Similarities and differences. Or as Tolkien might have put it, bones and soup. It’s the never-ending, never truly…
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Similarities and differences. Or as Tolkien might have put it, bones and soup. It’s the never-ending, never truly answerable question of who owes whom what.
In this recent article on the BBC, Jane Ciabattari examined how The Lord of the Rings has influenced the creator of A Song of Ice and Fire, George RR Martin.
Fair enough. Continue reading “Fantasy authors, media tropes and Tolkien’s great shadow”
Few things reflexively irk me as much as a Tolkien comparison.
Okay, that’s a bit of hyperbole. But there is an underlying truth — they are irritating.
Why? Because anyone saying “X is the new Tolkien” or “Y is a masterpiece worthy of Tolkien” is, frankly, almost certainly full of it.
The problem is that — just like me at the start of this piece — they are indulging in hyperbole. And yes, I’m looking at you Time Magazine and Lee “George RR Martin is the American Tolkien” Grossman.
That’s not to say I believe that George RR Martin writes drivel. Far from it, I devoured all five A Song of Ice and Fire books in three weeks and found each book thoroughly engrossing. I really enjoyed the knife-edge politics, the interplay of competing agendas, and the unremitting, Hobbesian brutality of Westeros. Continue reading “In search of a better George R.R. Martin comparison”
Sean Bean, a favorite of LOTR fans worldwide, is anchoring HBO’s fantasy series “A Game of Thrones.” Bean plays Eddard Stark in the adult-themed series, and last week he ran into a bit of difficulty. Fans have consistently given us feedback that they love these clips and HBO has sent along another pair for your viewing enjoyment. We don’t want to get too spoiler-heavy so we will let the clips mostly speak for themselves. It is worth noting that Conan Stevens, a 7-foot-tall stunt actor playing Gregor Clegane or The Mountain That Rides (poor horse!) in “A Game of Thrones,” was just announced as the giant Orc Azog yesterday He appears in neither clip.
In the second clip, another Stark, Eddard’s daughter Arya, speaks with her swordmaster:
HBO is airing a fantasy series in two weeks staring LOTR alumn Sean Bean. Just as in 2000, when New Line Cinema put high-quality fantasy in the cinema, viewed then as an expensive risk, the subscription channel is adapting a fantasy novel, George R.R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones,” for television. Bean, Boromir in Tolkien’s “Fellowship of the Ring,” is front and center here as the series’ most recognizable face playing Eddard Stark, one of the powerful players in a land full of political intrigue. Sunday night HBO started the two-week countdown before the shows airs each Sunday for 10 weeks. You can watch a 14-minute preview now but younger and sensitive viewers should be warned, there are graphic depictions of dead bodies, a beheading and the stuff of nightmares if you follow this link. (TORn recently ran a story comparing the LOTR films and the television series.)
(Note: This story appears on both: www.Winter-is-Coming.net and www.TheOneRing.net)
Remember a decade ago when the world was going to end? Younger readers may not clearly recall, but a computer glitch dubbed “Y2K” (the date changing from 1999 to 2000 on January 1) was going to throw computers and thus the world into complete chaos. Planes were going to fall from the sky, bank accounts were going to reset while bankrupting corporations, energy sources were going to fail and missiles would launch and plunge the world into nuclear holocaust.
And worst of all, what if TheOneRing.net wasn’t available when I got to work and opened my browser? What if I couldn’t keep up with the latest news tidbit about the Peter Jackson team working on three “Lord of the Rings Films” by reading the fan site dubbed TORn (for brevity). I wasn’t obsessed, I was focused.
Winter-Is-Coming.net has taken me back to those days like a time capsule. That site, like TORn, is reporting daily on the minutia of a fantasy story told, in what I hope is grand fashion. Once again, like so many others, I have found myself checking in each day, following the tiniest details and I have been transported back to those days of eager anticipation when it seemed the world, as we know it, might end. Continue reading “WIC and TORn fan sites party like its 1999”
Sean Bean is set to star in a big-budget HBO adaptation of a series of fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin. Bean, familiar to TORn readers as Boromir in the LOTR movie trilogy, will play the role of Ned Stark, one of the leads and one of characters playing the titular “Game of Thrones.” The series is currently in production and premiers in 2011 with the newest teaser which includes footage of Bean below. For a little further information, you can also click here to see a behind-the-scenes segment featuring Bean.
