OMG - this is almost as bad as Nimoy's Bilbo
- Thread starter Gary7
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I could probably appreciate this if I was on acid.
"Fine old wine from vintage kegs"......
I think i just tasted some sick there......
Still you got to love the shat....Just as long as he keeps his "Kegs" hidden....
I think i just tasted some sick there......
Still you got to love the shat....Just as long as he keeps his "Kegs" hidden....
Re: OMG! This is just as good as Nimoy's Bilbo
I love the gong at the beginning.
I love the gong at the beginning.
Re: OMG! This is just as good as Nimoy's Bilbo
Wrong. The sad part is that so many people mistakenly assume it's meant to be singing at all. This is apparently an offshoot of his The Transformed Man album, which deserves a little background explanation. The album was made in 1968, at which time William Shatner was known, not merely for Star Trek, but as an established Shakespearean actor and Broadway performer with a fast-growing career in film and television. The producers of TTM were capitalizing on his reputation as an acclaimed, powerful theatrical actor, although his current prominence as a TV star was probably a factor too.
The album was intended as a series of dramatic readings with musical accompaniment. It has eleven different performances. Four are soliloquies from Shakespeare and Cyrano de Bergerac; three are poems. The other four -- just over 1/3 of the album's content -- are the lyrics to popular songs recited as though they were poems.
Which, in retrospect, was a mistake. It was no doubt an attempt to make this spoken-word album of dramatic readings a little more commercial by giving it a popular-music connection; but instead, those four cues out of eleven totally dominated people's perception of the album and were misconstrued as "horrible singing."
But the bottom line is, Shatner isn't singing here. He's acting. He's taking song lyrics and presenting them as dramatic monologues. Does that work? Maybe not. But the fault is with the concept, not the execution.
For what it's worth, I've had The Transformed Man on tape since my 11th-grade English teacher first played one of the soliloquies for the class, and I think Shatner's work on the soliloquies is excellent. Listening to his version of "To be or not to be" helped me to understand its meaning better.
Wrong. The sad part is that so many people mistakenly assume it's meant to be singing at all. This is apparently an offshoot of his The Transformed Man album, which deserves a little background explanation. The album was made in 1968, at which time William Shatner was known, not merely for Star Trek, but as an established Shakespearean actor and Broadway performer with a fast-growing career in film and television. The producers of TTM were capitalizing on his reputation as an acclaimed, powerful theatrical actor, although his current prominence as a TV star was probably a factor too.
The album was intended as a series of dramatic readings with musical accompaniment. It has eleven different performances. Four are soliloquies from Shakespeare and Cyrano de Bergerac; three are poems. The other four -- just over 1/3 of the album's content -- are the lyrics to popular songs recited as though they were poems.
Which, in retrospect, was a mistake. It was no doubt an attempt to make this spoken-word album of dramatic readings a little more commercial by giving it a popular-music connection; but instead, those four cues out of eleven totally dominated people's perception of the album and were misconstrued as "horrible singing."
But the bottom line is, Shatner isn't singing here. He's acting. He's taking song lyrics and presenting them as dramatic monologues. Does that work? Maybe not. But the fault is with the concept, not the execution.
For what it's worth, I've had The Transformed Man on tape since my 11th-grade English teacher first played one of the soliloquies for the class, and I think Shatner's work on the soliloquies is excellent. Listening to his version of "To be or not to be" helped me to understand its meaning better.
Re: OMG! This is just as good as Nimoy's Bilbo
When you look at the Transformed man in the context of the time it was produced, it's not so different from a number of other experimental albums of the time.
OTOH,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-yy2URAYqU
This remixed video of his version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds cracks me up every time.
When you look at the Transformed man in the context of the time it was produced, it's not so different from a number of other experimental albums of the time.
OTOH,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-yy2URAYqU
This remixed video of his version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds cracks me up every time.
Re: OMG! This is just as good as Nimoy's Bilbo
Whatever it was supposed to be, Shatner came off so smug that it made me want to punch my video screen.
