Mortal Engines & the Tyranny of Realism

Urgh. How very unrealistic.

I love realism in my speculative fiction, but I am by no means beholden to it. I can enjoy realistic science fiction like The Andromeda Strain, 2001, Interstellar, Silent Running, and Moon at least as much as I relish scientific romance & space operas like the Space Trilogy, the Barsoom saga, & Star Wars. It's answering the question "Do you like hard or soft science fiction" with "yes."

Take dragons, for instance. I greatly enjoy the likes of The Last Dragon/Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real, which offered a fascinating pseudo-palaeontology for dragons, from the early draconic creatures of the Late Cretaceous which survived the K-T extinction, to the variety in forms which led to Marine, Occidental, and Oriental forms. Similarly, Gordon R. Dickson's The Dragon and the George and its spiritual companion, Peter Dickinson's The Flight of Dragons (both inspiring the fascinating Rankin-Bass cartoon sharing the latter's name) offer inventive extrapolations into dragon society in fantasy settings, as well as the anatomical nature of dragons.

8-year-old Aly ate stuff like this right up. In this age of the Internet, daft nerds like me can explore further than ever. Shad Brooks' series Fantasy Re-Armed does for other fantasy beings what has been done for dragons, from dwarves to elves, orcs to mermen, minotaurs to centaurs, fairies to giants, while also exploring traditional fantasy elements like dungeons, castles, paladins, and barbarians. It's a great time for those people in the middle of that very niche Venn diagram that loves hard science and complete invention.

At the same time, however, I don't need my fantasy creatures to be realistic (imagine that). I don't scoff at the unrealism of Ancalagon the Black being ludicrously huge, nor will I be over fussed if one dragon or another defies the laws of aerodynamics. I will not immediately dismiss a work of fiction because one thing or another isn't realistic, and I cannot believe I'm actually saying these words about stories with freaking dragons in them. Speculative fiction does not have to adhere to the constraints of our current reality: it doesn't even have to acknowledge them. All it has to do is be true to what it is trying to achieve.

8-Year-Old Reviews: Jurassic World

We’re going to grow old but never grow up.
We’re going to stay 18 years old and we’re going to love dinosaurs forever.
 - Ray Harryhausen & Ray Bradbury made a pact together. They never broke it as long as they lived.

A review 22 years in the making.

8-Year-Old Previews: Lego Jurassic World

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I was aware of the upcoming sets, but I wasn't expecting a game to be part of the deal. (Perhaps I should have, given the mid-credits cameo at the end of Lego Batman 3.) This is relevant to my interests.

My niece is only a bit older than I was when I saw Jurassic Park in cinemas, and my youngest cousin is still a babby. As such, I feel I have Uncle's/Older Cousin's Rights to be excited about a dinosaur game I could play with my younger family members. However, when it comes to suggestions for the game, I must defer to 8-Year-Old Aly. He knows a lot more about dinosaurs than I do, after all.

Enough talking, 30-Year-Old Aly, let's get down to business.

Right-o.

The Amazons of Far Harad

This lady appears for less than 10 seconds in the film, yet she is by far the most interesting character in the entire ensemble.

I went to see The Hobbit: The Disenfranchisement of Smaug. I cannot really say anything I didn't already say about the first one. What follows is a snippet of one of the strange mental gymnastic routines that happens to me when thinking about justifying narrative issues.

Scene: a group of friends are playing a tabletop role-playing game, not unlike Dungeons & Dragons. There is Pete (the Dungeon Master), Ian (a Wizard), Eva (an Elf), John (a Dwarf), Vickie (a Ranger), and Fran (a Hobbit). Their game is very loosely based on The Hobbit, where the DM has decided to make a few changes for the sake of inclusion and to keep the group's interest. Everything in italics is "in character," with breaks in character denoted by normal text.

