Paul Huff (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} phuff) wrote,@ 2007-10-06 00:21:00 |
|
Another PZ4 moment.
Tonight, Melissa (mhuff) and I got to go on an honest to goodness date. To the movies! By ourselves! Late at night! With no child in tow! It was a blessed event brought to us by Melissa's mom and dad, with whom we're staying this weekend for car fixin' and various other reasons.
The movie we saw is called The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. It's based on a book called
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. I kind of wanted to see this movie because I loved the books so much. I was quite disheartened because it departed so much from the story in the books, even the general feeling of the movie was different than the books. Quotes on the wikipedia page linked to above say that the writer, director and actors didn't really pay too much attention to the books. Which is lame and stupid of them.
Several things which I didn't like: they added in 10 overly cliched and oddly complicating elements to the plot which dragged the story down. They failed to write well enough to sustain some of the themes they added into the story (namely the teacher-student sort of relationship they tried to ham up between Merriman and Will). It felt like there was almost an attempt to stay true to the magical elements of the original book, which were nice because they were incredibly low-key, and un-PZ4-like. The book is much less like Fantastic Four the movie and much more like, say, the first X-Men movie. Fantastic Four has the people's powers be the concentration. The first X-Men movie treats the powers as a tool in telling a story, and the powers seem to be slightly more... natural? Less comic-booky? In the end, the magic felt lame and over-wrought, which is always the danger in a movie like this. They added random fist-fights, a component that I don't remember at all in the original story. They made the story much more a piece of young adult literature than it was originally, I think. It's been a while since I read the book, but now I want to go back and read it again.
Anyway, bottom line, don't go see this movie hoping to find something similar to the book, except essentially in name only. If you do, you'll be disappointed.
It was, however, an excellent date. I love Melissa! She's hot!
Tonight, Melissa (
mhuff) and I got to go on an honest to goodness date. To the movies! By ourselves! Late at night! With no child in tow! It was a blessed event brought to us by Melissa's mom and dad, with whom we're staying this weekend for car fixin' and various other reasons.The movie we saw is called The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. It's based on a book called
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. I kind of wanted to see this movie because I loved the books so much. I was quite disheartened because it departed so much from the story in the books, even the general feeling of the movie was different than the books. Quotes on the wikipedia page linked to above say that the writer, director and actors didn't really pay too much attention to the books. Which is lame and stupid of them.
Several things which I didn't like: they added in 10 overly cliched and oddly complicating elements to the plot which dragged the story down. They failed to write well enough to sustain some of the themes they added into the story (namely the teacher-student sort of relationship they tried to ham up between Merriman and Will). It felt like there was almost an attempt to stay true to the magical elements of the original book, which were nice because they were incredibly low-key, and un-PZ4-like. The book is much less like Fantastic Four the movie and much more like, say, the first X-Men movie. Fantastic Four has the people's powers be the concentration. The first X-Men movie treats the powers as a tool in telling a story, and the powers seem to be slightly more... natural? Less comic-booky? In the end, the magic felt lame and over-wrought, which is always the danger in a movie like this. They added random fist-fights, a component that I don't remember at all in the original story. They made the story much more a piece of young adult literature than it was originally, I think. It's been a while since I read the book, but now I want to go back and read it again.
Anyway, bottom line, don't go see this movie hoping to find something similar to the book, except essentially in name only. If you do, you'll be disappointed.
It was, however, an excellent date. I love Melissa! She's hot!
