By far, the most disappointing aspect of the film wasn’t that it lacked the delicate complexity of the different narrative forms, but that half the story was missing. For those who haven’t read the book, a very large part of it was set back in history in the shtetl of our main character’s ancestors. That part of the story is incredibly moving and interfaces with the story set in the present in brilliant ways. To me, that was the heart of the story and it gave depth to the heart-rending climax of the story. I don’t know if it was timidity on the part of the filmmakers to open up their version to that level of complexity, an aversion to doing half the movie as a period piece, a limited budget or some other combination of factors, but the movie didn’t include the historical story and consequentially could only ever be a ghost of the novel.

I generally enjoyed the rest of the movie, including the performances by Elijah Wood and Eugene Hutz (who was brilliantly cast as Alex) as well as the cinematography, costuming and music, but the above-mentioned story-thinning was like watching a beheading, and it limited any positive experience I could have.

The film, however, did win some awards, so at least the filmmakers did get points for trying.

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Let’s start with the topic of tone. In general, the filmmakers (Director James McTeigue and screenwriters the Wachowski Brothers) changed the tone to something comic, almost tongue-in-cheek. At times, the tone becomes a sappy, almost nostalgic tone. It’s not just that they created a less dark version, but they created a version that takes itself less seriously.

As far as main characters, I will begin with V. In general, I didn’t dislike him too bad, except for his occasional melodramatic, overly light-hearted and cheeky attitude. When we first hear from Hugo Weaving, playing V in the film, he is delivering a long-winded monologue, apparently for Evey’s sake. Unfortunately, that sort of over-indulgence and phony intellectuality sets the tone for much of V’s presence in the film.

Evey’s character was more destructively altered in the film. In the book, she is introduced to us as completely vulnerable, having barely survived the post-nuclear weather, the loss of her father and a childhood living with her widowed mother in a work camp after the nuclear winter. After all that, she then resorts to prostitution and is saved from rape and potential death by a group of Fingermen. Through the course of the narrative we see her drown in her suffering and self-doubt and eventually, aided by V’s tough love, redefine herself and come out self-reliant. In the movie, she is just like everybody else. She works a normal 9-to-5 job and hides any vulnerability from the world around her. She doesn’t seem vulnerable at all, except for some distant memories of her parents’ abduction by the government, and she might even seem content with her life. There is so much less of a story arc for her to travel in the film. But in an interesting twist, the screenwriters do make Evey weaker in one regard. They make her rat out V and his plan to the Bishop.

The filmmakers also added an epidemic to the back-story, with a conspiracy between a pharmaceutical company and the government as an added plot-point. I may be wrong, but I think a good old-fashioned story about nuclear winter, and the rise of a genocidal regime over a weak and tired people still makes a compelling fable. I’m not ruling out that drug companies could be run by evil-minded people and that they could be in league with governments, but I am saying that they aren’t needed to make V for Vendetta a better tale.

There was also a general difference between the two versions in regards to the outlook towards the citizenry. In the book, Alan Moore’s writing told me that the citizens were complicit in England’s current state of affairs, that they had become weak and lazy and content in their false sense of security, allowing injustices, no matter the cost to their neighbors and friends. In the original V actually delivers a rather explicit public address to that effect. In the film, however, all popular guilt and responsibility was written out and the masses were depicted as having been taken hostage, somehow unwillingly, by the state. In the movie V also delivers a rather explicit public address to that effect.

I will now whine about a few things in the final moments of the movie. Why was there a mass of marching people in Guy Fawkes masks? Sitting through that whole “revolution lives in all of us” schtick was like drinking castor oil. Furthermore, why did the filmmakers have V take on a dozen or less heavily-armed fingermen and Creedy (practically the big bad) during an over-the-top, Matrix-like action sequence. Is Agent Smith behind that mask? Plus, Finch is not supposed to cozy up with V.2 at the end. He shoots V.1 and leaves ecstatic.

To finish up, here is a list of characters or plot points that I enjoyed in the original, but missed in the film:

• The song and montage in the Prelude to Book 2, The Vicious Cabaret
• The Prologue of Book 3, 1812 Overture and explosion
• The Vox Populi section
• Finch’s hallucinogenic trip at Larkhill and the image of him naked at Stonehenge
• The politics of the different coup attempts
• The look into the mind of the Leader, his heartbreak at the infidelity of Fate and his fall to assassination
• The homeless Guy Fawkes in the tunnel
• Finch walking off on the empty dark highway

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It’s disappointing and it breaks the story. What Turbine and other MMO makers expect me to do is ignore the hobbit. After all, I’ve completed that quest. The hobbit in the cave is a reminder of the good times when I was level 5 and I could only go into the first floor of the cave and didn’t know about the other hobbit, deeper in the cave, surrounded by level 12 goblins, with pokier sticks and much more drama. But I can’t ignore the little guy. Look at him. He’s all small and keeps getting caught by the same goblins. Maybe he loves them?

