Tonight’s artwork, in honor of #ForceFriday which has seen the all-time coolest toys EVER released…it’s overwhelming, in fact…is courtesy of Sean Cooke
I vegged out today…and freaking loved every minute of it. I’m watching the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring, you know, the 4-hour versions of the Lord of the Rings movies…and it’s awesome. There’s obviously so much stuff that was (and should have been) cut from the theatrical releases of these movies…but I love watching them this way, especially kind of broken up and not all in one sitting. It feels like a miniseries…and that’s always how I’d wanted to see these books brought to life. Ever since watching the BBC The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe series they did back in the…late 80s, I think? Maybe it was teh early 90s…but those miniseries were AWESOME. It was the books play-by-play, the way I’d always imagined them in my head. Nothing was rushed. The world seemed fully developed, and the characters had so many moments together.
That’s why I love TV so much…there is so much time for characters to be real people on television because you have to fill so much time. Not so much in movies, where the structure is SO important, and pacing must be clicking along towards that climax and the end. It’s so much more drawn out with TV, or perhaps the perfect medium for book adaptations: the miniseries.
Well…that’s what the 4-hour version of Fellowship feels like; a miniseries. And since I’ve been watching it with that kind of in my mind already, it doesn’t seem slow at all. It’s great. A few random moments here and there, but waaaaaay less than I’d been afraid. And, this is on Blu Ray, ie- full high definition, and I was afraid the effects were really going to look bad…and they don’t. It’s crazy. I think I mentioned that I just watched the last Hobbit movie, Battle of the Five Armies, which is what kind of prompted this foray back into the aughts…well, THOSE effects are cutting edge, state of the art, brand new effects…and they pale in comparison to how fucking COOL the effect for Fellowship are. The effects in Fellowship are so much less…indulgent, and all up in your face like the Hobbit movies. They’re more…I don’t know, well chosen? Less gratuitous. I was really bracing myself to moan a bit about how these movie’s effects haven’t aged well, but they have! They still work. Not quite how Star Wars effects have, but in terms of CGI effects from an era that was JUST figuring out how to really make them work…it’s totally passable.
Anywho…I haven’t quite finished the last hour yet, I’ll do that tomorrow morning I think…but it’s been a lot of fun. Peter Jackson did an incredible job with those films…really. I mean it. It’s an astounding achievement, especially now in the context of time. They’re some of the best movies ever made, actually. He may have totally fucked these Hobbit films…but the dude gets a LIFETIME pass as far as I’m concerned because of the LOTR movies. They’re that good.
I emailed my first lead today, courtesy of Matt King. That was exciting. I have my resume all ready to go…got a response from some of the other peeps I’d emailed. Next week begins the task of collecting information on all the shows I’d love working for, and then it will be mailing all of them. Sigh. The work, it is voluminous. See! I’m totally a writer…I can use words like voluminous. I’m good, yo.
That’s it for tonight. Feeling good. Don’t quite feel like I’ve had enough time off yet…but hopefully I get there by the end of Sunday. We’ll see.
Night!