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Lit Literature member interviews

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Point Given , Jun 6, 2013.

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  1. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Ah! You don't happen to know the Duke of Kent or the other royal Kents, do you? :p

    Yeah, mixing Greek and Latin roots makes me shudder but unfortunately people insist on doing it anyway :p

    Huh. I don't have any recollection of that at all -- but then again it was like ten years ago, and I've gotten into so many arguments on the JC that they all blur together anyway. :p

    You've an interesting view on video games. While I wouldn't go so far as to call them a form of literature -- as they're not strictly written except insofar as game programming involves "writing code" but I do find that the most satisfactory games have compelling narratives. RPGs are my go-to genre as well (or historical stuff) but otherwise something with a good narrative or interactive dialogue stuff can make up for a lot of faults.

    Sorry to hear about your parrots. That must've been back during one of those periods where I was more or less barely in Lit (coincided with much of LOTF I think) so I probably didn't pay much attention to the social thread. I've never had a pet, but I've always thought that were I to have one, I'd want a bird. Or a puppy. But birds are cooler.
     
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  2. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    Alas, Jello, I do not know any royalty, no. :p (Although my father did talk to Princess Anne a couple of times at some farmers' award things last year, I'm told.)

    As for the video games? I admit I don't just play RPGs, as if something has a cool narrative, I sometimes can be snared by it too (I love the Assassin's Creed games, for instance, even though I expected to hate them when I first read the idea of playing some hoody with a knife).

    One of the RPGs I utterly love though was Lost Odyssey, which never gets enough love. It was by a small studio called Mistwalker, who split off from Square to keep making some "classic" Final Fantasy-style games, without all the commercial imperatives that EA have forced on the more recent FF games. One of the things I most enjoyed with Odyssey was you literally found these short-stories that filled in your character's missing memories.



    The YouTube uploads sadly lack the "immersion" of them, as the videos understandably go kinda quickly, but you have to actually press the button to "turn the page" to make the story continue, so to speak. I loved those, and some were really beautifully written tales. (And it's left me wanting to see e-books evolve and do things like that, as right now e-books are just "books on screen", but those stories in Lost Odyssey struck me as "the future" due to how they blend prose with all the extra powers of digital media, whilst still being prose.)

    Barriss I actually enjoyed those first chapters of VOTF that I read on the coach trip at school. I just never finished it afterwards as... it was a book, and... I didn't like reading. :p

    gizkaspice they both like throwing up into my fingers, so... yeah. Maybe I'll be lucky and they'll both turn out to just be gay! (On which subject: parrot vomit... the smell... it's so... [face_sick] But aww, they love me, and so... I let them do it, and... yeah... I feel like an abused wife letting these two frisky birds have their way with me :p)

    Anyways, I appreciate the kind words from both of you, I was too shy back then to want to talk much either, but it's nice knowing there's still good people out there. :)
    A quick glance at the bookshelves around me would suggest Lord of the Rings, Discworld, and Harry Potter... but it shames me to admit I have never read LOTR all the way through, and have read more literary criticism of it than the book itself (of which I have entire bookshelf dedicated to it, with all kinds of scholarly articles that I used during my degree...). I think it'd be fair to say, though, that even if I still enjoy all of those, I've branched out into different things in recent years, and a friend has introduced me into Japanese anime, which has subsequently led to a current fascination with manga (I am currently working through the Angel Sanctuary series). I've definitely developed a keen interest in Asian works in the past year or so, as I very much enjoy seeing how other cultures view the same things (or how they view us!), and so while it's hard to name a distinct "franchise" I have become very fond of a number of individual anime, like Rozen Maiden, Black Butler or Vampire Knight.

    I've got a friend who suggests which to watch though, so I possibly don't watch as broad a variety as others might recommend, but I've enjoyed most of the things so far. :)

    [​IMG]

    In terms of regular literature, I'm currently working through the works of the German fantasy writer Walter Moers, having just finished The City of Dreaming Books, and now started on Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures, which are kinda like Terry Pratchett, but the satire and commentary is perhaps more targeted at literature itself (well, it is in the case of City of Dreaming Books, though I think the other books all explore their own themes, so my understanding may change after Rumo).

    I'd say it's video game franchises where I show a distinct "fan" mentality. Of those, I'd probably list Mass Effect, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts as some of my favourite ones. I'm still amazed how much I obsess about Kingdom Hearts, as I shunned the first one for years, thinking "Disney? Yuck" but someone was talking about the release of the second one, and got me curious, which caused me to go back and try out the first, and I've been hooked ever since, playing every cruddy cellphone game and other spin off, because I can't get enough of the overarching storyline. Mass Effect I was probably one of the few who enjoyed the original endings for ME3, and I'm reading the comic series that Dark Horse have been doing (more JJM! Yay!!!). [face_love]
    In a word: "muddled" is probably the best summary of how I felt. [face_hypnotized]

    Am I excited? Not really. But that isn't to say I think it will be bad, just that I tend not to get my hopes up for things anymore, simply to avoid my expectations not being met. I've barely followed the news stories, and try not to read any of the spoilers -- although I'm not exactly going out of my way to avoid them, just not hunting them down. If someone says something in the Disney thread, oh well, fine; I'll chat about it a little, but I'm not chasing after the gossip, if you get what I mean?

    My attitude toward whatever it might or might not mean toward the EU... is probably equally muted by my attempts to remain slightly detached from it. A lot of the stories that first got me into Star Wars (like the TOTJ comics that I mentioned first reading in my earlier posts), have already long since been overwritten or reinterpreted (think how many times Naga Sadow has died and returned and been a ghost and then not a ghost?) has left me rather more open to just shrugging and accepting whatever might come. Having said that, I'm a huge Vong fan, probably because of Vector Prime being one of the first novels I read, so it's always kinda had a special place in my heart. I only read most of the Bantam stuff a few years back, so never felt anything about Anakin Solo's death at the time, which may have also made the NJO more palatable to me, which is why I do hope the Vong War remains, even if it gets somewhat "downgraded" the way Exar Kun's war was made to play second fiddle to Revan's after KOTOR.

