Less the heroes of our stories than the villains of some other bastard’s

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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

57 Comments

  1. TheOncomingHurricane
    January 24, 2015 @ 12:27 am

    I was two, so probably some plastic thing I have no memory of.

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  2. Alex Antonijevic
    January 24, 2015 @ 12:38 am

    I was 9, turning 10 in 1994… so…

    The Lion King. Saw it once on my tenth birthday, and then went to see it twice more in the next few weeks. Still one of my favourite movies ever.

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  3. Alex Antonijevic
    January 24, 2015 @ 12:42 am

    Also, when the Doctor quotes the Lion King in the Christmas Invasion, what incarnation of the Doctor do you think saw the film?

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  4. TheOncomingHurricane
    January 24, 2015 @ 12:56 am

    It seems like a very Five thing for some reason. Don't ask me why, it just does.

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  5. Ozy Jones
    January 24, 2015 @ 1:49 am

    Prepping for a twelve month backpacking holiday around the word in '95, 1994 was a bit subdued in the spending department!

    I recall loving Shawshank Redemption, Interview with the Vanmpire and Wyatt Earp. Only Shawshank still holds up for me today.

    I'd just discovered Le Carre and was plowing through secondhand copies of his Smiley/Karla trilogy just before the holiday, so it would have been around this time; along with my continuing passion for Clive Cussler & Colin Forbes, neither of which I read any longer. Still await Le Carre's every printed word.

    Doom still held in thrall and I missed the release of Doom 2 by going overseas… Next time I started gaming it was time for Quake! Always on the PC!

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  6. Kieron
    January 24, 2015 @ 2:17 am

    THE HOLY BIBLE. DEFINITELY MAYBE. DUMMY. PARK LIFE. MUSIC FOR THE JILTED GENERATION. ELASTICA'S EARLY SINGLES. PULP FICTION. HEAVENLY CREATURES.

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  7. elvwood
    January 24, 2015 @ 2:56 am

    Heh. I was thirty, and scanning Wikipedia I wonder what I was doing much of the time! I think the only new films I went to see were Star Trek: Generations, which – well, let's just say it had some good bits but wasn't the best film I saw that year – and Once Were Warriors, which was powerful and depressing. In comics I was in my almost-exclusively-Vertigo phase – apart from that I think I had pretty much stopped reading comics, though I kept on The Legion of Superheroes for historical (hysterical?) reasons. On TV I was enjoying my SF renaissance after a long time of hardly watching any: TNG, The X-Files, Babylon 5. The usual suspects, in other words. I also enjoyed Pie in the Sky, and Cadfael (though I kept wishing the baseline acting was better there).

    In my personal life, I was burned out on writing video games, and finally – after much stress-related illness and a year of badgering from my wife and mother – changed to something less all-consuming.

    Media highlight? It would have to be Gaiman's The Sandman, I think.

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  8. peeeeeeet
    January 24, 2015 @ 3:30 am

    My first thought was an NA, but scanning the list it was actually a pretty weak year – I enjoy a few of those novels, but none is a favourite.

    My second thought was Suede. Dog Man Star came out, and in spite of all its idiosyncrasies (or perhaps because of them) it's held up incredibly well. The "Stay Together" single was also 1994, so add "The Living Dead" B-Side to the list.

    My third thought was Babylon 5. Again, it wasn't Bab's best year. I like a lot of the episodes but my favourites are all later.

    … aaaaand Prince released Come. C'mon, 1994, it's like you're not even trying! "Letitgo" is a great song (no, not THAT one – and someone PLEASE tell all the three-year-olds in Tesco that there are more than three words on a constant loop in THAT one) but otherwise. Also Warner put out The Black Album for contractually-obligatory reasons.

    Ooh, Under the Pink was out in 1994! Thank goodness for that. "Yes, Anastasia" is obviously the best song ever written, but really, "The Waitress" aside it's an album full of gems. WELL DONE, TORI, YOU SAVED 1994.

