Movies based on books like this often have the same problem. They’re trying to bring an imaginary world to life… and since the book is both much richer and more vague than the screen, it’s just hard to get right. Half the movie is taken up by trying to explain the characters, and the other half is gadgetry without context. Really the only way to do a movie like this right is like they did with Lord of the Rings – just go completely over-the-top, and make it super long. But, you need a real epic text for that to work. Anyway, this movie was fun to watch for the effects and such, but I really had the feeling that I was being shortchanged somehow.