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Entertainment

Online Epic to Release Penultimate Episode 148

Posted by CowboyNeal from the stuff-to-watch dept.
Brokensaint writes "The award-winning 3-year epic 'Broken Saints' is preparing to launch it's 23rd installment in its cult hit saga. Winner of the Sundance Online Film Festival Audience Award for Animation, 'Broken Saints' contains over 10 hours of original flash storytelling in 'cinematic literature' format (think animated comic). Having been seen by over 2 million people worldwide, this free web project will be launching the penultimate episode in the series next week, and will close out its run with a 1 hour finale in June. 'Broken Saints' follows the paths of four protagonists from different cultures that receive an ominous vision of the future - a vision that is somehow tied to the launching of a global telecommunications network. One of the main characters - the Muslim mercenary Oran - was created as a direct protest of the continued sanctions against the nation of Iraq. His role in the story chillingly mirrors the direction of current global events. The 3-person team from North Vancouver, Canada hopes to release a tradition graphic novel and DVD box set of the series by Christmas 2003. They are also in talks with production companies ranging from HBO to the Sci-Fi Network to do a mini-series adaptation of the epic. If you want to help the lads chip away at their mounting bandwidth bills, please consider dropping a dime in their kitty."
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Online Epic to Release Penultimate Episode More

Online Epic to Release Penultimate Episode

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  • Broken Saints (First Post?!) (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bodrius ( 191265 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @10:44PM (#5707831) Homepage
    I love Broken Saints, it's one of the best WORKING examples of using the web to deliver dramatic media.

    They're utterly deserving of whatever graphic Slashdot brings to the site.

    However, I don't think "Penultimate Episode About to Be Release Soon, But Not Yet!" is "news", even in the Slashdot sense.

    As a link, cool. The press-release feel of the post is kind of silly, though.

  • Katz (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @10:47PM (#5707843)

    Seriously, that is the biggest description I've seen in the 5-6 years I've been reading slashdot. Reminds me about Katz; just keeps going, and going...

    Speaking of The Man Everyone Loves to Hate, the King Of Pontification...where is the guy? We haven't heard a peep from him in ages(not that this is a bad thing, actually.)

    • We haven't heard a peep from him in ages(not that this is a bad thing, actually.

      Sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! You might awaken him! With the lack of school shootings, he's fallen into the slumber of ages. And we certainly don't want him around pontificating about the war.

      • There has not been a "lack of school shootings" as you put it.
        They are still happening, just that the news isnt bothering to report them or if it does as a mere footnote.

    • NEVER DO THAT (Score:5, Funny)

      by Doktor Memory ( 237313 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @12:16AM (#5708277) Journal
      You said his name three times! Are you insane?

      I'd sleep in aluminum body armor tonight if I were you.
  • Enough with the anime -- why don't you just start pushing methamphetamines on us nerds instead? You'd make a lot more money that way.
    • Broken Saints is not anime. It's animation.

      First we had to deal with people who thought all animations were cartoons, and so thought anime was about cartoons.

      Now we have to deal with people who think all animation is anime, and so think all animations and cartoons are anime...

      Broken Saints is animated drama. It has more to do with the US/European non-superhero comic media than with anime in terms of style.

  • I'm partial to Ninjai for my Flash Drama...

    But alas they also Suffer from bandwith Costs and keep taking thier episodes offline.

    I didnt link as to not drive up thier BW Costs, You can find them if you are so inclined to look them up
    • They seem to have removed the episodes for now, because of bandwith issues... but google searches for nj_chapter0X (where X is a number greater than 2) turn up some of the episodes that are hidden on other servers. I really like what I have seen of this so far.
    • Ninjai is AWESOME! If Broken Saints is even half as good, then I'll probably end up getting all of the episodes and sharing them with my friends. Unless, of course, they don't want people to serve them privately, in which case, I'll point my friends to their website.

  • Umm (Score:5, Funny)

    by cethiesus ( 164785 ) <cethiesus@y[ ]o.com ['aho' in gap]> on Thursday April 10, 2003 @11:06PM (#5707966) Homepage Journal
    If you want to help the lads chip away at their mounting bandwidth bills, please consider dropping a dime in their kitty.

    humor

    Also, please consider helping by not posting a link to their site on Slashdot for crying out loud. :)

    /humor
  • I thought that *was* the episode!
  • "One of the main characters - the Muslim mercenary Oran - was created as a direct protest of the continued sanctions against the nation of Iraq. His role in the story chillingly mirrors the direction of current global events."

