Deceptacon

• Mythology
• "Mama, I'm Satan'
• How we perceive crime...
• Potential of the horror genre in a TV environment
• What defines art..
• Heroes and Villians (some even of the 'super' nature)
• The New Media (Twitter, podcasts, etc...) and the future of how we get the news
• Michael Vick
• The constructs of family (continued)
• The Dead Weather - Horehound
• The Fiery Furnaces - I'm Going Away
• The Fiery Furnaces in general...

Sorry that I've been missing the past couple of days, it's been ridiculously busy at work and things with my school project are starting to heat up, so it's go go go all the time for me, at least has been the past week or so. Probably will keep up going forward as well, so if I miss a day, I promise - I'll catch up...eventually.

On to today's post - mythology. I've always been fascinated with mythology...and I'm not discriminatory either, all mythology is great, from the more respected ancient mythologies from the Greeks or Romans, to the stories stemming from the dark ages resulting in vampires and werewolves, to modern things such as comic books or urban legends. Perhaps it's just my fascination with storytelling and open ended characterization, but what we as a people have done with these stories...in particular the mythical creatures from the dark ages, just astounds me. Ask a 100 people characteristics of vampires and you're likely to get 100 different variations on a very similar definition and the beautiful thing is, they would all be right in some sense. Because these things don't exist (at least, to our knowledge) in the sense that they are told in these stories, there is no true definition of thier being.

I think the one questionable aspect of all mythology is that there's a sense of impossibility to it and I'd like to come up with my own mythology based on actual exaggerations of reality. For instance - Superman's ability to fly...how is he able to fly? He shows no aerodynamic qualities, no propulsion system, no visual clues as to why he can fly...he just can. I have all sorts of questions about Superman, which is why he's my least favorite of all the 'super heroes' - he has only one weakness, an element which isn't even on this planet (but somehow is always in the possession the enemy). He's not even portrayed as a human, but as an alien. The whole concept of the escapism that comes from these super heroes is that we can envision ourselves out, saving the world...but we, as people, all have weaknesses and mortality and thus, can form no emotional attachment to such an invincible force, even when he is in seemingly dire peril.

I think I'm getting into my super heroes (and villains) post, but that's okay...I'll continue because it's even more interesting how these things have evolved over time.

Originally, mythology was formed as a kind of explanation of why we are here and how things are how they are (all religions **cough cough**). Eventually this explanation of the unexplainable turned into an explanation of the darker side of our own personalities. By projecting our darker sides onto creatures of the night, we could pride ourselves on being pure of thought and action. As these projections took on a life of their own and became stories of stories of stories, they became something separate of us and really came into an existence of their own. Eventually, these mythologies were able to build on each other, thanks to the world getting smaller and smaller, and eventually, with added ingenuity from creative minds throughout the past two centuries, we were able to build up our own mythologies and storylines. Some of the best fantasy stories of our time, namely Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter are built almost entirely on mythologies, but then given an added depth by creating their own mythology as well. I question the legitimacy of things like the Twilight series (besides the serious lack of character construction) because it seems that all of the preconceived notions we have of vampires, werewolves ("shapeshifters") have been thrown out for the convenience of the storyline. Instead of building mythologies off of other mythologies, it seems that the mythologies have been reconstructed to fit into a cheap romance story...but that's an argument for another night.

Anyways, I love mythology of all shapes and sizes, especially mythical creatures. What are your favorite mythologies?

Nathan out - ta.

Rachel Nichols, name of the day

• The constructs of family...
• Mythology
• How we perceive crime...
• Potential of the horror genre in a TV environment
• What defines art..
• Heroes and Villians (some even of the 'super' nature)
• The New Media (Twitter, podcasts, etc...) and the future of how we get the news
• Michael Vick
• The constructs of family (continued)

So recently, thanks in part to a suggestion from one of you, Tori and I have begun watching Big Love, via Netflix...good old Netflix. Anyways, the point is - it's a very good show with lots of intriguing plot points exaggerated by the fact that our main protaganist has three wives. I think what makes it great is that most of the plotlines are told as if this were a perfectly typical family, but the topic of polygamy does come up for obvious reason.

