Getting To Know You...

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

How well do these two really know each other?  Or, to put it more accurately, how well do we know them?  They do what we tell them to do when we write, but are we getting it ... right?
[Poll #2098092]

Comments

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

A very clever poll!

[gevr.livejournal.com]

I like the "trick question" option - hahaha !

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

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[pactnmmt.livejournal.com]

Regarding Napoleon and a boat...cannon or fandom? I don't think he owned one on the series. He sailed one in the first season but I don't think he owned it

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

The Pursang, Solo's sailboat, was invented by David McDaniel for the Ace book series. However, Solo's love of sailing are in the first development notes and he has nautical touches in his apartment in the pilot. So, sorta canon.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

This is how I remember it, thanks to Dr C. :-)

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

For some reason I thought the Pursang was your invention. I do think we can make this a toss up, although McDaniel's input is basically canon. Hmmm...

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

In regards to Solo being Canadian:

again, sorta canon. In the original development notes and Norman Felton's original conception, he is. His parents worked at the Hotel Frontenac. However, NBC was nervous about the Solo character being tied in any way to Ian Fleming after Fleming bowed out of the project. [They identified Canadian with Fleming's Britishness ---go figure]. SO, they sorta changed it by having him apparently serve with Col. Morgan during apparently the Korean War which may have been Army Intelligence but we don't know for sure.

But actually, we know more about Illya's background [and yes, he is Soviet Russian ---both Sam Rolfe and Norman Felton told me to my face, in person] than we do canonically about Solo.

Fanfic writers [yours truly included] have gone out of their way to preserve some of the original concepts [did you know Solo was also a widower? It's in the notes they handed RV ---he remembered reading it] that sorta float in the background and in dialogue of some episodes, especially the first season.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

Illya's love of vodka ---and the authentic good stuff, not the cheap imitation available in America at the time] is another concept repeated throughout fandom

Solo's preference for Scotch comes from me. Yes, truly. Based on my dad. Some others picked it up and now it appears in fanfic.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I didn't know your fanfic showed Napoleon as preferring scotch when I started writing MFU fanfic. My own choice of scotch for him came from my own preference for it. It certainly suits him. :-)

Just sayin' - can't speak for other fanfic writers.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

These days I tend to give him bourbon. It could be the regional influence. Mine, that is.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

I think sometimes it is - it's either personal preference or the local "celebrity" of a drink, or even, I think, the idea we have in our heads that Napoleon is selective or high maintenance (which I think he is when he can be, though clearly as a spy he has to be OK with roughing it).

I consider single malt to be suitable for such a man, so that's why I chose it. That it's my own favorite played a role, but it's also that it's generally considered an upscale, selective kind of drink.

I mean, I don't think many fanfic writers would say "Sure, Napoleon drinks two buck chuck." He just doesn't come across that way.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

Creative minds think alike :)

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

On this one I kept seeing the picture of the two of them in Waverly's office drinking martinis. So, taking that as a cue, I say he doesn't always drink vodka.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

And we know how Solo takes his martini because he gives instructions to Mara after he takes Capsule B.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

Illya's opinion of Solo's French


---actually can be explained. IF Solo is French Canadian, his accent might sound less sophisticated to someone who was educated at the Sorbonne.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

I promised correct answers at the close of the poll, but now I think I'll just use your responses :D Thanks for chiming in on this one, I was going to have to search for some of it, like Illya's actual place of birth. Much has been made of him being Ukrainian, so having the info direct from the creators is very helpful.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

I've seen the Ukrainian reference pop up occasionally. And during this time, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. It didn't become independent until 1991.

So technically, Illya *could* have been born in the Ukraine. I think it comes from the mind reading machine episode in which Illya recalls being a child in Kiev apparently during WW2. Kiev is in Ukraine.

So he can be both Soviet Russian citizen AND be born in or grow up in Ukraine.

There has always been controversy over the Soviet part although if he was a defector, that would not be possible (1) because UNCLE was global and multi-national modeled on the U.N. and (2) we saw him in his Soviet uniform.

Yeah, I know: some have claimed he was working undercover [but he did also say in one of the movies he had served on a Russian submarine.] But the show was on NBC, an American network, in the 1960s, right in the middle of the Cold War. The NBC execs were skittish of Soviet references altho Felton and Rolfe left little clues. [ for example: Illya in disguise in Project Strigas looks exactly like Trotsky]

Nevertheless, to clear it up I asked Norman Felton point blank if they really intended Illya to be Soviet.

He said to me, "Do you know who John Reed is?"

I did. He's the American buried in the Kremlin [Warren Beatty played him in the movie Reds]

Felton said, "Well in college, I belonged to the John Reed society --- so that is your answer."

Sam Rolfe also wanted Illya to be Russian/Soviet so that the show would look beyond the Cold War.

The point was that the real war was not between the West and East, but the real threat was from those who sought power over the rest of us ---a group composed [please note] of billionaire industrialists, international gangsters, Nazis and fascists, and meglo-maniac scientists advised by a super computer. Solo explains it to Elaine Donaldson in the Vulcan Aff. My opinion remains that MFU was prescient and predicted a world we live in now.

It's also noteworthy that Ayn Rand liked Bond but not MFU. Not surprising.