(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Couple of things of interest:

- Some absolutely awful, horrible, no good, terrible news on the casting call for the Dark is Rising movie. I already saw this, one of y'all linked it, so I've had a little time to get over the crushing horror.

- Am rewatching the last seven episodes of Buffy S3, for no other reason than I kind of feel like it and my brother, who is strangely into genre TV (my good influence) is progressively acquiring more and more of Buffy on VCR - yes, useless for just about everyone in the world now, but my family has a combined DVD/VCR player that we won't be gettingrid of anytime soon, so I can play them. I'm quite enjoying it, just about to start on Earshot and then Graduation Day 1/2 - but what I really get a kick out of is seeing Wentworth Millar in the credits. I have no idea why, I just think it's hilarious. (He was one of the swim team jocks.)

I gotta say, Choices was kind of a really good episode, especially with the hot Angel/Faith macking. I'm kind of an Angel/Buffy girl, so this is a good season for me too. But the ep really kind of loses its suspense the second time though - once you know Angel's faking it, there's no crushing tension or betrayal or horror or whatever. The Prom is still just as awesome the second time through. *heartclutch* it's just kind of sad that the supposed lowest mortality rate for a graduating class probably became the highest.

And somebody, help me out: the Geek triad of Evil (or whatever they called themselves) in the fourth (or is it fifth? I have a feeling it must be fifth) season. (or wait. Fifth season was Glory. But hey surely weren't as late as sixth.) Andrew, Jonathan, and who the hell was flayed-alive guy? I can't remember and it is making me nuts. (Okay, I gave up and wiki'd: Warren, and sixth season, duh.)

- the reason I'm talking about television is I'm doing precisely nothing else right now other than working. Someone should come see The Prestige with me. Anyone?

Comments

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Yes and no. There are kind of a lot of levels to that answer, and of course the big one is: I love this book to pieces, so changes feel really personal and insulting. So that's one level, but if it was just that level I could deal with it; I accept that some changes to the original content are necessary, even good, when making an adaptation. Books are not movies and they can't always be handled the same way - some adaptations, like the first Harry Potter movie, actually suffer IMO from being too faithful.

On the other level, though, this is being pitched as an adaptation of the book. And IMO, the most important thing when making an adaptation is not that the plot and every single character are exactly the same, it's that the tone and intent are the same. I thought, for example, that POA was a very good example of replicating the tone, even though I didn't always like some of the choices that were made. Or, for example, the LOTR movies - I was really sad that they left out Tom Bombadil but I still thought the movies were good adaptations. Also in my opinion, Will's family dynamics are crucial to the tone of the book in question. Changing his family this dramatically changes Will himself. Does being American vs being British make that much difference? I think it makes a big contextual difference - and context is one of the things i think should very much stay the same if you're pitching an adaptation. it's like the difference between, oh, I don't know, Baz Lurhman's Romeo + Juliet and West Side Story; the story's still the same but the context has changed, and West Side Story is not pitched *as* Romeo & Juliet.

I also think that the changes made to the dynamics will change the story, here distinguished from the plot. The plot can change; the story can't, or shouldn't.

Do I think TDIR is perfect? Well... sort of. I think it is the thing it is, IYKWIM; whether or not there were choices that Cooper made that could have been made better (which, no.), now that it's there, it's there, that's it, that is the book. Which is not to say that I couldn't accept changes in an adaptation because - like I said - I know that movies and books are different media. But not these kinds of changes.

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not for a second saying that this is in any way going to be a good movie. But I have often found some adaptations, as you say, suffer from being too faithful, and the main aim here is to make a successful movie, not to pay homage to the books. As for what's happening here, the Americaness in itself, while it seems gratuitous, doesn't bother me overtly. Can I imagine Will as an American? Yes. He's still Will, just with an American accent. I never felt there was anything innately English about him - it could be argued that his love for the English countryside and its folklore was, well, English, but I've seen expatriots fall just as deeply for their new surroundings.

The fiddling around with his family I am less able to write off. What worries me is the implication that Merriman and Will's father are seemingly being merged into one character which will, in my opinion, make the relationship between Will and Merriman much less interesting. One of the most interesting ongoing themes of the books is the conflict between Will the boy, who looks to his father and family, and Will the Old One, who looks to Merriman and sees his family as not quite as important to him as they once were. Making it a father-son thing just seems like it's oversimplifying a hugely interesting relationship.

But actually what really worries me about this casting call is not the substance of what's said but the style of it. I'm not familiar with the sort of language casting calls are usually written in so maybe this is just industry jargon but it does seem like they're pitching it as a teen coming of age movie.

It's possible that, as a latecomer to the Dark is Rising books, I don't have the veil of nostalgia that comes from reading them in childhood, and I can totally respect those who do - I'm like that about a lot of things - but I guess not this.

[nzlemming.livejournal.com]

You say:
"Can I imagine Will as an American? Yes. He's still Will, just with an American accent. I never felt there was anything innately English about him - it could be argued that his love for the English countryside and its folklore was, well, English, but I've seen expatriots fall just as deeply for their new surroundings."

Will is bullied and/or ignored by his older brothers, and Will is gloomily convinced that he's doomed to be a bookish, gawky oddball at the bottom of the pecking order. However, he is actually an innately cool kid who has not yet grown into his coolness</>

That's not just "Will with an American accent" - that's a whole different kid.

I didn't read them as a child (I don't think they had been written then) but as an adult. It is a quintessentially British story, tieing together a number of strands of British mythologies and especially, Arthurian legend.

An American actor might</> be able to play English!Will, but making the characters American (and as they are written in the posting) changes the nature of the story. That's not good adaptation - that's "I'm too lazy to write my own fantasy, so I'll use someone else's ideas and rewrite it to suit my own desires."

Bah! I say. A pox on their houses!

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Making Will an American and changing his family situation are two different things entirely. I'm not opposed to the first, and not opposed to the second on principle, but the way the second has been changed gets my goat. Still, I fail to see how changing the nationality of a character changes the 'nature of the story'. If I had to describe the Dark is Rising in four sentences, or even a paragraph, or even an essay, I could do it quite easily without using the word 'English' once.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

and the main aim here is to make a successful movie, not to pay homage to the books.

I disagree. I mean, on the one hand, all the people who are doing this probably are just out to make money. But IMO adapting books should be both successful movies and respectful of, if not faithful to, the books.

I agree with what you said about Merriman and the tone of the casting call, but the more I think about this the worse I feel so I'm just gonna skip being thorough. :-/