Random non sequitur posts catch-all thread

Prederick wrote:

Protip: Yell "Kobe!" every time before shooting. It's guaranteed to improve your field goal percentage.*

* - Is in no way guaranteed to improve your field goal percentage.

I always say "For three..." (regardless of how far away I am).

hbi2k wrote:

Because words have meanings. It's not a value judgment where "original > adaptation." An amazing adaptation is not lesser for being an adaptation, but it's still an adaptation. It's a matter of saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

Doesn't context help distinguish the referent of the term "original", though?

I mean, context often reveals the specific way in which someone's misusing a word, yes.

Robear wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

Because words have meanings. It's not a value judgment where "original > adaptation." An amazing adaptation is not lesser for being an adaptation, but it's still an adaptation. It's a matter of saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

Doesn't context help distinguish the referent of the term "original", though?

I’m still having trouble seeing how Peter Jackson’s LotR is an original anything. It’s an adaptation of a book, and it’s not the first adaptation of that book. I guess if you wanted to be pedantic there was not a Peter Jackson film adaptation of that book prior, but that’s an impressive stretch.

All right, pedantry it is!

Peter Jackson's films are the *original* live-action LOTR films, first ever. "Original" can refer to many different aspects of a piece of art. It is not limited to first instantiation of an idea into a form of media. Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans are definitely original art pieces, but they are completely derived from, well, soup cans. Does that mean that Warhol's work is valueless? It's not. Does it mean that soup can labels are art? No. Had any artist done this before? Not to my knowledge. In this case and a myriad of others, the referent of "original" is an implementation that is highly differentiated from the inspiration, and that's fine. It's a valid use of the term.

If someone else does a live-action LOTR film trilogy, it won't be "the original live-action LOTR film trilogy". Jackson's was the first, and that separates as an artistic achievement from works in the past. Its story is derived from Tolkiens, but it's form is original.

Make sense?

I'm consistently surprised at how tolerable I find Toyota Jan.

I don't like her, to be clear, I just don't recoil in annoyance when I see her. More of a "Huh, well that's nice," and then I go about my business.

As opposed to some other ad campaigns where my response is more "Jesus Christ, this again?"

Robear wrote:

All right, pedantry it is!

Make sense?

It’s not about making sense, it’s about the value of the distinction. Each of my sneezes is original; each airing of Friends S3E14 is original in that it’s the first time that show has been aired on that channel at that time. It’s about communicating the idea of originality in a useful way. Sure, “Peter Jackson’s original live action LotR movie trilogy” is accurate, but “original” doesn’t get you much there.

I think there’s a limit to how many modifiers you still need to go along with ‘original’.

Robear wrote:

All right, pedantry it is!

Peter Jackson's films are the *original* live-action LOTR films, first ever. "Original" can refer to many different aspects of a piece of art. It is not limited to first instantiation of an idea into a form of media. Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans are definitely original art pieces, but they are completely derived from, well, soup cans. Does that mean that Warhol's work is valueless? It's not. Does it mean that soup can labels are art? No. Had any artist done this before? Not to my knowledge. In this case and a myriad of others, the referent of "original" is an implementation that is highly differentiated from the inspiration, and that's fine. It's a valid use of the term.

If someone else does a live-action LOTR film trilogy, it won't be "the original live-action LOTR film trilogy". Jackson's was the first, and that separates as an artistic achievement from works in the past. Its story is derived from Tolkiens, but it's form is original.

Make sense?

Not the first live action version of LoTR:

Television play, not movie trilogy. Sticking to my guns!

I admit to being worried by the idea that a translation of something from novel to live action on the screen can't be considered "original". It implies that no films are original, but also that almost all novels are unoriginal (because elements of them were in other stories). But I suspect now that my background in logic is limiting my views here. I find value in the distinctions I've made; you don't. I tend to want to go with nuances.

Maybe that's the difference here.

Where do movies heavily influenced by previous works fall on the original/unoriginal scale? For example Star Wars.

Robear wrote:

I admit to being worried by the idea that a translation of something from novel to live action on the screen can't be considered "original". It implies that no films are original, but also that almost all novels are unoriginal (because elements of them were in other stories).

No one is suggesting that a piece of film, or any art, needs to be “wholly” original to bear the moniker (though one wonders what that would even mean, considering there’s nothing new under the sun). It’s about replication vs inspiration. When that ratio hits a certain arbitrary point, it is “generally“ understood to be an original work.

I’m not sure why “no films are original” simply because there is a screenplay written down. The fact that there are words on a piece of paper doesn’t mean it’s a novel; words on paper isn’t why Peter Jackson’s movies shouldn’t be considered original.

Robear wrote:

I tend to want to go with nuances.

That’s a strange statement from the guy who is seemingly trying to remove nuance from his other statements.

I feel like if you specify a thing with an adjective, and your listener instantly and correctly understands which thing you meant, there's an argument to be made that the adjective you used was suitable.

If I say that I need officious documentation before I can process your application and you understand that I mean "official," did I use the word "officious" correctly? Or did you correctly interpret the intention behind my incorrect usage of the word?

hbi2k wrote:

If I say that I need officious documentation before I can process your application and you understand that I mean "official," did I use the word "officious" correctly? Or did you correctly interpret the intention behind my incorrect usage of the word?

Initially it starts as a correct understanding of a misuse, repeated often enough, it becomes a correct use. This is a fairly common evolution of language.

hbi2k wrote:

...did I use the word "officious" correctly?

That's a great point, I'll edit my post to say "was suitable" instead of "was correct".

....now hold on just a ding-dang minute, somebody's already done it for me!

You ever notice how some words word, while other words don’t?

fenomas wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

...did I use the word "officious" correctly?

