The Temptations (miniseries) - Wikipedia. The Temptations is a four- hour television miniseries broadcast in two- hour halves on NBC, based upon the history of one of Motown's longest- lived acts, The Temptations. Executive produced by former Motown executive Suzanne de Passe, produced by Otis Williams and Temptations manager Shelley Berger, and based upon Williams’ Temptations autobiography, the miniseries was originally broadcast on November 1 and November 2, 1. It was filmed on location in Pittsburgh, PA in the spring of 1. Allan Arkush was the miniseries’ director. Overview. Dennis Edwards was not heavily focused upon, nor was much said of the problems he later had with Otis Williams. Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. A unique six-piece ensemble, Glory Days is a tribute to an American musical icon — perhaps one of the greatest rock singers. Story of the Irish-American Lonigan family between 19. The story centers on young Studs who is growing into adulthood in a city full of temptations.
Nevertheless, the miniseries gave a general overview of both the history of the group and that of Motown, and, thanks to de Passe's connection, the film was able to use authentic props and locations. A number of liberties were taken with factual events for dramatization purposes: In the miniseries, during a 1. New Year's Motown party, Al Bryant is reluctant to perform another encore, and is fired from the group following a backstage alteration occurred with Bryant throwing a beer bottle at Paul Williams. In reality, the incident happened in October 1. Williams who was reluctant to do another encore. Bryant would be fired two months later for being uncooperative following an annual Christmas party. In the miniseries, Edwards is visibly angered when Ruffin steals his microphone during a concert performance. In actuality, Edwards claims he gave the microphone and was appreciative for Ruffin's presence. The Temptations' backstage confrontation with Ruffin in which he is escorted by security never happened. While the miniseries dramatically and somewhat accurately portrays Paul Williams's death, in real life, he was found dead in an alley in a car, and not in a parking lot as portrayed. Another inaccuracy is the depiction of Ruffin, Kendricks and Edwards performing together before the 1. Ruffin and Kendricks did not start performing together until 1. Edwards joining them in 1. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. David Ruffin was not found dead (after being unceremoniously dumped out of a car) near a hospital, and then taken to a morgue where he would not be properly identified for a week. In reality, he had suffered a drug overdose, and was taken to the hospital by his chauffeur who notified attending staff of Ruffin's identity. Because no one claimed his body, his corpse was lain in the morgue for two days, and his body was later claimed by his family the next day. In the film, Melvin Franklin apparently dies outside of the kitchen in his mother's house. In reality, he died from heart failure at the Cedars- Sinai Medical Center after being admitted following a series of seizures. Otis' stepfather Edgar is less than pleased with Otis' plans to become a singer instead of an assembly line worker, but his mother Haze is supportive. Six months later, Otis, Al, and two other teenage boys - Richard Street and James . Once Melvin gets permission from his mother, Rose, he becomes the bass singer for the Siberians. On the way home from school one day, Otis and the group follow a group of female classmates while singing . Otis takes a liking to one of the girls, Josephine, whom he begins dating. The next Saturday, the Siberians hear a radio DJ requesting them by name to come to the radio station. Arriving at the station, the DJ leads the group to a run- down recording studio downstairs. Johnnie Mae Matthews, who owns the studio, reveals herself as the person who'd summoned the Siberians. She declares herself their new manager and producer, changes their name to . Also booked as an opening act are The Distants' rivals The Primes - Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks - and their sister group The Primettes - Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, and Diane Ross. Eager to meet Motown founder Berry Gordy, Otis and Melvin corner Gordy in the bathroom after their performance and get his business card. Once the party ends, Johnnie Mae shows up in a new car emblazoned with the Distants' name, bought with the money earned from sales of . Awestruck, the Distants innocently ask about their share of the money, which angers Johnnie Mae to the point that she fires them on the spot, keeping the money, car, and group name for herself. Al, Richard, and Pee- Wee promptly quit as well. Shortly after, Melvin approaches Otis and tells him that Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams recently left The Primes and are interested in joining with them. Otis is reluctant to let them join, as he finds them arrogant and cocky, but ultimately accepts when Al rejoins the group. With this new line- up, the group renames themselves . Eddie and Paul prove to be valuable members; Paul teaches them how to dance and becomes their unofficial choreographer, while Eddie becomes their falsetto singer. In March 1. 