KB: 360 (12.2.08)
TV
Are you lost when it comes to…Lost? Try ABC’s Lost Starter Kit.
A&E is giving us what we all have been waiting for, a Steven Seagal reality show.
Friday Night Lights returns to NBC on January 16th. I will probably do a full post that week laying out the reasons why you should be watching.
ABC is developing a new show Flash Forward, based on a sci-fi novel. Sounds promising.
Movies
Since Twilight appears to be a hot topic, here are 10 reasons “Breaking Dawn” should not be made into a movie.
Sequel Alert! Speed 3?
Sequel Alert! Tron 2!
Remake Alert! Planet of the Apes. Again?
A first look at Friday Night Light’s Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins) as Gambit in the new Wolverine movie.
Ridley Scott is reimagining Robin Hood with Russel Crowe involved.
Heath Ledger deserves an Oscar nomination.
Posted on December 2, 2008, in Pop Culture. Bookmark the permalink. 25 Comments.
Steve Evans
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ninemoons
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Clark Goble
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Tim J
I don’t get it, Planet of the Apes again? I don’t mind the remakes, but can we give it 30 or so years between the original and the new version of a movie?
Flash Forward sounds awesome, it will either fail or they’ll ruin it. There’s no was something that sounds that cool will survive.
And wow, after reading that ten reasons breaking Dawn should be made, I’m in shock. I know it’s boiled down to a few paragraphs, but it’s doing a pretty good job of reinforcing what I think about Meyer as an author.
I have reason 1 why Breaking Dawn shouldn’t be a movie: because it sucks. But, also, did anyone else notice the drop-off of Twilight goers after the first weekend? And the people saying they were disappointed and won’t see it again / buy it? Probably more that the studio would like!
I loved the top 10 list. It really does illustrate how full of cheese that series is and what a bad author (good story-teller, but bad author) Meyer is.
If you’re not lost watching Lost then you’re not watching Lost.
By the way, your list is pretty scary. Audiences have been waiting years for book-to-film versions of stories with real potential (e.g., Ender’s Game), so why do we get Seagal Reality, Planet of the Apes III, Speed 3? Yeah, I know, not the same audiences, blah blah.
Robin Hood is a good BBC serial.
I don’t know how another movie would fare, unless Robin gets mutant powers.
1 Reason Not to Watch Friday Night Lights: Tyra and Landry. =P
We were so addicted to FNL this summer, watching all of both seasons in a matter of a couple weeks. This season… Riggins is about the only person to really root for.
FHL,
I hope they keep Landry in the direction they’re going. And Crucifictorious rules!
The first episodes of the season with Smash were great and I like how they wrapped up Jason Street’s storyline. And coach throwing to Seracen in the street was one of thosee scenes that makes the show great.
What Meyer really needs is a good editor. There are no excuses for some of her grammatical blunders. My wife even noticed, and she is not one who normally notices or cares about grammar.
Amen to “Ender’s Game” as a movie. Card’s only decent work, IMO. It would be cool.
And we need a new version of Fountainhead badly. Or at least I do.
What Meyer needs is a better thesaurus.
Robin Hood on the BBC is a mixed bag. I still have 5 episodes unwatched on my DVR.
Regarding remakes. I’m of the opinion that instead of remaking great films they should remake films that could have been great but for some reason (direction, acting, that ill defined “meshing” of element) the film just didn’t work. There are tons of movies like that.
Of course what it really comes down to is convincing investors (which may be the studios themselves). It’s easier to say you’ll get some of your money back if the film was a hit in the past.
BTW – the Ridley Scott Robin Hood has been in the works for a while. It sounds really intriguing with it being done from the perspective of the Sheriff. I’m hoping this works out. Kingdom of Heaven was a good but flawed film. Make sure you watch the Director’s cut – it was sliced up for time by the studios. Often Director’s cuts make the movie worse not better. (Apocalypse Now I’m looking at you) But that was one of those where it made a huge difference.