So I've been thinking about polygamy because, well - that's what I do. However, I've now been able to expand this thought process into the greater context of society and it's rules. Namely - gay marriage. How is it considered reasonable in the land of the free, or in any free nation for that matter, to allow our government to define what composes a family? How is defining family as a man and a woman any different than the Chinese government only allowing a single couple a single child? And they at least have a good reason, with overpopulation a serious problem there. What are our motives of defining families?

This is a topic I will likely come back to often, but I'm busy today and at the moment, so this will have to be a topic for another day. Think about it though. Ta.

Sour Cream 'n Onion

• Social Networking
• The constructs of family...
• Mythology
• How we perceive crime...
• Potential of the horror genre in a TV environment
• What defines art..
• Heroes and Villians (some even of the 'super' nature)
• The New Media (Twitter, podcasts, etc...) and the future of how we get the news
• Michael Vick

Good afternoon. Late lunch today, but I give you a post anyways. Today we're talking about social networking - basically, how has social networking changed the world, or how we interact with it, and where is it going? Social networking is officially beyond arrived, it's probably been here a while and might have passed out on the couch at this point. It was recently announced, or realized, that social networking sites now have more daily visitors than porn sites. Porn has long since dominated the Internet, and will continue to do so, because...why wouldn't it? But porn isn't today's topic, no, today we're talking about social networking. The big three are obviously myspace, facebook and linkedin. I know, most of you are currently preparing your 'twitter' comments, but I don't really see that as social networking...it's social something, but not networking. In the 'old' days (two-three years ago), one of the best methods of getting ahead in life is knowing the right people. Guess what - it still is, but now it's a much smaller world. Just keeping in touch with people from work, or school, or your hometown - whatever, it can all come back. Someone I used to work with is doing well in my field, I can use the connection to get a job...but it's easy because he's my friend on Facebook and we worked well together. And the growth of this stuff is amazing - first there was myspace and it was crazy lame full of 14-year old girls who said they were 18 to get the sites. Then facebook came along and...it was pretty much the same, but we didn't have to suffer through the ads, stupid profile layouts and color schemes, and the privacy settings were much better. Finally linkedin showed up and all of a sudden we have a dedicated site to professional social networking. Almost everyone I know is on at least one social networking site (almost entirely facebook) and it's ridiculous how often people log in jut to check update statuses (which is essentially twitter at this point, but you can get deeper if you choose).

So what are your thoughts on social networking and where do you see it heading? I'll probably answer these questions when I feel like it, but I have to get back to work. Nathan out - ta.

Ugh...subject lines

• Work place experience versus schoolroom education
• Social Networking
• The constructs of family...
• Mythology
• How we perceive crime...
• Potential of the horror genre in a TV environment
• What defines art..
• Heroes and Villians (some even of the 'super' nature)
• The New Media (Twitter, podcasts, etc...) and the future of how we get the news

I just listened to a very interesting piece regarding the Crow Paradox on NPR. Very interesting stuff. Crow's can identify an individual person and remember them for years and years, but humans are essentially capable of identifying any crow out of a group, regardless of how much time they've spent with the bird. Craziness. Here's you link - The Crow Paradox. I actually knew that about crows, the remembering faces thing, but it's still interesting.

So anyways, today I want to talk a little bit about the whole school versus work experience thing. So most of the people who read and sometimes participate here, are at the age where we are just finishing up college...entering the workplace and figuring out how little we really know. Many of us have suffered the frustrations of the real world where you apply for a great job, you interview and you think it goes great, but...you don't have enough experience. This obviously sets up the catch-22 of you can't get a job because you don't have experience and you can't get experience without a job. So, as your struggling through this frustration you think - why do I need experience? I'll get it there, I have my schooling so I know what I'm doing. Yeah - if you haven't realized it yet, you know nothing. So what to do about it - when we leave high school, from public schools, we're hardly ready for college (just me?) And then when we graduate, we're not ready for work! Whatever happened to the good old apprentice system? In modern times we have the terrible internship program (work for free?) and the co-op system which is good, but not as popular because companies don't want to pay for someone to learn (and yet, most companies are willing to pay for their already present employees to go back to school).

