Results of Ruminations

At writers' group tonight, we got to talking about the news that Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere (multi-book spanning cosmology) is being optioned and put toward film franchises. While this is cool news, it got me thinking about what Hollywood producers are aiming to get out of fantasy franchises. With the undeniable success of Peter Jackson's adaptations of  The Lord of the Rings , as well as the country's continued fascination with Game of Thrones , there's obviously a connection to well-rendered fantasy worlds that has mainstream appeal. I worry, however, that producers are reading the wrong message. For every Lord of the Rings , there are a dozen Eragon  or Percy Jackson  films. For every Game of Thrones , there's a slew of Legend of the Seeker -type IPs that get out there, flounder, and fade away. What's different? What sets apart some of the tentpole properties from the rest of the herd? First and foremost, the caliber of the stories has to matter. Whi...

I'm listening to a recorded book version of The Hobbit  with my boys as we commute to and from work/school. It's fun to be back in Middle Earth, especially since my kids are familiar with the story of the book, thanks to the LEGO video games. I've been wanting to revisit Tolkien's world for awhile now--it's been almost two years since I last looked at it during my Winterim--and it's the kind of story that deserves revisiting. Because today is my anniversary (12 years!), my wife and I decided to sit down and watch the extended edition of The Battle of Five Armies  that's been sitting on our shelf for nearly a year. Without the kids at home, we could listen to it loud and do the whole thing without interruption. I know that The Hobbit  films are much more polarizing than the original adaptation of The Lord of the Rings . I will concur that, taken as a whole, The Hobbit  is structurally weaker and feels more bloated than LotR . The structure, sadly, comes f...