I hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter weekend - or just an enjoyable weekend in general, as the case may be
One really interesting side-effect of having the 1984 Olympics in Tehran is that it's going to shatter the average American's view of the Middle East -- one that, IMO, still mostly holds today -- as existing somewhere in the middle Bronze Age.
I can think of a lot of ways in which shattering that false belief may have significant consequences....
An excellent observation, Andrew! Seoul 1988 IOTL was definitely an inspiration for the depiction of Tehran 1984 ITTL, right down to the sudden and dramatic democratization of the state regime between being awarded the Olympics and actually hosting them. I think it's safe to say that 1988 put Seoul on the map IOTL, and the same is certainly true of 1984 for Tehran ITTL... for better and for worse.
On a more general point, we've discussed before that parody is a measure of cultural significance and that successful genres inspire parody. ITTL, there's the example of the film Catastrophe as a parody of the Disaster Movie. IOTL, the SF boom following Star Wars inspired parodies such as the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, Spaceballs and Galaxy Quest. With an earlier SF boom due to the greater success of Star Trek, what are the equivalents ITTL ? AFAIR, there has been a Planet of the Apes parody starring Shatner, but I can't recall if you've mentioned others.
You remember correctly; the
Planet of the Apes parody is called
Monkey World. I'm surprised you don't remember the famous "Captain Kirk interrupts" wave of parodies started on
The Two Ronnies - that eventually spread to just about every sketch comedy show on the air in the UK during the mid-1970s. There are also lots of great parodies airing on SCTV, as well.
So TTL is currently at 1984, correct? It seems we're getting close to 1986, when we already know that Lucille Ball is going to be retiring.
Yes, we're in the middle of the 1983-84 cycle - the ante-penultimate cycle of the timeline. Once I get these next two updates hammered out (which should be in fairly quick succession - I've been working on both of them at once), that will conclude this cycle and bring us forward to 1984-85, the penultimate cycle - one brimming with a great many revelations.
John Fredrick Parker said:
Incidentally, what has Stanley Kubrick been doing since Napoleon? All I recall TTL is that he researched but decided against adapting Lord of the Rings, and also decided against OTL choices of Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon.
Among these revelations will be another look into the career of Stanley Kubrick
Immediately after posting that question, I actually checked if King was mentioned earlier, and here's Brainbin on King:
Mr. E, you have earned the No-Prize for Superlative Sleuthing! Well done
Brainbin,
I know you asked for the short version but I am addressing 6 movies spread over 35 years.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! I really appreciate them, and found them most enlightening