Leonard E. Read’s classic I, Pencil stands as one of the twentieth century’s pedagogical triumphs. Thousands upon thousands of people have learned about the futility of central planning by considering the incomprehensibly complex processes that go into the production of something as mundane as a pencil. It’s also a process of cooperation that has given us the amazing visual spectacles that entertain us and that we take for granted. I’m a huge fan of the Star Wars saga, the brainchild of George Lucas. Lucas was a visionary, to be sure, but he wasn’t able to do it alone.
Some of the bonus features in the Star Wars DVDs illustrate this perfectly. On the bonus disc that accompanies Revenge of the Sith, there’s a documentary about all of the people and processes that contributed to the production of a single minute of the lightsaber battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. They had to deal with props, computer animation, costuming, and a dizzying array of other tasks that no one person knows how to do. Lucas’s artistic vision (realized with a few assists from Steven Spielberg, as the “making of” documentary shows) was only made possible by the divisions of labor and knowledge made possible by the market economy. Revenge of the Sith cost about $113 million to make and grossed almost $850 million worldwide. And yet not a single person in the world knows how to make a single minute of the movie from start to finish.
One might be tempted to claim that this represents what’s wrong with commercial society: the social division of labor allows us to spend all of our time gawking and Star Wars and less time reading Great Literature. First, I’m not sure that’s true, as Charles Courtemanche and I discuss here (ungated draft here). Second, one has to ask where Great Writers would get their pens, their paper, and the leisure to write their Great Literature if it weren’t for the social division of labor. Adam Smith was right when he said that there is “there is much ruin in a nation,” but casting off specialization and exchange in the name of refining ourselves culturally and intellectually is ultimately self-defeating.
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Sadly, all three of the movies that comprise the latter trilogy are utter bilge. Even Lucas recognizes this fact.
This is the most accurate review of the trilogy and shows each film up as not merely unfaithful to the prior franchise, but abhorrent as films in their own right…
But, yes, your point stands that no one single person could auteur the entire movie.
Han Solo Shot First!
Curt, haha, yes, “abhorrent”.
RoTS wasn’t that bad. This is one of the funnier assessments of The Fandom Menace that I’ve ever seen.
You didn’t get much of a story because of the all the lightsaber duels, but you did get less of the dialogue. That was good enough.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this comment…
lol
The film set is perhaps one of the best representations of the division of labor possible*. You have, in one location, storytellers, actors, producers, managers and coordinators, financiers, electricians, video technicians, audio technicians, grips, digital effects experts, combat experts, explosives experts, wardrobe and dressers, make-up artists, hair stylists, prop makers, errand boys, drivers, cooks, janitors and more. Then you consider all the people who collaborated in pre-production, and all those that will collaborate in post-production, and the amazing benefits of the division of labor are obvious. Yet so many in Hollywood are anti-capitalist.
And that is a good, thorough documentary on the DVD. I was glad they noted the contribution of the cooks and the like.
*Though it should be acknowledged that, on union sets, there may be more people on set than there otherwise would be. Due to union rules, make-up cannot do anything to the actor’s hair or wardrobe, and vice versa, even if little is required and the make-up artist is capable of doing what is needed. So, for example, an actor that needs to look wet is sprayed down by at least three people.
This theme, and I offer a hurried and unsophisticated variation on it, is not to be underestimated. In my view, it’s often accidentally minimized by some libertarians.
Lucas had a vision, a timely one in the 70’s and he struck gold with it. The second trilogy was terribly flawed but what the heck, it finished the long-awaited story.
Oftentimes we say that Lucas created _Star Wars_. “He made it.” (And Jeffrey Tucker, IP intellectual extraordinaire, likely recalls Lucas’s attempts to sue Battlestar Galactica producers. Of course, Lucas’ mythology had a thousand loans from American westerns, Homer’s _Odyssey_, and Kurosawa, but it didn’t stop his lawyers. Feh…. forgive the digression.)
