Chess - Original London/1990 US Tour

So I have accidentally consumed two more versions of Chess.

I have added a brand-new, groundbreaking fan theory that explains the true takeaway from the existence of Walking Wake, as well as making a pivotal update to the Favorite Pokémon Picker.

Chess på svenska

Wow, this one really is entirely different from the others. This is a Swedish translation of Chess from 2002, and I mean translation very loosely: half the songs here have just been repurposed to be about something entirely different and/or take place in some entirely different context within the plot, and the lyrics may or may not have any relation whatsoever to what the original lyrics were. ("I Know Him So Well" is just literally the exact opposite of the original song, Svetlana arguing that Anatoly needs structure and rules i.e. her and Florence that he needs freedom i.e. her.)

The bit where doing it in Swedish means they have to write new lyrics does give them a lot of creative freedom to restructure the story. An English version has to try to find some configuration of the existing songs and write its way between them, or else actually get Tim Rice to write entirely new lyrics. Chess på svenska knew the language change meant it didn't technically have to do that, and just really milked that for all it was worth in figuring out an entirely new way to tell something loosely like the base story using some of the same melodies (and some new ones).

Chess - 1990 Long Beach version

Honestly I was very pleasantly surprised by this one? It's apparently a slightly modified take on the Broadway version, which I had the general impression was pretty poorly received, but whether it's Broadway or the modifications, in many ways I think this one works best of the three versions of Chess I have watched so far.

Chess - 1990 Sydney version

Tumblr user fascinating-yarn sent me a nice ask with some pointers about other versions of Chess to check out, so I have now watched one! This one exists as a bootleg on YouTube, in pretty terrible quality but with subtitles, which is the only reason I could make out any of the lyrics/dialogue, so many thanks to whichever fandom angels provided that.

Extra thoughts on Chess in Concert

A couple of other observations I made in the process of making the musical motif chart (they're all about Freddie, I unfortunately love this terrible disaster man):

(oop, I decided to edit these out of the other post and put them here instead but Tumblr seems to have not edited them out in the other one and isn't allowing me to? Whatever, you get them twice)

I have spent my sick day doing a thing of musical motifs and where they recur in Chess in Concert. I realized some fascinating things in the process of doing this, like how the bit where Florence and Anatoly discuss their frustrations with Freddie and him not being there and how he could go jump off the mountain for all they care in "Mountain Duet" literally has the same melody as the verse of "Pity the Child #2" about Freddie's mom neglecting him in favor of more ill-fated relationships. You probably all figured this out already but I was here like oh my god.

I have probably managed to fail to figure out where some bits are actually the same etc., so by all means tell me if that's the case so I can correct it.

A couple of other unrelated observations I made in the process of making this (they're also about Freddie, I unfortunately love this terrible disaster man):

Chess in Concert Quickfix

Apparently the Chess fandom likes to propose their own fixed versions of the script, incorporating songs from different versions and trying to arrange them in a definitive way. I haven’t seen or heard all the other versions, at least not yet (I may report back if I watch some bootlegs), but I can make a proposal on how I would briefly fix Chess in Concert - not to make a definitive version of Chess as such, so much as to just imagine a hypothetical version of this production’s story (which I do like okay in its basic beats) that would have worked better for me, personally.

Chess (the musical)

So Chess is a 1984 concept album and subsequent stage musical with story and lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA. On the surface, it is called Chess because it is about some chess grandmasters vying for the chess world championship and the woman who leaves one’s employ and enters a relationship with the other. Under the surface, the real reason it’s called Chess is that the real game of chess is the one played between the US and USSR throughout the Cold War (when it was written and set), in which the characters are all pawns being played against each other to serve the interests of the warring states.

That’s a cool concept! Definitely the sort of concept you’d come up with and think, I have to make something about this, and then you try to come up with the details. Tim Rice, apparently, has tried a whole lot of times to come up with the right details: apparently every other production of this musical tries to rewrite the plot, to the point Wikipedia has a comparison table of plot points between different productions. That’s not as in just changing little details around or cutting or adding a song here and there, like you get with many other musicals; it includes stuff like turning a plot involving two chess tournaments against two different opponents a year apart into one with just a single tournament against one opponent, flipping pivotal character decisions and motivations around completely, making the ending the exact opposite of what it was, etc. etc.

