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tcpipYesterday's presentation on Dr. Jim Cairns at the Melbourne Unitarian Church went well. People were particularly pleased with the comparison with David Hookes. Speaking of which, I have to give my publishers another poke.
Finally managed to get around to seeing the Return of the King with caseopaya. It required some severe suspensions of disbelief and unjustified explosions and I'll be surprised if it isn't recognized of the worst of the trilogy. I also note that the Scourging of the Shire was taken out. My hypothesis is this was for the mirror reason that Tom Bombadil was also taken out. LoTR is more of a traditional mythic tale than a modern fairy tale. Bombadil was far too much of a fairy story, whereas Saruman taking over the Shire was far too modernist. Whilst I applaud the removal of Bombadil, I think that taking out Saruman was an error.
Had a amusing possum visit that evening. Mother and child on back decided to come into the flat in seach of food. However, physics being somewhat beyond their marsupial brain meant that the mother+child weight was far beyond mother's capacity to climb up on the window sill, so I provided some assistance in that regard.
Been seeing a few good films recently thanks to caseopaya purchasing a new DVD and video. In an attempt to celebrate this purchase (and me finishing the Data Security subchapter of my PhD) we picked up a number of DVD's including Takedown (the Kevin Mitnick story) and Sneakers. Despite some of the commenst on IMDB, I liked both of them. But that wasn't after a little adventure returning to the flat which included two people, two sets of keys behind a locked door and a brick. Not wanting to upset our erudite and insightful sociologist, Prime Minister John Howard, I had the window repaired as quickly as possible.
The DVD player also provided to the opportunity to watch my dodgy copy of the excellent Altered States that I picked up in East Timor. The English translation on the back is the height of amusement. Read it aloud.
"Elephant that scientist hear the always think the dimension to exist the consciousness, and this spacs have no with our true to distinct, besides science spread to feel the outside, the use the strong the medicine, and let go in experience by oneself that amazing and mysterious world, he and did not though of, once lose control, and the result be so terrible we do not think about it ...."
A moment of serendipity when seeing LoTR and the dilipadated art deco Sun cinema in Yarraville was the fact that Kerry Greenwood was having a function there. Caseopaya happened to be reading one of her books and I took the opportunity to snap one up as well.
Apart from that I've been amazing busy html-ising ancient history, not the least being a journal I should have published six years ago - yes it's the second issue of Mimesis on psychology and roleplaying. It ain't dead yet. My favourite here is Guy Debord's (the French situationist/media theorist) The Game of War - I've played this, it's like chess on speed. My own contributions include Rational Domains for Developmentental Psychology and Social Psychology and Alignment. Special thanks to severina_242 for extracting the huge Word file and billions of TIF images that had been shoved in the document on a zip disk all those years ago.
On a related note, I've finished that Red Alert map that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I suspect that a Mimesis issue 3 could be out very soon...
Speaking of ancient history, I've finished transcribing by cyberpunk essay from some fourteen years ago and, with no degree of irony, my honours seminar on 'Writing the thesis'. I'm still pretty happy with these in hindsight.
Politics is a strange business. The elite establishment, having declared war on the basis that there were weapons of mass destruction are now claiming the high ground because there wasn't. Peter Feaver does himself no credit in his Washington Post on the matter and Jeff Jacoby proves himself a well-paid servant in the Boston Globe by still attempting to promote a correlation between Saddam and 9-11. The most bizarre act of the week however has to be the Hutton Report, just proving that these things are therapy for the ruling class. As Ron Liddle said in the Spectator, this is hardly surprising. The Times, combining aesthetic and political critique claims "The Hutton report reads like that of an elderly retainer summounded from his roses to perform a last deed for his master, the Establishment".
Naturally enough, the political elite have accused the intelligence services for the error, well aware that they make a useful scapegoat. The fact of the matter is that this is not an intelligence failure, it's a political failure. The Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq prior to any evaluation over WMD because there was economic reasons to do so and Saddam was (no longer) a client and compliant regime. Rumsfield now routinely ignores anything which the public service intelligence agents produces, relying instead on the "intelligence" of the thoroughly politicized Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. They're the one's running the show.
Speaking of things political, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about Mark Latham. More on this later when I've considered it more carefully.
Silly link of the week award comes from Erudito.. Exploding sperm whales, although for pure geek level, this 404 error questioning of the SCO/Linux debate is also worthwhile. The links are worth following.