Other than the “HE made it,” (He, my eye) here are a few more conversational quotes from friends throughout my life: “Hitchcock GAVE US _North by Northwest_.” “Incredible how Phil Jackson won all those NBA championships.” “Did you see the new hotel Steve Wynn built?” “Al Gore invented the….” Bad example there, sorry.
I remember a documentary about Hatshepsut, the pharaoh from ancient Egypt. Incessant references to what “she built.” I wonder how many stones she picked up during those 45-degree-Celsius Egyptian afternoons.
I appreciate that some of our comments are figures of speech, and I expect the retort, “Hey, c’mon you know what your friends meant….” Of course. But I also worry that slave mentality is ubiquitous; among academia it’s profuse, and no shortage of it in pop culture — hell, in any age’s culture.
We celebrate division of labor and recognize fruits of success as shared efforts — not because we are collectivists, not because are so-called “populists” weeping over John Ford’s _Grapes of Wrath_ sophomoric idolatry of Rooseveltian public housing. On the contrary. We recognize success as _shared_ endeavors because we are libertarians, and because we appreciate every individual who is unsung. Every ‘one’. So when those Academy Awards shows are broadcast, off goes my TV. There is no _North by Northwest_ without the stunt plane flyer. Phil is ringless without the janitor who buffs down the practice court. And while Hatshepsut playfully toyed with a fig while she fingerpainted on the sand, who was the poor slave fanning her, and cooling her brow so that she could say, “Hey, I got me a vision! Now go start hauling those rocks because I’m bored” ?
Careful, Jeffrey, you just let a pro-IP post slip by undetected. Big budget movies like this are possible primarily because IP, and the workers in this decentralized but well-coordinated project were bankrolled by people requiring IP rights in the final product. But I thought IP was inherently state-based central planning.
What gives?
Pro IP? “Large” production can’t go through without it? That’s a bizarre statement. Large projects get done all the time without any kind of IP involved. If getting together a relatively small number of people compared to say, your typical Fortune 500, was difficult without IP, then literally nothing in our society would get done.
Besides, the Phantom Menace pirated copy was available a week BEFORE the movie came out in theaters. The existence of copyright law didn’t stop people from downloading it in large numbers, and the record number of downloads didn’t stop the movie from nearly grossing $1 billion. It’s amazing where some people come up with the IP defense.
Also there are several studies that have shown that pirates buy more media than non-pirates. Obscurity is the enemy of all media, not copying.
Children steal candy from stores as well, but that hasn’t destroyed the candy business because candy theft isn’t done at industrial scale.
Sure, a few morally unscrupulous people saw pirate copies of The Phantom Menace. The capitalist process was still allowed to work, although hampered by the poor security of property provided by the state.
yes. more police to deliver the free society. or a moral conversion of the existing force.
Also, that it was the accumulation of capital from the ownership of movies that allowed George Lucas to take the entrepreneurial risk of spending his own capital to make Star Wars sequels.
Pure capitalism at work, and an indisputable model of what capitalism can achieve in a free society.
“…allowed George Lucas to take the entrepreneurial risk…”
So that this creatively baren has-been could rip off every one he seems to envy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0wv2ossJU&feature=related
That would include ripping off his ex-collaborators who apparently didn’t quickly enough seize the products of their minds, since George is the one cashing in on them. When you watch these entire reviews it becomes pretty obvious that the reason the prequels suck so bad is that George got rid of all autonomous collaborators, and George, really, really sucks.
[Thanks for the link, Carden]
Oops, thanks Gary McLean Hall, for the links expertly dissecting these vast monuments of “utter bilge” and comparing them to the superior efforts by those who didn’t get in as tight with Uncle Sam as George did.
No worries, not sure how I happened upon them, but I lost an afternoon to the full trilogy review because it was so compelling. The faux torture/murder subplot of the review might make it less formal, but the details are all spot on and this guy clearly knows cinema.
That’s two afternoons lost now, thanks to you, Gary. Haha, no, I’m a movie buff and it was time well spent in that regard, thanks again. I think the subplot was crucial in reviews nearly 70 and 90 [!] minutes long. I guess there’s another one in the works to fully dissect the last turd in the trilogy. I don’t how he’s going to top the nearly profound conclusions he drew in the last installment.
