Lord of the Rings / Hobbit 12 | ***Dave Does the Blog

1500 Miles to … Nowhere?

So I’ve been continuing with the (this year) 1,500 Miles to Nowhere challenge, courtesy of Marn, though I haven’t been posting the milestones here (or at the site). I’m…

So I’ve been continuing with the (this year) 1,500 Miles to Nowhere challenge, courtesy of Marn, though I haven’t been posting the milestones here (or at the site). I’m probably going to fall short this year … I’ve gone almost 1100 miles, but have 410 miles left, 89 days to go, am averaging just under 4 miles per day but need to be doing 4.6. I suspect that my pedometer earlier in the year was underestimating, but, whatever — it’s something I’m tracking and doing, huzzah.

But next year, I might tackle things a little differently. The Eowyn Challenge site — originally set up leading up to the last LotR movie, offers some annotated “trips” you can track. Based on the work of Karen Wynn Fonstad, author of The Atlas of Middle Earth, you can do things like walk “with” the Hobbits from Bag End to Rivendell (458 miles). That could be kind of fun (“On This Day in My Walking …”)

I want to poke at the site a bit more at the end of the year, but it could be a pleasant way to track my ongoing walking habit.

Good Oz, Bad Oz?

The Good News: Warners is looking at creating a Wizard of Oz film franchise, to carry on audiences from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. The Bad News: …

Surrender Dorothy! One of McFarlane's Oz toys

The Good News: Warners is looking at creating a Wizard of Oz film franchise, to carry on audiences from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

The Bad News: They’re bringing in Todd McFarlane, who wants a “dark, edgy, and muscular PG-13,” not singing Munchkins.

The Good News: Okay, I’m willing to pass on the singing Munchkins. And I was apparently one of three people who liked Disney’s “dark, edgy” Return to Oz back in ’85 — plenty of wonderment and magic, but a dollop of scariness and dark fantasy.

The Bad News: But — Todd McFarlane? The guy who came out with “Bondage Dorothy” and “Evil Mutant Toto” action figures?

The Good News: There’s a ton of material out there in the way of Oz books — and for a generation growing up that thinks that Oz is about the nastiness of life in an Australian prison, that’s probably a good thing.

The Bad News: Todd “Spawn” McFarlane?

On the bright side, it appears that though McFarlane was involved in some of the original concept that got Warners interested, Josh Olson did the pitch and is doing the actual screenwriting. And he seems to have the right idea.

Olson has something a little tamer, and PG, in mind. “The appealing thing about the Baum books to me is how wildly imaginative they are. There are crazy characters from amazing places. I want this to be ‘Harry Potter’ dark, not ‘Seven’ dark.

It also seems that, like the Disney offering, the new film will start off more as a sequel to the classic 1939 film than as a replacement.

Olson was keeping plot specifics to himself but said the film will be closer to a sequel than a remake. “We still want to take advantage of the first film, which might be the most beloved of all time, and rely on its place in your cultural memory to bubble beneath the surface,” Olson said. “A lot of the plot is mine, but the characters are all Baum.”

Indeed, cognizant of the controversy of McFarlane, Olson is distancing himself from the comics bad boy.

While it was Todd’s idea to bring back Oz, and that idea sparked this whole process, I’ve never met him, never heard his take, and am not writing this script with anyone else. I love the Baum books, and leapt at the chance to bring those amazing stories and characters to a new audience.
The story I pitched to Warners – and that they hired me to write – is, I believe, faithful to the spirit and tone of those amazing books. I think even Todd would be happy to tell you, this movie has no connection whatsoever to those action figures, and when I say it will be darker, do not expect it to go beyond Harry Potter dark.
You’ll be seeing many of your favorite characters return from the classic film, as well as meeting loads of Baum’s other great characters. While I’ve created my own distinct plot, it’s all built around Baum’s characters, Baum’s world, and Baum’s vision. I think Oz fans will recognize my love for the source material, and will be very happy with the finished result.

We’ll see. And I hope so.

8 Random Facts about Me

I’m sure I’ve done this before, but since Les (the bastard) tagged me for it, I suppose I must comply. Which means I have to post the rules: We have to…

I’m sure I’ve done this before, but since Les (the bastard) tagged me for it, I suppose I must comply. Which means I have to post the rules:

We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them each a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Okay, fine. I don’t promise these are unique.

