Random randomness

[wiseheart]

Cos I'm on sick leave, although the sickness has passed, and feel like babbling a bit, yo!

The telly - or why I might end up spend my hard-earned cash on shows that I cannot watch, even though everyone says they're rubbish.

I heard really, really bad things about Starz' Camelot. So I googled a bit, and what I saw confirmed my worst fears. Come on, guys, WTF, Arthur a girl??? Okay, I know he technically isn't a girl, but he looks like one. Imagining him having sex with the actual girls on the show is... off-putting, to say the least. No offence against anyone, but if I wanna watch femslash, the least I could demand would be that both participants be real girls, right? At least Bradley James looks like a knight who would be capable of raising his sword without collapsing under its weight.

But... the show stars Eva Green as Morgan, and she looks absolutely stunning. I could never warm up to Katie McGrath's Morgana, so perhaps I should give "Camelot" a chance, after all. Plus, it has Sean Pertwee, with whom I've been in selfless love ever since I saw him as Hugh Beringar. And Clive Standen! *flails* Granted, I only saw him in Dr. Who, where he had a total of about three seconds of screen time, but I'm so totally fangirling him. Embarrassing, really, considering that I could be his mother. Ah, well. I might even buy some random Robin Hood episodes to watch him. I'm shallow that way. I like me some ruggedly handsome men from time to time.


Procrastinating - or the pain of too many choices after finishing a story.

Now that I've finally gotten "Eye Witness" out of my hair (not that anybody but artemis10002000 would give a rat's arse about my Torchwood fic), I've taken a good hard look of my unfinished WIPs - and blanched. There are too many, in too many different fandoms!

My best candidates to be finished in the foreseeable future would be "Vox Angelica" in the Cadfael fandom, "Brothers-in-Arms" (also in the Cadfael fandom) and "A Visitor from Avalon", my Merlin-Torchwood crossover. Consequently, what have I done all day? Background work on "Sea-Flower", a pre-Ring-War Tolkienfic taking place in Umbar.

Yeah, right. That's me, doing the least logical thing. But at least I've figured out how to include the bull games and cast some of the characters. Not surprisingly, Princess Ivriniel will be played by Eva Green and Lord Caliondo of Umbar will be played by Clive Standen. What? I told you I'm shallow! And I need my visuals. I'm seriously considering having Colin Morgan play the Dark Elf assassin, but I'm not sure I can pull that one out. Although he'd be creepy. Oh, and the malicious Haradric slave girl is played by Indira Varma.


Baking - yep, I did some of that, too!

Not much; we won't dare eating anything with cream in the next few days, so I made some Ischler and a small lamb out of almond biscuit. And I hung up the decorated eggshells in the living room. Mum is pleased with the results, so I'm pleased, too.


Other than that, I'm lazing around and wishing I had people I could discuss silly fannish things with. But you can't have everything.

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It might have been trying to make the point that he's half elven and might age differently than pure elves?

I am afraid I don't feel charitable enough to entertain that theory, though it is a good one I suppose. Except then how does one explain Arwen? She is definitely described as the most beautiful female Éomer has ever seen, and Gimli lets him make that claim even against his candidate of Galadriel.

On the other hand it always irks me when a woman gets a role simply for being beautiful; I think actors/actresses should be able to act. Possibly the main reason I can't reconcile myself with Weaver as Elrond is that I watched the Matrix films concurrently with The Lord of the Rings. Weaver was just so marvellously good a playing the thoroughly and unapologetically evil Mr Smith.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Weaving wasn't only ugly as Elrond, he was also horrible as Elrond: stilted and unnatural and a poseur. Not half as bad as Arwen, of course. She with that overbite and the strangely jerking corner of her mouth, whenever she attempted to speak Elvish. IMO, Liv Tyler not only can't act to save her life, she isn't really beautiful, either. No matter how thick the make up has been splattered all over her stupid face.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

The only Elf I really liked was Blanchett as Galadriel (when they didn't go the cgi stuff on her).

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yep, the moment she went radioactive was really creepy. But I didn't like her to begin with, either. And I absolutely hated Celeborn. No offence against Márton Csókás (I ought to support him, he's a fellow Hungarian, after all), but he's the last person I'd cast for the role of an Elf. A Haradric chieftain, yes, but not an Elf.

I cast him as Isabeau's OC, Andrahar, IMO he would be wonderful for the part, but he was a horrible Celeborn. And as Mum has very succintly realized, Haldir was a pouf.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Csókás was indeed terribly miscast. And the guy playing Haldir was just terrible. I didn't much like any of the cgi transformations, but I think they got cruder & cruder as the films went on.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

The other thing I really, really heated were the Orcs. I mean, they looked like terribly diseased people, not like monsters. There was a time when I was really asking myself whether young teenagers who never saw a person with a disfiguring carcinome before would now consider these unfortunte sick people as monsters.

The oliphaunts were fairly ridiculous, too. I mean, sure, they ought to be big, but so big that the horses would only reach to their ankles? Way overdone. And what about the six or how many tusks?

