Book Foo and Movie Foo
Dec. 30th, 2006 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6First of all, I'd like to wish a happy Eid to those on my flist who celebrate it. Well, to everyone really- whether you celebrate it or not you can still have a happy one, like Christmas.
Okay, movie foo: X3. As I mentioned a few days ago, I watched it. First, and I cannot stress this enough, COLOSSUS DOES NOT HAVE SILVER HAIR IN METAL FORM. ANY FILM IN WHICH COLOSSUS IS DEPICTED AS HAVING SILVER HAIR IN METAL FORM IS INSTANTLY A FAILURE. I'm sorry, but it is. This is non-negotiable. It just looks AWFUL. Metallic black, fine. Silver, no.
More spoilery thoughts behind the cut.
The movie was marked by some good scenes mixed with some awful scenes, side by side, as though there were two sets of writers and directors. For example, I really liked some of the early scenes at the school, particularly the surprise (to me, it was probably one of the few spoilers I hadn't heard) appearance of Moira McTaggart, and the discussion of the ethical dilemma of transplanting consciousness (I wonder if they were just setting that up as a backup, in case they did wind up doing another movie and wanted to get Xavier back - have his consciousness be free-floating, and then they can transplant him into another body. Either a new actor, or cloned, like in continuity). The 'transhuman ethics' class was a nice touch, and something I would have liked to see more of.
Much of the action was also well done, and of course some nice nods to the fans what with the fastball special and such. Sadly that was one of the few nods to the fans.
I don't want to dwell too much on the bad, but mangling of characters feels a little pointless when they are so many good characters you could get _right_. Why did Callisto need to have super speed and mutant tracking abilities? Angel was pretty much wasted. Kitty was okay - not too keen on the actress choice they used for her, but I would have liked to see more of the character in the plot.
In terms of manglings that worked, I thought Juggernaut was okay, aside from looking a little bit doughy. Oh, and despite the fact that they made him a villain and barely used him, I liked Madrox. I liked him enough to almost want them to do an X-Factor tv series set in the movieverse and centered on Madrox (although with the excuse that the movie Madrox was a dupe of his that got out of control). Of course, I kinda wanted that before the movie, but I thought they had a good casting of evil Madrox.
Plotwise the movie suffered on a basic level... the cure's okay, conceptually as a threat but having _another_ threat come from mutant-hating humans using the product of a mutant to try and destroy the mutant nation was a mistake. It was just done in the last movie, so it felt like a bit of a retread. It was okay, but the plot really should have been better.
But the Jean Grey subplot? Really, was there a point to that beyond an excuse for gratuitous death? I mean, there was a little potential there with Magneto trying to use her, but then she proceeded to just walk around like a zombie through the rest of the movie until the climax when she went crazy and started killing everybody. No build up, no gradual corruption, revelling in evil. She killed some of her teammates (in a stupidly gratuitous way - I don't have a problem with killing off main characters, particularly if you think you're making the last movie, but make them count at least), then Magneto grabbed her and she just sort of hung around like she was stoned until they needed a new threat. Most importantly, this was NOT what the Phoenix subplot should have been. It was a complete waste. They should have just left her out of it entirely if they weren't going to commit to it.
Also, Storm was awful, as she always is in the X-Men movies. It almost goes without saying (and yet...).
That's about the bulk of my thoughts on the matter.
Book Foo!
Finished: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling,
and Olympos by Dan Simmons
No quotes this time around because they were fairly long books and even when I found quotes I kinda liked I forgot the page numbers and didn't want to go digging. Some minor spoilery thoughts behind the cut. But I'll give you my 'back of the book review' of Olympos right here:
'If you're interested in the capabilities of penises of the future and those of Gods 15 feet tall or higher, than this is the book for you!'
Harry Potter series remains okay, fairly pleasant, but nothing really special. At this point I'm ready to say I don't get the hype for it. I'll keep reading it (next one is the hugo winner, so I have to read it, but I'll probably continue past just so I can get a good grounding int he popculturalness of it), but it doesn't do a lot for me, really. I liked Chamber of Secrets more than Prisoner, in part because I'd been spoiled for certain elements, and some were just plain obvious (the minute professor Lupin was named I solved that little mystery. I mean, please, try to be a little subtle?)
Olympos, the devotion of attention to god-penises aside, wasn't bad, but wasn't as good as the first part set it up. The plots, once they'd all joined just didn't flow together as nicely, and this time there were long gaps where I just didn't care about a particulary storyline and wanted to move on to another. My other big problem was that a number of the plots just didn't wrap up in a satisfactory way. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much about Deus Ex Machina in a story that explicitly has so many different types of gods, but sometimes it wasn't even just that it was just the answers were unsatisfying or weren't really supplied.
Also, it was a little annoying that so many of the big threats to the world (including one invented just in this book to give a danger in the last half or so) were the result of radical Muslims thousands of years ago. I dunno if it was a personal prejudice of the author's or just something he never really noticed, but it kinda stood out for me, and I'm not even one. One threat like that was okay, two was pushing it, but three times really makes me wonder.
Again, on a whole, the book wasn't bad, I still enjoyed it, but it didn't really live up to the promise of the first book. And way too many god-penises.
Started: Cell, by Stephen King (Fridays and Sundays)
A Fire In the Sun by George Alec Effinger (sequel to When Gravity fails).
I've only gotten a few pages into Cell and it really reminds me how much I want a good post-zombie-apocalypse TV series. Someone should make the Walking Dead into a TV show, I've heard it's good nad I don't want to read the books cause I have a horrible bias against black and white comics.