I don't have a whole lot of thoughts on this, but it seems off in the modern age. Thoughts?

• Limitations of a film adaptation
• Work place experience versus schoolroom education
• Social Networking
• The constructs of family...
• Mythology
• How we perceive crime...
• Potential of the horror genre in a TV environment
• What defines art..
• Heroes and Villians (some even of the 'super' nature)

How far can we really go with an adaptation from book to film? I obviously bring this up with the Half-Blood Prince just released and tensions building until the two parts of Deathly Hallows planned for next November/July 2011. How much are we reasonably to expect? Is it wrong for us, as fans, to have high expectations of our screened translation?

It is undeniable that the move from written text to the silver screen is a heavy price to pay for any story's heart and soul. Sure, we get the general storyline, but we rarely get the full meaning behind the story or the motivation behind the characters' actions. It's a flawed system at best and it's a process best avoided in far too many situations. I think the bottom line is the motivation of the creative heads behind the separate works...for a novel, it's generally about telling an intriguing story, whereas a movie's sole purpose is to make money. In order for a film to make money, it needs to appeal to the greatest percent of the population, whereas for a book to be successful - just resonating with any readers could generally be defined as a plus.

Next, when reading a book, we are able to construct a vague concept of how the characters we are reading about appear. When they appear in a movie, their appearence is concrete and almost certainly not the face we had in our heads. This isn't the fault of the moviemakers, of course, they needed to cast someone to play the part - the fact is, your Aslan doesn't look like my Aslan. Even though we read the same words, from the same page, from the same book...our mind interprets them differently. After this, as the story progresses, our mental image of characters, or the setting, or a given object slowly evolve into a thought that we can see as concrete. On repeated readings of most of my favorite books, I barely absorb the physical descriptions of things because, by word association, I'm already able to conceive their appearance in my head based on my previous readings through the story. This is an intriguing problem for the filmmakers because, not only does my Aslan not match your Aslan, my Aslan may no longer even match the description from the book as I have altered him to match my concept of the story's reality.

For instance, in the very expensive Lord of the Rings trilogy, I had the Ents pictured a very specific way. The movie was way...way off-base, but that was my perception of them...in the movie, it was Peter Jackson's (or whoever designed them, but we'll assume Jackson had to sign off on them) perception of them. It's not his fault my image of them didn't match, nor is it mine, it's the nature of the beast.

So based on these shortcomings of the silver screen versus novels, how much potential do these screen adaptations really have? How much can we honestly expect from them? The complaint that the book is 'better' is almost irrelevant as they are two separate entities, like comparing apples and oranges. The motivation for us, as consumers, for reading or for watching a film are quite different - for reading, it is almost completely motivated by a sense of escapism brought on by this alternative reality than our own, whereas the film does invoke some concept of escapism, it's more about pure entertainment - it's fun. When you complain that you enjoyed the book more than the movie - what did you enjoy more about it? The only legitimate complaint I think we are warranted is if Hollywood decides to add, subtract, or rearrange the storyline (destroying the burrow in HBP, excluding the ending in the Golden Compass). If you are going to recreate a story - at least keep the story! If you're only going to use the story or characters as a basis for your own story, do that...don't ruin a perfectly good story.

The bottom line is, in this society, the motivation of making these movies is to make money whereas they should be to point viewers to the books for a deeper meaning. This is almost always lost in the moviemaking process. They are too concerned with giving a complete package to the moviegoing public that they avoid leaving them with any questions that may direct them to the book. Reading is a one of a kind cultural experience, and it's being phased out. How soon after reading goes, does writing as well? Can society survive the loss of one of our major cultural contributions?

