Multiverse--Michael Moorcock discussion
2017/2018/2019 What Are You Experiencing In Multimedia?
Lots of things ....I have been very fond of Star Trek Enterprise and Voyager but yesterday found a new show on netflix that seems good, The Killjoys, which seemed to be highly inspired by Firefly.
Arrival was one of the best films I have seen in the 21th century along with The Prestige , Interstellar, Guardians Of The Galaxy and The Village.
Do comics and books go here too?
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I have been very fond of Star Trek Enterprise and Voyager but yesterday found a new show on netflix that seems good, The Killjoys, which seemed to be highly inspired by Firefly..."
I noticed afterwards that the threads have been updated to include 2017, but I'd say anything goes here.
And, we can mix it up and discuss it all at once!
It's all intertwined in enjoyment.
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I too recently watched Gentlemen Broncos, it was indeed pretty good. A plus, is the fun book cover art!
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Couldn't bring myself to watch his recent, Batman v. Superman farrago. Knowing that it was partially based on Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which I read decades ago and thoroughly enjoyed, didn't help. You can't take large chunks of plot from what's supposed to be the end of Batman & Superman's careers and then stick it somewhere near the beginning. Plus, some of the crap the Bat and Supes get up to is so out of character, it's just plain risible.
But, there might just be enough oomph! and jokes in the new film to make it worth a visit. Even if they have washed all the colour. so that it looks like it has been made in sepia. Otherwise, I can recommend several of the recent Justice League cartoon features and series. They really do capture something of the original spirit of the comics. And then, there's the Batman: Lego movie to look forward to... ;>)
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"Now I don't know how much of this is true, but according to IMDB the character of the writer Chevalier is based on/a spoof of Utah based science fiction and fantasy writer David Farland."
Wild stuff. Fun facts!
Pietro_Mercurios_01 wrote:
"You can't take large chunks of plot from what's supposed to be the end of Batman & Superman's careers"
Yeah, I see your point. Just like the movie The Dark Knight Rises, Batman stops at 40 instead of age 60, not the same gravity at all.
I loved The Justice League trailer, easy to love for me because I'm into the new Wonder Woman (liked that teaser) and I'm into the new Aquaman because I liked Jason in Stargate: Atlantis.
My recent dive into the multimedia mixture included watching all the episodes of Kessler on youtube,
Watching more videos of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2.,
Catching Sweet Caroline on my radio from it's beginning,
Catching up on all of Doctor Who Season 7,
Gathering vintage Star Wars photographs and artwork on Twitter,
Listened to the audiobook of King Solomon's Mines,
and reading other online forums like this:
http://megomuseum.com/community/forum...
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I am in their science-fiction section often too:
http://megomuseum.com/community/forum...
Mego Gallery:
http://www.megomuseum.com/galleries/
Dragonriders of the Styx Playsets:
http://fantasytoysoldiers.blogspot.co...
Rebel Scum:
(for Star Wars)
http://www.rebelscum.com/
Star Trek Actor Appearance:
http://startrekappearances.blogspot.com/
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Then I watched, A Scanner Darkly
!!! Welcome to, Phil, Gilbert and George's World!
Based on the book by Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly> Dick meets Shelton meets Orwell. Te Blade Runner meets the The Furry Freak Brothers meet 1984. Ayn Rand f**ks a second rate scientifiction hack turned guru and chaos rules. The 'second rate scientifiction hack turned guru,' not being Dick, who, even at his worst, rings true. Old Mother Hubbard, at least in outline.
Alex Jones gets arrested and tasered in a guest appearance. I doubt this really ever happened, in real life. Jones appears to be wearing a cartoon too too toupé.
Also, Wynona Ryder, Kanoe Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and others.
Bit of a mind blower. ;>>
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Also, a nod to, Blade Runner, all that running a way to a little cabin in the woods. The core of the original, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. What is real? What is Human?
I just hope and pray that Arioch, has a sense of humour.
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Sweet! I can now watch that sometime.
I have the DVD of Hawkwind Live at Stonehenge.
Heehee!, I did actually see A Scanner Darkly in the movie theater.
Pietro_Mercurios_01 wrote: "Just watched the new trailer for the upcoming, Justice League, movie. Might just go see it. Still made by that lamentable Snyder chappie, though. Couldn't bring myself to watch his recent, Batman..."
Haha I have liked Batman x superman a lot. I like its bleak content and dark atmospheres. Truth to be told, i liked other Snyder's films a lot but his ones I disliked I really disliked.
Batman x Superman is helped by two elements:
David S. Goyer and Chris Nolan.
I am not expecting much of Justice League if they want to make it DCs Avengers version because I really have grown tired of The Avengers formula which is non sense dialog ( words that come out of nowhere and mean nothing ) and actors playing with the sheer intensity of a rock mixed with one or two jokes here and there.
On the other hand I love Guardians Of The Galaxy, cannot wait to see the second movie.
