Showing posts with label The Deadly Assassin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Deadly Assassin. Show all posts

Saturday 3 February 2024

I Wish Today was Just Like Every Other Day




The idea that sufficient 
knowledge of The Present allows
accurate prediction of 
The Future is an example of 
Determinist philosophy.

The mathematican Pierre-Simon Laplace 
wrote that, for one with sufficent knowledge,
"The Future just like The Past would 
be present before His Eyes."


Ending Kiss | Groundhog Day (1993) | Now Playing


Well, I woke-up, Today.
And The World seemed ….
A Rest-less place.

It could have been 
that way, for Me —

….and I wandered around —
And I Thought of : Your Face.

That Groundhog Day, 
Looking back, at Me

I wish Today, was just-like 
•every• other day;

Yes, today has been The Best Day —
Every Thing I •ever• Dreamed…!

And I Started to Walk
Pretty soon, I will run —
And I’ll come running, back to You!

So, I followed My Star :
and That’s What You ARE.

I’ve had a Merry time with You!



The original idea for Groundhog Day came to writer Danny Rubin in 1990. He had moved to Los Angeles to work as a screenwriter. While waiting in a theater for a film to start, he was reading Anne Rice's book The Vampire Lestat (1985). Rubin began musing about vampiric immortality and what one would do with their time if it was limitless. He reasoned that vampires were like normal people who did not need to adhere to ordinary rules or moral boundaries. He questioned if and when immortality would become boring or pointless, and how a person would change over time, especially if they were incapable of substantial change. He singled out men he deemed to be in arrested development, who could not outlive their adolescence.

Having recently sold his first script for what would become the thriller film Hear No Evil (1993), his agent prompted him to develop a "calling-card" script that he could use to gain meetings with producers. Rubin began work on his idea of a man changing over eternal life, but quickly realized that the idea was impractical because of the expense of depicting historical and future events. At this point, Rubin recalled a brief story concept he had written two years earlier that followed a man who woke every morning to find it was the same day repeating. Rubin married the two ideas to create the outline for Groundhog Day. By portraying eternity as a repeating cycle instead of a straight line through history, he eliminated the production cost of constantly changing settings. He believed that the repetition also offered him more dramatic and comedic possibilities.

Rubin opened a calendar and picked the next nearest holiday, February 2, Groundhog Day. He saw it as a date with story potential because it was a recognised holiday without much widespread attention. Rubin believed that people were vaguely aware of the holiday, on which a groundhog predicts the coming of spring. Even so, he believed few people outside Pennsylvania were aware that the actual festival takes place in the small town of Punxsutawney, something he became aware of through a writing job for a local phone company. Setting the story in Punxsutawney provided a small area in which to trap Phil Connors, while reporting on the event gave the character a reason to visit. Rubin took the main character's name from Punxsutawney Phil. He hoped the film could become a perennial holiday favorite, like It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965).

Rubin spent eight weeks working on the story: seven making notes to define the rules and characters, and one writing the script. He struggled to establish a cause for the time loop, considering technological, magical, and celestial origins. He considered these methods interchangeable and felt the cause was unimportant and could detract from the story elements he wanted to focus on. Rubin said that the lack of explanation made Phil's situation more relatable, as "none of us knows exactly how we got stuck here either." He chose to begin the story in medias res, with Phil already caught in the time loop. The first scene included Phil waking to "I Got You Babe," predicting the radio host banter and the actions of the hotel patrons, and attacking a pedestrian outside. Rubin thought this would intrigue an audience trying to understand how and why he is doing these things. He chose "I Got You Babe" because it used a lot of repeating lines and was about love, which he felt were thematically resonant aspects. He likened his original script to the 1949 British black comedy film Kind Hearts and Coronets, particularly the flippant way in which Phil's multiple suicides are shown.

Rubin did not initially write the film as a broad comedy, considering it more whimsical. He found that the funnier elements were the easiest to think of; one of the earliest scenes he wrote was about Phil using his ever-increasing knowledge to seduce women. Loops were also dedicated to Phil seeing how far he could get outside of Punxsutawney; inevitably, he was always returned to the town. Even so, the script focused much more on Phil's loneliness. He breaks the loop only after realizing that there are other lonely people and that he can do good deeds to make them happier. Scenes in the finished film happened much earlier in Rubin's script, such as Phil driving over a cliff. The passage of time was also more distinct; Phil would track it by reading one page of a book per day, reaching his low point when he realizes he has run out of books. The original ending also featured a twist: Phil breaks his loop and then confesses his love to Rita. The perspective then becomes Rita's; she rejects Phil's advance because she is not ready for love and gets trapped in a loop of her own.



"When Chekhov saw The Long Winterhe saw 
A Winter bleak and dark and bereft of Hope. 
Yet we know that Winter is just 
another step in The Cycle of Life.

But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney, and 
basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts... 
I couldn't imagine a better fate, than 
a long and lustrous Winter. 

From Punxsutawneyit's 
Phil Connors. So long."

Wednesday 6 April 2022

HARMONY






Now this Traken Web of Harmony is broken. 


I am Free!



Dr. Disco : 

(to The Master) 

The last time I saw you, 

you were on your way to Gallifrey.


MASTER: 

Well, I didn't stay. 

