Noon_Shadow
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Watching DS9 after having watched the re-imagined BSG series, you can really see the Ronald Moore influence on Deep Space 9. Nods.
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Noon_Shadow
Corrupting Influence
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There's being type-cast....and then there's Hugh Jackman. He's quite literally stuck in the exact same role, over and over again. "Will you please play Wolverine again? For the sixth time?"
Raven_Timothy
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I think real steal, and Oklahoma are the only two exceptions.
Britwitch
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He was fantastic in Oklahoma!
nod nods
Most of his stage stuff is brilliant though.
Raven_Timothy
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How much stage stuff am I missing?
Noon_Shadow
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Finally caught up on "Game of Thrones," and I've hit upon a couple of my problems with its presentation. I understand what they're doing, in an attempt to be as true an adaptation of the novels as they can be. Budget limitations I understand. They can't show everything. And there's timeframe issues because actors are real people and not fictional characters. You can't keep Jaime Lannister sitting in a cell for an entire season, doing nothing, because you have Nikolaj Coster-Waldau under contract. So you moved around a few events so you're making use of the actor because you're paying him. I forgive that.
But the point I'm running into right now is that it seems like they've made an extra effort to make the "villains" more likeable at the expense of the "heroes." GRRM did a brilliant job of devoting time to make a plethora of complicated characters with different motivations, which is why we like him. Even the people we want to hate are sympathetic, with only a few exceptions. Some of the people we thought were villains turned out to be good people, even. The show creators want to do the same thing-take the people we don't like and make us start feeling for them; but GRRM made sure his heroes remained very sympathetic and interesting as well, so we don't actively root AGAINST them. The show creators seem to think we'll like them just because they're the "good" guys, and are missing a lot of what made those characters work.
Robb Stark in the book was a horribly tragic figure. He was clever in battle and not a complete idiot in politics, not quite the way he was portrayed in the show. In the show, of course, he ruins an alliance because he falls in love with a mysterious foreign girl and immediately declares he has to marry her, despite having extremely limited screen chemistry with her. The story in the book worked much better, and even though the timeframe was different, they could have made it work because they moved up the Bran stuff as well. His motivations make a TON more sense.
Book version: He's off fighting battles, winning constantly against the Lannisters. He takes the keep of an old proud house fallen on hard times, but he takes an arrow and is wounded in battle. The noble father in the house swears his allegiance to Stark, having been suffering under Tywin Lanniser's rule. His daughter falls in love with Robb while tending his wound, but Robb knows he can't marry her because her house is small and useless and she's sworn to another-an awareness he lacked in the show. However, when he hears news about Winterfell, he thinks his brothers have died, and in his grief, she comforts him. And since it's a grown-up story, that means she fucked him senseless. She was the only daughter of a poor house, so her marriage prospects weren't that bright to begin with, but then Robb took her "honor," according to the definitions of Westeros, so he essentially ruined her. The only way he could restore her honor was to place HER honor above his own by marrying her...which is an extremely noble thing to do, if tragically idiotic. It also makes plenty of sense why he was so damned pissed at Rickard Karstark when he killed the young Lannisters-that man placed his own thirst for vengeance of the honor of himself AND Robb-so Robb couldn't forgive him even though he desperately wanted a way out. Plus, it's subtly suggested that Tywin Lannister pulled the strings of the girl's mother in plenty of ways, perhaps even setting this up. It's a hell of a lot more sympathetic than falling in love with a beautiful foreign girl who was independent enough to leave Westeros if she wanted to. So people lost a lot of interest in Robb Stark because they took away plenty of the things which were supposed to make him compelling.
