The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, BBC AdaptationA very great pet peeve of mine is when people complain that libraries -- bastions of free thought, higher education, and information readily disseminated to the masses regardless of wealth or privilege -- contain movies, as though the very idea is wasteful and expensive and entitled. I'm not going to convey my contempt for this complaint beyond a link to my post on ableism and hostility, but I mention that to mention this: my childhood library had the full BBC Chronicles of Narnia and it's been fascinating to go back and see just how much those movies colored my experience with the books. To the librarian who choose in my childhood to stock my library with this film adaptation: Thank you.
The BBC adaptation of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" was created in 1988, and like all adaptations it's an interesting mixture of source text and adaptation needs. There's the obvious stuff based on technological limitations: the Beavers are two adults in awkward beaver suits, Maugrim shape-shifts into a human whenever he needs to talk or interact with the other characters, and Aslan looks remarkably realistic for the time but is heavily limited in terms of movement. And this last change is absolutely for the better, but we'll talk about that later.
What strikes me about this adaptation -- particularly since I watched it after watching the American movie version, which we will discuss next week -- is how much the creators tried to adhere to the original text. Conversations are lifted almost verbatim from the books (though, amusingly, the subtitlers didn't realize that: when Edmund calls out "Pax!" to Lucy, the subtitlers perplexedly offer up "Hex!"), which makes it all the more interesting to look at the things they do change. How about I just throw down a numbered list, yeah?
- Edmund is less insufferable.
- Susan is markedly more important.
- Aslan is more gentle, tender, and vulnerable.
This last one, I think, cannot be underestimated in terms of importance. But let's dig in the adaptation and see what I wrote down.
Episode 1
The scene opens in London, 1940, as the children are loaded onto the train. I like that Lucy, who is supposed to be plain-looking, actually is. Peter has an astonishingly babyish face, and almost looks younger than Edmund, but for his height. Even so, he's still shorter than Susan which seems pretty plausible considering their ages -- it looks like Peter is a late bloomer while Susan is already on the cusp of puberty.
And this marks the start of an interesting pattern: though Peter is oldest and the "high king", multiple reaction shots throughout the series will go Susan --> Peter --> Lucy, a pattern that gives Susan an air of authority within the group. I almost get the impression that someone on the script team felt a little sorry for poor Susan and decided to fix the source material a bit. I'll give you two guesses as to whether or not I approve of this, but you'll only need the one.
Moving on, Edmund is quickly established as "bratty" while Peter yells a lot and seems like a snot. He even yells at Edmund for not liking the Professor, which is amusing because I don't really like the Professor at this juncture either. Edmund disengages from the argument to smile and note excitedly that he likes how spooky the house is. Susan looks relieved, and starts doing the dishes unbidden. My notes point out that this is probably because she has lady bits.
Anyway. Lucy makes her way to the wardrobe and everything goes about to text. She actually asks "Are you a faun?" (the narrative just asserts in the description that he is, with no reference in conversation) and this made me happy because it underlined that young Lucy has a classical education. Yay, 1940s Britain. Once Lucy is in Mr. Tumnus' house, she tries to leave, but he bribes her with cake, and this overt bribery is interesting because it has shades of TURKISH DELIGHT written all over it. I can't tell if they meant it to seem that way or not, but it's coming through loud and clear to me.
Tumnus provides some Narnian backstory and almost starts to complain about the Witch before he realizes what he's doing and plays music instead. The musical interlude sends Lucy into a dream sequence where she sees Narnia as it once was, and it's a nice touch to convey it that way instead of through a conversational infodump. Then Lucy wakes up and Mr. Tumnus cries and they bustle her back through the wardrobe. I can't help but be distracted by how much Mr. Tumnus looks just like Satan. I can only imagine what my conservative Christian mother thought of this series when I was a kid.
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(I was going to give you a retro picture of Satan for comparison purposes, but then Google Image Search led me to this and now I can think of nothing else. When did Jesus become sexy?? His hair looks like he should be in a Pantene Pro-V commercial. Is this an American thing? I really want to know.)
Episode 2
Everyone reads their lines about Lucy and the wardrobe and Edmund suggesting that she's mentally ill. I love the addition that Lucy hits the wardrobe in frustration -- the gesture drives home that Narnia Rules are really dreadfully unfair. And then they all go off to play hide-and-seek later and Susan cheats by counting too fast. And it's such a small thing but I love it because it gives her all kinds of depth and flavor. I counted too fast when I was "it", too. Hide-and-Seek High Fivez, Susan!
Edmund follows Lucy into the wardrobe and comes out into the other side and the setting is so wonderfully different. Lucy's Narnia was night, yes, but it was covered in cozy lamp light and looked like something out of a Christmas card -- warm and inviting and pleasing. Edmund's Narnia is bright day, with blinding snow and gnarly trees and the whole thing seems immensely creepy. When the Witch drives up, Edmund looks genuinely terrified, and with good reason -- she's already frothing at the mouth screaming and gesticulating at him.
When she starts conjuring food and drink and Edmund starts stuffing his face, the whole effect is incredibly creepy. Edmund's color, posture, and movements change noticeably as he eats, and the actor does an incredible job of making him seem to metamorphosis into another person entirely. And there is a nice touch when the Witch swears him to secrecy because she adds: "If your sister has met one of those fauns, she may have heard nasty stories about me. Fauns will say anything, you know." This is a line that Edmund later says in the book, so when he issues it here in the adaptation, it seems natural and flows well: he's repeating what he's been told.
When Edmund and Lucy join up, Edmund is initially nice to Lucy, but Lucy blurts out that the Witch hasn't hurt Mr. Tumnus the faun for letting her go. Edmund looks uncomfortable, and when Lucy enthuses about telling the others, he worries aloud that the the older two children will be on the side of the fauns. Lucy blithely asks whose other side they could be on, as the fauns are "the only people we know here".
After Edmund lies and Peter yells and Lucy cries, we have the scene with the Professor. Notably, he lies through his teeth when the children ask if Narnia could be real; the Professor says, "That is more than I know." Haha, Professor, you are the worst! Then he issues his opinion that it is "perfectly obvious that [Lucy] is not mad", which is particularly funny since the children have been shown taking their dinners apart from the Professor and interacting with him not at all, so clearly he has a great pool of evidence to draw from. And then the children run off to hide from McCready in the wardrobe and Peter pushes Edmund and yells, "Never shut yourself in in a wardrobe, stupid."
Episode 3
The children zip over to Mr. Tumnus' house and survey the wreckage. One thing of note is that Susan is getting to say pretty much all her lines, despite the fact that they're clearly the most throw-away lines in the book -- stuff like "I don't know that I'm going to like this place after all." They left that in. And it doesn't feel like a bad adaptation decision, like they just couldn't bear to cut anything -- it really does feel like someone on the adaptation team was bound and determined that Susan was going to have a part in this story. And the actress delivers the lines with verve and determination and it's a thing of beauty, considering that of all the characters in the novel, she has by far the fewest lines.
Mr. Beaver shows up and name-drops Aslan and there's a neat little musical reaction shot with all the children looking like it's Christmas day, but with Edmund looking profoundly uncomfortable like he's the only one who realizes that means they'll have to hug Aunt Mildred. Then they all tromp off to the Beaver dam, where Mr. Beaver singles out Peter-and-only-Peter to come help him catch fish while Edmund looks stung, Mrs. Beaver singles out the girls to help with dinner while Edmund looks annoyed, and Susan and Lucy literally shove their coats on Edmund and proceed to ignore him. Haha, narrator, saying that Edmund only imagined he was getting the cold shoulder. BBC SAYS YOU ARE WRONG.
And then when Edmund earnestly asks if the Witch will turn Aslan into stone, Mr. Beaver laughs at him and tells him "what a simple thing to say!" which is in the book and which is at best calling Edmund ignorant and at worst an ableist insult. And it's a line that is delivered with such overt rudeness that I'm left wondering how I didn't notice it in the book (I thought it was something the BBC added until I checked) and then I have the exact same thing happen when Peter says-- after Edmund has left -- that "he is our brother after all, even if he is rather a little beast". That's in the book too, but it took having an actor deliver the line to really drive home what rotten people these are. At least Peter is a kid; the actor delivering Mr. Beaver's lines seems to understand that there's no excuse for him, so he just delivers the awfulness with gusto and we lurch through the scene as best we can.
Then Edmund gets to have an internal monologue with Ghost!Edmund or Conscience!Edmund or something. And it's probably just because Ghost!Edmund is translucent, but I can't help but notice that Edmund's face is flushed and red from the exercise and the residual effects of the Turkish Delight and Ghost!Edmund's face is pale as snow, and it's an interesting effect because the Turkish Delight really is supposed to have wrought a physical change, but now we're back to the unfortunate implication that White is Right. Someone really needs to reverse this trope; there's no reason why Turkish Delight can't make Edmund pale and sickly.
Anyway, Edmund tells Ghost!Edmund that the Witch isn't going to hurt his siblings and that she's been nothing but nice to him, or at least nicer than the others have been. And, amusingly, this is true. But Ghost!Edmund retorts: "Nice to you?! She's a witch!" *sigh* And then Ghost!Edmund notes that it'll be getting dark soon and Edmund retorts that he's "not afraid of the dark", only his voice is quivering and he clearly is and it hits you all over again that THIS IS A CHILD and it's all the sobs forever. And then Ghost!Edmund says that they don't like the look of the Witch's house and Edmund looks stricken and says "It's too late to turn back now" and it really is and the Beavers could have saved him because he's been slipping and sliding and lost for what seems like ages. (The American version, being American, jazzed this up a bit.)
Edmund mocks one of the statues, Ghost!Edmund calls him out on it, and they don't do the mustache scene.
Episode 4
Mrs. Beaver's silliness is played to an almost absurd degree here -- she's not just packing food essentials, she's packing tea and sugar. And she frets extensively over the sewing machine. And then just stands there, thinking if she's missed something. It's not a very good delaying tactic, it makes her look ridiculously ridiculous, but it's in the spirit of the book, so... yeah.
Edmund goes through all the wow, this was not a good idea at all bits in the Witch's home, and his inner voice yells at him for a bit. Nothing really new there.