For the purposes of this post, the production we actually watched was Chess in Concert from 2008, with Adam Pascal, Josh Groban and Idina Menzel, which is heavily based on the original West End production from 1986 but with some modifications. I will be doing some character analysis rambling, but be aware that with respect to other productions half of what I have to say may just be blatantly wrong. Man, it must be a trip to be in the Chess fandom. (Hello if you’re here from the tag.)

All in all, I have extremely mixed feelings about Chess. On the one hand, I have two big, major writing problems with it that made me just not enjoy watching the full production very much. On the other hand, it has some genuinely really good interesting bits that I like a whole lot, and also there are some real banger songs. Going to be my work soundtrack for a little while, probably.  Summary and lengthy complaining and rambling below.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat/Evita

As you probably know by now, Jesus Christ Superstar is my favorite musical, and the main reason I developed any sort of interest in musicals generally. I have also mentioned before that other popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals have not tended to do much for me. The Phantom of the Opera is too florid and lengthy and the characters don’t interest me enough, Cats is amusing fluff but has no real plot or character depth.

But also, perhaps that shouldn’t be very surprising. After all, I tend to be interested in media for its stories and characters more than presentation or spectacle - and Cats and Phantom don’t actually share a writer with JCS. The stuff I love about Jesus Christ Superstar includes the songs, sure, but I wouldn’t care so much about them in a vacuum. The guy who wrote the lyrics, made the story what it is, is Tim Rice.

So a little while back I figured it was high time I actually looked into at least the other well-known Webber/Rice collaborations, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Evita. (I gather abroad Joseph is like, a play every middle school puts on, but not over here; I had never heard of it until I looked up stuff about Jesus Christ Superstar, and never heard a song from it until I went and listened to it recently.)

(Some 5000 words of rambling under the cut, about these two shows, comparisons to JCS, and some character analysis, plus a bit of a digression about the trouble with translating musicals to film!)

Campaigning to fight for all people discussing the timing of events involving people from many different time zones to talk about it in UTC, not merely for selfish reasons because that happens to be my time zone, but because it genuinely makes the most sense! If everyone gives times in UTC, then all each person has to do is remember that at the moment their own time zone is UTC-5 or UTC+3 or whatever, which should be easy, because they know when their own DST or whatever happens and it's always one of two things. Instead if people go around giving times in whatever their own time zone is, suddenly you've made it everyone else's problem to remember exactly when your time zone sets the clock forward or back in addition to how many hours apart your time zones generally are. UTC is just more practical for everyone, please.

Realistically people just Google it but. We shouldn't have to Google it! A world where we don't have to Google it is possible!

I will say (re previous reblog) that it's entirely possible the intention here was not that the OR/AS artist necessarily was Brassius but just that these pieces from the OR/AS artist are being displayed in town as a mythology gag and that NPC is merely mistaking them for Brassius's work. The impression I'd get from the OR/AS artist selling his rejected work there would not really be that he'd already had other pieces accepted at the museum. But it's an amusing theory that lines up pretty well with Brassius's established backstory, and either way I think the sculptures being Secret Base decorations from OR/AS is very neat.

For me personally, I don't care all that much about shiny Pokémon compared to a lot of other people, but to the extent that I do care the reason is simply: because they're rare! I think most humans have a sense of novelty and appreciation for things and experiences that are unusual or unique in some way. The thought of a shiny being there and simply not noticing it feels like missing out on something cool, not because the shiny is particularly appealing in itself (I think the vast majority of shinies look worse than their regular-colored counterparts), but because I can encounter non-shiny Pokémon any time I want, while the shiny is a special opportunity for something I couldn't do or have normally.

That's also why I've personally never done shiny hunting; it all just sort of loses its entire appeal to me if I'm taking measures that make finding a shiny inevitable. But I also get why it can be appealing to others! People can get a lot out of the thought of simply a challenge, spending a lot of time and effort for some sort of reward, however symbolic, that acknowledges your efforts.

And of course, sometimes people just want to hunt this one particular shiny because they actually think it looks really good and want to train one.

I made some new content that's not overly nerdy game mechanics? Gasp!

A simple, practical page of good old "I want this resource to exist", in this case a list of subtle shinies in Scarlet and Violet that you could fail to immediately notice in the overworld. Hope it comes in handy for some people other than me!