Major Cabinet of the Cuomo Administration
President of the United States: Mario Matthew Cuomo (52nd Governor of New York, 1983-1992, previously Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State of New York)
Vice President of the United States: William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton (40th and 42nd Governor of Arkansas, 1977-1981 and 1983-1992, previously Attorney General of Arkansas)
Secretary of State: Daniel Patrick Moynihan (United States Senator from New York, 1977-1993, previously the 12th US Ambassador to the United Nations and the 10th US Ambassador to India)
Secretary of the Treasury: Paul Krugman (Prominent New Keynesian economist, 1991 winner of the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Medal)
Secretary of Defense: Sam Nunn (United States Senator from Georgia, 1972-1993)
Attorney General: Stephen L. Carter (Professor at Yale Law School, Yale University)
Appointments as a Result of Cabinet Selections:
Georgia: Governor Zell Miller, after considering Georgia Secretary of State Max Cleland and State Representative Roy Barnes, decided to assign Sam Nunn’s vacant Senate seat to five-term Congressman George “Buddy” Darden. This sparked some controversy with liberals, as Buddy Darden was considered a conservative Democrat. As per state laws, the new Senator would not be subject to a special election and would serve in Washington until at least January 3rd, 1997.
New York: Stan Lundine, who had himself succeeded Mario Cuomo as Governor when the latter became President, appointed former Congressman and Mayor of New York City Ed Koch to fill out the rest of Dan Moynihan’s term. This was a move made to gain bipartisan support, as Koch had demonstrated heavy cross-party appeal as Mayor (in the 1981 race he was nominated by both the Democrats and Republicans). The new Senator easily won a special election to defend his seat in late 1993, and promised that, if elected to a full term in the 1994 midterms, he would retire after that term.
Filming on Watchmen Begins
Principal photography for Watchmen began in early March, 1993. Initially, James Cameron had hoped to shoot every seen on location (or, at least, as close to on location as possible- filming in Antarctica would have been prohibitively time consuming and expensive, and filming on Mars would be outside even Cameron’s reach for the moment). However, after he had finished scouting locations in New Mexico and California to double as the Red Planet, the director was left unsatisfied. He wanted a location “suitably alien” to portray Mars. Finally, Cameron suggested the day before filming in New York (the first location) that sets be built in Pinewood Studios in the UK to simulate not only Vietnam and Antarctica, but Mars as well. This inflated the film’s budget by $15 million, but the studio still acquiesced.
A variety of locations in the Big Apple were used for Watchmen. Special permission was given to use certain buildings in the Rockefeller Center to convey Veidt’s corporate headquarters, while the creative use of several square blocks in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, were dressed to portray the “underworld” of the comics (in fact, astute viewers could tell that many of the same spots were also used in the shooting of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing several years earlier).
Trouble brewed regarding the filming of the riot scene. Cameron had planned to hire several hundred locals as extras for filming the social unrest that, in the universe of Watchmen, would lead to the passage of the “Keene Act” in 1977, which banned costumed vigilantism. When Mayor David Dinkins heard this, he grew worried, and requested a meeting with the director. Dinkins' concerns were that the use of some many local New Yorkers as extras in the filming of the riots could “get out of hand”, as only two years before two serious bouts of civil disturbance had rocked the city. Cameron was deeply offended by the insinuation that his production could “cause a fuckin’ riot”, but he (perhaps surprisingly, knowing the director) agreed. Casting calls for extras were told to cut their numbers by several hundred to several dozen. The new plan was to use these individuals for the rioters near the front of the crowd, in addition to stunt actors would actually take part in the fight scenes with Russell’s and Campbell’s character, while their numbers would be digitally augmented. The effect was to give a relatively small crowd of characters more depth, with the real actors being used to give the impression that the crowd was larger than it really was. [1] More on special effects later.
The only other bump in the NYC shoot was during the filming of the flashback scene where Rorschach (Mark Hamill) commits his first murder, that of a man (played by actor Scott Wilson) that butchered a small girl and fed the remains to his dogs. A run-down, abandoned house in Brooklyn was purchased by the production company to serve as the location. The scene called for the house to be set on fire as part of the deathtrap for Wilson’s character. However, there was a malfunction in the pyrotechnics department, and a real, uncontrolled fire that threatened to engulf nearby buildings was soon ablaze. The Fire Department was quickly called, but not before Mark Hamill, still in full costume, came out to stare in horror at the fire. Cameron was also present and, impressed by the visuals, he grabbed the nearest cameras and started rolling. He particularly liked the intensity of the stare Hamill was giving the conflagration. “And right there, Mark’s back the me, the fire blazing in front of him”, Cameron later recalled, “that was the panel in the comic. That was it. That was it. No amount of reshooting the panel under controlled conditions could come anywhere near the same effect. When I later caught up with the guy who started the fire, I gave him a big hug.” Luckily, firemen showed up to the scene before there were any injuries or any major damage to other buildings.
After filming in America wrapped up in America, it was off to Pinewood Studios in Britain. Nearly all of the non-New York scenes were filmed either on or near the studios. For instance, the Vietnam battle sequence was shot in the Beckton Gas Works on the Isle of Dogs near London, where, coincidentally (or maybe not), part of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket was filmed in the late 1980’s [2].