    Also, "Cigarettes and Alcohol" was out in '94. OK, it wasn't that bad, then. I forgive you, strange year.

    Also Shawshank was out, although like I suspect most people I didn't see it until some time later. Not sure about other films, since the obvious candidates – Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction – don't do a lot for me. Oh, Four Weddings was out that year. Worth going on the list for the bit about Charles dying twenty years ago.

    In British TV I enjoyed the adapation of Middlemarch. Superbly cast, written and directed, and desperately in need of an HD blu-ray release. Yes, it doesn't have as much of Eliot's authorial voice as it should, but it does have Rufus Sewell in a frock-coat. Halleluiah!

    I was too poor to play games that year. It seems like a transitional period with all the true classics of the new 3D era still two or three years distant. I had my fingers crossed for Day of the Tentacle, but sadly that was 1993. Though it was probably '94 in which I played it at the rate of one frame a second on my friend's hugely underpowered PC. Ah, the nostalgia.

    In summary: 1994 – land of contrasts.

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  9. dm
    January 24, 2015 @ 4:35 am

    Music:

    Silver Jews- Starlite Walker
    Pavement- Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
    Blur- Parklife
    Nas- Illmatic
    Suede- Dog Man Star
    Shellac- At Action Park

    I'm probably missing out a bunch. But 1994 was one hell of a year for music (especially consensus 'Best Albums' by some of my favourite artists, many of which I probably disagree with- 13 is better than Parklife, Wowee Zowee is better than Crooked Rain)

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  10. Bennett
    January 24, 2015 @ 4:37 am

    I'm going to make two lists this week. Two lists are even more fun than one.

    At the time:
    Film: The Mask
    Video game: Donkey Kong Country
    TV Show: The Ferals – 'An Explosion of Talent'
    Book: The Gizmo by Paul Jennings

    Retrospectively
    Film: The Lion King
    Video game: Super Metroid
    TV Show: The Simpsons – 'Fear of Flying'
    Book: Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett

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  11. dm
    January 24, 2015 @ 4:37 am

    Dog Man Star era B sides of nearly all brilliant. In the deluxe edition, if memory serves, Brett made some alternate track listings which included My Dark Star and Living Dead on the main album in place, IIRC, of The Power and Black or Blue.

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  12. Sean Dillon
    January 24, 2015 @ 5:05 am

    Film- Lion King, Pulp Fiction, Wes Craven's New Nightmare
    TV-Duckman, The Stand

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  13. Jesse
    January 24, 2015 @ 5:14 am

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  14. jane
    January 24, 2015 @ 5:40 am

    In 1994 I was too busy learning and practicing witchcraft to be paying attention to the media. Well, I might have been reading Terry Pratchett and listening to Mazzy Star, but that probably doesn't count.

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  15. Carey
    January 24, 2015 @ 5:48 am

    Media highlight for me was having my second comic strip professionally published in Roy of the Rovers ("Being and Nothingness," a not at all thinly veiled parody of the 90's greatest living footballer, Eric Cantona. Oddly enough the previous year had seen publication of my first professionally published comic strip, "Don't You Want Me" in the pages of Cerebus 166, which was a thinly veiled parody of the 70's greatest living footballer, George Best. The writer and I always wanted to make it a trilogy with possibly Brian Clough as the basis, but Roy of the Rovers folded and then the Damned United came along and made it superfluous).

    It would be several years before I had another comic published, so I went back to drawing character work instead.

    1994 also saw the end of a relationship, an event which knocked me for six both mentally and physically, and pretty well over-rode my memories of the year to the point that I remember very little else from it.

    Film of the year was Hal Hartley's Amateur: which pretty well summed up my mindset at the time.

    TV highlight of the year was probably Beth Jordache's kiss from Brookside.

    Best comic was probably the debut of Robinson's Starman.