Then Santa shows up to give the three children presents and darned if he doesn't look completely out of place in this movie. I mean, he's always seemed out of place to me in the book: Narnia has... Christmas? Because it has Christ and Mass and Saint Nick and... what? And he's there to... dispense... presents? Because... why? I mean, they don't even use them until they get to Aslan so... why not have Aslan give them? So I've never really been on board with the Father Christmas thing. But here, now, he looks monumentally awful -- the sleigh and the trappings look like they drove in from a completely different set and the tonal shift from "forced march at night, fearful about the Witch, oh, here's Father Christmas" is just whiplash inducing.
But it is nice to see Lucy sass-talk Santa on the whole "here's a knife, don't use it thing," and she is surprisingly assertive. None of this "I think I could be brave enough" hogwash -- it's "I'm sure I'd be brave enough". And Santa is a jerk about it because it's in the text but at least they excised the "battles are ugly when women fight" line. THANK YOU, BBC. And then Santa gives them breakfast, which just underscores how narratively useless all that "let me pack some food" stuff was.
Episode 5
Aslan!
Oh, how much do I love the BBC Aslan? SO MUCH. He looks like a lion, with none of that standing on two legs nonsense, and they've completely cut his having a crown and a retinue of symbolic symbols huddled around him. He looks like a shepherd more than a king, and this makes him more regal, not less. Because of the technological limitations, he moves slowly and gently and this makes him seem careful, wise, and considerate. And, best of all, his voice actor sounds like he's on Quaaludes -- he's incredibly relaxed. BBC has utterly excised all the fearful, growly, wild parts that Lewis wrote in.
I APPROVE OF THIS CHANGE.
Another interesting thing here is that there are black satyrs in attendance on Aslan -- by which I mean, black men costumed as satyrs. On the one hand, there's a possibility for unfortunate implications -- they're essentially servants, and while the "stand at attention there" job might be pretty prestigious in Narnia, it's not something a lot of kids will probably pick up. And there's no black women among the hoards of dryads and nymphs, which makes me sad because why does no one ever do dryads with skin the color of their trees? And, of course, as satyrs the men here are playing sexualized beasts. So... yeah.
On the other hand, I'm not sure the American version has any people of color, so... yeah. *sigh*
Anyway, Peter and Aslan go off to chew the scenery and when they are summoned back for the fight scene, Susan does not dangle from trees. Seriously, she called for Peter and then Peter comes and there's a fight. At no point is Susan menaced while the flying creatures hang back from helping her by the orders of Aslan; the whole thing is treated like a dual between Peter and Maugrim. And this is such a radical change from the book, in an adaptation that is remarkably true to the source material, and I just know it's because someone pointed out that the whole scene makes Aslan look awful.
And then Aslan knights Peter and he doesn't do the ridiculous "hand [the sword] to me" scene in the book which would require a lion being able to stand and probably have opposable thumbs. No, he knights Peter by placing his chin on each shoulder, which looks for all the world like Aslan is giving Peter cat-kisses. And it is awesome. No, seriously, it looks totally right and tender and kingly and... lion-y. And I just am blown away by how much I'd rather worship this Aslan than the one in the book. And it's all because of a few key changes.
The flying creatures follow the surviving wolf back to the Witch, and a gryphon picks Edmund up in his talons. My first thought was that traveling like that would hurt, but someone thought of that because the gryphon immediately lowers Edmund gently onto a Pegasus and Edmund grins into the bright night sky and this is awesome too.
When the Witch shows up to demand Edmund back, Susan says "Aslan, can't you do something?" And Aslan says "Work against the Deep Magic?" And it's almost exactly like in the book but BECAUSE the flavor text about "something like a frown on his face" and "nobody ever made that suggestion to him again" is gone, it sounds so much better. He segues immediately into telling everyone he will talk to the Witch alone, and because we aren't told that he's upset at Susan's suggestion, it almost seems like they are linked -- like Susan suggested "can't you do something?" and Aslan said "you mean like working against the Deep Magic? I don't see how unless... IDEA!"
Did they do it this way on purpose? I don't know. But I love it. Basically, I love this book once all the narrator moralizing and editorializing telling me this is how you are supposed to interpret this stuff is yanked out. Huh.
And also: Edmund gets lines. More than one. He keeps talking, even after the book cuts him off for good.
Episode 6
Aslan dies and is revived and because this is from Britain in the 1980s and not America in the 2000s, the scene is over and done relatively quickly with a minimum of torture. And then Lucy, who is awesome, flat out rebukes Aslan saying that they cried all night long but he knew it would be alright. NEVER CHANGE, LUCY. And Aslan looks as uncomfortable as an animatronic lion with no facial gestures can look and admits that he thought it might work this way but that no one has ever actually done it before, so he wasn't sure.
And this addition? Makes Aslan vulnerable in a way that Book!Aslan simply is not. And I love it.
They zip over to the Witch's house and Aslan brings everyone back from stone. The silliness with the Giant and the Handkerchief and the Silly Lion is completely cut because someone at the BBC realized that it totally guts all tension and just drags out needlessly. And then Aslan shows up at the battle and instead of pouncing on the White Witch and apparently tearing her throat out (which is how I interpret the book), he instead lets out a roar and an earthquake occurs and she falls to her death.
Which is probably another technological limitation, but it's amazing how a well-placed technological limitation can improve a character because I like "makes earthquakes that accidentally kill people" Aslan more than "leaps on people and savages them, even though doing that earlier would have been a good deal more convenient" Aslan. Just saying.
Edmund gets knighted too, with the Aslan kisses, but I'm annoyed that the girls aren't given any recognition. Whatever. Then the kids grow up and HERE IS WHY I THOUGHT THEY WERE IN THEIR THIRTIES AT THE END because boy-howdy but those full beards make the men look old to me. How old is King Edmund there?
And they completely cut that the Pevensies are hunting one of their own subjects (the White Stag), and they cut the premonition that they all ignore anyway, and they cut Peter being proud of the fact that he never changes his mind on things no matter what, and what I am saying is that BBC KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Or at least they did in the 1980s. And they all walk out of the wardrobe, and Peter feels for his missing beard, and I cried.
The end.
Or Is It?
Okay, okay, I have a few more rambles.
I loved these books when I was a kid. I don't have a lot of childhood memories, but one I do have very clearly is sitting on my pink bedspread on a rainy day eating Ritz Bits cheese sandwich crackers and re-reading these books for the up-teenth time. My boxed set was worn and yellow with age when I finally let it go in favor of the e-Book versions.
I didn't notice problems with the series, at least not that I can remember, until I was much older. The last three books weighed heavily on me and I recall avoiding them when I re-read the series. I'd read only the first four, which -- probably not coincidentally -- were the only four that the BBC ever did. And it's interesting to me to see how the BBC version clearly overlaid itself in my head over the existing text, such that certain bits were edited and corrected.
Aslan was gentle and kind and wise and never, ever frightening or scary; Susan was tall and bright and clever and was the first person in every reaction shot because her opinion mattered. When the book conflicted -- when the children were afraid of Aslan or when Susan spoke fewer words than anyone else -- my brain discarded these things as irrelevant or incorrect.
And... I don't know how I feel about that.
When I left "The Hunger Games" this weekend, I praised the movie for being "the movie of the book" as opposed to the usual American adaptation treatment. I said to Husband: "They've finally understood that fans don't want special twists endings or new scenes. They just want the book, in movie format."
The BBC Narnia adaptation is one of the closest-to-the-source adaptations I've seen in my lifetime. Conversations are lifted almost verbatim, even little things like the marmalade roll and the huge lump of butter at the Beaver dinner table are faithfully included.
And yet, with a few tiny, key changes... it's almost a different story. The sexism directed frequently and often at Susan is almost completely excised. Edmund, the great betrayer, is adamantly portrayed as a child, not responsible for any supposed treachery and certainly not deserving of death. Aslan, who is at times in the book capricious, frightening, and frownful, is here only gentle and kind and wise and... measured. Careful. Thoughtful. He doesn't defend the Deep Magic, he considers it. The changes are amazing subtle and yet the result is fantastically different.
This is what I needed as a child. This is the story I needed to hear and know. A story where children are children -- not adults deserving death and darkness. A story where god is approachable and warm and understanding -- not an unknowable being who could turn and destroy you with one paw if you asked the wrong question.
It's not the same story, and I don't think anyone on the adaptation committee was ignorant of that. But it's the story I needed, and I'm glad it existed at my library when I was ready to hear it. So there's that.
86 comments:
WARNING: TAKING A THROWAWAY TANGENT WAY TOO SERIOUSLY
When did Jesus become sexy??
"Sexy Jesus" is a VERY old trope -- indeed, if you include "Sexy Monotheistic God", it's pretty much as old as monotheism.
And not just Abrahamic monotheism; the dominant metaphor for the mystic union for the One / the Source / the All has been sexual ecstasy in pretty much as long as there have been writings about it (say, six thousand years, give or take a millennium), in every culture that I can think of.
As far as Sexy Jesus specifically, there's a bit of it in the Desert Fathers, but it really gets cranking with your medieval women mystics. Earlier male mystics would have definite homoerotic undertones in their descriptions of an idealized muscular Dayspring or Warrior Christ, but once the masochistic elements of the woobie Suffering Son of Man became prominent in the thirteenth century, it was mostly the female religious who went to town.
In the hands of a poet like Teresa of Avila or an artist like Bernini, it may be sublime, but subtle it ain't; and then you get the fantasies of someone like Margery Kempe or, well, practically any fifteenth-century convent (I sometimes think every third nun in early Renaissance Italy was having visions or sporting stigmata or floating a few inches off the ground), the imagery became even more overt.
All of which got mixed up in Counter-Reformation Catholic devotions, eighteenth nineteenth theo-political propaganda which turned Jesus into an Agent of Empire, and of course the rugged individualism of American Protestantism, all of which culminates in your classic Sunday School poster of Matinee Idol Jesus.
Suggested further reading: Jaroslav Pelikan, THE ILLUSTRATED JESUS THROUGH THE CENTURIES; Gabriele Finaldi, THE IMAGE OF CHRIST
I am utterly delighted to have scholarly confirmation that SEXY JESUS is not a new thing. :D
On the other hand, I'm not sure the American version has any people of color...
