That is from here. Thanks to Susana for posting it.I know today is September 11th, even though the date on this blog says something else because I've set it to a time zone somewhere in the Indian Ocean. I am also refusing to write about where I was and what I was doing when the airplanes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I'm not saying I don't care, or that I didn't grieve, or that I approve of the wars. But I feel manipulated by collective remembrence. So I'll write about it later. Maybe.
On to movies, young adult novels, and censorship!
Phillip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials, is being made into a series of movies. This is old news, but new to me. I'm shocked to be so excited about this! But I'm not happy that the movies will remove all their refrences to G-d. The battle within a church and weird experiments on children to remove something akin to original sin are the plot of the books. How are they going to write a screenplay and leave this out. Oh, I'm depressed. The movies are going to make no narrative sense. They will suck. Sigh. But in terms of complicated fantasty/scifi books for mature young adults, this trilogy is right up there with Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea. I love Lord of the Rings and The Cronicles of Narnia, but Earthsea and His Dark Materials are much darker and more horrifying.
And why doesn't someone make a movie based on Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain.
Or Garth Nix' Abhorsen Trilogy?
12 comments:
Kind of like how the "Troy" film took out all of the gods as well, and put in Brad Pitt and a bunch of other crummy actors, and a bad script, and...well you get my point.
Earthsea in my opinion completely surpassess LOTR (which I can't stand) and Narnia (good, but his hidden evangelizing gets tedious)--a close second is the L'Engle books, but sort of a different genre, I guess.
The next CGP anthology is going to be about old drawings from D&D manuals. You'll have to send me something because I am going to have trouble getting work from women for it for obvious reasons...
That Pullman trilogy rocks! I read them in 2nd and 3rd year (I think), and they picked me up as only good, positive, creative, powerful writing can do.
Yes, I agree that the L'Engle books are a good close second. My mother read A Wrinkle in Time to my brother and I when Hurricaine Gloria came all the way up to Maine, whenever that was. I don't despise Lord of the Rings, but it never stayed with me the way the other books I've mentioned did. Adventure, but not enough women, and not enough despair.
I'll deffinitely put something together for the next CGP anthology!
Hi Andrew!
I read the Pullman trilogy only last year, I think, fairly early in my fantasy/SciFi reading binge. It totally rocks!
I've read A Wizard of Earthsea a bunch of times and I've cried *every single time* when the damn Otak dies...
Oh, yeah, Earthsea has been adapted into a feature film by Studio Ghibli, directed by Goro Miyazaki (Hayao's son).
did you ever notice how 'apple' figures into a lot of wee-peeps 'bad language'...like, you're such an apple-head!'
strange but true...
didn't know about that d&d thang! ha!
Weird, but yesterday, I learned that one of my favorite books from junior high school, JUMPER, about a teleporting teenager, is currently being turned into a movie starring Hayden Christensen (the young Darth Vader guy) and Samuel Jackson.
I tried to read the Pullman novels but got stuck midway through the first. I need to push on through, right? Worth it later? Ok.
Kaplan- I haven't read Jumper, but it sounds promising given my current binge.
The Pullman novels are good, but they're deffinitely fast paced genre. But I think it's worth pushing through. I think probably the second and third books in the series are my favorite.
Susana--I don't know about the wee peeps, but now I'll have to check them out!
Francois--Was the Earthsea feature film good. Is it a must rent?
D&D id (sic) for nerds. I remember the Radio Reconnaissance Marines used to play that shit. Biggest nerds in the Marine Corps! Out in the middle of the desert dancing like they were at a rave.
I was talking to a friend yesterday, Cool Bill C, he was homeless during 9-11 and has no idea what he was doing. His is one of the stories that intrigued me the most.
Also, September 11, I was recalled from leave and deployed to Afghanistan.
i'm reading those pullman books now--on the last one. LOVE them.
maybe even if they don't refer specifically to G-d in the films they implications of Dust, etc. won't be lost. i can hardly see how they could do without the angels and the church sects. but still, i can't wait to see the bears. :)
Earthsea being Studio Ghibli movie, I've only read good reviews of it. As for renting it, it's going to be difficult since the movie distribution rights to Earthsea in the US (held by a company not Disney) only expire in 2011. There is always Bittorrent, but I don't have enough hard drive space right now (now, there's me hoping that my mother sends me a copy from France or China).
Post a Comment