    So, you mean now he's jumping up and down, cheering, waving an American flag, and chanting "Bush! Bush! Bush!"?

    Speaking of weird movies geeks may like, here's my rather detailed review of Donnie Darko. [locusmag.com]
    • Dude. Not even you're dumb enough to belive the US media at this moment. The country is at war. What they're telling you in the media is significantly fudged. Not lies, just edited perspectives. After the original gulf war, we found out that the shit stunk a lot more than we thought at first. It's the nature of any country at war to turn up the propoganda machine a bit. In a year or so, we'll see what's really happening. Not that the American public will know about it then anyway, because we've got the memo
    • a) Those are the people that the media is focussing on, because it makes the "war" look good

      b) What would you do if a bunch of soldiers with guns and tanks were rumbling through your city, give them the finger?

  • Bad Storytelling (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Monkelectric ( 546685 )
    was created as a direct protest of the continued sanctions against the nation of Iraq.

    Uninformed artists unite! Political messages other than universal messages ("be nice to everyone", "love is good" etc.) are a classic sign of poor storytelling. Good storytelling (if it has messages at all) has "universal messages" that can be appreciated after the lifetime of the project. The fact it is dated before it's even out is just a testament to poor judgment.

    Interesting fact, a musical number "The Jitterbug

    • Re:Bad Storytelling (Score:2, Interesting)

      by hmccabe ( 465882 )
      This is very true, but on the other side of the coin I like a little dating. Carrie Fisher not wearing a bra (and to a lesser extent being coked off her ass) gives the geek of 2003 a better perspective of life in the 70s than any history book.
    • Could you imagine how much less esteem the Wizard of Oz would be held in if they jitterbugged in it?

      However, look at The Blues Brothers. Even when the film was released in 1980, the music and dancing was outdated. And that movie rocks!

      Granted, the entire film of The Blues Brothers was the old music. Yes, the Jitterbug bit would have lessened that part of the movie. I certainly don't think it would have ruined the entire movie, though.

      Look at the depiction of computers in early 80's movies (WarGames

    • The movie "TANK GIRL" had an aweful Cole Porter musical number that, if taken out, would still not have improved the movie.

    • Re:Bad Storytelling (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Basing a story on "universal messages" is great if you want to create a saturday morning cartoon. Things like 'be nice to everyone' are great for carebears, but adults generally like fare with more texture.

      Of course I'm sure that since 'Full Metal Jacket' is dated (the Vietnam War is long gone), its message about war is completely irrelevant.

      Keep your platitudes to yourself.
      • Basing a story on "universal messages" is great if you want to create a saturday morning cartoon.

        Universality is a staple of literature. This is generally held true by critics. In fact, it is often used in the very definition of literature/art.

    • Re:Bad Storytelling (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bodrius ( 191265 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @01:18AM (#5708500) Homepage
      In this case, this speaks more about the poster than about the artist.

      I don't know if Oran was created as a "direct protest" (this thing has been running for about two years) or to exploit a great dramatic situation. To me, it seemed like the second case.

      The artists are very much on the left, no doubt, but the characters are no simple strawmen for their political arguments.

      I disagree with their political stance on Iraq, as with a lot of their politics in general (feels too Salon-ish for me), but Oran is one of my favorite characters. The Iraq situation provides him with a lot of background and a great hook to put him in the story, as compared to others whose plots feel more contrived.

      Broken Saints is a drama with a political voice. You may or may not agree with it, but it's very well done. Like all political fictions, it manipulates its world to express a political message, to use it as an model of ideas.

      Oran, like all other characters, "speaks" about the political argument idealized in the fictional world.

      You may even agree with the argument within the context of the fictional world, but find there's no connection between the fictional world (and the argument) with reality.

      Or you may not agree with the argument at all, but find the fictional world so well done it's deserving appreciation as fiction.

      You don't have to fear Big Brother is about to take over the world to appreciate "1984", believe the banality of American consumerism is the end of civilization to like "Brave New World", or have an anachronistic appreciation for chivalric tradition to understand "Don Quixote".

      Or, perhaps closer to the media, you don't have to believe the world is being taken over by the secret societies operating under the UN and corporations to bring a New World Order to think Deus Ex had a great plot.

