Happy Fantasy Friday, everyone! It’s time to Blog For A Beer. (click here for the rules.)
Today we thought it would be fun to allow you all a little therapy. To give you space to say things you can’t normally say. Fandom is a pretty accepting place, for the most part, but there are a few sacred cows that will get you in trouble if you try and poke at them. For instance, I don’t think Firefly is all that damn great. I am not particularly enamored of Joss Whedon in general, though I did enjoy Buffy. But still, Whedonites make me roll my eyes.
I can say that from the safety of my computer where I have my security system trained to alert me when the fen come with pitchforks. But try saying that in the middle of a con. Or a Buffy panel. *shudder* You’re just asking for it.
What unpopular opinions do you hold? Do you think the latest three Star Wars movies were better than the originals? Do you secretly hate Harry Potter and all he stands for? Are you of the opinion that Twilight is an awesome series? Let it all out here! No one will judge you (much). And you can even say so anonymously. (But you still need to leave your real email address in case you win. No one but the editors can see it, and we won’t hold a grudge.)
Some rules: Your opinions can be as unpopular as you like, but let’s not get personal and start attacking people. You can say “Buffy was bad” but not “Joss Whedon is a baby killer.” It is okay to say “Joss Whedon is overrated” (for example). Keep it to SF/F stuff. Don’t get angry if someone is harsh on your sacred cow, get even! By posting your own unpopular opinion.
1 • Cheryl Holland said:
September 26th, 2008 at 10:42 am, permalink
I’ll start the ball rolling, shall I?
“My name is Cheryl Holland, and I like the movie the 13th Warrior.”
2 • Michael Gordon said:
September 26th, 2008 at 10:43 am, permalink
I think the original Star Wars movies were pretty bad.
Stephen King’s Dark Tower was possibly the most poorly thoughtout series I’ve ever read and I want all those hours of my life back.
I think that’s all I’ve got for now, but I’m looking forward to some strong disagreements.
3 • David Lindahl said:
September 26th, 2008 at 10:48 am, permalink
Jeez Cheryl! Did you have to OPEN with something like that? Oh god, now I remember it again, the pain, the nausea!!
*Whimper*
4 • David Lindahl said:
September 26th, 2008 at 10:57 am, permalink
Personally I do not secretly hate Harry Potter, I hate him in the open!
I cannot understand how so many people want to pay for those books and films and merchandise.
My best guess is that they have had no prior contact with fantasy or sci fi and so in their starving minds breadcrumbs and surströmming is believed to be a feast.
Not to mention “quidditch”! I mean seriously, why would anyone ever play any other gambit than to catch the golden snitch? The entire game is flawed! Flawed I say!
5 • Michael Gordon said:
September 26th, 2008 at 11:12 am, permalink
My best guess is that they have had no prior contact with fantasy or sci fi and so in their starving minds breadcrumbs and surströmming is believed to be a feast.
Now there’s something I can disagree with! As a die-hard fantasy fan, I found Harry Potter a refreshing change from gritty urban fantasy and epic high fantasy (both of which I enjoy). It was also great to be able to actually talk about fantasy with people who normally wouldn’t be reading it.
Not to mention “quidditch”! I mean seriously, why would anyone ever play any other gambit than to catch the golden snitch? The entire game is flawed! Flawed I say!
Yeah, quidditch was pretty silly. Same with the “houses”. There were no redeeming Slytherins, which is a really bad message, that if you know a lot of bad people from a particular group, they are probably all bad.
6 • Clint Harris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 11:37 am, permalink
2001: A Space Odyssey is the biggest waste of time I have ever watched. It’s nothing more than a 2 hour classical music video where the main villain is a red lightbulb that sings. The special effects are no better than Lionel Ritchie’s video for “Dancin’ on the Ceiling.” Yet somehow, SOMEHOW! it winds up on the top ten list of nearly every SF movie list to date. WHY!?!?!!
The conflict in the movie can be summed up in less than ten minutes. Light bulb goes crazy. Suffocates the crew. Dave goes out to kill the lightbulb. He does. Dave flies into the big black rectangle where he starts trippin’ balls, and eventually sees a fetus. The frakkin’ end.
I would sooner watch “Spidersaurus!”(starring Kristianna Lokken and Stephen Baldwin) on the SciFi channel than this pretentious snoozefest.