Habit: Start the shower. Shampoo hair. Rinse. Condition hair. Soap up loofa and apply apprporiately. Rinse. Face goo. Rinse. Shave. Rinse. Turn off the shower.
Fact: I don’t just dislike Scotch. It actually makes me (except for the mildest and lightest of them) physically ill. Which is an aspect of the Single Malt Tasting Party at my future-in-laws back a number of years ago I will not soon forget. On th e other hand, that does give me an excuse (when everyone else is ordering a Scotch) to go for a Gin (Bombay Sapphire) Martini, very dry, with a twist (my Official Bar Drink).
Fact: I started writing a collaborative fantasy novel with Sara Munns (or was it Munz?) back in college. The premise was what would happen if a standard fantasy a la LotR ended with one of the questers actually seizing the McGuffin (Boromir-style) and becoming the Dark Lord himself, with the action opening up a few centuries later. I have no idea whatever happened to her, though I still have the first dozen chapters or so in a folder somewhere.
Fact: My first kiss (other than something familial) was a stage kiss at the Little Theater at Glendora High School.
Fact: My first car was a 1971 VW Super Beetle, colored that typical powder blue (marinablau). It’s California license plate was 625CHV, so I named it “Miniver Cheevy” after a favorite poem of mine.
Fact: I was a huge wargamer in junior high and high school, and had many Avalon-Hill bookcase games (including my beloved PanzerBlitz) and a long subscription to SPI’s Strategy & Tactics magazine (and the games that went with it). I still have those games in boxes down in the basement, on the off chance I ever encounter someone who is interested in playing them.
Fact: My favorite “Disney Princess” is Belle. Mary Poppins, on the other hand, terrifies me.
Fact: My personal totem is the Raven. To the extent that an Anglo/Guelo like me gets a personal totem. That said, I also like otters and zebras. Which is not the same as my fondness for cat-girls. Ahem.

Now, of course, comes the trick of Who the Hell to tag with this. Eight? Eight?! Ye gods.

My apologies to all of you in advance.

Potpourri for Thursday

NASA promotes its new Moon program like a high budget Hollywood spectacular (but with pretty mediocre CG). How Lord of the Rings should have ended. (More here.) Very cool…

NASA promotes its new Moon program like a high budget Hollywood spectacular (but with pretty mediocre CG).
How Lord of the Rings should have ended. (More here.)
Very cool Disneyworld Magic Kingdom Google Map.
The Comics Curmudgeon’s explanation for “The Family Circus” makes scary sense …
The EU has backed off outlawing pounds, ounces, and other Imperial measurements. The rules would have required metric-only labeling in the EU. Brits rejoice, teachers weep.

Booky Meme of My Own

It’s the meme that’s sweeping the circle of blogs I read! And write. Anyway, here are “51 (I like being odd) of my favorites” (as Kate put it) … feel…

It’s the meme that’s sweeping the circle of blogs I read!

And write.

Anyway, here are “51 (I like being odd) of my favorites” (as Kate put it) … feel free to copy and do the Booky Meme bits with them, too:

Bold the ones you’ve read, ~~strike-out~~ the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk (*) beside the ones you loved.

For me, of course, all of the below would be bolded and starred (hence the purpose of the list). For the most part, consider these books I’ve liked enough to read multiple times (sometimes having to graduate to second or third paperbacks, or even a hardcover). They’re all fiction, and intended as stories.

It was actually a tough call — in some cases, I lump together a series under a single volume, in other cases I actually single a couple out because, in a series I like, I like them best. And, of course, I make no pretense to these being “great literature,” profound, or anything else. I find them entertaining, moving, amusing, interesting, and/or possessing of other attributes that leads me to pick them up time and again. Your mileage may (should) vary.