There are, of course, excellent examples of novel to movie adaptation...unfortunately, they are far and few between.

I could probably keep going, but I feel as if I'm talking myself into a circle so I'd best walk away now. Nathan out - ta.

• How our lives are remembered
• Limitations of a film adaptation
• Work place experience versus schoolroom education
• Social Networking
• The constructs of family...
• Mythology
• How we perceive crime...
• Potential of the horror genre in a TV environment
• What defines art...

How will you be remembered? How do you hope to be remembered? Obviously, most of us probably hope to be remembered for the good our lives brought to the people around us and the world as a whole, however - it is more likely that we'll be remembered, at least partly, by some secret shame which plagued us at some point in our lives.

This topic comes to me because of the recent deaths of Michael Jackson and Steve McNair. Obviously, this discussion alters slightly because of the celebrity involved, but I think the principles remain relatively the same. Is it best for us to remember Michael Jackson from his days in the Jackson 5 to about 1989? Is it reasonable to do so? Is it more important for us to remember the past 20 years? The questionable law suits, the very questionable plastic surgeries, the completely oblivious nature of his reality versus the rest of the worlds? Should this tarnish his legacy, just be a part of it, or should we apply a bit of revisionist history in order to create the cultural hero he was at the height of his popularity? Couldn't we look at this as some kind of cautionary tale of celebrity, addiction to pain killers and the life of excess as a whole? Would that be an insult to his accomplishments as a singer and songwriter? I think, as I believe I mentioned a few posts ago, that it will be very fascinating how history treats Michael Jackson for future generations. I don't think there's any denying that he will have a future presence, much like the Beatles have lived on well past the actual life span of the band and thus far, two of it's members. The influence is undeniable, therefore his music will certainly live long past my time on Earth, but will just his music survive or will his confounding lifestyle be carried along with that memory?

In a similar story, although one with a much shorter last act, we have Steve McNair. I understand some of you may not be fans of American football, but Steve McNair was a very accomplished QB for the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans. He came about a yard short of reaching a tie in the closing minutes of a Super Bowl after willing his team down the field with only a minute remaining. He is regularly regarded as one of the toughest players to ever play the position, often playing injured. He's also a well known philanthropist, with multiple charities with his name attached and a dedicated family man with a wife a four sons. For these reasons, it was a complete shock when he was found shot to death in the company of another woman. As it was later discovered by the police in Nashville, McNair was shot four times while sleeping by his girlfriend, who then committed suicide. The revelation of the affair was probably the greater shock after news of his sudden death spread. So how should we remember McNair? He did a lot of great things in his life, many accomplishments, however in a final questionable act of judgement, which unsuspectingly led to his death, we were revealed a skeleton in his closet he would have likely stayed hidden. Do we crop this picture of his life or do we have to take things as is?

This brings me back to my original point - how do you want to be remembered? Let's face it, we're not perfect and occassionally we do things that we may be ashamed of, or at least think better of avoiding after the fact, but what if we then die as a result of this poor judgement, or even just in the same time and place and maybe nothing to do with our actual decisions...would you want your skeletons revealed by your death or would you rather they die with you? How do you want to be remembered?

People are Fascinating

Ever walk by someone and pick up just the briefest snippet of conversation, completely out of context, and try to put some personality over it.

For instance, just now I overheard a person who works in my office (not necessarily a colleague as he works in a different field than I do, hence we never communicate...not a peer as he is way out of my age bracket...not a coworker, because again, we don't work together)...

New topic for the list - how relationship definitions have changed...in modern society.

Anyways, I overhear - "What about that stupid G-Force movie. That opens up this weekend... I don't know, it looks funny." and then a few seconds later, "I was thinking of doing a Dad thing this weekend."

Just from this briefest snippet of conversation, I can easily conclude that he has young children (obviously), and they are an active functioning family (you know, the kind of family that does stuff together on the weekend, as oppose to each person doing their own thing). It's fascinating how much you can kind of build of a person's life from these brief snapshots picked up from eavesdropping. I suppose that's kind of the beauty of people watching as well, making up likely lifestyles of random people.

