Blakes7

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5511 discussions

Virus
by Linda Norman 26 Nov '01

26 Nov '01

Hello everyone, Unfortunately, I didn't know that there was anything wrong until I logged on at teatime today, by which time it was too late to stop the virus spreading. I am now offline until I'm sure that my computer is clear and I'm sending this from a friends computer. Although this was beyond my control, I'm sorry for all the inconvenience this has caused. I'll reply to any personal messages as soon as this is rectified. Val Westall __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

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Re: Re:Blake and Vila
by Betty Ragan 26 Nov '01

26 Nov '01

Sally Manton wrote: > It's also very forced, which prompts me to suggest - since we *can't* simply > cite Bad Writer Syndrome - that it's more for a reaction for each other's > benefit, as part of the sort-of-mending-fences 'pax' thing indicated by > Avon's open-hand gesture, than anything to do with Vila. I've *always* interpreted that scene that way. For one thing, any issues of appropriateness or hurtfulness-to-Vila aside, Avon's comment *isn't* particularly witty or amusing, certainly not enough to deserve that kind of a reaction on its own merits. But it serves as an excuse for Blake and Avon to indulge in that shared moment of laughter. I don't think it *is* about Vila at all: it's about Blake and Avon negotiating a badly-needed emotional rapprochement in one of the few ways they're actually capbable of doing so. IMHO, of course. -- Betty Ragan ** bragan(a)nrao.edu ** http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~bragan Not speaking for my employers, officially or otherwise. "Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions..." -- Isaac Asimov

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Re: [B7L] Re: Language (was Betrayal and episode 'Blake')
by Sally Manton 26 Nov '01

26 Nov '01

Kathryn wrote: <Actually, in B7, the thing that bugged me about the language use was not the slang that the Space Rats used - I thought that was rather good - but the jokes that Vila told in Ultraworld.> Oh I agree that that was dreadful (and :-( it wasn't even mildly funny either). Sometimes the attempts to 'SF-ize' the language work quite well, other times ... seems to me that imagery-based ideas - like Bayban's 'slimecrawler' and Vila's 'Tarzian warg-strangler' seem to work better than attempts to make up new slang or swearing, which often sounds strained. I *like* the warg-strangler, probably because I tend to imagine his wargs as something like Jabberwocky as done by the Muppets :-) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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FW: [B7L] Re:Blake and Vila
by Sally Manton 26 Nov '01

26 Nov '01

Helen wrote: <I remeber being very angry at the end of Trial, when Blake and Avon looked at Vila after the crack about intelligent fleas, and started to laugh.> I agree, though the person I was most angry with was the screen-writer. It is very un-Blake-like to mock someone to their face (unless it's an enemy, or Avon-and-he-asked-for-it) and it is very un-Avon to laugh at his own 'wit' like that. The same set-up - the two of them sharing a reaction to something Vila said - occurred a couple of times before: in Redemption, where Vila said that line about germs (Avon gave Blake that line about 'crude but accurate' and a lovely if superior smile) and in Shadow, with Avon's 'plain man's guide' crack and the look on both their faces. In both cases it's in character and, while a tad superior, not gratuitously crude or cruel. It's also very forced, which prompts me to suggest - since we *can't* simply cite Bad Writer Syndrome - that it's more for a reaction for each other's benefit, as part of the sort-of-mending-fences 'pax' thing indicated by Avon's open-hand gesture, than anything to do with Vila. Yes, they're shutting him out, but then the two of them *do* that to the others sometimes. Blake was decent to Vila most of the time, better than nearly all of the rest overall, but he was hardly saintly - he could be brusque or short, could turn that formidable temper on (Shadow) and could be less than fair. This was definitely one of the latter moments, but then Avon was always more important than Vila ... _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: Mostly OT Andromeda [was [B7L] Re: Crossovers]
by Steve Kilbane 26 Nov '01

