(no subject)

[camwyn]

Uff da. Today's going to be a busy day. I'm going up to Cervalis at lunchtime to install SQL Server and our remote access software so that from now on I don't have to go up there to do installs. I'm currently doing a writeup of a hosted spam/virus filter service to present to our COO as a replacement for our current software, and when I get done at Cervalis I have to come home and do Christmas shopping.

Phbleah.

Methinks tonight I shall watch me some Clone Wars, which I have yet to do despite the purchase being two days ago. And, possibly, cobble together a bit more of the structure of the two Prequels That Never Were... that's a milliways_bar thing. I decided ages ago that in gone_byebye's world, the Lord of the Rings movies were never made. The Bakshi film exists, and the Rankin-Bass Return of the King exists, but Peter Jackson's just a brilliant-yet-hobbity horror movie director. However, the Law of Conservation of Fandom- the amount of both Good and Suck present in Things Fannish remains the same from universe to universe in which SF/F fandom exists- prevails. All the Good that went into the LOTR flicks in our world went directly into the Star Wars prequels. All the Suck went into the Star Wars Extended Universe material. I know that some of you like that stuff here, and some of you consider it pretty awful- I don't really care as I haven't read any of it. It's just that in gone_byebye's version of reality, the Extended Universe material is, almost universally, as bad as the worst of the Bakshi flick. Fans in that world are almost afraid to put EU books next to good books, because the good books will turn awful just by proximity... so they were quite naturally terrified that the prequels would turn out equally vile. In that world, however, Lucas made some very wise decisions-

- He hired Fran Walsh to write the scripts
- He went back to the Joseph Campbell backbone repeatedly when he was coming up with the ideas to pass to Fran
- He did overuse CGI aliens to some degree, but based most of them on motion captures from an actor named Andy Serkis
- He resisted the urge to interfere with the script-writing too much and accepted that other people's suggestions of 'this part is really stupid' had merit, which may be the most important aspect of the whole affair

And so on and so forth. The Prequels That Never Were are Ray's world's versions of Episode I and II, and they're titled The Price of Order and Clone Error respectively. Episode III was still called Revenge of the Sith. Like I said, they were all good. Really good. Really damn good. As in, Revenge of the Sith won thirteen Academy Awards, and several members of the audience from swanky upscale studios were caught on tape looking as if they were ready to chew off their own legs to get away from the fact that a movie with droids and lightsabres had won Best Picture.

Comments

[mattador.livejournal.com]

Ha. That'd almost be worth giving up the EU for (and the quality of the EU even in this 'verse varies like crazy- some of them are already just as bad as you describe, while others are, well, as good as the other-'verse prequels).

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

. The Prequels That Never Were are Ray's world's versions of Episode I and II, and they're titled "The Price of Order" and "Clone Error" respectively. Episode III was still called Revenge of the Sith. Like I said, they were all good.

Will we eventually get to see these? Pleeeeease?

[camwyn]

At some point, possibly. Much of this is actually the work of an RL friend of mine, who liked the idea that I had said "LOTR movies don't exist in Ray's world but the SW prequels were as good" and ran with it. We've been bouncing the material back and forth ever since.

It's worth noting that the Episode I trailer was exactly the same in both universes. It created far more fear in Ray's world, because, well... so many ways things could be screwed up, you know? But then The Price of Order came out and people were very happy indeed. Yes, that means there were Gungans. No, that does not mean there was Jar-Jar Binks or a Trade Federation plot with really bad racial sendups bearing thinly disguised Republican names. The central conflict had to do with the Outer Rim worlds versus the heart of the Republic, old versus new; the Gungans were the functional equivalent of Wookiees and spoke no Basic; the Gungan seen in Ep I was in fact a warrior nun of her people, who admittedly was occasionally comic relief but not to the asinine degree of Jar-Jar...

Oh, and this line appeared in Ep I.

"His father? He has no father. What makes you think a slave woman ever knows the face of her child's sire?"

[cupenny.livejournal.com]

"His father? He has no father. What makes you think a slave woman ever knows the face of her child's sire?"

Much more realistic than the whole immaculate conception idea I seem to recall in it. (I did only see the movie once, so my memory could be (fortunatly) hazy.)

[camwyn]

No, you're remembering right. About the only way I got through that was by going "Danae, meet the golden shower of light, aka Zeus the Perv Pimp Daddy" in my head.

'Course, the story passed on by Palpy in ROTS kind of reflected back on the immac conception thing in a weird way... basically, if Palpy knew about this power of the midichlorians to create life, and there weren't other Sith available... well, basically someone pointed out that it could be taken as a subtle hint that Palpy had used the Sith power involved to bring about Anakin's birth.

[aberrantangels]

basically someone pointed out that it could be taken as a subtle hint that Palpy had used the Sith power involved to bring about Anakin's birth.

That's certainly how I interpreted it.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

SQL Server?

2000 or 2005?

If you're using 2005, you have any knowledge on SQL Server Express which is supposed to replace the MSDE?

Asking because of a saes force automation project of mine.

Thanks,
- OVH

[camwyn]

Alas, I know nada of SQL Server Express. Terribly sorry.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

This amuses me greatly

http://radioactivepanda.com/comic/30

[silly-dan.livejournal.com]

How bad do the Star Wars prequels have to get for us to have a high-quality version of The Hobbit as well? Conversely, how much can we improve The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones by completely eliminating, say, Batman Begins rather than Jackson's trilogy? 8)

[camwyn]

There is a small possibility that The Hobbit may be in the works in Ray's world, although whether it's Mr. Jackson directing it or not I don't know. I say this because in Ray's world Buffy the Vampire Slayer existed solely as a not-very-good movie; there was no TV series, and no Angel series, either. Also, Serenity exists solely as a novel; there was no Firefly series.

I should note, however, that there is a very strong possibility that at least some of the Buffy mojo went another way; there are hints that in Ray's world the Constantine movie got made with a blond leading man who may or may not have been James Marsters. Take that as you will.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

Ok, that's totally worth it.

[camwyn]

Oh- and no eliminating Batman Begins; Ray quoted part of it at someone in Milliways this past summer.

[silly-dan.livejournal.com]

Oh well. You might get the same effect by letting Schumacher make a third Batman movie, though.

[camwyn]

No, see, that would just unnecessarily increase the amount of Suck in his world. Fandom works like pre-Newtonian physics; 'cold' was not 'the absence of heat', but a force in and of itself. Similarly, Suck is not merely the absence of Good.

OTOH, the fifth Star Trek movie in Ray's universe did not actively reek. It wasn't good, since it was an odd-numbered movie*, but it didn't reek. So maybe ST V's Suck went elsewhere.

*I personally liked The Search for Spock but then I am a major sucker for anything that gives DeForrest Kelley extra screen time, and yes, I have seen Night of the Lepus. Shut up.

[not-croaker.livejournal.com]

I dunno; Angel didn't have nearly the mojo of Buffy... did Enterprise eat up its suck and implode that much earlier, sparing us that agonizing final season or so of idiocy?

And I'm so hoping that a good deal more went to Doctor Who, with an uninterrupted Season 27 for Sylvester McCoy followed by some excellent others...

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

Anything that might jeopardize the existence of the current Doctor Who series must be removed from the timeline at all costs.