they did not do a good job.

i saw the movie a few months ago. i’m a big fan of the series which i read years ago. i see on the imdb forums they are calling it the “original” movie. um, ok.

so a different group of geniuses decide to make the movie (or mini series, not sure i saw it as a two parter the other night) again this year.

ok, free ticket for the clue train that the writers can use anytime.

you don’t take a 5+ book series, which has a ton of material you can use, rip out a lot of good content and then replace it with your non-pulitzer price tripe.

you don’t throw out random plot bits from the book with no explanation. yeah the fans of the series will get it, but they’re gonna have to explain it to the people watching with them.

you don’t reverse characters ideals, remove other characters (that you hinted might show up) and add your own characters, include stupid flashbacks to support the new characters.

you don’t try to stuff 5+ books into 3 hours of movie.

and you absolutely DO NOT have a stupid dumb feep ending where Methos saves Riverworld.

wait for mediots (media idiots ™) to say that dan brown is “claiming” various things they don’t agree with or are patently absurd. even though it’s a novel where author’s make stuff up for the plot.

and with that i closed the first volume of ‘the lord of the rings’ and never bothered to read it. i was 12 or 13 years old and that line made it seem to me the book was meant for a 6 or 7 year old.

i was into science-fiction and that line turned me off fantasy for a long time.

so i’ve not read the encyclopedic works of robert jordon, modesti, terry brooks, goodkind, donaldson, et al.

but just recently (actually saw the series at a book store in whistler) i started the Malazan books by steven erickson. i wasn’t sure i’d like it, but it’s not bad at all. like i need another 10 books to add to my immediate ‘to read’ list which is around 100 or so books