    Pulp's His 'n' hers album was my music for the year, to the point where I find them difficult to listen to them today as the year was a bad one and all the songs do is bring back bad memories. Closely followed by My Life Stories' Mornington Crescent: the final track, Angel, is to this day still a thing of beauty. Alas, they were never quite as good on record as they were live, and are best remembered as a curio.

    I can't remember a single book I read in 1994: as I said, a bad year, both from a personal point of view and from a media point of view. For me, other than those things mentioned, best left forgotten.

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  16. Daibhid C
    January 24, 2015 @ 5:50 am

    Gosh, I was 18. Um …

    TV – Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 4. (Yes, I know it was originally broadcast 1990-91, but it didn't reach BBC Two until 1994.)

    Books – Soul Music by Terry Pratchett, No Future by Paul Cornell.

    Films – Star Trek: Generations, The Mask, and I'm afraid The Flintstones even though I now recognise it was sort of terrible.

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  17. Carey
    January 24, 2015 @ 5:52 am

    Very much so. To this day it amazes me that The Killing of a Flashboy was a b-side: it would be many other group's best single were they to have recorded it.

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  18. elvwood
    January 24, 2015 @ 5:55 am

    Oh, how could I forget Interesting Times! Yep, definitely read that as soon as possible.

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  19. Daibhid C
    January 24, 2015 @ 5:58 am

    Oh, and comics – Robinson's Starman, Peter David's Aquaman and Karl Kesel's Superboy.

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  20. BerserkRL
    January 24, 2015 @ 6:00 am

    Favourite 1994 movie: "Pulp Fiction."

    Favourite 1994 tv show: "Babylon 5" (though I didn't start watching it until a couple of years later)

    Favourite 1994 album: The one I most associate with 1994 is Sarah McLachlan's "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy," but that actually came out in late '93. So Tori Amos, "Under the Pink."

    Favourite 1994 philosophy book (actually, straight-up best philosophy book of the last quarter of the 20th century): John McDowell's "Mind and World" (though I didn't read it until later).

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  21. Jesse
    January 24, 2015 @ 6:03 am

    As far as music goes, the two CDs that really grabbed me that year were Johnny Cash's American Recordings and Beck's Mellow Gold.

    On TV I was watching The Simpsons, The X-Files, and Northern Exposure. (The latter was in decline, but there was a local channel that was showing older episodes every night—and I hadn't watched them the first time through, so it was good to catch up.) I had mixed feelings about Picket Fences but I watched it pretty reliably too.

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  22. peeeeeeet
    January 24, 2015 @ 6:39 am

    Yes. I don't have much time for Brett's suggested revisions, though, especially with the first album. OK, Insatiable One and To The Birds are masterpieces, but that's what makes The Drowners single such an astounding artefact (and would later make Sci-Fi Lullabies hit the ground running). Promoting them to album tracks and demoting Moving and Animal Lover sounds reasonable on the surface, but an album with So Young, Pantomime Horse and Sleeping Pills on it doesn't need any help.

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  23. dm
    January 24, 2015 @ 6:44 am

    Usually I'm not into these revisions, but I really could go without The Power. Black or Blue is weird and kinda great (despite having an incredibly similar opening line, lyrically and melodically to The Ass-felt World). Sci Fi Lullabies disc one is probably my most listened to Suede cd.

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  24. dm
    January 24, 2015 @ 6:52 am

    'An Explosion of Talent' was great, but the episode that really stuck with me was 'Modigliana' (had to check the ep title, and the spelling of her name!), something about that medical scare really freaked me out when I was four.

    The Gizmo had some weird totemic hold on me, long before I actually read it. I just remember seeing the cover on my older brother's bookshelf (or was it in the school library) and coming up with my own ideas as to what is was actually about.

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  25. dm
    January 24, 2015 @ 6:54 am

    (I was also really confused as to its possible connection to Gremlins, which I was yet to see, but very aware of)

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  26. dm
    January 24, 2015 @ 6:56 am

    But I definitely agree, and while Insatiable One would possibly fit on Suede (with a few more guitar overdubs), To the Birds, one of my favourites, would have no place on it whatsoever.

