Author: ashleyelsdon

Storyteller - Poet - Explorer

Why didn’t Thunderbirds work as a remake?

Posted by on in FilmsLeave a comment

As I’m watching this right now I thought I’d share some thoughts on the reasons why it didn’t work as a 21st Century franchise. The original series was brilliant. There’s no doubt about that, and actually the 2004 version had a lot of good points. It had a good cast (Lady Penelope and Parker were brilliant in fact), some great special effects and  the story wasn’t too bad either.

But where they went wrong in my opinion, is in trying to move away from the central thrust of the story. They tried to make the children an integral part of the story instead of it just being about disasters and awesome machines. I think that if they’d stuck to the formula it would have had a much better chance.

It’s a shame really as I think it would have made a good franchise really, but it wasn’t to be.

Moving forward: Back and Forth

Posted by on in Creative ProcessLeave a comment

I got to spend some time with my latest music project yesterday. I’ve been experimenting with processing audio through Jasuto which has had some interesting results.

As I said before, I think that the creative process in making these soundscapes may end up being more satisfying that the actual finished product, but at the moment I’m not worrying too much about that. I think I’ll enjoy the process for now and see where I end up with in a couple of months.

Remembering Mick

Posted by on in Events, ListeningLeave a comment

Today there was a meet up in London to celebrate the life of the bassist Mick Karn who sadly died last month.

I would have really liked to have gone along, but it was sadly impossible. I’ve been thinking about him and his music for days, but I can’t seem to listen to anything by him. I don’t know why, but every time I see one of his tracks come up I skip it.

I’m considering having a serious Mick Karn listening session soon. I think it might be something I really need to do.

ZX81 Museum

Posted by on in History, TechLeave a comment

I used to have a ZX81 and I wish I hadn’t got rid of it now. What an amazing little computer, and how much you could do with 1k of memory!

I’m glad to see that the ZX81 museum is a really well curated little site. I found quite a lot of stuff on there that I’ve had in the past.

These days I only have a ZX81 emulator on my Android phone. I must do some more bits and pieces with that soon.