From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #223 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Thursday, August 7 2003 Volume 03 : Number 223 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Re: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #219 [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Xena 2 DVD Best Buy ["S. Wilson" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Re: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #219 On Wednesday 06 August 2003 10:25, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/5/03 2:50:47 AM Central Daylight Time, cr@orcon.net.nz > writes: > > << I am blatantly and unashamedly prejudiced towards Xena. And > against anyone who tries to hurt her. Well, except Ares. And Callisto. > ;) >> > > Oh? Why is that? Because you like them too (which is a good enough > reason)? Or is there some other reason (like having a different moral > relationship to Xena)? > > - Ife Because I like them too. And since it's my prejudices we're talking about, that's quite enough reason Ares is just so fascinating. And Callisto is the most delicious villain ever, anytime, anywhere. Not even Evil Xena gets close. (IMbesottedO). cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 21:14:46 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Miss Amphipolis & Destiny On Wednesday 06 August 2003 10:25, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/5/03 2:40:13 AM Central Daylight Time, cr@orcon.net.nz > writes: > > << Xena was a wanted person, and Amphipolis was > one of the first places Caesar would look. She had just escaped his > vengeance, and killed three more of his soldiers - Caesar couldn't > *afford* to let her get away with that. So she had to flee. If she'd > popped up in > charge of the Amphipolis Security Forces, it would just have brought > Caesar's > entire might down on Amphipolis. >> > > All that could be true. I simply didn't see that expressed at all in > Xena's motivation to embrace death and destruction. I heard much more > focus on what she could do to others, than on any fears about what Caesar > or anybody else might do to her -- with the former being part of her > strategy for minimizing the latter. Well, not the death-and-destruction bit, no. But you suggested Xena could have retired quietly to Amphipolis, I was just pointing out the total impossibility of that. > > Xena had many skills, but even she could lead only when others gave her > > the > > power to do so or didn't decide to take it back. I can't determine > > degrees (e.g., majorly or minorly) of responsibility in all that. > > There will always be grey areas, but I think the degree of responsibility > is usually roughly apparent in any given case. >> > > LOL! If you've discovered a standard that everyone would agree with, I'd > love to hear it. I said *roughly* apparent. As we know only too well, there are always differing opinions. > Yet, further back, you said that followers were equally responsible for > their > actions. Or do you mean that, though the followers do share > responsibility, you find Xena's more interesting? If so I agree. > > > Yes. She's more interesting to me as a character. Her essence is centered > around self-responsibility, so I can evaluate her against her own > standards. And because we have so much more information on her, I feel more > comfortable (and can cite more "evidence" for) speculating about her > motivations and responsibilities as an individual, as opposed to mobs or > other characters. Indeed, that's probably why "public" figures/leaders > receive so much scrutiny, so much of the credit or blame for events. > > -- Ife OK. Though judging people by their own standards isn't always fair... it favours people whose standards are low. ;) cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 08:51:07 -0500 From: "S. Wilson" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Xena 2 DVD Best Buy At 06:25 PM 8/5/2003 -0400, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: >[polite snippage] >You'd think by now that the distributors >would have a clue about projecting probable interest, without resorting to >tactics that probably cause some consumers to walk away from the whole >process. I, for one, would have loved to begin purchasing the seasons on DVD a little after each was released (I'm poor). But due to the number of comments I've read about Panzer-Davis (even stemming from that insane VHS debacle a while back), and even about things such as picture quality, sound, problems playing, problems with customer service as a whole, slow shipping or not at all, re-issued product with more features than the previous for no other reason than it was more popular than they thought... the whole thing sounds like a gamble to buy the product, and it makes me queasy. I have a small stash earmarked for DVDs at Christmas but I think I'm going to use it on Buffy instead. I guess I'll be dusting off the old, handmade VHS tapes a little longer. :/ Steph ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 15:48:43 -0700 From: "Creation (Sharon Delaney)" Subject: [chakram-refugees] London Convention Tickets UPDATE The original plan was to send them with one of our employees who was making a trip to London and have him mail them there. It didn't work out. An e-mail will be sent to each customer who has ordered tickets with us specifying they are to pick up an envelope with their ticket package at the door. Please send this along to any lists and message boards that would be interested in this information. Thanks, Sharon outback@creationent.com Official Xena Fan Club ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 23:21:16 EDT From: Junejanu@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] Bruce Campbell's new movie Quote from the scifi.com web site: "American