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  27. peeeeeeet
    January 24, 2015 @ 7:08 am

    I tend to view The Power as a palate cleanser, which Dog Man Star needs. And they would prise Black or Blue from my cold, dead hands!

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  28. Eric Rosenfield
    January 24, 2015 @ 7:09 am

    Pulp Fiction came out in 1994 and changed the way I looked at film. Clerks also came out that year too and filled me with high hopes for the work of Kevin Smith that he was never able to deliver on (though I still kept hoping for them until around when Dogma came out).

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  29. Eric Gimlin
    January 24, 2015 @ 7:42 am

    The Invisibles. Since it's the only piece of media that I could actually connect to the date without looking things up.

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  30. William Silvia
    January 24, 2015 @ 7:47 am

    I could see Eight accidentally finding himself in a theatre playing the movie.

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  31. David Anderson
    January 24, 2015 @ 8:26 am

    Comics: Sandman.
    Books: Gene Wolfe was beginning The Book of the Long Sun sequence, which is minor Wolfe, whatever 'minor' means when you attach it to Wolfe.
    Pratchett: Men at Arms was out in paperback.Not a good year for Pratchett in hardback to my mind (I really don't rate Interesting Times, and Soul Music is only so so).
    Otherwise, I think I was largely catching up on authors I missed when they first came out, such as Dickens.
    Film: I can't remember when I discovered the Three Colours (Blue, White, Red) trilogy. I don't think I first saw them in cinema.

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  32. BerserkRL
    January 24, 2015 @ 8:51 am

    In 1994 I was dating a woman who really wanted us to track down the Three Colours trilogy and watch all of them. But we never succeeded.

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  33. Glenn
    January 24, 2015 @ 9:04 am

    Star Trek. I was just turning ten, and completely plugged in, which would be one reason why I still think better of Generations than most people do.

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  34. Wm Keith
    January 24, 2015 @ 9:28 am

    The final issue of our fanzine.

    A wonderful adaptation of "East Lynne" at Birmingham Rep. Though it turns out to have been 1992-3.

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  35. Jesse
    January 24, 2015 @ 9:58 am

    Red is the best of them.

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  36. Chris Nelson
    January 24, 2015 @ 11:00 am

    My So-Called Life seemed like a completely new kind of television program to me in 1994. I was 20 at the time, so was probably a little past the "right" age for it. This was the first show I hunted down on DVD, when that became a thing.

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  37. timber-munki
    January 24, 2015 @ 11:19 am

    Music that was released that year: Sleeps With Angels.Give Out But Don't Give Up, Definitely Maybe, Up To Our Hips Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) & Snivilisation. It was my first year after Uni and so was actually earning money so was also getting into alot of stuff previously released, the Blue Break Beats compilations from Blue Note springs to mind and Neil Young's back catologue that was available then, Tonight's The Night on CD and an import version of On The Beach on tape, that looking back I paid far more than I should have…

    Comics: Starman, The Incredible Hulk, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Generation X, X-Factor & The Avengers.

    Film: Pulp Fiction & Leon

    TV: The Day Today, The Fast Show & Drop The Dead Donkey. Was Watching Star Trek: The Next Generation as well but there really was a dearth of genre/drama stuff at the time looking back.

    Books: Didn't really get books when they first came out in hardback, still don't generally, but I was probably into Philip K Dick & if memory serves me right the Millenium collections of Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champions series was getting released in the early nineties and the Bluecoats Bookshop in Liverpool invariable had remaindered/nick & dented editions dirt cheap so them as well, and looking at when Snow Crash came out originally (1992) it was probably 1994 when I'dve got around to reading it at the earliest.

    RPGs Role Master 2nd ed because you can never have enough tables and Shadowrun because there's always room for a few more D6s

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  38. David Anderson
    January 24, 2015 @ 12:36 pm

    Red is the best, Blue is my favourite, and White is the dark middle section.