- – - – - – - – - – -
While Surda below is correct regarding the “post hoc” fallacy, that doesn’t mean there are *never* instances of true “post hoc”. I believe this is one: the awfulness of the second trilogy really does come from the State’s proclamation that George is the lone creator and master of the “Star Wars” universe.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - -
“Right, because regicide….”
Did you just watch this review as well, Murray? That’s nearly a quote from it. Don’t forget how the kiddies love mind-numbing, interminable scenes of political protocol and intrigue. What George really is, he’s a business man. He crafted the second trilogy to appeal to every different kind of viewer he could imagine. He is a functional idiot with an idiot’s imagination, and he imagines every one else is a bunch of idiots only varying by crude surface stereotypical features. He’s just close enough to the mark to make him a billionaire (*with* the help of Uncle Sam).
Sadly, I don’t know if there will be a third review. He got into hot water over the second review because of copyright infringement. The first part was pulled from youtube initially but later reinstated when the claim was dropped. I think the fact that the review is so thorough a deconstruction annoyed the powers that be and they claimed it contravened editorial fair use.
In the mean time…
Just perfect. I didn’t know it, but I knew it, you know what I mean? This is why actual musicians who know anything about “IP” law know that if there had been “IP” enforcement anywhere near as strong circa 1800, and if Mozart’s family and Haydn had been giant hard-ons like George Lucas, Beethoven (among others) never would have had a chance.
Fools, you are fools, all “IP” believers here. You make deals with corporatists, you get a corporate culture, real hard to figure out. (And you’d have to be a goddamned zombie to actually know what a real culture is and instead want this.)
Oh great, thanks for taking another afternoon from me, Gary. Haha, I have no will-power when it comes to this stuff.
How is defending the property of George Lucas, a live, honest-to-god genius, being a “corporatist”?
I was just listening to “The Rite of Spring” and I was reminded of something I’ve known for years (I just learned most of these facts about Lucas, thanks to Gary): another major collaborator to the success of the entire Star Wars industry is the very talented COMPLETE HACK & RIP-OFF ARTIST, John Williams.
Sure he’s a genius. And what is this goober a genius at? Playing corporate games and creating and selling corporate garbage.
You’re joking, right? Creating works that people actually enjoy and patronize is productively equivalent, in your eyes, to artificial shell games, rent-seeking, and garbage?
Of course I’m not joking. [Hate to repeat myself, but what can you do with a Randroid?] Of course he is a rent seeker, he’s the one who retained from the State the “ownership” of “Star Wars”. Watch that 160 minute review as it is carefully and exhaustively shown that Lucas is a functional idiot; that nearly everything in the original trilogy was the result of drawing from ancient and modern mythology and the work of his collaborators with actual talent. And it unwittingly shows that he used the corporatist system to take over and destroy the series (for many people, that is to anyone with a modicum of knowledge on art and aesthetics. Sorry that I’m a snob, a great crime in your sad, corporatist culture, I know). And yeah, that points to garbage. Millions love the Chinese crap at Walmart. Millions love Ayn Rand’s pulp trash and sub-Nietzsche blabberings. So what?
[Now don't get me wrong, I stand with Mises on this one: the cultural elite have dropped the ball big time and have no one to blame but themselves.]
Oh, and my apologies, Silas, if you’re only a Lucas fanboy and not also a Rand fanboy, too. I get you “IP” crusaders mixed up, and I really just wanted to throw some gratuitous insults in there. I see now that you’re only 28. Sincerely, I nearly weep at what they’ve done to you all. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that “VI” is your favorite?
No! I’m the one who likes vi! Oh, you’re talking about something else. You shouldn’t be confusing me with things which are simultaneously the same and not the same.
And, Surda, you’re around or over 40 I’d be willing to wager? Chalk another one up for Russ on your possibly having Asperger’s. Haha, I kid, thank you, you’ve been a beautiful audience.
Er, you know that correlation does not imply causality, right?
