"SACRILEGE AND BLASPHEMY!" or "Hollywood and the last straw"

Join me on my besiegement of Hollywood and have your name forever glorified and honored among literary circles! I was browsing the all-mighty interwebs when I found this page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1515091/. They've done it again. At this point, I suppose that I shouldn't really be surprised but I cant help but feel a bit offended by their audacity and calling these scrapheaps of movies "Sherlock Holmes". I would have no enmity with them if they had simply changed the names of the characters and the movie and might even enjoy it but out of principal, it is quite impossible for me support such awful aberrations from the original texts. The movies is set to star Downy Jr. again for the detective and Jude Law for Watson. Upon reading further, I found that the movie industry was on course to go straight for the neck and post the arch-villain and none other than Moriarty. Go ahead, after ruining the greatest mind of all time in literature, murder the most devious villain with explosions and sensationalism. No, really. I'm sure that all of those who have devotedly read all of the Sherlock Holmes books and sundry other Arthur Conan Doyle books will love it. Not really. The film is expected to be released on the 16th of December this year. I for one will not be attending. That is all I will try to be less "ranting" in the future but it rattles my cage that the new generations will grow up with nothing of Sherlock Holmes save for near random explosions, poison and guns.

Whats that word again? Oh yes. HADOUKEN!!!

Wave motion fist! In other news, I have been "contracted" to write a strange and tedious but highly rewarding story regarding philosophy. It is a short story and shall be posted soon. This and the Mysterious Island review. Whats that? I said that I would do that last week? Err... Did not? The Commies did it? Land-bridges? Fine. I admit. I got lazy with a capital Z. LaZy. I shall post it eventually, but there have been many, many events simultaneously occurring and right about now, I am living in a whirling maelstrom of activity. This is all that I have to say for now. So be it. Farewell, wherever you fare.

Not a review but a rant.

So hollywood is at it again. Having first butchered "A Journey to the Center of the Earth", they are now moving on to "The Mysterious Island". The plot is something along the lines of 'Look at me, I'm a lonely seismologist. Whats this? And island that is not supposed to exist that is about to be destroyed by earthquakes? It's giving off a distress signal?! It might be my long lost grandfather? I shall bring my stepfather and his daughter to investigate and attempt to save the inhabitant before the island explodes!' I. Hate. Hollywood. With a predicable storyline like that and a no doubt dumbed down and butchered storyline for the kids, what could possible go wrong? Oh. Yes. It's being shot in BLOODY 3D. Good lord, it's "Sherlock Holmes" all over again! I cannot stand for this! The youth of today will grow up knowing nothing of Verne apart from what they learned in hack-job remixes of the glorious originals! I must limit myself to what I have written of I might very well die of disgust. I bid you a glorious day. I'm off to go around the world in 80 days using a patently non-original and certainly not-anywhere-in-the-book flying machine with a martial artist thief. *Hollywood is composed of imbeciles who hate intelligence.*

Verne - The Mysterious Island - Within the Week

I shall post a review and synopsis to Jules Verne's "Mysterious Island" by the end of the week. Note that due to the great antiquity of the book, it shall not be a proper review but a clever synopsis and mt thoughts on the book.

Greatest Apologies

I give you all of my greatest apologies at the lack of anything at all being added within the last month and I shall therefore share some of my more recent writings. The following is part of the prologue from one of my personal writing endeavors. Just something to post until I have some actual reviews done:


The gargantuan, ancient airship cut silently through the dawn. It’s sides were riddled with holes and it’s propellor’s uneven movements spoke stories of battle and of hardship. On the hull, still visible in cracked and fading white paint was the name: “Odin”. The ship was old. Older than any modern civilization and it had traveled long and far. It had no crew, for it needed none. It’s designers, now sepultured in forgotten tombs of iron and ice, had created it to last an eternity if need be. It now looked as if this might have to be the case. The only visible inhabitants of the Odin were the scattered corpses on it’s deck and the fragmented skeletons in it's hold. The first light of day glinted off of the time-honored cannons that protruded from openings in the sides and front of the hull. They were immaculately made and were decorated with the heads of mythical beings. Dragon’s maws that were inlayed with gold, a chimera’s skull with brass and silver for the curving bone and the many serpentine heads of a hydra, each with two pale emeralds for eyes lined the flanks of the ship. They would serve their purpose today for today, the Odin was not alone.


The pirate’s ship glided swiftly across the sky towards the behemoth, always staying above the ballonet of the ancient aerostat. The legends were right! The ship glimmered as the sun reflected off it’s armored brass hull. “Get the captain! He needs to see this for himself!” said the navigator (who was on lookout) in an undertone. “The captain can wait. If the legends are true, then we have bigger problems to worry about.” whispered his toothless companion. The navigator shook his head. “If the legends are true, then why are we whispering? According to you, there isn’t a soul on board.” The toothless man scowled. “Damn it, Ivan! This isn’t a game! From what i’ve heard, the Odin is a cursed ship! No one has ever looked upon it and lived! Thats the very ship that we’re about to raid!” Ivan shook his head again. “You superstitious fool! The legends also say that the ship is supposed to be impossible to track! I tracked it though! Don't believe everything you hear, Duvall! Now go and get the captain.” “You only were able to find the thing with that accursed globe of yours! How do we know that the ship wont kill us the second we board it?” Ivan gave a winning smile. “I don’t!” he said. Duvall traced a protective symbol over his chest using his finger and, with a gulp, turned away from their quarry and hurried off to fetch the captain.

