Team Book Version
3 Oct 2007 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneComprehensive list of changes made to The Dark Is Rising for the new movie whose title they have even changed.
I guess if you actually hate a book you shouldn't take the job of doing the screenplay for it, asshat.
Ironically, I think the writing itself in these books is pretty laughable and hardly appropriate for children as old as its protagonists - the Quiz Bowl of Doom scene in the slashiest book is a favourite target for derision - but it's the over-simplified cheesy qualities and the unsuccessful combination with a more epic and mythic genre that's the problem. The story itself is the strength of these books, much like with Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings (although the writing in both those is on a different level): an imaginative world that captures the reader and draws them right through the books and out the other side into an almost endless landscape of adventure and magic, filled with possibilities.
I guess this still makes me an outraged fan, but I'm usually somewhat easy-going about the changes made by movies if they're for the good of the movie, such as in LOTR, though I almost inevitably prefer the book canon. I was even okay with the last HP film - nice cinematography! Yay! But what the fuck? What we're looking at here is not for the good of the movie - it's destroying elements of the story almost at random for no good reason in a way that completely alters the concept, while also impairing the movie's ability to achieve the tone and scope and most enchanting effects of the books.
(My judgment is somewhat suspended, but FYI I'm still in about this place re the Hayden Christenson movie of Steven Gould's Jumper, which is one of my favourite sff books. Total Film's enthusiastic, but their last blurb about it includes unsettling drive-by mentions of changes that pissed me off - including a random invented character who shares his gift. What? Um, why? And also, why is Millie suddenly hot like Summer from the OC instead of a rather ordinary girl whom Davy just falls in love with? Okay, I knew I kind of had to expect that, but I'm disgruntled. I love her. Please, please, please let's not movie-ise Wild Side starring Denzel Washington and/or Bruce Willis next, okay?)
Anyway, it's called The Seeker, reportedly, now.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cleolinda suggests a boycott in theatres which you should all consider. You can read about her reasons in her top post.
I guess if you actually hate a book you shouldn't take the job of doing the screenplay for it, asshat.
Ironically, I think the writing itself in these books is pretty laughable and hardly appropriate for children as old as its protagonists - the Quiz Bowl of Doom scene in the slashiest book is a favourite target for derision - but it's the over-simplified cheesy qualities and the unsuccessful combination with a more epic and mythic genre that's the problem. The story itself is the strength of these books, much like with Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings (although the writing in both those is on a different level): an imaginative world that captures the reader and draws them right through the books and out the other side into an almost endless landscape of adventure and magic, filled with possibilities.
I guess this still makes me an outraged fan, but I'm usually somewhat easy-going about the changes made by movies if they're for the good of the movie, such as in LOTR, though I almost inevitably prefer the book canon. I was even okay with the last HP film - nice cinematography! Yay! But what the fuck? What we're looking at here is not for the good of the movie - it's destroying elements of the story almost at random for no good reason in a way that completely alters the concept, while also impairing the movie's ability to achieve the tone and scope and most enchanting effects of the books.
(My judgment is somewhat suspended, but FYI I'm still in about this place re the Hayden Christenson movie of Steven Gould's Jumper, which is one of my favourite sff books. Total Film's enthusiastic, but their last blurb about it includes unsettling drive-by mentions of changes that pissed me off - including a random invented character who shares his gift. What? Um, why? And also, why is Millie suddenly hot like Summer from the OC instead of a rather ordinary girl whom Davy just falls in love with? Okay, I knew I kind of had to expect that, but I'm disgruntled. I love her. Please, please, please let's not movie-ise Wild Side starring Denzel Washington and/or Bruce Willis next, okay?)
Anyway, it's called The Seeker, reportedly, now.
cleolinda suggests a boycott in theatres which you should all consider. You can read about her reasons in her top post.
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Date: 3 Oct 2007 01:29 pm (UTC)(Yeah, the book has its flaws. But nothing deserves that kind of soulless gutting.)
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