Artemis Fowl

Here be spoilers for books and movie. You have been warned.

Alrighty so, this was the movie I originally had picked as my first movie review for this blog. Figured if I was going to reread/finish reading the Artemis Fowl series, I would subject myself to the movie as well. I knew it was going to be bad. I'd heard through the internet that it was bad but I hadn't looked at any reviews or anything. I also knew that "perceived fan wisdom" (to borrow a phrase from Verity! a Doctor Who Podcast) is often wrong. They were not wrong about this adaptation of Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why Disney decided to change the plot to fundamentally. Was it to make Artemis more likeable? Was it to give him something to do? Was it to give Colin Farrell more screen-time? Whatever it was, Disney completely botched this one. Not only was the plot changed, but, as a result, Artemis himself was changed. Book Artemis would not have recognized his movie counterpart. Or, if he did, he would have been extremely dismissive of him. Movie Artemis is much more emotional, physically active, and not exactly less intelligent, but definitely not as focused through that intelligence. I honestly can't see Movie Artemis robbing a bank, for instance. He doesn't show any of the ingenuity Book Artemis does. He spends more time spouting off knowledge apparently gained from his father than figuring anything out for himself. And then he goes and baits Opal there at the end. Just straight up baits her. Book Artemis would never.

Artemis is not the only character changed for this adaptation. Commander Julius Root is now just Commander Root as she is played by Dame Judi Dench. I think Dame Dench does an adequate enough job as Root, but I really think she was cast to put another female in the cast. Speaking of which, Juliet Butler is now 12 instead of 16 and is otherwise pretty unchanged from how she was in Artemis Fowl. I do not, however, actually believe that she is as skilled at martial arts as she should be as she displays absolutely none of this in the movie. Opal Koboi has been reduced to Shadowy Villain We Never See The Face Of But Has A Permanent Voice Changer with more revolutionary sounding plans than just Book Opal's world domination thing. Cudgeon, instead of just being a government toady, is now under Opal's employ for some reason... and Butler... oh Butler... He commands absolutely none of the presence of his book counterpart aaand... Domovoi. Right out the gate, that thing that signals he's in trouble is just trotted out like it's completely normal to refer to him by his first name all the time. Which, in the movie-verse is true, but boy did it bug me every time someone said "Dom." He also shows off none of that Butler prowess, but does fail as a bodyguard at least twice that I decided to count. Second-to-last, Mr. Mulch Diggums. Apparently we couldn't just CG a character for this so instead Mulch is a giant dwarf. Okay, could have lived with that if the rest of the dwarfs had been similarly cast, but they weren't and so it because Mulch's thing apparently. Also, I wasn't sure how they were gonna do Mulch's digging and jaw unhinging thing but... in hindsight, the way they did the digging was fine, but that jaw animation was just weird. Oh, and Foaly was just kinda there.

I'm going to talk about Artemis Sr. separately from everyone else as he's really where the biggest changes are. First, Angeline Fowl has apparently died, so Artemis Sr. is a single father. He's apparently still doing criminal things, though the reasons have definitely shifted. Instead of teaching Artemis everything he knows about how to run a criminal empire, he's taught Artemis everything he knows about fairies. He's definitely more of a loving father than pre-Arctic Incident Book Artemis Sr. was. And then, of course, there's the whole thing about being kidnapped by Opal rather than the Russian Mafia thing... mmm... I didn't like the whole thing with Artemis Sr. and apparently Holly's dead father. Where in the world did that come from? Why could we not have just stuck to the book's plot and not had to shoe-horn that in?

Speaking of plot points... that Aculos. Just... why? Why could we not just have had Mr. Criminal Mastermind do what he did in the books and get ahold of THE BOOK and Holly in order to get the gold? Why did we have to bring in this deus ex machina? Part tech, part magic but apparently the source of all magic? I'm confused as to what the Aculos even is, let alone why it was important.

Speaking of magic... with the loss of a plot involving THE BOOK and kidnapping a fairy for the fairy gold, we lost the magic bit of the plot. No explanation of the rules of magic. No basement cell. No banging bed covering up Mulch's loud activity. No acorn in Holly's boot. Just a sudden "Cut off all magic in the house" so we can have a minute to fear for Butler's life. Like, literally, that was it. Magic reduced to some not-at-all-explained tech gadget in order to endanger Butler's life and then bring him back a minute later. Just... ugh. I'm frustrated at the movie.

However, there were somethings I did enjoy. The L.E.P. suits were pretty. Foaly's hair was nice. His horse-bits animation wasn't jarring. The tech looked alright. I always imagined fairy tech to be more organic looking, but I wasn't super disappointed with how it ended up looking. Their shuttles reminded me of Marvel's Quinjets. The troll looked okay, I guess. I never really thought of them as looking like they stepped out of a Harry Potter movie, though. I also have a question regarding the people who took custody of Mulch. Who were they supposed to be, exactly? Just an unexplained plot point so we could have Mulch basically narrate the story at certain points? Probably.

So, Artemis Fowl wasn't exactly a bad movie, I don't think. It was entertaining enough and I didn't feel the need to turn it off at any point. It was, however, a colossally bad adaptation.

A Star Is Born - 2018

Long story short: I hated this movie.

The Long Story In Which There Will Be Spoilers And Triggers:

So my boyfriend bought this movie on his XBox two days ago, presumably because he's on a Lady Gaga kick. And by that I mean he's been listening to "Hold My Hand" almost nonstop since it came out. I'm tired of listening to it, but that's beside the point. Anyway, he bought this movie and attempted to start watching it with me without telling me what we were about to watch. I grabbed the controller, found out, said no, and went to find something else to watch. Even explained that I had zero interest in watching A Star Is Born and he could watch it the next day while I was at work.

Next morning, he starts it up while we're eating breakfast. I say nothing because I've got about 20 minutes before I have to leave and it's whatever. Something to watch while I eat. I assume he'll finish the movie while I'm gone. He does not. He does watch some of it, but I come home later that evening and he switches from whatever he was watching back to A Star Is Born. Pauses it while I'm in the shower even though I told him he doesn't have to and I wish he wouldn't. I play OviPets after my shower with A Star Is Born playing in the background. He now owes me a Harry Potter movie because he essentially forced me to watch this stupid movie.

I mentioned previously that I had zero interest in watching A Star If Born. This is because A) I had zero interest when it first came out and B) I'd watched a YouTube video on the four versions a few months ago. You can find that video HERE if you're interested. Please do, it's a good video. I knew the basic story line from watching the video and it pretty much solidified that I had zero interest in ever seeing any version of A Star Is Born. I think my reasoning is pretty solid, especially having now seen the movie.

The plot of A Star Is Born (if you haven't seen it) is this: Jack is a pretty famous, drunk singer who stumbles upon a woman (Ally) in a drag bar he ends up in because he wants to be more drunk. Ally, it turns out, can fucking sing. He pretty much falls in love with her and her voice and takes her on tour with him. She gets "discovered" by some super awesome agent and ends up getting a career of her own. I managed to skip part of the movie here, but Jack and Ally get married. He continues with the drinking and some prescribed drug usage, she wins a Grammy. He drunkenly follows her on stage and pisses himself before basically passing out and getting sent to rehab. This apparently almost tanks Ally's career off-screen. When Jack gets back from rehab, Mr. Agent-Manager tells him to get the hell away from Ally before he self-destructs and drags her down with him. Jack ends up killing himself or ODing, it's ambiguous. Ally grieves. Ally sings a love song Jack wrote for her to an audience. It's all very depressing.

Now, my particular form of anxiety makes me think about things while I am attempting to fall asleep and this movie decided to stick around in my brain last night. I originally wrote a rant-y piece on my phone about how much I hate this movie and how the Grammy scene could have been avoided and how there's only one female character in the movie... yeah. It's actually kind of victim-blame-y and I'm not real sure how to classify drag queens so, I'm not going to repeat any of that here. It will suffice to say that I found A Star Is Born to be just the worst. Jack clearly has mental health issues -- and some physical ones -- that he drowns with liquor. I just don't know that we as an audience really needed to be along for that ride. Yes, it was sad, from a certain viewpoint. I'm over it.

I am over these stories of artists, or anyone really, getting tangled up in drink and drugs and ending up ODing or killing themselves. This is not what I want in my media. "Well that's real life. That's what happens. It's happened before." Yes, I am aware. I am very aware. It's happened recently enough with celebrities that I've looked up to. I still don't want it in my media. I'm allowed to be selective in what I consume, damnit. NOT TO MENTION this stigma about mental health problems. I understand that not everyone can or will get help and even that the help they do get doesn't translate into real life. But man, aren't there enough stories floating around out there about that exact issue? A Star Is Born is not the first or the last. It's better for my personal mental health if I don't dwell on these things like our "serious art" seems to want to. I'm not even sure these kinds of stories push people toward seeking the help they need... and I honestly don't know where I'm going with this, so I'm going to stop.