I have a vague recollection of dark-skinned satyrs/centaurs/etc, but I think they were in Prince Caspian instead. IMDB confirms that the head centaur in Prince Caspian was played by a black actor, so there's that.
It's been ages since I saw the BBC version, but it's very satisfying to find that it's been so well-adjusted in this version. Given all the intentful changes that you list, I wonder if the Aslandroid's mechanical limitations really have that much to do with his alternate character presentation, or if the makers would just have gone that way even if they had an actual talking lion in the cast?
I can't possibly add anything on the Sexy Jesus issue (aside from maybe advising those interested to look up the musical number 'Rock Me Sexy Jesus'), so I will take a different tangential remark overfar!
I said to Husband: "They've finally understood that fans don't want special twists endings or new scenes. They just want the book, in movie format."
This is something I've been contemplating a lot lately, and I think I came to quite a different conclusion. I ended up puzzling over what the point of a movie adaptation of a book is - artistically, that is. On a practical level, there's the goal of drawing in people who are less interested in books, and the goal of further enrichening the author (as well as rather a lot of other people). On an accessibility level, there's the attempt to tell the story in a format that's friendlier to people who can't interact well with books for whatever reason, and for that, a really intensely faithful adaptation seems like an obvious goal.
But conversely, if the story has already been told in one medium, it seems like there should be some kind of artistic goal for telling it in another, and 'the book, in movie format' isn't that. I mean, as you've pointed out continually throughout this review, the BBC LWW is really not the book, because they've cut out a vast amount of moralising, radically altered Aslan's demeanour, and substantially reframed the way the audience sees the children. If asked whether the marmalade roll or Aslan's unquestioned/unquestionable supreme power is more important to faithfully representing the book, I'd say it's the latter. The BBC version is arguably improved specifically because it deviates from the book, and while it doesn't add whole scenes, you note that it continually emphasises Susan's presence far more than the book does, and gives Edmund actual dialogue long after he strictly shouldn't.
I'm still planning to see the THG movie as well, but I think one of the reasons that it hasn't been a high priority for me is that, while it's supposed to be very good and very faithful, I'm skeptical about whether it's actually going to offer much that I haven't already got from the book.
I started to post saying that I definitely saw these adaptations and that I thought I remembered seeing them while living in the UK, but:
1. I lived in the UK from 1986-87, before they were aired.
2. I had CLEARLY remembered that the little girl who played Ermengarde in the BBC adaptation of "A Little Princess" also played Lucy. Ermengarde was played by a kid named Alison Reynolds who does not seem to have played either Lucy, or later on, Jill Pole.
At least I was right about Tom Baker playing Puddleglum.
(The BBC adaptation of "A Little Princess" is also absolutely brilliant: faithful to the books while also improving on them in places. I think one of my favorite moments from movie-not-book is when one of the daughters from the large family across the street asks her father why he doesn't check to see if that little girl who works for the school might be the lost Sarah Crew he's been hired to find. He says, with a genial yet patronizing smile, that the headmistress of a respectable school would never turn a _Captain's daughter_ into a servant. Which explains very nicely why they NEVER LOOKED IN THEIR OWN BACK YARD, something that frankly makes no sense in the book. I re-watched that one as an adult, which is why I'm getting the details right here.)
The people working at the BBC in the late 1980s and early 1990s were adaptation ROCK STARS.
Interesting! I would love to hear what others think. For me, I definitely like "the movie of the book" to be as close as possible, sort of the visual iteration of what I've already... visualized. I do not like significant plot/character changes, or rather, I should say: changing a character to make them LESS problematic (easing Aslan down, making a stereotyped character less so in the modern adaptation, etc.) is alright, but making a character MORE problematic for purposes of change or tension irks me.
Random example: Yes, Faramir from LOTR is a Mary Sue author insert. No, he should not have been changed into a ravening jerkweed for the movie. NO NO NO, he should not have dragged Frodo and Sam all the way back to Gondor or wherever because that mucks with the timeline. /rant
I really really now want someone to compare/contrast the two Stepford Wives movies, one of which is fairly faithful to the book and one of which... is less so. ;)
I do not like significant plot/character changes, or rather, I should say: changing a character to make them LESS problematic (easing Aslan down, making a stereotyped character less so in the modern adaptation, etc.) is alright, but making a character MORE problematic for purposes of change or tension irks me.
Hopefully this doesn't sound snarky, because it's not meant as such, but: doesn't that basically translate to 'good changes are good, bad changes are bad'? Regardless of whether it's Mellow Aslan or Petulant Faramir, it's a substantial diversion from the source material, so if either one of them is better, it seems like we've already got one priority that can supercede 'exactly like the book'.
I'm also curious about exactly what you're encapsulating in 'problematic' - in the case of Narnia, there are bits of racism and classism and sexism that are incidental to the overall arc of the story, and so I could see how someone might have an exception of 'exactly like the book, except where there was completely gratuitous bigotry'. But then the problems with Faramir largely don't seem to be related to those sorts of issues; the moviemakers just decided he was too boring and so threw him the conflict ball for the end of Two Towers. But then I would point to Boromir, who I always felt was forced to carry the conflict ball in the original books, and I thought that the movie quite improved and expanded on his presentation (though obviously more subtly than they tweaked Faramir) and I'd say that's again a case where being somewhat 'unfaithful' to the original books was a good move.
(The next example that comes to mind is Fight Club, which has been showing on TV constantly lately, and I've learned that not only does the movie depart drastically from the book in the end, but that the author thinks it's a big improvement, so - if even the author thinks the derived story is better, does that factor in?)
I don't know if there's a particularly useful conclusion at the end of this line of thought. I liked the way Kit Whitfield once summed up her view of the job of an artist as 'to create beautiful things', and off that I would suggest that the guideline is 'deviating from the source material is acceptable in order to make it more beautiful' but that is perhaps not the most applicable bit of enlightenment.
Hee. I thought Faramir was pretty much a ravening jerkweed in the LOTR text anyway (if not as bad as Boromir, ugh), so I may be biased there, but dragging the hobbits back to Gondor definitely jacks up the timeline.
I am kind of having all the feelings about your description here. On the one hand, the BBC Narnia is lovely, and I thoroughly enjoyed it as a Sixlet.
On the other hand, I go so very opposite your interpretation of Aslan that I kind of have trouble with it. It's coming into line with a bunch of my personal Stuff, but I have trouble with a deity that is all comfort and gentleness - and it's easy to go there, with the BBC Aslan, because he doesn't do the display-of-power stuff. I have always sympathized with the wild things, with the monsters.* Aslan's wildness was a key part of his character for me - Lewis definitely gets creepy with his fetishization of the lion's power and physicality, but it's somehow essential for my interpretation of Aslan, and while I love (really!) the gentle and composed, cautious Aslan of the BBC version, I miss his wild roars.
Aslan dies and is revived and because this is from Britain in the 1980s and not America in the 2000s, the scene is over and done relatively quickly with a minimum of torture.
Is there something that's a combination of a "so true" LOL and a facepalm at the state of one's country's media? Because that is what I'm doing.
*Unrelated to this post, your Claymore entries are making me want to watch Claymore, a whole lot.
I don't think you sound snarky. ;) You're right that it's subjective. I think what I'm trying to say, both with the "LESS problematic" and "just want the movie of the book" is that most fans seem to edit out the 'accidental' problematic things internally anyway.
Obligatory Twilight Example: I think that, probably, S. Meyer didn't intend for Edward Cullen to seem abusive, despite the fact that his actions are, demonstrably and factually, abusive. But she doesn't seem to have intended it that way and a lot of fans internally edit out details like, say, Edward dragging Bella backwards by the scruff of her jacket through the school parking lot. So it's sensible, from a certain type of fan-perspective to edit out that detail because it doesn't jibe with the "overall" love story.
Back to Narnia: I don't think the story of Narnia is *supposed* to be about Aslan being an abusive, capricious, jerkish deity. Certainly most fans don't come away with that impression. I think Aslan is meant to seem loving, wise, and unknowable, and Lewis merely failed to portray that perfectly. So any additions by the BBC adaptation team to bring the movie closer in line with the Platonic Ideal that the book was trying to convey seems fair play to me. (And would, of course, to Lewis because we all know how he loved Plato!)
But, yes, this is utterly, completely, near-nonsensically subjective of me. :) And now I think you will enjoy my extended rant NEXT week about the American adaptation. Which is extended. And ranty. :D
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I miss his wild roars.
The good news is he does end the final battle with a roar! :)
And I use *LOLSOB* regarding the state of my dear country.
Back to Narnia: I don't think the story of Narnia is *supposed* to be about Aslan being an abusive, capricious, jerkish deity. Certainly most fans don't come away with that impression. I think Aslan is meant to seem loving, wise, and unknowable, and Lewis merely failed to portray that perfectly.
Whereas - I don't know, that seems kind of patronising towards Lewis, like "We know you meant to describe a gentle and merciful god, you just sucked at it, but it's okay, we made it better." Because Lewis is really consistent throughout the book (as we saw and as you highlighted often) about Aslan being terribly powerful and mighty and unquestionable and aren't we all super-glad that he's not setting his terrible wrath against us don'tmakehimmadanddon'tmentiontheDeepMagic. Wise, yes, unknowable, yes, and a particular version of loving, but it seems wrong to me to characterise the traits that we read as abusive/capricious/etc as being somehow unintentional or mistaken. Aslan is merciful at his own pleasure and his paws are terrible except when he velvets them.
So is the goal instead to tell the story in the way that we think will best evoke the audience reaction that the creator intended? It seems like that would be the only way to 'fix' Twilight - to simply cut a lot of things or substantially recast them until it told an 'actual' love story rather than a disturbing tale of repression and abuse. But then again it seems like we're deviating a loooong way from 'the book in movie form'. So is the real Narnia the one that got written, or the one we would have liked to have read? I obviously think that the latter option is a totally acceptable way to approach the movie, but I also think that it may depart substantially from the source material and that this is never an objectively bad thing.
(In the case of The Hunger Games, it seems like the positive reaction can perhaps be traced to the movie being very close to the book and the book itself already being the one that everyone wanted to read, without much 'personal editing'.)
I think we agree very much on the way to approach an adaptation - I just don't think it matches up well with prioritising total faithfulness to the source.
