Why has no-one filmed...?
It hit me today while waiting to watch Dune tonight and while reading a GQ article on the filming of The Wheel of Time and being reminded that Tolkien's Second Age is also coming to Amazon, it's time to re-up the discussion on what sci-fi/fantasy series are out there waiting to be turned into cinematic or streaming hits.
The Chronicles of Amber - I've long thought that Roger Zelazny's Amber series would be perfect for a movie or series treatment. I would do the first series, based on Corwin, as a movie trilogy and then do the same for the second series, based on Corwin's son, if the first was successful. The right are apparently held by Disney/ABC, but I've heard nothing of any development. The first series is heavy on family intrigue, power politics, sword and sorcery - Game of Thrones material. The second ventures more into cyber-thriller territory. As I recall, they both feature some strong female characters that could be updated.
The Belgariad - A Science Fiction Book Club discovery for me, not long after they came out. And I read the subsequent series and one-offs as they were released. Best-sellers, even if some people wrote them off as Tolkien-light. Polgara is one of my favorite literary figures. Yes, it's another literal hero's journey (as are LOTR and Wheel of Time) - lots of walking and riding from place to place, but that lends itself to cool scenery and world-building.
Saga of Pliocene Exile/Galactic Milieu - Julian May's series is another that I jumped into about half-way through its publication history. It takes place both in a near-ish future as well as six million years in the past and would make one hell of an extended prestige TV series, with lots of opportunities for fabulous sets/costuming and some pretty cool CGI work.
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - NOPE. Nopitty-nope-nope-not-on-a-bet.
According to Wikipedia, classicist Nick Lowe (not the singer) suggested "a way to derive pleasure from Stephen Donaldson books. (Needless to say, it doesn't involve reading them.)" This proposal involved a game he called "Clench Racing", wherein players each open a volume of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
to a random page; the winner is the first to find the word "clench".
Lowe describes it as a "fast" game – "sixty seconds is unusually drawn
out"
So what would you guys like to see on the screen?
Labels: Books, Movies, TV
Star Wars thoughts and many, many spoilers
A
few thoughts on Star Wars and on the latest chapter – beware, here
there be spoilers galore…
I
was exactly the right age when the first Star Wars movie was
released. Just like Luke, I was a whiny teenager complaining about
having to do homework or chores rather than run into Tosche Station
for some power converters (and to hang out with my friends). I was
going to LOTS of movies then – midnight showings of Kentucky Fried
Movie and Rocky Horror, first runs of almost anything that looked
decent (and many that didn’t) – from Rocky to Rollercoaster.
There was a LOT of build up for Star Wars and my girlfriend and I
made it to the very first showing in Charlotte - at the old
Charlottetown Mall theater. It might be a little overkill to say
that it was life-changing, but it certainly blew me away. A few days
later I was in Winston-Salem for the summer attending Governor’s
School, surrounded by fellow geeks who had already seen the movie 3-4
times before they arrived on campus and it was a major topic of
conversation.
All
of this is to say not only that the Star Wars cosmology is very
important to me but also that I come at it differently than someone now in their 20s whose parents made them watch the original trilogy over
a weekend before taking them to see Phantom Menace in the theater.
Let
me first get out of the way that Eps I, II and III are mostly
unwatchable – the result of Lucas being so completely in charge.
The man may be the worst writer of dialog in the history of
screencraft and it didn’t help that the actors chosen to portray
proto-Darth Vader were completely inept. The guy that created the
Machete Order for watching the first 6 films makes a very valid point
that The Phantom Menace can be completely ignored without any effect
on the rest of the series. Darth Maul and Qui-Gon are both
introduced and both killed before the end of the movie. Jar Jar
almost completely disappears after TPM, other than a couple of short
scenes where he is used by Palpatine. On the other hand, II and III
do offer some insight into the backstory – I don’t watch them
often (and I take extended bathroom breaks during the Anakin/Padme
courtship) but they do provide some insight into both
Vader as well as the path that Luke is trying to navigate. But they
are not good movies.
The
Force Awakens had to try to do a lot. It had to bring back people
like me that were turned off by the prequel trilogy while not losing
the younger generation that grew up wearing Darth Maul backpacks to
school and it had to attract an even younger audience as well. So I
get the fan service aspect (the retelling to some extent of A New
Hope, the reuniting of the original trio as a new one is being
formed, etc) and I certainly have no problem with the broadening of
casting by adding more women and people of color (I found that
refreshing). I found the movie enjoyable but thin (a common
criticism of JJ Abrams, I suppose) and ultimately somewhat
forgettable. In other words, it was par for most movies that I’ve
seen (ever, frankly) – a good couple of hours entertainment. Which I guess is fine but I wanted more.
