2021: First Written Post

 Well, it's been a while since I've actually written a blog post, opposed to just sharing news here. And with the recent publications, a lot of has been one-sided in the favour of Tolkien publications.

I wanted to take a moment to write, and to momentarily escape from covid by writing. Hopefully you can find some slight escape by reading this post.

TV SHOWS

With the advent of HBO Max, a lot of Warner Bros. material (as well as the Max originals, of course) are making their way to Crave (I live in Canada, and that's how we get HBO here). There are different rights and contracts for different countries. That's why US Netflix may seem better than Canadian Netflix. Mark my words, though - I see everything that WB owns eventually making its way to Crave, once the licensing/deals expire elsewhere (ie, if Netflix signed a contract with WB to stream all the Harry Potter movies until 2022, then expect them to appear on Crave in 2022, or 2023).

Speaking of Netflix, I've re-evaluated my Netflix subscription. Rather than paying every single month, I'll be re-subscribing on a show-to-show basis.

Elsewhere, I'm looking forward to watching all of The Falcon + The Winter Soldier On Disney+. Most times, I prefer to wait until a season of a show is completed before starting. Loki also seems promising. Wanda Vision, however good it might be, did not appeal to me. For me, a show needs to start strong, and keep going. One thing I can't stand is relying on cliffhangers or easter eggs to get people interested. Plus it doesn't help that I wasn't interested enough in these secondary characters to see them get their own show. 

MOVIES

My next blog post (expect it this week sometime) will be detailing Justice League (2017) VS (Zack Snyder's) Justice League (2021). I'll share my thoughts on both versions of the film, but I will say that the 2021 edition is much better than the 2017 one. That being said, if, say, your niece or nephew is interested in live action DC, and hasn't seen any of the DCU films going from Man of Steel - present, then the 2017 may be better suited for them. From there, they could watch Aquaman, Wonder Woman,  and Shazam. Those are 'kid friendly' enough and don't require much - if any - 'other' movies in order to understand them.

To continue the comic book discussion, I'll be switching over to Marvel.

With the Infinity Saga finished with, I'll be checking out the various Marvel movies on the factor of their interest to me. With the Infinity Saga, it was very clear from the early stages that it would be about the Infinity Stones and Thanos. With the current material, at this point we don't know what the 'big thing' is that they're building towards.

I'm looking forward to Dune. That'll hopefully be my next trip to the cinema, depending on covid (and how effective governments will be....). It's currently due to be released in October. That looks to be one to see in UltraAVX (due to Dolby Atmos).

BOOKS

Lots of book based announcements have been with regards to Tolkien. There are a few other things that I'm looking forward to (Tolkien will get its own segment below). Next up, is Deathly Hallows: Slytherin Edition. I pretty much got those as they came out. With regards to JKR's comments, well, I'm sorry but having a complete set of something is more important than what somebody thinks. If she made her remarks after the house editions were all done, then it'd be different.

I'm also looking forward to the trade paperback edition of The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett (due in June, I believe) as well as the final Bernard Cornwell Last Kingdom book - in the form factor that I have the rest of the series in.

I believe that it for the year with regards to books. I got a brand new Kobo for Christmas. I do like ebooks and real books, however, space will soon become an issue and I'll be getting any future titles of interest for the Kobo (ie, a new book series that I have yet to hear of).

TOLKIEN

Now for a general Tolkien update.

Last week the new illustrated edition of The Silmarillion has come out, essentially completing the new style of illustrated editions. It featured all images from the 2004 edition, while adding an additional 4 that, until now, haven't appeared in any illustrated edition.

The 2022 calendar will also be themed around this release, and later this year The Nature of Middle-earth will be getting published. I have a few ideas on what the 2023 calendar can be themed after.

That concludes my catch-up blog post! Stay tuned.....