September 2015 Doings and Things

Dragon*Con 2015 will be this weekend and I have been scheduled to participate in five sessions so far. I am keeping the details updated on the Middle-earth and Tolkien Blog. I have 1 panel on Saturday (Game of Thrones fans will want to see that one), "Middle-earth vs. Westeros". It falls to me to speak of death in two literary worlds.
The rest of my sessions are on Sunday.  There will be sessions about "Middle-earth vs. Star Wars" and I'll be doing a solo session titled "Weird Questions that Tolkien Fans Ask".  I do hope people can drop by for that one.  It's important that the Tolkien Track keep the room occupied (and my legendary ego has NOTHING to do with this request ).

Elsewhere on the Internet I am still hoping to visit Hallowcon in Dalton, GA this Halloween.  But in October I'll be organizing another "All Seeker's Eve" online celebration for Legend of the Seeker fans.  This is a great time of year for fans to show their creativity with costumes, artwork, music videos, etc.

And though I haven't written much about "Falling Skies" anywhere on the Internet over the past few years, I have watched the show faithfully every season.  I was not very happy with the past couple of seasons but I stayed until the end.  I liked most of the characters and the story arc plays out well.  My biggest disappointment was the way Pope (played by Colin Cunningham) turned out.  I think it was a suitable progression for the character.  I just always hoped there would be redemption for him, but in reality not everyone can be redeemed.

Pope is important to the whole show's premise.  People don't stop being who they are (or who they became) just because there is a war on.  Pope was always one of the most interesting characters to me.

I also enjoyed Will Patton's performance as Weaver.  The writing for his character was spotty, and I'm not sure why.  Maybe they just had to make room for the other characters in the ensemble cast.  There are some Weaver sub-plots that just disappointed me.  But overall I loved the character and I think Will Patton did a great job.

Noah Wylie of course played an incredible transformative character in Tom Mason.  There was a scene earlier this season where he had a confrontation with Pope over a decision Mason made.  Wylie turned to Patton (Mason to Weaver) and asked, "Did I make the wrong call?"  Weaver replied, "No, you made the right call.  I was just remembering when you would have gone the other way."  That scene captures a lot of character in it and they played it perfectly, in my opinion.

So, those are my bloggy SF thoughts for now.  If you will be at Dragon*Con please say "hi".  And I know what the crowds are like.  I've been there before.  :)
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