Dungeons & Dragons Movie Retrospective!

Okay, so here's an article I wouldn't have thought to write when I started doing this.  I guess there's actually quite some precedent for movies based on the world's most famous tabletop role-playing game.

Some history:  My knowledge of D&D largely comes from my father, especially since he still had plenty of 1st Edition AD&D materials lying around for me to peruse while I grew up.  When he shifted over to playing the video games, I kinda shifted with him, so I didn't stay up to date with the later editions much.  While I was vaguely aware of the 80s cartoon, the first film in 2000 was more prominent, as it came out when I was in high school.  I didn't see it in theaters, but I remember watching it at a friend's house and thinking it was cheesy, but still kinda fun.  The line about "Ridley" being the new word for "dumb" became a bit of an in-joke for us at the time.  Since then, I hadn't done much with D&D, outside of the occasional video game, but when 5th Edition started to build up the brand's popularity again, I got back into it, and have since learned that two more movies got made in the meantime.  Now that the new one is out, I figured I'd do a full sweep of all four, including rewatching the first one and reviewing the new one, all in one article!!

Wandering Through the Hyborian Age - Reviewing Conan Books Part 2

So my last article about Conan went quite long.  From here on out, I'm going to try and keep things a little more concise.  Fortunately, the formulaic nature of the franchise will help with that.  Also, I can feel my interest in Conan waning, so after this set, I will be mixing things up more in my reading choices, though I suppose you won't see them until I do my end-of-year article.  As for Conan, I do still intend on getting through the rest of what I planned to read, but the rest of these articles may take some time before I get through.  For now, here's the next four Conan books in my journey.

Recently Watched - 2023 Part 2: Shazam Edition!

Well, things have certainly picked up on my blog lately, haven't they!  When Shazam got closer, I decided to give the first film and the spin-off.  As I am kind of trying to post a little more regularly, I figured these three films could make for an interesting mini-retrospective!

Recently Watched - 2023 Part 1!

So after watching a handful of TV series last year, I debated as to how I should proceed with this year.  Do I try to separate the shows from the movies, or keep it all together as one continuous series through out the year?  I decided on the latter, so my Last Watched format will include both for the foreseeable future.  As such, I plan on covering a pretty wide variety of shows and genres, but I think this will be simpler for me in the long run, instead of having to finagle a bunch of articles at the same time.  So!  Here's what I've been watching lately!

Wandering Through the Hyborean Age - Reviewing Conan Books Part 1

Conan the Barbarian.  Practically a modern-day icon, alongside the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, and Mickey Mouse, it's hard not to at least have heard the name.  However, despite being a fan of fantasy fiction, I hadn't taken the time to really read any of the classic stories from the franchise, so I only knew what could be gathered through cultural osmosis: he's a barbarian, he doesn't wear a lot of clothes, and he's a good fighter.

Nevertheless, in my trips to various used book sales, I had picked up a handful of the Tor novels from the 80s.  I figured they would be worth a read, but as I started looking things up on Wikipedia, I learned that there's a lot more to this character and world than I anticipated.  I decided I didn't want to dive in the middle, but maybe look into reading some of older stuff in an effort to understand the timeline and where the books I had bought fit in.  Of course, that's when I ran into the staggering list of books that fall into the franchise (to say nothing of the different chronologies some folks have put together in an attempt to have it all make sense).  After some consideration, I've decided to focus on the classic Lancer/Ace series (those with the famous Frank Frazetta covers) as my main core, and then reading through the handful of books I have when they show up in the timeline, mainly looking at the William Galen Gray chronology from the above link as my guide.

For what it's worth, I am not planning on reading and reviewing all the Conan books, as there are dozens of them, and that would be just too dang much for me, especially as a series of review articles.  At the moment, my plan consists of the 12 Lancer/Ace books, the 6 Robert Jordan books, and a few others that I've acquired or otherwise caught my interest (such as that new one by S.M. Sterling that came out at the end of last year!).  I figure that should let me cover the classic stories while giving me a pretty good basis of the world and timeline, should I decide to read more.