Sharpe, Sean Bean movies
Well, I finished the Sharpe series!
My conclusion is that the original arc of the series (encompassing the books written from 1981 to 1992) is very good. The first book written, Sharpe's Eagle, suffers from amateurish writing quality, but Cornwell improves quickly and the best books are also two of the earliest: Sharpe's Gold and Sharpe's Sword.
The first arc is good because it actually has some interesting themes to explore, and it develops Sharpe's character in interesting and believable ways. The books are about Sharpe and his struggles to prove himself and to find a place for himself within a world that looks down on him. The greatest moments are all Sharpe character moments, like Sharpe making the choice to sacrifice hundreds to save thousands by blowing up the fort at Almeida, or Sharpe struggling against death itself pretty much through the force of his own will (and with a little help from Harper). The arc also follows Sharpe figuring out just how corrupt the class-based society around him is, and probably the biggest thrill for the audience is watching Sharpe manage to be a "pirate" and a "rogue" and to still succeed within that system.
I'm less satisfied with the second arc of the series. This is, basically, all the books written after 1992. It seems like basically what happened is that Cornwell told the story he wanted to tell in the original series, but that Sharpe became popular once the TV series aired, so he decided to go back and write more adventures into the gaps of Sharpe's life that he hadn't yet filled in.
The problem here is that he clearly isn't writing out of interest in the character Sharpe. He's using Sharpe to explore other characters and situations that he is interested in, and the result is that the stories become incredibly formulaic and even cartoonish, with very little of the depth that was present in the earlier novels. In most of the later books Sharpe is a spectator (take "Sharpe's Trafalgar," which is really about Trafalgar and Nelson and the various naval characters). He also shows painfully little regard for the canon of the original series (changing the India history, changing Sharpe's romantic experiences, changing Sharpe's naval experiences; just basically making a Sharpe so experienced that his arc in the original series no longer makes much sense). The necessity for Hakeswill to live on, for example, brings a ridiculously cartoonish aspect to the India trilogy; at the end of each novel Sharpe leaves Hakeswill to be killed by an animal in some laughable James-Bond-like scenario, which makes it hard to take Sharpe or the novels themselves seriously. The earlier books were never so ridiculous.
Cornwell also spends most of his time on new characters and historical characters (the earlier books were almost entirely from Sharpe's POV, while the later books shift points of view between various enemies, other heroes, allies, etc., with Sharpe as only one of many characters). And while Sharpe still does the occasional ruthless thing, it's all following such a predictable formula that it's hard to take any of it seriously as character development. The interweaving with the original series means that Cornwell can't really introduce any recurring characters or give Sharpe any meaningful life events, which makes Sharpe's story dull, and then when Cornwell does try to introduce major events it rings false because it doesn't fit with what we've already read (if Grace was that important, wouldn't Sharpe, like, remember her? and wouldn't she deserve more than one book, a la Teresa?).
Anyway, that's my conclusion. I'm going through and re-reading the earlier books (just re-read "Sharpe's Gold" last night) and am very impressed with how good they are, because I was getting quite sick of the later books (which kept bringing to mind the metaphor of fast food: quick and predictable and meaningless).
We'll have to see what drujan thinks; I lent her "Sharpe's Sword" and she loved it, so now she's reading "Rifles" and "Eagle." We also watched the TV version of "Sharpe's Eagle" and I think she's hooked. Certainly she exclaimed "He's gorgeous!" and "This is really good!" enough times. ;)
This weekend's Sean Bean movies:
Ronin, which was a slightly-more-interesting-than-usual action movie. It was made pretty well, and if you like car chase scenes it probably counts as great art. Alas, I'm immune to car chase scenes, and sadly I'm also immune to whatever everyone else sees in Robert DeNiro, so I was mostly bored. Sean Bean was barely in it, but he was good in his part.
The director's commentary is very interesting. It's highly technical, and he comes across as kind of pompous, but it's interesting to hear how they did the car chase scenes (with actual actors in cars going ridiculously fast).
National Treasure. Okay, there's a reason I didn't see this in the theater, and I basically put it on my Netflix queue to get it over with as quickly as possible. Here's an excerpt from my Netflix review, because I don't want to have to think about the movie again:
This ludicrous excuse for a movie is so awful that it honestly hurts my SOUL to contemplate it for too long. It's riddled with shallow characters, non-sensical plot developments, and utter stupidity at every turn. I could write a 20 page essay pointing out every horrid thing, but see above about how soul-crushing that would be. The thing that annoyed me the most is probably that the "heroes" were all willing to sacrifice actual human lives and actual human friendships for a piece of paper whose only value is historical. If you want mindless patriotism and characters so simplistic that "one dimensional" would be a complement, this is the movie for you.
