The Hobbit Hole VI - And Whither Then? I Cannot Say...

[Corin Stormhands]

Oh yeah. Still though, episodes 4,5 and 6 are great. It's just 1 and 2 that stink.

I'm one of the ones old enough to remember how absolutely mesmerizing the first one was. It was the coolest thing we'd ever seen.

So, from that standpoint, 1 and 2 are an even bigger disappointment.

[Darksheare]

Uh oh, "Snatch pebble from hand."

[RosieCotton]

I can't see how they were written by the same person.

There's something screwy goin' on.

[Professional Engineer]

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE

Wow 2J. Who'd you upset?

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

LOL... I'm guessing you're not a Babylon 5 fan either?

[Professional Engineer]

I remember the excitement of the original film, and how the whole world changed, etc. Episode1 stank enough, that I still haven't bothered to see #2.

[JenB]

Hey, I thought the first Star Wars was awesome, too, first time I saw it. It was awesome right up until Episode 1 came out...

[Darksheare]

Somewhat.
Wasn't a fan of she who plays "Talia Winters".
Everyone else was okay.

[Fedora]

> Aren't we glad Lucas didn't do LotR?

He would've called it Return of Willow :)

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Well, Talia's brain wound up pickled in a jar, so you weren't the only one who didn't like her.

Watching these episodes is a real nostalgia trip for me.

[JenB]

Oh, may it never be!

[Corin Stormhands]

I just put The Gathering and Season 1 on my Netflix queue.

(that brings us up to 174...)

[Fedora]

That fanfiction.net site sounds good. But yeah, I can see how they'd tend to get overrun by 13-year-olds, LOL!

I can see how LoTR fanfic might run the risk of heresy :) On the other hand I think it could be acceptable fanfic as long as it's written outside of Tolkien's original storyline and leaves the original characters and plot intact. I used to have the old ICE LoTR rpg which had a huge color map of Middle Earth and I liked to envision stories taking place in parts of the map Tolkien didn't use in LoTR. I used to do that with Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle Earth, too--I'd make up D&D modules using her maps. That was fun :)

[Darksheare]

LOL!
I never saw that one.
I'd split by then.

[JenB]

Mmm, maybe. I could even see some interesting story about, say, Elrond explaining to his wife that he's left their daughter back behind in Middle-Earth.... hehehe... or similar stories. But as a whole, no Tolkien fanfic for me.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

"The Gathering" is ok for an intro to the show... Season 1 needs to be cherry-picked, though. Lots of so-so and plain bad episodes, only a few gems. I can promise one thing however: if you see the Season 1 ep "Mind War", you will never think of Walter Koenig in the same way again. He does an incredible job as the recurring character "Bester", making his first appearance in that ep. I have a hard time thinking of him as Star Trek's Chekhov any more!

[Darksheare]

Bester was one of my fave characters.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Yeah, that character was eliminated near the end of the second season (the actress wanted a pay hike for season 3, so JMS axed her). Her character's final fate was mentioned in a third season episode.

[Fedora]

> > Sigh... wonder if Star Wars 3 will suck less than 1 and 2?
>
> The only place to go is up.

LOL! I was about to post pretty much the same thing :) But to confess, I actually liked the first one better than a lot people I've talked to because I read Terry Brooks' novelization first, which filled in some plot points that apparently got cut out of the movie. Of course Jar-jar was still awful and young Anakin was too cutesy for the role, but apart from some things like that I was able to enjoy the rest, which did have some very cool fx and settings and action with esp. the Darth Maul fight. I had a similar experience with #2--didn't like the actor playing Anakin and had some other complaints, but there was enough other stuff that I could still enjoy it--light-saber fight with Yoda and Christopher Lee made up for everything else. I figure the third one should be better than the previous ones because the storyline is bound to take a darker twist, which should serve to contain Lucas' tendency to add muppets to the movie; Christopher Lee will play a good villain (BTW he's got an official website in the works--wasn't done last time I visited but it said it'd be up soon); and the light saber fight between Obi-wan and Darth should be the best of the series.

Incidentally, in case anyone didn't catch the FR post on this, tonight is the night John Rhys-Davies is on "Dennis Miller".

[Darksheare]

LOL!
Just HOW did they make that play out?