Lost Time
I had a friend who took all the scenes in Memento--which is told backwards--and made a video where they were in chronological order. It was fascinating. (I did the same thing with Pulp Fiction--not quite as fascinating.)
Watching Lost recently, with all the flashbacks, I thought it would be interesting when the series is over, with all it's 100+ episodes, that someone do the same thing with the entire series. It'd be a monumental undertaking, but it'd sure be cool to see things unfold that way.
posted by LAGuy @ 2:37 AM
5 Comments:
My dream device is a DVD player that is programmable, with programs that are simple, portable text files.
So you could create a "Chronological Lost" program that looked something like this:
DVD 7, Episode 3, 14:25:30-15:38:12
DVD 7, Episode 3, 21:13:00-25:12:16
DVD 1, Episode 2, 01:07:12-13:12:32
....
You then post this on your blog, or on Usenet, or whatever. Then someone tries it out and replies "Great, but you accidentally switched two of the Locke scenes; here is a correction," and posts their revised version.
The DVD player would be able to say "Please insert disk # X" when it needs a new disk.
Once these became popular, we would begin to get coalescing options -- all the fans on the web might agree that Fred's Ordering of Lost is the best -- or we could have websites dedicated to programs for all sorts of TV shows and movies.
I also want these programs to be able to tell the DVD player to black out part of the screen, or to mute the sound for a specified time interval. That way, when a certain surprise guest appears at the end of a Babylon 5 episode, the viewer hasn't been spoiled by seeing the actress' name in the opening guest credits -- because her name was blacked out. (We would of course show the credit again, non-blacked, at the end, in fairness to the actress.)
Which leads to the reason the industry might hate this idea: it could be used to skip credits. And since it would be insanely frustrating if you had to watch the FBI warning every time you changed a disk, the industry would have to allow an exception here as well.
It would be so awesome! Here's what you could do with it:
* Watch all six seasons of Lost in chronological order.
* Watch Memento and Pulp Fiction in chronological order.
* Replace the extremely good five seasons of Babylon 5 with a cut version, removing the dumb episodes and dumb arcs from within episodes (e.g., the doctor's drinking problem), creating a truly stupendous science fiction show that was 25% shorter.
I am publishing this here because I don't want to make it myself and get rich -- I want someone else to make it, so I can use it!!!
It's technically possible, though it would bother a lot of people, especially artists, who'd like their stuff seen as intended. Wasn't there a service a while ago that planned to make censored videos available for people who don't like swearing or nudity or whatever?
Of course, once you buy something, it's pretty hard for the original creators to stop you personalizing your use. (And the more they do try to stop it, the less valuable what they sell becomes.) Look at DVDs that have chapter breaks--practically begging you to go in and out of the movie wherever you want. (David Lynch is the only filmmaker I know to haveonly one chapter for the whole movie). Then they've added new soundtracks where the talk over their own movies. (Once again, some, like Woody Allen and I think Spielberg and the Coen Brothers refuse to do this).
When I used to make mixed tapes I would regularly change songs to fit my preference. I'd fade them out early if they took too long, or (with a turntable) even change the speed if I felt it was moving too slow. If nothing else, I was taking songs out of albums and putting them into a new collection.
We've always had crude ways of changing the art or entertainment we receive. The most obvious is turning something off, or not watching. Once you know, say, which Star Trek episodes you like, you can avoid The Alternative Factor. I often drop in on a movie on TV just for an interesting scene or moment--I've even blogged about this a few times. But if the system you discuss were available, I'd probably try to set up a Babylon 5 that has no doctor at all.
And you could watch all of The Godfather in chronological order, too.
Oh, wait...
Did your friend make the Memento chornological version or just copy the one that comes with the deluxe DVD as an extra? You may know, the Memento DVD (on eof my absolute favorites) comes with a lot of extras, but they are difficult to access as they require selecting all sorts of icons in a specific order. The key, of course, is available on Easter Egg sites on line. But the chronological order version of the film is pretty neat. I found it especially insightful to see the black and white scenes in order and immediately following each other. It gave you a better feel for what leonard's day was really like, and how long it took him to forget what he was doing.
As to services that let you edit your own copy of films, I don't see why these are not available. I've been using the skip button for a long time to jump frames, especially when watching one I know well with my little kids. Since I don't want to explain why the ghost is pulling down Dan Ackroyd's pants in Ghost Busters, that has been a prime scene to skip in a movie that is otherwise completely suitable for kids (Mother-pus-bucket!)
He did the Memento thing on Videotape.
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