I saw Patrick Stewart do something similar... and it was really very good. At first I thought he was going to sing, but then he followed through with a dramatic reading. That was ok--his talent can take you along, no problem. Quite a contrast to Shatner's performance. If it was supposed to be a spoof, he didn't give enough of that to make it clear...
Shatner an acclaimed Shakespearean actor? I wonder who gave him that acclaim?
Whatever it was supposed to be, Shatner came off so smug that it made me want to punch my video screen.
I saw Patrick Stewart do something similar... and it was really very good. At first I thought he was going to sing, but then he followed through with a dramatic reading. That was ok--his talent can take you along, no problem. Quite a contrast to Shatner's performance. If it was supposed to be a spoof, he didn't give enough of that to make it clear...
Shatner an acclaimed Shakespearean actor? I wonder who gave him that acclaim?
Re: OMG! This is just as good as Nimoy's Bilbo
The stage acting style is different from what we've become used to in an era where more intimate TV acting dominates. You have to be larger than life when you need to project emotion to the back rows of a theater; it's different when a camera can get right up close.
Also, I think Shatner's acting style started to deteriorate somewhat after 1967. There was an accident on set where a pyrotechnic charge detonated too close to him and gave him a severe case of tinnitus. (I'd had the impression it was during "Arena," but DeForest Kelley's biography says it was during "The Apple" and that Nimoy and Kelley also suffered milder tinnitus from it.) I imagine it can be hard to gauge one's performance when there's a loud ringing in your ears at every moment. But if you look at early Shatner, in TOS's first season and before, his style is a lot more understated and natural, with little or none of the later excesses that the impressionists base their acts on.
Gary7 said:
Shatner an acclaimed Shakespearean actor? I wonder who gave him that acclaim?
The stage acting style is different from what we've become used to in an era where more intimate TV acting dominates. You have to be larger than life when you need to project emotion to the back rows of a theater; it's different when a camera can get right up close.
Also, I think Shatner's acting style started to deteriorate somewhat after 1967. There was an accident on set where a pyrotechnic charge detonated too close to him and gave him a severe case of tinnitus. (I'd had the impression it was during "Arena," but DeForest Kelley's biography says it was during "The Apple" and that Nimoy and Kelley also suffered milder tinnitus from it.) I imagine it can be hard to gauge one's performance when there's a loud ringing in your ears at every moment. But if you look at early Shatner, in TOS's first season and before, his style is a lot more understated and natural, with little or none of the later excesses that the impressionists base their acts on.
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Re: OMG! This is just as good as Nimoy's Bilbo
That is a very interesting observation Christopher. I have a very mild form of Tinnitus. So I was aware of him suffering from it too. While nothing close to his problem, I am corrected on speaking too load or too softly all the time.
That is a very interesting observation Christopher. I have a very mild form of Tinnitus. So I was aware of him suffering from it too. While nothing close to his problem, I am corrected on speaking too load or too softly all the time.
Re: OMG! This is just as good as Nimoy's Bilbo
I just caught part of "Metamorphosis" today (my local station joined it in progress, arrgh), and I realized that Shatner's delivery of his big speech to the Companion was much more downplayed than comparable speeches in later episodes. Maybe that was just due to different directors, but it supports my theory about the tinnitus affecting his acting, causing him to go bigger in order to, essentially, talk over the noise in his ears. And it supports the idea that the accident occurred during "The Apple" rather than "Arena."
And I have mild tinnitus too.
I just caught part of "Metamorphosis" today (my local station joined it in progress, arrgh), and I realized that Shatner's delivery of his big speech to the Companion was much more downplayed than comparable speeches in later episodes. Maybe that was just due to different directors, but it supports my theory about the tinnitus affecting his acting, causing him to go bigger in order to, essentially, talk over the noise in his ears. And it supports the idea that the accident occurred during "The Apple" rather than "Arena."
And I have mild tinnitus too.
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