Dunes.

“As with all things sacred, it gives with one hand and takes with the other."

Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

Provided that Dune: Part 2 continues its success at the box office, a third Dune movie based on the second book in the series, Dune Messiah, will probably get the green light for production in the near future.  (This is a little confusing - I wish that Denis Villeneuve had used a different numbering convention for the two Dune films, perhaps Dune 1A and 1B.)

I have mixed feelings about this. Out of the six Dune books written by Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah is arguably the weakest one. It's the shortest of the six, lacking some of the depth of the other books, and has a sort of rushed feeling about it - I've always suspected that it was written in a hurry so as to take advantage of the popularity of Dune.

Regardless, even at his worst, Frank Herbert knew what he was doing, and Messiah capably sets the stage for the rest of the series - which, logically, means that there could easily be at least one more film after that.  Hopefully M. Villeneuve won't split Children of Dune into two parts, that won't help with the confusion factor.

 - Sid

Dune: Part Two - "Uh thank you. Thank you very much."

My movements, ma'am, are all leg movements. I don't do nothing with my body.

Elvis Presley

There was a moment in Dune: Part Two, just the briefest moment, when Austin Butler's Feyd-Rautha sounded, well, southern - or, as Karli put it, brought a little Elvis to Arrakis.

- Sid

The Adventure of the Walotsky Portfolio.

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”

Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia

The story begins, as so many stories here do, with a blog posting. 

I was looking for a good scan of the cover images from Roger Zelazny's Amber series for a Reading Week posting last year (my copies being much the worse for wear after years of ownership, and as such not the source of choice for scanning).  As part of my search, I discovered that there was an artist's portfolio of the unique cover artwork from the Avon editions of the first five books, a 1,500 copy limited edition portfolio signed and numbered by cover artist Ron Walotsky.

I've always had a strong appreciation for Walotsky's Avon covers, and immediately visited eBay™ to see if someone had the portfolio up for sale.  To my disappointment (and mild surprise) there was nothing.  I expanded my search to the Internet in general, and although I was able to find one or two references to past sales, there was absolutely no sign of current opportunities to buy the set.

It surprised me that a portfolio of cover images, admittedly by a relatively unknown artist for a series of genre novels, could vanish so completely. Given the nature of the fan community, you'd think that someone, somewhere, would have one up for sale.

I even stumbled across evidence of a short artist's proof run of 25, again, signed and labelled as such and numbered, but just as absent in terms of availability.

However, the primary attribute of the internet is change.  Things come, things go, and as such, whenever it crossed my mind, I would do a search for the portfolio.

A recent search finally bore fruit, resulting in a hit on eBay™ - or at least a partial hit, the set being sold only had four of the prints rather than five.

It was unfortunate that one of the prints was missing, but it wasn't hard to imagine someone pulling out a favourite and framing it, this is how life works. Because it wasn't a full set, the price was quite reasonable, and I decided to buy it.

There was just one oddity to the portfolio's provenance - the covering letter was neither signed nor numbered.

I'd seen several examples of the signed letter as part of previous sale postings, so I knew what it should look like. There are no surprises, Walotsky had signed on the line and written in the number of the edition.

How could this partial portfolio exist?  If someone was going to counterfeit an artist's portfolio, they would want to add the signature, not remove it.  And given that even the artist's proofs are numbered, it seems unlikely that Walotsky would just randomly hand out one of the portolios in its blank state.

Sherlock Holmes would undoubtedly want to investigate the evidence before coming up with any premature theories, but in his absence, I'm going to venture my own solution to the mystery.

My theory is that there was an extra proof set at the printing house, possibly discarded due to a flaw in the missing portfolio page, and someone in the production staff simply took it home.  In this scenario, the missing print was never part of the set, and the unsigned partial portfolio was replaced by a full document with a corrected image.

If this was Picasso, the discovery of a partial portfolio that fell outside of the recorded editions would be an epic breaking-news story.  As it is, it's a curiosity more than anything else, just an odd story for a blog posting, written in my own hand in lieu of Doctor Watson's:

Out of all the cases put before my good friend Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the oddest was the mystery of the Walotsky Portfolio. It began on a rainy night when I had returned from my practise to our lodgings at 221B Baker Street, and sat down in front of the glowing green screen of my Babbage difference engine to catch up on the events of the day and pursue my interest in items made available through electronic auctions, an activity which had seized the Empire's interest at large in the year of our Lord 1881.

- Sid

"Apology Accepted, Captain Needa."

It was announced today that veteran British actor Michael Culver passed away on February 27th at the age of 85, ending a career of over 50 years of stage, television and motion picture performances - the best known of which was perhaps his brief 1980 appearance in The Empire Strikes Back as an apologetic Imperial Captain.  Thank you for your service, Mr. Culver.

- Sid

Disney 2024: Team Disney.

 

Shout out to the 2024 Disney squad:  sister-in-law Stefanie, myself, Karli the Birthday Girl, and Karli's best friend John, who had never been before and made the experience new again for the rest of us! (And, of course, BB-8, who is just a joiner.)

- Sid

Disney 2024: Kuqqa Kulaa?