Finally managed to get around to seeing the Return of the King with caseopaya. It required some severe suspensions of disbelief and unjustified explosions and I'll be surprised if it isn't recognized of the worst of the trilogy. I also note that the Scourging of the Shire was taken out. My hypothesis is this was for the mirror reason that Tom Bombadil was also taken out. LoTR is more of a traditional mythic tale than a modern fairy tale. Bombadil was far too much of a fairy story, whereas Saruman taking over the Shire was far too modernist. Whilst I applaud the removal of Bombadil, I think that taking out Saruman was an error.
Had a amusing possum visit that evening. Mother and child on back decided to come into the flat in seach of food. However, physics being somewhat beyond their marsupial brain meant that the mother+child weight was far beyond mother's capacity to climb up on the window sill, so I provided some assistance in that regard.
Been seeing a few good films recently thanks to caseopaya purchasing a new DVD and video. In an attempt to celebrate this purchase (and me finishing the Data Security subchapter of my PhD) we picked up a number of DVD's including Takedown (the Kevin Mitnick story) and Sneakers. Despite some of the commenst on IMDB, I liked both of them. But that wasn't after a little adventure returning to the flat which included two people, two sets of keys behind a locked door and a brick. Not wanting to upset our erudite and insightful sociologist, Prime Minister John Howard, I had the window repaired as quickly as possible.
The DVD player also provided to the opportunity to watch my dodgy copy of the excellent Altered States that I picked up in East Timor. The English translation on the back is the height of amusement. Read it aloud.
"Elephant that scientist hear the always think the dimension to exist the consciousness, and this spacs have no with our true to distinct, besides science spread to feel the outside, the use the strong the medicine, and let go in experience by oneself that amazing and mysterious world, he and did not though of, once lose control, and the result be so terrible we do not think about it ...."
A moment of serendipity when seeing LoTR and the dilipadated art deco Sun cinema in Yarraville was the fact that Kerry Greenwood was having a function there. Caseopaya happened to be reading one of her books and I took the opportunity to snap one up as well.
Apart from that I've been amazing busy html-ising ancient history, not the least being a journal I should have published six years ago - yes it's the second issue of Mimesis on psychology and roleplaying. It ain't dead yet. My favourite here is Guy Debord's (the French situationist/media theorist) The Game of War - I've played this, it's like chess on speed. My own contributions include Rational Domains for Developmentental Psychology and Social Psychology and Alignment. Special thanks to severina_242 for extracting the huge Word file and billions of TIF images that had been shoved in the document on a zip disk all those years ago.
On a related note, I've finished that Red Alert map that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I suspect that a Mimesis issue 3 could be out very soon...
Speaking of ancient history, I've finished transcribing by cyberpunk essay from some fourteen years ago and, with no degree of irony, my honours seminar on 'Writing the thesis'. I'm still pretty happy with these in hindsight.
Politics is a strange business. The elite establishment, having declared war on the basis that there were weapons of mass destruction are now claiming the high ground because there wasn't. Peter Feaver does himself no credit in his Washington Post on the matter and Jeff Jacoby proves himself a well-paid servant in the Boston Globe by still attempting to promote a correlation between Saddam and 9-11. The most bizarre act of the week however has to be the Hutton Report, just proving that these things are therapy for the ruling class. As Ron Liddle said in the Spectator, this is hardly surprising. The Times, combining aesthetic and political critique claims "The Hutton report reads like that of an elderly retainer summounded from his roses to perform a last deed for his master, the Establishment".
Naturally enough, the political elite have accused the intelligence services for the error, well aware that they make a useful scapegoat. The fact of the matter is that this is not an intelligence failure, it's a political failure. The Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq prior to any evaluation over WMD because there was economic reasons to do so and Saddam was (no longer) a client and compliant regime. Rumsfield now routinely ignores anything which the public service intelligence agents produces, relying instead on the "intelligence" of the thoroughly politicized Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. They're the one's running the show.
Speaking of things political, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about Mark Latham. More on this later when I've considered it more carefully.
Silly link of the week award comes from Erudito.. Exploding sperm whales, although for pure geek level, this 404 error questioning of the SCO/Linux debate is also worthwhile. The links are worth following.
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We were proximate
Date: 2004-02-02 12:08 am (UTC)Liked the presentation on Dr Jim. Think your analysis of different media treatment is completely wrong, though. Plenty of major figures from all walks of life have got the same lack of media treatment in death (my old teacher David Stove, for example, one of the major analytic philosophers of the C20th). If the *Herald-Sun* thought it could flog more newspapers making Dr Jim's death front-page news, that's what it would have done. And Rupert would have expected no less.
Tim Blair tells a great story from his *Telegraph* days. There was a huge demo in support of South Sydney against SuperLeague, one of the largest demos in Sydney history (tells you something, that). The *Telegraph* journos, fearful of Ruper's commercial interests, put it in back pages. Rupert rang up -- that demo was huge news, why wasn't it on page one? His message -- you guys are there to sell newspapers, let me worry about my other interests. Rupert also didn't interfere with the *Village Voice* when he owned -- it was profitable.
