The Christmas windfall has come, and yours truly has two new Doctor Who DVDs to take a gander at. First up, the serial that could have saved the show from cancellation in 1989, if only an accountant wasn't the producer.
In the four Season 26 scripts, the plot is like an iceberg and the Doctor is like Sherlock Holmes. By that I mean there's about a billion wheels turning, and the audience is only clued in to about three of them. Unfortunately, one of these scripts is a whole lot weaker than the other three, and despite the decision to spend most of the advertising budget on The Curse of Fenric, John Nathan-Turner then decided to air it third and put the subpar Battlefield first. And thus, the show was axed.
The plot of Curse is this: Admiral Wellington and his old academy friend, Dr. Judson, have concocted a scheme to poison the Soviets, who are on their way to steal the British Ultima machine. Jolly good show, I say. They also have a second plan to unleash the curse of Fenric, though how aware they are of the Curse and their role in it seems to vary from episode to episode. Bash Saward's tenure as script editor all you want, at least his stories could be followed by the average idiot; for all the credit Andrew Cartmel gets, it's damn near impossible to figure out exactly what Wellington's ultimate aim with the Curse is.
Anyway it all horribly backfires and we get an aesop about cooperating with the Soviets - all nice and good now that the cold war's ending, but Malcolm Hulke did it a lot better (though with considerably more "subtlety" - I have to put that word in quotes because even that wasn't really subtle) back in 1973.
Meanwhile the Doctor gets to be all mysterious for four episodes and Ace nicely calls him out on it - unintentionally foreshadowing some of the stuff Martha and Donna will rag on Ten about. Given how bloated the script was, with the Special Edition in hand it's kind of curious to see the scenes that got left in - Rev. Wainwright's monologue in the church could have been cut in order to make Episode 1 end where it should have, and there's some critical dialogue that unbelievably got left out of Episode 4.
And finally, the chess problem makes absolutely no sense. As far as I can tell, Sorin!Fenric knocks over the white king with a white pawn. Um, okay, I'm pretty sure "break the basic rules of Chess" is not one of the ways to solve chess problems.
Well that's the flaws in the story. As broadcast, it's a horrible jumbled mess that might just have saved the show if it had been broadcast first as originally intended. Unfortunately, the show was run by an accountant who thought it would be better to air the scary story around Halloween. I give that version a 7 out of 10.
The special edition (available on disc 2 of the DVD) ties up several loose ends (though it still doesn't explain why Ace can hear machinery in the crypt, or what that noise is supposed to signify - it's either Wellington's poison being manufactured or something to do with Fenric, but in either case, why can't the Doctor hear it?), stitches scenes back together, and makes the whole thing seem less generally disjointed. If I had to nitpick about the acting, I'd gripe about Sophie Aldred's overly dramatic collapse when she loses her faith in the Doctor... but I'm not an acting critic. I'm a writing critic, so let me just say that the dialogue in the scene where Ace distracts the guard ("Sometimes I move faster than the speed of light." "Faster than the second hand on a clock?") rivals that of Anakin and Padme for the uncoveted prize of Worst Romantic Dialogue in a Sci-Fi Saga Ever.
The special edition version gets an 8 out of 10. It's still far from perfect, and no amount of additional scenes can fix that.
Back to the Who Review List
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Random Sarcasm: James Madison
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we shouldn't be revering the Founding Fathers all that much. Consider what our fourth President managed to do: namely, get Washington DC burned to the ground. Great accomplishment.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
You Gotta Be Crazy...
I swear, every time I listen to Pink Floyd's "Dogs" I can't help but feel that it's a near-perfect summation of life. Not exactly uplifting or encouraging, but there you have it. Best line: "And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around."
Then again, these guys kind of cornered the market on catchy-yet-depressing songs about life. While the Beatles were singing about love, the Rolling Stones were singing about sex, Led Zeppelin were singing about rock and roll, and AC/DC were singing about sex and rock & roll (overachievers), Pink Floyd were churning out songs like "Time" and albums like "The Wall."
Which, of course, makes them awesome.
Then again, these guys kind of cornered the market on catchy-yet-depressing songs about life. While the Beatles were singing about love, the Rolling Stones were singing about sex, Led Zeppelin were singing about rock and roll, and AC/DC were singing about sex and rock & roll (overachievers), Pink Floyd were churning out songs like "Time" and albums like "The Wall."
Which, of course, makes them awesome.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
When should Tom Baker have stepped down?
