Remakes Blogfest - The Lord of the Rings

Hello Lovelies,

Today I wanted to take a moment to step outside of my normal format and join in on a little fun. If you're not aware, Alex J. Cavanaugh and Heather M. Gardner are hosting a little thing they're calling the 'Remakes Blogfest' today. And yes, I AM releasing this a day early, but only because of my normal blog format of leaving a day or two between posts. Either way.

The idea behind this blogfest is to identify those books/movies/tv/etc. that you feel actually improved when they were remade. Now, while most people think about remakes across the same medium (example provided The Thing from Another World (1951) versus The Thing (1982)), remakes also count with regards to adaptations from the original source material. And, while most would probably expect me to delve into the horror scene with something like The Thing, Dawn of the Dead, or some other title, I decided to go a different route.

Lord of the Rings.

To those that don't know, I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I've actually read the entire series three times now, quite literally have the One Ring as my wedding ring, and have drawn massive inspiration from the concepts, styles, designs, characterizations, and more in a number of ways. A lot of the time, the inspirations are only more obvious personally due to their involvement in my game design for Dungeons and Dragons. Once in a grand while they're noticeable in any fantasy series that I work on, but that is what it is.

Now, while both the books and movies are enjoyable, I feel that the movies are actually a large improvement upon the original source material. Before anyone screams 'Blasphemy!', allow me to explain. There are a few areas, particularly in the range of tone and characters (both entire characters and character design), that the movies really improve upon in comparison to the books and really make it the high-epic fantasy story that we all know and love.

First and foremost, let us talk about the tone.

To those of you that have never read the books before, allow me to clarify that the books are much slower and longer than the movies. Now, I'm sure those of you who have tried to marathon the extended movies like I have are shouting "THOSE THINGS ARE ALREADY OVER 11 HOURS LONG! HOW CAN THEY BE ANY SLOWER?!"

The answer? The original books were only half-fantasy-epic.

The original intent behind the books had less to do with high-adventure and had more to do with world creation. To those unfamiliar with Tolkien's history, the books were partially written in the trenches of war. They were an escape. Tolkien devised and created this massive, incredible world with all of these creatures and beings and cities and customs and the books themselves ended up being an exploration of that world. Literally. The books are essentially a mashup of a geographic travel guide that talks at length about the world and people that are being met and experienced with just a hint of 'Oh yea, war and evil.' There are certain sections of the books that are as much of a slog as actually going on a trek across the world. While there are plenty of amazing visuals and a hell of an adventure story, there's also plenty of areas that feel like 'a review of middle-earth's foliage in a million words or more'.

The movies, in turn, decided to largely cut this element out. While there's plenty of huge, sweeping shots to show off the landscape and the travel, it's nothing compared to the books. The movies, instead, focus on the adventure of this fantasy epic.

Now, while many will likely agree with me that the movies improved in this element, I feel the next section needs clarification because of the focus. There were a number of characters in the books that were either glazed over or entirely removed. The one that I'm going to focus on has actually gotten a lot of heat for NOT being in the movies. I'm outing myself as a horrible person (supposedly) for supporting that the character in question is not present, so fire away if you hate me for it.

Without further ado, let's talk about Tom Bombadil. 

As previously mentioned, the original books are an exploration of the world of Middle Earth. There are plenty of characters that make little to no impact and simply don't need to be explored within a cinematic version of the film. However, there is also ONE character that makes WAY too much impact while doing LITERALLY nothing. Insert Tom Bombadil.

Tom Bombadil, to those unfamiliar with the books, is a character that shows up in the middle of 'The Fellowship of the Ring'. He is a 'merry fellow' the lives in a small valley with Goldberry. Frodo and Sam meet him on their travels and, if there's one thing Tom is good for, its bringing the story to a grinding halt. While the entire scope of the story is about the travels across Middle Earth and the overwhelming threat that is the One Ring along with Sauron and his armies, Tom is introduced as a character that not only doesn't care about this, but genuinely isn't effected and can even SOLVE the issue. In essence, this character is basically a God and we spend a significant period of time with him just fucking around. This character not only isn't influenced by the One Ring, but literally has power over it like no one else short of Sauron does.

