Who Loves Badass TV shows? Let's hear it!

[Ryan]

Anybody seeing The Hobbit tonight? I'm super excited to see it...

[goroth]

I'm hanging out to see it, but will wait until I can visit my bro and go with him around New Year. Hope it's still on at theaters then. Should be. I'm a little scared as the first three films were fantastic and I'm a pretty hopeless Tolkien fanatic. It...must...be...good...

[futuresailors]

You gonna watch the cartoon first?

[goroth]

hellz no!

[fungalattack]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8ewZr-R0rw[/youtube]

classic

[goroth]

Is it actually worth watching?

[t-rey]

Saw the Hobbit last night. I was pretty pleased with it - started off a bit slow, but it was really good once it got going. I was under the impression that they were only doing the story of the Hobbit in this movie, then focusing on some other stories in the next two movies, but I was wrong. It sprinkles in story lines that are from other books (not sure, since I've never read any of them but the Hobbit as a kid) which is pretty cool as well. I'm excited about the next one

[Ryan]

You gonna watch the cartoon first?

hellz no!

Is it actually worth watching?

I watched it lots when I was young... it's.... weird.... with a lot of weird songs... but it's still the Hobbit so it rules... I'm not sure what to say about it, it's complicated!

Greigy, you've shortened your name!

Cool review Trey, thanks, and I'm jealous! I only ever read the Hobbit and LotR... do you need to be familiar with other books to fully get the movie?

[goroth]

Yeah, it shrunk in the wash.

[t-rey]

You gonna watch the cartoon first?

hellz no!

Is it actually worth watching?

I watched it lots when I was young... it's.... weird.... with a lot of weird songs... but it's still the Hobbit so it rules... I'm not sure what to say about it, it's complicated!

Greigy, you've shortened your name!

Cool review Trey, thanks, and I'm jealous! I only ever read the Hobbit and LotR... do you need to be familiar with other books to fully get the movie?

I have only read the Hobbit - never got around to actually reading LotR, but hope to do that after I get through the Game of Thrones books. So I would say that enjoying the movie is not dependent on reading the books. My brother in law has read them all and we both enjoyed it - probably in a bit different ways since he was familiar with all the stories

[goroth]

I would love to have the experience of reading LotR for the first time again! I must have read it at least 15 times now - once a year or there abouts it gets dusted off. Game of Thrones was the first fantasy that I've read that can hold a candle to Tolkien when it comes to wordsmithery - so if ya dig that you'll like LotR. It is of course a waaaay different beast, (and Tolkien is still in a league of his own) but still. You can read it and enjoy the language, whereas a fair bit of fantasy I find you read because you want to have more swords and spells and wenches in your life, not necessarily because it's well written...
It's also cool because pretty much all of the genre's tropes have their basis in Tolkien, so it's kinda like a big history lesson as well.

Ryan - as far as I understand, they didn't actually have the rights to any (? - some?? I dunno) of the other material, so they've taken some creative liberties. Meh, I could be talking crap here...

[t-rey]

I would love to have the experience of reading LotR for the first time again! I must have read it at least 15 times now - once a year or there abouts it gets dusted off. Game of Thrones was the first fantasy that I've read that can hold a candle to Tolkien when it comes to wordsmithery - so if ya dig that you'll like LotR. It is of course a waaaay different beast, (and Tolkien is still in a league of his own) but still. You can read it and enjoy the language, whereas a fair bit of fantasy I find you read because you want to have more swords and spells and wenches in your life, not necessarily because it's well written...
It's also cool because pretty much all of the genre's tropes have their basis in Tolkien, so it's kinda like a big history lesson as well.

Ryan - as far as I understand, they didn't actually have the rights to any (? - some?? I dunno) of the other material, so they've taken some creative liberties. Meh, I could be talking crap here...

I'm actually quite excited about it. I love the relative realism of Game of Thrones - but I love dragons and hobbits and goblins, and magic, and campy fun as well, so I'm really pumped up about actually reading LotR. I want to reread the Hobbit (which is worth noting since I've only ever reread a handful of books) then the LotR series, and then dig into some stuff like the Simallarion, The Unfinished Tales, Children of Hurin, etc. Since I've been finished with school I've been making an effort to read all these wonderful books that I didn't have time for with school and all that nonsense

[ShikByrd]

I've got to jump in because I've read the Tolkien books and I'm reading the Game of Thrones books now. Tolkien is genius. You think he's a genius when you get done with LotR, but after you've read The Silmarillion you KNOW it! It's like a Middle Earth bible. So much creativity and attention to detail.
I'm having more of a love/hate relationship with Martin's writing. I don't want to get into spoiler territory, so I'll just say: Nothing good or happy happens. I'm only near the end of Feast for Crows, but I feel like he's pulling the literary equivalent of Lucy holding Charlie Brown's football... He'll set up a great story point and then pull the rug out from under you. If you start to like a character he will kill (or, at the very least, seriously maim) that character. I guess that's the "hate" part. The "love" part is how good he is at character development. There are hundreds of characters and they don't get jumbled up. Each one is clearly and cleverly written.
I'm really sorry to be making this so long!!! I have a tendency to type too much, so I usually just lurk...
Anyway... I'll recommend Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun as the greatest fantasy epic that I've read. I can read it over and over and I always learn something new.

[goroth]

Dude, that's a pretty fair call on Martin's writing. Will go and buy Wolfe today!

[t-rey]

I've got to jump in because I've read the Tolkien books and I'm reading the Game of Thrones books now. Tolkien is genius. You think he's a genius when you get done with LotR, but after you've read The Silmarillion you KNOW it! It's like a Middle Earth bible. So much creativity and attention to detail.
I'm having more of a love/hate relationship with Martin's writing. I don't want to get into spoiler territory, so I'll just say: Nothing good or happy happens. I'm only near the end of Feast for Crows, but I feel like he's pulling the literary equivalent of Lucy holding Charlie Brown's football... He'll set up a great story point and then pull the rug out from under you. If you start to like a character he will kill (or, at the very least, seriously maim) that character. I guess that's the "hate" part. The "love" part is how good he is at character development. There are hundreds of characters and they don't get jumbled up. Each one is clearly and cleverly written.
I'm really sorry to be making this so long!!! I have a tendency to type too much, so I usually just lurk...
Anyway... I'll recommend Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun as the greatest fantasy epic that I've read. I can read it over and over and I always learn something new.

I'm glad to hear the Silmarillion recommended so highly - I love the idea that he truly created a world and mythology for his characters. I somewhat agree about Martin. I watched the first two seasons of the show and I am a little bit into A Clash of Kings right now. The way he will just kill off main characters was jarring at first, but is a large part of why I dig the books (so far) - there are no heroes with infallible luck for the sake of the narrative. Of course, by the time I'm through another book or two I can see that getting pretty old. I will definitely check out Wolfe as well.

You should post more

Back to television. Me and the wife are on season two episode nine of The Walking Dead. We are going to try and catch up to season three before the New Year's Eve/Day marathon