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So often, modernizations and movie adaptations get a bad rap, and those who love the heart and soul of the original works fume at them with just indignation. But every once in a while, the adaptation isn’t bad. Every so often, they bring old worlds to new people, and that’s the best thing there is.
(Source: gold-titaniumalloyman)
Alright. The popular debate of books versus movies. Which is better? Which tells the story more effectively? Which conveys the characters better? Are movies better than their book counterparts, or do they fall short? I’m gonna take a look at several of the worst, best, and WTF? adaptations in my opinion, adaptations of books turned into movies/ones I either have read or know the summary of. Yes, there will be spoilers. For the books/movies.
Before we start, no, Hunger Games, HP, Twilight and LOTR will not be appearing on this list; people have said everything they’re going to say about these movies already, I will not be contributing to it. So, in no particular order, onward we go!
1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame; WTF; Okay. So back in the 90’s for those of you who have not seen this movie, Disney apparently decided to turn the Hunchback into a kid’s movie for some bizarre reason. I still have no clue as to why they chose this book in particular.
Yeah, I got kinda caught up in a couple of other blogs, sorry my lovely followers.
Anyway. So. Me and El saw Looper this past weekend. Both of us liked it, but. YES. BUT.
There are problems. Well, there are usually always problems with time travel, when you stop to think about it. So, I really like the first part of it, with the dark future world and the disparity and desperation between people was actually a lot of fun. The sort of fifties/sixties vibes I was picking up from it (I blame JGL’s outfit) reminded me of what I have heard/seen of Fallout. Kinda neat. And it works, the time assassins thing. BUT.
Here’s where we get into problems. The very first thing. Future Joe came from a timeline where he killed his future self, and thus begins paradox one. This first choice, so small a thing, triggers changes that neither Joe would be aware of. Future Joe just literally changed the future, right there.
And because he escaped his present self, he made his present self make a bunch of different choices while trying to ‘fix’ his future with his wife, except if he had never done that, Present Joe would not have met the woman and her son, trying to figure out what his future self was planning. Paradox two. If future Joe had never come back, then present time Joe would have had no reason to meet these people.
And he would not have met his wife, because all the choices made a different ones. Time is fluid rather than being linear, I think (I dunno, I’m not an expert on time) but the minute you, future self, change something, anything in the past, you can set off a chain of events, so say other time films.
But back to this. Because of Future Joe’s actions, everything starts to change. This universe itself is becoming a paradox because the time loop has to be going on in this one and not the other one, where he killed himself; At the end where present Joe kills himself, then future Joe vanishes instantly means that there is an alternate universe because future Joe never came to the past since his past self is dead, therefore, he could not have done all those things. and there is another alternate universe in which present Joe did kill future Joe.
Still, despite the time travel/alternate universe things going on here, I would say this was a decent movie.
Hahahaha ever since Saturday the Korra finale seems to make me angrier and angrier. As a storyteller and as a fan of solid storytelling, it is an atrocious mess! I stand by the creators are amazing directors, amazing concept artists, amazing producers, but wow are they terrible writers. They have absolutely no understanding of dramatic convention, and so the first season of The Legend of Korra suffered greatly from terrible execution, and the core ideas were so good it should’ve been a gamechanger. It should’ve been the most brilliant thing on television and instead we were given a 12-week narrative case of blue balls.
Disclaimer: if you enjoyed/love/fanatic about Korra, by all means continue to do so! I enjoyed a lot about Korra. In fact that is why I am so frustrated. But that aside, this is meant as a critique and a dissection and as such you can take it or you can leave it. Nothing I have to say will change the show, nor will anything I have to say will have any effect on what season 2 will bring. Mostly I have been ranting about it to everyone on a daily basis since Saturday and this is my way to finally just. get. it. all. out. So this is me shouting into the ether for my own cathartic glee.
Cool? Cool.
You. ARE. AWESOME.
I’ll have to write something about Korra and ATLA as well at some point >_>
Norse, here! Giving my review of Atlantis.
Before I get into this, there’s really not all that much to Nitpick about this movie, mainly because of its back story. According to Wiki, Atlantis actually had a much longer planned running, about 155 pages of script versus Disney’s common 90 pages. Essentially, this was supposed to be two hours, and then Disney decided to cut out half an hour of the story. So things don’t make sense because the story was gutted. There are scenes in Atlantis that I still cannot understand. Personally, I don’t like the amount of 3-D animation used in this film and I’m not a fan of the animation style in general.
Now, about the setting. I will talk about this because this seems to happen in a lot of historical fiction movies; modern bias. Atlantis is set in 1914 yet there is a black doctor and a female Hispanic engineer. This tends to be a problem in a lot of movies that are set in the past. But this is a part of movies that will never truly be fixed.
Sorry about the rambling, but back on track. The main problem with Atlantis: The Lost Empire is the editing of the movie was very poorly done, and you can see the potential in this movie for it to be fantastic. Unfortunately, it is subpar; there isn’t much character development, the villain is boring as bones, scenes refuse to make sense, and pieces of the movie don’t add up. Sadly, Atlantis is a flop.
Norse: Now their next destination is the Parthenon in Tennessee, which is rather… amusing.
El: And where do we find the pearl in this location? On Athena’s… tiara. Headgear. Thing. SOOOO… either Persephone is reaaaally into rockhard women… or she’s into Hydras… yeah. Yeeeeah. Statues or Serpent-things. Yeeeeah. I really don’t wanna know about any more of her sexual escapades.