Going through my book shelves to make this list, I realized (a) I have quite a few books I will likely never read again, and so should clear off of my shelves, and (b) I have quite a few books I’ve not read in some time and really should.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Operation Chaos, by Poul Anderson
The Devil’s Game, by Poul Anderson
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
The Caves of Steel, by Isaac Asimov [best of the trilogy]
The Going to Bed Book, by Sandra Boynton [any any other of hers]
The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
Martians Go Home, by Fredric Brown
Jhereg, by Steven Brust [Taltos series]
The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton
The White Mountains, by John Christopher [Tripods trilogy]
Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
Sten [series], by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch
Star Trek: New Frontiers, by Peter David [series; actually, any PAD ST book]
Ship of the Line, by C.S. Forrester [Hornblower series]
Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
The Case of the Careless Kitten, by Erle Stanley Gardner [Perry Mason series]
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K. Hamilton [Anita Blake series,up thru Obsidian Butterfly]
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashell Hammett
The Stainless Steel Rat, by Harry Harrison [series, the earlier the better]
All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot [series]
Friday, by Robert Heinlein
Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
Revolt in 2100, by Robert Heinlein
The Jungle Books, by Rudyard Kipling
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey [trilogy; the Valdemar series is hot/cold for me]
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle [favorite of the series, but there are other inter-related books I enjoy]
Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey [series, the earlier the better]
The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis
Silverlock, by John Myers Myers
Dream Park, by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes [series]
The Mote in God’s Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle [better than the sequel]
Inferno, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
The Zero Stone, by Andre Norton [and sequel]
Moon of Three Rings, by Andre Norton [and sequel]
The Crystal Gryphon, by Andre Norton [better than the sequel]
Year of the Unicorn, by Andre Norton
Psi High and Others, by Alan E. Nourse
The Widening Gyre [Spenser series], by Robert Parker
A Morbid Taste for Bones, by Ellis Peters [Cadfael series]
Justice, Inc., by Kenneth Robeson [Avenger series]
Callahan’s Cross-Time Saloon, by Spider Robinson [series, the earlier the better]
The Doorbell Rang, by Rex Stout [Nero Wolfe series]
Prisoner’s Base, by Rex Stout [another NW]
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Honor of the Queen, by David Weber [Honor Harrington series]
Nine Princes in Amber, by Roger Zelazny [series]

There may be other books I love as much, or even more — but these are the ones that leapt out at me from the book shelf (figuratively speaking).

Booky Meme

Bold the ones you’ve read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk (*) beside the ones you loved. 1. The Lord…

Bold the ones you’ve read, ~~strike-out~~ the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk (*) beside the ones you loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien *[Sine qua non]
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov [A bit creaky these days and diluted by endless ill-conceived sequels, but still a seminal work]
3. Dune, Frank Herbert [The only one of the series I read; I liked the movies (either of them) better]
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein * [Many re-reads. not my favorite Heinlein, but still an excellent work]
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin [I should reread these some day. I read them post-Tolkien and was disappointed by the significant differences]
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson

7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke [A classic]
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley * [I was smitten by this book — which was ruined for me when I had to rush through the last five pages as a plane was landing from a business trip and people were waiting for me at the gate]
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury [I’d choose The Martian Chronicles over this.]
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov * [Still love this book.]
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett

17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison [Just never got into the New Age SF]
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester

20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey * [Another series exhausted by going back to the well too often. The first two or three, though, are excellent.]
22. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
~~23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson~~ [If I were trapped on a desert island, I’d rather be bookless than have this with me to read.]
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman * [Excellent book.]
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling [Do I get extra credit for reading the edition that has this actual title (vs. the Americanized version)?]
27. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams * [Faboo.]
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson [And I’ve seen both the movie versions.]
~~29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice~~ [Just never got into A.R.]
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin [Do I get any credit for having read “Catwings” and “Lathe of Heaven” and “Rocannon’s World”?]
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny * [Brilliantly imaginative. Not my fave of his, but a great read.]
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick [On my list to read some time.]
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke [A solid, but not spectacular, first contact mystery tale.]
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven * [A great exemplar of LN’s school of speculative fiction.]
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien [I do have, however, a first edition.]
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein * [It probably says something about me that I find this book as fascinating as #24, even though you’d think they’re diametrically opposed.]

47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock [Read the series. Never felt a great need to go back to it.]
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks [Read it when it first came out. Um, just read LotR, you’ll sleep better at night.]
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer [I enjoyed the first of these, but the series quickly grew stale to me.]

Allow me to express my dissatisfaction at a list like this with nothing by Norton or L’Engle — or R. Adams or Howard or Leiber or Orwell or Huxley.

(via Doyce)

Mambo bed time in Holbrook

Mambo bed time in Holbrook Arizona. Good night Kitten. UPDATE: After the the coincidence of nestling into bed just in time for Annie Lennox and “Into the West” on the…

Mambo bed time in Holbrook Arizona. Good night Kitten.

