welsh
Junkmaster
I asked this question at yog-sothoth.com whether Chtulhu would make it as a TV show.
What do you think?
What do you think?
Cthulhu TV
- Thread starter welsh
- Start date
welsh
Junkmaster
The Vault Dweller
always looking for water.
A non-politically motivated Welsh thread? Certainly some evil is afoot...
On another note the little excerpts I've read make me really want to get some of Lovecrafts work, but I havent seen any in stores. For Christmas I'll have to just go online or ask someone at the front desk to point out where they are.
Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
On another note the little excerpts I've read make me really want to get some of Lovecrafts work, but I havent seen any in stores. For Christmas I'll have to just go online or ask someone at the front desk to point out where they are.
Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
Malkavian said:
The sheer number of possible tentacle rape scenarios in such a show is enough to confound the mind with glee!
welsh
Junkmaster
@Malkavian- Your ability to reduce Lovecraft to a big squid reflects that either you are unfamiliar with Lovecraft's fiction and notion of supernatural horror or the workings of a simplistic mind.
Who says that Lovecraft isn't political? You've got a rather interesting mix of religion and a positivist materialist worldview in stark collision. Also, you don't have to buy it. But if you really want a book-
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...002-0750676-5418450?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
or
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/034...5418450?_encoding=UTF8&p=S006&j=0#reader-page
@DDD- Not sure but I think only the Dunnwich Horror actually suggests a tentacle rape. SOme of the later Cthulhu writers do make better use of it.
The_Vault_Dweller said:
Who says that Lovecraft isn't political? You've got a rather interesting mix of religion and a positivist materialist worldview in stark collision. Also, you don't have to buy it. But if you really want a book-
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...002-0750676-5418450?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
or
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/034...5418450?_encoding=UTF8&p=S006&j=0#reader-page
@DDD- Not sure but I think only the Dunnwich Horror actually suggests a tentacle rape. SOme of the later Cthulhu writers do make better use of it.
The events in Dunnwich horror suggest "tentacle rape" only to someone who is familiar with that notion, which I'm not quite sure Lovecraft was. 
welsh said:
You are a sad, sad little man.
Regardless - all I'm saying is that Cthulhu barely makes an appearance in Lovecraft's work. He is mentioned briefly only a few times. Your post put me under the impression that you were thinking of a series based entirely around Cthulhu. Wouldn't be very entertaining. Now, a series based around the entire Cthulhu mythos and the cults, etc, etc, would be pretty good (if done correctly). So far there hasn't been a really solid adaptation of Lovecraft's work in the medium of film.
The Dagon movie wasn't too bad, though.
DNA Dilution
DNA Dilution
DDD. It goes beyond the cartoon quaint conventions of violent violation of all body orifices.
Along the weed choked paths of Lovecraft, in the murky rural backwaters of despair,
lurks
the implied gene pool atrocity of ... incest.
Stagnation.
Human sexuality trapped in dim cages of suppressed fear.
Dark desire feeding cannibalistic-ally on kinships too close to evade Biblical censure.
Decay.
Vital forces of creation throttled and stagnating. The dimensional strings of human reality unravels.
Destruction.
Ancient entities,
once damned by the viral shine of consenting couples,
once lost and forgotten by a world speeding into a promised eternity of joyous ecstasy,
ancient entities have returned with god like powers intact .... too huge an evil to pity the miserable mortality of degenerating, self flagellating, ape descendants.
Some shallow students quote Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan, GBS, or even Firesign Theatre,
a true dilettante,
after reading a couple of collected works can fake out the Philistines with the dismal scenario set up that Lovecraft used repeatedly to compose his squalid, tragic tone.
4too
DNA Dilution
DDD. It goes beyond the cartoon quaint conventions of violent violation of all body orifices.
Along the weed choked paths of Lovecraft, in the murky rural backwaters of despair,
lurks
the implied gene pool atrocity of ... incest.
Stagnation.
Human sexuality trapped in dim cages of suppressed fear.
Dark desire feeding cannibalistic-ally on kinships too close to evade Biblical censure.
Decay.
Vital forces of creation throttled and stagnating. The dimensional strings of human reality unravels.
Destruction.
Ancient entities,
once damned by the viral shine of consenting couples,
once lost and forgotten by a world speeding into a promised eternity of joyous ecstasy,
ancient entities have returned with god like powers intact .... too huge an evil to pity the miserable mortality of degenerating, self flagellating, ape descendants.
