"You'd rather watch me drown than see your hands get wet"

[adustierstar]

First and most importantly, dear friends, I have an urgent question for all of you: should I buy this handbag? I am leaning toward yes, but it is possible that's because I responsibly decided against the last handbag I almost bought from this company and was thwarted today when I went to a store that said "Handbags half price!" and they had THREE

Comments

[adustierstar]

Yay owls! I was shown a story on Jezebel about an owl who was scared of heights! It was super adorable and a little sad.

There IS that confusion - they call her the Red Queen when she is clearly the Queen of Hearts, but only so she matches the White Queen, except that still doesn't work because they end up mixing card and chess metaphors and it's a little weird. Fortunately, it's not supposed to be a retelling of either or both of the books, but is similar in premise to American McGee's Alice (but not as awesomely creepy). I dunno - you should probably Netflix it or something, just to see it and finalize a decision, but spending money on it is optional haha

Yeah, Clash isn't going to be anyone's favorite movie, unless they have never seen other movies. Ever. XD

How to Train Your Dragon is based on the book How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. There are 9ish books in the series, all about Hiccup. The first one is in pretty big print, and is only 223 pages long. Probably worth looking into, as I suspect they are a huge hit with boys (I liked it, too, and am interested in reading the rest of them, but I honestly liked the movie better).

[limbomonkey]

Yeah, from the description I read they only used the same characters (sort of) and made a new story. Disney conflated the two books too (though I'm not a fan of the Disney movie either). I think what it comes down to is my own snobbery: the "Alice" movie also annoys me because I liked Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass way before it was trendy. And now everywhere I look I see an image of the Mad Hatter or the Cheshire Cat that aren't John Tenniel's. (Just like how I was into pirates way before the movie and plastic frame glasses way before Sarah Palin.) And...I know this might shock people...I'm not a huge Tim Burton fan.

How to Train Your Dragon is based on the book How to Train Your Dragon

I feel like an idiot.

[adustierstar]

Yeah, the idea is that Alice has grown up and forgotten about Wonderland, then ends up going back and having to rediscover it (which is sort of dumb since everybody knows what everything is already except Alice), and there's a prophecy she's supposed to fulfill but she doesn't want to etc. And the Hatter is sometimes and inexplicably Scottish. I know EXACTLY what you mean about trend-bitterness. Especially the Pirates example, but also the resurgence of movies from my childhood that happened a few years ago etc etc. Haha I always found Tenniel's illustrations scary, especially the Hatter and the Mock-Turtle. I mean, I didn't hate the movie, but I thought it could have been better. I am, like many people, getting tired of Tim Burton's pointy-curlicues and black vines schtick, so I can definitely understand that.

Haha it was a legitimate question! They often change books' names in the process of making them movies! XD

[limbomonkey]

A million years ago I watched some of a movie about Alice as an old woman returning to Wonderland. Oooh, this wikipedia entry is helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_based_on_Alice_in_Wonderland

It may have been Dreamchild.... anyway, it freaked me out.

[adustierstar]

Haha I resent that Labyrinth is on that page! It is clearly not an Alice ripoff! That sounds kind of terrifying, though, the one you saw. I never found the book scary at all (illustrations notwithstanding), but SO MANY adaptations are "dark" and just unpleasant ): It makes me a little sad.

[limbomonkey]

I was surprised to find Labyrinth on there too. I think just because they have the same basic premise--young woman goes into magical land--doesn't mean one inspired the other. Then we would have to say that the Wizard of Oz was also inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

I'm loving the Labyrinth II--return of the Goblin King fake trailers on YouTube, by the way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1aXUK66lXI (were you the one that first showed me these?)

[limbomonkey]

"The Wonderland books are most likely the inspiration in the creation of other book series about little girls entering fantasy worlds through an interesting entrance (Dorothy Gale entering The Land of Oz through a twister, Wendy Darling entering Neverland with Peter Pan, Lucy Pevensie entering Narnia through the wardrobe, Coraline entering The Other World through a door that's been painted over, etc.).[citation needed]"

From the wikipedia entry.

That's a load of crap. I also find it kind of sexist.

[adustierstar]

Wow, that's super shit. I really disagree with the idea that everything that has any degree of similarity must necessarily be "inspired by" or in some way descend from an earlier work, awareness of which the authors may or may not have had, or cared to exploit. People have ideas, okay? Sometimes those ideas overlap a little, but it doesn't mean the first one is "The Original" or whatever. Ugh. I kind of agree about it being sexist, too - because the characters are girls, they must be ripoffs of this other girl character because otherwise why would anyone write a female lead? Boo hiss.

Also I don't remember ever seeing that trailer before, but it's amazing haha I would so watch that movie XD