Stallone buys his Catahoula dogs from the same breeder I do.

Just watched the first episode of the new 6-part series, The Frankenstein Chronicles. It stars Sean Bean as Inspector John Marlott, a policeman in 19th century London who is tasked with investigating a strange body which is found washed up on a riverbank.

The setting is suitably dark and gritty, and you really get a sense for the struggle a policeman would go through when trying to solve even basic problems. Add to that the corruption at pretty much every level of the system which Inspector Marlott is caught up in and you're left with a rather interesting drama show.

The show is apparently a re-imagining of the original Frankenstein story, so I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

Cool! That is one I am looking forward to watching once it comes out on dvd/Netflix.

Recent watching is almost wholly confined to gaming videos at YouTube.

Gopher, known for his Skyrim related videos (if he's known at all), recently began a series of single-player survival Minecraft live broadcasts. He uploads them to YouTube afterward, largely unedited. I watch them there, despite their hours-long length. (They are on his Gopher Live channel.)

Staying with Minecraft, Kikoskia, whose King of Dragon Pass LP I like so well, is in the midst of his second attempt at a Minecraft 'hard-core survival' LP. (His first ended abruptly when he entered the Nether to find a skeleton and creeper waiting at the portal.)

I'm half-heartedly following several ongoing Daggerfall LPs.

I watch random episodes from a variety of different ARK: Survival Evolved LPs.

I occasionally watch random episodes from a variety of different Cities Skylines LPs.

The past few days I've watched the opening episodes of several Fallout 4 LPs. (I don't plan to buy the game so watching them spoils nothing.)

I watched a few videos about Kingdom: Deliverance pre-alpha release .05. Still too soon to get a good feel for this one.

Non gaming wise, I've watched all Series 'M' episodes of 'QI' uploaded to YouTube to date.

I am into season five of The Clone Wars. Today I started a neat little arc about a group of Jedi Younglings. In the second one they learn to construct their lightsabers from... David Tennant! *Fangirl Squeee* And wow, he actually won an Emmy for it!

I watched Pixels. I didn't realize it was an Adam Sandler movie. If I had known, I wouldn't have bothered. It has a few ok moments in it, like fighting the centipede in Hyde Park, and Peter Dinklage was an awesome asshole. To be honest though, the best thing was the Cheap Trick song. My advice is just watch a few of their videos on You Tube instead.

Just watched Event Horizon

Gods, what an awful film that was.

I'm genuinely angry about having wasted the time to watch it rather than doing something else.

Not yet, but will be:


http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/t...ticle-1.2434274

I just finished Season Five of The Clone Wars. This is my first time seeing this season. Wow. It started off with an interesting arc about the Jedi supporting a rebellion on a Separatist world. It is notable because it is the first time we ever hear the word "Rebel" in Clone Wars or the Prequels. The whole time watching it I was thinking it was a risky move for the Jedi, as training people to rebel is not something conservative establishments like to do. It not only teaches people to use violence to achieve a political goal, but if they are successful, they also learn that they were right to do so. So what happens in the future when they believe they are right, and their government is wrong? Well they are going to rebel. Which is of course where the Rebel Alliance came from.

Then there was nice arc of a group of Younglings in Ahsoka's charge that was really neat. Then a somewhat amusing, somewhat ho-hum arc with droids. That one's high point for me was an episode with a clone suffering from amnesia, who had no idea what he was. When he did figure it out, it turns out he was a Republic Commando, straight from the video game. That was Dave Filoni's idea. He had played the game, and wanted to put a commando from it in the show. I thought that was really neat.

The Mandalorian arc was really astounding. I just loved seeing all those super-commandos flying around. The showdown between Pre-Vizula and Darth Maul was one of the absolute best I have ever seen in any Star Wars format, tv show, film, etc... My only disappointment was their portrayal of Duchess Satine. In spite of being a pacifist, in the past she was always a driving force. She had agency. Here she is nothing more than a damsel in distress. On the plus side though, the show introduced her sister, a super-commando played by none other than Katee Sackhoff (yes, I did a fangirl *squee* when I first heard her voice, out loud, very loud )

Finally the wrap up with the Ahsoka arc was awesome. It topped the Mandalorian one. You can really see the rise of the Empire here. Naturally Tarkin in prominent, as we see the Republic military pushing the Jedi Council into the back seat in running affairs. Tarkin has his own base, which is a pure brooding, monolithic, cold, intimidating, Fortress of Evil™. The clones there don't answer to the Jedi. The hallways and prison cells are vintage Death Star. Even the music, which was done with a full orchestra, is dark and brooding. Clearly, Order 66 is not far away...

