Friday, May 14, 2021

Post 4004 - Friday Night Lessons

Well, hello there, my friends.

Another day of sleeping in. I really must do something about that. 

The afternoon was spent trying to figure out what to watch on Amazon Prime, but then it was pushing 4pm, so we decided not to bother. Instead we watched a few things on the PVR. 

The PVR is always in a state of being so full that it will start to delete things to free up space to accommodate more things to record. Meanwhile, the content on Netflix and Amazon Prime and Crave rushes by us at a rate impossible to keep up with. Meanwhile, I see that Disney is making lurching attempts to do right by authors like Alan Dean Foster, which means I may cease my boycott of their content and subscribe to Disney+. 

For those who don't know, Alan Dean  Foster ghost wrote the very first Star Wars novel in 1977. If you have the original novelization from back in the day, it says it was written by George Lucas. It wasn't. Alan Dean Foster did. He wrote a bunch of other SW stuff in the ensuing years for the company Lucas owned, and was paid appropriate royalties along the way. When Lucas sold the properties to Disney 10 years or so ago, they inherited the content Foster had written as well. But their position was that the royalties relationship Foster had had was with George Lucas and not with them, and that Disney therefore did not owe anything to Alan Dean Foster, who is now  in his 70's and in failing health and not nearly as wealthy as you think he would be. 

Disney has had a long track record, one going back decades, of screwing over writers and actors and anybody else who gets in their way of making ungodly amounts of money. This time, though, with Alan Dean Foster and other writers, there was enough of a backlash from current writers and writers guilds that they had to capitulate, or at least say they would. After all, someone has to write the 1100 or so Marvel and Star Wars-related tv shows coming down the pike in the next few years. 

Writers gots to be paid. If writers did not exist, actors would have nothing to say, and producers and other creative folks would have nothing to corrupt and change as they saw fit. 

So, assuming that writers like Alan Dean Foster start to get their proper due, I will consider subscribing to Disney+, thereby adding even more content to the pile of things I "need to watch" while I sit in this chair eating bonbons, corn chips, and cucumbers soaking in a salt and vinegar solution. 

Ah, the fun life of the retired person!

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

 


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