    The Sequel Trilogy

    As for the ST itself... good question. [face_thinking]

    [​IMG]

    I could be cliche and say "I hope Darth Plagueis returns" and because I'm expecting the mass market form of Star Wars to be reduced to what it always is: Jedi vs Sith, I'm pretty much expecting something along those lines, whether Plagueis or otherwise. If that happens, I'm sure they'll be enjoyable films, and if done better than the PT cinematically, I'm sure I will enjoy them. But I could also be the very opposite of cliche, and say I hope they have the courage to try something totally different. I actually loved the Mortis episodes of TCW (albeit I largely choose to ignore the explanation in Apocalypse) and wouldn't have any problems if they went with something that was a touch more... fantasy, like Talzin's Nightsisters and stuff.

    But whether that's my love of Star Wars speaking, or simply a desire for some cool space fantasy films is something I can't really say for certain. But I do definitely miss the "mythical" feeling that Star Wars gave me back when I first got into it in the 90s, and mourn the loss of that sense of wonder that the first time I saw a lightsaber gave me (well, okay, the first time I saw it and wasn't thinking "Yawn. This old movie bites." :p). So if doing something completely unexpected, that made our jaws drop and us be thinking "What the...?" the same way the Emperor suddenly unleashing bolts of lightning did in ROTJ, or the Mortis sort of stuff in TCW, then that would certainly make me far happier than just some more lightsaber fights.

    But obviously, most people aren't EU addicts, and for those lightsaber fights probably still have their original excitement, so I honestly can't say what I actually am expecting. :confused:
     
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  3. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    Zorrixor 9. How would you rank the 6 Star Wars films?

    10. What are your favorite non-SW TV shows/movies?
     
  4. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    This is a tricky one. [face_thinking]

    My difficulty in having "favourites" (with the OT, at least) is that the sheer number of times I've seen the films -- and I have watched the OT looots of times, and used to be able to literally dictate the entire dialogue of all three films from memory -- means that I'm unsure how much I watch them as "individual films" anymore, and how much I always have the "big picture" in my mind the entire time, making it difficult to judge each one by its own merits, if you follow me?

    The prequels...

    Take the prequels first, as they're easier. I love ROTS; really love it. But it's a junk film. As a film, I don't actually enjoy it. The dialogue is either wooden or over the top, Christopher Lee's potential is criminally wasted, Grievous is... a dork, Palpatine is reduced to a lightsaber waving cliche like Yoda was in AOTC, and then, to top that collection of awfulness off, we have:



    And yet, I still love ROTS. :eek:

    Two events may be the reason here. Firstly, I read the novel first. I had that as soon as it came out -- which was about a month before the film, if I recall correctly? -- meaning that I went in with my expectations in the stratosphere, and simply seeing just some of Stover's prose turn up on the big screen, with all the pretty graphics and cool sound effects, that made me very happy, even if the book's story was still better. The second part is that I saw ROTS at the Star Wars Marathon screening in London, where those who got there at 7am and sat through all five previous films first got to watch ROTS on the same night that all the stars were across the other side of the square, watching it at the official premiere. So, having Lucas himself step on stage and introduce the film, and watching it in a cinema packed with people in costumes waving their lightsabers and cheering when Yoda Force whooped Palpatine, that experience still lives with me, and elevated ROTS into something very special.

    So of the prequels, ROTS is definitely my favourite, and AOTC is definitely my least -- as I hate AOTC, really, really, really, truly, utterly hate it. I just do not enjoy AOTC. TPM I may now find childish, albeit I was 13 when I saw it, and loved it in the cinema back in 1999, and thought it rocked back when I was that age, wheres today I find Anakin being so young a bit lame, but I accept its more aimed at kids, and I was a kid, and I still love the lightsaber duel with Maul, even if I hate the podracing and think it's boring and normally leave the room to make a cup of tea while that part's on, but I don't mind TPM and can happily sit through it still. But AOTC, no, just no, I don't like it, and find the whole fill dull.

    [​IMG]

    (Sadly, we had to watch them in release order, since ROTS wasn't until about 10pm that night -- though I have a feeling it got delayed until 11:30pm or something insane due to Lucas being delayed getting there -- meaning I fell asleep, but not during them... had I known ROTS wasn't going to start until so late, I'd have made sure I'd taken a nap during the podrace and slept through AOTC :p)

    Back to the OT...

    So, with the prequels out of the way, back to my dilemma over the OT...

    The prequels are all much more standalone as films, I think. The characters age, the cast changes, Jar Jar is nowhere to be found and forgotten like he always should have been, so the films all have their own distinct, unique "feel". But the OT? They were different. They're more like trying to have a "favourite" out of the Lord of the Rings films: it just can't be done! :D

    If I had to pick one, I often say it's ROTJ, but... I hate the Ewoks, but the throne room scenes are my favourite scenes in the entire saga, and I'd even go as far as to say that the dialogue between Luke, Palpatine and Vader is probably some of my favourite in any movie ever, as I just get chills still from those exchanges. But then it has Ewoks.

    [​IMG]

    ESB is definitely a better film, but... as much as I absolutely love "No. I am your father." that's a few seconds out of an entire film, whereas ROTJ has way more of that father-son suspense than just the one line. ANH? Difficult to say... it's a great film (even if I hated it as a kid and swore never to touch that stupid Star Wars stuff again :p) but there is no single "moment" in ANH that does for me what Luke's exchanges with his father do in ESB and ROTJ, so even though I feel ANH is the best film, I often rate it lower, because... it's not got those "moments" that are quite so epic.

