Books...and flist
Dec. 12th, 2004 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSpent some time last night and this morning scrolling back through my flist - made it as far as Dec 6th. Pretty good. And methinks my friendlist might be too long for me to keep track of. Probably doesn't help that I added ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coffeeandink last night to it, because I find her/his insights on books and culture and writing fascinating.
matiocala 's insights on story fetishing over book fetishing, I saved to memories. It's under "Story Fetishing" in my memories, if you are interested. It perfectly states how I feel about books and stories. As my Offline pal Wales has told me repeatedly in the past, I'm hard on books. They get stains on their pages, bent pages (although I swear I use a book mark), wet pages, and I tend to prefer paperback to hardback. I love them to death.
And I prefer books I can fit into the pocket of a jacket or my bag - so I can read them on the subway or waiting in lines. Susannah Clark's huge Jonathan and Mr. Norrel - isn't getting read because I can't lug it with me. It is regulated to the night table for now.
I adore stories. In any form. Plays, video, film, paintings, comic books,
novels - I'm not picky. I'm also not picky about genre - there is no genre or non-genre that I haven't read or looked at it. All I require is an interesting character and a good tale that pulls at my emotions in some way. Don't care about voice, pov, literary, non-literary, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, children's, young adult, adult, mystery, non-fiction/fiction - if it tells me a good tale - I'm there. I obsess over, collect, adore, and love stories.
I do not really care what form they come in - well not much. Books tends to be the most intimate and most accessible for me, also the most transportable.
So I do tend to prefer books over most forms if given the choice. You can take a book anywhere afterall.
londonkds rant on Sci-fi Channel's upcoming Earthsea mini-series, led me to Ursula Le Quinn's comments on the series, which have in turn motivated me to not watch it now. I had intended on giving the series a chance. But now, I feel the need to boycott it. Let me explain: I'd read some criticism on the casting of the tale (it stares the new hunky doctor on ER and Lana from Smallville apparently, which I already knew just from the previews), but didn't realize how much it alterred the original story. Now, the last time I read the series was approximately in 1979, so I honestly don't remember it very well - outside of hazy bits and pieces. So - I doubt I'll notice the changes. But - I would rather re-read the original novels which my mother still has, then muddying their memory with an interpretation that from what I'd read on Le Quinn's sight, I would find offensive and in fact offends the author of the work. Granted - you sell the rights, you take the consequences.
Also we all do have own interpretations of what we read - interpretations that may vary greatly from the writer's/author's original intent (just visit a fanboard sometime then read or watch Whedon commentaries to see how greatly our interpretaion or perception of what we've seen/read can vary from what is in the creator's head. Scarey, isn't it?), but does that give one the right to
take that interpretation and present it, as if it were the original writers?
Isn't that why we use disclaimers - "based on the work" or "loosely based" but
"without cooperation of"? Hopefully Sci-Fi Channel will use these disclaimers.
I won't know, since I won't be watching. If they don't? I suppose Le Quinn could sue them if she so desires.
This brings up an interesting topic, actually, the relationship between an original work and a derivative work or a work based on it. When I was much younger, in the early 80s, I remember reading novelizations of Return of The Jedi and Empire Strikes Back, that were officially authorized by Lucas, prior to the films release. In the case of Jedi, I prefered the novelization to the film. Odd. Considering the film was for all intents and purposes the original.
We do the same thing with fanfic - take a tv show and write our own interpretations of it. Some interpretations bear a close resemblance to the original, some none at all.
So, I wonder, is what Sci-Fi Channel is doing with the Wizard of Earthsea Triology all that different than what we do when we write fanfic? Well, they are making money off of it. They are also advertising it as "based on" LE Quinn's novels and a close adaptation of those novels, misleading anyone who hasn't read the novels or has forgotten them (like myself). At least when we write fanfic, we make it clear this is "our own interpretation" of the characters and stories and *not* the original authors. That we do not know the original author's intent and can only guess at it, since we aren't them.
Reminds me why Whedon made it clear to Fox when they asked him to do BTVS the series - that they could own the rights, but he would have *CREATIVE*
control and they could not change his intent nor credit things to him that he did not intend. Be curious to see how that was worded in his contract with Fox.
What was most important to Whedon is that his *creative* vision come out as clearly as possible - he'd already seen it muddied twice (BTVS the film and Alien Resurrection), he wanted to prevent a third go-around. Which is why he
directs things he writes from no on. Same thing happened on Farscape - Brian Henson, Rockne O'Bannion and Steve Kemper - kept a tight reign on the rights and creative direction of their show, they did not let Sci-Fi (which is under the same corporate umbrella as Universal and NBC by the way) get control.