Then
there’s Rogue One. One can argue whether it needed to be made or
not but I’m damn glad it was. It wasn’t just a good Star Wars
movie – it was a damn good movie, period. The final 45 minutes make it one
of the best war movies I’ve ever seen (admittedly not a genre I go
very deep in). I kept expecting to see a pack of Luckies tucked into
the helmet band of one of the rebels. There was a time when movies
ending in major character deaths were fairly common – in this case
it was inevitable and known before you saw the movie but the way they
handled that ending was excellent. If they want to tell more stories
about the stuff that happened off camera and they’re as good as
Rogue One, I’ll be all over them.
My
expectations for TFA were not that high. My expectations for The
Last Jedi were actually QUITE high and they were met. Yes it could
have been a little shorter and yes it did drag for a few minutes in
the middle and yes they wasted a perfectly good Del Toro (unless he’s
back in IX) so I’ll give 4.5 out of 5. Still a fantastic movie and
a worthy entry into SW canon. I honestly don’t understand most of
the critiques I’ve read (by non-critics) – they don’t like the
humor (there has always been humor in SW), they don’t like the way
certain prominent characters were killed off (still trying to be a
little careful about spoilers despite my warnings), the alt-right
puppies don’t like the fact that the cast isn’t lily-white and
possessing a Y chromosome, blah blah blah. The folks that say this
doesn’t feel like Star Wars to them don’t have the same
understanding of Star Wars as I do. I’m not saying they’re
wrong. But they’re wrong. :)
Let
me talk about Princess Ambassador General Leia Skywalker Organa for a
minute. I wrote elsewhere today about her story arc in the original
trilogy and her often-overlooked kickassedness. In the prison deck
of the star destroyer, she was the one that took action that allowed
them to make a (smelly) escape. She had complete control of the male
attention coming her way. Even in the first act of RotJ, despite her ridiculous outfit, she
single-handedly kills her oppressor. She was not only a leader of
the Rebellion, she was the one they trusted to receive the Death Star
plans and to get them back to the rebel base. In the last couple of
years, I started following Carrie Fisher on Twitter and came to love
her as much as her character. So I was prepared for emotions. I was
not prepared to lose it three times – in her last conversation with
Holdo, with her exchange with Luke’s projection and in her last
scene with Rey. Niagara Falls, Frankie. In this movie, I see Leia as
George Washington, who was known more for his strategic retreats than
his military victories. Live to fight another day – that’s the
premise for the whole movie. She was brilliant. And I miss her.
One
of the best things about The Last Jedi is one that I’ve seen fans
complain about – Poe’s arc throughout the movie. Apparently some
want their dashing heroes to be faultless. Instead you start to
understand Poe as the Star Wars version of the World War I flying
ace, doing one-on-one combat above the trenches with little regard
for the boys below or the ground crew (or overall strategy). His
jubilation after expending the whole damn bomber force to take out
one Dreadnought is followed by Leia watching the lights representing
bombers (and crews) blinking out. You know she was both lamenting the
loss of life as well as thinking about what the hell they were going
to do when the NEXT Dreadnought showed up. Follow that with Poe’s
mutiny against Holdo (which he probably only survived because they
were so short-handed – otherwise I’d have spaced him) and one
hopes that he may finally be learning about command and strategy
beyond his tactical combat skills in ways that will show up in the
next movie.
I’m
still pissed off that years ago Lucas replaced the planet of Wookies
in the initial RofT scripts with “the forest moon of Endor”
populated by annoying furry mini-Chewies called Jawas. And I was
prepared to hate the Porgs. But they were such a small (get it?)
part of the movie that they were just fine.
Middle
movies of a trilogy are always tough. If the Interwebs had been
around when Empire Strikes Back came out, I can only imagine the
screams from ANH fanboys - “Vader is Luke’s father? Where did
THAT come from!” “You froze your best character!?” Yet it is
considered by most now to be the best movie of the lot (I still place
A New Hope ahead of it because it is a complete movie – it all
could have stopped there and the ending would have been
satisfactory). In middle movies, you have to break up the
“fellowship” so you can reunite them and they have to end dark so
that the third movie can restore the light. The Last Jedi does that
in ways that are enough different than the original trilogy that it
doesn’t suffer the same “we’ve seen this before” issues that
plagued The Force Awakens.
