“When the fall is all there is…”
I get traffic from people searching for this quote almost daily. Aaron Sorkin paraphrased it twice–once on Sports Night, and again on The West Wing. I’ve used it before too, once in describing Harry’s role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Sorkin’s paraphrase goes like this: “As if it matters how a man falls down. When the fall is all that’s left, it matters very much.”
The line comes from The Lion in Winter, as Prince Geoffrey and Prince Richard find themselves in the dungeon, believing they hear their father’s approach…
Richard: He’s here. He’ll get no satisfaction out of me. He isn’t going to see me beg.
Geoffrey: My you chivalric fool… as if the way one fell down mattered.
Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters.
And here it is in living color! (Unfortunately, the only YouTube video I found that displays this scene refuses to let me embed it–click the link and enjoy.)
AMC announces Prisoner premiere date!
The Prisoner premieres Sunday, November 15, 2009. AMC “will air two episodes each night over three consecutive nights.”
See the nine-minute trailer here.
Can’t wait!
Red Shirts
Orson Scott Card on Star Trek and Captain Kirk:
Centering the series around a commanding officer was such a bad mistake that the show immediately corrected for the error by never, for one moment, having Kirk behave like a captain.
While a television show can get away with having a captain who acts like the leader of an exploratory team, the readers of prose science fiction have no tolerance for such nonsense.
(Card, Orson Scott. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. The Writer’s Digest Genre Writing Series. Writer’s Digest Books: Cincinnati. 1990.)
And now, a word from John Locke (Lost 1.09 “All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues” — minor language warning):
9/21/2009 – First snow of the season
Residents of Colorado Springs: According to KVOR, it’s snowing in Briargate.
Let’s get it out of the way: Lost changed things for television. Every year since its 2004 premiere, networks have tried to emulate its magic, with varying degrees of success. This year’s entry from ABC is 
While film novelizations tend to sit in the realm of the literary gutter, a small handful have managed transcend the stigma. Most notably is Orson Scott Card’s, The Abyss. Lesser known, however, is Alan Dean Foster’s