LotRO has the additional problem of having The Lord of the Rings in its title. People have read and loved (or hated, or felt blah about) this story for over fifty years now. There have been comics and cartoons and even some movies made. We’ve read or watched those too. Leonard Nimoy sang a song about Bilbo. SNL has done parody sketches. It’s in the culture. There are action figures and lunchboxes. Oh, also: TURBINE, WE KNOW HOW THIS STORY ENDS! It’s not that I don’t think Middle Earth is a worthy setting for a game, but setting the game concurrent with The Lord of the Rings? Really? How is a writer, of any talent, going to make a reader/player feel like they will have any sort of measurable impact on the story when we have SNL spoiling the plot and Mr. Spock singing about the bravest hobbit of them all?

So what did they do? Well, thankfully they didn’t do what hack licensees do and put us in a secondary fellowship with Baragorn the Man-Who-Would-Not-Be-King, Mandalf the Slightly Charcoal, and Shimli, Gimli’s Cousin’s Wife. What they did do was only slightly better. Slightly better, not because it was a bad idea, but it turns out to be bad in practice. Here’s the gist of the setting of LotRO: The world is more or less cheery. But wait, what’s this darkness about? You hear whispers of a nameless fear. There’s a fellowship out there doing something important. It’s sort of vague, but you should help them.

What happens in practice is, while you are listening to the whispers of a nameless fear, a level 60 Rune Keeper is talking in the local channel about how he bagged the Witch King last night in an 80-man raid and then wore the iron crown like a bracelet. Thanks, man, but I’ve got this hobbit to save from pokey sticks.

So how do you do it? How do you tell a convincing narrative in an interactive, multiplayer environment? There are lots of very smart folks thinking about the issues behind interactive storytelling. One blog I like is Grand Text Auto. I first found it when reading up on old-style interactive fiction, à la Infocom and Adventure International. If you’re interested in more in-depth, academic discussion of issues surrounding interactive storytelling, I encourage you to check it out. But for my question, I’ll save you the trouble: no one really knows how to do it. Or, if they do, they aren’t telling.

So what makes a good story for you? Do you think an MMO can ever tell one? Should we just lower our expectations and play the damn game?

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Prior to its release date in March 2009, it was hard not to be excited about the forthcoming release of “Watchmen” as a feature film. I started reading comic books at a young age. As I approached my teens, I got my hands on the collected graphic novel of “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. For many comic book fans “Watchmen” felt like the ultimate super-hero tale. The way it would be if people were actually insane enough to put on costumes and fight crime as they see it. The comic of “Watchmen” is hailed by many critics and represented a shift in mainstream comics culture. It is a book I read probably once a year. The emotion and characterizations still feel completely relevant no matter how many times I read it.

Snyder really did hit it out of the ballpark for his meticulous sets and designs. Seeing old newspapers of the Minutemen in in gaudy spandex was a wonderful touch. Snyder also did an okay job at making it all seem timely. A big problem with the film was the crappy acting. Matthew Goode’s Ozymandias wasn’t very regal or intimidating. It was just melodramatic. Malin Akerman appeared to be playing the made-for-TV version of Silk Spectre. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Comedian and Patrick Wilson’s Nite Owl were only “ok” at best. The two actors that stood out the most were Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan (mostly CGI, but other acting performances stunk so bad that it made computer animation more resonating) and Jackie Earl Haley’s driven performance as Rorschach. Actually you can split this mediocre film into two awesome short films. Just watch the Dr. Manhattan origin story and then the Rorschach origin story and nothing else. Despite attempting to represent the graphic frame by frame, acting was stiff and some translations were heavy handed. That Nite Owl/Silk Spectre love scene was pure skinemax cheese. The prison break scene had terrible action in it. In fact, more action was in that one scene than any within the comic. I swear you see Nite Owl get ran up on by the same guy three times. Also Snyder had to get off a few Matrixy slow motion scenes. I always thought violence would seem more intense in film by utilizing quick and brutal attacks that aren’t slowed-down or over-stylized. (I thought Cronenberg’s very brief, but intense fight scenes in “A History of Violence” would have done well for this movie) The thing about “Watchmen” is that these characters are not to be envied and they actually aren’t “cool”. They’re ticking time bombs. Making them look super-stylish takes away from that feeling. Also what is up with that cookie cutter soundtrack? Sure, I knew “All along the watchtower” was coming, but “Sound of Silence”? “99 Luftballoons”? It sounded like a soundtrack that could easily be put together by other soundtracks. No deep-cuts for this film. Just some stuff you’ve heard everywhere a bajillion times.