      • actually you radicaly misinterpereted my comment :) I said a *political message* was bad story telling :) and I stand by that. But I said nothing about dramatic situations :) The Iraq situtaion could have been just as compelling without having been "created as a direct protest...". that being said I dont think we actually disagree on any points :)

        As for the article reflecting my own beliefs, I cant argue with that I suppose... to speak otherwise would make me a troll :)

        • Try reading anything by anyone Irish after Britain occupied it. Then tell me how "political messages" make for bad story telling.
        • Actually, my point is that "The Iraq situation" is as compelling as it is, whether it was "created as a direct protest" or not. The original motive of the author is irrelevant. In a year or two, no one will remember it.

          Either it's good art and stands by itself, or it doesn't.

          If the drama is not compelling, it has to do with the bad art, not with the motive. True, "direct political protests" tend to create bad art, but that's because *ANY MOTIVATION AT ALL* tends to create bad art.

          There are too many peopl
      • Why is it, if a Leftist politcal agenda is advanced in a work of "art", the creators are credited with depth, greatness, and strength of character, and yet when a Rightist political agenda is advanced, the creators are jingoist, reactionary, and fascist?
        • Not really, unless you're just following crappy magazine critics or community-college professors, most of whom happen to be "from the Left" in the US since the 60s. I'm sure we'll be complaining about the same imbalance in a generation or two when they're all "from the Right".

          Art, however, is judged on its own depth and character regardless of the political bias of the author(s).

          Borges has been accused of everything you say, specially in his own Argentina, but he's still considered a master of fiction by


        • > Why is it, if a Leftist politcal agenda is advanced in a work of "art", the creators are credited with depth, greatness, and strength of character, and yet when a Rightist political agenda is advanced, the creators are jingoist, reactionary, and fascist?

          Maybe because artists tend to be leftist, so that most rightist "art" must perforce be made by someone other than artists?

    • Uninformed artists unite! Political messages other than universal messages ("be nice to everyone", "love is good" etc.) are a classic sign of poor storytelling...blah, blah, blah

      Uninformed posters unite! I had the pleasure of attending a "Violence in video games" roundtable at the Vancouver chapter of the IGDA. Brooke Burgess, a producer/director/writer of Broken Saints, was part of the roundtable. He is a very intelligent, informed, eloquent speaker.

      Maybe you should look in the mirror before calli

      • Quite simply, a lot of the stuff that gets approval on slashdot is beyond what I find acceptable for my own viewing [goatse comes immediately to mind...]

        Same goes for movies: I seldom go to one, but if I do, I've first read the reviews.

        Nonetheless, this might be good. Could someone, as an "anonymous coward", perhaps, post a spoiler. [Moderators: please don't vote up the spoiler -- let it remain hidden to those who don't wish it spoiled]. What's the basic plot? What's the basic premise? How deep is
    • Yeah, just look at George Orwell's "Animal Farm." Nobody reads that book anymore. [/sarcasm] Why can't art reflect on real events? In my opinion a true artist doesn't give a damn about the long-term profitability of their work.

    • Re:Bad Storytelling (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Wespee ( 659102 )
      Animal Farm
      The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
      Oliver Twist

      Yep... lousy storytelling, all of 'em.

      Good storytelling has a good story. You're giving a personal requirement for "art" and claiming it as a universal prerequisite of a craft. Not to mention that a well told story, even one with a specific and timely political message, becomes an instantiation of a universal. It's not necessarily the message that makes a classic, it's the way in which the message is presented. You also seem to be assuming that "good
    • Um, try reading something sometime. Or watching a movie. Anything. Most art is created to comment on the human condition. A huge part of the human condition is politics. Do you even remember all the books that you had to read in high school?
    • Damn. I gotta harp on this idiot again. Here is a little reading list for you. These are all famous, very specifically political novels. These are just the ones I remember from an English class years ago.

      1) John Updike -- Grapes of Wrath. 1920's populism.
      2) Joseph Conrad -- Heart of Darkness. European colonialism.
      3) Arthur Miller -- The Crucible. 1950's McCarthyism.
      4) Upton Sinclair -- The Jungle. 1900's meat industry.
      5) James Joyce -- Portrait of the Artist as a Young man. Irish nationalism.

