Category: lj


I got a couple of posts in the comment area and a few IM’s so I figured I should bring this into its own post rather than a comment.

The first DVD and what happened:

The original issue of the DVD has rescued footage of an ending that would have followed the original film and the broadway show.

As originally filmed.
The plant kills Audrey. She does the reprise of “Somewhere that’s Green” there is a very spiritual scene with Seymour feeding Audry to the plant. He tries to commit suicide on the roof. Then makes a failed attempt to kill the plant and is eaten. “You ate the only thing I ever loved”

The DVD shows “Don’t feed the plants” with a load of rough scenes of the plants taking over the world. The smiling plant is seen in a toy store.

Test audiences (used to Hollywood endings) couldn’t deal with the B-Movie Horror ending. Despite the filming being finished, Geffen ordered Oz to rehire the cast and crew to reshoot the ending (under much vehement disagreement from Oz).

You can tell where the cut occurs if you watch the final release carefully. A munched Audrey is pulled to the back of the store. Seymour bends over her and worriedly calls to her, “Audrey, Audrey?” There is a strange edit between these “Audrey’s.” This is the case because several months elapsed between Moranis saying these two words.

Oz was never happy about this change. (As a director I can sympathise with the order, “Change the ending of your movie. I don’t like how the story ends”) He has running commentary throughout the ‘rescued’ footage. His tone and comments make it clear that he’s not happy.

It turned out that Geffen may have perceived the release of this footage was to challenge his decision. Geffen was reported to have the attitude that ‘This is the way the film was released, this is what the audiences should see.’ So the discs were yanked and destroyed within days of the 1998 issue.

Now, I haven’t seen the 2000 issue. I don’t know if the disc is the same disc that has simply been re-mastered. It could be that Geffen has acquiesced as the proof is public. The new disc may be missing the old footage and simply be a standard DVD release. If anyone has the 2000 issue of the DVD (check the ISBN number as per my previous post) I’d love to compare. (Granted, I could just plunk $10 on the disc…)

Regardless, there are differences between the 1998 issue and the 2000 issue. In 1999 (when I tracked down my copy) it was rare. It was a disc that had circulation only in the numbers purchased. This disc will be a long range collectable now.

Here I will talk about personal theories on how collectibles work. Please note, my numbers are illustrative estimates and not in any way related to hard data except where stated. The industry of collectibles is (like the stock market) a field that has so many variables that a crystal ball or monkey with a dart may be just as effective.

A closer analysis of collectables

Work Work Work

I have good-coding days and bad-coding days. And all it takes is a touch of distressing code to send me over to the dark side. Granted…an accomplishment always sends me back.

I’d been working on my own little program. For those of you that know my coding this is, “Yet another dev project….’ Though this one has gone exceedingly better than others have.

Meanwhile, at work I’ve been asked to add functionality that I’ve advised against. What developer hasn’t found himself in this little box? Well, I soent a good 2 1/2 hours last night expending lots of clever points. Making something work that just shouldn’t. Today when I presented my findings to the great old ones. The architects….

Unfortunately, I didn’t expend nearly enough clever points and it would seem that some of the work was already done for me and in a manner that is more complete and better handled.
(sigh)

And on days like this I wonder why I haven’t returned to theatre.

Edit: 20061125 – Adding tags and elabouration
Added: 20061125 – I wish I could tell which coding project this was. Over the years there have been many. One of my older ones actually came around again recently (the Life program).

As for the work issue. I believe this was an application I was designing at Symantec. The Application was about 95% UI and 5% code. I think I talk about this later, but in the event that I don’t:

When designing a program, most people stay away. Algorithms scare people. UI on the other hand is different. Everyone thinks they are a UI engineer and will tell you how the program should be written. In this case, I had a PM decide that he knew how the program should work. When I told him it wouldn’t work that way, he went to one of the architects and asked them for code. He then presented me with the code he’d acquired to, “do it his way.” I was insulted. My manager looked like he was ready to deck the PM.

I really did enjoy my time at Symantec. We just suffered from ‘red-haired, bastard, step-son’ syndrome there.

Organization

Well, if today is any example; Organization is truly at times my bane.

It’s only taken 2 hours for me to get to my followup posting 😉 But then again I am at work.

I am in two different organizations that are at heart very frighteningly similar. The OTO and the SCA. One is philosophical/religious and the other is historical. Both have a wonderfully pervasive way of trying to take over your soul. Or at least all the time in the world that you have.

And now my manager needs my attention. I have the feeling this is going to wind up being catch as catch can until I can get the time to add more 🙂

Please….feel free to discuss.

First Entry

I saw this service surfing from another user’s site. I don’t know if I’ll tell which user at this time. Other readers may already be able to guess. I just wound up poking around to see how someone was doing.

This is my place. Very ego-centric, huh. These comments will be me as I feel with not too many inhibitions.

Today’s comment will be on the following conversation I had:

fiannaharpar –>(11:02:20 AM):What all SCAdian-wise are you doing? The last we talked about this, you were concentrating more on the OTO.
lordandrei –> (11:03:34 AM): I’m trying to do both. This is hard because, “No man serves to masters.” The trick is that I’m trying to be the master and make the activities mine not the other way around.
fiannaharpar –> (11:05:21 AM): Well, you can serve two masters, but you have to figure out *how* you’re going to serve them.
Extra deleted

It is no secret to those close to me, either physically or emotionally, that I have….a way to go. Organization is not my forte and I have let myself get burned and burned out many, many times.

Continued in next posting…

Edit:20061125 – Adding tags making changes. Inserted LJ User IDs for she and me
Added:20061125 – I learned about Livejournal while looking at chite‘s web site. At this point there’d been much history and distance between us. Eventually, the two of us would find mutual interest in discussing episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer through one of the LJ Communities. In reflection it is one of the reasons that I appreciate LJ as a tool with very positive potential.