What about Ridley’s Scott’s upcoming movie based on the board game Monopoly? I wish I was making this up.
That depends. Who’s playing the thimble?
“Card’s only decent work, IMO”
I’m not real fond of the stuff that’s come out in the last 14 years or so, but really?
The Worthing Saga, Folk of the Fringe, the first three Alvin books, Speaker for the Dead and Hart’s Hope are all excellent. And his first short story collection Maps in a Mirror has some very good short stories.
Pastwatch is pretty decent as well.
That depends. Who’s playing the thimble?
Robert Hegyes. Why?
I care more about some of the characters on FNL than I do about members of my family. Tim J, I blame you. I also blame you for there being no episode this last week. ~
Ender’s Shadow is pretty incredible as is Speaker for the Dead as well.
Anyone who doesn’t like Twilight doesn’t understand the desire to procreate as a Vampire.
Ender’s Shadow sounded so dreadfully wrong in concept—like Karate Kid III. Take a story I had read 3-4 times and write the same story over again from another character’s perspective. Yeah, sounds so trite, so afterschool special, so I-need-cash-but-can’t-think-of-anything-new. But it was superb. I still need to get to the rest of the Shadow series.
Clark, what did you think of Xenocide? I still like the idea of philotes, etc.
It was partially an idea Card’s used way too much. (See A Planet Called Treason) Plus both Xenocide and its sequel (forget its name) had Card’s worst problem of disorganization and being unable to structure well. It was acceptable in books like Ender but really ruined Xenocide.
What’s weird is Card is forever attacking three act structure and so forth. It’s fine if you don’t follow that structure but his writing would improve dramatically if it was less rambling. The problem is he has multiple threads going on and he just can’t bring them all to a conclusion at the end of the book. So some are just left dangling and some are resolved in unsastisfactory ways structurally.
Orson Scott Card’s stuff is a mixed bag.
After starting off great, the rest of the Shawdow series goes downhill fast, and turns into a very repetitive political/war thriller without many sci-fi elements.
I think that The Worthing Sage (or whatever the current title of it is) is really Card’s best work, especially if the reader is LDS. He is always recycling ideas from that book in his later works, to the point that I would contend that all of his original ideas are in that book in some form or another.
Similarly, Treason has a bunch of ideas that he recycles later, but is so oddly written that I can’t recommend it unless you’re a huge Card fan.
Of his more recent stuff Pastwatch is great, and is a standalone story so you don’t have to worry about the sequels going downhill.
As far as I can tell he has three series that are currently incomplete: Alvin Maker, Ender’s Shawdow, and Homecoming. I have little hope than any of them will be brought to a conclusion.
Finally, a potential solution to the problems at the end of the last Shadow book is so obvious to readers of the Enders books that I just assume that I know how the story is resolved and I don’t worry about whether he’ll actually write the book.
Clark,
The 4th Ender book is Children of the Mind, I believe.
The Worthing Saga was rewritten something like 5 times. (My dad interestingly had all 5 versions including the short story) A Planet Called Treason was something like 3. It’s weird that he does these rewrites and then republishes it – often with a slightly different name.
I agree with the Bean series. Started out great and went downhill fast. I think the first two Alvin books are his greatest. Three is OK but flawed while the rest are flawed as well but lose the “magic” that the first two have even more.
Clark,
I think he reworks Worthing because he initially wrote it at a time when he was overflowing with good ideas, but not fully developed as a writer. The ideas are so compelling that it gives him a reason to polish it.
I did like the first two Alvin books. After the first one I expected the second to drop off, but if anything it was better. However I rank them behind Worthing and Pastwatch for a few interrelated reasons: They don’t stand alone, the rest of the books went downhill in a spectacular way, and the series is incomplete. Frankly I grow more and more weary of incompleteness. I think that George R R Martin is to blame.
The different versions are quite different though. Very different in some cases. i.e. in the original the Moroni character is the only character and is (IMO) much more fleshed out.