7 • Samuel Tinianow said:
September 26th, 2008 at 11:46 am, permalink
Okay, time to roll ‘em out. Ahem…
I thought the later Matrix movies were better than the original. The Matrix was just an update of the same old Orwellian, even Ayn-Randian bullshit, and the whole “what if the world, like, isn’t real, man?” thing came off as a bit gimmicky. In typical dystopian-fiction fashion, it portrays only the beginning of the Rebellion Against the Empire(TM) and doesn’t deal with the historical reality that things will most assuredly not turn out as planned for the rebels. Reloaded and Revolutions, for all their cheesy dialogue, weren’t afraid to take things to their ultimate conclusion and the plots were much more nonstandard and interesting.
I think The Lord of the Rings is one of the most all-around overrated franchises in literary history (though still much less overrated than The Divine Comedy). The books weren’t really innovative and their success was mainly a matter of well-timed marketing, publicity, and the concurrent success of Dungeons & Dragons. The movies were melodramatic with way too much slow motion and the music made me want to pull my hair out.
I think all three of the Spiderman movies were an insult to the character. And I don’t even *like* Spiderman.
I liked season 3 of Battlestar Galactica just fine, and I think Lost has gotten better with every season.
I think Alien was better than Aliens. I think the claims that Aliens was feminist movie are highly suspect.
Even though The Martian Chronicles was the book that introduced me to SF, I have some major problems with Ray Bradbury. I certainly think Fahrenheit 451 was a piece of crap.
Other things I don’t like, in order of controversy: Alan Moore, George Lucas, Wheel of Time, The Dark Tower, Frank Miller, Terry Brooks, The Inheritance Series (shudder).
8 • Isteveban said:
September 26th, 2008 at 11:48 am, permalink
In general : Sci-Fi shows suck.
I like getting pulled into story-lines so deep that the pin-hole of light that is reality is a million-lightyears away.
Sci-fi shows consistently fail to provide this. There is always something (a poorly designed set, heavily contrived plot development, filler episodes, plain crap piled upon poor execution etc.) that ends up shattering the illusion. Once I see something like that, I cannot unsee it; it etches itself unto my grey matter.
Even if one season should kick ass (Heroes, 1st season) there is no security in developing long-term interests in these shows, they might suck by the 2nd season (Heroes 2nd season) and what’s to say that they won’t continue on sucking, ad infinitum?
I don’t know if it’s corporate interests, the inherent fallacy of WGA putting money before product, or what. There is just a consistent failure to keep the fantasy whole and I cannot abide.
9 • JS Bangs said:
September 26th, 2008 at 11:58 am, permalink
Isaac Asimov was not a very good writer. Heinlein is just embarassing. Arthur C. Clarke wrote great premises with terrible conclusions.
But I liked the Dark Tower and season 3 of BSG.
I’ve seen only one or two episodes of classic Star Trek, and I’m not in a hurry to see more.
10 • Clint Harris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 12:11 pm, permalink
Re: Heinlein. I brought up on another forum the other day that I had never read any Heinlein. People were shocked. They didn’t see how someone interested in the genre could have gone their whole life without reading Heinlein. I asked for recommendations and was met with a lot of “meh, that’s okay, but read this.” So far, I’m not convinced about Heinlein.
He seems like what we Americans think about McDonalds when abroad. “YEAH! Mickie D’s!” and then when you ask what the best value meal is they are all “Well, they taste the same pretty much. The McRib was okay. I guess.”
It reeks of genre over-romanticizing. I think I’ll stick to Philip K. Dick and Walter M. Miller, thank you very much.
11 • Kris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 12:34 pm, permalink
I don’t like anything to do with superheroes. Even Heroes left me cold. This is an opinion that completely baffles my “loves Batman” husband. I realize that there are some superheroes that should be right up my alley–tortured, conflicted characters.
I just can’t get over the stupid costumes. Even the ones that don’t wear costumes have been spoiled by the ones that do.
12 • Paul Jessup said:
September 26th, 2008 at 12:51 pm, permalink
“I think The Lord of the Rings is one of the most all-around overrated franchises in literary history (though still much less overrated than The Divine Comedy). The books weren’t really innovative and their success was mainly a matter of well-timed marketing, publicity, and the concurrent success of Dungeons & Dragons.”
