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beccatoriaThis is one of those Summer-And-Everyone's-Bored-And-Nothing's-Happening posts. :/
Dammit, why is the internet not alive with fandom excitement about...something?! Well. In the absence of that, here's stuff what's been going on.
1. I got Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon! SAMMO HUNG, PEOPLE. SAMMMMMOOOOOO!
I find it hilarious that the three people on the front of that DVD are the two main characters on either side of...a fairly minor character. Presumably because the actual third main character, Sammo Hung, is considered too old and fat to be cool enough to sell it. FOOLS, I say. Watch him in "Martial Law"! Fat Sammo will kick your damn ass!
Just in case anyone has seen the recent Western cut of Red Cliff, a recently released movie (it was released in two parts over the last few years in Asia) that is based on the same stuff as the above film (the historical Romance of the Three Kingdoms, about China when the kingdoms of Wu, Wei and Shu were all fighting and shit and it hadn't been unified yet), this isn't that film. They just made films about the same thing at the same time. Didn't that happen with a biopic of Truman Capote a few years ago or something?
Anyway, I liked both of the films. Red Cliff gets across the epic scale of the conflict and the level of tactics involved, but I think, in all, I prefer Three Kingdoms because it's more personal. It follows Zhao Yun (or Zhao Zilong, depending on the names they're using), who's my favourite ancient Chinese general anyway, from a young man all through his rise to one of the five tiger generals at the end of his career, sacrificed, despite everything, on a futile campaign, trapped by honour, regretting none of it. Three Kingdoms shows the personal cost of the scope depicted in Red Cliff. And Sammo Hung is brilliant and really, really heartbreaking by the end. He's such a great actor and criminally under appreciated.
Maggie Q plays a fictional character - Cao Ying never really existed, but I did enjoy the role she played here, and it was nice, if slightly historically inaccurate, to get a girl in a major role in this capacity.
Plus it does not hurt that Andy Lau is hot.
Anyway, it's an awesome film!
2. Stephen Moffat is doing his very best to make me watch his new version of Doctor Who, isn't he? I mean, I'm still not sure I'll ever get over how much I dislike David Tennant, the things that happen to David Tennant's companions, general RTD-ludicrousness, or NOT getting Paterson Joseph as the Eleventh Doctor, but I have liked the Moffat stuff and:
1) I approve that at least they're putting the young, pretty boy in proper Old Man clothes.
2) If you've seen pictures from the first days of filming you will know that those pictures show a character I loooooooooooove a great deal AND the filming location is one extremely close to my heart; it's one of my favourite places in the whole world.
I'm trying to be strong though. Every other time I've tentatively crawled back to this universe they've done something like turning the Master from Cadfael into a Tennant Clone or murdering Tosh. :/
3. Unpopular fannish opinions! In an effort at variety, the first 5 are general fandom opinions, the last 5 are BSG-related.
To be honest, I don't really think most of my opinions which would be unpopular on a large scale (OMG DIE, ADAMA. DIE IN A FIRE.) are going to be that unpopular on my flist, but, um, I'm trying!
1. I LOVE GEN. I wish there was more of it. I don't mean, by that, that there can't be any romance. Especially these days, romantic relationships are often woven throughout both character and plot, and that's something I enjoy. By gen I simply mean something that doesn't exclusively focus on a romantic relationship. And I'm kind of talking about something more than <1000 word character sketches too. I mean, don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with ship fic or character sketches or anything. Hell, the list of fic I've written is short, but you'll find both of those kinds of things on it. And if we didn't have many of those, I'd be sat here lamenting the lack of THEM. But...I just... In shows such as BSG especially, there's this whole, massive rich world out there and it frustrates me that plotty fics, or plots about mytharc mysteries, or friendships or political scenarios get less attention and play.
GEN, DAMMIT!
I think maybe this is a reason I like vids so much? Gen doesn't get as sidelined there?
(And yes, I wish I were participating more thoroughly in the current Kara gen fic battle; been having a bit of an issue with RL and motivation the last few days, but I do hope to add at least one more entry before it ends.)
2. Porn? Generally speaking, a world of meh. The few explicit stories I've read and thought were really great, usually managed, somehow, to use said explicitness to some narrative/thematic point beyond OMGHOTT.