DM: You now take in the sights around you, shaking the fish-slime from your eyes. An eclectic and unusual town stretches beyond. It is not built on the shore, though there are a few huts and buildings there, but right out on the surface of the lake, protected from the swirl of the entering river by a promontory of rock which forms a calm bay. A great bridge made of wood ran out to where on huge piles made of forest trees was built a busy wooden town, not a town of elves but of Men, who still dared to dwell here under the shadow of the distant dragon-mountain. They still throve on the trade that came up the great river from the South and was carted past the falls to their town; but in the great days of old, when Dale in the North was rich and prosperous, they had been wealthy and powerful, and there had been fleets of boats on the waters, and some were filled with gold and some with warriors in armour, and there had been wars and deeds which were now only a legend. The rotting piles of a greater town could still be seen along the shores when the waters sank in a drought. Among the townsfolk you see strange people unlike any you've seen in Bree - men with dark beards and unusual garb, ladies with strange eyes and silken hair, a woman with the darkest skin you've ever seen on a human - 

The Wizard: Where did they come from?

DM: (Sighs) Is this going to be a problem for you, Ian?

The Wizard: Is what going to be a problem?

(The rest of the group sighs and mutters, knowing what's coming next)

Fan Entitlement vs Fan Passion

(Once again, many apologies for the dearth of posts recently.)

As a fan of many things, one has to wonder at times where the distinction between tasteful understated nerdrage and entitled whining lies. Being a fan means enjoying things, but unfortunately that amount of enjoyment can sometimes lead to an equal and opposite dislike of things when it eclipses, disreputes, or is otherwise perceived to threaten the thing you like.

Scott Mendelson has chosen the somewhat unusual forum of the Forbes website to discuss what he terms Fan Entitlement Syndrome:

Current fandom doesn’t just get upset when their favorite shows get cancelled, their preferred films flop, or casting choices for their favorite projects go awry. They take to the Internet to absolutely demand that they get their way as a matter of moral principle, damn the business logistics or any other logical obstacles in their way. They swear up and down that not only was John Carter a great movie (debatable) but that it absolutely was a financially successful film that absolutely deserves a sequel. Never mind that it earned $282 million on a $250m budget and lost Disney around $200m, it was merely misunderstood and this time will be totally different. They clamor for sequels to MacGruber, an amusing action-film spoof that couldn’t even match its $10m budget at the worldwide box office. They start online petitions demanding Dredd 2 even though distributor Lionsgate and producer Reliance Big Pictures lost out when the $45m Dredd grossed just $35m at the global box office. I adore Speed Racer, but I and others like me don’t run around pretending that it wasn’t a costly flop that doesn’t justify a sequel. Sometimes one is enough and we should be thankful we got that one. 

Despite Mendelson's tone getting my heckles up a bit, I think it's worth examining a few things.

Bite-Sized Blog: Iron Man the Third

What could have been...

Saw it a few days ago, before I went to the States. I’m not going to write a full review, but I do feel sufficiently moved to comment on one thing that really got my brain whirring – the villain.

As it is, Iron Man Three is another fun superhero film with top-notch effects, some sparkling dialogue, a few very inventive set pieces, one or two moments of attempted profundity, and plenty of nods and winks to fans of the comics. In my opinion, it’s better than the second film, though not as successful as the first: it’s largely middle-of-the-road as Marvel Cinematic Universe films go.

But the villain! What an incredible, brilliant, paradigm-shifting antagonist the Mandarin was... or could have been, if the film had any guts.

MARK III ARMOUR

HEAVY SPOILER ENVIRONMENTS

Ray Harryhausen - Requiescat in Pace

I had to learn to do everything because I couldn't find another kindred soul. Now you see eighty people listed doing the same things I was doing by myself.
 - Ray Harryhausen

EDIT: The following is something I wrote for my BA degree in 2006. The subject was to discuss a pioneering filmmaker's impact on modern media: I chose Ray Harryhausen. I figure it only fitting to pay tribute to the man who had such a profound impact on my imagination to share some of the findings I have on a blog that might not exist without his inspiration.

