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The future is looking
bright for Jonas
Jonas
announced that he was leaving Robin Hood after filming ends in November
and has been confirmed by the BBC. Am I really in the minority here
when I say / shout “YAY” ?
After all it’s hardly a shock announcement, especially when
you compare it to what TPTB did in the finale. In all the press
interviews, internet, it has been endlessly repeated that the cast
signed on for two years with option for a third one if the series
proved to be successful. So Jonas just followed his contract and has
now decided that it was time to move on to other things.
And
I’m really happy for him that he made this choice. He already
hinted that he was looking forward to end the Robin Hood project back
in November 2007 during BBC Breakfast interview, so it really is just
in the line of his plans.
From
what we have been hearing plot wise it looks like Robin might die at
end of Series 3 BUT that the series could still continue into a fourth
series! Now that does sound sooo wrong!
How
can one have a series called ‘Robin Hood’ without
well...Robin Hood ?!
Unless...unless
TPTB truly decide to change the lead character of the series , meaning
Sir Guy of Gisbourne. I hope I’m wrong!!! But this could
happen: Robin dies in the arms of Much, as his heart has been pierced
by an arrow; and maybe if the writers keep their LOTR devotion, they
could do a lovely “Grey Havens” scene, where Marian
is waiting for Robin. At least it would be some kind of
‘Happy Ending’ , not the one I had in mind but this
could work.
This
of course would mean that Guy of Gisbourne is still alive so cue:
series 4 and we have a ‘Guy of Gisbourne ‘spinoff.
If so good luck Richard with that but I won’t be watching,
sorry!
Jonas leaving RH is
really wonderful news as he’ll be able to pick and choose the
roles he really is interested in doing, instead of having to struggle
to find work. Yahoo news said that Jonas has been offered numerous
roles already this year. I suppose it won’t be long now that
we’ll hear of large movie companies battling to cast him in
his or hers movie first. ;-)
With
Book of Blood finished, and very nearly ready to get a release date,
I’m sure this movie will open many more doors for him too.
Robin Hood has been sold worldwide, and when you visit the JAF forum
it’s clear how many nations are represented by the members.
You can almost compare it to the Olympic Games ;-)
Jonas
is already a great star to us all. He is different in the sense that,
he always gives a very self-assured performance onscreen; but when
he’s being interviewed as ‘Himself’,
he’s still as nervous as we would be! ;-) And I really like
that about him, he’s such a normal guy which is very
refreshing when you see the big stars today.(not going to mention any
names but...)
The future is looking
very bright indeed and his star is going to keep on shining for a very
very long time!
xxx
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August
11th 2008 - Blog part 1
Hello everyone!
I know it’s
been a while, but as you can see I haven’t disappeared *lol*
Just been busy with other
stuff but as that is now finished, I have now time for all things
Jonas-related again. ;-)
Loads of things have
happened in 5 weeks so that’s why I decided to do a two-part
blog.
So where do I start?
Yes, finally
after...can’t remember how many blogs..., I moaned about lack
of new pictures, we all got to see the new lovely, gorgeous, *hot*
picture of Jonas in the July edition of Marie Claire.
We had to wait quite some
months for it, but soooo totally worthwhile! ;-)
The picture was part of a
photo shoot to raise awareness about our planet, and the climate change
that is going on, because of what we’re all doing to it. So
we got Jonas promoting a wonderful cause and as a bonus ...one very
beautiful pic which keeps reminding us of said cause. Wonderful! ;-)
During July we also
learned little snippets of what’s going on, or what we can
expect in series 3 of Robin Hood, thanks to interviews with the lovely
Richard.
It’s still a
bit of a mixed bag for me to be honest. Of course I’m looking
forward to see Jonas on my tv screen again, but...hmm not too sure
about the storylines for series3.
It might be because the
press interviews Richard and not Jonas, that we keep getting info about
what’s going to happen with Guy...but it really is starting
to bother me.
I don’t really
care much...ok I don’t care at all!!! about what Guy is
feeling, or what he is going through. He is a murderer, plain and
simple. He killed Marian so just deal with it already!
The writers can tell us
in interviews or in dvd extra’s and so on, that Guy is a
‘complex’ character but...I strongly disagree! He
is a quite boring villain. And before I get hate mail: I mean GUY not
RICHARD!
I’m actually
feeling a bit sorry for poor Richard as he could have done sooo much
more with that character if the writers had written the part
differently. He’s a straightforward character, wearing all
black for a reason as there are no grey areas at all! I keep referring
to other shows like ALIAS and LOST and BTVS/Angel for a reason as they
all include(d) great and wonderful and even very likeable villains with
sometimes very funny personalities! If Guy had been written like one of
those, I would have understood the whole love triangle a lot more.