    So, yeah...

    1. OT*
    2. ROTS
    3. TPM
    4. AOTC

    * I sat through all six in one day, I am entitled to treat them as a single film, shut up :p
    Non-SW TV shows

    [​IMG]

    (I needed an image with Doctor Who and anime in it... after finding this, seriously, they need to make a Doctor Who anime happen!!! [face_love])

    So, the only current program I watch -- like, literally -- is probably Doctor Who. And even that I'm starting to grow a bit... fed up with, so... I can't discuss much that is "current". (This is the knock-on effect of not having read anything as a kid: I'm currently spending most of my spare time reading the books that I should have read two decades ago, and which has kind of hit my watching time.) Having said that, I mentioned before that I'd recently got into anime with a friend, which has been shows like Rozen Maiden, Vampire Knight, and (albeit its a Western production) Avatar: The Last Airbender. Even if they're "cartoons", I've come to love being able to watch something like Vampire Knight or Avatar and not just enjoy the show for entertainment, but explore the themes and inspirations with someone else, which has given me a renewed appreciation of "kids" entertainment and how there can be much more to a program than it just being fun for five minutes.

    I suspect this might come back to having studied children's literature as part of my English degree, so watching cartoons that may or may not be aimed at children or adults has made me enjoy analysing what I watch more than "just watching" it. (I guess I am to anime what I am to novels here on Lit: always wanting to dissect it afterwards to get the most out of it....?)

    So that's what my favourite shows and stuff are now.

    If I went back in time, it'd have been something like Babylon 5 once upon a time, or the original X-Files series, but I've never been that into any of the detective or crime shows that the airwaves always seem swamped in, nor have I cared much for the fantasy shows that are currently all the rage -- which is odd, given I love the fantasy genre when it comes to books, love Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, all that kind of thing: but I just don't like the modern TV shows. I'm a prude who dislikes gratuitous sex scenes though, which is probably what puts me off most of the newer stuff, as I always find the idea of, say, watching Eva Green or Anna Paquin getting their kit off practically every week in shows like Camelot and True Blood being something I'd find a bit weird to watch with the rest of my family in the living room. :p

    Non-SW Movies

    Ah, movies... despite not watching that many TV shows, I watch lots of movies. (Well, I have a pile of unwatched ones admittedly, as this past year I've been pressed for time, but historically I watched everything I could get my hands on, forcing myself to sit through the most awful trashiest boring films I could, simply because if I started it, I insisted on myself that I would finish it.)

    Because of that, picking favourites isn't as easy as picking the things I despise (first-person cameras I'm looking at you! [face_frustrated]).

    [​IMG]

    It's probably no surprise I like adaptations of a lot of books, so LOTR, Harry Potter, always been a fan of those. I know lots of people bemoan "changes" when you get things adapted to a new media, but I prefer to see them as their own stories. (That comes from my literature degree, I guess, where I read that when people translate into other languages, a good translator doesn't obsess over word-for-word loyalty, but searches for ways to convey the same ideas and concepts in the target language -- something that is essential when you're translating metaphors and sayings, which don't always work in a foreign language.) I feel the same way about the "translation" from prose to film, which is why I prefer [most of] the later Harry Potter movies to the first two.

    I always love films that are bigger than just the one film too. Something like Prometheus, say, with its connections to the Alien saga, I loved that. (Not that I mind just kicking back with something lighthearted when my brain needs a break, as I'm more than happy to watch something like The Expendables, which may have no fantasy in it and its acting might be the biggest cliche imaginable, but sometimes by mind just wants to switch off.)

    Surprisingly, I am not the biggest superhero fan, though.

    I love the X-Men series and Batman (again, the "bigger storyline" is something that majorly appeals to me), but I've never been a big fan of Superman or Spiderman, and while I'll happily watch the films, I've never felt the same urgency to watch them a second time, and am not much of a fan of the "ensemble cast" things like Avengers, which just seem to be more about how much SFX they can fit into two hours, rather than about getting deep inside one particular character. That's why I prefer a film like Batman, where you get right inside Bruce's head, whereas in Avengers... I didn't see the point in half the characters, e.g. it was the first time Black Widow had been in one of the new films, yet she was basically an extra in a film that already had too many characters crammed into it for my tastes.
     
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  5. Barriss_Coffee

    Barriss_Coffee Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2003

    You're going to publish the great Popular Nerd Culture Literary Critique with that degree, right? Riiight? It would become required reading in all modern lit classes.
     
  6. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    If I hadn't put my PhD on hold for a bit, I've gotta admit, I considered something not far removed from that as a paper once. :p

    I was honestly a bit surprised Star Wars doesn't have more literary analysis to its name. Harry Potter has lots emerging. Tolkien naturally has mountains. But sci-fi is... seen so poorly in the "high" literary world, that it irritates me (and led me to deliberately take the pee in one of my final essays, where I had to do a stylistic analysis of whatever I wanted: so I picked the first Lost Tribe e-book :p).
     
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  7. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    I'm surprised that classic sci-fi writers like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne don't get more attention in the literary world. And kids can read those, the books are on a 5th or 6th grade level.

    I've got my own theories on that, involving the most revered classics being books that traditionally appealed to girls; my PhD is on hold as well, for up to five years unless something changes, but a subject I definitely want to study more is how to draw in reluctant readers, especially boys. Graphic novels have been a big draw in my experience.

    Anyway...end hijack, back to your interview.
     
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  8. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Man, I am impressed with all the visual aids you're putting on this thing.
     
