Although it’s a few months away I’ve began my watch through of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies for when Infinity War is released. My plan is to have watched all of the movies that are available on BluRay by the time Black Panther is released.
I love these movies, the way each one works on its own but is also part of that bigger picture. It’s quite exciting to be on the brink on what has been building for the last decade.
I’ve only just started reading Stephen King’s The Gunslinger and I have not really had much chance to sit for more then twenty minutes at a time to get into it but its pretty good so far 😀 One thing that is exciting me is diving into a whole new universe. I have no idea what type of story this is or what genre it’s in or much about any of it to be honest, except it is supposed to be the beginning of a great story. That is what is exciting me at the moment. Quite often I wish I could erase all knowledge of a TV series like Battlestar Galactica or the Phase 1 movies of the Marvel movies building up to The Avengers. This is because I have no hints as to what any of them are building up to or may contain. This is what I have with this Book, for those of you who may not know The Gunslinger is the first book in a series called The Dark Tower, and this is a world that I have no idea of. Before I started reading The Gunslinger all I knew of it was the gunslingers first name, the first line of the first book, the series name and who wrote the books.
I know nothing else at all, I’ve not wiki’d it, I’ve not read any reviews of it or goggle’d it. I am going to discover this story with each sentence read, each turned page. This is how we should discover fiction, totally blind.
I have seen some very good movies this year, and some very bad ones too, but lets not focus on those but let’s look at what was good. Some of these movies may not have been released this year, but if I say the movie for the first time this year then it is eligible.
I’m going to start at the top;
I’ve got a couple of honorary mentions here. The first is The Rocky Horror Picture show, Dead Silence, Sinister, Ted and The Women In Black. All good movies which I wanted to mention as they left a lasting impression on me.
I hope that you have all had an amazing Christmas? I know that I have had my best Christmas since childhood, by a long way if I’m honest. It was pretty relaxed and there was a lot of fun had 🙂 I managed to knock out about sixty pages of The Hunger Games Christmas Day. It was nice to be able to just sit down and read without thinking about having one of a dozen other things to do. I did get Stephen King’s The Dark Tower books for Christmas as well so I want to get started on them as soon as I can.
I’ve watched a few good movies (Ted, The Avengers (Avengers Assemble here in the UK) The Dark Knight Rises and The Rocky Horror Picture Show), had a Nerf gun fight, ate some really good food. Spent time with my nearest and dearest and all in all it was a really good couple of days 🙂
There’s little time to rest though as I’ve been back at work today and for just a few days things will be back to normal, till New Years Eve at least. This is always an odd time of the year. Unless you’re lucky enough to have the entire Christmas and New Year period off then the days feel odd. Like today for example it has felt like monday all day. Weird. I do love this time of year but I hate how it knocks me off my mental calendar.
Before New Year I’ve got a few days of work and I’m hoping to get down to Owen’s because he has a few notes for Project Apollo which in turn are a few notes for The Space Watch (Project Apollo). I’ll let you all know how that goes.
*Geekasm Blog Post Warning*
I went and saw Avengers Assemble and can I just say, WOW! This film lived up to my expectations, and then some, it was epic.
For those of you that do not know The Avengers is about a group of superheros who are brought together to fight off a pending alien invasion. The invasion is being led by the fallen Loki (see the movie Thor) and he has this alien army to lead so they can take over earth, and he will have rule over earth as the aliens. The Chitauri will then invade the rest of the galaxy, but they cannot do that until Loki opens a portal using the Tesseract which is a power source. While he is giving his mind controlled scientists the time to make the portal stable he causes The Avengers chaos, first tearing them apart, but his actions, one in particular pulls them back together and that’s when it gets FUN 😀 Before that happens Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) brings The Avengers together. Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Bruce Banner, also known as The Hulk, form The Avengers.
Hawkeye and Black Widow are already part of the organisation known as S.H.I.E.L.D This is the organisation the Fury is the director of. Loki uses a spear/lance style weapon that has a power source similar to that of the Tesseract. PArt of this weapons ability is to control the minds of humans, and Hawkeye succumbs to this mind control early on in the movie.
Agent Phil Coulson, another S.H.I.E.L.D agent, is sent to recruit Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man as Black Widow is sent to recruit Bruce Banner, also known as the Hulk. Fury brings in Captain America who is having a little trouble coming to grips with being frozen for seventy years and everyone he knew having died. Eventually Hawkeye regains the control of his body and joins The Avengers as the entire team comes together to stop Loki’s alien army entering through a portal that he has opened above Stark Tower in New York, and this is where all the build up pays off. Dont get me wrong the build up wasnt boring in any way and it was great seeing how the team got put together and seeing the various personality clashes throughout the early parts of the film. When Thor arrives and has a smack down with Iron Man and Captain America that is especially impressive. But it is when The Avengers come together and become a team, that’s what I want to see. To see The Avengers fight as a team and kick some alien BUTT. The final battle is epic, especially when The Hulk takes out the first of the alien crafts that has come through the portal, that is well cool 🙂
Joss Whedon really puts a strong film together here. It had the potential to be a tricky movie to create as there was so many different characters to put together. Whedon is very good with characters and dealing with big casts and add to that how he’s handled the structure of the story then Whedon’s done a bloody good job of knitting the film together.
I can safely say that this will be a film that gets added to my DVD collection when it comes out. If you’ve liked the Marvel films that have led up to this film then I think you’ll like this epic movie.
I’m looking forward to seeing where Marvel take the franchise from here 🙂
I’m finding that ideas are flowing quite well at the moment but getting them down onto paper is a different story. The grey matter is still working and the ideas that I am having are mainly world building ideas which are making two worlds that I write in feel like they will have more depth when I go back to working on them. Another idea that I have is that I have is gaining some ground because a TV series that I am watching on DVD is of a similar idea (Thanks to my girlfriend for getting me that for my birthday 🙂 )
This lack of being able to write is getting to me now as I am even struggling to write blog posts! I have three blog posts partly written which I just cannot wrap up. Add in a writing partner argument which has come close to ending the partnership and a number of non-writing life issues I am more than a little frustrated at the moment (including computer/laptop issues), but it is the lack of being able to write (and Edit) that is driving me crazy.
As I’ve said in previous posts I am still having ideas and the ideas are getting stronger which I think means the actual writers block is lifting and that I just need to beat the fatigue from a long working week before I am back to writing again.
In other areas I am still reading ESTRA Corp. by Christopher Stocking. I thought I would have had this read by now, but falling asleep almost as soon as I get home has slowed my pace a little. I have just got to a bit which has thrown a little surprise at me so I’m keen to see where Mr. Stocking is taking that little thread. I’ll have a couple of hours where I can get stuck into the story today so hopefully I’ll have it wrapped up soon.
I recently saw The avengers or Avengers Assemble as its titled over here in the UK and I will just say “WOW” There will be a post about that in the next few days hopefully.
In the last week I’ve also re-listened to the audio books of The Caves Of Steel and I, Robot by the master that is Issac Asimov which has been very eye-opening. I think where I’ve grown as a writer since I listened to them last I am finding much more appreciation for the skill with which they are written and the strength of content within them. Asimov was truly a pioneer of the genre and I must discover more of his work. I may readFoundationagain soon.
As always feel free to follow and ‘Like’ me on Facebook and Twitter respectively, those links are on the right hand side of your screen and hopefully the words will move from my head onto paper before too long 🙂
Peter Germany's World 