Betrayal!

[john_adams_1775]

I have been betrayed. Horribly, horrifically betrayed. I've just watched the trailers for Beowulf and The Seeker and it is clear to me that Hollywood is intent on taking my beloved childhood tales and reducing them to mindless drivel.

Beowulf has been rewritten by Neil Gaimon, who apparently thinks that because he's Neil Gaimon, he can create a

Comments

[marielander]

I was intrigued by the Dark is Rising trailer by Ian McShane (the interesting looking guy with the somewhat gravelly voice), because I know him to be a great actor from Deadwood.

CG Beowulf. Boo.

There is a small chance that the trailers might be misrepresentative, perhaps? The trailer for Serenity made a good film look somewhat uninteresting, if I remember back that far.

[john_adams_1775]

Not a prayer, I'm afraid. You see, the story isn't supposed to be about the quest primarily so much as the mythology and the setting. For example, Will and the other Old Ones are literally indestructible, as is the Rider. The most either could do to the other is blast their opponent out of Time for a while, which amounts to a minor inconvenience. That takes a fair bit of the danger out of the adventures, wouldn't you say? It's about the atmosphere and setting, not about the events, really. Plus they've decided to make Movie-Will older and an American so that he'll be an outsider in England. That's not the point of the novels - it's that in the familiar places that everybody knows, familiar people turn out to be involved in this cosmic struggles. Plenty of Will's neighbors, who he's known all his life, turn out to be Old Ones in disguise. They haven't even figured out the premise of the books.

[amelia_abroad]

The problem with blaming the screenwriter for the changes made to Beowulf, or even whoever is doing this other one that I'm not familiar with, is that most likely they did not implement that change. Producers have this nasty habit of trying to 'sex up' a story to make it have more appeal to a larger, non John-Adamsian audience. Not saying that you are the only who would see this, but for example you probably wouldn't get the girls' rugby team into it, or people who are primarily driven by sex. (Please no rugby attacks - just the first thing that popped into my head. I was a jock, no problems with jocks, or those who like sex

[john_adams_1775]

If he really has little to do with it, why is Gaimon still on the project? His name is a bloody commodity, people expect great things of him and you can't tell me that he's dependent on this project to keep himself fed and clothed. If you've attained a certain level of artistic success, you have a duty (not to mention an inclination, probably) to avoid associating yourself with garbage.

I personally don't care if a movie is based off a book or not. The movies I got excited about recently had nothing whatsoever to do with books - Mr. Brooks, Stranger Than Fiction, etc. Film is its own medium and one that invariably seems to fall flat on its face when it tries to adapt books. As you yourself pointed out, even LotR wasn't free of that taint. If they intend to adapt an Anglo-Saxon classic, then they better jolly well stick to the story and not flagrantly violate it. Grendel's mother is a hag, not a sex symbol, and even if she was, Beowulf is not the sort of chap likely to have sex with a monster. The idea that Indian film makers