From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V4 #121 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 Friday, April 30 2004 Volume 04 : Number 121 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Overstock alert [IfeRae@aol.com] Re: [chakram-refugees] Complete Season 4 Details [IfeRae@aol.com] Re: [chakram-refugees] Fates Again [IfeRae@aol.com] Re: [chakram-refugees] Complete Season 4 Details [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Fates Again [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Complete Season 4 Details [cr ] [chakram-refugees] DC Loked Up and Tied Down [cande@sunlink.net] Re: [chakram-refugees] DC Loked Up and Tied Down ["A. Reddecliffe" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 00:50:28 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Overstock alert In a message dated 4/28/2004 8:20:09 AM Pacific Daylight Time, cande@sunlink.net writes: > Also oddly a book The Way of The Cat by Xena (I didn't know cat philosphy > was one her many skills). > Huh? What the heck is that? Any additonal info? - -- Ife ========================================================= 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: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 00:50:28 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Complete Season 4 Details In a message dated 4/28/2004 8:20:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time, ktaborn@lightspeed.net writes: > But after > further reminiding of them that it is the extras that really make or break a > set, they decided to add a DVD disk to the DVD 4 set to cover the director's > cuts. Sadly though, the extra disk will add to the cost of the set. > It never ceases to amaze me how little faith and much fear "suits" have in customer input. I've witnessed "focus groups" where customers say what they want (much of it quite realistic) and TPTB *still* focus on the info reinforces whatever they were going to do in the first place. They put in stuff you don't want, up the price, then say, "Oh, they won't support extras." The XWP folks deserve enormous credit for having the good sense to actually encourage and listen to fan input. I don't mind extra cost if it truly represents extra *value,* which so many of us have said we see in the commentaries and unaired footage. I mean, it's like watching many of the eps for the first time, often with friends who maybe poo-pooed it initially. Let's hope they've ironed out the problem with different versions, so that doesn't become a stumbling block to accurately accessing reception of these extras. I add my voice once again, Kym, to those who thank you for all your work. - -- Ife ========================================================= 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: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 00:50:31 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Fates Again In a message dated 4/28/2004 12:01:57 AM Pacific Daylight Time, cr@orcon.net.nz writes: > She doesn't know how that might play out or the details > >-- e.g., that Alti will betray him in place of Brutus, that Gabs will be > >driven to destroy the loom, or that they'll instantly be transported back > >to their "real" world. She only knows that she must accept the consequences > >of the moment that made her different from the Xena of Caesar's altered > >timeline, if she is to have any chance of changing what Caesar has wrought. > > And how does she know that letting Caesar do that to her wouldn't make > things > *worse* ? >. Like what? She becomes a bad person? She goes to Tartarus/hell? She never sees Gabs again? She gets "oblivion"? We're talkin' Xena here. Oh, wait. She could somehow get stuck in Joxer's body. Maybe you have a point. > >>She chose to end the life of the Xena who shouldn't be. Period. > >Logic or faith or whatever may have suggested to her that this might also > >somehow restore the Xena -- and the world -- that should be. She didn't > >know that for sure or even necessarily imagine it, but she was right. > > Well, she also decided in Friend in Need that she needed to die, but just > look at the difference. She didn't meekly let some bully crucify her, she > didn't even kill herself, she chose to go down fighting. That was the only > > way Xena would ever choose to end her life. That was Xena in character. > Fates Xena was a replicant, an android. IMO. >> Excuse me, Mr. We Saw It Therefore It Happened, but we saw it, therefore she did choose to die meekly and/or she saw it as as a way to go down fighting. I also don't think you can compare Fates with AFIN in that regard. People were being threatened in AFIN. She needed to defeat or at least severly weaken the enemy forces before she *allowed* herself to be killed. Fighting in Fates would've accomplished little, in terms of ending that world. She obviously figured she had a better chance winning the bigger battle by dying