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You've made some changes since the virus caught you sleeping
Okay. Things I have done in the last couple of weeks that have not stressed out my life.
In my latest quest for fanfiction of quality, read the first volume of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and rented Stephen Frears' Mary Reilly (1996). The first of these I liked immensely, such that I am now looking for the next volume; the second didn't quite focus as I think it was intended to, but at least I have now seen John Malkovich and his Jekyll and Hyde were quite acceptable to me.
Also rented Jim Henson's The Storyteller (1987), about which only good things can be said. I'd seen two or three episodes before with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spectre_general and his wife, but I sort of went on a bender and watched all nine episodes in a night: fortunately, it is impossible to overdose on John Hurt. The number of random character actors who populated that series impresses me. I even spotted Jason Carter—I frankly hadn't thought he'd ever been anyone other than Marcus Cole.
Met some friends in the Yale Bookstore for a few minutes of random browsing, only to discover a five-actor reading of a local playwright's retelling of A Christmas Carol was in progress near the magazine racks; I came in around the Ghost of Christmas Present and stayed to the end, and had a very nice conversation with the actor who had played Scrooge (and who looks like a character actor from the 1930's) afterward.hans_the_bold more or less had to drag me out, because the bookstore was closing, but we repaired to HGS and watched The Hunter (1980), which features Steve McQueen in his last role and a very young LeVar Burton as a supporting character. Yes, of course I watched Reading Rainbow religiously as a child.
Rented The Corpse Bride (2005), because I am under the general impression that I need more Tim Burton in my life, and loved it. I have now had "The Remains of the Day" stuck in my head for over forty-eight hours.
Caught the last third of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) on television, which reminded me again that quite possibly the character for whom I feel the most sympathy in the entire trilogy is Admiral Piett. I had not realized, however, that he has such a fanbase. This is actually kind of awesome.
Had sushi tonight with a friend who is a divinity student, and conducted a conversation about trinitarianism, grace, and salvation without exploding. Also, tempura-fried ice cream.
The story I'm writing forgreygirlbeast's Sirenia Digest has mutated: I thought it was first-person futuristic, but it seems in fact to be third-person steampunk. Yeah. No recent influences there. Excuse me while I blame Nikola Tesla.
In my latest quest for fanfiction of quality, read the first volume of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and rented Stephen Frears' Mary Reilly (1996). The first of these I liked immensely, such that I am now looking for the next volume; the second didn't quite focus as I think it was intended to, but at least I have now seen John Malkovich and his Jekyll and Hyde were quite acceptable to me.
Also rented Jim Henson's The Storyteller (1987), about which only good things can be said. I'd seen two or three episodes before with
spectre_general and his wife, but I sort of went on a bender and watched all nine episodes in a night: fortunately, it is impossible to overdose on John Hurt. The number of random character actors who populated that series impresses me. I even spotted Jason Carter—I frankly hadn't thought he'd ever been anyone other than Marcus Cole.Met some friends in the Yale Bookstore for a few minutes of random browsing, only to discover a five-actor reading of a local playwright's retelling of A Christmas Carol was in progress near the magazine racks; I came in around the Ghost of Christmas Present and stayed to the end, and had a very nice conversation with the actor who had played Scrooge (and who looks like a character actor from the 1930's) afterward.
hans_the_bold more or less had to drag me out, because the bookstore was closing, but we repaired to HGS and watched The Hunter (1980), which features Steve McQueen in his last role and a very young LeVar Burton as a supporting character. Yes, of course I watched Reading Rainbow religiously as a child.Rented The Corpse Bride (2005), because I am under the general impression that I need more Tim Burton in my life, and loved it. I have now had "The Remains of the Day" stuck in my head for over forty-eight hours.
Caught the last third of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) on television, which reminded me again that quite possibly the character for whom I feel the most sympathy in the entire trilogy is Admiral Piett. I had not realized, however, that he has such a fanbase. This is actually kind of awesome.
Had sushi tonight with a friend who is a divinity student, and conducted a conversation about trinitarianism, grace, and salvation without exploding. Also, tempura-fried ice cream.
