Subtropolis: DVD Extra: Twelve Ways To Sunday (Original, 1162 words)
Summary: Accompanying the DVD release of Subtropolis was a card containing twelve quotes about the mysterious Sunday.
Subtropolis: DVD Extra: Twelve Ways To Sunday
1.
"Yeah, I'm scared. You wanna know why? You wanna know? There used to be this guy, Lenny, ran the Blue Dragons out of Sou'town, a pincher, the go-to guy for the swift nab-- Yeah, it's fucking story time, shut up. Lenny does a job, right, simple delivery for Sunday, but he takes a look in the box first, sees this fucking golden dragon statue, decides to help himself. Now Sunday, he doesn't say a thing when that crate comes up light, just nods and Lenny, well, Lenny's not too bright. Lenny thinks he's got away with it, starts bragging all over town, real mouthy bastard. Then Lenny's old man gets run down 'cause the traffic lights break. Lenny's brother gets lung cancer, chokes to death on his own black shit. Lenny gets distracted, the Tangs start moving in his turf, his lieutenants start taking the graft, soon he's fighting on all sides, shit dropping like fucking dominoes until he's cleaned out, crew did, alone with his fucking statue. Can't sell it, can't ditch it, so he tries to take it back to Sunday. Elevator goes up twenty floors slow, Lenny sweating the whole way and just as the doors ding the cable snaps, and he comes right back down real fucking fast. BLAM! Squished all to shit. But then they're peeling his fucking bones out of the metal, and he opens his goddamn eyes, starts screaming, because the fucker isn't dead. He still isn't dead, man. They've got him hooked up in Mercy, pumped full of morphine, and he still screaming. And you know that statue? Sunday keeps it in his office and he never even wiped the goddamned blood off. So, yeah, I'm scared. You should be too. There's only two things you gotta know about Sunday: you don't fucking talk, and you pay him his damned due."
--Derrick "Guns" Malone,
1x06 - Fractions Of Eight
2.
"In the -- actually, in the first draft of this scene coming up, Sunday had this whole monologue, very poetic and metaphorical and beautiful, but once they brought Jet Li in to read it, I just cut it out. I loved it, but it went. Even before he'd read a line, Sunday, Li, he had this, this aura of subtle, icy menace. I can't even describe it. I, I mean, I was just watching the rushes and I was scared, you know? My heart was actually racing, and what I realised was, Sunday doesn't need to threaten. I mean, do you threaten the ants crawling around in your garden? Seriously, just watch this. A master at work."
--Paul Cornell, writer
Commentary track, 1x22 - Twelve Ways To Sunday
3.
"Forget it, man. This is Sunday's city; we just live in it for a while."
--Kenny Gutierrez,
2x13 - Comeback Kid
4.
"[...] and, in particular, the subtle way [Nancy Shrieber, cinematographer] uses diffuse lighting, set arrangement, timing and careful camera angles to demonstrate -- while simultaneously obscuring -- the way that Sunday apparently neither casts shadows or reflections."
--Professor Henry Cavill, author,
'Light and Mirrors: The Visual Art of Subtropolis'
5.
"Katrina thinks you won't help. I think you can't. I look at you up here, behind your window, always watching -- this tower is as much your prison as it is your castle."
--Boston Craig
3x01 - Lost Boys and Wendy Birds
6.
"For me, the interesting thing about Sunday wasn't the whole mythology thing, but actually his rare moments of humanity. I think, in many ways, and that's certainly how we played the scenes, that Sunday was Nylar's father in both senses of the word -- a parental figure, and a confessor."
--Isaach De Bankolé, actor
Subtropolis: Open Season DVD Interviews
7.
"Like yin yang, the city has two interlocking sides, each obscured and revealed in turn in endless cycle. In each, the yin in highest yang, the yang in highest yin, stands Sunday. Do you understand what I have told you?"
"Rarely to never."
"Then your path to wisdom has truly begun."
--Vincent Nylar and Boston Craig,
3x01 - Lost Boys and Wendy Birds
8.
"If you pay close attention to the episodes, you'll realise it's physically impossible for the interior of Sunday's offices to actually be inside the stock footage of the exterior, which we, ah, ignored! Basically!
[...]