So, you mean that ACE paperbacks stealing LORT and pirating the books in the US was just a publicity stunt? If so, Tolkien lost a fuckload of money on that.
They were popular because they struck at the zeitigist of that generation, all the hope, idealism, anti-technology, anti-modernity, new wave magi-occultism that was thundering through the veins of the underground. Timing, yes. Publicity, notsomuch. And D&D probably had more to do with making R. A. Salvatore popular than Tolkein.
My contrariwise opinion?
We’re all hacks. Every single one of us. That’s why the literati don’t like us. I say, to hell with them. being hack is fun. But that doesn’t mean we should churn out derivative pulp crap, either. We’re modern hacks, damnit. So we need to evolve our hackitude.
13 • Paul Jessup said:
September 26th, 2008 at 12:51 pm, permalink
Ooh, man. sorry. I can’t seem to edit my post. Could a moderator please remove the f-bomb I dropped up there? Slipped out.
14 • Clint Harris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 1:24 pm, permalink
Paul Jessup brought up an interesting thought. I haven’t read an R.A. Salvatore book I’ve liked yet. In person he’s an okay guy. But his books are so lacking in descriptions I feel like you have to buy a Monster Manual to figure out what the $%^&^$# a “Hook Horror” or “Duergar” is. Totally disappointing.
I like Tolkien’s LOTR and the Hobbit, but the Silmarilion is unreadable junk.
15 • Michael Gordon said:
September 26th, 2008 at 1:34 pm, permalink
Hated the Hobbit and got narcolepsy reading Fellowship (had to skip over all the songs to get through it the first time).
As for the Silmarillion, I think the Ainulindalë is one of the most elegant creation myths I’ve ever read. If I were going to become the next L. Ron Hubbard and create a religion I would rip off Tolkien for my material. The rest of the book is, I admit, pretty difficult to read.
And yeah, I guess the vast majority of us are hacks in the eyes of the literati. We right stories whose main focus is not the Human Condition. Even if we write brilliant characters in realistic situations and prose that moves hearts and minds, we’re also writing about ghosts, vampires, starships, epic battles, and such, and that will always be seen as a detraction. So be it, this hack only hopes his characters can stand by the ghosts of Hamlet sr. and Banquo, the three witches, Oberon, Titania, and Puck, Prospero and Caliban, and to hell with the literati.
16 • Michael Gordon said:
September 26th, 2008 at 1:35 pm, permalink
And to back my argument that I am a hack, I wrote “right” instead of “write”.
Brilliant.
17 • Veronica said:
September 26th, 2008 at 1:40 pm, permalink
Cheryl, I too am proud to say that I enjoyed the 13th Warrior.
Here’s another bomb: I thought Blade Runner was an eternal bore
18 • Paul Jessup said:
September 26th, 2008 at 1:50 pm, permalink
Clint-
You do know that his books are set in a world of AD&D? Of course you need to read a monster manual to understand it! Just like you need to watch Star Wars to get half the stuff for the books set in the Star Wars universe.
19 • Paul Jessup said:
September 26th, 2008 at 1:52 pm, permalink
“We write stories whose main focus is not the Human Condition.”
Now, now. What makes you say that? Of course every sf and f and h story is ABOUT the human condition. Every single one of them. In fact, because of the hackery and the pulpishness it’s more HONEST about the human condition.
20 • Randy Henderson said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:13 pm, permalink
Okay. I’ll say it. I’m not afraid.
Cleopatra 2525 was bad.
Phew. That’s a load off.
21 • Samuel Tinianow said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:22 pm, permalink
Paul:
So, you mean that ACE paperbacks stealing LORT and pirating the books in the US was just a publicity stunt?
Not a publicity stunt, but certainly a nice bit of publicity without which I’d argue the series probably would not have sky-rocketed the way it did. As I recall, the ACE bootlegs were considerably cheaper than the Houghton Mifflin editions, making them much more accessible to the (primarily) youth demographic that ate them up wholesale. But the books weren’t as one-of-a-kind as we see them in hindsight, and it could have just as easily happened to someone else who happened to be in the right place at the right time (and maybe have C.S. Lewis for a buddy). I’m sure we can name analogous authors who caught onto free eBooks/blogs at the frontend.
