Messages

"Babylon 5 - The Long Twilight Struggle the pull back of Londo watching from the window of the Centauri ship, watching as they use mass drivers to bombard Narn back to the stone age. "

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but I've never been afraid of repeating my own dismal drivel on here:

If you add every aspect of every single episode of Star Trek: TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise (blecch!) together, then you still fall a country mile short of the utter genius of the Londo/G'Kar relationship in B5.

"We have never been friends, G'Kar, but this ,,, this I would not wish on my worst enemy."

Damn, I miss B5. And what a sad loss Andreas Katsulas was.

Cheers!

Jim

"The Ray Harryhausen , Dragon's teeth warriors in Jason and the Argonauts"
---
"Still utterly convincing after all these years."

No argument there. Probably the FX scene by which all other FX scenes should be judged ... Producers of the Fraser/Vosloo 'Mummy' movies take note. A great many of your CGI creations in these movies are sadly wanting.

Cheers!

Jim

"When a butt-naked Michael Caine, wielding a shotgun, see's off a couple of hoods. "

When the hitmen come for Albert Finney in Miller's Crossing.

The truck/motorbike chase in Terminator 2, specifically the True Grit riff with the shotgun ... the first time I sat in a movie theatre and heard the audience applaud spontaneously.

Great swathes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The bit in Alien when Dallas (Tom Skerrit) is in the ventilation shafts and the alien jumps him. Gets me. Every. Single. Time.

Oh, God ... you've set me off. Back soon with more.

Cheers

Jim

I have nothing more to say.

Cheers!

Jim

"Yes, sometimes I think 'I can't do this', but you sit down, start typing and it's like any other job- once you get warmed up it's ok."

Yeah ... I agree. It's important to get something down, even if you end up re-reading it and scrapping it the next day, at least you're thinking like a writer!

Cheers

Jim

"There are things you can do about writer's block - for a start, it's all about getting your mind into such a mental rut that the longer you don't write, the harder it is to write."

I have this theory about writing, and writers' block.

I absolutely believe that tedium is the writer's best friend; the kind of tedium that borders on trance-like. The internet is your worst enemy ... my output has decreased to zero in near direct proportion to the increasing cheapness and speed of my internet connection.*

I have always done my best creative thinking whilst:

In the bath
Doing the washing up
Working out
Sitting on the bog**

In other words, the times when your body is not inactive, but actually engaged in stuff that doesn't require your conscious brain's attention.

Shut off the computer. Switch off the TV. Put on some music - familiar music that won't demand your attention, preferably instrumental so that there aren't any words to activate conscious thought ... if you aren't comfortable just staring into space, then try re-reading an equally familiar book.

If the idea won't come out of that unbidden, this exercise is quite good:

Think of the worst example of SF/Horror/Fantasy/Whatever genre you're contemplating ... quite the worst one you can remember, and then start working out how you would fix it from first principles.

The idea you'll end up with will be quite different from the one you started with ...!

Cheers

Jim

* Ironically, I've lately developed the urge to write, but I have spent the whole of this year doing both my own job and that of my boss, who has been signed off long term sick since February, and I actually don't have any free time worth a damn. ***

**I know you didn't need that image, but I'm a generous chap and I like to share.

*** And, even more ironically, the few minutes I do have, I piss away posting on forums like this!

"The 5.56 was designed to incapacitate"

Indeed. Precisely the same school of thought that brought us the anti-personnel landmine with precisely enough power to blow off the victim's foot.

A dead victim is just meat ... blow off his foot and not only do you debilitate the victim themselves, but two more people have to carry them off the field of battle and then [god only knows how many] people have to nurse them back to health, except that these people will NEVER fight!

Cheers!

Jim

"Colin McNeil in the 70s? I thought he started in the mid 80s? In my mind he's still a newcomer!"

I know ... these young whippersnappers! That Ezquerra kid ... he'll never amount to anything, I'll tell you that!

Cheers

Jim

"Ron Smith."

Errr ... been a lot of years since the Smiff droid were in t' prog.

Cheers

Jim

Shit ... did you let that hack Holden anywhere near your fanzine?

Yer aaall doooomed, I tells 'ee!

Ahem.

Jim

I stand  corrected. You were right. I was wrong. It's a fair cop.*

Cheers!

Jim

*I thought about arguing the toss on this for absolutely no good reason, but then decided that I'd try this approach instead, to see if the internet unravelled entirely ...

"Is that Kenny Everett in the first Nemesis strip Going Underground on page 1?"

Without even checking, I'll bet it's actually a self-portrait of Kev O'Neill who -- IIRC -- always resembled an even more demented version of our Ken ...

Cheers!

Jim

You're not mad ... I can visualize it incredibly clearly.

Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me think where it was published or what it was called.

And now that's driving me mad, too. Thanks!

Cheers

Jim

[WHERE THE FUCKING FUCK IS MY MOTHERFUCKING PROG?]

I'm not reading this thread, because I have to say:

WHERE THE FUCKING FUCK IS MY MOTHERFUCKING PROG?

Eh? Answer me that.

Grr.

Jim

"The science in new Doctor Who (more than in 2000ad - with the exception of ABC Warriors) is about as scientific as powering a wooden toy train by tying one end of a piece of string to it and poking the other end in an electric socket and switching it on."

Agreed. What I find even more infuriating, however, is the fact that RTD appears to have his own version of Steve Jobs' patented Reality Distortion Field, one that makes otherwise sane, well-balanced people with reasonably good taste in TV completely oblivious the cringe-inducing naffness of Davies' attempts at the "science" bit of "science fiction" ...

Case in point: the finale of last season. This is a mind control network, right? It's a broadcasting network, right? So the Doctor's fantastic plan makes about as much sense as suggesting that if we all shout at our radios loud enough, we can deafen Chris Moyles.

See also: pretty much any other episode where any of the writers are required to demonstrate the most basic knowledge of elementary physics, chemistry or maths. "It's all a matter of the neutron, um ... ahh ... look! Over there! It's Elvis!"

Cheers

Jim