Last Airbender, Ender's Game, Catching Fire, Icons

[thistlechaser]

In semi-reverse order of the subject line:

My new icons are done, yay! Both for awful books. The one used on this post is a cat burying a book in the litterbox, and I also have a smaller version of:


So cute! Both are the result of djinni's icon days.

--

I've seen two new movies in the last 48 hours. Adding them to Thor yesterday and I think I've seen the most movies I ever have in such a short time.

Ender's Game: I was prepared to hate it. I had heard from a number of people that it was an awful movie (the movie itself, not the problems with the book's author). I saw some issues with it, but mostly it was entertaining. I wish it had ended a few minutes earlier... If the story had ended with the horror of the kids realizing they had really destroyed a planet/whole species, that would have been a great ending. The whole Captain Ender And Alien Queen Go On Space Adventures didn't work for me.

Catching Fire: Wow. Just wow. What an amazing movie. I think I've been more emotional since my hospital stay, but man, I teared up so many times during it. Just the crowds holding up three fingers was enough to get me going. The one small quibble I had was how old the actors playing the "kids" were -- Katniss was supposed to be 17, but she looked like an adult. I know, perils of translating things to the big screen, but it threw me a number of times. Everything else was amazingly great. I had heard how good Lenny Kravitz was as Cinna, but that turned out to be an understatement.

--

I know I said I would have no more book reviews for a while, but I had agreed to review this one a while back and it was slow getting to me, so I forgot I had requested it.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Rift Part 1 by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru
(Book received free for review from Dark Horse.)
Rating: 5/loved (1-5/hated-loved)

Wow. The art was dead-on perfect. Best art I've seen in all the graphic novels I've reviewed so far. Exactly like the show!

The first part of a trilogy, The Rift tells the story of the damage a refinery jointly owned Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom is doing to a once sacred Airbender land.

Everything from the show was here: Great art, good story, and humor (the gags in the backgrounds were great!). Recommended!

Comments

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It's funny. Last night some of my friends were talking about Enders Game and how none of us had seen it.
You're the second person to tell me you saw it this weekend after we had that conversation.

I guess it is the thing to see this weekend.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I think it might have just been released for rental, which might explain why the other person just saw it.

Hope you enjoy it, when you do see it. I'll be interested to hear what you think!

[hamsterwoman]

Oh, I'm so glad to hear the Rift is awesome -- I was underwhelmed by "The Search", and was hoping this would be a return to stuff I liked about this universe -- yay!

Also good to hear about Ender's Game (I plan to watch it now that it's out on video, even though looks like I'll be doing it alone, as my silly kids won't read the book, and I refuse to let something else be their first canon for this one), and Catching Fire (which I also plan to watch once it comes out on DVD)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hope you enjoy both movies! I look forward to hearing what you think of them.

This was my first Avatar graphic novel, and I was pretty pleased with it. The art was so pretty! I wanted to pause and study each page.

[loup_noir]

I loved the Hunger Games series, so when I sat down to watch the first one I was more than a bit leery. Almost every book I've loved that's been turned into a movie has been so not what I envisioned. They came very close with this series.

Katniss is too tall and too healthy. Peeta, well, he's the only character that really didn't match my mental image at all.

Anyway, the first movie was so much better than I'd expected. I thought Hollywood would turn it into one big gorefest. So glad they didn't. I've heard so many good things about CF. Guess I'd best get it into my Netflix queue.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd put it into my queue for sure! I really was impressed by it -- I hope they can do this kind of justice to more books in the future.

[adam-0oo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they kept on touching on some of the horror of turning children into warriors, but never quite stuck the landing on any of it.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah. If they had ended with that it would have had an impact, instead of the happy ending of recreating that species.

[adam-0oo.livejournal.com]

The book ends that way too, though, everything is a lot more depressing in the book, so it doesn't seem as cheery.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hrm. Sounds like I'd like the book better than the movie (I like dark, depressing stories). Too bad the author is so "problematic", to borrow a phrase from Tumblr.

[adam-0oo.livejournal.com]

It is darkish, not some super depressing thing. It is kind of an action novel, with a lot of military strategy and a very messed up little boy trying to deal with huge issues.

Yeah, it is a whole thing, the author is vile. Can you separate the two? Can you find a second hand book so you aren't supporting him financially?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the plan. I'll poke about online and find a copy that won't send him any money.