Over the last few months Dreamworks has been pouring a huge amount of effort into the promotion of How to Train Your Dragon, assuring the masses that it’s their best flick since Shrek. Personally, I was hooked from trailer one – no critics’ reviews necessary. It’s impossible to see the duo of Hiccup and Toothless onscreen and not be intrigued by their sarcasm and cuteness.

How to Traib Your Dragon (2003)

To my shame, I did not know at first that this film was based on a book series. It wasn’t until I started reading up on it over on Wikipedia that I heard of the books’ existence. Naturally, I had to go to my local bookstore before movie time and grab a copy. I didn’t finish it before seeing the film, but I have finished them both now and let me just say, they are dramatically different.

And, in a stance I rarely take, I must say that I liked the movie a lot more.

Firstly, Novel Hiccup is just over ten years old whereas the film hiccup seems to be in his mid-teens. Novel Hiccup and the other boys of his village are undergoing their initiation into the tribe wherein they have to capture a baby dragon and train it to the satisfaction of their elders. Their dragons are equivalent in size and use to hunting dogs, Hiccup’s ends up being the smallest and most common-bred of them all, despite the fact that he’s the chief’s son and should have a “worthier” dragon. On the other hand, Film Hiccup is thrown into initiation as a last resort wherein he must kill dragons. He captures a rare Night Fury by accident and their relationship grows from there.

Without getting too spoilery, Novel Hiccup and his class face being banned from their tribe but are presented with a last-minute chance to redeem themselves by saving the island. The same applies to Film Hiccup, but the circumstances vary. Cleverness wins out over brute strength and dorky kids everywhere find hope in Hiccup being accepted by his very Viking clan. Even the cantankerous Toothless (who talks throughout the books but does not, thankfully, do so in the films) finds a heart and comes to Hiccups aid, therefore redeeming himself in the end.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

The film, however, adds an element that I’d like to draw attention to. When Hiccup first comes across the fallen Toothless, the dragon has crashed into the forest – thanks to Hiccup’s bola-firing contraption. After some half-hearted attempts to slay the dragon, Hiccup sets him free only to discover that Toothless has an injured tail and can no longer fly, Through the ever-helpful use montage we see the clever and mechanical minded Hiccup craft a device that augments Toothless’ broken tail. The previously disabled dragon now has the power of flight restored to him by the same person that (inadvertently) took it away.

Here’s the really spoilery bit. After the climactic final battle, it’s revealed that Hiccup has lost a leg. A crude prosthetic has been crafted for him, though it is still very difficult for Hiccup to walk. Toothless props him up as he walks, and later Hiccup climbs aboard – his mechanical leg fitting perfectly into Toothless’ flight-control mechanism. Separately they have very limited mobility, but together they can fly.

All in all, I loved the film. This little addition is the only sticky wicket for me, as I’m not quite sure what it’s saying about disabilities. I don’t think it’s trying to send any kind of message on purpose, but I think the feel-goodness intended didn’t quite come across. Toothless could have suffered some more temporary type of debilitation and still made a bond with Hiccup, and we could have come out of this film happily-ever-after. As it is, our heroes are both crippled for life and must depend on each other to survive. And it’s clearly Hiccup’s fault.

Do the ends justify the means? Possibly. The entire village is now at peace with, and working harmoniously with, their neighboring dragons. Hiccup may have injured Toothless, but he got his karmic retribution and now everybody is safe. Clearly he’s got the girl as well, and Toothless is a pretty big deal himself. So, in a way, it is happily-ever-after. You make do with what you’ve got, and they’ve got quite a lot going for them.

Frankly, I don’t think kids are going to care. It’s a spectacular movie, and one I’d feel good about recommending to children and adults alike. It really is one of Dreamworks’ best offerings to date. The book is a great read as well, and I intend to pick up some of the sequels in the future. They may be full of crude (yet hilarious) drawings, but they aren’t written in a condescending way. They’re definitely on the strange side, but I can’t say I have a problem with that.

The other day I finished Messenger, by Lois Lowry. For those not in the know, The Giver (1993) was followed by two companion novels: Gathering Blue (2000) and Messenger (2004). In each subsequent short novel, Lois Lowry has gotten progressively less vague about her motives. It must be those two giant, dangling, Newberry medals.

