Miscellaneous >1900 (Alternate) History Thread

Arkenfolm

Driftless said:
Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" was a three part film trilogy. You've got one set of fans who love the three parts and the introduction of new characters and plot elements. Other fans of the books (myself included) think that three movies was "scraping too little butter over too much bread", in a bald-face cash grab. ( I do like the addition of the Dol Guldur scene, so there's that....)
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I've never heard of anyone actually liking the Hobbit as a trilogy. Usually it's just individual scenes or the first movie.
Driftless said:
So,........ If there are only TWO Hobbit films done, what changes?
  • Where in the journey is the final scenes of film one?
  • What characters get dropped in consideration of shortening the storyline?
  • What plot elements either get dropped, or shortened to save time?
  • How many minutes of run time +/- for both films.
  • Who in the fan base is happy, who's not? :p :biggrin:
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The end of the second movie finishes right before the scene where Bard the Bowman kills Smaug which in the book is almost at the end. Just cut the stupid romance subplot, filler shit like trying to kill Smaug with molten gold, and shorten some scenes in both movies and you can have Smaug die at the end of the second movie and have the Battle of the Five Armies which hopefully isn't done as lame as it was OTL. Most of the subplot with Gandalf could still be incorporated since that was a selling point and IIRC why they made it two movies to begin with (before some executive demanded it be a trilogy that is).

If the scene with Smaug being killed and the Battle of the Five Armies is done well then it would be much better received even if there's still going to be plenty of critics. It's still going to attract a lot of comparisons to the Star Wars prequels (inevitable IMO because of the lighter and less epic tone than LOTR) but it could've been done so much better and end up with far less criticism.
 
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sampleswift

LordUltimus said:
Is it possible for the Great Depression to have never happened, or is that ASB?
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It's possible for the Great Depression to be significantly less bad (and maybe not even be a depression). Calvin Coolidge's economic policy turned out to be unsustainable (which helped contribute to it). By Herbert Hoover's time, it may have been too late to stop the Great Depression, but Hoover flailed around and made moves like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff that made things worse.

It's not ASB, but you'd need Coolidge to be smarter + Hoover to take decisive action earlier.
 
LordUltimus

LordUltimus

sampleswift said:
It's possible for the Great Depression to be significantly less bad (and maybe not even be a depression). Calvin Coolidge's economic policy turned out to be unsustainable (which helped contribute to it). By Herbert Hoover's time, it may have been too late to stop the Great Depression, but Hoover flailed around and made moves like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff that made things worse.

It's not ASB, but you'd need Coolidge to be smarter + Hoover to take decisive action earlier.
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So maybe different president's get elected? Who'd work?
 
tonycat77

tonycat77

Banned
Something that is stuck on my mind for a while.
Could Argentina/Brazil buy the Graf spee?
The ship would never make it to germany, however could they had "sold" it to uruguay (being a proxy for argentina) instead of scuttling it?
The crew gets interned or sent home.
Barring any economical problems, would there be any legal obstacle to it?
 
Ogrebear

Ogrebear

What if Prince Charles was allowed to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles in the 80's like he wanted instead of marrying Diana Spencer?

Charles is loyal to Camilla and thus there is no Royal divorce and scandal. How does this effect the Royal Family?
 

htgriffin

Ogrebear said:
What if Prince Charles was allowed to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles in the 80's like he wanted instead of marrying Diana Spencer?

Charles is loyal to Camilla and thus there is no Royal divorce and scandal. How does this effect the Royal Family?
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Whatever PR hit is taken by the lack of the psuedo-Cinderella match with Diana Spencer would be countered by an actual happy love match. Kids may be less photogenic though.
 
Saluriel

Saluriel

If Harry Potter had never been written, would we see a continuation of the whole "child star to human trainwreck" pipeline? Because it seems like Chris Columbus' casting choices for the first movie (eg, not working with any child star whose parents seem stage parentey, not after the shitshow around Macaulay Culkin and Home Alone) was the start of having child stars that end up reasonably normal and well-adjusted, a trend which has continued most recently with the cast of Stranger Things, who seem exceptionally normal and healthy.

Obviously the pipeline continued with Disney Channel and Nickelodeon sitcoms for a while (especially with Dan Schneider having the allegations that he's had against him, the rumors of a guy with a foot fetish working on the production crew, and the rumors about Drake Bell, etc) but it seems to have puttered out as of late and I'm wondering how much the production of the Harry Potter movie are responsible for that.
 

BlueTrousers

WI: Manospondylus gigas

In 1905, Henry Fairfield Osborn named a specimen found in Montana Tyrannosaurus rex, which quickly became one of the most widely recognised dinosaur species and which should need no introduction.

In OTL 1892, infamous palaeontologist E. D. Cope found two vertebral fragments of a large dinosaur, which he named a Manospondylus gigas. He believed them to be a ceratopsid, but in 1907 they were reclassified as a theropod. As early as 1917, it was recognised that M. gigas and T. rex had substantial similarities, but the two were not synonymized. It is now accepted that the two are, in fact, the same species.

But suppose it was recognised in 1905 or 1906, before extensive publicity built the reputation of T. rex that the two species were the same. In that case, established practice would dictate that M. gigas was the correct name. What impact does this have?