Of course the stuff with Ahsoka herself is really cool as well. She is by far my favorite character in the show. Not just because she is female (I don't believe there is such a thing as a female Jedi who utters a single word of dialogue in any Star Wars movie), but because she is the character who shows the most growth and development throughout the series. With Ventriss following in second. Funny how similar both their circumstances are by the end of this season. To me, they have always been the most interesting characters, simply because they have the most depth (though Ventriss doesn't get there until the Dathomir arc in Season 3). Most of the jedi are cool to look at, but don't have much personality thanks to the Jedi nature, which precludes passions and objectives beyond the very narrow scope of the Jedi Order's vision.

In the end Ahsoka does exactly what I would have done, even if not for the same reasons. It will be disappointing to not see her again (as I doubt she will appear again in the show, though it is possible). But I do love how she went out. Especially since it means she probably won't be a target of Order 66 (and I know she makes an appearance in the new Rebels show).

Tonight at 9 EST on the National Geographic Channel - `Saints & Strangers' miniseries tells the bloody and twisted true tale of the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving

Truthfully, although it was well done - I didn't like it as well as I thought I would. It did not feel immersive/believable to me. I was a bit disappointed that for all that build up it kind of just lay there, was not able to grab me and mesmerize or draw me in.

Tried watching Avengers: Age of Ultron.

I've seen it before, but for some reason the last two or three times I've tried to watch it, it just hasn't grabbed me. Avengers Assemble, on the other hand, I could watch any day of the week.

Makes me wish I'd waited before picking it up.

I am not one to watch Christmas movies normally at all - bleah, do not like sappy contrived predictable drivel. But since I got "Dish" network instead of Comcast; it seems that (starting on September 1 or so) Dish seems to think that all us 'muricasns want to see is XMas movies 24 hours per day. So anytime I turn my TV on - even if I just want some background noise, I am stuck seeing something Christmasy.

So this one happened to catch my eye because I noticed Barney Stinson and thought I was seeing "How I Met Your Mother."

But that is not what it was/is; this is Barney Stinson in a Christmas special movie called "The Christmas Wish" - not as bad as most seasonal movies. And having Barney Stinson in it is a huge plus, lol.

Urgh, I avoid christmas movies like the plague.

If that's what your stuck with, then you have my sincere condolences.

Yes, it is. And that movie - even Barney Stinson couldn't save the ending. The last 20 minutes of it were a crash-burn; not to mention mysteriously familiar to another Xmas movie where a girl seeking to fill her long-dead mother's journal of Christmas wishes ends up following the path of clues to meet up with the mother of the boy who (drunk driving) killed her mother.

Well, in this Barney Stinson one the gist of the ending is a xerox copy; but rather than play it out they assumed the viewer could guess the rest and just ended it with everyone knowing the secret but never seeing them being told it; no words passing anyone's lips and the key scenes cut as if the budget had reached its limits and the director just jammed a final Xmasy scene in rather than finalize the plot.

So = disappointment, and it is hard to feel disappointment in a movie you knew wasn't going to be good to begin with. In the end, even having Barney Stinson in it failed to save it, and even he fudged the final Xmasy scene by ignoring his grieving Grandmother beside him to put two hands on his girlfriend's shoulders. (Hey Barney, one arm on the girlfriend and one for the Grandmother, get it? ).

I really don't enjoy TV watching 99 % of the time, usually only put it on for background noise = and this is a good example of why,

I watched the end of that Saints and Strangers. Part 2 was actually a little better than part 1; but not very believable still. Example: The head of the Plymouth settlement's infant son was left behind in England while they got settled in, which took a couple years; then another 6 years supposedly passed, and his son is shipped over on a boat from England; so he looks to be about 8 years old. His father asks him if he remembers his mother and the boy says he remembers his mother's voice. Say what?

