movie: Stardust
Went to see Stardust today. In case there's anyone who doesn't know the basic plot: Stardust is about Tristan Thorne, a meek young man from the village of Wall who promises the girl he loves, Victoria, that he will bring her a star thy saw fall if she'll marry him. To get to the star, Tristan must pass through the hole in the wall the village is named after and into another world. Unknown to Tristan, his mother, who he has never met, lives in the land beyond the wall as a slave girl. When Tristan finds the star, he learns that, in this world, a fallen star takes the form of a beautiful young woman, in this case, an illtempered girl named Yvaine with a wounded leg from being struck by the pendant that knocked her from the sky and to earth. Unfortunately, Tristan is the most benign of the star's pursuers. The witch Lamia and her sisters want to carve Yvaine's heart from her chest and eat it to gain centuries of youth, and the surviving, fratricidal sons of Stormhold seek the pendant because the owner will ruler Stormhold.
As is always expected in adaptations, there were a fair number of changes to the book. Most, I'd say, were fairly minor, changes to things to make them easier on screen, or that would have required too much exposition to explain, such as Dunstan's wife and the book's version of marketday And then Yvaine's tower and the unicorn/lion fight probably would have been too much money for too little film time.. Aside from Captain Shakespeare, most of the additions were rescues and a little extra adventure, which are largely to be expected as they make a film version have the "feel" that a direct translation might lack. There were, however, 2 changes that I'm not very big on.
1. Victoria: A VERY large part of me is just relieved they didn't villainize her and let her remain a nice person instead. However, in the book, the realization that Victoria isn't spoiled and uppity as we initially thought, but rather a girl being bothered by a boy she didn't care about but didn't want to hurt him, was a large part of Tristan's growth. Making her really be spoiled and selfish made it seem like Tristan didn't need to grow as much as he really did. They also made her fiance a jerk, whereas in the book, he was a nice man. In the book version, Victoria was willing to keep her word to Tristan even though she loved someone else, but here, she doesn't love either one. It also came across as she seriously lost out in the movie, as opposed to getting the life she wanted with the man she loved.
2. Tristan and Yvaine's years of adventuring: Ok, much more minor, but I loved how they let Una rule Stormhold for several years before taking over so they could see the worlld and have adventures. It just seems more fitting for them than immediately settling down.
I also missed the more bittersweet ending of the book, but understand why they wanted to make it a more modern fairytale ending. In the book, Tristan and Yvaine rule for a long, long time, but since eating a star's heart is the only way to gain immortality, he eventually dies and their adventures become legend and Yvaine rules Stormhold for centuries and is known as one of the greatest rulers ever.
Overall, though, I liked it a lot. Except for Victoria, all the characters are pretty true to their book versions, and it kept the spirit of the book, as opposed to taking the "fractured fairy tale" approach I was afraid it would(not that I oppose that approach, but that's not Stardust. One thing I especially liked were the Stormhold princes, living and dead. That messed up family has always been my favorite part of the book, and it was very true to form
I also got my iconmaking abilities back today(finally caved and bought Photoshop Elements, instead of relying on being about to find trial downloads) and started practicing with layers by making a few Stardust icons:
