… goes ever on:
New Zealand’s Hobbiton celebrates the 20th anniversary of the premiere of ‘The Fellowship of the Rings,’ the first feature film of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ series ?????????? https://t.co/2Cj0hKaU3D pic.twitter.com/XmSwmjMJtL
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 11, 2021
Alternatively: not taken:
the Beatles attempted to get the rights to LoTR but Tolkien turned them down – in part because a Beatles-wannabee band had played down the road and deeply annoyed him in 1964. Paul was going to be Frodo, Ringo Sam, George Gandalf, and John Gollum. https://t.co/yoCvRoUBMZ
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) December 10, 2021
Bonus round:
Hayao Miyazaki will return to direct one final film for Studio Ghibli — a “fantasy on a grand scale.”
(Source: https://t.co/ig5zFhdLIX) pic.twitter.com/MWjsrITwZR
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) November 23, 2021
Worth a click, even if the film-in-production sounds more like The Wind Rises than My Neighbor Totoro: Hayao Miyazaki Prepares to Cast One Last Spell
Baud
I would totally watch a Muppets based LotR.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Animal as Aragorn. Cookie Monster as Gandalf. I see possibilities.
guachi
My Neighbor Totoro is a film that’s basically impossible to dislike. It and Spirited Away are my two favorite animated films. The scene on the train in Spirited Away is one of my single most favorite scenes in any movie.
UncleEbeneezer
If you loved the scenery of LOTR, check out Power Of The Dog on Netflix and Top Of The Lake on Amazon Prime. Both are Jane Campion projects shot with stunning vistas of NZ. And both are very good.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
The yip yips as orcs?
karen marie
I’ve never seen LoTR. Should I?
trnc
The Beatles should have done what Zep did – not ask permission. But I appreciate that the fab four respected JRR enough to ask.
NotMax
@Baud
Ugh. Wasn’t the gaily wrapped but empty inside box labeled The Dark Crystal enough?
;)
trnc
@karen marie: It’s awesome if you like fantasy. You’ll know 30 minutes in what you think. And each movie is great.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m happy to say I’ve been to Hobbiton. I’ve stood in Bag End. I’ve visited the Party Tree.
Nelle
@karen marie: For the scenery alone, yes (I’m not big on the story line, but others in my family loved it). Matamata was just up the road from where we lived so we took visitors to Hobbiton as part of the New Zealand experience. It’s lovely there. My sister, an LOTR fan, was in quiet heaven.
Chetan Murthy
@trnc: I would say at least try one movie (obvs. the first, which might be Fellowship of the Ring, but might be The Hobbit). Enough other people have watched these films, that even though they were not to my taste, it seems a lot, lot, lot of people, not just Tolkien fans, find them to be wonderful films.
I read Hobbit, LotR and Silmarillion multiple times, starting in middle school and going all the way thru college. And a ton of other fantasy novels, of course. A. ton. So it’s not that I dislike fantasy. Just disliked Fellowship, really, and never got past that.
Brachiator
Yes, please.
Love all his work, especially Kiki’s Delivery Service.
ETA: RIP Anne Rice, queen of the vampire novels
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: Swedish Chef as Gollum?
Dan B
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Well aren’t you special!
Friends who’ve been to New Zealand say it’s the most beautiful country, except a good friend of mine whose Canadian boyfriend was from there. They lived 8n Sydney fora year, visited Bobby’s family in a very windy spot at the north of South Island. (I’ve been waiting to type that, woot!) The food on the train was beyond English – pasty white bread, crust trimmed, choice of canned corn or canned peas for topping. This was the early 80’s and I hear it’s improved a lot.
I’d love to go but a high quality virtual (no bungees please) would be terrific.
BTW did you visit the Hogwarts set, or is that a different country?
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
Reading The Silmarillion multiple times?
I believe that violates the Geneva Conventions.
;)
AlaskaReader
So who among you is watching Wakefield?
Dan B
@AlaskaReader: What is that?
Reading Schiff. AmIclose?
PJ
@karen marie: Don’t watch the extended versions, and start with The Fellowship (contra to Chetan’s advice, The Hobbit movies are terrible, all of Jackson’s worst impulses taken to extremes.). If you don’t like the Fellowship, don’t keep watching.
SpaceUnit
Never read the books, didn’t care for the Peter Jackson films, but a LOTR with Fozzie Bear as Frodo would pretty much be my cup of tea.
