It rained again, so one seeks shelter in comic shops and tries not to drip on the pages too much

[lady_t_220]

Ow, uh... woke up with an unpleasant ache type pain down one side this morning. It's worn off mostly but I'm still doing a pretty good impression of Granny when she gets on a rant about her arthritis or something.

FreakyDave at the comic shop gave me cherry gum in compensation for the cinnamon gum he pinched off me the other week. Then got really wistfull when I told him about the contents of the package Zet sent me. ;) Muwahahaha...
Though he was freaked out by the idea of the jumping beans. He said it was a little too much like "that epsiode of Buffy with the eggs..." and that it'd probably freak him out to hear them twitching at night.
heh.

So, picked up a few more miscelaneous chritmas gifts as well as Char's birthday pressie. I'm actually kind of tempted to keep it for myself and get her something else but I'll be good. I can always get another copy for me... but anyway, I was in Waterstones, flicking through the Cinema section and there it was... big, gorgeous, highly pretentious hardback copy of Brian Found's World of the Dark Crystal. And when I say pretentious, I mean pretentious. It has overlays and in-depth discussions about the time spiral and stuff, but it's really, really gorgeous.

It was also surprisingly a whole crapload cheaper than I thought it'd be which is why I got it. I was thinking... best end of 40 quid, maybe, like those Barry Windsor Smith hardback portfolios. But no... distinctly less than twenty and you really can't pass up something like that.

Now, see... I was never a big fan of the Dark Crystal, (It was one of those movies the boywonder loved and so almost by default I had to dislike) which is really the man reason I'm NOT keeping this myself. Plus I think Charlie'll get a kick out of it...
*grins*

Now... got comics to read.

Comments

[allende.livejournal.com]

:D My Dad has a first edition of that book. I used to take it down from the bookcase and spend hours poring over it. 'Twas one of my faves when I was little, even if it did weigh a ton. ^^; Prolly my fave thing in the whole book is the master time spiral with its overlay (and the whole section on the Skeksis, and the Gelfling armour... XD). Obviously the page number escapes me, but I think it was in the section on the urRu.
'Tis a beautiful book, and no mistake. *_*

[allende.livejournal.com]

"Was/am a huge fan of the film too", she added, suddenly remembering. Labyrinth was Froud's baby too, which prolly explains why it was another one of my favorites. (One or two dodgy musical numbers aside...) :3

[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

LOL!

Yes, I guessed it was the same guy, purely because it's ALSO the same guy who did the illustrations for one of Terry Jones' goblin handbooks, and a bunch of the Labyrinth goblins are in that.

Now, Lbyrinth I love... a whole lot more than the dark crystal...

[allende.livejournal.com]

Ah, I really loved both but I think, in a fight, The Dark Crystal would win it. ;3 I think I loved it because it was so dark, and even though it's always dubbed a "family film" it so should be up on the top shelf with Watership Down, Dream Child, The Mouse & His Child and their black hearted ilk. The Skeksis were fantastic though, hmm, weren't they? Sadistic, evil, jumpers for goalposts...
Alternatively there is David Bowie with Big Hair. (I have a feeling that doesn't make a very convincing argument. Which is more evil: Skeksis or Bowie's Labyrinth hair? *thinks* Take the fifth!)
I was completely in love with Sarah's clothes though. *lol*
(That and I went and named one of my bears Lancelot after seeing that film. Yes, even as a child I was a freak. :\ )

[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

LOL... I'll definitely agree, Dark Crystal should have been up there with the list of potentially traumatising Watership Down-esque movies. It creeped me out as a kid and I've not actually seen it again as an adult, mostly because it gave me rampaging heebie-jeebies when I was little.
OK that and the boywonder watched it so freaking much I was sick of the sight of it.

Labyrinth, on the other hand, I still totally adore. I remember being young and thinking the girl playing Sarah was so totally almost a grown up... and now I'm like wow... she was SO totally a kid...
:P~

Dark Crystal wins on the detailed cinematic scale, I think. The sheer amount of work that went into creating everything is just overwhelming, but I alwys found Labyrinth more watchable and I remember it much more fondly.

That said though, they're both pretty damn cool and one has to wonder why they've not turned out anything even remotely LIKE them in the last decade or so. You'd think with all the advances in animatronics and CGI that they'd be able to do some pretty damn impressive critters these days. :/

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[allende.livejournal.com]

