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Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#701

Post by TeMPOraL »

TMWNN wrote: post #643
jerf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider it hands down better than any Star Trek except possibly TNG. And that's giving TNG some grace due to being a bit older; take that away and I'll give SG-1 the prize. I will agree that people can reasonably disagree about Deep Space Nine vs SG-1. But that's the level of quality we're talking about, in my opinion. It's top tier, and much less well known. Also strongly recommend binging the first season in par…

>Also strongly recommend binging the first season in particular; they did a very good job of conveying the feeling of humans blundering about not really knowing what they are doing in the big new universe, and it really comes across when watched relatively quickly on top of each other. One thing I've never enjoyed about Star Trek is how the Enterprise /DS9/ Voyager and its crew are the ones that always save the day/w…

Stargate: SG-1 series takes its name from SG-1 - the first of many teams USAF sends through the gate on a regular basis. The show focuses on that team, and in this way, it's similar to how Star Trek shows tend to focus on its eponymous ship/station. They somehow end up with most of the cool adventures and do most of the world-saving.

Where it feels more believable/acceptable than Star Trek is:

- SG-1 being special is at least somewhat justified. It's the first team Stargate Command sent through the gate (after the events of the original movie), so they got to be the first to make new friends and enemies.

- The show constantly reminds you about existence of increasing amount of other teams, through namedropping, discussing them, showing them, or showing multi-team missions. While SG-1 may be the tip of the spear, you know that SG-2 through SG-whocankeeptrack are following close behind.

- Unlike in Star Trek, in Stargate, humans start having no idea what they're doing. Quite often, it's them who need to be saved by more powerful forces, whether aliens or institutions.

Stargate: Atlantis starts with a focus on wider cast - so the gate missions are more fluid, you don't care much about who's assigned to which gate team on any given day. The whole ensemble of characters work similarly to a Star Trek series crew. But it makes sense for the same reason most of ST:Voyager made sense: Atlantis expedition is very far away from Earth, alone and with (at least initially) no backup.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#702

Post by loceng »

twoodfin wrote: post #543
paulpan wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this vein, $8.45B seems a bargain for the likes of Apple to instantly booster their very limited TV+ offerings. Was this an exclusive, closed door negotiation between owners of MGM and Amazon? I'm perplexed how the final price isn't a lot higher due to a potential bidding war between all the streaming giants. Even Netflix would benefit - if anything to force competitors to pay more.

What about MGM’s back catalog makes Apple TV+ qualitatively more compelling to your marginal subscriber? Versus say spending that same $8.5B on new content? There’s not much “forward looking” IP of value tied to MGM except the Bond franchise, and it sounds like the Broccoli’s aren’t giving up control of that in this deal.

Very easily are a few million people who'd be willing to have access to the Stargate library as part of a subscription + hopefully they start production again of at least Stargate Universe; it's premise would make for an awesome game too.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#703

Post by johnchristopher »

minusSeven wrote: post #360
johnchristopher wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Frankly, I'm glad I have a waning interest in modern movies as I get older, and I'm actually more interested in watching old black and white movies that are "free to air" in my country. My mother recently gave me a sub-account to Netflix and while I was thrilled to rewatch some shows I liked (like the OA or good old star trek) I was quickly submerged by the sheer amount of YA novels adapted in TV shows or movies th…

Well Netflix formula is throw a bunch of stones in the ocean and see what sticks and then make more of it. Its a bad strategy because users waste time watching content they would rather not watch. HBO imo is the only platform that focus on quality rather than the number of shows.

> Well Netflix formula is throw a bunch of stones in the ocean and see what sticks and then make more of it.

I read it was more than that. Shows have to bring in more customers, keeping them hooked to a show (or the platform) is not enough now. They will more and more invest only in content that bring in more customers, not just keeping the ones they already have. I read that's why the OA got cancelled: it wouldn't bring in more views and the show would have been more expensive.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#704

Post by vel0city »

bogwog wrote: post #628
edgyquant wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I can agree about Microsoft. I’ve come to not hate them in the last decade but they definitely have been buying up the developer scene too. They aren’t as brazen as Google I’ll agree (likely because of the antitrust issues) but they are still setting themselves up as a monopoly over the long term.

The other day I was helping my brother setup Python on his Windows 10 computer. So I went to python.org and installed it as usual, then why I typed "python" in the console, it launched the Microsoft Store app and took me to the download page for their distribution of Python. Apparently, it's some kind of alias "feature" they added to Windows at some point. What legitimate reason is there for that if not to try and tr…

The Microsoft Store version is managed by the PSF and is a legitimate method of getting it. It went to that because you didn't choose the option to add python to the PATH, so the console didn't have a python executable to run.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#705

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

lpolovets wrote: post #592
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #23

So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.

