strange and random happenstance

The Golden Compass
Based on the book by Philip Pullman
Starring: Eva Green, Daniel Craig, Kristin Scott Thomas, Dakota Blue Richards, Freddie Highmore, Ben Walker, Clare Higgins, Charlie Rowe, Jack Shepherd, Magda Szubanski, Nicole Kidman, Simon McBurney, Derek Jacobi, Edward de Souza, Christopher Lee, Jim Carter, Tom Courtenay, Sam Elliott, Kathy Bates, Ian McKellen, Jason Watkins, Paul Antony-Barber, Hattie Morahan, and Ian McShane
Release Date: November 27th, 2007
Rating: ★★
To Buy

There are parallel worlds, worlds joined by Dust, some are just like ours with the only difference being that humans have constant animal companions called daemons. This is a story of that world and a girl, Lyra, and her daemon Pan. Lyra's living a carefree life in Jordan College, Oxford. She has her best friend Roger and all the gyptian kids to play with. They run amock and stage their childish wars and whisper about the evil gobblers that take kids away. Only maybe the gobblers are real... After a visit from her uncle, Lord Asriel, wherein he once again said Lyra was not to accompany him on his adventures to the north the beguiling Mrs. Coulter arrives and offers Lyra what Lord Asriel wouldn't, a true home and a northern adventure. Only Roger isn't there to see Lyra off. Soon Lyra is in London and thoughts of Roger are long gone. But life isn't perfect in Mrs. Coulter's world. She can be cruel and is obviously hiding things from Lyra. Of course Lyra is hiding things from her as well, in particular a Golden Compass, a symbol reader that the Master of Jordan College gave her. It soon becomes clear that Mrs. Coulter is actually the head of the gobblers who are kidnapping children to perform an operation on them called intercision and Roger was one of the kids taken. This and Mrs. Coulter's daemon trying to steal the Golden Compass is the last straw. Lyra runs into the night and is reunited with the gyptians. They are mounting a rescue mission north to rescue the children and Lyra wants to come. There she can rescue Roger, see an ice bear, and perhaps her uncle. But the journey is dangerous and she and Pan could be separated forever...

As the music soars and the end credits roll you realize that yes, not only are they ending the story before it's true grim final act, they are overly confident of a sequel that will never come. Could it be Daniel Craig's fault, as this is the first of many would be franchises that he kills proving he's only able to successfully churn out Bond film after Bond film? Or could it be that Chris Weitz shouldn't have had such grand ambitions? Whatever it was that went wrong, and a lot must have gone wrong, what was to be the next Harry Potter cum Lord of the Rings franchise was a sanitized steampunk odyssey that just didn't get it. Back when it was released in 2007 I remember getting all my friends together and just being dumbfounded that the whole movie was such a misstep. I seriously sat there unable to believe that they ended the tale on a happy and hopeful note. The reason I love the books is that despite being firmly rooted in fantasy there is realism with it's real world consequences. But the only real world consequence for the film franchise was that it was one and done. Girding my loins to actually watch the film for the first time since the theater I was struck by it's try-hard nature and that despite everything that went wrong, it wasn't as bad as I remembered. There were enough British actors that I love peppered throughout that they were able to distract me from the epic fail that was the overall film. Little things would occasionally be right, but overall it reeked of failed hope, even Saruman and Gandalf reuniting wasn't enough to save this floundering mess. Bloodless battles in a world that is too sleek and too dismissive of what the heart of the book is lead to a movie that makes no sense.

Moving beyond the illogical internal timeline that takes away all cause and effect, The Golden Compass was about flash and spectacle. The flash of a daemon being killed verses the substance of the connection between a human and their daemon. There is no heart and no soul. The irony shouldn't be lost on the faithful book readers. The story by Philip Pullman is all about growing up and learning about cause and effect and what if there was a procedure that could arrest childhood innocence. It's about separating the self from the soul in order to maintain this innocence. By stripping out all the layers on which the book works and going for a bowdlerized glitter-fest the movie has no soul. How can you ruminate on losing something you never had? This movie literally has no meaning. What's more is that while the soul is gone there could have been some glimmer of lessons learned. They could have maintained Lyra's loss of innocence with her journey from Jordan College to the perfumed, complicated, and adult world of Mrs. Coulter, but instead, once again, they vetoed that idea. By ending the tale on Lyra's balloon ride to her father she's still full of hope. The future is wide open. Yes, she's had harsh lessons, but all of them have been reversible. She fully loses her innocence when her father kills her best friend Roger, the one whom she had vowed to rescue. This false, and baffling to book fans, ending means that the entire moral of the story is gone, the cost of growing up is lost, and so was any chance at the film franchise succeeding.    

