The Dark Wins

[sistermagpie]

NOOOOOOOOO!

I know it's only a movie. I never expected it to be right, exactly. I know they only bought it to jump on the bandwagon after Narnia and HP. But if those producers were willing to at least attempt to stay close to the source characters, WHY MUST THEY MURDER MY DARK IS RISING!

THEY MADE THE STANTONS AMERICANS!!!! And bratty, hateful and stereotypes! Yes, it's Will the nerd, his no-doubt obnoxious Hollywood little sister and a passle of dumb, grungy brothers who push him around under the nose of their cold, distant parents (why would cold, distant academics decide to have 6 children? well, at least it's not 9, I guess...).

God knows why they've even bothered to set it in England. Oh right--it's easy enough to change an English family for an American family fake Hollywood pod!family, but trying to find actually mythology other than the one given in the book would be difficult. Though I'm sure somebody tried ("Why can't we just set the Arthurian history in America?") to do that.

I'm usually the first person to consider the filmmaker's pov, but in this case the filmmaker's pov is all too obvious. And it's unfortunate because I think at least a lot of the recent adaptations of fantasy and kids' books, even when they made changes, were understood to be tapping into a love of the books themselves. Obviously with this they thought the books weren't big enough to care about or trust the characters, so it got the Hollywood treatment and when it fails they'll blame the books.

Comments

[westmoon.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid to even click on the link.

Bastards.

JESUS WEPT

[westmoon.livejournal.com]

I just read it.

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???????????

*sobs*

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

This is where it helps to be a big cynic about book-based movies in general. My motto is to a) always expect them to be made, and b) always expect them to be crap. Then you're never disappointed.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

What's so sad is I thought I was prepared. I had a real failure of imagination about how bad it would be.

[trobadora]

That's a hoax, isn't it? Please tell me it is.

*cries*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

God, I hope so.

[q-spade.livejournal.com]

Condolences – that sounds utterly crap. I've not read The Dark Is Rising myself, but it has a character named after one of my favorite deities EVER (http://www.ynysprydein.org/bran/) and therefore surely deserves better.

(The site has a lot of neat stuff if you click around – start at "About Bran". It might help cheer you a wee bit after such a nasty shock.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh yes--and he lives up to the name.

spoilers...





Bran is in fact King Arthur's son, who's grown up in modern-day Wales. Though if he made it into the movies I'm sure he'd be American too. Thanks for the link, though!

[coughingbear]

OH no! That's so much worse than I could have imagined. Why do they have to do that? No seventh son, horrible parents and horrible family (poor Robin and Paul) and somehow worst of all: 'However, he is actually an innately cool kid who has not yet grown into his coolness'. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes it's like...talk about not getting the whole Old One thing. I admit that part of the appeal to a child reader is that he's cool. Being an immortal wizard is pretty cool. But the point for him is that it's a responsibility. It's not about, "Phew, I guess I'm not a loser!"

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

American????

*goes to read link*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, not even just American. Monstrous and American.

*longs for James and his 8 mince pies at Christmas after caroling*

::whimpers::

[flamewarrior.livejournal.com]

No?!

American? Will bullied by his family?! Aarrrrggghhhh!!!

::hyperventilates::

This is so WRONG. :,-(

Re: ::whimpers::

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I know! Bullied! BULLIED! BY HIS FAMILY! His family who has big birthday parties for him! He's the youngest (second youngest in this version). Remember the moment in SotT when he thinks how his family are naturally of the Light? That's because they're genuinely all nice people who don't bully the weak.

[teratologist.livejournal.com]

I don't even LIKE The Dark is Rising, and that made my eyeballs fall out of my head.

Note to American screenwriters. The fucking Russian was WRONG, ok? You're allowed to write a happy family. And hell, don't even get me started on the 'geek that needs to find his inner cool'; I could spend all day finding new and exciting swear words to discuss the many exotic ways that Hollywood writers find to completely fuck up that story arc and render it disgusting.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hollywood's also proved them wrong with the idea that unhappy families are different, because how many times have we seen this one? They just took Hollywood Family version 3A and stuck it in.

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

WTF.

This is so WTF I can't even get past saying 'WTF'. I mean, Will's not even turning 11 any more.