Uh, yeah. A Star Is Born is definitely not my thing. I resent my boyfriend for making me watch it. I plan to be much more firm in my decisions not to watch things I don't want to, cuz A Star Is Born is just stuck in my brain-pan now and I hate it.

On a much more serious note: If you do have mental health problems, please, please, please seek help. If not for yourself, do it for your loved ones.

The Broken Sword by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy

A Spoiler Free Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: June 21, 2022

So The Broken Sword is a book I've had since I was in Junior High (I'm now 33). My copy is beat up and stained and one of two I still have from that time. It is also the sequel to my absolute favorite book The Forever King. That said, I don't think I've ever read the pair one right after the other, and boy, did that diminish my ranking of The Broken Sword. This reread was also my first time reading The Broken Sword with any kind of critical lens, so that also had something to do with it.

I was really looking forward to reading this series as a series, as I've relatively recently discovered The Third Magic existed. However, as a sequel, The Broken Sword doesn't actually hold up or even stack up against The Forever King. First and foremost, the addition of a boat load of new characters makes the story messy, in my opinion. The Forever King was able to weave the backstories of Hal, Taliesin, Saladin, Emily, and Arthur into the overall narrative without pulling you from the story itself. The Broken Sword doesn't manage to do this in a satisfying manner. In fact, toward the end there, it was downright annoying. The main thing that pulled me out toward the end was having the gods literally tell Thanatos that the "old gods" and the "dark gods" were one in the same and then having everyone else for the rest of the story referencing the "dark gods" as having won... which just had me rolling my eyes.

It's not that I didn't enjoy getting Kate and Zack and maybe even Aubrey's backstories, but having to shoehorn them into the rest of the narrative felt clumsy. Trying to recapture the magic of The Forever King and mostly failing because they just weren't integral enough to the rest of the plot. Nor were those backstories nearly as interesting as Saladin and Taliesin's.

My second big issue with the story is Aubrey/Thanatos, the main villain. First off, I don't believe that Saladin would have suddenly decided to appoint anyone his heir. It seemed really out of character for him. In fact, he seemed very out of character for his entire appearance in The Broken Sword. But hey, gotta give Aubrey a backstory that loops him into The Forever King and the mythology of both books somehow. Cue much shrugging and hand-waving. But honestly, my problem with Aubrey is that he's just boring. Like, Cochran and Murphy attempted to make him interesting and a little quirky, but it really didn't succeed. He felt like a caricature of a person rather than an actual threat. Lot of Rheged was more menacing as a villain and he was only a threat to past Arthur. Aaand then there was the whole thing with Morgan. She's one of the most enduring villains from Arthurian legend and probably the best known female villain period... and her truly most evil act is co-opted in this book by Thanatos. It's not through her power that she conceives Mordred, it's through his. This bugs me. A lot.

My last two issues are Portugal and the knights. Hal's whole thing in Portugal had me a) rolling my eyes and b) heading to Google to look up Faro. Antonia, though I know she's literally just a plot device to get Hal back to England, annoyed the heck out of me. She's barely a person and has one of the most stereotypical (and actually insulting) motivations you can give a female character. That was the rolling eyes bit. The Googling of Faro, Portugal, had me wanting to smack Cochran and Murphy. Faro, as it turns out, is actually a pretty big tourist destination here in 2022. I HIGHLY doubt it was a one-rental-car town as depicted in The Broken Sword back in 1997. Really, I'm annoyed on Faro's account. Misrepresentation of places annoys me. Always has. As for the knights: I know they're from medieval times. I know the behavior expected of them probably wasn't typical of how we behave now. I know they'd probably be pretty rowdy after having been pulled through the veil and set in a pub. I get all that. HOWEVER, they've also gotta be pretty smart. Maybe not book smart, but smarter than they were depicted in the modern parts of The Broken Sword. They definitely seemed to be less stupid back in their own time, that's for sure. This mix of characterization for them just bugs me.