That's a great point, I'll edit my post to say "was suitable" instead of "was correct".

....now hold on just a ding-dang minute, somebody's already done it for me! :D

I would argue that it's not suitable, because it does not mean what you are trying to use it to mean. It's functional insofar as it conveys the idea you are intending to convey, but in doing so, relies on the listener to interpret your mistake.

You could wear a clown suit to a formal event, and it might be functional insofar as it hides your naughty bits as effectively as a tuxedo, but it's not suitable.

Language can be functional while still making you look ignorant.

This conversation is making my toes scream. I do not have enough coffee for me and all of them. Don't make me choose favorites...

anyways:

Yay foggy day!

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

No one is suggesting that a piece of film, or any art, needs to be “wholly” original to bear the moniker (though one wonders what that would even mean, considering there’s nothing new under the sun). It’s about replication vs inspiration. When that ratio hits a certain arbitrary point, it is “generally“ understood to be an original work.

That may cover content, sure. If someone said Peter Jackson's films were original *stories*, they'd clearly be wrong. But I don't think it's true that such a major, years-long artistic effort can usefully be put down as "not original" (implying derivative, unimportant, not influential, etc) just because it's based on an existing book.

I’m not sure why “no films are original” simply because there is a screenplay written down. The fact that there are words on a piece of paper doesn’t mean it’s a novel; words on paper isn’t why Peter Jackson’s movies shouldn’t be considered original.

The original post noted that the stance I'm arguing against is, indeed, irrational (which I'm fine with). The problem I'm pointing out is a semantic one (and no less meaningful for that). If "original" means "the first instance of (some essence that defines a novel - writer + story + themes + setting + voice + characters +etc, maybe?) in a book (in this case), then don't we have to consider the originality of all the parts that make up the claim? Otherwise, we are accepting *some* elements of copying or influence, and it comes down to context (as I claim above, major media formats being one that I say separates works of art) or to a sort of degree of similarity (as Chumpy I think stated), or some other distinguishing criteria. If we are going to be so rigorous that the first instance of a storyline, characters, etc is the *only* original piece of art, then we need to go to this level of detail to be consistent.

It makes more sense to me to acknowledge the very significant work of other artists in adaptations of an earlier work as also originals *of their media type*, at a minimum. That's the nuance I'm trying to get at; is originality associated with *just one set of characteristics*, or can it be more flexible, acknowledging significant artistic effort in doing more than slavish copying?

Suppose someone makes a movie about the Mona Lisa, telling the backstory of the artist and sitter while showing the painting process as we understand it. Hbi2K would have us believe that the movie is not "original", somehow, despite this having (in my scenario) never been done before. That's a tremendously depressing point of view, to me, because defining original in such a limited way says strongly that there is very, very little original art out there, with an argument to be put forth that we have to go back to ancient sources to find actual originals (and how many of those stories and artworks and such were based on spoken tales and legends and history?).

It seems to me that we can acknowledge originality in many, many different ways. Surely "The Mandalorian" is an original Star Wars story, in spite of the fact that it is not the first Star Wars TV show, it reuses characters and settings and tropes and visuals and tons of other stuff from the shared universe (are stories within a shared universe to be considered "partly original", maybe?). I would argue that a re-writing of Tolkien's story into Anglo-Saxon verse forms would also be original, because it's produced a different form of the story, but hbi2K has to take the stance that it is not usefully original. Or, what if someone rewrote the story from the point of view of Saruman? Would that not be original? I think it would be.

Why should the filter be so tight that we don't acknowledge the time and effort that goes into creating new versions of something never seen before? I'm not talking changing Frodo's name to Fred and calling it original, obviously. But I do argue that, for example, "Bored of the Rings" is an original piece of art, because it's very, very different from LotR while still hewing to many of its conventions and rough storylines.

So my approach to nuance is that of defining the logical implications of how we use the term "original" and I do believe that hbi2K leans towards the "must be wholly original" interpretation as his baseline, at least in his first responses. I'm arguing for a wider use than his, that's all.

Hbi2K - As I noted, context is important. Was the person attending as a clown hired to be a clown? Or perhaps is making a political or social statement? Suitable is subject to context, just like original. That's a basic principle of semantics going at least back to Frege and Kant.

I always say "For three..." (regardless of how far away I am).

If that is not followed by "BANG!" you're doing it wrong.

Robear wrote:

a wall of text knocking down strawmen

I never said an adaptation can't be "original" in the sense of "incorporating original elements and ideas."

I said it can't be "the original," in the sense of "the first iteration of a story from which any future adaptations spring."

Nor did I say that an adaptation is lesser; in fact I went out of my way to specify the opposite.

The original Lord of the Rings trilogy are the novels. There can be no other "the original Lord of the Rings trilogy" no matter how impressive your mental backflips are.

Any chance this debate can go in it's own thread?

-BEP

bepnewt wrote:

Any chance this debate can go in it's own thread?

-BEP

An original thread?

Eh. Not motivated, really.

They are the original Peter Jackson live-action Lord of the Rings adaptations.

IMAGE(https://media2.giphy.com/media/3ohc172JJbbmUfVxhS/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e47sm6kit6ntj9vjnb2ic4tzek2qv0c9d59tfjgk243&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)

fangblackbone wrote:
I always say "For three..." (regardless of how far away I am).

If that is not followed by "BANG!" you're doing it wrong.

I guess I'm doing it wrong.

On those (rare) occasions when I actually hit the basket, it's usually "For three.... GOOD!".

I forget whether that's something from Dave Zinkoff or someone else.

"Boom goes the dynamite!" surely?

"BANG!" is from Mike Breen, a national sportscaster of NBA games.

The last time I watched the NBA regularly the Sixers still had Doctor J and Moses Malone.

That was only a couple of years ago!