So what comes of this character that surpassed all others in power? LITERALLY NOTHING. He just...is there. They meet him, they dick around, and they leave. He serves absolutely no purpose within the story other to introduce himself as existing. I genuinely have no idea what Tolkien was thinking with Tom's introduction, but if there is one character that is not only worthless but annoyingly worthless within the scope of everything, it is Tom Bombadil and I'm very happy the movies ignored him.

Finally, I want to talk about characterization.

Briefly speaking, the movies did a better job of providing more memorable characters for most of the individuals in the story. I clarify most because there were a few missteps. As stated, the books were largely exploration focused rather than epic focused. This caused one character in particular, Aragorn, to somehow be examined and subsequently ignored when he shouldn't have been. The books touch on Aragorn's lineage, his age, and the fact that he has a pretty amazing history as both the one true king and a hardened ranger, and yet make Aragorn into this incredibly placid character that doesn't act as much as is acted upon. He doesn't push forward in the same ways as he does in the movies and is largely just pushed along by the plot. It's an incredible miss.

HOWEVER, if there is one thing that the movies do make a mistake with, it's in the characterization of a specific few. Merry and Pippin, characters that seem almost interchangeable within the films, are actually explored in a more in-depth manner and really make a name of themselves singularly. They deserve special mention. The character that doesn't deserve as much love but goddamn does he get it is Legolas.

Oh fuck me Legolas.

While there's nothing really wrong with Legolas in the books or even with the initial characterization in the first movie, something happened somehwere in Hollywood that turned Legolas into this God. I don't know if it had something to do with the actor or the actor's agent or Peter Jackson or what, but Legolas becomes this Mary Sue character that can do no wrong, essentially has super powers, and is so 'critical'(?) that is literally shoehorned into a story HE'S NOT EVEN INVOLVED WITH, i.e. the Hobbit movies. While it's one thing to note that Tolkien was not focused on specifics of any given battle outside of the fight itself, it's another thing to have Legolas shield-surfing down stairs or murdering an entire team of Oliphaunt riders ALONG with the Oliphaunt. 

In short, much like Tom Bombadil, it just feels so out of place in comparison to everything else. Honestly, the wizard is more believable.

And so, ignoring God-King Legolas, I feel that the Lord of the Rings movies are overall superior to the books. While, again, the books are by no means bad, the necessary trimming and cleaning up of the story really helps to make it the fantasy epic that we know and love today. It does a tremendous job of filling in areas that need it, cutting off areas that aren't needed, and just giving us a wonderful tale of adventure, fun, magic, and heroism.

I hope you all enjoyed. What was your favorite parts from the books and movies? Was their one you liked better? Share in the comments below.

- RB

(Additionally, I have no idea what happened with the copy paste of the links to the other authors, but I hope you'll forgive its odd appearance and join these authors as they explore their favorite remakes.)
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1. Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh
2. Heather M. Gardner
3. Diane Burton - Adventure & Romance
4. Christine Rains
5. Tamara Narayan
6. Juneta @ Writer's Gambit
7. CineMarvellous!
8. Tossing It Out
9. Stories I Found in the Closet
10. Spunk On A Stick - Diane
11. Pat Hatt
12. The Write Game
13. PepperWords
14. XmasDolly aka Marie Moody
15. Writing Off the Edge
16. Sharon M. Himsl - Shells, Tales and Sails
17. The Warrior Muse
18. Michelle Gregory at Dust Kittens in the Corners
19. Elizabeth Seckman. Author
20. Birgit
21. The ToiBox of Words
22. Shah Wharton
23. Spacerguy
24. Michael Abayomi
25. Stephen Tremp Breakthrough Blogs
26. Madly-in-Verse

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NerdWordApparel and the Folly of Distractions

Hello Lovelies,

I wanted to provide you one last side-note update before I got back into the swing of Little Island Tales and other assorted works. Sometime back, I very briefly mentioned via our Twitter account that I had made a little shirt design out of boredom. Well, fast forward a week or two and I've actually found that making little graphic illustrations for shirts and apparel is actually a lot of fun and might want to make a little side business out of it.