*lolsob* sounds good to me, heh. :)
And I will very much look forward to your American-adaptation rant. :D :D :D
Is Lewis consistent? I'm not sure that he is -- there's that bit about Lucy and Susan finally being able to do what they've wanted since they first saw Aslan, that is, to bury their hands in his mane. And his name evokes a physical feeling of peace and pleasure.
And yet, none of Aslan's *actions* would give me either of those feelings: a desire to touch him or a desire to worship him. So at least this fan was forced to take the one and discard the other; the details are just not complimentary for some. (And Edward cannot -- for all fans -- be both romantic and abusive.)
I guess I just don't see it as being patronising so much as dealing with a source material (in the case of Narnia and Twilight) that many people see as inherently contradictory. And with Narnia, most of the problematic stuff is narrative voice-over -- as we see with the "work against the Deep Magic" scene, which I noted was true to the book and yet felt completely different since the narrative interpretation wasn't piped over the scene.
I hope that makes sense. I feel uncomfortably like I sound like I'm arguing, and I don't want that. Just trying to explain what I meant. :)
I hope that makes sense. I feel uncomfortably like I sound like I'm arguing, and I don't want that. Just trying to explain what I meant. :)
Not at all, not at all! This is a really interesting line of discussion to me. I'm hopeful/glad that I'm still not sounding overly argumentative either. Because I continue to disagree (shocking twist)!
And yet, none of Aslan's *actions* would give me either of those feelings: a desire to touch him or a desire to worship him.
But that doesn't strike me as inherently contradictory, because Lewis wasn't writing you, he was writing other people. And since he doesn't seem to find Aslan off-putting in all his authoritarianism, it might be entirely reasonable for him to want (or decide his character would want) to ruffle their faces in Aslan's fur in spite of all the other stuff. Same goes for Edward, in that Meyer most definitely thinks he is super-dreamy-romantic and also most definitely wrote him doing all that abusive stuff without just mentally glossing over it. The contradictions are external, at least as far as we consider the narrators to be reliable.
as we see with the "work against the Deep Magic" scene, which I noted was true to the book and yet felt completely different since the narrative interpretation wasn't piped over the scene.
So this looks like a really good case study to me. You say it's true to the book, and the exact dialogue is in there and there are no additions or contradictions like "Work against the Emperor's magic? WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?!" But at the same time, the book is very clear that Aslan disapproves super hard and everyone is intimidated into never bringing it up again, whereas you've suggested that in the movie it's entirely possible that his next moves are based on just that - the idea freaks him out, but just maybe yes, he will explore the possible eventuality of working against the Deep Magic. And I would say that if the movie uses the exact words from the novel to imply their exact opposite meaning, then it's really not being very faithful at all. The narration isn't less canonical because it's not inside quotation marks, is perhaps what I'm saying?
I wonder if that's the real measure of a 'successful' adaption? It tells the story we read when we picked up the book or at least tells the story as we would rather it was told.
Lewis, for example, was trying to convey the terrible beauty of God - something that I don't think children can really relate to because while you don't understand a lot of things when you're a child, there's an implication that everything will make sense when you're older. A child expects an answer in due time but Aslan is meant to be an enigma all the way down which gets lost in translation from adult-intent to childish interpretation.
Regarding the "Deep Magic" part, I wonder if the adaption just didn't make it as explicit? Visual media can lend itself to ambiguity in ways that text doesn't because a scene in a film or show includes a lot of details that most written descriptions, particularly modern ones, don't. The interpreters might have assumed that the audience understood this to be the flat rejection that Aslan gives in the books?
Oh, good, I'm glad I sound chatty. :)
Lewis wasn't writing you, he was writing other people.
Is he? I thought the Happy Feelings were applied automatically to all Non Evil People in Narnia. ('Course, Lewis would probably find me evil, so...?)
And I would say that if the movie uses the exact words from the novel to imply their exact opposite meaning, then it's really not being very faithful at all.
Well, this at least explains why I wonder if we're saying the same thing from different directions! (As you say, good case study!) In this case, you might find the THG movie to be less "true to the source" as, say, someone like me because the internal monologue is not there at all. That bothered Husband a little. I'm anxious to hear what you think about it.
I wonder if that's the real measure of a 'successful' adaption? It tells the story we read when we picked up the book or at least tells the story as we would rather it was told.
That would be precisely how I would think, but I'm coming to see that's a more subjective concept (obvious in retrospect!) than I initially imagined.
(What, my preferences aren't Universal? Quelle surprise!!)
Ana: I'm glad I sound chatty. :)
I'm glad you sound chatty too. We want this blog to go on being fun for you.
Naomi: Tom Baker playing Puddleglum.
Why, oh, have I never beheld such a wonder?
Faramir. Yes, Faramir. And some other characterization changes while we're at it, but that one was particularly glaring.
Those LotR movies, I loved them (mostly) but they don't tell the story that Tolkien created.
I vaguely remember hearing one of the writers explain that they'd decided to move the Shelob sequence from the second movie to the third so as not to distract from the big battle at Helm's Deep. (Although why Helm's Deep had to take up so much screen time is another question.) But they still wanted to give the Frodo-and-Sam story some kind of exciting ending. So, the hobbits can't just meet Faramir and be given supper and sent quietly on their way; they need to be involved in a small battle of their own. So, Faramir has to be the kind of person who'd force them to go with him, and a motive for doing it. So, movie!Faramir.
Okay, I guess I can see it. It's just an example of the movie not telling quite the same story as the book, and I can make my peace with that. But then, she (Philippa Boyens, I guess) said something like, they also thought it undercut the power of the Ring to have Faramir say the famous line about how he wouldn't pick the Ring up from the side of the road. And I'm thinking, no, all it shows is that the character that Tolkien had said was in some ways like him, had a perfectly good understanding of why it would be a very bad idea for any human being to claim that power. What, didn't you think Tolkien knew what he was doing with his own story?
So, plot changes lead to character changes lead to thematic changes-- don't get me started on what they did to Denethor, for instance-- and before you know it, you've got a new story. But now, when we talk about The Lord of the Rings, are we talking about Tolkien's creation or Peter Jackson's creation? Confusion abounds.
Maybe we need a new standard description for book-to-movie adaptations. Like all of those "based-on-a-true-story" biopics and such. It's not "The Lord of the Rings," it's "Ringwars: based on JRR Tolkien's novels." Or something like that.
I am increasingly confused.
Is he? I thought the Happy Feelings were applied automatically to all Non Evil People in Narnia.
Yes, but that's pretty explicitly a result of magic and/or divine power, not a result of considering and adoring Aslan's actions, so I don't see how it relates to the face-in-fur scene. (The canon of Narnia says that if you were a Good Person and you were in Narnia (and maybe outside too) Aslan's name would cause you to feel warm and fuzzy. Since we can't falsify the existence of Narnia/Aslan/etc, we can't say whether this is true or not.)
In this case, you might find the THG movie to be less "true to the source" as, say, someone like me because the internal monologue is not there at all. That bothered Husband a little.
Not necessarily - I would think it was a bit untrue-to-source if the movie did something that contradicted something that was only found in the THG narration (even if it didn't contradict any spoken dialogue or whatever), but the absence of narration itself isn't necessarily unfaithful so much as it's a common aspect of the shift in medium. My point about the Narnia narration isn't that the BBC version leaves it out, but that the BBC version appears to completely dismiss some statements made only in narration, in favour of a different interpretation.
As to 'successful', that's a completely different adjective from 'faithful', and while the two may be related, a completely unfaithful adaptation might be very successful and a completely faithful adaptation might be a train wreck, so - whole other question!
(What, my preferences aren't Universal? Quelle surprise!!)
It's something that can still take me by surprise. I've had several series described to me by a friend who has similar tastes and picked them only to find that there are massive differences between the 'story-as-she-told-it' and 'story-as-I-read-it'.
For what it's worth - I read the Narnia books for the first time when I was very young and if you'd asked me to describe the story, I would have described something very similar to your description of the BBC adaption.
In a way, we adapt the story just by reading it because we read different implications into different scenes.
Continuing the above example, the scene that stuck with me the longest and resonated the deepest was Aslan's walk to his death. I came away from reading that scene with a aching feeling of loneliness which resonated strongly with my own experience of depression. The idea that people can only walk by your side for so long was a powerful image and I forgave a lot of the wild and out-of-place visuals in the Witch's Palace because it was such a relief after the bleak and terrifying execution.
I'm glad you sound chatty too. We want this blog to go on being fun for you.
Ha, thank you. I've gotten a little shy online because I've become aware that there are times where in my HEAD I'm all "la dee da, chatty chatty blah" but on PAPER I apparently sometimes sound like "RAWR, DISAGREE WITH ME AGAIN AND I WILL BAN YOU *SOUL*!" So I am doing reflexive tone-checks from time to time.
they also thought it undercut the power of the Ring to have Faramir say the famous line about how he wouldn't pick the Ring up from the side of the road.
Buh?? I mean, Gandalf and Aragorn are tempted, but they resist because they understand the inevitable outcome. Really, the temptation is worked in them because they WANT power -- the power to do good, yes, but ultimately still power.
Is it really so odd to think that there would be men who simply do not want power, let alone costly power? I thought that was why the hobbits (in general, but also Sam and Pippin and Merry in particular) resist so well -- they've been raised to never even expect power, so they don't reach for it, and certainly not in broad, earth-shaking ways like the Ring promises.
Faramir was a Mary Sue-ish character, in my opinion, but it honestly never struck me as odd that he JUST DIDN'T WANT THE DANG THING. By that point in the book, there's an almost meta-feel of "why would ANYONE want this stupid thing". Faramir is a sort of narrative refreshment course.
I don't like that reasoning they gave at all.
The thing that irked me about movie-Faramir was that the business with the ring and his not being tempted in the book was easy to underplay. It could have been a split-second thing, such as his not hearing the whispers when he held it. Now, I appreciate that there's the possibility that such a setpiece might have jarred slightly with the fact that Frodo's the hero and whatnot (more on this, tangentally, in a moment) but the way it was treated in the film makes it feel more like a deliberate choice to place everyone in the same position so as to allow cinema-goers to unquestioningly accept Frodo as the one true protagonist.