96. 1, The Elgins go to Motown's Hitsville USA in hopes of a record deal, which Berry Gordy offers - with the stipulation that they come up with a better group name while they wait for an audition. After sitting outside the studio for hours waiting to be called in and thinking up a new name, Gordy's secretary Martha Reeves finds them outside and calls them in to meet Berry, who approves of their new name, . After hearing them perform . Leaving Hitsville in high spirits, reality hits when Otis arrives home and Josephine informs him she is pregnant, leading them to get married before Josephine gives birth to their son Lamont. For several years, The Temptations' career at Motown suffers from a string of underperforming records, though Gordy assigns Smokey Robinson to write and produce for the group and Cholly Atkins to revise Paul's choreography. The group starts to doubt their talents, while Al starts to lose his passion for singing, becoming more negative and volatile. This comes to a head during the 1. Motown New Year's party, where Al and Paul get into a fight backstage after a performance. Al breaks a bottle across Paul's face, prompting Otis to fire Al on the spot. The Temptations go on as a quartet to perform . Two of their Motown colleagues, Jimmy Ruffin and his brother David, join the group onstage, with David's performance skills particularly impressing the group. David is invited to join the group, which he readily accepts. A few days after the new year, the group head to Hitsville to record a song written for them by Smokey Robinson, . The song becomes an instant hit and finally puts the Temptations on the map. Shortly after the song hits the charts, the group, along with labelmates such as The Miracles, The Supremes, Mary Wells, Martha & the Vandellas, and Marvin Gaye, tour the eastern United States and the Jim Crow- era southern United States as part of Motown's Motor Town Revue. While on tour, Otis begins an affair with Florence Ballard of The Supremes, putting strain on his marriage with Josephine. In November 1. 96. Smokey writes a Temptations song for David to sing lead on, . The song becomes a massive success in 1. The group enjoys their newfound success and wealth, spending money on themselves and their loved ones. With this success, however, soon comes trouble. By early 1. 96. 6, David starts to develop an ego, thinking himself to be solely responsible for the Temptations' success. He also begins using drugs and starts showing up late for rehearsals and meetings, if at all. When Otis and Melvin go to David's house to urge him to straighten up, David declares that the group should change its name to . Otis refuses. In the meantime, Berry Gordy hires a new manager for both the Temptations and The Supremes, a white man named Shelly Berger. Despite some reluctance from the group - especially Paul - Shelly works to expand the Temptations' fanbase to the mainstream white audience. The group is eventually set to debut at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City, but David is nowhere to be found at showtime and the group goes on as a foursome. David shows up midway through their first number, and before they perform their song, . After David is formally fired in mid- 1. Melvin turns to his groupmates and rhetorically asks, . During a concert performance, the group is about to sing . The others go along with this to save face. Then, David runs off stage with a pissed off Otis and the other Temptations chasing him. They get into a brief argument before getting security guards to escort Ruffin out, but allowed him to join the group it there's reunited. By 1. 96. 9, The Temptations have won their first Grammy for Best R& B Performance for . As Paul's condition gets progressively worse, the others begin to consider whether Paul should retire, at least for the time being. Eddie is against this as he thinks that they should stick by Paul and be with him at all times, making sure he doesn't drink. Around this time, Melvin develops rheumatoid arthritis in the legs and starts taking cortisone shots to ease the symptoms (Melvin and Paul continue performing in the meantime) while Otis and Josephine divorce. In November 1. 97. Eddie visits David, who begins to turn him against Otis and Melvin while giving him his first shot of cocaine. Shortly after, Paul becomes well enough to sing again and the Temptations record a new song written by their producer Norman Whitfield titled . Despite this, Paul is still declared not ready to tour with the group and is replaced by returning former Distants member Richard Street. As a result, a heartbroken Eddie quits the group after performing . Later, Otis and his son Lamont visit Paul at his house. Paul asks to be back in the Temptations, while demonstrating his dancing, almost falling over. Otis tells him that he will be back when he gets better. In June 1. 