As the sky-pirates approached, a slow, primeval intellect awoke in the heart of the Odin. The entire ship seemed to shimmer as a new, powerful energy pulsed through it. The mind that had been awoken sensed that pirates were near. It could feel their pulses, hear there pathetic hearts beating faster and faster as they approached it. They were not the first to covet the Odin’s legend. The bones of the dead that laid across the ship attested well to this.

“Get ready to board, you lazy group of... err... sloths...” The pirate captain’s taunt sputtered out mid sentence. Each and everyone of the hardened cutthroats aboard the ship seemed to be filled with apprehension. There was an aura of doom hanging about the ship that seemed to sap energy and slow movement. Everyone aboard the ship bore expressions of condemnation as they prepared themselves to capture the colossus.

The dark intelligence calculated the possible fates of the pirates hundreds of times over in mere seconds and decided that only one outcome would be viable: the systematic destruction of the threat. The intelligence sent a dull pulse of energy into the bowels of the great vessel and received a satisfying response. Throughout the corridors and compartments of the ship, a macabre symphony of mechanical ticking began to echo.

As they all began to silently board the ship, Ivan started to feel un easy about the whole situation. He didn't know why, but there was an undeniable atmosphere of death in the air that day and no matter what he told himself he was unable to shake the feeling that the crew was walking into a situation that they may not walk out of.


Hope you enjoyed. Reviews to come.

INFOSTAMPIFICATION #1 - Ludwig Durr

Ludwig Dürr - Master Engineer

Ludwig Durr was an airship designer who was responsible for most or even all of the fantastic innovations that permitted the working airship. When Zeppelin first created the airship, Dürr was the first one to stand. After the failure of the first LZ-1 and the subsequent exile of the engineer that designed it, Ludwig Dürr took the charge of all future Zeppelin designs. This drastically improved program and all of the subsequent designs.

This has been your weekly

INFOSTAMPIFICATION

Audience? A new review has been postificated! Audience!

(Title courtesy of TOBUSCUS!)

"The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying 'And another thing' twenty minutes after admitting he's lost the argument." -Douglas Adams.

And sadly, "And Another Thing" was not published until Douglas Adams had lost the greatest argument of all: the argument of life, the universe and everything. Happily, Adams had Eoin Colfer to continue the argument for him. The book begins shortly after "Mostly Harmless" left off. With all of the main characters gathered on earth for one last time before those odious Vogons finally achieve their objective: the destruction of the earth in order to build an inter-space express way. The book ends with the good Arthur Dent finally finding peace. Oh, and everyone ending up blasted quite literally out of existence. I must try to keep spoilers to a minimum but past this point, I will be letting out sever key points especially in the beginning of the book. "And Another Thing" begins with a very old and decrepit man lounging on a beach. He has one bad eye and two bad legs. He knows that he is nearing the end of his life and is quite ready for anything. That is, at least, ready until a mysterious bird flies down and utters the cryptic word "Battery".

Similar things are happening to all of the companions of Dent, Arthur Dent. The enigmatic and just plain awesome Ford Prefect, for example was having an undoubtedly lovely underwater back massage by a Damogramian eleven tentacle masseuse squid. Ford was just realizing how much the squid looked rather like a bird when it too spoke the mysterious term: "Battery". Trillian Astra from another universe and Random Dent were in similar situations. Suddenly, they all are teleported into a room seemingly made up of sky and clouds when a mysterious bird, The Guide MK. II, informs the group that they are all suspended in time and are about to die due to him running out of power, hence "battery". After about two minutes of arguing, MK II runs out of power and teleports them back to earth which is, coincidently, still being destroyed. Just as all seems lost, Zaphod Beeblebrox shows up in my personal favorite space vessel next to the TARDIS, The Heart of Gold.

End spoilers. Start review. I found the book the be a passing win. It strays widely from Douglas Adams' original eccentric writing style although it does occasionally throw in a phrase that Adams used, such as "Almost but not entirely unlike". Having read some of Colfer's other books, I can not really say that the writing style here was his usual cup of starship-disabling tea either. Colfer usually writes for a much younger audience. This book was aimed at an adult audience rather than children and it shows. Colfer often uses child level references and low complexity sentences. This is quite understandable, as this is his first book aimed at adults. Apart from those trifling inconveniences, I have only a few points more to make in reagards to the style of writing.

To the original readers of The Guide, this book may seem to some to be not worthy of it's heritage. Where Adams used sometime archaic but always comprehensive words and structure, Colfer's style is a very much more modern one. The Original readers may find this new addition hard to acknowledge as a continuation of the original series due to this difference in style. (Argh! I have just repeated myself again! Stop that! -Author's Note) Another thing that I was rather upset at, were the character changes that Colfer made. Ford Prefect, who was in the past a "hoopy frood", a savvy space-traveler, a man who totally knew where his towel was and a general all round jack of all trades was turned into a buffoon. Beeblebrox became even more of a partier, drunkard and all round fool and Arthur Dent, well, Arthur Dent didn't change that much at all, opting to stay as slow and overly pragmatic as ever.

In conclusion, I think that "And Another Thing" is worth reading for original Guide readers but perhaps not worthy of the title of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Original readers might find it lacking of that original spark that made Douglas Adams' writing so entertaining to read.

Final Rating:

34/42