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  9. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    Zorrixor 11. What are your favorite novels, books, and short stories, both in and out of SW?

    12. What are your favorite comics and graphic novels, both in and out of SW?
     
  10. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    The one sci-fi book that I did study was Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? (which was the basis of Blade Runner, although the book's got a very different feel).

    It's been a couple of years since I read the articles, but from what little my currently slightly tired mind can remember, I believe part of the problem stems from the earlier sci-fi having been both (a) too difficult unless you were a geek, so maybe that put off the purely artsy minded people? and (b) because of the first point, it meant it wasn't very publishable outside its own magazines and things, so got dismissed a lot as just commercial trash. In the end, though, I think the reality was the same problem Tolkien faced: that the art world was just run by a close-minded bunch who liked what they liked and excluded anything different, regardless of how good it was.

    [​IMG]

    (That was a real movement in Harvard back in the 60s or something, I think :p)

    I expect (and hope) that in another decade or two's time, all those people who grew up with Star Wars (meaning: us!) will do for the art world what all the Tolkien nuts did fifty years ago for fantasy. I know Doctor Who was getting some scholarly attention a few years ago, so with any luck maybe sci-fi will start getting more wider recognition, but... we'll have to see. (I'm actually more interested in when video games will start getting some proper analysis, as I had wanted to focus on those for my Masters, but there's basically nothing written about video games yet -- even though I find the immersion in a game world an incredibly interesting thing, not just from a literary angle, but the whole cultural and psychological side of what happens when you get drawn into them.)

    And I share your interest in graphic novels too: art gets taken seriously; prose gets taken seriously: put the two together, and you've got graphic novels. It was one of the things I enjoyed about my children's literature study, as we looked at picture books, and as simple as you'd think Peter Rabbit is, it's actually really interesting when you dig down into that stuff.
    What can I say... I'm conscious that I write too much and need to make it easy on those who can't be kriffed to read the whole wall of text. :p
     
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  11. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    Ah, an easy one! (Yay for never having read enough as a kid finally being useful for something! [face_dancing])

    [​IMG]

    I guess I'll start inside Star Wars. Traitor and Plagueis are probably too cliche (but definitely favourites), so I'll branch out a bit and say that I've also loved books like Kemp's two Jaden Korr books, which are easy two of my absolute favourites. JJM's Knight Errant was awesome too. (I also have a guilty pleasure in most of Karpynshyn's books, as well as Schreiber's horror novels -- not read/listened to Maul yet, tho it's on my shelf behind me.) And then there were the Vong books... and Thrawn... and...

    It's becoming kinda apparent that I like them all, isn't it? :cool:

    Well, not entirely. I haven't made it all the way through the X-Wing books (but want to someday). I prefer the ones that feel more space fantasy than purely science-fiction. Not that I dislike the latter of the two, and nor am I a fan of endless lightsaber fights (that's why I don't rate all of Kemp's novels, as I disliked Deceived for being fairly flat and uninspiring.) But I love the ones that have the boldness to do something different, like the Vong, or the wacky Sith Lords in the Knight Errant novel -- those twins (I think they were twins?) who mind controlled that whole planet, those were cool. Of course, I also love stuff like Labyrinth of Evil and Shadow Hunter, which are more just about the regular fights and lightsabers, but those I like for the "world building" that they're good at.

    But stuff like Traitor, the Lost Tribe shorts and Kemp's two Jaden Korr books are probably up the top really, as I loved the way those were so much more psychological and got inside people's heads, rather than them being all about the action scenes, but also simultaneously managed to add new ideas to the Star Wars galaxy rather than sticking 100% to the normal stuff.

    Books OUTSIDE Star Wars...? :eek:

    [​IMG]

    Much more difficult, due to the simple admission of having read so little outside Star Wars. [face_dunno]

    A glance to the bookshelf on my right shows the box set of Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy, which I read last summer, and enjoyed. (It's sort of a low fantasy aimed at older readers -- "low" in the sense that the fantasy stuff isn't quite as central, but it's still in a world with magic and monsters, just much like the Star Wars books I like, First Law is more about the characters than the beasties themselves.)

    I talked about Walter Moers earlier, so won't repeat that again -- but his Zimonia series are definitely something I'm enjoying. The most interesting thing about them is how they're not for kids, but he also includes tons of drawings, almost like it's a comic book at times, but with the prose the focal point rather than the pictures. I've read that's caused them to sometimes be put in the children's sections in some bookshops, when they're not really "kids books" I would say, but more like LOTR and something that's not for any particular age. Alongside those... I see there's Gibson's Neuromancer, which I read last year, and found... kinda weird, but I enjoyed exploring the story that inspired so many modern stories like the Matrix, etc.

    I'm not much of a short story person though -- even in Star Wars, I've only really read the Lost Tribe ones, and despite having had them all for years, still haven't read any of the Tales books. (It's odd, because I'm a slow reader who takes his time, so you'd think I'd happily read through a short story, but... it's just never been something I've done. Maybe I should change that and finally try those Tales books...)

    ...and I gotta have a wash, but I will try and get to the other question before bed if I can ;)
     
  12. Shadow Trooper

    Shadow Trooper Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 18, 2013
    I love Walter Moers' books, especially Rumo. I am glad to see I am not the only person who reads his work, as when ever I read these at school or work, nobody has even heard of them. Also you should totally read the Star Wars Tales of anthologies, especially Bounty Hunter. The Last Man Standing is epic.
     
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  13. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    Shadow Trooper: I'd never heard of him either until last summer, when a friend I have in Germany suggested City of Dreaming Books.

    [​IMG]

    I love Moers though. I'm only a little way into Rumo so far, but what I think I enjoy most is how he's able to be satirical without being snide or condescending, which is too frequently the case with lots of other authors who can't comment without sounding snappy.
    Hmm... difficult, very difficult.