It was well done, but not riveting. The acting felt like good acting, not like seeing something really happening.

So ... meh.

My extended edition box set of The Hobbit arrived today, so I've just spent 9 hours watching that. Totally worth it, and it looks great on the shelf next to my extended edition LOTR

I watched the extended editions over the weekend. Now I am picking my way through the appendices of the final movie.

For some reason my YouTube home page contained a link to a documentary about the life, such as it was, of a super obese man. Out of curiosity I watched it, and went on to watch another few such videos. These guys are indeed grossly overweight, one weighing more than half a ton! They can do no more than cumbersomely roll around in bed, and are limited even then. They depend on others for their most basic needs.

I came away with mixed emotions. By and large I find it hard to sympathize with these individuals, yet can not wholly condemn them. Here are a few generalities, as I see them:

1) They all wanted to lose weight and resume a normal life. One fellow, who hadn't been out of bed in over seven years, broke down several times and seemed totally genuine in his craving for a normal existence. Yet no matter how strong they desired change, it was exceeded by a overriding steadfast need to eat as much as they wanted of whatever they wanted as often as they wanted it. Nothing mattered so much as food.

2) Medical and fitness personal often bent over backwards to offer and sometimes provide aid as they could. The obese often could not utilize offered assistance simply because they were too large to be safely transported to a medical facility, and/or too obese to be operated on. They were told that by losing 'only' 100-150 pounds or so they would be safe to transport. The obese, with few exceptions, either couldn't or wouldn't do it. One fellow told the doc he didn't like being told what to do and threatened physical violence!

3) They were all married. Their wives, no paragons of weight control themselves, were to a woman enablers, feeding their husbands whatever they craved. One fellow actually dropped down to circa 190lbs and turned out to be a rather handsome bloke!!! He eventually lapsed and became super obese again. One reason he did so was because his wife didn't like his fit self!!! I ended up more disgusted with the women than their husbands. They were, after all, in total control of these men's diets and could insure they lost weight, at least until fit enough to feed themselves.

One fellow said something that led to me having a bit more sympathy for them. Something I hadn't thought of on my own. He said that almost every other consumptive addiction has the hope of being controlled by total abstinence. Yet a fat person must consume the very thing that causes his addiction every day.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
As to more pleasant viewing, I watched the first two episodes of a Wizardry 7 LP, the first and only Wizardry 7 LP with English commentary to appear on YouTube in many years!

Sadly, since the launch of Fallout 4 Gopher has posted no new Minecraft episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eac91tZsZMw

New Netflix series starring Stellan Skarsgaard- "River"

Yes- another British cop drama- but things are not what they seem.

Definitely worth watching.

Excellent. Saw that this was out last night while queuing up Marvel's Jessica Jones (which is another series that is definitely worth watching). I'll be sure to check it out, thanks.

Thanks, treydog! That sounds like just the thing to start this afternoon.

I'm dying to see that female cop show where the dog drives the car and blows bubble gum bubbles! (just to see the dog! )

I have had Stellan's show in my queue for a little while now. I just don't know when I will have the time for it!

I saw the first episode of Jessica Jones today. It was really good. It was bugging me where I knew Krysten Ritter from, so I had to pause watching and look her up on the IMDB. Turns out she was Gia in Veronica Mars.

I like Jessica. She is a real fixer-upper as a character. Which is good, because her flaws give us room for character development. She'd be boring if she was perfect. The bartender she slept with was very cool too. I am guessing he is Luke Cage, and I am sure we are going to see more of him. David Tenant was really something as the villain. He has always been a great actor. He is just downright creepy and terrifying here.

Just watched Tombstone. Damn good film.

What surprised me was the way that Val Kilmer completely stole the entire film as Doc Holliday.

