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  #1  
Old 07-08-2006, 05:50 AM
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Default Ludicrous Speed

Here's a question I should know the answer to. Does the expression "Ludicrous Speed" go back any further than Spaceballs?
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Old 07-08-2006, 06:18 AM
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To the best of my knowledge, no.

Perhaps, though, this might be a candidate for the "Jokes and References" page.
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Old 07-08-2006, 07:36 AM
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It might at that. However, for me, it doesn't even go back that far. One of my best friends from Grade 4 all the way through high school (the latter also being where I met Owen and SimonBob) was Roman, who had a number of quotes he would repeat at any excuse. "Prepare for Ludicrous Speed" was one of them. Through him, I knew that line long before I knew where it came from. I didn't even remember its use in Spaceballs till about a year into 5MV's life.

It's ripped off to a degree, but almost everything is. I think I've done enough with Ludicrous Speed to earn my own claim on it -- till the next guy comes along.
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Old 07-08-2006, 08:55 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeke
I think I've done enough with Ludicrous Speed to earn my own claim on it -- till the next guy comes along.
Fascinating origin story. I like Ludicrous Speed because it's a reminder of the fact that we take for granted some truly amazing things in Star Trek, like warp drive. Plus the motif reflects the fact that every episode of Star Trek has the same damn ending...

We've come up with some great elaborations in the fivers though -- not only endings like arguing at Ludicrous Speed, nothing happens at Ludicrous Speed, etc., but my second favorite, Cliffhanger Speed, in which something bad is about to happen -- and stays about to happen long enough for the music to swell dramatically.

The new Dr Who is most egregious about this. On the other hand, TNG did cliffhangers pretty well -- I'll never forget Riker ordering Worf to fire and then getting that black screen with "To Be Continued..." Actually come to think of it TOS did well with its cliffhanger -- Kirk, weighed down with trying to understand his friend's actions, and walking out of the room at the end of "The Menagerie" -- that was the most touching moment in the episode.
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Old 07-09-2006, 11:28 PM
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Not every episode ends with Ludicrous Speed. Putting all of the pre-Defiant DS9 episodes off to one side (they have an excuse) and all of TOS (ditto) you've got at least The Thaw. So there!
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Old 07-10-2006, 02:40 AM
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There's also traditionally no Ludicrous Speed before a "TO BE CONTINUED," but I never set that down as a rule, so other writers don't necessarily follow it. (Another of my unwritten rules is that score jokes in VOY fivers, e.g. "Chakotay 1, Cardassians 0," always have Chakotay on one of the sides.)
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[03:17] FiveMinZeke: Galactica clearly needs the advanced technology of scissors, which get around the whole "yanking on your follicles" problem.
[03:17] IJD: cylons can hack any blades working in conjunction
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Old 07-10-2006, 03:58 AM
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I tried to set the precedent that Babylon 5 spins at Ludicrous Speed (as opposed to DS9 turning). So far, apart from Derek himself only one other person has written a BFiver under my tutelage, so it hasn't required much persuasion on my part.
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Old 07-10-2006, 09:48 AM
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It was when you got out the feather boa that I realised it would be easier just to give in.
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Old 07-10-2006, 11:16 AM
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In my fivers people tend to argue or fume at Ludicrous Speed, which I enjoy as a mental image...
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Old 07-28-2006, 06:59 AM
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Since we're on a vaguely Spaceballs-related thread, anyone else still hoping that Mel Brooks makes Spaceballs II: The Search for More Money one of these days?
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Old 07-28-2006, 02:31 PM
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Not especially.
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Old 07-28-2006, 05:01 PM
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I doubt that there was ever any serious intention of actually making that movie. It was just another installment in the running gag about merchandising, methinks.
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Old 07-28-2006, 07:24 PM
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I thought Mel Brooks issued a press release like five years ago that now that the prequel movies were coming out that it might be time to make SBII:TSFMM now.

And remember, Spaceballs wasn't just a Star Wars parody, it was Trek, Alien, Planet of the Apes, etc etc. He could toss in the prequel trilogy stuff, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, etc, etc.
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Old 07-28-2006, 09:15 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability
I thought Mel Brooks issued a press release like five years ago that now that the prequel movies were coming out that it might be time to make SBII:TSFMM now.
Oh, that's right; I remember that now. Still, I have to wonder whether he was being serious when he said it. He seems to have missed his deadline by a bit, as well.

Quote:
And remember, Spaceballs wasn't just a Star Wars parody, it was Trek, Alien, Planet of the Apes, etc etc. He could toss in the prequel trilogy stuff, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, etc, etc.
Haven't forgotten.
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Old 07-28-2006, 11:37 PM
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Yeah, that's the press release. It just seems to me that he would make so much money on SBII: TSFMM that it would be idiotic to pass up on making another cult classic.

You know, as long as we're talking about cult classics, how many movies do you know that people claimed were the best ever at the time, but are no longer considered that good? Titanic springs to mind immediately, but even Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings run into the diminishing returns problem.

On a recent crosscountry bus trip I suggested to my friends that we watch The Princess Bride. The approval rating was well over eighty percent. I doubt that Lord of the Rings would have gotten that kind of response.
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Old 07-29-2006, 01:11 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability
On a recent crosscountry bus trip I suggested to my friends that we watch The Princess Bride. The approval rating was well over eighty percent. I doubt that Lord of the Rings would have gotten that kind of response.
That's because LOTR is twelve freakin hours long. You have to be really devoted, or travelling from Maine to Alaska via Texas, to want to sit through all that at one clip.
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Old 07-29-2006, 02:27 AM
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Yeah, I keep hearing people say that you need twelve hours to tell LOTR properly. My question is: why? Who says we need the 100% complete Tolkein experience? I tried to read the trilogy a few years ago and got halfway through Two Towers before I gave up. To many characters, too much description, too many parallel plots. Hey, I'll be the first to admit that the effects are awesome, but when you look at battlefields with thousands of soldiers in them, my major problem becomes "do I want to see thousands of imaginary people fight each other?" I'd rather have two armies with a few dozen each, if they were all real.

Bryan Singer made a comment in his X-Men commentary that in the scene where Magneto has usurped all of the cops' guns and is holding them all at gunpoint, some of the guns are CG and some are real ones on wires, etc. I can tell. The guns felt real, I could "see" their physical presence in the scene. That means more to me.
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mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate.
Zeke: It comes nateurally to him.

mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea.

Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity.

Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further.
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Old 07-29-2006, 02:38 AM
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Looks like Dave Barry is a fivist and doesn't know it. In a column (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...ry/5023564.htm) he summarizes Two Towers quite well. Definitely worth a read.
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mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea.

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Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further.
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Old 07-29-2006, 03:13 AM
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Yeah. He does things like that occasionally, though this is the first time I've seen him do it in that actual format, and for a movie that actually exists.
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Old 07-29-2006, 03:50 AM
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Hey, another Barry fan! Always glad to meet other followers of the Church of Exploding Toilets.
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