"War of the Worlds" Extended End Theme

Because the theme from the ending credits just wasn't long enough before, not for anyone obsessed with it anyway. :) Thanks to Billy Thorpe for the original tune!

Listen here

Popwhazit word games - Skeet Ulrich & WotW

I've added a few more Popwhazit videos over at YouTube for Skeet Ulrich fans and fans of the "War of the Worlds" TV series. Enjoy! Can You Solve Them?


SKEET ULRICH:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVCDss1Jo-Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRJ-0AZSE64




"WAR OF THE WORLDS":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK7NKSOflsU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsVa9SWWpOk


Feel free to link these word game videos anywhere you want - spread the obsession to all your friends!
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Richard Chaves fan-art

Here are a couple of drawings of Richard Chaves, done by a fellow RCappreciationGroup member, Rachael, in 2001. They're freehand and brilliantly done (sketched off of a paused frame from War of the Worlds - I'm so jealous). There's something so special about hand-drawn sketches of things, there's a quality in that type of art that really captures the essence of a subject, entirely differently than something photo-realistic would.


Sketch #1



Close-up of Sketch #1




Sketch #2
Rachael said "I made the page dark with
graphite, and then I erased the light parts." - neat technique, makes it look great!

Richard Chaves Live Appearance

Guess what, Richard Chaves is slated to make a live appearance in Houston, TX in July for the 34th Annual Reliant Park World Series Of Dog Shows. Now you may be wondering: Why a dog show? But it ties in with Buzzoose Productions' animatated film 'Jimmy Paul: The Pug Tooth Fairy'. Richard Chaves has done voicework for Buzzoose, which I think is very cool cos he has a fantastic voice, very nuanced and perfect for cartoons. I do hope he continues to do voice-overs, perhaps in any series they have in the works.

MORE INFO:
Vertical Sky Publicity



According to the press release: "Actors will be present in a special booth and will be available for photos and signing autographs", and also serve as judges to "open auditions for roles in three upcoming films" from Buzzoose Productions. It really sounds like fun, I wish I could make it!

Of doing the cartoon voice, Richard has said it was the most fun he's had in his career, and "I finally get a project where I get to be around kids where they're laughing and it's fun and it's not murdering, killing, and mayhem, I’m absolutely thrilled."

For the upcoming show in July, I'm sure he'll be surrounded by a lot more kids, and plenty of doggies too! :D

War of the Worlds: score & promos

Okay, here are a few War of the Worlds goodies.
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First up are some tracks from the soundtrack. It's easy to 'overlook' score while you're watching cos your attention is being devoted to the action onscreen. I heard it said once by a movie composer that he preferred when people came out of a theater going "There was score?" cos he felt this meant he'd done his job and integrated the music so well that it went by as part of the whole experience and not as a standout feature. I see his point and kinda agree, but I think I prefer to have music reach out and grab me while I'm watching something :D I really enjoyed hearing these tracks separately cos it gave me a chance to pay the music some closer attention and get a fuller appreciation of it. It's clear that a big part of the alien atmosphere and suspenseful eerieness of WotW comes from it's fantastic background music.

A clean version (meaning it doesn't have the sound FX or Harrison's narration over the top) of the opening titles music to Season One:




And a nice longer version (used for the subliminal track in the "Choirs of Angels" ep) of the Billy Carlos ending theme from Season One:




Big thanks to BigPapiChulo for these and the others he has at his Youtube channel, including Quinn's theme and Katara's theme, both of which are quite nice.

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Next up is a hybrid of the opening titles and ending theme (both from Season One - do you see a theme here?) that I put together for curiosity's sake a while ago. The ending music has always been a lot more hummable to me, and that's the one that would stick in my head and I'd recall later, so I wanted to see what it could've been like had that been the Theme Song. I find it neat that other fans have been enjoying the 'What if?' too.



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And lastly, vids of (almost all) the series promos for both seasons. I remember seeing some of these back in 1988 and waiting SO excitedly for the next week's episode - oh, the memories... *sigh* It was one of the first TV shows I followed with fervor, so the promos were a big deal to watch and thrill over, knowing we were getting a nifty new ep coming up.








Interesting how the promo to "Vengeance is Mine" doesn't mention the main plot at all!