Now, does Rupert use his media to protect his commercial interests. Sure. Does he use it for any other purpose? Not that I can see. His purpose is to make money. He is prepared to have the odd loss-leader (his support for *The Australian* for example, and the *Weekly Standard*). But he is a capitalist and acts like one.
Spruiking David Hookes' death was going to sell media. So they did. Spruiking Dr Jim's death wasn't. So they didn't. Most of the time, commerce really is just commerce.
Re: We were proximate
Date: 2004-02-02 01:37 am (UTC)Usually yes. Except when the material has political content. Then the media will show the biases of their managers and owners. The preferred option is something that is popular and politically "neutral", such as David Hookes. Or some criketeer for "Australian of the Year".
There is no good reason for the Herald Sun to have (for example) Andrew Bolt on the spruiking box. There are people far more erudite and informed about the issues he rants about. The choice of Andrew Bolt is a political decision, not an educational one.
On an aside, I understand your personal connection, but I don't really think that David Stove was that much of an intellectual or social giant. But yes, he deserved more honour than he received as well.
Careful not to over-analyse...
Date: 2004-02-02 12:45 am (UTC)Keep in mind that the first two films ran for three hours each, and RotK was twenty minutes longer than those. By Hollywood's standards that's very long, and that costs money because you can't fit as many viewers in a day.
IMHO both those omissions can be adequately explained by time/money pressures. Bombadil's bit was more or less self-contained, and didn't really further the storyline, so it could be removed without much 'patching' needed. (Actually, it reminds me very much of the 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' chapter out of 'Wind in the Willows' - a chapter which always gets omitted from movie versions).
Note that some of the Bombadil bits did make it into the extended Two Towers DVD - Merry and Pippin meet Old Man Willow, and Treebeard gets some of Bombadil's lines. One way to incorporate some of the 'good bits' without the cost and bother of extra sets and characters.
I don't think the omission of Scouring of the Shire worked as well. To me, that segment's a big part of why Frodo has to leave Middle-Earth - even when Saruman's defeated, he's still left scars. It also makes the point that the hobbits' quiet lifestyle is not a guarantee of sanctuary from the conflicts of the Big World, and that point's lost when they come home in the movie to find it 'just as they left it'. And I think Christopher Lee is a magnificent actor who ought to have had more screentime.
But I still think this one comes down to time and money. It would have required new sets (and big ones), and it would've added a good twenty minutes to the film. Once the Ring's destroyed, it's hard to justify (to the money-men, that is) why the movie's still running.
Re: Careful not to over-analyse...
Date: 2004-02-02 01:41 am (UTC)I think both directions of thought are true. If they were thinking of budget and time (as they invariably are) they would also be thinking about what parts of the the plot are anachronistic. And in these days of the cost-disease of the service sector, the special effects for the collapsing model tower of the eye and the earth consuming orcs are actually less expensive and time consuming than the source of the Shire.
In a sense, the scourge I think represents a moment of crisis for the author after the crisis of the narrative. Tolkien, I am sure, suddenly realized that the days of the Hobbits and the south of England were truly numbered.
Re: Careful not to over-analyse...
Date: 2004-02-02 02:03 am (UTC)When Merry and Pippin raid Isengard's larders, they discover food/drink/weed from back home, and IIRC they realise then that he might have reached as far as the Shire. Before that, in Lothlorien, the gifts Galadriel gives Sam foreshadow the rebuilding of the Shire. If he only thought of it just as he was finishing the series, he went to a lot of trouble to write those hints back into earlier sections. I'd guess JRRT was keeping this muted so it would have more effect on the reader when he finally did spring it on them.
bit ot but still of slight relevance
Date: 2004-02-02 04:30 am (UTC)Re: bit ot but still of slight relevance
Date: 2004-02-02 09:45 pm (UTC)Good point. Do you have any idea why they were cut? My Hamlet knowledge isn't what it used to be sadly...
Re: bit ot but still of slight relevance
Date: 2004-02-02 09:55 pm (UTC)Re: bit ot but still of slight relevance
Date: 2004-02-02 10:13 pm (UTC)Well the time thing is always issue, the question is how relevant is the scene to the plot in general... Getting rid of Bombadil made sense because he doesn't do much for the narrative... Getting rid of the Scourging of the Shire is done because it troubles the theme...