Antarctica and Mars each required complicated sets, along with the enhancement of computer imagery. Though Brent Spiner was to be “present” in most of his scenes (Doctor Manhattan would be “portrayed” by a digitally-rendered model, which was voiced by Spiner), the actor was present during the filming of all of his character’s scenes, as Cameron required him to be the stand-in for Doctor Manhattan as well, so the other actors could play off of him. One day, after goading from costar Arnold Schwarzenegger, Spiner pranked the director by showing up to the shooting of the Mars scenes in full Data costume and makeup. Cameron thought this was hilarious, and let the filming commence as normal (it’s not like it mattered, as no one would see it in the final product). Footage of “Data Manhattan” would later become an “Easter Egg” on the first DVD release of Watchmen.
After several months of mostly smooth sailing, shooting on Watchmen would end in the middle of July. Now came the fun part: post-production.
Stargate’s Casting Problems Sorted Out
MGM executives were skeptical of the plan to cast Richard Dean Anderson as Colonel O’Neil. However, after seeing footage of his audition, they relented. Still, the question remained as to who would be the “star power” to pull in the audiences. Director Roland Emmerich tried to object, saying the spectacle of Stargate would be enough on its own to get people interested. It was his producer Mario Kassar who pulled him aside and said “Look, if you really believed that line of bullshit, then why were you trying so hard to get Kurt (Russell) on board in the beginning?”
Emmerich and Devlin badly wanted James Spader, of Pretty in Pink and Sex, Lies, and Videotape fame, for the role of the eccentric Dr. Daniel Jackson, who discovers the code to unlocking the titular Stargate. However, the studio was more interested in Jeff Goldblum, who after the success of The Fly and Jurassic Park was at the height of his career. Eventually, the director relented, not wanting to risk keeping Spader and having to take part in another lengthy search for their lead military man. With that, Goldblum joined the cast as Daniel Jackson.
Due to delays, though, the actress originally signed on to play Sha’re, Mili Avital, had to drop out. Frustrated, they now had to find another actress, and quick. It was Angelina Jolie, daughter of actor Jon Voight and a newcomer to the film world, who was quickly hired to fill in the role of Jackson’s love interest.
Finally, with filming delayed several times, Stargate had a cast and was ready to start filming.
Late 1993 Political Events
-As aforementioned, conservative Republican Senator Bruce Herschensohn of California resigned due to a stripper scandal. Libertarian Republican Tom Campbell was picked to replace him, and he now has to face a special election in 1994, where Barbara Boxer wants a second go at it…
-In late August of 1993, Cuomo managed to get liberal Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe confirmed as Byron White’s successor on the Supreme Court. It was very close, though, with several prominent Republicans threatening to “bork” the Harvard professor as hard as they could (a reference to the ill-fated appointment of conservative Robert Bork to the highest court in the land under Ronald Reagan, which has not been forgotten by the GOP). Some of the rhetoric thrown around has alarmed the average American as to the political stratification going on in Washington…
-The Brady Act passed, and Cuomo’s “legislative signature”, the National Healthcare Act, is well on its way to seeing the light of day. This has led to huge conservative backlash (Congressman Alan Keyes called it “a stepping stone to communist dictatorship”), and opinion polls are starting to favor a Republican surge in the 1994 midterms…
-Several important state elections took place in 1993. George Allen became Governor in Virginia, as did Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey, but the big one was the recall drive in Louisiana against David Duke. States laws allow for ballot initiatives of this variety, which a huge bipartisan majority of the legislature was eager to support. Technically, no reason had to be given for a recall, but the reasons were clear: Duke was a disgrace to the state. He used to gubernatorial bully pulpit to spew hateful rhetoric against Jews, blacks, homosexuals, and others he disliked. None of the legislation he proposed, even on matters unrelated to race, were accepted by the legislature. The final straw, though, was when Duke invited several far-right leaders from across the globe, including the British National Party’s John Tyndall, Afrikaner separatist Eugene Terre’Blanche, and members of Germany’s National Democratic Party to a “White Leadership Forum” in early 1993.
Two ballot initiatives were to be voted in in November, 1993 for Louisianans. The first was for the question of whether Duke should be recalled, and who should replace him. The second was whether the “jungle primary”, or open primary, system in Louisiana should be replaced by a more standard method of voting, similar to the rest of the United States, where a party had to nominate a candidate beforehand and there was no “instant run-off”. An overwhelming majority of Louisianans agreed that Duke should be removed (66% to 34%), and more narrowly agreed to end their unique method of election (51.5% to 48.5%), which many blamed for giving David Duke the chance to be elected. Most surprising, though, was who got a narrow plurality of votes to become the new Governor…
Both Edwin Edwards and Buddy Roemer were on the ballot, but the “unity candidate” was W. Fox McKeithen, a former state representative and current Louisiana Secretary of State. Though he was a Republican, he was a Democrat until 1989 and the son of a popular former Governor, John McKeithen. The younger McKeithen would be inaugurated the next January with his father present, ready to face the new year…
[1] Now I believe this tactic was used by Cameron when he filmed Titanic a couple years down the line in our timeline.
[2] Yeah, fun fact- all of Full Metal Jacket, from the barracks in South Carolina to the ruins of Vietnam, was filmed in England! Kubrick was afraid of flying.
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Thoughts?