ST Supershadow: Why Old Timers Are Skeptical About Rumors

Because if they're NOT confirmed, what they are is WORTHLESS, neither more nor less than that, and strictly philosophically speaking, there's little point in people burning away precious hours of their one and only life on things that are worthless. If I'm going to spend time on something, I don't want to have to look back on it years later and wonder what the hell I was thinking, wasting my time getting excited about something that proved to be so far off from what was in the movie that it's comical. If I'm going to spend time geeking out, I want it to be spent geeking out on the MOVIE, not on things that some nonentity somewhere in Internet-land INSISTS will be in the movie based on something he heard from a friend of a friend of a friend.

And frankly, what if one of these rumors turns out to be so interesting that we get disappointed if it DOESN'T end up in the film? It's happened a lot of times; a rumor gets going, it sounds awesome, it turns out to be garbage and not in the film, and we're bummed; and when we do see the movie, we think it would have been better if the thing that was in that rumor was in it. Why should I do that to myself? Why should I permit my expectations to be played with like that when it's obvious we're all going to be better off going into that theater WITHOUT any expectations whatsoever? I didn't have expectations for the PT; why should I have any now?

Surely, people here remember one of the stupid excuses that has been consistently hauled out to explain the people who didn't like the PT: "You just didn't like it because it didn't live up to the expectations you built up in your heads." Ignoring the fact that that's Huttcrap, the last thing I'm going to do is give that excuse any validity by getting expectations through rumor sites, and particularly now, when not a frame has been shot and no one is in a position to get interesting scoops anyway. If I like or dislike Episode VII, I want it to be for its own merits, not because it did or didn't match up to some rumor I heard two years ago.

And that, too, is something to think about.

 

Fair enough, but why not steer clear of the rumours thread until the official announcements are made? Plenty of people don't give a toss that the rumour they're discussing may be complete BS.

 

Then why don't they just steer clear of the rumors thread themselves? If they don't care if it's BS, they're obviously not here because they care about what's actually going to be in the film, if they did, they'd care if the rumors were BS or not. It's pointless to engage in what I call "action figure thinking," where people just run all possible scenarios through their little heads, with all manner of characters from across the Saga, that will ultimately have as little to do with the actual film we'll be seeing in 2015 as a twelve-year-old used napkin would. That's how an entire discussion on having IG-88 in the ST came to be, and it was all a bunch of crap that wasted days and weeks of everyone's time and, for all that sound and fury, ultimately came to nothing. Imagining for its own sake has its place, but why fill pages upon pages with it when it's not going to amount to anything and it's only going to be deleted and/or archived in some dusty old corner of the JCF no one will ever see? "Because it's fun" isn't a good enough reason for me; I'll have fun in the theater, not on the back of what a nobody who isn't even involved with the film has to say. Nor is "because there's no actual news to talk about;" if there's nothing for me to do here for that reason, there's work or something important elsewhere I can be doing instead.

Keep in mind: this thread is about why we members of the Old Guard DON'T and WON'T get on the rumor bandwagon; it's a waste of time trying to talk us out of that perfectly wise and healthy policy.

 

I get the second part of your post. I don't understand your first point at all. It's all speculation at this stage. Still, to misquote Ron Burgundy "when in Rome..."

 

You never know, GL may have written the ST treatment on one of them

 

Been here since 1997 (different name). Speak for yourself.

 

Same.

 

I love that Supershadow's mere memory is angering people still.

 

Serious question here: why is that? The excerpts in this thread alone show he was a raving lunatic.

 

Raving lunatics have a habit of angering people.

 

People who believed his stuff probably feel duped. So they're probably mostly annoyed at themselves for letting themselves get duped.

 

That's not it. It's because people who did believe his stuff made the forum a seriously annoying war zone during the Prequels. It was a constant flood of newbies who believed him, and it was annoying to have to shoot down every rumor they preached as truth here.

 

THAT.

 

Darth Xio Jade....

That's a name I haven't heard in a long time, a long time....

 

We should just treat Supershadow as the Weekly World News.

 

SuperShadow was, is, and should always be the butt of jokes and nothing more.

I was around the prequel rumor scene when he began cranking out these "rumors" and the stories he posted had to be among the worst things I've ever read as they were riddled with cliche and very bad storytelling. The other thing which was easy to notice was how he kept changing the "story" he had leaked after more rumors and spoilers had become confirmed which contradicted his earlier "work". He would then claim that Lucas had changed it and how he was the only one who had been told, yadda, yadda, all while making these changes AFTER everybody knew what would be going on in the films.

Don't get me wrong, there are a few spoiler sites out there which are worth the time and effort it takes to read the rumors, speculate, and try to piece the photos and leaked story elements together, but do try to remember that *anything* done by SuperShadow doesn't count as one of those sites.

 

I'm going to create a rumor site called UberSunshine.

 

I've been coming to Theforce.net and enjoying the rumors since the special editions. Still enjoy the rumors. I say bring 'em on.

 

Personally, I consider "rumors" to be a very close relative of "speculation." For example, we believe they have put out a call for an actor over 7 foot tall. Naturally everyone speculates that's going to be Chewbacca. Other counter that it won't be, because of the request for "broad facial features."

So you can call that rumor or you can call it speculation, but it is not reasonable to think that people aren't going to engage in same.

 

Well, in any case I'll be looking forward to the humble pie eating contest.

 

Personally, not a fan of "If you follow/like me, I will give you the news" type of people, sites like El Maybe. The motive of that for him is to gain followers, but for us followers we can't even be sure if he is right or wrong, so I don't fall for that kind of crap! I also do NOT follow him.

I would be kinda skeptical somewhat by him posting the news first, without teasing and trying to get people follow him, but by doing just that, makes me much MORE skeptical.

 

I miss the glory days when Supershadow was at his height.

Nowadays, the internet is so much larger and people are more savvy on it, and I think people just don't come across his site or fall for it like they used to. To those of us who were around in those days, SS was a harmless source of amusement, and an initiation for a lot of newbies who would post about OMG This Amazing Site I Just Found.

I would add that I think a lot of the skepticism a lot of us have isn't due to SS, but simply due to the sheer number of rumors that were coming from all directions and the hype they would quickly generate. Like i said, fans on the net were well aware of SS, so we never really put any weight on rumors we knew could trace back to him. The problem was that any little crumb of Star Wars info generated insane press and hype, and rarely turned out to be true. (Which isn't to say the rumors were amusing -- this time I'm just going to sit back and enjoy them, but I won't believe them until I get real verification).

 

So little concrete info that I might go 7NSA..........

 

Apparently some people were ****** enough to believe him. I like rumor and speculation. I think they're fun. Some people are just not fun.