From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #144 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Thursday, September 27 2001 Volume 03 : Number 144 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: t/trailer [Micole Sudberg ] Re: a/heartthrob [Micole Sudberg ] Re: b/again, the gift [Micole Sudberg ] Re: b/again, the gift [Micole Sudberg ] Re: a/heartthrob [Micole Sudberg ] Re: t/trailer [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: t/trailer ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/again, the gift ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/again, the gift ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: t/trailer ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: t/trailer ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/again, the gift ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/again, the gift ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: t/trailer [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: t/trailer ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: t/trailer [meredith ] Re: t/trailer ["David S. Bratman" ] Buffy dvd news [Todd Huff ] RE: b/again, the gift ["Karin Rabe" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:09:40 -0400 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: t/trailer At 12:38 AM 9/26/01 -0700, David S. Bratman wrote: > >Are there Baum scholars who complain about the (many major) changes in the > >movie =The Wizard of Oz=? Still a great movie. > >A great movie, sure, but it's buried the book -- all the more effectively >for being great; if it had been lousy, the book might have re-emerged by >now. I've seen a few articles plaintively trying to convey that Baum's Oz >is different from MGM's. Buried in the sense that the book has never gone out of print? That's a new definition. - --m. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:09:32 -0400 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: a/heartthrob At 12:09 AM 9/26/01 -0400, Donald G. Keller wrote: >I'm assuming that's the title of the episode? > >Spoiler discussion to follow, so non-viewers (to date) beware. (This >means you, Hilary.) > > > > > > > > > > > >So Joss, as usual, has some explaining to do. Vampires, remember, are >=dead bodies=, animated by demons, and one wouldn't expect all the systems >to be operational. The only thing I can think is that 1) Darla had only >been a vampire a short time when she and Angel were together 2) Angel was >made human for a short time in "I Will Remember You" (but that day was >"called back," as they say in football). If (1) were relevant, we'd have heard about vampire pregnancies before now. This is clearly *meant* to be shocking and strange. The best suggestion I've heard so far, on another list, is that this is the *real* reason Wolfram & Hart brought Darla back. I suspect Darla's pursuing the shaman in hopes of getting an abortion (or at this point possibly an infanticide), normal methods not having applied. >Incidentally, I spent some time today figuring out that Darla was in fact >already a vampire when she and Angel got together: she was vamped in >Episode 9, and she and Angel spent the night together at the end of Epsode >15. She was human during her "dream" visitations to Angel, though that still doesn't take care of the Angel problem, or how the pregnancy survived her transition to being a vampire. We don't know *what* happens to pregnancies when women become vampires, but since we've never seen a pregnant vampire before and we know vampirism is both death and an arrest to aging, I've always assumed something like a miscarriage spontaneously occurred. Possibilities: Angel, Lindsay, demonspawn? Pre- or post-vamp? If pre-, very likely Lindsay; minor possibility she was pregnant when vamped by the Master the first time, or impregnated while human during dream visitations to Angel. If post-, Angel and Lindsay seem equally possible. We never did get onscreen confirmation for Lindsay, did we? Still. *I* would buy it. People elsewhere have mentioned dhampirs, but I think that's a (self-invented) red herring. - --m. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:13:28 -0400 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: b/again, the gift At 12:34 AM 9/26/01 -0400, Donald G. Keller wrote: >So I finally watched "The Gift" again tonight. And I haven't changed my >mind about it. Knowing what was going to happen this time through, I felt >like Joss Whedon was leaning on me =really hard= to get me to buy his >bait&switch, but I'm still not buying. My problem is not the handwaving over Dawn, which I'd buy if the episode were emotionally persuasive. My problem is that killing off Buffy, after the entire arc of the season from "I Was Made to Love You" on has been about the difference between *real* death and loss and fantasy death and loss, is emotionally dishonest and really, kind of cheap. And it doesn't matter how difficult Buffy's resurrection is made; it's still a cheat. >("Intervention," by the way, is one >of the few 5th season episodes I've watched quite a few times, because the >robot is so hilarious.) Always find