It's very Chinese influenced: lots of woods and clear, strong lines, dominated by the sloping roofs and wide spaces, intercut with the courtyards and Sunday's gardens. There's eight-fold symmetry, so by using reversible paper-panels for set redressing, we actually got away with only building a third of the set. The main floor-to-ceiling window panes proved to be so much of a hassle to light in our first season that we dumped them out in favour of green screens for the rest of the shoot, so basically our sets only really had two walls!
[...]
Now, lots of people like to ask about the significance of the stone plinth beyond the moon gate, but the truth is, that's actually the back of the Dragon Lord's throne from Conan of Ages, which was filmed on the set before we moved in and got left behind. I mean, I just liked it, so I shoved it in there, you know? That's how real professional set designers do it!"
--Lindsey Morris, designer
Subtropolis: Open Season DVD Building the World Featurette
9.
"Come on, doesn't it bother you that we pretty much work for a guy we know nothing about?"
"Red, I drive a taxi. Working for strangers is what I do. Besides, he's never been anything but courteous to me in all the times I've met him."
"Yeah? And how many is that?"
"...twice. It counts! It totally counts! He poured tea for me. I'm just saying. You never pour tea for me."
"You don't even like tea."
"I like Sunday's tea."
--Boston Craig and Katrina Cane
1x05 - All The Coffee In China
10.
"For Sunday's theme, what I did was, I took the main Subtropolis theme with its Celtic and contemporary Asian influences, threw out everything except the guzheng, halved the speed and pitched it down a little, so it's a little classical, a little modern, a little mournful, a little eerie, a little discordant. It's a real interesting sound, something you both want to listen to and which sets you on edge at the same time."
--Haiqiong Deng, composer,
Subtropolis: Open Season DVD City Sounds Featurette
11.
"So you and Mister Sunday are--"
"It's Sunday, dear."
"That's... what I said?"
"Sunday doesn't hold with titles. There's no Mister, or Something Sunday or Sunday Something. Just Sunday. Like Cher, but with less plastic."
--Boston Craig and Eliza Stone,
1x05 - All The Coffee In China
12.
"Sunday? Man, I wrote, what, forty two? Forty two episodes of the show all together, and I still have no idea what the hell Sunday's deal was. God, Satan, the spirit of the city? Like, fuck, maybe he was all of them, you know? Sunday was Sunday. Ain't two of those in the universe."
--Oxford Bronze, writer
DragonCon Q&A session
Subtropolis: DVD Extra: Twelve Ways To Sunday
1.
"Yeah, I'm scared. You wanna know why? You wanna know? There used to be this guy, Lenny, ran the Blue Dragons out of Sou'town, a pincher, the go-to guy for the swift nab-- Yeah, it's fucking story time, shut up. Lenny does a job, right, simple delivery for Sunday, but he takes a look in the box first, sees this fucking golden dragon statue, decides to help himself. Now Sunday, he doesn't say a thing when that crate comes up light, just nods and Lenny, well, Lenny's not too bright. Lenny thinks he's got away with it, starts bragging all over town, real mouthy bastard. Then Lenny's old man gets run down 'cause the traffic lights break. Lenny's brother gets lung cancer, chokes to death on his own black shit. Lenny gets distracted, the Tangs start moving in his turf, his lieutenants start taking the graft, soon he's fighting on all sides, shit dropping like fucking dominoes until he's cleaned out, crew did, alone with his fucking statue. Can't sell it, can't ditch it, so he tries to take it back to Sunday. Elevator goes up twenty floors slow, Lenny sweating the whole way and just as the doors ding the cable snaps, and he comes right back down real fucking fast. BLAM! Squished all to shit. But then they're peeling his fucking bones out of the metal, and he opens his goddamn eyes, starts screaming, because the fucker isn't dead. He still isn't dead, man. They've got him hooked up in Mercy, pumped full of morphine, and he still screaming. And you know that statue? Sunday keeps it in his office and he never even wiped the goddamned blood off. So, yeah, I'm scared. You should be too. There's only two things you gotta know about Sunday: you don't fucking talk, and you pay him his damned due."
--Derrick "Guns" Malone,
1x06 - Fractions Of Eight
2.
"In the -- actually, in the first draft of this scene coming up, Sunday had this whole monologue, very poetic and metaphorical and beautiful, but once they brought Jet Li in to read it, I just cut it out. I loved it, but it went. Even before he'd read a line, Sunday, Li, he had this, this aura of subtle, icy menace. I can't even describe it. I, I mean, I was just watching the rushes and I was scared, you know? My heart was actually racing, and what I realised was, Sunday doesn't need to threaten. I mean, do you threaten the ants crawling around in your garden? Seriously, just watch this. A master at work."