I was reading another blog - okay, Lawrence Miles' blog. Considering the man's got nothing but venom to spew at Steven Moffat, I kind of wonder what I was doing over there. But anyways, at one point in one of his posts, he argued that none of the Previous Nine could have possibly stepped in after Tennant and filled his shoes.
(He also argued that Tennant was the only Doctor to date to bring something new each season. 1) Bupkis, and if more Troughton stories existed, I could prove it. Also: McCoy, who went from a bumbling clown who played with spoons to the third most important Time Lord in history, but only five guys and a dog saw any of his stories. 2) even if it were true, so what? Tennant's also the only Doctor to do more than one season since Buffy, so why should we be surprised?)
Anyways, the reasoning for Tennant's mega-popularity boils down to: yup, the show itself is treating the Doctor like a sexy god (and it's all Moffat's fault, incidentally). Ergo, we're all screwed, the show can't hold up under the weight of its own mythology, etc, etc.
Yeah, okay, except in 1974, there was an entire generation of kids who thought the Doctor was nothing more than a dandy who hung out on Earth a lot. Having him suddenly turn into Tom Baker and go gallivanting off across the stars was kind of a huge upheval. And then Tom went and stuck around for a whopping seven years and nobody batted an eye.
Now, the underlying point was that Tennant's departure puts the show at its most volatile point since 1984. Um, what? Yeah, I toss around the phrase "Davison Renaissance," but come on, the Fifth Doctor never really crawled out from under the Forth's shadow.
One point I'd like to get out of the way here before I get to the main point of this post: yeah, if Tennant did seven years, the show would die the moment he left it. Does this mean that Tennant's a better actor than Tom Baker? Perhaps; does it mean that his was a better Doctor? Hell no. You have one Doctor who's able to waltz across space and time willy-nilly like a lonely god, compared to the Other Nine who weren't so powerful... where can you go from there?
Okay, main point: the Troughton rule. Do three years and get out. Hartnell did it, but not by choice. Troughton had to be lured back for a third year. Pertwee ignored it; his last season was pretty bad. Baker ignored it, but I doubt you'll find a single fan who thinks seasons 15-18 were better than seasons 12-14. Davison abided by it, and is fairly well-remembered today (helped considerably by, oh, "Time Crash," though The Caves of Androzani routinely topping polls tends to help). Colin Baker was fired. McCoy was technically fired. McGann was technically fired. Eccleston quit after one season for reasons we'll probably discover right after everyone stops caring - in other words, any day now. Tennant did three seasons and a bunch of specials. I sincerely hope Matt Smith does four seasons, if only because his first one seemed to be a case of Moffat very gently transitioning to his own style from RTD's.
But anyway, a cruel fan might suggest that, just like Tennant is (supposedly) impossible to follow, so too did Tom Baker wreck classic Who for staying as long as he did. It is true that the First Four are generally well remembered and the 80s Doctors not so much... but that could have just as much to do with bad casting and bad scripts. (Could. Could is the very much key word here. I refuse to knock anyone's acting unless it's jaw-droppingly bad, and that's not the case with any of the Doctors, ever, not even the really bland ones or the ones who seemed to equate "act" with "ham it up.") What nobody can argue is that ratings dipped below 10 million shortly after Tom left, and never returned.
Since fandom in general tends to like the Davison years these days, we shouldn't immediately say "oh, JNT was a lousy producer and the scripts were uniformly bad, except for Caves." A much more logical explanation is this: in the years before the internet, fandom was a very different thing. If you didn't see Invasion of the Dinosaurs when it was first broadcast, you wouldn't be able to see it until roughly the same time Jurassic Park came out. Yikes. Re-runs were unheard of before Tom Baker left; after, they were very rare. Now we have endless repeats, plus most of the classic serials on DVD, so we can compare every niggling detail if we want to. We could even - God help us - count the number of times someone says "what's that, Doctor?" or "run."
The point is this: if your first exposure to Doctor Who was in 1975, or 1978, or even 1980, Tom Baker would be the One True Doctor. Your friends might be able to name Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee, and maybe one or two episodes or key character traits, but Tom Baker had been the Doctor for as long as you could remember. In 1981, the thought of someone else playing the Doctor would be akin to a sudden annoucement that Leonard Nimoy was sick of playing Spock, and thus the role would be recast for Star Trek II.
And that was a problem.