    Well, outside Star Wars is easy, because I've never really read comics outside Star Wars. When I was really little, I vaguely recall reading the UK's Sonic the Comic series, but... that was all I read as a kid, and don't believe I touched another comic book until the internet got me interested in that Naga Sadow guy who I voyaged into the archives to find copies of TOTJ to find out more about. I then stuck to the odd trade paperback for many years -- without any clue which ones to buy, and often only reading partial series (e.g. at the time, I only read one of the middle-volumes of the Rogue Squadron TPBs) -- and it wasn't until I was swept up in the mass hysteria of LEGACY's release that I finally jumped into monthlies -- and decided to back-order all of the KOTOR comics then-released at the time.

    But.

    [​IMG]

    I've become a Dark Horse addict since then, recently invested way too much money in making sure I get all the Omnibuses before they go out of print, and have shelves of single issues of pretty much all of their Star Wars runs in the years since Legacy #1 (and thanks to their in-issue Mass Effect adverts, and the fact JJM wrote them, have gotten into a few of those too). I like TOTJ, I enjoyed DE1 (not 2 or EE), I liked the Thrawn adaptations, I love Legacy and the Republic run but do find Dursema's art, despite awesomely drawn, sometimes is too heavy on the fight scenes for my personal tastes; I absolutely adore Agent of the Empire, and am disappointed it got axed; Invasion was sweet, as I love the Vong and seeing them drawn was brilliant, and I wish that DH and DR had been able to co-operate like that more at the time, and had more mutual series right through LOTF and FOTJ too. I could go on...

    At the end of the day, though picking out a "favourite" is almost impossible, I think the best way I can sum it up is: I love all of the ones that expand the universe. TOTJ did that. DE and Legacy did that. KOTOR did that, even when it was in the shadows of Revan, it still added new stories about the Covenant, and not just some Jedi dude fighting in a war -- which was why I wasn't as much of a fan of the WAR spin-off. And, who can possibly forget, the greatest expansion of them all:

    [​IMG]
     
  14. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    Zorrixor 13. What person involved in SW would you want to meet most, dead or alive, and why? (ie actor, writer, director, artist, etc.)

    14. What changes, if any, would you make to the post-ROTJ EU?
     
  15. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    You need to fix that mistake right now. I would recommend: Usagi Yojimbo; Prophet; Ravine; Okko; Conan the Barbarian; Valérian and Laureline; The Portent; Domovoi; Tom Strong; and Captain Britain and MI13
     
  16. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    I definitely need to read more, yeah, and so will need to check out your suggestions. :)

    I've just realised that I did forget to mention ElfQuest yesterday, which I've recently started reading.

    [​IMG]

    I've been enjoying that a lot, as it's got great artwork (especially when you factor in how old it is), and the story is cool, as I love how it has lots of text and is almost like an illustrated short story in places, which is the kind of comic format that often appeals to me, rather than the fast-paced panels of, say, most of the "Darth Vader and the..." series.
    Who else could it be other than the authors of the greatest novel series ever!!!

    [​IMG]

    It's gotta be the Davids, right? Riiight?! ^:)^

    I would bid them Dark Greetings, and beg them to reveal to me their great literary muse so that I too might become as good as them!

    Okay, so, maybe not... hmm. In all honestly? I don't really know. I've never been one to idolise or look up to celebrities or any of that sort of thing, so I'm not really sure. At that Star Wars Marathon that I went to to watch the ROTS premiere, I shook Lucas's hand, but... it's not like I've never washed it again since...

    [​IMG]

    Oh, okay, maybe I should wash it before I turn into a zombie... (or my hand becomes completely female, from the looks of the nails)... But, yeah, my zombified hand aside, I honestly don't really know? We're all human, we all make the same mistakes, we all go to the toilet and $%&* the same, so I've simply never been one to be that fussed, to be perfectly honest. My dad picked up an award from Princess Anne last autumn, and... shrug... I'm just so indifferent. :p

    But... in the interest of giving an answer, I guess I'll say Hayden Christensen, so I could punch, slap, throw rotten eggs in his face for ruining Darth Vader for me. :p

    [​IMG]

    Seriously, Hayden, you had to do Just One Thing, and you couldn't even look in Luke's direction, but had to stare straight at the camera. Give that man an Oscar!!! :oops:

    And lunch time, but will try and do the other question in a little bit. ;)
     
  17. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    Ooh, Oooooh, OOOoooooooOOoohhh!! This one's easy!!! :D

    [​IMG]

    Er... or, maybe... maybe not. :p

    Jokes aside, hmm... hard to say. There is very little in terms of the actual stories themselves that I dislike, surprisingly enough. Maybe it's because I read NJO before Bantam, but Anakin's death never bothered me -- in fact, when I first read Star by Star, I barely even registered it, as it was probably the third or fourth Star Wars book I'd actually read, so I just shrugged. I'd gotten into Babylon 5 around the same time too (as I watched that a few years after it had originally aired), and so I enjoyed the Vong for the same kinda reasons why I found the Shadows cool. :)

    Legacy was awesome, so that's fine. Even LOTF, in principle, I had absolutely no quarrels with at all. I always took Vergere as a bit... darker than not, maybe not in the RARGH I WILL KILL YOU!!! way of a Sith, but I always loved how complex she was. So Jacen being the kid who couldn't live up to his wise elder's experienced wisdom? Sure, that sounded like a cool premise, except I'd have much preferred he became a Dark Jedi Master, not a Sith Lord, and had just started teaching his/Vergere's more Je'daii-influenced kind of living in Balance with the Force, and that it just ended up not going the way he thought it would, cue [not-so-Great] Schism, and more of a Jedi Civil War than Darth Vader II and the Galactic Civil War re-enacted.

