Everyone knows Tarzan, but how many people know the real Lord of the Jungle? Last month, the ubiquitous figure turned a whopping 100, and to celebrate his legacy, Edgar Rice Burroughs expert Scott Tracy Griffin has collected an enormous, glossy volume filled with rare art, movie stills, and insights on every corner of the Tarzan universe. With Tarzan The Centennial Celebration hitting shelves this week, Griffin has put together a list of a few things your average moviegoer might not know about Burroughs’ creation, complete with a set of exclusive images from the book. Start swinging from vines (er, branches) like a pro after the jump. … Read More
Tarzan
A Brief Guide to Fictional Languages in Literature
This week, we were treated to a great article on the creation of the Dothraki language, as it is spoken in the HBO adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. Inspired by this new insight into the culture of Khal Drogo, we decided to take the opportunity to look into some other interesting fictional languages, from complete universes with many dialects to what amounts to English augmented by very creative slang. Before you rise up in righteous fury, this is only a guide to languages either solely or originally conceived of in books, so nerd-favorites Na’vi and Klingon are excluded — but you’ve already heard too much about them anyway. Click through to read our brief guide to fictional languages in literature, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorites in the comments. … Read More
The Most Durable Film Franchises of All Time
Tomorrow marks the release of The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the latest installment of the surprisingly robust franchise that began way back in 1968 and has withstood five original sequels, a television series, a cartoon series, comic books, and a Terrible Tim Burton Remake™. (Between Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Alice in Wonderland, the Terrible Tim Burton Remake™ has proven a fairly stable subgenre, but I digress.) Though its 40-plus year run makes Planet of the Apes quite a long-running series, its meager seven films (so far) is dwarfed by several other, far more durable film franchises. We’ve collected a few of our favorites after the jump; check ‘em out, and add in your own long-running favorites in the comments. … Read More
Wild Things: Feral Children in Fiction and Mythology
Our culture is fascinated by stories of feral children, endlessly obsessed with the intersection between the wild and the civilized, the place where animals and humans can interact. All children play out Dr. Doolittle fantasies, wishing to talk to animals, or run away with their dogs. At least we pretended that our pets could talk back to us. That’s normal, right? Either way, we’ve been thinking about how feral children fantasies abound in fiction, film and mythology, and thought we’d gather some of our favorites here. The tales are remarkably similar, while each being singular, though we particularly wonder why it is so often wolves that are the caregivers in these stories — they don’t seem to be the wildest or most dangerous thing that could be imagined (hello, lions) or the most human-like. In addition, we think it’s amazing how often the feral children don’t return to society in the end — we would imagine a moralistic tale ending with the child being returned safely to soap and silverware, but that seems to be slightly antithetical to the genre. Click through for our round-up of our favorite fictional feral children, and let us know what you think. … Read More
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