The Giver (1993)

I first encountered The Giver in 1997, where it was a required portion of my curriculum. It was a novel concept to me at the time, and I think that my classmates got a lot of enjoyment out of it as well. It presents a utopian society where everything runs smoothly and efficiently – on the surface, at least. We learn later, of course, that there are terrible atrocities occurring behind closed doors, and that much of the information we take for granted has been taken away from this village. Things like color and sunshine, but also painful things.

At the end our protagonist escapes into the unknown. All we know is that he is headed towards another small town. I remember my class being tasked with completing his story. I don’t remember what we decided happened, but lucky for future generations, Lois Lowry has taken the guesswork away.

Gathering Blue deals with an entirely different town, and the girl with a gimp who lives there. This time, instead of pushing for the importance and freedom of knowledge, Lowry blatantly presses the moral of accepting everyone, despite their differences, because they all have unique talents to offer. Not that it wasn’t an enjoyable read, but it felt very “Hey, remember that time I wrote that awesome thought-provoking kids’ book? Yeah, I did it again.”

At the end of the novel, the heroine and her friend discover that same village from the end of The Giver. Gasp! She doesn’t stay, but we learn her father lives there and that she’ll go there eventually. Mmm, smells like a sequel!

Which brings us to Messenger, the novel set in that mysterious village of… Village. That’s her thing – naming things as obviously as possible, because everything is a giant metaphor. Did you get it? THE METAPHOR? Should I type it bigger?

Messenger (2004)

METAPHOR.

There you go. And the metaphor Messenger is trying to get across is this: Jesus died to save America, so knock it off and hug an immigrant.

Our hero/Jesus, who is Gathering Blue’s little friend from last time, lives in Village/America. They used to be nice people until they started trading their deepest selves away for material goods, or other frivolous crap. (He who dies with the most toys still dies?) It used to be that strangers could find refuge in Village/America, but now all the not-nice-anymore villagers are building a wall and locking them out. Oh, and the forest around them is strangling to death the people it doesn’t like.

Oh! And now Giver and Gathering Blue have magical powers, allowing them to see ‘beyond’ and ‘ahead’. Which I don’t recall them possessing before, but I guess the time for believability has passed. (Yes, I know, the transfer of Giver memories is malarky, but for some reason I’m allowing it.)

Anyway, Matty/Jesus has a gift too, and that seems to be dying in order to fix the world. Because we know that everything will be great and no one will make THAT mistake again. Phew!

I don’t know. I think that once was enough. Once was awesome. Not that I don’t fully support the importance of teaching new generations to not be assholes, but I feel like the next book in the series is just going to be called “Don’t Be Such An Asshole.”

Lois Lowry is now in her seventies. While I may not agree with her specific thought-vehicles, I do agree that she’s got the right ideas and that a little compassion on everyone’s parts would go a long way. But sadly, Lois Lowry is not the only old person who feels the need to preach about the necessary course of the future, though she’s looking to be the sanest.

I encountered a guest at my store today telling a young mother about “Crystal Children” and explaining that the little girl in the mother’s cart may be one of them. Cue eerie cult music here.

I came home and looked this thing up, and quite honestly, I’m only about halfway through this super professional and utterly authoritative website on the phenomena. Crystal and indigo children and adults (which are you? Take our quiz! Everyone’s a winner!) are slightly varied groups of reincarnated individuals who have come to crush our useless government and educational systems to replace them with joy and light and unicorn farts of productivity.

I’m all for revamping the education system. It’s a big part of why I want to work in a school. However, I don’t fancy myself some Indigo Warrior with a shimmery aura and a soul of the ancients. It’s called progress, and it tends to happen every now and again.

It amazing the forms such good, basic advice can take. How simple lessons like “Question everything” and “Be compassionate” have to be dressed up is ungainly metaphor or whackadoodle mysticism to be accepted by the masses. (Or in this case prevalent minorities.)

In lieu of a concrete conclusion to my disjointed whitterings, I leave you with a short video about the Crystal Children, in all their astonishingly incomprehensible glory:

I saw this over at engadget and Geekologie and the more I think about it, the more impressed I am by this technology. In the video they talk about saving space with mobile devices, so this interface is a way of expanding your teeny gadget to a useable size. Which will be great, once it doesn’t require a big honkin’ armband with a baby octopus of wires attached to it.