Same thing is happening with Jon Snow. By this point in the story, he's accumulated quite a bit of wisdom, and he's done behaving completely idiotic for the most part. The story is setting up STRINGS of crowning moments for him as a character. The show doesn't know what he is-he still sounds like a bumbling idiot too often. Kit Harrington needs a speech coach. When he escaped the wildlings, he was riding like hell to warn Castle Black that wildlings were south of the Wall and planning to attack. He was in a fucking hurry. In the show, he's in no damn rush, dawdling enough to wash his face and wasting enough time that a girl ON FOOT somehow caught up with him. I'd have forgiven this tragic farewell scene in which she shoots him (which she did in the book, during his initial escape), however, if he had something good to say. The people writing the show had to create this whole scene since it's a departure from the book. But his "I have to go on home" phrase, repeated more than once, doesn't do shit to convince me that he's noble. Which he is-he's supposed to be probably the most noble character in the whole story. He's had to accept what the Night's Watch is-a shitty posting for washed up men, political exiles, and criminals...but honor is not an external thing, and he can remain an honorable man doing a job that really sucks, despite all the reasons he has to leave. It's there in the story, but the show doesn't have the patience to make it interesting.
It's not really justice for his relationship with Ygritte, either. The show has done a great job of doing service to that relationship, which has some of the best on-screen chemistry of any pairing. But a bad "farewell" scene is worse than none at all-there's some value is splitting characters up forever without the chance to say good-bye.
It annoys that fans are bored by watching what are some of my favorite book characters...and they're justified in doing it because of how they're portrayed.
I'll give them credit, though. I love all the scenes with Littlefinger and Varys. You don't get their verbal sparring matches in the book because Martin doesn't want to give you too much insight on characters who "know too much." It spoils some of the suspense. Varys is a brilliant character for the show, and I love what they're doing with Shae, also.
But another issue is that they can't seem to set things up until right when they need it. Like Melisandre and the blood magic. A lot of time passes between the leeches on the flame and Robb Stark's death. Enough that you forget about it. You don't even notice it in the book until Balon AND Robb are dead, and Davos is arguing about whether it's valid unless Joffrey also dies. I don't even see the point of rushing that whole vein of the story-I guess they don't want to keep Stannis cooped up in one location for too long? But then again, if you're wanting to save money, why not follow the story, which keeps in a set you already HAVE for an extended period of time, rather than rushing things? I don't get it. Plus this whole thing about guest-rights. It was a long-running theme in the book that NOBODY would hurt someone with guest rights in the house, not even Tywin Lannister, so it's shocking when Robb is murdered at his wedding-people didn't think Walder Frey would be the man to anger the gods. In the show, it's not even established until after Robb's body is cold.
Okay, I think I'm through ranting. It's frustrating to really like something, but also knowing that it could be better if it just TRIED to be.
But the point I'm running into right now is that it seems like they've made an extra effort to make the "villains" more likeable at the expense of the "heroes." GRRM did a brilliant job of devoting time to make a plethora of complicated characters with different motivations, which is why we like him. Even the people we want to hate are sympathetic, with only a few exceptions. Some of the people we thought were villains turned out to be good people, even. The show creators want to do the same thing-take the people we don't like and make us start feeling for them; but GRRM made sure his heroes remained very sympathetic and interesting as well, so we don't actively root AGAINST them. The show creators seem to think we'll like them just because they're the "good" guys, and are missing a lot of what made those characters work.
Robb Stark in the book was a horribly tragic figure. He was clever in battle and not a complete idiot in politics, not quite the way he was portrayed in the show. In the show, of course, he ruins an alliance because he falls in love with a mysterious foreign girl and immediately declares he has to marry her, despite having extremely limited screen chemistry with her. The story in the book worked much better, and even though the timeframe was different, they could have made it work because they moved up the Bran stuff as well. His motivations make a TON more sense.