On the other hand, I was very disappointed that Shelob simply turned out to be a big spider. The Wargs were nowhere like wolves (although they were clearly wolves in all the books), and then Shelob is just a spider, like in one of those Tarantula movies? She ought to be more monster-like. Everything else was monster-like, so why not Shelob?

Oh, and why was Sauron a big flaming eyeball anyway? Sitting atop the tower of Barad-dur, too?

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

The Shelob scene was one of the biggest disappointments. It seemed very filmic in the book, and it just wasn't at all frightening.

There was a time when I was really asking myself whether young teenagers who never saw a person with a disfiguring carcinome before would now consider these unfortunte sick people as monsters.

This is a good point I've not heard aired before. Though they're understandably limited by what can be done that allows the actors to do some facial expressions and doesn't use all the Gollum motion capture stuff, which would just have been too expensive. I don't think Tolkien's orcs are among his great creations. I've always enjoyed a good Redeem-the-Orc 4th Age story, and I'm amused by the Mordor-centric Russian novel that Altariel was posting about recently.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Uruk-hai wouldn't have been that bad, had PJ not come up with that whole born-out-of-mud insanity. And I was very disappointed that Uglúk got such short shrift. I kind of liked Uglúk in the Books... well, as much as you can like an Orc. Still, the Uruk-hai in the films had something deeply animalistic - and yet they were magnificent beasts in their own way.

I really must pick up the prequel to "The Last Stand" on one of these days. It's all about Isengard and Uruk-hai and pre-war events from Uglúk's POV, and I enjoyed greatly making my own take on Orc culture.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

A lot of the orc characterisation got lost in the film, unfortunately. I guess they had to make room for the warg fight & the horse-kissing scene.

It's all about Isengard and Uruk-hai and pre-war events from Uglúk's POV, and I enjoyed greatly making my own take on Orc culture.

Ooh, that sounds intriguing.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I'll put up the existing sample to edhellondawards for you tomorrow, just for fun.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll look forward to it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Done! :)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I don't particularly care for the look of Liv Tyler either, but I have learnt that my opinion of beauty in women does not generally coincide with the mainstream.

It may indeed be the case that part of what I don't like about Weaving-as-Elrond is how different he was in the film compared to the book, not just in looks but in deeds and words. He really came off as a stuck-up besser-wisser in the film, with none or little of the grace, wisdom, and deep compassion for all living things that I felt he had in the books.

Hmm, all this discussion of LOTR is making me want to re-read the book. Damn it, I have far too many books to read for the first time on my list! *points to icon*

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Hehe. We should do that simultaneously at some time. And then discuss it and tear the film equivalent of each part to pieces.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Oh that sounds like great fun! I do have serious difficulties stopping once I have started reading a book though; I always want to know what happens next! When I was an undergraduate at university this sometimes meant that I didn't go to bed until 7 or 8 in the morning. Of course when you are a student, at a university that doesn't generally require you to nor check if you attend lectures/tutorials you can do that; when you are actually employed to do a job, it doesn't work as well... For this reason I don't read much before going to sleep these last few years, just to keep myself away from temptation, which unfortunately means I don't read anywhere near as much as I used to. I miss it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I know the feeling. :(

Nowadays, I mostly read online, because fanfiction is often a lot better than whatever official novels are released in my fandoms (not to mention cheaper!) but I do miss the feel of a real book in my hands. I even miss the way books smell. Especially new ones.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am lucky that there are a lot of charity shops where I live that sell second-hand books; it makes acquiring new reading material cheap(er) and I can always count the money I spend in my 'helping others' account, which makes it (sometimes too easy) to justify the expense.

Also: Look, we have collapsing threads and it isn't even your birthday! :-)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Look, we have collapsing threads and it isn't even your birthday! :-)

Yup! Though it does make it harder to discuss! I think we've managed to provide fen to discuss silly fannish things with. Perhaps you can have everything after all :)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am inclined to argue with the use of the word "silly", but indeed most of my discussions of fannish things take place on Livejournal. It is one of the great things about the internet to me: that we can connect with people and share our love for strange things even though we have never met in person and indeed live in different countries or even on different continents.

The collapsing threads do indeed make it harder to discuss things, but I take them as a sign of depth of discussion -- numbers of backs-and-forths -- which is a very good thing. :-)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It's also nice to meet someone like-minded in someone else's journal :) Though perhaps Wiseheart wishes we'd shut up now!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It is indeed always nice to meet someone like-minded. I suppose the fact that it doesn't happen every day makes it the joy sharper when it does.

wiseheart is usually a very generous host, so I am hoping she doesn't mind us hi-jacking her journal. :-)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Would you mind if I friended you? Though I must admit I don't talk a lot about Tolkien these days.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Not at all! I will add you to my friends list now. Though I too should admit I don't talk about Tolkien very much. Indeed I am rather bad at posting to my Livejournal in general.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Oh, feel free to hijack my journal every time you feel like discussing LOTR, or indeed anything Tolkien-related. Or Dr. Who-related. Or Merlin-related.

As for collapsing threads making discussion difficult: we can always hit Expand and be back to the entire conversation.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

:) I don't think I've ever had such an active discussion before! You must be getting your inbox pinging every other second.