bad assessment (Score:5, Funny)

      by Darth_Burrito ( 227272 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:48PM (#3455055)
      No, no, no. They are talking about people taking sick days after seeing the movie, not to see the movie.

      I haven't felt this awful since we saw that Ronald Reagan film... (Airplane)
    • I'm sorry but if I'm not waiting in line for this movie, I'd just be playing solitairre at work.

      It will likely be a slow day at work anyhow, what with all the IT types out of the building.

      Or maybe the lone clueless guy left holding the fort in tech support will have to handle all the calls usually reserved for the whole department.

      On the other hand, it is not like you couldn't arrange some vacation time or a personal day or something. I would think it would be worth it.

    • Re:bad assessment (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lurgen ( 563428 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @11:04PM (#3455260) Journal
      Next thing you know, we'll see some figures about lost productivity caused by Slashdot. And we ALL know that's not true, don't we?

  • using that logic... (Score:3, Funny)

    by spookysuicide ( 560912 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @08:41PM (#3454825) Homepage
    what do the guys at ID games owe?

    Enough to fund a small nation would be my guess.

  • the Republic, not just screw up the Economy?

  • Lost productivity (Score:3, Funny)

    by ilyag ( 572316 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @08:43PM (#3454832)
    Imagine how much lost nerd & geek productivity does Slashdot produce. It's scary to even try to imagine the number in $$....

    ;)

    • Re:Lost productivity (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ender81b ( 520454 ) <wdinger@g m a i l . com> on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:06PM (#3454923) Homepage Journal
      Well, from cmdr taco's own comment we can figure slashdot get 1 million unique visitors a day. Ok then. Say, 50 % are actually at work and at the correct time, 500,000 unique visitors. Assume they only visit slashdot ONCE during their daily job for 15 minutes. You get 500,000 x 15 = 7,500,000 minutes of lost productivity per day.

      Hmm, figure average wage of U.S. worker to be 35,000$/year (roughly) that is, 20$/hour. OK then, so 7,500,000 minutes = 125,000 hours x 20$/hour = 2.5 million dollars/per day.

      Extrapolating for a work year (roughly 270 work days in a year) = 675 million dollars in a year due to slashdot and lost productivity.

      Hmmm. I'm probably wrong, for one thing not everybody spends 15 minutes a day on slashdot, not everyone looks every day, not everybody does it works, not everybody makes 20$/hour so that number is prolly too high.

      But even if you figure it is DOUBLE or TRIPLE what the real number is.. wow.. even if it is QUADRUPLE that means that the real number would be 168,750,000 million. Not quite Star Wars but close..
      • mmm. I'm probably wrong, for one thing not everybody spends 15 minutes a day on slashdot, not everyone looks every day, not everybody does it works, not everybody makes 20$/hour so that number is prolly too high.

        And not everyone who reads /. lives in the US, either.

        Michael
      • I don't know about the rest of you, but my daily slashdot break is the few things that keeps me from quitting my miserable tech job.

        If I didn't take 15 minutes out of each work day to chill out and read something interesting technology stories, I probably would have flipped out and strangled my bosses a long time ago!

        (Come to think of it, that might have IMPROVED the companies productivity! Perhaps there is something to this idea after all.)
        • If I didn't take 15 minutes out of each work day to chill out and read something interesting technology stories, I probably would have flipped out and strangled my bosses a long time ago!

          So, assuming your average "boss" costs US$80K/year, and you did not strangle him/her (not saving us that money) ..... OH SHIT, overflowed the windows calulator.

    • Re:Lost productivity (Score:4, Funny)

      by CommandNotFound ( 571326 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:55PM (#3455076)
      Let's see...
      • Story about building a PC using an old shoe box, chicken wire, and old Mac SE parts: $25M
      • Story about same machine running Linux: $50M
      • Story (with link) to same machine running a web server and powered by potato energy: $150M
      • Obligatory flaming of JonKatz techno rant: $300M
      • Story Proving/Disproving Evolution, Story about paid Microsoft benchmarks, Story with anything about genetics: 8x the annual GDP of small European country.
      [Having no karma and learning to love it: Priceless]
    • Actually - I would think /. actually SAVES the economy money by giving us a decent hit of 'stuff that matters' in one go - rather than trawling sites for ages.