Er, you do know that you selectively invoke that principle only when you disagree with the implication, right?
Can you think of an example of a big-budget, profitable movie, intended for entertainment, that did not rely on IP rights? I mean, if IP isn’t necessary for such creations, surely you can find *some* example of someone using a non-IP business model … right?
What the hell are you talking about? Where did I use correlation to imply causation? I’m a falsificationist. I don’t prove, I disprove.
Elsewhere in the thread, you argue that the lack of historical examples of IP without a state does not mean it is impossible. I fully agree with you, because I have reservations against inductive reasoning. But suddenly here you change your mind and abandon the principle.
So who’s being selective?
You chose *not* to invoke the principle “correlation does not imply causation” when citing private property systems that have high levels of productivity and useful capital investment.
Or do you not believe that kind of evidence is informative? That it’s “just” a correlation that private property-based societies have these while those that minimize property rights don’t?
I gave additional reasons, like the fact that there would be insufficient reason to have IP (or invest heavily in ideas) before the modern era.
Furthermore, people do create IP-like arrangements side-by-side with the existing system, while they do *not* create big budget IP-free entertainment movies side-by-side with the IP system, even though it’s possible. That is a fundamental difference. If it really were possible to have these great intellectual works without needing IP, people could do it right now!
But the don’t …
“If it really were possible to have these great intellectual works without needing IP, people could do it right now!
But they don’t …”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI
This is infinitely more intelligent than what inspired it, and all indications point to his doing it all strictly as a lark and out of love for the works that Lucas almost mindlessly ripped off.
Refresh my memory, this does not sound familiar. I do not tend to make statements about productivity and “useful capital investment”. Should that be the case though, I will happily reevaluate said claims.
This is again just inductive reasoning.
It is however also possible that this dichotomy is caused by the fact that copyright was designed to suit the purposes of certain types of business models, making other business models comparably less profitable.
Inductive reasoning Silas. Don’t do it. How about instead you address my objections, don’t you think that 10 months is enough to come up with something?
Oh yeah and one more side remark. The indication of profitability is not the size of budget but the size of the return on investment. Even if indeed big budget movies vanish in the absence of IP (I’m not saying they will, but they might), it can also be interpreted as a malinvestement bubble bursting, and capital being reallocated to other venues that are more profitable.
Don’t use inductive reasoning??? Um … no thanks, I like reliably making the optimal inferences, thank you very much.
Also, if big-budget movies (which tend to be highly profitable) are just some big wasteful bubble, how do you explain the fact that, given IP enforcement, people are still willing to pay money to see these movies, and this (expectation of) payment (by interested parties) is the basis for them existing? Sure looks like a win-win situation (i.e., Pareto improvement) to me!
Makers of the movies prefer doing that to alternate activities, and people seeing the movies prefer that to alternate entertainment venues. Certainly, they’d prefer to see them for free (at least without the IP premium), but if they could always do so, then those (enjoyable) works wouldn’t exist.
(Go ahead, cite Rothbard on how Pareto improvements are an evil statis concept — I’ve been down that road before.)
You *sure do* reliably make your optimal inferences.
Thanks, mpolzkill, I try.
You also seem to like blabbing about things without having a consistent theory, and avoiding answers. You should become a politician.
Maybe because the overall good they get (including visit to the cinema) is preferable to them to watching it on a laptop screen? The explanations could be numerous.
Yet again you infer the condition of causality, without explaining why the same problem does not apply to externalities. In order to be consistent, you would need to claim that absent property rights in externalities, there would be no externalities, which is refuted by emirical evidence.
@Peter_Surda:
Um, what was that about “never use induction”…?
You mean like how physical property rights were designed to suit capitalist business models, making socialism less successful by comparison?
@Peter_Surda:
But without IP, it’s not “computer screen vs. big screen”; it’s “big screen authorized by creator vs. big screen copied from creator”. The former is more expensive, but without people going to it, the creation doesn’t exist in the first place.