Merriman - what are they going to do to him?

Oh my, WTF. Again. And again, and again.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You can't even make a joke because it's gone beyond any jokes I was making before. I couldn't even imagine it this bad.

[charlotteschaos.livejournal.com]

I'm usually the first person to consider the filmmaker's pov, but in this case the filmmaker's pov is all too obvious.

Yeah. I mean... I do get that adjustments would need to be made for budget and time, but I don't get how being American is serving this story. Even with that, even if they were just displaced Americans I could deal with it. But the cold family? Will wanting to be cool? That hurts.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Right--there's nothing about this that shows someone just trying to adjust for a movie. It's obviously starting from some wrong-headed marketing ideas--English? Haven't we had enough of them in the movie recently? Let's make them American. And what's the deal with this kid? He's a wizard? Oh! Like Harry Potter. So he's got to be treated badly by his family.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

BASTARDS, BASTARDS, BASTARDS!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

THIS IS THE KIND OF SITUATION CAPSLOCK WAS MADE FOR!!!!

[fictualities.livejournal.com]

Oh my GOD.

I just . . . every single paragraph of the description made it WORSE! Will's brothers hate him? His parents are distant? There are no words. I don't even have an ICON for something as vile as this.

It's like they took every single thing that made the series good, stomped it into the ground, exploded a nuclear bomb over the remains, and then pissed on it.

Not that I feel strongly about this, or anything.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I know!!! Just when you think it couldn't get worse, it does. Not only is nothing right, it's all aggressively wrong. How could a character breakdown be so wrong? And yet it is!

They should just film the director literally pissing on the book.

[anamirza.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think "NOOOOOOOO!" summed it up nicely. I should have stopped reading right there. It was like reading sequential character assassination. It's just a pity that the call for the Rider wasn't more like "exudes icy malevolence but really has a heart of gold - deep, deep inside".

Silver lining: that's $8 saved. No, I'm not going to hold onto the hope that the casting call might be misinformation/fiction. I'm just going to let it go right now...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! Well, the Rider might not have been given a heart of gold yet, but you know he's got to be hot.

Also I note that Maggie/James seems like it's got a lot of Blodwen/John Rowlands there. Have they decided that they need James to be a major character because they've made him the hottie? God, I already miss Jamie in the books.

But yeah, I've got to let this one go.

[nidoking.livejournal.com]

So... the second book contains a lengthy discussion of how to pronounce words in American?

"The 'th' sound... usually, you just stick your tongue out between your teeth and blow."
"Pbbbbbbbbbbl."
"No, no... keep the air over the top of the tongue and don't let it vibrate."
"What about the 'dd'?"
"That's the same as one d, but more so."

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! I was thinking that too. Will the Drews all be visiting from America too? Simon will refer to his A.P.'s and mean his advanced placement tests. Bran will make a reference to being a Welshman with a chip on his shoulder and Will and the Drews will say, "But isn't Wales just part of England?"

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

I never read The Dark Is Rising novels when I was a child, although I wish now that I had.

But I feel your pain.

I can imagine how I would have felt if Hollywood had turned the Pevensies into Americans. As, apparently, was quite a real possibility (gak!!) along with other horrors, before (I guess) the CS Lewis Estate said: "not on your nelly", and Walden Media saved the day.

This sounds horrible. :(

This kind of thing always makes me grateful for PJ & Co!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh man--I should have known someone had to fight to make the Penvensies American. It makes perfect sense, really. If it's the middle of WWII why wouldn't an American family send their kids to England to stay with an uncle. Or better yet, why not just let them stay in California? And set it during Vietnam? Setting couldn't actually matter, could it?

What's worse is if anything DiR is *more* focused on the setting: Cornwall, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Wales, Buckinghamshire/Wales. Woven in with specific Celtic mythology. As I said above, there's even a conversation in the books where the one American character is described as "not fitting" because she's in a foreign country (by kids who themselves feel like outsiders because they're from London and they're in Cornwall).