    But the basic idea of LOTF? Cool, loved it, but just hated the execution. [face_sigh]

    [​IMG]

    The same's true of FOTJ. I love all that esoteric Force mysticism stuff -- it's what first got me into the EU, after all, with how alien the Jedi and Sith in TOTJ were compared to the films. So Abeloth? Cool concept. Loved it. But again: execution! I disliked how the first few novels felt all over the place, as if the writing team hadn't really made their minds up yet what Abeloth was, even amongst themselves, and that definitely rubbed off on the variation between the prose between the novels. I wasn't even against the Celestial connection, as I'd developed an RPG character once several years before Apocalypse, who had sought immortality, wanted to join-but-not-join with the Force, blah, blah, but it backfired, and he ended up more demonic like the Marvel Force Vampire, and such and such. So... the idea of a servant trying to become a God but it all going wrong after she tried to drink from the Holy Grail? Awesome concept.

    But the execution just left much to be desired.

    More broadly speaking, I'd have preferred to see more comics -- lots more comics -- and video games that supported the novels. They've achieved that cross-pollination of ideas perfectly fine in other eras, like the Clone Wars or TOR, and so I have never understood why it had to take so long for a Vong comic or some spin-off novels like the Jaden Korr books ([face_love]). I feel instead of these huge 9-book series, then, that they should have remembered Less Is More, and that it'd have been more interesting to get more depth from things.

    [​IMG]

    But, alas, it was never so... :_|

    Bantam I can't speak as much for due to having read it long, long after most of the books' original releases. I was far less fond of most of them, but that's due to a range of reasons, not less (1) being older, (2) having read more other Star Wars material, giving me unfair expectations, (3) the different context of reading, with it being a totally different world now, etc, etc. So... even if I prefer the newer books (normally) much more than anything KJA wrote, that's an unfair comparison, as I'm not comparing like-for-like.

    That said, I doubt I'd want to change that much -- sure, I accept some parts are corny, but... Ewoks? Jar Jar?
     
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  18. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    Zorrixor 15. If you could choose one Force power to have IRL, which one would it be and why?

    16. What is your opinion of the Star Wars Holiday Special, and would you prefer it with or without RiffTrax?
     
  19. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    Okay, I am going to take one for the team... and spend tonight watching the Holiday Special, because I have never seen it before. [face_worried]

    So I shall probably answer both questions tomorrow afternoon. ;)
     
  20. Barriss_Coffee

    Barriss_Coffee Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2003
    You severely underestimate the recovery period upon first viewing.
     
  21. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    [​IMG]

    Well, that was... weird. I thought I had a video of the Holiday Special, but had been thinking of the Ewok films. I found [most of] it on YouTube though, and watched that... more comments to follow later in this post! [face_hypnotized]
    Okay, I'll get the easy question out of the way first! :D

    When I was younger, I'd have immediately answered with something like Essence Transfer or whatever the power would be that extends an individual's life forever. But the older I've grown, the more my mind has dissected things, the more I have become as equally terrified of eternal life as I am of oblivion, so I'm unsure if I'd want anything like that now.

    [​IMG]

    Things that manipulate the real world.... not that excited by those. Telekinesis, Force Lightning, all of that feels like it'd just be stuff to show-off and not that practical in real terms. Illusions and Mind Tricks have an almost infinite number of uses, but... I dunno. They could certainly be fun, but am I enough of a cruel and manipulative %$^&$%^ to do that...?

    Well, maybe... dunno. :p

    I do possibly like the idea of something like Farsight or Sense, as I'm not big on surprises, and being able to plan around whatever is to come might be nice, without becoming some ridiculous or exploitative superpower. I also quite like the idea of Sense in terms of it making you more empathic, more able to relate to people, to understand them, etc.

    But... honestly... don't know. It's a hard one! :D
    And here we are...

    First thing I can answer easily: I wasn't really sure what RiffTrax was, so Googled it, and I see it's basically sarcastic commentary of films and stuff? But since I have no further experience with RiffTrax, I can't offer much there. But the Holiday Special itself... oh boy... [face_relieved]

    I will let the notes I made watching it on YouTube do the talking:

    PART 1

    The opening is... interesting. I can appreciate what Lucas was already trying to do, even right back then... to make Star Wars this big thing. It makes me wonder if we'll see the Disney Wars Holiday Special in 2016.

    3:00 Okay, Chewie's family. Cute, I guess. Wait... what the kriff is going on with his dad's head? :confused:

    [​IMG]

    5:00 You know, so far, I am reminded of 2001: A Space Odyssey. You remember the start, where you see all the apes, and there is no dialogue for the like the first 20 minutes of the film...?

    5:50 Seriously, his dad's hair! Wookiee with receding hairline? :eek:

    6:30 Awwww, mummy and daddy <3 lil' Chewie [face_love]

    ...seriously, that hairline! He looks more like a wampa. Did this freak kids out back when it was first released...? I'm 28, and... that hairline. Seriously. Even not being a kid that dude is freaking me out. Whose idea was that...???

    7:40 What... the... holographic dancing on the... music box... or... okay, that was... weird. [face_plain]

    9:30 This is just going on and on... what... is... this... dancing...

    This is like a cross between the Oompa Loompas and the Power Rangers.

    [​IMG]

    ---

    PART 2

    0:25 So Wookiee laughter... sounds like fart sounds. Helpful to know.

    2:00 That's Mark Hamill...? He looks younger than ANH, how odd.

    3:15 Oh noes! Chewie isn't there yet! There must be trouble!!!

    Weirdly, as cringe-worthy and sickeningly sweet as this is, I actually kind of miss this... more "innocent" side of Star Wars? If you get what I mean? I love the NJO and the dark stuff, and would not want to lose any of that as it's what got me into SW, but it's a shame we always get either one thing or the other, and not a nice steady mix.

