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Post by SmoothGangsta on Oct 4, 2022 20:01:11 GMT
The sad thing is a Thriller anniversary project should be the easiest thing. It's the best selling album of all time. It's not just a fan favorite but also liked by the general public. It's a non-controversial era of MJ's life. Yet, even this the Estate somehow manages to fuck up. And even if we ignore Nelson George's comments (which I don't think we should), the press release heavily suggests the docu will be about the impact of the album and the pop culture phenomenon it became. Afaik, that's also what George focuses on in his writing, moreso than about the music itself. Of course its impact is a key part of the Thriller story, but do we need another doco that focuses on that, rather than the creation of the album? And it seems like this will be another doco of the telling rather than showing variety, with Nelson writing that he conducted interviews with "artists impacted by his artistry." That suggests yet again a heavy emphasis on talking heads who everyone will have forgotten about in 5 years, and who had nothing to do with Thriller originally. Everyone knows the myth of Thriller, with the resources of the Estate it would be possible to show (and not tell us!) how the album came to be so great in the first place. But we will probably again just get snippets of studio footage while the Weeknd talks over it. Yeah, was kinda hopeful when it wasn't Spike doing it but now that I know this stuff it's lowered my excitement a lot lol.
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Post by SoCav on Oct 4, 2022 20:02:32 GMT
^Same, we might even end up wishing they'd asked Spike to do this. Who'd have thought?
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Post by respect77 on Oct 4, 2022 20:21:30 GMT
The sad thing is a Thriller anniversary project should be the easiest thing. It's the best selling album of all time. It's not just a fan favorite but also liked by the general public. It's a non-controversial era of MJ's life. Yet, even this the Estate somehow manages to fuck up. And even if we ignore these comments (which I don't think we should), the press release heavily suggests the docu will be about the impact of the album and the pop culture phenomenon it became. Afaik, that's also what George focuses on in his writing, moreso than music itself. Of course its impact is a key part of the Thriller story, but do we need another doco that focuses on that, rather than the creation of the album? And it seems like this will be another doco of the telling rather than showing variety, with Nelson writing that he conducted interviews with "artists impacted by his artistry." That suggests yet again a heavy emphasis on talking heads who everyone will have forgotten about in 5 years, and who had nothing to do with Thriller originally, telling us how cool Billie Jean is. Everyone knows the myth of Thriller, with the resources of the Estate it would be possible to show (and not tell us!) how the album came to be so great in the first place. But we will probably again just get tiny snippets of studio footage while the Weeknd talks over it. Also, considering George's general attitude towards MJ, I'm afraid this is going to be another condescending stuff that will portray Thriller as all Quincy's genius while MJ being a puppet. (The Estate doesn't seem to care to end condescending attitudes towards MJ, see them leaving Timbaland's condescending and self-praising comments in the Xscape docu). I really think the Estate missed out on a huge opportunity when they ignored Sonic Fantasy. It could have been enhanced massively by the Estate giving Marcos permission to use MJ's music and it would have gone so well with the audiophile release of the album. I don't expect anything more interesting from NG just because he's a "professional" journalist. He's going to have the benefit to use unseen footage if there's some, but they could have given that benefit to someone more worthy, like Marcos.
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Post by pg13 on Oct 4, 2022 20:23:17 GMT
The sad thing is a Thriller anniversary project should be the easiest thing. It's the best selling album of all time. It's not just a fan favorite but also liked by the general public. It's a non-controversial era of MJ's life. Yet, even this the Estate somehow manages to fuck up. And even if we ignore these comments (which I don't think we should), the press release heavily suggests the docu will be about the impact of the album and the pop culture phenomenon it became. Afaik, that's also what George focuses on in his writing, moreso than music itself. Of course its impact is a key part of the Thriller story, but do we need another doco that focuses on that, rather than the creation of the album? And it seems like this will be another doco of the telling rather than showing variety, with Nelson writing that he conducted interviews with "artists impacted by his artistry." That suggests yet again a heavy emphasis on talking heads who everyone will have forgotten about in 5 years, and who had nothing to do with Thriller originally, telling us how cool Billie Jean is. Everyone knows the myth of Thriller, with the resources of the Estate it would be possible to show (and not tell us!) how the album came to be so great in the first place. But we will probably again just get tiny snippets of studio footage while the Weeknd talks over it. Nelson George is basically a pop culture writer. If you have one of his books from Thriller era, you'll see that very much. If I recall correctly, Geoff Brown's Body & Soul does the same thing. Couldn't give a monkeys about any Thriller documentary as nothing about the album is a mystery. Making Of Thriller though.....yes, that'd be great. Don't need anything else!
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Post by SoCav on Oct 4, 2022 21:49:37 GMT
And even if we ignore these comments (which I don't think we should), the press release heavily suggests the docu will be about the impact of the album and the pop culture phenomenon it became. Afaik, that's also what George focuses on in his writing, moreso than music itself. Of course its impact is a key part of the Thriller story, but do we need another doco that focuses on that, rather than the creation of the album? And it seems like this will be another doco of the telling rather than showing variety, with Nelson writing that he conducted interviews with "artists impacted by his artistry." That suggests yet again a heavy emphasis on talking heads who everyone will have forgotten about in 5 years, and who had nothing to do with Thriller originally, telling us how cool Billie Jean is. Everyone knows the myth of Thriller, with the resources of the Estate it would be possible to show (and not tell us!) how the album came to be so great in the first place. But we will probably again just get tiny snippets of studio footage while the Weeknd talks over it. Also, considering George's general attitude towards MJ, I'm afraid this is going to be another condescending stuff that will portray Thriller as all Quincy's genius while MJ being a puppet. (The Estate doesn't seem to care to end condescending attitudes towards MJ, see them leaving Timbaland's condescending and self-praising comments in the Xscape docu).I really think the Estate missed out on a huge opportunity when they ignored Sonic Fantasy. It could have been enhanced massively by the Estate giving Marcos permission to use MJ's music and it would have gone so well with the audiophile release of the album. I don't expect anything more interesting from NG just because he's a "professional" journalist. He's going to have the benefit to use unseen footage if there's some, but they could have given that benefit to someone more worthy, like Marcos. Yeah, that would not surprise me either. It's not hard to picture how that might go - the story of MJ being the talented but small cog in the machine that happened to drop an album at exactly the right time in pop culture to produce this unprecedented success. The only thing saving us from this being a Quincy lovefest is probably the fact that his relationship with the Estate is disastrous. In any case, I'd take Spike's useless but harmless content, like his reflections about hearing Rock With You at an ice skating rink, over that sorta stuff any day...
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Post by amaya on Oct 4, 2022 22:50:01 GMT
I personally remember another one from 2005 which lamented different reactions to MJ's and R. Kelly's cases. I couldn't find the original article that NG wrote but I found a secondary source that quotes him: www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-07-24-0507240199-story.htmlHe said some real creepy stuff too and seems to suggest that the alleged molestation of girls isn't such a big deal as the alleged of boys. He also doesn't seem to respect MJ artistically: He should rather make a documentary about R. Kelly. He seems to prefer him both as a person and as an artist. Jesus Christ... how could they fuck this up? Do they really not know who has shit on Michael over the last forty years?
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Post by WildStyle on Oct 5, 2022 0:37:54 GMT
I'll reserve judgement until I see it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2022 9:11:14 GMT
I think Thriller 40 is 100% the first of the proper "test the waters" releases. The focus will be one the album and the music, and the team of MJ, Quincy and Bruce (maybe). It will not be the all-in MJ fest that Bad25 and from Motown to OTW because the Estate are likely still very cautious about how to go about things publicly. Hiring someone who has been critical of MJ in the past may show to naysayers that this won't simply be a fluff piece. I'll play devils advocate with this one.
Personally I hope that Quincy's importance is addressed properly in this. Regardless of what he's said over the years, he picked most of the songs, assembled the team and produced the album to literal perfection. I'll wait it out.
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Post by SmoothGangsta on Oct 5, 2022 11:51:50 GMT
I think the fact that a guy who has been consistently calling MJ a mentally ill freak and a pedo for years is being hired to tell the story of his most iconic album should be a bigger issue. Really saddening to see the total indifference towards it tbh. Doesn't matter if the doc turns out great, although it does seem like a lot of fans only care about that, everything else to do with the project be damned.
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Post by WildStyle on Oct 5, 2022 12:07:02 GMT
I think the fact that a guy who has been consistently calling MJ a mentally ill freak and a pedo for years is being hired to tell the story of his most iconic album should be a bigger issue. Really saddening to see the total indifference towards it tbh. Doesn't matter if the doc turns out great, although it does seem like a lot of fans only care about that, everything else to do with the project be damned. I think you're exaggerating a bit at least in regards to the above quotes. Unless he called him a pedo somewhere else that has yet to be posted here. "Fascination with young white boys" is a bit over the top but not worlds away from the truth. Certainly a fascination with children that was pretty unorthodox and probably not very healthy at the end of the day. MJ was a troubled guy. Ripping him to shreds is a different thing, and certainly Nelson was pretty harsh and not very understanding in the past, but MJ fans have to be honest with regards to some of these things.
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Post by SmoothGangsta on Oct 5, 2022 12:10:31 GMT
I think the fact that a guy who has been consistently calling MJ a mentally ill freak and a pedo for years is being hired to tell the story of his most iconic album should be a bigger issue. Really saddening to see the total indifference towards it tbh. Doesn't matter if the doc turns out great, although it does seem like a lot of fans only care about that, everything else to do with the project be damned. I think you're exaggerating a bit at least in regards to the above quotes. Unless he called him a pedo somewhere else that has yet to be posted here. "Fascination with young white boys" is a bit over the top but not worlds away from the truth. Certainly a fascination with children that was pretty unorthodox and probably not very healthy at the end of the day. MJ was a troubled guy. Ripping him to shreds is a different thing, and certainly Nelson was pretty harsh and not very understanding in the past, but MJ fans have to be honest with regards to some of these things. He called him an abuser.
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Post by WildStyle on Oct 5, 2022 12:20:46 GMT
I think you're exaggerating a bit at least in regards to the above quotes. Unless he called him a pedo somewhere else that has yet to be posted here. "Fascination with young white boys" is a bit over the top but not worlds away from the truth. Certainly a fascination with children that was pretty unorthodox and probably not very healthy at the end of the day. MJ was a troubled guy. Ripping him to shreds is a different thing, and certainly Nelson was pretty harsh and not very understanding in the past, but MJ fans have to be honest with regards to some of these things. He called him an abuser. Did he? I don't see it in the above quotes.
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Post by SmoothGangsta on Oct 5, 2022 13:28:33 GMT
Did he? I don't see it in the above quotes.
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Post by respect77 on Oct 5, 2022 13:41:45 GMT
Apparently Nelson George was on Surviving R. Kelly as well and in comments I've seen from him re. Kelly he argues for "separating the art from artist". I guess that's what he thinks of MJ as well. My impression is that he believes him to be an abuser but "separates art from artist". While everyone is entitled to his opinion, but I don't think the Estate should be so desperate that they hire people like NG to contribute to major MJ projects. NG is definitely not the only film maker in the world who can make such a documentary, so I don't understand the compromises the Estate makes there. This is worse than the Nottage case. Nottage had already been hired when she made those comments about LN. But NG didn't have to be hired for this job in the first place.
I guess this doc still can turn out to be good in itself as it focuses on an era where NG still liked MJ. But to me NG seems like the typical bandwagon jumping journalist and fairweather fan who just went with whatever the popular opinion was about MJ in any given era while filling his articles with the usual navel gazing cliches about him. I think there would have been more deserving people to make this documentary about the crown jewel of MJ's career.
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Post by WildStyle on Oct 5, 2022 13:45:47 GMT
Did he? I don't see it in the above quotes. Ah yes, I see now. Hopefully he's had a bit of a change of heart. I certainly wouldn't be making a positive documentary about someone if I thought they were a child abuser.
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