Hope everyone had a good holiday meal. We actually bagged the idea of cooking this year and went out to a local “Charlie Brown’s” steak house (good grief) which was offering a four-course Thanksgiving meal for not very much money. There’s something to be said for the convenience.
We also saw “Happy Feet.” Right now it aggravates the hëll out of me that there’s a “Best Animated” ghetto into which this film is going to be deposited at Oscar time, because it is quite simply the best film I’ve seen this year, period. Technically flawless with a hëll of a lot to say about matters of global importance, all it needed was Al Gore at the end saying, “I’m Al Gore and I approve this message.” Okay, on second thought, maybe it didn’t need that, but it was still brilliant.
Today I’m concentrating on working and staying the hëll away from malls.
PAD
• 
Black Friday story. A friend of mine at work is going to have her father, in Minnesota, go to a Best Buy at 6 in the morning tomorrow to try to get their kids a Wii. We’re just outside Philadelphia, not a one to be had anywhere. What makes Minnesota different, I don’t know. Now, all Irish and bathroom jokes aside, a sale would have to be ÐÃMN good in order to get my butt to a store at 6 in the morning. Unless Brian looked up at me and said, “Daddy, I’d really like to have a Wii.” Although, if I put out that much money for something that was Wii, it’d better be a diamond or something.
There should be a comic book where the characters are kids that can bend their parents to their will just by looking up and being cute. I can see it now, he lays in bed at night, talking to Joey Tribearani, his teddy bear, saying “We have to start planning for tomorrow night, Joey.”
“Why, Brian? What are we going to do tomorrow night?”
“TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Now, look cute!”
There should be a comic book where the characters are kids that can bend their parents to their will just by looking up and being cute.
Art imitating real life, in other words…
-Rex Hondo=
Now my DH and I saw Happy Feet over the holiday and our complaint wasn’t that it was sad in spots or that different species of penguins don’t live that close together, or that there was a lot of “Why are you taking our fish?” stuff in it. We wondered – why in the heck didn’t they get to use the tune, “Happy Feet”? I can remember Kermit the Frog dancing to it once upon a time. So why couldn’t Mumble? (I still have to look up who wrote it and when…)
“Micha, part of the problem with music in any of the Trek shows is that usually, it’s background, as in, it’s not what you’re actually supposed to focus on.”
I wasn’t talking about background music.
“(Actually, the one time they showed Data with a guitar I wrote a scene where he’s in the holodeck with Lennon, McCartney, Slash, and Per Gessle. It was a nothing scene, but it did give me the chance, when Data was having a problem with the one song, to have John Lennon say, “Don’t worry, Data. You’ve got a fine piece of music here. All you have to do is give the piece a chance.”)”
Data played poker with Einstenin and Hawking on the holodeck, and interacted with Mark Twain, but the scene you wrote is very unlikely to appear in Star Trek. Why?
“I mean, usually, you see these people working, not much time to kick back, throw in an isolinear chip and listen to whatever it is they listen to.”
Actually, TNG and DS9 and enterprise (I haven’t seen Voyager) gave focus to the leisure of the crews. If you look at their leisure activities as a whole, it seems to me that they are in general a little yuppie.
For example:
Playing musical instruments — trombone (jazz), violin (classical), flute, piano, guitar (accoustic, used for classical music I suspect).
reading mysteries (Picard, Data)
Klingon equivalent of Tai Chi
Vulcan equivalent of Shatsu
watching classical movies (Enterprise)
Squash (Dr. Bashir)
Kayaking
darts
baseball
earobics
poker
painting classes
Chess matches
sitting in Ten Forward listening the jazz or classical music.
Dax and Worf also fought and gambled, but these leisure activities were distinctly associated with the Klingon and Ferengi alien cultures.
“Although, I always DID want to see a rock band in Ten-Forward.”
I believe that the the unlikelyhood of this happening reflects something of the tone of the Star Trek universe.
I also don’t want you to get to focused on rock. They are equally unlikely to have country or folk or celtic music.
I think the director of First Contact used rock music as a recurring theme in order to to build the character of Zephram Cochrane, just as jazz is an recurring aspect of Riker;s persona, and Earl Grey of Picard’s.
There’s nothing wrong with these activities. And I am a fan of Star Trek. But I believe different shows and books and comics have different feels to them. And in the word\ld of sci-fi series, Star Trek is mineral water, squash and light jazz, not beer, bowling and rock.
All in all, as much as I like Star Trek, I always had a problem with its clean cut wholesome facade. DS9 is my favorite partially because it went beyond that by exploring civilian life.
I attended a lecture of a Trekie in a comic convention I attended (much smaller than in the US), in which the lecturer tried to explore the nature of the federation utopia — they have no wars, but we’re almost only familiar with a military organization, we know little of their economy. I found it quite interesting because I’ve been wondering about it for some time.
