Revision as of 01:04, 14 February 2018 by RabbiBob(talk | contribs)(Created page with "'''<big>Go Forward to News Archive 7</big>''' -- '''<big>Go Back to News Archive 5</big>''' __TOC__ ---- {{:11.19.01}} ---- {{:09.21.01}} ---- {{:08-23-01}} ----...")
Been a little while since the last update and I have my long list of excuses of why. At the top of that list is the fact that I'm a senior and as this semester comes nearer to closing, the hectic level seems to be snowballing. Myself and another have been toying with VCD creation, which is just one more project I shouldn't be putting time into. The two things that calm me right now are: 1) One more semester to go 2) Received confirmation that my previous calculus credit counts at my new college, resulting in my permitted absence from next semester's Calc class. Whoohoo.
This month marks the 2nd anniversary for Betamountain.org. That's right, we've been around since 1999 and we've registered the domain for yet another two years. Looking back, this year has gone by pretty well. Dan Fiorella has volunteered a number of episode guides (including a new one with this update), Robert Mandell mentioned that the DVD talks were still on (sadly, no update since...), Christopher Rowley has been ever quietly present on the mailing list and most recently, we've had word from Cy Voris (see below). The number of people emailing me about where to get VHS copies (see FAQ) of the series is ever growing, showing that people are finding this site and, more importantly, new fans are finding the show even now.
Thanks for all the contributions and I hope this next year continues on in the same spirit. If anyone wants to help out with the site, drop me a line. That's enough babble for now. On to this update!
Dan Fiorella took some time this month and cranked out a synopsis on 'The Ax' for the episode guide section. Along with the storyline, Dan sheds a little insight on what was his first script for the Ranger series and where a few of the running Doc jokes originated. Read The Ax!
Cy Voris (credits as series writer & storyboard artist) dropped a line via email awhile ago (sorry for the long delay Cy). Check out what he has to say:
"So here's some Rangers scoops, blast from the past, etc...
The lack of writing credits on the show had something to do with Rangers being a total nonunion show & not wanting to deal with any credit claims, etc, down the road, hence the vague credit of STORY PEOPLE (not to be confused with STORYBOARD ARTIST) which encompassed all the writers on the show.
In addition to the late, great BRIAN DALEY (of "Han Solo at Star's End" fame, etc) -- who penned "Supertrooper", "Smuggler's Gauntlet", "Heart of Tarkon", "Ariel", etc, and was the key guy in filling out the back story of Shane Gooseman AND Niko, there was TOM DeHAVEN (a novelist & National Book Award Nominee from New Jersey??!!) who wrote "One Million Emotions", "Rainmaker" and "Galaxy Stranger" and CY VORIS (who was also a Storyboard Artist) who wrote "Rusty & The Boys" and "Renegade Rangers" (creating the memorable Daisy O'Mega) and went on to co-write the feature film "Tales From The Crypt presents Demon Knight", a straight-to-video series of sci-fi flicks for a young audience "Josh Kirby - Time Warrior!" and co-created the Fox TV series "Brimstone!
A pretty interesting bunch."
Not only did Cy write us, he hooked Lee T. up with a copy or two of original scripts for the series. During the next update, we'll be posting a copy to the script for Renegade Rangers! Just debating on how to provide it, as it's weighing in at 7MB+ as it is right now. I'm leaning towards PDF format.
09.21.01 (Happy Birthday, #38 of 100, Mailing List, Banners, FanFic, FanFic Challenges, Bruinhilda gets the scoop on Xanadu, and who knows what else we'll find?)
According to our sources, it was 15 years ago on 09.14 that 'Phoenix' aired on U.S. broadcast television. Being the root of everything this site is based on, it's aptly due for a Happy Birthday. Just in time for the birthday, as reported to the mailing list:
Wizard magazine issue#121 (Oct) ranked the show #38 of 100 in their top Cartoons Of All Time list. By way of MikeV & ScottF (I've yet to pick up the issue myself), we were posted the snippet from the magazine:
"38.The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (Transcom Media). Heroes with extraordinary powers (team leader Zachary Foxx, for example, was enhanced via biotechnological engineering), the Rangers fought crime across the space ways as part of the Bureau of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs. With a complex cast of characters and deep storylines built around a carefully maintained continuity, "Rangers" is as close to anime as a syndicated show has ever come."