Some shallow students quote Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan, GBS, or even Firesign Theatre,
a true dilettante,
after reading a couple of collected works can fake out the Philistines with the dismal scenario set up that Lovecraft used repeatedly to compose his squalid, tragic tone.
4too
welsh
Junkmaster
Actually I am a rather sad big guy. But that's besides the point.
Yeah a show about conspiracies, about the 1920s, where evil is hiding in shadows, where secrets need to be revealed. A show that examines evil not just as something unhuman but perhaps part of the human psyche. The evil of corruption. An a notion of Intelligent Design that's actually rather insane, might be fun.
Yeah a show about conspiracies, about the 1920s, where evil is hiding in shadows, where secrets need to be revealed. A show that examines evil not just as something unhuman but perhaps part of the human psyche. The evil of corruption. An a notion of Intelligent Design that's actually rather insane, might be fun.
welsh said:
X-Files meets Alone in the Dark?
But, seriously, I would like to see the kind of show you are talking about.
Awaken In Darkness
Awaken In Darkness
W.:
This thought makes me consider how once upon a time the Sun and the planets revolved around the classic and medieval astronomers' earth.
A 'human centric', lint from navel picking, spoiled child, of a universe.
Post World War trauma fuels spiritualism, mysticism, compliments and clashes with the irrational exuberance of Futurism.
King Tut's biplane adventure ... stay tuned for this week's episode.
Collective conspiracies pump up the stock market.
Rockefeller's decoder ring.
Lovecraft spin on Intelligent Design. Perhaps "man" is not 'an only child'.
Compared to the 5th, 6th, and 7th dimensional strands of reality, ''man'' is a falling flash in an infinity of rainbows. A mere ' sparrow' in God's peripheral ... wisdom. An agoraphobic hermit, too stunned to conceive light beyond a duality, salvation beyond a 'Trinity',, and praying to the shadows that haunt Plato's cave.
You know, the clueless clown of an eternal circus.
4too
Awaken In Darkness
W.:
This thought makes me consider how once upon a time the Sun and the planets revolved around the classic and medieval astronomers' earth.
A 'human centric', lint from navel picking, spoiled child, of a universe.
Post World War trauma fuels spiritualism, mysticism, compliments and clashes with the irrational exuberance of Futurism.
King Tut's biplane adventure ... stay tuned for this week's episode.
Collective conspiracies pump up the stock market.
Rockefeller's decoder ring.
Lovecraft spin on Intelligent Design. Perhaps "man" is not 'an only child'.
Compared to the 5th, 6th, and 7th dimensional strands of reality, ''man'' is a falling flash in an infinity of rainbows. A mere ' sparrow' in God's peripheral ... wisdom. An agoraphobic hermit, too stunned to conceive light beyond a duality, salvation beyond a 'Trinity',, and praying to the shadows that haunt Plato's cave.
You know, the clueless clown of an eternal circus.
4too
If it was anything like the Cthulhu PnP game, the TV show would go through characters pretty fast. 
Honestly, I think it could really kick ass. Lovecraft had many short stories, and the abundance of PnP modules available show that it's not difficult to write a good story in the Cthulhu Mythos. And it would be pretty damn original too.
Of course, we have the benefit of knowing all about the setting beforehand. It'd be hard to predict how much Joe Sixpack would enjoy it.
Honestly, I think it could really kick ass. Lovecraft had many short stories, and the abundance of PnP modules available show that it's not difficult to write a good story in the Cthulhu Mythos. And it would be pretty damn original too.
Of course, we have the benefit of knowing all about the setting beforehand. It'd be hard to predict how much Joe Sixpack would enjoy it.
industry Standard
Industry Standard
m.:
Collaborative ventures, collaborative COMMERCIAL ventures drift to the safest course, especially when , let's say 3 or more, 13 or more, 23 or more or 33 or more are ""gathered together"". This collective body, this congregation of holy commerce, is only as effective as it's collective mind can function. Command and control most often degenerates into what some call ""the reptilian"' brain. More often a snake, then a turtle, rarely a Darwin biting 'Jurassic' Raptor.
This conservative sub text is to preserve and guarantee the accelerated rate of profit that the entertainment (investment) industry demands. Even the watermarks, the measures of success are hyped.