Enter NerdWordApparel.

As all of you veteran readers might imagine, me being me has the tendency of diving head first into projects and such because I'm a horrible person who might actually be a workaholic. That aside, given a number of issues I'm having with the game design for Uncanny Valley, I've decided to redouble my efforts in this area for the time being and am now putting my snark and nerdisms to good use outside of regular writing. With that said, outside of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, this has been where my energy has been focused for the last week.

I bring this up for three reasons: One, I like to share what I'm doing and where I'm going when it comes to the matter of any of you going "You know, I haven't seen any actual new content...what the hell is Robert doing?" I'm deciding that coming up for breath isn't fun so why not drown in creative works projects. Two, because I know many readers are, by definition, nerds with passions and loves of their own, some of you might actually like the work I'm doing at NerdWordApparel and find some desire to get yourself some fancy/snarky graphic design shirts/mugs/etc. Last, but not least Three: to keep my writing and my graphic design works separate and not antagonize one group or the other, I wanted to do a one-time shout out regarding NerdWordApparel with all relevant links to those that are interested and let you follow them from there (if you so desire).

With that said, here is where you can follow us. Please note, the TeePublic link is the current 'shop' until I set up a more permanent website storefront.

Shop: https://www.teepublic.com/user/nerdwordapparel
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NerdWordApparel/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nerdwordapparel
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nerdwordapparel/

To those that are interested, just a quick word of note: I intend to release new designs twice a week every Sunday and Thursday (I'm actually going to be releasing one later today, wouldn't ya know). I currently have a few Dungeons and Dragons related items, however designs will not be limited to this and will be all across nerddoms and fandoms. Perfect example, Thursday's launch will be a very cute dinosaur design that is more fun for all ages then perhaps snark about Dragons. I intend to have everything from fantasy to adventure to non-fiction and pretty much anything that makes me fellow nerds' hearts go pitter-patter-pitter. If you like the concept, give me a follow and see if anything catches your eye as the weeks roll on.

Finally, I want to assure everyone that there shouldn't really be any loss in or change of schedule to RBPublishing. The hows and whats for the my creative process for both projects actually mesh pretty well, particularly since a lot of my creative writing is performed when I'm away from home whereas a lot of my designs are done at home. In turn, it more means I'm intentionally shorting myself free time for movies/games/etc. than anything else, but that's self inflicted and is what it is.

I hope you guys enjoy it (if you're interested) and promise that we should have the next Little Island Tales out here shortly.

Love you all,

- RB

Dungeons and Dragons and Writing

Hello Lovelies,

Every now and again, particularly when I'm going on tangents about writing subjects, I mention that I play Dungeons and Dragons. To my surprise, I've actually gotten a few emails on the subject in the past year. I didn't think much of it at first, but I feel like I should explore the concept a little because of the range of curiosity I've received.

First off, allow me to clarify. This is not a gaming blog. I won't go into the finer details of the games because it just doesn't fit here. Instead, allow me to clarify why it tends to come up within the realm of 'writing'.

So, to begin: What is Dungeons and Dragons?

For those who are unfamiliar, D&D is a tabletop game and is conceptually no different than a regular board game like Monopoly or Life with sets of rules and guidelines. While some people do actually use a board and figures, the real draw of the game for most people is what I often refer to as 'Interactive Storytelling'. There are plenty of different groups in the game's history that like to claim different things about the game (my favorite being that it 'teaches players how to use real magic spells and/or summon the devil'), but the game is little more than being able to direct a character within a fantasy story. Imagine the story of "Lord of the Rings" if you were able to control the actions of Legolas. Everything else is happening around you from the book but YOU as a player have the opportunity to control that single character, what they do, and how they react to the world around them.