And I know it's a bit mean of me to always be championing Season One over Season Two, but I couldn't help but notice how the S1 promos often end with some clever wording based on that week's plot, but a bunch of the S2 ones end with just "On the next all new exciting episode of..." - alomost like they're trying to convince you "You will find it exciting". Maybe it was just some Morthren subliminal tactics going on :P

(Thanks to Boltax for bringing these promos to my attention :) )

"Another Battlefield" - War of the Worlds fanfic

What I like about this particular fic is that, even though it's one of the 'Ironhorse didn't get killed off' stories, it masterfully accomplishes this without requiring The Second Season not to have happened. A big feat indeed! It maintains the occurrence of ALL 43 episodes, and even explains certain things in "The Second Wave" that otherwise irritate me (behaviour during the clone confrontation). The story gives good reconciliation and closure for any fan who just couldn't take the death scene of their hero.

Read it here

It's nicely written and well paced, very visceral (I read it all in one sitting, I couldn't stop), and I thoroughly enjoyed the 'new' characters (Jem and Littlehawk) - I could easily picture how Richard Chaves would shine as them had this been a filmed episode.

Fansite Spotlight: Richard Chaves Fans

I was a fan of Richard Chaves (or more accurately, Lt. Col. Paul Ironhorse, since I'd only seen him as that character at that point) when watching War of the Worlds as a little kid, back during the show's original run. I never joined any fanclubs or mailing lists at the time (though I see now that there were tons, with plenty of fans too), but I'm making up for lost time now, at a great little corner of the 'Net devoted to enthusing about and admiring Richard and his wonderful acting.

There's the fansite, Richard Chaves Fans, that's been fully updated and is ever-growing with new content as it's discovered or donated. And there's the Fan Forum, where I've been enjoying getting to know other RC fans, all of whom I've found to be friendly, interested, and highly creative (the STG we have running there has kept me thrilled :) ). And then there's a Fanlisting too, which is basically like a directory of fans of RC. All three are created by and run by a consummate RC fan, and real fun gal, Lynda Vazquez.

If anyone needs a refresher course or introduction to Richard and how talented (and AWESOME!) he is, I made a video for that express purpose:



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Overcoming the Stalker Issue

I feel it's necessary to bring this up, cos a fellow RC fan voiced her concerns to me that one reason why we haven't been getting very many members at the forum may be: the fact that RC had to drop out of the public eye, due to dealing with a stalker back in the late 90's, might be making some fans too uncertain about showing their fan-ness for him.

I have to admit that I was a little wary myself of joining, cos I tend to have a very over-enthusiastic personality, and I didn't want that to be mistaken for the sort of unkind type of celeb-obsessed attitude. But let it be said right here: even though fans and stalkers do share a somewhat similar mindset, they do NOT act the same - fans admire and enthuse, and yes, enjoy coming to an actor's public appearances, but stalkers stalk - big difference. So I figured that as long as I was always respectful and kind in my adoration, then I wouldn't have to worry about getting confused for something I'm not - and never ever would be!

We can assume that Richard himself has gotten past whatever misery the stalker caused, since he's been to a convention since then, and he didn't look like he was in any way trying to avoid fan attention. :D So let's put the incident behind us too. I want to get to know the other RC fans out there, and I don't want some jerk's stupid actions to ruin a fandom that's precious to me. And after all, what would Richard think if he decided to google his name so he could see what his fandom was up to, and saw us being all nervous and guarded instead of rambunctiously squeeing about everything we love about him? So c'mon: RC fans unite! Come join the fun!

Funnycaps 2.0: 'War of the Worlds' & 'Misfits of Science'

I've always enjoyed funnycaps (aka: screencaps with intentionally funny captions), both reading them and making them. I tried making some multi-panel ones off of two of my fave shows, War of the Worlds and Misfits of Science. It was fun :) (Yeah, I know, I probably broke one of the cardinal rules of funnycapping by photoshopping a frame or two in some of them - but since I was just having fun with these, I figured it didn't matter.) I've never seen any multi-panel funnycaps before (hence why I'm calling them '2.0'), but I'd like to see more if anybody knows of any or has any themselves. I do have some ideas for others kicking around in my head, I may get around to putting those up sometime too, but for now here are the ones I made:

Read 'em here

Read 'em here