22 • Paul Jessup said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:26 pm, permalink
Samuel Tinianow
Mm.. I don’t know. The idealism that was presented in there was unique, the same with the romantic notions. It was also less SFnal than a lot of the fantasy works that came before it, less cynical and sword and sorceryish.
23 • Randy Henderson said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:27 pm, permalink
Douglas Adams did not write hard science fiction.
Yeah, that’s right. I went there.
I mean, I’ve jumped off my roof, like, one hundred times, and used all kinds of tricks to distract myself at the last minute from the fact I’m about to hit the ground, and I haven’t flown once.
0 positive results out of 100 tests completely invalidates the science of flight used in his “science” fiction. And hurts.
I have also stuck every species of fish in my ear, and still can’t understand a word of Andre the Giant’s dialogue in The Princess Bride movie, so there goes the babel fish theory — and the idea that Princess Bride was a good movie. It wasn’t. It was a huge disappointment compared to the book.
24 • Paul Jessup said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:27 pm, permalink
Note- I’m not defending it per se, I’m just saying that what he wrote struck a chord in a generation that was buying into that sort of thing. They wanted an Epic Pooh, and they got it.
25 • JS Bangs said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:33 pm, permalink
Randy @ 23: I know that this thread is about unspeakable things, but you have crossed a line. The Princess Bride is a wonderful movie, and incomparably better than the book. I demand you retract!
26 • Randy Henderson said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:36 pm, permalink
Clint @ 6 —
“The special effects are no better than Lionel Ritchie’s video for ‘Dancin’ on the Ceiling.’”?
“trippin’ balls”?
Dude! ROFL
27 • Michael Gordon said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:41 pm, permalink
Randy, I will have to challenge you to a duel to defend the Princess Bride’s honor. En garde!
28 • Randy Henderson said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:46 pm, permalink
JS @25: It’s all relative, ain’t it? Is the movie better than the book? Hells no. Is it better than Spaceballs? Arguable. Is it better than, say, the Dungeons and Dragons movies? Well, duh.
29 • Michael Gordon said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:51 pm, permalink
You know what movie was better than it’s book? Fight Club. What’s that you say? Fight Club isn’t genre. Well then, you aren’t reading it right.
The Labyrinth was one of the worst fantasy movies I’ve ever seen.
30 • Randy Henderson said:
September 26th, 2008 at 2:51 pm, permalink
Hmmmm … speaking of which, what do you think, worsterest casting choice — Andre the Giant in Princess Bride, or Marlon Wayans in Dungeons and Dragons?
Hey, Tempest — maybe that would be a good topic for a future FF blog — worst casting choices in a genre film or show, and who should have been cast instead.
31 • Clint Harris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:03 pm, permalink
Paul @ 18. Oh yeah, I totally get that. My problem was with getting to page 235, where Drizzt encounters the “hook horror” and me being forced to buy the $20 manual to figure out what the hell he was fighting.
Uh…not that I did that, of course. I was lucky enough to have a friend who blew his entire summer paycheck on all that crap. HE might have done it. I reaped the benefits.
And hook horrors are the most ridiculous fantasy creature invented since Snarf on the Thundercats.
32 • Clint Harris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:04 pm, permalink
Randy @26. Thank you. Thank you.
Oh how I loathe that movie.
33 • Randy Henderson said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:05 pm, permalink
In a fight between Batman and Superman, Superman would win. Which is lame, and not to take away from Dark Knight Returns, but I mean, come on, let’s get real. Oooo, Batman has a piece of kryptonite. And Superman could drop a thousand ton island full of radioactive space dinosaurs on Batman’s head from low orbit. And that’s just as an opening move. You do the math.
34 • Clint Harris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:17 pm, permalink
Randy at 30. I still liked Andre the Giant for casting choice for Fezzic. Who else could they pick? Shaq? When it came to that scene when Fezzic throws the boulder at Wesley’s head, Shaq wouldn’t have been anywhere NEAR the mark.
I suppose today, they would have CGI’d him. Andy Serkis would have been Fezzic. He would have worn a disturbingly clingy unitard with the “points of interest” mapped out for the animators. *Shudder*
Andre was big. He was good at making it look like he was hurting people. Win. Win.
