h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay so I'm doing open practice next year and have two choices as what to study for a year. Both I'd love to death until I did the math...

Option 1 - Japanesse cinema
Great! Except I don't speak Japanesse. And the average cost for an imported film that has subtitles is 20quid. This would also have to include anime because, as much as I detest it, does count as 'cinema'.

Option 2 - Cult TV series
This is the current winner because It means I can sit back for a month and binge on TV. However, theres a slight hitch.
The average cost of a series of star trek, which simply is the bench mark for the cult series, is 30 quid. Not too bad. Except for the fact that I have to buy at least one complete series from each to be able to do any sort of comparison - thats 150, plus a few films.
Then there's Buffy. Now because Buffy spans such an immense time frame, I'd need two series of that (2 and 6 ideally) - 40 quid
Now lets not forget about the fantasy because after all, they were big too. So thats another two series of hercules and xena for around 160 quid.
So thats 350 quid spent. What else would I need? Well...
Battlestar Gallactica - 20 quid
Buck rogers - 18 quid
Angel - 27 quid
x-files - 30 quid
Smalleville - 30 quid
Loius and Clark - 18 quid
24 - 18 quid
Doctor who - 12 quid, although like trek I really need one for each doctor...
Alias - 25 quid
Andromda - 20quid
A-TEAM - 15 quid (cheapest so far)
Hercules - 15 quid
Eerie Indiana - 18 quid
Addams family -unknown (its not out yet)
Batman the original series - er... I cant find it, but the films 8 quid
Lost - Already own
Firefly - Already own
Farscape - Already own
Prisoner - complete at the library
Sopranos - complete at the library

sub total - 229
Grand total = 579

Ouch.

The couse itself only costs a grand! And doesnt include sex in the city or ally macbeal, Flash Gordon or Dune, or a dozen or so series that arent on dvd yet. Lets not forget sharpe or band of brothers.

Now thats for a third of the course. A bloody third. This isnt mentioning the other 1/3 which involves me building a set and costumes and all that buisness, or the other third which will involve me buying reems of 8mm film.

Next year's going to be bloody expensive. Very bloody expensive.

Jack it in and become a postman!


RJR

Nah I'm a gambling man, and I think I've got a chance of making it to a salary bigger then a posting, especially if I move down to london which is looking increasingly likely...

you don't know about b eing a postie then, just 4 hours a day and plenty of weekend work with loads of O/T and S/A too, might be worth a look, while your at the uni!

Actually... thats not a bad idea jack.

See then i'd have garanteed income, guaranteed rent, and I could splash out on forgeworld like there was no tomorrow!

Hooray!

well its just something to keep the woolves from the door! and also allowing you to have the old spondoolies for a beer or two and or filmms to have a look at!


and cheers mate

Gah they have no jobs in preston, infidels!

Ah well just means ill have to paint a bit more.. actually a lot more. The lad next door got kicked out so the rents going to pick up again.. although on the plus side the land lord said hes taking us out for a beer or two next week so cant complain.

I have all of B5, the first series of Andromeda, Firefly, Transformers, bits of all the series I think, with G1 complete, Lots of Anime and Asian live action stuff, all the batman films aswell as lots of other comic adaptations, Faulty Towers, Blackadder series 2,3 and half of 4 and Rodriguez's Mariachi trilogy. I've got lots more too. Would any of them help?

Hell yes

I forgot about Babylon five (and crusader, cant forget that one). Andromeda I never got into but anything that had more then two series needs to be watch - the exception being firefly because it got a film and was by an established writer of the genre (come on, the guy makes buffy and angel and they kill firefly within a season, it doesnt make sense although I wouldnt want more now its finished).

blackadder and faulty towers no because there comedy, batman maybe if i can get the adam west series and show an evolution/homage, and transformers no because its animation and i dont want to go down that road because thats at least 3 months of the course id have to spend studying just animated classics.

Mariachi triology? Hmmm *scoots off to imdb*
That reminds me, still havent watched sin city

oh and add kung fu to the list, which i have kind of got

Oh yeah, I've got Crusade too...which got cancelled just as it was getting good. There's Highlander, but I don't have that, except for the films, I have them. I've got aproaching 200 DVDs plus I've still got some VHS stuff.

When I did American Film and Literature at college My main assignment focussed on Hollywood remakes of foriegn films, mostly Japanese. Focusing, primarily, on how they often lessen the effect of the original film by making the new version fit the hollywood formular. Especialy as, often, the reason they remade it in the first place was that the original film had grown a following and become very popular in the US.

