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The Dark is Rising
THEY ARE MAKING A MOVIE.
The Dark Is Rising on film! With pictures!
On one hand ... well, it's about time. On the other ... I do not like any of the changes they've made to the story AT ALL. I don't just not like them, I think they're pointless and, like some notes in a chord being out of tune, detract from the overall resonance of the story.
Change 1: Will is not English
I am not English. I will never know what it is really like to be English, nor will I ever have the sense of being tied to a place or the millennia of history and legend that go with it. However, when reading this book, I could imagine what it was like. More importantly, Will's belonging to the land and culture makes the ancient heritage of the Old Ones that much more fitting – it's a birthright, rather than a fish-out-of-water story, and while he messes up a lot at first (who doesn't?) it fits. When he fights the Dark, in the context of ancient festivals and traditions, it feels like he's drawing upon the immemorial depths in which he is rooted ... if he's not connected to the place or people, where does he get his strength? Having him be an American (I'm assuming) teenager makes it two fish-out-of-water stories at once, which dilutes the potency of either one. If he's completely at home with his neighbours and surroundings, being thrust into the company of the Old Ones suddenly throws a bizarre lens on everything that had been so normal before. This is part of the charm of the story and makes it into a slightly more unique fish-out-of-water-but-still-in-water thing: everything ought to be familiar, but it's all been turned on its head or inside out, meaningless things now have great significance, people have motives that were invisible before, etc. You can save his culture shock for later in the series when he goes to Wales. Let Will fight his first fight on home turf. I realize this was probably a decision made for marketing the film in the US ... but it's stupid.
On a more personal level, this is one of the few books I've read that has a really strong sense of place and time. The first time I read it was in the middle of summer but it carried with it a powerful feeling of Christmas, and (as far as I know) an emphatically English Christmas. Many of the traditions seemed foreign to me, as I was raised on the North American hodgepodge of Victorian, German, and homegrown Christmas traditions, but it was all so familiar and comfortable to the characters that it started to feel that way to me too. I loved how it drew so heavily upon the vast history of the place and the holiday, how the author used so much pre-Victorian stuff (something we don't know much about on this side of the pond) and even delved into pre-Christian midwinter symbolism, and what she made up fit in with it seamlessly. I know that Susan Cooper wrote these books after she had married and moved to Connecticut; I like to think this was the outlet for her nostalgia and homesickness.
1a: Will's birthday being 'two days before Christmas' further uproots him from any sort of connection to the place, time, or greater story – the original birthday on the 21st, the Winter Solstice, fits him into the Grand Scheme of Things perfectly. WHY MOVE IT? Presumably this has to do with the new fish-out-of-water take on everything, but isn't the discovery that you actually belong to a society of ancient, immortal, time-travelling Old Ones culture shock enough? Shouldn't an auspicious birthday add to the mystique? The paranoid, persecution-complex side of me starts to wonder if perhaps this deracination* is an attempt to strain out the pagan imagery in the book – Walden Media is unabashedly Christian (though they usually handle it in an admirably subtle way); perhaps the recollection of the pagan origins of Christmas and the pre-Christian elements of the story make them uncomfortable? It's not anti-Christian by any means, nowhere near anything like His Dark Materials, but the book tends to overlook the Nativity story in favour of Herne the Hunter, the Hunting of the Wren, the power of smiths, and of course the eternal interplay of Light and Dark at the turning of the year.
*Favourite new word
GOOD MORNING, MARKETING PEOPLE: On top of all this, one must consider there is a glut of fantasy on the market. What all the popular fantasy films have in common (aside from general structure and archetypes, bla bla) is that they are about characters who have to do their thing outside their native environment. Frodo has to leave the Shire. The Pevensies find themselves in Narnia. Harry goes to Hogwarts. The Dark is Rising could set itself apart by really playing up the 'fight at home' aspect of the story. Why change the story in order to fit in with the other movies' groove? Why not use a very important theme in the book to set the movie apart? Surely audiences can relate to someone fighting at home better than they can someone fighting in some crazy fantasy land? Isn't that what we're called upon to do every day to combat terrorism and/or climate change?
Change 2: Will is turning 14, not 11.
Well, they came right out and said it: girls. Good grief, like Will doesn't have enough on his hands. Eleven is a good age because you're starting to really be a part of the world and notice how it works, not just playing in the kiddie pool, but you (generally) don't have all that messy puberty stuff to deal with. A good age for adventure. This is why so many adventure and fantasy stories star kids about this age. Now they'll have to cram all the further adventures (assuming they make sequels... Walden looks ready to have two fantasy franchises on its hands) into the rest of Will's short adolescence, or else wrap the series when he's a grownup, which isn't nearly as fun. Also, if he's the youngest in the family, there won't be that many older siblings living at home to crowd up the house and make him feel out of place and all that, which is really well-done in the books. Canon Will is an unusually quiet, solemn child (more remarkable at 11 than 14) which is in great contrast to his boisterous siblings. This gives a further emotional dimension to Will finding out he is an Old One, which justifies his simultaneous belonging and alienation, and makes for some interesting family vs. greater good dilemmas later in the book as well.