The other thing that occurs to me is that, when I first read the book, Faramir felt more like a narrative device - for want of a better term - than an outright Mary Sue. I originally felt - and still feel, I guess - that the purpose of his behaviour was to make the point that Denethor made the wrong choice by sending Boromir to the conclave, especially when considered in the context of Boromir's behaviour towards the end of the first book. I always wondered whether it was possible to say that, by extension, Gandalf et al had also made the wrong choice in entrusting the ring to Frodo rather than make an exhaustive search for a bearer that wouldn't be tempted by its power.
Admittedly, this is coloured by the fact that I always read Frodo's being made bearer of the ring largely as a combination of his being related to Bilbo - indeed, of BIlbo actually giving Frodo the ring - and the other standout possibilities at the conclave all recognising the potential dangers inherent in the ring being enrtusted to their care. I feel like Frodo was a patsy, being a fairly game chap who didn't quite realise the dangerous vow he made when he agreed to take it to Mount Doom and who hadn't yet been evidently corrupted by its power.
Just wanted to chime to say this post just about blew me away. Just like you, my formative experience with Narnia was the BBC versions, and just like you it meant I edited out the bad bits from the books even as I read them.
You managed to elucidate something I would have never thought of. Thank you.
And I should add that I will do my very level best to continue seeing changes in such a forgiving light if anybody ever buys the film rights to one of my novels. :-)
Ana: I didn't mean to criticize your tone , or make you self-conscious about it. Just that you usually do sound cheerful and interested when you write, and I was hoping that with everything else that's going on in your life, this blog stays a source of pleasure to you instead of an additional stress.
Adaptations: there's no one right way to do them, any more than there's one right way to translate poetry from one language to another.
I like that; that's a good way to put it.
As for movie!Faramir, all he was doing was "avoiding the near occasion of sin." Not better than other people, just smarter.
And I have to go to work, before I think any more about it.
Er, that was book-Faramir. I was typing with one eye on the clock while someone was talking to me, and I lost my train of thought, little local branch line as it was.
Oh! I didn't think you were criticizing at all. Just my usual rambling. Thank you. *hugs*
"So is the real Narnia the one that got written, or the one we would have liked to have read?"
The Real Narnia is the one inside Aslan's garden :P
The screeching right-hand turn that happens halfway through Miyazaki's film of Howl's Moving Castle, however, annoys the snot out of me, because it turns the story into something COMPLETELY other than the book it's supposedly an adaptation of. If you want to tell a story that different, then I say write it as its own thing.
As I understand the process, the Miyazaki version of Howl's Moving Castle is not based on Jones' book, but on a manga series that was inspired by Jones' book. I wish I had known that going in, because I forever love all of the things about the original book, which meant I was completely thrown pretty much from five seconds in, when there turned out to be trains and flying surfboards. Jones' own reaction, I understand, was 'wevs, this is not at all my book, but that doesn't mean it's a bad story'. And to observe that at last she understood why Howl had real-world fangirls.
I share the feeling that eventually the 'brand recognition' becomes counterproductive and probably false advertising.
I share the feeling that eventually the 'brand recognition' becomes counterproductive and probably false advertising.
Hmmm. Now I'm wondering how to distinguish the book/movie dissonance of SHREK, say, and HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (live action, not the wonderful Chuck Jones cartoon) -- both film versions of wildly popular children's picture books, both pretty faithful to the "look" and somewhat to the plot of the original stories, both of which took minor characters and greatly expanded their roles, both of which pretty much completely reversed the themes of the original books, both of which did it by taking the main characters -- who were *designed* to be more-or-less blank archetypes -- and giving them personalities, backstories, motivations, etc.
And yet I loved both the book and movie of SHREK, and hated what the film version did to my beloved Grinch.
And it can't be just the actors; I loathe Jim Carey slightly more than MIke Myers, but not by much.
films aren't made for the fans: they're made for whoever wants to see them, and fans don't own that.
This, this a thousand times this. Films (as the end product of a phenomenally expensive and complex process) arrive at the local cinema because someone, somewhere thinks it is worth their while. Which generally translates to "someone thinks that they can make money out of this film." Which means that that films are made for the people who will pay money to see them.
And, importantly, those who make the profit usually have instrumental interests in why people to to see films.
Yes, the film industry has blinkers/limitations/stereotypes about their audiences (hence the endless presumption that most of the film-going audience is young men) but that doesn't change the basic motivation of the greater part of the industry which is to produce a product that will make them money.
I share the feeling that eventually the 'brand recognition' becomes counterproductive and probably false advertising.
That really isn't fair; if somebody assumes that a film will be like a book because they have the same title, then honestly they should get their pattern-recognition skills checked. Anyone with any experience or common sense knows that films do not necessarily resemble the books they're based upon. Anyway, what's the alternative? Changing the name and failing to give the original author the credit she deserves?
When it comes to Howl's Moving Castle, I think the other thing is that Diana Wynne Jones was really not the promotional brand. Successful though she is/was, any Miyazaki movie is an auteur piece whose brand is its director. Check out the poster:
http://www.mattfind.com/12345673215-3-2-3_img/movie/p/h/u/howls_moving_castle_2004_859x580_658450.jpg
The ad line is 'From the Oscar-winning director of "Spirited Away"'. Diana Wynne Jones was not being advertised there.
I didn't think the plot of that film was very well handled - Miyazaki is primarily a visual director, its visuals were as good as ever, and it's probably best watched as installation art without worrying too much about the story - but seriously, 'This isn't the film I was hoping for' does not translate to 'I was lied to.' A hope is not a promise, and no collaborative work makes any promises to anyone outside of the contract between the collaborators.
I kind of feel like the point of having characters like Faramir, and the hobbits, who are immune to a lot of the Ring's corrupting power, is that this isn't a story about gods and Heroes and folk who do things because Doom and Magic. The Silmarillion is that story. A frakload of the myths and sagas that got blenderized into Middle Earth are that story. But LOTR isn't, and that's why it's not Aragorn's story, or Galadriel's (well, aside from the stoopid sexism, but I digress...), and that's also why it manages to be so Christian, IMO.
When it comes to Howl's Moving Castle, I think the other thing is that Diana Wynne Jones was really not the promotional brand. Successful though she is/was, any Miyazaki movie is an auteur piece whose brand is its director.
FWIW, I know any number of teenaged anime fans who read the book because they loved the movie, and felt that the author "lied" to them by not delivering the same story.
(Is that fair? Of course not. But no more unfair, really, than those who feel cheated by the film)
Both the film and the book are favorites of mine. But I don't think of them as sharing anything more than a title. (Should I be angry at Ralph Ellison because his INVISIBLE MAN didn't deliver a snappy science fiction morality play like HG Wells?)
Well, this has nothing to do with the topic of movie adaptations, but:
why does no one ever do dryads with skin the color of their trees?
Huh. I never really thought about this before, but I picked up somewhere that dryads always resemble their trees and so most are brown-skinned, as a general rule of thumb; I'm trying to remember if I've ever seen movies or TV shows with dryads in them, or if my conception was formed by one particular book or something. I watch a lot of fantasy/scifi stuff, so I probably have seen movies and/or TV shows with white dryads; I bet I always wrote them off as random magical women because who would have a white dryad? Unless she's the spirit of a birch tree, I guess. Huh. Interesting that we have such different conceptions of them. :)
Anyone with any experience or common sense knows that films do not necessarily resemble the books they're based upon. Anyway, what's the alternative? Changing the name and failing to give the original author the credit she deserves?
I agree that the author of a work that has been adapted should be clearly acknowledged, but it's hardly uncommon for movies-based-on-books (or plays, or whatever other medium) to have different titles from their source, and I'm not certain that this necessarily means that all of those original authors have been wronged. (I would take it seriously if one disagreed, but it's not a complaint I recall ever hearing.)
I do think there's still a degree of divergence from the source material where changing the name of a story makes sense, as part of clearly indicating that reproducing the original story was not a prime goal for the new writers. Miyazaki acknowledges that the major issue on his mind in the HMC film was the horrors of war and his support for pacifism, and those themes override and replace many of the original arcs, such that interested parties could probably debate for a long time which had a greater effect on the final film. I'm not sure that a change as minor as "The Moving Castle, inspired by Diana Wynne Jones' novel Howl's Moving Castle" wouldn't have been satisfactory on all counts.
I'm not sure that a change as minor as "The Moving Castle, inspired by Diana Wynne Jones' novel Howl's Moving Castle" wouldn't have been satisfactory on all counts.
Well, bear in mind that the film was made in Japanese; whatever it was called in the original language, the title was never going to be exactly the same anyway. As to a name change making sense ... well, I'm inclined to leave that up to the author/director. If Miyazaki felt that 'Howl's Moving Castle' was the right name for the film, then I don't think I have the right to argue with him: he made the film, the title is an important part of any work, and the fact that he went that way is an artistic decision.
And as to 'indicating that reproducing the original story was not a prime goal for the new writers' ... honestly, that sounds kinda entitled. Servicing the fans of the original book is not the main reason to make a film of it, especially not an auteur piece like the kind Miyazaki produces. It's not the creator's job to cover their work with disclaimers; it's their job to make the work as good as they can make it and then let viewers or readers decide for themselves whether they like it. If fans of the book really care that much about accuracy, they're perfectly well able to read reviews of the film and get a sense of how close an interpretation it is, and then not go see it if they don't like the sound of it; there's a whole profession dedicated to telling people what films are like in advance, and that profession is reviewing, not scriptwriting or directing.
I loved both the book and movie of SHREK, and hated what the film version did to my beloved Grinch.
My theory: as with many movies Jim Carrey stars in, the Grinch movie was a vehicle for Jim Carrey being wacky, with story taking a back seat - cast someone else as the Grinch and you'd have a totally different movie. The Shrek movie, by contrast, was made to tell a story, and would have been much the same regardless of who was voice-acting the main character.
Well, bear in mind that the film was made in Japanese; whatever it was called in the original language, the title was never going to be exactly the same anyway.
Strictly true, although the Japanese title was 'Hauru no Ugoku Shiro', which is as directly as 'Howl's Moving Castle' can conceivably be rendered in Japanese.
