Subject: ...wut.
Author:
Posted on: 2014-08-06 20:22:00 UTC
I just... I can't...
*curls up in the corner and dies*
Subject: ...wut.
Author:
Posted on: 2014-08-06 20:22:00 UTC
I just... I can't...
*curls up in the corner and dies*
This thread is not a joke.
This thread is seriously, honestly, genuinely not a joke. To the best of my knowledge, everything I'm about to tell you is 100% true.
You're still not going to believe me, and frankly I don't blame you. But this thread is not a joke.
In the early 1970s, United Artists commissioned a script for The Lord of the Rings. This fell between the Zimmerman script mentioned in Tolkien's Letters, and the eventual Bakshi movie we all love to mock. The script was written by John Boorman, who later reworked some aspects of it into Excalibur, and it...
... well, let me put it like this. You know how we complain that Jackson didn't read the books?
I've compiled a comprehensive breakdown of the script from two sources who seem to have actually seen it, which you can find here. It's long, but... yeah, you should read it. It... shall we say, 'rewards' reading.
And some extracts, just to whet your appetite/make you run screaming:
I don't understand... Who could do this?
This... this is terrible!
Actually, it's quite impressive how much worse this is than a fair amount of hormonally-influenced Suefic. It's horrifying, sure. But impressive.
Can we spork it? Is the question burning in my mind after reading the extracts and a bit of the rest. Okay, probably not, since it was released to the general public and thus it would be unfair.
But, seriously, this rivals some of the worst badfics I have seen being killed by Agents.
Just because a fanfic has been published or because it's a movie script, doesn't make it not a fanfic.
First and foremost, I can't track down a copy of the complete script; the summary is by someone who owns a copy, but they haven't released the full text.
Secondly, the full script is 176 pages long. ;)
And third... are you ready for this?
This was an officially-created script in collaboration with the Tolkien Estate (and possibly Tolkien himself). The fact that it was ultimately rejected, to my mind, is immaterial. It occupies exactly the same position in respect to Middle-earth as the Bakshi and Jackson movies. Which (you're gonna love this) technically makes it a canon in need of protection...
And if anyone can find badfic* of it for me to spork, I will be eternally grateful.
hS
*'Why specify badfic?' Because there actually is BLotR fanfic. It's by Hama of TheOneRing.com, and runs like this:
Boorman
Featuring Mortic Wentway of the Department of WhatThe, Rile X of DAVD, a handful of surprise guests, and appalling treatment of everyone's favourite Dwarf.
hS
Please say that at the very least in some dark depth of my imagination, that man is suffering through "Evil Is as Evil Does" and "Elven Customs and Language." Please?
I'm not done with this... but... I think this must be what it's like to be on drugs. That part with "the Mirror of Galadriel?" Eeeeer...
That's all I can say.
I like how you handled the 'canon' nature of the Boorman script, and the reaction of the agents when they realised that they couldn't technically do anything about it.
Rile X finding out that he'd volunteered for the mission was very amusing, especially considering what Kyaris says later on (and him very wisely keeping quiet).
I like the exorcism scene, especially that it didn't work right the first time. Out of interest, the memory capsules that Mortic tried using at first, is this the first time they've appeared? I don't recall reading about them before. Quoting a canon character's description at them to try and get them back in character seems like a very good way of doing things.
There were some particularly good lines in there, my favourite line from the whole thing is definitely '“Well done, you can understand simple statements,” Kyaris said. “Here’s another one: don’t touch anything.' (It's that last bit that makes it such a good line, for me).
Just one minor comment about SPaG - those pesky dash followed by a speech marks are causing trouble again. While they should be closing speech marks, they're opening marks instead.
With regards to the mission pins, why does Mortic look for one for both of them? I thought they were just used for indicating that an agent had been temporarily seconded to work with another Department, so I can see Rile receives the WhatThe pin, but not why Mortic would be looking for the DAVD one for himself.
The memory capsules are new for this - they were originally going to be simple USB memory sticks, but in an upcoming mission, Agent hS doesn't recognise a DVD because HQ (or at least his part) uses more advanced, fictional technology where it can. So I gave Mort something more advanced, too.
I really dislike smart quotes; I need to start remembering to get rid of them. All now changed to straight quotes to neatly sidestep the problem.
Mission pins: well, I could pin this on Mort not really knowing how they work! But more generally, except possibly in the case of the Department of Plagiarism, secondment seems to work both ways. Rile X was seconded (or pressganged) to WhatThe because his expertise as a DAVD agent could be useful. Equally, one could view the mission as Rile X's assignment, with Mort seconded in to provide WhatThe expertise.
Plus, it was an opportunity to make a joke about DAVD's flashpatch, which I couldn't resist. ;) Yes, I could have taken the chance to decide what the patch could be, thus standardising the system and making everything a bit more logical - but this was way more fun. I'm hoping the question of what their patch is - and even the question of why that's a 'funny story' - never gets answered. :D
(Of course, technically it would be Rile's responsibility to give Mort a DAVD pin - but until they hit general circulation, that's not going to happen. So Mort did it himself, or tried to)
hS
I thought the memory capsules were new. One of my favourite aspects of the PPC setting is all the crazy tech we have (particularly the stuff the developed in-house, instead of just pinched from a canon) so I was a little surprised to see a reference to what seemed to be standard equipment that I'd never heard of.