as she did. The similarity is that, in both cases, she put a higher goal above her own image. What continues to amaze me is the expectation that Fates Xena would be just like "Real" Xena, when the whole point of the ep was that she *wasn't* the Xena shaped by key events that didn't happen. *Of course* this Xena seemed like a "replicant" or "android" -- to herself as well as to those of us who knew the "real" Xena. Why would she want to live like that, regardless of what was going on with everyone else? I can understand not liking the ep or the premise of the ep or the Xena we got in Fates. What I can't understand is criticizing *this* Xena's choices, when she so clearly wasn't supposed to be the Xena we'd come to know in our various ways, who had little chance of physically getting her "real" self back the way "real" Xena would. > > And if Xena was the 'wrong' one, what about Caesar? He set the whole thing > > up. Killing him would have been a far better bet to change things back, > than killing Xena. Now, if it was the _real_ Xena, she woulda broken free > and offed Caesar - or gone down fighting. That would have been in > character. >> Maybe she would've liked to kill him, along with Alti. Maybe she would've, if the visions she (conveniently) saw hadn't included the particular act that Caesar chose to change the course of things. As I said before, he could've chosen the moment before his assassination. If he had, then maybe Xena would've seen that as the "defining moment," and killed him herself. It's much more in character to me that she would rather pick the logical (and difficult, self-responsible) choice, than second-guess Caesar and make the easier choice of simply killing him. Alti does it for her, but all that does is make way for a worse person to take his place, with the world still "wrong." However you judge her, Xena made the right choice. She accomplished her goal. I saw it. > To me, it looks like a rationalisation for 'let's put Xena on a cross > again'. > One of the most exploitative scenes ever in the series, by a long way, IMO. > > > > Possibly. But that's a scenario RT started in Destiny and repeated over and over in season four before it culminated in Ides. I won't even count Gabs' stints on the cross in "Stranger" or "Deliverer," or all the other folks we saw crucified. The crucifixion is certainly not my favorite idea for the "defining moment" that sent Xena down her path of wanton destruction, but I can't fault Fugate for using that perfectly logical, quintessential moment set up by RT. As to "exploitative," are you saying the crucifixion in Fates is moreso than all the others, even the first crucifixion in Destiny? - -- Ife ========================================================= 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: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 18:54:16 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Complete Season 4 Details On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 03:06, Kym Taborn wrote: > From: "cr" > > > What a pity the opportunity didn't come earlier, then we could have had a > > Director's Cut of Sacrifice 2, I take it.! > > I very strongly promoted putting the entire director's cut of Sacrfice 2 in > the set, but it was impossible because they were only producing 8 DVD disks > (9th disk was a CD-rom disk) and they did not have room for it. Aaaargh! I'm not sure whether to scream or cry. Excuse me..... (5 minutes later.....) I'd rather have seen the DC of Sacrifice than 50 episodes like LUATD, AGD or BTL. Don't get me wrong, none of them were *bad* eps, but none of them had Callisto in, or Ares, let alone both of them at once. > But after > further reminiding of them that it is the extras that really make or break > a set, they decided to add a DVD disk to the DVD 4 set to cover the > director's cuts. Sadly though, the extra disk will add to the cost of the > set. Three eps in 22 - one extra disk in 8. Should add 12% to the cost. What's the big deal? ;) > In the other extras I tried to get for DVD 3 and failed was Joanna > Sandsmark and DJWP's Bitter Treat pardoy of Bitter Suite on the DVD 3 set > and we almost got it, but some high-up suit at Universal nixed it. We came > so close to having it. I tried to explain to them what an important piece > of Xena history it is. Oh well. Another great bit of Xenaology that will > not be shared with the fans anymore. Personally, I think the show's DVD's should stick with episodes and show-related material i.e unaired footage, director's cuts, interviews and commentaries by cast or crew - but not fannish things, nor convention footage. That might be more appropriate for the fan club, I think. > I looked at that promo for the DVD set 3 and it did have an error. It had a > featurette on Sin Trade and originally that was what I was doing but it > never materialized. What is happening instead is two other featurettes: one > about shamanism and Amazons on Xena (that's all that was left of the Sin > Trade documentary and it only partially deals with Sin Trade now!) You are so _not_ making my day 8-( How do you mean, 'all that was left of the Sin Trade doco'? Was there ever a complete doco, or did it only ever get half-finished? > and the > other about how the show adapted martial arts for the show and how the > actors were trained for it. OK, could be interesting. 