What Are You Reading?

[Nissa]

Man, people are seriously up and down about Interstellar.

So the Wheel of Time series is bad or not great somehow? Or was it dull?

[Hawki]

Of the above options, I'd go with dull. I've only read the first two books and the New Spring graphic novel, but, well, yeah. Basically "Lord of the Rings lite."

[TheEconomist]

That is quite possibly the biggest list of unpopular opinions I have have seen in a long time. Who wrote this? Oh, right. Hawki. Welcome back, man! (I kid.)

RE: Gardens of the Moon - I understand what you're saying. It's an incredibly frustrating book to read and, like I said, its more like reading a textbook than a novel. The characters, in particular, are hard to relate to because they're never really explained. This is especially true in the audibook form I read when I re-read chapters with enough frequency to have problem read the entire book 1.5 times. Really nothing is ever explained, just things start happening and you've got to figure out everything by yourself. Like someone else once said, it's like coming into the tenth season of tv show with a complex narrative. That being said, I loved the challenge, and the next few books get progressively better, although much more complex. The complexity and scope of the storyline will melt your brain, I don't care how much of a veteran to fantasy you are or how much you think you enjoy epic fantasy. I'm the kind of person that absorbs large books of fiction frequently and with great ease yet this book was incredibly difficult. That being said, the book was written ten years before the rest while Erikson was still focusing on anthropology. Still can't say I recommend it to you though, since, what I know about you, it's the exact opposite of what you'd want, and, therefore, a lot of what I want.

RE: Snow Crash - I was just about to write a glowing review that I actually put some effort into. I still plan to do that. But, for now, I'll just say, that it's not a book about characters or plot, it's about speculation and concepts, which is why I love it. The fact that I'm read a lot into Sumerian history, ancient civilizations and linguistics, and laughed at a few alien astronaut theories, I might have been to get a bit more out of it than someone who hadn't since it's hard to really explore these concepts through dialogue in a novel. Ultimately, however, I have never before read a book that is to effectively able to combine social commentary, futurist predictions (remember, this book was about as prophetic as a novel can be in 1991), religious musing, ancient mystery speculation, alien astronaut theorizing, linguistic investigations, etc. This book has everything, except for a relatible, likeable plot to tie it all together, at least in the 4/5ths to the end that I've read it. If you're the kind of person that just likes to be taken for a ride, like, for example, I don't know, you like the stories of StarCrarft II, then I can understand why there was next to nothing there for you. The other parts that I haven't mentioned are the most boring, and I can't wait for them to be over, but then the good parts kick in again.

RE: Interstellar - Worst film, seriously? SERIOUSLY? The special effects and set pieces alone should make it better than a lot of other movies you've seen. I can understand disappointment with the ending, it was a bit ... something ... but, as far as movies go, it's the best thing I've seen recently. I just don't know how you can claim to like real science fiction and not like that movie, plot holes included. Disappointment, I understand, straight up disliking? That's damn near Hawkish.

And you liked Gravity? Seriously? I thought the special effects were nice in 3D but that was it. The movie was basically Uncharted 2/3 in space in that the entire movie is basically just a series of ever increasingly unlikely problems and narrow misses. The whole moving was basically getting from point A to point B, having point B crumble at the worst possible time, and then magically making the way to point C. It was pure eye candy, ABSOLUTELY nothing else.

RE: Solaris - Haven't seen the movie, can't comment, but the book was excellent. I can say though, that the book was incredibly plot oriented and the speculation about the alien ocean and what it means to be human (cliche, I know) was really well done. In fact, it has a whole lot of horror elements in it, which I'm sure weren't conveyed well in a Clooney movie, and the characters progression is so introspective and philosophical, I can't imagine how it would be possible to translate onto a movie screen. Not surprised you didn't like it, in addition to the usual reasons.

RE: The Final Empire - And, to complete the bipolarness of the conversation, I'm making significant headway into book of the Mistborn trilogy, and, well, it's nothing special, I've already read this book a thousand times. So I'm going to give a it a Meh.

Basically "Lord of the Rings lite."

Lite in complexity and originality, not in length or character rosters. I've only read the first book of this series, from what I've heard is about ten massive books too long, and there are a couple of books which, quite literally, NOTHING happens despite them being close to a thousand pages. if you want something that's "lord of the rings lite" I recommend the Forgotten Realms series, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, or some other D&D series, since it's obviously a carbon copy of lore of the rings except meant to feel like adventure and light-hearted fun, not tedium and pointlessness.

