Geek confessions

[mouseferatu]

I hold several opinions that would make me unpopular in the Geek World. I shall reveal a number of them here, so people may get together and lynch me en masse, rather than stepping on each other's toes trying to do it separately.

1) Most (not all, but most) of the changes made to the Lord of the Rings movies were improvements upon the source material.

2) The two Matrix sequels improved upon the original, in as much as the first Matrix is much better when viewed through the lens of (and info presented in) the other two.

3) The new Forgotten Realms setting is more interesting overall--again, not in all ways, but more so than not--than it was pre-reboot.

4) A Song of Ice and Fire is not the Second Coming of fantasy fiction.

5) Sean Connery is not the best James Bond ever.

6) The new Battlestar Galactica is not the best sci-fi TV show ever made. Depending on how broadly one defines sci-fi, it's not even in the top five.

7) Tom Baker is not the best Doctor ever.

8) Darth Maul, while great for fight scenes, was a boring character who did not deserve more screen time.

9) Conan was not Robert Howard's greatest creation.

I could come up with more, but those should get me tarred and feathered right nicely. Maybe more later.

Comments

[boymonster.livejournal.com]

I think we've already been down this road with my utter apathy toward Babylon 5.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

Yes, but this is why I know better than to consult you matters of science fiction. ;-)

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

On a related topic, Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams are both incredibly over-rated.

-The Gneech

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

You're half right.

And half full of it.

I'll bet you my entire collection of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly DVDs that you can guess which half is which, IMO. ;-)

[matt-m-mcelroy.livejournal.com]

1. Agree
2. Disagree
3. No idea, have not read it.
4. Agree
5. Agree
6. Disagree
7. No idea, not really into Dr. Who
8. Disagree
9. Agree

[blackmanxy.livejournal.com]

1. Haven't read LotR, but I could believe it.

2. Eh, none of them were great, honestly. I liked both the first and second; the third was a pretty bad movie all around. The first explored the most interesting philosophical theme for me, and the second had the fight scenes I enjoyed the most. But I still maintain that there should have been four Matrix movies. The first was fine and the second mostly fine, though maybe it should end earlier or later. The last BADLY needed to be two movies. There were just too many things going on to develop them fully in two hours. Also, it had too many things that made me shake my head and think "how fucking stupid is this?"

3. I suspect I still won't be interested, but I recall we discussed our opinions about FR before, so if you think it's gotten better, I might give it another look.

4. True. I've decided I won't read any more until the entire series is out because I don't think it bears rereading every time a new book hits the shelves. I'm a lot more interested in Steven Erikson's Malazan books (despite being fully aware of his shortcomings as a writer).

5. Agree, but I also don't have the character-actor association some folks do. Particularly those folks who only had Roger Morrison to compare to for a while.

6. I haven't even watched it. Nor have I bothered with Firefly. Or Babylon 5. That doesn't make me unpopular with geeks, though it does result in a lot of unwanted "you NEED to watch this."

7. He's the guy I think of when I think of the Doctor. But I also don't like Dr. Who, so I don't care.

8. Or if he got more scenes, he needed to have character development of some variety. He's much like Boba Fett in that respect: very cool, but not actually a good character.

9. What was? I've only read the Conan stories and a couple Solomon Kane stories, and I like Conan better than Kane. That may be because the Kane stories I've read are almost uniformly bad, whereas I've actually read good Conan stories along with the crap ones.

[blackmanxy.livejournal.com]

Roger Moore. Roger Morrison was an Olympic rower I met in gradeschool. I've had trouble with the two names ever since.

[tfbretz.livejournal.com]

1. Agreed, from the viewpoint of filmmaking.
2. Wouldn't know, didn't see them.
3. I honestly haven't looked at it enough in depth, but I'm on the skeptical side of this one.
4. Nope. It's just good.
5. No argument.
6. Agreed.
7. Agreed again.
8. Could've been interesting, wasn't.
9. Greatest is a loaded term. I prefer Solomon Kane and Kull myself, but you can't knock the lasting impact of the Cimmerian.

Still, I'm waiting for the controversy.

[digitalraven]

I disagree with you on, err, 5. And that's it.

As regards 7, the best Doctor is obviously Sylvester McCoy. Then again, I'm one of his Two Official Fans.

[shadowsong.livejournal.com]

Your first Doctor is always the best Doctor. I would guess that the same is true for Bond.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

Ya know, I've heard that a lot... But it's not the case for me.

Tenant is my favorite Doctor (albeit he only barely squeaks out my first Doctor--Eccleston--for favorite). Yes, I got to know the modern incarnation first, and then went back.

And Roger Moore was my first Bond, but he comes in fourth on my list, after (in order) Craig, Brosnon, and Connery.

Maybe I'm just weird that way. (Well, not just that way.)

[ruinednet.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're the Anti-Fanboy for sure. I agree with many of the points, save for maybe #4 and #6.