'Behind the scenes' docos are almost always good. > > I do hope we get to see that! Director's Cut or Editor's Cut of > > Motherhood. > > I am not sure whether they plan to release the whole cut. I had to go > through it and pull the extended and deleted scenes, but then they are > probably going to see how well DVD 4 does with the whole director's cuts. Well, again, just as far as I'm concerned, Motherhood is more worthy of a Director's Cut than 50 eps like LUATD yadda yadda.... I can see I'll be forced to buy Season 4 just to encourage 'em for Season 5..... > They are not the best quality of film, but they sure are fascinating and > not just for the extra dialogue and cut parts, but also because they give > you an idea of what it is like withuot all the special effects and you get > to see the harness in the shots, the ropes pulling down the rock pedestals, > etc. I at least enjoyed watching them for that. Hmm, maybe we're thinking different definitions of 'Director's Cuts'. What I was thinking of was the fully finished commercial standard episode, like the FIN Director's Cut. Possibly what you're referring to is a not-quite-fully-finished version of lower technical quality? In that case, the 'extra scenes' from Sacrifice are tantalising in a "if-only-they'd-been-included-in-the-finished-ep" way, but not nearly so agonising as it would be if there was a complete finished DC that we're not going to see. I did actually notice that the picture quality in the Sacrifice 'alternate scenes' was lower (aside from the clock in the corner and the 'alternate footage' label on the bottom); it had occurred to me that I could, with some skilful use of my DVD player and my VCR, reassemble my own 'Director's Cut' - but I decided the video quality of the 'extra scenes' plus the screen clutter would make the inserts too distractingly obvious to be worth the effort. > For DVD 6, we located about > 36 minutes of raw dailies and I am strongly encouraging them to putting it > in the DVD set 6 as is, instead of editing them. As always, I can only give > suggestions of what to put in the set, they have to ultimately decide what > to explore and what not to explore. > I have been trying in my role as "fan consultant" to pitch as many things > as I could think of. It's like spaghetti - some stuff sticks, others do > not. For example, I had a wild idea that they still might do, but I > suggested that they also include the fiction and non-fiction books in the > public domain that inspired episodes. For example, for If the Shoe Fits, > you'd have the public domain version of Grimm's Cinderella; for Paradise > Lost the Yogi Sutras of Patanjali; and for Ides of March, Shakespeare's > Juluis Caesar and Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars Vol. 1. Stuff like that. > It was probably too goofy for them but I was trying to stress that packing > the package with extras is good and here is a public domain source so no > licensing problems for them, etc. Well, extras are good, but (IMO) some of that background material is getting a bit too far away from the show itself... and though they're public domain, there must be some quite possibly substantial cost in including them. When you say 'include the books' how do you mean? - as a audio/video narrative, or as a text file, or as an actual printed book? > Anyways, I digress. They were gracious enough to allow direct fan input for > the sets and I sincerely believe that it has helped DVD set 3 and the > subsequent ones as well. I am trying my best to be a fan lobbyist in > getting as much on those disks as humanly possible. > > Kym As I said, extras are usually good. Certainly most fans (who have all the eps on tape anyway) are probably going to buy the DVD's for the extras. 