Journal Entries
Pundits
Posted Nov 17, 2002
Clay Shirky (http://www.shirky.com) and Danny O'Brien (http://www.ntk.net among others) spoke yesterday at a BBC New Media seminar on Digital Identity, and both said basically the same thing - community is important, and the BBC is the *only* place that can do it now, because the commercial arena can't make it pay.
(I don't have a very high opinion of pundits, but in this case I agreed with everything they said, so obviously they're talking sense and people should listen 
)
Danny talked about how the BBC invented teletext in the 70s, then gave it away to everyone. In the 80s there was the BBC Microcomputer, created specifically to teach 'computer literacy' (which in those days meant programming). My first computer was a BBC Micro, and my first job was programming a BBC for Computer Concepts (http://www.cconcepts.co.uk/). Danny suggested that the BBC invented UK personal computing, which is a bit of a stretch, but I certainly owe my entire career to it.
Another theme was that, as well as building the best possible tools for enabling digital community, the BBC should then give it away to everyone who wants it. Clay Shirky told me, in no uncertain terms 'You should absolutely open-source DNA.' And apparently, the BBC even has a form for doing just that.
It's an interesting thought. Although I'm a bit of a coward, and the thought of loads of people poring over my code and picking it to pieces fills me with some dread. But you can see the advantages to the BBC.
Maybe I should start small - open up the XML feed that underlies every page on this site, and publish the XSLT stylesheets that turn them into HTML. Although I wonder if the BBC would be entirely happy if people were viewing the site in skins of their own devising, which didn't have the disclaimers and the corporate baggage that's so important? Who knows. We got moderation lifted, so anything's possible. Anyone out there interested in looking at 1 Megabyte of XSLT?
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Latest reply: Nov 17, 2002
This is exactly what we *didn't* want to happen
Posted Oct 21, 2002
I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.
I hate office politics.
Discuss this Journal entry [8]
Latest reply: Oct 21, 2002
Spider-Man
Posted Jun 13, 2002
I just returned from watching Spider-Man. One advantage of convalescing - I might as well sit around in a cinema for two hours than at home.
WARNING: This entry contains spoilers
After the huge success in the US I was hopeful, but braced for disappointment. I've been a comics fan all my life, and Spider-Man was a big part of that. I used to read SMCW (the UK reprints) and picked up again in the mid eighties during the comic renaissance of that time, and enjoyed Todd McFarlane's work with writers like David Michelinie and Peter David (although I was a little underwhelmed by his solo work, frankly).
Anyway, this is just a little full disclosure - I was a huge comics fan (not so much now - I lost interest when Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld became the benchmark, and suddenly everyone started squinting).
So I approached this movie with a little trepidation. Having seen plenty of stills, and the trailer, I was unconvinced. Mostly by the hair. Harry (and his father) missed his trademark weird haircut, and Flash Thompson should have been blond. At least they got J. Jonah Jameson right. And from the trailer, the effects didn't look quite right.
But what of the movie?
Oh
My
God
With a few minor niggles (including the hair) it was about as perfect a Spider-Man movie as I could have hoped for. Tobey Maguire was pitch-perfect as Peter Parker. Nerdy at the beginning, insecure even when he got his powers, and basically the best actor you've ever seen play a superhero since Christopher Reeve.
The rest of the cast were excellent (except maybe Harry - but then Harry was always a bit of a nonentity to me. It'll be interesting to see if he fulfills his comic-book destiny in future films). Kirsten Dunst was a perky Mary Jane, and her and Maguire's scenes together had good chemistry.
Willem Dafoe excelled as Norman Osborn and his Alter Ego. By far the best of any recent supervillains, and on a par with Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor. He could so easily have done a Jack Nicholson and overwhelmed the movie. Instead he played the part to perfection, chillingly convincing in his switches between Osborn and the Goblin.
Aunt May was almost perfect - not quite frail enough - and was it a heart attack she was hospitalised for? They never said explicitly, but I guess we should assume so.