35 • Michael Gordon said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:21 pm, permalink
Batman always bothered me a bit. How long did he spend designing his swanky cave, costume, gadgets etc. Did he outsource and just made the contractors pinky swear not to reveal that they had in fact built the bat cave and sure they can show you where it is? Or did he make everything himself and spent the first few years of his career saying “Oh, yeah, I’m totally going to get to the crime fighting any day now, right after I finish these baterangs.”
Superman is just lame. Frankly I prefer my heros to have enough power to kick ass, but not enough to be invincible.
36 • Clint Harris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:28 pm, permalink
Andre’s best line in Princess Bride:
“Ah im dread Parrot Robers. I v kome fo jah Soulsss.
And Randy, Radio. Active. Dinosaurs.
Outstanding!
37 • David Lindahl said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:52 pm, permalink
Clint Harris: “And hook horrors are the most ridiculous fantasy creature invented since Snarf on the Thundercats.”
I see your hook horror and raise you the gelatinous cube….
38 • Randy Henderson said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:53 pm, permalink
Clint @ 36:
Granted, he had slightly more emotional range than this big guy in his breakout genre film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzjZfAGgE2M
39 • David Lindahl said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:58 pm, permalink
Right, I’ll jump in again and speak in generalities now:Fantasy monsters. I find myself completely unable to suspend my disbelief at these.
“Heroes advance through [inser terrain] and are sset upon by a monster. ”
Note here that “monster” is not a person, an animal or anything that exists within any form of society or ecosystem.
Ok, let us assume that the castle too technologically inept to have invented oil lamps DO have indoor plumming with sewers under the castle, WHY would there be en enormous dedocapus with ginormous maws on the end of its tentacles that has not starved to death?
How many raiding parties must be consumed each week just to keep it alive?
And orcs kiddies? Where are they? Every single darn orc is a 400 lbs muscle mountain who haven’t seen a single female in his entire chapter, and so can’t breed so where the heck do they come from?
40 • Cheryl Holland said:
September 26th, 2008 at 3:59 pm, permalink
David Lindhal @ 3 – I also like Pathfinder. It’s great for playing the spot the cliche drinking game.
Randy Henderson @ 23 – The only reason I found out the book of The Princess Bride exists is because I watched the movie first. And I think both are fantastic.
Here’s another one to divide the fandom: Starbuck – male or female?
41 • Clint Harris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 4:01 pm, permalink
David @ 37. Gelatinous cube eh?…lessee…I’ve got nothin’. I fold.
Randy, that clip is the money! My favorite part was the bear-furry beatdown.
42 • Randy Henderson said:
September 26th, 2008 at 4:01 pm, permalink
David @37: I see your gelatinous cube and raise you a Monkey Bee. And call.
43 • Clint Harris said:
September 26th, 2008 at 4:22 pm, permalink
Cheryl @ 40. Definitely female Starbuck. No frakkin’ contest.
Dirk Benedict’s best purpose was served as Face on the A-Team. But who’s the better of these two? Mad-Dog Murdock or Lt. Barclay?
44 • Randy Henderson said:
September 26th, 2008 at 5:04 pm, permalink
Cheryl @40: Starbuck, male or female?
Well, for me personally, if you made new-series Starbuck a guy, I don’t think the sexual tension between him and Apollo would be as enjoyable as if, say, you left Starbuck a woman and also made Apollo a woman. Maybe Michelle Rodriguez.
But if what you are really asking is which is better, 70’s Starbuck or 2k’s Starbuck, I’d say they are actually two different characters in very different shows with very different feels to them who each fit well into their respective series. It’s kinda moot.
45 • Cat C. said:
September 26th, 2008 at 8:50 pm, permalink
I loved The Hobbit and read it about 6 or 8 times over, but LotR bored me outta my mind. I don’t think I read past the middle of the first book. I watched all of the movies. Once. Boooooring. Now the Hobbit cartoon movie…now THAT is worth watching over and over and over….ad nauseum. Especially when one is in college and sufficiently surrounding by interesting (read: intoxicating) ingestibles and lava lamps and Winamp visualizations to make the whole thing a real “experience.” You know how when some of the bad guys die in that movie they kind of swirl away into oblivion? Well when the whole rest of the room and everything in it is swirling too, that movie frickin rokks :0D LotR with its nice clean CGI aesthetics and Orlando flippin Bloom? Catch my head before it hits the ground cos I’m out like a light.