The story I'm writing for
greygirlbeast's Sirenia Digest has mutated: I thought it was first-person futuristic, but it seems in fact to be third-person steampunk. Yeah. No recent influences there. Excuse me while I blame Nikola Tesla.
no subject
What I love about Piett is how he breaks up the facelessness of the Empire. He's not a masked and anonymous stormtrooper, he's not a villain for villainy's sake, he doesn't even seem to be particularly brutal or cruel—although he is an officer on the Emperor's flagship, so he may not be particularly nice or innocent either; none of which means he cannot be sympathetic—he's a man with the most unenviable boss in the galaxy and no matter that he's onscreen for perhaps five minutes total in The Empire Strikes Back, you care whether he survives or not. (The odds are, admittedly, against him. The heroes are practically guaranteed by the conventions of myth and cinema to reach the finale unscathed, but the moment Darth Vader calls him "Admiral," you know the crew have started taking bets on Piett's life expectancy. One wonders if a career in the upper echelons of the Imperial Starfleet always involves this fine tightrope-walk between success and suicide.) He's not in many ways plot-critical. He's not even that deeply characterized: I couldn't tell you a single fact about him before his sudden promotion. But he's a person, and that's remarkable for the supposedly straightforward war, noble Rebels against evil Empire, white hats and black hats and very few shades of grey, that George Lucas has set up onscreen. He has complication. Hence, I suppose, the impressive amounts of fanfiction dedicated to him.
. . . Besides, if it hadn't been for Piett, I wouldn't have been able to read the best T.S. Eliot parody ever.
no subject
That was nice. In his commentary for Brazil, Terry Gilliam mentioned having a conversation with Lucas about the soulless, drone-like quality of the stormtroopers, and how it sort of atrophied the emotional impact of the action sequences. The more human black-helmeted troops in Brazil were something of a reaction to that, apparently.
The prequels actually do a slightly better job at creating moral ambiguity with imperfect, arrogant Jedi and actually logical rationalisations for the formation of the Empire.
But the subtle characterisations hinted at in The Empire Strikes Back did create a nice sort of open-ended mystique. It's one of the reasons TIE Fighter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_TIE_Fighter) is my all time favourite video game.
no subject
I think it certainly tips the audience's sympathies: when the rebels die, we know they have faces. But the stormtroopers might as well be robots, or pieces of scenery, so to kill them carries no charge of murder. It's not so much that the emotional impact is blunted as that it falls only on one side.
The more human black-helmeted troops in Brazil were something of a reaction to that, apparently.
I still need to see Brazil . . .
no subject
I guess Lucas tries to rationalise it by making them clones in Episode II. It provides for a creepy bit in Episode III, but I'm still not sure it was worth it.
I still need to see Brazil . . .
I think it's a brilliant movie, although there is a lot of contention on the subject.
no subject
They're not still all supposed to be clones by A New Hope, right? Because that utterly doesn't work.
(So what was the creepy bit?)
no subject
I'm not sure. The movies kind of avoid answering that question.
In the "Extended Universe"--or stuff writers came up with for Star Wars things other than the films that are still licensed by LucasFilm, and which I know a bit about because I'm that much of a nerd--I seem to remember that clones were gradually phased out. I also remember one of the books describing a psychic connexion between all the stormtroopers and the Emperor which made them a sort of like zombies. It's all a little up in the air. The fact that, in the newest special editions of the original trilogy, Lucas dubbed in the Jango Fett actor's voice for Boba Fett but not the troopers seems to support the idea that they're not clones.
The starwars.com stormtrooper profile (http://www.starwars.com/databank/organization/stormtroopers/) also doesn't describe them as clones. While the clone trooper entry (http://www.starwars.com/databank/organization/clonetroopers/index.html) seems to suggest that stormtroopers are clones. The Expanded Universe section is somewhat helpful by implying that the original troopers are a mix of clones and "birth-borns".
(So what was the creepy bit?)
Aw, I don't wanna ruin it for you.