New Tolkien Novel!

From ABC News Online:

An unfinished book by the late author J R R Tolkien has been completed by his son Christopher and will be published early next year, he says.

Tolkien began working on The Children Of Hurin in 1918 but failed to complete it.

His son has spent about three decades completing the story from the many drafts produced by his father.

Some extracts from the book, which again features the elves and dwarves in Tolkien's three-volume Lord of the Rings masterpiece, have been previously published, but the whole story will now be pulled together in one book.

"It has seemed to me for a long time that there was a good case for presenting my father's long version of the legend of The Children Of Hurin as an independent work, between its own covers," he said in a statement.

I'll be all over this when it's published.

Read more...

Unicorns are Rad

Yes, unicorns are rad. And they’re not just for girls -- guy’s dig ‘em too. I blame my co-worker Nicole for giving me the scoop on a male unicorn enthusiast’s site.

An excerpt:

The story behind this is simple I guess... a "fair" maiden coaxed him to lie in a peaceful glade, then held fast to his head while men and hounds leapt out of ambush and cut the magical horn from his brow. Now, he's PISSED!!! Which makes this picture completely and totally rad.

Which goes to show all the wonderful things you can find on the internet. Did you know that there are directions on how to field dress a unicorn? And there's even a site where you can purchase an action figure unicorn that spears a mime!

ROFL!

Read more...

Technorati tags: Unicorns | Fantasy

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: The Movie

I went to a Saturday morning matinee showing of Narnia, and I’m satisfied with what they did with the movie. It’s been years since I’ve seen a major Sci-Fi or Fantasy movie in a theatre full of kids. That was the right audience to see the movie with -- I’d forgotten how they react to movies with less cynicism.

**SPOILERS!!**


For the most part the filmmakers remained true to the book. The things they did change added to the dramatic tension.

Added/altered scenes:

• Edmund endangers other members of his family by running back into his house to grab a picture of his father while the family is fleeing from the London blitz.


• Peter needles Edmund several times (“grow up,” “do what you’re told,” makes him wear a girl’s fur coat, etc.) early on, which makes the White Witch’s seduction of Edmund more plausible.


• Mr. Tumnus apparently drugs Lucy with some tainted tea and puts her to sleep with his pan pipes in creepy scene which must’ve made every parent in the audience who didn’t know the plot start thinking, “Oh my God -- pedophile.”


• Father Christmas gives Lucy and Susan weapons (a dagger and bow and arrows, respectively) in addition to the gifts they were given in the book. This is interesting since in the book the girls are specifically told not to fight because “when women get involved in war, it’s nasty.” Like war isn’t nasty to begin with. Duh.


• Aslan’s sacrifice was muted so much, the kids in the audience weren’t the least bit upset. That was a problem, I think. Either the kids didn’t buy that he was dead, or they didn’t relate to him as the loving savior that he is supposed to be. In contrast, the kids were much more upset when the witch clubbed the chained up faun Tumnus in the head in one scene. Perhaps they could relate to the faun more because he was frail and looked more human?


• In the book the only ones who know of Aslan’s death are the two girls. In the movie, the girls send word of Aslan’s death to their brothers and the army of good creatures, so they go into battle thinking they’re going to lose, which is good tension.


• The children’s personalities are more well defined in the movie, except, perhaps, for Peter, who is generically good, but not annoyingly so. Susan tries very hard to be logical, which is something all women are accused if not being. It’s hinted that Edmund may have a closer relationship than the other siblings with their absent father who is off fighting WWII, so he’s the one who’s lost his support system. Lucy is babyish and sensitive, and apparently incapable of holding a grudge.


• Susan is the only character besides the witch who straight up kills somebody. Although Peter does kill the wolf Maugrim who is menacing his sisters, it was essentially an accident since the wolf leapt on his sword. Susan on the other hand dismissively shoots the witch’s dwarf henchman in the heart when he tries to attack Edmund at the end of the movie. The kids in the audience liked that.

I’d say they’re off to a good start with the series. They could’ve made the witch scarier, but the movie was satisfactory.

Six more books to go.