97. 2, Whitfield writes another song called . Eventually, the group goes along with it. However, a Knight is smaller and less capable in combat than even the smallest class of true Titan utilised by the Titan Legions, the Warhound- class Scout Titan. Knights normally deploy in squadrons comprised of several of these war machines. These ancient battlesuits stand thirty to forty feet tall, are protected by nearly impenetrable Ion Shields and armed with a devastating array of heavy weapons. Imperial Knights are colossal war machines that tower over the battlefield. They are propelled into battle by powerful servos and have the power to kick over tanks and crush soldiers into red paste. Vulnerable limbs and joints are protected by sweeping armour plates of adamantium and supported by an incorporated Ion Shield which responds to the thought- commands of its Noble pilot. The presence of just one of these towering engines of destruction is enough to change the course of a battle, and only the Titans of the Adeptus Mechanicus are more feared by the enemies of Mankind. Among the apparatus of colonisation were formidable war machines known as Imperial Knights, which existed to protect the settlers from any threat. The strongholds constructed from the remains of ancient Terran colony starships are ruled by the descendants of the first human settlers of those far- flung worlds, mighty fighters who go to war in their towering armoured battlesuits and who are sworn to protect and guard the Imperial citizens who inhabit their worlds. These proud and haughty warriors can trace their bloodlines back to Terra itself and are colloquially known as . Over the millennia, the pilots of these massive war suits have established a rich culture, Noble houses each sworn to the defence of their homeworld, bound by oaths of fealty to the Golden Throne of Terra and the Adeptus Mechanicus of Mars. Vast colonisation starships carried eager human settlers, along with all the resources they might require, and landed on far- flung, often isolated worlds. Indeed, the Knight Worlds had already been established for thousands of standard years when the Imperium was first founded in the 3. Millennium. When those first human scout ships discovered a suitable planet for colonisation, gigantic spacecraft were dispatched to settle them. These ships were part of Terra's Long March fleets, named after the duration of their voyage and their destination among the stars. The name was apt; each of the Long March colony starships carried thousands of settlers on a decade- long journey to a far distant planet. Upon arrival, the colony ship would land and be immediately cannibalised by the colonists to provide the raw materials needed for their first settlements; there was no hope of return to Mankind's distant homeworld. On some, the settlers found themselves the prey of vicious predators or were attacked by native alien races, which saw the human settlers as invaders. On other worlds, extreme weather conditions or an unbreathable atmosphere made travel outside of domed habitat- zones next to impossible. However, problems like these had been anticipated, and in order to deal with them, the settlers were supplied with Standard Template Construct (STC) databases and fabrication facilities that allowed them to build powered suits of exoarmour. The pilots of these bipedal walking machines were protected by a hard shell of Plasteel and armed with an array of military- grade heavy weapons. The suits proved invaluable: few, if any, natural predators or hostile alien warriors could stand against them, and they could travel through even the most dangerous environment with ease. The towering armoured figures soon became a common sight on the colonies, where they were known as Knights by the settlers, after the legendary armoured warriors and protectors of ancient Terran history. The Plasteel plates of the original exo- skeleton suits were slowly replaced with more ornate armour made from Adamantium, providing better protection as well as a panoply befitting the wearer's prestige and rank in his society. The more mundane duties that the Knights had once taken part in on the colony worlds - – logging with their mighty Reaper Chainswords, for example, or blasting apart rock ore with their rapid- fire Battle Cannons - – were delegated to those of lesser ranks, allowing the Knights to focus on the arts of war and governorship. The knightly houses proved to be highly successful at both of these things, and soon became a vital part of human society during the Age of Technology. Around the time of the 2. Millennium AD, Mankind's vast galactic empire began to suffer a pandemic of terrible wars and massive invasions, caused, at least in part, by the emergence of the first human psykers and the widespread use of quasi- sentient machines remembered in human myth as the Iron Men. By the 2. 