Anyone else find this interesting, or am I just creepy?

I love this song (Your Cover's Blown by Belle and Sebastian). Ta.

Title

• Harper's Island
• How our lives are remembered
• Limitations of a film adaptation
• Work place experience versus schoolroom education
• Social Networking
• The constructs of family in modern society
• Mythology
• How we perceive crime in modern society (I've become very interested in how our typical perceptions of the world are based on old world stereotypes when society has evolved to be much more complex, especially in our darker undertakings)
• Potential of the horror genre in a TV environment

Sorry about missing yesterday, work stuff. Don't worry, I skipped my football blog too and I'll do two posts today, keeping us even.

So a few posts ago (here), I spoke of CBS's suspense, thriller crime drama that started on Thursday nights, but was eventually moved to Saturday nights because of poor ratings. Now I kind gave a brief synopsis of the show in the previous post, but I'll kind of wrap everything up. I am going to reveal the big 'mystery', so - you know, if you're even quasi-interested in watching for yourself (all of the episodes are available online at http://www.harpersglobe.com/tv/), stop reading now and do so. There are only 13 episodes, and at 45 minutes a piece, you're only looking at killing a little more than 4 hours which ain't too bad given how much else there is out there in terms of bad TV, and this is at least intriguing...to a degree.

So anyways, in episode 10, it is revealed that the brutal killer who staged the massacre 7 years prior on the island is in fact alive, traveling via tunnels throughout the island and is now back. This is my biggest complaint because this has got to be one of the biggest writer cop-outs I've ever seen. The concept of the series was that of these limited number of locals - who could the suspect be? By adding in another character, with a history of killing in his background, in the tenth episode was a weak escape from the fact that all of the other characters were given substantial alibis for at least one of the other murders. Now obviously, he wasn't working alone, which is fine and dandy, but adding in a suspect that far into the storyline and an explanation as to why he wouldn't have been seen by that point...ridiculous.

So anyways, his 'assistant' turned out to be Henry, the groom. You see...Henry is actually Abby's half-brother. John Wakefield (the original killer) had a child with Sara (Abby's mom), however by the time she gave birth, she had gotten away from John (probably because he was psychopathic killer) and gave the child (Henry) up for adoption. Nobody knows this until the last episode, although it is revealed that Henry is the other killer in the 12th episode. So Henry grew up with Abby, unknown to either of them that they are related. So fast forward to the current bloodfest...because Henry was the shunned child (given up for adoption instead of raised), he feels some resentment towards Abby, much like Wakefield felt towads Sara for giving up his child (she was his first victim in the original massacre) and now feels he much kill Abby for the same reason. However, given the opportunity, Henry kills Wakefield and kidnaps Abby so that they can 'be alone together forever.' He sets it up so that Wakefield's body and blood from the only remaining survivors (Abby, Henry and Jessie) are found in the burning church, giving the FBI reason to believe that all remaining people on the island have been killed. This is actually a set-up because Shea and her daughter, Madison, succeeded in getting off the island. In fact, Henry has tied up Jessie in order to get him to sign a confession to helping Wakefield and locked Abby up so they can live together. Obviously, things happen and Abby kills Henry, then she and Jessie go off and live happily ever after. Yeah, for Hollywood endings. Here's the problem with the finale though (which I pretty much summed up)...