      Okay, that la
  • ...'cinematic literature' format (think animated comic).

    I remember back in the day when we used to call these 'cartoons'. Maybe we should all read a little less of Wired magazine?
    • Actually, "animated comic" is a far more accurate description of Broken Saints (BS) than "cartoon". Cartoons usually have a lot more animation than BS does. Cartoons usually have spoken dialogue, not animated text balloons. I think you get the idea.

      Have you watched/read any Broken Saints episodes? I'm not sure if "cinematic literature" or "animated comic" are the right terms for it either, but if you have seen any BS then you'd understand the grasping for terms. "Flash comic strip" is the best I can m
      • Now that I'm at work (=> broadband) I have, and you're right, it's nothing if not an 'animated comic'. I stand corrected.
        • Hey no problem, I wasn't trying to put you down or anything. I'm a late comer to the series myself, so my "catch-up" took MANY hours, so I can imagine that you've got a lot of viewing to do if you want to watch them all before the big finale! :-)

          My one complaint about BS is that it has no transport controls to jump to and from scenes. Guess I'll have to buy the DVD for that.
  • I have the anime category checked so I don't have too see any of this crap, please put all anime submission under the anime category..

    • This isn't anime. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What part of "The 3-person team from North Vancouver, Canada" did you not read? Anime, in the terms commonly used by American fanboys, refers to Japanese Animation. This is hardly Japanese; hell, it's hardly even Anime-styled.

      Perhaps slashdot should create a generic "animation" catagory so all you people who whine about anything that might be anime don't have to see stories like this.

  • Wazat?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by foo fighter ( 151863 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @11:56PM (#5708204) Homepage
    ...this free web project will be launching the penultimate episode in the series next week [leading to its finale in June].


    Holy shit, someone used the word "penultimate" properly! On /. no less.

    • Hell, I thought this was going to be some sort of extra module for Neverwinter Nights. I'm on part 5 of Penultima and figured this would be the Penultimate Penultima. And considering the puns they toss around, I could see it.
    • Hear hear! Let surge the tide of proper usage!
  • I feel so left out. Why didn't anybody call me??

  • limit (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by sstory ( 538486 )
    A word-count limit on the size of post summaries would be nice.

  • Flash bad for long form animation? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DoorFrame ( 22108 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @12:14AM (#5708272) Homepage
    Yuck. Ok, maybe I don't know how to control flash properly, but is it even possible to pause, or jump around, in a flash animation? If I'm going to be watching a half hour episode of a long series of animated featurettes, I want to be able to pause them when the phone rings. Or, missing that, I want to be able to quickly and easily jump around the animation with an easy to use slide bar (or some equivalent).

    Expecting me to sit still for thirty minutes without these options is something that I'm not willing to tolerate for the sake of an anti-war cartoon series.

    Now, short animations in flash are fine. Anything longer than five minutes really needs to make the transition out into another format. Give me mpeg, give me avi, give me divx, give me quicktime... give me ANYTHING that I can pause.

    Does this bother anyone else? Am I missing an easy way to jump around in flash?
    • You can't jump around, but you can pause it by right-clicking on the flash animation, and unchecking "Play".
    • That bothers the hell out of me as well... and to top it off, it spawns an unresizeable window to hold the damn thing in.

      I believe it would be possible to create such a "slide-bar" within Flash itself, but the authors simply chose not to do so.

      *scurrys off to watch the quicktime animatrix shorts instead*
    • how else are you going to get high quality movies that are 10-30 minutes long to fit in a 10-20 meg package? you can pause flash animation by right clicking and unchecking play, but I don't know of an easy way to navigate around, which is why several of their longer episodes were released in several pieces, so you didn't have to try to watch them all in one sitting. there might be a more efficient way to do it, but their method works fairly well

  • Ninjai? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by wuchang ( 524603 )
    Broken Saints is all fine and good, but when is the next episode of Ninjai [ninjai.com] coming out?
    • No kidding! I just went there after visiting Broken Saints, to remind myself of a really good flash story, and was surprised at the hits they're showing on the front page. 57 million hits and counting?!? And all without ad support!