Zack Snyder is a big comic book fan. He tried very hard to please the nerdish hordes. You could say this movie was for nerds by a nerd. Evidence that just because you’ve worshiped and read something all your life, doesn’t mean you can actually pull it off. Evidence, also, of the dangers of projecting your nerdiness onto something, thereby losing personal creative edge. When Terry Gilliam first approached Alan Moore about making a Watchmen film, Moore basically said that the film was unmake-able. It was only ever meant to be a comic book. It is only beloved as a comic book. A film can only ever be a film. The critically acclaimed Gilliam humbly heeded the advice. Snyder vainly did not. As a result he made an over-stylized mess where humanity and emotion were completely overshadowed. Great set design wasn’t enough to save this movie for me. The “Watchmen” book will always have its rabid cult appreciation. Snyder’s “Watchmen” film will always stew in wide-spread mediocrity.

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Elmore Leonard himself has praised the film as his favorite screen adaptation for any of his literary works.  Having read (and owned) Rum Punch, I can 100% testify to the lord God almighty up above, that Jackie Brown completely blows the book out of the water.  For starters, in the book Rum Punch, Jackie Brown is WHITE, her name is Jackie Burke.  Secondly, all that amazing blaxploitation in Jackie Brown is completely non-existent in the book, which occasionally happens when your book doesn’t feature the sassy backtalk of a powerful African American leading lady like Pam Grier. Thirdly, you have to physically read it, which we all know is time consuming, and although I am a huge fan of the written word, some writers you really need to read and other writers you need to see in the movie theater.

No offense to Elmore Leonard, he’s a great writer, but I’d rather see his work on the big screen.  Of course there are exceptions to every rule; although I’ve never read The Big Bounce, it HAS to be better than that horrible vehicle starring Owen Wilson.

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First off, some of the questions are wrongly answered  or simply miscategorized. Sometimes you may find a question about Gollum in the Good Characters category or something about the geography of the Emyn Muil in the Things category versus the Place & History category where it belongs.

Miscategorization is really only a flaw or a simple error in game design and game card production, but there is something more fundamental I have also noticed in the game that is at odds with the books. Trivial Pursuit introduced a pretty neat gameplay element where a ringwraith wanders the board, trying to get to the player with the ring (acquired when a player wins a pie piece). The problem is that when the ringwraith does get to the ringbearer, the ring somehow protects the player whereas if the ringwraith lands with any of the other players, they are at jeopardy of losing pie pieces. This seems to be backwards. The Nazgul should be hot on the heels of the ringbearer, passing over the other players in its lust for the ring and there should be a tangible tension and vulnerability for the ringbearer. In the books, the ring is never seen as a protective element, only a source of serious danger.

Maybe the next edition of the game will remedy the official game rules so they can tie in better with the spirit of the books and the movies, but until then I suggest reversing the role of the Nazgul piece when you play, making it harmful to the ringbearer and not the others.

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Also, the color palette was overly muted. The color correction or lens filters brought everything into such a monochromatic visual realm and the book was so much more colorful and dynamic visually. This decision may be have been the result of simple stylistic differences or it could have been an accidental artifact of the Zeitgeist, seeing that so many of the modern films are going with heavy use of dominant coloring to heavily suggest moods for their audiences. Often visual effects artists use this sort of extreme color-washing to hide problems with cohesion and consistency among the various visual elements in a shot.

The scenes from the book I missed most of all was the transformation of the bedroom into forest. Not only is it such a defining image from the book, but it also represents to me something from my childhood. How often did my own safe, simple bedroom turn into someplace else entirely. The metamorphosis is also a master stroke of artistic skill by Sendak and it would have been great to see what the artists working on the film could have done with it. The magic was completely lacking in the movie where Max actually runs away from the house, has a tantrum in a deserted lot and arrives at a conveniently located docked boat. Too prosaic for my taste and such a missed opportunity.

The most heart-wrenching part to me in the book is when Max says goodbye to the wild things and leaves the island. I always felt the wild things were getting an unfair deal. Max shows up, gives them a new friend, shows them a new way to live and play, then leaves them behind, carelessly abandoning them to revert to their old wild ways. Despite the lackluster way the filmmakers handled the delivery of the line  “we’ll eat you up – we love you so!”, I felt that the movie carried the same sort of melancholy and unfairness as the scene in the book. I still felt like the wild things got the underside of the bargain. They finally got a king they didn’t eat for goodness sake and then he up and leaves them. And I have to admit, that the final growl, no matter how contrived it may have been, made me blow my nose a few times (because I was tearing up, not because I am allergic to fur and claws).

Overall, the changes I mention above are indicative of a major change in theme. In the book, Max is still a child, albeit a selfish one, but still with much of his innocence intact. He never actually leaves his bedroom (or so most of us assume) and he returns to a nice warm plate of food. He isn’t overtly faced with adult issues, except maybe anger and a general feeling of loneliness. In the film, Max is a character who has been forced to grow up rather quickly before he even leaves on his travels. When he does run away and go to the land of the wild things, he is faced with an even  scarier adult-like existence, where he finds himself in a role of responsibility and fragile leadership and has to deal with questionable issues of right and wrong. When he gets back home, he is left to digest some serious issues and push forward into adolescence and its complications.

