Subject: Episode I is bound to suck Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 01:40:24 -0500 From: "Jim Fisher" Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY, USA Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc Well, I was holding out a lot of hope for Episode I. Up until this point I had refused to pass any sort of judgement on it at all. However, I believe the filmmakers have made a terrible -- no, terrible is not strong enough a word -- the filmmakers have made an irrevocably bad decision. Yes, you might have guessed as to what it is. I read today on NewsDroid that starwars.com announced the subtitle font for alien languages. Apparently they have chosen ITC Franklin Gothic Bold. Could there not be a worse font to choose? *How* could anyone see a film with IT Franklin Gothic Bold subtitles? It's bad enough that I strained my eyes on the awful Arial subtitles during Das Boot -- who would want to watch a three and a half hour film full of submarines and badly fonted subtitles? I had a similar experience watching the French film Three Men and a Cradle. Wouldn't you know it, but they've got Times New Roman subtitles. Come on people! How in the hell am I supposed to read those? I've thought long and hard about this, and I've realized that we -- the fans -- are the only ones who will be able to inform Lucasfilm of this horrible decision. I'm going to set up a petition on my web page -- I urge everyone to sign it, though it will most likely do no good whatsoever. I've come to the decision that the only acceptable subtitle font for Episode I is Wingdings. Yes, those colorful little pictures of peace signs and hands and hearts and whatnot -- I mean, what true Star Wars fan can't translate Wingdings to English on the fly? How can Lucas expect us to read ITC Franklin Gothic Bold when he has Wingdings at his fingertips? How does he expect the fans to stand for the use of ITC Franklin Gothic Bold?!?!?!?!?!?!? So, everyone head on over to jimfisher.net and fill out the petition -- once we get a few thousand signatures I'll send it off to Lucas and we'll all be wingdining our way through Episode I. May the Font be with you. -- Jim Fisher http://www.jimfisher.net