Bite-Sized Blog: Oz, The Great and Patriarchal

Oz: The Great And Powerful was intriguing in the way Raimi's own Drag Me To Hell was - more interesting as a study or commentary than as a narrative. In Oz's case, I got the distinct impression the movie was a study in the magic/trickery of cinema, the audience's participation in suspending disbelief, and the invitation of parallels to reality even in fantasy worlds. Not sure if it's intentional on Raimi's part or not, but I was pleasantly surprised.


WE'RE OFF TO SEE THE SPOILERS

Obviously this isn't Baum's Oz, it's another riff on the MGM film. Despite Raimi's transparently false protestations that this was more tied into the books, it might as well have had Evanora wearing ruby slippers. I think this was more to get MGM off Disney's back than trying to appease the Baum fandom, but in any case, it isn't the only thing seemingly stuck in the 1930s.




There's a lot of criticism of the film's apparent chauvinism and anti-feminist idealogy: the three most powerful women's conflict centres around a man, and how it was prophesied he would save and liberate Oz, with two of them even falling for the cad. Indeed, Oz is partly responsible for several very important aspects of later Oz mythology. Frankly I think the salient fact that Oz was a *fraud* who didn't actually have any power, combined with the most functionally powerful figures being women, could still be read as pretty feminist. Kind of. If you squint.

Consider: the conflict in the film is between Glinda and Evanora, with Theodora being neutral. Glinda & Evanora have a stalemate, with a slight advantage to Evanora given her machinations and politicking.  When Oz comes into the picture, he makes things instantly worse for Glinda by inadvertently causing Theodora to align with Evanora, making it two Wicked Witches against one Good Witch. Therefore, it could be argued that this isn't so much a case of  Oz saving the day, but rather evening the odds. Glinda, after all, could only do so much with a population forbidden from killing, and two witches equally as powerful as herself.

Perhaps, then, the film is simultaneously upholding and demolishing that old chestnut of patriarchy, that while women are all well and good, what civilization really needs is a man! Even if he's completely ineffectual as a ruler, wizard and general human being, the fact that he's The Wizard, not The Witch, seems to be some magical clause which causes the people of Oz to adulate and near-worship him in a way they didn't for any of the witches. Look at just about any political system in the world, and you'll see this ridiculous notion in practise: it's no coincidence that there was a black male president of the United States before there was a white female president. Were the Witches buying into the patriarchy themselves, or were they actively exploiting it to achieve their goals? If the latter, why would they bother, considering their powers are quite clear, and could provide a precedent for a more egalitarian society? Come to think of it, is Oz as ensnared by patriarchy as our world? It certainly had no apparent problems with race, with many black individuals among the Munchkins and Quadlings.

THE WONDERFUL SPOILERS OF OZ

Maybe this is one of those films where you can read both a feminist and misogynist image into it: going out of it, though, I felt that it was clear Oz' "power" was just as phony as it was in the original, and that the Witches are the true power of Oz.

The Reason I Don't Particularly Care For The Asylum

I discussed this company once before, but The Asylum's latest scheme has moved me to briefly comment.

See, this could be just another mockbuster: a shameless, trite, creatively barren facsimile of a blockbuster film which will undoubtedly gain promotion - whether it be through honest confusion by the well-meaning but less knowledgeable, or the kitsch appeal which lures aficionados of camp as a pile of refuse draws clouds of flies* - and thus can be safely savaged or ignored.

But this film aims to be something more... and I feel like such a tremendous hypocrite, because this makes it even worse.

The Hunger Games, and Hope for Dark Agnes

"A star of darkness shone on her birth, of darkness and unrest. Where ever she goes shall be blood spilling and men dying. I knew it when I saw her standing against the sunrise that turned to blood the dagger in her hand."
 - Robert E. Howard, "The Sword Woman"

So while John Carter's doing a wee bit better than Disney and most of the world's media predicted, it still isn't the resounding success it really should be, certainly not in the homeland of the story's creator. In contrast, another literary adaptation, The Hunger Games, is doing gangbusters (to use a favourite vernacular) to the tune of being the most profitable box office debut for the first film of a franchise, only The Dark Knight and Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 beating it.

