Hey Hollywood, stop ruining the good stuff!
Currently reading and loving The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy omnibus. It's a riot. It's the kind of sarcastic British writing that will give you the giggles, even if you're not the giggling type (like me). I bought the book well over a year ago, but I hadn’t had enough time to read it since (too busy checking book reviews to review my own books!). With the movie coming out soon I thought it best to get started before the film adaptation ruins it for me. I have little trust in film adaptations; very few do justice to the original literature, The Godfather and the LOTR trilogy among the notable exceptions. I think the Harry Potter movies, especially the first, failed miserably to capture the magic of the books. They took a thoroughly engaging series and turned it into a mutilated mess. HP should take a page (pun not intended) from the film adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events: it breathed new life into the story (the production design was particularly amazing), not following the book word for word for word (as HP stubbornly attempts to do, thus resulting in butt-numbing 3-hour sagas), but still managing to remain true to the original work.
Movies that betray the original literature are the worst (Troy being one of the most atrocious offenders, hunkfest notwithstanding). Of these, what rankle me the most are film and TV adaptations of comic book series. I am a purist when it comes to superheroes, and I hate it when Hollywood takes liberties with the original plot or premises, changing names, identities, ages, appearances, histories to modernize, glamorize, and sensationalize. You simply cannot take a classic superhero, like Superman or Spiderman, and toy with the details that make them Supes or Spidey. Because of the Spiderman movies, everyone now believes Peter Parker can organically produce web and shoot it from... holes in his wrists?? And thanks to that ludicrous show Smallville, we have a generation of media babies who will grow up thinking Clark Kent and Lex Luthor were actually friends in high school (WTF?!).
Some sacred things should never be tampered with.
P.S. Also currently loving Haagen-Dazs custard pudding ice cream. Yum-mee.
posted by Ailee Through the Looking Glass @ 2:10 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
clark n lex were not really friends? gasp! :O haha I dont read comic books other than Archie haha. :P
Lex didn't even grow up in Smallville. :p
haha dhio you're funny! :P i like watching smallville, but i also read the comics. lots of changes.
-chloe never existed
-lois in smallville?
-lana should be a red head, and she was never a witch
-pete should look like clark kent
-depending on the comic series you're reading, clark & lex could be friends
smallville doesn't follow the continuity of the whole original superman mytho. they even made a whole new comic line (birthright) that picks up from the smallville series. now who's gonna read the originals? but hey, mythos change.
-leah
Hi Leah! Good point, a myth does change and take on a life of its own over time, and I suppose each generation is entitled to tailor it according to their own tastes and needs. However, those of us who were weaned on the original can't help but feel indignant that it has been tampered with. It's kind of like how Homer's Iliad was butchered by the movie Troy (as I kept on telling you guys during our Odyssey days). Sure, it's nice to see Brad Pitt strut his stuff as Achilles, but we all know he never lived to see the conception of the Trojan Horse, much less set foot inside. Call it nitpicking, but I feel that unless warranted (like if there was something seriously wrong with the original), we should just stick to it. Or if we're going to mess with it, at the very least, we should inform the public that we took some liberties. We owe Homer, and Siegel and Shuster, that much.
Have you seen the movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice? I'm sure you'll agree it deserves to be up there in your list of notable exceptions.
Yes, I have seen P & P (if we're talking about the Kiera Knightley starrer), and as you've guessed, I did like it and consider it to be a noteworthy film adaptation. I wrote a review of the movie, actually, in case you want to read it: http://sillingtonhouse.blogspot.com/2006/02/bewitched
-me-body-and-soul.html
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