Awww, it would have been awesome to have you there, Czarine. Darn stupid time zones, huh?
And TDIT, if you refer to my post with the times in it, I made a few adjustments and took the Sunday night/Monday morning session out completely as it just wouldn’t have worked out anyway. I added in a session on Thursday night/Friday morning instead, so let me know if that will work better for you. It’s always nice to have more than one session planned, even if we can’t make all of them.
I’ll probably either add some kind of announcement into my siggy or actually make a siggy for the session so we can hopefully get some more people together for it. Last time it was so last-minute, not many got the message, I think…
I finally watched HTTYD today, and it became my #2 as far as Dreamworks films go, shortly behind Kung Fu Panda.
Both are highly recommended over anything else from that studio.
And Toothless is awesome. Pure Chris Sanders genius.
I really, really, really LOVED this movie. Gosh, it was so emotional and I was even on the verge of crying at some parts, especially when the film really emphasized on [spoil]Hiccup and Toothless’s friendship[/spoil]. It was really touching and heartwarming. The action sequences were friggin’ awesome and epic too, especially near the climax of the movie [spoil]with the giant dragon[/spoil]! It was my first time watching a movie with 3D glasses too, so it made my movie experience incredible and just so much fun!
Thanks for organising an extra session, little_chef. I think ‘Thursday’ looks good to me, too! Hopefully we don’t run out of things to talk about (then again, that never happened for Pixar’s films, so I don’t think there’ll be a problem with Dragons either).
Glad you enjoyed the film, totoro and Danachii. Hope to see you on the chat sessions so we can talk more about it!
As they say in the Singapore army, “Own Time, Own Target”. If you’re lucky, some fans might be able to turn up for Monday’s one. I’m aiming for the Tuesday and Wednesday timeslot, if you wanna chat with me. Lookin’ forward to talkin with ya!
…
As I’m sure some of you are aware, I’ve been doing film reviews as an unpaid contributor to my university’s student publication (If you haven’t seen my reviews for Monsters vs Aliens and Up, they should be in their respective threads. ). I informed my editor (a different one from last year) that I’ll be reviewing HTTYD on my own, and she said she’d love me to give it a go. After watching Dragons and being thoroughly impressed, I crafted a favourable review within the 160 word limit and sent it to her. It was printed a few weeks ago, but I was busy to upload it here during assessments. Now that I’m on winter vacation, here’s my article for y’all to have a look…
[size=75]Ignore the random doodles… [/size]
Here’s the unedited copy I sent to the editor:
And here’s the final published version:
Although it’s a different editor, they both weren’t impressed by my jibes at DW…
Just wanted to remind everyone of tonight’s session! I’m not sure what time I’ll be back home tonight, but if I’m a little late go ahead and start without me, get some discussion going in the meantime.
How about I throw out a few topics to keep our thoughts going tonight? Most of this has been touched on previously, but it’s always nice to go over your thoughts again, and hopefully we’ll get some new voices in here during the next few sessions. Usually we end up talking about a little bit of everything and come up with new topics during the discussion, but we can use these as a sort of guide if we end up with dead air (which usually doesn’t happen often, but in the very likely chance that it could, we’ll have a bit of backup):
Favorite characters and why they appeal to you
Character development (or lack thereof)
The film as compared to previous Dreamworks releases
The film as compared to Pixar’s better works
… to name a few.
I’m thinking of pulling together a small list of discussion topics for each session, and for the final session I think it would be neat (not to mention fun and possibly crazy ) to have a time to discuss fan art and fan fiction for the film, sharing favorite film-related pieces (or some of your own!) and discussing them. And it’s fun to laugh at the really horrible stuff too, so I can see us having a lot of fun with that. Let me know what you think, and if it sounds like a good idea to everyone, we’ll make it a plan.
Anyhow, I hope to see you all at tonight’s session!
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TDIT: Great review, but I’m a little sad they took out the jab at Dreamworks - that was so in your character to write something like that. It must feel great to get your stuff, even if it’s a short column like that, published, and you do such a great job at it too.
Also, the little smileys you drew in made me laugh. xD
Nice review there, thedriveintheatre! I agree with little_chef though, it’s a shame they took out your jibes at Dreamworks. Still, nonetheless it’s a very well-written review.
I’d say they took out the Dreamworks jibes because you used “I” a lot in that paragraph; the review shouldn’t be personal, but instead reach out to everyone reading. The use of “I” in a review alienates the reader. I liked the rest of it, though.
Okay, I think I’m going to have to scrap tonight’s session as well… I’m almost an entire hour late and absolutely no one has shown up, so at this point it’s almost a lost cause. Come on, guys, have some more enthusiasm!
Anyhoo, hopefully I’ll see you all Wednesday night instead. I’m a little disappointed we have to scrap the one tonight, but there’s always another go, and it’s really not a big deal if we end up throwing out a session completely.
All right everyone, don’t forget about tonight’s session, which starts in about 15 minutes! We’ll use the list of topics I posted the other day as a guide in case things get quiet.
I have to say I really enjoyed it. My parents and I went to see it at the AMC in Ft. Worth while my brothers were out. I felt pretty guilty for not taking my boyfriend to it, though. He really wanted to see it, so when I told him, I had the “errrk!” feeling. We talked about seeing it at the dollar theater as a “late birthday movie date”, but it’s no longer in theaters in my area. So we’re going to Toy Story 3 instead =3
One of the things I really didn’t like about the movie was how the “bully group” were all practically punks. I didn’t like it even BEFORE I saw the movie. Why? I was also pretty surprised when Toothless showed his teeth. Until then, I had thought he was a baby, because my boyfriend told me he didn’t have teeth (at all). It made me think "Yeah…I’m not telling him about this O_O "
My favorite scene was Hiccup’s reaction to the “hat” that his father gave him . It was one of those things that had me giggling at the wrong time in the movie after it happened.
Hey guys, I’ll probably be like an hour or so late for tonight’s session, so feel free to start the discussion and I’ll just pop in whenever. I have a friend over, so we’ll be playing video games for a while, so I’m not sure when I’ll get done.
Your boyfriend’s description seems to be based on the book, where Toothless is a baby dragon without teeth (earlier versions of the film had him as a Terrible Terror). Apart from some character designs and names, I gather that the movie has little similarity to the book.
I’ve found a LINK to a preview of ‘The Art of How to Train Your Dragon’ book. Apparently there were signed copies by Nico Marlet (one of the few non-Pixar artists I admire), but there’s currently none in stock.
And here’s the Korean poster, which I have to say is the second-best one after the iconic ‘ET’ version.
Korean Toothless is beautiful. This is probably equal with the ET-esque poster, and considerably better than that first one I saw (the basic picture is on the back of the soundtrack booklet), which makes Toothless’ head look like a Gastly. Oh, that one almost made me reject the film instantly. Good thing I saw the ET-esque one and thought “this just might work”.
Anyway, fellow Australians might be interested to know that the DVD will be released here on the 21st of October, according to the Sanity (store chain, for those who don’t know) website.
Darn stupid time zones, huh?
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) to have a time to discuss fan art and fan fiction for the film, sharing favorite film-related pieces (or some of your own!) and discussing them. And it’s fun to laugh at the really horrible stuff too, so I can see us having a lot of fun with that. Let me know what you think, and if it sounds like a good idea to everyone, we’ll make it a plan. 