      SO! /. should get tax breaks!
  • Challenger, Gray and Christmas based its projection on the assumption that a random cross section of the American population will see the movie

    Great assumption!
    • Great assumption!
      Actually, it's a conservative estimate: as the article suggests, it's far more likely that geekier (read: high-paid, on average) people will see it, so they will be wasting more money than an average cross-section would be.

  • what about.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by selectspec ( 74651 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @08:45PM (#3454848)
    The Searchers... staring Jar Jar Binks. The last scene, with his ears flopping in the wind standing in the doorway!

    "She be comanch-a--wwooobbeeedo---!"

  • $300 million is nothing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 02, 2002 @08:46PM (#3454853)
    Congress just voted on a $31 billion farm subsidy bill which benefits mainly large agricultural corporations. Here $300 million is "wasted" over a few million people.

  • Flawed analysis (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quite Inconsequentia ( 574504 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @08:47PM (#3454858) Homepage
    The argument in the article is fundamentally flawed. In the US, as in most countries I think, employees typically have a fixed number of sick days, vacation days and/or personal days. Claiming that Attack of the Clones will somehow increase the total number of such days taken in 2002 by a non-negligable number is just plain silly. If an employee doesn't take vacation or call in sick on Clone Day, then surely he/she will make up for it some other time.
    • If an employee doesn't take vacation or call in sick on Clone Day, then surely he/she will make up for it some other time.

      For vacation that is almost definitely true. For sick days it is not. Not all that many people I know use their maximum allotment of sick days each year. (Many don't use all their vacation, but everyone I know uses all the vacation that won't roll over or be converted to cash...i.e. if it is "use it or lose it" it gets used even if it is just to sit around at home!).

      • I see that as foolish, and I guess my company did to. Sick days were converted to personal days. Those days off are just as much a part of your compensation package as vacation days. So use them. Why? Number one, at least for engineers, is to prevent burnout. During the summer, if it's a nice day, I'm more than willing to call out, grab my bike and spend the day hitting the twisties. No better time than on a weekday: state park roads are open (they tend to be closed for most of the day on weekends to allow people to wander around without fear of vehicles), there are fewer cops on the backroads, and less cars to take my turns away by going to slow.


        Why should I rely solely on my vacation for this? At the end of the year I can get paid for unused vacation, unused sick days disappear.

        • I (when I had a job) always thought that sick days should be treated like holidays. I mean you get a maximim allowance per year of them, so why not use them?

          You should be able to book them in advance too:

          "Erm, Jack's taking that week off with 'flu, could you take the week after that ? Actually, if you wait until two weeks on Friday, I can let you have ten days off with prostate trouble. OK? I'll pencil you in..."

          graspee

          • Where I work (university) sick days have been replaced with personal leave days. You don't ahve to be sick to take them. YOu also get vacation days, which are a seperate thing. BAsically personal leave days are for any personal event, including illness, that requires you to be absent form work with little or no notice. Vacation days are for, of course, preplanned vacations. However you can use personal leave days to extend vacations if you run out of vacation days and noone is really going to care.

  • A question for techies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mikosullivan ( 320993 ) <miko@@@idocs...com> on Thursday May 02, 2002 @08:53PM (#3454879)
    My experience is that the high tech industry is pretty laid back about time off. I'm confident that if I wanted to take the afternoon off for something I considered important that I could simply do so and promise to make the time up. Even more likely, I probably already put in extra hours the night before. I certainly wouldn't feel any need to lie about it. How easy would it be for you?
    • I am taking the afternoon off on May 17. Already arraigned. My direct supervisor is taking May 16 off to go see it. We were all going to go together, but we decided that our three person dept. couldn't all take off at once just for a movie.