See Highlander the source has never sat well with me. In fact whilst I would jump at the chance to remake the original highlander (if a suitable connor could be found) but highlander endgame just ruined it for me completely. There can be only one... unless we need an excuse to make a fifth highlander due to a mildly successful series, in which case he can have a brother who'll happily kill him. It was on the other night and I couldnt stomach a second viewing to be honest.

I've done tons of stuff on VHS, starg...

Stargate - 30 quid a set
Stargate atalantis - 30 quid a set

Although I need to get a set with the new SG-1 team (aka I want to see more Ben Browder stuff).

I noticed something watching Seven Samurai before - influenced by westerns, remade as a western, and then Joss Whedon remakes it successfully a few decades later in even less time.

There's also Seven Days which no one seems to remember and hasnt been done on DVD yet - maybe thats because the first episode was about terrorists crashing a plane into the white house ominously...

re you sure about the following thing though? I mean, films like Seven Samurai and Yojimbo were massive in Japan, and Hollywood isnt stupid. Yojimbo translates nicely whilst seven samurai doesnt because theres a different moral behind it.

got not done, hmmmm odd spelling mistake

yes, but if you compared Yojimbo, Last Man Standing and Fist Full of Dollars, the really hollywood one, Last Man, falls down in comparison to the other two. There also seems to be a fad to make sequels of the remakes too. The most obvious example of the dichotomy between Hollywood and Japanese cinema is Gojira. They butchered the original when they imported it for the US market and then they made a remake which kinda fudged the original message. Although it did have the 'is it right to make an entire species extinct to save the human race?' thing, but they essentially took a whole two seconds to come up with 'Oh hell yeah, let's nuke that mother fu***r' or words to that effect...only without the nuking obviously as that wouldn't have worked.

Ok, the profanity filter is really frakkin stupid. I stared out all but the f & r of Fu**er and it blocked it, i change the first star to a u and it's ok

Most films compared to Yojimbo seem to fall down though. Hes essentially macCloud - a brilliant swordsmen till he meets a weapon of no skill (the kurgans brute strength = a revolver) which is why hes so brilliant. In fact, I'm going to watch it now.

How much did babylon five + crusader put you back btw - I'll need to add that to the list *cries*

In fact, each time I think about it I cry, because I remember a series that should be on there.

The only thing I've fallen short on is the fantasy side - theres xena, hercules, and then thats it. Surely theres some more and especially with the success of Xena and Hercules (which, despite much cheese, are still damn fine examples of a good tv show... oh well fine I think lucy lawless is hot there are you happy now with your questioning eyes!)

there's a Conan series, which isn't suposed to be to bad. I can't remember exactly how much crusade and B5 cost, I think the most I paid was £25 for one series, but I think some were les than £20. Can't think of any other fantsy series, it doesn't tend towards great programing.

Yeh but I dont even think that got beyond 6 episodes...

I don't think there's much else in cult fantasy. If you want more fantsy then there are a few miniseries, like the 1997 adaptation of The Odyssey

See I'm tempted to venture into that - it opens up about a dozen hallmark series that would give the whole thing a bit more clout in terms of fantasy - it means I could explore why fantasy hasnt been made when other things thrive.

I mean, what seperates Xena and Hercules apart from say Buffy? Essentially not that much, although Xena/Hercules always had a youngish market where as Buffy locked onto its age group and matured with them.

Its still odd though. I mean perhaps its simply a money issue.

It's probably also that Sci-Fi sells, we know sci-fi sells as a TV program because of the success of such shows as B5, Star Trek, Stargate and Andromeda. However fantasy has never really done well on TV, Xena and Hercules being the exceptions rather than the rule. Mostely because the budgets needed for decent monsters were far in excess of what shows like that would get. People would accept aliens that looked mostly human, but dragons and goblins should look like dragons or goblins, not plasticine/plastic dinosaurs and men with green facepaint on.

US TV execs want to spend as little money on a show as possible and get as much back as they can so they will rarely risk making fantasy shows. Even now established writers with known franchises are having difficulty selling sci-fi, Joss with firefly, which got canceled as a xmas pressie to Joss, and J. Michael Streczynski, who had Crusade canceled and Legend Of The Rangers never made it past pilot. Yet these are bankable writers and sci-fi, one of the most popular genres in the cinematic arts.