The effects were, for the most part, great. Some of the animation suffered from that bugbear of mine - non-ballistic motion. When Spidey jumps from one place to another, he too often falls far too fast. The brain is good at recognising true ballistic motion (that's how you can catch a ball) so when animators fake it or exaggerate that kind of movement it reads false. But this wasn't too widespread, and the quality of the effects in general was high.
In particular, what we all wanted to see: Spidey web-slinging through New York. And here, they played a blinder.
Rather than cut from Peter training and practising to a fully-realised Spider-Man swinging through the streets, we saw his first attempt, and with it experienced the pure joy of being Spider-Man. And once more, a movie has reduced me to tears of joy. First, Yoda and his lightsabre, now Spidey swinging through New York. Two iconic scenes brought to life to perfection in a way that only a movie can do.
The rest of the movie would have to be pretty good to match up to that high. And it was. The Goblin was a good choice as the first villain - because he linked all the main characters, nothing was forced. My one disappointment was the lack of mystery as to the Goblin's identity - something the comic played with for a long time - but I suppose they knew that a lot of the audience knew anyway, and those that weren't comic fans would have realised that in a movie like this, Willem Dafoe wasn't playing a good guy. So that's a very minor point, since I did like his dual personality scenes.
At this point, I feel I should address The Gwen Stacey Issue. Yes, by rights, it should have been Gwen Stacey as the love interest. And yes, she should have died on the bridge. However, that would not have worked in this movie. In the comics, we'd had *years* of backstory leading to that event, and in an isue of a comic that's been running for years, your hero *can* let the heroine die. But it would not have worked in this movie. We haven't had years of this Spider-Man being a hero and saving people, so we wouldn't allow him to fail at that point.
So I say the filmmakers were right to make this (rather major) change from the comics, and personally, I preferred it. Frankly, I don't like seeing heroes fail. I want good to triumph over evil, and I want the innocent to be rescued. And in this movie, I wasn't disappointed. Even the slightly cheesy 'people of New York vs The Goblin' made me smile.
And the final showdown was grim. A knock-down, drag-out fight which took a true hero to overcome. And fittingly, the Goblin got his 'stake of humble tin' at the end - the filmmakers realising they couldn't improve on Gerry Conway's ending (although the comic still has the edge with this, thanks to Gwen's death).
There were loads of nice touches - Peter's first job was working for a Doctor Connors, for example - and some of the moments you expect are still handled well. I was never fully convinced in the comics when Peter let the thief go at the TV studio, but here it's completely understandable, and of course makes his epiphany shortly afterwards all the more heart-breaking.
I can now see why Spider-Man has been such a phenomenon in the US. This movie has been on the cards for so long that it was like it would never happen, and I had worried that a light character like Spider-Man might get buried under the kind of gothic presentation that fitted Batman so well. But the tone was right, the casting perfect, it looked fabulous, and so becomes the best superhero movie I've yet seen.
See it.
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Latest reply: Jun 13, 2002
Attack of the Clones
Posted May 17, 2002
We saw Attack of the Clones today. And I loved it completely. By far the best time I've had in a cinema for a long, long time. For a more in-depth review (which contains a lot of spoilers, so don't read it if you haven't seen the film) see A752203.
I've read some online reviews saying people thought it was the worst film they'd ever seen. I think such people are wrong, obviously, but also misguided. Even if you don't like the dialogue, or think it's all soulless special effects, you have to admire the skill behind it at least. I've seen Johnny Mnemonic, so I know what a bad movie is. These people just want to pose, take the 'cool' option rather than surrender to the sheer joy of a movie which only wants to entertain.
I pity them. Treat yourself, and see this film.
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Latest reply: May 17, 2002
Merry Christmas
Posted Dec 25, 2001
We've just come back from midnight mass, so it's time to wish everyone on h2g2 a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I'm thinking back to where we were last year. h2g2 Ltd had run out of money, we hadn't been paid for at least a month, and the BBC were waiting for official approval before they could take over the site, which might not have been granted, so we all had a rather fraught Christmas.
I think it turned out OK, though. And I hope next year will be even better for h2g2.
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Latest reply: Dec 25, 2001
Jim Lynn
Researcher U6
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