The Long-Expected Prequel

Back in April, I mentioned that I would be seeing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when it came out, no matter how it turned out. Well, the film has been out for a few weeks now, and I've gotten the chance to see it and form my opinion as to whether it was worth the effort.

Spoiler: It was, it definitely was.

The Good, The Bad, and The Dwarven

So, just in case there's anyone left on the Internet who hasn't heard the news, we have now seen a teaser trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey:



I have to say, I'm pretty impressed, and my excitement for the movie has been upped by several levels.

30 Day Book Challenge - Days 1 And 2

Recently I've been reading a blog called the Egotist's Club, which is just finishing up a month-long book-themed blogging challenge - it looks like it could be a fun idea, so I think I'm going to give it a try. There are 30 different topics to cover - conveniently, one for each day in June:

Day 1 – The best book you read last year
Day 2 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times
Day 3 – Your favorite series
Day 4 – Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 5 – A book that makes you happy
Day 6 – A book that makes you sad
Day 7 – Most underrated book
Day 8 – Most overrated book
Day 9 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 10 – Favorite classic book
Day 11 – A book you hated
Day 12 – A book you used to love but don’t anymore
Day 13 – Your favorite writer
Day 14 – Favorite book of your favorite writer
Day 15 – Favorite male character
Day 16 – Favorite female character
Day 17 – Favorite quote from your favorite book
Day 18 – A book that disappointed you
Day 19 – Favorite book turned into a movie
Day 20 – Favorite romance book
Day 21 – Favorite book from your childhood
Day 22 – Favorite book you own
Day 23 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
Day 25 – A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 – A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 – The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 – Favorite title
Day 29 – A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 – Your favorite book of all time

Of course, we're already a few days into the month, so I'll have to double up on the first few. In addition, I'm going to set a couple of other boundaries - no using the same book for two different days (although no promises about using different books by the same author, or from the same series), for example. Also, I might tweak the topics a bit as I write them up - but only a little.

So, having said that, let's get started, shall we?

Welcome to Today

There are few things more irritating in the pop-cultural world than a bad adaptation of a beloved work. One early warning sign is often that a period work has been moved to the modern day - this can signal that the producers either don't know much about the work beyond what can be gleaned from the title, or are attempting to make it more "relevant". Now, while a modernized work isn't always bad (V for Vendetta was originally set in the 1990's, after all), it does generate controversy amongst fans of the original work (not everybody liked V for Vendetta, and amongst those that didn't the most common reason seems to be that it wasn't enough like the comic).

Given all this, it is understandable why I was skeptical about Sherlock, a recent BBC production that brings Sherlock Holmes to modern London. However, the responses from viewers across the pond were mostly positive, so a few weeks ago when the first of three episodes season aired on PBS, I made sure to check it out.

That first episode, "A Study In Pink", turned out to be an excellent retelling of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holes story, with just enough twists and reversals to make it both fresh and familiar to fans of the original. And not just in the actual mystery, either - from Sherlock's first complaint that it's "impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days" (not to mention his "three-patch" solution), it's clear that this Holmes is going to both keep everything that made the original unique, while not glossing over the things about the modern world that Holmes would have to adapt to.

One particularly interesting example of this from the first episode occurs when Sherlock, gleefully rushing out of 221B to the scene of another grisly crime, calls out to Dr. Watson that "The game . . . is on!" Of course, fans of the original Holmes would be expecting him to say, "The game's afoot!", but in a universe where there was no Sherlock Holmes until the late 20th century, there would be little reason for that phrase to stick in the public consciousness. Replacing it with "The game is on!" is not only a nice little reminder of the paradox involved in Holmes & Watson's temporal displacement, but another clever way to modernize the character.

The rest of the season, while not following any particular Holmes cases as closely as the pilot, do measure up to the high bar set by the pilot. The middle one, "The Blind Banker", is the least of the three, but I attribute this to it's being the only episode in the season that isn't a season premiere or finale. "The Great Game", that finale, introduces Sherlock's great nemesis, "Jim" Moriarty. The show plays up Moriarty's being Sherlock's opposite (a consulting criminal as opposed to a consulting detective) at the expense of what we knew of him from the stories (although, there's nothing to say that Colonel Moran wasn't at the other end of one of those laser sights . . . ), he was still very well done.

Of course, then the season ended with one of the worse cliffhangers since Captain Picard got assimilated by the Borg, but I understand that a second season will be coming . . . sometime next year. Sigh.

One last, tangential note. Apparently, Dr. Watson - or more accurately, his actor Martin Freeman - has been cast as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's long-awaited film version of "the Hobbit". Hmm - Bilbo, Watson, Arthur Dent - does anyone else notice a theme here?