There's not a Doctor Who fan today who is unaware of at least one pre-Tennant Doctor, who does not have the opportunity to see one of the Other Nine in action. That was emphatically not the case in 1981, the BBC's Five Faces of Doctor Who stunt notwithstanding. We know the series has existed before Tennant, and even before we saw a frame of Matt Smith, we were sure it could survive after him as well.
This, then, leaves us with the question posed by this post's title. Tom Baker's reign as the Doctor ran from season 12 through the end of season 18. By the end of season 14, most of his best serials had already been made. Getting him off the show at the beginning of season 15, as Phillip Hinchcliffe might actually have intended to do (but then Hinchcliffe got fired and has since remained resolutely mum about how his season 15 would have gone), would of course have made the show a fairly different animal today. Yes, ratings probably still would have declined under the JNT/Saward stewardship. Yes, the show probably would have been cancelled. There might have even been an American TV movie followed eventually by a British revival that tried to copy as much of Buffy as it possibly could. We'd have lost City of Death, but beyond that, nothing much probably would have changed.
To recap: 1) when Tom Baker left, he took a lot of fans with him, but I'm in no way suggesting that the length of his tenure was directly responsible for the show's cancellation eight years after he left. 2) if he was going to check out at a decent point in his career, it probably would have been at around the three-season mark. Although frankly, The Talons of Weng-Chiang probably wouldn't have worked as well if it had been a regeneration story, and neither The Invasion of Time or The Armageddon Factor were particular high notes for him to ride out on. 3) the show is bigger than any one Doctor. David Tennant's departure was not the end of the world. Moffat might have done himself a bigger favor by not trying to ape RTD so very much, but I'm still confident that the next season will be good.
(He also argued that Tennant was the only Doctor to date to bring something new each season. 1) Bupkis, and if more Troughton stories existed, I could prove it. Also: McCoy, who went from a bumbling clown who played with spoons to the third most important Time Lord in history, but only five guys and a dog saw any of his stories. 2) even if it were true, so what? Tennant's also the only Doctor to do more than one season since Buffy, so why should we be surprised?)
Anyways, the reasoning for Tennant's mega-popularity boils down to: yup, the show itself is treating the Doctor like a sexy god (and it's all Moffat's fault, incidentally). Ergo, we're all screwed, the show can't hold up under the weight of its own mythology, etc, etc.
Yeah, okay, except in 1974, there was an entire generation of kids who thought the Doctor was nothing more than a dandy who hung out on Earth a lot. Having him suddenly turn into Tom Baker and go gallivanting off across the stars was kind of a huge upheval. And then Tom went and stuck around for a whopping seven years and nobody batted an eye.
Now, the underlying point was that Tennant's departure puts the show at its most volatile point since 1984. Um, what? Yeah, I toss around the phrase "Davison Renaissance," but come on, the Fifth Doctor never really crawled out from under the Forth's shadow.
One point I'd like to get out of the way here before I get to the main point of this post: yeah, if Tennant did seven years, the show would die the moment he left it. Does this mean that Tennant's a better actor than Tom Baker? Perhaps; does it mean that his was a better Doctor? Hell no. You have one Doctor who's able to waltz across space and time willy-nilly like a lonely god, compared to the Other Nine who weren't so powerful... where can you go from there?
Okay, main point: the Troughton rule. Do three years and get out. Hartnell did it, but not by choice. Troughton had to be lured back for a third year. Pertwee ignored it; his last season was pretty bad. Baker ignored it, but I doubt you'll find a single fan who thinks seasons 15-18 were better than seasons 12-14. Davison abided by it, and is fairly well-remembered today (helped considerably by, oh, "Time Crash," though The Caves of Androzani routinely topping polls tends to help). Colin Baker was fired. McCoy was technically fired. McGann was technically fired. Eccleston quit after one season for reasons we'll probably discover right after everyone stops caring - in other words, any day now. Tennant did three seasons and a bunch of specials. I sincerely hope Matt Smith does four seasons, if only because his first one seemed to be a case of Moffat very gently transitioning to his own style from RTD's.
But anyway, a cruel fan might suggest that, just like Tennant is (supposedly) impossible to follow, so too did Tom Baker wreck classic Who for staying as long as he did. It is true that the First Four are generally well remembered and the 80s Doctors not so much... but that could have just as much to do with bad casting and bad scripts. (Could. Could is the very much key word here. I refuse to knock anyone's acting unless it's jaw-droppingly bad, and that's not the case with any of the Doctors, ever, not even the really bland ones or the ones who seemed to equate "act" with "ham it up.") What nobody can argue is that ratings dipped below 10 million shortly after Tom left, and never returned.
