The Old Guard 1 & 2 (Netflix, 2020 & 2025)

I caught up on some TV this weekend, including a movie I’d had on “My List” for some time. I liked it, so I also watched the sequel that just came out this year.  The basic setup follows some beings that don’t stay dead that act as basically the Immortal A-Team.

I didn’t realize that this was based on a five-issue Image comics series by Greg Rucka. (I need to go find it.) I just have one thing to say….

Charlize Theron. Wow. She is now 50 and she just might be the most incredible action star there is.  There is not a lot of plot or backstory in the first movie–just go with it.  The second movie fills it out some, but it suffers from being an obvious “middle movie”–here’s hoping there is an Old Guard 3!

I always have a quibble about something in the way that a movie might set up its universe and rules, and my quibble about this franchise is that I wanted just 1 minute on how they pay for/get supplies for all the weapons (and especially cars) they go through.  They’re not shown stealing much, and as immortals it would be easy enough to have a throwaway line like “the power of compound interest” that would still at least acknowledge it!

However, even I wouldn’t let something like materiel get in the way of a couple of good popcorn flicks.  At the slow rate that I go through My List, I hope the next movie in this series pops up when I’m ready for it.

WW84: The Junior Novel by Calliope Glass (2020)

I know that some of you will accuse me of having junior humour, and you’re not exactly wrong!  But this was the ONLY adaptation of the WW84 film, and curiosity got me.  I don’t know how long the linked review will stay on the internet, but it goes into detail about what is “wrong” with the adaptation. Basically, the story leaves out a lot.

I will disagree on one point. Steve Trevor’s ‘resurrection’ always felt really foolish and verging on the edge of “mind rape,” so this adaptation glossing over it actually makes the story seem better!

As a 149-page retelling this has no addition detail from the film and very frustratingly stops before the film (and story) climax!  Maybe they had a hard stop at 150 pages but that doesn’t explain why there are 5 blank pages at the end, then!

No one needs to look this one up unless you are a hardcore WW collector, in which case you already have it.

Douglas Adams: The Ends of the Earth edited by Arvind Ethan David (2025)

I saw this as a Kickstarter last year and backed it, though not as an earlybird to get every bonus. I did get bonus audio. It came out in June 2025 and I got around to listening to it from the end of September until today.

I admit I had the wrong idea about this audiobook and was initially disappointed, as I looked at the surface for the “from the Adams Archives,” and not the “discussions about topics Adams felt strongly about”.  The main audiobook is about 5 hours with almost the same in the bonus material (which is not available with the public release).

The star of this are the excerpts from Douglas’ speeches. He was an engaging speaker and the bits from the horses’ mouth are the best part.  There are many readings and ‘dramatizations’ of excerpts from all of Adams’ work, which are good to hear. I could have done without most of the sound effects that were added to readings as they were distracting. For a book that wants you to focus on the meanings, it’s a bad choice.

The editor/author of this collection was an intern at Douglas’ company Digital Village and has long been adapting and presenting Adams’ work. His reverence for Douglas borders on fawning at times–we get it, we’re listening already.  As I have found with some other interviewers, they bring a little too much of their own biography into the interviews, which gets repeated since there are multiple interviews collected (essentially one interview per topic).

The collection centers around several topics, which break the book into easy chapters:  Creativity & Writing, Animal Conservation, Tech/Internet/AI, Politics & Capitalism, and Atheism.  David has enlisted a good range of interview subjects, some who knew Adams well.  Stephen Fry was the best of the interviews, although all were interesting.  My perk of bonus audio gave me the full keynote from one of Adams’ conference talks plus the unedited interviews of three of the participants in the book.

A interesting strategy for this audiobook is that it’s being released through podcast app services–you can’t buy it directly as a download (unless you were a kickstarter backer).  You can find out more about it at the link.

I’m glad I got this audiobook as I’ve collected most of what has been written by or published about Douglas Adams. It ranks with  Eoin Colfer’s And Another Thing… as something that a completist will want but that the casual fan will probably skip.