I note you're tearing down a lot of strong convictions, but do you hold other choices instead of them? For example, Tom Baker's not the best Doctor ever, but XX is. I'm just wondering if you don't agree with the geek majority's tendencies (because it is nice to distinguish yourself from the masses), or do you have strong alternatives?

To carry my example further, I thought Peter Davidson's run of shows as the Doctor were excellent. Good story arcs, use of characters, etc. But I found him as a Doctor to be somewhat bland, especially compared to Troughton or T.Baker. If I don't make a definite choice, does that mean I win?

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

I note you're tearing down a lot of strong convictions, but do you hold other choices instead of them? For example, Tom Baker's not the best Doctor ever, but XX is.

In some cases yes, in some no. For instance, I can point to Tennant as my favorite Doctor (with Eccleston a very close second), but I don't pretend that my favorite automatically equals best. A lot of people have different ideas on what the Doctor should be.

OTOH, Daniel Craig as the best Bond ever, and Firefly and Babylon 5 as the best sci-fi TV shows, are objective facts. ;-)

[ghostwind.livejournal.com]

I'll get the tar and feathers and be back shortly.... :-D

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

So, who was the best Bond, in your opinion? I'd say Craig, but actually Casino Royale was so far off the tone of the other Bond films (feature not bug!) that I hesitate to put him in the same category.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm quite willing to put Craig in the same category as Connery. (And yes, I think Craig is the best.) While one has to allow for the changes in the time period and the zeitgeist, I think the early Bond movies were shooting for the equivalent of what CR is today.

[philreed.livejournal.com]

You're right. Solomon Kane was Howard's greatest creation.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

Bingo. :-)

[morgana-lafey.livejournal.com]

So...what? You suddenly developed a death wish today?

Watch your back, there could be a geek weilding a light saber lurking just around the next corner.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

Not death-wish. Judgment-impairing sleep deprivation. The last week has been murder on my sleep schedule for reasons I have yet to fathom.

[prodigal.livejournal.com]

I wasn't so hot with how much they expanded Liv Tyler's character's part in the LotR movies, but I liked the rest a lot.

[amokk]

1. No idea. Never read the books, only watched the first movie. Boring.
2. agreed completely
3. no opinion other than "eh, D&D"
4. Don't even know what that is.
5. I liked Pierce Brosnan, although I grew up with Roger Moore. Daniel Craig and the reboot is just an entirely other thing.
6. Never cared for it.
7. Huh? Oh. Dr. Who. See 6.
8. Darth Maul was a one dimensional character. It either needed to be worked on better or dropped.
9. The only thing I know of Conan are the movies.

[oakthorne.livejournal.com]

1. Agreed.
2. Absolutely agreed.
3. I...suppose so. I'm afraid I'm long over the Realms, I fear.
4. Certainly not. It is, however, Pretty Damned Good.
5. I have never seen a James Bond film.
6. This is a surety. I love BSG, and hate sci-fi. :)
7. I have never seen Doctor Who.
8. Utterly agreed.
9. Obviously. That one is all about Solomon Kane.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

You've... never seen a Bond film?! =8-O

Somehow, that flabbergasts me more than the "never seen Dr. Who" bit. What planet have you been on?

(And I've never been a huge Realms fan--which might actually explain why I find the newer version more interesting.)

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

For me these days, it's less about what opinions people have than how they have them and present them. In an era where we have to actually explain why torture is bad and that, yes, presidents have to obey the law, I have fuck all use for anyone's "canon" or "blasphemy" about entertainment. If it gives you pleasure, if it helps you through the day/week/month/year, if it isn't harming anyone else along the way, then it's good. If it makes you sad or mad, if it gets you into fights, then it's not so good. And people who are offended by others' choices in entertainment need a big glass of Shut Up juice and should go do something more constructive, like reorganizing their sock drawer.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

In an era where we have to actually explain why torture is bad and that, yes, presidents have to obey the law...

Please tell me you're kidding. =8-O

(I know you're not, but please tell me anyway...)

[dclingman.livejournal.com]

This has got to be flamebait. If not, you're going down Mouse.

As a side, I'm in Austin next week for the hurricane fallout (YAY!) You should come downtown and hang out or go to AGDC.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

May have to do that. What's your schedule looking like? (Feel free to e-mail it, if you don't want it posted in public.)

[doctorcaligari.livejournal.com]

Well, I love Tolkien and even I thought that a lot of the stuff in the movies was a direct improvement on the source material. (Other things were not so much "improvements" as simply tweaks to make the story more relatable for a modern audience, which is NOT ALWAYS A BAD THING, by the way folks.) Of course, in a way I think Tolkien does better as a movie *anyway* because what took him pages of desperate word-smithing could be dispensed with in a few well-angled shots. "Okay, here's Rivendell. Your jaw dropping yet? Yes? Good. Moving on now."

