GUARDLING Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 The cheese whiz at the end of the show is funny. Honestly, the corps is so proficient and magnificent that the unnecessary fluff at the end won't hurt them. Some of the GE guys are probably rolling their eyes I'm sure. actually not at all, ,smile a little yes! If youre going to do it..you just do it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GUARDLING Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 My question is, are the Cadets leaders pushing hard toward this direction because they think it will possibly push them past Blue Devils/keep them ahead of Bluecoats (IOW it's a strategic move for better numbers), or create a "better" show for the crowd? It's hard to imagine the kids liking the constant ramp-up of the "cheese factor." They surely read this forum and hear what people are saying. At this point, it is difficult to understand the motivation behind the weekly increases in whatever you want to call it, because it just seems that it isn't getting them any better numbers or fan reaction. Maybe when you get to this point, you grasp at almost anything you think might give you even an incrementally better chance to increase your numbers. kids know better than to put alot of stock into what you read on the internet. Smarter than we were BITD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaddyt Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 I think what bothers me most about this "kitchen sink" approach is that I worry everyone on the design team is on board with it. That they're all looking at this saying, "This is ****ing awesome! We nailed it this year." The only other scenario is that there are voices of restraint and/or rationality and they're just being flat out overruled by The Power That Is Hop. I'm not sure that's any better. I've said it before that Hop should absolutely be involved in the "experience" aspect of the members. But I think he seriously needs to take a secondary (or even tertiary) role in show design. It truly is a George Lucas Syndrome. This ending is what happens when Ewoks and Gungans throw a party. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drangin Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 I think what bothers me most about this "kitchen sink" approach is that I worry everyone on the design team is on board with it. That they're all looking at this saying, "This is ****ing awesome! We nailed it this year." The only other scenario is that there are voices of restraint and/or rationality and they're just being flat out overruled by The Power That Is Hop. I'm not sure that's any better. I've said it before that Hop should absolutely be involved in the "experience" aspect of the members. But I think he seriously needs to take a secondary (or even tertiary) role in show design. It truly is a George Lucas Syndrome. This ending is what happens when Ewoks and Gungans throw a party. I think DCI needs a new category: Open Class World Class Kitchen Sink Class This will let Hop do his thing and allow the rest of us to enjoy what little tradition is left in drum corps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GUARDLING Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 I think DCI needs a new category: Open Class World Class Kitchen Sink Class This will let Hop do his thing and allow the rest of us to enjoy what little tradition is left in drum corps. lol....cheesy maybe, BUT are you kidding? Cadets are probably the most traditional of most corps. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theCHEZman Posted August 8, 2014 Author Share Posted August 8, 2014 (edited) I think what bothers me most about this "kitchen sink" approach is that I worry everyone on the design team is on board with it. That they're all looking at this saying, "This is ****ing awesome! We nailed it this year." The only other scenario is that there are voices of restraint and/or rationality and they're just being flat out overruled by The Power That Is Hop. I'm not sure that's any better. I've said it before that Hop should absolutely be involved in the "experience" aspect of the members. But I think he seriously needs to take a secondary (or even tertiary) role in show design. It truly is a George Lucas Syndrome. This ending is what happens when Ewoks and Gungans throw a party. Can't disagree with some of this. GH at this stage of the game, should let his amazing design team design. He comes up with some tired ideas and they turn it into some amazingly competitive products. I would hope next year, he pulls back and oversees more and creates less. That's the only way Cadets will compete with BD. GH is more amazing behind the scenes, a truly brilliant guy that has grown YEA into a monster BUT, he needs to delegate now. Edited August 8, 2014 by theCHEZman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drangin Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 lol....cheesy maybe, BUT are you kidding? Cadets are probably the most traditional of most corps. Just want to avoid yap-yap-yap. Narration ruins shows for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zigzigZAG Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 (edited) Most patriotic shows make me cringe too, but I've got to take issue with what you've said. Patriotism and militarism are not intrinsically connected. Americans have been notably patriotic since the beginning, but the US can only be described as being "militarist" since WW2. Cadets 