The smart money,and the trend frenzy information (info-tainment) media rushes to each 'sure thing',
As if ""safe"" always means ""success".
Pardon my dipping into another entertainment venue. We see this "safe - success" in the computer game industry too.
On this forum we gravitate to concur that few in the game industry have a clue ... ,
[no that's not quite the technical term needed]
... few in the game industry appear to have a ''F'ING'' clue on (1) what FO is about, and (2) how 'a' FO could be interpreted into a (real) RPG in this flashy graphic first person,me, me, me, age of self indigence. Apologists for mediocrity can justify their individual gratification in gesticulating their motor skills, but ...
The evidence of these producers' knowledge, and their alleged mastery of the computer game MEDIUM has yet to prove they can 'poot out' a RPG game to match "a" FO.
Perhaps the 'kind-est' , 'cruel-est' cliche would be ""lost in translation"".
Translations between print and video are always risky.
It appears risky to translate one game genre of a specific hardware 'age' to another 'era' of commercial entertainment.
We especially ""feel the pain'' here because we know the difficulty of translating the essence of a game gestated for the 486's of the mid 1990's where 16 megs 'might' be the mother board memory, to the Pentiums and AMD's this day that need a GIG of RAM so XP can 'walk and chew gum' with a 128 meg video. (Is SLI, video akimbo? )
FO is more graphics of the minimal, more DOS in roots and so the game 'could' focus on the traditional RPG elements, the 'text' side of our brain.
The games of ""NOW"" are, ... to return to film/video buzz, are not only 'talkies' but wide screen in Uber technicolor. The audio and visual dominate sides of perception.
Hardly the fertile ground of "structured' intellectual philosophies, or even drama more complex then loot and shoot.
[Insert car crash clip here $$$]
We tend to be, no more drawn into these twitch RPG-wannabe's then we are able to sit through boring, derivative video pageants. The widescreen Sergio Leone westerns that Eastwood 'featured' in are epics. The later american western clones he starred in look ''made for TV''.
[Insert high plains vista here $$$]
We are not so 'hard up' for entertainment these days that we can't do some preemptive, proactive .. editing, culling out the crap. There are lot's of movie reviews these days, and I find, I can see the review and wait for the DVD. In game terms, I can wait for a title to be marked down or be shoveled into the bargain bin.
[Insert tall wrangler galloping into plains vista here $$$]
So ya, it'd be hard to 'get' the essence of Lovecraft without incorporating 'modern' conventions, or rather 'commercial' video conventions. That may look more like, some one else's gothic [twitch - masterbative- immediate-gratification] fantasy [ extrapolation - exploitation] : with elves, fairies, and breasts akimbo.
(Please, 'hold' on the product placement ... no 'mayo' , .. or Marlburro's )
[Insert fade in of sponser's logo over rider and vista here $$$]
4too
Industry Standard
m.:
Collaborative ventures, collaborative COMMERCIAL ventures drift to the safest course, especially when , let's say 3 or more, 13 or more, 23 or more or 33 or more are ""gathered together"". This collective body, this congregation of holy commerce, is only as effective as it's collective mind can function. Command and control most often degenerates into what some call ""the reptilian"' brain. More often a snake, then a turtle, rarely a Darwin biting 'Jurassic' Raptor.
This conservative sub text is to preserve and guarantee the accelerated rate of profit that the entertainment (investment) industry demands. Even the watermarks, the measures of success are hyped.
The smart money,and the trend frenzy information (info-tainment) media rushes to each 'sure thing',
As if ""safe"" always means ""success".
Pardon my dipping into another entertainment venue. We see this "safe - success" in the computer game industry too.
On this forum we gravitate to concur that few in the game industry have a clue ... ,
[no that's not quite the technical term needed]
... few in the game industry appear to have a ''F'ING'' clue on (1) what FO is about, and (2) how 'a' FO could be interpreted into a (real) RPG in this flashy graphic first person,me, me, me, age of self indigence. Apologists for mediocrity can justify their individual gratification in gesticulating their motor skills, but ...
The evidence of these producers' knowledge, and their alleged mastery of the computer game MEDIUM has yet to prove they can 'poot out' a RPG game to match "a" FO.
