So I unexpectedly went to see Stardust . . .
I was sort of dragged off unexpectedly to go see Stardust this evening. (Well. Not exactly dragged off as in taken, kicking and screaming, but more as in was descended upon in a whirlwind and found myself whisked off to the movie theatre to see the movie.) It was a cute movie (and would probably be a helluva lot cuter if I didn't know how different it is from the Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess book, though I suspect that the film will probably grow on me, after a second viewing [one that doesn't involve inconsiderate arseholes who brought a screaming baby and what looked/sounded like a three-year-old in to see the film], because I really like/respect some of the people who're in the movie, though I've no bloody idea who the fellow is who played Tristran, and frankly I was just as impressed by the actor who played Dunstan as a teenager), but to tell the truth, its two of the three previews I saw for movies coming out this fall/winter (the third was for Beowulf, the whole concept of which just makes my head bloody well hurt, whether Gaiman originally helped write the screen adaptation or not) that are standing out in my head right now more than the actual movie itself (though the movie was quite fun/entertaining and gods but I miss seeing Michelle Pfeiffer in roles she can really sink her teeth into!). The first was for a rather adult looking film called Across the Universe that I'm wondering how on earth I haven't managed to hear anything about and the other was for a rather teen-ish looking film that looks like it's going to be a godsawful painful adaptataion of Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising. I read that series several times, as a child, and I'm still more than a little horrified by the preview. They've made Will older and an American and WTF was up with his family?!?!?! It's been nearly three hours since I saw the preview, and I still feel kind of like finding something breakable and not very important (like a glass, maybe) and smashing it to bits. Or screaming. Or both.
I think I may go curl up and re-read Stardust again, instead. I know I'm supposed to be trying to watch aruna7's SW vids, but I've been downloading for twelve hours (I left the second and the third still downloading, when I went to go see the movie), and second is just now about to finish downloading, and the third one isn't even nearly done still, and staring at the computer screen trying to do other things while these download is starting to make my head hurt just a wee bit, so I think I'll just leave it to download and them watch them tomorrow.
Oh, and if anyone is wondering if Stardust is any good, well . . . WARNING! SPOILERS FOLLOW! there's a lot that gets changed from the book to the movie, some of which makes sense (in terms of time constraints and etc. and wanting to make the movie more "fairy-tale" romantic, etc.) and some of which I'm not sure wouldn't've yielded a better movie if the story had been kept more like it was written to be. To give some idea of the changes, Tristran's father has no other sweetheart in the movie and never marries (until the end of the movie, when he marries Tristran's freed mother), everyone says the main character's name more like "Tristan" than Tristran from what I could tell, the fallen star's not got a broken leg, per se, so much as just damaged slightly in the fall (she limps - no crutch) - just enough that the witch heals her leg while she's in the bath at the inn, to try to get her heart to glow properly again. The Fair, as such, doesn't exist, though a lot of the Fair atmosphere is replicated in the Fairie-town on the other side of the wall of Wall; they changed how things turn out with all three of the Lamias sisters/witches entirely, for a much more dramatic final confrontation (which actually strikes me as being just a mite bit more realistic than what happens in the book, at least on first blush, though I might change my mind after I've given the book a re-read); and the whole thing with the rescue from the clouds has been entirely rewritten for the Captain Shakespeare role played by De Nero, which, while certainly entertaining, isn't really much at all like what's in the book. (I think I may prefer De Nero, though, to be quite honest, even if the film did, in the rearranging of things, lose yet another one of its supporting female cast members.) Essentially, what's a rather quirky, old-fashioned Gaiman fantasy becomes much more of a clear-cut fairy-tale, by the time the dust has settled. I haven't made up my mind yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think I'll need to see the movie again (with fewer distractions, please, which means morons with small infants should STAY HOME instead of dragging said easily frightened children to a fantasy movie based on a Neil Gaiman story).
I think I may go curl up and re-read Stardust again, instead. I know I'm supposed to be trying to watch aruna7's SW vids, but I've been downloading for twelve hours (I left the second and the third still downloading, when I went to go see the movie), and second is just now about to finish downloading, and the third one isn't even nearly done still, and staring at the computer screen trying to do other things while these download is starting to make my head hurt just a wee bit, so I think I'll just leave it to download and them watch them tomorrow.
Oh, and if anyone is wondering if Stardust is any good, well . . . WARNING! SPOILERS FOLLOW! there's a lot that gets changed from the book to the movie, some of which makes sense (in terms of time constraints and etc. and wanting to make the movie more "fairy-tale" romantic, etc.) and some of which I'm not sure wouldn't've yielded a better movie if the story had been kept more like it was written to be. To give some idea of the changes, Tristran's father has no other sweetheart in the movie and never marries (until the end of the movie, when he marries Tristran's freed mother), everyone says the main character's name more like "Tristan" than Tristran from what I could tell, the fallen star's not got a broken leg, per se, so much as just damaged slightly in the fall (she limps - no crutch) - just enough that the witch heals her leg while she's in the bath at the inn, to try to get her heart to glow properly again. The Fair, as such, doesn't exist, though a lot of the Fair atmosphere is replicated in the Fairie-town on the other side of the wall of Wall; they changed how things turn out with all three of the Lamias sisters/witches entirely, for a much more dramatic final confrontation (which actually strikes me as being just a mite bit more realistic than what happens in the book, at least on first blush, though I might change my mind after I've given the book a re-read); and the whole thing with the rescue from the clouds has been entirely rewritten for the Captain Shakespeare role played by De Nero, which, while certainly entertaining, isn't really much at all like what's in the book. (I think I may prefer De Nero, though, to be quite honest, even if the film did, in the rearranging of things, lose yet another one of its supporting female cast members.) Essentially, what's a rather quirky, old-fashioned Gaiman fantasy becomes much more of a clear-cut fairy-tale, by the time the dust has settled. I haven't made up my mind yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think I'll need to see the movie again (with fewer distractions, please, which means morons with small infants should STAY HOME instead of dragging said easily frightened children to a fantasy movie based on a Neil Gaiman story).