And as to 'indicating that reproducing the original story was not a prime goal for the new writers' ... honestly, that sounds kinda entitled. Servicing the fans of the original book is not the main reason to make a film of it
I don't think I've ever said that it was the main reason, or that it should be. Nor have I said that I was 'cheated', or that in any way I thought I had special rights as to saying what the film should have contained. I am saying only that in any case where an adaptation is being made, the decision of whether or not to change the title should be informed by the degree to which the two versions of the story resemble each other, and I am observing that Miyazaki apparently draws that line much further out than I would. I realise that he's a skilled and rightfully lauded artist in his field; I don't think that obligates me to agree with him. If he ever somehow is informed that I disagree with him, he is welcome not to care one iota.
I note that I did use the phrase 'false advertising' earlier, which probably connotes duplicitous intent and so is not something that I would want to generalise. I'm pretty happy to stick with 'counterproductive', though.
I question the idea that fans are a captive audience for adaptations. Certainly some fans are, the Opening Weekend fans. But those hardcore OW fans are the ones most likely to write reviews read by softcore fans, of which there are usually many more, and which most are willing to not see the movie at all (non-canon-ers) or wait until they see it for relatively free (Amazon Prime, TV showing, etc.).
If one is interested in ticket sales, I think one must have either a story that pleases the fans OR is so great it can overcome fan distaste and create new fans. (Probably the Jones/HMC case above.)
To put in anecdata, I went to LOTR as a hardcore fan. (Guaranteed profit.) Then as a pleased fan, I recommended it to my casual-watching softcore fan father. (Fan-approval based profit.) So we have double profit based on fan approval.
My non-fan mother who was not interested in becoming a new fan declared that she would only like FotR if they "got to that stupid mountain and threw it in already." If they'd made THAT movie, however, this hardcore fan would never have recommended it to anyone, and would have advised my parents NOT to watch it. So we have only half profit with fan-disapproval.
Less anecdotally, I do believe there is a high correlation between Fan Disapproval Adaptation and Low Profits. Presumably the approved adaptation are bolstered by fan repeated viewings, positive reviews, willingness to buy regular AND extended editions, etc.
So I do think "pleases the fans" is a wise consideration for the adaptation team. Imho.
I agree, and I love appropriate use of the "inspired by" tag. Even when the movie title is the same, that can clearly signal that it's not the same story.
A reaction to a piece of art is valid for the person having the reaction, and I think any discussion of "should" or "unfair" runs the risk of forgetting that.
I, personally, was incensed at changes made to THE GOLDEN COMPASS movie adaptation, and that reaction, agree or disagree, is valid for me.
Nor would I expect everyone to be politely silent if, say, BREAKING DAWN 2 ends with the Volturi killing nearly everyone on earth, darkening the skies with pollution, and BAM! it's now THE MATRIX. :)
If one is interested in ticket sales, I think one must have either a story that pleases the fans OR is so great it can overcome fan distaste and create new fans. (Probably the Jones/HMC case above.)
I would tend to disagree - 100% of fans may not be a captive audience, but at the same time, a percentage of them will be, and a percentage of the generally-movie-going public will also go regardless of whether they know the source material or not. There are certainly some fans (to be clear on definitions, I'm just going to use 'fan' as 'person who liked the source material', regardless of whether they're part of a fan community) who will be displeased if a movie in any way deviates from the original - to take your LotR example, you were pleased with the movie, whereas my former roommate was deeply upset that they cut Tom Bombadil and had Legolas as a pretty action hero. People are going to like things for different reasons, and 'fans' really can't be generalised to the point of knowing that a choice will or won't affect their preferences.
@Kit
Anyone with any experience or common sense knows that films do not necessarily resemble the books they're based upon.
Buh? "Is not identical to," I will grant you. But I do in fact expect a film to at least resemble the book it's based upon. If I go to see The Lord of the Rings, The Film, and it's about a farmboy on a planet with two moons who wants to join the Rebellion against the evil Galactic Empire, or it's about a reporter sitting down in a hotel room with a tape recorder and a vampire, or it's about a Danish prince with a dead father haunting him saying something about murder . . . I don't think experience and common sense will protect me from being deeply surprised, and also rather pissed off.
The devil is in the details, of course, which is to say how much the film should resemble the book. I'm on board with Will's notion that somewhere along the spectrum, a title change becomes a good way to signal major narrative changes. Blade Runner shares some concepts with "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," but it's more "inspired by" than "based on," and the different title helps warn me that's coming.
If Miyazaki felt that 'Howl's Moving Castle' was the right name for the film, then I don't think I have the right to argue with him: he made the film, the title is an important part of any work, and the fact that he went that way is an artistic decision.
I have every right to argue with an artist over their artistic decisions. I can argue with Miyazaki over his title (well, I can argue over the title with myself and other people; it isn't like he and I went out for a beer to talk about it), the same way I can argue with Meyer over her notion of "romantic" behavior or Lewis and his notion of betrayal and redemption. I can argue with authors over the racism and sexism in their narratives, or just the bad pacing decisions and deus ex machina endings. "It's an artistic decision" applies to every single thing in the story, and we are 100% free to criticize the results.
Re: fans and adaptations -- yes, that's part of the tension. Change too much, and you may upset the fans, who will tell everybody your movie sucks, and drive away your audience. But pleasing the fans is no guarantee of success, either, because you have to speak to an audience beyond them, too -- and sometimes fans hate the result, and yet the movie is still a success. If anybody knew the actual formula for making the whole thing work, Hollywood bean-counters would sleep a lot better at night.
Blar, I keep double-posting; must remember to reread thoroughly.
Less anecdotally, I do believe there is a high correlation between Fan Disapproval Adaptation and Low Profits.
I dunno; I'm pretty sure the Transformers movies have been consistently (and perhaps increasingly) disliked by many fans and have also made increasingly record-breaking profits. Which is not to say that there aren't also fans who like the movies, or who are only there for Peter Cullen (no vampiric relation), but I don't think that Dark of the Moon made over a billion dollars because Michael Bay was concerned with the die-hard die-cast TF fandom.
If one is interested in ticket sales, I think one must have either a story that pleases the fans OR is so great it can overcome fan distaste and create new fans.
I present to you Exhibit Bay. A film can be completely rotten and make vast amounts of money if it's properly marketed towards the right audience.
I think you're overestimating how big a proportion of a film audience fans of the book are likely to be. Films tend to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce, and apparently don't consider themselves to have made their money back unless they take twice what they cost to make. That's a loooooot of bums you need to get on seats.
The thing about your anecdata is that it's operating from entirely within the fan context, which is not a perspective on non-fan viewership. It's not taking into account the casual viewer, or the engaged but non-fan one, people who don't look to fan opinions but to trailers and mainstream reviewers.
Consider, for instance, the case of the recent Star Trek movie, which made a healthy profit - enough to get a sequel green-lit - with a marketing campaign that actually annoyed fans by pushing the idea that this was Star Trek for people who didn't like Star Trek. I remember some really serious offence taken by fans about that, and not all of them liked the movie, and it certainly wasn't your father's Star Trek ... but financially, it was a serious of good decisions.
For my money, the correlation between fan disapproval and low profits is likely to be simply that fans are people and people tend not to like bad films; a bad film will be disapproved of by fans and non-fans alike. (So, for instance, the Star Trek movie. Anecdata: I'm not a Star Trek fan at all, but I saw the movie and quite enjoyed it; I asked a fan I know what she thought of it, and she said that it was different but she still enjoyed it. Being a fun ride paid off for her even if it did make changes.) 'Pleases the fans' is a wise move if the way of pleasing them is making a good movie, but if it doesn't work as a movie - if it wouldn't work for non-fans - the studio has fatally limited its potential audience, because with the possible exception of J.K. Rowling, 'fans' is always going to be a smaller group than 'everybody else in the world'.
(*sigh* I just realized Disqus is having some kind of hiccup wherein I only get notifications for about half the comments in this thread. I hope this is temporary.)
"It's an artistic decision" applies to every single thing in the story, and we are 100% free to criticize the results.
Ha. I am now wondering if this should be the tagline to the blog, should we ever change it. :D
Because that's pretty much all I do: criticize artistic decisions! LOL.
A few months ago, Spouse and I saw The Secret Life of Arrietty (Miyazaki adaptation of The Borrowers' book #1). I thought I had read The Borrowers books as a child. But we saw the movie, and nothing was familiar. But the movie was charming, so I sought out the first book and read it. And was disappointed because the tone was quite different, as were key relationships. HOWEVER, if not for the books, the charming movie wouldn't have been made. And I might have liked the books better if (1) I'd read them as a kid, and (2) I hadn't seen the movie, with a different treatment of certain elements.
(I later decided the books about little people I had read as a kid were probably The Littles, but I haven't gone through the effort of looking for them at my library, and seeing if they are indeed familiar.)
Like Kit, I saw the recent Star Trek movie, as a not-fan of the franchise, but liked it much better than I've liked other movies in the series. (Nothing comes close to the whales and the cetacean biologist in IV.) I disliked the original series, liked TNG okay, and watched the others somewhat without liking them.
Still, for a sff fan, how many sff movies are there to choose from really? Not enough so that I can be picky. I will pretty much go to see *anything* sff that seems well-crafted, not too violent, and not just stupid-and-offensive (iow, Avatar). But if it's really good, I'll go see it twice, I'll recommend it, and I'll buy the DVD. (Which we did with this recent Star Trek movie.)
Though I watched and loved the BBC's Narnia adaptation, I never saw A Little Princess on television - it's a shame as I would have loved that loads as a little girl... I've read the book at least 10 times.
However, the series is on Youtube! and it's awesome (well, the first episode, all I've watched so far) - Sara is kind and playful and naive and privileged... it seems like the writer(s) really 'got' the book and wanted to show it in a good and accessible light. I like it a lot. Thanks for mentioning it, Naomi :)
Whereas I watched the Shirley Temple version, which I'm sure contributed to my dislike of Sara. *shudder*
The Shirley Temple version is horrid. The more-recent version set in the U.S. that decided that there had to be a big climactic chase scene across rooftops was also pretty bad. (For one thing, I really didn't like the decision to re-set it in the U.S. It's a very British book.)
Re Tom Baker as Puddleglum: it's the BBC adaptation of Silver Chair, and available on Netflix, I think.
"It's an artistic decision" applies to every single thing in the story, and we are 100% free to criticize the results.