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: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:12:56 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Fates Again On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 16:50, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 4/28/2004 12:01:57 AM Pacific Daylight Time, > > cr@orcon.net.nz writes: > > She doesn't know how that might play out or the details > > > > >-- e.g., that Alti will betray him in place of Brutus, that Gabs will be > > >driven to destroy the loom, or that they'll instantly be transported > > > back to their "real" world. She only knows that she must accept the > > > consequences of the moment that made her different from the Xena of > > > Caesar's altered timeline, if she is to have any chance of changing > > > what Caesar has wrought. > > > > And how does she know that letting Caesar do that to her wouldn't make > > things > > *worse* ? >. > > Like what? She becomes a bad person? She goes to Tartarus/hell? She > never sees Gabs again? She gets "oblivion"? We're talkin' Xena here. Oh, > wait. She could somehow get stuck in Joxer's body. Maybe you have a point. > > > > >>She chose to end the life of the Xena who shouldn't be. Period. > > > > > >Logic or faith or whatever may have suggested to her that this might > > > also somehow restore the Xena -- and the world -- that should be. She > > > didn't know that for sure or even necessarily imagine it, but she was > > > right. > > > > Well, she also decided in Friend in Need that she needed to die, but just > > look at the difference. She didn't meekly let some bully crucify her, > > she didn't even kill herself, she chose to go down fighting. That was > > the only > > way Xena would ever choose to end her life. That was Xena in character. > > Fates Xena was a replicant, an android. IMO. >> > > Excuse me, Mr. We Saw It Therefore It Happened, but we saw it, therefore > she did choose to die meekly and/or she saw it as as a way to go down > fighting. Yes, I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it though, does it? > I also don't think you can compare Fates with AFIN in that > regard. People were being threatened in AFIN. She needed to defeat or at > least severly weaken the enemy forces before she *allowed* herself to be > killed. Fighting in Fates would've accomplished little, in terms of ending > that world. She obviously figured she had a better chance winning the > bigger battle by dying as she did. The similarity is that, in both cases, > she put a higher goal above her own image. Presumably you're saying that Xena dieing in Fates would have succeeded in ending the world? But if that was required, then Xena could go down fighting (as in FIN) and still achieve the same end, without having to meekly submit to Caesar's nastiness. Are you contending that Xena was required to die in *exactly* the same way in order for it to work? If so, Caesar cheated her. He changed the details. In Destiny, she was just tied up with ropes (still works, btw, you die of suffocation). In XWP, he nailed her up. > What continues to amaze me is the expectation that Fates Xena would be just > like "Real" Xena, when the whole point of the ep was that she *wasn't* the > Xena shaped by key events that didn't happen. *Of course* this Xena seemed > like a "replicant" or "android" -- to herself as well as to those of us who > knew the "real" Xena. Why would she want to live like that, regardless of > what was going on with everyone else? I can understand not liking the ep > or the premise of the ep or the Xena we got in Fates. What I can't > understand is criticizing *this* Xena's choices, when she so clearly wasn't > supposed to be the Xena we'd come to know in our various ways, who had > little chance of physically getting her "real" self back the way "real" > Xena would. But if this wasn't the 'real' Xena, why did we waste a whole episode watching her? Huh? > > And if Xena was the 'wrong' one, what about Caesar? He set the whole > > thing > > up. Killing him would have been a far better bet to change things back, > > than killing Xena. Now, if it was the _real_ Xena, she woulda broken > > free and offed Caesar - or gone down fighting. That would have been in > > character. >> > > Maybe she would've liked to kill him, along with Alti. Maybe she would've, > if the visions she (conveniently) saw hadn't included the particular act > that Caesar chose to change the course of things. As I said before, he > could've chosen the moment before his assassination. If he had, then maybe > Xena would've seen that as the "defining moment," and killed him herself. > It's much more in character to me that she would rather pick the logical > (and difficult, self-responsible) choice, than second-guess Caesar and make > the easier choice of simply killing him. Errrm, 'in character' ? You were just saying this is _not_ the same Xena, therefore (you said) 'in character' doesn't apply!! This _is_ the same Xena, just with different experiences over the last 10 (15? 