BSG Cake – Angled, originally uploaded by alenxa.
For last night’s BSG finale, Katie made a cake in the form of the Battlestar Galactica itself! More photos and making-of tidbits in the Battlestar Galacticake set.
And yes, it tasted good too!
Category: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Waitaminute
Listening to “Into the West” (end credits song from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King). Lyric, “Across the sea a pale moon rises.”
It’s all about crossing the sea into the west to go to elf heaven. Presumably the speaker is standing at the Grey Havens, waiting for the ships to arrive and carry her off to the Undying Lands, looking across the sea…to the west.
So since when does the moon rise in the west?
Admittedly, it’s a fantasy setting, but Middle Earth is set up to be a mythical past for the real world, so I’m fairly certain the sun and moon still rise in the east…
Buggy Recipe
Found this ad for Coraline in this morning’s newspaper:
It’s kind of hard to read, between the pixel size and the printing, but the funniest bit is the blue sidebar on “Finding the Tastiest Beetles:”
Beetles are delicious creatures that live close to home. If you use beetles from your backyard or basement, check them for shiny and fully developed thoraxes (beetles still in larval stage will be chewy and bland). The most mouth-watering kind, with translucent shells and large veins, can be found in the forests of Zanzibar.
It’s so perfectly Martha Stewart for the Macabre.
Rewatching Star Wars: A New Hope
We watched Star Wars last night, the DVD version. It’s been about four years since I last saw it. When Revenge of the Sith came out, we came home and immediately re-watched A New Hope, then caught the next two films over the following week or so.
It’s been long enough that memories have blurred, and some (but not all) of the revisions to the film don’t seem jarring anymore. (I had the same experience last month with the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, especially with the first two films.) Most of the scenes where they just wanted to do more dynamic shots, like the Millennium Falcon blasting its way out of Mos Eisley, not only blend in just fine, but really are improvements. As for Mos Eisley itself, I’m of two minds: On one hand, I liked the stark barrenness of the tiny frontier town presented in the original version. But at the same time, it does make more sense for a spaceport to be a bustling metropolis.
All the scenes with Obi-Wan, Luke, and the droids on Tattooine take on added significance after having seen just how Ben, Anakin, and Padme were connected to each other and to the droids a generation earlier.
As for additional scenes: I still think the Jabba the Hutt scene adds absolutely nothing to the film, and that if they really wanted to add it, they should have rewritten Jabba’s dialogue (an easy task) and/or edited it into something that wouldn’t simply re-hash the conversation with Greedo. The brief moment with Luke meeting Biggs, however, adds quite a bit.
At one point early in the film, I turned to Katie and said something to the effect of, “The next time they re-release this in theaters, I am absolutely going.” But the more I think about it, I’m not sure I’d want to, at least not immediately. The 1997 re-releases were great, and I saw each movie several times, but the audiences — especially the opening night audiences — were full of the hardcore fans who cheered whenever a character first appeared on screen. They were reacting to things outside the movie itself, actually distracting from it rather than enhancing the shared experience. Maybe waiting a week would cut down on that sort of thing.
Critical Miss
Take a look at this press release for the Los Angeles Science Fiction and Comic Book Convention and see if you can figure out what’s missing: Continue reading
Midseason TV Watching
Battlestar Galactica
As we move into the second half of the final season, will all really be revealed? Season Four has been good, definitely better than Season 3 (which IMO got bogged down by the Starbuck/Apollo “plot”), though the logic of the Final Five Minus One doesn’t make much sense.
— Returns Friday, Jan. 16 @ Sci Fi 10pm
Bones
I’m not the one watching this, but Katie’s still hooked, so I guess it’s still good.
— Returns Thursday, Jan. 29 @ Fox 8 pm
Fringe
We both gave up after something like 4 episodes. It seemed like they were trying too hard to be The X-Files, too focused on the conspiracy and everything fitting “the pattern” and being tied to work in this one lab…and then there’s the problem with not bothering to research the regular science or think through the consequences of the totally-made-up “fringe” stuff that gave the show its title. The only thing worth watching for was John Noble’s mad scientist, Walter Bishop.
Lost
After a couple of seasons of floundering, Lost came back very strongly last year. Having an end point to work toward certainly helped, as did opening up the format from present with flashbacks to present with both flashbacks and flashforwards. At first the flashbacks were great for showing what motivated the various characters, what brought them to the island, what issues they were still working through, etc. But after a while they started answering questions no one asked (“The secret of Jack’s tattoo!”) or re-treading old ground. Adding flashforwards to post-Island events really added to story possibilities, and they made thorough use of it.
— Returns Wednesday, Jan. 21 @ ABC 9pm
Heroes
Alternately fantastic and infuriating. I’ve gone into this recently, so I won’t repeat it here. That’s what links are for. With luck, Volume 4 will fall more on the fantastic side.
— Returns Monday, Feb. 2 @ NBC 9pm
Pushing Daisies
As good as ever. They managed to somehow maintain the tone while moving forward with character development and further exploring the consequences of Chuck’s resurrection.
— Sadly, canceled. Word is that ABC may show the last three episodes next summer. SUMMER. *grrr* Just show ’em in a 5am marathon so they can be released to iTunes, Amazon Video and DVD, willya?
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
This still hasn’t totally grabbed me the way Heroes or Pushing Daisies has, but it’s been an interesting, intricate take on the Terminator mythos. And oddly enough, I’m far more interested in the second half of this season than I am in the upcoming Terminator: Salvation movie. Sadly, Fox has moved it to the Timeslot of Death.
— Returns Friday, Feb. 13 @ Fox 8pm
Dollhouse
Not much to say about this one, since it hasn’t aired yet, but I’ll at least take a look at just about anything developed by Joss Whedon. Eliza Dushku and Amy Acker won’t hurt, either. Unfortunately, Fox has placed it in the Second Timeslot of Death, right after SCC
— Starts Friday, Feb. 13 @ Fox 9pm
(TV Guide via Blog@Newsarama)
Video Linkblogging: Mac vs. PC
Found this fun short movie: Mac vs. PC. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. It’s been done a million times. But how many times have the Mac and PC been Transformers? There’s a strong element of Terminator in there, as well.
(via Major Spoilers, though it apparently hit Digg a week ago)