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Fannish Friday: The Movie
As an extension of last week's topic, let's talk about movie adaptations.
1. Tell me which book/book series you'd like to see made into a television show, assuming that everything--writing, casting, direction, etc.--went right.
2. Alternatively, tell me about a book/book series that has been adapted to movie, but that didn't do it very well and you wish someone who really got the heart of the text could take another shot at it.
3. Film adaptations that don't work as adaptations but do work as films if viewed on their own.
4. Film adaptations that are wonderful and either match or improve on the book.
My answers!
1. I'd love to see a Witch of Blackbird Pond film done right! I know this is weird, but if the team behind The Babysitters Club would take it on, I would trust them to do right by a beloved Gen Z/Millennial childhood text.
I also think it would be very cool to get an adaptation of a Frances Hardinge book, though that would take a director/crew that are unhinged in just the right way, and that would be hard to find.
2. I have so many of these! The first one is obviously Ella Enchanted--I don't know that I've ever been that viscerally angry about an adaptation, but that movie had absolutely none of the joy and charm and color of the book and I have never recovered. And it would make such an adorable movie!
I'd like to see an actual good take on Mansfield Park, too. It's nobody's favorite Austen, but Austen alone is a big enough draw if only they did something interesting with it!
A couple of years back, my heart was broken when Emma Thompson wrote a good (but not wonderful) screenplay adaptation of the life of Effie Gray, and then getting the casting and direction got Effie herself totally wrong. Since Suzanne Fagence Cooper's biography is a favorite of mine, I was so annoyed! And I would still love to see the same film made by a director and actor who actually understand Effie's personality.
3. The classic example is Joe Wright's 2005 Pride and Prejudice. I don't feel like this movie understands the book or Austen at all. However, I find it a delightful and beautiful movie.
4. Picnic at Hanging Rock comes to mind as one that works just about perfectly in bringing the book to screen. So does the 1993 Agnieszka Holland version of The Secret Garden.
If I am perfectly honest, Gillian Armstrong's 1994 Little Women is more beloved by me than the book is. (Except for adult!Amy. Adult!Amy is better in the book.) And I have never been able to read The Manchurian Candidate but the movie is one of my favorites.
1. Tell me which book/book series you'd like to see made into a television show, assuming that everything--writing, casting, direction, etc.--went right.
2. Alternatively, tell me about a book/book series that has been adapted to movie, but that didn't do it very well and you wish someone who really got the heart of the text could take another shot at it.
3. Film adaptations that don't work as adaptations but do work as films if viewed on their own.
4. Film adaptations that are wonderful and either match or improve on the book.
My answers!
1. I'd love to see a Witch of Blackbird Pond film done right! I know this is weird, but if the team behind The Babysitters Club would take it on, I would trust them to do right by a beloved Gen Z/Millennial childhood text.
I also think it would be very cool to get an adaptation of a Frances Hardinge book, though that would take a director/crew that are unhinged in just the right way, and that would be hard to find.
2. I have so many of these! The first one is obviously Ella Enchanted--I don't know that I've ever been that viscerally angry about an adaptation, but that movie had absolutely none of the joy and charm and color of the book and I have never recovered. And it would make such an adorable movie!
I'd like to see an actual good take on Mansfield Park, too. It's nobody's favorite Austen, but Austen alone is a big enough draw if only they did something interesting with it!
A couple of years back, my heart was broken when Emma Thompson wrote a good (but not wonderful) screenplay adaptation of the life of Effie Gray, and then getting the casting and direction got Effie herself totally wrong. Since Suzanne Fagence Cooper's biography is a favorite of mine, I was so annoyed! And I would still love to see the same film made by a director and actor who actually understand Effie's personality.
3. The classic example is Joe Wright's 2005 Pride and Prejudice. I don't feel like this movie understands the book or Austen at all. However, I find it a delightful and beautiful movie.
4. Picnic at Hanging Rock comes to mind as one that works just about perfectly in bringing the book to screen. So does the 1993 Agnieszka Holland version of The Secret Garden.
If I am perfectly honest, Gillian Armstrong's 1994 Little Women is more beloved by me than the book is. (Except for adult!Amy. Adult!Amy is better in the book.) And I have never been able to read The Manchurian Candidate but the movie is one of my favorites.
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2. Ghibli Earthsea! Someone with animation chops (or alternately the team who did the live action Life of Pi? I could see that) needs to redo it -- but actually do The Tombs of Atuan, unless that's cheating.
3. Ghibli again: Howl's Moving Castle as a book is as thematically, tonally, and plottily different from Howl's Moving Castle as a film as can be, but I love them both intensely and think both of them are perfect in their own way!
4. Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men is much better than PD James' original. Cuarón is a master, the addition of Kee (played by Clare-Hope Ashitey) was necessary imo, and the whole visual language is great.
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Ooooh, I love the contrasts with these!
I have never been able to bring myself to watch Ghibli Earthsea, but I agree that Tombs would make a fantastic movie.
Howl's Moving Castle as a book is as thematically, tonally, and plottily different from Howl's Moving Castle as a film as can be, but I love them both intensely and think both of them are perfect in their own way!
I love this!
SO AGREED about Children of Men. I've never been able to make it few more than a few pages of the book, but the movie is fantastic. I love Cuarón.