h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I never noticed anything wrong with his nature when I was a child.

And we loved Winnetou, too. I never read a Karl May book, though.

I know what you mean. I read 'Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates' as a kid. Lots of times. I thought it was cool.

Now, I have no idea what in that book would annoy a Dutch person. I'll bet something would, though.

I ran across a great novel, oh, a long time ago. I can't remember the title or author. It was a pretty interesting idea: A group of German POWs escape from a prison camp in Arizona during World War II. They have the crazy idea they're going to go live with the Indians in the area. They've all read *lots* of Karl May...

The author, who was from Arizona, imagined what the guys on the rez would have to say about Winnetou...

I remember another great exxample: the awful US tv series 'Philadelphia'. We watched the pilot episode. Yuck.

They shot some of the footage in Philly. They didn't bother to get it right, though. We've been on juries in that city, and what went on in that series was an insult to the fine lawyers and judges of the Philadelphia court system. Nobody would let a judge put her dog on the bench. They also didn't seem to know that criminal cases aren't tried in City Hall, but in the new building. Lawyers and judges broke the law all the time, had sex in strange places...I think we would have noticed...

It's funny, but I am usually not overly critical when it comes to books (or TV). If it is entertaining, I don't ask for more - mostly.
There is a certain style of writing I'm not fond of (we had a discussion about it somewhere), but I don't have a gripe with most things I read. I agree that people with knowledge about the topic will be a lot more critical. Ignorance is bliss at times.

Yes. Until you try to get a ship captain to marry you, and find out that's just in books and movies...

Hi there Bel and Dmitri! Dmitri, I enjoyed your piece. I liked Mark Twain's criticism of poor James Fenimore Cooper as well ... though I do think it was a bit harsh! In my own case, I also tend to pardon many errors so long as it's entertaining. But I must say, books are not nearly so bad as movies. If I had to be bothered by glaring errors then I'd hardly be able to appreciate any movie!

I know what you mean, Willem. I think it's a matter of degree. There are errors that spoil a story, and errors or minor changes that don't make a difference, maybe.

Personally, I find that a story in which the natural world behaves unnaturally - merely for the convenience of lazy writers - is boring and not worth my time.

I'll put up with a fair amount of silliness in science fiction, though.

We used to laugh a lot about this film:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063415/

Peter Sellers wears a wrist watch in an historical film...

Nice read, Dmitri.

I almost dabbled in the subject once when I wrote about Grey Owl (A53811777). He seemed to transcend his upbringing as a Sussex delinquent to produce some very authentic backwoods writing, even to the extent of impersonating a Native American and leaving a trail of broken marriages, petty crime and beaver home movies across the continent.

That's true. Grey Owl is one of those interesting cases where somebody *really* does his research.

Here's another example: Ruth Beebe Hill wrote a fascinating book about the Lakota called 'Hanta Yo'. Apparently, her exaggerated claims as to its authenticity raised controversy:

http://printedpages.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/hanta-yo-by-ruth-beebe-hill/

I just read about Grey Owl. I never heard of Grey Owl. .

Hastings???

Many aspects of this weird and wondrous world come to light on hootoo. . Thanks for knowledge.

Hey there again Dmitri (and everyone else also). Bel, I found that movie funny also! Would like to see it again in fact.

Dmitri, have you watched 'Avatar' yet? Now there's a movie that went a billion light years with the special effects, and a few millimetres when it came to the plot. There are several dozen really hard to swallow aspects, from serious plot elements such as the motivation for their being there in the first place, to little details of the design of the creatures/plants/landscapes etc. But I still enjoyed the movie!

What bothers me most of all are the 'skwoo the viewer' kinds of 'mistakes'. Meaning the people who made the movie really knew these were mistakes but they figured the average viewer would be too dumb do notice, and the few more intelligent/informed viewers ... well, skwoo them, the attitude seems to be. There are a heck of a lot of those. What bothers me a lot is something many other people wouldn't even notice. Such as South American monkeys (capuchins, typicall) being used when the scene is supposed to be in Africa, or Hawaii being used (which is generally the case) for 'jungle' scenes supposedly in South America, Africa or Asia. Or worse when they put a bunch of potted palms in a studio and we're supposed to believe it's an outside jungle scene!

Then there's for instance the ridiculousness in the latest Transformers movie of the guys on the Moon suddenly going to the dark side from the site where they landed (the Sea of Tranquility, which is well within the 'Non-dark' face of the Moon) in a few minutes, no explanation.

But anyways. I wondered about the bit where Mark Twain said the job of the author was to make the reader love the good guys and hate the bad guys. Now me, I'd like my reader to have a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards both. I want my 'good guys' to not be too obviously good, I want the reader to at least be a bit puzzled about them. But I do want the reader at some point to realise that they are indeed 'good guys'. And my bad guys, I want the reader to have an idea why they are bad, to have some sympathy towards them.

Did you ever watch 'Leon', Willem? Now he's a bad guy, but I still loved him and wanted him to escape.

I did see it a while ago ... here it was released under the name 'The Professional'. Can't remember much about it, will have to watch it again sometime. But in real life I doubt that hitmen are at all loveable! Still there's always a reason for them being like that ...

That's what I meant: they managed that the spectators sympathised with someone as bad as a hitman!

You should all watch the tv series 'Dexter'. The main character is a serial killer... He is quite sympathetic, in fact. If you can manage to get the audience to cheer when you kill Jonny Lee Miller, you're doing something. Of course, Miller was playing a motivational speaker, and we all hate them...

I agree that I am not totally onboard with Twain's assertion that there are 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. Personally, I dislike Tom Sawyer, and wish him at the bottom of the Mississippi. Whereas I identify with Huckleberry Finn, like any right-thinking Irish kid would...

I wrote a story about hitmen ... actually hitwomen. I deliberately started out with something that should revolt the reader, and then tried from there to work it towards the reader understanding what made them what they were. I don't know if the story works.

Sounds interesting. If it's not too long, you might want to send it to the AWW. (Or wait until the move, and send it in for the new challenges venue.)

Urmmm ... it's about 700-800 pages with most of that being pseudo-nietschean-philosophy rants ... without which I'm not sure it would be possible to understand the main character at all. Like I said, I don't know if the story works.

I doubt if we could deal with that online, you're right. Or collective attention spans are too short.

Well I won't want to inflict it on anyone here! Anyways I'd like to see 'Dexter' ... but I don't have TV at the moment.