Cranky Ellen is less cranky

[ellenmillion]

I got a tremendous milestone finished on a freelance project, and that always feels nice. :) I also vented about some other project drama to a listening friend, which is also a good thing, and I was able to not snap at well-meaning people who didn't deserve it. I also cleaned ALL THE THINGS, got my inbox down to 286, the Internet began behaving again, and the cat sat on me and purred for a while, despite the laptop also occupying my lap. Torn World also did some rank climbing (now that I'm using the right stupid link), and we're at 7th place, so our banner shows. :) Thank you!

So, have some art...

A new portrait for Margaa is up at Torn World: http://www.tornworld.net/artpageview.php?id=204

I'm waiting for final approval on that commission, then I'll post it here.

I also watched The Seeker: The Dark is Rising.



[Spoiler warning!!]

First, I have to confess that I adore this series of books. They are some of my favorite ever, and even in my recent drought of reading, I sometimes pick them up just for the comfort of them. I didn't really expect the movie to do them justice.

This movie? Couldn't resemble the book less if they'd actively tried. I mean, why even bother using the title? They made Will a modern 14-year old American. The signs don't match. The characters are all flatter than flat, and Will's missing twin brother comes back at the end. Also, the 'sixth sign' was Will himself, his soul. *epic eyeroll*

The Old Ones were entirely impotent (Save us, Will! Oh, save us!), only Wonder Will appeared to have any powers at all, there was no Hawkin (no Hawkin!!) and older sisters Mary and Gwen were bundled up into one little sister Gwen who has a sense of preservation low enough to wander off in the middle of a Viking raid to try to save a wittle kitty cat.

The effects were good, I'll give them that much. I just wish I could have seen what these guys did with the book in front of them, rather than atrocity that they made of the script.

Oh, and Dr. Who as the Dark Rider (where was the White Rider, btw?) was really quite trippy.



Dinner now!

Comments

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

YEAAAHAHH!!!! CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!!!! :D :D :D

My husband says: "...clean ALL the things....? :/:\:\"

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

I reread TDIR at Christmas this year (as I do every few years), and while reading it I kept thinking, "they made a movie out of it, and oh, I would so love to see that bit in a movie..." And the thing is, I KNEW that the movie was an atrocity, and yet sitting there reading the book, I kept thinking... well, could it really be THAT bad? Maybe if it brought a few of the cool bits to life...? And I do like Ian McShane, and while he in no way matches my mental vision of Merriman, maybe it would be cool...?

And then I used my smartphone to call up articles about the movie on Wikipedia, which helped dispel those notions, and saved me from actually trying to watch that thing. Because it sounded like every cool bit from the book that I would have hoped to see in the movie was not there.

The only consolation I have is that even though the movie was subtitled "The Dark is Rising"... you know, someone could make another movie version perfectly well. Because it's not like they actually adapted the book in the first place. And nowadays, people are totally used to the concept of reboots. It seems like there is no drawback any more to the fact that a "too similar" movie just came out 5 years ago or whatever, all you have to do is say, "well, this is a reboot", and everyone is like, "okay then".

Please, please let someone do that. TDIR deserves a good movie.

(The thing that KILLS me is that when you reread the book, which is so very much set in the 70s, all I could think was... this is just MADE for the Harry Potter market. I mean, the very British feel of it and all. I wonder if the people who made the Atrocious Version were gunshy about the idea of their movie being "too close" to HP, but as far as I'm concerned, why NOT try to capitalize on the similarity? It's not like they couldn't make a good bit of noise in the publicity stage about the fact -- if the movie is a faithful adaptation of the book -- that the book predates HP by like 30 years, so if there is any sense of copying, it's the other way around. Which, not that I think HP copies TDIR terribly much, I'm just saying, it's very easy to answer anyone who might accuse a new movie version of trying to copy HP. Cash in on HP, sure, and I don't see why they shouldn't try.)

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Cleaning ALL the things is impressive.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you actually watched it.

[pixiewildflower.livejournal.com]

I love the sketch hon!

I hate it when movies are so far from the original book, that you wonder why they use the title...