Category: Stuff

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I recently received two new DVDs: This Island Earth and the original Godzilla, Gojira as it was released to a Japanese audience in 1954.

Gojira comes in a two DVD set with the original Japanese film and the Americanized Godzilla with Raymand Burr. There’s also a small booklet with background information, all in a surprisingly nice case.

I had not watched Gojira before, but from my experiences with other Japanese films where there has been an original and a ‘Americanized’ version, I expected differences. I was amazed, though, in how much of the original movie was lost in the American version.

Gojira was made in a post-war Japan still reeling from the shock of extensive firebombing and having not one but two atom bombs dropped on it. We look at Pearl Harbor and talk horror. The bombings in Japan destroyed not ships in harbor but entire cities: from smallest child to oldest woman. Not just lives, but entire familes and their history destroyed in a land that revered both.

The movie was as much warning against war and such weapons of war, as it was a ‘monster’ film. In a way, the true monster in this film is war, represented metaphorically as Godzilla: the dark beast that walks the land destroying and burning all in its wake.

All of this was lost in the American remake. All of it cut out. I watched the original Gojira, and then the modified Godzilla, and cringed at how badly the film was edited–Raymond Burr added in to provide a clean, non-guilt inducing narrative to cover that ripped from the original.

In the effort to sanitize the film for American audience, much of the brilliance of the film was also lost. In the original, the director managed to create a sense of nemises of the monster, enough so that when it did appear, it became quite easy to ignore the lack of ‘special effects’. This is true science fiction mastery: less a reliance on CGI than on talent and story telling, skill with camera and interaction of characters.

In Godzilla, Burr’s presence tended to disrupt this flow, and kill the suspense. It was like watching a safari being held in a zoo. The fakery at which the original characters were ‘seen’ to be talking with Burr, when they were originally talking with others, becomes even more glaringly odd when you watch the two films, one right after the other.

I grew up with Godzilla and it was a beloved film. It still holds a special place in my heart for its role played, but I would have rather had the original all along. Thankfully future generations won’t have to settle for less.

On a scale of one to five, with five being exceptional, I give Gojira a five and Godzilla a two, for old times sake.

I read the booklet that came with the Gojira/Godzilla twin DVD set and found that it was the director’s original intention of equating Godzilla with war, or at least, nuclear destruction. The director, Ishiro Honda, wrote:

If Godzilla had been a dinosaur or some other animal, he would have been killed with one cannonball. But if he were equal to an atomic bomb, we wouldn’t know what to do. So I took the characteristics of an atomic bomb and applied them to Godzilla.

I also found a bit of history new to me. The opening of Gojira features a fishing boat subjected to a blinding white light and in the next scene we see it on fire. In the movie, this is caused by the awakening of Godzilla. In reality, this was inspired by an actual event: the nuclear contamination of the fishing boat The Lucky Dragon.

This Japanese fishing boat was plying the waters around Marshall Island in spring of 1954, when the crew noticed a sudden light in the west and then a huge multi-colored ball of light that exploded into the sky. Ash fell down from the skies, which the crew gathered for souvenirs. By the end of the day, the crew was ill with radiation poisoning from being too close to a nuclear weapons test in the Bikini atoll. One crewman eventually died, and several suffered long term effects–in addition to others in the Marshall Island who also suffered such effects.

No one knew this testing was going to occur because the US kept such tests secret. It created a huge diplomatic incident.

Eventually the US compensated the Japanese government and the families of the impacted fisherman. While the negotiations were underway, out of worry about fallout, the government had all fish destroyed and none allowed to be sold in markets, decimating the fishing industry in Japan.

Several months later, when Gojira opened to movie theaters, it must have been a shock to see that opener–fact blending in with fiction, as it does uncomfortably throughout this film. I’ve always known Godzilla was one of the most important science fiction movies. I didn’t realize until watching Gojira and reading more of its story that we should drop the ‘science fiction’.

Returning to the movie as cinema rather than social commentary, what’s especially surprising about the movie is how quickly it was made: about three months. It was, in part, inspired by Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (one of my all time favorites). But the production couldn’t take the time to have the beast managed through claymation, so they invented the concept of a wearable suit–a move which was to follow Godzilla even into modern films.

I strongly recommend if you get this set–and you should get this set–that you read the booklet that accompanies it first before watching Gojira.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Today is a sci-fi kind of day, as I place my order at Amazon for the newly-released-on-DVD, This Island Earth and Godzilla – Gojira Deluxe Collector’s Edition. Gojira is a return to the original Godzilla movie, sans Americanization, and I’m really looking forward to seeing this version.

