AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Reign of Fire was so lame that I shat blood for weeks.

The two events could have been entirely unrelated, but still. Reign of Fire is a heinous film.

Ok, ok, I'll give you that one. But it's got dragons! And reigns of fire! That more than makes up for a poorly designed story in my book. =]

Yeah, just for the record, I also own two Dungeons and Dragons movies. I'll watch a thousand puppies committing suicide if you put a dragon in it somewhere.

Oh, so you're one of those Eragon people... :shakefist:

Eh. I didn't really like Eragon too much. It's an alright story, and yes I own both books and will be getting the third, but it certainly didn't deserve the almost Harry Potter-ish following it's got. If you haven't read it, you can clearly tell it was written by a teenager; it's a decent start for a new author, at least. And the movie was... eh. I usually hate book-to-movie adaptations. Few of the HP's escaped my wrath, even, and Eragon was no exception. I gotta say the only good things Eragon had going for it were Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich.

1. JK Rowling cannot write.
2. The kid who wrote Eragon cannot write.
3. I hate fans of both series'.

I suppose the obvious course of action from here is to discuss The Lord of the Rings.

The movies were awesome. The books, however, were not. The Hobbit was an awesome novel, though.

You like the Hobbit, but not LotR? It's pretty much the same exact style. It's just a prequel to the Rings, written by the same exact author, in almost exactly the same fashion. It just centers around Bilbo instead of a few main characters. The only real problems I have with the books is that the Fellowship takes about 200 pages before it gets interesting. But yes, those are pretty much the exception to the rule of bad books-to-movies; the films are great. Great actors, great screenplay, I was never mad because they left a pivotal scene out, etc. My only complaint is that Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett weren't exactly the epitome of 'legendary elvish beauty,' but that's just personal preference.

And JK Rowling can't write? How many of the Harry Potters did you read before you stopped? Yeah, you pretty much knew exactly how it was going to end, anyway, but she built it up that way. It is, after all, a book initially designed for teen agers. They started to get a little darker, and adults started reading it, but she couldn't totally abandon her initial audience. I think it's good balance, anyway. So you knew

--- umm, is it even still a spoiler by now? ---

that Harry was going to kill Voldemort, but it's all in the details. It was an entertaining story, funny at times, weird at times, awkward, sad, etc, that a lot of kids could relate to. No, I don't mean the magic. But there are some people out there who really believe in that. More power to them, I guess.

But I have to agree with you on Eragon. I think I could have pulled it off better than him. It just sounds juvenile. I want the third one so I don't leave the story unfinished. I'm the type of person that that would bug the hell out of.

-Disclaimer: No, this isn't a "you're an idiot" flame post, just discussion. I didn't really think I have to watch what I write too much in a topic entitled "Movies and shrimp(fix'd haha)," but tone of voice doesn't translate well on the internet. I just didn't want anyone thinking I'm trying to start a flame war.

Short answer: Hobbit read like a story (giving an account of an adventure taken by a main character), tLotR read like an encyclopedia (giving an overview of the entirety of the war over the ring).

As far as Harry Potter goes, JK Rowling is just not a good author. She's no Hemingway. She's no Palahniuk. She's nothing. She has no voice. Her personality doesn't show through in her writing. She just can't compel me into caring about any of her characters or stories or anything. Also, the books read like a monster of the week Power Rangers type thing. Every book a new evil guy comes, all controlled by one main evil guy. Good triumphs. But I just don't care because Rowling didn't make me care. Exactly. The character of Eragon is just a Mary Sue for the author. No need to apologize; it's all in good fun.

Good point. I suppose I'd be more qualified to discuss this if I've read them recently. haven't read either in years, so they would pretty good then. I can see how you feel LotR reads like an encyclopedia, though. There were a few times I remember being bored out of my skull.



You know, come to think of it, I didn't really care too much about any of the characters, either. I just wanted to find out how she was going to end everything. (Spoilers ahead if you haven't read the last one.) She kills off a bunch of people in the last one, and the only thing I really felt any emotion at all over was when she offed his owl. And yeah, the whole series was a bit cliche, but that's pretty much the entire fantasy genre. Good guy's are just hanging out, something happens, a bad guy is introduced and tries to take over the world, after many hardships and trials, the good guys win, everybody lives happily ever after. I've sort of come to expect that in fantasy, now. Maybe I should read better stuff. =] I haven't read George R. R. Martin yet, but I heard he kills off his main characters.



Just figured I'd be better safe than sorry. Some people see somebody disagreeing, no matter how they try to say it, and automatically assume they're personally attacking them or something.

Has anyone seen Bender's Big Score yet?

Katie has.

Did she like it?

Yes.

Varn and Erikah did too.

I'd say it's just as good as the old episodes; the only thing that feels out of place is the Scammer aliens.
Mild [spoiler]What I really like is how it actually fixed some of the minor continuity errors in the series, because the first thing I thought when I heard it was about time travel was "Oh no they're going to make everything even more confusing."[/spoiler]

That's out on DVD yesterday, right? Man, I want to get the rest of Futurama, too.