If I'm Ever the Hero

One of the most useful tools I’ve ever come across for detecting if your story has a bullshit villain is Peter Anspach’s Evil Overlord List. I first discovered it back in ’96. This list contains every cliché you’ve ever groaned at in any Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Superhero or Spy genre book, tv show or movie. The list is written from the point of view of an aspiring Evil Overlord who wants to make sure that he/she doesn’t “go out like a sucka,” to quote Mace Windu, er, Samuel Jackson.

The thinking-man’s Evil Overlord doesn’t make these mistakes. They’re so 20^th century!

• My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
• My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
• One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
• When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
• I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.

There are literally hundreds more where those came from on Anspach’s site.

Tonight I stumbled across some companions to the Evil Overlord’s List from the POV of the Hero, Sidekick and True Love. They aren’t as extensive as the original list, but you’re sure to recognize all sorts of “stupid hero tricks.”

Samples from the “Things I Will Do if I Am Ever the Hero” list:

1. When I am advised to destroy a magical artifact taken from the Evil Overlord, I will do so. [This goes out to Isildur]
2. Anyone inquiring after the secret of my strength will be fed a line of plausible baloney as to how this strength can be lost. If the bogus advice is followed, the leak shall be properly investigated.
3. If my Mentor tells me that I am not yet ready to confront the Evil Overlord, I will quietly accept his judgment and remain to complete my training. [Shout out to Luke.]
4. If I am granted a vision of the future, I will not try to prevent anything that I see. It never works. [Anakin, this means you]
5. When my powerful wizard friend fails to return at the appointed time, I won't wait until after my birthday to start my Perilous Journey. I will set out immediately. [Frodo, can you hear me?]
   

Samples From The “Things I Will Do if I Am Ever the Sidekick” list:

1. If the hero tells me to stay put while he goes on ahead, I will do so instead of sneaking around and getting captured.
2. I will be quiet and try to stay sober most of the time. If I get drunk and sing bawdy songs at the top of my lungs, I will attract prostitutes who are really working for the Evil Overlord.
3. When the Hero tosses me his car keys, I will toss them back, and take the bus. Let the car bomb blow him up for a change.
4. If the Hero is fated to slay certain entities, the Evil Overlord in particular, this means that I will not slay them, and should avoid trying.
5. I will not goad bad guys with statements like "over my dead body."

Samples from the “Things I Will Do if I Am ever the True Love” list:

1. If I have a friend who never seems to be around when the Hero shows up and clobbers the Bad Guys, I will draw the appropriate conclusions.
2. If the Evil Overlord tries to force me into marriage, I will insist on a ceremony so expensive that it will debilitate his industrial capacity. I will be picky about the tiniest details of the ceremony and change my mind frequently so that the resulting delay will give the Hero more time to rescue me.
3. After being forced into a compromising situation, I will not grab a weapon from the Bad Guy and toss it to the Hero when he walks in; I will instead grab a weapon from the Bad Guy and use it on him myself, before the Hero walks in.
4. When the Evil Overlord forces me to help betray the Hero, I will make a show of resistance and then feign capitulation. I will then use whatever resources are placed at my disposal to screw the Evil Overlord (in a metaphorical sense, of course).
5. I will never vow to slay the killer of my brother or other near relative; there is a fair-to-middling chance that the Hero did it, that it was an accident, and that I won't learn he did it until after I fall in love with him.

The Dark Is Rising

This is old news, but I'm pleased that Susan Cooper's "The Dark Is Rising Sequence" is being developed as a movie. This series of young adult books is like the Narnia books in that it concerns British children that get caught up in a good vs. evil struggle with fantasy beings, but I recall it being somewhat more disturbing.

"Dark" is in the title, afterall.

Read more

Narnia Film Pitched to Faith-Based Organizations

Oh, no!

Disney is using The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to pander to religious conservatives:

Disney and Walden took the unique step of introducing the film to a segment of their audience most concerned about the integrity of the final product. Over 30 faith-based and educational organizations were present at the preview, organized by Motive Entertainment's Paul Lauer. Disney and Walden "felt it was important to assure you that they intend to get this movie right," explained Mr. Lauer.

Mr. Lauer told the audience in Burbank that all of this was designed to allow faith groups to "use the film for [their] purposes."