Last week I picked up this 12 DVD set of movies packaged as “Scifi classics” consisting of public domain movies burned on to DVDs in all their scratchy, bad audio glory. The set cost a little over 12.00, which amounts to about 1.00 a DVD. As for being classics, I’ve never heard of any of the movies. They’re the worst cheese, awful, and I love every bit. I plan on trying to review at least a couple a week, and then point to where you can download the movies for free.

I just noticed that Sci-Fi’s Eureka is now an iTunes download, making it the last of the set I watch and that can now be downloaded from the Internet or bought as DVD. Once the new Fall lineup at sci-fi goes into effect, and after the premier of Battlestar Galactic, we’re disconnecting the cable and going with DVDs and internet downloads (and books and hikes and what not) for entertainment.

St. Louis Today has been running a series on the problems they’ve had getting their Charter internet connection to work. Considering this is a newspaper’s online site, having a decent internet connection is a requirement. However, they’ve gotten the run around, been given misleading information, and have had repair people not show up at scheduled times and the paper is now looking at moving it’s broadband access to another company.

This started a blitz of emails and letters from other Charter customers complaining of service. Cable and cellphone service are the number one and two complaint, respectively, at Better Business Bureau; so much so the organization has set up separate systems just for these items. (The BBB also recommends turning complaints about misrepesentation of service into the state attorney general for possible prosecution.) Charter is number one for customer dissatisfaction in our area.

It used to be you didn’t have a choice if you wanted to watch television: you subscribed to cable or you picked up whatever you could get on an antenna. Then there was the dish and satellite, which provided a second option, but one which still requires that you subscribe to a service you may end up not liking (and its usually not the best option if you live in an apartment or townhome), and which requires specialized equipment and holes drilled into your walls and floor.

Now there’s a third option, door number three: downloads and DVD. More television networks are providing their material free (with or without commercials) or via a download service such as iTunes (many downloadable the next day after original air date). Show production companies now provide boxed sets for each show’s season. Combining all of these options to get the shows a person really wants is cheaper than paying $50.00 or more dollars a month for ‘basic and expanded’–service consisting more and more of home shopping networks and channels that repeat the same movie or show again and again.

We’re picking door number three. Sayonara Charter.

Update

The New York Times has an article on the webisodes that Sci-Fi is releasing for Battlestar Galactica. They’re previews of the upcoming episodes.

Is this a joke?

Today there’s a funding bubble but there’s not as much of a liquidity bubble.

The only reason I didn’t throw my laptop across the room is the speaker of this brilliant quip had a nice smile when he said it. I had to assume he said this tongue-in-cheek. Kind of, “Let’s pull Arrington’s leg.”

On a related note regarding this comedy and the earlier Digg is worth millions Business Week story: lack of diversity, especially as regards women. It’s enough to make you cry. Even if it’s all smoke and mirrors, it’s smoke and mirrors that doesn’t even know that 51+% of the world exists.

The words make you laugh. The reality makes you cry.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I read Nick Carr’s Rough Type on a more or less regular basis. I don’t always agree with him, but I like the fact that he takes the time to write longer, more in-depth postings. He’s also one of the few, it seems, who can be critical of Web 2.0 stuff, but still remain somewhat of an insider. I study how he manages this; somewhat like the anthropologist studying the aboriginal customs of stretching ear lobes and jumping off towers with really bad bungee cords.

I’ve found he can write with an edge at times, but I’ve never seen him be overly personal in his writings. Perhaps the postings where he is, fell on my ‘not reading Web 2.0 weblogs’ days.

I was surprised, then, of what he wrote of an altercation that happened on the Gillmore Gang podcast. It seems that regular member Mike Arrington resigned from the show, unexpectedly and on the air, because Steve Gillmore invited Nick Carr to appear. Of this, Arrington writes:

Nick’s been on two shows now. The first one I quickly dropped off, the second one, yesterday, I stayed until the end. I have a problem with Nick. I think he’s smart but he’s often overly cruel to people in his posts, people who sometimes aren’t in a position to defend themselves. I get the sense that he enjoys pulling people down, gets happiness out of it. He shows all the classic signs of a bully – he talks big on his blog but on the phone he’s a meek, submissive guy. He can’t stand up to people who stand up to him unless he’s hiding behind his blog. Guys like Nick are a dime a dozen on the Internet and until now I just basically ignored him. But I won’t be on a weekly podcast with the guy. If Nick is on the show, I’m not on it.

Long ago I made the choice not to associate with people who are mean to others. They can attack me all they want (Jason Calacanis does, and he’s on the show, and I have no problem with that). But when you are mean to other people it just makes my blood boil. It probably comes from watching too many kids get picked on in junior high.