5th Millennium, ferocious Warp Storms had largely isolated the widespread human colonies, and the era that came to be known as the Age of Strife had well and truly begun. During this lamentable era of human history, also sometimes referred to as Old Night, interstellar travel to many of these human- settled worlds was made impossible due to the massive Warp Storms caused by the birth of the foul Chaos God. Slaanesh during the Fall of the Eldar. Where other planets welcomed psykers into their midst, and revelled in the luxurious lifestyle that advanced thinking machines could provide, the knightly houses had largely shunned both, preferring to stick with the traditions and technology of the past. Thus, when the violence that presaged the Age of Strife struck, hundreds of Knight Worlds were sidelined or ignored, and took little direct part in the terrible conflicts that tore the rest of humanity apart. Cut off and alone, the knightly houses were quickly forgotten by the other colonies. Left to their own devices, the warrior aristocracy cemented their control and –- encouraged by the psychological manipulations caused by the process of imprinting their suits of Knight armour - – almost all of them enforced neo- feudal systems on their homeworlds. In the course of their travels, these slow- moving exploratory expeditions discovered large clusters of human- settled star systems that had once belonged to the ancient interstellar human confederacy that had existed during the Dark Age of Technology. But these worlds had regressed during the Age of Strife to become Feudal Worlds possessed of a pre- industrial, feudal culture dominated by castes of warrior aristocrats. The societies that evolved were built upon concepts of fealty, honour and duty; three things that all Knights hold in the greatest regard. All of the Nobles on a Knight World owed their allegiance to a knightly house, whose ruler could call upon them at any time to carry out his commands. Each house could also field large numbers of men- at- arms, either mounted or on foot. The houses also had groups of artificers and technicians who maintained the suits of Knight armour as best they could, and over time, became an integral part of society on all of the Knight Worlds. Competition between different knightly houses on a planet was just as intense, and although. On the Knight World of Higroxias, for example, once every ten standard years, the three major houses compete against each other in a series of trials known as the Honour Games, the winner of which rules the Governing Council for the next decade. As the Age of Strife stretched from centuries into millennia, the Knight Worlds became increasingly insular and inward- looking. Each developed its own titles and terms, so that on one Knight World the ruler of a knightly house would be known as a Lord, while on another they might be called a Ritter or Patriarch, and a Noble's stronghold could be known as their castle, fastness or mansion. Without any outside contact, ritual and etiquette started to dominate daily life within the knightly houses, and the only escape from stultifying tradition lay in donning a suit of Knight armour and taking to the field of battle. Under the guidance of the Emperor, Humanity returned to the stars and began the Great Crusade to reunite Mankind. Nothing was able to stand in the way of the resurgent Imperial armies, and soon, human colonies on planets all across the galaxy were brought within the fold of the newly formed Imperium. When Rogue Trader Militant Jeffers rediscovered a Knight World, Chrysis, for the first time, he quickly realised the knightly houses could be valuable allies for the Emperor's armies. In his reports, he pointed out the Knights' many virtues, and emphasised the world's value to the Imperium as a source of born and bred warriors. The Administratum agreed with Jeffers' findings and set about finding the rest of the long- lost Knight Worlds. Although there were thousands of Knight Worlds at their height during the Dark Age of Technology, the vast majority had been destroyed or died out during the Age of Strife. Now, only several hundred survive, scattered all across the galaxy. Most of the Knight Worlds share certain features, hallmarks of the instructions followed by the original settlers. The Nobles themselves occupy sprawling walled strongholds, each a gothic, ancient structure of dusty, lifeless halls and corridors. Many are built on the same location as the first human settlements on the planet and include at their core parts of the giant colony sublight starships used to transport the first settlers to their new worlds. They can vary in size from small keeps to entire cities bordered by vast outer walls. Huge farms or strip- mines surround the strongholds, providing foodstuffs and raw materials for local use and export across the galaxy; the colony ships' purpose was always to generate resources for Mankind. It is in these settlements that the vast majority of Imperial citizens on Knight Worlds live, with few venturing more than a dozen miles from their place of birth.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
November 2017
Categories |