    I suppose TCW is meant to have been more lighthearted, but... today "soft" usually means "kids being jackasses who know it all" and not the all round family fun that the Holiday Special was [very badly] trying to achieve.

    5:20 I have never taken those Death Star helmets seriously :p

    6:00 This Imperial is sooooo overacting :p

    But pocket sized aquariums! OMG! Space-age technology!!!

    6:50 "You might say she did it by hand...Solo" *groans*

    Why didn't people realise back then that Lucas should never have been allowed to write scripts again? We could have been saved the pain of Jar Jar and Anakin+Padme's romance :p

    8:44 Oooh, Vader! Yay! This poodoo just got real! [face_devil]

    ---

    PART 3

    0:00 One thing I do kinda like is how the Wookiee treehouses are the same as the way Kashyyyk was again depicated decades later. :)

    Were they originally from McQuarrie sketches?

    1:00 A cookery show... oooh, the Bantha RUMP! Lewd.

    1:50 Alas, the forum rules wouldn't want me to say what this woman's moans sound like. :p

    Oh my... Stir, Whip! Stir WHIP! Stir WHIP WHIP WHIP! No commentary here is even needed... the dialogue does it for me...

    3:50 Have to beat... oh lord... the innuendos... the innuendos.. [face_laugh]

    6:00 Oooh, another Imperial. These Imperials seem soooooo serious about everything.

    [​IMG]

    8:00 Yes! Kiss him! He wants a big wet hairy kiss!

    Aww, only on the cheek. I wanted to see him cough and spitting out hairs.

    9:10 "I thought you might like this... it's hard to explain... it's like... WOW! If you know what I mean! Happy Life Day! I do mean Happy Life Day!" Lewd. So lewd. So, so, so lewd.

    ---

    PART 4

    [[The next 10 minutes have been REDACTED to protect the innocent.]]

    Wow. That was... it's better we not discuss in front of children. I don't even think I am old enough for that yet. 8-}

    7:30 Leia looks... weird.

    ---

    PART 5

    0:00 At least Ford still sounds like Han Solo, unlike how Luke and Leia both seemed...funny in some ways.

    1:10 LOL, the music when the Stormtroopers appear! [face_laugh]=D=

    HE'S BEHIND YOU!

    I'm waiting for the pantomime dame to come out.

    2:40 The acting... the overacting...

    Hayden Christensen would be proud. He probably watched this to research how to play the role. :p

    3:40 "Hellow little guy... where's your daddy..." Do I need to explain what I found creepy about that line? :p

    [​IMG]

    5:50 Okay.... this film had a strange obsession with purple videos.

    9:30 Is this song ever going to end...

    ---

    PART 6

    0:50 Phew, finally over... "You may leave now." If only Leia had known it was that easy to bribe an Imperial officer!

    Or maybe they just didn't want to be tortured with another song. I don't blame them.

    2:20 I'm trying to decide if this is just bad acting, or if they were simply stage actors who weren't experienced acting for camera, and didn't realise they didn't need to overdo their facial expressions? They seem like they're actually good at acting, it's just so over the top.

    ---

    I had to look elsewhere for the cartoon, as Part 7 is gone.

    [​IMG]

    This... is actually not that bad. The animation is decent, and there is a STORY. Even the voice acting sounds much better than the live acting.

    This makes me think... if the Holiday Special hadn't been a complete disaster, was this meant to be a pilot for an animated show? As this would have been a cool thing during the 80s.

    Bit curious about the third eye on the forehead of Boba's helmet tho.

    ---

    PART 8

    4:00 A sealed package containing all the tools... and there isn't even anything missing! WOW! THAT IS PROOF OF HOW ADVANCED THIS SOCIETY IS!!!! I wish it was the future too. No missing screws or bolts. [face_love]

    Well, the next ten minutes were... kinda pointless, building the transmitter. The dude (I assume a droid?) giving the instructions was a nice idea, but... again, the acting was awfully over the top, and too robotic, even for a droid.

    ---

    PART 9

    0:10 Life on Tatooine... uh huh...

    2:00 Why... is he pouring the drink onto his head... what the... I've seen bizarre aliens in Star Wars. But wow. Just wow. [face_hypnotized]

    2:50 Oh god, this attempt at flirting... groan.

    [​IMG]

    3:50 I feel like I've entered a Star Wars episode of Eastenders...

    ---

    PART 10

    0:50 THE GRYPH!!! [face_dancing]

    [​IMG]

    Well, okay, not Gryph himself, but a Snivvian. In a bar. On Tatooine. What more could anyone ask for? ^:)^

    The song... okay, we have finally entered the expected pantomime scene -- albeit with a real woman, not a dame -- but I will forgive this for the Snivvian in the cantina. I will treat this as the very first canon appearance of Goodvalors.

    2:10 But really, what on earth is going on... what happened to the main story with Chewie's family and Life Day... this is...

    5:50 "The Rebels we're looking for!" I should have counted how many times the Imperial officers repeated that same line in this film.

    ---

    Okay, so... it seems like the next few scenes are missing, oh well. I will have to find the ending....

    ENDING

    Leia seems to... like Chewbacca. Okay, Leia, you can stop rubbing him... okay, enough Leia, stop.



    THIS is what Palpatine is the Emperor. He's the man! (Sure, not the real ending, but it was the only one I could find on YouTube... and this one is probably better than the original, for the obvious reasons :p)

    ---

    I would comment on the whole film, but... I would go insane. And I value my sanity.