[Nissa]

RE: Interstellar - Worst film, seriously? SERIOUSLY? The special effects and set pieces alone should make it better than a lot of other movies you've seen.

This is what's wrong with movies of today. People seem to think special effects make up for bad storytelling. They don't. That's like a teacher passing a student with a failing test just because the student has pretty handwriting.

[Hawki]

Well, this escalated quickly. Concerning the points:

-Interstellar: ...okay, here we go. And bear in mind, I said "worst film I'd seen," not worst film period. I'm sure plenty of worse films were released.

First of all, even by effects, I don't find Interstellar that impressive. Sometimes, yes. The water planet, the ice planet, the docking scene. However, something I noticed is that so often a close-up shot is used of the characters within the Endurance, reguarly cutting between facial shots, rather than giving the atmosphere time to breathe. Saturn, go by. Wormhole, go by. But as Nissa said, just by looking pretty, it doesn't mean it's great. Guardians of the Galaxy looked pretty as well, doesn't mean I think that highly of that movie either.

Second of all, "real science fiction" is falling into a "no true Scottsman" scenario. But at the end of the day, Interstellar is a film that is first and foremost concerned with plot. Plotholes can be overlooked if other aspects make up for it (e.g. characters), but when the characters themselves aren't particuarly interesting (TAARS being the sole exception), I'm left with the plot by itself, and the plot itself is a mess.

Gravity: The opposite of Interstellar. First of all, visuals. As I mentioned, Interstellar cut its shots like any other movie, to the point of excess, leaving it feel schizophrenic. Gravity, by its nature, leaves everything in the background. The opening shot by itself is beautiful (tracking shot), but Gravity's visuals are just...well, there. Interstellar is like a child saying "look at me, look at me." Gravity is like an art gallery picture - mounted on the wall, here to see, but you can move past it if you want.

Plotwise, Gravity is simple. But a simple plot makes it all the better, as it allows the viewer to focus on the characters. What they go through. How they feel. The feelings of isolation, of desparation, how beautiful space is, as well as how deadly. I've seen people say that there should have been shots of Houston, but no, that would have just taken away from it. There's a reason why Houston isn't heard from until the very end. Stone's on Earth. She's won. She's overcome the obstacles, she's overcome her fears, she's 'won,' so to speak. Gravity is about one person's journey. And succeeds in that.

Thematically, Gravity also trumps Interstellar, because it doesn't beat the viewer over the head with it. At its core, what is Gravity about? Rebirth, isolation, fear, the human connection...we see how Stone floats in the Russian spacecraft, akin to being in the womb. We hear her talk to herself after Kowalski is dead, because of course she is. That radio scene is one of the most moving in the film because it shows exactly what she's feeling. The need for connection, tying in with how she lost her daughter. Willing to 'go to sleep' in her own despair. And the final emergence from the pod. Now, she wants to live. Now, she wants to fight. In a way, it symbolizes the beginning of life itself. Crawling out from the oceans, into the mud, before standing tall. All of this is conveyed without a single word of dialogue bar the radio scene, and even then it becomes its most poinent when Stone howls. Stone and Kowalski were characters I cared about from start to finish. In contrast, when people started dying in Interstellar, my thoughts reigned from indifference to the urge to burst out laughing (when the black guy dies...because of course he does).

And then there's also how Interstellar conveys its themes. And like so much of Nolan's work, it seems his idea of "themes" is using platitudes, such as:

-Doctor: "Do not go quietly into the night..." (which is repeated over...and over...and over...)
-Cooper: "Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here."
-Cooper: "We used to stare up at the stars and wonder about our place in the universe. Now we just stare at the dirt."
-Mann: Children...blah blah blah...evolution...blah blah blah..." (Shut up shut up shut up!)

This is how Interstellar considers itself to be 'deep.' By uttering one-liners. Yes, you can extrapolate how it's a story of how one man's love for his daughter transcends time and space, but by the tesseract scene I was past caring. And so was the movie apparently, considering that Cooper's reunion with his daughter plays like:

-Cooper: Hey.
-Murph: Hey.
-Me: Where's the brother?
-Murph: Now go find Amelia.
-Cooper: Okay.

