Not the sort of blog that does many links, but...

Anyone who is a fan of the original series of Star Trek and wishes there had been a season 4 should watch this. Episode 1 of Season 4:Pilgrim of Eternity.

It's really rather well done and several of the actors have the mannerisms down perfectly.

I'll be watching out for future episodes. I think you will be too.

The most frustrating thing about China

There are many little niggles about life in China that make things difficult or frustrating but for my money the utter impossibility of getting information about anything is about the worst.

We are now three (or maybe four or maybe five) weeks from the end of term. I have a summer job in another city and I need to book a flight. But I can't, because no one can tell me when the term actually ends. Not only that, but they can't tell me when they will be able to tell me when the term actually ends. Or, in an amazing bit of meta-obfuscation, when they will be able to tell me when they will be able to tell me when the term ends.

If I don't book the flight now I will end up having to pay double or treble for it and, I have been told, there is a serious possibility that I won't find out when the term ends until the morning of the actual day so I won't be able to even get onto a flight.

I'm not kidding.

I have in the past been given about one hour's notice that a holiday is starting - told at eleven O'clock in the morning that the holiday starts at twelve. I have had many conversations with Chinese colleagues where I have asked how they organise things and the answer is a blank stare, a "what does 'organise' mean" kind of stare. If I can manage to explain what I mean they seem baffled that anyone would want or need more than a day's notice.

And this is how it is. Always.

A Missing Scene Redux

 Caution - one large SPOILER ahead.

I am informed that this is well-known in the UK, probably here too if only I could read the papers,  well-known and controversial.

Some Chinese film fans are apparently rather angry about it.

They should be. The additional scenes are pointless. Insulting even. The total screen time for the Chinese stars is about a minute. It's clearly just shoe-horned into the movie with no sense or reason.*

I was told that the dialogue (in Chinese - no English subtitling) was just the doctor saying that they must save Tony Stark (who wasn't noticeably hurt!) because he isn't just an American hero he is a world hero. The nurse gets even less to say or do.

And that's more or less it.

I can understand why Chinese fans feel let down - these are huge stars (or so I'm told) in Chinese cinema.

There is a kind of irony to it too. The studio have gone to great trouble to re-invent the Mandarin. - In the comic books a thoroughly evil oriental - as a western actor hired to pretend to be a generic terrorist. The script has been crafted to turn what was a Chinese supervillain into something else and not offend China but then the additional Chinese scenes have been inserted in such a cack-handed way that it was bound to anger the fans.

And the fans will be even more angry if the rumours on the internet are true and that the scenes they filmed in China but didn't show at all in either country get included on the Blu-Ray release - virtually no one here has Blu-Ray because although many DVDs are labelled "Blu-Ray" none of them actually are. Buying legitimate DVDs is all but impossible and I have yet to see an actual genuine Blu-Ray disc.

If it does get edited and then released in a format that most of the Chinese fans won't be able to watch then that's just piling up the insult.

None of it alters the fact that it's a pretty good movie but it doesn't make Disney/Marvel look good.

(*Apart, of course, from the real world reason that it made marketing and selling the movie in China easier.)

A Missing Scene

Right at the end of Iron Man 3 - at  least at the end of the version I saw last night - there is a scene between a Chinese doctor and a Chinese nurse. They talk as they are scrubbing up and then there is another short scene between them a couple of minutes later.

The scene was in Chinese and not subtitled.

This morning I downloaded a copy to take a look at the subtitles.

Not only were there no subtitles, there was no scene. It was gone. Disappeared.

I wonder if it was put in solely for the Chinese cut of the movie. 

Downloading it did do one good thing though. It let me see the post credits scene. In Chinese cinemas they always seem to stop the movie as soon as the credits start so that scenes during or after the credits are never shown.