You know R. A., I checked my various
communication methods this morning, and I realized we haven’t talked outside of
this blog and before your computer crashed in roughly four months. I know we’re
not that close as far as people go, after all, we are both writers in
conflicting businesses, but we are brothers, and that doesn’t seem right.
How do brothers and siblings in general
usually communicate? I assume that in this day and age they don’t often live
within close proximity to each other, so how does communication work? Well,
after asking a few of my friends and associates, I learned that sadly, it often
doesn’t. I heard plenty of stories about how they simply don’t talk that often,
and that made me kinda sad. So I have the latest challenge for all three of us,
and this will be a segue into ‘Good News Everyone!’ I think that every single
day of the week, we have to do some kind of updating each other on our lives.
It could be something small, so we don’t have to write a blog each day, cause
three weeks in, and I’m already seeing the taxation of doing it once a week.
But it has be something like, movies we saw, or books we’re reading, or song of
the day, or maybe food of the day... But basically, every day we each have to
do something, that way we’ll break down the barrier that seems to be forming
between brothers these days. And in other news:
‘Good News Everyone!’
Andrew has sent me a blog post. In it, he
spends about half the time complaining that he doesn’t have time to write blogs
each week, and the other half making spelling and grammar errors. But, it is
funny, in an Andrew kind of way, so I’ll post that for you to read tomorrow.
Also going up tomorrow, another short film I wrote about two fantasy book fans
squished together on the train one night and basically falling in love. And no
monsters, although they do get mentioned. And I am still waiting for the
chapter outline of some novel you’re working on. I know its hard, but come on,
you live at home, and you don’t have a job anymore, what is keeping you?
And finally, ‘The Hobbit.’ Yes, our topic
for the week emerges. My issue with what was otherwise a fantastic film, was
that ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ simply didn’t know what it wanted to
be. I’m sure that doesn’t make sense to you, and to everyone who’s not a film
writer, and to some of those who are, it probably still won’t, but I’ll
explain. When I write a film, I have a pretty clear picture of the scale, and
whether it’s plot focused or character focused, and I put a lot of time into making
sure that the story is being told through the characters, not a story is being
told that characters happen to be in. ‘The Hobbit’ by J. R. R. Tolkien has some
memorable characters, with its protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, being among the
greatest protagonists in literature. The film does an excellent job at
reproducing this, but it keeps trying to be Lord Of The Rings, ie. A big
sweeping epic, when what ‘The Hobbit’ really is a character centric fairy tale.
So while there are likeable and memorable characters, the film stops being
about them and starts being about sweeping landscapes, and monster battles, and
chase scenes, and side plots and flashbacks, and basically everything that
isn’t actually the characters. Lord Of The Rings succeeded spectacularly because
while it was a big, sweeping epic, it told this story through the characters,
through the littlest people, as it happens. The Hobbit is buffed up to Lord Of
The Rings level of sweeping epic, but loses its character on the way. I could
go into more detail, but this is already pretty long, and if you really want to
know more, than you can always just ask.
R. A., I’ll hear from you soon, and Andrew,
I’ll read from you tomorrow.
Daniel Lyons.
Daniel Lyons.
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