Movie Review: Stardust
I wanted to like this movie. In fact, I did like this movie while I was watching it, and for several hours afterward. Then I made the mistake of thinking about it...
I spent most of the movie caught up in the visuals and the general coolness factor. I mean, it had a lightning-catching airship. It would be hard for me not to enjoy a movie with a lightning-catching airship. And a fairy market with tiny elephants. And wicked princes plotting against each other. And, ooh, I want that outfit!
Unlike most adaptations, the Stardust movie actually makes sense on its own. There's no place where you only know what's going on because you've read the book, and I was willing to judge it on its own merits. The general agreement, as we came out of the theater, was that it wasn't as good as the graphic novel, but that not-as-good-as-Neil-Gaiman still left quite a bit of room for goodness, and that it was a well-done story. With a lightning-catching airship.
And then I talked to a male friend about it, who'd also liked it. He specifically mentioned that he liked the scene where Una and Dunstan have their little one-night stand, because he liked to imagine that if he were in a fairy market, he might "get that lucky." And I realized that in the movie, that's the only thing happening in that scene. Una sees a pretty guy and decides to give him an enjoyable evening.
(From this point onward, I'm going to be doing some comparison with the book. My problem with the movie is not that it differs from the book. However, several things the book does right happen to illustrate, by contrast, the things the movie does wrong. I could as easily point out that, say, Harry Potter gets these things right, but it wouldn't be as good an example because it's not otherwise the same story.)
So like I was saying, in the movie Una sleeps with Dunstan because, well, that's what pretty girls do with protagonists. In the book, Una seduces Dunstan as part of an elaborate plot to fulfill the terms of the spell binding her to Ditchwater Sal. At one point, she asks him, "What do you want?" He says, "I want you," and she says, "I want my freedom." And, indeed, eventually she gets it.
The movie consistently denies any agency to the non-evil female characters. Una is just there so fanboys can imagine f***ing her. She doesn't have any reasons of her own. She doesn't have any particular ambitions after she's freed, either, except to be a mother-figure and hide while other people fight. Yvaine takes no hand in her own fate, and Victoria is selling herself to the highest bidder. In the book, Yvaine rescues Tristran as many times as he rescues her, and Victoria...
Oh, poor Victoria. She gets it worst of all. In the book, she's in love with another man, though Tristran doesn't know it. She does tell Tristran to go fetch the star, to mock him, but she doesn't really think he'll do it. And when he does, she holds off her wedding to her true love, because she gave her word to Tristran. When Tristran returns, she tells him the whole thing, and says tearfully that she'll keep her promise and marry him if that's what he wants. And Tristran, seeing that she doesn't actually want him, and having learned quite a bit from the star, tells her that he wants her to marry the guy she actually loves. She's a good person, doing her best to be honorable, and making the best choices she can in order to stay that way.
Which comes to another problem. Tristran. He suffers greatly from the women around him turning to mindless wimps. Rather than having to make up to Yvaine for his original idiocy, and gradually redeeming himself from his initial capture of her, movie-Tristran "gets the girl" entirely through Stockholm Syndrome. Rather than learning that women are real people, and that you can be a lot closer to the person you have adventures with rather than the idealized figure you have adventures for, movie-Tristran plays plot coupon collection with symbols of alpha male dominance. It's kind of ridiculous, in fact. He gets:
-both girls, including the one who he doesn't want. He leads her on, in fact, so she'll show she likes him in front of her fiance.
-to beat up the fiance of the girl he doesn't want any more. And to have it be deserved, because the guy is a cad.
-to rule the magical kingdom. (Another thing being taken from a girl, as in the book Una serves as regent while he and Yvaine go off to have adventures.)
-immortality.
All right. We get it. You're very manly, and prime game for viewer self-insertion. Now shut up.
Ultimately, all this keeps Tristran from becoming kind. It means that Yvaine's anger-really-means-she-loves-him, rather than that he earns her love. The best illustration is, yes, another contrast with the book. There's a point, in the book, at which Tristran releases Yvaine's chain. He goes off to find food, and asks her, on her honor as a star, to stay put. She promises that she won't walk anywhere, and then as soon as he leaves she rides off on the unicorn. Tristran comes back, and gets an earful from the moon about how she's riding into a trap. For various reasons, he then gets help from a talking tree (less silly than it sounds--the moon asks Pan, who asks the forest). He tells the tree what happened, and she says that she'll help him because he released Yvaine on his own. She further says that if he'd kept her tied up, no god or power could convince her to help.
In the movie, guess what Tristran does at the beginning of the equivalent scene? That's right, he ties Yvaine to a tree. And leaves her there, surrounded by unknown dangers while he goes off scouting. Sounds like boyfriend material to me.