With regards to the mission pins, and who counts as being seconded to who, my personal thought is that whoever receives the mission on the console is the 'primary agent', with the other being seconded. So in this case, it was a DAVD mission, because it went to Mortic's console, with WhatThe support. But that's just me - there's no reason why it can't be that everyone participating gets a pin.
I really like the idea of the mission pins, and hope to have an excuse to use them myself sometime.
By the way, did you get my recent(ish) e-mails about Ispace Wars chapter 7 and the updated version of my Ispace mission?
The 'high-speed exorcism' approach used by Mortic is pretty much unique to him. It's something that wouldn't be necessary to most departments - only WhatThe and maybe DAVD have to cope with ultra-fast derailments like that - and further, it requires special skill to use. If you recall (or even if you don't!) Mortic is from the Order; pinpoint accuracy simultaneous delivery of nine capsules is certainly an Order skill or incantation at work. A Jedi could probably pull it off, or some kinds of magic user, or maybe a machine intelligence - but I don't think even, say, a Noldo of Aman could do that.
I did get your emails, though I don't think I've read them... a week's holiday followed by having to get through a 24-episode DVD box set in a week has kind of devoured my computer time.
hS
Yeah, I wasn't thinking that it was a standard procedure, or that you were trying to make it one. I just think it's cool to see variety in going about a typical task (well, typical if you're a PPC agent that is. I imagine that exorcisms are fairly non-standard these days).
I couldn't remember much about Mortic (I've just visited his wiki page for a refresher), but I assumed that he was more than just a regular human from the way he hit them all at once like that. I meant to comment on that, but it looks like I forgot. The way it was described, with his hand sweeping out and a series of small projectiles striking with unerring accuracy, put me in mind of the kunai skills of typical anime ninjas (the badass main character types, as opposed to the swarms of faceless minions that get mown down). However, after looking at his page again, I can be fairly confident that he is not a ninja :)
In the unpublished portions of Winding Down, I have this exchange:
Tango shrugged. "Not my choice. My go? Right. You, Mortic."
The man blinked. "Been a while," he murmured. "Truth, please."
Tango thought for a moment, and then caught Elanor's eye. Nodding thoughtfully, she asked, "How old are you?"
Mortic frowned. "You're asking me that?"
"I wouldn't have said it if I weren't."
The Agent shrugged. "I don't actually know, anyway. I mean, the Order broke up a long time ago… the factions eventually showed up again as various organisations on Earth. The Knights Templar, the Freemasons… "
"The Masons claim to go back to Solomon's temple," Ontic pointed out, looking at him. "You can't be that old."
Mortic looked surprised. "Oh, yes, older than that. We were involved in sorting out the aftermath of the Exodus, settling the Egyptians back down and so on. And there was a while before that…"
"I think the answer's simply 'very old'," Ontic informed Tango. "You're not going to get anything better."
Tango sighed. "I guess… your turn, Mortic."
As far as I'm concerned, that's written canon - and now it's on the Board, so it can even be cited. ^-^
hS
Perhaps a copy could make its way around HQ, and each glaring part could be reacted to by a different agent pair. With comments like "I really hope that badficcers never hear of it because I don't want to protect it." Maybe the agents that didn't read the books will find parts that they like.
What's so bad about this is that clearly, they have read the books. They just didn't care.
Aragorn and Eowyn and basically healing cock? Frodo naked in the middle of the Council and Arwen is only 13 years old? How do Elves age when extremely young compared to young humans?
The thing that strikes me the most in all these examples you've included is the profound lack of analysis. They've clearly read enough to get the gist of what is on the page, but they've made no effort whatsoever to understand what they were reading.
If memory serves me, in TOS, there was a fic where Arwen was around 9. Jay or Acacia mentioned that at that age she would have been an baby. This makes the whole scene with 13 year old Arwen seem even more ridiculous, since she couldn't have been more than a toddler.
The mechanics of elven aging are a bit unclear, particularly since they're based on a single source. In essence, though, our their bodies age slower, but their minds age faster. So they talk and run by the age of one or so - but by the age of (say) five, they still look to human eyes like a two-year old. Even though they're probably as bright as a ten-year-old.
In Aman, the age of adulthood was 50 (!!! and that might even be 50 Valian years, or 500 years of the sun), but that doesn't necessarily imply that's when their bodies reached adult stature. Humans reach full growth long before 'adulthood' - particularly in Tolkien's time, when 'adult' meant 21.
So I read this as Arwen looking around 13, since it seems to be stage direction, not dialogue. That would make her about, oh, mid-twenties, maybe? And intelligent enough to have several university degrees. ;) 'course, she's only half-elven, so it may be even more messed up...
hS
I just... I can't...
*curls up in the corner and dies*