Book version: He's off fighting battles, winning constantly against the Lannisters. He takes the keep of an old proud house fallen on hard times, but he takes an arrow and is wounded in battle. The noble father in the house swears his allegiance to Stark, having been suffering under Tywin Lanniser's rule. His daughter falls in love with Robb while tending his wound, but Robb knows he can't marry her because her house is small and useless and she's sworn to another-an awareness he lacked in the show. However, when he hears news about Winterfell, he thinks his brothers have died, and in his grief, she comforts him. And since it's a grown-up story, that means she fucked him senseless. She was the only daughter of a poor house, so her marriage prospects weren't that bright to begin with, but then Robb took her "honor," according to the definitions of Westeros, so he essentially ruined her. The only way he could restore her honor was to place HER honor above his own by marrying her...which is an extremely noble thing to do, if tragically idiotic. It also makes plenty of sense why he was so damned pissed at Rickard Karstark when he killed the young Lannisters-that man placed his own thirst for vengeance of the honor of himself AND Robb-so Robb couldn't forgive him even though he desperately wanted a way out. Plus, it's subtly suggested that Tywin Lannister pulled the strings of the girl's mother in plenty of ways, perhaps even setting this up. It's a hell of a lot more sympathetic than falling in love with a beautiful foreign girl who was independent enough to leave Westeros if she wanted to. So people lost a lot of interest in Robb Stark because they took away plenty of the things which were supposed to make him compelling.
Same thing is happening with Jon Snow. By this point in the story, he's accumulated quite a bit of wisdom, and he's done behaving completely idiotic for the most part. The story is setting up STRINGS of crowning moments for him as a character. The show doesn't know what he is-he still sounds like a bumbling idiot too often. Kit Harrington needs a speech coach. When he escaped the wildlings, he was riding like hell to warn Castle Black that wildlings were south of the Wall and planning to attack. He was in a fucking hurry. In the show, he's in no damn rush, dawdling enough to wash his face and wasting enough time that a girl ON FOOT somehow caught up with him. I'd have forgiven this tragic farewell scene in which she shoots him (which she did in the book, during his initial escape), however, if he had something good to say. The people writing the show had to create this whole scene since it's a departure from the book. But his "I have to go on home" phrase, repeated more than once, doesn't do shit to convince me that he's noble. Which he is-he's supposed to be probably the most noble character in the whole story. He's had to accept what the Night's Watch is-a shitty posting for washed up men, political exiles, and criminals...but honor is not an external thing, and he can remain an honorable man doing a job that really sucks, despite all the reasons he has to leave. It's there in the story, but the show doesn't have the patience to make it interesting.
It's not really justice for his relationship with Ygritte, either. The show has done a great job of doing service to that relationship, which has some of the best on-screen chemistry of any pairing. But a bad "farewell" scene is worse than none at all-there's some value is splitting characters up forever without the chance to say good-bye.
It annoys that fans are bored by watching what are some of my favorite book characters...and they're justified in doing it because of how they're portrayed.
I'll give them credit, though. I love all the scenes with Littlefinger and Varys. You don't get their verbal sparring matches in the book because Martin doesn't want to give you too much insight on characters who "know too much." It spoils some of the suspense. Varys is a brilliant character for the show, and I love what they're doing with Shae, also.
But another issue is that they can't seem to set things up until right when they need it. Like Melisandre and the blood magic. A lot of time passes between the leeches on the flame and Robb Stark's death. Enough that you forget about it. You don't even notice it in the book until Balon AND Robb are dead, and Davos is arguing about whether it's valid unless Joffrey also dies. I don't even see the point of rushing that whole vein of the story-I guess they don't want to keep Stannis cooped up in one location for too long? But then again, if you're wanting to save money, why not follow the story, which keeps in a set you already HAVE for an extended period of time, rather than rushing things? I don't get it. Plus this whole thing about guest-rights. It was a long-running theme in the book that NOBODY would hurt someone with guest rights in the house, not even Tywin Lannister, so it's shocking when Robb is murdered at his wedding-people didn't think Walder Frey would be the man to anger the gods. In the show, it's not even established until after Robb's body is cold.
Okay, I think I'm through ranting. It's frustrating to really like something, but also knowing that it could be better if it just TRIED to be.