As for the Beatles . . . well, humanity dodged a bullet there.
frosty
@PJ: @karen marie: I second all of this advice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I was thinking he would be Saruman, golden voice and all that.
Kalakal
Miss Piggy doubling as Arwen & Galadriel would add a certain something to it. Not neccessarialy a good something…
JoyceH
Have you folks heard about the US Postal Service ‘temporarily suspending’ mail service to Australia and New Zealand? HUH? Supposed to be COVID related somehow…
Brachiator
@PJ:
Totally agree. The standard version of the LoTR films is just fine for the average viewer.
Chetan Murthy
@PJ:
Oh wow. I hadn’t heard that [since not paying attention, since never gonna watch ’em] 100% believe you, and I retract my advice about which movie to watch first.
SpaceUnit
Also Beaker as Samwise.
sab
@Brachiator: I just told my dog Ponyo that, and she is SO EXCITED.
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: You have no idea what kind of SF&F reader I was. I mean …. just *devoured* the stuff. I was 13, and, y’know, for a 13yo boy who’s having a lot of trouble fitting in, SF&F can be a certain kind of escape. Just ground thru those novels like there was no tomorrow.
Then for decades, I wouldn’t touch the stuff: stuck to “literature”, which I must say is almost always superior. Lately (like: last 5yr) I’ve been re-reading some of the old stuff, and bit-by-bit the new stuff. B/c now it’s not for escape, so I don’t search for books that are written from the (ahem) sex-starved pubescent male POV.
Brachiator
@JoyceH:
From the USPS site:
New Zealand is listed.
sab
@karen marie: I loved the books and reread them repeatedly from age twelve to my mid-twenties. Walked out early in the first movie. Hobbits were fine, but not what Jackson did with the Elves. Everyone told me I should have started with the second movie.
lowtechcyclist
I’m holding out for a film adaptation of Bored of the Rings. When they were in their pre-teens, my two youngest cousins would have been perfect as Moxie and Pepsi.
lowtechcyclist
The second movie is what really did it in, AFAIAC. How do you make a movie of The Two Towers, and leave out all the Isengard stuff?
Robert Sneddon
How many times does this make for Miyazaki-dono’s “last movie?” He’s retired and un-retired quite a few times now.
Sadly his son hasn’t inherited the master’s touch but that’s possibly nurture rather than nature. Miyazaki Hayao grew up when Japan was changing in a very strange way, when the old was being forcibly wrenched away from the new and genius can’t really be taught or handed down to the next generation.
There are other Japanese animators and directors not in the Ghibli circle who are carving their own way in the world, people like Shinkai Makoto (The Place Promised To Us In Our Early Days, 5 Centimeters Per Second) and Mamoru Hosoda (Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki) who are also worth your time if you are fond of the Master’s work as well as studios other than Ghibli — I am a particular fan of Shaft and its idiosyncratic art style as demonstrated in the Orouboros-like entangled Monogatari series, directed by Shinbo.
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
As the saying goes, the Golden Age of science fiction is 13.
Full disclosure: Was an avid devourer of same myself. Other genres too, but shan’t get into that.
;)
Brachiator
@sab:
Are you talking about the Lord of the Rings films or the Hobbit?
I could never finish any of the novels. I did, however, love the Bored of the Rings parody novel. But I really enjoyed the LOTR trilogy.
Everyone? Were these people also big fans of the novels?
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Glad I bailed then, although sorry to have missed Sean Bean reviving his career. Twelve year old girl me always hated Boromir as just an annoying self-absorbed male jock. I was too young to understand the difficulties of his position. I just thought yuck! high school football player.
Sure Lurkalot
@Dan B: New Zealand is stunning. I posit anywhere there are more sheep than people makes a fine place to live or visit.
Wind and earthquakes seem to be its biggest drawbacks but I have longed to live there (temporarily or permanently) since I visited 15 years ago. I should’ve worked harder at it.
dmsilev
I very much enjoyed the LOTR films, but couldn’t finish the Hobbit trilogy. There are all sorts of post-mortems about what went wrong with the latter; the short answer is ‘almost everything’.