Of course, as an author, the only thing that could ever give me greater pleasure than to have people creating fan fiction/art/music for my stuff would be to have some future-generation culturemaker improve upon my work; so that definitely affects my feelings on that issue. In fact I would go so far as to say that with very few exceptions, the better an original work, the more it CAN and WILL be improved on by successors. :-)

And I stand by my own lynch-inducing contention that James Bond movies are essentially video games for the era before video games and are not all that much to shout about now that actual video games exist.

[barrington.livejournal.com]

I imagine the other comments here are much the same, but I agree with all of those except number 2 (though to be fair I'm not really equipped to comment on 3, 4 or 9). I'm especially on board for 7; when Baker was good he was excellent, but when he was off the chain he was sometimes unwatchable. Troughton and Davison all the way. As for Bond, I secretly have Timothy Dalton as my favourite, with Craig a close second, though I freely admit that while The Living Daylights is perhaps my favourite Bond film (vying with Goldeneye and Casino Royale for the top spot), License to Kill was rubbish.

I would add:

* Babylon 5 is good, but highly overrated.
* Buffy is great, but only for the first three years - and Buffy herself (the character, not the actor) was the worst thing about the show.
* Angel was better than Buffy, though a couple of years weren't much chop.

[fobok.livejournal.com]

I agree with 1, 2, 5, part of 6 (I put it in third place... Babylon 5, Doctor Who, then BSG), 7 (Tennant all the way, followed by Davison, and Eccleston), and 8. I don't have an opinion on 3 or 9 since I haven't read either the new FR or any Robert Howard work. For 4, I half agree. I prefer my fantasy as high-fantasy as possible. The Belgariad, The Sword of Truth, etc. However, for low fantasy books, I can't think of any I enjoy more than A Song of Ice and Fire.

I also think the Star Wars prequels are good, when viewed as part of the whole series. (Not better than the original trilogy, but still enjoyable movies.) I seem to be one of the few who thinks so.

[paranoyd.livejournal.com]

1) Agree. The books suffer from what I like to call "You just missed the coolest thing, let me tell you about it." for the most part. But I have read them at least three times, so there is something about them that keeps bringing me back.

2) Sure, I'll give you that.

3) Dunno. I am still standing firm on my rejection of 4E. But I do like the setting. I like Eberron better, though.

4) I love the books, but I don't know anyone who thinks they are the second coming.

5) George Lazenby prior to the reboot, Craig now. But Craig is so good because he recalls the workmanlike quality of Connery.

6) I love BSG. I though Journeyman was pretty good. I hate Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (but watch it anyway). I don't know what the best show is, but I love Babylon 5 as well. (Hated Crusade, though.)

7) Depends on the episode. I do love Tenent

8) He was only boring because of Lucas' shitty directing. He had some terrific potential to be a great character, but just became a one-note punchline. Lucas squandered enormous possibilities in those films. Shame.

9) I am unfamiliar with most of Robert Howard's oeuvre.

[baronsamedi.livejournal.com]

1) Maybe. Not having Tom Bombadil was a major improvment IMO. Case either way.
2) meh.
3) I have played Realms, but I dont know enough to comment.
4) agreed
5) I don't really have a strong point of view here.
6) agreed
7) meh
8) agreed
9) agreed

That's 4 agrees, 2 I don't care about the subject, 2 not sure, and 1 maybe.

[fabio-mp.livejournal.com]

1) agree
2) agree (and Neo is a program)
3) agree
4) agree
5) agree
6) never liked
7) probably
8) agree
9) disagree (it's the most lively)

[drothgery.livejournal.com]

1. agree
2. completely and totally disagree; wish I'd never watched the second and will not watch the third
3. possible, but I was never all that into old FR (played homebrews in 2e and 3e pre-Eberron; I had some 3e FR rulebooks, but never played a game in the setting, and I don't read gaming world fiction for the most part); I'm getting the 4e FR Player's Guide for rules, not for a setting
4. agree
5. I haven't seen enough Bond to say; the only ones I've seen all of are Pierce Bronson.
6. agree
7. never got into Dr. Who
8. true enough
9. never read Howard

[hubcap-reloaded.livejournal.com]

While I don't agree with all of these (in particular, I was really disappointed with the third Matrix film) I can get behind a few of these. I certainly agree with your Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who point pretty firmly.

I've been quite creeped out at times that, for people who pride themselves on logic and defying the evil "normals", the Geeks of the world do exhibit quite a bit of groupthink. Some of it is location based (specific web-boards can have really huge biases) but others just seem to be assumed to be The Geek Standard, and they really grind my gears.

My own personal additions to your "I'll get shot for saying this from a decent chunk of nerdity" list would include:

A) Something that is Open Source does not immediately trump something that is not Open Source.

B) Religions and the believers thereof are not the enemies of reason.

C) Something being Japanese does not make somehow better or more imaginative than anything the west has ever made.

Because of this, I've learnt it's best to avoid discussions on quite a few topics with my geeky peers. :-)

George Q

[baronsamedi.livejournal.com]

heh agree all around.

well, on b) not ALL believers thereof are...