As per my usual December tradition I just started watching DarkChiron´s LP of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. That game has tons of atmosphere

I just finished Anzac Girls, a six part miniseries about a group of Australian and New Zealand nurses in WWI. Overall it was good. But at one point I was wondering if it passed the Bechdel Test. It did, but I had to really look for scenes that qualified, which is not good.

I think the problem was it focused too much romance, which often made the main characters seem like their lives revolved around their boyfriends/fiance/husbands - all of whom were acquired during the series. At times they seem less like individuals with agency, and more like simply extensions of the men in their lives - objects whose only purpose was to adorn these men. There was a very nice argument at the end between one character and her husband when she refused to leave the front and go to London with him on leave. That was great, because it was the first time one of them really put herself, and what she was doing, first.

In the end it was definitely worth the watch. It was no China Beach. But still good.

I am also about two thirds of the way through Jessica Jones. It is a very tense, raw show. It's like an exposed nerve. It really stands in sharp contrast to some of the other super tv shows I have seen lately, like The Flash and Daredevil. In those there is a hero out doing good (insert perfect smile here) for the sake of doing good. Jessica OTOH, is not a hero, and she doesn't want to be. She is just an ordinary person with super strength, and a very F'ed up past, and a sociopathic stalker with the power to literally make people do whatever he says.

It all makes Jessica is a much easier person to relate to. Because strip away the super powers, and she has the bad luck and drama in her life that many real people are forced to endure, like a messed up childhood, overly-controlling boyfriend, and psycho ex. Where if you strip away super speed and senses, and guys secretly fighting crime as masked vigilantes is a lot harder to relate to (at least for me, YMMV )

I also had a near fangirl moment when I realized that one of the supporting characters is a Daredevil supervillain in waiting. Officer Simpson is clearly Nuke. Or will be some day. The red, white, and blue pills clinched that.

Now I am wondering what the Iron Fist show will be like. I find myself hoping for an Asian male to play the lead. The whole mystical ability to control chi just screams Asia to me. Maybe because, well, Asia... Of course Hollywood will never do that.

Today I finished the Appendices for Battle of the Five Armies. Part 12 of the Appendices of the LOTR and Hobbit films. Now I want to watch the movies all over again.

Did you find differences between the book and movie? And when you did, which did you prefer?


One thing I love about Pride and Prejudice/Sense and Sensibility - you can read or watch and unless the acting doesn't carry it off (which I have yet to see happen); there is enough similarity in the dialogue and storyline that you don't feel jarred into having to choose if you like this better than that, (and if the BBC has produced it, you can be assured it will be a wonderful rendition).

The first time I ever read a book after watching a movie = it was Jaws, believe it or not, The movie was whimsical and the characters were all likable except the Mayor - and even though the shark was so obviously mechanical, it was frightening to someone who swam in the ocean daily back then.

The book was totally opposite, it was gritty and delved deeply into several totally unlikable characters in a way that made it an excruciating read. I preferred the movie, felt they made a hugely better rendition of it than the original Author. But Peter Benchley did have the idea and provide the character names and plot; so really glad they gave him the nod on that.

But that always made me leery of reading the original story after I've seen the films (Other than all the Jane Austen stories).

Then there are some that I've read that were so good that I wished they had made movies of them, like several Taylor Caldwell stories. (under any of the names she wrote under).

Anyway, it made me curious on whether you liked the movies or books better when you found differences between the two.

There were major differences between the book and the Hobbit films. Mainly in that Tolkien left huge gaps in his narrative which the movies fill. For example, Gandalf just vanishes for about half the story. Tolkien never says where he went, what he was doing, or exactly why. I think he write once sentence saying he had gone on an errand for the White Council, and that is it. The films show why he had to go, and everything he did, and its incredible importance.

Other smaller things are that the Elven King of Mirkwood/Green Leaves never even had a name in the book. In the films he does - Thranduil (which I believe was supplied in LOTR). In the book Azog was dead before the story even started. The movie keeps him alive, makes him the general of the orcs of Dol Guldur, and a personal enemy of Thorin. Likewise in the movie his son Bolg is the general of the orcs of Gundabad, and develops into a rival of Legolas.

