TV/Movies Megathread

[Josquius]

Lupin series 3 has started on Netflix.
The first two were rather good.

Also tempted by this bodies series. Seems to be a timey wimey detective show.

I've nearly finished watching One Piece. It's definitely odd. Seems caught between it's kids manga roots and being a normal adult show. I see it has been renewed for another series and despite it being OK this makes me sad - live action cowboy bebop was much better. But then one piece the manga /anime is on a different level for popularity so I guess it can coast quite easily on that.

[Sheilbh]

I quite liked Bodies. Thought it was fun. I think I prefer timey wimey to multiverses as they're both having a moment

[Savonarola]

Doctor X (1932)

One of the earliest 3 tone Technicolor Films (previous films, like the Bal Masque scene in Phantom of the Opera, were done with 2 tone color, red and green.)  The technology  isn't quite there yet, and the color looks moody and iridescent; which works perfectly in this film.

Doctor Xavier runs a research facility in New York; near his lab there has been a series of murders, all committed with a scalpel of a sort that only Doctor Xavier's lab uses.  All of murders take place during a full moon and involve cannibalism (); by amazing coincidence all the research fellows are quirky and have some connection to cannibalism and it's up to Doctor Xavier (armed with a tower of psychobabble which would have done Hitchcock proud) to find the guilty man. 

This is a pre-code film and there is a scene in a brothel ().  It also has Fay Wray as the villain's beautiful daughter.  It's not the best made (sometimes the characters have to say things to no one in particular to explain the action) but it is very weird.

Doctor X is name checked in "Science Fiction, Double Feature" in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (though he does not actually build a creature in this film.)  In addition he's the namesake for Dr. X from Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime.

[crazy canuck]

But the Homeric material was not written by the original poet (assuming there was an original poet named Homer who originated all the material, which scholars doubt).

The epics were an oral tradition long before it was reduced to writing.  And even then the works attributed to Homer do not constitute the whole of the written canon.  There are a number of epics, lesser known than the Iliad and Odyssey.  Mainly because only fragments of those other works have been found.

None of that argues against the Homeric sagas as being the first franchise we know of; it, in fact, reinforces the claim.

Agreed. I was disagreeing with your reference to virgil as the reason why those works are a franchise and making the point that it was a franchise hundreds of years before Virgil.

[Barrister]

Had a fun discussion with a friend yesterday. Topic was: what was the first "franchise"? Obviously, there are all the ancient myths, which are shared universes, but we were thinking of it in the sense where there's a person or organization that controls the narrative - a keeper of the canon of sorts. As opposed to unrelated authors reusing characters or settings.

Ancient Greek playwrights loved their trilogies (Oresteia, for example), so we left it at that. Dunno if there are better examples, though. We did have a bit of a debate whether Illiad-Odissey constitute a "franchise" by themselves though.

Two come to mind: Thousand and One Nights, and Arthurian legends / Le Morte d'Arthur.

Both are collections of stories, written or told by various people.  Obviously both are newer than anything written by the ancient Greeks, but both more closely hew to the idea of being a "franchise".

[Jacob]

I find it a bit odd to apply the term "franchise" to a set of stories sharing a common setting and/ or set of characters in that way. A franchise relates to being granted a set of specific rights or a license - whether to vote or to produce something under license or whatever.

It makes sense to use the term for Hollywood franchises, because the primary objective is to maximize profit from a given IP and there is legal framework enabling the collection of franchise fees. As such, conceptually grouping all the consumer products based on that IP (and legally licensed) makes sense.

But it doesn't make sense to me for creative works created prior to legal construct of "intellectual property" being applied ot creative works, much less to works created prior to the concept of IP being articulated at all.

Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is not part of the R&J franchise. There is no such thing, and he didn't require any special license to use those characters and setting - nor did any subsequent creators telling stories in that "universe" (whether a reintepretation of the original play, or referencing the characters in subsequent creative works) need to obtain any licensing rigths to create and market their works.

Similarly, the Gospel of John is not part of "the New Testament Franchise". Sure, for long periods of time there was an authority that controlled the creation of derivative works of the Gospel of John, but the way that functioned was very different than modern franchises and to use that term obfuscates more than it clarifies.

[Sophie Scholl]

Maybe famous heroes like Heracles, Perseus, and Oedipus? They were utilized in plays, poems, art, jewelry, personal goods, housewares, songs, and pretty much every aspect of life we see modern franchises pop up in. Some that were tied to specific cities seem to also have had some level of control of that "franchise"/merchandising and used them and their popularity to market themselves for tourism and pilgrimage as well as the other items.

[celedhring]

I find it a bit odd to apply the term "franchise" to a set of stories sharing a common setting and/ or set of characters in that way. A franchise relates to being granted a set of specific rights or a license - whether to vote or to produce something under license or whatever.

It makes sense to use the term for Hollywood franchises, because the primary objective is to maximize profit from a given IP and there is legal framework enabling the collection of franchise fees. As such, conceptually grouping all the consumer products based on that IP (and legally licensed) makes sense.

But it doesn't make sense to me for creative works created prior to legal construct of "intellectual property" being applied ot creative works, much less to works created prior to the concept of IP being articulated at all.

Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is not part of the R&J franchise. There is no such thing, and he didn't require any special license to use those characters and setting - nor did any subsequent creators telling stories in that "universe" (whether a reintepretation of the original play, or referencing the characters in subsequent creative works) need to obtain any licensing rigths to create and market their works.