Cinematheque Presents/Vitagraph Films announced the theatrical release of Bubba Ho-Tep, a supernatural horror comedy starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis, in New York on Sept. 26, in Los Angeles Oct. 3 and nationally in October. Campbell plays a geriatric Elvis, who teams up with a fellow nursing-home resident who thinks that he is John F. Kennedy (Davis) to battle an evil Egyptian mummy." June ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 23:36:32 -0400 From: "Cheryl Ande" Subject: [chakram-refugees] The Guantlet & Season 1 directors I watched The Gauntlet the other night. It was right after Boeotian made his post about how some reviewer said some movie played like the pilot for Xena. The Gauntlet isn't the episode that introduced Xena but it is the one that got her redeemed enough so she could have her own series so I guess we can call it the pilot for Xena. There are number of striking things about this episode. The first is that it is a very violent episode. People always talk about the gauntlet itself as being extremely violent but the masacre and burning of the village by Darphus takes one back a bit. Then you have Hercules coming to the village and finding the charred remains of the villagers. It had very different tone that most Hercules episodes I remember. Hercules had a sort of comic book approach to violence and often Herc fought monsters or gods but here the violence isn't caused by gods or monsters but by human beings and it is devestating. Already we begin to see the foreshadowing of one of the major themes of Xena - that the real monsters are humans who give into violence and hate. The darker and gritter tone of Xena is already present in the pilot. Now not everything is all doom and gloom. Salmoneus is wonderful in this episode. I always laugh at his attempts to win over Xena - I love his Xena theme song and his attempt director her future appearances before her troops. What really sells this scene is Xena's reaction to his antics. At first it's utter disbelief at this guys chuztpah and then she is almost caught up in his speel. Finally you know she likes this funny little guy and he'll survive. We also see that Salmoneus likes this strange woman and he is the first one to recognize the goodness that is buried in Xena. Finally we have Lucy. She is really young here and you see her working on her warrior persona and the battle cry that just hasn't been perfected yet. I like the scene where she finds the baby - I love the look on her face as she picks the kid up - she looks as if the baby was bomb that might go off in hands at any minute and then she tucks it under her arm like it's some package and goes off with it. It's a grreat moment - you she the character's vulnerability and her bravado all in one moment. After watching six seasons of Xena you just aren't convinced that this Xena is tough enough to lead an army but that is hindsight. It would be interesting to see how this episode would change if it would be reshot with the back story of Xena as we now know it. Darphus would have to be played a lot more subtly than he was played in this episode. Darphus as played here was openly insubordinate and I think the young Xena we saw developed in the series would have slit his throat long ago. So Darphus would have had to smarter and I think Xena would have had to be much more world weary. For Xena to be deposed we would have had to have had a character who was slipping just a bit. A woman who had grown disgusted with her life and no longer cared about what she was doing. A woman who either was on the cusp of change or self-distruction. The slaughter of the village would have pushed her over the edge and the baby would have had more of significance because the audience would know that Xena had a son she gave up. It would also elevate the Hercules character because we would know that his forgiveness and compassion was indeed profound because it changed a woman who wasn't just bad but had the real potential to be evil itself. Now for something entirely different. I just watched the director's commentary on season 1 and it was great. These guys do remember everything and they cheerfully share their insights on the series. I love this kind of thing because we really begin to realize how much real hard work goes into the series. What I especially liked is how fond these guys were of the whole experience. You have the feeling that they loved the fact they were really flying by the seat of their pants - reinventing technigues that have been around for years and using all the tricks of the trade. T. J. Scott was especially charming and I laughed when he said he was known as the "Dramamine" director for awhile because of his camera work. I agree with the moniker. I use to get dizzy when every I watched GJWTHF. He also some interesting things to say about Is There A Doctor - it is obvious the audience wasn't just making up the subtext because he said the resusciation scene showed that Xena was falling in love with her little tag along. Also I was very pleased to hear these men point out how much LOTR owed to Xena and Hercules - that you can see their influence in that film of course in costuming but also in set design and various techniques used in the film. I hope the film industry in New Zealand knows how much it owes to Remaissance Pictures for giving it the expertise to attract major productions to that country. They apparently trained a generation of film people for it. I also hope that when we have the Convention next year Creations gets at least one of the directors to appear or other behind the scenes people to speak. I always find them fascination. Maybe even Rob could speak - that would be cool. CherylA ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V3 #223 **************************************