No, I didn’t go, but due to the con, I have tons of smaller chunks that have been running around my brain this week – dealing with San Diego Comic Con, Dark Tower, Thor, and Game of Thrones:
San Diego Comic Con
My wife asked me if I was jealous of the people who went to the convention this last weekend. Immediately my mind went to something Robert Jeffrey said over email:
“I want to go, but I want to go with a purpose. I want to be invited.”
Or something close to that. The point is I see the pictures of some of these comic creators gathering up and having their meetings and I think, that’s a million miles away. Other days it only feels thousands of miles away.
With conventions that size, there are only so many things you can actually see. You stand in line for hours in order to possibly get a seat in a crowded room (I should know, I’ve done it at Dragon Con many, many times over). Luckily, I’m able to see the new trailers for the various movies or tv shows coming out in the fall without leaving the comfort of my house…
Make of that what you will.
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The Dark Tower
The Dark Tower comes out in just over a week I think. I’m not finished with the series (on the second to last book). I’ve also come to it fairly late in the game only having started reading them in the last couple of years. I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to start them before King was done writing them. And I actually timed it right, as Wind Through the Keyhole was out when I started my journey allowing me to read it in its proper order.
Of course, once I started in on the series I was hooked. In fact, the only reason I haven’t finished the series is more out of trying to make it last… not speeding through it like a maniac.
But the film… I’m hyped. I don’t know if it will be faithful or not. Then I talked to friends this weekend who informed me of its running length: 95 minutes. It’s been about 3 decades since that amount of time was more or less the standard. Maybe that’s all they’ll need if they stick to the first book (it is the shortest), but they have a TON of world-building before they are done.
95 minutes isn’t a lot of time for everything they need to do.
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Thor: Ragnarok
Then again the new Thor movie is claimed to be 100 minutes, which is also very short in this day and age of 2-hour movies. Here’s the deal, as the movies have lengthened they probably don’t trim and cut as much as they could or should. I have no doubt of that. When you are a writer there are scenes which you try to rework and rework to fit into the Draft, but after a certain point, you have to excise it from your life.
Maybe that’s what these filmmakers are doing now. They are looking how to make the best version of the movie, not worried about some arbitrary time limit which may or may not be something the studios should be dictating in the first place.
Then again, if the movies are shorter, do we get a discount on the prices to see those same movies?
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Game of Thrones
I see plenty of memes about Game of Thrones and people realizing we’ve only got 5 more episodes for this season (7 total instead of 10) and people losing their minds. supposedly the producers have said they want the season to move at a brisker pace than previous seasons. Plus only having 7 episodes allows them for more of the special effects.
The problem with the first reason is these episodes have felt like normal episodes. Characters have still been scattered to the edges of the world. We still are wondering what’s happening in certain areas. And we’re gearing toward the final conflicts. But it feels the same.
Which makes me worried we’re getting less of the same thing. Not that we’re getting 10 lbs of something in a 5 lb bag.
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John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novellas Theft & Therapy and There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.
His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!
He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!
And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!
He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.