More happy stuff....
Also sporting a birthday last week was our mailing list owner, Ranger Mel. Happy 'late' Birthday!!!!<br On a personal note, I'd like to wish my good friends Rob H. and Andrea T. a wonderful life together. Rob & Andrea were married two weeks ago at a beautiful ceremony of which I had the pleasure of being a party to. Congratulations and may many happy years be shared. 'Hey you kids, get out of 'da pool!"
With the past events during last week, the mailing list managed to get itself a little 'off center' and in the process we unfortunately lost a few members. Ranger Mel was off the list due to technical problems, but she's back and has brought order back (she beat us, but not too severely). So, if you're one of the ones that left, just know that everything is back to normal and you've already missed the 'RangerCon4 Quotes' list!
Bruinhilda put together an essay on Xanadu with some pretty tongue-in-cheek views of probably the least seen planet with the most promising story development prospects ever created in the G.R. universe. Check that out here.
On the geek side of web fun, hit "reload" or "refresh" and watch the Betamountain banner. Little random acts of CGI thrown in there to give a different feel every time you visit. Check all of the available 'new' banners out here and mixed in here.
AKK was kind enough to resend the links to her latest FanFic that is over on her site. Check out the following new additions to her FanFic library.
* Reason #1 (or Why I Am (Sorry I Became) A Galaxy Ranger
Garbage In, Garbage Out (And We Do Mean Garbage) - together with Elizabeth Bales
Shattered Souls - Interference
Improvements
Speaking of FanFic, AnnieO has a challenge out for writers:
Hello all. 'tis I the AnnieO, and I have invaded your in boxes and make a challenge to you writers. Once again the holiday season is closing in on us and I have decided for this years challenge to allow you to choose any and all holidays that run with in the year. Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, you choose the one you want :). All entries are due by January 1st and the winner will be announced by that Sunday. As I am the one issuing the challenge I will be ineligible from entering. The prize this year is still being decided on, but may range from a drawing of the winners choice by one of our wonderful artiest, to one of the original videos! Who knows what I shall decide on this year ;). There are no length requirements this year, make it as long or short as you want. Well that's all for now.
I wish you all luck.
AnnieO [send submissions to annieo1 @ NETZERO.NET]
Some other things to check out:
* Are we one step closer a neural uplink? See the article at Nature.com [Thanks EB]
More neural fun: Here and here. [Thanks, ScottF]
Galaxy-Rangers.com had a face lift. Check it out sometime (see menu above, left).
Finally, an official update! After replacing my power supply, processor and finding out that my secondary hard drive was dead, everything seems to have leveled off. Once again, we're on a new server, working out the kinks and having a little fun at it. Enough babbling, I'm off to finish getting things aligned. - R.B.
(Heartbeat, Fan art, GR comic books, links, Happy Birthday to Jayce....)
Lady Niko took a great initiative step and set up a Pay-Pal account for donations. We're looking into finding a home with no banners soon and the donations will be used to foot the bill that way. I'll post more later about the Pay-Pal once I figure out whether or not I can do that here (I believe I read that we're not allowed to post any money making links while we're hosted under the basic service at www.virtualave.net, but I will investigate). Email Lady Niko at LadyNiko @ hotmail.com for more info.
Ok, as annoying as this icon may be, it gets your attention. Just wanted to say Happy Birthday to Jayce (you can hate your ICQ info for this one Jayce ;-P ). Many more!
Check out the newest Episode Guide entry for Heartbeat.
Bruinhilda sent along some pics of the Galaxy Ranger comic book covers over at www.milehighcomics.com. Check the out issues 7, 8 and 9 [here].
Fan art springs up again!
AKK brings us a proposal rendition of Goose's grandfather, Jon Hays. You can see that and more at her site.
Caro is back with some new fan art. Check out her latest Niko picture by clicking the thumbnail below. Be sure to check out her site, Ranger One, afterwards.
RangerCon4 is coming this Labor Day weekend. Check out the page for info and where to get info if you happen to be near St. Louis.
06-27-01 (DVD, TV, fanfic, hot weather...)
It's hot. Too hot. I may be the only person on the planet that would rather have it winter than this hot. My reasoning? At least in the winter you can put layers on and reach a fair, maintainable body temperature. In the summer, you can only take off so much until you're down to your birthday suit. From there, where do you go? Ok, enough of that, this isn't what you're here for.
