Right off the bat, the analogy and parallels in The Rings of Power, to the theology and stories in the Bible had me really excited for this show. I watched the show because I'm a Lord of the Rings fan. I didn't expect to find a great discussion between good and evil sprinkled throughout the show. There is theology in here hidden in a high fantasy story.
It must be noted that there is a lot of hate for this show online. I'm not quite sure why though. Yeah there were some head-scratching moments, but none that were enough to deter me from finishing the whole season. My wife who is not a big Lord of the Rings fan like me, actually liked it and keeps asking when Season 2 is going to come out. So there's that.
Anyway, below are some of my thoughts and notes on the pilot episode. Maybe it will sway you one way or another to give the show a chance.
The Chosen is a television show about the life of Jesus, that I never knew I've always wanted. Until this show was created, I didn't even know I would have an appetite for this kind of show. There have been a lot of depictions of Jesus in movies and films, but none tell His story like this show does. The twist here is that the life of Jesus is told from His' followers point of view; that's why it's titled The Chosen.
In this show, you get to see what Jesus was like in the eyes of Simon Peter, James and John (sons of Zebedee), Matthew the tax collector, even from the eyes of Mary Magdala.
In fact, the first episode of Season 1 revolves around Mary Magdala. And it is a beautiful, heart-warming episode. If you've ever felt lost, alone, abandoned, with nowhere else to go, Episode 1 might resonate with you very deeply. Episode 1 is what got me hooked on this show. The ending brought tears to my eyes.
I'll try to make this quick. Me and the wife finished Season 1 and we love it. Can't wait for Season 2. The wife is already digging into the first book. And she's not normally one to read a book just because of a show or movie she watched. But she was really interested in this one. And so am I.
Yes, this show is based off a book, the Grisha Trilogy of books to be exact.
I particularly love the world that was introduced to me in this show. I love the Russian inspired world and lore of the story. I love the language and the words/terminology they use. I love the setting. I love the plot.
They gave me a CX-5 as my loaner car for last week. It was a 2020 Grand Touring Reserve model, which means AWD with the turbo! It was hilariously fast, for a family CUV that is. That Mazda SkyActiv 2.5T engine is strong. Love the power in everyday driving.
Got back my Mazdaspeed3 last Saturday. I'm glad to have it back. But I also have to say that I was so spoiled by that CX-5 turbo loaner car. It was a really good car!
Anyway, cost to repair the leak in the Mazdaspeed3 transmission was $1,071. It was actually the transmission shifting mechanism that was leaking, not the transmission itself. Thankfully it was an affordable repair bill. And that's thanks to an emergency fund set up for times like this.
We were notified last week that we could now get the Covid-19 vaccine. Good timing too, since our state governor decided to reopen Texas 100% and took away the mask mandate.
After two days...
We got our 1st dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. I thought it was going to be a drive-through setup, but it was not. And so we had to bring Davin and Caleb along with us, as we fell in line with other people. Had I known it wasn't a drive-through, we would have left Davin and Caleb at the babysitter.
Thankfully, once we got into the vaccination center, we found it to be a very organized event.
Watched The Mandalorian last week and it kept getting better and better. It culminated in a jaw dropping season finale that in my opinion, has revived interest in the Star Wars story for most fans. If you are a fan of Star Wars, you have to watch The Mandalorian.
Figured out how to convert the “Published” date in Wyam into the GMT equivalent of my local time. You can find my solution here.
Side-note: I am liking the new “discussion” feature on Github.
I found that I could not discuss my thoughts on this show without referencing specific events in the show. So, to try and make this as spoiler free as possible, I hid the major spoilers behind links. You will have to click the links to view the spoilers if you so choose.
Like I said in a previous journal entry, Messiah is a very intriguing show. It really made me question the world we are living in today. For instance, the Messiah's request to... click here for spoiler, was thought provoking. Can you imagine what the world will be like if that happened? I for one cannot. And I cannot even say if that will bring about more good, or more bad. I don't think anyone can, unless they can see into the future. But it is a very interesting scenario to think about.
No spoiler thoughts on Season 1 of The Witcher on Netflix. It is a pretty good show. The story was interesting, though the way it was told was confusing (more on this further below). The fight scenes were great. The dialogue was funny. Geralt's one liners were hilarious. The bard Jaskier was great as comic relief. The soundtrack was pretty good too. I'm assuming the songs composed for the show were original ones? If so, they were pretty good. For awhile after watching the finale, I kept singing, “Toss a coin to your Witcher, oh valley of plenty.” Damn that song is so catchy! There is some nudity, but not enough to make me feel uncomfortable watching it around kids. Certainly not as much nudity as in Game of Thrones.
Okay, so the way they told the story was weird and confusing. The scenes that focused on Ciri represented the current/present time in the story. The scenes focused on Geralt were flashbacks. The show never tells you this though. I only figured it out 4 episodes into the show. The scenes that focused on Geralt, start as flashbacks and progress forward until you get to the last episode of the season. That is where the story of Geralt finally catches up to the present time in the story. It sounds cool now that I think about it, but it ended up confusing me. They could have handled it better I suppose. Still a really good show. I'm looking forward to Season 2.
This post is Day 3 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Visit https://100daystooffload.com to get more info, or to get involved.
Finished watching Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates. Interesting insight into what makes Bill Gates tick. I've already mentioned in a previous journal entry that one of the things I've learned is that he reads a lot. To expand on that, he reads 4-5 books on the same topic to get a good understanding of it. An example shown in the documentary, was his collection of books on “Climate Change”.
While he was working at Microsoft, he worked hard. Probably worked harder than anyone else in the company. That was one of the factors that helped Microsoft stay at the top as one of the best software companies in the world. It probably would have sucked to work for Microsoft during their formative years. I say this because of how much they valued “hard work”. When I say hard work, I mean the kind of work where you come into the office early and leave late. Sometimes not leaving at all until you finish what you are working on. The kind of hard work where work-life balance tilts heavily in favor of work. The not fun type of hard work. My impression was that Bill expected this kind of work ethic from everyone who worked in the company.
So I just watched the pilot episode of this new show, Formula 1: Drive to Survive on Netflix and I am really impressed with it. I used to be a big Formula 1 fan back when I was in college, but have not been keeping up the past few years. Watching the pilot episode has rekindled in me the desire to watch the races again.
I am not even sure how they filmed this. It looks like a movie, like a fictional movie, but it is not. They managed to take real life footage and make it look like a movie. The part in the episode where they were building up to the start of the race was very cool.
I'm used to watching races live. You have the commentators talking with each other, you have the race data on the screen and you see the drivers racing. You never get to see what happens behind the scenes though. And that's what you get to watch in this show.