26 Nov '01

Harriet: > Though the 2nd-season opening credits/music are infinitely worse. Indeed. In fact, I got the impression that it changed partway through the early part of season two, rather than at the start. We just ff that bit. Used to be because we could; now it's because we're embarrassed. > I'm rather hoping that we might see more of the Pyreans. A non-humanoid > alien species, hurrah! [blank expression] who were they, again? > But now I hear that we may not see any more of Andromeda for ages, as > Sky has thought of a new excuse to drop it. Huh? What? > And what is it with these hair-scraped-back-into-a-plait looks? Aeryn > has suddenly done it, too, and I don't like it at all. Uh, hasn't she always done that (not as in "all the time", but as in "it's been a style she frequently adopted since the series began") ? steve PS Entirely unrelated: I was in my regular Sunday night pop music quiz earlier, and there was a Bon Jovi round. I found I am now unable to listen to Bon Jovi without Dylan Hunt popping up from my subconsciousness...

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Re:Blake and Vila
by Helen Krummenacker 26 Nov '01

26 Nov '01

Nicola wrote: > You're in a minority of two then. I've always thought Blake treated Vila > very well - sure he got annoyed with him occasionally, but he never put him > down; he even complimented him several times! > I remeber being very angry at the end of Trial, when Blake and Avon looked at Vila after the crack about intelligent fleas, and started to laugh. Avon usually has the grace to be nasty to a person's face, and I was disappointed in him, too, there, but Blake, having been rescued by Zil, and by his own crew, insults Zil and Vila together, for no apparent reason.

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Language (was: Betrayal and episode 'Blake')
by Kai V Karmanheimo 26 Nov '01

26 Nov '01

Kathryn Andersen wrote: <<The difficulty with this, and indeed with trying to create any futuristic language use (such as Kai was complaining of the lack of in B7) is that most native English-speakers are completely unaware of (a) the non-translatability of puns and (b) the high level of idioms we use in our everyday speech. Idioms don't translate either.>> Idioms can travel from language to another through normal influence. For example, translations of English idioms are popping up in many languages right now. Some will take root and become normalised. Eventually they become part of that language. Still to expect exact words to sustain over millennia is a long shot. English-speaking peoples are now in a rather privileged position of living in a linguistically dominant cultures that are giving out the influences rather than digesting them. Almost self-contained, you could say. Still even in cultures which are more dependant on translations, too much domestication can create the blindness to cultural differences. The kind of translation that seeks to make the text as idiomatic in the target language as possible, may snuff out the flavour and unique subjectivity of the source language and culture. Pretty soon you may be thinking that your idioms and metaphors (and hence your way of thinking) are universal, because, heck, everyone else is using them, or else they wouldn't translate it like this, would they... I like books that collect proverbs from around the world, even in translated forms. It makes you realise that people don't refer to bygones with images of water under bridges or last years snows in places where there is no snow and few enough bridges. <<But I think expecting B7 to be linguistically aware is asking a bit much. If they can't get the science right, how on earth could one expect them to get the linguistics right? A lot more people in the SF world know science than know linguistics...>> Yes, it's a bit too much to ask. Mind you, I agree with you that Blake's 7 is no way the worst example of linguistic homogenisation. It is mainly following the established mores and mostly handles it pretty well. The establishment of a well-thought out and consistent universe was obviously not a priority, as it rarely is with television science fiction, rather just a suggestion of one sufficed. Then there is also the fact that television writing especially favours the kind of simple formulas that can be adapted from genre to another with relatively few modifications (the original Star Trek had a lot of this kind of episodes). Science fiction is often just in the setting, costumes and props. The one thing about the relationship of science and linguistics in science fiction is that too often when brilliant scientific speculation is thrown around it seems to happen in a vacuum. Somehow the idea that the everyday is also fundamentally altered by these things never seems to enter into it. It's almost a kind of Flintstones effect in reverse: everything is like the 1950s, only now it's wrapped in tinfoil rather than made out of stone. People are surrounded by technical marvels and yet they talk and act like they had just crawled out of a grass hut. You don't have to be a linguist to figure this things out, just have to stop and think about what you are doing every day. But again it's hard to go beyond the patterns and models you have in your head, that you have grown into. That's why I think there are few really successful depictions of alien civilisations that are truly non-human in thought and behaviour, rather than just appearance. Perhaps it's just that I tend to have more difficulty swallowing the idea of universal translator that can in five seconds turn any insectoid hissing into perfect Texan drawl than the idea of FTL drive. <<That jarred, because "parking meters" is such a late-20th-century concept that I find it hard to believe that a culture such as 28th-century Federated Earth is going to *have* such things as parking metres; we don't even know if private individuals are allowed to own their own vehicles, necessarily, and if they didn't then the concept of parking metres would be nonsensical. Of if everyone used air-cars, then maybe the concept of "parking" isn't the same. Do you see what I mean? That kind of thing bugged me much more than whether calling someone a "gook" sounds silly or not.>> I do. That's one of the things that break the illusion of realistic fictional universe. Most evidence would suggest against private ownership of motor vehicles, on Earth at least: free travel is clearly not on the Federation wish list and the whole reason for the domes seems to be to restrict and contain such a thing. Most Outer Worlds settlements seem to follow the pattern of concentration, minimising the need for individual persons to travel long distances. It may be different on non-Federation worlds and I believe the military has its share of ground vehicles, but somehow the idea of Vila observing how a Federation MP writes an assault tank driver a ticket for forgetting to put a coin in the metre after parking his vehicle by the headquarters doesn't really wash. Again a question of the writer being too caught up in contemporary ideas to think whether it went together with what we know about this fictional universe. Kai