Henry kills Wakefield, so he and Abby can be together. That's fantastic! I love allusions to incest as much as the next guy, but was this really necessary? They had some great dialog early in the episode, some cathartic ramblings by Henry, confessions of sorts, prior to killing his best friend and then again, to Abby before the showdown with Wakefield. However, after he kidnaps her...he goes into a very long monologue about being a child, the shunned child, and only finding out in his adult years. His growth as a killer and his formation of this grand plan to get Abby alone. To give you a timeline, she is kidnapped with twenty minutes remaining in the episode. That's right, half of the episode is dedicated to his obsessive love of his half-sister. This is overdoing it a bit much. Honestly, I would have liked to have seen a flashback of all the murders, who did them (Wakefield or Henry). Why bother with getting a confession from Jessie? Shea figuring out that Wakefield had an assistant and it couldn't be Jessie (who she already suspected, but Wakefield had the key to get out of the jail cell and Henry was the only person capable of giving him it)? That's not enough motive to keep Jessie alive, you already set it up for everyone to think you're dead...therefore, it doesn't matter if Shea or Madison figure out it was you. The FBI will likely do an investigation, come up with little evidence of an accomplice and even if they do figure out it was you, you're dead...so that's the end of it. The finale was kind of a let down given the action leading up to it in the previous few episodes.

My next beef is with the methodology. In the killing spree seven years prior, Wakefield set off an explosion at the marina to distract the local law enforcement, killed Sara and then went on a random killing spree before being shot and falling off a cliff (and never seen again until now, although he was supposedly buried...has a grave and everything). So, from this, it is reasonable to gather that Wakefield's M.O. is to have a plan in order to get to a single target, then kill randomly until stopped. In this killing spree, the murders were often elaborate traps with the planned target chosen ahead of time. Now, it is reasonable that this was Henry's affect on the plan...to dwindle the numbers until Abby was the only remaining person on the island, but why? Wakefield's intent the whole time was to kill Abby and Henry's was to get her alone...seems like a lot of work, killing everyone else in such elaborate schemes.

This is my final beef, with the show at least...opportunity. Henry is running around with Trish (the bride) for the final twenty minutes of the 12th episode before finally killing her. Why wait so long? It was seem much more sensible to kill her when the first opportunity arose, then going out and killing others. Time management for serial killers is important...especially since by that point, the coast guard had been contacted and were on their way. Time is of the essence, let's get going with the murders already!

CBS created a parallel web series (Harper's Globe, which can also be found at the website I directed you to before), which merits it's own entry, I think...given the ridiculous plot they formulated for it.

I don't think I'll do another post immediately, I have to get back to work, but I'll try to do another post tonight so we stay even. Ta.

Aerials

As promised, today I will discuss the potential longevity of the Harry Potter series, as a film series and as the novels, as well their growth and expansion through the years. I've decided to relist upcoming topics (as well as add a few new ones) so to keep myself more focused as I write these up.

• The actors from Harry Potter and their potential futures
• Harper's Island
• How our lives are remembered
• Limitations of a film adaptation
• Work place experience versus schoolroom education
• Social Networking
• The constructs of family in modern society

On Friday I said I mentioned six topics, but I only had five...silly me.

Just to retouch on my topic from Friday, regarding the Half-Blood Prince. I saw it again this weekend, which somewhat changed my opinion on the matter. I plan on seeing it one more time in theaters, when it comes out to IMAX on the 29th in our area...I wonder if I could read the book before then, to refresh my memory.

So here are some new thoughts...the second time through, the pace really slowed down a bit, which benefited the whole emotional roller coaster it presented. The ending still seemed a little sudden, lacking the necessary time to truly admire the emotional loss of Dumbledore. The fact that he played a much larger part in the novels than in the movies most likely attributed to this. Also, attempting to end on a happy note ("I've never noticed how beautiful this place is") was completely unnecessary. In greater cinema context, this film is the equivalent of 'The Empire Strikes Back', but they attempted to give us the Hollywood happy ending. Taken out of context, I suppose there is little harm in this, however for the sake of the overall storyline...it's crucial that the audience feels as if we have left our heroes in a bleak and hopeless situation. It was a dark film, don't get me wrong, but it had more comedy than Order of the Phoenix, which misrepresented the darkening spirits of the wizarding world. I'm going to immediately throw out the objections from purists who say it isn't like the book, or they left stuff out, because they always do...it's part of thier jobs as screen adapters to take what's important from the book itself and make a movie that anyone, even people who haven't seen the other movies or read the books, can understand. The second time through though, because of the perceived slower pace, I was able to almost edit the film in my head to what the filmmakers put in that wasn't particularly necessary. For instance, Dumbledore asking Harry if he was interested in Hermoine in more than a plutonic way? What was that about? I suppose it sets up that Dumbledore is attempting to be closed to Harry, but it was unnecessary for the context of the film and that could have shaved a minute or two from the overall length (or put elsewhere, when the time would be more appropriately used). Also, the lack of Quidditch in Order of the Phoenix, made it's appearence (although brief) in Half-Blood Prince almost feel forced and unnatural. When did Harry become captain? Ginny's on the team? We haven't seen any Quidditch at Hogwart's since Prisoner of Azkahban - why throw it in now, for twenty minutes, at the beginning? To the overall storyline, it had little relevence. Although, Luna's lion hat is still hilarious...I wonder if I can get that as a screenshot for my desktop. Moving on...

