This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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 We watched this over a few days again. And after all, when it was originally aired in 1967, it was four episodes, each a week apart, so that is fine. There had only been the two first doctor stories available on DVD. So it was on to the second. It has been interesting for me to watch these 1960’s episodes, because they were the ones which were NOT in circulation on PBS in the late 70s and early 80s when I was actually watching this show. The 4th Doctor was my first doctor, and I remember being shocked when I saw him regenerate into the 5th. I had no idea that could happen! Then over time I was exposed to the newer Doctors as they came about, and got to see some Third Ddoctor… but pretty much no first and Second Doctor. If I saw them, it was tidbits here and there. Which of course makes sense, since a good deal of the First and Second Doctor episodes had been destroyed by the BBC to make room in their storage closets, and just plain don’t exist any more.
I think this time around with Brandy and Amy is probably the first time I’ve really watched a complete first doctor story from beginning to end. And I know that aside from multi-doctor episodes, this is the first time I have seen the Second Doctor in Action.
And hey… I like him!!! The first Doctor was just a bbit too much the grumpy old guy on the sidelines who would occationally chip in, but didn’t do much… he left that to his companions. The second doctor is an active participant, and shows some snarky Doctor attitude. Different personality than all the other doctors of course, but I think much more in the mold of all the others than the First, who really is radically different.
The actual cybermen in this were laughable, but that just amde it funny. Their voices were almost impossible for me to understand. I’d catch some words, but they were just so modulated to make them sound cyber… that I couldn’t understand a word. I did like the little cyberman theme music that came on every time they were emerging from their hibernation chambers and such. Do, do do DO DO…. Uh, that doesn’t do it justice. But I liked it. :-)
Anyway, fun episode. Summary and stuff here. Definately dated, but hey, that’s expected. And I do like the Second Doctor. I wish more of his episodes existed. Just a handful survived. There are two Second Doctor stories available on DVD at Netflix. We’ll watch the next one in a few weeks. The next two Saturdays Amy will be visiting her Grandma, so we’ll wait until she is back again.
 We got back too late from the space center on Saturday. Everybody was sleepy. Amy was already asleep. And this story was six 25 minute episodes. So, we skipped it for the night.
The next night, there was still some debate. We knew it was a 2 disk set, and would it be fair to watch the first part while my mom was visiting, but the second the next week, after she was gone, thus leaving her in suspense? But thankfully, it turns out all six episodes are on Disk 1. Disk 2 is all special features it seems. (So I put it way in the back of the Netflix Q.)
But when we got back Sunday, it was late again. So we decided to split things up a bit. Rather than attempt to watch all six episodes in a row we ended up watching one, then the next day three, then on a third day the last two episodes.
I feel a bit guilty for subjecting my mom to three days of this stuff. I mean, it can be fun, but that is a lot. This was a very famous story, and for the era (originally aired in November and December of 1964) it was considered to be pretty good. But the pacing is slow, the effects laughable, etc. But that was to be expected.
The quick summary of the story is here.
We did get to see some fun scenes with Daleks all around London. And the historic moment of Susan leaving. She was the first companion to ever leave. And she was the Doctor’s Granddaughter and all!
And basically, he just marooned her on Earth, with no way to get back to him or to their home planet or anything. It was because she had fallen in love with some guy and was “now a woman” and all that, and needed to start a life seperate from her grandfather. OK, fine, but… basically, he abandoned her on a planet that was not her own with some guy she had known for less than a week.
Oops.
It was fun. I liked laughing at some of it. But like I’ve said before, I’ve always had a bit of trouble getting into the first Doctor.
Anyway, that is it for the First Doctor episodes available from Netflix. Next up, the Second Doctor, and Cybermen!
 Saturday morning UTC (what other folks around here would call Friday night) Amy wanted to have one of her movie nights. Since the movies both Brandy and I have from Netflix right now are not 9 year old friendly, we agreed. But the DVD Amy has from Netflix right now (some Punk’d episodes she has cause one of them has Hilary Duff) is one she decided she did not want to watch right then. So she picked one from the ones we already had. Shrek 2. I’d seen it in the theater, and Amy had bought the DVD long ago, but I hadn’t actually watched the DVD yet. So we did.
I think I still had more fun with the first Shrek, but the second Shrek was good too. It was just cute. Nice cat. Nice donkey. A few ogres. Brandy fell asleep. My mom had not seen it before. It is fun trying to catch all the references in it to various other things. Some are obvious, some you have to look for.
Anyway, I wouldn’t call Shrek 2 a masterpiece or anything. I probably would not be choosing it myself for a second or third or fourth viewing. One was just fine. But if someone else, like the resident 9 year old, chooses it, I certainly have no objections. It is fun, and a good way to kill a couple of hours.
 I didn’t get home from Atlanta early enough (not even close) to do our usual weekend Doctor Who at the normal time, so we did it about 24 hours later instead. It being a holiday weekend and all.
