Bits and pieces
Feb. 6th, 2004 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI've been watching the Firefly pilot again. Damn you, Fox! It was ever so good. Joss had to introduce a larger ensemble than in either Welcome to the Hellmouth or City Of, and their histories and already existing relationships. And he did it without a glitch, making none of them dull. One sees this and wants to learn more about all those people and the world they live in. Also, because of the two-episode length, there ist time for subtleties that aren't possible in The Train Job. Note that the Alliance ship, the first representatives of theirs we see, actually does the decent thing and breaks off pursuit of the smuggler in favour of rescuing the supposed ship in distress. As good a signal as any that we aren't dealing with a monolithic Evil Empire here.
I fear that due to everybody's reaction outside of spoiler cuts, I may be spoiled for something in You're Welcome. But maybe I'm lucky and wrong. It was so good to remain unspoiled till now.
A.J. Hall and friends have an amusing thread about movies that falsify history and impact the way we see it going. My problem with this is that it's a grand literary tradition. Never mind Thomas More, it was Shakespeare who made sure Richard III.'s reputation remains ruined and that the 20 years or so of Macbeth's reign are some bloody months or so in our collective consciousness. And than there's Schiller, who trashed Elizabeth's reputation in the German-speaking countries with his Mary Stuart. The fact he lets the two of them meet is just the mildest offense. The same Schiller also changed Philipp II's son Don Carlos from an infantile sadist into a romantic hero, and had Jeanne d'Arc dying on the battlefield.
And what do all of these have in common, aside from the, err, economical way of handling the truth? They're great theatre and thus sure to stick around. Which is at the same time galling and delightful, if you're both into history and into theatre, like yours truly.
I fear that due to everybody's reaction outside of spoiler cuts, I may be spoiled for something in You're Welcome. But maybe I'm lucky and wrong. It was so good to remain unspoiled till now.
A.J. Hall and friends have an amusing thread about movies that falsify history and impact the way we see it going. My problem with this is that it's a grand literary tradition. Never mind Thomas More, it was Shakespeare who made sure Richard III.'s reputation remains ruined and that the 20 years or so of Macbeth's reign are some bloody months or so in our collective consciousness. And than there's Schiller, who trashed Elizabeth's reputation in the German-speaking countries with his Mary Stuart. The fact he lets the two of them meet is just the mildest offense. The same Schiller also changed Philipp II's son Don Carlos from an infantile sadist into a romantic hero, and had Jeanne d'Arc dying on the battlefield.
And what do all of these have in common, aside from the, err, economical way of handling the truth? They're great theatre and thus sure to stick around. Which is at the same time galling and delightful, if you're both into history and into theatre, like yours truly.