      Broken Saints looks like it goes in a bit for the cheap scare in the opening flash, and the "classic" trailer doesn't inspire much more confidence, either. At least Ninjai is funny sometimes, as well as sad. I thought the "little bird" was a bit too Disney, but still worth a few

  • Interesting that... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Zathras11 ( 628385 )
    they chose to create a character for THAT reason
    instead of creating one as a direct protest to the
    brutal treatment the dictator of Iraq subjected
    his people to, while spending the countries oil
    wealth money on things for his own pleasure
    (including the torture and murder of Iraqies).
    It sure shows where their priorities are, and
    for that matter how out of whack with reality
    they are. Loons... Screw 'em!

    "One of the main characters - the Muslim mercenary Oran - was created as a direct protest of the continued sa

  • Benefits of Slashdotting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AEton ( 654737 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @01:02AM (#5708428)

    Since Brokensaint isn't a slashdot user [slashdot.org], I guess the article author will remain anonymous. It's hard to tell whether their intentions were good or bad; I pulled down 131mb of zipped episodes (1-22, plus trailer) from http://bs.brokensaints.com/av/downloads/ [brokensaints.com] just now, and so in a sense I guess that's a bit of bandwidth hurt.

    It seems kind of odd that the second-to-last episode, and not any of the others (like, say, the first) would merit a Slashdotting, but really now is a good time since there's more to see--better late than never.

    But if even nine other people do what I did then that's 1.31gigs of data transfer; someone's got to pay for that. With any luck there'll be a benevolent user somewhere among the mix who's willing to contribute. The benefits of willfully Slashdotting are thus mixed at best: greater exposure but probably a low click to pay ratio.

    At any rate, the comic is good. Hooray for pseudo-animation.

    • Re:Benefits of Slashdotting (Score:4, Funny)

      by DarkZero ( 516460 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @05:07AM (#5709129)
      I pulled down 131mb of zipped episodes (1-22, plus trailer) from http://bs.brokensaints.com/av/downloads/ [brokensaints.com] just now, and so in a sense I guess that's a bit of bandwidth hurt.

      You "guess" that 131MB of tranfers to one user in one day during a Slashdotting is, "in a sense", "a bit of a bandwidth hurt"? That's like saying that you might have, "in a sense", killed your next door neighbor "a bit" when you "stabbed him in the chest forty-two times".

      Seriously, though... downloading 131MB of files from a site that is currently on the front page of Slashdot is not cool. Practice a little restraint next time by bookmarking the page and coming back to it in a couple of days or something.
      • Unless, of course, you are posting them up as a mirror (though I think in this case permission would be a good thing too).

        I'd donate mirroring for B. Saints myself, but I think that my meager 8GB bandwidth limit would stuff itself within an hour or two after a good slashdotting.
    • Do you want suggestions? It would be nice to point toward alternate sources... You could post a mirror, or post some bitzi tickets [bitzi.com] for those episodes.
    • Has anyone yet added these to a P2P net? Seems like an obvious relief on thier bandwith costs, paticularly as the site is not generating revenue through ads.
    • But if even nine other people do what I did then that's 1.31gigs of data transfer; someone's got to pay for that. With any luck there'll be a benevolent user somewhere among the mix who's willing to contribute.

      How about you, greedy-ass?
  • "it's" == "it is"
    "its" == something belonging to "it"

    Come on /. editors---use that editorial power---for great justice!
  • Just posting my support for the Brokensaint guys. this project really does rock, and I recommend it to anyone. however, the best bet is to download a "keeper" of episode so that you dont have to download them again and knock up their costs.
  • I watched the first episode... well almost, I couldn't bring myself to finish it. If you watched the last episode of Evangelion and hated it then this type of thing is not for you.
  • Oh, and they still don't post articles about the teleplay project at www.bananachan.com [bananachan.com] -- that online epic deserves recognition too (it's a much better story than broken saints. Yeah, Broken Saints is pretty, but c'mon) :)

    I guess if I were to post an article about Banana Chan, I'd say that their next major epic begins on May 3rd.
  • I've set up a mirror [harvard.edu] for Broken Saints (of everything on the site that I could find except the forum) to help out with their "mounting bandwidth bills." It redirects to my computer, as I don't have the 400MB to store all that stuff on my account. Furthermore, if you want to set up a mirror to help out too, go to http://[my ip address]/bs/totalbs.tgz for a tarball of the whole thing.

    My site (on my computer, currently 140.247.87.50) is pretty neat too, and I've set up a fun hitcounter [140.247.87.50] script too, which log

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