SYWTBAW Movie

[Dragon Writer]

movies RARELY encourage people to read the books...unless their a really avid reader. (i like reading books that were made into favorite movies) but most people probably won't...*thinks a movie forum might be a very good idea all considering* *and is worried about movie anyways, despite DD watching over it* i mean, look how closly the hairry potter books were looked over, and you guys STILL hated some of the movies!

[Gretchen]

i think the HP movies are like that because JKR viewed them as separate from the books. She gave them the liberty to cut what was unnecessary and to do what they had to.

I'm not sure how DD will do her own though.

[Kathy Li]

Originally posted by young reader:
movies RARELY encourage people to read the books..

You're kidding, right? I mean, LoTR sales tripled around the time that the first flick came out. And Neil Gaiman has said he can actually see the numbers of sales on Stardust on Amazon rise the opening weekend of the movie.

Not everyone who sees the movie is going to read the book, but a lot of folks will.

[Gigo]

Of course I'm excited about the film! But I think I'd rather watch it than be in it. I don't really have the time - and budgets no longer double or triple by filming in Canada.

[Gretchen]

I read LOTR because I saw the first movie. I was in 5th grade haha. Oh you reminded me that I wanted to get Stardust! *Scurries off to do so*

[KizzyShima]

The HP movies cut some of my favorite parts from the books. T_T

And I haven't read LotR (GASP)... But I've seen all three films, so I get where the idea comes from--some people use movies as a replacement for the books, some don't even realize the movies are based ON books.

I hope DD gets a bigger role in the creation of the movie than she hopes for.

[Dragon Writer]

*HATES lord of the rings book!* I don't care how good that story is, that guy is LONG WINDED. he goes on FOREVER...i might eventually read them as seperate books, but i had the all in one version...do you have any idea how horrid it is to force yourself through all that long windedness for a week, only to find you haven't actually put a DENT in the book! *grumbles on about lord of the rings* sorry. but that book annoys me...the hobit was much better in terms of actual writing skills. and anyways, i said rarely.

[Kathy Li]

Gretchen, I don't know what your budget for books is, but Stardust has more than one edition. The DC one is illustrated with a Charles Vess drawing on every page, and was the first version ever published. It is downright gorgeous.

YR, you have no taste. Actually, I felt the way that you do, once. When I was eight, I loved the Hobbit enough to try and read LotR. I slogged through the whole thing, and didn't get it.

I didn't get it through most of my teens and my twenties. Then the movies were announced, and I thought I'd give it another try, and discovered that LotR is a work of towering genius and I must reread it at least once a year.

Don't assume your opinion of a book is carved in stone. It may just be you weren't ready for it, yet. Powers know, I still await the days I'm ready for Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's (which, as a book it's hard to put a dent in has LotR beat cold).

But the LotR movies? Augh. Pain. It hurts, yess it doess, my preciouss. If you only read LotR as a grand fantasy adventure, then the movies work great. But if you read it as something with many many layers of meaning, you felt sooo ripped off. Eowyn losing her speech about how the whole "stay and guard the hearth" role for women is a bunch of crap still rankles in my feminista heart.

The YW books will also inevitably be cut for the movies. DD has already said that she's had to cut loads for the screenplay, and that it hurts. I can well believe it. Still, if they stick to DD's screenplay, I can't see how it can go wrong. The trick is, will they stick to it? Or get it rewritten by seventeen other people?

[Gretchen]

Oooh I'll try and get that one.

I really liked the LOTR books until I got to return of the king, which is the only one i bought. I loved Two Towers and once I was done I quickly started the 3rd book, only to find that it was 200 pages worth of boredom. I kept going, but it still wasnt as good as the other ones. My older sister never even finished the Hobbit.

I read those books in 5th grade so I dont really feel ripped off seeing as I dont remember and of the little details.

[Kaila Kirchner]

young reader is right. that guy just goes on and on and on (LOTR). I liked the hobbit and it didn't take me long to read it, but the rest of them are torture. i've been trying to read Two Towers for over a year now and i'm still not even halfway done with it. i read the first on so long ago i hardly remember what happened.

[Gretchen]

haha well if you're still reading TT it's gonna take you forever to reade ROTK. We were talking about the books at lunch yesterday and thos giu was like "That man tells his stories like 'Frodo took a step. Then another. He kept taking steps until he stepped on a twig. He snapped. He looked down. Then he kept taking more steps.'"

It was hysterical.

[Dragon Writer]

i read the hobit when i was still kinda young, and loved it...(and everyone loved that i managed to read it so young) without ever being told of waht came next...finally, i realized there was more to the series read it, and...UGH! i've tried it twice already! like i said, maybe the individual books are reading it...but try forcing your way through them all in one giant volume, where you're constantly faced with how much more of this you have to get through...*might try again one day.*

[Kathy Li]

Yeah, I'd say put it aside for a few years. And the way you guys are describing it is exactly how it worked for me the first time.

The second time I read 'em, though--it just got better and better with every page. Everything has at least three different levels of meaning; and I don't just mean the different languages.

I remember thinking, "He's always really careful to let you know exactly where you are. And that everybody rests. And eats. He worries about the pack ponies and supply lines. He worries about how much ground they cover and in what direction every day, like it's a matter of life or death or something. Geez, he must have liked camping a lot or something..."

And then it hits me. He must have been in the infantry. Big big lightbulb goes off over my head. For an infantryman? War is all about walking and walking and walking and running and walking. And walking some more. There's a reason the book's built like that.

That's the kind of stuff I miss in the films. The spirit of the thing. If a YW movie came out that had every word and action right, but missed the spirit of the thing--what DD is trying to say that magic is for, I'd be really upset. But if DD's writing the screenplay, somehow, I really really doubt that would ever happen.

Has everybody read this? and this?

[Gretchen]

wow you're right that makes a ton of sense!!! haha. I dont think DD would allow them to lose the magic of the books. Or the magic of the magic.

I actually printed those excerpts out and put them on my walls. What about them? Do you not like them?

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Kathy, in one of those links, there's a comment "Young Wizards: the TV series". The other day, I had pictures in my head of what that would look like...

...produced by Russell T Davies. :-)