Dilemma about 'Will's Excellent Adventure'

There is nothing like being in a school library before school starts.
Teachers start coming in, long before their contracts start, to set up their rooms and begin planning for the year to come. Even though the librarians start work a week before the teachers, there is precious little time to work for the library itself which is why I found myself cataloging a load of new material for a very busy librarian at an elementary school this week.

The librarian at this school runs a fun "Books to Movies" reading club every year. She was telling me of her plans to use The Dark is Rising as her first book in conjunction with the movie The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, aka Will's Excellent Adventure, when it comes out.

Wow, have you heard about the brouhaha surrounding the movie I ask?

I ended up feeling badly because she is now pondering using another book to start the year. I don't think she has read the story yet so I told her not to decide until she had.

The club is really popular so it would be a chance for lots of kids to experience Cooper's work. Maybe learning that the movies are not faithful conveyors of a beloved story is a good thing to teach kids.
Maybe it is not so bad to reward feckless studios who are counting on librarians to promote their offerings in scenarios just like this one?
Maybe the movie is going to be so alien from the storyline that it will not spoil the book for them.

What do you think?

Books to Movies

The whole distressing news about the "changes" to The Dark is Rising set me to thinking about other beloved books in our Entwood that have been translated to the silver screen.

Nothing compares to the breadth and depth of the story in written form. Most of the time I do note what was left out and what was changed when a book is made into a movie but overall I enjoy seeing another creative mind's interpretation.

I enjoyed Stormbreaker, even though I didn't think the actor fit my idea of Alex Rider but I enjoyed the movie for what it was.

The Harry Potter movies had their drawbacks but I saw them and enjoyed them. When they pop-up on TV (like tonight) I find myself watching them.

Overall I have liked the Walden Media movies I have seen. I even liked Hoot though I felt they got the casting of Mullet Fingers very wrong.

Which brings me to our most beloved of all stories that have been movie-ized, The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson decided, for sake of dramatic effect, to change some aspects of the story and these changes STILL annoy some members of this household. Aragorn's motivations, Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch King at Pelennor Fields, and Denethor's character spring to mind.

But we all knew that Peter Jackson loved the books. We knew he had read the books and had dreamed of bringing this "unfilmable" story to the screen. The involvement of the fans was nurtured from the very beginning of the project. He knew their interest and support was important to the movies' success.

Jackson infused his project with Tolkien's own words and brought the essence and spirit of the story to life. It was a work of love and it showed in every frame.

I reflected on this as I read this interview with John Hodge, the screenwriter for The Dark is Rising:

Are there other elements from the books that you used. With regards to back story or stuff like that?

I haven't dipped into the other books at all.

So you just focused on the 'Dark Is Rising?'

Just 'Dark Is Rising', yeah.

Studios that are trying to achieve their own fantasy franchise à la Harry or LOTR should take a page out of Peter Jackson's play book.

Oh well.

Positively "hasty"

"But now his slow wrath is brimming over and the forest is filled with it. The coming of the hobbits and the tidings they have brought have spilled it.: it will soon be running like a flood; but its tide is turned against Saruman and the axes of Isengard. A thing is about to happen which has not happened since the Elder Days: the Ents are going to wake up and find that they are strong. -- "The White Rider", The Two Towers

Well, this topic has certainly gotten this entfamily in an uproar. Don't know how "strong" we are but enraged, absolutely.

"When Treebeard had got a few arrows in him, he began to warm up, to get positively "hasty", as he would say." -- "Flotsam and Jetsam", The Two Towers

I tend to think of Entling no. 2 as our resident Lord of the Rings expert but she felt compelled to weigh in on the DiR movie, in particular:

First:
And what of Will's family? His being the seventh son of a seventh son (a fact not readily apparent since the first born died young) is also a very important point. Just how will they make that work if Will has a twin, as one picture suggested?

Plus:
And they've changed Will's father from a jeweler to a physics professor! His being a jeweler was actually very important to the plot!

Plus: (Mother's note: this is from the kid who chided me for skipping the songs and poems in LOTR the first time I read it)
Will they have the poems?

When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.
When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.

Iron for the birthday, bronze carried long;
Wood from the burning, stone out of song;
Fire in the candle-ring, water from the thaw;
Six Signs the circle, and the grail gone before.

Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold
Played to wake the Sleepers, oldest of the old;
Power from the green witch, lost beneath the sea;
All shall find the light at last, silver on the tree.

Finally:
It's as if they finally did The Hobbit and Bilbo was no longer a hobbit, but was a plucky young mortal human starting out on a quest with his faithful dog Spot and the wise, cantankerous grounds keeper from his father's estate.

Oh, and the quest is to just get from point A to point B. There's no dragon treasure, really.

And while Gandalf does make an appearance, Radagast is far more important and slightly evil.