Perhaps the 'kind-est' , 'cruel-est' cliche would be ""lost in translation"".
Translations between print and video are always risky.
It appears risky to translate one game genre of a specific hardware 'age' to another 'era' of commercial entertainment.
We especially ""feel the pain'' here because we know the difficulty of translating the essence of a game gestated for the 486's of the mid 1990's where 16 megs 'might' be the mother board memory, to the Pentiums and AMD's this day that need a GIG of RAM so XP can 'walk and chew gum' with a 128 meg video. (Is SLI, video akimbo? )
FO is more graphics of the minimal, more DOS in roots and so the game 'could' focus on the traditional RPG elements, the 'text' side of our brain.
The games of ""NOW"" are, ... to return to film/video buzz, are not only 'talkies' but wide screen in Uber technicolor. The audio and visual dominate sides of perception.
Hardly the fertile ground of "structured' intellectual philosophies, or even drama more complex then loot and shoot.
[Insert car crash clip here $$$]
We tend to be, no more drawn into these twitch RPG-wannabe's then we are able to sit through boring, derivative video pageants. The widescreen Sergio Leone westerns that Eastwood 'featured' in are epics. The later american western clones he starred in look ''made for TV''.
[Insert high plains vista here $$$]
We are not so 'hard up' for entertainment these days that we can't do some preemptive, proactive .. editing, culling out the crap. There are lot's of movie reviews these days, and I find, I can see the review and wait for the DVD. In game terms, I can wait for a title to be marked down or be shoveled into the bargain bin.
[Insert tall wrangler galloping into plains vista here $$$]
So ya, it'd be hard to 'get' the essence of Lovecraft without incorporating 'modern' conventions, or rather 'commercial' video conventions. That may look more like, some one else's gothic [twitch - masterbative- immediate-gratification] fantasy [ extrapolation - exploitation] : with elves, fairies, and breasts akimbo.
(Please, 'hold' on the product placement ... no 'mayo' , .. or Marlburro's )
[Insert fade in of sponser's logo over rider and vista here $$$]
4too
welsh
Junkmaster
I think that the danger of this going bad is high. Mediocrity is dangerous.
Thing is that shows that transcend mediocrity often start either in sheltered environments or in places of low risk.
X-files, started as the follow-up of some western spoof show starring Bruce Campbell. The Western died but the X-files survived. Some good TV shows- like the Shield, can start on isolated channels like FX and become successful because they are cutting edge, do something new. Then you get shows like Rome, Carnival, the Sopranos- on HBO where they are sheltered and someone can invest in them.
I worry that a show like this might end up like Friday the 13th series- a show that could have been much better than it was. Does anyone remember the show American Gothic done by Sam Raimi? That was another show with promise that crapped out.
That said, I agree that there is so much out there that is Call of Cthulhu related that producers would have to be pretty weak really fuck things up. THere is a large fan base that would probably be as, or almost as, critical as the FO fans that might help keep the show on track. And the Lovecraft mythos offers so many opportunities for stories, that some of the weaker aspects could be dropped.
Yes, the insanity thing would be a problem. I would see this as a show in which you have a few main characters that hold the story together, and a lot of supplemental characters that sometimes get consumed or driven insane- and the audience doesn't necessarily know who is who. I kind of like a show where main characters could get whacked at any time. I would think such a story would need a storyarch. But there could be stories where "main character finds a journal from person X- and the story of that episode is told from the journal's account." Or perhaps, "What drove this person to insanity."
Key to the mythos I think is that reality is ellusive and unintelligble- and the closer you get to it the more you risk.
In C of C the characters are constantly driven to find out as much as they can, without overstepping the line. Too much information is dangerous. And that's where the plot's tension would lie.
Thing is that shows that transcend mediocrity often start either in sheltered environments or in places of low risk.
X-files, started as the follow-up of some western spoof show starring Bruce Campbell. The Western died but the X-files survived. Some good TV shows- like the Shield, can start on isolated channels like FX and become successful because they are cutting edge, do something new. Then you get shows like Rome, Carnival, the Sopranos- on HBO where they are sheltered and someone can invest in them.
I worry that a show like this might end up like Friday the 13th series- a show that could have been much better than it was. Does anyone remember the show American Gothic done by Sam Raimi? That was another show with promise that crapped out.