Since fandom in general tends to like the Davison years these days, we shouldn't immediately say "oh, JNT was a lousy producer and the scripts were uniformly bad, except for Caves." A much more logical explanation is this: in the years before the internet, fandom was a very different thing. If you didn't see Invasion of the Dinosaurs when it was first broadcast, you wouldn't be able to see it until roughly the same time Jurassic Park came out. Yikes. Re-runs were unheard of before Tom Baker left; after, they were very rare. Now we have endless repeats, plus most of the classic serials on DVD, so we can compare every niggling detail if we want to. We could even - God help us - count the number of times someone says "what's that, Doctor?" or "run."
The point is this: if your first exposure to Doctor Who was in 1975, or 1978, or even 1980, Tom Baker would be the One True Doctor. Your friends might be able to name Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee, and maybe one or two episodes or key character traits, but Tom Baker had been the Doctor for as long as you could remember. In 1981, the thought of someone else playing the Doctor would be akin to a sudden annoucement that Leonard Nimoy was sick of playing Spock, and thus the role would be recast for Star Trek II.
And that was a problem.
There's not a Doctor Who fan today who is unaware of at least one pre-Tennant Doctor, who does not have the opportunity to see one of the Other Nine in action. That was emphatically not the case in 1981, the BBC's Five Faces of Doctor Who stunt notwithstanding. We know the series has existed before Tennant, and even before we saw a frame of Matt Smith, we were sure it could survive after him as well.
This, then, leaves us with the question posed by this post's title. Tom Baker's reign as the Doctor ran from season 12 through the end of season 18. By the end of season 14, most of his best serials had already been made. Getting him off the show at the beginning of season 15, as Phillip Hinchcliffe might actually have intended to do (but then Hinchcliffe got fired and has since remained resolutely mum about how his season 15 would have gone), would of course have made the show a fairly different animal today. Yes, ratings probably still would have declined under the JNT/Saward stewardship. Yes, the show probably would have been cancelled. There might have even been an American TV movie followed eventually by a British revival that tried to copy as much of Buffy as it possibly could. We'd have lost City of Death, but beyond that, nothing much probably would have changed.
To recap: 1) when Tom Baker left, he took a lot of fans with him, but I'm in no way suggesting that the length of his tenure was directly responsible for the show's cancellation eight years after he left. 2) if he was going to check out at a decent point in his career, it probably would have been at around the three-season mark. Although frankly, The Talons of Weng-Chiang probably wouldn't have worked as well if it had been a regeneration story, and neither The Invasion of Time or The Armageddon Factor were particular high notes for him to ride out on. 3) the show is bigger than any one Doctor. David Tennant's departure was not the end of the world. Moffat might have done himself a bigger favor by not trying to ape RTD so very much, but I'm still confident that the next season will be good.
Final word: I'm not saying "oh, Tom should have left earlier." If he had, the only thing that would be really different is that instead of being remembered as the guy who saved the show after Tom left before screwing it all to hell, JNT would simply be remembered as the guy who screwed it all to hell.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Welcome to our Russian readers/overlords!
Apparently one or two people in Russia are among the five or six people who have seen this blog. Cool.
Wait, could they be the KGB?
..................................................................
What to do if the KGB is after you: a comprehensive (and somewhat satirical) guide.
Step 1: hide.
This is less obvious than you would think. Statistically speaking, every person in every movie ever has chosen "run" as their option of choice when some sinister agency starts chasing them. This is a bad idea. There are many of them, and only one of you. Eventually you will tire/run out of gasoline.
Perhaps an even worse option is "fight," as you will also quickly run out of bullets and/or blood.
Instead, hide. You are already in one of the safest countries on the planet.
Corollary: if you are not in America, run. Alternatively, fight. It's amazing how poorly-armed most other countries are, due to their lack of a second amendment and misplaced fiscal priorities.
Corollary: if you are in America and are being chased by an American agency (that the KGB has obviously infiltrated, because there's no way Uncle Sam would deliberately hurt his own citizens like that), give up now. Make sure you have a lawyer - one can be provided for you - and a copy of the Bill of Rights - you can find one online easily enough. It will take years for your case to get to trial, and you can usually get a lighter sentence by ratting someone else. If you don't know anyone else to rat out, make up a name and say he lives in Minnesota (note: don't do this if you are currently being held in Minnesota).
