� pioneering Sims 2 sex | Main | USC IMD 2004 �
6 January, 2009
Wild Palms on DVD?
I remember seeing Oliver Stone's Wild Palms on TV - a sort of strange mix of 3D holographs, invasive television and melodrama from 1993. Here's a summary:
Oliver Stone's cyberpunk Wild Palms TV miniseries owes perhaps more to David Lynch's Twin Peaks than it does to the writings of William Gibson (who actually makes a small cameo appearance in the film).The plot involves a monopolistic media company in not-so-distant future out to control to the United States through technology and the media. (Its leader is an ex-science fiction writer/Texan billionaire, basically a mixture between Dianetics leader, L. Ron Hubbard and former presidential candidate, Ross Perot.) The corporation is opposed at every turn by a group of rebels fighting for individual freedom.
Although the plot is confusing at times, Wild Palms is suitably bizarre watching featuring state-of-the-art special effects.
Somehow, class discussions here in the Interactive Media Division keep reminding me of this series - I want to watch it again. Unfortunately, it's only out on VHS on Amazon - DVD seems much more appropriate. Or maybe I can find some footage online - it seems like something that would be kept alive by people curious about technology - ie, internet users. But maybe the acting or the story was worse than I remember and it's been left to die. That doesn't usually seem to stop people who love media about technology and media! Here's a favorable review of Wild Palms, comparing it to David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Erik Davis, of Techgnosis draws some of the same parallels in his article on Wild Palms, "Nothing is Real":When it's rolling, Wild Palms becomes a symptom as much as a story, capturing the giddy sense of slipping into a future where an unholy alliance of technology, media, and pure power are tugging apart the dense social dream of the world (and letting some hungry ghosts loose in the process). For all its obscure excess and arch dialogue, Wild Palms has the courage to push TV postmodernism beyond Lynch's secret handshakes or MTV's depthless flash to a techno-ontological engagement of the medium's own nascent future as virtual reality.Here's a fan-based synopsis of the show built with screenshots.
Posted by justin at October 7, 2004 4:15 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://interactive.usc.edu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/649
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Wild Palms on DVD?:
� Agatha Christie's Miss Marple - Collection 1 from DVD's
One of Agatha Christie's most popular characters, the beloved Miss Marple, is brought to life in these classic BBC and A [Read More]
Tracked on November 23, 2005 7:54 AM
Comments
umm, i got to page 12, and then i quit because things still didn't make any sense. just let me know when u get the dvd/tape/rip.
Posted by: mihai at October 7, 2004 9:37 PM
aaargh did that miniseries ever stink so bad. i remember all the hype and that i was really looking forward to watching it, especially cuz of the tech stuff and cuz i loved twin peaks. but talk about disappointing. let us know if you watch it again and still think it's worth the time.
Posted by: lld at October 7, 2004 11:30 PM
if you're looking into it purely for research purposes, the CNTV library might have it on laserdisc.
Posted by: kellee at October 8, 2004 1:10 AM
that synopsis sure is weird - it tells the story but nonetheless manages to leave everything out.
it's a great shame that WP is only on VHS - it joins Lost Highway in the category of Essential But Not On DVD.
but I thought it was a great series - when it was broadcast people either despised it (the majority) or loved it - certainly it was totally over the top, the acting was uneven, but still - it was the first (only?) time TV ever dealt with VR in any interesting way. It was usually dismissed as a Twin Peaks clone, and it's hard to imagine it getting produced without TP as a precedent, but it's an unfair criticism - it's nothing like it, or anything else for that matter.
the screenplay (+ the comic it was based on) was by Bruce Wagner - novelist whose favorite subject is contemporary Hollywood & probably the most hilarious (and darkest) writer that I know of. Brenda Laurel was a VR consultant on the series, and I think Katherine Bigelow directed an episode or two. the screenplay was published, and there was also a Wild Palms Reader that had a lot of cool backstory material.
Posted by: perry at October 8, 2004 9:45 AM
Wow - nice details, thank you Perry. If I had more time/drive, I would push a petition to get the copyright holder to release the show to DVD. Maybe if I wait long enough Wild Palms will skip DVD and head straight to the next format? Maybe I can start a petition now - please release Wild Palms on Cranial Disc!
Posted by: Justin at October 8, 2004 11:55 AM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)