The presence of a fact counter to the theory refutes it, but the absence of a fact coutner to it does not prove it. What you just experienced is not induction. Contradictions do not exist, but imperfect knowledge does.
I never said the opposite. It is, of course, a possible interpretation, or at least it does not contradict the assumptions analogous to the situation with IP. I would not object to this being a refutation.
You seem to have a problem with elementary logic.
Which, again, are different goods. If people prefer paying more for a cinematic experience than laptop screen, why shouldn’t they they pay more for an “authorised” screen than “non-authorised” one?
There was a video on the website some time ago: http://blog.mises.org/12798/this-is-a-fantastic-lecture-on-fashion-and-the-absence-of-ip/
The people in the fashion industry (at least some of them) recognise that brand is a tool for product differentiation. Yet, IP opponents appear to lack the ability.
Just like fashion fakes wouldn’t exist without the leading brands. Or, in general, just like externalities wouldn’t exist without the cause. In what must appear paradoxical to IP proponents, no doom is evident in any of those situations. So why should it be true for IP? I am aware this is an inductive argument, but before I even consider it, there would have to be a clear distingiushing factor between IP on one hand and externalities and substitutes on the other. Without that, it boils down to “if we do not grant special rights to an arbitrary subset of causality, doom follows”. I promise, if a clear distingiushing factor is presented to me, I will accept this as a valid proposition within this context.
See, I am presenting my theories in a falsifiable fashion. I also accept unfalsified propositions as valid. That’s what makes my approach scientific. IP opponents however do not. They consider all refutations irrelevant. You know what’s that? That’s a religion. When pressed hard, they stop answering questions. You know what’s that? Thats politics.
You seem to have an ongoing problem with logic. Last year I thought that you might be actually able to produce challenging arguments. Looks like that is not the case, you limit yourself at cheap jabs at idle musings which are not representative for a proper theory.
@Peter_Surda:
Um … gee, I don’t know … maybe because:
a) It costs less, and
b) To boycott a product on the grounds that it’s an intellectual work pirated from the true owner would effectively admit to IP being justifiable and something that should be enforced via free market mechanism, invalidating the entire case against respecting IP claims?
Hey, if you don’t mind the most creative intellectual works being hastily-thrown together, highly-subjective things that last for about a month…
Yes, just like it’s an inductive argument when you take a real-world counterexample to be a refutation, contra what you said before. Which tells me you don’t know what you’re talking about on this issue.
It’s not arbitrary, and it has just as much (“inductive”) substantiation as claims about the doom that will follow in the absence of physical property rights. Are you just as critical of the latter? Didn’t think so.
I am slowly going to start insisting that you actually answer questions and do not divert attention when a threat starts looming that you would need to admit not to know the answer.
So, people always choose cheaper goods regardless of other features of the goods?
Again, a non sequitur. By making one choice, one does not express his opinion about the immorality of the other choice. We do not know anything about one’s preferences (see Mises’ Human Action). Maybe they are only doing it because they think if they give money to the creator, he will create more.
What does this have to do with anything?
Could you please quote the exact passage where I claim that a fact counter to a theory does not refute the theory? Or is that again just something you made up to divert attention. Or do you actually have problem with simple logic? Do you agree or not that contradictions do not exist?
No, you don’t know what you are talking about. The examples of your ignorance are plentiful. Like the attempts to drag discussion elsewhere and avoiding answers.
Ah, the very core of the IP fallacy. You see, it is not sufficient to assert this, you need to prove it, but before proving, you need to explain it. IP theorists fail on both steps.
However, I do not make such claims. I don’t see why you mention this in a debate with me. If you direct a brief glance on your own blog where I argued with you last year, you will see that I point out that with rival goods, exclusion is a necessary requirement for consumption, but with non-rival, it isn’t. Of course, that does not disprove IP rights, it just shows that there are non-arbitrary differences, which leads us to create a possible, falsifiable but not falsified, theory of property, one of many: If we assume that consumption is desirable, we need some sort of rules about how to divide rival goods and a possible way to do this are physical property rights.
You have failed to do the analogous process with regard to your theory, whatever that may be.