Sounds interesting, huh?

I thought so, but this is where the writing comes in.

While once in a grand while I'll actually be a player, most often I act as what is known as the GM, which stands for Game Master. In short, I'm the one who has to wrangle and direct all the players along with providing a narrative and world to exist in. Modules, i.e. pre-done stories and adventures, do exist that can be purchased and utilized, however I honestly have never used one. Instead, I simply create my own content for my players to use. Sometimes this is good, sometimes not so much.

This brings us nicely to the next major point: Why do I find Dungeons and Dragons useful for writing?

Well, aside from the obvious challenge of having to create an interesting plot hook for players to follow, D&D forces your writing to the next level. For one, you can't really just have a cardboard cutout for them to explore. You need a world. Countries need cities. Cities need infrastructure. Locations need populations. People need personalities. Anyone or anything that a player is ever exposed to needs to have a purpose, a reason, an existence. Any player could decide that they want to strike up a conversation with a random character in the street or they might want to investigate some element of a location that seems relatively pointless in the scope of things only because YOU didn't imagine the use for it originally.

The same can be said for designing the narrative itself. It's very easy to set up a plot hook of "The king was killed by an assassin, go find out who did it and why.", but what about down the road? You now have to be able to plan for WHERE the players will go and how will they will act and design your game around that.What roads will they take? Who will they talk to? What will they find along the way? You need to be able to imagine every opportunity and option that a player will take (you won't be able to...but try) and then build those options. You need to be able to smooth the surface and be ready to lay the train tracks as the train is rolling. Sometimes this is something easily planned for but sometimes this requires you to think and write and act literally in the middle of the game; conjuring life to characters and places that hadn't even been considered yet.

So, in short, D&D is an invaluable tool for me that encourages creative thinking and narrative. It forces me into realms I hadn't considered before and, more than once, has actually contributed to my public works simply because it inspires me like little else can.

With that said, what really gets your blood flowing and helps you write? Is it simply writing alot or perhaps there's something else that gets your fingers flying? Let us know in the comments below.

Short Stories / Flash Fiction - Main Page

Short Stories / Flash Fiction

---

Not all stories need to be 1000 pages long. Sometimes a few words is all you need

to make the skin crawl, the heart soar, and the mind run away in a world of words.

Take a moment to enjoy these short pieces who never felt they needed to have more

than a single chapter.

---

Late Night Research

Hot Lava

200: A Space Odyssey

Fade to Grey

The Barren Pot

Starving
The Rider

 

Looking Ahead - Journal/DBTC

First and foremost, allow me to apologize. I know that we had no post yesterday and today isn't any new fictional content. Unfortunately, yesterday just proved that life happens and by the time I was able to even get near my computer, I ended up deciding that bed was the better option. The end result was no post and no research. How sad.

That said though, I was discussing the upcoming holiday with my wife, the beautiful and talented Fabulosaurus and she told me that she was considering doing "InkTober". If you don't know what this is, it's when some artists dedicate themselves to doing a new piece of art every day. Well, I'm already trying to do that ANYWAY, but this got me thinking to last year when I did "SpookyTober". If you weren't around, "Spookytober" is dedicated to writing nothing but spooky stuff for the entire month of October.

I'm thinking I might do that again.

As a whole, it added to the fun of the upcoming holiday. It was silly but a blast and really helped dedicate me as a writer. I had to focus my talents to one specific area versus letting them wander. Plus, at the end of the day, I really do love doing spooky and creepy stuff. So, I'm thinking that might be in the works come the beginning of October.

Anyone want to join us?

Hot Lava

     “GO! GO! GO!”

     The voice echoed and crackled in his radio. Mustering all of his strength, Gregory jumped forward off the pumice pillar. Far below him, he could see the bubbling pits of molten rock that glowed bright red and orange. Even through his spacesuit, he could smell the stench of rotten eggs. If he missed this jump, it would smell like cooked adventurer.