"And when the mall police beak out and chase him, he begins to sense something very very messed up."
That line. A scene like that could conceivably be shoehorned into the book, but with the new milieu of the movie it looks like another tick under 'no.'
Ian McShane as Merriman?
(I do not use that acronym – or the blink code – lightly.) It's a shame Alex Jennings looks nothing like Merriman because he did a perfect job on the audio books. Of lesser note in the casting department, I've always thought Billy Boyd would have made the perfect Hawkin. Age makeup and a beard could take care of the scenes with ... er ... the 'age difference.' Um. And the Doctor as the Rider, well... it's amusing, but the Rider should not be amusing. And what's with the feathers? That's not menacing at all! I'm getting nitpicky, I know, but ... grr.
I usually feel like I'm the only person on the internet who's read these books, so I'm probably just shouting at the wall. Still mightily cheesed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go grumble for a few hours...
The Dark Is Rising on film! With pictures!
On one hand ... well, it's about time. On the other ... I do not like any of the changes they've made to the story AT ALL. I don't just not like them, I think they're pointless and, like some notes in a chord being out of tune, detract from the overall resonance of the story.
Change 1: Will is not English
I am not English. I will never know what it is really like to be English, nor will I ever have the sense of being tied to a place or the millennia of history and legend that go with it. However, when reading this book, I could imagine what it was like. More importantly, Will's belonging to the land and culture makes the ancient heritage of the Old Ones that much more fitting – it's a birthright, rather than a fish-out-of-water story, and while he messes up a lot at first (who doesn't?) it fits. When he fights the Dark, in the context of ancient festivals and traditions, it feels like he's drawing upon the immemorial depths in which he is rooted ... if he's not connected to the place or people, where does he get his strength? Having him be an American (I'm assuming) teenager makes it two fish-out-of-water stories at once, which dilutes the potency of either one. If he's completely at home with his neighbours and surroundings, being thrust into the company of the Old Ones suddenly throws a bizarre lens on everything that had been so normal before. This is part of the charm of the story and makes it into a slightly more unique fish-out-of-water-but-still-in-water thing: everything ought to be familiar, but it's all been turned on its head or inside out, meaningless things now have great significance, people have motives that were invisible before, etc. You can save his culture shock for later in the series when he goes to Wales. Let Will fight his first fight on home turf. I realize this was probably a decision made for marketing the film in the US ... but it's stupid.
On a more personal level, this is one of the few books I've read that has a really strong sense of place and time. The first time I read it was in the middle of summer but it carried with it a powerful feeling of Christmas, and (as far as I know) an emphatically English Christmas. Many of the traditions seemed foreign to me, as I was raised on the North American hodgepodge of Victorian, German, and homegrown Christmas traditions, but it was all so familiar and comfortable to the characters that it started to feel that way to me too. I loved how it drew so heavily upon the vast history of the place and the holiday, how the author used so much pre-Victorian stuff (something we don't know much about on this side of the pond) and even delved into pre-Christian midwinter symbolism, and what she made up fit in with it seamlessly. I know that Susan Cooper wrote these books after she had married and moved to Connecticut; I like to think this was the outlet for her nostalgia and homesickness.
1a: Will's birthday being 'two days before Christmas' further uproots him from any sort of connection to the place, time, or greater story – the original birthday on the 21st, the Winter Solstice, fits him into the Grand Scheme of Things perfectly. WHY MOVE IT? Presumably this has to do with the new fish-out-of-water take on everything, but isn't the discovery that you actually belong to a society of ancient, immortal, time-travelling Old Ones culture shock enough? Shouldn't an auspicious birthday add to the mystique? The paranoid, persecution-complex side of me starts to wonder if perhaps this deracination* is an attempt to strain out the pagan imagery in the book – Walden Media is unabashedly Christian (though they usually handle it in an admirably subtle way); perhaps the recollection of the pagan origins of Christmas and the pre-Christian elements of the story make them uncomfortable? It's not anti-Christian by any means, nowhere near anything like His Dark Materials, but the book tends to overlook the Nativity story in favour of Herne the Hunter, the Hunting of the Wren, the power of smiths, and of course the eternal interplay of Light and Dark at the turning of the year.