I haven’t yet had a chance to visit the new Academy museum and see the Ghibli exhibit, but I really need to carve out the time to do so. Maybe during the holiday break, assuming I don’t get snowed under with deadline-sensitive work.
sab
@Brachiator: How the fuck do yous turn that sweet not very long children’s book into three movies full of battles. I never saw any of the Hobbit movies.
I walked out in the Council of Elrond at the first LOTR movie. Didn’t like what they did with Elrond. Not the actor. The script. Snipey backbiting guy. I had always seen him as sort of special and calm and thoughtful. He just came across to me as bitchy.
Kalakal
I would love to see some films based on Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser Lankhmar books. I remember liking those far more than LOTR and I did like LOTR
NotMax
Well, the status of the package with the last of the few small items ordered via Amazon on Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals has now officially been changed there to Lost. The others have all been dribbling in, up to and including this past week.
By far nothing crucial, only something minor of which it’s nice to have a good amount in stock at home.
schrodingers_cat
In my ongoing artistic adventure, I bought several sketch books, a black one, one to draw and a mixed media one that takes wet media as well as dry, white pens and some blending tools. Charcoal kit coming next week. Plus a book called drawing class. I am thinking of reviving my blog and blogging about it
First blog post, how to start coloring and/or drawing without spending a dime. Use what you have.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Dan B: I’ve been to Harry Potter World in Florida. It was fun, but Hobbiton was much more fun. As you say, NZ is gorgeous.
schrodingers_cat
@dmsilev: I couldn’t even get through the Hobbit books. IMHO LOTR is overrated. I feel the same about Harry Potter too. I have only seen the first 3 movies. I thought they were okayish not great.
*ducks
BTW any Peaky blinders fans here? Or BSG? I like my fiction to be dark and morally ambiguous. Simplistic morality tales bore me.
zhena gogolia
Richard Armitage is brilliant as Thorin. But there’s a lot of other stuff in the movie, unfortunately.
OT, Bill Penzey is on fire today:
NotMax
FYI.
How to stop Alexa from ruining holiday surprises.
sab
OT: I just lit my Advent wreath. Week three: Joy (the one with the pink instead of the more somber purple or lavender candles.)
I love all the winter holidays based around lights.
My dog and cats think I am trying to burn the house down.
jackmac
@Baud: Big Bird as chief of the Nazgul.
Omnes Omnibus
@jackmac: That’s the ticket.
Anne Laurie
Oh, that would be fun! — at least as animated versions.
Marketing problem, though: These days, it’d be hard for people *not* to assume Fafhrd & the Mouser were a couple. (Even back in the less enlightened 1980s, there were parodies: Bring your mighty weapon over here, Faf — and your sword, also!) This would make some of the (teenage) audience so excited as to invite, shall we say, over-policing using only the most *correct* of modern standards… which would kinda kill most of the tongue-in-check joy of the originals.
And, of course, the Sad Puppies would probably write long screeds threatening to bomb the studios, the director’s home, any theatres showing the eventual…
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
Tune in to tomorrow’s morning thread (presuming I’m awake while it’s fresh). Got a capsule review of a little something waiting in the wings which might just fit your bill.
/teaser
Baud
@jackmac:
Snuffaluffagus as Sauron.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: Hint?
NotMax
@Baud
Not Sweetums?
;)
schrodingers_cat
I didn’t grow up watching Sesame Street so I have no opinion on it. Muppets are a tad creepy, like clowns. YMMV.
Mary G
I’m 65 and still reading SF/F. I can’t read the old stuff with all the leching after the well-endowed ensign who doesn’t even get a line.
jackmac
@Baud: Cookie Monster as Mouth of Sauron
schrodingers_cat
@Mary G:
Most SF is written with teenage boys in mind, it seems.
Nelle
We were going to go back to New Zealand in Feb of 2020 but I was sick, so we were going to postpone until March. We haven’t tried since then. I don’t know if we could get a place in the lottery for the quarantine hotel and we figured that people returning to see family have priority. And I refuse to be on a plane for 12-13 hours to get there. It is sobering to wonder if, at our age, we will get back at all. I know that aging means letting go, but that one will sting. 2020 was our 40th anniversary and we planned to go back to the two most epic places that we’ve lived – late summer in New Zealand and summer solstice on the Arctic Coast of Alaska (Kaktovik). It wasn’t to be. Will it ever be?
Steeplejack (phone)
@guachi:
Agreed. I have a version of this image on my wall.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (phone): How are you feeling?