I think it would be interesting if the next show wil try to explore more the civiilan life of the 24 century instead of just going to the next enterprise (although that would also be interesting).
Ah dámņ, I’ve just heard that Dave Cockrum has passed away. My condolences to his family and friends.
While I do think a large part of it stems from licensing issues, logically, what place would rock or hip-hop have in a society such as the one presented in Star Trek?
Historically, rock music has largely been focused on rebellion. It was created to be anti-establishment, a tool of societal change. When poverty and hunger have been eliminated and war rarely hits home, what is there to really yell about?
One would also assume that “gang culture” is a thing of the past, at least within the Federation, so hip-hop ceases to exist by default.
Besides, one need not look even as far back as the original Star Trek to see how the music can date a show. Watch a couple of episodes of Buck Rogers and see how ridiculous “this is the music of the future” can be.
-Rex Hondo-
Rex, hip-hop is not inextricably linked to gang culture, nor did it spring from that culture. The word is believed to have its origins in the late 1970’s, when rap is considered to have been born. It was created by some DJs in the Bronx who began isolating the percussion tracks from disco and funk songs.
Here are a couple of articles that delve a bit more into the origins of “rap” and “hip-hop:”
httNOTSPAMp://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563537/Rap.html
httNOTSPAMp://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_762505912/Hip-Hop.html
(I had to “munge” the urls — i.e. add some extraneous words — to get this past the spam filter. If you want to follow the links, copy and paste them into your browser, and remove the phrase “NOTSPAM.”)
It is undeniable that gang culture has embraced “hip-hop,” but that doesn’t mean they created it, nor does it mean that the two are inseparable.
Rex, hip-hop is not inextricably linked to gang culture, nor did it spring from that culture. The word is believed to have its origins in the late 1970’s, when rap is considered to have been born. It was created by some DJs in the Bronx who began isolating the percussion tracks from disco and funk songs.
Here are a couple of articles that delve a bit more into the origins of “rap” and “hip-hop:”
encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563537/Rap.html
encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_762505912/Hip-Hop.html
(I had to “munge” the urls to get this past the spam filter. If you want to follow the links, copy and paste them into your browser, add http:// to the beginning of each. “www” isn’t necessary.)
It is undeniable that gang culture has embraced “hip-hop,” but that doesn’t mean they created it, nor does it mean that the two are inseparable.
Oh, and one other thing: watch a couple of episodes of “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” and you’ll see how ridiculous “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” can be. 😉
“Historically, rock music has largely been focused on rebellion.”
Yeah, But haven’t you ever seen kids who have evrything launch into their own little rebellion for that very reason? They’re bored with having everything and being given everything and find a reason to go nuts.
Besides, lots of rock is fun as hëll without the rebellion. Give me some burnig riffs and some killer heavy percussion and I’m a happy little camper.
“…hip-hop ceases to exist by default.”
Not really. Some of the violent hip-hop might go away, but you would still have people using it as a story telling device or for the style.
Rapper’s Delight was the first really huge rap hit (in more ways then one) and it was fluffy fun. Will Smith made his mark with funny raps. The style and the general sound of rap can be enjoyed quite well without all the violent crap.
Posted by Sean Scullion
I grew up on Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets. People die on those shows.
Not nearly so many nor so messily as in the orginal Japanese versions.
I remember an episode of one “sanitised for American Teevee” series in which the Heroic Teenage Officer and the Tough Old Gunny Sergeant character lead ten or twelve Red Shirted Marines into battle against heavy enemy fire – next scene, no intervening action seen, HTO and TOGS are alone and pinned down, and HTO has a large section of his uniform on the left shoulder very obviously dry-cleaned and badly “invisibly mended” on the fly by USAian animators.
Posted by Luigi Novi
As far as using anything other than classical music, Trek isn’t being snobby or formal; it’s being smart. Pop music is so dated that episodes will feel dated in just a decade.
Depends on whether you’re using it as incidental music (that is, music the characters are listening to) or soundtrack music.
It is definitely a mistake to tie the soundtrack (of most films) to the pop music of that exact moment. (The exception being a film about music in some way – Get Crazy!, for instance.)
As to incidental music – i’ll guarantee you it’s a mistake to use “contemporary” incidental music composed specifically for the film by anyone employed by the studio. Hiring someone who’s in the pop music field might work, but won’t if who you’re hiring is one of the flavour-of-the-week composers – that is, your music is much more likely to still sound tolerable when the film is viewed twenty years later if you’ve got someone like an Elton John or a Mark Knopfler or Richard Thompson (to pick three at random who have done film music) than if you hire whoever writes stuff for Britney Spears.