I
was not a believer in Kylo Ren in TFA. He just didn’t seem that
formidable of an opponent. That changed during the scenes with Rey in
TLJ – while his grandfather was content to essentially be muscle
for his mentor/master the Emperor, Ren wants to be THE GUY. And he
also wants to burn it ALL down and start over – no more First
Order, no more Resistance, just a galaxy united as… Renland?
Kyloville? At least the kid’s got ambition now. I'm a little readier to see him as the Big Bad.
I
would have liked a little more Rey and a little less Finn, but that’s
a minor quibble. And unlike some fan critics, I hope like hell that
Kylo Ren was telling the truth about Rey’s parents. We don’t need
her to be a forgotten Han Solo by-blow or a hidden Kenobi or Yoda’s
love child. I’m perfectly happy with her being an extremely
powerful force-sensitve nobody and I’ll be disappointed if JJ
Abrams walks that back in XI. The fight in Snoke's throne room was awesome - the best choreographed light saber battle they've yet done. If you've ever seen any videos of Daisy Ridley's insane workout routines, you can see there where it pays off.
So
The Last Jedi moves into the number 3 spot in my Star Wars order of
goodness – behind A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back and just ahead
of Rogue One. I’m hoping JJ does XI right and I’m much more
interested now in the three-movie deal that Rian Johnson has for new
SW movies to come. Interested in what you guys think!
Labels: Movies
Spoiler-free reaction to The Hobbit
I promise no spoilers for The Hobbit until it's been out for a couple of weeks at least but a couple of non-spoiler-y comments. We were able to catch a sneak preview last night before the line party started for the midnight showings. 2D, not 3D and I honestly don't know if it was screened at 24fps or 48 - I assume it was 24.
Oh my god it's good! I'd read LoTR three times before graduating high school (and probably 30 times since), did my long paper for AP English on The Silmarillion and have probably read The Hobbit a couple dozen times in the last 35 years, so you could say I'm a fan. And while there are certainly liberties taken (some of which were avoidable but worked anyway), I found it to be almost note-perfect both in scope, in feel and in casting. As much as I enjoyed the LoTR movies, I had some pretty serious issues with some of the choices made - without over-analyzing it, I didn't have a single real bone to pick with The Hobbit.
Casting of the new roles was quite good. While some of the dwarves don't get much screentime, Richard Armitage is pretty terrific as Thorin Oakenshield, carrying off the imperiousness of a born leader while occasionally letting the fact that he carries the weight of his people on his shoulders show through. Ken Stott's Balin is probably the dwarf among the rest that gets the most screentime and he works well in what is essentially an elder stateman role. As for Martin Freeman, he's perfect. Neither I nor apparently Peter Jackson can imagine anyone else playing Bilbo Baggins. There's certainly a bit of his Dr. Watson and a bit of his Dent Arthur Dent in there, along with enough of Ian Holm's older Bilbo that it is really seamless going from old BB to young BB.
As for the carry-over cast, Ian McKellan correctly plays Gandalf a little lighter for the most part and Cate Blanchett is even more gorgeously Galadriel then ever. (I do wish that if PJ was going to play around a bit, he'd find some way to work in the fact that Galadriel is Elrond's mother-in-law! Lots of comic potential there! Plus the fact that she looks pretty damn smashing for being roughly 7,000 years old.)
One of the things that as a fan of the whole Tolkien mythosphere I really enjoy is the hints that JRRT dropped in "The Hobbit" of this larger, much older world than is obvious on first reading. PJ thankfully included much of that, with references to off-stage places and history. It probably wasn't strictly necessary to do so, so I'll take them as little love notes and thank yous to the superfans.
The story breaks at the end of the movie about where I thought it would have to - it'll be a long wait for Desolation of Smaug! But we'll need to see The Hobbit on the big screen at least a couple more times before then.