Anyway now
we’re about to see Guy not coping with what he did...getting
drunk...being miserable...get a look into his childhood....Wait a
minute , those are the things that I’d like to see/know about
Robin: you know the husband of the victim, not her murderer!!!! *Sigh*
They are also going to
introduce some new female characters...oh oh which probably means, most
definitely new love interest(s) for the widower. Great....how lovely,
just what us Robin & Marian shippers would like to
see.
Yesterday an interview
which dates back in April finally surfaced on the internet with....yes
JONAS!
After months of silence,
finally we got some his thoughts on the whole S2 finale and what we can
expect in Series3. Gosh once again I wished I could jump up and down
with excitement but I can’t really. The whole Lucy thing got
into it, which is still a very sensitive subject as the BBC and
co-stars will most probably never admit what really happened behind the
scenes.
But anyway what shocked
me more than anything was the fact that apparently: Robin Hood is a
show which is “All about action”. Ummm NO? Not to
me it isn’t!
I prefer a good story and
some romance and jokes, and of course some action! But action
can’t possibly take centre stage?
So yes I have serious
doubts about S3, which is a shame as last year I couldn’t
wait for the new season to begin and now I’m a lot more
apprehensive about what they have planned.
I really wish the very
best to the cast and crew with everything and I hope they’ll
amaze me and prove me wrong come first episode of S3. Oh yeah we still
don’t know if it’s January 2009 as a definite start
date, or a maybe 2008. *rolls eyes*
I was wondering whether
or not to add this last little part of my blog as I really
don’t want to sound ‘smug’! But anyways
here it goes: Yes I got a very nice postcard from Jonas as a reply to
the Happy Birthday- Christmas card I sent him back in January.
I really want to say a
very huge thank you, to you Jonas and to your incredibly wonderful
mother for sending me a reply as it came totally unexpected!!!!
Especially as I forgot to add a stamp and envelope! Really sorry about
that! ;-) Your thoughtfulness and generosity is incredible and I really
can’t thank you both enough! Wish you all the best,
Véronique.xxx
Blog part 2: Friendship
The best thing about Jaf
, other than constantly swooning over Jonas, is meeting lovely people
from all over the world!
Everyone has been
incredibly nice from the start, and everyday you seem to make new
acquaintances.
Thanks to an amazing set
of circumstances and well sheer luck I suppose ;-) , I happen to have
bumped into someone all way back in December 2007, who actually became
a really close friend: Rieke!
I think it started with a
fanfic being posted on another site ; followed by the incredible
‘Vote Jonas in the Hello Magazine Poll thread’ and
then doing a nice u-turn through ALIAS, Michael Vartan and ending with
Losing Gemma *LOL*
Anyway thanks to all
those factors, I ended up meeting the lovely Rieke last weekend after
emailing back and forth for quite a while ;-)
Even though I
haven’t attended the convention I did read that everyone got
along straight away, like they’ve known each other for years,
although it was the first time they met.
And I have to say that is
exactly how I felt after 5 minutes of arriving in Aachen. It might
sound weird, but it really was like meeting up with your friends you
have back home. We instantly got into giggling, as you Rieke seemed to
have completely lost your way after 300 meters of leaving the station
;-) Anyway if there was any ‘ice to be broken’ it
got broken after two minutes ;-)
The Robin Hood soundtrack
was playing in the car and after 15 minutes or so...could be more *lol*,
Rieke parked the car for
the rest of the day as she gave me a guided tour through the lovely
city of Aachen. And Aachen is truly a wonderful city, very similar in
atmosphere to Ghent, so I felt immediately at home!
Now I did learn German at
highschool for three years but ummm, well sadly I nearly lost all of it
so we both stuck to the lovely English Language during my four days
visit!
Even though I watch, read
and listen, English on BBC , films, series, internet, daily. I
haven’t spoken English for like over 5 years! So the first
few hours were a bit of a ‘getting into it’ period
;-)
But hey we did manage
more than fine, and come the NTA’s in October we’re
now more than up for it !!!
After visiting the Dom of
Aachen and walking through the city, we left for Rieke’s
place.
Have to say another huge
thank you to your lovely parents as they were absolutely wonderful!!!!
Sooo there you are: two
members of the Jaf forum...what do you think we ended up
doing?