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  39. Scurra
    January 24, 2015 @ 2:24 pm

    I know it came out in 1993, but my abiding memory of Disney's moderately bland version of The Three Musketeers was that for a "trailer", they ran the entirety of Circle of Life. And I knew that I might as well get up and walk out then and there because whatever followed couldn't possibly live up to that.
    Heck, there's an argument that that applies to The Lion King itself (although not a very good one, obviously…)

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  40. Bennett
    January 24, 2015 @ 3:34 pm

    Being six at the time, I sort of just plumped for the first episode of The Ferals because it is the only episode of television that both a) stuck in my mind and b) I can be certain was actually aired in Australia in 1994. That 'Modigliana' episode sounds fascinating though. Might have to try and track it down.

    (Incidentally, though it's completely off-topic, I want to add that I had an amazing night at Adelaide's Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular last night. If anyone out there is umming and ahhing about whether to go if it comes to wherever you are, consider this a push from me. Incredible, enchanting and surprisingly up-to-date with its suite from Last Christmas.)

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  41. ComMaxil
    January 24, 2015 @ 5:11 pm

    I turned 18 in 1994 and was very much in my Rave phase, so for me the cultural highlight was probably the first night of the Prodigy's Music for the Jilted Generation tour at The Palace nightclub Blackpool. Stu Allen (influential Manchester-based DJ) played as well, amongst others. Great stuff.

    The other thing I remember was playing Zelda A link to the Past on my friends SNES and thinking it was the best thing ever, then getting a Megadrive for Christmas and being vaguely disappointed I would not be able to play Zelda(Though having checked it seems it had been out a couple of years by that stage). I also remember buying Elite Frontier for my Amiga and playing it incessantly with my brother.

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  42. encyclops
    January 24, 2015 @ 7:18 pm

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  43. encyclops
    January 24, 2015 @ 7:20 pm

    My favorite thing about "The Power" is singing the chorus of "Science Fiction Double Feature" (or whatever it's called) over the outro.

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  44. Robert O' Shea
    January 24, 2015 @ 8:29 pm

    Hey Philip, Big fan of your work! I love it! I am just curious about your Logopolis book. When will it be published? Is it just about that one story? What is the structure? Will be available on Kindle like your other stuff. I love that story and lover your work so keen to read it! Rob O Shea!

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  45. Elizabeth Sandifer
    January 24, 2015 @ 8:35 pm

    It's very close to finished – currently I'm the holdup. I need to find a day to sit down and do some easy but dull typesetting, but I've been being slaughtered by deadlines over the last week or two. I'd guess a couple of weeks after Eruditorum wraps.

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  46. Elizabeth Sandifer
    January 24, 2015 @ 8:37 pm

    As for structure, it will contain an entirely new essay with the same choose-your-own-adventure format as Logopolis. As for Kindle, not at first. I've spent quite a bit of time and effort replicating the trim and typography of the original Choose Your Own Adventure books, and I kind of want this to be a physical object, at least for a while. Might put a Kindle version out someday, though.

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  47. dm
    January 25, 2015 @ 3:35 am

    I can see Two watching it for sure. But Four was in disney's pocket so I'll go with him.

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  48. Chicanery
    January 25, 2015 @ 12:34 pm

    I wasn't even one for most of 1994, so, colours and shapes I guess.

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  49. Prandeamus
    January 25, 2015 @ 12:50 pm

    I didn't actually read Men at Arms at the time, although oddly enough I do recall picking up a copy in WHSmith and almost buying it. What an idiot I was. I do think it's one of his best, not least because of the introduction of Vimes and the Watch.