UPDATE: After the the coincidence of nestling into bed just in time for Annie Lennox and “Into the West” on the RotK sound track we were listening to, Kitten decided she wanted one of her standard going-to-bed discs — a collection of mambo tunes. Go fig.

this post enabled by airblogging.com and Margie.

In a hole in the ground, there lived … a film executive

New Line has decided to play chicken and make a Hobbit film without Peter Jackson. You remember Peter Jackson … the guy who managed to pull off The Lord…

New Line has decided to play chicken and make a Hobbit film without Peter Jackson.

You remember Peter Jackson … the guy who managed to pull off The Lord of the Rings in a way that got both fans and newcomers really excited and generated tons of money for New Line? Aw, who needs someone like that to direct the prequel? Especially since he refuses to cave on an auditing law suit he had against them …

From Peter Jackson himself:

A couple of months ago there was a flurry of Hobbit news in the media. MGM, who own a portion of the film rights in The Hobbit, publicly stated they wanted to make the film with us. It was a little weird at the time because nobody from New Line had ever spoken to us about making a film of The Hobbit and the media had some fun with that.
Within a week or two of those stories, our Manager Ken Kamins got a call from the co-president of New Line Cinema, Michael Lynne, who in essence told Ken that the way to settle the lawsuit was to get a commitment from us to make the Hobbit, because “that’s how these things are done”. Michael Lynne said we would stand to make much more money if we tied the lawsuit and the movie deal together and this may well be true, but it’s still the worst reason in the world to agree to make a film.
Several years ago, Mark Ordesky told us that New Line have rights to make not just The Hobbit but a second “LOTR prequel”, covering the events leading up to those depicted in LOTR. Since then, we’ve always assumed that we would be asked to make The Hobbit and possibly this second film, back to back, as we did the original movies. We assumed that our lawsuit with the studio would come to a natural conclusion and we would then be free to discuss our ideas with the studio, get excited and jump on board. We’ve assumed
that we would possibly get started on development and design next year, whilst filming The Lovely Bones. We even had a meeting planned with MGM executives to talk through our schedule.
However last week, Mark Ordesky called Ken and told him that New Line would no longer be requiring our services on the Hobbit and the LOTR ‘prequel’. This was a courtesy call to let us know that the studio was now actively looking to hire another filmmaker for both projects.

Or, as Solonor so quanitly headlines it, “New Line screws themselves out of more wads o’ cash.”

Now, it’s altogether possible that whatever Hobbit comes out of this will be perfectly viewable. It’s also possible that Jackson will eventually be brought back on board. But it’s also possible, even likely, that it will be much less than it might otherwise have been. Though, if worse comes to worse, we’ll always have the Rankin-Bass version.

UPDATE: And just to add three more thoughts:

Another LOTR “prequel?” One “covering the events leading up to those depicted in LOTR”? Shudder.
How many of the actors (let alone the other production houses that made a success of the trilogy and who could save NL tons o’ cash with existing fx files) will come on board without Peter Jackson? Sure, it’s a business thing, but for an effort of this magnitude, a lot of it also depends on personal relationships — and all the folks I heard interviewed indicated that Jackson was a major part of the relationships that brought and kept them on board.
I trust Jackson to make appropriate creative decisions and departures from the book in order to create a coherent story. I didn’t always agree with all of his decisions, but they all pretty much worked. From someone else, I fully expect to find Saruman (played by someone else) conspiring with Smaug, and Legolas (ditto) hanging out in the Wood Elves court and, oh, yeah, Gimli as one of the dwarves on the expedition …

Ill-Literate — 10 of 100

In 2005, Time magazine picked the 100 best English-language novels (1923-present). Mark the selections you have read in bold. If you liked it, add a star (*) in front of…

In 2005, Time magazine picked the 100 best English-language novels (1923-present). Mark the selections you have read in bold. If you liked it, add a star (*) in front of the title, if you didn’t, give it a minus (-). [I’ve added, if you feel totally indifferent or just can’t remember, mark it with a question mark (?).] Then, put the total number of books you’ve read in the subject line.