Another possibility for both soundtrack and incidental music appears if your entertainment is set sufficiently far in the past – the teevee show Crime Story used pop music heavily – but it was the actual pop music of twenty years earlier, when the show was set, and Al Kooper (i think) was handling the music production chores.
{That’ll Be the Day and Stardust, two films about a Lennon-esque musician, set during the English Invasion period, mined the rock/pop of that era extensively and well – to the extent that the Soundtrack albums for the two films are alomst a necessity for some fans of the era. (The band in the second film also featured Dave Edmunds and Keith Moon among others, actually played ther own music, and Edmunds put the band together and wrote their songs and produced their music…)}
Bill Myers: Oh, and one other thing: watch a couple of episodes of “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” and you’ll see how ridiculous “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” can be. 😉
Man, why you gotta be a hater? 😉
Jerry C: Yeah, But haven’t you ever seen kids who have evrything launch into their own little rebellion for that very reason? They’re bored with having everything and being given everything and find a reason to go nuts.
Which is, essentially, a capsule summary of “The Way to Eden.” God only knows why they wouldn’t want to make another one of those. 😉
As to the origins of hip-hip, I stand corrected. Though, I still see (or hear) little substantive difference between most rap, hip-hop, or what they’re trying to pass off as R&B these days. Not wanting to get into a musical debate, however, I’ll just let that point go…
Still, I think the ungodly licensing fees are where the truth lies, the very same reason we will probably never see WKRP on DVD. Given the choices of paying obscene amounts for actual rock, creating their own “future rock” that would inevitably suck (see aforementioned Buck Rogers and space-hippies), or just leaving it out, leaving it out altogether is probably the best choice.
I don’t think it’s entirely fair, either, to accuse the Trek folks of being unrelentingly stuffy. On Enterprise NX-1, “The Court Jester” and “The Exorcist” are hardly froofroo arthouse pieces. Picard regularly indulges in playing a seedy pulp detective on the holodeck, for example, and later series’ show (or at least mention) scenarios just as cathartic. A Las Vegas night club, the Battle of Britain, barbarian warfare, Captain Proton, and “James Bond with the names changed so we don’t get sued.”
Besides, even if there are the more “rebellious” entertainments offered, the only youths as main characters were Wesley Crusher (Who wanted nothing more than to be in Starfleet until season 6 or 7) and Jake Sisko (Who rebelled by going into journalism instead of Starfleet.)
True it would’ve been nifty to see Data learning guitar from Clapton or Riker listening to a little Chicago or, heck, Worf discovering hardcore gangsta rap would’ve been a hoot for a minute. But it would have been prohibitively expensive, and I just don’t know if it would have really added that much to the characters.
Well, except maybe Data playing “Layla” in an effort to understand unrequited desire…
-Rex Hondo-
well this entry has gone off in a billion directions so i don’t feel too bad for asking a kinda non-sequiter question.
Speaking of best movies seen all year, I watched stranger than fiction last week and thought it was the best movie i’d seen all year. i was curious if you’d seen it peter, and what you thought of it if you had.
Lol. Wow this is very said. I have wanted to see this movie sense June. Just before the file was released on Nov 17th I hard heard about its agenda. While I think that it may not be the best movie to use for the agenda I still think it was good. After seeing the file I Googled “Happy Feet Controversy” only to find these random idiotic reviews. Yes it was in fact a kids movie, but maybe Hollywood feels that sense adult are to ignorance to the obvious that it may help to target kid so that there may be a future for other species on the earth besides humans. I read on one reviews that a mom decided to take her kids to the zoo instead of seeing the movie. Yes because that penguins at the zoo love being there so much. I found that to be so sad that she wants to harbor her kids from seeing this movie for a reason that is the truth. I did not like the movie as much as much as I hoped to but it was not that bad.
If anyone has seen March of The Penguins then you know that there is a shortage of fish in areas where Penguins live…. And what happened after the movie. They stopped finishing in those areas.
Face it HollyWood it probably the strongest weapon that people have to get a message across. So to get that message out there Mom and dads drive there gas hogging SUVs to the movie and stop on at McDonals on the way to help there kids become more obease and the spend 50-75 bucks at the theater to watch this movies and then get mad that there’s a message. I’m not a environmentalist or a Liberal or a Republican or a Democrat. I my self am studying to become a film director. The fact of the matter is the message came form logic. People get mad when someone trys to tell them something they don’t want to hear. So holly wood put it right inform of there faces. But this is America more and more messages will come and more people will be the sophisticated human beings we so called are and try to argue against fact with ridiculess accusations. It’s a sad world and country we all live in. But people feen off drama and to talk about thing they can not control. Sooner or later parent cant harbor there kids form this stuff. Why do you think messages are in movies or thing that kids enjoy, they are the only hope for the future?
jonny914