Norse: Wait… apparently the Hydra can disguise itself as five janitors… and can separate its body…? And wait… why does it start out with five heads? Okay… well, Hydras normally started out with one head. Because the trick was to try and chop off its head, so it would grow more. Because, I dunno, everyone goes to chop off heads.
El: And again… I am slightly less certain on this one, but still PRETTY certain… THE hydra. Not a. Not Hydra. THE HYDRA. There was only one, and Hercules killed it. « Monster respawn, woo!
Norse & El: IT DOESN’T BREATHE FIRE. IT NEVER BREATHED FIRE. IT JUST GREW A LOT OF HEADS.
El: Stop it Percy. No, seriously, stop it Percy. STOP IT PERCY. STOP CUTTING OFF THEIR HEADS, PERCY. EVEN ANNABETH IS TELLING YOU TO STOP, PERCY. Ooookaaay. So, apparently… Percy Jackson knows about Medusa and being able to look at her through reflective surfaces, but not the Hydra. One is actually a Greek Myth. And one is a Greek Myth popularized by a DISNEY movie. That would’ve been right around the time he was born. Which one does he know about? The more obscure one. Yeeeeaaaah….
Norse: I actually saw this in the movie theaters. I probably would’ve enjoyed it more if it hadn’t ruined a lot of the Greek mythology.
El: I, uh, didn’t see it. At all. Well, that’s a lie. I caught bits and pieces of it here and there on HBO. So we decided to watch it together, and nitpick it into submission.
Norse: We see Poseidon come up out of the body of water, in his godly form. Why the hell didn’t he shrink down in the first place? I mean, the water effect when he shrinks down as he walks past is cool, but why not shrink down in the first place? He couldn’t teleport to Olympus? ‘Cause teleportation seems to be in abundance among the gods. Zeus does it to retrieve a character later in the movie, and Persephone has pearls readily available, that can take the user anywhere. It seems to be an overly convenient option available to the Gods, so why don’t they just use it?
I’ll kick off nitpicking season with Cinderella. As a child I was never really interested in this movie, and looking back now as I watch it again, I am glad that I wasn’t because this is probably one of the worst of Disney’s works, at least story wise. (because Disney always has sound animation).
Okay, so there’s not much to nitpick here, honestly, because what’s wrong with this movie isn’t its construction, its the subject matter and story itself. Edit: Yes, I am aware of the story’s source material. I still disapprove of the version Disney decided to go with.
One; Her name is Cinderella before her stepmother and stepsisters come in to the picture? Were you not trying too hard on this movie, Disney?
Two; The talking animals. Okay, they are beyond annoying, but what’s even worse is that only the mice talk, and they don’t even talk in full sentences half of the time. Either go one way or the other Disney. Why are the Mice wearing clothes? Furthermore, why are all the animals wearing clothes? I mean, what purpose do they serve?
Three; Its mentioned in passing but I still find it weird “Wash the cat.” Uhm, why? Does the cat roll around in mud every day or something?
Four; What? Fairy Godmother? They never explain this or why she has one or why Cinderella never wished herself out of her situation. I mean, that seems more important than going to a ball. Balls will come and go, but her situation stays the same.
Anyway, that’s about it, for the construction. What’s really aggravating is Cinderella herself. For one thing, she’s absolutely perfect; kind, caring, beautiful, good with animals, she can sew and cook and clean, and she’s completely subservient :|
I mean, I don’t understand it at ALL. Ok, the girl knows she has a fairy godmother, is aware that her treatment is emotionally abusive, and somehow remains “gentle and kind” and what does she do about it? JACK SHIT. She never once even asks her fairy godmother to help her get out of her situation, she just say, and I quote “Oh, as long as I keep hoping and wishing, my dreams will come true.” What kind of message does that send?
That as long as you keep hoping and wishing, your bad situation will fix itself? BS. I mean, hoping and wishing is good and all, but how about you actually DO something to improve your situation or go after and pursue your dreams.
She is the worst princess of the lot because she actually had access to some means of getting out of her situation and DID NOTHING. She’s also got, like no character traits at all.
Snow White was an orphan and her stepmother wanted her dead…..what is the girl supposed to do about that exactly? She could run away, but I don’t think she’d ever think about that option…..and Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) was cursed…..so yeah, she was kinda stuck in her situation as well.
But Cindy, she wasn’t. She had the option and the means to leave at any time and she didn’t. That is why this movie is terrible. It basically tells you that if you are a woman you can’t do anything without help, and a man has to come to your rescue, because surely you can’t get out of your situation by yourself.
Anyway, on to possible redeeming qualities.
I love Lady Tremain (Cindy’s Evil Stepmother). As far as Disney villains go, she’s probably as subtle as Disney will ever get. She only cared about furthering her status and standing in the nobility, and her daughters. She also probably poisoned her husband, lol. Seriously, he mysteriously dies like six months to a year after he married her…..HMMMMM.
Her voice actress, Eleanor Audley (Who also did the voice of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty) is absolutely phenomenal, which makes this character even better, in my opinion.
The scenery and animation itself is wonderful, and the castle is gorgeous. Its no wonder that it became Disney’s logo castle.
But….that’s about it. Throw in the annoying sequels and what you’ve got in your hands is just a marketing ploy by Disney :|
Thanks for that, Disney. /I still love your work, though, for the most part.
And it wasn’t even cake :c
Sorry, both me and El have been caught up in RL, so there hasn’t been any nitpicking going on right now. I promise that we will eventually nitpick those movies, but right now, we’re kinda busy.