Of course I am equally critical of the latter. If you actually read what I write, you would notice that I tend to tread very carefully and dismiss only those options that have been refuted by evidence to the contrary, and am unimpressed by verificationism.
By the way, Peter:
In the example given, the only difference between the goods is that one is cheaper, while the other is authorized by its creator (and perhaps is available a few seconds earlier). So, in this case, yes.
Nice try, though.
Oh I see, by ignoring the whole argument and only responding to a part of it, you pretend to be refuting me. Why am I even writing this?
why is the big-budget film necessarily good, that it needs special pleading?
Why do you call it special pleading, when people are gladly willing to pay to enjoy these intellectual works, such that in the aggregate they pay more than the production costs?
well it was you that maintained that ip is necessary for the production of big-budget films. that seemed to be special pleading for blockbusters.
That is special pleading for property, which makes the production of wealth in a division of labor possible.
I mean, if IP isn’t necessary for such creations, surely you can find *some* example of someone using a non-IP business model … right?
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If you believe your own argument, you might as well become a statist. After all, if anarcho-capitalism or miniarchism had so many advantages, surely you would be able to find some example of it in the world.
Uh, yes it is. If you change your mind favor of the hypothesis upon seeing (a particular kind of) evidence, you must update *against* it upon not seeing such evidence. Otherwise, you get to use everything to arbitrarily update any belief to infinite odds in favor!
Why do you think those situations are parallel? People can produce (original!) intellectual works, even under a state which enforces IP, and waive the IP rights so as to attempt a viable IP-free business model (just as people can and do waive some property rights in physical goods and base a business model on that). People can’t, however, opt out of state governance within that state’s jurisdiction and try a competing model.
What could you have possibly thought was the relevant similarity between those cases?
And we know that the goal of libertarianism is to make sure we jury-rig our principles to ensure we have big-budget movies. We need to change our philosophy’s name to Blockbusterism.
No, but when people gladly pay money to see those blockbusters, and people gladly produce those blockbusters, and the reason that the blockbusters are produced is that people value them enough to pay more than their production costs, and wouldn’t pay those production costs without IP …
… then any philosophy that says, “Hey, stop that, that’s not supposed to happen, cut it out already!” probably made a mistake somewhere. Ya know?
If people really value them that much then they are smart enough to know that they need to pay for authorized versions and not unauthorized copies.
This argument that IP is needed to protect people from themselves and their own choices sounds fundamentally socialist, though I think you consider yourself a minarchist.
Yeah, kinda like how if people really value physical goods then they are smart enough they have to buy them rather than steal them?
Are you serious?
It a game theory strategy thing, Matthew. Some people want to have free movies, and so copy them, even if they know that if all other people also copied movies instead of paying for them, then the profit motive would be destroyed and high-production-quality movies would no longer be made, thus making everybody worse off. These people are basically hoping that enough other people will be “suckers” and pay for the movies so that they will be made, so that they can free-ride off the “suckers”. Of course, enough free riding would raise the price of movies for “suckers”, so they would rather have a law that prevents free riding. The law is not intended to protect the “suckers” from themselves, but to protect the “suckers” from the “parasites”.
It’s the same thing with governments in general. Everybody would like other people to respect their rights, but that doesn’t mean that everybody is willing to respect other peoples’ rights. Some people want to free ride off of a rights-respectful society, without respecting rights themselves. This gives these “parasites” an advantage, compared to the “suckers”. Of course, if everybody decided to chase such an advantage and also be “parasites”, then there would be no rights-respecting society left to free-ride off of, and everybody would be worse off. Therefore, the “suckers” band together to form a government, that forces the “parasites” to play along with their rules.
Only problem with this theory is that the people who pirate a lot of movies are generally the ones who care enough about all this crap to spend more than any other group on all other related merchandise (and their moms they still live with buy them a lot of official dvds and extra crap on their birthdays). What’s with the volumes of theory and whining? The man don’t walk on the lot lest he wants to buy! Pathetic.
mpolzkill,
As “the ones who care enough about all this crap” get to the point where they have to spend their own money, instead of Mommy’s, do you really think this will continue to hold? Hell, no. The idea that copying helps the industry instead of hurting it has never been all that convincing to me, I’m afraid. I mean, in the analog era, yeah, but in the digital era where a copy is every bit as high quality as the original? Nah, I don’t buy it.
