This summer's achievements

[wiseheart]

Meaning achievements of the cultural kind.

1. I actually managed to read the entire Darkangel trilogy; a feat I've been preparing myself for a decade. 30 or so years ago I read the first volume in German translation and liked it a lot. My good friend lhun_dweller gifted upon me the whole trilogy in original paperback but somehow I never got round to actually read it. Perhaps I was afraid that I wouldn't like it so much all these decades later.

Turns out, I liked the first volume just fine. The second and third one... not so much. Make that not at all. But that's often the case with sequels, isn't it? At least I've managed to read something that wasn't research-related for my own writing.

2. After having owned the DVD ever since it came out, I finally gathered my strength to watch the extended edition of The Hobbit - The Battle of the Five Armies. Mind you, I never saw the movie version. The second film already put me out of the mood. Well, the last part was everything I feared it would be - and then some. While some of the visuals were impressive and the artwork of Weta stunning, the only recognizable character (for a devoted Tolkien reader) was Bilbo... in the few moments we actually got to see him. As altariel once put it, Martin Freeman was the saving grace of all three films.

I don't say that they weren't good films as fantasy goes. They just had nigh to nothing to do with the books and the spirit that shines through Tolkien's writing. That's all. The Weta art books and the Making of extras were a lot more interesting than the films themselves... at least for me.

Comments

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

1. Haven't read it.

2. I loved it. But I watched it as it's own thing, for the most part. The visuals were absolutely stunning. What made me cranky, actually, was the soap opera they made with Thranduil and Legolas. I ignored it as much as I could.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Legolas was completely unnecessary in these films. Just stole screen time from the actually important characters. And the whole thing made Thranduil look like an idiot, which I take very personally. He was my second love (with Elrond being the first) when I read The Hobbit back in the 1970s. I'll never forgive Jackson what he did with them.