Also I tried like heck to enjoy Piers Anthony’s Xanth series and it was honestly about as enjoyable as surgically removing my own eye. I guess I didn’t read them at the right age? (I was a frosh in college, maybe 18 or 19). I had a bunch of friends who were all nutsy about them in middle school and high school so maybe I just missed the boat there.
And finally, I don’t think that Harry Potter is good literature. I read HP, I enjoy HP, and I am looking forward to the movies. But I really see it as a guilty pleasure, like going to an all you can eat BBQ place and demolishing 12 plates of brisket. I mean, yeah, OK every once in awhile it’s fun, sure, but you have to be kidding yourself if you think that’s healthy food and its OK to eat that all the time. I love HP but all of the plot premises and devices in there seem so cliche that I can’t say it’s “good” literature, same way I can’t say that chowing down at a BBQ place all the time is a healthy way to eat.
I really like this thread, it’s good to get some of this crap off my chest…
46 • Constance said:
September 27th, 2008 at 4:43 pm, permalink
Samuel Tinianow:
Dragons and Dungeons first rolled out in 1977.
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was originally published over 20 years before 1977, in three volumes in 1954 and 1955, in England. The first translation of The Lord of the Rings into a language not English was in 1955-57, and soon after into other languages.
Twelve years earlier than the rollout of Dungeons and Dragons Tolkien’s trilogy was first published in the U.S. in 1965, by Ballantine, and I think even a bit earlier in a pirated edition by Ace — Donald Wollheim, the founder of DAW Books, being the perpetrator, if I recall this correctly. The trilogy exploded into a publishing phenomeon here, to the great puzzlement of many. Additionally, it essentially invented a genre that has spawned numberless descendants and sub-genres since then, not to mention the whole marketing category that rules them all — Fantasy.
The Hobbit was written and published even earlier, in 1937.
So you cannot say that The Lord of the Rings rode on D&D’s coattails, only the reverse.
That later generations Fantasy readers don’t care for it as much as those of the generation when it first appeared, is understandable. But for those to whom it first appeared, there was nothing else like it at all anywhere else. It was a revelation, the portal into the worlds they had always yearned for.
They will always hold this great Fantasy achievement in the highest esteem. Additionally later generations of readers would not be able to turn up their noses at this ‘over-rated Fantasy’ if it not been published, for without it, what later generations of Fantasy readers like would not have appeared.
That you don’t csre for it is certainly permitted and understood. But you need to correct your chronological understanding.
Love, C
47 • Constance said:
September 27th, 2008 at 4:48 pm, permalink
Another supporter of The 13th Warrior here.
Star Wars and Star Trek of any season or episode are thudthudding bores. Unwatchable. And really, really unlistenable.
Love, C.
48 • Dawn said:
September 27th, 2008 at 11:52 pm, permalink
I hated the Dark Knight movie because of the racism in it. That said, the rest of the movie was pretty good. I do think Heath Ledger’s performance in the movie was good but not as jaw-droppingly amazing as it was hyped up to be.
I am possibly one of the few people who prefer the Silmarillion to LOTR.
I hate the Narnia books.
I believe Robert Silverberg is overrated. I’ve read travel brochures that are more interesting than his novels. I mean that literally.
And one of my favourite fantasy series (for TV) is a cheesy Italian series called Fantaghiro (The Cave of the Golden Rose). It comes complete with poor acting, poor dialogue and poor special effects as per tradition in SFF movies.
49 • Cat C. said:
September 28th, 2008 at 8:36 am, permalink
Hi Dawn,
I’m curious as to which parts/themes/etc of the Dark Knight were racist? I’m asking because I’m genuinely curious, I promise I’m not slamming on you or your opinion. I didn’t notice anything overt I guess and I’m curious about it.