Why would I stay?


Dr. Disco : 

So they cured your little condition and kicked you out.


MASTER: 

It was a mutual kicking-me-out.

(Bored Missy is repairing her lip gloss.)


Dr. Disco : 

Somehow you ended up in this dump. 

You never could drive.


MASTER: 

Meh. You wouldn't understand.


Dr. Disco :

Well, let's see how I do :-


Your TARDIS got stuck. 

You killed a lot of people, 

took over The City, 

lived like A King until 

They rebelled against 

Your Cruelty. 


And ever since then 

You've been hiding out, 

probably in disguise, 

because everybody knows 

your stupid round face.



MASTER: 

Round?


MISSY: 

It's a little bit.


MASTER: 

Shut up! Do you want to see My City, Doctor

Do you want to see what happens when you're too late to save your little friend and everybody else?


(He wheels the Doctor to the parapet to watch the columns of people being escorted by patients.)


MASTER: 

See? This used to be just a hospital. 

Now it's mass production. 

The Cyber Foundries.


MISSY: 

The whole City is a Machine 

to turn people into Cybermen. 

What do you think? Exciting, isn't it? 

Watching the Cybermen getting started.


Dr. Disco : 

They always get started. 

They happen everywhere there's people


Mondas, Telos, Earth, 

Planet 14, Marinus. 


Like sewage and smartphones 

and Donald Trump, 

some things are 

just inevitable.


(Missy notices an aerial is pulsing out a signal.)


MISSY: 

Doctor. Doctor, have you done something? 

What's happening?


Dr. Disco : 

People get the Cybermen wrong. 

There's no evil plan, no evil genius.

Just parallel evolution.


MASTER: 

Doctor, what have you done?


Dr. Disco : 

(People + Technology) — Humanity. 


The Internet, Cyberspace, Cybermen. 


Always read the comments

because one day, They'll be an army.


MISSY: 

Look, they're coming. 

They're coming for us!


MASTER: 

This doesn't make any sense!


Dr. Disco : 

Doesn't it?


MASTER

These Cybermen are primitive. 

They're programmed to 

track human beings and convert them. 

They home in on human life signs only.


Dr. Disco :

You two, you should know by now. 

When you're winning, 

and I'm in the room, 

you're missing something.


MASTER

What have we missed?


Dr. Disco :

You shouldn't have hit me, Missy. 


I was waiting for my chance. 


Computer, containing the algorithm defining human life signs. 


I only had time to change one detail. 

A single number. 

One to a two. 

One heart to two hearts. 

I expanded the definition of Humanity. 


Took 'em a while to update the net, but here we go. 

Welcome to the menu!


(Cybermen are stomping up the stairs to the now floodlit roof.)


Dr. Disco : 

Now they think that we count as humans, 

and they're going to fix that in a hurry!


(Missy sonicks the doors shut. The Master sonicks a Cyberman that has come up the fire escape and sets its chest unit on fire.)


MASTER: 

There must be other ways up here. 

We can't cover them all.


Dr. Disco :

You can't fight a whole city. 

You know the stories. 

There's only ever been one way 

to stop that many Cybermen. Me!

(The Master sonicks another Cyberman then goes to the Doctor.)


MASTER: 

Then do it. 

Stop them!


Dr. Disco : 

Begging for your life already? 

That's a new record.


MASTER: 

I'm not begging you

I'd rather die than beg

you


Dr. Disco : 

Lucky day, then.


MASTER: 

I can do this. 

They're not difficult. 

They're Cybermen.


Dr. Disco :

Knock yourself out.


(Missy pirouettes and KO's the Master with her parasol.)


MISSY: 

Your wish is my command.


(She unties the Doctor.)


MISSY: 

I was secretly on your side 

all along, you silly sausage.


Dr. Disco :

Is that True?


MISSY: 

Don't spoil the moment.


Dr. Disco :

Seriously, I need to know. Is that True?


(He holds Missy's hand.)


MISSY

It's hard to say. 

I, I'm in two minds. 

Fortunately, the other one's unconscious.




MASTER: 

I landed here. 

I had trouble taking off.


MISSY: 

The black hole?


MASTER: 

Too close to the event horizon.


MISSY: 

And you screwed up. 

You went too fast.


MASTER: 

I blew the dematerialisation circuit.


MISSY: 

Which reminds me. 

A funny thing happened to me once.


MASTER: 

What?


(She grabs his lapels and pushes him against a pillar.)


MISSY

A very long time ago, a very scary lady threw me against a wall and made me promise to always, always carry a spare dematerialisation circuit. 


I don't remember much about her now but, she must have made quite an impression.


(And takes a dematerialisation circuit out of her jacket pocket.)


MASTER

You know you basically have me to thank for this.


MISSY

You're welcome.


MASTER

By the way, is it wrong that I er —


(They both glance down.)


MISSY: 

Yes. Very.

Wednesday 9 January 2019

Prydonian Pazzis


Celestial Intervention Agency,
they get their fingers into everything...





renege (v.)

1540s, "deny, renounce, abandon," from Medieval Latin renegare, from Latin re-, here probably an intensive prefix, + negare"refuse," from PIE root *ne- "not." Meaning "change one's mind" is from 1784. Related: Renegedreneging.