I really don’t think you know the geekdom, and you’re ignoring all the accoutrements I mentioned. Bah, I seriously don’t care about any of this “IP” stuff other than wishing these “creative people” could think of other ways to make a living instead of getting in bed with the State to forever prop up old business models.
When the state is the monopoly provider of security, you have to get into bed with them.
Do you think that movie pirates would last one second in business if Lucasfilm could directly seize all their counterfeit copies of Star Wars, without getting approval by the state first? Who would pay to protect movie pirates?
Russ, you may not buy it but it is what studies have shown to this point. And having known a lot of people who do pirate I’ve seen much more interest there than among the average person.
If you don’t buy it then you are free to produce alternative studies, but even industry funded studies have come up with this before.
I know my own behavior, Polzkill. Let’s just say that, hypothetically, of course, if I could get $800 software packages for free, I wouldn’t pay for them after “evaluating” them.
silas barta says:
“…when people gladly pay money to see those blockbusters, and people gladly produce those blockbusters, and the reason that the blockbusters are produced is that people value them enough to pay more than their production costs, and wouldn’t pay those production costs without IP”
are you saying the law somehow shapes investment? shocking!
It would be one thing if it were *just* the law influencing. But you can’t ignore the fact that people actually *enjoy* these new intellectual works, and their creators enjoy making them, all relative to alternative uses of their scarce means. If the absence of IP means that they aren’t made or enjoyed, everyone is (weakly) worse off. Let’s not forget, the creators *could* have produced physical works instead of intellectual works, and people *could* have spent their money on physical works instead of the enjoyment of an intellectual work.
So if there were some non-intellecutal-work productive activity that were pareto-superior to those resources being used to make movies, we would already see it being done, even with IP.
Note: This isn’t a case of, “Well, if they hadn’t made Batman Begins, I could have made it on my own, so they’re just rent-seeking”, so don’t even try that line.
As advocated by the philosopher, Walter Blockbuster?
Just want to respond to the hate spewed against the prequels. The only truly weak one is the first, but even that had great moments (e.g., pod race, final battle, Anakin’s interaction with his mom). Lucas was right though, kids love it, and that generation is growing up remembering it very fondly.
The third one, ROTS, is second only to the Empire Strikes Back. I hate when people lump in ROTS with the others, when ROTS stomps Episodes IV and VI.
You can’t be serious. I actually fell asleep during that one with all the wooden acting and over choreographed combat.
Are you a child? If not, you are not the target market for Star Wars.
Right, because regicide, sexual innuendo, decapitations, severing of limbs, burning flesh, genocide, war, death, all of these are considered features of a film targeted at children. Stop being an apologist for awful films.
I thought the one with the young Anakin was better than the other two, with Hayden whatshisname. He sucked majorly.
Of course, it all started to go downhill with the Ewoks.
I thought it started with the Christmas Special.
Re: Perry Mason,
This is my opinion, but of the prequels the first one was more fun, even if preposterous and dumb; I enjoyed it because it was so bad it was good. The second one, for me, was more ho-hum with an Anakin Skywalker acting like a spoil-rotten child and an Obi Wan Kenobi acting like a overcritical older sister; the third being more a by-the-numbers episode to tie up loose ends than anything else.
But none can compare to the simplicity of the IV or the drama of the V. The VI was more a platform for toys and action figures than anything else, the acting being really bad and the fight sequence between Darth Vader and Luke so disappointing.
Are Jedi Knights Libertarian or Socialist?
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/Are-Jedi-Knights-Libertarian-or-Socialist-1668
Maybe there is a reason Lucas destroyed the Jedi Knights in the story.