2014 is more of a classic, cornpone, civic type of patriotism. I don't really see any rah-rah-rah, bomb 'em into the stone age stuff going on in the show. Sorry, you need to read your history, and read today's history being made. We're so good at forgetting. Politics, patriotism, nationalism, and militarism have been intimately entwined in the US since it became an imperialist power on the international stage in the late 19th century. And well before that too, since before the founding of the country, we were imperialists, as we also forget that we used military might to commit genocide and ethnically cleanse hundreds of tribes of indigenous people as we colonized this continent? Why do you think people like Mark Twain started the Anti-Imperialist League in 1898 - to oppose imperialist wars like the Spanish American War (sold on a lie, and in which the US invaded and annexed the Philippines, in a war that killed between 200,000 and 600,000 civilians, including massacres of entire villages)? Why do you think a Marine Major General like Smedley Butler - two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner and the most decorated soldier in US history, but whom you'll not find in high school history books - wrote pamphlets like "War is a Racket" (watch this video reading of excerpts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0 Speaking of Central America, do you also know what the US, through the CIA and military, was up to in that region during the 80s, under the administration of one of the presidents quoted in the Cadets' show? Look it up. But most people won't, and probably just want to pretend it didn't happen, and just remember Reagan's pretty words written by his speechwriters. I'm not injecting politics into DCI and DCP, even though the censors here busily try to pretend I and others are doing so. (Let's not be Orwellian and allow free speech here. Thank you.) The Cadets design team are. They're forcing politics and politicians and propaganda and patriotism into art, and taking words and images out of any context whatsoever, and that deeply disturbs me. It also ultimately never works as high art, which is why, even though the Cadets are no less skilled to a person than the Blue Devils, that they're getting convincingly beaten in every caption. Blue Devils are doing high art - no message other than "this is beautiful" and "this is true". Bravo, Devs. What the Cadets design team fails - repeatedly - to understand is that you simply can't wave the flag or hoist pictures of the capitol building and quote politicians and not simultaneously carry the baggage and the real, and often tragic HISTORY that accompanies it. You can't ignore the fact that most of the rest of the world sees that flag very differently, rightly so, as we directly conduct war or proxy wars while civilians are targeted with drones or artillery or F-16s and all in the name of "freedom". Since DCI is a kids activity, how "free", exactly, are the kids who have been dying this summer, while the Cadets are on tour, at the hands of US drones in Afghanistan or Pakistan, or taxpayer-funded F-16s and US made artillery and shells in Gaza, and now, even as I write this, who may die as we begin to bomb, yet again, Iraq, which is no longer a functioning country after our invasion, and which, besides the hundreds of thousands of killed and wounded on all sides, will cost us between $4-6 TRILLION dollars (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/study-iraq-afghan-war-costs-to-top-4-trillion/2013/03/28/b82a5dce-97ed-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html) That's a lot of bake sales and bingo nights for books or band uniforms. If the Cadets would have stressed Copland's truer and more artistic - and wordless, musical nature, in his Fanfare for the Common Man, Appalachian Spring, Tender Land - which glorifies the real civic beliefs and sacrifice of regular americans, and let that understatement and more abstract storytelling rule the day, the design would have worked better. It would have been more true to Copland's music, and to the message about democracy, freedom, justice, and civic responsibility, that I'm sure the Cadets team, and all fans, me included, believe in so profoundly. Edited August 8, 2014 by zigzigZAG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny Smith Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 Sitting in the stadium, I literally had to bow my head because I was laughing out loud at the end of the Cadets show and didn't want anyone to see me. That was one of the worst things I've seen in drum corps. The Cadets are usually such a class act and to force that mess on the fans was scraping the bottom of the barrel for a fan reaction. Pathetic! Mr. Hopkins, if you're reading this...it's not too late! Get rid of it all. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GUARDLING Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 Just want to avoid yap-yap-yap. Narration ruins shows for me. I get that., although in some cases I think the narration works, I think it works here. JMO Not liking the narration or narration in general is cool ( although ) like many things I dont think it's going anywhere BUT you just made it sound like put Cadets or HOP somewhere else so to maintain Drum Corps tradition on all levels. Coming from one of the most traditional corps Maybe I mis read....sorry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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