altariel: (Default)
altariel ([personal profile] altariel) wrote2006-01-26 05:03 pm

Top five meme answers #2

No, I haven't forgotten, just taking my time.

[livejournal.com profile] katlinel asked for my top 5 SF&F hats

1. The Horned One is upon us! Herne the Hunter from Robin of Sherwood.
2. Tom Bom, Jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
3. Jayne's bobble hat.
4. The art deco robot masks from the Doctor Who story 'Robots of Death'.
5. All of the hats in the Dune miniseries.


[livejournal.com profile] aervir asked for my top 5 reasons to love Doctor Who 2005

1. Robert Holmes was credited on the first episode, which made me sniffle.
2. The writing was effervescent, it bubbled up from a deep well of good humour, generosity, compassion.
3. Television for me is a participation sport. It felt like the whole country was watching Doctor Who with me.
4. All of that, all of that - and a bloody regeneration too!
5. Captain Jack!


[livejournal.com profile] sallymn asked for my top 5 Books Which Should be Made into Films

1. Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer: I think this would make a fabulous romcom.
2. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold: And I welcome casting suggestions.
3. The Hobbit: I think it's time someone had a crack at it. Just so long as the colours are like Tolkien's illlustrations.
4. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban: I'm sure it's one of those books that people would say was unfilmable, but it delivered several very strong images into my optic nerve.

I'm going to cheat with the last one, because this is something I'd like to see done on television, as one of those Sunday evening, six part family series:

5. The Islanders by John Rowe Townsend: A children's novel about a community on a very remote island (Pitcairn-like), whose stability is undermined by the arrival of a boy and a girl in a canoe. Like all really good children's novels it's a metaphor for, er, something or other. Anyway, I've wanted to try to do a script version of this for years; might even do it one day. Oh, let's throw The Guardians by John Christopher in for good measure, in the same format. (Do two telly series add up to one film? Humph, much more, in this journal.)


[livejournal.com profile] jhall1, I am going to have to admit defeat on your request for my top 5 books which should never have been filmed - I just can't think of any! Please feel free to ask for another top 5!

Oh, while I'm on the subject of books made into films, I thoroughly enjoyed the version of The Lives and Opinions of Tristram Shandy that's in the cinema right now, A Cock and Bull Story, starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.

[livejournal.com profile] popehippo, [livejournal.com profile] mrs230, [livejournal.com profile] ms_manna, [livejournal.com profile] espresso_addict: your top fives are in progress.

[identity profile] jhall1.livejournal.com 2006-01-26 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
jhall1, I am going to have to admit defeat on your request for my top 5 books which should never have been filmed - I just can't think of any! Please feel free to ask for another top 5!

I'm surprised, as my experience is that if a favourite book is made into a film or TV series it's almost always a disappointment. Having said which, I concede that the LotR films had more good points than bad, and I thoroughly enjoyed the Narnia film.

Asd a substitute, I'll use my "standard" question, which I don't think that anyone else has yet asked you. What are your 5 favourite SF and/or fantasy books.

[identity profile] altariel.livejournal.com 2006-01-26 06:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I think I'm just too easily pleased! I loved the film version FotR to bits - I had 'issues' with the last two, but much rather they had been made than not. The only thing that would come into my mind was the opposite - a film that improved on the book (The Remains of the Day).

Will start thinking about the new 5 - thanks!

[identity profile] jhall1.livejournal.com 2006-01-26 06:58 pm (UTC)(link)
I loved the film version FotR to bits - I had 'issues' with the last two, but much rather they had been made than not.

That's very much how I felt as well. And I would have forgiven them an awful lot for the beautiful way that the final leave-taking at the Grey Havens was handled.

[identity profile] altariel.livejournal.com 2006-01-26 07:02 pm (UTC)(link)
They did a wonderful job in that scene. I didn't think the ending to the radio play could be overwritten in my head, but they came extremely close with that scene. Mind you, first time I saw RotK I was low-level weeping from about forty minutes in.