Nine posts in two hours?!
This thread never fails to be full of surprises...
Coming in (as usual) a few days late, but one hopes, not a dollar short.
Better late than never!
joea64 said:
I do have a comment to make on Jackie Chan's comparatively disappointing track record in Hollywood. Brainbin provisionally attributes it to Hollywood's tighter safety standards, which is likely true enough, but I'd add - and this doesn't contradict what he says - that by the time Jackie arrived in Hollywood, he had been REALLY banged up as a result of all the crazy dangerous awesome stunts he'd done in his glory days. If memory serves, he had sustained such a severe head (or spine) injury on one movie shoot -
Supercop? Armour of God? I don't remember - that his doctors had explicitly forbidden him ever to undertake any stunt of the same nature that caused him to get hurt that way, ever again. So it was the case that by the time Jackie "hit the big time", at least by Hollywood's way of thinking, he just couldn't do some of the things that had made him famous worldwide anymore.
No doubt that was a major contributing factor, and certainly one that was more pressing to him personally - though I strongly suspect that, had he remained in Hong Kong, he would have been
far less likely to ultimately heed their medical advice. Hitting it big stateside, in all likelihood, quite literally saved his life. As for some of his
many injuries, to the uninitiated:
here is a good place to start.
joea64 said:
That, and the fact that a lot of the Hollywood scripts he got were just plain crappy.
Par for the course, alas.
Rumble in the Bronx came out in 1995; by that time, all of the greatest action movies in the Hollywood canon had already been made, and there was no real place for Jackie. (And yes, this means that Bruce Lee has a much greater upside ITTL.)
Brainbin, I'd venture, if you're right about Takei's political mindset, that he may eventually decide to run for the California state legislature or even Congress ITTL.
We'll just have to see where Takei finds himself. I've already decided, and I've even developed an
intriguing narrative hook about it.
Glen's Top Twenty Star Trek Episodes (at least today):
You list a full
quarter of all episodes of
Star Trek and "The Doomsday Machine" is not one of them?!
Not to mention, some of those which you
have included are real head-scratchers, but I accept your justification. I myself have a soft spot for a few episodes that many others seem to strongly dislike. Something I've noticed about "The Doomsday Machine" is that you either love the episode and consider it one of the show's very best (as I do), or you're lukewarm to distateful on it (as, apparently, you are).
Glen said:
So Brainbin and I only share 60% concordance between our top 10, and if I throw in his honorable mentions our lists only have 7 episodes shared in our top 15 and 8 shared episodes total.
If I were to add five more honourable mentions to bring it to an even twenty, they would be: "Dagger of the Mind", "The Conscience of the King", "Space Seed", "A Taste of Armageddon", and "I, Mudd"; that brings us to ten shared episodes total.
So I await a filmed adaptation.
(A little Desilu payback?
In lieu of salary?
)
Gerrold was very compensated for his time on
Star Trek. And he's already getting unprecedented fringe benefits in being designated the show's authorized chronicler. And Desilu doesn't make movies. At least, not on the
big screen...
phx1138 said:
These shows, in the original, were paced & cut together really well (except "Tribbles", which, based on what David says in the book, could use a comprehensive re-edit from original footage, if it exists).
Agreed - but as to "Tribbles", having read the book, my recollections are of two minor quibbles that Gerrold had with the finished product: the close-up (instead of a medium shot) on Koloth as he says "inessentials" and traces a womanly outline in the air (which, granted, is a fair complaint, but I still got the "gist" of what he was doing); and, after Uhura receives the tribble, the reaction shot of Cyrano grinning in appreciation (when a much better shot was filmed of both Cyrano
and the bartender grinning). The latter instance, I agree, would be much improved with the original shot, but it's a minor blemish on an otherwise excellently-edited episode.
phx1138 said:
No, as said, "if you feel like". In future, perhaps? (Or not.
) Past, when you're done, perhaps. (Or not.
) I
by no means ask for additional work which will interfere with the ongoing.
Duly noted. You may have to wait for a year or two, just letting you know
phx1138 said:
Huh. An "insert commercial here"?
That's got to make continuity a real adventure.
Luckily, people famously didn't care for continuity in the "Mork & Mindy" era.
phx1138 said:
*ahem* It would be near (or at) the bottom. Because TBH I'm not much one for Top 10s.
That's still much better than
not even appearing in a list of
twenty,
Glen
I like your list. Surprisingly predictable, considering that
you made it, with no real head-scratchers and no glaring omissions.
phx1138 said:
And I'm very surprised any were 3d season; the underlying premises of some of those were pretty good (including, frex, "For the World is Hollow"), but the execution sucked.