This is worth keeping in mind if you are a writer. Unless of course you want to take Tom Wolf and Alan Moore's approach, which is basically - I don't want to see hear or think about the film, just make it, give me lots of money. Thanks a bunch.
coffeeandink last night to it, because I find her/his insights on books and culture and writing fascinating.matiocala 's insights on story fetishing over book fetishing, I saved to memories. It's under "Story Fetishing" in my memories, if you are interested. It perfectly states how I feel about books and stories. As my Offline pal Wales has told me repeatedly in the past, I'm hard on books. They get stains on their pages, bent pages (although I swear I use a book mark), wet pages, and I tend to prefer paperback to hardback. I love them to death.And I prefer books I can fit into the pocket of a jacket or my bag - so I can read them on the subway or waiting in lines. Susannah Clark's huge Jonathan and Mr. Norrel - isn't getting read because I can't lug it with me. It is regulated to the night table for now.
I adore stories. In any form. Plays, video, film, paintings, comic books,
novels - I'm not picky. I'm also not picky about genre - there is no genre or non-genre that I haven't read or looked at it. All I require is an interesting character and a good tale that pulls at my emotions in some way. Don't care about voice, pov, literary, non-literary, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, children's, young adult, adult, mystery, non-fiction/fiction - if it tells me a good tale - I'm there. I obsess over, collect, adore, and love stories.
I do not really care what form they come in - well not much. Books tends to be the most intimate and most accessible for me, also the most transportable.
So I do tend to prefer books over most forms if given the choice. You can take a book anywhere afterall.
londonkds rant on Sci-fi Channel's upcoming Earthsea mini-series, led me to Ursula Le Quinn's comments on the series, which have in turn motivated me to not watch it now. I had intended on giving the series a chance. But now, I feel the need to boycott it. Let me explain: I'd read some criticism on the casting of the tale (it stares the new hunky doctor on ER and Lana from Smallville apparently, which I already knew just from the previews), but didn't realize how much it alterred the original story. Now, the last time I read the series was approximately in 1979, so I honestly don't remember it very well - outside of hazy bits and pieces. So - I doubt I'll notice the changes. But - I would rather re-read the original novels which my mother still has, then muddying their memory with an interpretation that from what I'd read on Le Quinn's sight, I would find offensive and in fact offends the author of the work. Granted - you sell the rights, you take the consequences.Also we all do have own interpretations of what we read - interpretations that may vary greatly from the writer's/author's original intent (just visit a fanboard sometime then read or watch Whedon commentaries to see how greatly our interpretaion or perception of what we've seen/read can vary from what is in the creator's head. Scarey, isn't it?), but does that give one the right to
take that interpretation and present it, as if it were the original writers?
Isn't that why we use disclaimers - "based on the work" or "loosely based" but
"without cooperation of"? Hopefully Sci-Fi Channel will use these disclaimers.
I won't know, since I won't be watching. If they don't? I suppose Le Quinn could sue them if she so desires.
This brings up an interesting topic, actually, the relationship between an original work and a derivative work or a work based on it. When I was much younger, in the early 80s, I remember reading novelizations of Return of The Jedi and Empire Strikes Back, that were officially authorized by Lucas, prior to the films release. In the case of Jedi, I prefered the novelization to the film. Odd. Considering the film was for all intents and purposes the original.
We do the same thing with fanfic - take a tv show and write our own interpretations of it. Some interpretations bear a close resemblance to the original, some none at all.
So, I wonder, is what Sci-Fi Channel is doing with the Wizard of Earthsea Triology all that different than what we do when we write fanfic? Well, they are making money off of it. They are also advertising it as "based on" LE Quinn's novels and a close adaptation of those novels, misleading anyone who hasn't read the novels or has forgotten them (like myself). At least when we write fanfic, we make it clear this is "our own interpretation" of the characters and stories and *not* the original authors. That we do not know the original author's intent and can only guess at it, since we aren't them.
Reminds me why Whedon made it clear to Fox when they asked him to do BTVS the series - that they could own the rights, but he would have *CREATIVE*
control and they could not change his intent nor credit things to him that he did not intend. Be curious to see how that was worded in his contract with Fox.
What was most important to Whedon is that his *creative* vision come out as clearly as possible - he'd already seen it muddied twice (BTVS the film and Alien Resurrection), he wanted to prevent a third go-around. Which is why he
directs things he writes from no on. Same thing happened on Farscape - Brian Henson, Rockne O'Bannion and Steve Kemper - kept a tight reign on the rights and creative direction of their show, they did not let Sci-Fi (which is under the same corporate umbrella as Universal and NBC by the way) get control.
This is worth keeping in mind if you are a writer. Unless of course you want to take Tom Wolf and Alan Moore's approach, which is basically - I don't want to see hear or think about the film, just make it, give me lots of money. Thanks a bunch.
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Date: 2004-12-12 02:36 pm (UTC)Which was why I was expecting them to do a better job with Earthsea. Their rendering of Dune was pretty close to the original version. Oh purists may disagree, but it entertained me and felt like it at least captured some of the inner political gamemanship and spirituality without being hokey.
From what I've read, Earthsea doesn't accomplish what the miniseries Dune did. IF anything it is worse. So, am really hesistant to wast time on it.
Also the previews of it - that I've seen? Not encouraging. Shawn Asmore really appears to be miscast as does Kristin Kreuk. Shame, since we do have Isabella Rosselini and Danny Glover - both of whom I adore.