Assuming that you have hidden well, proceed to step 2: wait.
This also is more difficult than it sounds, as anyone who has ever played a game of hide-and-seek knows. Eventually your enemy will give up and forget about you. And by give up and forget about you, I mean invade a nearby country. At this point, you can try to sneak over the border, preferably in the opposite direction.
As a general rule, while you're hiding, do not record video messages to your hunters. This only serves to remind them that you exist.
Corollary: if you are hiding from America, go ahead and do this. It will remind American citizens that their leaders suck at catching you. It may even get those leaders voted out of office. Of course, those leaders might be replaced by someone more competent, but that's what you get for hiding from America in the first place.
If your hunters are particularly dogged, proceed to step three: run a betting pool on when you'll be caught. The winner keeps half the pot; the other half goes to your defense fund. And by "defense fund," I mean the purchase of body armor and automatic weapons. Again, I can't recommend you do this in America.
Statistically speaking, you are more likely to survive a shootout with American forces if you do not initiate one. Also, killing Americans is unpatriotic. However, as any videogame ever has taught us, you are more likely to survive a shootout with foreigners if:
a) you are wearing power armor
b) your enemies adopt a habit of hiding behind explosive barrels
c) you can carry and proficiently use all of the following without breaking a sweat: two machine guns, two pistols, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, several grenades, ammunition, and a crowbar
As one final bit of videogame-related advice, I would recommend you look up often.
If you do get caught in a shootout and survive, you can try step 4: fake your own death. You can do this in one of two ways.
Procedure 1: become proficient at suspending all of your vital functions (heart rate, breath, body temperature) without actually dying. Become proficient at breaking out of a coffin. Wait.
Procedure 2: find a body that looks kind of like yours. Put your clothes on it. Since Americans think all foreigners of the same race look alike, it stands to reason that all foreigners think Americans look alike. Problem solved. Of course now you're running around stark naked, but you can always pretend to be a killer robot from the future. Or you could, you know, take the corpse's clothes.
Wait, could they be the KGB?
..................................................................
What to do if the KGB is after you: a comprehensive (and somewhat satirical) guide.
Step 1: hide.
This is less obvious than you would think. Statistically speaking, every person in every movie ever has chosen "run" as their option of choice when some sinister agency starts chasing them. This is a bad idea. There are many of them, and only one of you. Eventually you will tire/run out of gasoline.
Perhaps an even worse option is "fight," as you will also quickly run out of bullets and/or blood.
Instead, hide. You are already in one of the safest countries on the planet.
Corollary: if you are not in America, run. Alternatively, fight. It's amazing how poorly-armed most other countries are, due to their lack of a second amendment and misplaced fiscal priorities.
Corollary: if you are in America and are being chased by an American agency (that the KGB has obviously infiltrated, because there's no way Uncle Sam would deliberately hurt his own citizens like that), give up now. Make sure you have a lawyer - one can be provided for you - and a copy of the Bill of Rights - you can find one online easily enough. It will take years for your case to get to trial, and you can usually get a lighter sentence by ratting someone else. If you don't know anyone else to rat out, make up a name and say he lives in Minnesota (note: don't do this if you are currently being held in Minnesota).
Assuming that you have hidden well, proceed to step 2: wait.
This also is more difficult than it sounds, as anyone who has ever played a game of hide-and-seek knows. Eventually your enemy will give up and forget about you. And by give up and forget about you, I mean invade a nearby country. At this point, you can try to sneak over the border, preferably in the opposite direction.
As a general rule, while you're hiding, do not record video messages to your hunters. This only serves to remind them that you exist.
Corollary: if you are hiding from America, go ahead and do this. It will remind American citizens that their leaders suck at catching you. It may even get those leaders voted out of office. Of course, those leaders might be replaced by someone more competent, but that's what you get for hiding from America in the first place.
If your hunters are particularly dogged, proceed to step three: run a betting pool on when you'll be caught. The winner keeps half the pot; the other half goes to your defense fund. And by "defense fund," I mean the purchase of body armor and automatic weapons. Again, I can't recommend you do this in America.