Similarly, the Gospel of John is not part of "the New Testament Franchise". Sure, for long periods of time there was an authority that controlled the creation of derivative works of the Gospel of John, but the way that functioned was very different than modern franchises and to use that term obfuscates more than it clarifies.

It's just a thought experiment. I'm curious about what past examples we can find of an organization/individuals/polity/etc... exploiting a shared fictional/mythical universe.

Incidentally, one of the early examples I can find of somebody "defending" his IP is Cervantes. The huge succcess of the first book of El Quijote prompted many unauthorized sequels. One of them (El Quijote de Avellaneda) became pretty popular itself. This prompted Cervantes to fast-track his own canonical sequel. During one of its episodes Alonso Quijano learns about the fake sequel from some patrons in a tavern, and trashes it - meta comentary was always a big part of El Quijote (in fact, the first book of El Quijote also exists in the universe of the official sequel).

[Sheilbh]

I always really like it when you find some classic canonical author worrying about their IP I don't know why but it brings them closer to now.

True with Dickens who went to America for a big speaking tour, expecting to love it as a grand republic of liberty. He ends up hating it because of slavery (he only goes south of Mason-Dixon once, precisely to see what it's like) and lax protection of his copyright. Or Shakespeare where the first good edition of his texts that we have is released by his executors because there's an absolute flood of really shoddy bootlegs doing the rounds (some of which survive and fair to say they mangle things - plot points missing, characters swapped etc).

[viper37]

Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is not part of the R&J franchise.

You're confusing franchise with reboot and remake.

[Gups]

New series of What we do in the Shadows on Disney. First episode delivered.

As did the first of a short Norwegian series "War Sailor" - merchant sailors helping the Allied war effort.

Finally a mention for Slow Horses. I'm late to this - there have already been three series and I haven't read any of the books but its a solidly good show elevated to excellence by a brilliant performance by Gary Oldman as farting, drunken, slobbish version of George Smiley.

[Syt]

So Paramount on Amazon has original Frasier in the HD restoration. "Yay," I thought. Ep. 1 ... weird aspect ratio. Looks like they squashed the picture from 4:3 to 3.5:3 or something. Ugh.

Checked ep. 2. Top and bottom cut off to go from 4:3 to 16:9.

Cheers is also on there, though. I caught a few episodes here and there in the past but never really watched it, and also never really felt like going back to it. Knowing most of the characters and tropes either through mention on Frasier or through general cultural osmosis (NOOORM!) I kinda never felt like watching all of it.

Started the first few episodes, though (and while remastered for HD, they're actually 4:3 ... ) and I actually find it quite good and funny.

[Savonarola]

Island of Lost Souls (1932)

There wasn't an (enforced) Production Code at this time and a lot of directors were still trying to come to grips with sound, so the late 20s-early 30s saw some really wacked-out movies, especially in the horror genre.  This is one of them.  The movie is based on "The Island of Dr. Moreau" by HG Wells (Wells hated the adaptation since it focused on the horror rather than the philosophical themes of the book.  Tellingly Wells's most direct work on a film was "Things to Come.")  Richard Arlen (Edward Parker) is trapped on Dr. Moreau's (Charles Laughton's) Island, where the Doctor has turned beasts into men.  At first Moreau wants to see if Lota the Panther Woman (Kathleen Burke) will fall in love with Arlen and produce offspring (FOR SCIENCE!).  That's weird enough, but when Arlen's fiancee shows up with a ship's captain, Moreau decides letting one of his beast-men abduct and rape her (FOR SCIENCE!) is good enough.  The film ends like a parody of Frankenstein, where the beast men all grab torches and burn out Dr. Moreau.

Bela Lugosi has a small, but memorable part as the Sayer of the Law.  (Devo would crib "Are we not men?" from his lines.)

This film notoriously ran afoul of the British Censors, and couldn't even be shown in the UK until the 50s (with an "X" rating even after edits.  I think it's had a PG rating since the 70s.) 

[grumbler]

But the Homeric material was not written by the original poet (assuming there was an original poet named Homer who originated all the material, which scholars doubt).

The epics were an oral tradition long before it was reduced to writing.  And even then the works attributed to Homer do not constitute the whole of the written canon.  There are a number of epics, lesser known than the Iliad and Odyssey.  Mainly because only fragments of those other works have been found.

None of that argues against the Homeric sagas as being the first franchise we know of; it, in fact, reinforces the claim.

Agreed. I was disagreeing with your reference to virgil as the reason why those works are a franchise and making the point that it was a franchise hundreds of years before Virgil.

So you were disagreeing with an argument I never made?  Whatever.  Contrarians will be contrary, I guess.

[crazy canuck]

But the Homeric material was not written by the original poet (assuming there was an original poet named Homer who originated all the material, which scholars doubt).

The epics were an oral tradition long before it was reduced to writing.  And even then the works attributed to Homer do not constitute the whole of the written canon.  There are a number of epics, lesser known than the Iliad and Odyssey.  Mainly because only fragments of those other works have been found.

None of that argues against the Homeric sagas as being the first franchise we know of; it, in fact, reinforces the claim.

Agreed. I was disagreeing with your reference to virgil as the reason why those works are a franchise and making the point that it was a franchise hundreds of years before Virgil.

So you were disagreeing with an argument I never made?  Whatever.  Contrarians will be contrary, I guess.

Tedious is the most polite thing I can say about your post.