posted
Yeah, definitely not going to see this movie. Blech to everything they've changed.
I guess this article answers the questions about the movie poster. The older teenage boy is apparently the Walker, and the woman with the glowy thing is his love interest? Yikes.
posted
That looks worse than I ever imagined. I think I'm never going to see this one. There's only so many beloved books I can handle seeing murdered.
I just don't get it. This book is loved by millions of people of all ages. The series has won major awards. It's a great story. What on earth makes them think that changing it all around makes it better? Geez.
posted
They're the movie industry, why would they read the book a movie is based on, or even if they do, care about its considerable existing fanbase? Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
But that fanbase would have made them a lot of money. Ah well. I know they do it, but their reasons remain incomprehensible to me, as always.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
The thing that gets me is that Walden Media is behind this. They made sure the Narnia, Terabithia, Charlotte, and Holes movies were 85-90% faithful to the source material.
Why not this book?
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Some books don't translate well to screen, it's just a fact.
I don't know if Dark is Rising translated faithfully would have made a good movie or not, but I don't see the problem with making some changes. What I don't like is if you make all those changes, and still try to represent it as a movie version of the book. Change the name, or something. But they're trying to capitalize on the book's popularity but not be willing to stick to the story, and that's irritating.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
The books, especially The Dark is Rising itself, are incredibly good for childrens'/YA fantasy.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't know. I'm not religiously opposed to changing the source material when making a movie... I mean, movies such as the Harry Potter ones where they try to include too much of the source material in the mix and not to change anything do tend to suck.
I think keeping the essential themes of the story intact is more important than keeping the same story. That said, it doesn't sound as if they're doing even that what with the omissal of the Arthurian mythology and stuff.
But who knows, maybe if this film flops horribly it'll stop the daft trend of adapting old fantasy classics onto the movie screen.
Posts: 247 | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree the Harry Potter movies aren't generally the most exciting movies. Then again very little in them suprise those who know what is going to happen. I've been disappointed in movies that I've read first. Period.
I blame Steve Kloves form most of the stinkiness of the HP movies. SS, while truest to the events of the book and possibly the worst, missed the soul of the story. It felt like a Fantasyland ride. You ride around in the cart, and all of the scenes are presented as little exhibits. But they're paintings on the wall, mostly static except for a few things that jump out at you. Chris Columbus didn't help either.
Despite Hermione being his favorite character, Kloves has zero clue how to write her. He just feels bad and takes away all of her nerouses. To write the movie correctly, you would have had to go through the book and highlight every social conflict and every time a strong emotion was felt. Those areas needed to be amplfied: Harry's fame (the hand shaking scene didn't do it), the fight between Ron and Hermione and the way the became friends (not strong enough). The biggest travesty was the loss of the Gryffiindor blacklash from the Norbert incident. It then fuels what I think was the most important speech of the book when Harry persuades Ron and Hermione to go through the trapdoor.
The Harry Potter books aren't stories in the movie sense. It's very simple. Harry is minding his own business three quarters of the year, mostly off screen/page, and every so often he follows Malfoy somewhere, gets attacked playing quidditch or wonders about this year's mystery. He debates all of it with Ron and Hermione. In June, something bad, but nonsequitor given the action in the earlier part of the book happens at night after Harry discovers a catalystic bit of information. Voldemort is usually involved. Dumbledore gives Harry a pep talk after a trip to the hosipital wing. We reread the book and see how J.K. Rowling hinted at all of it from the beginning.
1,5 and 6 will be the worst movies. The major mystery (who's after the stone, Harry's connection with Voldemort, where is Malfoy going?) aren't treated as the major events in the novel. Only in book two do the readers have any clue where Harry might be going in the end (gee the Chamber of Secrets). In book three and four, Harry stumble into the end, but there was a set up (Sirius's failed attacks on Scabbers cause panic until Harry meets him face to face, the entire tournament was a set up to portkey Harry away to Voldemort)
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