For those that have been wondering about the progress of the GR DVD, rest easy tonight knowing that the powers that be are meeting soon to discuss the matter. Keep the email level down to a low roar if you know what email addresses to use to rattle the cages, just be calm and patient. Mr. Robert Mandell dropped an email by the other day and had some of the following to tease us with possibilities of the DVD and TV appearance of GR:
"..... plan allows me to completely digitally re-master all episodes from the original masters sitting in the Gaylord vaults, including 5.1 audio expansion. The plan is an ambitious 8 DVD package (8 episodes each), although it might get broken up. Each DVD will be filled with extra stuff like full length recordings of songs, original demo presentations, voice over commentaries (mystery science theater style) audio tracks by me .... and anyone else we can cajole into sitting with us, original designs, sketches, storyboards, some new animation, some old animation, and whatever else we can think of.
The other interesting thing is that it seems I may have to re-freshen the package of 65 original episodes with 26 new ones if I want to get the series back on the air in a meaningful way here .... it would mean a new team of series 6 Rangers, 20 years later. Well, it's fun to think about anyway.
...more later"
Thanks to Robert for the update and I'm sure the idea of Series 6 Rangers may spark some fan fiction interest. Speaking of which...
I was lucky enough to catch Bruinhilda on IRC the other morning and she told me about FanFiction.net and the GR section over there. Check out the listed fan fiction and add your own if you have it. Click here!
Also, I know we have some German (and I apologize if I'm generalizing here, it's just an example of my small scope of the real world. Feel free to email me and correct me), GR fans out there that have some fan fiction there that has been tediously translated to English for our reading pleasure. Well, I see that www.galaxy-rangers.com has a Fanfic section starting up. Perhaps it'd be a chance to put the original material up for posting. The email address listed is webmaster @ galaxy-rangers.com.
Check out Transformers Online, a nice site that features one of the classic shows from the 80's, 90's and 00's.
While I was taking screenshots for the upcoming New Frontier & Heartbeat episodes, I found that I had snapped a few pics of the Tarkonian Moons. This updates special treat snapshot is aptly called
Been a little while since the last update. We have the domain for another two years and maybe by then we'll get the episode guide done. Speaking of which, check out Psychocrypt!
If you're looking for Galaxy Ranger music, head over to the Series Music section over at http://betamountain.tripod.com/. 11 songs from the series are downloadable and are in the mp3 format.
LJC wrote in to update her URL's & to say hi Lee & Missy :)
No new info from Mr. Mandell. So, no news on any DVD/VHS/return to TV for GR. I did, however, notice the entry in the LINKS section pertaining to www.galaxy-rangers.com, which appears to be a German site dedicated to GR. At present, there is only the German section, but an English side does look to be in the works. A few screencaps and downloads are available there.
The mailing list has seen some new faces these past few months. Outside of the list, we found Jim Therry "The Original GR Fan." Jim put together a fanzine way back in the day and harbors some pretty amazing relics from the series. Also, we've seen some FanFic (new and old) since the last update on the list. I'll post the URL's that I have here:
An eBay auction that ended a month ago, this one has the GR stand up display! Not sure how long this link will work, but check it out: eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1427971522
A few of us ran across the Galaxy Rangers VCD on eBay, but no one can confirm its authenticity, though we suspect it is not. Here is a pic of it
It wouldn't be an update without mentioning Dan Fiorella. Check out the Old Storyteller here.
OT stuff - Received this in my mailbox this week. Efram was a few years ahead of me in my high school and will be Sci-Fi on June 24th.
NEWS FLASH!!
The National Television Debut of Kyle & Efram's film, Pennyweight, shot in Portland, Maine and starring Ray Wise (Twin Peaks, Robocop) is a mere TWELVE DAYS AWAY (and counting...)
The 30 minute comedic short will air on the Sci-Fi Channel series "Exposure" on Sunday, June 24th at 11pm nationwide. "Exposure" is dedicated to cutting edge short films and the people who make them. Pennyweight will be introduced by the show's host, the beautiful Lisa Marie (Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes) and followed by a "Day in the Life" interview with the filmmakers, Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle. The "Day in the Life" interview follows Kyle and Efram as they prepared to unveil their latest effort, They Came to Attack Us, at Una in Portland, Maine.
