Class Tonight...

[liralen]

Got to see Beowulf with John and... well... I didn't like it much.

Ah well. It was very pretty and quite the adventure and very... Gaiman, I guess.

Sometimes Gaiman's sense of story, which works so well in print and on the page in text just... doesn't work in movies for me. I'm not sure why, but I think it's one of the reasons the 200 didn't work for me that well, either. Something that's moving in graphic novels is... over the top when in motion. Something about it just doesn't translate well for me.

Ah well.

I have the next chapter of Thorn and Ash partially done, but I'm going to have to go to dinner and class. Maybe I can get it out after I get back. Bah...

Comments

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

I think maybe you dropped a hundred somewhere up there :)

I know what you mean about Gaiman's movies. I still haven't managed to make it to Beowulf, although I definitely plan to. But I remember, for instance, when I first saw the trailer for Mirrormask, and it included the names "Neil Gaiman" and "Jim Henson Workshop," and my brain had a fangasm right there in the theater. And then when I finally saw it... it was good, certainly, but it wasn't brilliant and I'd been hoping for brilliant. Same with Stardust, which was also a good movie and all, but it didn't take me to the same place the book did.

I continue to hold out hope that Gaiman will find his film masterpiece someday; but I've already gathered that Beowulf isn't it. Which is a pity.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I dropped a 100 there, but then they were kind of dropped anyway from the story... it seemed like there were only 10 that counted. Sigh...

It would have been a much odder story to have known all 300 that went with him and how they died. *laughter*

But, yes, to both Mirrormask and Stardust. For some reason, in text, I follow randomness and associations much better than I do in a movie, or something... or it makes more visceral sense when I have the time to digest if *I* wish to.

Stardust obviously had a Hollywood makeover, and didn't carry any of the same terror or brilliant turns of forgiveness and connection that the book did, but I suppose that those would have had the same problems Beowulf did for me. And it probably would not have earned the rating it did, in the original form.

Yes, perhaps Gaiman will find it, someday. I hope so.

[outintexas.livejournal.com]

Did you see it in 3D? I think that's the only way to see it.

I waffle almost constantly between thinking I really liked it and thinking it was completely meh. It's very strange. But at least the 3D stuff was worth experiencing.

It had it's moments, but like you said, some of it just didn't seem to ... work.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

I did not see it in 3D. I suspect, however, that some of the bad eye synchronicity would have bugged me even more in 3-D.

I loved the dragon. :-) I'll admit that I loved the flight of the dragon.

[thenomain.livejournal.com]

Have you seen 13th Warrior? Which I adore, even if I had to see it twice to really understand. It's dark and brooding and very apropos for the story they're cribbing from while making it as realistic as possible.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yes! I've seen 13th Warrior and actually enjoyed it quite a lot. :-) Vikings and an Arabian wise man. It's pretty cool. That movie actually really did it for me, in ways that Beowulf couldn't.

I think it had to do with the fact that even that 13th odd man out really had a relationship with the men he was with. Even when he was the butt of their jokes, there turned into some kind of mutual respect that really hit it for me.

I think that might be why Beowulf left me so cold. Beowulf himself really had no relationships, no connection. Only his own conceit and adventures. The only redeeming one was his one wise companion, who was properly horrified at the right times and the only one wise enough to bow out when it was right.

[crimini.livejournal.com]

Funny, I was thinking the same thing.

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

I saw Beowulf, or at least most of it, over the Thanksgiving break. Unfortunately, a combination of an amazingly cold cinema and my jetlag meant I fell asleep during a chunk of it, which is really unusual for me. I'm not sure if it was also a commentary on the film itself.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

I knit four sections to a scarf during it and was grumbling mildly when there wasn't enough light...

... probably suitable commentary in and of itself. *laughter*

[crimini.livejournal.com]

Did you mean "300", the Frank Miller comic turned movie? (Zack Synder, Kurt Johnstad and Michael Gordon wrote the screenplay)

I think Gaiman creates a lovely imagery in the novels and graphic novels he writes (although I've now grown super bored with his reluctant hero archetype), but half of what works for me in the graphic novels are the images and half is the voice in my own head. My own imagination fills in all sorts of blanks and makes it, perhaps, much better than the limited tech current film can create.

And hurrah on chapters!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I lost 100 there. :-)

And, yes, about what my brain does versus what movies do...

Yay! More chapters!!