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They always change character facts in every movie, but I'll find it interesting to see what they come up with.
It seems a little odd that the separate new Batman film did not come out before Justice League. Maybe it was because they didn't want it so close to the Nolan Batman trilogy.
Anyway, most of DC's new movies, imho, look really fantastic.
Too bad I nitpick the stories, ha!,ha! I'm always thinking better if this & that, and one thing should happen here, and the other thing should not happen until there.
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I caught up on The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. (only the ones on Netflix)
I also enjoyed the new Spiderman Homecoming trailer.
I've been reading up on a lot of upcoming celebrity conventions.
I am really looking forward to seeing the new movie trailer for The War for the Planet of the Apes that comes out tomorrow, the movie starts on July 14th, 2017.
And, we are getting closer and closer to hearing more stuff about Star Wars The Last Jedi!
Netflix has seasons 1 and 2 of Flash which I have watched. Did not see Legends only 2 episodes,it was pretty good.I am watching Expanse, which now I am enjoying a lot.
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I also download some good e-books from this website:
http://www.feedbooks.com/publicdomain
I found this place for polyhedral dice, it might be pretty good:
https://easyrollerdice.com/collection...
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Had to get up early this fine Easter Sunday morning, now off to Maastricht, to deliver a vacuum cleaner and possibly have a beer or two.
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At the moment, I am listening to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJEC8...
Family and I went to see Guardians Of The Galaxy II, which I really really liked a lot. I am usually a fan of 80s adventure sci fi films, Marvel B-side ( now getting hyped ) like Warlock, Thanos, Captain Marvel, Jim Starlin and GOOD space operas.We have acquired a good load of candies ( my share were peanuts MMs and club soda - mineral water with gas not sure if this is how you call it actually ) to sustain us and although sleepy after a whole day of work I was very thrilled. My wife didn't like much of the violence or profanity - so she said- but the kids and I were thrilled.
Recommendations: don't watch on 3D
Excellent visuals, effects and nice jokes as expected and a good plot and excellent acting also came with the package.
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Star Wars as a Musical set to the songs from Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
I made some friends today, oh boy
I helped a princess and her droid escape...
Derek wrote: "In a word: Linux!"http://lubuntu.net/
:-)
I use it at home, its X system is very lightweight using only 200 Mbytes of ram. I have a partition with windows 7 and a partition with Lubuntu with a live USB pendrive ready for any problems.
But this at home.
At work I am having to use windows 10 which is not bad. I have felt a bit out of place for one day or two but I got used now.
Yeah, I have to use Windows at work, too. But so far we're still on Win 7 which I like much better than 10.
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I felt that it was pretty incredible. I liked it better than the first one.
To me, it was like a really funny movie and really good classic science-fiction work of art.
Lemec wrote: "I went to a Thursday showing of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2.I felt that it was pretty incredible. I liked it better than the first one.
To me, it was like a really funny movie and really go..."
I loved the film too maybe better than the first one. We watched on the regular version - NON 3d- because it has many advantages
looks better
it is cheaper
looks better for people with glasses ( me and my youngest son )
If it was not for the price we would be watching it again I think ;-)
Hi Tor is offering the ebook A Fire Upon The Deep for free this monthI have not read it or knew it about before, but it got an Hugo award
http://ebookclub.tor.com/
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I felt that it was pretty incredible. I liked it better than the first one.
To me, it was like a really funny movie..."
Very cool, Daniel. It is a wondrous adventure.
I watched 2D as well, and have not gone to a 3D film yet, there seems to be less 3D showings now, so maybe they are catching on that people like regular and can see the background and everything better. XD digital theater in 2D is excellent.
I had a nice center seat.
A second showing is really tempting!
I Am Groot!
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Beyond that I think the only thing I've read of theirs is Another Roadside Picnic, which I seem to recall I was fairly neutral about.
On the other hand, I've read, and enjoyed, much more Stanislaw Lem who also has a Paris Review article.
On a related note, wow, PK Dick's letter denouncing Lem as some kind of Frankenstein's creature creation of a soviet committee is seriously crazy.
Also, enjoyed watching The Girl With All The Gifts the other day.
Netflix released the new and third season of Twin Peaks, I should watch it. They have also released the third season of Penny Dreadful.
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Thanks for those links, Heresiologist, Lem is definitely one of the all time SF giants, whether or not he was a party apparatchik. Personally I think not, simply too obtuse for the party to readily pigeonhole (that an increasingly ill Dick, like Orwell before him, turned snitch, is not really surprising, if still disappointing. You can read my recent review of the film, Scanner Darkly, elsewhere on this forum. It seemed to stick close to the text version I remember reading many years before. But, my memory's v.faulty, as many on MM's Misc. would testify).
I remember reading a version of Lem's Futurological Congress, long time ago, like the Seventies. What really stuck with me was the way the psychotropics started to wear off and the toxic grey reality started to creep in... Horrible enough in its way. There are obvious similarities between the works of Dick and Lem. However, Dick was probably more susceptible to the illusion and the subsequent paranoia of uncertainty, while Lem knew he was living in a grey dystopian reality.
