Logomacy
Between logomachy and logomancy . . .

Unlocked Wordhoard: Beowulf Review Round-Up, Part II: Wiglaf’s Revenge

Professor Richard Nokes, medievalist, has been all over the new Beowulf movie.  I’ve got to say, with each new project he undertakes my respect for Neil Gaiman’s talent drops further.

By a startling coincidence, Miyazaki has made a movie that happens to have the same name as one of my favorite YA novels. Even some of the characters have the same names.

It wasn’t bad, exactly, although it was trite, but it does really raise the question of why Miyazaki even bothered to base it on the book if all he was going to use was a couple of chapters near the beginning. Not even the themes survived (Spirited Away was much closer to the themes of the Diana Wynne Jones book than the movie of Howl is). I guess he really liked the image of the castle that moves about under its own power, and the fire-demon that lives in the hearth.

It’s entirely possible that if you’ve never read the book, you’ll really enjoy the movie. But as hard as I tried to put aside my knowledge of the book, I just couldn’t get swept up in it, and the absurdly pat ending just left a sour taste in my mouth.

Tightly Wound: Thumbnail Guide to the Sith

Me, I’m not going to see it. I just don’t care about the Star Wars back-story. Hell, after the changes Lucas wrought I barely care about Star Wars itself any more. Or, as Scott Kurtz puts it in PVP, Joss Whedon is my master now.