oh, this is bad. Very, VERY bad...

[winterbadger]

a friend of a friend comments on the dreck that is Hollywood's version of a beloved book of my childhood

Comments

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

You might like a look at this community: thedarkisrising But not at the film.

[winterbadger]

Thanks!

[verdandiweaves.livejournal.com]

Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!

[winterbadger]

Sadly, yes. :-(

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

I thought it was going to be another awful Ursula Le Guin adaptation but this is even worse. These morons will ruin anything for a dollar. And they will always ruin it - I'm beginning to think that there is simply no such thing as a film adaptation that is not appalling insulting badly thought out illogical drivel. Still. I won't be bothering with it, needless to say, so I'll still have the lovely books. I've left a comment in your friend's friend's journal too.

Did you know they even wanted to set the Harry Potter films in the USA? It was only the unusual clout wielded by the author - actually richer than the film makers, probably, bet that was an uncomfortable new experience for them - that ensured that they were done with British actors and locations and accents.

[winterbadger]

A friend of mine who's a writer said, when a studio started working on one of her books for a movie, that movies are movies and books are books, that she was going to have no expectation that the movie would even vaguely resemble her book.

Of course, then she and a friend ended up investing half a year (?) of their lives writing a screenplay for the movie after the first screenplay bombed and the production team fell apart. Naturally, their screenplay was stick in a drawer by the studio...

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

how awful :0( The dark is rising was my late first husband's favourite book, and I adore it. It's going to be terrible :0(

[winterbadger]

I fear so! :-(

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

I have the book - I haven't read it yet, but want to. I am familiar with Susan Cooper from the Christmas Revels. However, I DO NOT want to see the movie and I won't. I want to read the book instead.

[winterbadger]

My main complaint about the books, reading them a bit more critically as an adult, is that very little of what the protagonists do to achieve their quests is founded on their own abilities, and few of the puzzles are ones that the reader can work out. There's a lot of deus ex machina. But there is still something compelling about the way she uses myth and creates lingering associations that still grabs me. I wonder what my reaction would be to them now if I hadn't read them as a kid (I've been reading with interest my friend brithistorian's comments about reading the Narnia books for the first time as an adult).

But the film appears to be just a horrible travesty.

[rolypolypony.livejournal.com]

We saw a preview for it before HP and I almost cried :( WHY ARE THEY RUINING IT???

[gr-c17.livejournal.com]

"Arnold Rimmer in bondage gear" Priceless, now I want to see the movie. Good thing I never read the book.

[schizokitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, fucking hell...NO!!!Gah! Why can't they freaking just leave well enough alone?!?!

Okay, as an adult, I find the Dark Is Rising books to be a bit over-wrought (except for maybe Greenwitch), but there is definitely a magic in them I can still feel even now. I remember reading the first HP and muttering, "Well, it's okay, The Dark is Rising is much better." Maybe not, but that's the impression it had left on me. Mystical, magical, pagan, ancient. I hope the filmakers rot in hell a seedy orange county bar where has-beens whine in their pretentious cocktails and spend their last $20 on syphillic hookers with bad teeth.

Not that I'm bitter... >:-(