Search results

There is a little in FOTR. Remember how the Balrog isn't revealed until the bridge scene, we're only seeing hints of its heat shining through doorways and such. It built expectations. And think back to the one scene in the entire trilogy that was actually scary: The Bilbo scene in Rivendell...

The violence. We're talking about a guy who witnessed the hell of the WW1 trenches. Imagine him seeing the Hobbit movies, with their sadistic, gleeful, carefree violence, cutting off heads for comedic effect - and how hungrily the audience devours it all. It would have broke his heart.

Did I spoil the content of the movie? If that's the case, I'm sorry - I always aim to review books and movies without going into spoiler areas. But the Beorn stuff is right at the start of the movie, and I don't think that really counts as spoiler territory. As for the orcs and the...

I hated it, fair and square. It might not be a big surprise to anyone, but I feel it's fairly justified. I posted my views on An Unexpected Journey a year ago, back here, and to put it in diplomatic terms: The problematic aspects have not exactly been improved. The Desolation of Smaug is...

"I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier, into the synapses of the machine - just as the good doctor intended. But what I cannot shake, and what hints at things to come, is that thoughts cross back. In my dreams, the sensibility of the machine invades the periphery of my consciousness. Dark...

Another somewhat funny thing is that even though Pratchett's books started out as fantasy parodies, some of his latest books are now so conceited that writing parodies of them has become a viable opportunity.

In light of the announcement of the new Discworld board game - The Witches - I though it was time for a thread about the latest line of Discworld board games. I've been playing Discworld: Ankh-Morpork for about a year and a half, it being one of the recurring favourites of my game collection...

I just watched 12 Angry Men, the 1957 version. It develops nearly all of the 12 characters, in half of the running time The Hobbit uses, and utilizes some of them to deliver a resounding emotional blow by the end. And all 12AM does is have them sit around a table, talking about something that...

I posted a long-winded review in the other thread, here. It now strikes me that I can sum up my thoughts on the movie with a lot more brevity: They've taken one of the world's most popular children's books (the second most sold, after The Little Prince) and turned it onto a brutally violent...

I feel that as the discussion goes on, the same dichotomy as always seems to emerge: The only conservative alternative to Peter Jackson's approach is supposedly a "word for word" Tolkien-style adaption. Either what we have, or a super-boring, super-slow, super-long movie that no-one would ever...

The reason I think it's a bad thing is because the movie has nothing that sets it apart from other action adventures of our time, save the hype of the original material. They are of today, which means that tomorrow they will have been of yesterday. Soon Martin Freeman's style, as well as snot...

Thanks for that. As for whether a different adaption matching the feel better would have worked - well, we will never know now.

Here's something I wrote on another forum (XKCD): It's been a week and some days since I saw this movie, and I've been struggling for a while to properly word my response - my critique. From the media in my country, The Hobbit has received mixed reviews. It's interesting to observe that...

I just finished The Hydrogen Sonata, and found it mostly very good. Almost all the way to the end, it could easily have been my favourite - the story was very forcused, very easy to follow, very thoughtful, the action sequences were engaging, the scenes with Cossont staying with QiRia were...

Very promising! Unusual title for a Culture novel - very specific, not just a phrase.

Just watched the first two episodes of the sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's called The Legend of Korra, and looks quite excellent.

My goal is getting through C. J. Cherryh's Merchanter's Luck. I've previously read Downbelow Station, which although nice was extremely slow-moving.

Anyone wanna talk about Arrietty? This being the thread, after all? Watched it tonight. Very pretty, very nice soundtrack, but not very interesting. Maybe a child will see it differently. I found the characters difficult to connect to, none of them coming across as very likeable, maybe except...

If you happen to have any familiarity with Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, then his masterpiece Night Watch is a book for you. It catches very well the atmosphere of the (failed) 1848 popular revolutions in Europe, and retains just a bit of the standard Discworld comedy. A very strong read...

Read the book, see the movie. Vastly different stories. There is some similarities with the premise - humans exploiting nature, only to be driven off by nature/nature-dwellers, but pretty much everything in-between (like plot, characters and character development) could hardly have been more...