3. I HATE DAVID TENNANT'S DOCTOR. I might like if I and Harriet Jones got to beat him up one day.
4. I didn't think Farscape: the Peacekeeper Wars was actually all that great. I mean, I liked it. In terms of general story arc it was good and all. But somehow, Bad Timing was so much more of a Farscape ending, even though it took me about two months to come to terms with it. I'm SO, SO GLAD that we got PKW. I mean, I loved that show since I saw the premiere on BBC2 when I was like 16 or whatever. I went on a freaking PROTEST MARCH in London for it. (Where, in a surreal turn of events, my husband (then-boyfriend) shoved about sixty leaflets into Jade Goody's passing limousine, cus she rolled down the window to see what the fuss was about). And there's a lot to like about it. Some gorgeous visuals, some wonderfully acted scenes. But just...in all? It felt kind of rushed, a little pat, and the jigsaw-head people were kind of a boring McGuffin. I still heart Farscape though.
5. Buffy. Meh. Joss Whedon in general. Meh. Doctor Horrible. Eew. (Note: I did love Firefly).
6. Unless he is in a suit (WTF brain?!) I just don't find Jamie Bamber very attractive. :(
7. Sometimes a Great Notion made me retrospectively LIKE Lee/Dee. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still a badly handled mess of messiness that even RDM admits should have been better handled if it was going to work. But in SaGN, I loved them and like...it made me think of how it should have been between them. And now, as long as I'm not actually WATCHING one of those quad o' doom episodes, I can happily imagine it was always like that. (SHUT UP BRAIN, STOP REMEMBERING THE ACTUAL SCENES!)
8. Despite the fact that no Tigh/Ellen scene ever made me cringe and want to gouge out my own eyes, and in fact had they not brought her back as a Cylon, I think that Tigh killing Ellen might have been the most heartbreaking thing the show had ever done, and despite the fact that certain Caprica/Tigh do, in fact, want to make me run screaming into the night (srsly, Americans, when you get your 4.5 DVDs and watch the deleted scenes for Deadlock DO NOT SAY I DID NOT WARN YOU) with their weird creepiness, I still think?
I-see-you-as-my-wife-that-I-murdered/I-want-to-save-you-with-religious-violence > We're-drunken-pirate-hookers. Much as I love drunken pirate hookers. And much as Caprica/Tigh could not possibly exist without Tigh/Ellen.
9. I think that RDM's authorial intention was probably that Hera is the only cylon hybrid ever born and I'm kind of surprised more of fandom didn't pick up on this. Fortunately, on those days when I'm not busy denying Daybreak happened, no one ever says this in words on the show, so I can just pretend otherwise.
10. If we're talking about Billy in the context of Billy and Dee then Billy has all my sympathy and I just want to hug him. But for real? Petty as it is? I've never quite forgiven him for ditching Laura during her mutiny. I know there were actor comittments and stuff, but as a result it really felt pastede on yay and ungrateful on Billy's part. I was left with the uncomfortable feeling that Laura loved him more than he loved her, and DAMMIT BILLY. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LUCKY YOU ARE TO BE ADOPTED BY LAURA ROSLIN? Some of us spend our entire lives and never get an opportunity like that! And I bet you all thought Billy-Love was universal, didn't you? ;)
4. The State of the Vidder.
Well, currently I'm still working on my Farscape vid. Really I should be doing that right now. It's going so slooooooowly. Cus I don't know the source and I'm vidding with a new program, and the program itself is better for playback and crashing than WMM but still slow. So. I'm like 1:20 into a 3:00ish song. But at least I'm pretty happy with it so far.
As to future projects? I dunno. A lot of my pre-finale vid bunnies are still kind of dead, even my D'Anna vid which wasn't ever gonna go beyond 4x11 and which I actually have 45 seconds of already (but would have to remake because I lost the project file *facepalm*).
Instead I'm left with an embarassingly long list of vids that I want to make to various Sage Francis songs (and occasionally others). The VERY VAGUE project list currently goes thusly:
1. Farscape vid (currently working on).
2. Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar engage in a rap battle (4.5 fail vid).
3. Human/Cylon OTP! (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
asta77 - yes this is the one we were talking about).
At which point we break down into vagueness and no real intention of sticking to this order.