The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral – Philip Roth
An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
* Animal Farm – George Orwell

Appointment in Samarra – John O’Hara
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret – Judy Blume
The Assistant – Bernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Beloved – Toni Morrison
The Berlin Stories – Christopher Isherwood
* The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder
Call It Sleep – Henry Roth
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller

The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat Turner – William Styron
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
The Day of the Locust – Nathanael West
Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather
A Death in the Family – James Agee
The Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen
Deliverance – James Dickey
Dog Soldiers – Robert Stone
Falconer – John Cheever
The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
* The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
– The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
Herzog – Saul Bellow
Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
* I, Claudius – Robert Graves
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Light in August – William Faulkner
* The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
– Lord of the Flies – William Golding

* The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien

Loving – Henry Green
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved Children – Christina Stead
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Money – Martin Amis
The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
Native Son – Richard Wright
Neuromancer – William Gibson

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
* 1984 – George Orwell

On the Road – Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
The Painted Bird – Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
Play It As It Lays – Joan Didion
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
Possession – A.S. Byatt
The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
Rabbit, Run – John Updike
Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
The Recognitions – William Gaddis
Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson

The Sot-Weed Factor – John Barth
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
The Sportswriter – Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold – John le Carré
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
Ubik – Philip K. Dick
Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
* Watchmen – Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise – Don DeLillo
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys

I read a lot of books. Just not a lot of Literatti-approved books.

Actually, I don’t even recognize the titles of half of the above.

(via Twenty Sided)

Ultimate Avengers II

Catching up on DVR stuff yesterday afternoon, I finally watched the recent Marvel/Lionsgate animation, Ultimate Avengers 2. I missed the original, alas — well, maybe not so alas, but…

Catching up on DVR stuff yesterday afternoon, I finally watched the recent Marvel/Lionsgate animation, Ultimate Avengers 2. I missed the original, alas — well, maybe not so alas, but I did miss that, so I came into this episode “cold.”

Not that it hurt me that much, as the writers made sure that no subtext or plot line went unaluded to or unflashbacked. Which is fine, really, but it made an already rather lightweight production mixed-metaphorically flabby.

The cartoon is based on the Ultimates series, part of Marvel’s updated, hip, violent, oh-so-cool Ultimate universe. The Ultimates are that universe’s rendition of the Avengers, but since the latter have the name recognition as a group (such as it is), the animateds carry both titles.

The show follows along the characters and setting of the Ultimates pretty well — along the same lines as, say, the Rankin-Bass Lord of the Rings does so the books (“Frodo … of the Nine Fingers …”). Costumes and temperments map up pretty well, though some of the more mature audience extremes — Stark as a real drunken playboy, Giant Man as a wife beater, Thor as a lunatic, Hulk as murderer, etc. — are toned down for the audience. That said, I’d probably rate this for 9- to 10-year-olds
— some of the settings are grim, and some of the action gets a bit bloody at times. The problem is, the sophistication of the story is right on line with what you’d expect 9-10yo’s to like.

The specific tale follows from the alien invasions of the first movie. The Hulk is imprisoned, Cap is plagued by visions from his past. And, off in Africa, the hidden jungle kingdom of Wakanda is being invaded by some of the aliens, led by (apparently) a Nazi officer. The story goes through Prince T’Challa taking the throne, engaging with the Ultimates to get help (countering against Wakandan xenophobia), Cap getting a second crack against an old arch-enemy, Hank and Janet quarreling, Tony trying out different
armors, Thor ticking off his Daddy by helping the morals anyway, etc. And, oh yeah, a big alien invasion.

(Ironically, there are a ton of similarities between the alien invasion here and that in the premiere episode of the recent Justice League animated series — similarities beyond both of them paying tribute to H.G. Wells. I leave the viewer to draw them out.)

The animation is okay — not nearly as slick as much anime or as stylized as the DC Universe shows of late, but passable. The end titles have some of the Bryan Hitch designs for the Ultimates, which shows off both how closely they’ve toed the line and how far from the mark in quality they are.

The plot is where this movie struggles. The external foe is hackneyed at best (invading aliens led by a shape-shifting Nazi spy? Jeez, even Stan the Man would have problems with that one these days), and much of what makes the Ultimates so interesting — their interpersonal conflicts and individual failings within the context of celebrity and Great Power — is toned down here to the point of being nearly pointless. The Pyms bicker. Cap is haunted. Thor and Odin don’t get along. Tony is egotistical and a slacker.
Banner is … well, Banner. T’Challa, meanwhile, misses the mark as the Black Panther of either world — combining a bit of the Lion King with Wolverine, but without the charm or attraction of either.

As a way to pass a bit of time in the afternoon, there are far worse ways of going. Frankly, though, this has minimal rewatchability and was entertaining only as a comic book fan, not in and of itself. Caveat emptor.

