Finally, I can post about A Game of Thrones

I finished the book a while ago (and am even within a week or three of finishing the second book!) but I had yet to watch the show. Honestly, I needed to give it time between book and show or it would end up being like Lord of the Rings all over again. I read The Fellowship of the Ring all of two days before seeing the movie and I was (it pains me to admit) almost bored by the movie because I was watching things I'd just read. (Funny how that doesn't work with seeing a movie more than once--by the time I'd seen Fellowship a second time, I was hooked.)

It was a good decision to wait. I've only watched one episode so far, and I already need a break. My mental images of the characters are completely out of alignment with the actors on the show. I can't tell any of the Stark boys apart. (One of them must be Theon, but don't ask me which one.) Despite repeated remarks about Catelyn Stark's red hair, I always pictured her as a blonde and much younger than the woman on the show (though it makes no sense that she'd be young since she has a child of fifteen). About the only person I adore is Sean Bean as Eddard Stark, but it's Sean Bean and saying I adore him is like saying I like to breathe. Arya is good, I suppose. She has the right hungry look. Cersei and Jamie Lannister are completely wrong. I don't get the vicious coldness I've come to expect from her from Lena Headey, and whoever is playing Jamie offends me. The one scene where that useless douchebag tried to start something with Lord Sean Bean Stark I was all, "NUH-UH, YOU DO NOT GET IN THE BEAN'S WAY, YOU PRICK."

Anyway, I'll get around to the rest of the series, but not in any hurry. I'd much rather make progress (and there is so much progress to make) on the sequel. I did come across this article about the female nudity on the show (spoilers for the end!) which I suppose will become much more grating as I get through the series. Unfortunately, I came to through this blog post telling this woman objecting to the objectification of women for no conceivable narrative purpose that she should shut the fuck up (and, presumably, since that's what women in these trolls' mindset are good for, shake her moneymakers). Reading feminist blogs has perhaps shielded me more than usual against this sort of lazy sexism. I'd forgotten how troglodytic is is. (Some commenter actually says that it's fine to have all the tits all the time because it's in the book! It's not the book's fault sexism happened in the Middle Ages! Even if the book is fantasy and not set during this Earth's Middle Ages at all!) ::rolls eyes::

Such a shame.

So, there's a new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man Reboot (I'm sure that's the official title).

Perhaps the greatest sin of this trailer--of the movie itself whenever it manifests--is not that it will be bad but that it could be good. That's a pity because it could be really good, but if it's covering the same territory as the Raimi Spider-Man movies, it won't blow up anybody's skirts. Raimi's movies only really fell apart at the end (and let us now promise never to speak of Spider-Man 3 ever again). He told the story of Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man, of Uncle Ben's death, quite well. Whatever you say about Tobey Maguire's rubbery-faced ham of a Peter Parker, about Kirsten Dunsts' completely lifeless Mary Jane, or Willem Dafoe's quite astonishingly campy Green Goblin, the movie did cover the-hero-gets-his-start part with a deft hand. (Sure, it was a light hand, but we weren't ready for The Dark Knight then. Hell, we weren't ready for Batman Begins then.) This new Spider-Man movie looks like it could cover the same ground with heart-wrenching seriousness that is both compelling and believable for all that it's about a kid being bitten by a spider and getting superpowers. The problem remains that it is covering the same ground.

Sony wants to keep Spider-Man. I get it. Depending on what happens with Captain America this weekend, Marvel could be on an unstoppable rampage through the multiplex. Thor's a hit, a surprise one, like Iron Man before it, and The Avengers is coming, and even the unevenness of Iron Man 2 or possible failure outright of Captain America (oh please don't be true, oh please oh please) won't stop that. If Sony were to lose the Spider-Man franchise and Marvel got that back? Fuck, man. The Avengers would fucking KICK OUR COLLECTIVE ASSES. I assume not wanting to lose Wolverine to the Avengers is another reason to make something like X-Men: First Class (the main reason being money, duh). But Sony needed to do something different. I like Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone both, and Rhys Ifans could be really fun as Dr. Connors. There's just no way they'll get to make the real go of having their own thing or making Spider-Man their own. It's just too soon. I liked The Incredible Hulk (what is it about reboots and modifiers?), but no one but me paid much attention because it came less than five years The Hulk, no one cared. And The Hulk was a shit shit shit movie. Imagine the difficulty you have convincing people to see a reboot that retreads a movie they liked. Why pay $13 a ticket for something you can watch on Blu-Ray at home?