Aside from the novelty aspects of controlling your iPod without touching it directly, I’m extremely interested to see where this goes in terms of people with physical disabilities. So far the programs are using various points in the arms and hands that produce distinct bio-sounds, but it stands to reason that the rest of the body could be mapped as well. People with limited motor function could have controls mapped to their range of motion that correspond not only to their music player, but their phone and computer as well.

It’s just a thought, and it’s a lot of work ahead, but I think this is definitely some tech to keep an eye out for in the future. I just have to learn to quit drumming my hands when I rock out, or I’ll accidentally dial my mother.

At the beginning of the year I took a trip to a used bookstore of local fame. Chamblin’s Bookmine is a veritable labyrinth of used books, and it’s extremely easy to come out penniless. Trust me, I’ve done it. Anyway, my haul this visit contained a number of young adult titles and some more grown-up material on the state and history of China. Guess which ones I’m reading first?

There was one book I went back for at the last minute – Avalon High, by Meg Cabot. My copy is bright pink and very girly, a category which does not exist in my library. It gets as girly as the Georgia Nicholson novels, and those books at least have the decency to put on a green plaid every now and then. Yes, I’m judging a book by it’s cover here. Its color, in fact. I might be a little bit book-racist.

Pink or no pink, I was pulled back to it because it’s a modern re-telling of the Arthurian legend. Ever since I landed in an Arthurian studies class my freshman year of college, I have had quite the soft spot for all tales Arthurian. I had actually forgotten that the book was hiding on my shelf until Merlin showed up on Hulu and I tried to give it a watch. (That’s going to be another post in itself, I can feel it.) I couldn’t stop thinking about Cabot’s book, so I turned Merlin off and spenth several hours last night devouring Avalon High.

It’s not a lengthy, detailed novel. It’s fairly superficial in places, but we are talking about the author of The Princess Diaries. This is not a slam. I like a good fluffy read more often than I’ll admit, and this one absolutely did the trick. In fact, I may actually pick up The Princess Diaries because of this book, pink covers and all.

The premise behind Avalon High is that a teenager, named Elaine, begins at a new school and finds herself in the middle of what seems to be a modern version of the Arthurian story. There’s Lance, Jennifer, A. William Wagner, Marco and Mr. Morton, all playing out their historic roles as Lancelot, Guinevere, Arthur, Mordred and Merlin. Except that these replays have never yet resulted in the true re-emergence of the sleeping King Arthur, and its looking pretty bleak. Of course, its up to our protagonist to save the day.

It’s pretty cheesey that Elaine’s mom is conveniently an Arthurian scholar, but I’ve known at least two in my life, so I guess I’d be just as prepared should I find myself in a surreal repeat of history. What I do love about this, though, is that her mom’s interests lie with the Lady Elaine of Astolat, or the Lady of Shalott. Elaine struggles with having a suicide as her namesake even before she arrives at Avalon High, and when all this starts unfolding she refuses to be cast as the Lily Maid. It’s a perspective I’ve never come across, and all the hokey moments add up to a truly spectacular whole.

And while we’re on the subject of cheesey done right, I’d like to add that Meg Cabot references things like iPods and Starbucks in this novel and I don’t want to set her on fire for it. She uses the references when they actually add something to the situation, and the whole premise of this book relies on readers knowing approximately what decade we’re in. There is a solid reason for confining the story the way she does, and Michael Scott needs to take note.

(By the way, I’m still stuck on page 50 of The Alchemyst. Ugh.)

Also, this book inspired me to dig out all my old Loreena McKennit albums. I had quite a thing for her version of The Lady of Shalott back around the time I was in that Arthurian class. That, and The Mysts of Avalon film, but lets just all agree we were weirdos in college. It was a nice bout of reminiscing.

Which led me to Peter David’s Knight Life. Again, not somethingg I’ve encountered since that fateful class, but still a book I’d recommend. Another modern-day take on Arthur, but with adult players and a more political setting. Vey humorous too, if I recall, and I fully intend to grab the sequel in the not-so-distant future.

Lucky for you, I save just about everything I’ve ever typed up for a class. This is from my handout on the book in the Spring of 2005:

Knight Life – Peter David
Merlin slowly shook his head. “Someone is going to have to talk to you, long and hard, about slang.”