Speaking of Legolas, he is not in the book at all, but we see plenty of him in the films (how can we not, when we travel into his home!). Of course there is Tauriel as well. She didn't exist in the book. She was created because the story was an incredible sausage fest. Her character gets a lot of hate because she's not original - and undoubtedly because she is female - two unforgivable sins to many. But she is my favorite character in all the films.

That is just some of it. I am sure there is a lot more.

I read the Jaws book a long time ago too. I also prefer the movie. One thing I hated about the book was that it had Sheriff Brody's wife have an affair with Hooper.

I started The Frankenstein Chronicles. So far really cool, if a bit gruesome. At first I was a little surprised that it is set in 1827. I was expecting it to be in the 1880s or 90s. I guess because there is so much Victorian Horror these days. But in retrospect, I think Mary Shelley wrote The Modern Prometheus in 1816 or so. So it is much closer to the time in her book.

There is definitely a lot of Sean Bean love here. The first episode was packed with delightful Sharpe easter eggs. In once scene we see him open his trunk, revealing a green rifleman's jacket at the bottom. In another he says he served in the 95th Rifles during the war. Two boys are whistling Over The Hills And Far Away in a third scene. And there is even another character who picks up a knife and says "still sharp" in a fourth.

Now I think I will have to do a Sharpes Rifles marathon...

Just started the second episode, and already we have met William Blake and Mary Shelly. Most cool!

But Sean Bean geekness aside, there is some really good writing here. The basic gist of the story is simple. Bean is a police inspector who discovers the body of a dead girl, or more to the point, eight dead girls stitched up into one. We can guess how that came about, and that he is going to hunt down the mad scientist behind it all.

But behind all that we have the trade of the resurrection men - body snatchers who steal bodies to sell to medical schools, which cannot get enough cadavers through legal means (they could only legally get the bodies of executed murderers from the state). The Lord Home Secretary wants to put the resurrection men out of business by passing new legislation that will automatically give the bodies of all those too poor to pay for a funeral to the medical schools. Opposing him are devout Christians who believe that this will deny all those unfortunate souls the Resurrection, because their bodies will have been cut up into pieces and denied a Christian burial. I think the latter view was really well done. For as they see it, this law would make it illegal for the poor to enter Heaven!

So there is a this major power struggle between religious, social, economic, and scientific forces going on in the background. And suddenly creating a creature from the parts of dead bodies takes on a whole new dimension. It goes beyond one man's hubris, or his failure to take responsibility for his actions (two major themes of Mary Shelley's novel). Now it is a political statement as well. That is something we have not seen in a Frankenstein story.

The hatred for Tauriel sounds like some of the rabid Lore fans TES has, . I like things to be the way I have learned them - unless the new way is better. Then I welcome the change, lol.

Yes, the affair between them seemed thrown in just to add a sexual element in, there was no building tension between them first to lead up to it; only a neglectful marriage and a young male body. It was just dumped in there. Really, if not for the ravaging shark I don't think that book would have ever been good enough to attract a movie deal, it was the idea of frightening the public with a massive mechanical shark that they discovered that they could make that sold the story imho.


So tonight I'm watching Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors."

I’m a couple of episodes in to Jessica Jones and really liking it. This one looks like a keeper. Thanks for the reviews, my fellow Jessica watchers!

SubRosa, I’m a fan of Tauriel as well. I loved everything about her.

Tonight I have a date to see the movie where Thor fights the whale. I’m pretty excited about it!

Finished watching [i]The Last Kingdom[i/] today. It was alright, don't know if I'll bother with the next series.

As for the Hobbit films, while I've never seen them, I know enough was invented to pad them(three films, seriously?) that it would be more accurate to say that they're inspired by The Hobbit. They gave each one a subtitle anyway, should have just gone with those instead. Had they done so they probably would have been better received. Well, that and if they'd cut back on the number of Lord of the Rings references, Legolas being the most obnoxious.

I think Tauriel receives as much hate for being dropped into a love triangle as she does for being an addition, especially since it's a pretty ridiculous one Middle Earth. *checks wikipedia* Wait, they took fighting the spiders in Mirkwood off Bilbo? Urgh.