Noon_Shadow
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I just needed to vent. Overall it's an extremely worthy effort, and hopefully it launches a few more attempts for TV to attempt some of these adaptations of great book series. It's the minor little things, the ways in which they're failing when it's obvious they can do better-since they're succeeding in many other ways-that frustrate me.
There are still fans of TV series who can recognize foreshadowing if you do it long enough in advance. There are sophisticated viewers out there who still aren't interested in reading these books. They've rather gone light a lot of the foreshadowing that takes place in the books, anyway. And considering that they do "remember this?" series of clips at the start of every episode, to remind people of important stuff they might have missed, I don't know that it's entirely necessary that they set up certain things right at the same time they plan to use it. I mean, that's sort of cheap, but I think it adds some depth to make sure that the elements you need for the story are established ahead of time.
But yes, I think we're all ready for Jon Snow to stop acting like an idiot. By now viewers have all realized that he's a significant character, but we're not given much reason to care. There's not much about him that's compelling at the moment, aside from Ygritte...and they ruined that in their last scene together by making him act totally cringe-worthy. He hasn't done anything remarkably interesting as a character in the show for quite a while-he looks like he's being helplessly dragged around by the plot, rather than being an active member of the story. Hopefully someone realizes that in between seasons.
It's a contrast from the books, where many readers, like me, wanted to peek ahead just to see when the next "Jon" chapter is, if we don't outright skip ahead to it.
Noon_Shadow
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Now I'm watching that Jim Carey film, "The Truman Show." Okay, so the premise is that he's been on television his entire life-that's what makes it work, after all-he doesn't realize he's in a fake world. But seriously, how did this show stay on the air the first 2-3 years? Who wants to watch some random baby 24 hours a day? That's generally the critical period for any show trying to stay on the air, but wasn't it awfully boring for the overall premise at that point? I mean, he's probably not REALLY interesting to follow until he reaches at least the pre-teen years, regardless of what kind of plot events they put into place around him.
Veroe
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You're putting a little too much thought into it...granted I do the same thing with zombie films...
Nobody has explained to me how a zombie virus makes dead flesh move. Just standing up and taking one step without falling over takes a lot of cognitive processing power...how the hell does a virus make it do that when the brain isn't getting any more blood with oxygen. Its like thinking you can make totaled car to run by just replacing the spark plugs. How the hell does this oh-so-convenient virus know how to make a dead body move in a coordinated way in order to chase after people or recognize who hasn't been turned into a zombie.
Wouldn't the zombies attack eachother...I mean flesh is flesh right? So right there blows their greatest strength-numbers-right out of the water.
How the hell does the zombue virus know how to single out and amp up the animal part of the brain and wouldn't that just make them act like gorrillas or chimpanzees not like a zombie horde? I mean the world isn't being overrun by swarms of gorrillas and chimps right now is it? No, because Chimps and gorrillas don't act that way. Generally most animals don't and the ones that do are highly territorial so they wouldn't be comfortable in a huge swarm. Maybe some bugs...but that's whole other branch of the evolutionary tree and would be highly improbable to make human beings-primates-act like soldier ants.
I don't like zombie films, they give me the heebie-jeebies big time, and are utterly unbelievable to me.
Noon_Shadow
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Yeah, I get it. Still, for people who like zombie films, that's just something you accept within the premise. There's acceptable breaks from reality, in which you're willing to accept something implausible as a necessary part of the story-you just throw something out so it's addressed, and try avoid anything else that's too implausible.
But this film, this actually encourages to realize that he's been on TV his entire life, since they mention the "episode where he took his first steps." Seriously, it drives me nuts to imagine who was watching the show prior to that point. What interest is there in a baby/toddler who doesn't realize their whole life is taking place in TV land? It's kind of like drawing attention to something problematic within your story and hoping people forgive you for it.
Veroe
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Every film has some flaws some more than others...like the plotholes in the Dark Knight Rises for instance or even the Avengers. The good films you are willing to overlook such flaws because on the whole the rest of it has built a surplus of awesome.
But all films have weaknesses.
