More classic SF on DVD

[bunsen_h]

Well, for some value of "classic".  The Starlost, coming soon.

But not for me, not at that price, I think.  The show's concept was strong but the execution was terrible.  I'd like to see an episode or two again for the sake of nostalgia, but I'm not willing to fork out that kind of money for it.

Only last week, while we were discussing the DVD release of Quark, one of my colleagues at work described the hypothetical DVD distribution of The Starlost as a sign of the Apocalypse.  Time to put things in order, I guess.

Comments

[ckd]

Now if only the Starlost DVDs had commentary tracks from Harlan Ellison...I still wouldn't buy it, but I'd be amused.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Heh. "The next sound you hear will be that of Harlan Ellison exploding."

I wonder if someone told him that the nastiest thing he could do to fandom was to allow the release of the show?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

All of fandom? Or specific, toxic subsets of it? I'd think probably the latter, myself, based on "Xenogenesis" alone.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Ellison has a generally poor attitude about fans in general, at least a lot of the time. Many people have encountered him, made some polite comment, and been nastily snubbed. "Xenogenesis" was highly biased -- talk with Donald Kingsbury about his interaction with Ellison on that project, for example. I don't mean to suggest that there aren't some thoroughly noxious people in fandom, but I think that a lot of the unpleasantness that Ellison draws is a result of people echoing back his own behaviour.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Granted, I've only had the one or two direct "in the same room/hallway with" chance meetings, so my first-hand impressions may well not be the best guide for anyone to go by. But that first-hand impression of mine is not quite so harsh.

[beable]

Did he even have any say in the matter? I thought he was so upset with how his concept for Starlost was treated that he took his name off it.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

A pseudonym was used instead: "Cordwainer Bird", IIRC. I don't know what rights he would have in this. A number of the episodes have been distributed before on VHS, so I expect that either he can't veto distribution, or isn't offended enough to do so.

[suelet.livejournal.com]

I would suspect he doesn't care.

But I'm with you on the nostalgia front.