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I took a drawing class a couple of years ago and it was really helpful. I think a book could be as helpful as a live instructor.
I was a very very good draftsman all through k-12 and college, but I lacked creativity.
My sister the soon to be retired successful art historiam was a terrible draftsman but her weird contorted drawings always were very interesting and artistically appealing. “That chair doesn’t even look like a chair but the drawing is mezmerizing.” Good design sense. Her good eye was part of her success in art history although she really couldn’t draw at all.
So I stopped doing it and moved on to other stuff.
My husband came across my youthful portfolio and said I should do more of that. But skills not used are skills lost. Trying to claw my way back to drawing competently.
I like what you are doing. I hope you keep at it.
dmsilev
@schrodingers_cat: The Hobbit is a pretty short book (not surprising, since it was written as a children’s story). That was one of the big problems with the film version; there just wasn’t all that much source material in the main text to support three overstuffed films.
As for quality of the books, well they’re certainly not perfect. The author had his issues, foibles, blind spots, hobbyhorses, etc. If nothing else, however, they were enormously influential in how fantasy writing developed over the latter half of the twentieth century. If it’s a genre you enjoy, LOTR is worth reading just for that.
Chetan Murthy
@Nelle:
I checked last night, and there are only a few countries from which they’re accepting visitors (and the US isn’t one of them). If you’re in AU, I would guess you can go, but from your description, you’re not.
I’m hoping to go in April or May (which will be end-of-summer there). Of course, “best-laid plans” and all …. who knows what the world will be like in April.
P.S. from what I understand, NZ expects to be able to reopen to visitors in April 2022. But again, who really knows?
sab
@schrodingers_cat: There used to be other amazimg stuff (Ursula LeGuin, e.g) but publishers thought adolescent males were their only market and began to ignore the others.
ETA I am a huge NK Jemisen fan.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
:averts eyes, tunelessly whistles:
:)
Chetan Murthy
@sab: LeGuin. Joanna Russ.
James Tiptree, Jr.Alice Sheldon. There are a few others. And these days …. so many female SF&F writers writing not-in-the-male-POV.ETA; Oh, and Octavia Butler!
Feathers
@Robert Sneddon: Watching the Miyazaki documentaries on HBOMax, there is a very sad moment where he says that he made a huge mistake in not training someone to replace him and take over the studio after he is gone. They show the son and he does not seem enthusiastic about having to step into his father’s shoes. The whole studio is set up to fulfill his desires, it basically shuts down when he is not working on something. Of course talented people moved on in order to be able to work on their own projects.
A company keeping going once the founder can’t run things is never a given. It has to be seriously planned for and set up, at least a decade before the transition is anticipated. The founder has to also be willing to not win every argument as the changeover happens.
I’m not happy that Ghibli will probably end with Miyazaki, but blame the father, not the son.
And the documentaries are excellent, not just for Ghibli fans but for seeing how creative work at the highest level happens.
Kalakal
@schrodigers_cat: You’re right there. There is SF I like eg Iain Banks & Alastair Reynolds but so much of it is formulaic dross.
dmsilev
@sab:
The Broken Earth trilogy is really good. I enjoyed The City We Became, but I suspect you have to be (or were) a New York resident to fully appreciate it.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia:
All zhena gogolia comments about Richard Armitage, always. :-)
Baud
@jackmac:
Animal as Animal.
Kent
@sab: The Lord of the Rings took 3 books and made them into 3 movies, which resulted in some condensing and re-writing but was more or less faithful to the source.
The Hobbit took one shorter book, and expanded it into three long movies, which was just too much and resulted in all manner of overblown mistakes.
Not to mention the fact that the Lord of the Rings is just a better and more coherent story all around than the Hobbit.
sab
@Chetan Murthy: There are a lot of wonderful books out there. Wander into any big box bookstore to SF&F and they are not there. That is a big change over the last 20 years. They disappeaared completely from big bookstores, but there they are online if you know where to look.
NotMax
@sab
The pressure to make everything a trilogy or tetralogy really did throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the business of SF&F.
Kalakal
@sab: I think the big shift was it went from sf & f to f. What sf remained was nearly all movie tie ins eg Star Wars. You’re right you do have to look, there is good stuff still. I have a special loathing for ‘military’ SF.