Noon_Shadow
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Well, not all films. Sometimes people get the dramatic elements just right and you don't find yourself asking any questions. There's films like Citizen Kane or Sunset Boulevard which are just great stories that don't have any weaknesses. But sadly, it seems like we can't really produce great movies any more. Or just don't know how, I don't. The last truly great, transcendent film was, what? Fight Club? Schilndler's List? The past 10 years have been fairly disappointing in terms of finding something that truly makes me want to go out to the cinema.
Veroe
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Citizen Kane or Sunset Boulevard probably had flaws too, but like I said those flaws are negligible to us, and I think you're being a little unfair to recent films.
You forget that the seminal films of yesteryear were diamonds in just as much useless derivative forgotten rough as there are today. We haven't lost any creativity its just transcended into newer avenues.
Besides who cares what other people think are great films the only film critic whose opinion should matter to you is your own. In the past ten years there have been many great films....maybe not flawless films and not all of them that popular...but great to me.
Case in point I loved Pacific Rim but its getting only a "Meh" by critics and though I don't know the numbers probably at the box office too. But that's a film I will proudly add to my collection of Blu-ray discs.
Noon_Shadow
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Names of Star Trek Episodes that could also be the names of porn films:
"Where No Man Has Gone Before."
"The Man Trap."
"The Naked Time."
"Charlie X."
"What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
"Space Seed."
"The Devil In The Dark."
"Obsession."
"A Piece of the Action."
And those are just from TOS, missing out on some gems like, "The Most Toys,"
"The Measure of a Man," "Booby Trap," and "The Best of Both Worlds."
I could write a shit-ton of Star Trek themed porn, as long as people didn't mind it being cheesy and tasteless.
"Where No Man Has Gone Before."
"The Man Trap."
"The Naked Time."
"Charlie X."
"What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
"Space Seed."
"The Devil In The Dark."
"Obsession."
"A Piece of the Action."
And those are just from TOS, missing out on some gems like, "The Most Toys,"
"The Measure of a Man," "Booby Trap," and "The Best of Both Worlds."
I could write a shit-ton of Star Trek themed porn, as long as people didn't mind it being cheesy and tasteless.
saysalice
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laughs
I'd watch your Star Trek porn, Noon. Though I'm sure I wouldn't appreciate all of the in-jokes.
Vail, if you are still looking for recommendations for horror/thriller movies, we watched The Cabin in the Woods the other night, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Loved it. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty entertaining.
I'd watch your Star Trek porn, Noon. Though I'm sure I wouldn't appreciate all of the in-jokes.
Vail, if you are still looking for recommendations for horror/thriller movies, we watched The Cabin in the Woods the other night, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Loved it. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty entertaining.
saysalice
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Not to me! (Or if you did, I missed it.) Thank you, I will look it up, too!*
We get on these scary movie benders. We watched Sinister, earlier in the week, and I spent the whole time like: Aughhh! Great movie, hun!!
Jumpy. I'm not a fan of excessively jumpy movies.
* At first, I thought you meant The Cove, and I thought: it's official. Vail hates me.
Noon_Shadow
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Proof that there's still room in this world for Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I can't typically do horror/thriller films. They don't do a lot for me, personally. I'd watch them if I had people to watch them with, perhaps.
Though I do tend to enjoy a somewhat related genre, Suspense films. Mainly because, if those are well done, they're good at making my brain work. I like stories that make me think...even though a lot of what I've been watching lately has been stuff to help turn my brain off, so I can get to sleep.
Noon_Shadow
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thestruggle
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I finished Orange is the New Black last week, am pouting now because I want to know what happens. Laura Prepon is so fucking sexy in that show. God, the glasses. THE GLASSES.
DeevaLicious
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I just finished Orange is the New Black last night. I loved it!!! I am dying to know what happens next. And Laura Prepon....sheesh. I would do wicked things to her. A million times over.
swoons
MAWriter50
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Sharknado rocked. I thought Nova was wicked hot. Tara Reid blew.
thestruggle
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