News Burning Ambition Documentary

 
Asked why now was the right time to tell the MAIDEN story in film form, Harris said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, in actual fact, it wasn't us. It's about us, but not by us. That's the difference. So it's a documentary, which they came to us with an idea that they wanted to do, and it changed a little bit from the original idea. They were gonna do it more about the fans, and it still is, to a certain degree. So, yeah, it's not by us. They wanted to use our artwork and everything, and it seems like as if it's our documentary. It's not. I think they really should have put out that it's a documentary aboutIRON MAIDEN, not byIRON MAIDEN, because it's not us. We didn't have that control that we would normally have if we were doing it ourselves, of course."

Harris added: "Yeah, we cooperated with it and we did interviews for it and all that stuff — we did what they wanted us to do — but if we'd have done it, I think we'd have done it in a slightly different way, and I'll say no more. But I still think the end result is… Well, I'll say no more because it preempts whatever. I think people should just go and see it and see what they think."

Asked by "Trunk Nation" host Eddie Trunk if "Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition" covers the overall history of the band, Harris said: "Yeah, it's historical stuff. There's a lot of historical stuff for the first hour, probably, I suppose. So, yeah, I think people have gotta watch it and make their own minds up, really."


Strange comments to make, sounds like he's not that happy with it.
 
Vaenyr said:
Yeah, seriously. He sounds like he's distancing himself from the whole thing. Unhappy with how certain parts were portrayed? The 90s perhaps?
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It sounds very much like he's distancing himself from it. If it is indeed the '90s coverage he doesn't like, I'm MUCH more interested in the documentary. I've said it a million times, the '90s is pretty much the one era of Maiden's internal history that has the drama to sustain the interest of a more casual moviegoing public. That and the fact most unofficial biographies gloss over the Blaze era in a handful of pages is what got me considering writing an unofficial band biography specifically about the '90s.
 
CA Bryers said:
It sounds very much like he's distancing himself from it. If it is indeed the '90s coverage he doesn't like, I'm MUCH more interested in the documentary. I've said it a million times, the '90s is pretty much the one era of Maiden's internal history that has the drama to sustain the interest of a more casual moviegoing public. That and the fact most unofficial biographies gloss over the Blaze era in a handful of pages is what got me considering writing an unofficial band biography specifically about the '90s.
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Mick Wall’s book is the big culprit - almost two thirds of his book covers only up to 1985. Then he speeds up. He gets bored it seems by the 90s. Bearing in mind Run to the Hills was an official biography, so he could not ignore Blaze totally.

But Mick Wall’s Black Sabbath book is unofficial and even more egregious. Tony Martin barely features … if an era bores him he just skips over it.

Agree with you, in other words!!
 
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Helmuth Von Moltke said:
Mick Wall’s book is the big culprit - almost two thirds of his book covers only up to 1985. Then he speeds up. He gets bored it seems by the 90s. Bearing in mind Run to the Hills was an official biography, so he could not ignore Blaze totally.
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Not really. Although it is true that the formative years are covered in greater detail, the first edition of the book finishes with some serious brown-nosing (even for Mick Wall), covering Blaze's time with the band in detail, with Mick drooling all over waxing lyrical about the greatness of "Virtual XI". :lol:

That makes subsequent editions (where post-reunion chapters written by different journalists were added to the material from the first edition, without changing a single thing from the latter) a very amusing read. From "Virtual XI" being such a great album to Blaze not being up to scratch in a few pages. :lol:

Either way, Mick Wall is not really the one to blame, as the narrative has always been controlled by Rod and Steve.
 
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CA Bryers said:
It sounds very much like he's distancing himself from it. If it is indeed the '90s coverage he doesn't like, I'm MUCH more interested in the documentary.
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Same here.

CA Bryers said:
I've said it a million times, the '90s is pretty much the one era of Maiden's internal history that has the drama to sustain the interest of a more casual moviegoing public. That and the fact most unofficial biographies gloss over the Blaze era in a handful of pages is what got me considering writing an unofficial band biography specifically about the '90s.
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True. That being said, I am not sure the documentary is going to cover that era in great detail (I hope I am wrong!).
 
GhostofCain said:
If I go to the second screening, I will boast that I know @Helmuth Von Moltke personally!

If I go to the first one, I will just have to tell that to the person selling popcorn.
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Quick update: 2/238 seats have now been sold for the 16:50 screening in Guildford. If I end up going to that one, I will be able to boast that I know @Helmuth Von Moltke personally to someone else than the person selling popcorn.
 
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GhostofCain said:
Not really. Although it is true that the formative years are covered in greater detail, the first edition of the book finishes with some serious brown-nosing (even for Mick Wall), covering Blaze's time with the band in detail, with Mick drooling all over waxing lyrical about the greatness of "Virtual XI". :lol:

That makes subsequent editions (where post-reunion chapters written by different journalists were added to the material from the first edition, without changing a single thing from the latter) a very amusing read. From "Virtual XI" being such a great album to Blaze not being up to scratch in a few pages. :lol:

Either way, Mick Wall is not really the one to blame, as the narrative has always been controlled by Rod and Steve.
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Came to reply mostly the same thing to Helmuth's post. Yes, Run to the HIlls was mostly pre-Blaze era, but it did spend some time (and a lot of, like you said, brown-nosing) on the new lineup. Highly complimentary, if I recall. It always irked me that it wouldn't take much tweaking on Mick's end to update those First Edition Blaze chapters to reflect things had changed. Instead, he just wrote the update stuff, slapped it on the end, and the way it ends up reading going from First to later editions is BIZARRE.
 
CA Bryers said:
Came to reply mostly the same thing to Helmuth's post. Yes, Run to the HIlls was mostly pre-Blaze era, but it did spend some time (and a lot of, like you said, brown-nosing) on the new lineup. Highly complimentary, if I recall. It always irked me that it wouldn't take much tweaking on Mick's end to update those First Edition Blaze chapters to reflect things had changed. Instead, he just wrote the update stuff, slapped it on the end, and the way it ends up reading going from First to later editions is BIZARRE.
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To be fair to Mick Wall, he was not the writer of the additional chapters on subsequent editions. I seem to remember Dave Ling was responsible for the updates on one edition and a different person on the other one (I will check later today at home).

Edit: To this day, I am yet to find the answer about the reasons for the fallout between Mick Wall and Rod Smallwood that meant subsequent editions of the biography were completed by different people. I have always wondered if a tongue-in-cheek review of the Shepherd's Bush Empire 2001 fan club shows could have been the reason. I have been unable to find it online, but if I remember correctly the different members of the band were described as Mr Men characters (Mr Cocky was one of them :lol: ).
 
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