That said, I agree that there is so much out there that is Call of Cthulhu related that producers would have to be pretty weak really fuck things up. THere is a large fan base that would probably be as, or almost as, critical as the FO fans that might help keep the show on track. And the Lovecraft mythos offers so many opportunities for stories, that some of the weaker aspects could be dropped.
Yes, the insanity thing would be a problem. I would see this as a show in which you have a few main characters that hold the story together, and a lot of supplemental characters that sometimes get consumed or driven insane- and the audience doesn't necessarily know who is who. I kind of like a show where main characters could get whacked at any time. I would think such a story would need a storyarch. But there could be stories where "main character finds a journal from person X- and the story of that episode is told from the journal's account." Or perhaps, "What drove this person to insanity."
Key to the mythos I think is that reality is ellusive and unintelligble- and the closer you get to it the more you risk.
In C of C the characters are constantly driven to find out as much as they can, without overstepping the line. Too much information is dangerous. And that's where the plot's tension would lie.
Blue Velvet
Blue Velvet
W.:
Finally watched VHS of ""Blue Velvet"".
One of the 'hooks' that dragged the young seeker deeper into the under world of his little 'burg was his fascination in, his addiction to, turning over each rock on the path. He never imagined such life forms existed.
The amateur detective was more like the Dennis Hopper character then he could comfortably admit.
This loss of innocence, this revelation of a personal 'dark side' , this slipping into psychotic lusts and perverse ''lifestyles' was difficult enough to 'fit' into a feature length movie that presumed we have a knowledge of life in small town america.
Chtulhu TV.
There would be a need to establish what is sane, before one cracks that illusion and in that chaos establishes the insane.
Too much insanity and we construct a new reality, a new sanity .... the "'fear factor''
would wain and a comfortable cosmology would be filled with the 'moral equivalent' of fairies and ewoks and Santa's Elves; other cuddly merchandise.
Perhaps this is a strange variant of the sanity clause that under lines any social contract, that one structure will 'gel' when another melts away. The trick to maintaining the suspense, the mystery, and the danger is to deliver a universe that according to Chico Marx has "" no Sanit-y Claws"".
How many histories, how many social conventions would have to be established so they could be knocked down? What scared cows could be sacrificed so tentacle aliens would shock this conventional reality, this illusionary construct into fear, paranoia, schizophrenic denials, and psychotic comma?
Having the time line intersect the Great Depression might have enough apocalyptic feel in a ''noir'' reality we can relate to. The social mores would be familiar. The "'bow tie'' moralizing the first layer to be peeled away.
4too
Blue Velvet
W.:
Finally watched VHS of ""Blue Velvet"".
One of the 'hooks' that dragged the young seeker deeper into the under world of his little 'burg was his fascination in, his addiction to, turning over each rock on the path. He never imagined such life forms existed.
The amateur detective was more like the Dennis Hopper character then he could comfortably admit.
This loss of innocence, this revelation of a personal 'dark side' , this slipping into psychotic lusts and perverse ''lifestyles' was difficult enough to 'fit' into a feature length movie that presumed we have a knowledge of life in small town america.
Chtulhu TV.
There would be a need to establish what is sane, before one cracks that illusion and in that chaos establishes the insane.
Too much insanity and we construct a new reality, a new sanity .... the "'fear factor''
would wain and a comfortable cosmology would be filled with the 'moral equivalent' of fairies and ewoks and Santa's Elves; other cuddly merchandise.
Perhaps this is a strange variant of the sanity clause that under lines any social contract, that one structure will 'gel' when another melts away. The trick to maintaining the suspense, the mystery, and the danger is to deliver a universe that according to Chico Marx has "" no Sanit-y Claws"".
How many histories, how many social conventions would have to be established so they could be knocked down? What scared cows could be sacrificed so tentacle aliens would shock this conventional reality, this illusionary construct into fear, paranoia, schizophrenic denials, and psychotic comma?
Having the time line intersect the Great Depression might have enough apocalyptic feel in a ''noir'' reality we can relate to. The social mores would be familiar. The "'bow tie'' moralizing the first layer to be peeled away.
4too
Endless Void
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Well Cthulhu was meant to be beyond the comprehension of a man... I think Lovecraftian atmosphere just doesn't fit with visuality... I already felt bad when I heard title "Call Of Cthulhu" is hitting the shelves as a PC game...