suspension-of-disbelief sawed through by the failure of the Scoobies to recognize the Buffybot after catching on to April in 10 seconds flat. - --m. - -- Micole Sudberg micole@aya.yale.edu mobile: 646.245.3822 home: 212.396.9785 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:13:28 -0400 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: b/again, the gift At 12:34 AM 9/26/01 -0400, Donald G. Keller wrote: >So I finally watched "The Gift" again tonight. And I haven't changed my >mind about it. Knowing what was going to happen this time through, I felt >like Joss Whedon was leaning on me =really hard= to get me to buy his >bait&switch, but I'm still not buying. My problem is not the handwaving over Dawn, which I'd buy if the episode were emotionally persuasive. My problem is that killing off Buffy, after the entire arc of the season from "I Was Made to Love You" on has been about the difference between *real* death and loss and fantasy death and loss, is emotionally dishonest and really, kind of cheap. And it doesn't matter how difficult Buffy's resurrection is made; it's still a cheat. >("Intervention," by the way, is one >of the few 5th season episodes I've watched quite a few times, because the >robot is so hilarious.) Always find suspension-of-disbelief sawed through by the failure of the Scoobies to recognize the Buffybot after catching on to April in 10 seconds flat. - --m. - -- Micole Sudberg micole@aya.yale.edu mobile: 646.245.3822 home: 212.396.9785 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:09:32 -0400 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: a/heartthrob At 12:09 AM 9/26/01 -0400, Donald G. Keller wrote: >I'm assuming that's the title of the episode? > >Spoiler discussion to follow, so non-viewers (to date) beware. (This >means you, Hilary.) > > > > > > > > > > > >So Joss, as usual, has some explaining to do. Vampires, remember, are >=dead bodies=, animated by demons, and one wouldn't expect all the systems >to be operational. The only thing I can think is that 1) Darla had only >been a vampire a short time when she and Angel were together 2) Angel was >made human for a short time in "I Will Remember You" (but that day was >"called back," as they say in football). If (1) were relevant, we'd have heard about vampire pregnancies before now. This is clearly *meant* to be shocking and strange. The best suggestion I've heard so far, on another list, is that this is the *real* reason Wolfram & Hart brought Darla back. I suspect Darla's pursuing the shaman in hopes of getting an abortion (or at this point possibly an infanticide), normal methods not having applied. >Incidentally, I spent some time today figuring out that Darla was in fact >already a vampire when she and Angel got together: she was vamped in >Episode 9, and she and Angel spent the night together at the end of Epsode >15. She was human during her "dream" visitations to Angel, though that still doesn't take care of the Angel problem, or how the pregnancy survived her transition to being a vampire. We don't know *what* happens to pregnancies when women become vampires, but since we've never seen a pregnant vampire before and we know vampirism is both death and an arrest to aging, I've always assumed something like a miscarriage spontaneously occurred. Possibilities: Angel, Lindsay, demonspawn? Pre- or post-vamp? If pre-, very likely Lindsay; minor possibility she was pregnant when vamped by the Master the first time, or impregnated while human during dream visitations to Angel. If post-, Angel and Lindsay seem equally possible. We never did get onscreen confirmation for Lindsay, did we? Still. *I* would buy it. People elsewhere have mentioned dhampirs, but I think that's a (self-invented) red herring. - --m. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 12:17:19 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: t/trailer In a message dated 9/25/01 9:20:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time, dgk@panix.com writes: << Are there Baum scholars who complain about the (many major) changes in the movie =The Wizard of Oz=? Still a great movie. >> I'm no Baum scholar, just someone who read TWOO repeatedly as a kid, and, well, I can't "complain" about most of the changes, since even as a kid I recognized that most of the changes were necessary for length reasons and because of the limitations of SFX of the time. The movie would have been about four times as long if it had been faithful to the book -- not a unique problem. (But amazing when I look at the book and see how short it really is.) But nevertheless, the changes were losses. (Maybe not the addition of the pre-trip subplot at the beginning, but that cost many long minutes that could have been arguably better employed.) Aside from all the lots and lots of stuff that was left out completely, who would prefer the way they got out of the poppy fields in the movie to the book (snow vs having the queen of the mice assemble tens of thousands of her subjects to organize a rescue)? Who would prefer the non-talking flying monkeys to the talking flying monkeys with a dramatic subplot of their own? Etc etc etc etc etc etc etc. But the worst change, completely unnecessary, is the fact that the journey was made a dream in the end. We already know it's fiction, and turning it into fiction-within-fiction was a cheat, for this child, at least. To me, the pity of the fact that the movie was so well done and a "classic" is the fact that it makes it very unlikely that a big -budget TWOO that attempts to follow the book more closely will ever be made, even now that FX technology has caught up. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:13:24 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: t/trailer Very funny. "Buried" in the sense that vastly more people have seen the film than have ever read the book (despite generally larger film audiences, I bet that's not true in the case of some obscure films of famous books). "Buried" in the sense that people who have neither read the book nor seen the film will surely think of Oz in the terms of the film and not of the book where they differ, to the point where, as I wrote, Ozophiles sound plaintive when trying to convey the difference. And "buried" in the sense that it's virtually impossible for new readers to come to the book now without images of the film in their heads, crowding out whatever fresh, unfettered reaction they might have. Unless the LOTR film sinks like a stone, as its 1978 predecessor did, all these fates will be Tolkien's. It's also worth noting that film tie-in editions of the book are gradually taking over the book racks. It is becoming as difficult as the filmmakers can make it for even a reader with no interest in the film to buy a new copy of LOTR without being forcibly reminded of the film, even if they seek to put it out of mind. That's salesmanship at work for you. That is "buried". DB At 06:09 AM 9/26/2001 , Micole wrote: >At 12:38 AM 9/26/01 -0700, David S. Bratman wrote: > >> >Are there Baum scholars who complain about the (many major) changes in the >> >movie =The Wizard of Oz=? Still a great movie. >> >>A great movie, sure, but it's buried the book -- all the more effectively >>for being great; if it had been lousy, the book might have re-emerged by >>now. I've seen a few articles plaintively trying to convey that Baum's Oz >>is different from MGM's. > >Buried in the sense that the book has never gone out of print? That's a >new definition. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:22:28 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/again, the gift At 06:13 AM 9/26/2001 , Micole wrote: >My problem is not the handwaving over Dawn, which I'd buy if the episode >were emotionally persuasive. My problem is that killing off Buffy, after >the entire arc of the season from "I Was Made to Love You" on has been >about the difference between *real* death and loss and fantasy death and >loss, is emotionally dishonest and really, kind of cheap. And it doesn't >matter how difficult Buffy's resurrection is made; it's still a cheat. Well put. That's exactly my reaction. Faked loss cheapens real loss, even in fiction. Which is also why I dislike happy endings that consist of supposedly dead characters coming alive again. (What about Gandalf? Well, his return wasn't the happy ending - and this is a trick that can be pulled _once_.) DB ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:22:28 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/again, the gift At 06:13 AM 9/26/2001 , Micole wrote: >My problem is not the handwaving over Dawn, which I'd buy if the episode >were emotionally persuasive. My problem is that killing off Buffy, after >the entire arc of the season from "I Was Made to Love You" on has been >about the difference between *real* death and loss and fantasy death and >loss, is emotionally dishonest and really, kind of cheap. And it doesn't >matter how difficult Buffy's resurrection is made; it's still a cheat. Well put. That's exactly my reaction. Faked loss cheapens real loss, even in fiction. Which is also why I dislike happy endings that consist of supposedly dead characters coming alive again. (What about Gandalf? Well, his return wasn't the happy ending - and this is a trick that can be pulled _once_.) DB ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:43:56 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: t/trailer At 09:17 AM 9/26/2001 , Gayle wrote: > I'm no Baum scholar, just someone who read TWOO repeatedly as a kid, and, >well, I can't "complain" about most of the changes, since even as a kid I >recognized that most of the changes were necessary for length reasons and >because of the limitations of SFX of the time. The movie would have been >about four times as long if it had been faithful to the book -- not a unique >problem. I agree - I don't object to intelligent condensation, though it is a pity when it buries the book's version. (Here's another one: despite the general availability of recordings of the Broadway version of the musical "1776", I'm amazed at the number of devoted fans of it I've met who don't know the one song that was cut from the movie. And the movie was a commercial failure! In contrast to the play, which was very successful, and