In general, I would say that this kind of PoD was trivial. But given the huge cultural impact of T. rex, an alternative - and less catchy - name might significantly change public perception of dinosaurs.
 

faddllz

there's this thread long time ago but imma just post here again : what if hitler was a jew ?

he still have all the same characteristics as our hitler did minus anti semitism.racially, he could make the jews as "equal to aryans". we assume his policy is same. we assume the timeline is still going the same as our world.

how would this change history, fore,during, and after war ?
 
LordUltimus

LordUltimus

Saluriel said:
If Harry Potter had never been written, would we see a continuation of the whole "child star to human trainwreck" pipeline? Because it seems like Chris Columbus' casting choices for the first movie (eg, not working with any child star whose parents seem stage parentey, not after the shitshow around Macaulay Culkin and Home Alone) was the start of having child stars that end up reasonably normal and well-adjusted, a trend which has continued most recently with the cast of Stranger Things, who seem exceptionally normal and healthy.

Obviously the pipeline continued with Disney Channel and Nickelodeon sitcoms for a while (especially with Dan Schneider having the allegations that he's had against him, the rumors of a guy with a foot fetish working on the production crew, and the rumors about Drake Bell, etc) but it seems to have puttered out as of late and I'm wondering how much the production of the Harry Potter movie are responsible for that.
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I don't think so, a lot of the child stars of the eighties ended up getting pretty messed up.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'

What if the 2008 financial crisis happens in late 2005 and the Great Recession starts then?​


What if the economic negative trends, the drop in real estate values, sub-prime mortgage crisis and so forth that culminated in the fall 2008 financial crisis had come together to cause a late 2005 financial crisis, with it becoming clear by the middle of 2006 or so that a lasting Great Recession is on?
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Why did the USSR not pay a higher political and diplomatic price in the Arab and Muslim world for its early support of Israel?

Why did the USSR not pay a higher political and diplomatic price in the Arab and Muslim world for its early support of Israel?

Arguably, the USSR was more decisively and wholeheartedly supportive of Israel than the United States when it counted, at the time of its founding, and during its war of independence.

Supporting examples:

  • Certainly American citizen donors gave more funds, but the United States imposed an arms embargo on the Israelis (and Arabs) while the Soviets permitted arms sales from their client state Czechslovakia during the war of independence. Arms are pretty important for war. The Israelis did also acquire US arms during the war illegally, but American citizens were prosecuted and punished for involvement in these transactions. The only state-backed arms aid program for Israel in its first war came from the Soviet bloc.
  • The US was the first to grant "de facto" recognition to Israel, but the USSR was second. And the USSR was first to grant "de jure" recognition to Israel.
  • Most migration of Jews from Europe to Palestine, while transiting the American zone of Germany, originated from countries in Europe occupied by the Soviet Union and controlled by it or its political clients.
  • The UN Partition vote - the US and USSR were 'even steven' on this. Both voted for it. Most Soviet allies voted for it (Poland and Czechoslovakia), but not all (Yugoslavia). US allies were a mixed bag - Latin America mostly yes, but with exceptions like Cuba. France and Netherlands yes, Britain and China and Greece, no.
However, even in in Israel's first decade and a half, when the US would not sell arms to Israel, (forcing it to look to Western European sellers), Israel was identified as a US catspaw and creation in the Arab and Muslim world. The US eventually sold some defensive weapons to Israel (late Kennedy Administration) and then offensive (shortly before 6 Day War, not delivered until after).

Meanwhile, the Soviet bloc role in Israel's survival and victory in 47-49 seemed to be quickly forgiven and forgotten. It didn't stop Syria from turning left and taking an international pro-Soviet alignment in early 1955 (Mar), then Egypt from doing the same (summer 1955), then Iraq following suit (1958).

Why was this the case?

(Incidentally, when American government aid to Israel really did explode (alongside a major increase in private aid and bond sales) in size after 1970 that did *not* stop Jordan from aligning closer to the US and did not stop Egypt's shift from the Soviet to US camp).
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
A different Iraq

If there was no 21st century invasion of Iraq by the USA or Iran, but the Saddam Hussein regime fell, parties representing the Shia Arab majority came out on top of the government, and the government and populace faced an intractable Sunni terrorist insurgency, would the global media be more sympathetic to the Shia majority government's position and less sympathetic to Sunni's charges of Shia oppression than it has been in OTL, or the reverse? Or about the same as OTL?

Without the imperial stink of being installed by the USA, would the Shia be seen as more like the ANC in South Africa, the long-oppressed majority, who finally got to govern, and the Sunni rebels as privileged reactionaries trying to turn the clock back, as if Afrikaners were still fighting to reinstall white minority rule? Did the tie to the US cost the Shia 'underdog sympathy points' they would have otherwise gotten?
 
Miranda Brawner

Miranda Brawner

raharris1973 said:
A different Iraq

Without the imperial stink of being installed by the USA, would the Shia be seen as more like the ANC in South Africa, the long-oppressed majority, who finally got to govern, and the Sunni rebels as privileged reactionaries trying to turn the clock back, as if Afrikaners were still fighting to reinstall white minority rule?
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Good question!
 
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