    So instead of thinking about any of that again -- ever again, once in a lifetime is one time too many already -- I will leave it to a comment I read on one of the videos, which summed up my feelings perfectly:

    "I prefer to consider this Holiday Special as the Carbonite coma induced dream Han Solo had when boba fett took him to jabba's palace."

    Genius. :-B
     
  22. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    [face_rofl] Totally worth asking that question. Definitely check out RiffTrax if you can, though. Those guys make any movie hilarious.

    17.What are some of your favorite foods and beverages?

    18. What world issues matter most to you?
     
  23. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Zorr,

    DHC are collecting Elfquest into big, cheap volumes, the first is due July and is about 700 pages for around £13!
     
  24. CommanderDrenn

    CommanderDrenn Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 19, 2013
    The only redeeming Holiday Special thing I have seen is the alternate ending...
     
  25. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    Sorry for taking a day to continue, I didn't get much sleep Wednesday night and was just unholy tired all day yesterday.

    Ben I came across an advert for those on Amazon the other week, yeah. I think I read they're going to only be in black and white, though? Which is a bit of a shame, as I love the full colour spreads that are on the ElfQuest website, so I'm hoping Dark Horse do the pretty versions eventually. [face_praying]

    I'll probably buy these in any case, as I haven't got any copies and only been reading it on the website, but if they get enough sales hopefully DH will release the other series.
    Oh my, this one should be so easy, but I'm such a boring eater and never eat out that... I don't really know. :confused:

    I don't drink alcohol except once in a blue moon, so, hmm... oh, I know. Tea. Yes, tea.

    [​IMG]

    ...this is making me sound like some royally boring English cliche? (Oh lord, I just used the word "royally" after posting a picture of Charles... that was not intended [face_laugh] )

    It's only a recent thing really, but I like trying different teas, whether black, green, white, I'm pretty open really -- despite being such a picky eater, I'm pretty willing to try anything once. I'm not a huge fan of sweet teas though. I tried Jasmine recently and... it honestly tasted like drinking liquid soap. A friend swore that Lapsang Souchong was awesome, but... I couldn't get into that either, the smell was too overpowering, even if the taste itself was tolerable -- I preferred Russian Caravan, which is kinda the same smokey taste, just without the fag* ash smell.

    *before anyone complains, a fag over here means a cigarette :p

    [​IMG]

    Hopefully, however, that is not where Russian Caravan comes from... though it would explain the toilet water taste that my mother described it as when I once had her try it. :p

    [​IMG]

    As for foods...? I'm boring. Well, I guess I can more easily define what I don't like, as I prefer proper cooked meals, not ready meals, but beyond that...? Bacon and egg for breakfast, fruit for lunch, roast dinner in the evening... I'm pretty unexciting. (Well, I could brag about how I can devour an entire tub of Carte D'or in the evening and still never put any weight on, but... that'd just get things thrown at me :p)
    I've always enjoyed politics and never fail to vote, so there's a lot I could talk about here, hmm... but what matters most, hmm... that's more difficult. [face_thinking]

    My actual views on a lot of things are kind of hard to define anymore these days. I was pretty conservative as a teenager, but... somewhat less so these days... and... that doesn't make me labour or liberal either... but... nor do I really class myself as libertarian, and... bleh... I don't know. Oh, Master Lee, this calls for one of your moments I think: ^:)^



    Okay, so we're not talking about martial arts, but I loved his quote about how styles separate men. That seems to fit here: I can itemise "what" matters "most", but... I always struggle to separate issues, to divide them, and not view them all as mutually codependent, if that makes sense?

    So, hmm, something not so insane, oh, hmm, I know! :D

    [​IMG]

    ...we've just come full circle back to the start of these questions, haven't we? :D

    Animals. I can definitely give a definitive answer about animals. I care about animals. Even if my views and preferences on taxation, social security, immigration, and everything else, might all vary, change, be fluid, and in some cases the kind of stuff that'd get things thrown at me, what doesn't change: animals. In particular, raising parrots has made me take a strong interest in rainforest deforestation, not so much because of climate change, but out of me having an almost Agent Smith mentality when it comes to humanity being a parasite at times.

    [​IMG]

    ...oh my, did I just compare myself to Agent Smith? Wow, yes, yes I did. :eek:

    Okay, so I'm starting to come across like some animal rights nut who would break into places and release a bunch of monkeys onto the street so they ran out and died in the wild, so... I think I need to provide some clarity, as that's not the case even in the slightest. :p

    But yeah, joking and slightly sarcastic commentary aside, I hate seeing things like rainforests cut down just to build football stadiums in Brazil, etc, for World Cups, and I often feel that things like climate change have obsessed so much over polar bears and icecaps that other environments have been neglected through not sharing that same media coverage. Take the movies. The Ice Age films have been very popular. But how many have even heard of Rio...?

    [​IMG]

    I only came across that by sheer chance when browsing Amazon last year for something else, even though my brother's wife is huge on all those CGI animations, and often leaves some of the DVDs when I'm babysitting my nephews. Yet she hadn't even known of Rio until I got it.

    I found that really surprising, and it saddens me that something that is much easier to control -- you can stop cutting down trees by, you know, just not cutting down trees -- doesn't garner the same interest. People can debate until the cows come home about how much icecaps are or aren't melting, yet you can see rainforests, it's not hard to notice when suddenly one's become a football stadium, yet... parrots don't get that same cute, cuddly public attention that polar bears do, and it upsets me that as much as society has embraced human equality regardless of race or skin colour, when it comes to animals... you've still gotta be in a big kids film to be important.

    And all of a sudden, I am reminded of another favourite film that I haven't watched in years:

    [​IMG]

    Why wasn't FernGully more popular. I loved that film as a kid. :p

    Anyways, my inability to decide what to answer has waffled on long enough, so I will shut up.

    [​IMG]
     
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