Statistically speaking, you are more likely to survive a shootout with American forces if you do not initiate one. Also, killing Americans is unpatriotic. However, as any videogame ever has taught us, you are more likely to survive a shootout with foreigners if:
a) you are wearing power armor
b) your enemies adopt a habit of hiding behind explosive barrels
c) you can carry and proficiently use all of the following without breaking a sweat: two machine guns, two pistols, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, several grenades, ammunition, and a crowbar
As one final bit of videogame-related advice, I would recommend you look up often.
If you do get caught in a shootout and survive, you can try step 4: fake your own death. You can do this in one of two ways.
Procedure 1: become proficient at suspending all of your vital functions (heart rate, breath, body temperature) without actually dying. Become proficient at breaking out of a coffin. Wait.
Procedure 2: find a body that looks kind of like yours. Put your clothes on it. Since Americans think all foreigners of the same race look alike, it stands to reason that all foreigners think Americans look alike. Problem solved. Of course now you're running around stark naked, but you can always pretend to be a killer robot from the future. Or you could, you know, take the corpse's clothes.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Short random thoughts - 12/5/10
Man, the geography of this town is seriously whack.
Under no circumstances should I ever have to click two different "close" buttons to eliminate one pop-up ad.
What has two thumbs and hates the cold? People who left their gloves 100 miles away!
Finals will kill me yet.
Under no circumstances should I ever have to click two different "close" buttons to eliminate one pop-up ad.
What has two thumbs and hates the cold? People who left their gloves 100 miles away!
Finals will kill me yet.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Anything to avoid finals, part 2
I've compiled a partial list of great song lyrics that mostly pertain to life. You'll find there's a lot of repetition in the bands that provide these lyrics, but hey, some people can write good lyrics and some people can't.
“With every mistake, we must surely be learning.” –The Beatles, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
“Inside my heart is breaking, my makeup may be flaking, but my smile stays on.” –Queen, “The Show Must Go On.”
“You’ve got to keep one eye looking over your shoulder. It’s going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older.” –Pink Floyd, “Dogs”
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” –The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
“Don’t waste your time always searching for those wasted years. Face it, make your stand, and realize you’re living in the golden years.” -Iron Maiden, “Wasted Years”
“Whaddya mean I don’t believe in God? Talk to him every day.” –Megadeth, “Peace Sells”
“Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time.” –The Beatles, “All You Need is Love”
“I will hope, my soul will fly, and I will live forever.” -Iron Maiden, “The Thin Line Between Love and Hate.”
“Yesterday’s sorrows, tomorrow’s white lies.” -Iron Maiden, “Remember Tomorrow”
“Rock’n’Roll ain’t noise pollution. Rock’n’Roll ain’t gonna die.” –AC/DC, “Rock’n’Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution
“I’ll tip my hat to the new Constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around, pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday, then I’ll get on my knees and pray we don’t get fooled again.” –The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
“No point asking when it is, no point asking who’s to go, no point asking what’s the game, no point asking who’s to blame… if you’re gonna die, die with your boots on. If you’re gonna try, stick around; if you’re gonna cry, just move along.” –Iron Maiden, “Die With Your Boots On”
“And now my life has changed in oh so many ways. My independence seems to vanish in the haze.” –The Beatles, “Help!”
“All we are is dust in the wind.” –Kansas, “Dust in the Wind”
“And when you lose control, you’ll reap the harvest you have sown.” –Pink Floyd, “Dogs”
“And I will pray for you; some day I may return. Don’t you cry for me; beyond is where I yearn.” –Iron Maiden, “The Evil That Men Do”
“And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you, no-one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.” –Pink Floyd, “Time”
“And in my last hour, a slave to the power of death.” –Iron Maiden, “Powerslave”
Anything to avoid finals, part 1
So since you're on the internet, you probably know that Leslie Nielsen's dead by now. What you might not know is that Irvin Kershner is also dead.
Now, The Empire Strikes Back used to be my favorite movie. It's still in the top 5 (and will probably never leave because I just don't watch movies as much as I used to). It was, at the time that I saw it, the darkest movie I'd ever seen (no, not in terms of lighting). It has one of the greatest soundtracks of all time, and it demonstrated that the good guys don't have to win for it to be a good movie.
Now, The Empire Strikes Back used to be my favorite movie. It's still in the top 5 (and will probably never leave because I just don't watch movies as much as I used to). It was, at the time that I saw it, the darkest movie I'd ever seen (no, not in terms of lighting). It has one of the greatest soundtracks of all time, and it demonstrated that the good guys don't have to win for it to be a good movie.
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