      • Re:A question for techies (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Already arraigned.

        See, my boss will wait until I've broken a rule before he presses charges.
    • Exactly. If they can beep us geek folk at 3am to fix a database, router, or program then we should be able to take a 2 hour lunch to see the latest movies that we can't see on the weekends because at that time we are doing upgrades or some other after hours tech stuff.

      Most managers I've had are ok with this and if they aren't you just go do your thing when they take off early to play golf. :)

    • My experience (Score:5, Funny)

      by jcsehak ( 559709 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @11:47PM (#3455399) Homepage
      My experience is that the high tech industry is pretty laid off.
  • I guess I should just get tickets for the whole office so that we can all conform to the norm.... I will even get tickets for the sales people... and that dude that seems to be tagging along who works for a ?telephone company?

  • No, it won't... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Boulder Geek ( 137307 ) <archer@goldenagewireless.net> on Thursday May 02, 2002 @08:58PM (#3454900)
    At least not around here, as most of the geeks are unemployed, and those with jobs are too scared to play hooky.
  • From the article:
    But it's important to retain a sense of proportion. The effect on the British economy of four weeks of World Cup football has been put at £3bn.
    Suddenly, $300 million doesn't seem like quite as much.

  • Why is it.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pjdepasq ( 214609 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @08:59PM (#3454905)
    Why is it that there are always studies like this of the "geeks", but there's nothing representative of the other masses? Shouldn't someone do a study of stuff like this when a Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts film hits the theaters and millions of housewives, secretaries and others flock to see it?

    What about take-your-daughter/son-to-work day? I wonder how much that costs us?

    How about what it costs us ever time Clinton stopped to get a h$mmer.... If that's not a massive waste of cash, what is?

    Isn't this just more geek bashing?

    • Re:Why is it.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tswinzig ( 210999 )
      Shouldn't someone do a study of stuff like this when a Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts film hits the theaters and millions of housewives, secretaries and others flock to see it?

      1. You can't compare those movies to STAR WARS. Nobody skips work to go see a Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts movie.

      2. Housewives going out to see a movie helps the economy, it doesn't hurt it.

      BTW, this "let's skip work to see Star Wars" is not just a geek thing. The Star Wars movies just brings out the geek in everyone, include your typical non-geeks.

    • Re:Why is it.... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by deepstephen ( 149398 )
      Why is it that there are always studies like this of the "geeks", but there's nothing representative of the other masses?

      OK then...

      I know most of the Americans here don't know the first thing about the World Cup, but over here in the UK it's estimated that a third of the entire workforce is going to take the day off to watch the England v Argentina game.

      Because of the time zones, the game kicks off at 12:30pm our time. Personally speaking, there is no way I'm going to miss this game! There's a seriously huge rivalry between our countries, mostly down to those pesky Argies employing some decidedly unfair tactics in previous matches. :-)

      There's a BBC News story [bbc.co.uk] about it too.
    • What about take-your-daughter/son-to-work day? I wonder how much that costs us?

      I used to work in the datacenters for the New York and American Stock Exchanges and one take-your-daughter to work day they decided to take the kids on a tour of the data center. The kids were slightly uncontrollable and one ran over and hit the emergency power off button for the data center. It halted trading on the AMEX for 3 minutes. I wonder what that cost the economy.

  • Bovine Excrement! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:01PM (#3454910) Homepage
    Star Wars-related absenteeism could cost the US economy more than $300m in wages when Episode II is released on May 16, according to employment experts.

    Osama Bin Laden could only wish. There are lies, damn lies, and marketing generated statistics. If there was such a thing as an "employment expert", I think they would have, by now, figured out the whole unemployment problem and solved it. Three hundred million bucks in lost productivity? The 9/11 atrocity is estimated at 1.2 billion dollars in economic damage to US worker productivity, not counting lost jobs, from what I have read. To say that Star Wars is going to do 1/4 of the economic damage as September 11th might send Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge's [whitehouse.gov] color coded domestic terrorism scale [whitehouse.gov] to RED causing him to ban all showings before 6pm local time.

