ci5hq | Facelift and Master of the Revels

Well, I finally watched Facelift the whole way through, and

there are almost-spoilers for it (not the ending)(and maybe Master of the Revels) down below...

Okay - ohmigod, weird film! It's set in the year 2074, and our MS plays Zax, a magician who really can do magic to entertain the "names" - the scruffy - but at least interesting and human! - proles of the future. They are generally ignored by the "numbers", the elite - and incredibly boring - upper class, who are born in laboratories, exist in a sterile computer-generated world and rarely venture out of it. One of their guilty pleasures, however, is to visit Zax's magical theatre and when F-number female insists on going with M-number male, Zax spots her in the audience and is enraptured. But she returns to being the guinea-pig in the numbers' experiments to isolate the human soul, and he returns to his dressing room where he treats his girlfriend and magician's assistant appallingly, and starts work on a replicant of the F-number female. Of course when he finds out about the numbers' experiment - from his friend Ojuka (Peter Clarke) no less! (Oh alright, his friend Bob) - he realises what he needs to do...

But I'm really not going to spoiler the end too badly. *g* It's actually got lots of potential to be quite interesting, in an eighties, humanity-is-doomed-unless-we-save-ourselves kind of science fiction-y way. The bit that should be the crises is totally gory and made me go ewwwww very effectively, but then it just copped out and made that the penultimate scene instead - with a sort of see-why-you-shouldn't-meddle sort of final message... Ewwwww.

Master of the Revels, on the other hand, which I've started with only the first half in my hand until next month - ack! - not only brings in Bodie and Cowley (okay, Galen and the Controller, but they so are Bodie and Cowley), but it's started to flesh out the world of names and numbers and Regulators a bit more, and I stayed up way too late last night reading it when I meant to go straight to sleep... And Zax in the film just has no personality that I can see, so I can totally believe that he might yet turn out to be Doyle in a he's-been-terribly-traumatised kind of way. Which means that it really is an AU, and as we know I've gone from hating them to adoring them over the last eighteen months or so... Usually I hate it when AUs use names other than Bodie/Doyle too, but maybe because I've seen the film now I can deal with it in this one.

I know lots of people don't seem to like it, and I was wondering - do you think it might be because you've not seen the film? Might that help? ('cos, honestly, anything's got to be good after that..!) Or is there something else about the zine (without spoilering me too much, cos I'm barely a third into it!) that puts you off? And there are people out there who liked it, right? Apart from the gorgeous art?

Oh, and credit for the wallpaper up above to Bri's Professionals Wallpapers!

Threaded | Flat

I have seen Facelift and whilst it is an odd story, I enjoyed seeing Martin in the role ... he takes his make-up off, puts it on, puts the wig on, does some magic ... never saw that in The Professionals. Also, bit of singing, some medical procedure (of magical/mechanical sorts) and it was great to see Ojuka (Peter Clarke).

Always a joy to see Martin working with people from the Professionals for me.

Never saw the movie (not sure if I ever want to) but whenever I see those pics my fingers start itching and I wanna give him a thorough shave. Face hair - yuck!

MOTR possible spoilers...

Oh, cool. You've seen the movie. I've heard it's appallingly bad, but it's all taste, right? I'd love to see it since I love the zine. I have about twenty more pages of that tiny, itty-bitty print and I'm finished, but I was suck in immediately. I love the facial hair on Zax (Doyle) myself. And I do see Doyle and Bodie and Cowley through the entire story. It is definitely AU, but I've bought it big time.

The zine is beautiful. I bought it for the art and after hearing how people hated the story, I thought a few times I wouldn't read it, but what the heck. It's right here, next to me. So I started in... I can tell if I like a story within the first few pages. Next thing I know, it's two hours later and I'm happy.

The secondary characters are very lifelike, as is the "nemesis" to Zax. So all in all, I like it very much.

no I'm sorry all you facial hair haters, but this makes me want to do a *beardy* Doyle fic ... don't think I'll bother with the film tho, just separate Doyle from his beloved electric shaver somehow LOL

I don't normally have a problem with AUs. But I find I have a hard time liking a story when one of the characters isn't Bodie or Doyle. I don't want to read about Cade or Deed or whoever. Those are totally different characters. Bodie or Doyle in a different setting, like Cook and the Warehouseman, I can deal with. It's a different place. But the underlining characters are still supposed to be Bodie and Doyle.

I haven't read MotR, though I have the zine, mainly because of this. Is Zak Doyle? And, if so, what does that say about the Zak character? Or Cade, or whoever they use? Is there so little in these other characters that Doyle, or Bodie, can be so easily overlaid on them?

Oh, and thanks for the link! It's one I hadn't seen before. Great work!

Looks good, in an eighties big hair thing kind of a way.

I have to admit that MS is one of the few blokes who I think looks brill with facial fuzz. He can really carry it off.

I'm pretty sure I saw the movie before reading MotR...pretty sure. I actually enjoyed the movie. Well, I'd been warned, so my expectations were low. *g* Besides...there was a lot of potential there--and a lot that a decent writer can do with fan fiction that improves upon the original. *g*

Which leads me to MotR. I like it very much. I've burned out on some of HG, but this one still grabs me. I like the serialized way in which it appears to have been written--as if bits and pieces of it were appearing in public--so there are lots of cliffhangers. It just...takes you along for the ride. I'm not surprised it kept you up! It did the same with me. Enjoy!

Oh, and I do very much see them as an AU version of Bodie and Doyle. *g*

I really liked MotR, I have it and read it a few times. Galen is certainly Bodie-esque enough to keep me reading ;) And I like the fact that there's a whole world-building in the novel, I'm a sucker for that :D

I watched Facelift only after, but it made me appreciate the few Zax/Bodie stories out there so much more. Yes, it's a very 80s film with potential, though it ended up being pretentious and too 'symbolic', but Martin is gorgeous in it and gives Zax a raw vibrant energy that balances the film's inadequacies, imo.

:D

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