THESIS:
No matter what era the Arthurian legend is set in or what era it’s rewritten in, good triumphs over evil. However, in more modern takes on the legend, women play a more prominent role – in both the good and the evil. The character representing Guinevere takes in into her own hands to hunt down and fight Morgan Le Fey while Arthur is busy elsewhere, and Morgan Le Fey cannot count on Modred to work for her, so she does much of the work herself.

SYNOPSIS:
King Arthur and Merlin have both been freed from their respective caves of imprisonment and are now in modern-day New York City. Rather than declare himself king, Arthur Penn does what any rational centuries-old man of royalty does when he finds himself in a completely different world than what he is used to – he runs for mayor.

I can’t remember what the quote about Merlin is in direct reference to, but now I want to reread it and find out. Also, it would appear we have a theme here, what with female-hero driven Arthurian tales. It would be an interesting genre to explore, if there are more to be found. Sadly, I think they fell out of print. Hm.

Back to the Bookmine!

I have been reluctant to jump on the J. J. Abrams bandwagon. I have yet to watch a single episode of Lost. I didn’t see Cloverfield. I haven’t purposefully been avoiding him, mind you, I just wasn’t really interested. If anything, my allegiance lies with Joss Whedon. I did, however, see the new Star Trek movie and I loved it, iBridge and all. I mean, Simon Pegg? FatHands? Does it get better?

Peter, Walter, and Olivia

I digress. A few months ago I was encouraged – nay, ordered – to start watching Fringe. I was hooked immediately. Not only is our leading lady a badass (in a relateable way), but her sidekicks are a father-son team comprised of scruffyness and insanity. At some point in the series we find out that Jacksonville plays a pretty big role in Olivia’s life, and in the most recent episode they took a little trip to my hometown.

Except for the part where they didn’t. Despite the rest of the show being a crazy chase of paranormal activity all over New York and Boston and other such places with fantastic establishing shots, their roadtrip to the south was without visual credibility. They arrived at their destination – an abandoned daycare on a closed naval base – to find a small nondescript building with the word ‘”Jacksonville” in the name. The rest of their trip played out in interiors.

I understand it. Budgets and soundstages and all that. But I suppose Jacksonville isn’t big enough to exist in stock footage just yet. I was excited just to hear us get mentioned. We’ve arrived! Television has informed the world that we do, indeed, exist! A nice, wide establishing shot would have been awesome, but I’ll let it go for you, Fringe. I find your closed naval base in my backyard completely believable. This town is lousy with them.

It’s easy to write about big cities and sneak stuff in. All kinds of things can happen in TV New York because it’s so huge – who can argue? When you get to smaller cities (okay, we’re pretty huge landwise) it gets harder to sneak stuff in. A Chinese drug ring operating in New York City? Sure! In Jacksonville? Yeah, no. Maybe some Wellfare scams. Lots of shootings. That’s about as exciting as it gets here, and COPS pretty much has the market cornered on television episodes that cover those aspects of this town.

If all that wasn’t exciting enough, Jacksonville got mentioned again the next week in an episode of Past Life. They “visited” the glaringly fictitious Sunflower Apartments hoping to find clues to a murder. Really? Sunflower? The state flower of Kansas? Just because the word has ‘sun’ in it does not mean it’s appropriate. Down here we name things after alligators, native Indians, the beach, and citrus. Take your pick. But they were spot-on with the senseless murder, so we’ll just take what we can get.

Whats-Her-Face, Angry Cop Guy and some other people from Past Life

It feels like Past Life is being touted as some sort of Fringe Lite while Fringe is away. Blonde lady lead with her reluctant backup, chasing the weirdness, blah blah blah. Except that Past Life is so distressingly bland and dull that I can’t be bothered to remember anyone’s name of care for them in the slightest. On top of that, they’ve forever pigeon-holed themselves whereas Fringe gets to deal with the entire spectrum of strange. And Fringe may have, like, twenty-some episodes on Past Life, but that’s no excuse for a sadass premise.

I’m intrigued to see if this trend continues. Are more references going to be made to Jacksonville? Will we someday be a TV hometown? True, we lack a distinct personality, but there’s got to be potential hidden in this sad, vacuous pit somewhere, right? We had the Superbowl that one time. We’ve got the military. We have colleges without being a college town. We have beaches. We have a horrifying lack of culture. We have gang violence and sub-par public transportation and thirteen malls. We’ll get there.

The moral of this post is: Watch Fringe. It is good and Walter is a delightful crazyperson.