    Write this one off to cheap and easy journalism recycling a press release. If this is true, however, I expect to see George Lucas at Gitmo [navy.mil] in the next month.

    • Re:Bovine Excrement! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Combuchan ( 123208 )
      $1.2 billion? Do you have any idea how much of an insignificant figure this is, especially when the US government is involved?

      According to this google result [hrw.com], airline losses could top $10 billion, actual physical tamage is estimated at $25 billion, Bush is still talking about a $75 billion economic stimulus plan (tho support for this is fading fast), the arilines got a $15 billion bailout package, and that doesn't even begin to cover the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt that was cast upon this nation the instant the planes hit the towers, which I've read at I think $50 billion for maybe NYC alone. Results aren't clear of this, and it's all speculation and estimating regardless. But the Consumer Confidence Index, a widely respected barometer of how willing consumers are to actually spend money, plummet to its lowest level in seven years.

      Your comparison of bin Laden to Star Wars is offbase, and I'm a bit offended by your gross underestimates. :P

      If you disagree, reply.

  • Repeat (Score:5, Informative)

    by eyeball ( 17206 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:04PM (#3454918) Journal
    Let me (hopefully) be the first to announce that SlashDot discussed [slashdot.org] this when Episode 1 came out. Slash linked [sfgate.com] to an article that's still there. It talked about the same Chicago company, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, that publicised EP2 estimates. They were almost the same numbers for EP1.

  • What about the other side? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bartyboy ( 99076 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:05PM (#3454919)
    What about all positive impact of the movie? I'm speaking of all the merchanise that will be sold, extra buckets of popcorn and large drinks, promotional tie-ins and so on.

    Granted, most of the money will end up in George's pockets, but the middle man will still make a few extra bucks.
  • Does it count for lost productivity if your boss closes the company for the afternoon? I guess so. But I'm still looking forward to it...

  • And how much does the 4th of July cost? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by j09824 ( 572485 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:16PM (#3454962)
    Americans are working themselves to death compared to most other civilized nations. Is every holiday going to be counted as a "cost" now?

    People need to relax, have fun, and enjoy life. That both makes them more productive when they do work, and it gives them a reason to earn money.

  • This is BS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bandito ( 134369 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:17PM (#3454964)
    Companies prepare for this when they give you sick/vacation time. By giving you that time they've already accounted for the lost productivity and agreed to pay you anyway.

    Everyone knows that vacation days are for vaction, and sick days are for when you just don't want to go in.
  • Four hours of billable time. Ouch!

    Maybe I will in fact continue my boycott of RIAA/MPAA.

  • I don't know. When Ep1 came out, one office mate took the day off to wait for tickets. Then all three of us took the day off to go see it.

    As much as I think that Ep2 will be much better, I think that if Ep1 was a lot better the figure would be $600m.

    Cost the economy??? I don't think so.
  • ...when half of us are out of work anyway?
  • doing this all the time [lostbrain.com]

    shameless
    tcd004

  • Sick for real (Score:3, Funny)

    by CleverNickName ( 129189 ) <wilNO@SPAMwilwheaton.net> on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:24PM (#3454988) Homepage Journal
    The thing is, if I go and see Episode II, and it's anywhere near as horrible as Episode I, I won't be faking it when I call in sick.
  • You can mulitiply that number by at least 10 people that won't be able to work without your help.

    Now Science Fiction Tax makes sense. :)
    • Actually, if it's tech support anything like what I've done before, the 10 people who think they need you to do their work will quickly find that the problem is a user error that goes away when noticed, just a social/political need to blame problems on someone, or an outright lie meant to get back at someone in the office pecking order. Okay, maybe 1 or 2 of those will be actual problems that need solving, or are in my area of responsibility.