Nick Carr mean. I went searching on these words, “Nick Carr mean” and found several older controversies, and a newer writing over at Paul Kedrosky’s. In that post, Kedrosky wrote:

I’m hesitant to write this, because like paying attention to a child who stomps his feet or holds his breath, it just encourages him, but I’ll do it anyway: While I generally like Nick Carr — he’s a graceful and thoughtful writer — he has become tiresome and reflexively contrarian.

He did it recently with a sensationalized piece on the death of Wikipedia, and he did it again with a silly hatchet job on Steve Rubel, and he’s doing it again today with a studiedly awry piece on l’affaire O’Reilly.

I actually rather liked what Carr wrote about what Rubel wrote. The question is: was it mean?

I can agree with Kedrosky in that Carr can be confrontational and controversial and probably likes the attention he gets with either, but the same can be said, most likely, of Kedrosky. It can most definitely be said of Mike Arrington, and that’s where this returns.

If you took the time to listen or watch the video that Kevin Marks posted on Mike Arrington’s “core values” session, and if you know me, it’s not hard to understand why I find Arrington, and people like Arrington, to be disturbing. In the video he talks of core values and being nice to each other, as he cut off Liz Henry when she was trying to make a counter-point. When Elisa Camahort tried to defend Henry’s right to speak, she, in turn, was shut down by Dave Winer. Ostensibly, the reason Winer gave later is that discussions leads were supposed to keep people from meandering on, but I watched as they let Chris Pirrilo chatter away for the longest time–and I like Chris, and I liked what he had to say, but it was very obvious that the discussion was poorly managed, with weight given to the ‘knowns’ versus the unknowns. More importantly, weight was given to those who said what Arrington wanted to hear.

This makes me unhappy. This isn’t about being mean or nice. This is about control. This is about shutting down independent voices, and doing so under the guise of Shiny, Happy People. This is terribly wrong; made more so by the fact that it’s so easily bought into.

When I didn’t weblog, I watched as people were shut down because they would question, they would be critical, because many times their views were contrary to the ‘speak as one voice’ crowd. I watched people respond to such criticism in a personal way; against Seth Finkelstein and Dave Rogers, most recently. Why? Because Finkelstein and Rogers are critical. More than that, sometimes they’re critical of the opinions of really nice people. It puzzles me, because I would think that the really nice people would welcome the criticism–after all, it does show interest in what you’re writing.

Being personal in response is a superior treatment, though, to the worst you can do to the person, which is shut them down. Agree as a group not to give notice, not to respond, not to acknowledge; resign when they’re invited to a podcast; ignore what they say in a discussion. God, somebody please tell me, in simple terms, how shutting people down is nice? Was there a global meeting held where the definition of ‘nice’ was extended to include the practice of exclusion? Did everyone suddenly become Amish or Scientologists? I await enlightenment on this one, because I don’t understand it.

I started the Bb Gun primarily because I wanted a place where I could be comfortably critical without such strong identification with being critical. I am more than just a Web 2.0 critic. It’s a part of me, but I am more. This issue, though, it goes to the core of me, and thus I write about it here.

There’s another reason I write about this issue here. It would seem, now, with both Carr and Arrington saying they won’t appear on Steve Gillmore’s Gillmore Gang that there are openings in the podcast. I also noticed that there’s a strong similarity between those who do participate, and I thought this would be a devine time for Mr. Gillmore to add some diversity to his show.

Perhaps the Gillmore gang could consider those who might extend the profile of the show participants just a tad away from the strongly enthnocentric makeup of its current cast of regulars. The leaders of the discussions on audio casting, tagging, audience building, and so on at the Blogher conference would be ideal candidates.

SB of Watermark was bitten by the “100 thing…” meme, which she proceeded to answer in a whimsical, humorous, and charming way. As she wrote, This is a narcissistic exercise; who would want to know 100 things about a stranger on the Internet?. Rather than sit, looking into the pond, she entered the phrase, “SB is…”, into a Google search, and then summarized the results of what she found.

Speaking of 100 things Seth Finkelstein writes on the burden of a Wikipedia entry, and a recent discussion on whether his entry should be deleted. I can empathize and agree with Seth, but for opposite reasons: what if one’s Wikipedia bio sits, like an immovable stone not even gathering moss? Wouldn’t it be better to be to show some signs of wear over time than to show a smooth, unchanging face, no matter how pleasant?

There are actually far worse things that can happen to the bio of a living person than trolls saying something nasty. Come to think on it, the same thing can be said about the person, directly.