Labels: Movies
New Toy - HTPC
Spent a good bit of Sunday afternoon hooking up a new home theater PC - so far, so good. Specs are as follows:- HP Pavilion Slimline s3750t PC- Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor E7500 [2.93GHz]- 4GB DDR2-800MHz SDRAM [2x2048]- 640GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive- 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4350 & TV Tuner [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter]- Blu-ray player & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner- Wireless-G LAN card- 15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, headphone port- Integrated 5.1 channel sound with front audio ports- HP wireless keyboard and HP wireless optical mouseAn 802.11N card would of course have been preferable but it wasn't an option with this build. The first steps after initial boot were to install Avast! A/V, ZoneAlarm firewall, Irfanview, Winamp, Deepburner and MediaMonkey. Since we're not planning to use this box for general web-surfing, I may not bother with FireFox or another browser but I will want to go ahead and upgrade to IE8 soon. The wireless access point is upstairs in my home office and so far I seem to be getting adequate throughput for Hulu, although Youtube is stopping to buffer a bit. The Iron Man Blu-Ray is working fine with the software provided from H-P but I fully expect to run into disks that won't play so any suggestions on the best Blu-Ray player software would be most appreciated. I've got my MP3 collection on the workstation in the office upstairs shared out to the new box with high-def audio out to the home theater receiver, so we have tuneage. And I've tested out both analog and digital stations from a straight coax cable TV feed from the wall and that looks good as well - haven't tried recording or any other DVR functions yet. I also haven't checked to see what I can get (if anything) coming through the digital cable box - I'll keep you posted as I continue to set things up. There are a bunch of little things I haven't done yet, like setting up the remote control, rewiring other parts of the HT set-up as I've swapped around a couple of other components, etc. The goal is to make this as complete a system as possible while making it relatively straightforward to use.So my checklist to date is:o Blu-Ray player - check (need to try more disks)o Music Jukebox - checko Internet streaming TV - check (loves me some Hulu!!)o DVR - in progress (tried recording "Big Bang Theory" and "How I Met Your Mother" tonight)
Labels: Movies, Music, Tech, TV
The Dark Knight
Man, what a year for comic-based movies!! And I'll have to endanger whatever fanboy cred I might have by admitting that I was unable to get out to see Incredible Hulk or Wanted. But Iron Man, Hellboy 2 and now The Dark Knight are all three worth your time and money. The only other theatrical release I've had a chance to see recently was the 4th Indy movie and while it was enjoyable, the above three releases all blew it away. While The Dark Knight was arguably the better movie, I'd have a really hard time deciding which of the three I enjoyed more - suffice to say that all three of them rocked and their release on Blu-Ray later this year will be the impetus for me to buy a B-R player.
If you'e one of the 6 people that didn't see The Dark Knight this weekend, it really is all that. We were thinking about waiting and catching it next weekend but after finishing dinner at City Beverage we realized we had time to jet over to the Lumina at Southern Village for the 10pm showing. There was already a pretty good line (there's NEVER a line at the Lumina!) but we got in and managed to get pretty good seats.
I'm not going to bother describing the movie since every other media outlet in the world has already done so. Suffice it to say that Ledger really was as good as they say, Bale and Oldham did just fine, Eckhart was better than some of the reviews I've read have suggested and I never thought that I'd see the day that I missed Katie Holmes (Maggie Gyllenhall was pretty much a minor annoyance every time she was onscreen). Some of the folks with less screen time were awfully good as well, like Morgan Freeman, Eric Roberts and Michael Caine. And of course I loved the little glimpses of Chicago, like Navy Pier, the Chicago River bridges and the glimpses of Marina City, the Aon Center, 2 Pru and the Daley Center. And let us not forget making good use of the under-construction Trump Tower. Awesome!
(crossposted on Take My Comic Books!)
Labels: Comic Books, Movies
Good Stuff
First of all, the White Stripes new CD "Icky Thump". Go buy it. Now. I'll wait.
Hmm-hm-hm.
La-la-la-laaaa.
/* toe tapping */
Got it?
Man, isn't that great! From the Nudie suits on the cover and the Led Zeppelin stomp of the title cut through the whole damn disk, there's not a weak cut on the whole dang thing. Frickin' awesome. And if you didn't think of Graham Chapman saying "Eeee! Ecky thump!" into a microphone when you saw that title, you clearly ain't hanging around the same people I am...
Second, "Psych" is back on the air with a new season. The funniest show on television that doesn't have either Jason Lee or Steve Carell as the lead. The opening ep with Tim Curry and Gina Gershon was one of the funniest things I've ever seen - who knew Gina Gershon could do comedy?
While we're talking about the USA Network, my favorite really new thing is "Burn Notice". Jeffrey Donovan is pretty good but the supporting characters (Bruce "Ash" Campbell, Sharon Gless and
Gabrielle Anwar) are what make the show. Check it out! Oh, and Bruce frickin' Campbell!!
Finally, we saw the latest Harry Potter movie last night and it's good! It's not Alfonso Cuaron Azkaban good, but it's good! It's nice to see the kids actually learning to act and Imelda Staunton's interpretation of Umbridge is spot on. I have my quibbles with it but overall it was a very good addition to the series - we'll need to see it again before it's gone.
Labels: Movies, Music, TV