For some strange reason, no one on Netflix seems to find my reviews helpful... :P
My conclusion is that the original arc of the series (encompassing the books written from 1981 to 1992) is very good. The first book written, Sharpe's Eagle, suffers from amateurish writing quality, but Cornwell improves quickly and the best books are also two of the earliest: Sharpe's Gold and Sharpe's Sword.
The first arc is good because it actually has some interesting themes to explore, and it develops Sharpe's character in interesting and believable ways. The books are about Sharpe and his struggles to prove himself and to find a place for himself within a world that looks down on him. The greatest moments are all Sharpe character moments, like Sharpe making the choice to sacrifice hundreds to save thousands by blowing up the fort at Almeida, or Sharpe struggling against death itself pretty much through the force of his own will (and with a little help from Harper). The arc also follows Sharpe figuring out just how corrupt the class-based society around him is, and probably the biggest thrill for the audience is watching Sharpe manage to be a "pirate" and a "rogue" and to still succeed within that system.
I'm less satisfied with the second arc of the series. This is, basically, all the books written after 1992. It seems like basically what happened is that Cornwell told the story he wanted to tell in the original series, but that Sharpe became popular once the TV series aired, so he decided to go back and write more adventures into the gaps of Sharpe's life that he hadn't yet filled in.
The problem here is that he clearly isn't writing out of interest in the character Sharpe. He's using Sharpe to explore other characters and situations that he is interested in, and the result is that the stories become incredibly formulaic and even cartoonish, with very little of the depth that was present in the earlier novels. In most of the later books Sharpe is a spectator (take "Sharpe's Trafalgar," which is really about Trafalgar and Nelson and the various naval characters). He also shows painfully little regard for the canon of the original series (changing the India history, changing Sharpe's romantic experiences, changing Sharpe's naval experiences; just basically making a Sharpe so experienced that his arc in the original series no longer makes much sense). The necessity for Hakeswill to live on, for example, brings a ridiculously cartoonish aspect to the India trilogy; at the end of each novel Sharpe leaves Hakeswill to be killed by an animal in some laughable James-Bond-like scenario, which makes it hard to take Sharpe or the novels themselves seriously. The earlier books were never so ridiculous.
Cornwell also spends most of his time on new characters and historical characters (the earlier books were almost entirely from Sharpe's POV, while the later books shift points of view between various enemies, other heroes, allies, etc., with Sharpe as only one of many characters). And while Sharpe still does the occasional ruthless thing, it's all following such a predictable formula that it's hard to take any of it seriously as character development. The interweaving with the original series means that Cornwell can't really introduce any recurring characters or give Sharpe any meaningful life events, which makes Sharpe's story dull, and then when Cornwell does try to introduce major events it rings false because it doesn't fit with what we've already read (if Grace was that important, wouldn't Sharpe, like, remember her? and wouldn't she deserve more than one book, a la Teresa?).
Anyway, that's my conclusion. I'm going through and re-reading the earlier books (just re-read "Sharpe's Gold" last night) and am very impressed with how good they are, because I was getting quite sick of the later books (which kept bringing to mind the metaphor of fast food: quick and predictable and meaningless).
We'll have to see what drujan thinks; I lent her "Sharpe's Sword" and she loved it, so now she's reading "Rifles" and "Eagle." We also watched the TV version of "Sharpe's Eagle" and I think she's hooked. Certainly she exclaimed "He's gorgeous!" and "This is really good!" enough times. ;)
This weekend's Sean Bean movies:
Ronin, which was a slightly-more-interesting-than-usual action movie. It was made pretty well, and if you like car chase scenes it probably counts as great art. Alas, I'm immune to car chase scenes, and sadly I'm also immune to whatever everyone else sees in Robert DeNiro, so I was mostly bored. Sean Bean was barely in it, but he was good in his part.
The director's commentary is very interesting. It's highly technical, and he comes across as kind of pompous, but it's interesting to hear how they did the car chase scenes (with actual actors in cars going ridiculously fast).
National Treasure. Okay, there's a reason I didn't see this in the theater, and I basically put it on my Netflix queue to get it over with as quickly as possible. Here's an excerpt from my Netflix review, because I don't want to have to think about the movie again:
This ludicrous excuse for a movie is so awful that it honestly hurts my SOUL to contemplate it for too long. It's riddled with shallow characters, non-sensical plot developments, and utter stupidity at every turn. I could write a 20 page essay pointing out every horrid thing, but see above about how soul-crushing that would be. The thing that annoyed me the most is probably that the "heroes" were all willing to sacrifice actual human lives and actual human friendships for a piece of paper whose only value is historical. If you want mindless patriotism and characters so simplistic that "one dimensional" would be a complement, this is the movie for you.
For some strange reason, no one on Netflix seems to find my reviews helpful... :P