Re: bit ot but still of slight relevance
Date: 2004-02-02 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 01:06 am (UTC)Interesting hypothesis about the removal of the "Scouring of the Shire" section, but I think the constraints surrounding the adaptation of such a large work to the cinema are more relevant. As it was, the wrap-up of RotK already suffered from having to supply far too many endings, not all of which were given sufficient screentime. The Scouring would've been yet another ending, which needs to be set up and concluded *after* all the other plot threads except for Frodo's departure. For large chunks of the audience it would have been far too much of an anticlimax - "the world's already been saved, why does the movie run for another 30-45 minutes?"
I don't think this would be as much of a problem if the books were to be adapted as a miniseries, which would allow greater room to develop all of the unused threads from the novel.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 01:43 am (UTC)Hey, let's approach Peter Jackson to do the Silmarrillion and the Book of Lost Tales Vol I, II and III (was there a III?) - we'll be on the gravy train for life!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 02:05 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 04:57 am (UTC)Thankfully his wife and the other screenwriter were shouting "NO!" and "Do we really need to make more money for New Line?"
It makes you wonder why we have nepotism at all, really
Date: 2004-02-02 08:30 am (UTC)Not only are our politicians corrupt, they're not even corrupt in the right way! Gah!
Re: It makes you wonder why we have nepotism at all, really
Date: 2004-02-02 09:51 pm (UTC)It's interesting - this might sound strange, with me defending ASIS, the CIA etc, but such organizations are pretty straight. They'll do intelligence gathering, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but at the end of the day they aren't really in the business of making stuff up. That's the public relations section of politics.
As an excellent historical example of all this check out Hannah Arendt's first chapter of "Crises of the Republic". It's entitled "Lying in Politics" and a great deal of it is about how the US government systematically ignored the facts that their own intelligence was providing them on Vietnam and engaged in PR intead. Arendt, a true believer in liberal democracy, quizzicly asks at one point "How did they ever think they'd get away with it in the long run?"
Re: It makes you wonder why we have nepotism at all, really
Date: 2004-02-02 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 12:15 pm (UTC)I continue to champion the meme that it is ONE BIG FILM.
Besides, we need to see the SE DVD before we can comment.
I also note that the Scourging of the Shire was taken out. My hypothesis is this was for the mirror reason that Tom Bombadil was also taken out. ... I applaud the removal of Bombadil, I think that taking out Saruman was an error.
I agree, whole-heartledly. I finished reading LOTR at the weekend, and I must say the Scouring would have been the BEST ending - in addition to all the in cinema endings (had they not tried the false ending trick).
The Scouring is vital, moreso when you see the cinematic Shire in Fellowship. I found that Jackon's most irksome change. Oh, and the Pukel Men. They rocked, and need to be back in.
Indeed, I would like to have the film end with Sam sailing from the Grey Havens...
Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 09:43 pm (UTC)Now there's a sign of the times. Movies are like the softback edition of a White Wolf game, not the "real version" but a pilot episode.
Oh, and the Pukel Men. They rocked, and need to be back in.
Indeed, those little Picts...
I would like to have the film end with Sam sailing from the Grey Havens...
How about a step further? Legalos and the big maybe of Gimli? Did a dwarf return to the bosom of Orome? And via boat for that matter?
no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 09:54 pm (UTC)Whilst everyone is on the hobbit meme some people may enjoy this essay I wrote a few years...
Literary Criticism and Improvements in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’
http://au.geocities.com/lev_lafayette/0203tolk.html
no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 12:01 am (UTC)You, Sir, are a madman. I shall be sending around some bumbling orderlies with comically oversized butterfly nets to collect you shortly.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 03:58 am (UTC)Interview: 2.57pm, Happy Valley, Victoria.
Present: Inpatient "tcpip", Mr. Jazzyjay, M.D., MAPS.
Dear Mr. Psychiatrist,
Seriously, what was the purpose of the buildings falling down and the earth going into convulsions when Sauron was destroyed? Are orcs so bad at making towers that rather than bricks and motor the things was held up by the will of Sauron alone? And how come the earth didn't do a little circle around the forces of The Western Men at the Black Gate? Huh?
I'm quite happy to suspend my sense of disbelief for mythic fantasy - quite a lot in fact - but not unnecessarily so...
Ergo, my ranking is in the order that the films came out... The Fellowship was the best, the Two Towers was second and ROTK was third... They were all very good films, but as a critic, one point out there flaws...
Will you let me go now?
Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 12:21 pm (UTC)Yes, the whole falling over towers and the ground collapsing was rubbish. The only thing I was really disappointed about was that the Eye didn't do an "UH-OH!" double-take to camera before collapsing. That would have been awesome.
Ron Liddle is tainted goods
Date: 2004-02-03 06:09 am (UTC)So is Hutton...
Date: 2004-02-03 08:09 am (UTC)