--- --- --- --- ---

Camille is now trying to remember who the heck is Radagast?

Movie: The Dark is Rising

Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series was one of the first children's book series I read as an adult. It was BC (before children) and this novel made me want to sleep with the lights on for several nights.

I am also interested in the book-to-film progress of The Dark is Rising because this series was one of Entling No. 1's favorite reads of all time. Her copy of Silver on the Tree was a sight to behold: cover hanging by a thread and then gone all together, pages softened from innumerable turnings. These books "fit her just right" to quote a fan's letter to Susan Cooper.

J.L. Bell always writes thoughtfully about the subjects he takes up so I sent his "The Hype is Rising" post to my No. 1 and asked for her take.

For the record my daughter is a twenty something young professional. She said I could share her thoughts that I received over a course of several emails. They were arriving fast and furious.

First take:
I'm only half way through, but if Will has a twin I'll throw up.

And another thing:
Ok, first of all Will has to come from a big family. One of the important themes is that he's the 7th son of a 7th son (or 11th or some number). That's why he's important. And he doesn't ever complain about it - his brothers and sisters do.

That's what makes Will different. He gets along with everyone, has patience and understanding and is more grown up than many of his older siblings. He worries about what he's getting everyone for Christmas because he loves his big family so much he wants to get all the right presents. He understands and accepts what he has to do at such a young age because he wants to protect his family - there's actually a scene where he wants to leave and give up but then sees The Rider with his sister and it propels him into doing what's right for the cause.

The Walker having a love interest is ridiculous - he's actually one of the semi-enemies in the book, and he's not THAT big a character so it doesn't make ANY sense that they would change that. He used to work for the Old Ones, specifically Merriman, but betrayed them and was cursed.

He learns the hard way that an immortal life is not a blessing, and it drives him mad so he actually works for the Dark until Will and Merriman work to bring him back to the Light.
Making him younger, as this post seemed to suggest, is beyond dumb because it takes away the reason for his suffering - he's lived too long and aged too much, but he can't die. He's mad. Adding a love interest makes no sense.
At all.
Ever.

Will being an American is not that big a deal, though it seems more like a casting cop-out than an actual plot addition. Of course the reason he's British in the books means he has a physical connection to important people and places from King Arthur's time.

But, oh wait, they don't need that (see next paragraph). I don't know why they made him 14 or 13 instead of 11 - the whole deal in the book is that he's not even a teenager yet - that's why it's so hard for him.

Getting rid of the Arthurian themes is unbelievable. First of all Merriman, as we learn in the later books, is also MERLIN. It also means they won't be making The Grey King or Silver on the Tree, since those all involve KING ARTHUR'S SON!! (brought to our modern times by Guenevere with Merrimen's help.)

And Bran has to be King Arthur's son or nothing else makes sense - for example, that's why he can use King Arthur's sword. He's important because he's King Arthur's son - he's the Pendragon and it gives him more abilities and powers than other people. If you take this away and make him just an ordinary kid, why is Bran more special than Will? Why does it have to be him who has to do everything in The Grey King and Silver on the Tree - just cuz he's Welsh??

That's all I can think of in 10 minutes. I'll ponder more if you want.

And another thing:
As a side note - [Ian MacShane's] whine about Cooper's books being too hard to read obviously never tried to read the Narnia series. Cooper's books are not dense or hard to get through, they are not boring, have plenty of action in them already and don't need any random changes to make them more exciting.

It's not a Die Hard type fight with huge action sequences. The Light and the Dark don't use bombs or guns or plastic explosives or snipers to fight each other. It's a more subtle kind of fight, fought in the old ways with cunning and faith. There are rules each side has to follow, including keeping the fight on the down-lo, or risk getting cast out of the universe or something.

In Silver on the Tree, each of the good guys (Simon, Jane, Barney from Over Sea Under Stone and Greenwitch, Will, Bran and Merriman) take one of the Signs (found by Will in Dark is Rising) and they all stand around the most important tree in the world (not actually named the Tree of Life by Cooper, but the symbolism is there.) And all around them they see the other warriors of the Light and the Dark fighting - King Arthur, etc. And the point is that the Light prevented the Dark from taking control of the tree, which exists out of time. Thus they saved the past, present and future.

Or in other words, the fight is never ending and a lot more complicated than just a random good-guy bad-guy fight.That's why it's a quest - you're supposed to have to think about it - it's not supposed to be easy.

And another thing:
Sorry it's kind of a stream of consciousness. But I LOVE these books and the thought of someone messing them up actually makes me want to cry.

And another thing:
Also, please clean up my typos and grammar errors. That post got me so riled up I just started pounding the keyboard.

And another thing:
Merriman is the only character who appears in all 5 books. If the actor hasn't even tried to read them how true will his performance be?