--Paul Cornell, writer
Commentary track, 1x22 - Twelve Ways To Sunday
3.
"Forget it, man. This is Sunday's city; we just live in it for a while."
--Kenny Gutierrez,
2x13 - Comeback Kid
4.
"[...] and, in particular, the subtle way [Nancy Shrieber, cinematographer] uses diffuse lighting, set arrangement, timing and careful camera angles to demonstrate -- while simultaneously obscuring -- the way that Sunday apparently neither casts shadows or reflections."
--Professor Henry Cavill, author,
'Light and Mirrors: The Visual Art of Subtropolis'
5.
"Katrina thinks you won't help. I think you can't. I look at you up here, behind your window, always watching -- this tower is as much your prison as it is your castle."
--Boston Craig
3x01 - Lost Boys and Wendy Birds
6.
"For me, the interesting thing about Sunday wasn't the whole mythology thing, but actually his rare moments of humanity. I think, in many ways, and that's certainly how we played the scenes, that Sunday was Nylar's father in both senses of the word -- a parental figure, and a confessor."
--Isaach De Bankolé, actor
Subtropolis: Open Season DVD Interviews
7.
"Like yin yang, the city has two interlocking sides, each obscured and revealed in turn in endless cycle. In each, the yin in highest yang, the yang in highest yin, stands Sunday. Do you understand what I have told you?"
"Rarely to never."
"Then your path to wisdom has truly begun."
--Vincent Nylar and Boston Craig,
3x01 - Lost Boys and Wendy Birds
8.
"If you pay close attention to the episodes, you'll realise it's physically impossible for the interior of Sunday's offices to actually be inside the stock footage of the exterior, which we, ah, ignored! Basically!
[...]
It's very Chinese influenced: lots of woods and clear, strong lines, dominated by the sloping roofs and wide spaces, intercut with the courtyards and Sunday's gardens. There's eight-fold symmetry, so by using reversible paper-panels for set redressing, we actually got away with only building a third of the set. The main floor-to-ceiling window panes proved to be so much of a hassle to light in our first season that we dumped them out in favour of green screens for the rest of the shoot, so basically our sets only really had two walls!
[...]
Now, lots of people like to ask about the significance of the stone plinth beyond the moon gate, but the truth is, that's actually the back of the Dragon Lord's throne from Conan of Ages, which was filmed on the set before we moved in and got left behind. I mean, I just liked it, so I shoved it in there, you know? That's how real professional set designers do it!"
--Lindsey Morris, designer
Subtropolis: Open Season DVD Building the World Featurette
9.
"Come on, doesn't it bother you that we pretty much work for a guy we know nothing about?"
"Red, I drive a taxi. Working for strangers is what I do. Besides, he's never been anything but courteous to me in all the times I've met him."
"Yeah? And how many is that?"
"...twice. It counts! It totally counts! He poured tea for me. I'm just saying. You never pour tea for me."
"You don't even like tea."
"I like Sunday's tea."
--Boston Craig and Katrina Cane
1x05 - All The Coffee In China
10.
"For Sunday's theme, what I did was, I took the main Subtropolis theme with its Celtic and contemporary Asian influences, threw out everything except the guzheng, halved the speed and pitched it down a little, so it's a little classical, a little modern, a little mournful, a little eerie, a little discordant. It's a real interesting sound, something you both want to listen to and which sets you on edge at the same time."
--Haiqiong Deng, composer,
Subtropolis: Open Season DVD City Sounds Featurette
11.
"So you and Mister Sunday are--"
"It's Sunday, dear."
"That's... what I said?"
"Sunday doesn't hold with titles. There's no Mister, or Something Sunday or Sunday Something. Just Sunday. Like Cher, but with less plastic."
--Boston Craig and Eliza Stone,
1x05 - All The Coffee In China
12.
"Sunday? Man, I wrote, what, forty two? Forty two episodes of the show all together, and I still have no idea what the hell Sunday's deal was. God, Satan, the spirit of the city? Like, fuck, maybe he was all of them, you know? Sunday was Sunday. Ain't two of those in the universe."
--Oxford Bronze, writer
DragonCon Q&A session