April 23, 2012
#321: Avengers Pt. 4, Thor
The Avengers release grows ever closer as we take a look at the general public’s introduction to Marvel’s Norse god Thor. We find inspiration in Thor’s each-day-at-a-time attitude. We dig into the similarities between Shakespeare’s plays and comic superhero stories, concluding that superhero tales may have a much longer lifespan of cultural significance than many suspect. And we run down the week in geek, including hope for new Star Trek on TV and a re-imagining of one of Audra and Chuck’s favorite XBox console games, Baldur’s Gate.
Galactic Watercooler 
Modern Geek 
Save Eureka 
Eff This Week 
FitSmart
First off – it is great to be back. I have been away for a couple years. I was listening during the original run of BSG. Yours was actually one of the first podcasts I subscribed to when I got an iPod for the first time. I was browsing the iTunes store, and saw the podcast listed, and thought I would take a listen. Glad I did.
Audra – The object of your desire from John Carter was one of the main characters in the Texas football based “Friday Night Lights” TV show. That show grabbed my son’s attention, which eventually led to him deciding that he wants to get the heck out of California and go to UT Austin. You may want to check it out (on Netflix streaming).
On the topic of the transition from a book to film. I remember Michael Crichton being interviewed for the movie “Timeline” which was transitioned from a book he wrote. I think he said something to the effect that often it must be different. In the book, he spent about 50 pages developing the background of the time travel technology, and why there were “transcription errors” when traveling back and forth. In the movie, there was one line to describe all this technology “It’s like a fax machine.” Chricton said he would bore a movie audience to death if he tried to stay true to the book. So the book and the movie were different. And that was ok.
Similar with Hunger Games. So much of the book is exploring what Katniss is doing and thinking as she goes through the story. Most of this is without any dialog with other characters, so there really is no opportunity to stay true to the book without being awkward. In the book, there really is little attention paid to the Gamemaker (Seneca Crane) or all the stuff that is going on behind the scenes to make the games happen. However, this is a portion of the movie. Same thing. Book is different than the movie, and both (in this case) are pretty good.
Take care, and I will be less a stranger.
Mark in Sandy Eggo