The Jedi political belief system can’t be tied down becuase there isn’t any consistency between any of the films, books, or video games to indicate any kind of central theme. They range anywhere from libertarian to totalitarian statists depending on what source material you happen to cite at the time. The only common theme among Jedi are the use of the Force and lightsabers. Everything else is just a blank slate for the author, script writer, or game designer to project his own beliefs onto.
Re: David,
From what I could gather by watching the prequels, my take is that the Jedi were a kind of Cass Sustein Club of Tweakers, that “nudged” events and people in such a way to keep the people obedient and the Republic alive. They were certainly not fighting for freedom.
Samurai. Don’t make it so complicated. The Jedi served the exact same purpose as the Samurai did in Feudal Japan and in the end suffered the same fate at the hand of the state.
Re: JFF,
That, too
The greatest collaboration of all on the “original three” Star Wars movies, a.k.a. episodes 4 through 6, or whatever, was the collaboration of capital. Lucas could not fund these movies all on his own so he had to seek backing from a studio, and therefore he had to accept real producers working over him, and he had to accept script doctors, casting directors, and who knows what other professional help. But already by the third movie, Return of the Jedi, it seems that Lucas had been carefully saving his pennies and taking less money from outsiders, so he had the power to put more of his “vision” into the movies – that is, more steaming piles of clichés, more wooden dialogue, repeating elements from the previous movies (like the exploding Death Star reset), and those furry puppets.
The last three movies, a.k.a. the prequels, were horrendous because Lucas didn’t have to accept any money from anyone, that was tied to any kind of control over the movie’s content. If you don’t believe me then go watch those youtube movie reviews linked above and watch the cringing/scared looks on the faces of Lucas’ employees whenever he’s telling them what to fill the next blue screen with. These guys are working for George, not for the studio.
Now that’s just capitalism, and pretty good capitalism because he obviously made a huge pile off those abominable films. But how did he get away with what was basically ripping off the public? Intellectual property! Nobody else had the legal right to make another Star Wars movie, to cash in by writing and producing different prequels or sequels, making either better or worse films and letting the audience vote for which was best. Lucas “owns” the characters and anybody who tries to make a dime by imagining a better version of that fictional universe better watch out. The galactic copyright troopers will be paying you a visit.
When and if the US congress allows the Star Wars copyrights to expire (more likely congress will expire first), I think you will see new versions and prequels/sequels made of the Star Wars movies, the way they make a new version every decade or so of all the great old adventure stories like Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers, etc.
The communist mindset could not be more purely expressed.
ditto for the randian one.
“pretty good…huge pile [of money]”
Yep, pure Communism. All Communists really want is for more people (including the people who actually had most of the good ideas) to make money off of working on their “Star Wars” ideas. Yutz.
Nice post, Henry, I didn’t see it down here when I made my similar points, inspired by those wacky reviews.
I despise the recent trilogy as well but that”s irrelavent to the amazing effort and decentralized works of the division of labor that went into making them.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to determine the value of my vintage collection? I have all of the toys from when I was a kid…I kept the boxes for everything, though they are a bit tattered! I hate to let go of it all but am financially strapped so I guess now is the time. I looked on ebay and the range is huge! Not everything that I have was listed but the total for what I did find ranged from $800 to just under $3k. I have a couple of guys coming to look at them tonight but I don’t know how much to ask!! Thoughts, anyone? Thanks!!
At the risk of entertaining a prankster here, and hoping you’re not, I only respond to this because there is a reference to economics. You question “value.”
The “value” of your collection is what some buyer is willing to pay. Not what you think it’s worth. Sometimes a very bitter pill to swallow, especially for folks who can’t understand why their beloved, memory-invoking, cherished houses will not reap the “listing price” that they truly, sincerely, emotionally defend.
If, as you say, you researched other “like” examples, found between .8 and 3K, then you already have your answer.
Ask the 3K !!!!
Interesting view. I guess we do get caught up in fantasy stuff and do not really focus much on the real world.
I definatley agree that the movies (I-III) are abit sketchy. Lucas himself has stated that he didn’t even intend for all the things that have happened to happen. Like EU and the comics, etc.
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