My previous posting told a slight lie. I did in fact purchase another souvenir item during our time at Disneyland - I finally succumbed to temptation and invested in the Black Spire outpost version of a Coke.  Hmmm...I wonder how much it costs Disney to have the Coca-Cola Company manufacture a custom product which is presumably only for sale at two refreshment carts on opposite sides of the United States?

- Sid

Disney 2024: "I am no Jedi."

No light sabers this trip, no helmets (although I noticed that there was now an alternate version of the X-Wing pilot's helmet that I purchased on our last Disneyland visit for sale) - my only souvenir shopping was the impulse buy of an Ahsoka t-shirt from a vendor located in one of the underpass tunnels that lead to Galaxy's Edge. 

I hate to say it, but after watching the Ahsoka series on Disney+ that provided the graphics for the t-shirt, I found myself siding with Team Ashley regarding the casting for the titular character.  

No offense to Rosario Dawson's performance, but after you've painted someone orange, stencilled marks on their face, and covered their hair with montrals and striped lekku*, their voice suddenly becomes a strong point in the character's presentation. In this case, Ashley Eckstein's extended run as Ahsoka's voice in the Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels series would have cemented the connection in the character's transition to live action, much as with Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy's move from the animated Batman series to video games.  

And who knows, she might not have been so grim all the time - I know that Ahsoka's history weighs her down, but I also think of the adult version of the character in Rebels as having achieved some emotional balance, although perhaps through the Force rather than weekly counselling sessions.

- Sid

* In case you'd been wondering what the horns and fleshy head-tails were called.  (Never forget, in the Star Wars Universe, EVERYTHING has a name.)  

Disney 2024: Avengers Redemption

The first time that we visited Avengers CAMPUS at Disney's California Adventure in 2022, I found that it didn't quite meet with the expectations that had been established by Galaxy's Edge - or even its next door neighbour, Radiator Springs.  Whereas both of those attractions had created consistently evocative environments that immersed the visitor in that world, Avengers CAMPUS somehow fell flat - it just didn't pull me in the same way.

However, this time I was fortunate enough to see more of the MCU Avengers-related character performances, which very much redeemed my opinion of the CAMPUS.  

Disneyland has done some very effective casting, particularly in the case of characters like Loki, Thor, Doctor Strange and the Black Widow, who can't rely on masks to define their look. I was particularly impressed by the Peter Quill stand-in, who delivered a deadly accurate imitation of Chris Pratt in the Guardians of the Galaxy dance-off show, and also did an excellent job of interacting with the audience.

The Doctor Strange Mysteries of the Mystic Arts performance was equally impressive. The magic was simple but effective, there were some clever ad-libs by the Stephen Strange cast member during his conversations with the crowd, and the brief Captain Marvel cameo was a nice touch. 

The dramatic Wakandan Dora Milaje Warrior Workout also captured the attention of the crowd, as did the Avengers Assemble encounter, which features members of the Avengers fighting off an array of thugs, including the Taskmaster.

In addition to the scripted performances, Marvel-costumed cast members roam the CAMPUS, chat with guests, and pose for photos, much as Mickey Mouse et al. in the Disneyland park. 

In spite of the high quality of the tribute performances done by these Disney cast members, I'd like to encourage the original actors to step up and make some unscheduled personal appearances.  After all, Johnny Depp used to show up at Pirates of the Caribbean in his full Jack Sparrow regalia - imagine how excited my wife would have been to have her picture taken with Tom Hiddleston's Loki?

- Sid

Disney 2024: Games Without Frontiers.

As you get older, it's harder to really play, or at least play publicly in the way that children do. A lot of that desire gets sublimated into activities with a sort of grown-up veneer of acceptability: cosplay, paintball, tabletop and video gaming, D&D, LARPing, and all the other loopholes that allow us to say "let's pretend" as adults.

For a lot of people, Disneyland is that urge to play writ large, and for me, Galaxy's Edge is the perfect venue to fully experience that. It's a testament to the detail and consistency that Disney's creative people have put into this little alien outpost so that, when I'm there, I feel like I'm actually on another planet, even when surrounded by people in mouse ears and sweat pants. 

Part of me wants to explore Galaxy's Edge all on my own, because it would leave me free to enjoy it as if I were part of that world, to quote Ariel. As it is, Karli sometimes worries that I’m not having fun when I'm there, whereas the joke is that I couldn't be enjoying myself more.  However, being a dangerous rebel who could be in a life-or-death confrontation with storm troopers at any moment tends to make me look a bit grim - after all, we're not playing around here, this is serious stuff.

Smugglers Run is another good example.  I tolerate the lines and waiting and so on in order to get to where I want to be, but when I sit down at the controls of the Millennium Falcon, I'm not having a simulated experience, I'm flying a starship. As such, when the controls prompt me to perform an action such as take off, go to hyperspace, or steer the ship through an asteroid field, I do it with a certitude, confidence, and gravitas that's appropriate to what I'm doing.

And, hopefully, with a certain degree of style - after all, even if you're just playing at being the Falcon's pilot, you're still playing in the big leagues.

- Sid

P.S. Welcome to the future - the boots and background alien heads in the above photo were created by the Photoshop AI. However, the AI won't accept certain prompts, so I had to do the gun belt and weapon the old-fashioned way.