Well yes exactly ...,
utterly predictable but great great fun : Thudding and swooning over
Jonas screencaps and videos of course !!!! *ROTFLOL*
Well that and talking,
you know really sensible discussions over costumes and costume-
malfunctions, scars of all kind , eyebrows and eye colours : Jonas has
BLUE eyes if anyone was wondering *lol*, different types of smiles,
chesticles, bumlaces, tongue shots,... Well we are fangirls after all
;-)
But in all seriousness we
did have loads of great discussions about Robin Hood and the storylines
or the ‘dreadful finale topic’ but also about Ghost
Squad and Teachers. And about Jonas himself of course! ;-) Rieke very
kindly spend over an hour showing me some tricks and great tips of what
can be achieved with Photoshop, which I’m desperately trying
to get into practice!
The other main reason why
I came over during last weekend was because there were two medieval
festivals being held! The first one was on Saturday night in Rheydt.
I absolutely loved the
atmosphere and the markets and stalls, the people that were dressed in
costume ( some better than in Robin hood have to be said ;-) ). But the
main attraction that evening was a band called ‘Saltatio
Mortis’. Now I really like the bagpipes and all but...yeah
for some reason the band didn’t do it for me that evening,
let’s put it this way ;-) The sound volume got a bit too loud
which did bother me a bit ( I sound very old when I write it like that
but I’m from Jonas’ birth year honest!) But I
adored the delicious ‘Apfelringe’ so I enjoyed the
night anyway! ;-)
Now the next day was just
AWESOME! I enjoyed myself soooo much! ;-)
We went to Cologne-
Fühlingen where the second medieval festival was held called:
Mittelalterlich Phantasie Spectaculum.
The weather was great,
except for a few showers that only lasted a minute or two. But the
atmosphere was unbeatable! This Medieval festival was about 20 x times
larger than the one I attended the night before and was literally
action packed!
The costumes were even
better and the market and food stalls were incredible.(just wished they
were selling coca cola / fanta but that’s another story! ;-) )
The main protagonists
were ‘ The Lord’ called ‘Voght’
who was basically in charge of everything and his servant
‘The monk’ called ‘Bruder
Rectus’. They were basically doing a double act everywhere
they went and were both hilariously funny! I was really pleased I could
still get most what was being said, even though I lost the ability to
speak German!
Anyway besides of getting
really good laughs I also witnessed a real battle between nine medieval
knights, complete with real armour , swords and shields! Very
impressive indeed!
I also saw some great
archery going on and a group of 10 men wearing nothing but
underwear...divided into two groups , fighting over a 120kg ball full
with laundry *LOL*
No not going bonkers yet!
This was a real game between servants during medieval times, you know!
;-)
So yeah absolutely loved
the medieval festival and maybe, hopefully would love to come back next
year to see it again!
Have to say I was
absolutely exhausted afterwards, also because we had to run uphill at
the end of the festival because The Lord : Voght and his band of merry
men threatened to pull some of the visitors into the water with them as
they all jumped into the lake when the festival finished ;-)
During my last day we
continued to swoon over the lovely screencaps of darling Jonas and all
too soon it was time to leave and get back to the station as my Thalys
train was leaving at 16.00 in the afternoon.
Really sad to go back
home but then ...all I can say is thank goodness for email !!! ;-)
Thank you ever so much
again Rieke and your parents for the absolutely great weekend!
Loved every minute of it
and I hope you’ll have as much fun and laughs as I had when
you come over to visit me before and after our trip to London and the
NTA’s ! ;-)
Really have to thank
Lucky and Katie for setting up JAF, otherwise we’d most
probably would never have get to know each other and of course who else
but Jonas himself as well !!!
I wonder if he knows how
much influence he has on his fans really ? ;-)
Oh and I suppose I should
probably thank...oh what the order again? Amanda’s fic , JJ.
Abrams for creating ALIAS and LOST , Hello magazine for setting up that
poll back in December, the wonderful Michael Vartan as Vaughn and of
course again Jonas (who just happens to look a bit like M. Vartan at
times ;-) )
Thanks to all, for
helping to start out this great friendship ;-) !
xxx
Pics from trip to Aachen
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Tuesday 24th June 2008
“Up the
Armstrong Angels – Onwards and Upwards”
The convention was an
absolute HUGE success!!! All credit goes to Lucky and Katie and
everyone else who helped organise the event, including the wonderful
Whittsend and CassieJames for all their hard work in making the
scrapbooks!!!
Even though many members
like myself stayed at home, thanks to the wonderful trip reports and
the photo album (visit the JAF forum) we do feel a bit like we were
there ourselves! So thank you very much to everyone who posted stories
and pics!
