Dune 2021 – Review

I gave up on seeing a faithful adaptation of Frank Herbert’s immensely popular Dune years ago. The way Herbert constructs the book and strange worldbuilding and philosophy that underpins the entire series make it, I believe, unfilmable. That conclusion hasn’t stopped the many fans of the book and the universe from clamoring for another visual adaptation, and so in 2021, we finally got a big-budget film of Dune directed by Denis Villeneuve (who also directed Blade Runner 2049, which I still have no plans ever to watch). Sort of. What was released this week was part 1 of, I presume,…

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Adaptations

It’s not hard, or at least, it shouldn’t be when you have 100 million + dollars to fling around. So why so much failure? Because “Hollywood,” as the collection of producers etc. that run the business, doesn’t care a lick about the stories that they adapt. They adapt things like books and movies for two reasons: There is already a built-in fanbase (in other words, some guarantee on a return on investment). The key elements of the story have already been filtered in the free market to have wide appeal. In other words, the book was already successful, so a…

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The Book is Better

How many times have you seen a movie and though, “Man, the book was so much better,” or had a friend who read the book say the same to you? I can definitely say that the cases where the movie is better than the book are far outweighed by the reverse – probably in the range of 20:1. In fact, the only writer whose work seems to function better on screen than on paper is Stephen King, and even then there are plenty of books in his exceptionally large canon that are much better than their cinema counterpart (anyone remember…

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Gail Simone reveals what they all actually think of you

This thread is a beast: Once again, the mask slips and one of the “caretakers” of beloved western franchises shows exactly what she thinks of the people who like her medium. I actually found myself laughing quite a bit at that thread, not because the satire was cutting or accurate, but because I felt like I was watching somebody scream into a mirror. Leftists these days don’t seem to either understand satire or be able to make their own, primarily because they have absolutely no idea how 99% of the population truly thinks, looks, and acts like. This is why…

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Writestream 2 – Drafting Prose Character Dynamics, and Dialogue (11/14/2018)

This week’s livestream covered (among other things): The drafting process – how to write consistently and finish your first draft, including working based on time or word counts The fraudulent higher education system which fails to provide value to students, and why the government doesn’t seem to care at all. How to write good prose How to write convincing dialogue.  

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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Movie Analysis and Review (video)

Awhile back I did a video on what is technically a prequel to the Harry Potter novel series, a movie called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. With the screenplay penned by series author J.K. Rowling (rather than a screenwriter adapting one of her books), the film is interesting for several reasons. First, it isn’t actually an adaption of Rowling’s book, it is more the story of the fictional character that “wrote” that book, which is a companion book to the main 7 book Harry Potter book sequence. Second, it breaks many of the “Rules” of modern cinema, avoiding the tropes…

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Movie Review: The Dark Tower – David V. Stewart and Matthew J. Wellman

Recently I got to watch the new Dark Tower movie, very, VERY, loosely adapted from the epic 7 book series by Stephen King. We didn’t go into the theater with expectations of a true-to-text adaptation – after all, it wasn’t called The Gunslinger and Roland was played by a black actor when he was explicitly white in the book (which actually mattered, as a black character had racial issues with him). This positively affected our experience, but we still felt the movie had significant problems. Watch our video to hear them in detail!

 

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 – Review and Analysis

OMG I’m reviewing a contemporary movie! Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is a space fantasy / space opera film made by Disney and takes place in the Marvel universe, though it is not a super hero film. I review and analyze the film’s production, writing, story, and overall effect.

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Pre-order my new fantasy novel Water of Awakening here (only 99 cents for the ebook) – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071G49GH9

 

The Hobbit Movie Adaptation SUCKS!

Matthew J. Wellman joins me once again to discuss the many, many problems with Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s classic epic fantasy tale The Hobbit. How could he be so successful with Lord of the Rings and yet fail so spectacularly with The Hobbit?

Writers of the dawn is:

David V. Stewart – Fantasy and Historical Fiction Author, musician

Matthew J. Wellman – Urban Fantasy author, musician

Return of the King Movie Adaptation – Analysis

Fellow fantasy author Mattew J. Wellman joins me to talk about Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s Return of the King, the third part of Tolkien’s epic fantasy classic, The Lord of the Rings.

Writers of the dawn is:

David V. Stewart – Fantasy and Historical Fiction Author, musician

Matthew J. Wellman – Urban Fantasy author, musician