which is now a community theatre mainstay.) >the worst change, completely unnecessary, is the fact that the journey was >made a dream in the end. We already know it's fiction, and turning it into >fiction-within-fiction was a cheat, for this child, at least. Absolutely. They violated the integrity of Baum's subcreation. The more carefully constructed the subcreation, the worse would be the violation. And Tolkien's is one of the most carefully constructed in all fantasy. > To me, the pity of the fact that the movie was so well done and a >"classic" is the fact that it makes it very unlikely that a big -budget TWOO >that attempts to follow the book more closely will ever be made, even now >that FX technology has caught up. Have you seen "Return to Oz"? That was an adaptation of the succeeding books that did convey the style and feel of Baum's world pretty accurately. The problem is that - in some viewers' opinion - it was too faithful, embalming the book rather than celebrating and converting it. My guess, based on the trailers, is that the new LOTR will fail in both ways, not just one - a virtuosic achievement. DB ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:43:56 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: t/trailer At 09:17 AM 9/26/2001 , Gayle wrote: > I'm no Baum scholar, just someone who read TWOO repeatedly as a kid, and, >well, I can't "complain" about most of the changes, since even as a kid I >recognized that most of the changes were necessary for length reasons and >because of the limitations of SFX of the time. The movie would have been >about four times as long if it had been faithful to the book -- not a unique >problem. I agree - I don't object to intelligent condensation, though it is a pity when it buries the book's version. (Here's another one: despite the general availability of recordings of the Broadway version of the musical "1776", I'm amazed at the number of devoted fans of it I've met who don't know the one song that was cut from the movie. And the movie was a commercial failure! In contrast to the play, which was very successful, and which is now a community theatre mainstay.) >the worst change, completely unnecessary, is the fact that the journey was >made a dream in the end. We already know it's fiction, and turning it into >fiction-within-fiction was a cheat, for this child, at least. Absolutely. They violated the integrity of Baum's subcreation. The more carefully constructed the subcreation, the worse would be the violation. And Tolkien's is one of the most carefully constructed in all fantasy. > To me, the pity of the fact that the movie was so well done and a >"classic" is the fact that it makes it very unlikely that a big -budget TWOO >that attempts to follow the book more closely will ever be made, even now >that FX technology has caught up. Have you seen "Return to Oz"? That was an adaptation of the succeeding books that did convey the style and feel of Baum's world pretty accurately. The problem is that - in some viewers' opinion - it was too faithful, embalming the book rather than celebrating and converting it. My guess, based on the trailers, is that the new LOTR will fail in both ways, not just one - a virtuosic achievement. DB ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:22:28 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/again, the gift <<< No Message Collected >>> ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:22:28 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/again, the gift At 06:13 AM 9/26/2001 , Micole wrote: >My problem is not the handwaving over Dawn, which I'd buy if the episode >were emotionally persuasive. My problem is that killing off Buffy, after >the entire arc of the season from "I Was Made to Love You" on has been >about the difference between *real* death and loss and fantasy death and >loss, is emotionally dishonest and really, kind of cheap. And it doesn't >matter how difficult Buffy's resurrection is made; it's still a cheat. Well put. That's exactly my reaction. Faked loss cheapens real loss, even in fiction. Which is also why I dislike happy endings that consist of supposedly dead characters coming alive again. (What about Gandalf? Well, his return wasn't the happy ending - and this is a trick that can be pulled _once_.) DB ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 15:52:28 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: t/trailer In a message dated 9/26/01 9:44:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time, dbratman@stanford.edu writes: << Have you seen "Return to Oz"? That was an adaptation of the succeeding books that did convey the style and feel of Baum's world pretty accurately. >> I never saw it, because somehow the succeeding books themselves (one or two I read) never seemed as interesting to me as the first one. << The problem is that - in some viewers' opinion - it was too faithful, embalming the book rather than celebrating and converting it. >> Well, you need liveliness, enthusiasm. The TWOO movie had lively and gifted performers and a sense of fun and wit, all of which contributes to making the film a "classic" despite the massive amount of wonderful stuff that the movie left out. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 13:21:36 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: t/trailer At 12:52 PM 9/26/2001 , Gayle wrote: >dbratman@stanford.edu writes: > ><< > Have you seen "Return to Oz"? That was an adaptation of the succeeding > books that did convey the style and feel of Baum's world pretty accurately. >>> > > I never saw it, because somehow the succeeding books themselves (one or two >I read) never seemed as interesting to me as the first one. They're definitely different from the first, and to some extent from each other. My favorite is #2, "The Land of Oz," but that's decidedly a matter of taste. ><< > The problem is that - in some viewers' opinion - it was too faithful, > embalming the book rather than celebrating and converting it. >> > > Well, you need liveliness, enthusiasm. The TWOO movie had lively and >gifted performers and a sense of fun and wit, all of which contributes to >making the film a "classic" despite the massive amount of wonderful stuff >that the movie left out. Unquestionably. That's part of what makes it a great film, once you ignore the book (and the frame story). PS: Sorry about the repeated postings before. Stanford is digesting its fall intake of freshmen, all of whom probably want to try out their e-mail, and the system was balking and hiccupping all this morning. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:44:29 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: t/trailer Hi, David forwarded: >And here's what I wrote. Comments afterwards: Wow. You got all that from a two-minute trailer. Where do I go to get that particular brain upgrade for myself? ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth "an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind" -- mahatma gandhi ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:23:24 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: t/trailer At 03:44 PM 9/26/2001 , Meredith wrote: >Wow. You got all that from a two-minute trailer. Where do I go to get >that particular brain upgrade for myself? Steep yourself in Tolkien for 33 years; it's the only way. Feel free to say that I've wasted my life, especially if this is what I get out of it. Still, I have published a few article on the subject that some have found useful ... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:58:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: Buffy dvd news http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=10319 Season one to be released on dvd in the US on January 15. As far as this weeks Angel goes, except for the vampire hunter and the big surprise it was pretty lame. Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 23:47:45 -0400 From: "Karin Rabe" Subject: RE: b/again, the gift I share both Micole's and Donald's reservations about the WB series finale, up to a point; yet overall Buffy's death still had a certain sense of inevitability to it, as her final solution to all the inner =and= outer conflict that had developed over the story arc, certainly Season Five's, but even over the entire series. To the point where it is indeed hard to imagine how they can resurrect her on UPN, without cheapening both her self-sacrifice and that entire arc. But what =really= bugged me about "The Gift," was Dawn's IMHO very out of character behavior while Spike was doing his best to rescue her: had she not screamed out his name, robbing him of his one advantage, the element of surprise, the Joel Gray character would never have accomplished his purpose. - ---Karin > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-stillpt@smoe.org [mailto:owner-stillpt@smoe.org]On Behalf Of > Micole Sudberg > Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 9:13 AM > To: stillpt@smoe.org; stillpt@smoe.org > Subject: Re: b/again, the gift > > > At 12:34 AM 9/26/01 -0400, Donald G. Keller wrote: > >So I finally watched "The Gift" again tonight. And I haven't changed my > >mind about it. Knowing what was going to happen this time through, I felt > >like Joss Whedon was leaning on me =really hard= to get me to buy his > >bait&switch, but I'm still not buying. > > My problem is not the handwaving over Dawn, which I'd buy if the episode > were emotionally persuasive. My problem is that killing off Buffy, after > the entire arc of the season from "I Was Made to Love You" on has been > about the difference between *real* death and loss and fantasy death and > loss, is emotionally dishonest and really, kind of cheap. And it doesn't > matter how difficult Buffy's resurrection is made; it's still a cheat. > > >("Intervention," by the way, is one > >of the few 5th season episodes I've watched quite a few times, > because the > >robot is so hilarious.) > > Always find suspension-of-disbelief sawed through by the failure of the > Scoobies to recognize the Buffybot after catching on to April in > 10 seconds > flat. > > --m. > -- > > Micole Sudberg > micole@aya.yale.edu > mobile: 646.245.3822 > home: 212.396.9785 ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #144 *****************************