Remake of V?

I'm a somewhat abashed fan of the original V, TV show and all. Abashed because I am well aware of its faults, having finally caught up on the entire TV show after it came out on DVD, but a fan, nonetheless, both because of fond memories of the first time I caught parts of the show as a child, at a friend's house when we were living overseas--a situation which made it doubly strange--an alien invasion of a home country I had not seen in almost three years--and spent the following years happily making up the missing episodes and reading my copy of the miniseries novelization.

Much later, I saw the two miniseries, at home in the States. Some of the familiar, friendly feeling was--and is--still there, and some of it I like for itself, and some I hate for itself: Half-alien children with mysterious powers have been overused by science fiction shows--. Once was overdoing it, really--but I still like the scene with Ruby and Tyler, and love the balloons going up with the newly discovred toxin (or bacteria? I can't remember. Hm... Must rewatch).

The same holds true, though to a lesser extent, for the TV show, which I finally saw in its entirety when it came out on DVD. Overall, it's a trainwreck, but it's an amusing one, watching it was great stress relief, and there are bits I simply like.

I'm in the Phillip/Martin fan club, for one thing.

So I've followed the various sequel/remake rumors with some interest, and will watch this current incarnation, or at least the start of it.

Though...

I almost wish they were remaking it a little bit more. Don't get me wrong--I'm not in favor of a Battlestar Galactica style redo (Yeah, I know, it's brilliant. Lots of people tell me so. It's also far, far darker than I like, and I bailed mid-first season, about the time people were gleefully telling me "It's getting even darker."). But the trailer for this looks like the characters are essentially the same only with slightly less exhuberant hair and some gender reversals, and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of point in remaking something just to update the clothing and hair.

Still, there is the intriguing comment made, somewhere in the official releases, that we don't truly know how long the Visitors have been among us. That has possibilities. And, perhaps, they will avoid the insta-grow, just-add-water alien child this time around.

I doubt greatness is waiting in the wings, but it could be fun.

Random Bits

1) I have a cold & therefore no brainpower.

2) I'm meant to be walking the dog but some machine keeps phoning us and beeping; I do not want the answering machine full of beeps, so I'm here with the phone off the hook in hopes that if no one answers, the machine will get tired of calling us and go bother someone else.

3) I just finished coding the second most frustrating script set for the Mage Trio. It did not look like a difficult bit, but it crashed the game each and every time, and I had to block out every single line of the scripts and dialog, one line at a time, and reload the mod to see if I had fixed it before I found the error. It wasn't just that it was in the last line I checked; it was in the last line left to check.

4) I'm very happy now that it is fixed and

5) Even happier because the person making the Spooky Wood for the Trio has finished, and it is gorgeous. I'd post a screen shot for you but a) I suspect it won't mean much to non-game players, and b) I'm saving it for the game itself.

Photoshop

I have long standing love/hate relationship with Photoshop, one that has only deepened as I've taken the photography class this semester.

Consider the following pictures--or rather picture. The first has not been photoshopped at all--it's what came out of the camera. One is pretty much "normally" photoshopped, that is, the color and levels have been tweaked a bit to bring out what is there, but nothing has really been altered--it looks like what I saw and fairly faithfully reproduces a pleasant evening in the park.

The second has been far more drastically altered. It's now a somewhat psychedelic sunset, no longer peaceful, and no longer much like the evening on which I took it. It's fun, but where does it fall on the scale of things? Does it even qualify as a photo any more or is it something else ("digital art," a term I'll figure out one of these days)? Or does that take more drastic changes still? Is it "Art" or just scribbling with crayons (metaphorically speaking)? I had fun making it, but it definitely no longer reflects "what was really there."

Added to that, of course, is the whole printer-computer relationship: When printed, none of these will look quite like what they do on screen, which means I'll probably have to tweak some more.