Chetan Murthy
@sab:
100% agree. That there is a sizable female audience for SF&F has completely changed the game. B/c before that, aside from a few writers, it was all aimed at teenage boys. Or at least, that’s how I remember it.
Dan B
@WaterGirl: Also an Armitage fan here as much because he seemed to be dating Lee Pace, another fine and charismatic actor and chameleon. Lee Pace seems to have married his long term boyfriend recently. Lee and Richard may have been too alike to keep the excitement of being in a relationship going.
germy
sab
@Kalakal: Last time I went to a bookstore for SF it was all Star Trek. My reaction was “Excuse me. I am old. This was a thing when I was fourteen, Don’t you have anything more recent”?
schrodingers_cat
@dmsilev: I have read all 3 in the LOTR trilogy. The second one was a slog. Couldn’t really get into Harry Potter.
Nelle
@Chetan Murthy: I think I can go as I’m a New Zealand citizen, but haven’t looked into it.
Brachiator
@sab:
A lot of people are still puzzling over this. Peter Jackson was too much in love with the material. Unfortunately he forgot to make a good movie.
Since I didn’t know the novels well or even care about them, I didn’t come to the films with any deep expectations of particular characters. But I deeply admired and enjoyed the films.
I also think I compared the Jackson films to the Star Wars prequels, which I found to be empty and joyless.
Maybe another director will attempt a reboot years from now. There certainly seems to be room for other approaches.
Robert Sneddon
@Feathers: I rather get the impression from many sources that Miyazaki-dono was almost impossible to work with as a collaborator and only tolerable to work for as a subordinate. He could be wonderful to interact with — I was slightly acquainted with Diana Wynn Jones who wrote the book “Howl’s Moving Castle”, one of the very few movies Ghibli ever made from someone else’s existing work. The finished movie was being considered for an animation award at Cannes, the jury invited the reclusive Miyazaki to be at the awards. He refused, of course since, well Miyazaki but he suggested they invite Diana instead. The jury said in effect, “A mere writer? Pshaw.” and there was no invite to Cannes for Diana.
Shortly thereafter Miyazaki airfreighted a specially subtitled 35mm print of the as-yet-unreleased film to Wales and hired a movie theatre in Diana’s home town for a single evening’s showing of the movie to her and her friends. Class.
Hungry Joe
@Chetan Murthy: Don’t forget C.J. Cherryh — especially her Chanur novels. Anything in her Union-Alliance universe, really. Haven’t tried any of her fantasy stuff.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: We had a lovely art/drawing teacher in school. I was good but not great in school. Drawing the human form was not my strong point.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: Always!
Come on, you can’t have a thread about the hobbit without mentioning the great RA!
karen marie
@Chetan Murthy:
@PJ:
@frosty:
I appreciate all of your advice.
zhena gogolia
@Dan B: They’re both so beautiful.
zhena gogolia
@germy: RIP, Lina.
karen marie
@sab: Now you’re scaring me.
zhena gogolia
@Nelle: Godzone! (I only know this from Olga Tokarczuk.)
zhena gogolia
OTOH, Peter Jackson has made one masterpiece, Get Back.
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
Heh. And from the stone age of SF.
;)
Kalakal
@Hungry Joe: I really liked the Chronicles of Morgaine by her
mrmoshpotato
Mmmmmmmmmmmm
Mmmmmmmmmmmm
Mmmmmmmmmmmm
karen marie
@schrodingers_cat: “Hobbit books”? There’s only one, isn’t there? “The Hobbit”?
Cameron
A number of years ago I read a book called The Natural History of Make Believe, which I found fascinating. Author loathed LOTR (which I didn’t and don’t have an opinion on, never having read) and Narnia (which, based on the little reading I did, I agreed with). It’s probably out of print now.
schrodingers_cat
@karen marie: You are right book not books. Wasn’t there more than one movie though? I mixed up the many movies with the books. My bad.
Hungry Joe
@Kalakal: You’re the third or fourth person to recommend that to me. I’ve never liked fantasy, but I trust Cherryh and should give it a try.
sab
@Brachiator: I am glad to see your different perspective. Book to movie is always difficult and book people are often disappointed. Maybe I just didn’t like the color of the scenery.
In Jackson’s defense, I went to see it with my new boyfriend who I have since married and has been my spouse of twenty years. He did not and does not like fantasy, especially anything that reeks of Britain (his folks are Irish.) He was too annoyed to fall asleep. Maybe with a better companion I would have been more tolerant, but I doubt it.