  • Isn't this irrelevant? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jester45 ( 16575 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @09:39PM (#3455031)
    I don't know a whole lot about how this works yet, but it seems to me that in awarding sick days, companies would have already planned for this. Don't they expect people might take days off? This just happens to be everybody leaving on the same day.

    I understand that other factors might be involved, such as not having enough employees available to run a piece of equipment, but that's not what they're talking about. Raw wage calculations should have been taken care of already.

    Yes?
  • If sitting through Jar-Jar's scenes directly results in periods of prolonged wretching accompanied by violent mood-swings in a large percentage of Star Wars fans, does that constitute adequate grounds for calling in sick? I think it does.
  • Starwars is that kind of movies that geeks and non-geeks can enjoy. So it makes a good excuse for a mini-social event.

    In my case, all the company is going at the same time (well those who are interrested) ( 20, people, easy to organize), it makes a social event, it reservces me the seat to the back of mine so that way if it's someone that I already know that is going to kick in my chair, I'll have full authority to choke him in his popcorn without fearing that the next 10 other people next to him are his street friends and are going to wait for me outside after the movie :)

  • and kill the page-widening troll while at it.

    I'm thinking that the projected total of geeks playing hooky to go se AotC multiplied by the cost of admission to the theater would amount to greater than $300 million. I'm wondering if someone could provide an estimate on the total of geeks playing hooky and also obtain the average price of the movie ticket and then multiply the two. It will be interesting to compare the two numbers.

  • Dragon Quest (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vegan Pagan ( 251984 ) <<ten.knilhtrae> <ta> <sanaed>> on Thursday May 02, 2002 @10:37PM (#3455196)
    In Japan, they require by law that events this popular (Dragon Quest games) get moved to Sunday. Should we do the same?
  • 30,000

    100,000 to wait in line
    100,000 to buy action figures
    70,000 to buy the special set of dvds with "never before seen footage"
    10,000 to complain at /. about how George Lucas owes them a better movie
    10,000 to cheer when the N'sync jedis get killed
    10,000 to complain that my addition is bad when it's really just a typo

  • idiots' logic (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jsse ( 254124 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @10:51PM (#3455227) Homepage Journal
    I'm sure there's some academic terms for these, but some people(idiots) like to simplify the calculation without making proper assumption.

    They assumed that they must be doing something productive if they are not watching movies. Hell, they might spend more unproductive hours elsewhere.

    Same ill-logic can be found everywhere. I saw in yeasterday's news the local custom confisticated piracy software which said to be causing 15 billions net lost of software industry. 15 billions! It's many times more than the total revuene made by all industries here!

    It sounds like all people would buy a $5000 software if they couldn't find a $5 in piracy market. I know they should make it a big deal to attract public attention, but sadly some people(idiots) would believe these figures. :/

  • Be at both places at once. (Score:5, Funny)

    by eugene ts wong ( 231154 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @10:53PM (#3455234) Homepage Journal
    Why can't you be at both places at the same time? Just leave the following message on an answering machine.
    Hi, this is tech support. What can I do for you?...Hold on a second, let me check something...Okay, now try rebooting.

    Works for me, even when I am in the office.
  • in a related story, a $300 million economic boost was seen in the tech sector when /.'s servers went down for a day.

  • If we'd only give up sleep. . . (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @11:10PM (#3455281)
    we'd all be walking on streets paved with gold.

    While hallucinating from lack of sleep.

    So what am I supposed to be doing to help the economy today, producing, or spending my income on leisure consumer goods? You can't have it both ways boys and girls.

    Hey, I've got a neat idea. I'll just * do what I want.* I think there's a term for that:

    Democratic Free Market

    Man, we don't want anything like *that* getting lose in the American economy!

    KFG

  • Only One Day Off??!!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mad Man ( 166674 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @11:12PM (#3455282)
    I have friends in the IT business who haven't been to work for about a year.

    Not because they're waiting in line for tickets, but because they're unemployed.

    I wonder how much that's costing the economy.
  • To think that just three years ago, my employer would give everyone the day off for big events -- 2-3 times a year.

