Unpopular Opinions

lookout its a whole bunch of drama queens... run!!!!!

Fair enough DragonRider; I've only seen Fear and Loathing followed by a few random youtube videos my friends were gawking over like a sermon from Jesus Christ himself. Seems my view of his works may be too limited; I figured Fear and Loathing was typical of his doings.

You cannot judge Hunter S. Thompson's work by a movie, especially one he didn't write, and most especially not one starring Johnny Depp.
Read 'Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail' before passing judgment.

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Originally Posted by Gandalf_The_Grey

Fair enough DragonRider; I've only seen Fear and Loathing followed by a few random youtube videos my friends were gawking over like a sermon from Jesus Christ himself. Seems my view of his works may be too limited; I figured Fear and Loathing was typical of his doings.

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Yeah, some people do take their HST worship a bit far, and mostly for all the wrong reasons. He's great, but not for the drug use, or for the movies, or for the interviews.

Here is my Unpopular Opinion on the subject: Fear and Loathing is not a very good movie, and people who think it is great are just into the drug scene aspect of it. They are really missing out on what Thompson was all about: writing, language and social commentary. Very little of that comes through in the movie.

Some books just do not adapt well to the screen. Did you read Dune, and did you see Dune the movie? The book was great, and the movie sucked by comparison. The reason is that all the action in the book is internal. It's all about what different people are thinking as a scene plays out, not about what they are doing or saying on the outside. They are constantly playing mental games, trying to outwit each other, guessing at the enemy's motives, so there is nothing to show on screen.

Fear and Loathing is not as good as a movie as it is as a book, because the best thing about the book is how things are described, not the actual scene or setting itself. The same thing is true for Hitchhiker's Guide. If you strip out the description and just show what was described it comes off weak.

I also think Thompson does not come off well in interviews. I've only seen one or two, and I only really remember seeing him once on Letterman. He doesn't deliver as well in person as he doen in his writing.

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Originally Posted by psteve

Read 'Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail' before passing judgment.

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Yes! This one was good and so was The Great Shark Hunt. If you weren't around for Nixon or Watergate, then some of the stuff in some of these books is hard to grasp. I don't remember any of it firsthand, but I learned a lot about it (in a twisted kind of way) from reading some of HST's books. In the late 80's Thompson wrote a weekly column in the SF Chronicle, and I remember some of those as being absolute genius, but maybe it had more impact because it was all current, instead of reading about something I didn't live through personally. Some of the articles were compiled into Generation of Swine, which was an OK book too, but maybe not as good as earlier ones. If you like the artwork of Ralph Steadman, then The Curse of Lono is also entertaining, but it's not really a serious commentary in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by dragonrider

He was doing some ironic social commentatry in a very unorthodox way...... I enjoy reading Thompson more for the WAY he says things than for WHAT he says.... Seeing the scenes acted out is really kind of sad and depressing. ... All the language is gone, and it really loses all the humor in the interpretation.

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I feel that the most valuable part of the DVD is the interview with HST in the 'extras' at the end. You get far more of a sense for his intelligence. Just as I never paid much attention to Marilyn Manson before seeing him actually do a proper interview on that Bowling for Columbine movie.

And for the record... this thread is called 'unpopular opinions', not 'bash other races, sexual orientations, and cultures; and hell, other members while we're at it'.

Ahem.

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Originally Posted by stinkyattic

I feel that the most valuable part of the DVD is the interview with HST in the 'extras' at the end. You get far more of a sense for his intelligence. Just as I never paid much attention to Marilyn Manson before seeing him actually do a proper interview on that Bowling for Columbine movie.

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I missed that HST interview. I would have liked to have seen it. But the best way to appreciate him is to actually read someting he wrote.

And I agree on Marilyn Manson. I had no use for him at all unitl I saw that interview, and he came off as one of the smartest people in the whole movie.

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Originally Posted by dragonrider

on Marilyn Manson. I had no use for him at all unitl I saw that interview, and he came off as one of the smartest people in the whole movie.

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I don't know if this will be popular or unpopular, but I was the same way about George Michael. I had less than zero respect for him until I saw this video.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXHic5cmq9w[/youtube]

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Originally Posted by psteve

I don't know if this will be popular or unpopular, but I was the same way about George Michael. I had less than zero respect for him until I saw this video.

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OOPS!
Sorry for posting a crappy, edited version of that video!
Here's a better copy so you can actually HEAR the words.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1KVy3LGIIQ&feature=related[/youtube]