To clarify: the reason I said it was an artistic decision and I wasn't going to criticise it was because Will had described it as 'false advertising'. I didn't put it very clearly, but what I mean was that I wasn't going to criticise it as a marketing decision, which is what 'false advertising' implied, because I didn't think that's what it was.
In the case of Howl's Moving Castle, my personal opinion is that the story is so, well, 'dream-like' would be the positive way to put it and 'garbled' the negative, that there's really not much point criticising any verbal decisions it makes: verbally it makes practically no sense, and to watch the film on its own terms it's probably best to see it as a series of swirling themes in a massive visual pie.
Hurrah, more Narnia postings!
The main thing I took from the BBC series was that the White Witch was unintentionally hilarious in how hammy the actor was: the bit where she's like "they may have heard some very NASTY STORIES ABOUT MEEEEE!!!!" made me laugh my head off. But the thing is, her obvious villainy made Edmund look like even more of a dolt than in the book: in the bit where he's standing before her sled, *before* he eats the Turkish Delight, she says loudly "This could ruin all! But he is only one, he is easily dealt with!" And Edmund just keeps standing there like he's completely oblivious to what she's shouting to herself, and I'm like "Run, Edmund! Run for your life!!"
I don't know if I like BBC Aslan as much as you do -- even though he's definitely less of a jerk than Book Aslan, to my ears he doesn't sound "relaxed" so much as "feeble". It's a similar problem that I have with Richard Harris's portrayal of Dumbledore: throughout both movies, even though he sounds appropriately old and wise, he doesn't have Book Dumbledore's vigour and quirkiness. That's why I actually prefer Michael Gambon, even though he's also far from perfect.
As a matter of fact, "Shrek" WAS substantially rewritten when Mike Myers was cast in the part. Shrek was originally going to be voiced by Chris Farley, and Shrek would've been a nice ogre who wanted to become a knight; Princess Fiona would've been the caustic one, voiced by Janeane Garofalo. Then Farley died, so they rewrote the entire film to make Shrek the antisocial one & Fiona the nice one and recast both roles.
Interesting! I wonder at that, because I loved Dumbledore 1 but thought Dumbledore 2 was an awful jerk. (Disclaimer: Have not read the books.)
Possibly I'm just frightened and/or anxious around non-sweetness-and-light authority figures. Though I thought McGonagall was always awesome in every way, because it seemed like we'd understand each other just fine.
Must reflect on this, but it would seem relevant somehow.
Interesting! I wonder at that, because I loved Dumbledore 1 but thought Dumbledore 2 was an awful jerk. (Disclaimer: Have not read the books.)
Neither resembles the Dumbledore from the books more than extremely superficially, in my opinion.
When it comes to movies being made for the fans, Harry Potter is what always comes to my mind -- because so much exposition is cut that after the first two movies, many of the plots as presented on screen are totally insensible to the audience if they haven't read the books, or at least that's my experience. Prisoner of Azkaban is probably the worst offender.
Having not read the books, I can weigh in. ;)
I never had any problems with PoA, but Goblet of Fire was awful to follow. I never could understand why they went ahead and made Harry compete given that (a) he didn't want to, (b) it was dangerous, (c) it was ruining his reputation at school, and (d) obviously someone had put him in against his will, presumably to harm him.
It was kind of like "I know! Let's do what the Bad Guys WANT us to do!" I never understood that and it FRUSTRATED me. The rest of the movie was comprehensible, though.
Hm. I guess I'd thought they omitted discussion of several plotlines entirely in PoA, but still filmed 'em -- my recollection might be spotty. Were you able to follow why Harry's Patronus took the form it did? Or how Remus, Sirius, and Peter were involved with the map's creation?
Honestly, the only reason Goblet of Fire made any sense in the book version, either, were the words "binding magical contract," and there were large plot-holes to get you out of that, too. But yeah, I also thought the GoF movie was the worst of the lot on many fronts.
I didn't know that Remus and Sirius and Peter were involved in the creation of the map, but I gathered that they were familiar with it, knew how to work it, and (presumably) knew ways around it.
Harry's patronus was a male deer, right, and I thought they said/implied that's what his father's would have looked like had he been there. (Harry initially confused himself with his dad, so it's another helping of Just Like His Parents, I thought?)
Now I'm worried that GoF won't make sense to me in book format either. The whole "welp, he's in the contest now and that's that" thing JUST BUGS ME. (I was also incensed that, at least in the movie, it looks super-dangerous. HOW is Hogwarts different from Panem once they *force* Harry to compete in a deadly competition? Grouse, grouse, grouse.)
I wonder if they went with a black centaur because the old "Hercules: the Legendary Journies" TV series had some black centaurs as recurring characters, and they turned out to be pretty good supporting characters? i.e., they may have started a meme of "black centaur supporting character" for classical myth-based characters? Wasn't one of the named centaurs in the Harry Potter movies black as well?
Um. I almost accidentally blurted a bunch of spoilers about those plot points, but the books handle them really well and it's probably better to let you read them.
Harry's patronus was a male deer, iirc, and I thought they said/implied that's what his father's would have looked like had he been there.
What Harry's father's Patronus was is never established--in the books.
Harry's father was an Animagus, like Sirius; he became a white stag. Harry's Patronus was literally his father's Animagus form, not for "Just Like His Parents" but for "his father is what he imagines protecting him."
The reason Harry participates in the contest is that, once his name was put in the Goblet, he's magically compelled to do so, part of the Goblet's magic which not even Dumbledore can break. Why it wouldn't work for him to stroll onto the field at the start of each trial to be ceremonially awarded 0 points is another question, since Rowling never appears to think of that possibility. Why Voldemort was apparently the first wizard to ever think of putting an enemy's name in the Goblet is yet another question never addressed.
LOL LOL LOL. Fair enough!
I promise to read them soon, and report back here!
Is it really so odd to think that there would be men who simply do not want power, let alone costly power? I thought that was why the hobbits (in general, but also Sam and Pippin and Merry in particular) resist so well -- they've been raised to never even expect power, so they don't reach for it, and certainly not in broad, earth-shaking ways like the Ring promises.
Indeed. Remember when the Ring tempts Sam? "Samwise the Strong, hero of the age". Sam's reaction was pretty much, "That's the silliest thing I've ever thought of" and takes the ring off.
And yet, with a few tiny, key changes... it's almost a different story...(specifics excised for space) ....The changes are amazing subtle and yet the result is fantastically different.
Amazing what a little editing can do, isn't it? My epiphany on the power of judicious editing was watching "The Phantom Edit" version of "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Phantom"/"Attack of the Clones", and listening to the commentary version by the Phantom Editor. His changes are very subtle, yet pervasive and his explanations of why he made each change were fascinating. As for the effect of the changes: Jar-jar Binks a non- (or much less) annoying support character who doesn't ruin scenes with his klutziness gags? Check. Padme/Anakin romance that doesn't seem to come out of nowhere and make no sense? Check. Pod race that actually lasts just long enough to be suspenseful & have a climax but doesn't bore me silly? Check. I wish I could have seen the Edits first, so my perception of the movie was not tainted by Lucas's version.
Well, the whole "Harry must compete because the Bad Guys want him to" thing only makes sense once you realize that Harry's death at Voldemort's hands has been Dumbledore's plan since 1981 - it's the "Bad Guys" who are falling into *Dumbledore's* plans, not the other way around. Of course, since the reader doesn't learn about that prophecy until the end of the *next* book...
At the time, without the foreknowledge of the future books, the whole plot of GoF made no more sense in the book than it does in the movie.
Why Voldemort was apparently the first wizard to ever think of putting an enemy's name in the Goblet is yet another question never addressed.
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Yes, just this. He says “I am wise enough to know that there are some perils from which a man must flee,” and “I do not wish to see it, or touch it, or know more of it than I know (which is enough), lest peril perchance waylay me and I fall lower in the test than Frodo son of Drogo.” Neither is consistent with his simply being a saint who is never even tempted by the Ring.
I've had at least a few times where I've read a book, then seen the movie and gotten a scene better.
I love love love the Borrowers books, because of the detail Mary Norton brings to the characters and the backgrounds. She's clearly thought through the practicalities of being a small person living under a kitchen floor in a dying "Big House". The House (and, yes, it deserves the capital letter) was once a lively place, with regular dinner parties, children, and lots of food. Now there is only the old lady left, and she's having problems retaining permanant staff. Much less food around. Fewer Borrowers than there used to be.
Later books in the series keep it up. Spiller's boat, made of a knife box. The balloon. The model village. These things could work. The balloon, in particular, is described in sufficient detail that you could make it.
And the writing is lovely.
TRiG.
An example of how a faithful movie adaptation could really help clarify things that, unfortunately, didn't come to pass is the van scene from Twilight.
I've put far more thought into it than is reasonable* and ultimately my conclusion is that, while certain elements of it are physically impossible, much of it (notably the positions and motions of Bella, her truck, the van, and Edward, if not the sea of faces) actually seems like it should work. The problem is that figuring out what the hell is going on requires a lot of thought on exactly what the information you're given means.
Part of that is bad writing, but I think part of it is that what's going on is just very complicated. Even well written it would probably be difficult to wrap one's mind around, and making it clear would probably require the text to be bogged down with description that was more about the logistics of being knocked out of the way than anything interesting.
If it were in a movie (it isn't, the Twilight movie completely changed the scene) it would take zero effort on the viewer's part to understand exactly what was happening. You'd see the relative positions of things and the motions they made and that would be it. It would make perfect sense.
That's the benefit of a faithful adaptation. The switch from words to visual media is like shifting your position when looking at a three dimensional sculpture, things that were once difficult to discern become immediately clear when you look at it from another angle.
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Of course most examples are unlike the van scene because they require adding interpretation (every line needs a tone of voice, for example) instead of just showing what's on the page.
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* My name appears 35 times in the comments of Ana's post on it. Edith and Ben and Snarky Twilight both started as but two of the five different versions of it that I wrote. Way more attention than the scene deserves.
@Ana:
I thought that the movie HP&tPoA gave enough clues to catch what was going on, but you REALLY would have to think about it. The key is to figure out the real names of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs (the Marauders, the Messieurs who created the Map). They're all in the movie, in one form or another.
