Tag Archives: Stephen R. Lawhead

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Viewing report: ‘The Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of the Merlin

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As you’re likely aware, The Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of the Merlin, based on Stephen Lawhead’s Arthurian novel series, is now available on Amazon Prime. I am watching, and am impressed. This is high-quality filmmaking. I tend to watch movies and miniseries with a skeptical eye, but I honestly didn’t have a single moment where I thought, “They’re cutting corners here.”

I have a conflicted relationship (wholly in my imagination) with author Stephen Lawhead. When I set out to write my Erling saga, I looked around for a Christian novelist who was doing the same sort of thing, and Stephen was all I found. (There may have been others; there was no internet at the time. All I knew was the books I saw in bookstores.) The career I dreamed of involved my gradual advance into parity with him. In my imagination, I’ve been engaged in a zero-sum competition with him every since, and he’s got all the marbles.

There’s a kind of villainous character who shows up now and then in movies and TV shows. I can’t think of an example offhand, but I’m sure you’ve seen such characters. This villain is a small, unprepossessing man, and he’s obsessed with somebody else’s success. “He stole everything from me!” this villain will say. “All that money he’s got, all that acclaim! It should have been mine! I’m the real genius! He stole everything from me!” And then he goes on to describe his diabolical plan to blow up a city, or something.

I’m a little like that guy in regard to Lawhead. I grudgingly admit he was doing it before I did, and I can’t deny he did it (and does it) well. He deserves his success. I have some quibbles with some of his books, but he’s a fine author.

My envy, in fact, is purely envy. It has no rational foundation at all.

Does that mean I won’t urge you to watch The Rise of the Merlin?

Not at all. Please watch it. Recommend it to your friends. Run those viewer numbers up, so there’ll be a second season.

Maybe then the film industry will realize the world is hungry for Christian historical fantasy. And they’ll find me. And I’ll get that movie deal I’ve been dreaming of.

And, oh yes, I work cheaper than Lawhead…

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Trailer: ‘The Pendragon Cycle’

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In spite of the cosmic injustice that has made Stephen R. Lawhead more famous and successful than me, I figure I’ll showcase my generosity of spirit by posting the trailer above, for the Daily Wire’s coming production of The Pendragon Cycle.

You can’t always tell from trailers, but it looks to me as if it might possibly not be awful. One doesn’t look for great historical authenticity, of course (as if I know enough about the ancient Britons to be able to judge), but I’d probably watch it if I had a Daily Wire subscription. Doubtless it will become available through some other venue, down the line.

It’s an odd thing – back in my day, money spent on making a movie generally provided some clue to quality of production. A production that looked cheap usually skimped on talent as well.

But today, most of the technical bells and whistles are available to any amateur working in his/her basement, with only a moderate investment. And the big studios dump sufficient money to fill small lakes into one bloated, CGI-laden project after another, and produce consistent dreck.

So I wish the Daily Wire people, and Stephen Lawhead too, all the best in this.

One of these days (probably shortly after my death), my Erling books will get their turn. I choose to believe that, because that’s the game I chose to play in my life, and it’s too late now to sign onto a tramp steamer.