WaterGirl
@Dan B: I wasn’t disagreeing! Or mocking. Just teasing since zhena is a big fan.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
(Sound on, and wait for it…)
Context from DW.com:
Cheers,
Scott.
RSA
@Chetan Murthy:
This is so much my own trajectory in reading. I’ve gone back now and then to SF over the years, but only lightly, to catch up on some modern space opera and adventurous-but-literary SF (Banks, Reynolds, SImmons, etc.)
All along, though, I had my favorites that I’d be happy to tell anyone about: Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stanislaw Lem, and Jack Vance.
sab
@karen marie: You’re not twelve. An unfortunate side of my personality is that I tend to obsess about stuff until I move on to the next obsession. My current one is Dorothy Dunnett. She is amazing, but the obsession is all me. Historical fiction not Sci Fy.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Can you imagine if Boris wore wired earphones at the party?
They’d throw him into the Tower.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: Lee Pace at 6′-5″ with that deep voice. He’s another one who could read the phone book. I would watch.
oatler
@Kalakal:
Yes! and unlike LOTR, Leiber’s stories contain money, fornication and religion(s).
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
Still very sore, but the pain is now in the “bad normal” zone as opposed to the “extreme medical bad” zone, if that makes sense.
Swelling is still huge.
mrmoshpotato
@Another Scott: Flobalob, comb your fucking hair, you slapdick!
debbie
I don’t remember if I’ve seen all three of the movies or just two. Everything in it was too long for me. The animated version from around the 1970s is still my favorite version.
Dan B
@WaterGirl: I caught the teasing. I’m glad to hear from someone who appreciates these actors who are incredibly handsome but gravitate towards roles that are interesting and challenging.
Dan B
@Steeplejack (phone): Told you that’s what the vaccine does!! But would You Listen!?
Heal soon ❤
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
Cameron
Anyone else here a Gene Wolfe fan? I like all his stuff, but The Book of the New Sun completely blew me away – science fiction written as fantasy.
NotMax
@Cameron
Triple AAA+++ stuff, that.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Dan B:
But I didn’t think it would happen to me!
oatler
@Cameron:
I used to eat Wolfe for breakfast lunch and dinner, but he sort of lost me with the Book of the Long Sun. Almost as if he was trying to be convoluted for convolution’s sake.
Recommend his short story collections though, as well as all his other works, especially Peace.
Tehanu
Are you kidding? That may have been true back in the 1950’s. Don’t try to tell me that “The Broken Earth” trilogy or Ancillary Justice or Station 11 or “The Long Price Quartet” or A Memory Called Empire are mind candy for pimply adolescents.
Cameron
@NotMax:
@oatler:
Also a big fan of “James Tiptree Jr.” It’s unfortunate that people who would otherwise have enjoyed scifi got turned of by the Giant-Engineering-Problems-of-the-Future shit. Shoot, there’s always been great stuff out there, just a lot of it had a hard time finding a home.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (phone): Oh, I hope it passes soon.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Another Scott: Hopefully Labor runs Ted Lasso or Claire Foy
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
Thanks! It’s just a matter of time now. And I can do most stuff normally now (if gingerly).
Checking myself out of Sighthound Hall tomorrow and returning to my modest but comfy rooms in Threadkill Lane.
Ruckus
@Dan B:
I did a 3 week motorcycle tour of NZ, both islands, Aukland to the south end of the south island. And back, but north on the opposite side of the country. A most beautiful place. The people were better than the place. I met amazing people and truly enjoyed my far, far too short stay. I would have emigrated there if I had not been right at the age that ended that possibility. I recommend it, and hope to get back for another visit some day. Reasonably soon would be best.
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack (phone): So when they say “huge cojones” you respond “present!”, right?
Gin & Tonic
Speaking of surgery, I learned a new word the other day: capsulorrhaphy. It is a surgical procedure to correct shoulder instability. Not for me, for my son. This will be his second surgery on the same shoulder.
Gin & Tonic
Was in NZ about 10-12 years ago, early spring for them. Got some skiing in, and did this, which is not quite as insane as bungee jumping. If not for the whole family and job (at the time) thing, I’d have moved there in a heartbeat.