    That company is long gone now--sold off--and all the people I know from there (as well as myself) have had big benefit cuts.

    Gone are the days of the hope of Java and the joy of seeing a Kim Polese presentation.

  • hometheaterforum.com has a review online. (Score:3, Informative)

    by [amorphis] ( 45762 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @11:31PM (#3455334)
    Ron Epstein, owner of the Home Theater Forum [hometheaterforum.com] has a good review [hometheaterforum.com] online.

    A choice quote:
    I won't waste any time in saying that Attack Of The Clones is the most remarkable Star Wars film to date. It not only breathes new life into the series, but it brings us back to the original magic that made Star Wars a cultural phenomenon. It is ultimately the Empire Strikes Back of this new saga, that takes us to the darkest corners of the Star Wars universe, as we come face-to-face with the master plan of Darth Sidious.
  • After getting burned by Episode I, I won't necessarily be rushing out to see Episode II right away. Although I'm sure I'll see it not terribly long after it comes out.

    But I will go see an afternoon matinee of Spider-Man on opening day (later today, Friday May 3). I've been waiting years for that movie. I grew up on Spider-Man (got my first Spidey comic when I was about 6). I just wanna say, the movie better not suck.

    As for skipping out of work, I teach at Cornell. Fortunately, today is Slope Day at Cornell, the last day of classes. On Slope Day, all the students go get drunk on the big hill by the main library. It's quite a spectacle. Anyway, no one will notice/care if I take off early, and most of the students will be drunk on the slope, so I'm hoping the theater won't be too crowded (and especially hoping it doesn't fill up with drunken students).

    (As a former Cornell grad student, I've participated in plenty of Slope Days myself. For this one, I'll check it out, but won't be drinking.)
  • Won't Star Wars make that money back? A lot of it will go right back into the economy (minus a hefty sum George Lucas will pocket). As shitty as Phantom Menace was it still made $925,600,000 [boxofficemojo.com] worldwide. I think that more than compensates. Now there could be argument made that the world will become dummer from ditching classes to go to Star Wars (that's what I am doing).

  • Get the Attack of the Clones Script (Score:3, Informative)

    by totallygeek ( 263191 ) <sellis@totallygeek.com> on Thursday May 02, 2002 @11:52PM (#3455425) Homepage
    Here [missingleftsocks.com]. There are also all the Star Wars trailers in the download area [missingleftsocks.com].

  • I wish they'd quit abusing Jar-jar... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dr.Dubious DDQ ( 11968 ) on Friday May 03, 2002 @12:43AM (#3455575) Homepage

    No, seriously. As far as I can tell, Jar-jar's only REAL crime was being the only character in the first movie with a personality of any sort (the fact that the personality in question was that of an annoying muppet only made this fact more painful, as it meant HE was the only character a semi-sane human being could relate to...which of course, nobody wanted to do...).

    His speech and voice aren't really much sillier than Yoda's (and Yoda didn't even have the gee-whiz CGI effects to to keep him from being such an obvious puppet). His slapstick antics weren't really any more annoying than R2D2/C3P0's (heck, the "how rude!" schtick just REEKS of C3P0) were in the original movies...but in the original movies, the main characters HAD personalities that outshone the 'droids, so they weren't so "glaring". In TPM, it just made Jar-jar stand out way more than he would have if the other characters weren't acting like emotionless drones most of the time...

    From the brief blurb in the review, it sounds like Lucas is still keeping Jar-jar in the "annoying comic relief" category (though for only a very brief appearance this time)...but I'd much rather they actually let Jar-jar develop beyond that. Seriously - if they let him hang around the other characters long enough, they can have him lose the more outrageous aspects of his speech, get a grip on his tendency to comically panic everytime something happens, and accomplish something once in a while. Or, perhaps he'll just get fed up with the abuse he gets from the alleged "good guys" and give in to the Dark Side - perhaps Lucas' "Big Plans" involve Jar-jar coming back as a vengeful Sith to kick everyone's butts for tormenting him in the first two movies while letting R2D2 and C3P0 do their thing without comment (evidently, they're back in this movie as well).