Unlike John Carter and, well, most films adapted into books, I haven't read so much as a page of the source material on which The Hunger Games was based. This, then, was a rare opportunity to go in to an adaptation and not be informed or distracted by my preconceptions of the source material. This is a double-edged sword: I may not get as much out of the film as I would had I read the books, and I could stumble upon plot points that are explained in the book - but at the same time, I may not be as distracted by divergences or clashes with my personal preconceptions.

Well, I fairly enjoyed it, and was pleasantly surprised, not least because my faith in the future of blockbuster cinema has been revived, at least a little.

The Agony of What Could Have Been: John Carter of Mars

I have one request: before you read any further, please read all of it until the end. It's quite a long read, but I really hope it's worth the time.  There are a few controversial opinions in here. Don't just read the preview and decide not to bother clicking on.  It's very important you read the whole review, or none of it - though naturally I'd be thrilled if you read until the end.

I write this blog because I feel like I have something worthwhile to share with the world. It seems everyone and their dog has a blog these days, so it's understandable that some consider the currency to be about as valuable as a Weimar Papiermark. But there are days when the sense of self-consciousness is overridden.  There are some things you just have to yawp from the rooftops, screaming at the stars, begging for someone to listen, for the message to be heard and understood.  This is one of those occasions.

John Carter is one of two things on the internet: it's either a hyperinflated, safe, cynical, lifeless flop destined to be considered along the likes of Ishtar and Heaven's Gate, or an unappreciated future classic unfairly dismissed by the media worthy of joining the ranks of similarly originally maligned films like Blade Runner and The Thing.  Ever a man to instinctively side with the underdog (even though the underdog, in this case, has a $300 million budget: there's a turnup for the books) I figured that this is a classic case of schadenfreude against the Evil Disney Empire, a meme which got tiresome before I was on the 'Net.

But then again... I figured, perhaps the critics have a point?  The advertising campaign for the film has been nothing short of horrendous.  Burroughs fans obviously don't need to know who John Carter or Dejah Thoris or Tars Tarkas are, but the masses don't.  Trailers for, say, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring do a great job of not only appealing to the Tolkien fans, but hooking non-Ringers in with a straight outline of the plot and basic ideas of the characters, with a few "greatest hits" clips for flavour.  What's more, there are some parts of the trailer that were actively baffling, not to mention misleading ("Earth is next!" - that line's not in the film I saw, although the threat of the Therns is implied).

Complicating matters is the fact that many of my friends, colleagues and acquaintances are bending over backwards to promote the film.  I'm not kidding, just about everyone loved this film, on the forums, on the message boards, mailing groups.  I was concerned that I might be turned off the film by simple hype aversion, as happened with Firefly and A Song of Ice and Fire - both of which I enjoy in parts, but not nearly to the extent of my compatriots.  So even going in as I always do, with the best will in the world and desire to enjoy the film, that fear that my friends and colleagues were delusional - and that if I enjoyed the film, my gushing review would create the same problem for those still undecided.

So I'll say some things, and again, I implore you: if you've read this far, please read the rest, so you can understand where I'm coming from.  I saw John Carter.  I understand why it's doing so poorly.  I think this is a perfect illustration as to why directors like Andrew Stanton rarely get the chance in this era.  This is a tremendous missed opportunity.  I didn't like it.

And hopefully when you finish reading, you'll understand why I say these things.

So, about that dwarf movie...

"Farewell, Balin!" he said; "and farewell, Dwalin; and farewell Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur and Bombur! May your beards never grow thin!"
 - Bilbo, The Hobbit, Chapter 18, "The Return Journey"

I've made a concerted effort not to talk about the recent character reveals from the upcoming Hobbit film adaptations, mostly because I couldn't really think of anything to say at the time. Everything I suspected would happen has happened: when they do it right, they do it brilliantly, but when they do it wrong, it looks preposterous.  Just like the adaptations of The Lord of the Rings.

