[Luis Dias]

That's just stunning **** right there. But I can definitely see why no one in Disney would ever do that thing. 4 years for a 7 min clip? That sounds expensive as hell if you're doin it with 20 minute episodes and paying wages.

Or perhaps not! It might make financial sense.

[An4ximandros]

4 years' worth of weekends

The whole thing was made by three people. One to make the video, one the audio and one the music.
Imagine how quickly it would get done with a big team.

[Mongoose]

For the love of God Disney, pay this man to make a full miniseries or something.  And contract Production I.G. to animate it.  I'd cum buckets.

Edit: And there's an Itano Circus I can't even.

[InsaneBaron]

There happens to be a small-time but very talented acting club/troupe/team/whatever in my town. A couple years back, a friend of mine from Church who's in it talked me and my sister into coming to see them do Les Miserables (which I thought was a tragedy about Spanish orphans- silly me ). I was blown away by it- both by the play itself and the troupe's skill and passion in presenting it.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I figured, "Hey, now that I've got more disposable income, I should go see these guys more often!" They were advertising "An Enemy of the People", by Henrik Ibsen. (The title is a little funny given the most recent set of shenanigans I mentioned here, but no connection). Basically, I didn't know what the play was about, but the teaser posters had me intrigued, so I went to see it last night.

Holy Cow. Every. American. NEEDS. To see this play.

EDIT: Oh, and be advised, wikipedia's "analysis" of the play has basically nothing to do with the play itself. It even makes up a quote that's not in the play. Wiki vandalism.

[deathfun]

Had a most fantastic past week! Old friend of mine (who had disappeared for a while but finally reconnected with back in December) who had become a very good and close friend the past several months came up to visit from Washington (State). For a full week I had a partner in crime of which we went shooting, looking at gardening stuff (mostly plants), explored the market and ate poutine

It's a strange change of pace to wake up the next day after she had gone back to not see her next to you. Damn though, great week

Now I just need to finish updating my art whatever the crap and seeing if I can get accepted into the University program

[Phantom Hoover]

I find it pretty ironic how InsaneBaron identifies so strongly with the progressive plays of yesteryear.

[InsaneBaron]

I find it pretty ironic how InsaneBaron identifies so strongly with the progressive plays of yesteryear.

Not sure why. Les Miserables isn't so much a "liberal" or "progressive" play as a story about the amount of good one man accomplishes when he gets a chance at redemption and takes it. AEotP deals with the dangers every democracy needs to guard against: government corruption and mob rule (both of which, I would argue, are pretty timely issues today.)

[Phantom Hoover]

Les Miserables is a play (well, originally a novel) about the poor getting so sick of living in abject poverty, being ground down by uncaring and brutal authority that they stage a revolution which tragically fails. The protagonist is a good man who spends his life on the run from the law, which is only ever depicted as an agent of retributive suffering. This is not a conservative message!

[Scotty]

"Man, isn't it great how plays only have one message and can never be interpreted differently by different people?  Yeah, I think so too." - No one ever

[InsaneBaron]

Les Miserables is a play (well, originally a novel) about the poor getting so sick of living in abject poverty, being ground down by uncaring and brutal authority that they stage a revolution which tragically fails. The protagonist is a good man who spends his life on the run from the law, which is only ever depicted as an agent of retributive suffering. This is not a conservative message!

Why does being conservative blind you to the sufferings of poor people? And why does being conservative mean you support the law no matter how bad it is? (I myself am not particularly happy with my current government anyway.) For that matter, why does everything need to be about American Politics? The book was written in the mid 1800s for goodness sake.

EDIT: by your logic I could claim Les Miserables to be a conservative play because Jean Valjean becomes a Christian and the bishop in the story is portrayed as very kind. It's not. It's neither. It's not a political tract, it's a play, and a really, really good one.

[Phantom Hoover]

Why do you conflate Christianity with conservatism? In any case the book, and consequently the play, very definitely are political works. Just look at the reception at the time if you don't believe me.