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  50. Jarl
    January 25, 2015 @ 11:08 pm

    Movies
    In 1994, I was 5-6 years old and still reeling from Jurassic Park, a movie which left a shadow at least 4 (and more likely 21) years long. My memories of the time are imperfect due to a fairly dark period that I've lately realized I worked hard to avoid memory of, so it's possible I'm wrong on the exact timing, but I believe that in 1994 I watched Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump as a double feature at a second run theater. Forrest Gump was not my first exposure to Tom Hanks, who in my early childhood was the put-upon hero of The Burbs and The Money Pit, but it was my first exposure to Vietnam on Film. The extent to which that movie colored my perceptions of 'nam wasn't made clear to me until years later when I watched Tropic Thunder for the first time and felt that they had missed a part about saluting. I also rewatched Gump for the first time in years lately and was amazed at how much less gore there was than I remembered. I was a gore-sensitive child, I suppose. The only other movie I saw in the theaters was The Flintstones, which I loved of course because who doesn't like John Goodman and Rick Moranis?
    Now, it's possible some of these others I saw in '95, because they're mostly all home video releases, but I definitely remember loving The Lion King when I first saw it. The colors, the animals, the humor, that movie's tailor-made to a child audience, Disney never fell down on the job with that stuff. Speed and True Lies were a bit risque for me at the time, watching Speed with my mother and True Lies with my grandparents and extended family. I very clearly recall sitting on the floor with my chin in my hands, watching the bus jump the gap in Speed and just losing my mind with how cool it was and how scary it would be. I have similarly clear and stimulating memories of a certain scene in True Lies, but that's a subject for a different venue, I think.
    Stargate. As a kid, I was obsessed with aliens. Sci fi. Ancient mythology. Stargate. Man, as a kid I about wore out five library copies of that movie. Goddamn, Stargate. SG-1 was my first taste of fan disillusionment, watching a movie I loved so much transformed into something totally unrecognizable (though I remember thinking, as a kid, that they'd gotten James Spader back as Dr. Jackson), though a stranger taste was to come in 1996…
    My mom initially didn't let me see anything with Jim Carrey in it, but before the year's end, I finally got around to The Mask, and man, between that movie, B:TAS, Tim Burton's Batman, the Shadow, and Dune, it's no wonder I turned out with the aesthetic preferences I did. The other day I was designing a classy nightclub for a potential d20 modern campaign I'm always fiddling with, and partway through I realized I was remaking the club from The Mask. I loved that little Fantasy Noir renaissance that went through comics, cartoons, and films for a period in the early '90s.

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  51. Jarl
    January 25, 2015 @ 11:08 pm

    Looking back, two movies I didn't see at the time stand out as giants, movies I will go out of my way to watch if the opportunity is available: In the Mouth of Madness, an expertly aimed and pleasantly mad Lovecraft/King pastiche that gives a bit of '90s take on the Land of Fiction, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which in my mind stands out as the only truly definitive adaptation of the original I've ever seen. Robert De Niro creates a creature that is both fearsome and pitiable, and the film doesn't suffer for pitching both reactions simultaneously. Don't let the nominative similarity to Bram Stoker's Dracula frighten you away. Both movies might be hammy and over the top in places, but Dracula's operatic style drains the movie of visceral, immediate discomfort where Frankenstein uses the contrast between grand, operatic settings like the Frankenstein manor and the grimy streets of Geneva to great effect to make the worlds the two main characters come from so different.

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  52. Jarl
    January 26, 2015 @ 12:01 am

    TV
    Wikipedia tells me this was the year The Critic debuted. Man, I loved that show. In certain venues I roll in, there's this concept called "comfy", which is a measure of how much watching something makes you feel comforted, like you've slipped into a warm blanket. The Critic is a very comfy show for me. As a kid, I always liked the domestic bits more than the movie parodies, which is just about the opposite of how I see it now. There's something about the style of animation used once upon a time, where each cel looked like it was painted onto concrete and pressboard, that just says "this is how cartoons should look", to me. Take everything I just said, replace "comfy" with "gross-out", and it's also true of Aaahh!!! Real Monsters which debuted the same year.