I don't think I'll be watching this movie again, somehow. Unlike the Princess Bride, it really doesn't bear repeated viewing.
I spent most of the movie caught up in the visuals and the general coolness factor. I mean, it had a lightning-catching airship. It would be hard for me not to enjoy a movie with a lightning-catching airship. And a fairy market with tiny elephants. And wicked princes plotting against each other. And, ooh, I want that outfit!
Unlike most adaptations, the Stardust movie actually makes sense on its own. There's no place where you only know what's going on because you've read the book, and I was willing to judge it on its own merits. The general agreement, as we came out of the theater, was that it wasn't as good as the graphic novel, but that not-as-good-as-Neil-Gaiman still left quite a bit of room for goodness, and that it was a well-done story. With a lightning-catching airship.
And then I talked to a male friend about it, who'd also liked it. He specifically mentioned that he liked the scene where Una and Dunstan have their little one-night stand, because he liked to imagine that if he were in a fairy market, he might "get that lucky." And I realized that in the movie, that's the only thing happening in that scene. Una sees a pretty guy and decides to give him an enjoyable evening.
(From this point onward, I'm going to be doing some comparison with the book. My problem with the movie is not that it differs from the book. However, several things the book does right happen to illustrate, by contrast, the things the movie does wrong. I could as easily point out that, say, Harry Potter gets these things right, but it wouldn't be as good an example because it's not otherwise the same story.)
So like I was saying, in the movie Una sleeps with Dunstan because, well, that's what pretty girls do with protagonists. In the book, Una seduces Dunstan as part of an elaborate plot to fulfill the terms of the spell binding her to Ditchwater Sal. At one point, she asks him, "What do you want?" He says, "I want you," and she says, "I want my freedom." And, indeed, eventually she gets it.
The movie consistently denies any agency to the non-evil female characters. Una is just there so fanboys can imagine f***ing her. She doesn't have any reasons of her own. She doesn't have any particular ambitions after she's freed, either, except to be a mother-figure and hide while other people fight. Yvaine takes no hand in her own fate, and Victoria is selling herself to the highest bidder. In the book, Yvaine rescues Tristran as many times as he rescues her, and Victoria...
Oh, poor Victoria. She gets it worst of all. In the book, she's in love with another man, though Tristran doesn't know it. She does tell Tristran to go fetch the star, to mock him, but she doesn't really think he'll do it. And when he does, she holds off her wedding to her true love, because she gave her word to Tristran. When Tristran returns, she tells him the whole thing, and says tearfully that she'll keep her promise and marry him if that's what he wants. And Tristran, seeing that she doesn't actually want him, and having learned quite a bit from the star, tells her that he wants her to marry the guy she actually loves. She's a good person, doing her best to be honorable, and making the best choices she can in order to stay that way.
Which comes to another problem. Tristran. He suffers greatly from the women around him turning to mindless wimps. Rather than having to make up to Yvaine for his original idiocy, and gradually redeeming himself from his initial capture of her, movie-Tristran "gets the girl" entirely through Stockholm Syndrome. Rather than learning that women are real people, and that you can be a lot closer to the person you have adventures with rather than the idealized figure you have adventures for, movie-Tristran plays plot coupon collection with symbols of alpha male dominance. It's kind of ridiculous, in fact. He gets:
-both girls, including the one who he doesn't want. He leads her on, in fact, so she'll show she likes him in front of her fiance.
-to beat up the fiance of the girl he doesn't want any more. And to have it be deserved, because the guy is a cad.
-to rule the magical kingdom. (Another thing being taken from a girl, as in the book Una serves as regent while he and Yvaine go off to have adventures.)
-immortality.
All right. We get it. You're very manly, and prime game for viewer self-insertion. Now shut up.
Ultimately, all this keeps Tristran from becoming kind. It means that Yvaine's anger-really-means-she-loves-him, rather than that he earns her love. The best illustration is, yes, another contrast with the book. There's a point, in the book, at which Tristran releases Yvaine's chain. He goes off to find food, and asks her, on her honor as a star, to stay put. She promises that she won't walk anywhere, and then as soon as he leaves she rides off on the unicorn. Tristran comes back, and gets an earful from the moon about how she's riding into a trap. For various reasons, he then gets help from a talking tree (less silly than it sounds--the moon asks Pan, who asks the forest). He tells the tree what happened, and she says that she'll help him because he released Yvaine on his own. She further says that if he'd kept her tied up, no god or power could convince her to help.
In the movie, guess what Tristran does at the beginning of the equivalent scene? That's right, he ties Yvaine to a tree. And leaves her there, surrounded by unknown dangers while he goes off scouting. Sounds like boyfriend material to me.
I don't think I'll be watching this movie again, somehow. Unlike the Princess Bride, it really doesn't bear repeated viewing.