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Subtext - wait until you get to 'God Emperor of Dune' - the entire book is cryptic conversations like what you describe
Oh boy. I'm gonna never-read the hell out of that one.
Oh, you have to read it, even if you skip the second and third books (which are rather short, and really exist only to get to God Emperor). It's the most... I'd almost say wacky, although that's the wrong word. It's a much faster read then Dune, at least that was my take.
People think anime all looks the same because of the big eyes the creator of Astro Boy borrowed from Disney films, and which were then copied by all the other Japanese studios. I will admit, I haven't payed much attention to his name in the credits, as those of the character designer or writer often jumped out at me more. I'm very impressed that he was still active, with a career lasting from the 60's till now. Mind you, that could be a result of how little money there is to be made actually making anime.
And I just saw that Micheal Bay announced that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie he is working on will not have them be Mutants, but instead Aliens. At which point I asked "When will Hollywood stop raping our childhoods?"
Hey, anything Bay does can't rape the comic any more then the original cartoon did The first live action film is still the best adaptation.
George made a movie about a rebelion that took down a tyranny (Somewhat like George Washington), not a kid joining a terrorist group and overthrowing a government (Somewhat like Adolf Hitler.)
You can always look at things more then one way. When a Malay Muslim friend dismissed 300 as pro-US crap, I told her it actually is anti-US: it's about a superpower coming into this small country and getting their ass kicked.
Any of those could probably sustain a blockbuster franchise.
I would LOVE to see someone do a TV series that rotated through the adventures of the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Tom Swift Jr, etc. Do them as period pieces. You could also do some of the now forgotten kids series. I have four "Buddy" books by Howard Garis on the shelf next to me that were my Dad's.
That, to be honest, is the main problem. Yes, the things you create that get you there may make someone else rich (not you, most likely), but nobody is going to fund your project to start with. As the joke goes, the best way to make a small fortune in space is to start with a large one.
Has anyone listened to the BBC Radio plays for LOTR and the Hobbit? They're really good and if you haven't read the books, they're a nice 'inbetween' experience.
And Ian Holm voices Frodo
I listened to them when NPR first broadcast them in the late 70's/early 80's. We had that, Hitchhiker's Guide, Star Wars... for a brief moment in the US, radio was cool!
Dune is one you might need the right mindset for. As a teen I had a rule that I would give any book 100 pages to suck me in, and seem to recall Dune had me from the start. I wasn't a big fan of the second and third books, but loved God Emperor of Dune and was enjoying the later ones when Herbert died. It was the first time an active writer I liked passed away (I've stayed away from the stuff his kid has been churning out).
That reminds me of something that came up at a conventions years ago. The panel speaker was asking why people kept reading stuff like the later Dune books, when they're clearly declining in quality. Someone replied that us readers have built up this knowledge base on these imaginary worlds, and WANT to be able to use it somehow. Reading another Dune, Pern, or Star Wars book lets us do that.
Damn, I can't believe I didn't think to mention this before! There's a metal group from Finland called BATTLELORE, which only does songs based on Lord of the Rings. They combine death metal male vocals with a female singer (who wears elf ears on stage), wave fake swords around... Definitely check out their first two albums and the live DVD (which may be PAL only).
I almost wish I had gone up to Toronto to check out the Lord of the Rings musical that was in previews up there. It didn't get good reviews, and never made it out of Canada that I know of, but some disasters really do have to be seen...
Might ask this question to the panel around the 8th hour:which content do you think Middle Earth is supposed to be an analogue of? Just wondering... I call dibs on Brian being the first to lose it on this one.
Heh. As a kid, I honestly didn't know about the concept of fictional maps. If I saw a map at the start of a book, I assumed it was from some real place (probably didn't help that I first read history books and stuff like the Horatio Hornblower tales). Can't remember where I put Middle Earth on the map, trying to match the coastline, but the Earthsea books naturally took place somewhere around Indonesia
Oh, I hope someone has a good camera with them so we can get before and after group shots of our valiant commentators!
I, unfortunately, won't be able to join everyone. I planned on it, my sister even saying I could use her house and high speed internet for the event. But, not only can't I really trust you guys not to wander onto topics my 8 year old niece shouldn't hear, but we have Buffalo Philharmonic tickets for that evening (Prokofiev's Fifth). Alas...
I hope, when you guys post this, you keep all the between movie bits. No editing, just cut it into three files!
Isn't exploding arrows EXACTLY the sort of thing Hawkeye uses?
Exactly. And he has arrows that throw nets, short out electrical circuits, create anchor points for drop lines or climbing a wall, vibrate stuff to pieces, spread sleep gas—you name it. It's Batman's utility belt in convenient projectile form.
EVERYBODY STOP ACTING LIKE HAWKEYE IS AQUAMAN!
They're showing various DC shorts during the breaks of the new animated Green Lantern (Bruce Timm produced, so will watch) and new episodes of Teen Justice. One of the spots had a guy testing an arrow with a boxing glove on the end. Sadly, despite their "proof" that it in fact works they edited the footage so it could easily have been faked. Guess I'll have to wait until Mythbusters gives it a go.
I think it's more that a woman's rise in status, through marriage, is assumed and normal, thus the story usually starts AFTER that has happened in this version.
There's other applications to the whole "add a mistake for them to catch" thing, which an old manager of mine when I was a supermarket baker did. Every week, when the owner came over to talk to him about that week's paperwork, there was always some little math error. Some mistake the owner had to correct, playfully chide the head baker over. It didn't mean much, as our department had such a good profit margin every week!
Well, after he left to get a job a relative got him for the county, all the paperwork got looked at by fresh eyes... and the guy had been leaving invoices out of his balance sheet. The venders got paid, but that fact was left off his department's records, making it look like we had extra profit. Who knows what yearly bonuses the guy got because of that
I must admit, I left TDK with only two real thoughts. First, Joker's continually changing story was borrowed from one of the best animated episodes, Mad Love (where we see how a prison psychologist falls in love with the Joker and becomes Harley Quinn), which I found fun. Second... damn it, what is it with killing off villains?!? I honestly was hoping the entire point of naming this movie was setting up an actual adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns, and they go and kill off Two Face.
Yeah, story copyright is pretty broad, covering structure and character as well as actual words.
Well, it's one of those cases where it didn't help that they had tried to buy the rights to Dracula, failed, but made a movie based on it anyways. That just put a big target on their back.
In a similar vein, CBS dropped out of talks with the creators of the current Sherlock Holmes BBC show to do a remake, and have decided to do their own modern day version. Not that the idea was original with the current series (there's the movies set during WW II, and failed TV pilot where Holmes gets thawed out in modern NYC by the female decedent of Watson), but still...
When vampires hit it big in popular culture with Dracula, that was a specific story that someone owned the rights to, so people had to respect that. Nosferatu is basically the same story, but they changed just enough not to get sued.
Actually they were sued, and all copies were to be destroyed. It's just luck that something managed to survive until modern day, especially as many film that weren't intentionally burned have been lost to time.
You know what I remember most about the theatrical DUNE? They actually handed out a glossary as we entered the theater so viewers would know what the hell everyone was talking about. I wish I had kept it
He has tried to branch out, it's just that those projects haven't done all that well. If stuff like Tucker, or the Young Indy TV series, had been big hits Lucas probably would have kept going in that direction.
The first live action film is still the best adaptation.