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Showing posts from July, 2010

Lessons from X-Men

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Have you seen the X-Men movie? The first live-action one. I remember watching it and thinking, wow, it's a classic hero's journey. I immediately went and examined the script. I was lucky in that I found a copy of the original screenplay which is why I was able to analyze the changes that were made in the story line to make it follow the hero's journey. Originally the story was a pretty good action-adventure story with some interesting characters that meet and work together for the greater good. But someone decided to make some crucial changes which altered Logan/Wolverine's journey into one which is much more admirable and emotionally gut wrenching. A hero's journey that is executed well will tug on those emotional strings whether it's to make you laugh, cry, cheer, boo, etc. You will walk out of the theater with some sort of emotional reaction. The one element that was changed for the final version was Rogue and Logan's relationship. Rogue is who pull&#

Lessons from The Mummy

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Caught The Mummy on TV last night and was reminded again how much I love that movie. I never actually saw it in the theater mostly because I thought it was going to be just another action adventure with the forced romance and funny sidekick. Yes, it has romance and yes there are several characters that could be considered sidekicks, but there's nothing forced about the romance or the humor in the movie. What I find interesting is if you read the script (I'm not sure what version it is, but it isn't the shooting script) the romance between Rick and Evy is much more of your traditional action-adventure forced relationship. It doesn't have any sparkle to it. They antagonize each other yet seem to kinda like each other. The movie gets it right. Whether these changes were made in subsequent drafts or after Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz were cast I have no idea. For those interested in writing an action-adventure with a touch of romance I highly recommend that yo

A literature meme

Got this from Sasha White at the Genreality Blog who got it from Charlene Teglia's blog . 1) What author do you own the most books by? I purged my books about a year ago this would have been a very different answer then, but now, Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle/Amanda Quick with Linda Howard a close second. 2) What book do you own the most copies of? I generally don't own multiple copies on purpose (though it does happen on accident). Probably a tie between my own book Horse Schools and a box of family Bibles we have. 3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? Nope, didn't even notice. 4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with? Jason Bourne. :-) 5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)? Probably, To Die For by Linda Howard. . 6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old? Long time ago, but I think I was int

Lessons From The Last Airbender Movie

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Yep, we've already seen The Last Airbender . First show on opening day. My older daughter was so excited for this movie and we took along a friend that was probably almost as excited. And if I'm really honest, I was really looking forward to this movie. I've already mentioned what I really liked about the animated series and I was more than fascinated to see how they would adapt about seven hours of episodes into a one and half hour movie. Now to the movie. I think it's good. I'm not sure I can say great, but I don't know if that's because I was analyzing it so much or because it is just good. Which is why I want to see it again. Not sure if you have to see it in 3D. It does make the various bending elements look cool, but not sure if it is so different from watching it in 2D. Spoiler alert! I have to say, though I'm probably in the minority, that I think M. Night did a pretty good job of condensing 7-8 hours into 1 1/2. The biggest complaint I have