Still, now that we've seen all thirteen dwarves, I might as well comment on them, based on my observations.

No, don't run away: I have praise as well as criticisms. I'm as surprised as you are!

John Carter: The Trailer

Now THIS is a goddamn trailer.



Remember what I said last time about the Conan trailer, that all I wanted was to watch a trailer and think "I know this"?  Well, I got it in spades here.

I saw Barsoom.  I saw John Carter.  I saw Dejah Thoris.  I saw the flying ships of Barsoom.  I saw red and green Martians.  I saw a legion of Barsoomian Thoat cavalry. I think I saw Tars Tarkas.

Yes, I do miss "of Mars."  True, I think that weird glowy-bluey-liney-thingy was daft.  Indeed, I'm not a fan of the music, or the fact that Dejah Thoris wasn't quite the shade of red I thought she would be.  But goddamn, I saw Barsoom.  That was Barsoom, up there on the big screen.  That was a Green Martian holding up a gun.  That was a fleet of Barsoomian airships.

I don't doubt that there will be things I don't like about the film: there are things I don't like about the trailer.  But that's to be expected from a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster.  So far... this is easily recognizable as John Carter.  And more importantly, to me, it's easily recognizable as Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter.

And that's pretty freaking awesome.

Now cue all the silly people claiming this adaptation of a 99-year-old literary creation is an Avatar/He-Man/Prince of Persia/Star Wars ripoff...

Legolas IS in The Hobbit, to the surprise of absolutely everyone for some unfathomable reason

I just had to comment on this.

Ten years ago, Orlando Bloom created an iconic character with his portrayal of Legolas. I’m excited to announce today that we’ll be revisiting Middle Earth with him once more. I’m thrilled to be working with Orlando again. Funny thing is, I look older—and he doesn’t! I guess that’s why he makes such a wonderful elf.

And of course, the news sites act as if this is some impossible-to-foresee event, that Tolkien purists will only now be outraged.  As if Tolkien fans were fine with everything up to this point.

Only now.

Again, this is from the people who:

 - Added entire sequences from whole cloth
 - Rendered Sauron as a floating eyeball
 - Made Aragorn renounce his kingship so he can Go On A Journey
 - Cut out Glorfindel and replaced his role with Arwen
 - Invented an entire secondary antagonist only for Aragorn to kill him
 - Rearranged the entire plot structure of the middle third
 - Put Elves in Helm's Deep
 - Have Frodo dismiss Sam and Sam abandon Frodo
 - Completely warped Faramir, Denethor, Theoden and others
 - Have the Oathbreakers save the day in the most contrived way possible
 - And much, much more

And in the upcoming film already:

 - Are expanding a self-contained single story into a two-parter using supplementary material
 - Have invented a peppy female elf warrior
 - Have already stuck in Saruman, Galadriel and Radagast despite them not appearing in the book

Really, any Tolkien purists who are only now starting to get the idea that they might have problems with the upcoming film have no sympathy from me.  The idea that all the many divergences from the stories were perfectly alright, but inserting Orlando Bloom - no, that's a step too far.

I really doubt there are any Tolkien purists thinking that, though: more likely the media just seems to imagine their own things.  After all, fantasy fans are still easy targets.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy may be among the most Oscar-blessed films in history, The Harry Potter series may be among the highest-earning series, and A Game of Thrones may be one of the most popular TV shows in recent years, but heaven help the guys who still read those musty old tomes.  They're still fair game.

I truly don't foresee The Hobbit films being substantially different from the trilogy.  They're going to get some things pitch-perfect, they're going to do some things very well, they're going to do some things that aren't in the book but work well in context, and they're going to do some things that have Tolkien fans tearing their hair out.  Orlando Bloom's Legolas isn't going to doom or save this film: it's fate has already been sealed in the minds of Tolkien fans, for good or ill.

8-Year-Old Reviews: Thor

Warning: spoilers, gushing and capital locks herein.