Though I applaud Spike Jonez and crew for a brave, thoughtful treatment of such a huge cult classic, the movie and the book are different beasts entirely and I prefer Sendak’s wild things to Jonez’s.

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A hurdle to my initial enjoyment of the film lay in suits Malcolm (Denzel Washington) wore during the opening sequences of the film and the flashy clubs frequented by the main characters.  Malcolm’s suits were tailored exactly as written, but they seemed a little too clean for my taste.  The reds were near florescent and his pinstripes were too crisp.  Also, the clubs seemed over the top and excessively opulent.  I mean, people alive in 40’s lived in relative filth due to their lack of technology didn’t they?  After I stopped viewing the time period through the eyes of a jaded child of the 80’s, I started to shed memories of my grandmothers mothballed dresses and faded photos.  I  started to see the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s as if I were living during that tumultuous time.

One thing to note about the movie and the book, is the way moods are set with the type of clothing worn by the main characters.  The colors and clothing styles are more vibrant and youthful during the pre-war years of Malcolm’s life.  Clothing became darker during Malcolm’s hustler days, and eventually more modest before his death.  I could tell that Lee did his homework for the film.  Not only did the movie costumes match my expectation from the book, but the costumes also closely resemble the clothing seen in pictures from that era.  With everything said and done, the costumes, acting and sets all worked together to make a film that wasn’t better or worse than the book.  The movie was more like a welcome companion to the book that help solidify Alex Haley’s reputation as an author, likewise, Malcolm X helped increase Spike Lee’s reputation as a director.  Now I’m left to wonder if I’ll see a day where more period films show depth of the Black-American experience.

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I think anyone who loves literature often finds it hard to reconcile the image one creates when meeting a character with how someone else creates his image in life.  I don’t know the artist who created the bronze of Ignatius, but I know his likeness is far removed from my own.  He seems so oafish in sculpted form, not the absurd genius of Toole’s creation.  How in the world are we supposed to believe those ear flaps on his cap naturally float in the air like a dog’s ears?  Really?  That’s the Ignatius who looks down upon people because of their “lack of theology and geometry?”  I can imagine him as disheveled.  I can imagine him in thrift store clothes.  I can imagine him being so daring as to argue with police over crimes and vices of New Orleans’ citizens.  Not like this, though.

While he’s obviously not in motion as a statue, I still get this sense that his likeness would be a lumbering figure.  Tall, but not too tall, was my vision.  Plump, but not fat, was how I pictured him.  And his moustache seems off to me.  It has no real corners like Toole’s description reveals.  Its ends are too pointed for my liking.  Since I know that this sculpture was modeled from an actor who played the part of Ignatius in an early stage adaptation, I think I’d likely have had issues with that adaptation, as well.

In the end, it’s not so much that I have a problem with the statue itself.  It’s that this image doesn’t capture the greater sense of identity that made Ignatius such a memorable character to me.  If derivative art work is supposed to draw on an idea, feeling, what-have-you, I want it to truly capture what was found in the original work.  This example of a derivative piece of visual art doesn’t do that.  It’s just a lesser-than adaptation of a truly remarkable literary character, one that is certainly not as good as the book.  But, let me know what you think.  I would recommend reading the book, first (you can read excerpts on Amazon.com).  If you want to compare your mind’s creation to the statue, take a look at some photos of the statue.  I’m open to disagreement.

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I think the biggest problem facing both the movie and the book is the fact that its pro-feminist message is lost in the shuffle.  Bateman’s life is the perfect example of how sexism and societal norms negatively affect both men and women in society (even those who have the most power).  Bateman felt trapped by his position in life, unable to find happiness through wealth, yet inexorably tied to the stifling trappings of yuppie culture.  He wanted a strong woman, but his position as a Wall Street vice president limited him to debutants, socialites and prostitutes.  Here we have women reduced to base levels of existence devoid of personality or strength.  Of course Bateman felt like he could kill them.  How could it be murder when he doesn’t see the victims as human.  The murders he committed were signal flares shot into the night to guide a rescue team to the sad sham that was his life.  The book showcased this with extended scenes of brutality and torture; not to mention chapter long descriptions of fashion and music.  Bateman’s consumer lifestyle made even his most private monologues nothing more than in-depth reviews on the work of Whitney Houston and Phil Collins.  By the end of the book we are left with unhappy men and women trapped by wealth and career.  It’s the perfect sardonic criticism of sex, class and race relations in 80′s America.  The movie was just a pale comparison that was not as good as the book.

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