Cat with Phonesaber
KayLee is spending less time under my bed, and more time perched on the living room windowsill, or sitting at the sliding glass backyard door looking out. She still prefers to be curled tight against me when she can manage it. In fact, she loves it when I’m lying on my bed with my knees up, typing on my work laptop; she then slides under my raised knees and goes to sleep, effectively immobilizing me.
I have a working phone now. This is a major load off my mind, and a great savings to my cell phone bill.
I hear that they finally did fix Ben and Vader’s lightsaber blades in the hangar bay fight of A New Hope. I’m going to end up doing what raininva wants to do with Dune: import all the versions into Final Cut Pro, and recut the thing myself. In an unrelated note, I hear that BitTorrent files of the old Original Edition laserdiscs are very hot right now for some reason.
Ben and Vader’s: sounds like a light-side / dark-side ice cream.
Yeah, think I better have some lunch before my blood sugar drops any farther.
Return of the Editor
Hard to say whether this is a forgery or not, but this web page claimes to have a revised clip of the last scene in Return of the Jedi. Yes, Sebastian Shaw’s face has been replaced with Hayden Christiansen’s.
*sigh*
Some observations
Well, I’m actually feeling a bit accomplished these days. This weekend, I shook the rust from my joints and did some serious database programming, teaching it how to build (static) webpages for manual upload. Today, I forced our server (which recently graduated from peer-to-peer file sharer to real server) to take an OS upgrade that it supposedly can’t, getting better networking and filesystem performance from it.
The more things change…
This train of thought began as I watched Adobe Photoshop go through a complicated scripting sequence without any assistance from me… I began thinking of Rick Deckard’s wonderful photo-processing “Esper” machine. (Yes, I want one.)
So, I’m thinking about Blade Runner and the fact that, in an unscientific poll of science-fiction fans, I’m one of the few viewers who prefer the theatrical release to the director’s cut. (Voiceover, less uncertain ending, and all).
I’m not going to debate the merits of the two versions here, though it has occurred to me that it is the theatrical release that made Blade Runner one of the classics of SF film (and made it possible to produce a director’s cut release, before DVDs made such releases common).
However, the discussion of the versions made me think about how we revise things in our heads. I watched hours of the old Robotech series last weekend, but used the remote to skip over the dull, boring, or actually painful parts. (Yes, I’m referring to Minmei.) The Internet produced the “Phantom Edit” version of Star Wars Episode I – in many opinions, a superior film. Douglas Adams himself wrote multiple variants of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – all official, and all contradictory.
Then, while looking up information on Apple’s “Final Cut Pro”, I found this web page that compares such revisions to the Bible itself, where the Gospels contradict each other and concentrate on the parts that the individual writers found interesting. And I realized that people have been arguing about this for nearly two thousand years.
So, the next time I go to a con and find an earnest discussion of how Enterprise has re-written the established history of the Star Trek universe, I’ll be less likely to jump in with both feet. If we’ve been revising our most sacred texts to personal taste for this long, Kirk and Picard don’t have much of a chance. *grin*
Editorial
Got a newsletter from starwars.com which mentioned some of the visual (and one audio) Easter Eggs in Episode 2. What interests me is that despite the fact that Lucas has expressed a basic lack of interest in the “Expanded Universe”, one of the secret items is a freighter which has only ever appeared in the EU. (Talon Karrde’s freighter Wild Karrde is visible for an eyeblink in one scene).
I wish Lucas understood that the Star Wars universe isn’t his personal property any more, and it’s his own fault. Any time a storyteller does as good a job as he did with the first trilogy, people will take it to their hearts and run with it. Just ask Lewis Carroll, or Edgar Rice Burroughs, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. SW is Lucas’ legal property, sure., and it wouldn’t exist without him, but it resides in more places now than just his head.
Would Star Trek be on its fifth incarnation if the show was still under Gene Roddenberry’s inflexible hand? I don’t believe so.
Ah well… even with his blessing removed, the fans and pros will still continue their own Star Wars… and in this creative age, some of it will be as good or better than Lucas’ “vision”.
And I just heard that “Jedi Knight II” will be ported to the Mac and will run on my machine. Soon, I’ll be wielding a lightsaber just like Mace Windu. Okay, Anakin Skywalker. Would you believe Han Solo in Episode V?
Mood Swingin’
Yesterday, after a day that wasn’t my favorite lately, an incredibly cool thing happened to me. Backstory: over ten years ago, some jerk stole my Canon AE-1 Program camera, probably for his drug habit. Yesterday, Rain shows me my birthday present she’d just bought on eBay. Guess what it is? It even comes with more lenses than I had!
Rain is simply the coolest person I know. I was practically bouncy for the next several hours (a rare condition for me!!)
My work today is trying hard to get my goat, but every time I start getting irritated (and it’s been several times so far today – I have a bad feeling about the day) I just think about getting to play with my camera soon, and I’m smiling again. It should bug the heck out of my co-workers.
Today I loaned Nick one of the copies of the Dirty Pair anime movie that Jerry, Rhaps, Cindy, Beth, Tony and I dubbed all those years ago: “Project: EDEN”. I hope he’ll be kind. 🙂
I wish my work phone had speed-dial. I don’t think I have a shot in Hades of winning those Rod Stewart tickets for Rain (but I will keep trying!!!)
TJ just showed me a photo of the movie-quality Imperial Stormtrooper costume he used to own, and just sold for $900. I always wanted one of those… but not that badly!
Yeah, yeah, I know… back to work.