“For Frodoooooooo!”

Um, far be it from me to criticize someone who uses Lord of the Rings analogies in a newspaper interview, but … In an interview with the editorial board…

Um, far be it from me to criticize someone who uses Lord of the Rings analogies in a newspaper interview, but …

In an interview with the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, embattled Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has equated the war in Iraq with J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” According to the paper, Santorum said that the United States has avoided terrorist attacks at home over the past five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been focused on Iraq instead.
“As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,” Santorum said. “It’s being drawn to Iraq and it’s not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don’t want the Eye to come back here to the United States.”

Yes, but the Eye was being drawn off by a bold Alliance of the West, marching deliberately to Mordor on a suicide mission to keep Sauron distracted. Is that what Santorum is suggesting is going on? That our (and allied) troops are on a mission they know they can’t win but which they’ll die to the last man, if necessary, to carry out?

Um …

And, of course, all of this presupposes that there is an analog to Frodo and Sam, climbing up Mount Doom with the secret that can destroy the Bad Guys. Who are the Frodo and Sam that the Alliance is pinning its hopes on?

Goofy.

RIP Tim Hildebrandt

One of the definitive portrayers of the characters of Tolkien, Tim Hildebrandt, has passed away from complications of diabetes. He is survived by his brother, Greg….

One of the definitive portrayers of the characters of Tolkien, Tim Hildebrandt, has passed away from complications of diabetes. He is survived by his brother, Greg.

Alternative Movies

Notstarring.com is a site dedicated to stars who didn’t get (or take) roles on movies. The mind reels (so to speak) at some of the items from their Top 25…

Notstarring.com is a site dedicated to stars who didn’t get (or take) roles on movies. The mind reels (so to speak) at some of the items from their Top 25 List … John Denver as the lead in An Officer and a Gentleman? Will Smith starring in The Matrix? Sean Connery as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings?

It does make you wonder. If there’s ever an Alternative Timeline Viewer, some of these could be pretty interesting … and others just scary.

(via B&P)

Lord of the Rings, Remixed

TBS is showing the LotR trilogy the weekend of 14 April (Watch them all? How taxing!) And they have some very funny (if no doubt horrifying to the purists) ads…

TBS is showing the LotR trilogy the weekend of 14 April (Watch them all? How taxing!) And they have some very funny (if no doubt horrifying to the purists) ads for the series.

(via Seth)

If I should die before I read …

The official librarians’ list of Books Every Adult Should Read Before They Die. Actually, it’s British librarians, to be precise, but the poll doesn’t seem to have limited itself to…

The official librarians’ list of Books Every Adult Should Read Before They Die. Actually, it’s British librarians, to be precise, but the poll doesn’t seem to have limited itself to just British adults..

I’ve bolded the ones I’ve actually read

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D’urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

Actually, the poll seems to have been question of which one book everyone should read, so I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that eveyrone has to read all of them. I think. I hope.

(via J-Walk)

X3-of-3

The new X-Men movie, X3 (or X-Men: Last Stand) will be the last of the series. Director Brett Ratner confirmed the statement, adding that there will be no more films…

The new X-Men movie, X3 (or X-Men: Last Stand) will be the last of the series.

Director Brett Ratner confirmed the statement, adding that there will be no more films except for possible spin-offs based on the characters of Wolverine and Magneto.
“Well, it seems to be the last of the series,” says Ratner of the title for X3. “We wanted to make sure the audiences knew that this was a trilogy. Even though they weren’t made together like Lord of the Rings, this is really closure for the X-Men series… This is the last stand for sure.”

Well, a trilogy, at least, in terms of there being three movies in the franchise (vs. a trilogy in terms of a story told in three installments).

As to independent Magneto or Wolverine movies — meh. While not denying interesting stories could be told solo about either character, I gravely doubt Hollywood’s ability to do so.

(via Mike Sterling)

Chrissie Robin?

Disney is replacing Christopher Robin in an upcoming Pooh TV series with a “tomboyish girl.” “We got raised eyebrows, even in-house, but the feeling was that these timeless characters really…

Disney is replacing Christopher Robin in an upcoming Pooh TV series with a “tomboyish girl.”

“We got raised eyebrows, even in-house, but the feeling was that these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide,” Nancy Kanter, of the Disney Channel, told USA Today.