Overall, I still enjoyed the film as a film. As an adaptation, it was decent, but it could have been a lot better. I question the filmmaker's appreciation of film context in the series versus just popping out a movie to sell to the aveage moviegoer since they know we Harry Potter fans will see it regardless.

Moving on to today's topic... longevity and growth. Anybody go back and watch the first couple of movies recently? Man - they look like amateur work versus the later films and that's not just the fact that it features ten year olds running around in robes. The CGI is nearly unbearable compared to today's work and they seemed to like to focus on the visual aspects of the wizarding world Rowling so laboriously built as oppose to the driving storylines. I will give the film makers this...as the movies have gone on and the general overall feel darker and darker, the actual castle of Hogwarts has become less and less magical. I'm not sure if this is intentional or a mere byproduct of focusing on more important aspects of the storyline, but we no longer see moving staircases or the talking portraits, or the ghosts comically prancing throughout the film (especially the Bloody Baron who is painted as a comically evil character in Sorcerer's Stone in his brief appearance at the sorting, versus his true nature as shown in the final book). Plain and simple, I question how future generations (even those who are five and under now) will perceive the Harry Potter film series in the future. For one thing, they will likely watch the movies long before reading the books, which is of course the first cardinal sin of enjoying film adaptations...always read the book first, everyone knows that. Will the movies do the books enough justice in order to promote the reading of the series? Sometimes I think that they made the films too well into films, leaving little to entice the viewer to dig deeper into the source material. And how long will these adaptations even hold up as necessary viewing, like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or the Shawshank Redemption have? These are classic films and, in the context of classic works of literature (which I would argue with anyone, the Harry Potter series will fall into given the appropriate time period), do we have appropriately classic films? As I already mentioned, the earlier movies already feel dated thanks to poor CGI and careless direction. I again mention that perhaps the best way to truly capture the spirit of the series is to start over...obviously we have to finish with the Daniel Radcliffe intrepetation, but it seems only logical. I do see a completely series remake within our lifetimes, although I'd really like not to wait twenty years for it. The fact is, they started making films before they had a true context for everything in them because the final book wasn't published until three movies were already out (three or four, I can't remember off the top of my head). They switched directors repeatedly, with mixed results. Continuity in a series like this is almost a prerequisite, and they butchered that concept. The largest flaw in this idea is, naturally, the comparisons to the earlier film's counterparts. For instance, I doubt they could find any actor capable of pulling off Snape as Alan Rickman does. Any other face in that character would seem out of place and unnatural. The same goes for Fred and George, or Luna...the casting nailed them so perfectly, it would seem an insult to the actors in question to cast someone else to their roles. That being said, the three primary actors leave a lot to be desired, but who's to say three other child actors are going to do any better? There are only so many Dakota Fannings or Freddie Highmores per generation and we used ours up already. Anyways, this is just theoretically jargon. I'm sure WB would jump at the chance to start it over again simply because of what a cash cow the series has turned out to be (deservingly so, but still...) How long, I suppose, is my question then. How long until we see it?

So what do you think? Does the series, as a work of literature, stand a chance to last the test of time? Does the film series? How do you feel about the film series, thus far, as a representation of the books? Or are they simply a film series and should be accepted as such?