All of those movies are enjoyable to me because I view them as entirely separate from the books. I love the movies and watch them over and over again, but they are after all only movies. For me the books let me fill in with my imagination, so books will always win.

It struck me as funny in the final trailers when the voiceover talked about returning to Middle Earth one last time. Do they think that no one else ever will re-imagine Tolkien’s work? Lol.

Tolkien's books have always been considered unfilmable. Peter Jackson is the only guy in the world crazy enough to try something so impossible. Watching the Appendices you can see why.

Where a regular film has about 90 days of production filming, the first two Hobbit movies and a little bit of the third had 266 days of principal photography. That does not count the vast majority of the third movie. Or the pickups, which took about 6 more months. Where other films might have a second unit of photography, the Tolkien movies had third, fourth, fifth, etc... units. Post-production was another year. Then there is Tolkien's writing itself, which is filled with gaps in the plot like Gandalf vanishing for half the Hobbit, or the Elvenking of Mirkwood not even having a name.

I am sure someday, someone will try filming Middle Earth again. But I doubt it will be anytime soon.

Maybe the person who is going to make the next Middle Earth movie is a kid now who has already seen Peter Jackson’s adaptations. Hopefully they’re saying, “My movie will have Tom Bombadil in it!”

I’d love to see another animated version. There’s also unfinished but published material that could be made into complete stories. Perhaps modernized a bit, say with a few female main characters or *gasp* some humans and elves who are not white.

I hope so about the first! Peter Jackson himself was that kid at one time, and much of the cast and crew.

I would think an animated tv series would be a much more doable prospect than films. The Clone Wars did the Star Wars universe really well in that format. It doesn't cost as much, is easier to get backing for, and so it is also easier to break away from the conservative mold and do something innovative. But acknowledging that women exist, or black people, or black women!!! Inconceivable!

To be fair to Tolkien here:

Galadriel is easily one of the most powerful individuals in Middle Earth. Sauron can't even begin to figure her out, and she's actively working against him. Eowyn slew the Witch-King of Angmar. Of the male characters only Gandalf tops that with his defeating the Balrog in Moria. But Eowyn outdoes every other male in the Lord of the Rings, and is only let down by pining after Aragorn. I'll grant you, they're not main characters, but they've got nearly all the Fellowship beaten.

As for the shortage of black people, that's just part of the setting. They're there, but they're basically in the wrong part of the world, and those lands are hostile to Gondor. Considering where Tolkien drew a lot of inspiration from, it's hardly surprising.

I am not calling Tolkien a sexist. But the fact is he lived in a time where misogyny was not simply accepted, but expected and demanded. He was bucking the trend when he created characters like Galadriel. But OTOH, Galadriel is the classic White Goddess stereotype. She is in the background being supportive, empathic, kind, wise, noble... all passive traits. We never see her pull out a sword and hack off an orc's head in the books, or snap her fingers and turn a goblin to dust, or lead an army into battle. That kind of direct, active action is reserved for males. It took Peter Jackson to actually show us that Galadriel is the most powerful and dangerous elf in Middle Earth.

Except Eowyn. In her we truly see an Action Girl, albeit for only a brief moment. I applaud Tolkien for that. He even lampshades the male active/female passive stereotypes by emphasizing that Eowyn is able kill the Witch King because she is not a man. That is ought to be a Feminist Slogan.

However add Arwen in and there are only 3 women in the entire world. In the real world women make up 51% of the population. Unless you are setting your story in a men's prison, boys boarding school, or some other suitably Greek situation, about 51% of your characters ought to be female. Half the Fellowship ought to be female, and would be if those books were written today. That is why Jackson and company created the Tauriel character, because the books are an incredible sausage fest.

Well, Lothlorien's got Moria behind it, she's fencing with Sauron, and it's made clear that the only reason that place is still safe is down to her. And bear in mind what we're told about the elven rings: that they're tools of understanding, not weapons. So displays of power of that type from her wouldn't fit with what we're told about the elves. Contrast her with Elrond, who's doing the same sort of thing, and she wins out because she's closer to the danger, and acting more directly.