35? whatever...) years. We could have a ding-dong 'nature-vs-nurture' argument here. Now imagine Xena, _without_ the events of her career as Dark Xena on her conscience, and the personal anguish of all those years - instead, the Xena of 'Destiny', say, just with a few years of being the leader of Rome's forces - - would that Xena make the really tough self-sacrificing decision? I can't see it. She woulda killed Caesar instead. And, getting back to the 'real' Xena - as I said, she would never have meekly submitted to Caesar. Like I said, it Wasn't In Character. ;) > Alti does it for her, but all > that does is make way for a worse person to take his place, with the world > still "wrong." However you judge her, Xena made the right choice. She > accomplished her goal. I saw it. > > To me, it looks like a rationalisation for 'let's put Xena on a cross > > again'. > > One of the most exploitative scenes ever in the series, by a long way, > > IMO. > > > > > > Possibly. But that's a scenario RT started in Destiny and repeated over > and over in season four before it culminated in Ides. I won't even count > Gabs' stints on the cross in "Stranger" or "Deliverer," or all the other > folks we saw crucified. The crucifixion is certainly not my favorite idea > for the "defining moment" that sent Xena down her path of wanton > destruction, but I can't fault Fugate for using that perfectly logical, > quintessential moment set up by RT. > > As to "exploitative," are you saying the crucifixion in Fates is moreso > than all the others, even the first crucifixion in Destiny? > > -- Ife Oh yes, very much so. I think I'll leave it for KT to tell you just exactly how much so.... 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: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:17:20 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Complete Season 4 Details On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 06:42, A. Reddecliffe wrote: > > Hmmm, there are DC's of "Between the Lines", "A Good Day" and LUATD. > > I am a very happy bunny here. There were plot holes in Good Day that > really showed that there were bits missing. That was such a strong > Gabrielle episode that the extra footage may well elevate this ep to an > even higher level for me. It is definitely one of the more important > season 4 eps IMO. The extra material for sacrifice was brilliant and I > really look forward to these extras. > > Ann Yes, I agree about the plot holes in A Good Day. It has some cool bits - Xena fighting Caesar and Pompey in the cave - but having arranged for the catapults to bombard that very spot? - how was she expecting to get out of that? I could never understand that. So maybe the DC will help to make some things clearer. 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: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 13:22:41 -0400 (GMT-04:00) From: cande@sunlink.net Subject: [chakram-refugees] DC Loked Up and Tied Down While some people are puzzled why the episodes were chosen and Kym has now explained why these episodes were lucky enough to have a director's cut, I want to say I will be thrilled to see a director's cut of LUTD. I always felt there were inportant plots point missing here like why did Thelassa get so attached to Gabrielle so quickly or was the young girl Xena defended really innocent. I also would like know how Thelassa survived the attack of the man-eating crabs. I hope there are answers in the new cut. Also any time we a longer Xena episode I'm happy! 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. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 21:23:25 +0100 From: "A. Reddecliffe" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] DC Loked Up and Tied Down > While some people are puzzled why the episodes were chosen and Kym has now explained why these episodes were lucky enough to have a director's cut, I want to say I will be thrilled to see a director's cut of LUTD. I always felt there were inportant plots point missing here like why did Thelassa get so attached to Gabrielle so quickly or was the young girl Xena defended really innocent. For me it was the timeline that got iffy in this ep. At one point it seemed as if a week had passed, but then it seemed like it was the next day or even the same day. Some things happened way too fast for the apparent timeline. For example, the speed with which Thalassa bonded with Gabrielle - I know she is good, but that fast.......? Ann ========================================================= 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: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:12:53 -0800 (AKDT) From: KTL Subject: [chakram-refugees] Separated at birth? I was recycling the newspapers today and suddenly realized that in all the rabbit excitement of Easter Sunday I hadn't read the comics for that day. The Fairbanks News-Miner (known as the News-Minus by some people up here--VERY small paper) runs Peanuts repeats. And the final panel of the cartoon showed Woodstock lying across an Easter egg. And I looked at that and just flashed on Renee lying across her huge medicine ball in one of the Gurkhan tapes. Two little blond creatures, (though Woodstock's whole body is blond) with bottle-brush hair spiking out all over their dangling heads as they balance on big round objects. The resemblance was amazing. Happy belated Easter. KT ========================================================= 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 V4 #121 **************************************