Disney says that the series will target preschool children. “The young character will elicit physical, cognitive and emotional responses from the viewing audience and will also address them directly,” said a spokesman.

The series is an attempt to increase Disney’s share in the pre-school market, worth an estimated £11.9 billion, the company said this week. Industry observers consider the new character a clever move.

There are no bad characters, only those not used properly. If Disney’s not been able to get Christopher Robin to “work” in their productions, thrashing about to find a new character doesn’t seem very productive.

(One problem they may have had is either (a) not being consistent as to CR’s accent, or (b) not being consistent about CR’s presence at all.)

For his part, Mr Tucker thought the new character a huge error. “All of the stories are based on Christopher Robin’s questing relationship with the characters,” he said. “They’re built around a boy who arrives and puts things right, like little boys do.”

Perhaps — but, then, the connection between what the books are about and what the Disney productions are about has long been tenuous, and only moreso over the years.

Ah, well. Probalby just as well we never got a Disneyfied Lord of the Rings.

Here’s hoping he’s proven wrong

C.S. Lewis was not at all sanguine about a live-action Narnia adaptation, according to this letter to a BBC producer — though, unlike the framing prose in the BoingBoing post…

C.S. Lewis was not at all sanguine about a live-action Narnia adaptation, according to this letter to a BBC producer — though, unlike the framing prose in the BoingBoing post this is quoted in, his 1959 objections seem a bit more technical than philosophical.

As things worked out, I wasn’t free to hear a single instalment of our serial [The Magician’s Nephew] except the first. What I did hear, I approved. I shd. be glad for the series to be given abroad. But I am absolutely opposed – adamant isn’t in it! – to a TV version. Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare. At least, with photography. Cartoons (if only Disney did not combine so much vulgarity with his genius!) wld. be another matter. A human, pantomime, Aslan wld. be to me blasphemy.

To that end, actually, the new film ought to be less objectionable than, say, the previous BBC live action series, which featured much clumsier puppetry for Aslan, though it’s still charming in my opinion). But bear in mind that Lewis died in 1963 — the CG capabilities available today have the potential to render Aslan et al. as something that partakes neither of “buffoonery or nightmare,” and far removed from someone dressed in a lion’s suit (which would smack enough of pagan ritual to seem blasphemous to someone like Lewis).

Given what BBC TV productions looked like in 1959 (or even 1969), I can’t say as I blame him for his concerns.

That all said, the movie may very well suck. While Walt Disney is no longer present at the helm of his company (having died in 1966), and it’s not clear what “vulgarity” Lewis is objecting to, the present company may certainly make something that is not true to the spirit of the writer. Heck, Peter Jackson approached LotR with near-reverence, and there will still folks (including in the Tolkien estate) who frothed at the mouth over his changes. It’s easy to believe that a company that’s taken such liberties with properties such as The Little Mermaid or Pocahontas or The Hunchback of Notre Dame (not to mention Kimba the White Lion) might easily screw up Narnia.

But, by the same token, that’s a battle for the fans of the work, not something to rely overly much on the 50-year-old opinions of the original author. Even someone such as C.S. Lewis.

Novel thoughts

Time’s critics pick the 100 best English-language novels from 1923-2005. Of those, I’ve read eight (two of them solely for school, back in the day) and pieces (often for school)…

Time‘s critics pick the 100 best English-language novels from 1923-2005. Of those, I’ve read eight (two of them solely for school, back in the day) and pieces (often for school) of several more.

Remarkably enough, there’s a graphic novel in there, too (and I can’t argue with their choice).

Continue reading “Novel thoughts”

BT05 – Slacking off

Took the half-hour off, more or less. Listened to some tunes, read an old comic (!), nibbled on some chips. Time for some more caffeine! (listening to: Krauss, Alison &…

Took the half-hour off, more or less. Listened to some tunes, read an old comic (!), nibbled on some chips.

Time for some more caffeine!

(listening to: Krauss, Alison & Union Station, “Blue and Lonesome” from Down from the Mountain)
(listening to: Shore, Howard, “Hope Fails” from LOTR3: The Return Of The King)
(listening to: Timbuk 3, “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” from The ’80s Hit(s) Back)
(listening to: “Bach, J.S – Goldberg Variations, Fou 9” from Goldberg Variations, Four Duets)
(listening to: Ormandy & Philadelphia Orch, “Dukas – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” from Classics for Kids)