Exceptionally Ordinary

So I have a daily football blog that I update every weekday during my lunch. Here's the catch though - I now have 124 posts, only 123 here. I'd like to keep this one up for at least a little while, and I do have some topics saved up so I'll knock one out today and hope I can do these on my lunches as well.

Topics -
The new Harry Potter movie, Half-Blood Prince...discuss
The potential longevity of the Harry Potter film series, it's growth and evolution, versus the book series
The actual possibility that ANY of the child actors from the HP series are likely to do anything post HP
Harper's Island, which I discussed earlier, but I'll do a full review of the accomplishments and flaws of the series and the thriller/suspense/quasi-horror potential on the small screen (this sounds like two posts to me)
How our lives are remembered - this will start out as a discussion brought up by the tragic deaths of Michael Jackson, who obviously had a very odd lifestyle for the better part of the last twenty years and Steve McNair, who while known as a tough NFL star and family man, was shot and killed by his mistress on the fourth of July.

So there's six topics, one for today, and then one for each day next week. I'll try to come up with five topics every Friday, in order to maintain this high pace of posts. (Possibilities for next Friday - the actual limitations of a film adaptation, the work place education versus schooling, social networking, etc...)

Now, onwards to the movie. I'm obviously not too concerned in regards to spoilers, as most of you members have either seen the film already, or read the books, or both. If you haven't, might as well skip the rest of this one until you do.

Now I've heard two major complaints regarding the film, one of which I voiced immediately after seeing it and the other, lack of action, moreso disappointed me than anything else. I'll first address the issue of action - no, there was not much action in the film. The fact of the matter is, books five and six (and by adaptations, films five and six), mostly consist of treading water but building the foundation for which the final two films will be built. The first four stories can be seen as individual storylines, as they all have a direct plot - stop whoever's trying to steal the sorcerer's stone from doing so, solve the mystery of the chamber of secrets, catch Sirius Black (and then save him from being wrongfully accused), and surviving the Goblet of Fire. After that however, the direct plots get a little fuzzy - in Order of the Phoenix, it was defying Umbridge and preparing themselves with defensive magic, but there are subplots abound that didn't translate as successfully to the big screen (the operations of the ministry and the order of the phoenix, for starters). The same is even more true in the Half-Blood Prince. In a two and a half hour film, how are they expected to reveal to us 1) the high school like hormonal atmosphere, 2) the memories, and hence Tom Riddle's backstory, 3) the growing Voldemort army, 4) Harry's paranoia surrounding Draco and Draco's fall into near madness, etc... In the book, there was one quasi-major battle - at the end at Hogwarts...so the movie is actually, not that far off. They didn't include this battle, for whatever reason, but they did include a small skirmish where the Weasley house is destroyed for no apparent reason, although it did introduce us to the fact that Tonks and Lupin were an item...unnecessary, but whatever. Anyways, my point is - there was little action because...there was little action to show. The skies are getting darker, but it's not raining yet. It's supposed to build our anticipation for the final two films, which of course, don't come out until Q4 2010 and Q2 2011, which sucks but what can you do?

My complaint, however it's relatively minor since I thoroughly enjoyed the film and plan on seeing it again this weekend (and again after the IMAX version comes out)...nonetheless, the movie was an emotional roller coaster. Now, I understand in the book, there is the comedy factor of teenagers being teenagers and discovering the opposite sex and we all laugh at the awkwardness present in ourselves that we see in these characters...that's fine. However, in a film where things aren't laid out into chapters and things happen in quick succession, these awkward moments were almost always followed by something dark, dreary, or just otherwise unpleasant...then back to funny again. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they attempted to capture the conflicting emotions of the book, but the execution played out much worse than one would have hoped. I've read this complaint elsewhere as well, so it's not like I'm crazy.

Anyways, it was a good film and a fine representation of the novel from which it was adapted. We'll get into further discussions of these things in the other, related topics, next week.

Until then - ta.