I don't imagine the market really exists for that sort of film anymore really. Kids nowadays are a world apart from the kids growing up a decade ago. Pure fantasy films don't really seem to exist now, not in their true state, I don't think. Even the films that are working in that genre now seem to have a post-modern twist in the tale. (Reign of Fire, Harry Potter etc.) Even though they're good in their own way, they're nothing like the pure, dreamlike fantasy presented in Labyrinth, TDC or even The NeverEnding Story. I think "modern" audiences would be too "turned off" by what they'd prolly deem as twee and naive fairytale stylings. In the same way that Disney has been criticised in recent years for losing touch with its audience (leading to self-consciously cool (and reportedly soul-less) stuff like Treasure Planet), I don't see there's really much of a future for "old-style" Creature Factory type offerings either.
Which is a fucking crying shame as far as I'm concerned, but I can't imagine Joe Public choosing to see a modern Labyrinth equivalent over the latest bombastic Reign of Fire/Underworld blockbuster.
Not without bastardizing it anyway. Trying to imagine a modern Dark Crystal remake and finding it full of seen-it-all before CGI, postmodern dialog, PC characters (black Gelflings, no FAT!Skeksis or RisiblyCamp!Skeksis, Aughra would have to go because as is she looks too much like this old Indian woman I saw in a bus queue once...) and at least one bollocks nu metal song on the OST.

They don't even do small scale productions like Jim Henson's Storyteller and Greek Myths series anymore. :( Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I've even seen "that sort of thing" on my TV for the last decade. Discounting nob like Xena, which I think would sort of be the modern equilvalent to the "mythic storytelling", or at least it *was*, ack when they could still be arsed to include creature FX at all. Seems that all went out of the window the second the lesbian subtext really kicked into the public subconscious.
People don't want talking minotaurs, violet and ochre sunsets or ivory-fucking towers. They want lesbians and explosions and fucking Evanescence blaring obnoxiously over the credits.

Conclusion: Films like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal aren't really made anymore because people nowadays are soulless fucktards.
Goodnight, and thank you. *bows*

(Wow, sometimes I'm so full of BS that I astound myself.)

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[allende.livejournal.com]

Of course, see some bastard now release something pure and fantastical and "old-fashioned" that'll blow my whole point right out of the water. -__-;

Or perhaps not. Have you seen the trailer to The Cat in the Hat? Hmmm...somehow I don't remember the oh-so-modern and hilarious ghetto speech "joke" in the original. *eyeroll*

For those who may be curious: yes, I'm PMSing. *waves*

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[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

LOL!!

I've not seen the trailer for Cat in the Hat yet, but then I've still not seen the grinch yet either... and honestly I'm not especially holding my breath. ^^;;

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[allende.livejournal.com]

Me neither. The Grinch looked scary beyond all reason. O_O
You should dig out that CitH trailer from Yahoo movies sometimes. You know it takes more muscles to frown, then to smile? Go on, knock your face out.

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[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

*looks at you* I think I can live without it. I've been disturbed enough by all the trailers for Elf this week as it is...

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[allende.livejournal.com]

Elf

*gouges out brain with nail scissors*

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[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

postmodern dialog, PC characters (black Gelflings, no FAT!Skeksis or RisiblyCamp!Skeksis, Aughra would have to go because as is she looks too much like this old Indian woman I saw in a bus queue once...) and at least one bollocks nu metal song on the OST.

*dies laughing*
I think everyone's seen someone who looks a bit like Aughra, they're just too polite to point it out usually.

As a species we're just too damn overly aware of the potential for offending other people I think, a crippling affliction that eventually leads to no one doing anything ever just in case it offends somebody else.

But that aside, I think there's still space for old-fashioned fantasy. Maybe not exactly like it was, but with the scale and popularity of classical fantasy like LotR, and the overwhelming effect Harry Potter has had on Children's literature, I like to think there's still hope for a little creature-shop style story-telling.
Somewhere in there. ;)

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[allende.livejournal.com]

*quietly* I can't stand Dobby. Or the other House elves for that matter. And I don't like Gollum either. *looks around, fearing the lynch mob*

I just realised a fun thing. Bowie's "Goblin King" is one letter away from sharing a name with Jarath.
*insert innuendo laced jokes about Jarath being the "Goblin King" here*
When you say it outloud you KNOW that it's true! XD

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[veniceinperil.livejournal.com]

Oh~, you are so dead. ~_^

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[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

LOL... you know I always figured that's roughly where you got Jarath's name from... ^^;;

*coughs*

And Dobby I would merrily kill with a red-hot poker, but then I don't like him in the book either.
I don't mind Gollum quite so much, but that probably has more to do with his specatcular turn on the MTV movie awards this year... :D

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[allende.livejournal.com]

LOL! Ah, no. It's far more contrived than that. There was a boy in school named Jared, which I always thought was a fucking cool name (it was really unusual at the time), and he was a bit of a lady's man/ego. And quite hot, in a kind of 14 year old boy way. *ahem* And then I had a really close friend when I was growing up, who was called Gareth. So I sort of meshed their names together and lost that "e" for an "a". Because I found that spelling to be more aesthetic. *sniff*
So, now you know. ^_~

Dobby I hated in the books, along with his kin. Gollum is amusing but far too repulsive to be endearing. I'm a shallow cold-hearted witch, I know.

[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

*nods* It's veeeeery nice... :D