    (If Jar-jar using Magic Force Powers(tm) seems improbable to you, take a look at this article [space.com]. It may just be that Lucas overdid Jar-jar's "fool" act as much as he overdid the Jedi's "calm and cool" act in the first movie...)

    Now if only someone will found the Association for Prevention of Cruelty to Comedy Sidekicks, we'll be in business...

  • This is just another PR stunt by a firm to get lots of coverage by tying its name to the Star Wars brand. It worked the first time around and the numbers were shown to be wildly exaggerated.

    Episode I had 20 years of anticpation built up so the idea of people skipping out of work to see it was plausible.

    After audiences discovered that Phantom Menace was less than spectacular it's doubtful masses of people will skip out of work to see Attack of the Clones a mere 3 years later, especially because it will be playing at every multiplex all summer.

    Still, the PR stunt seems to be working the second time around because it is being picked up by various media outlets, including Slashdot.

    Funny, since John Fluevog's Open Source shoes story over at Red Herring says...

    'Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, cofounder of the open-source site Slashdot.org, calls it a "PR stunt. I ignore stuff like that."'

    http://www.redherring.com/insider/2002/0424/2780 .h tml
  • This [pstwo.net] is the sort of people that run pstwo.net. Great folk, apparently. Very in-tune with netiquette...

  • In oterh news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by guygee ( 453727 ) on Friday May 03, 2002 @02:08AM (#3455850)
    Star Wars-related absenteeism could cost the US economy more than $300m in wages when Episode II is released on May 16, according to employment experts.
    Empoyment experts also estimate that sex costs the US economy over 1.4 trillion dollars in lost production.
    Dallas-based recruitment firm Gray, Limp, and Lifeless Corp. projects that over 40 million man-hours per day are lost because
    of fatigue and injury due to the previous night's sexual activities, and because of lost work caused
    by thinking about sex in the forthcoming night. According to CEO Dick Lifeless, "Tens of thousands of sick days result from painful contusions and spained backs alone, caused by these slacker's propensity for wild, excessive sex".

    Mr. Lifeless told Reuters that only technology firms were likely to be immune to the economic losses, because of the high proportion of geeks among staff, who were likely to be spending the night alone, eating pizza, reading slashdot, and web-surfing for pornography.



  • The US loses $750 billion in productivity and revenue every day due to employees going to the bathroom and refilling coffee mugs every day.

    To counter this, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has recommended that all coffee machines include meters as well as toilets and urinals, along with seats to enforcing work ethics via electrode embedded toilet seats.

    The rubber pants, cork, spackling and caulk industries have applauded this suggestion, foreseeing an explosion in demand for their products.

  • This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LadyLucky ( 546115 ) on Friday May 03, 2002 @05:33AM (#3456266) Homepage
    Slashdot causes at least this much in lost productivity, every week.

  • oh please (Score:2)

    by K. ( 10774 )
    random recruitment agency exec #1 - argh! our revenues are through the floor! How will we afford advertising?
    RRAE #2 - I know, let's make up some bullshit press release and ride on the coattails of the "geek culture" fantasy.
    RRAE #1 - I love you, Phil

  • Han Solo Firstists Unite! (Score:3, Funny)

    by b1t r0t ( 216468 ) on Friday May 03, 2002 @07:40AM (#3456560)
    Am I the only /.'er to proudly have never seen Episode 1? Not only that, but I never watched Star Wars SE, with the Ministry of Truth's "new improved truth" that Han Solo didn't shoot first. All I know about Episode 1, I learned from Wierd Al Yankovic.

    And to back up my beliefs, I have two different non-SE widescreen versions of all three movies (notice I didn't say four) on glorious laserdisc.

    So all those of you who still haven't seen Episode 1, come out of the closet and admit to the world: I am Jar-Jar free!

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