Best April Fool's News Ever.

At least, I think this is an April Fool's joke.

Bret McKenzie could be going from being Figwit in the Lord of the Rings to a big-screen presence in The Hobbit.

The Dominion Post can reveal that Sir Peter Jackson is trying to tempt the Flight of the Conchords co-star to take a role in the 3-D Hobbit films now being shot in Wellington.

It would spell a remarkable turnaround for McKenzie, who had a three-second spot as a pouting elf in the first Rings film.

A fan saw him on screen, as Frodo was frantically trying to deliver the ring to Mordor, and thought. "Frodo is great ... who is that?" And from that, the acronym Figwit was born.

It spawned the tongue-in-cheek figwitlives.net website in honour of the spunky elf – McKenzie was listed as one of Who magazine's 100 sexiest people in 2008 – and an hour-long documentary called Frodo is Great ... Who is That?!!

The final Rings instalment The Return of the King also saw the return of McKenzie, as an elf escort to Liv Tyler. He got one line.

He and fellow Conchords star Jemaine Clement later recorded the parody song Frodo, Don't Wear the Ring, which featured on their hit TV series and included the lines, "Frodo, don't wear the ring/ The magical bling bling/ You'll never be the lord of the rings".

McKenzie was at Wednesday night's opening of Miramar's new Roxy theatre along with Jackson and Hobbit cast members Martin Freeman, Sir Ian McKellen, James Nesbitt and Adam Brown.

Hobbit spokeswoman Melissa Booth did not reply to questions about McKenzie and his role in the film.

Figwit is to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings what the Pederast Priest is to Conan the Barbarian: a background character who does next to nothing, but manages to be one of those characters everyone remembers.

I'm more of a Harad Leader 2 guy, the LotR equivalent of Mahmud, but I digress.

So to have Figwit actually return for The Hobbit encapsulates everything I love and loath about the Jackson films: a bishie elf beloved by fangirls everywhere who gets more screen-time than Beregond, Bergil, Radagast, Glorfindel, Ghân-buri-Ghân, Imrahil, Beechbone, Elladan, Elrohir, Erkenbrand, Gildor, Ioreth, and other Tolkien characters who got shunted for Fralippa's fan-fiction.  Gah.

I really need to find out who Mahmud is.  Perhaps the Conan Completist crowd will know...

Oh Man, Oh God: Sam Worthington as Allan Quatermain

Yes, Sam Worthington, he who set the world on fire with his magnificent, nuanced, subtle, understated I can't even continue this sentence I'm so outraged.

Sam Worthington (Avatar, Terminator Salvation) has signed on to star and produce DreamWorks' "Quatermain" film, based on the "King's Solomon's Mines" novel by H Rider Haggard.

Allan Quatermain was the hero of the book, in which he leads an expedition into an unexplored region of Africa to find the brother of a friend as well as a fabled treasure of the lost mines. A second book called "Allan Quatermain" soon followed.

DreamWorks' version is set in a time in which humans have left Earth and sees Quatermain return to the planet from a temporary stay in space. Mark Verheiden (Timecop, The Mask) was the writer behind the first script when the project was revealed early last year.

Extra tidbit: Back in 2008, when The Asylum (Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers) was trying to rip off "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," the company released "Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls" straight to video. Obviously it was awful.

No!  No.  No, no, no.  No.  No.  Nnno.  Nnnnno.  NNNNNNNN

Seriously, why are Hollywood having such an accursed hard time adapting Allan Quatermain? The man was Indiana Jones before George Lucas & Steven Spielberg were glints in their parents' eyes!  He's a tough, grizzled adventurer who goes on rough-and-tumble quests through ancient lost kingdoms.  This isn't hard, people!

King Solomon's Mines in particular is a great adventure, easily suitable for adaptation to the big screen.  It's the template for such great tales as The Lost World, The Land That Time Forgot, The Man Who Would Be King, The Moon Pool, Lost Horizon, "The Moon of Skulls," and who knows how many other Lost World yarns.  The book's been adapted 6 times, and they still haven't done better than the magnificent 1937 one with Paul Robeson.  And now we have... Sam Worthington as Allan Quatermain.  Jings.  What's next, She with Hayden Panettiere?

