While George Lucas’ Prequel trilogy — Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Episode II :Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – does have its supporters, I don’t think I’m going to get much argument when I say they were a massive disappointment. The movies are simply not that good. They’re technically impressive, with some great things about each of them, but overall the scripts are a major downgrade from the original trilogy.

How do we make this happen. How do we get the prequels remade properly? Let’s do it!

The movie, which will be distributed by Warner Bros, was financed for $185 million, according to its production house, New Line, though rumors persist that its budget actually ballooned to at least $200 million due to costly reshoots. (New Line and Warner Bros. — which like Entertainment Weekly, are owned by Time Warner — did not make anyone available for further comment.)

Okay first, what a ghastly sentence. There’s going to be a comma shortage if there are too many more sentences like that written!

But more to the point and topic at hand, $185 Million?!? I’m looking forward to this…

One could suggest that we and other pundits have exhausted the conversation around the 85th Academy Awards. We might not argue with that, but while we’ve had plenty of opportunities to examine the surprises, the snubs, the show itself, both its best/worst moments and how it can improve, we personally haven’t looked closely at why the outcomes landed where they did (you can see the full list of winners here). And now that the dust has settled, we wanted to analyze why “Argo” won Best Picture and take a general deeper dive into some of the winners.

So, why did the…

Bear with us guys, this is the longest installment of ‘The MovieByte Podcast’ yet, but it’s well worth it. Get settled in and get ready for some fun. First off, TJ and Joe chat about why the podcast was late in arriving. Joe has been sick, TJ had a baby (well, his wife did). Then they talk briefly about John Williams’ desire to score ‘Star Wars VII’, film and video aspect ratio, as well as the pitfalls of improper TV setups when receiving widescreen HD signals, and Michael Bay is bringing Megan Fox to his upcoming film on the Ninja Turtles? First of all, how well will this work out for Bay seeing as he fired her perviously for personal differences. And secondly, how is this film even getting made? And of course, the main discussion is about the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy and oh what fun. Joe and TJ pretty much agree completely on the first film. But then they diverge. TJ loves the second film a lot, and doesn’t care for the third one too much, and Joe has just the opposite opinion. But of course, the trilogy is a beloved one by both TJ and Joe and you won’t want to miss this conversation!

After months of delay, the “Copyright Alert System,” (also known as “six strikes”) is ready for its “implementation phase.” Participating ISPs will be rolling out the system “over the course of the next several days.”

As we’ve reported previously, six strikes was conceived of by Center for Copyright Information (CCI)—an umbrella group representing major ISPs across the US and representatives from the recording and film industries. The group agreed in 2011 to come up with a six-stage warning scheme that would progressively warn—and eventually penalize—alleged online copyright…

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Alright, alright, one more of Jennifer. This one isn’t so much about Lawrence — at least that’s not the reason I’m posting it. I mean, she’s a decent actress and I’m glad she won. But the reason I’m posting this is because, good grief, do these “press people” seriously not have any better questions? I mean really, this is a “go home and write better questions” kind of a deal. I mean, “what was the process of getting ready?” Really? “What happened when you fell?” “What was going through your mind?” Good grief. Ask better questions people, seriously!

You know, I don’t go all ga ga over actors and actresses so this is a bit unusual of a thing for me to post, but I do have to just say that Jennifer Lawrence is sort of refreshing in that she seemed so genuinely shocked and surprised by the win and success, despite the fact that she has very well proven what a good actress is. There’s still plenty of time for her to be corrupted by Hollywood at 22 years old, but for now, she seems like such a decent person.

Iran’s state TV dismissed the Oscar-winning film Argo on Monday as an “advertisement for the CIA” and some Iranians called the award a political statement by America for its unflattering portrayal of the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Well of course they say that.

And while Argo has not appeared in any Iranian cinema, there has been no shortage of buzz from those who saw the movie through bootleg DVD networks.

The discussions over Argo in Iran have often pried open a generational divide: Iranians who took part in the 1979 Islamic Revolution picking apart the portrayals…

This season, Argo has emerged as the heavy favorite to win Best Picture (despite the lack of a corresponding Best Director nod), as has Anne Hathaway for Best Actress. But the picture isn’t as clear for some of the other categories, and in any case there are no guarantees until the victor is clutching that little gold man up on that stage. Here’s hoping for some pleasant surprises.

Click on through to get the full list and a truncated blow by blow of how it went down. I’ll just mention a few here and make some comments.

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Well…