First one up was The Aztecs. You can see a summary and all of the details at the link. The short summary is that the Doctor and his companions land in the middle of an Aztec temple, and have a little adventure as they try to escape and perhaps influence the fate of the Aztecs at the same time. This originally came out in 1964, so the flavor is just a LITTLE different than the new ones we’d been watching.
Black and White. Essentially non-existant special effects. Much slower paced. I fully expected Amy to fall asleep. We were planning on watching the first two of the four 25 minute episodes this week, and the last two next week. But at the end of the first two (with a quick break to play in the pool and watch fireworks being set off by the neighbors) she was insisting on seeing the rest. Right NOW. So we did. :-)
I’ve never really been able to get into the first Doctor. He is OK. But I kinda doubt I would have stuck with the show if he was all there was. Well, perhaps when I was a kid, which is of course the target audience. The best part was just laughing at some of the really bad effects and overacting. Always enjoyable.
Anyway, the disk is back in the mail, and we should have another by next weekend.
Of course, at the moment we have three other Netflix disks out, one picked by each of us, and we’ve had them for a long time. I’d like to get to those sometime too.
 Friday after work, Brandy was going out partying with people from her work, so I suggested to Amy that we have one of our movie nights at home which we haven’t had for awhile. So we ordered Chinese and watched her current Netflix movie. It was Raising Helen.
That’s the one where the New York Sex in the City Style woman’s sister dies, and suddenly she has three kids. You get the struggles as she adapots to suddenly having kids. She has to give up tons. Her life changes completely. The kids are in mourning and the oldest one rebels.
OK, I’ll admit something. At this point I saw this DVD almost two days ago. I meant to write the little web review thing right away, and had a number of things I intended to say. But things kept coming up and it is now two days later, and I mostly forget now. And I guess that says a bunch.
It was a decent little movie. Pulled some emotional strings at the right moments. At the end things end up like you think they would. I did not like the woman playing the older surviving sister. I didn’t mind the couple of hours I spent. It was fun and I got to hang out with Amy. But it wouldn’t be on a list of movies I must own or watch again…
 What can I say. This is the same suckfest as it was when it came out in the theaters. You’d think with all the reworking of the original movies Lucas did, he might be able to fix up this a bit. You know, take out the sucky parts that add absolutely nothing to the story and leave you groaning and hoping it is over soon? Of course, if you did that with this movie, you’d be left with half an hour or so. OK, MAYBE 45 minutes if you are generous. Basically the whole part of the movie before they get to coursocant (a little over an hour) could easily have been boiled down to 15 minutes. I mean, how long is that stupid pod race? I should know, I kept looking at my wrist to see what time it was. (But I don’t know because I was frustrated by the fact I haven’t worn a watch in almost 20 years, so there was no time to see on my wrist.) Then the parts after that could have been perhaps expanded a bit. More of the Jedi temple. More Darth Maul. Speaking of which, they really shouldn’t have ended him the way they did. He had potential to be interesting if expanded upon.
Anyway, as everybody knows, Episode I was a complete screw up and dissapointment to anybody over 10 who watched it. But Lucas stated he was aiming at kids and not the fans of the original trilogy. And still made huge wads of cash, so hey, it worked for him. But it sucked.
So anyway, I had gotten home with Amy a little earlier than usual, with the intention of immediately starting Episode I so I could watch both last night. But then by the time I got home, Brandy was just leaving work (a little later than usual) so although we could have started without her, we waited for her to get home and then get dinner ready before starting. So we didn’t get done with it until late. Amy fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through. (Right about at her bedtime.) After it ended, Brandy fell asleep right away. I started Episode II, but only got about 30 minutes into it before I was too sleepy to continue.
We have tickets for III for 8 PM tonight. So I’ll probably try to finish II at lunch and then right after work or some such. Looks like there may not be time for Clone Wars before the movie. Oh well!
I’m sorry that Amy and Brandy were not able to watch all of all five before we see the new one, but hey, they kept falling asleep! :-)
 Well, I started watching Jedi right after I made the ESB post. But half way in I was really sleepy, so I went to sleep. Didn’t finish it until last night. So I’m a day behind now. We’re planning on seeing the new one Friday night. So that means I have to watch Episodes I and II, and maybe the Clone Wars cartoons before then. That is a lot to watch in 24 hours or so! Especially on a work day!
Anyway, Jedi is Jedi. I know many disagree and hate the Ewoks and all, and I’m not a big Ewok fan, but I always liked Jedi best of the original three. Basically jsut for one thing. The whole Luke/Vader/Emporer interaction once Luke is brought to the Death Star. I just like that whole sequence.
A few of the changes I wasn’t thrilled about. Changing the hallway in which Luke and Vader first talk (in this episode) to one with windows overlooking the forest. OK, it makes sense given the setting, but I think it detracts attention from the personal dynamic occuring at that time. Better the stark hallway than the distracting forest.