Wormtail is easiest; who has a tail like a worm? (Once you see the later movies, this is even given away.) You know three other people whom Wormtail used to hang out with, so now you know who the Marauders are, but you might not know which is which. Padfoot is a bit ambiguous, since TWO people have forms that might have padded feet. But only one is connected with the moon, so that one must be Moony instead.
By elimination, you now know who Prongs is. But why is he called Prongs? He too must have an alternate form, but what is that form? Now you have to think where you have seen prongs in the movie, who made those prongs, and why he did so. (If I remember the book correctly, he'd already figured the identities out and discussed it with Moony, so he knew what he was doing. But that discussion was cut from the movie.)
Now you should know everything; you figured out what Harry figured out.
Hooray for more Narnia posts! I was despairing of seeing any more of those. :)
This post definitely makes me want to watch the BBC series again. I remember liking it but also thinking it aged badly, particularly with regard to the special effects. However, I do remember Aslan's added line about how the prophecy had never actually been tested - that is, he didn't actually know it would work - and I always thought made it make much more sense.
I'm looking forward to your thoughts on the other film versions. :)
The thing is, while Mrs. Beaver taking a few minutes to pack supplies is treated as silly, it really isn't silly at all.
They're planning a long midwinter hike, with children. The witch might kill them, but hypothermia and dehydration can kill them even more easily. Mrs. Beaver knew that they didn't just have to keep the witch from catching the children. They needed to make sure the children were brought to safety alive and well. And the witch's endless winter was a weapon that could kill the children more thoroughly dead than the witch turning them to stone (which Aslan could reverse.)
A hot, sweet drink, like tea with sugar, helps prevent both hypothermia and dehydration, and also provides much needed quick energy to keep their metabolisms up, and their bodies generating necessary heat. Of course Mrs. Beaver would pack tea and sugar!
Provided the Beavers have enough skill to make and maintain an outdoor fire in midwinter, snow can be melted and boiled and the hot water used to make tea. And the fire-making and fire-keeping in midwinter outdoors skills seem reasonable to assign to the Beavers, since they are shown to know how to use fire, and have lived in midwinter all of their lives.
Mrs. Beaver's "silly" preparations were essential to the story and to the children's survival. It had the potential to be good world building - of course people who lived in a place with constant winter would be careful to never stray far from home without a pack of survival supplies. But preparing meals is "women's work" and by definition "silly" to Lewis, compared to the serious men's work of fighting battles and evading enemies.
Imagine the story written with the children being afraid and ignorant (as they are), Mr. Beaver focusing on the need to flee quickly to evade the witch (which he already does), and Mrs. Beaver pointing out that if they just run off, they might as well wait for the witch, because the poor fur-less children won't survive the trip, even with their "borrowed" fur coats. (Which she does, but without being given credit for this necessary and wise effort.) And she quickly gathers things from her well-managed household, food and blankets and perhaps a couple of tarps for ground-cover and shelter. Then, as we read about their journey, the things she insisted on packing are each used, in a way that shows how it helps the children survive and succeed.
I think it's supposed to be racial. 'Resistant to the lure of power' is an inherent characteristic of Hobbits, it doesn't have anything to do with their upbringing.
No, I think I disagree with that. Hobbits and Men [sic] are supposed to be closely related, two branches of the same race, the Little People and the Big People. And we all know what people are like.
I think it's primarily cultural, that is to say, upbringing. The Hobbits are a fairly egalitarian society-- yes, there are rich and poor, masters and servants, a certain amount of class stratification. But there are no kings, no lords, no people who are better than other people Just Because. The one hereditary title is purely ceremonial and rarely referenced. And the main duty of the one elected official seems to be presiding at banquets.
Hobbit society places a high value on minding one's own business and getting on with the job in hand. It's an outlook which has its advantages: their reach doesn't exceed their grasp, and especially they don't expect to reach into their neighbors' territory. It also has its limitations, a certain insularity and smugness, a kind of willful blindness to any larger issues until their own homes are threatened.
And some hobbits certainly seemed to grab at the opportunity for petty power over their neighbors when they had the chance. But "petty" is the scale they're used to.
Sauron had the Ring the first time he was defeated, but apparently the nations of Middle Earth were much stronger then (despite the loss of most of their leadership?)
Well, there were a lot more of them, weren't there? More people, more functioning states? Middle-earth by the time of LotR seems to be really empty compared to what it used to be.
On the subject of movies not quite like the books, how about HP 7? Wow. The final battle was... different.
Uh, yeah. If by "different" you mean kind of completely the opposite of what Rowling wrote. Voldemort never had a ghost of chance against the resurrected Harry, and it was just Wrong to pretend that he did, no matter how much we want to see wizards swooping around with magical sparkling dueling spells.
Hmm... was Hogwart's Teleportation Scrambler down for the Triwizard tournament? I can't remember... No, that was up. It just doesn't affect Portkeys and whatever shenanigans Durmstrang used to move their ship to the lake.
Uh, yeah. If by "different" you mean kind of completely the opposite of what Rowling wrote. Voldemort never had a ghost of chance against the resurrected Harry, and it was just Wrong to pretend that he did, no matter how much we want to see wizards swooping around with magical sparkling dueling spells.
I thought most of the movie was pretty great, with the exception of the five or ten minutes between Neville's epic speech and the epilogue, which were all of the wrong things. We've got the death of the snake being turned into some kind of near-slapstick chase sequence, we've got Harry and Voldemort bizarrely fighting/arguing simultaneously like it's a Spider-Man comic, inexplicable Neville/Luna shipping shoehorned in, Molly-vs-Bellatrix spliced in so badly that it looks like a random shoehorning, and Voldemort randomly disintegrating instead of just falling over like a mundane dude.
But maybe worst of all of this is that it cut Harry's final attempt to save Voldemort. "Just try for some remorse." Doomed to failure? Yes. Pointless? No. Giving him every chance he could to just surrender was important to Harry characterisation, and more broadly to the whole comparison of good versus evil. Instead we get Harry making one ominous remark about how the Elder Wand's true master may not be who Voldemort thinks it is, and then it's time for more special effects.
It was supposed to be done singularly and surrounded by the crowd, where everyone could see how it was done, and see that it wasn't just 'he was bad so we killed him'.
I try to forget that part exists.
Portkeys and whatever shenanigans Durmstrang used to move their ship to the lake
I want the answer to the latter to be 'Harbourkeys'.
But maybe worst of all of this is that it cut Harry's final attempt to save Voldemort. "Just try for some remorse." Doomed to failure? Yes. Pointless? No. Giving him every chance he could to just surrender was important to Harry characterisation, and more broadly to the whole comparison of good versus evil. Instead we get Harry making one ominous remark about how the Elder Wand's true master may not be who Voldemort thinks it is, and then it's time for more special effects.
Remember that I have not read the book nor seen the movie in question.
I'm suddenly imagining the the epic final battle being a reenactment of Searching for Bobby Fisher:
Harry holds out his hand.
Voldemort: What are you doing?
Harry: I'm offering you a draw.
And so on.
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Entirely unrelated to Harry Potter, I have a character in my head who bluffs his way into co-winning a chess tournament by reenacting that same scene when he was going to lose. His opponent knew it was a bluff (or at least strongly suspected) but took the draw anyway mostly based on being impressed and amused with the bluff. Trouble is, I know absolutely nothing else about who the character is or what he does with his life.
Interesting! I wonder at that, because I loved Dumbledore 1 but thought Dumbledore 2 was an awful jerk. (Disclaimer: Have not read the books.)
I wonder whether that's differences in acting, differences in script, or the fact that over time it became harder and harder to justify some of the stuff Dumbledore did?
I remember reading the first book, laughing at his bits about staying out of the one hallway and the forest, and then being shocked to find out these were genuinely dangerous places that he'd been so glib about. Over time, there were just too many instances like that - Harry wasn't the only one who's safety Dumbledore didn't seem to take seriously...
A bit that stuck out at me was in PoA when Movie Ron was injured in hospital and Movie Dumbledore apparently thought it was hilarious to keep "accidentally" causing him pain.
Overall, D1 seemed kinder, more understanding, and more thoughtful to me. But I don't know if it's an actor difference or a character evolution.
Overall, D1 seemed kinder, more understanding, and more thoughtful to me. But I don't know if it's an actor difference or a character evolution.
From my book-centered both-Dumbledore-actors-were-bad perspective, Richard Harris Dumbledore was too subdued, too quiet, not enough humor, really hard to picture dueling Voldemort as Dumbledore did in Book 5, and Michael Gambon Dumbledore was too obnoxious and, increasingly, presented as lacking control which Book Dumbledore always had.
It's definitely not at all about stuff Book Dumbledore did; Book Dumbledore did not respond to Harry's name coming out of the Goblet of Fire by screaming in Harry's face.
The thing that irked me about movie-Faramir was that the business with the ring and his not being tempted in the book was easy to underplay. It could have been a split-second thing, such as his not hearing the whispers when he held it. Now, I appreciate that there's the possibility that such a setpiece might have jarred slightly with the fact that Frodo's the hero and whatnot (more on this, tangentally, in a moment) but the way it was treated in the film makes it feel more like a deliberate choice to place everyone in the same position so as to allow cinema-goers to unquestioningly accept Frodo as the one true protagonist.
The other thing that occurs to me is that, when I first read the book, Faramir felt more like a narrative device - for want of a better term - than an outright Mary Sue. I originally felt - and still feel, I guess - that the purpose of his behaviour was to make the point that Denethor made the wrong choice by sending Boromir to the conclave, especially when considered in the context of Boromir's behaviour towards the end of the first book. I always wondered whether it was possible to say that, by extension, Gandalf et al had also made the wrong choice in entrusting the ring to Frodo rather than make an exhaustive search for a bearer that wouldn't be tempted by its power.
Admittedly, this is coloured by the fact that I always read Frodo's being made bearer of the ring largely as a combination of his being related to Bilbo - indeed, of BIlbo actually giving Frodo the ring - and the other standout possibilities at the conclave all recognising the potential dangers inherent in the ring being enrtusted to their care. I feel like Frodo was a patsy, being a fairly game chap who didn't quite realise the dangerous vow he made when he agreed to take it to Mount Doom and who hadn't yet been evidently corrupted by its power.
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