Yep. Really feeling the love there Nolan. The only good thing about this scene is that it manages to pack in more emotion than when Cooper leaves his family on Earth, but that's hardly much to brag about.

So yes. That's what I feel about Interstellar.

[DonnyZeDoof]

Were there really any plot holes in interstellar? I know it did some fantasy stuff near the end but if that was a part of the universe then I don't reallt count it as a plot hole.

- - - Updated - - -

Were there really any plot holes in interstellar? I know it did some fantasy stuff near the end but if that was a part of the universe then I don't reallt count it as a plot hole.

[Gradius]

Interstellar

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/foru...age=2#21620665

That's actually a decent review of the plotholes. Now if only we could apply the same standards to SC2. :P

[Hawki]

Oh, apply the same standards by all means. But as I said earlier, plotholes can be skimmed over if other aspects make up for them. Gravity has plotholes for instance (e.g. the whole Russian missile/satellite thing is a stretch of credulity, and the film isn't without scientific errors, the Kowalski/Stone tether for instance), but investment in other areas (e.g. the characters) allows the plotholes to not drag the experience down. Same with SC2 for me (or at least WoL).

In the list, the points I made were as much about the characterization as the plot. Cut out the characterization issues, and at the least, Interstellar would probably be in at least "okay" territory for me.

[TheEconomist]

This is what's wrong with movies of today. People seem to think special effects make up for bad storytelling. They don't. That's like a teacher passing a student with a failing test just because the student has pretty handwriting.

Movies are a visual medium and how you are given information visually and how you are immersed in the story and world visually is important, and should be something taken into consideration for the test. A better metaphor would be to judge a painting by the technique and scene choice employed at the expense of emotional meaning.

What I am saying is that, a movie which attempts to show black holes, fifth dimensional space in three dimensions, and alien worlds demonstrates enough imagination that it cannot realistically be called one of the worst movies of the year, unless that person simply hasn't seen many movies and I'm pretty sure Hawki has seen several since he's listed them. I'm not talking about Transformers special effects which are mindless explosions. I just can't understand how these portions weren't interesting enough to make it at least NOT the worst movie he'd seen for the year but then again maybe I just like you contemplate the void more than others. What I also find strange is that he goes on to applaud Gravity for these things and then talks about good characters. Makes me almost certain that we saw too different movies since there was nothing special about the characters, they were vessels for you to experience the "oh shit" moments of spaceships falling apart. I understand some of the themes he was referring to, but that has nothing to do with the characters.

What I am a bit confused about is if you actually think I am one of those people that thinks special effects makes up for bad storytelling. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and chose to believe that you don't, since, you know, half of my posts on this forum are complaints about special effects over storytelling.

Cut out the characterization issues, and at the least, Interstellar would probably be in at least "okay" territory for me.

If you were focusing on the characterization the entire time, you missed the vast majority of the movie and I'm not surprised you didn't enjoy it. You seem to be a pretty character focused kind of person which is why we tend to disagree so atleast its understandable.

Same with SC2 for me (or at least WoL).

This, however, is utterly incomprehensible. I'm curious though, compare to WoL, how does Interstellar hold up in storytelling, in your opinion?

Also, one thing that did bother me about Interstellar, which I'm not sure you brought up on the other forum, was that they chose the AI robot to be the one to go into black hole with Cooper and that it was the one explaining everything and interpretting everything. Besides being stupid, it asks the question of why, if AIs are the advanced, why are they not doing all of the farming and space exploration to begin with?

[Nissa]

What I am a bit confused about is if you actually think I am one of those people that thinks special effects makes up for bad storytelling. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and chose to believe that you don't, since, you know, half of my posts on this forum are complaints about special effects over storytelling.

Other than this quote, I accept your point. Lol, half your posts are about correcting other people. Honestly though, how can you expect me to react when you say this?

The special effects and set pieces alone should make it better than a lot of other movies you've seen.

That's too much emphasis on visuals, visual medium or no. Heck, "good" visuals can make a story a story worse, either by being overrated techniques (I've heard that complaint about the Hobbit's fps rate), by being eye-straining HD, or by simply trying too hard for a film that either doesn't merit it or doesn't need it. Actually, I've noticed with video games that people tend to be more critical of the visually advanced games, but that may say more about the people than the games.

To be fair, space movies should be about visuals, and it would be disappointing if Interstellar were anything less than state-of-the-art, to most audiences.