> We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem. Forcing this would also have many downsides: - if you make content that others don't want to distribute, are you not allowed to distribute it yourself? Freedom to publish whatever you want feels very valuable for society, IMHO. - costs for consumers might ri…

I don't see your line of thinking: - Yeah you um can, like build your own movie theatre and show your own movies. The point of the law in this case is to prevent vertically integrated corporate structures from forming.

- I don't see the sets of costs argument - any price is made up of infinite sub-costs. You buy a carton of milk, it came from a distributor who bought it from a wholesaler, who got it from a carton plant and so on and so forth. At each step of the way someone verified the quality to ensure reputation. In a vertical corp quality control can be difficult.

- The opposite - easier to launch new companies. This is already how it is in places like Europe. No problem to sign 'distribution' deals, and no problem in seeking 'distributors' if you have the content. What's more a ton of other types of incentives make it easier to start new efforts.

I don't think you understand that mostly, this is how it all already works, by itself. That's the whole point of a 'free market'. Until Amazon rolls into town and starts buying everybody up and integrating it all into something else.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#706

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

sircastor wrote: post #566
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #23

So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.

I see the meaningful difference here being that there is no limitation to distribution across consumers. With studio owned theaters, if there wasn’t a Paramount theater in your town, you’re outta luck. Today, you can get Peacock and Paramount+ and Disney+, etc on virtually any device. Even Apple, who has been historically resistant to distribution on other devices has Apple+ on Roku and Amazon devices Because antitru…

Oh yeah, definitely.

I do have my hopes on some sort of anti-trust regulation, but it's not going to be focused on film - it's going to be all about software and gaming.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#707

Post by TeMPOraL »

avaldes wrote: post #630
Rebelgecko wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like you I also recently restarted watching SG-1 for the first time since I was a kid. It holds up a lot better than I expected it to. There's the occasional eyerolling cliche (and Carter's dialog about internal vs external gonads is kinda ridiculous) but like you said the cliches are also lampshaded pretty often. I just watched an episode where the Stargate broke and there was an exchange that went something like th…

SG1 was a gold mine of genre savvy moments >Carter: We just passed -40 degrees > >Jackson: Farenheit or Celsius? > >Mitchell: At that temperature they're the same

Indeed.

SG-1 was my therapy during my worst years. I don't think I'd have gone through that period as well as I did, if it weren't for the mix of laughter and seriousness every episode of this show offered.

And what I love about it, SG-1 pulls it off. It's a serious show that's also very genre-savvy and full of quality gags. I haven't seen any other media product, sci-fi or otherwise, that managed to get this mix of opposites to work.

(It's all nicely balanced, except that one time in Season 7 where you thought you're watching a joke episode, until the sudden change of tone punches you in the head, and you're left emotionally spinning and wondering what the hell did just happen. The two-parter I'm referring to, "Heroes", is a masterpiece. This kind of thing works only once - and fortunately, the producers were smart enough to not try it again.)

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#708

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

eplanit wrote: post #212
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #23

So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.

You're right. And yes, we could use those laws, but we're also now at a time in history where the combined power and influence of "big tech" is greater (by far, I fear) than the will and character of Legislators (i.e. low-character politicians) to enact any such law to constrain/regulate them, at all.

Definitely, though I really do hope that will change at some point...

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#709

Post by WillDaSilva »

dragonwriter wrote: post #664
vanderZwan wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Watching older movies and TV shows is much more pleasant all around. My girlfriend somehow grew up completely unaware of Star Trek, so I introduced her to The Next Generation last year and we've been watching it (rewatching in my case, but for the first time in over two decades) one episode a day. It's so relaxing, in a way that almost no modern TV is. No end-of-episode cliffhangers or other mechanisms trying to ma…

> No end-of-episode cliffhangers Well, except for the season finale/openers from Season 3 on; but, yes, TV in general (even before streaming, DS9-VOY-ENT all show this trend within thr Trek franchise) has become less episodic since the TNG era.

I believe you mean more serialized. Episodic, defined as "containing or consisting of a series of loosely connected parts or events", is the opposite of what you mean.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#710

Post by totalZero »

dalbasal wrote: post #300

The meaninglessness of $8.45b relative to amazon's scale is mind boggling. It represents 0.5% of their market cap, 20% of their cash-on-hand, nevermind their borrowing capacity @ near 0%. If a problem is worth the Jeff/Andy's personal attention, it's worth spending $8bn on. I'm a broken record but, current equity prices and financial climate generally makes massive consolidation very likely. Antitrust, or fear of is…

> they have no way to put cash they have to work

Apple could have built the most incredible semiconductor mega-hub in the world with the money it spent on dividends and buybacks in the past decade.

In-house R&D is still a thing. Capital expenditure is still a thing. Pay raises for rank-and-file staff are still a thing. Please don't suggest that acquisitions, buybacks, and dividends are the only ways for Apple and Google to put their free cash flow to work.

Not to mention that both companies carry debt.

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