Read more: Winter Wardrobe

"Lost" Me

The only show I watch on network TV is ABC's "Lost." It started out with a bang, but they started fucking it up almost immediately. They started repeating episodes before even five episodes had aired. They started showing episodes back to back. The pilot has been aired at least three times.

I think Lost is another Twin Peaks -- a fantasy show that got sold to the network execs on the strength of an imaginative pilot, but ultimately without substance. I don't believe even the writers know where the plot is going.

I've seen a lot of theories around the 'Net about what the "secret" of the show is. The most popular one is that the crash survivors are dead, but they don't know it. My theory was that they've stumbled across an island where some government or corporation is doing unethical research.

There are two interesting theories, neither of which I can take credit for:

• The survivors are unwitting participants in a reality show.
• The survivors are being subjected to a psychological experiment.

Unfortunately, I'd make a small wager that it'll turn out to be an "it was all a dream" thing.

Anyway, for now I'm watching because the flashbacks are interesting enough even though nothing gets accomplished on the island. Funny how some people have had multiple flashbacks, or even showed up in other people's flashbacks (Jack, Charlie, Sawyer, Kate), but they still haven't showed a flashback for the fat dude, Hurley.

Legends of Earthsea: Bite Me

Weak.

The 2004 Sci-Fi Channel story bore little resemblance to the Easrthsea trilogy I read as a kid, but I knew that would be the case, based on the author's own statements of disappointment.

I thought it was funny how they had girls at the wizards' school in the TV show, but no black people. In the book, the reverse is true -- it's a school where black and brown men train black and brown boys. Girls are barred (why a woman would've written something like that in the late 60's, I don't know). I guess Sci-Fi channel thought that an all male school would look like a seminary or a military school and that would be distasteful? By not sticking to the book, they made Roke Island seem like a rip-off of Harry Potter's Hogwarts in the eyes of anyone who doesn't know that Earthsea was written thirty years before Potter.

I didn't know what was going on with the side plot about the king that's trying to wake "The Nameless Ones." That's all made up. The priestess living out in the desert does show up in the second book of the trilogy, but the dynamic is different, since Ged is trying to steal from her people. And there's no romance.

Ged's wizard friend Vetch comes off too much like Sam Gamgee, but that probably couldn't be helped. In the book he's a fat friendly sidekick and he's a fat friendly sidekick in the TV movie too.

The locations looked good, at least the outdoors ones. Danny Glover was fine as Ogion, Ged's teacher. Isabella Rossellini is always going to be dignified.

Ultimately, I have to blame Ursula LeGuin for what we ended up with. With the exception of the 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries, Sci-Fi channel's made for TV movies are average at best and usually plagiarize from whatever's hot or an old standby (how many variations of Jaws and Aliens can they make?). It was up to the author to choose a better way to get her novels to the screen. If only she had held out a little longer.

The Lord of The Rings Extended DVDs

All of the extended DVDs for LOTR are great, even though the extended version of Fellowship is probably the best. The real value is in the commentaries and "making of" features. I especially like the parts where the art department shows the evolution of their design ideas. It's really inspiring. They didn't just design some random outlandish costume and think, oh, how fucking clever we are.

For example, they go into this whole thing about these faint little ovals etched on the Gondorian helmets. It turns out these are stylized seagull feathers and they're there because Gondor was founded by Numenor, a maritime power. The Gondorian armor in the Third Age is a watered down (pun) version of what you see Isildur and Elendil wearing in the prologue of the first movie, 3,000 years before. The sea motif is in the design of Minas Tirith too. The big jutting piece of rock that Denethor jumps off of is supposed to remind one of the prow of a ship. That's cool, and it makes sense. I also like how on the Fellowship DVD they talk about the dwarvish architecture and how they hit on the idea of using geometric designs for them (to represent minerals). There's tons of stuff like that on the extended DVDs.

So buy them already.

Currently Reading: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Actually, I don't read anymore. I listen to audiobooks. Right now I'm listening to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke. I guess she's trying to imitate Dickens -- there are dozens of characters and the narrative is at times boring as all hell. I can't take much more of this, but at the same time I want to know what happens.