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.)
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Date: 2011-03-31 02:33 am (UTC)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.)