That's definitely a huge problem throughout the Turd Season, which is why I changed so few of the episodes for the third season ITTL. "The Enterprise Incident", for example, isn't really one of my favourite episodes (I kept demoting it from each round of Honourable Mentions, as I remembered shows that I liked better), but it really does have such strong potential, which is fully realized ITTL.
phx1138 said:
The recognition they cost way more than they're generally worth shouldn't be affected much TTL. Or does that apply only to original musicals, where the cost of the music isn't (mostly) already paid for?
I think you're on to something there. Original musicals ended largely with the Golden Age;
adaptations continued well into the 1970s.
phx1138 said:
Agreed on all counts. That said (& if this was addressed & I've forgotten,
apologies), does Lucy never work as an actress again?
I'm not saying she won't make the occasional one-shot appearance or cameo, but full-time commitments are a thing of the past.
Bear in mind, Brainbin never said this would be a utopia. True, it's not going to be a depressing dystopia to the degree of For All Time, or even Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72. Even though the author has said he has no interest in making this a political timeline, he should be commended for his realism in addressing American politics.
Thank you, vultan
And as you personally know,
I get by with a little help from my friends. (Yes, that was another Beatles reference.)
vultan said:
But I'm rambling now. Maybe Takei can fix all this.
"Warp Speed Ahead with Takei for [
verboten]!"
Put simply, I think that many if not all of the political troubles of today can ultimately be traced back to the divisions and upheavals of the 1960's and early 1970's, including the quagmire that must not be named and Watergate.
Having been a child in the 1990s, and growing up outside of the United States (though close enough to be a very intimate observer), I
still remember the myriad references to the overseas quagmire and Watergate. In the
1990s. On
new programming. It was ubiquitous, and inescapable. They were
still talking about it, as if it had happened just yesterday. They also assumed that the viewer was intimately familiar with them, and a result I didn't find out what Watergate actually
was until I was in high school. And after all that build-up, I still remember thinking "That's
it? That's
all he did?" So I definitely agree with you in that sense.
50% of our top ten are te same for all three - tribbles, mirror, amok, babel, and city
An interesting observation, but unfortunately, the sample size is far too small to draw any meaningful conclusions.
I can see a path where a hard-right third party becomes dominant among conservative whites in the South, while blacks and moderate whites become a consistent regional battleground between the Democratic and Republican parties
In the
short term, this is definitely the likeliest possibility. Wallace is building an infrastructure, and he will not rest until he can throw a spanner in the works. He came so tantalizingly close last time, in both the Electoral College and both Houses of Congress, so he's bound to try again, at least a few more times. In the longer term? No comment, obviously
Heck, Brainbin even said the Democrats narrowly won California due to quite a few Republicans writing in Reagan.
Technically, Humphrey's margin over Rockefeller was larger than the number of write-in votes for Reagan. A few other factors along the same lines were in play, though; it being Schmidt's home state definitely helped the AIP siphon off votes, and no small number of conservatives probably stayed home or spoiled their ballot. Also, there were some factors working for Humphrey (Takei campaigning for him is one small example of this.) You may be thinking of the 1968 campaign ITTL, in which Nixon won his home state by a closer margin than the number of write-in votes for McCarthy (about 25,000).
vultan said:
Then remember that the South is still winnable by the GOP. Even without an explicit Southern Strategy, the GOP can look at the 1964 elections (not just the presidential race) and the 1966 midterms. Rocky won TN and SC, yes, but only after some heavy campaigning by Southern conservatives.
Also note that his own
brother couldn't deliver his home state of Arkansas to the GOP (in fact, they finished
third).
vultan said:
They have and will continue to benefit from the right-wing backlash to Humphrey, and Wallace won't live forever.
By the same token, they would also be the prime beneficiaries of any
moderate or
independent backlash to Humphrey. As to Wallace, he is not paralyzed ITTL, and his continuing robustness will be a definite thorn in the side to both of the other parties. One other thing worth noting is that other prominent figures in the American Party (including Rep. Flowers and Sen. Maddox) are emerging. Their long-term viability is far from assured, but they will not go gentle into that good night.
vultan said:
And besides, after the defeats of 1964, 1968, and 1972, who's the shoe-in to take the GOP nomination in 1976?
Everyone keeps suggesting this cowboy actor. Sounds pretty "out there" if you ask me
Small sample size.
Indeed. Come on, you guys! We need more data points. Don't make me call you out by name!