*Favourite new word
GOOD MORNING, MARKETING PEOPLE: On top of all this, one must consider there is a glut of fantasy on the market. What all the popular fantasy films have in common (aside from general structure and archetypes, bla bla) is that they are about characters who have to do their thing outside their native environment. Frodo has to leave the Shire. The Pevensies find themselves in Narnia. Harry goes to Hogwarts. The Dark is Rising could set itself apart by really playing up the 'fight at home' aspect of the story. Why change the story in order to fit in with the other movies' groove? Why not use a very important theme in the book to set the movie apart? Surely audiences can relate to someone fighting at home better than they can someone fighting in some crazy fantasy land? Isn't that what we're called upon to do every day to combat terrorism and/or climate change?
Change 2: Will is turning 14, not 11.
Well, they came right out and said it: girls. Good grief, like Will doesn't have enough on his hands. Eleven is a good age because you're starting to really be a part of the world and notice how it works, not just playing in the kiddie pool, but you (generally) don't have all that messy puberty stuff to deal with. A good age for adventure. This is why so many adventure and fantasy stories star kids about this age. Now they'll have to cram all the further adventures (assuming they make sequels... Walden looks ready to have two fantasy franchises on its hands) into the rest of Will's short adolescence, or else wrap the series when he's a grownup, which isn't nearly as fun. Also, if he's the youngest in the family, there won't be that many older siblings living at home to crowd up the house and make him feel out of place and all that, which is really well-done in the books. Canon Will is an unusually quiet, solemn child (more remarkable at 11 than 14) which is in great contrast to his boisterous siblings. This gives a further emotional dimension to Will finding out he is an Old One, which justifies his simultaneous belonging and alienation, and makes for some interesting family vs. greater good dilemmas later in the book as well.
"And when the mall police beak out and chase him, he begins to sense something very very messed up."
That line. A scene like that could conceivably be shoehorned into the book, but with the new milieu of the movie it looks like another tick under 'no.'
Ian McShane as Merriman?
(I do not use that acronym – or the blink code – lightly.) It's a shame Alex Jennings looks nothing like Merriman because he did a perfect job on the audio books. Of lesser note in the casting department, I've always thought Billy Boyd would have made the perfect Hawkin. Age makeup and a beard could take care of the scenes with ... er ... the 'age difference.' Um. And the Doctor as the Rider, well... it's amusing, but the Rider should not be amusing. And what's with the feathers? That's not menacing at all! I'm getting nitpicky, I know, but ... grr.
I usually feel like I'm the only person on the internet who's read these books, so I'm probably just shouting at the wall. Still mightily cheesed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go grumble for a few hours...
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Anyway, you're not the only one who loved this series, and not the only one who's cringing :oP
(I could definitely see Billy Boyd as Hawkin; he'd have that pinched look down pat.)
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Christopher Eccleston can look rather severe and scary, so here's hoping on that front!
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(Anonymous) - 2007-05-19 05:04 (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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(Anonymous) - 2007-05-19 05:15 (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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All we can really hope for is 1) A Miracle and 2) That your sources are wrong.
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OK, Will being American? FAIL. This is an English series... like you say, it's grounded so deeply in English tradition and heritage and HISTORY that making the kid American basically reduces the whole thing to "oh, look, quaint little British people and their silly stories!"
I wouldn't mind if it was an American *actor* because their kids act far better than ours, but American for real? No.
Also, in that picture of Christopher Ecclestone, he should be holding the sonic screwdriver. Because that pose? Is straight out of Parting of the Ways.
*sigh* I wish that the execs would, for once in their lives, care about the source material their films are coming from. (and isn't this the second book in the series anyway? I thought Over Sea, Under Stone came first? *after the omission of the Marauders from film, is totally not surprised*)
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Crap, seems like every book that's near and dear must get "discovered" by Hollywood and miserably warped in the process. (With, of course, rare and wondrous exceptions like LotR, but still.)
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But yes, american Will. Urgh.
I love those books - I last read them as my comfort reading when I was in hospital a couple of years ago. I should reread them.
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As for the Doctor as the Rider, I think I'm only accepting that because I like the Doctor.
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(Anonymous) 2007-05-20 03:39 pm (UTC)(link)I don't know what has prompted me to actually comment other than you are not alone in enjoying The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. I first read the series when I was 12 years old and I've loved them ever since! I just felt I should tell you that I am equally outraged... I've known they were doing a movie for about a year now, but this was the first article I've seen about it.
*shakes fist at the sky* Why must they change it???!!!
~Sarah
http://exuberantflute86.blogspot.com/
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But am I alone in thinking that it's now only a matter of time before someone writes a hi-larious Doctor Who/The Dark Is Rising crossover?
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