The biggest surprise for
us “home –stayers” was on Saturday
afternoon when the lovely Suzie posted the news that Jonas had called
them up when they were visiting Arnold School ,and that Lucky had a
small conversation with him, and after that he left a most wonderful
text message for all his Angels :-)
I was sooo thrilled and
excited for all of them and then of course for all of us!!!
Seriously I just
can’t really think of another actor who would set aside some
time from the set, just to check up on how the convention was going and
then to send another message to say ‘Thank you, and how much
he appreciated all the support...’ That was just so sweet of
him !!
We all thought it
couldn’t get better than this surely? When an instant later
we all got informed that Jonas’ mother was coming to the
dance later on in the evening! What a wonderful surprise!!
I instantly started
speculating with some friends about what Jonas had probably told his
mum or begged her ;-) not to tell or show embarrassing childhood
pics....
Goodness WAS I WRONG! :-)
In fact he did the exact
opposite, he actually asked her to bring the family album with her!
*LOL*
He does keep you on your
toes this one!
That’s how the
very fortunate convention attendees were not only able to meet
Jonas’ mother Eva who is apparently as delightful as her son
;-) but they also got treated to view pics from baby Jonas all through
his teens...Awwww. Well I’d be lying if I wasn’t a
tiny wincey bit jealous ;-)
Many thanks to Arnold
School, the two Collins, Mrs.Armstrong and not least JONAS for their
huge contribution into the success of the first of hopefully many other
JAF conventions!
Jonas once again proved
himself to be such a grounded person with a very kind heart and
I’m very very proud to be one of his many Armstrong Angels!
We don’t care
what bitter critics say or will say in the future ( they are always
wrong anyway!), as we’ll be looking forward to the release of
his first film “Book of Blood” later this year and
any new projects that will come his way after Robin Hood S3.
I’m sure he’ll be spoiled for choice!
You can be sure that
every member will support him and his career, now and always!
As you can see from the
title of this blog, the JAF forum and members now have a brand new
slogan, all credit to Mr. Jonas Armstrong himself :-)
xxx
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Tuesday June 3rd 2008
Hiya!
First of all:
congratulations to Djrare (Debbie) on winning the bid for
Clem’s tags with her very generous offer of 600
GBP! And if you’ve lost out this time, you can
still bid on some wonderful autographs until June third, every penny
goes to Brian House and CASCADES!
There’s some
new Robin Hood Series 3 news this week: Friar Tuck will be making his
appearance in the forthcoming season and will be played by David
Harewood.
I actually have some
reservations about this new character.
Just like many younger
viewers, I grew up with the Walt Disney version with the adorable
foxes, bunnies, mice, the lion and the snake ;-) Friar Tuck is just
such a lovely character in the Walt Disney version and most importantly
he marries Robin and Marian in the end. Who can forget the very last
scene in which they step into a carriage with that banner
“Just Married” ?
The first proper grown-up
version I saw of the story was the Kevin Costner one when I was about
10 or 11 years old. The film has many faults (Kevin Costner being cast
as Robin Hood that is) but I truly enjoy the boisterous drunk monk
‘Friar Tuck’ in this adaptation, and yes he does
marries Marian and Robin in the end too! Though I can remember thinking
it was a bit odd that Indiana Jones’ father appeared on the
screen in the last three minutes...having been to the cinema with my
mum to watch Indiana Jonas and the Last Crusade about a year earlier.
;-)
I got interested in the
Michael Praed version, following all the hype before and after Robin
Hood screened in 2006. So I bought the first series and I was really
surprised how quickly Robin and Marian get married in that one!
What I basically want to
say is that the character Friar Tuck is in my eyes always linked to the
happy ending! In all the Robin Hood versions I’ve seen until
now: he always marries Robin and Marian !
And I even used the good
friar in my fanfic as well, letting him do what he does best.
Have the writers had a
change of heart or storyline and actually saw what a blunder they made
with the Series 2 finale? Or what other role have they in store for
this particular Friar? We have no further information so far but I just
hope they don’t want to be just “politically
correct’” by casting a coloured actor as the Friar,
as Anjali (Djaq) left the series. I hope they make this character very
interesting and that he might be given a very in-depth back-story, just
like the wonderful Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje)from
LOST.
Maybe just maybe, Series
3 and Robin Hood (the Jonas version ;-) ) will get its Happy Ending
after all, a Robin and Marian marriage in Sherwood Forest! I'm still
sailing the River DeNial you know...
‘Til next time!
xxx
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