4. Kara Thrace vid - I kind of still want to do "there's a war going on for your mind, kara" but given a vague lack of impetus post-finale plus capping off Laura's rap triptych with the vid above, I'm also tempted to use another song I've thought of as a Kara song for years, though it's far more um, folk-song and less epic, so maybe less of a good choice for her. Ideally I'd make both but I dunno. We'll see.
5. Sam Anders vid. I have a song and everything for this and am really excited to make it but given a huge number of other projects, I'm currently thinking I'll put it off until The Plan has come out for the extra footage.
6. Fringe. Yes, I have a really insistent but really vague Olivia vid-bunny for Fringe, however, I really, really, really don't think I can do it until I see how S2 plays out and if it'll go in the right direction. So this is quasi-permanently on hold.
7. TSCC. Lower down than Fringe because I'm less certain what I'd do with it. The song and feel I was going to go for and use is now less appropriate given the tone of the finale (which I LOVED and all). I think it'll still work but it is a little less pressing to make than perhaps it was. I don't want to never vid this show though.
Currently permanently on hold, though I may pick them up at some point cus I like the ideas enough not to trash them:
- Aforementioned D'Anna vid about anger at the notion that she has anything to repent for.
- Ellen/Cavil lullaby of twistedness about the genesis of the Cylon. I think if I made this I'd have to pretty much cut off canon at 4.15 or make it a Redactica vid because otherwise my feelings about the finale few episodes might wreck it. We'll see.
If any of you feel strongly about my current prioritisations, or want to make a case for me to bump a vid further up that list or something, go ahead, though obvs I can't promise to listen. Mostly I feel so strange about still having so many BSG vids to make. On the one hand I'm glad; I don't want to be through with this show.
On the other hand, it's kind of weird given my relationship with this show now.
And....I'm done.
Dammit, why is the internet not alive with fandom excitement about...something?! Well. In the absence of that, here's stuff what's been going on.
1. I got Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon! SAMMO HUNG, PEOPLE. SAMMMMMOOOOOO!
I find it hilarious that the three people on the front of that DVD are the two main characters on either side of...a fairly minor character. Presumably because the actual third main character, Sammo Hung, is considered too old and fat to be cool enough to sell it. FOOLS, I say. Watch him in "Martial Law"! Fat Sammo will kick your damn ass!
Just in case anyone has seen the recent Western cut of Red Cliff, a recently released movie (it was released in two parts over the last few years in Asia) that is based on the same stuff as the above film (the historical Romance of the Three Kingdoms, about China when the kingdoms of Wu, Wei and Shu were all fighting and shit and it hadn't been unified yet), this isn't that film. They just made films about the same thing at the same time. Didn't that happen with a biopic of Truman Capote a few years ago or something?
Anyway, I liked both of the films. Red Cliff gets across the epic scale of the conflict and the level of tactics involved, but I think, in all, I prefer Three Kingdoms because it's more personal. It follows Zhao Yun (or Zhao Zilong, depending on the names they're using), who's my favourite ancient Chinese general anyway, from a young man all through his rise to one of the five tiger generals at the end of his career, sacrificed, despite everything, on a futile campaign, trapped by honour, regretting none of it. Three Kingdoms shows the personal cost of the scope depicted in Red Cliff. And Sammo Hung is brilliant and really, really heartbreaking by the end. He's such a great actor and criminally under appreciated.
Maggie Q plays a fictional character - Cao Ying never really existed, but I did enjoy the role she played here, and it was nice, if slightly historically inaccurate, to get a girl in a major role in this capacity.
Plus it does not hurt that Andy Lau is hot.
Anyway, it's an awesome film!
2. Stephen Moffat is doing his very best to make me watch his new version of Doctor Who, isn't he? I mean, I'm still not sure I'll ever get over how much I dislike David Tennant, the things that happen to David Tennant's companions, general RTD-ludicrousness, or NOT getting Paterson Joseph as the Eleventh Doctor, but I have liked the Moffat stuff and:
1) I approve that at least they're putting the young, pretty boy in proper Old Man clothes.
2) If you've seen pictures from the first days of filming you will know that those pictures show a character I loooooooooooove a great deal AND the filming location is one extremely close to my heart; it's one of my favourite places in the whole world.