Anyway, The Broken Sword definitely doesn't match The Forever King as far as storytelling goes. It's messy and the addition of all the new active characters really doesn't do the story any favors. Taliesin's whole thing with Mona was definitely a thing. Served the overall plot but wasn't super interesting, truth be told. I am also not sure how I feel about the very ending of the book... which I won't talk about, but yeah... Anway, again, I'm not sure I'll pick up The Broken Sword the next time I feel like reading The Forever King.

The Forever King by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy

A Spoiler Free Reread Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: June 9, 2022

I do believe The Forever King will forever be one of my favorite books. I first read it after my girl scout leader gifted it to me. I was maybe 12. I’ve read it several times since then and then made the mistake of lending it to my sister’s then-fiance. Never saw that copy again. Never forgot the story. Picked up another copy semi-recently just to have again. Finally reread it this June. Still love it.

I didn’t really appreciate the writing when I was younger, but I definitely do now. The world of The Forever King is rich and both realistic and fanciful. It has a can’t-put-it-down quality. Also a glimpse into Arthurian legend that most books don’t look at and was actually formative in my personal journey through Arthurian legend and fantasy in general.

I thought the flow of the story from the present to the distant past and back again was masterful. Never once felt like any part of the story dragged. The characters are wonderful, as well. Hal and Taliesin are rarely far from my personal thoughts, if I’m honest. Saladin was a wonderful villain, even if he does fulfill that Middle Eastern villain stereotype. At least his background justifies that. A background that properly fleshes him out, which is often rare for fantasy villains.

So yeah, overall, The Forever King is awesome. I highly recommend it to pretty much anyone, but those interested in fantasy and Arthurian legends in particular.

Thunderbird Falls by C.E. Murphy

A Spoiler Free Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: June 8, 2022

Well, I spent most of this book really, really frustrated with just about everyone in it. Not a good sign. Also made the decision somewhere about halfway through to not continue with this series. I don’t enjoy internally (and in my notes) screaming at the characters. While I do think that the ending of this book will probably push Joanne onto a path I was screaming at her to get on, I don’t have that much faith that she will so… yeah.

I honestly spent a good chunk of the book yelling at Joanne to slow down and do some research into the shit she was getting herself into. It’s not like she didn’t have time during the adventure. Not entirely sure what she spent that time actually doing, but it wasn’t research and it wasn’t sleeping… which she also had time to do but didn’t. Hanging a big ol’ lampshade on this there at the end didn’t make me feel any better about it, either. More research into the rituals and pretty much anything besides someone else looking up snakes for her would have made things a lot more palatable for me.

I also wasn’t a big fan of the coven. A coven welcoming a new member who has no idea what’s going on should be open to explaining themselves and this one was downright rude about Joanne’s lack of knowledge. I understand that a certain member had all the reasons to not be forthcoming, but… I’m just really put off by the whole coven at this point.

So yeah, I’ve decided I’m too frustrated with Joanne at this point, and the author as well, to continue with the series. I need more from my mythological mysteries than a stream of bam, bam, bam, oh hey it’s the villan, big power play to defeat them, ending bow.

In Other News

Today I finished an OviPets project: Dracomon

 

Dracomon is part of my "Child Digimon" registered project... which probably means nothing to you if you don't play OviPets. Basically, users make pets to look a certain way and have the option to register said pets into a Project so other users can't claim creations they did not make. Anyway, you can check all that out over on OviPets.

Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer

A Semi-Spoilery Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: 8-1-22

Welp, Colfer opted for more “script padding” here. Spending a lot of time explaining things that were already quite plain and giving us a lot more insight into characters I’m pretty sure we didn’t need the insight into. This weird third-person limited but limited to whoever I want at any given moment mixed with third person omniscient with a wannabe in-universe narrator thing Colfer does is really not the best. It’s kind of like he’s trying to imitate Douglas Adams and failing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s alright at times, but at other times it’s super distracting and often times feels like he’s talking down to the reader. This writing style also completely leeches any sort of urgency out of the text. I am definitely not a fan.

Orion Fowl is the worst. I didn’t like the Artemis/Holly thing that started in The Time Paradox and I like it even less now. The age gap is still gross. Will always be gross. Orion’s ridiculously flowery language in Holly’s direction is gross. They need to just be friends and firmly stick to that. There’s zero reason for romance between them. Zero.