    Luckily, he didn't miss the jump.

     He hit the next pillar hard, but landed on his feet. Behind him, he could see his fellow adventurer Brian. He too had made the jump and landed on the pillar that Gregory had just left. Directly in front of them, their leader Jason stood upon another column of dark, volcanic rock.

     “Where are we going?” Gregory screamed. Even with the aid of the radios in their suits, they could barely hear each other over the roars of the molten planet with its heavy winds and boiling surface.

     “We have to get to the ship!” Jason responded, his voice breaking over the static.

    Gregory scanned the horizon. Where was Jason leading them? All he could see was smoke and ash above, fire and boiling rock below.

     “Where is it?” he yelled desperately.

     “There!” Jason said, pointing off to his right.

    Gregory squinted his eyes. For a moment, his suit visors were still blurred with nothing but hideous plumes of black smoke. Yet, as he stared, some of it cleared. It was just enough.

     “I see it!” Gregory gaped in response. “I can see it!”

     “Good! Now we just have to get to it!” Brian called from behind.

     The heat bore down on him. Even with the help of the spacesuit, Gregory sweat and panted as he watched Jason steady himself and jump to the next pillar over. He hadn't realized they were so close to the ship. They were almost there.

     If only he'd been ready to jump instead of watching.

     Gregory felt himself shoved from behind as Brian landed on the too-small column of pumice rock. If he'd been ready, he might have been able to jump, but just as quickly he found himself falling face first towards the lava below.

     “Greg!!!”

     Gregory shut his eyes as he plummeted towards the molten rock below. He felt his heart pounding in his chest. Any moment he'd hit the surface and...

     Wait!

     “JETPACK!”

     His hands instinctively found the controls. Years of training did the work for him and, just as fast as he'd been falling before, he was soaring high over the pumice columns; safe from the lava below.

Jason and Brian gaped at him.

     “Hey! Jetpacks aren't fair!” Brian yelled angrily.

     “Too bad! My suit has a jetpack. It's not my fault you don't have one.”

     “I want a jetpack...” Jason grumbled.

     “You're dumb.” Brian growled.

     “You're dumb.” Gregory snapped back as he rocketed towards the outcropping where their ship was settled.

     He landed with little effort atop the porous black rocks and quickly ran inside. He could see the others still jumping from pillar to pillar. While he waited, Gregory ran inside the ship and hopped into the pilot's seat. Turning the ignition key, his stomach sank.

     “Oh no...”

     Moments later, his fellow adventurers crowded into the ship and quickly sealed the airlock against the acrid heat and stench of the burning planet.

     “We've got to get out of here!” Jason called from the airlock door.

     “We can't!”

     “WHAT?!”

     “We can't go anywhere! We're out of gas!”

     Jason and Brian both piled into the cockpit. Brian angrily shoved Gregory out of the pilot's seat and tried to turn the ignition key.

     “We can't be out of gas!” he growled. “I filled it up on the ice planet!”

     Gregory un-apologetically kicked Brian in the gut and shoved him back away from the pilot's console.

     “Yes. We are! We used too much getting here.”

     But Brian didn't argue. Instead, he was slowly curling into a ball, holding his stomach. Tears were beginning to stream down the brave adventurer's cheeks. Jason simply stood over him, seemingly not sure of what to do.

     “Oh no!” Gregory abandoned the pilot's chair to console his friend who was now coughing and sputtering from the kick. “I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!”

     “No, you're not!” Brian screamed, his voice cracking as he cried harder.

     “Mom!” Jason screamed. “Mom, I think Greg hurt Brian!”

     In horror, Gregory looked back just in time to see Jason was already outside of the ship somehow. With Brian curled up in pain, he could only scream as he watched his friend and leader dive off the pumice rock face towards the molten rock below.

     “NO! You can't, Jason! The floor is lava!!!”

Writing Inspiration - 09.28.15

"It turns out that Cupid is a real individual and

has upgraded to a High Caliber Weapon."