Tag Archives: adaptations

Sitting at a Round Table: Merlin in Retrospect


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Never could I ever write nearly as much insightful commentary about the legend of King Arthur as there already is. There are people who have dedicated their lives to studying the Once and Future King with his duel kingdoms. I can, however, talk about King Arthur as a life-long fan of the legends. I’ve always been an Arthurian girl – and I always will be. There’s something amazing and inspiring about the legends of Arthur and his knights. Whether it’s uniting a nation with Lancelot, or even the quest for the Holy Grail, Arthur will remain one the of the West’s greatest myths.

Because of that status, there are a lot of retellings of the great and mythic Arthur. Some are awful, some are great. And some are Merlin. More recent adaptations of the tale have taken the side of telling the story through the eyes of Merlin, the old wizard who sometimes helps, sometimes hurts, but is always there. There is no true tale of Arthur without Merlin.

And that’s where Merlin comes in.

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Video Game Movies and You


I believe it is safe to say that video game films… well… they suck. They suck hardcore. We want them to be great but it just never seems to completely make the transition. It’s not their fault. They never asked for this. A lot of them get really close to being that great film but something surrounding the film just seems to bring the level of quality down to zero. Very few, if any, get any of the source material right. Who do we have to blame? Do we blame the director? Do we blame the cast? The writers? Do we blame our complex needs when it comes to good films? Who do we point our unforgiving fingers at? I went back and watched a good amount of these dreaded films to see how I felt about them now. Let’s take a look into a couple of the more notable video game films to have graced any screen, American or foreign, and what makes them good or bad. Continue reading

Arrow: A Quivering Mid-Season Review


Arrow

Ok, so the CW doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to television shows. Most of them are made and marketed towards the drama llama crowd of teens and tweens. At times, it seems they cater towards the emotionally insecure Twilight crowd. However, there have been some diamonds in the rough, such as Supernatural (which I am not a huge fan of, but it beats the hell out of most shows on the network) and Smallville (its early seasons anyway). This is why I was a little ambivalent when I saw the first trailer for the show Arrow. Continue reading

An Unexpected Journey: The Hobbit Review


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To say that The Hobbit was the most anticipated film of the year would be an understatement. To say it was the most anticipated film of the decade would be a little more accurate. Ever since Peter Jackson escorted us out of The Shire and on the road to Mordor, many fans of the films and of the Tolkein stories alike were begging for the day The Hobbit would be announced. Continue reading

In your head, in your heeeeeeead, ZOMBIE!


Zombie

This week we talk about our cultural obsession with zombies. Our friend Jamie joins in on the discussion.

Podcast Episode 3: Attack of the Adaptation


Adaptations

This week we talked about adaptations, of all kinds, what they mean, how they can be good, and how they can be awful.

Bullets, Barrels, Babes and Bond: 50 Years of 007


James Bond was created by Ian Fleming in the early 1940s. He was originally a part of a long running book series. It wasn’t until 1962 that the first James Bond film was released: Dr. No. The film starred Sean Connery as James Bond. Dubbed with codename 007, Bond traipsed around the world, fighting bad guys with sleek gadgets and wooing women with his suave charm. The films were action packed, filled with enough one-liners to show up even Arnold Schwarzenegger. The films were cheesy, the villains were very cliché, but we loved every second of it.

As the years progressed Bond was recast; the first one being George Lazenby (with a performance so bad they had to bring back Connery for one last film). From there you have: Roger Moore (my personal favorite), Timothy Dalton, Peirce Brosnan (the worst), and finally Daniel Craig. Each actor has brought something unique to the role and made the character their own, while still reminding us that this is indeed James Bond.

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Things that Happened: The Legend of Zelda edition.


Okay, so I had to go on a media blackout for three days this week for a class project. No phone, no television, no internet. Couldn’t even read on my Kindle. Yeah, it was…bad, to say the least. But one of the stipulations of the project was that we had to have a ful thirty minute face-to-face conversation with someone. So what do I do? Plop down with my friends and co-writers and we discuss nerdy things, as we do in the mountains of North Carolina.

Our topic of the day was related to Wreck-It Ralph and Disney’s recent purchase of Lucasfilms (which will more than likely be covered in depth in a later article). We started talking about what could be super awesome if Disney decided to go ahead and purchase Nintendo and Sega and a few other video game companies. First thought was: Oh my God, a Pixar Pokémon movie! Second thought was: Oh my God, a Pixar Legend of Zelda movie!

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