Also, I hate the new music over the celebration. I like the jumping between the planets to show the celebration in places other than Endor (although I could do without the Jar Jar relative yelling “Meesa Free!!”). But I liked the original Ewok music much better. It just seemed much more honest and joyous and such, and seemed to reflect the situation the characters were in better. I dunno. Just didn’t like it. Gimme that old fashoned Ewok music any day!
I also didn’t like them putting in Ewan McGregor in as Anikin in the last scene with Obi-Wan and Yoda. Originally it was the guy who played the Anikin head you saw when Luke took off Vader’s helmet. They didn’t replace THAT with Ewan (thank goodness!). And you didn’t see the young versions of Obi-Wan and Yoda, but them as they were when they died (approximately). Just didn’t like that. Maybe it will be explained in III. But still don’t like it.
Anyway… guess I’ll be buying the tickets for us to see III in a few minutes. Then I’d better get to watching the rest of the movies I need to see before then.
Oh. Oops. Forgot I was at work. Damn.
 Last night, right after almost destroying my computer, we started watching Empire Strikes Back. This time us being just me and Brandy, Amy having already gone to bed. Brandy fell asleep somewhere around the time Han and company were inside the asteroid worm thing and before Luke went into the cave. I stayed up to the end of course. Although I was very sleepy in the morning.
Myt memory patterns were different on this one. Remebered the beginning and the end, less of the middle. But again, nothing I didn’t remember at all. The changes were less noticible in Empire. Being able to see outside in Bespin and all, where in the original there were walls instead of windows. (I think that was already changed in the special editions though.) Anyway, enjoyable, but while I know a lot of people think Empire was the best of the original three, it just doesn’t have the huge impact to me. Maybe it is because the big surprise at the end isn’t anymore because nobody nowhere nohow doesn’t already know.
Oh, one thing I didn’t like though. They changed the dialoge when Vadar talks to the emporor. I didn’t mind that they put in the actor who played the emporor in Jedi and now the prequel trilogy, that consistancy is fine, but they should not have changed the text… it is now a bit more explicit on the Anakin back story, and I’m not sure that was needed. Oh well.
It is late already, and we haven’t started Jedi yet for tonight. So we’d better get to it…
 In preparation for the new one coming out later this week, thought it would be good to watch all the old ones again. I had intended to start earlier, but only just got to the first (well, fourth) one last night. Unfortunately the bulb on the projector died a bit ago and we haven’t gotten around to replacing it yet. I had really wanted to watch these projected up to wall size, but that is OK I guess. Instead, we finally hooked up a five disk DVD player / receiver / home theater kit thingy that I had won in a raffle over a year ago. My other DVD player is in the family room for the projector (and temporarily for a regular TV there). We set this one up in the master bedroom. I got really frustrated by the lack of a backlight on the remote, but we watched the movie. The first half Brandy and Amy and I were all on the bed, then Amy fell asleep between us. All very nice. At one point though we needed to stop cause the dog needed to go out and Amy was crushing Brandy’s arm. Which inturrupted the flow a little, but would have been OK. But then when we were ready to start I hit the wrong button ont he stupid remote, then accidentially started the movie over from the beginning. Then I had to find the right chapter we were on and start it from there, which backed it up to repeat about 5 minutes. This confusticated me greatly, and I started to have a little fit, and almost stopped for the night with the intention of starting over from the beginning again the next day, because I was now completely out of the movie groove, and was too upset to really enjoy it all. But, after about 10 minutes I calmed down, and we watched the rest of the movie. Well, I did. Brandy fell asleep. (And of course Amy was already asleep.)
I’m not going to spend too much time actually talking about this movie, because well, everybody in the universe pretty much has seen it multiple times. Now, this was the first time I’d watched the DVD release, which had even more changed on top of what had been changed for the Special Edition releases a few years back. So it was cool looking for some of the differences. Also, I relized that I actually had NOT seen this THAT many times. I’d seen the end like a billion times, cause I would flip channels and see it on TV and watcht he end. And the closer to the end we got, the more was clearly remembered. The stuff at the beginning, much fuzzier. Not that there was anything I didn’t remember at all mind you (other than some of the new things) but it was just interesting to see how my memories of the end were much stronger than of the beginning.
I’m intending to post little snippets on each new DVD I watch (I won’t redo ones I’ve done before if I watch them again). I didn’t actually intend to start this with five star wars movies in a row, but it just happened to be the first ones after I decided I would do this. The last movie before these was Rebel Without a Cause if that helps. And there will probably be more variety later. We shall see.
Also, this will be like five in five days if I actually do all of them in time to watch the new one Saturday (not even thinking of trying for opening night), whereas I normally only get around to watching a DVD (either one of my own choice or one Brandy or Amy picked) once every few weeks.
Anyway, so that is Star Wars.
Oh yeah, and obligitory stuff…
I agree with the folks that say the change to when Han shot Greedo sucked. Still does.
I actually like most of the added affects, but there are a few that didn’t seem to fit quite right.
Even with redone CGI yet again, the Han / Jabba scene doesn’t work well. Should have just left it out still.
Uh, that’s enough I guess.
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