Okay, movie foo: X3. As I mentioned a few days ago, I watched it. First, and I cannot stress this enough, COLOSSUS DOES NOT HAVE SILVER HAIR IN METAL FORM. ANY FILM IN WHICH COLOSSUS IS DEPICTED AS HAVING SILVER HAIR IN METAL FORM IS INSTANTLY A FAILURE. I'm sorry, but it is. This is non-negotiable. It just looks AWFUL. Metallic black, fine. Silver, no.
More spoilery thoughts behind the cut.
The movie was marked by some good scenes mixed with some awful scenes, side by side, as though there were two sets of writers and directors. For example, I really liked some of the early scenes at the school, particularly the surprise (to me, it was probably one of the few spoilers I hadn't heard) appearance of Moira McTaggart, and the discussion of the ethical dilemma of transplanting consciousness (I wonder if they were just setting that up as a backup, in case they did wind up doing another movie and wanted to get Xavier back - have his consciousness be free-floating, and then they can transplant him into another body. Either a new actor, or cloned, like in continuity). The 'transhuman ethics' class was a nice touch, and something I would have liked to see more of.
Much of the action was also well done, and of course some nice nods to the fans what with the fastball special and such. Sadly that was one of the few nods to the fans.
I don't want to dwell too much on the bad, but mangling of characters feels a little pointless when they are so many good characters you could get _right_. Why did Callisto need to have super speed and mutant tracking abilities? Angel was pretty much wasted. Kitty was okay - not too keen on the actress choice they used for her, but I would have liked to see more of the character in the plot.
In terms of manglings that worked, I thought Juggernaut was okay, aside from looking a little bit doughy. Oh, and despite the fact that they made him a villain and barely used him, I liked Madrox. I liked him enough to almost want them to do an X-Factor tv series set in the movieverse and centered on Madrox (although with the excuse that the movie Madrox was a dupe of his that got out of control). Of course, I kinda wanted that before the movie, but I thought they had a good casting of evil Madrox.
Plotwise the movie suffered on a basic level... the cure's okay, conceptually as a threat but having _another_ threat come from mutant-hating humans using the product of a mutant to try and destroy the mutant nation was a mistake. It was just done in the last movie, so it felt like a bit of a retread. It was okay, but the plot really should have been better.
But the Jean Grey subplot? Really, was there a point to that beyond an excuse for gratuitous death? I mean, there was a little potential there with Magneto trying to use her, but then she proceeded to just walk around like a zombie through the rest of the movie until the climax when she went crazy and started killing everybody. No build up, no gradual corruption, revelling in evil. She killed some of her teammates (in a stupidly gratuitous way - I don't have a problem with killing off main characters, particularly if you think you're making the last movie, but make them count at least), then Magneto grabbed her and she just sort of hung around like she was stoned until they needed a new threat. Most importantly, this was NOT what the Phoenix subplot should have been. It was a complete waste. They should have just left her out of it entirely if they weren't going to commit to it.
Also, Storm was awful, as she always is in the X-Men movies. It almost goes without saying (and yet...).
That's about the bulk of my thoughts on the matter.
Book Foo!
Finished: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling,
and Olympos by Dan Simmons
No quotes this time around because they were fairly long books and even when I found quotes I kinda liked I forgot the page numbers and didn't want to go digging. Some minor spoilery thoughts behind the cut. But I'll give you my 'back of the book review' of Olympos right here:
'If you're interested in the capabilities of penises of the future and those of Gods 15 feet tall or higher, than this is the book for you!'
Harry Potter series remains okay, fairly pleasant, but nothing really special. At this point I'm ready to say I don't get the hype for it. I'll keep reading it (next one is the hugo winner, so I have to read it, but I'll probably continue past just so I can get a good grounding int he popculturalness of it), but it doesn't do a lot for me, really. I liked Chamber of Secrets more than Prisoner, in part because I'd been spoiled for certain elements, and some were just plain obvious (the minute professor Lupin was named I solved that little mystery. I mean, please, try to be a little subtle?)
Olympos, the devotion of attention to god-penises aside, wasn't bad, but wasn't as good as the first part set it up. The plots, once they'd all joined just didn't flow together as nicely, and this time there were long gaps where I just didn't care about a particulary storyline and wanted to move on to another. My other big problem was that a number of the plots just didn't wrap up in a satisfactory way. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much about Deus Ex Machina in a story that explicitly has so many different types of gods, but sometimes it wasn't even just that it was just the answers were unsatisfying or weren't really supplied.
Also, it was a little annoying that so many of the big threats to the world (including one invented just in this book to give a danger in the last half or so) were the result of radical Muslims thousands of years ago. I dunno if it was a personal prejudice of the author's or just something he never really noticed, but it kinda stood out for me, and I'm not even one. One threat like that was okay, two was pushing it, but three times really makes me wonder.
Again, on a whole, the book wasn't bad, I still enjoyed it, but it didn't really live up to the promise of the first book. And way too many god-penises.
Started: Cell, by Stephen King (Fridays and Sundays)
A Fire In the Sun by George Alec Effinger (sequel to When Gravity fails).
I've only gotten a few pages into Cell and it really reminds me how much I want a good post-zombie-apocalypse TV series. Someone should make the Walking Dead into a TV show, I've heard it's good nad I don't want to read the books cause I have a horrible bias against black and white comics.