*sniff* The Stantons have been farmers in Bucks for generations! Will and James (who are only a year apart and never bully) make up half the church choir! They carol every year throughout their village. The village is important in DiR! *weeps more*

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

It sounds very odd that a film due out in September is casting now for shooting next month.
Hopefully if nothing's done yet, it can still be changed - maybe if it's a small fandom with a lot of negative reaction, they'll get the picture that they're screwing up... :(

I'm not even familiar with the series, but that breakdown sounds monstrously cheesy, especially having those siblings come off so stock (the jokers, the hottie, the rebel - as dressed by Hot Topic! - and the nerdy underdog. Oh, and the basket-case. *'Don't You Forget About Me' begins to play*)

Though I'm sure somebody tried ("Why can't we just set the Arthurian history in America?") to do that.

Heh, I got dragged to a shitty horror last year, the basis of which was that Elizabeth Bathory lived in America.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Everybody lived in America. Or at least they'd want to, so you can set the movie there.

That breakdown is so cheesy. The nerdy kid--I'm sure he'll be getting back at those twins with some wacky magic. Maybe he won't be able to control it at first. More hijinx.

Of all the incredibly strange transformations (something tells me Paul won't be playing any flutes in this versions) the one that makes me laugh most is James the hottie with his romance with witch girl Maggie Barnes. In the books it's just kind of a minor thing that Maggie's got a crush on Max the art student (who does have long hair, at least--but something tells me Maggie won't be a dairy maid any more). Anyway, James is a year older than Will (which would make him 12) and mostly what he does is eats. The idea of him having an affair with a Dark Sorceress is kind of hilarious. And I assume that little sister Gwen is more inspired by Will's sister Mary than Gwen, because Mary's got more of a part, but Mary was probably too bland a name. (Or else they didn't want William and Mary because then they'd be named after a college.)

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I never even heard of this series of books. Maybe I would have been sucked in by the Standard H'wood Family 3A. If I had been, I sure would not have read the books. Sounds like not only Standard H'wood Family 3A, but Standard Plot 27B under subheading "Unhappy Childhood - The Psychs Can Fix This".

(why would cold, distant academics decide to have 6 children?...)

Because they are fans of the Galbraiths?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It definitely does sound like they're very into that Stard Plot 27B--since I guess the whole saving the world from an evil force isn't enough. It reminds me of fictualities thoughts on kid lit in my last post where she said everything has to be about self-discovery. Will can't just be a regular kid who takes on this responsibility, he also has to discover his inner coolness.

[dotsomething.livejournal.com]

Oh god no. God no. Nononononononononononononono.

Bullied by his siblings? WTF?

Okay. Let's not panic. Films get revised all the time. Right? Except if this is what they're starting with, by the time it's been rewritten for the tenth time Cooper's book will have been butchered and I...

Nope. Can't deal. There is no film.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

There is no film.

That so sums it up. Bastards.

[sydpad.livejournal.com]

And lo, before the Gate of the Dark City of Hollywood, there stood Two Beasts.
And one beast was like a beautiful angel before, but hollowed out behind.
And the other beast had a hundred eyes and yet was blind.
And the name of the first beast was Robert McKee's "Story".
And the name of the second beast was Demographic Projections.
And despair was on the face of the land, for all that came through the Gate was devoured by the beasts, and vomited back up again.

I confess I'm a bit suprised at Walden Media, they don't usually make such massive changes. The producer's imdb page makes him out as a bit of a non-entity, so I'm afraid it's mediocrities leading mediocrities.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Waaaah! It's horrible because it's truuuuuee!

[roisindubh211.livejournal.com]

I am actually almost crying right now. That has been my favourite book since i first read it, and it gets re-read every single year. That's just not right. I want th BBC to take the book and do one of their lovely low-budget miniserieses like they used to...that would be perfect. It shouldn't have been given to my country's filmmakers, they don't know what they're doing.

[roisindubh211.livejournal.com]

this makes me want to get donations or something to produce a rival film. I could do it, too.


now to blackmail someone into lending me a video camera...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Someone could make something on their phone and it would be better!

I lack words...

[(Anonymous)]

Oh Lord. My favourite childhood fantasy series, surpassing even the Narnia books, and the bastards have raped it of all its magic and mutilated it beyond recogniation. There should be a special level in Dante's Inferno for crimes like this.

Re: I lack words...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I could not agree more.