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Re: Fwd: Re: [B7L] Crossovers
by J MacQueen 26 Nov '01

26 Nov '01

>From: Penny Dreadful <pennydreadful(a)powersurfr.com> >Damn straight. Which reminds me - I hear that Mr Croucher is about to reappear (or just has, I'm not sure which it is) on The Bill, as a Detective Inspector. Which is irritating for those of us in Australia, who won't see this for the best part of another year... Regards Jo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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RE: [B7L] Crossovers
by Nicola Mody-Nikoloff 25 Nov '01

25 Nov '01

Betty Ragan wrote: > > jacquispeel(a)netscape.net wrote: > > > With books there are 'if you like "x" you might like > authors a, b, c' > > etc. What would people recommend for other B7 viewers? > > This is an interesting question, because it touches on something I've > been noticing recently: there seem to be an awful lot of very B7ish > shows out there these days. Consider... > > _Blake's 7... > > _Andromeda... > > _Farscape... > > _Lexx... > > But it all leaves me to wonder... Can this possibly be > coincidence? Is > B7 being consciously imitated? Can we consider all these shows to be > direct descendents of B7 in some way or another? Was B7 just ahead of > its time? Or what? I think B7 was ahead of its time. I love Farscape too, maybe for the same reasons (never thought about it before) - great characters, humour, plots, conflict. And they have really inventive aliens - no 'facial bump of the week' like is Star Trek. Lexx I didn't fancy and never watched. However, I have a question: What is Andromeda? Up till now I never heard of it; it sounds interesting. No one-eyed maniacs in it, are there? :-) Nico *** This e-mail is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient please delete the message and notify the sender. ***

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Re: [B7L] Re: familiar or formal
by Ellynne G. 25 Nov '01

25 Nov '01

On Sat, 24 Nov 2001 10:14:54 -0500 "Dana Shilling" <dshilling(a)worldnet.att.net> writes: > > I'm about halfway through a "Comedy of Errors" story, where Blake's > rebel contact, Rashel, thinks Blake is her husband, Reg Black the > used > spacecraft dealer (which makes perfect sense because he's one of the > clones) and Vila's clone has a romance with Rashel's sister, and a > gang > of thugs repossesses Blake's teleport bracelet because they think > it's > the expensive watch that Reg hasn't paid for. > Every time I want to be jealous that someone beat me to a great idea, I'm stopped by finding out they're doing a much better job with it than I ever would. This sounds great. You _were_ intending to let people read it when you were done, weren't you? (Pretty please? with sugar on top?) Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

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