Above is the trailer for The Hunt for Gollum, a 40 minute fan-made prequel to the Lord of the Rings movies, and it looks pretty darn good. If you like the trailer, you can watch the full thing only online. I haven’t gotten a chance to see the whole thing through myself, but I can’t […]
Inq. of the Week: The Stars are Warring?
It happens to be May the 4th, and a Monday, so I couldn’t let this go by without doing a Star Wars based inquisition of the week. With what could possibly be one of the corniest geek habits of using dates to make inside jokes, “May the 4th be with you” is apparently something that isn’t going away anytime soon. It occured to me that we have never done a poll about the Star Wars movies, which I am correcting today.
Review: The Darkness that Comes Before
I bought R. Scott Bakker’s first book purely based on its appearance on ‘top fantasy’ lists and its comparisons to the ‘realistic’ fantasy authors of Steven Erikson and George R..R. Martin. Bakker comes from an English critique and Philosophy background and it shows. His prose is often quite moving: either beautiful in its poetry or sickening in its brutality. His characters, setting, and background all teem with philosophical underpinnings.
Preview: Ranged Warlord
When preview material for the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons first started to come out, what excited me the most was probably the addition of the Warlord class. The Races & Monsters preview book described the class alongside pictures of armored warriors covered in weapons (both melee and ranged). When 4e was finally released the Warlord class was extremely interesting but it completely lacked that “Weapons Master” feel…
War in Low Level Campaigns
Most gamers tend to think of fantasy warfare as a clash that centers on heroes of outlandish skill, immense power, and blistering charisma. Wading through common soldiers to find other champions is equally pervasive in literature and cinema (Lord of the Rings, Troy, etc.). To that extent, DMs reserve massive warfare for characters of mid to high level. This article intends to look at a few ways of showcasing low level PCs in large scale warfare and the inherent advantages to taking your game in a warfare based direction.
Inq. of the Week: Who Watched the Watchmen?
My sense when it was being advertised, and especially after seeing it, is that the movie is something of a tough sell. It’s long, it’s R rated, and it’s fairly high concept as far as movies with this kind of advertising budget go. Early box office receipts are panning that out, and I’m not confident in its word of mouth to those who aren’t fans of the original.
Watchmen Weekend Critical Bits
An illustrated history of Watchmen from page to screen Watchmen Sketchbook How The Studios Would Have Ended Watchmen (A Storyboard)
Review: “Watchmen”
It’s funny for a movie that is supposed to be so faithful to the book (that I have read through many, many times) that I did my best to avoid spoilers. I wanted to dive in and make the comparisons myself, without hearing what critics have to say. I also try very hard to avoid being the nitpicky fan who dislikes any deviation from the source material: after all, different media have different challenges. Watchmen does a very good job of conveying the story (and most of the important plot beats) of the original work, and for that, I really enjoyed seeing it onscreen.
YouTube Tuesday: No, Seriously, It’s A Trap Edition
Admiral Ackbar knows a trap when he sees one. If only the Corleone family had hired him.
YouTube Tuesday: Two Scimitars, No Waiting Edition
This has been making the rounds (or is that, making the Realms?) this week: a fan film based on a book starring everyone’s favorite dual-wielding Drow renegade with a figurine of wonderous power, Drizzt.
Recent Comments