El-Man
Should I post my pics from Hobbiton? Toured back in 2016, and have a few without any family members in…
different-church-lady
That is just far too on-the-nose to be believable.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: It sounds amusing as a Beatles movie but terrible as an actual LOTR adaptation. They could do Bored of the Rings, that would make sense.
RSA
It’s possible you’re both right. When I was immersed in the field, I think that the most popular material appealed mostly to young male readers, but the best work was much more universal.
(Interestingly, when I do a Google search for the most “popular” SF series, all the hits are for the “best” SF series. But they’re not the same thing at all.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic:
The kid did the bungee jumping there; she is, of course, insane.
CarolPW
@oatler:
The New Sun and Long Sun stuff was obscure enough to be pretty tedious, but his other books, like Pandora by Holly Hollander, Castleview, the Soldier in the Mist set and The Knight books were fantastic. Tim Powers is also not to be forgotten.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Gin & Tonic:
I thought you were the “no details, please” guy?
Kalakal
@CarolPW: I love The Anubis gates
Lyrebird
@Tehanu: I don’t know how to define “most” but I want to say that I get a smile seeing your nym. Haven’t read any LeGuin in a while, but she and CJ Cherryh and Patricia McKillip (ever read Fool’s Run?) had a huge impact on me back in the day.
CarolPW
@Kalakal: Me too. The Drawing of the Dark is also a favorite.
Procopius
@Chetan Murthy: Some guy named Peter Graham was asked, “When was the golden age of science fiction?” He replied, “Twelve.”
Steeplejack (phone)
@El-Man:
Send them to WaterGirl as an “On the Road” post. Commenters can’t post photos in the threads here.
Fair Economist
For most of my middle age I lost interest in fantasy and sci-fi, but lately I have picked it up again and find there’s a lot of good SF & F by female authors today. Some recently that I particularly liked are The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab, the Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemison, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, and The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri.
I really liked Jackson’s Fellowship. I recall from the book that Elrond was a foot dragger, and I thought it fine he was a bit petty. In particular, the scene of Galadriel refusing the Ring was just incredible. I thought the movies declined as the series went on – Two Towers was mostly good but dropping the Siege of Isengard was a huge mistake and the Helm’s Deep fight went on WAY too long. The first half of RotK was fine but the second half of about 5 sequential happy endings filmed through vaselined lenses was just awful. It really made me understand how important the Cleansing of the Shire was to keep the ending from being too sappy.
CarolPW
@Lyrebird: Patricia McKillip, Robin McKinley and Vonda McIntyre made it easy to shop books in a bricks-and-mortar store without walking very far.
frosty
@zhena gogolia: They Shall Not Grow Old, another Jackson movie on my list, is supposed to be very good.
Another Scott
Dean Baker at CEPR: Will we see deflation in the next 12 months?
It could happen. There are lots of unknowns and wildcards, of course.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@frosty: Bad Taste, and Braindead aka Dead Alive. ?
LiminalOwl
@Omnes Omnibus: Bert as Legolas, Ernie as Gimli.
LiminalOwl
@PJ: Seconded on all points.
dnfree
@Chetan Murthy: The Lord of the Rings movies are great. Three books, three movies. Making the much lighter book The Hobbit into three movies was a ludicrous expansion, requiring a lot of padding and added drama. The entire style of the book was destroyed. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
LiminalOwl
PJ
@Kalakal: Leiber’s stories were good until they turned into the detailed erotic fantasies of a white male senior citizen.
cain
I’m hoping for Wheel of Time or some other thing I am not quite sure of because I can’t remember.
cain
@Fair Economist:
I’ve been a fantasy lover since the 80s and used to even interact with a number of fantasy writers through BBS. Great people – love hanging out with them when they were drunk. (I get around :-)
But there are plenty of great fantasy books that I enjoy over the years.
Richard
@karen marie:
You should probably give it a try. It has a great soundtrack. Some of the themes are beginning to be outdated, but it still has a lot of impact on popular culture. People still refer to LOTR everyday.
sab
@Procopius: Hours late to your comment, but I did guffaw. Too true.
LiminalOwl
@Mary G: Preach! (But there were good authors, even then.)
@schrodingers_cat: Yes, in the so-called Golden Age. Not currently, at least not the stuff that wins awards, or in the major magazines. And that’s what a small group of malcontents are ranting about.
LiminalOwl
@sab: Jemisrn, and Nnedi Okorafor too.