I'm trying to be strong though. Every other time I've tentatively crawled back to this universe they've done something like turning the Master from Cadfael into a Tennant Clone or murdering Tosh. :/
3. Unpopular fannish opinions! In an effort at variety, the first 5 are general fandom opinions, the last 5 are BSG-related.
To be honest, I don't really think most of my opinions which would be unpopular on a large scale (OMG DIE, ADAMA. DIE IN A FIRE.) are going to be that unpopular on my flist, but, um, I'm trying!
1. I LOVE GEN. I wish there was more of it. I don't mean, by that, that there can't be any romance. Especially these days, romantic relationships are often woven throughout both character and plot, and that's something I enjoy. By gen I simply mean something that doesn't exclusively focus on a romantic relationship. And I'm kind of talking about something more than <1000 word character sketches too. I mean, don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with ship fic or character sketches or anything. Hell, the list of fic I've written is short, but you'll find both of those kinds of things on it. And if we didn't have many of those, I'd be sat here lamenting the lack of THEM. But...I just... In shows such as BSG especially, there's this whole, massive rich world out there and it frustrates me that plotty fics, or plots about mytharc mysteries, or friendships or political scenarios get less attention and play.
GEN, DAMMIT!
I think maybe this is a reason I like vids so much? Gen doesn't get as sidelined there?
(And yes, I wish I were participating more thoroughly in the current Kara gen fic battle; been having a bit of an issue with RL and motivation the last few days, but I do hope to add at least one more entry before it ends.)
2. Porn? Generally speaking, a world of meh. The few explicit stories I've read and thought were really great, usually managed, somehow, to use said explicitness to some narrative/thematic point beyond OMGHOTT.
3. I HATE DAVID TENNANT'S DOCTOR. I might like if I and Harriet Jones got to beat him up one day.
4. I didn't think Farscape: the Peacekeeper Wars was actually all that great. I mean, I liked it. In terms of general story arc it was good and all. But somehow, Bad Timing was so much more of a Farscape ending, even though it took me about two months to come to terms with it. I'm SO, SO GLAD that we got PKW. I mean, I loved that show since I saw the premiere on BBC2 when I was like 16 or whatever. I went on a freaking PROTEST MARCH in London for it. (Where, in a surreal turn of events, my husband (then-boyfriend) shoved about sixty leaflets into Jade Goody's passing limousine, cus she rolled down the window to see what the fuss was about). And there's a lot to like about it. Some gorgeous visuals, some wonderfully acted scenes. But just...in all? It felt kind of rushed, a little pat, and the jigsaw-head people were kind of a boring McGuffin. I still heart Farscape though.
5. Buffy. Meh. Joss Whedon in general. Meh. Doctor Horrible. Eew. (Note: I did love Firefly).
6. Unless he is in a suit (WTF brain?!) I just don't find Jamie Bamber very attractive. :(
7. Sometimes a Great Notion made me retrospectively LIKE Lee/Dee. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still a badly handled mess of messiness that even RDM admits should have been better handled if it was going to work. But in SaGN, I loved them and like...it made me think of how it should have been between them. And now, as long as I'm not actually WATCHING one of those quad o' doom episodes, I can happily imagine it was always like that. (SHUT UP BRAIN, STOP REMEMBERING THE ACTUAL SCENES!)
8. Despite the fact that no Tigh/Ellen scene ever made me cringe and want to gouge out my own eyes, and in fact had they not brought her back as a Cylon, I think that Tigh killing Ellen might have been the most heartbreaking thing the show had ever done, and despite the fact that certain Caprica/Tigh do, in fact, want to make me run screaming into the night (srsly, Americans, when you get your 4.5 DVDs and watch the deleted scenes for Deadlock DO NOT SAY I DID NOT WARN YOU) with their weird creepiness, I still think?
I-see-you-as-my-wife-that-I-murdered/I-want-to-save-you-with-religious-violence > We're-drunken-pirate-hookers. Much as I love drunken pirate hookers. And much as Caprica/Tigh could not possibly exist without Tigh/Ellen.
9. I think that RDM's authorial intention was probably that Hera is the only cylon hybrid ever born and I'm kind of surprised more of fandom didn't pick up on this. Fortunately, on those days when I'm not busy denying Daybreak happened, no one ever says this in words on the show, so I can just pretend otherwise.
