Game of Thrones

At a first glance anyone could say that Game of Thrones, the novel written by George R.R. Martin , is one of those  repetitive tales which do not have the originality to charm the readers. Such has been the fate followed by most of the stories focused on the epic-fantasy genre after the release of Tolkien’s Lord of theRings, however if we just give it a try we will see that this time it’s something far more different than what we expected.

Game of Thrones is the first of a seven novel collection which takes us to the world of the seven kingdoms, a land unified long time ago by the great king Targaryen from the cinders of war. In this medieval context we will see how the destinies of different royal families will get entangled into a rather dramatic outcome which will decide the future of the whole realm and will unearth terrible dangers of the past.

The narrative technique used by Martin is quite harsh, but at the same time it makes the whole plot much more credible. He writes about sex between family members without hesitation, we can see how cruel and rude the world of game of thrones is with the different scenes we can find throughout the story, because here, it doesn’t matter wether the characters are villains or tender hearted characters, both of them are treated equally by the fate. The reader will find himself sympathizing with characters that were not meant to be liked due to their lack of moral and troublesome past, and by the other hand those who looked to be the chosen ones just because they had more weight on the plot may lose themselves into the devious tendrils of the hatred or will just die.

The way the stories are narrated is not new, nonetheless it’s not used often nowadays in these types of novels, rather than making the events unfold in a lineal way one after the other, game of thrones shows us in many cases the same thing from different points of view. Each chapter is lead by the name of the character who narrates the world from his eyes, and this leads the reader in many cases to see things that looked really important for a different character, extremely distant and pointless for the one describing the reality. This fact helps to create a global perspective of the plot and allows us to understand the choices all the characters choose, taking us to the position of a god wise entity with the purpose to create our own opinion about the story.

Unlike the standar epic-fantasy novels the world of the seven kingdoms is not what the average reader would expect to be, this means that we won’t find elves, dwarves or powerful sorcerers, instead of that, the arcane world will come along the story slowly creating a more tense atmosphere each time we get deeper into the plot.

Game of Thrones is what the lovers of these genre have been waiting for years, an original novel with a mature treatment of the elements which create this new and amazing world.

In Time

This film presenst us an original point of view about a concept which rules all our lives, the time. Leaving the truisms apart, “In Time” gives to the time itself, a new value, a value which may not be fair since it turns it into an unnatural element which tyrannizes the fates of all the characters of the film. The time is not treated as a part of the nature that exists in everything, isntead of that it turns into a kind of currency exchange that measures the lenght of the lives of all the people involved in the story. However, despite having such an interesting focus about the human destinies, the film lacks some reality when it comes to the way the events unfold.

The film takes place in a fictitious city in the year 2116. In this near future the human beings have been able to supress the gen which makes them age, therefore they are immortals. However once they turn 25 they instantly die due to a heart attack, and the only way they have to avoid the death is to get more time for themselves by working. The time has become the global currency in the world and it is shown in the biological watches all the humans have in their forearms. This leads to an uneasy context where all the people live in a cruel system where they have to fight to keep themselves alive at any cost, by working under unfair laws or by stealing other people’s lifetime. William Salas, a man who lives in one of the poorest ghettos of this city will try to find a way to destroy this system in order to free all the people of the world.

The main idea of the film is quite interesting, and it makes the watcher feel nervous while they see how the main characters time runs out, nonetheless that’s the only attractive part the film has. The rest of the features of the story are filled with comercial stereotypes and cliches which turn the film plot into a really predictable joke. William is the typical charming guy who has a phrase for anything that happens, and besides that everything he plans turns out the way he wants, including the part where he meets the pretty woman of the tale. None of the characters end up in the watchers minds by anything they did or the way they looked like, since all of them are really empty when it comes to personality terms.

In few words, “In Time” is the perfect film you could watch if you want to have some fun one of those tiresome Sundays at which there is nothing to do.