    As a kid, actual live action television was always less of a draw for me than animation, but there was some that I caught. I think '94 was the first year that Jeopardy transformed from a weird, noisy, awful program that kept The Simpsons off the TV into an actual show that I could watch and enjoy, assuming it was still regular jeopardy and it was a category about puns or movies. Double jeopardy? God help me. '90s Jeopardy was hard.
    This was the same year The Stand aired, though I didn't see it until a couple years later, when it became a perennial favorite amongst a close knit circle of very strange friends. It was scary and weird, but not too scary and too weird, like It, which seems keenly and disturbingly well suited to take advantage of a child's somewhat less solid grasp on reality. The Stand was scary and weird in a cool way, a way I could appreciate. It's possible I actually saw it when it aired, but if so, I'm not remembering it.
    It's possible there's also some other shows from '94 specifically that I love and would remember right away, but I was just 5, turning 6. Time for me was still measured in school years (first grade, in particular). I can't remember any episodes of anything as being specifically 1994, and I really don't feel like paging through lists of every episode of every contemporary show I watched at the time.

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  53. Daibhid C
    January 26, 2015 @ 4:13 am

    A Discworld pedant writes:

    Guards! Guards! was the introduction of the Watch. MAA was their confirmation as a recurring sub-series and not a one-off.

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  54. Daru
    January 26, 2015 @ 8:31 am

    I was in my mid twenties and had leapt from my college training in design and illustration into a two year archaeology job. I think I was just about to move into a shared room in a cemetery gatehouse

    Music: I remember listening to lots of Coil, Autechre Orbital – Snivilisation (i recall especially Are We here? & The Moebius Loop with Worf's looped voice; Last Train to Lhasa by Banco De Gaia; & I had an absolute obsession with movie soundtracks by Bernard Hermann and films such as Ed Wood.

    Film: I lived Edinburgh city centre where we had a great arthouse cinema or two to serve my film obsession, and highlights I remember include Il Postino, The 3 Colours Trilogy, Ed Wood, Burnt by The Sun, Leon, Exotica, Star Trek: Generations, Stargate, Pulp Fiction, Once Were Warriors (amazing) and my favourite movie of the year – John Sayle's The Secret of Roan Inish, a beautiful little known film about the Hebridean Selkie Seal people.

    TV: I hardly watched any but likely watched lots of UK showing of Star Trek The Next Generation avidly.

    Comics: Cerebus the Ardvark and all of the work by Moebius.

    Plays: Felt lucky to have the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on my doorstep and binged on drama, comedy etc for a whole month as well as international street theatre. Highlights include witnessing Eddie Izzard perform a street show where he failed (comedically) at escapology whilst threatening to cut heads off of teddies – I was the only audience member, and seeing his early comedy shows; and that year there was a production of Grant Morrison's play Depravity, which was about Aleister Crowley.

    Books: Read lots of Clive Barker, including (and especially) Imajica.

    A rich year.

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  55. encyclops
    January 26, 2015 @ 10:30 am

    Interview with the Vampire was not the greatest movie ever made, but it was astonishing that it wasn't far worse (especially given what happened with Queen of the Damned).

    It was one of the only times I've ever gone to see a movie in costume. My friend and I got her husband to help make highly realistic-looking fangs for us using professional-grade materials. I don't think I had to buy much in the way of clothing, which gives you an idea of how goth I was at the time (not as much as my other friends, but still). I still remember lots of turning to her and grinning with delight during the movie, though I forget what parts.

    At the time my major gripe was the casting of Armand, though I think even then I could see why it made sense — it's much more jarring that Antonio Banderas doesn't have any of the answers they're after than it would be with a more faithful casting.

    I'm much less obsesses with the world of vampires and masquerades these days, but yeah, at the time that was a big event.

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  56. dm
    January 26, 2015 @ 9:17 pm

    Listened to the album while cooking last night (how grossly middle class, it doesn't help my case that it was a vegan chickpea curry) and found myself really getting into The Power for the first time. It's a record that just keeps on giving, isn't it?

    Reply

  57. encyclops
    January 27, 2015 @ 4:57 am

    Four was in disney's pocket

    ???

    Reply

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