So, Butler… why the fuck didn’t he attempt to contact Juliet at any point BEFORE showing up at her wrestling match? Turnball’s entire Butler plan hinged on no one actually attempting to figure out what was going on by any other means than in person... and Artemis apparently straight up lying to Butler due to his paranoia. Still not entirely sure how that last bit managed to work out or how Turnball found out about it... but he got what he wanted, but again, this brings up Butler’s incompetence. If he’d maybe tried to ask Juliet for some details, there’s no way he’d have gone to Mexico. Just… ugh. This trope of people not talking to each other needs to fucking die. It's lazy. Especially when pasted onto a character like Butler. Butler is frequently shown to be checking out all the angles of attack and making sure exits are clear and being generally worried about anything involving Artemis being in a crowded area. But to basically NOT do any of his apparently usual prep work when it involves his sister... like, why? Oh, convenient plot development? Cool. Not cool. Not remotely cool. Annoying.

Turnball Root is… I don’t know. Interesting isn’t the right word, even if used sarcastically. He’s not stupid, either. I mean, he somehow figured out how to get the barest bit of magic and mix it with some previously unknown rune thing... He's unhinged, definitely. Not sure how I want to categorize him, but it’s definitely not up there with the great villains. I really don’t understand why anyone who ostensibly works for him does so. He’s condescending and just ridiculous. Not going to lie, I skipped his backstory with Leonor. I’m sure it was properly touching, but as I’m not a fan of the writing style of The Atlantis Complex… I just felt it was going to be eye-roll inducing, so I skipped it. I understand that. Colfer was attempting something different here with Turnball, but I really wasn’t invested and it fell pretty flat for me.

So, the Atlantis Complex as a mental illness is patently ridiculous and treated horribly. I understand that there were circumstances, but ultimately, it’s a plot device that I did not appreciate in the least. I did like that we weren’t privy as to what was going on with Artemis in the first part of the story, even if I was admittedly annoyed by it. However, that does not change the fact that a magical disease caused by remorse, of all things, is not great as a representation of mental illness. It actually kind of reminds me of J.K. Rowling’s short story “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart” from The Tales of Beadle the Bard in that remorse ultimately causes the warlock’s death. Also this representation of some form of Dissociative Identity Disorder is annoying at best and not actually how that works at all. Atlantis Complex just mixes a bunch of stuff together basically to sideline Artemis unless it's convenient. Did not enjoy.

Anyway, time to finish out this hit-and-miss series with The Last Guardian. Here’s hoping it’s less eye-roll inducing than this one. Crossing my fingers because I really want to ultimately come out positive on this series.

Favorite Line

"It was more expensive in the long term, but the politicians reasoned that by the time the long term came around, somebody else would be in office."

Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy

A Spoiler Free Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: May 31, 2022

I’m not gonna lie, Urban Shaman is not the greatest. It is, however, engaging and interesting. I enjoyed the story and the mixing of mythologies. I think it was done fairly well, which is a plus. The story did drag in places, but never so much as into a grinding halt.

I was distracted by the police at several junctions (junctures?). They didn’t seem to react like they were real police officers. It was very odd that they just went along with Joanne’s weirdness. Even supernatural police forces don’t just go along with whatever just because a well-liked officer (who was barely an officer) said to. Morrison was actually the person who kept breaking my immersion the most. At no point should he have not fired Joanne. At the very least he should have ordered a psyche eval.

It was also somewhat weird to be reading from the perspective of someone who has little to no idea the supernatural exists or that she even has powers. I had to remind myself a couple times that Joanne wasn’t the kind of supernatural heroine I’m used to reading. You know the type: ultra competent, ultra sure of herself, and ultra comfortable with her powers. This issue was a little off-putting in the beginning, but, like I said, had to remind myself that Joanne’s a newbie with no mentor. Still really not sure how she could see Marie from a plane… that was a big sticking point in the book and with me. There’s no way you can pick out individuals on the ground from a plane.

I feel like I should say something about Gary, but… nah. He was just kinda there when Joanne needed him. Much shrugging.

Uh… the rest of the story was… interesting, I think it the word I’ll settle on. It was fun for me getting another take on The Wild Hunt mythology. I’m always here for Faerie stuff. I liked the short look at shamanism, even if it’s definitely heavily reliant on western supernatural tropes. I could definitely be wrong on that, tho. Haven’t really decolonized my mythology bookshelf (or brain) enough to speak on that for sure.

Looking forward to the next one. Hope the writing gets better. I felt it was choppier than it should have been.