50 • Brian Dolton said:
September 29th, 2008 at 8:19 am, permalink
Let’s go full circle. I have watched “The 13th Warrior” several times, and still find much to enjoy about it. It actually breaks away from a lot of the cliches of movies of that style, and while some of the “period detail” is highly questionable, some is actually accurate against the “expectations” of modern audiences (as the tritest of examples – they did NOT give their Rus warriors horned helmets). The holmgang remains one of my favourite fantasy swordfights of all time, both for the fight itself (which both accurately depicts the sheer physical brutality of the fight, and yet shows that skill CAN trump physique), and for the way it’s set up, as a quite deliberate way to get Bulwyf and his men into the position of uncontested authority on the strategies to be employed.
51 • Constance said:
September 29th, 2008 at 1:10 pm, permalink
The three elements that hooked me on The 13th Warrior were:
- The movie used cinema technique so effectively to show (not tell) how someone who is already language-sound-rhythmically sophisticated, the Poet, learns a new language via total immersion.
- The horse! She was a character all her own, while remaining horse, of course, rather than a stand-in for a human companion. This also was fitting in the sense of a warrior’s dependence upon his horse, as much as his sword and other companions.
- A convincing sense of what this meant to be a hero in your community, that first ideal of hero, which depended also upon warrior prowess and success. This includes the battles described by another poster.
The villains of the piece, not so much. Not even at all. But then, this was based on a Crichton novel, Eaters of the Dead, so there you go.
52 • Cheryl Holland said:
September 30th, 2008 at 4:52 am, permalink
And let’s face it, as retellings/revisionings of Beowulf go it beats the godawful new animated Beowulf hands down: “I have come to kill your monstah!”
53 • Jennifer said:
October 1st, 2008 at 1:26 am, permalink
Tolkien is so overrated. Yes, I said it. He had great ideas, but really his world building was essentially jacked from mythology. The elves are the celtic Sidhe, for example. I could list more, but it would take too long. So while I do enjoy his world and the way he created it, for people to act as though he is where fantasy began is absurd. Fantasy began long before Tolkien with far older texts such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or The King of Elflands Daughter by Lord Dunsay. Tolkien was primiarily a linguist and a historian…not a writer. He knew he was stealing from myth, he did it on purpose. But no one else seems to realize that. There is nothing shameful about pulling from myth, but I hate it that people don’t seem to understand that that is what he did.
Plus, I’m sorry, but his characters are flat, mostly because he wrote in third person objective, and therefore the reader never really gets to truly know them. He wrote it to be like a history, and in that he succeeded…when I read the books I could really care less who lived or died.
I respect his use of myth, but it is the fault of his popularity that much of the literary world thinks that fantasy is unintellectual escapism…because a whole generation of writers didn’t try to do anything more than be Tolkien-Light, and therefore ruined the reputation of the genre.
54 • JS Bangs said:
October 1st, 2008 at 11:54 am, permalink
He had great ideas, but really his world building was essentially jacked from mythology.
And this is a problem why?
55 • Cheryl Holland said:
October 10th, 2008 at 7:08 am, permalink
[/i]I respect his use of myth, but it is the fault of his popularity that much of the literary world thinks that fantasy is unintellectual escapism…because a whole generation of writers didn’t try to do anything more than be Tolkien-Light, and therefore ruined the reputation of the genre.[/i]
That’s not Tolkien’s fault, but that of the writers who tried to emulate him. A lot of fantasy references myth, folklore, or fairy tale in some way so I agree with JS Bangs – why is it a problem?
Likewise, since Tolkien made no bones that he was writing a history (albeit a made-up one) for his made-up languages to live in, why be upset that LOTR is or reads like a history? It’s not like it’s false advertising!
Just for the record, I’ve read all of it but never all of the way through, and I haven’t managed to sit through all of the films yet either.
56 • Michael Gordon said:
October 10th, 2008 at 8:27 am, permalink
Jennifer @ 53: But no one else seems to realize that. There is nothing shameful about pulling from myth, but I hate it that people don’t seem to understand that that is what he did.
This is the part that bothers me. Why do you assume that those of us who like Tolkien’s work are ignorant of Norse and Teutonic myths? I’m fairly well aware of how much was taken from the legends and sagas to shape Middle Earth’s background and stories, but I can still enjoy what Tolkien did with it. In fact, I think he he reinvented myths more than stole from them. If you read the Ainulindalë you can see how much he “stole” from Judeo-Christian mythology too, but his fusion of mono- and polytheism makes for a great tapestry to build a fantasy world.
Anyhoo, I’m well past my two cents’ worth now.