Recently, my son decide that it was time to watch the original, Soviet cinema version of, Solaris (directed by the that other Soviet period giant of SF, Tarkovski), which gave me the chance to watch it alongside him. Well worth the effort. A story of mankind's total inability to grasp the sheer alieness of an extra terrestrial intelligence, it's a bit slow by modern standards, which gives you time to think about the inner drives of the main protagonists, including the alien intelligence. An extraordinary piece of cinema that stands alongside 2001 as a piece of cinematic art.
Shortly thereafter, my son took me to see Arrival as a birthday present. Another film about humanity attempting to grasp the thought processes and language of a very alien intelligence. The similarities between the two films were so marked that I was left to wonder about the recurrent use of isolated lakehouses in fantasy movies. I suspect that one film was at least partially meant as a homage to the other, but which really came first?
Anyway, my contribution today is a link to an interesting review of Norman Spinrad's latest novel, The People's Police (Tor 2017), on the LA Review of Books website:
An Unkempt Jeremiad
By Rob Latham
An interesting overview of Spinrad's work with references to his life & times with New Worlds and Mike. I need to get and read a copy of this book.
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I also need to re-watch Tarkovsky's Solaris. Same goes for his version of Stalker. Hmmm... filmwise, that would cover both Lem and the Strugatskys.
Also, I don't hold Dick's paranoid rantings too much against him. HOWEVER... maybe that's because as a child I visited the zoo which, according to one of Dick's "fictional" works, was home to the devil. So maybe I'm just another pursap.
Haven't read Spinrad in ages, but was recently very curious about Osama the Gun and some other recent works of his I saw at the local F&SF bookstore.
And now for something completely different: Jose Feliciano and Cannonball Adderly busking old timey country music in an episode of Kung Fu from the 1970s. Black Mountain Rag which segues into Camptown Races.
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Fadedpage.com
Some very interesting books out of copyright, in Canada.
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Comicbookplus.com
Amazing resource, pulps, magazines, comics and ephemera from the American Golden Age, British story papers and comics.
Sexton Blake, Nelson Lee, Dickson Hawk, The Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family, The Spirit... Some really extraordinary stuff. Well worth checking out.
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He told me about marching under the black flag to protest Thatcher ending the free milk program for school kids. Also about how he had helped out (not a writer, though) at "Mother Grumble" magazine.
And here the magazine is (except it's Muther not Mother) archived on the innertubes: The Muther Grumble Archive
Mostly reading comics these days : Dreadstar the beginning, Chaykin's The Shadow takes, Kurt Busiek's The Secret Identify, Warren Ellis Strange Kiss, Flight by Chaykin.
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I have read Busiek's Astro city volume 1 ( quite good ) and his Arrowsmith ( superb ) now I am reading Starlin/Perez Infinity Gauntlet and retook my reading of Wolfe's Book Of the Long Sun 1 ( awesome book ).I have seen the the sit com The Ranch ( quite good ) and 4th Season of Elementary ( definitely like it much better than Sherlock BBC ), and I am catching Gotham season 1 now all on netflix. Speaking of netflix they have put Killjoys season 2 available for us here in Brazil yesterday.
I have seen Wonder Woman ( spectacular film ), the new Spider Man ( quite good ) and took some time to watch the Prestige again ( one of my all time favorite films )
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It is a pretty good film you know. The good thing is that Zack Snyder was behind it and people say that "hey this was an improvement over Batman x Superman". :-)I have watched "Hidden Figures" yesterday. The film is good but the story is based on real a story about three amazing black women that were key figures in NASA.
Katherine Johnson, for example, still alive today at 99, is in a short the main reason why USA put people in space so precisely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katheri...
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I have watched "Hidden Figures" ye..."
Realizing that I should be pilloried for writing this, I'll fess up to watching Bat vs. Supes 2 1/2 times. Don't get me wrong: it had a LOT of problems, but--in part because of those flaws--it approximated the comic-book-reading experience more effectively than any superhero movie since Hellboy.
I love Batman vs Superman. First Snyder's superman was ok though the beginning of it was amazingly cool- Krypton scenes.
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Amal El–Mohtar's Seasons of Glass and Iron
Also, Anthony, if you haven't already, take your wife to Wonder Woman. My better half, who typically avoids violent movies like the plague, loved it, saying parts of it literally gave her the shivers.
It is a VERY VERY VERY good movie. Second favorite seen this year after Guardians Of The Galaxy II.I am reading Busiek's Astrocity volume 2, now completely hooked by it.
PS later edited: THANKS H! I clicked at the link thinking to see an article about the short story but it ends up being the actual story
(for all kinds of stuff that we enjoy this year)
What Are You Experiencing Through Multimedia Adventure & Exploration?