it's uncanny valley at the shire!

I bet The Hobbit is the first film where the Director's Cut is a ton shorter. For DVD, you'll be able to get just The Hobbit, with all the Rise of the Dark parts cut out,

I will totally buy this if it happens.

I don't mind the other Necromancer parts being involved, but I do want a Phantom Edit with 60% less troll snot and goblin-battling, and I could live without either prologue: they made the narrative bumpy and confusing.

I don't think PJ has ever heard the term "incluing".

It looks like The Hobbit opens here on the 21st, but I can't tell if it's going to be dubbed or subtitled yet. Also, the theater is in a part of town that's an Orange Zone (meaning we have to clear travel with the security officer, get a driver and an armored vehicle, check in at set times, and absolutely can't be there after dark).

Of course I saw Trilogy Tuesday at the Uptown in DC, so it won't be much different.

I don't think PJ has ever heard the term "incluing".

...Neither have I?

Capsule movie reviews! Taken, The Raid: Redemption, The Debt, Detention, 21 Jump Street, Safe House, Brick, Barton Fink, Whip It, May, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, The Thing (2011), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Survival of the Dead, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and Mysterious Skin.

My new favorite review of The Hobbit: [link]

So funny.

...Neither have I

Incluing is an SFF term invented by Pamela Dean or Jo Walton (or maybe Mike Ford); it refers to the kind of exposition that deposits information gently into the text, rather than in massive infodumps like prologues written as encyclopedia entries, or whatever.

It gives the reader the opportunity to assimilate the information a little more organically and naturally, and doesn't bring the narrative to a stumbling halt (like, for instance, "The Council of Elrond", which is basically the complete opposite of incluing).

I'm disappointed by the lukewarn reviews The Hobbit has been getting, not least of which because I want to see it again and nobody wants to go with me!

[edit: This, however, is totally fair:

"I am so handsome at you right now, Gandalf."]

it refers to the kind of exposition that deposits information gently into the text, rather than in massive infodumps like prologues written as encyclopedia entries, or whatever.

Ah! I like that sort of thing.

I like that sort of thing.

Me, too! It is more rewarding to the reader, as well, in that she gets to say, "Oh, so that is how that works!" instead of yawning through another two-page essay on the mechanism of magic in this particular universe.

There are some writers, however, who take incluing too far. t Stares meaningfully at Pamela Dean Those writers are prone to inclue plot, which can make the story almost impossible to understand without very close reading and rereading.

GRRM does that too. There are huge things I wouldn't have gotten unless people had pointed out the clues to me.