[Colonol Dekker]

My last day as a shandy drinking southerner tomorrow. My fiancé and I move North on Tuesday. The dogs won't know what hit them.  Best of all. I keep all my army kit and they can't take it back

[TechnoD11]

Been sick for the last couple days so i figured what the heck, watched the entire first season of the original Battlestar Galactica on netflix.
Got to love those 70's hair styles

[InsaneBaron]

Why do you conflate Christianity with conservatism? In any case the book, and consequently the play, very definitely are political works. Just look at the reception at the time if you don't believe me.

I could just as easily ask why you conflate sympathy for the poor with liberalism. I'm not sure if you caught my point: "The protagonist is Christian, so the book's conservative" is a silly argument, but so is "the book sympathizes with the poor against a corrupt government, so it's liberal."

What politics the story has have little to do with current American politics. Hugo believes that a specific revolution, 200 years ago in France, was justified, and he may well be right, but claiming Les Mis as an argument for modern American liberalism is borderline hijacking. What IS relevant today are the morals of the story- courage, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, redemption. None of which are limited to one side of the political spectrum.

[Phantom Hoover]

Well that's just getting back to my original point, which is that you don't see any of the obvious and timeless parallels to the world you live in. There are people in America today living in wretched, inescapable poverty. There are people in America today who have had their future cut short because that poverty brought them into conflict with the law. There are people in America today who have risen up in violence because of this. These things have not fundamentally changed.

[Scotty]

Well that's just getting back to my original point, which is that you don't see any of the obvious and timeless parallels to the world you live in. There are people in America today living in wretched, inescapable poverty. There are people in America today who have had their future cut short because that poverty brought them into conflict with the law. There are people in America today who have risen up in violence because of this. These things have not fundamentally changed.

His point is that it's silly to make that sort of thing partisan, and the heavy implication in your original post was that you found his political views and enjoyment of the play contradictory.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

I should totally add a 'gti' command to my console for whenever I mess up typing 'git'.

gti add whatever: "you do not have authority to enroll new agents"
gti status: "totally not running any black ops"
gti commit: "the GTI is always committed"
etc.

[niffiwan]

I should totally add a 'gti' command to my console for whenever I mess up typing 'git'.

gti add whatever: "you do not have authority to enroll new agents"
gti status: "totally not running any black ops"
gti commit: "the GTI is always committed"
etc.

If you get around to doing that, please, send me a copy.

[InsaneBaron]

Well that's just getting back to my original point, which is that you don't see any of the obvious and timeless parallels to the world you live in. There are people in America today living in wretched, inescapable poverty. There are people in America today who have had their future cut short because that poverty brought them into conflict with the law. There are people in America today who have risen up in violence because of this. These things have not fundamentally changed.

His point is that it's silly to make that sort of thing partisan, and the heavy implication in your original post was that you found his political views and enjoyment of the play contradictory.

Precisely. Agreed, there are people in such difficult scrapes in America, and agreed, a lot of them are innocent people who deserve a helping hand, and agreed, sympathy for such people is one of the timeless moral lessons of Les Miserables. But making the timeless moral lesson into a one-sided political tract for a modern political conflict doesn't make any more sense than claiming that because the play takes a positive view of Christianity, it should be seen as a tract for modern American conservatism. You might as well ask whether Jaws is an argument Obama or Romney.

[Lorric]

I think someone's got a weather machine near me and is playing around with it.

I was looking out of the window and treated to the unusual sight of a bright blue sky and snowfall. It only lasted a few seconds. Then some light rain a few seconds after that. Now just a few minutes later, all the blue has been obliterated by dark grey, a heavy wind has whipped up and heavy hail falling, and now as I type the wind and the hail have stopped and it's already starting to brighten up, the sun is shining and the snow is falling again. And just like before the snow lasted a matter of seconds.