Oh, and I simply can't wait for all the inevitable squealing about how this rips off Indiana Jones.  Or the recent Mummy films.  Or Drake's Fortune.

Ralph Bakshi's Conan the Barbarian?

I came across this rather interesting little snippet a while back:

"See," he says, "I really wanted to do 'Conan the Barbarian'. Oliver Stone, who is a friend, wrote it and wanted me to direct. But we had to get Arnold Schwarzenegger's approval."

The trio met for drinks to discuss the movie. "And wouldn't you know it," says Bakshi, "I had one too many scotches and offended Arnold by saying, 'Arnold, if I direct this picture, you have to lose weight. You're just too big.'"

Arnold was not amused, and John Milius got the job. "John called me up and thanked me for my stupidity. And of course, it was a bad picture because Arnold was just too big."

What makes this especially baffling is that Arnold did lose weight for the film, because his muscles were impeding movement.  Look at the difference between Conan the Barbarian's fight scenes, and those in Conan the Destroyer, and consider Arnold was pushing it in Barbarian already. It's somewhat perplexing that Bakshi would be fired for doing something Milius would end up doing anyway.

I'm not sure if that's poorly-translated sarcasm in the last sentence or not, but it would be silly to assert Conan the Barbarian was a bad picture purely on the fact that Arnold was already awfully big.

While Bakshi's obviously quite experienced in live-action filmmaking, he never seemed more at home than when he was doing animation. Well, I think we can all imagine what Ralph Bakshi's animated Conan the Barbarian would've been like:

Films I saw in 2010, and Films I should probably see in 2011

There are a lot of films I was planning on seeing this year. There were a few I was looking forward to, but for some reason never got around to (Iron Man 2, Tron: Legacy).  Others I may have enjoyed (Shutter Island, Kick-Ass, Splice, Despicable Me, Predators, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Tamara Drewe, Black Swan).  In some cases, I probably dodged a bullet (Daybreakers, The Book of Eli, The Wolfman, Alice in Wonderland, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Jonah Hex). Despite the plaudits and recommendations, I still do not wish to, nor do I ever see myself wishing to, see The Social Network.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to see The Way Back, being as I'm a massive Peter Weir fanboy (who still thinks he's been robbed countless times at the Academy Awards)

Still, I'll give my thoughts on the few 2010 films I saw this year in order from least enjoyed to most enjoyed, and list the films I'm making a point of seeing in 2011.

Epic Syndrome and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

He's an uppity, precocious, intolerant English schoolboy! He's a fierce, quixotic, swashbuckling talking rat!  Together, they travel the land seeking treasure, adventure and excitement wherever it may be!  Eustace and Reepicheep!  Muppet and Mouse!  Runt and Rodent!  Faffer and the Gay(ly clad) Mouse!

I'll tell you my about favourite scene in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  It's the duel between Reepicheep and Eustace Scrubb.  It was a battle of wits and a tussle of egos as an arrogant, snotty braggart of a child is challenged by a cavalier talking mouse.  The fight was energetic, fun, endearing, and engaging: two characters were having it out not just physically, but mentally.  On one side Eustace, one of those insufferable children who claim to have absolute insight and cannot conceive of any reality outside the ones they deign to recognize; on the other, Reepicheep, a romantic, adventurous, wild-hearted swashbuckler ever eager to find new wonders and experiences, constantly challenging himself.  Two archetypes at odds with each other in a whimsical miniaturization of the heart of the Narnia story: the juxtaposition of reality with fantasy, and the conflict which arises within and without.

If Michael Apted could've just taken that scene and figured out how to apply it to the rest of the film, as well as take hints from the best parts of the previous films,  Dawn Treader could've been great.  As it is, it's just ok: not bad, but man, just a bit more boldness and daring...