10. If we're talking about Billy in the context of Billy and Dee then Billy has all my sympathy and I just want to hug him. But for real? Petty as it is? I've never quite forgiven him for ditching Laura during her mutiny. I know there were actor comittments and stuff, but as a result it really felt pastede on yay and ungrateful on Billy's part. I was left with the uncomfortable feeling that Laura loved him more than he loved her, and DAMMIT BILLY. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LUCKY YOU ARE TO BE ADOPTED BY LAURA ROSLIN? Some of us spend our entire lives and never get an opportunity like that! And I bet you all thought Billy-Love was universal, didn't you? ;)
4. The State of the Vidder.
Well, currently I'm still working on my Farscape vid. Really I should be doing that right now. It's going so slooooooowly. Cus I don't know the source and I'm vidding with a new program, and the program itself is better for playback and crashing than WMM but still slow. So. I'm like 1:20 into a 3:00ish song. But at least I'm pretty happy with it so far.
As to future projects? I dunno. A lot of my pre-finale vid bunnies are still kind of dead, even my D'Anna vid which wasn't ever gonna go beyond 4x11 and which I actually have 45 seconds of already (but would have to remake because I lost the project file *facepalm*).
Instead I'm left with an embarassingly long list of vids that I want to make to various Sage Francis songs (and occasionally others). The VERY VAGUE project list currently goes thusly:
1. Farscape vid (currently working on).
2. Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar engage in a rap battle (4.5 fail vid).
3. Human/Cylon OTP! (
asta77 - yes this is the one we were talking about). At which point we break down into vagueness and no real intention of sticking to this order.
4. Kara Thrace vid - I kind of still want to do "there's a war going on for your mind, kara" but given a vague lack of impetus post-finale plus capping off Laura's rap triptych with the vid above, I'm also tempted to use another song I've thought of as a Kara song for years, though it's far more um, folk-song and less epic, so maybe less of a good choice for her. Ideally I'd make both but I dunno. We'll see.
5. Sam Anders vid. I have a song and everything for this and am really excited to make it but given a huge number of other projects, I'm currently thinking I'll put it off until The Plan has come out for the extra footage.
6. Fringe. Yes, I have a really insistent but really vague Olivia vid-bunny for Fringe, however, I really, really, really don't think I can do it until I see how S2 plays out and if it'll go in the right direction. So this is quasi-permanently on hold.
7. TSCC. Lower down than Fringe because I'm less certain what I'd do with it. The song and feel I was going to go for and use is now less appropriate given the tone of the finale (which I LOVED and all). I think it'll still work but it is a little less pressing to make than perhaps it was. I don't want to never vid this show though.
Currently permanently on hold, though I may pick them up at some point cus I like the ideas enough not to trash them:
- Aforementioned D'Anna vid about anger at the notion that she has anything to repent for.
- Ellen/Cavil lullaby of twistedness about the genesis of the Cylon. I think if I made this I'd have to pretty much cut off canon at 4.15 or make it a Redactica vid because otherwise my feelings about the finale few episodes might wreck it. We'll see.
If any of you feel strongly about my current prioritisations, or want to make a case for me to bump a vid further up that list or something, go ahead, though obvs I can't promise to listen. Mostly I feel so strange about still having so many BSG vids to make. On the one hand I'm glad; I don't want to be through with this show.
On the other hand, it's kind of weird given my relationship with this show now.
And....I'm done.
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Date: 2009-07-26 07:20 pm (UTC)ME TOO. DENY IT HAPPENED WITH ME. CLAP YOUR HANDS IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN THE FINALE!
Ahem.
It kind of unfortunately references and draws to the conclusion of their story in 4.5(being chucked into the sun, porno-strangled, eaten by lions),doesn't it?
YES. And like, that is difficult for someone who is trying to pretend none of that happened.
Although I am a little in love with you for using the phrase "porno-strangled" because it really, really was.
It's like one of those vids that wants to be made as some kind of retcon of the finale via context as in saying, "you guys, their ends were HORRIFYINGLY TRAGIC!" and yet...I still do not want to admit that any of it happened. Even as I DO because I want to discuss it and make things that point out how sad it all was.
Which probably means it's a good thing you're the one with the vid bunny not me!
Because either way -
And then go make something!
THIS I agree with!
And I will totally come out of my 4.5 denial bubble to squee over it!