If were talking about fighters here, which was supposed to be the point of the Fellowship in the first place, wouldn't the more relevant figure be the number of women serving in the military?

And, to wander off of Tolkien briefly, I've got something of a pet peeve on this front.

I don't like the idea of modifying an older story for something like this. The way I see it, gender or race or anything like that shouldn't be an issue, that's just how I was brought up, but changing an existing story like that, to "correct" an imbalance of that sort, is actively making an issue of it.

I mean, you've already pointed out above the way the times were when the Lord of the Rings was written, and I don't disagree about how it would be if it was written today(beyond my above question), but is there really any need to go around adjusting existing fiction to reflect the modern world, which it clearly isn't set in?

Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin were warriors? Only Aragon, Legolas, Boromir, and Gimli were what could be called professional fighters. Gandalf sits in between. He is supposed to be a wizard, but he spends more time whacking things with a sword that actually doing anything magical (which always made me scratch my head).




Gender or race or religion shouldn't be an issue. But it is when an author goes out of their way to make it so when they go out of their way to exclude them in order to appease prejudices. Tolkien was writing to his audience when he only put 3 female characters in his novels. He wanted to sell books. He wouldn't have if Aragorn or Gandalf had been female. Not in his lifetime at least.

All stories, whether novel, legends, or myths, are reflections of the social, economic, and political agendas of the societies that created them. They are relevant to that society, even when they are completely false in their portrayals of people, races, genders, etc.... Because even those misconceptions are part of that parent's society's values and beliefs. But when you take these stories out of that time and/or place, they stop being relevant, and just become bigoted. Blindly reproducing a story written in 1750 that presents all Native Americans as evil, unintelligent, drunkards is just parroting the prejudices of the writer, and making a conscious decision to reinforce these negative stereotypes in the modern world. Note this is not to say one should not present some characters with those opinions of Natives, but for the writer to actually present all Natives that way, independent of points of view.

To put it simply, Peter Jackson tried to make his movies more female-friendly because he made a conscious decision not to promote the sexist values of the time that Tolkien wrote his novels. I very much appreciate the fact that he took a higher road, at least in some small measures.

Callidus, I’m sorry I didn’t explain myself very well. I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with the originals. I’m saying that I’d like to see some of the stories in a Middle Earth that’s imagined from a modern context, which is not at all a modern Middle Earth.

Sadly I did not get to see Thor fight the whale tonight. Instead I went to see the Katniss movie. It would have been better with fewer scenes and a lot more fire. The highlight of the night’s viewing was a trailer for the animated dinosaur movie.

That looks like it'll be fun. Dinosaurs are so adorable!

More fire! I'll wait for Netflix to see that one, like the others.

And dinosaurs FTW!

Edit: You know what? Forget it. I really don't think this is worth the argument.

Out of the blue this afternoon it dawned on me that after buying Game of Thrones Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD from Amazon.com months ago I never watched anything beyond season 1 episode 1. I watched season 1 episode 2 before supper. Doesn't hold a candle to the book, but not bad at all. I was sorta surprised they chose not to show the hound run down and kill the butcher boy following the incident with Prince Joffrey. M only real complaint is the obvious one . . . the episode needed to be far far longer to do the source material full justice.

At YouTube I've watched a variety of things. More chronicles of the lives of super obese individuals. Various game LP episodes. Some history. News as presented by TYT. Yada yada. I distinctly recall watching at least one video I wanted to link here, but can't for the life of me remember what it/they is/are.

I started The X-files a few days ago. My grandma used to watch it, but I wasn't at her house often enough to really remember much other than this scene where some.... thing(?) was crawling out of some space and it looked like it had been skinned and I was scared for weeks.

Anyway, I'm really liking Mulder. I can't say that I "believe" in aliens, but I kinda enjoy the idea of Area 51 and ancient astronauts the same way I love ghost and paranormal stories.

Also, I finally got caught up with The Walking Dead. I love it. I think it's my favorite show right now.

Is that the original X-Files show? There were a couple of episodes that crawling critter might have been from. The Host is my first thought. It was about a Fluke-man living in the sewers. I think the other was called The Family, it was about a family of horrifically inbreds living in the country.