Xander ,'Empty Places'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
hey, maybe the book really is unfilmable
I keep hearing that. Anyone want to chime in on why so many have thought so (without, you know, spoiling)? Is it length, complexity, nature of the characters, or what?
I'm still going to try to be a test subject for those who see the movie without having read the novel, hopefully this week.
Also, did anyone see Blindness? Wow, talk about grim. And ... weirdly good and bad.
Is it length, complexity, nature of the characters, or what?
Yes.
It really is a very lengthy, complex book with complex characters of difficult natures.
But I have to agree with one of Ethan's reviews: I don't think it's unfilmable. I have NO IDEA how *I* would do it (except as a very expensive twelve-part miniseries on, like, HBO or Showtime or something), but I think it can be done. I just don't think Zack Snyder was the guy to do it perfectly. He did okay. I guess. But it wasn't as OMGWTFBBQ as graphic novel fans and non-fans alike were expecting, I think.
Ah. There are books like that.
Still can't wait to see it. And it's not (completely) about how much I love Jeffrey Dean Morgan, or how interested I am to see pendulous sapphire wang.
Were you disintegrated and reintegrated in a fucking barn?!
BWAHAHAHAHA!
Also, I'm not posting anything else without checking the book first, because this is just getting embarrassing.
However, I think the main point is on all of these - and I think we do agree here - that the letter may have been right, but the spirit was wrong. And in my case, the spirit struck me so wrongly that the I (repeatedly) wasn't able to acknowledge the rightness of the letter until it was pointed out to me.
In short, I R CURMUDGEON KITTEH.
except as a very expensive twelve-part miniseries on, like, HBO or Showtime or something
This would be ideal.
They kind of tried that with Dune. It wasn't pretty.
Jessica, we totally agree on that point. If you R CURMUDGEON KITTEH, then I am SLIGHTLY GRUMPY BASSET HOUND right next to you.
Don't get me wrong, folks, I didn't hate the movie. I wasn't sorely disappointed, but I was mildly disappointed. I just run up against the "Okay, but what would you do then, hotshot? Huh? What?" and I can only answer "Give me a quajillion dollars and a lot of time and I'll show you. But I need the quajillion dollars first."
Well, the book really is akin to a meaty novel. And films do much better with novellas or short stories, as the structure is much simpler. Even at three hours, there's only so much story you can tell in a film. Blade Runner is an excellent film that tells a very different story from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (though I would be curious to see a more faithful adaptation of DADoES). Same with Fight Club. Both films keep only a small handful of key elements from their respective source materials, and wind up keeping the right themes and ideas. They essentially tell the same story by telling a completely different one.
They essentially tell the same story by telling a completely different one.
I would put V For Vendetta in this category too.
I don't think anything is unfilmable. (look at Tristram Shandy ) I think it's a question of undertsanding the original work and I'm beginning to see what you guys are talking about in that Snyder maybe didn't. I still haven't seen it from start to finish. Perhaps the parts I'm really going to hate are the ones I missed the first time through.