Yet the complete lack of insight into what the book is about wasn't just reserved to Lyra's journey, it encompassed the entire world Philip Pullman had built and can be seen most clearly in the daemons. This film literally just does not get daemons. The films opens with Eva Green's husky voice explaining about parallel worlds and Lyra's world and what exactly daemons are. But the truth is they tried and failed quite quickly while setting down the rules. There are glaring omissions and breeches that the uninformed viewer would just not see. One such omission is the whole distance rule. Humans and their daemons can only be a certain distance apart. Why is this important? Because when Lyra and Pan freak out not knowing where Mrs. Coulter's evil monkey is you don't get the reasoning behind it. It's because there should be no way that her monkey is off doing it's own thing. A HUGE revelation, and yet? Brushed aside. As for daemons touching each other and humans touching daemons not their own... well these are taboos NEVER laid down. The fact that Pan is all cosy with that creepy golden monkey about five seconds after meeting him, no no no. Touching is a no no. Lord Asriel's daemon bullying Pan? Again, NO! I mean, did Chris Weitz actually read the source material? Because once again by not setting the rules down a later scene doesn't have the impact it should. When the scientists at Bolvanger grab Pan no one watching this film would get the horror this implies. As for the Dust going THROUGH the daemons, lets not even go there. But all these things are nothing compared to how shitty the CGI is. Oh. Dear. Me. The truth is if you couldn't be sure of nailing this you just shouldn't have done this movie. The daemons are weirdly suffused with light and they don't move right, almost like the animators had never even seen a real animal. As for the fur? It shouldn't move by it's own wind and it shouldn't move in individual strands. 

Yet oddly enough it was the voices of the daemons that bothered me most. I'm not sure if it was miscasting or what, but the connection between a human and their daemon is so deep that I kind of feel weird hearing their voices aloud versus being a voice in their human's head. But I will say that this film isn't exempt from bad casting. Daniel "franchise killer" Craig aside I think anyone watching this film knows who is to blame, and that's Nicole Kidman. Sure, she's a big name, but that doesn't mean she's the right choice. She is ALL WRONG for Mrs. Coulter. This character has to be a split personality, she has to have a motherly seductive warmth that lures children in while also having a terrifying side embodied by that evil golden monkey. Here she only has the terrifying side. She's cold and calculating and just not right. It's like they took the arctic idea that threads through the book and instead of discussing the aurora or ice they just decided to have Nicole embrace these ideals, once again without looking at the bigger picture. The only plus that can be said is at least she hadn't at this point had so much plastic surgery that she looked more daemon than human, but that is a very small plus. Also, let's not even get started on Jim Carter, aka the beloved Carson from Downton Abbey wearing enough eye shadow that he could front a Glam Rock band because at least he was well cast. In fact the smaller roles were all so well cast that I almost want to go back in time and reshoot this film with almost the same cast but with a script that gets the bigger picture. For a film franchise you have to look to the future, not strip everything out and just hope it works. 

What was completely stripped out was the church. And this is unacceptable. I understand the reason behind this and I also understand why you'd be confused by me even mentioning the church in this review had you not read the source material. See, The Magisterium, the evil organization that Mrs. Coulter works for is really The Church, they are one and the same. Yet this adaptation took pains to make sure you never thought this by making cardinals councilors and throwing a few emissaries around the place. The production thought that the film would be too controversial if the big bad was the church. They removed them from Europe, plonked them down in London and made them an evil worlds dominating organization, not trying to, you know, stop the spread of sin, but helping these children become mindless zombies that they could control? Um, WTF!?! I just don't get it. The books are ALL about the church and if you remove it the domino effect happens, as you can see from all my previous complaints. You change one thing, and another, then another, all trying to fill the void by the initial change and in the end you end up with a near incomprehensible mess. A happy ending without a single grain of truth. Now, the church of old, the great old inquisition of centuries past might like the irony of this, but as a fan of the book just all the no. If you were going to change so much why even bother making this an adaptation? Make something new, something original. Don't take something with soul and strip mine it for something marketable, something soulless. Yes, I might not have loathed this film on second viewing, but it made me sad and wistful. The what could have been is so tangible that the ensuing disappointment is almost more of a letdown than the film itself.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Different Kind of P and P, Adaptation, CGI, Church, Daemons, Daniel Craig, Downton Abbey, Dust, Eva Green, Harry Potter, Jim Carter, Lord of the Rings, Nicole Kidman, Oxford, Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

Earthsea
Based on the book by Ursula K. Le Guin
Starring: Shawn Ashmore, Erin Karpluk, Danny Glover, Alessandro Juliani, Richard Side, Chris Gauthier, Mark Hildreth, Heather Laura Gray, Alan Scarfe, Katharine Isabelle, Sebastian Roché, Jennifer Calvert, Emily Hampshire, Kristin Kreuk, and Isabella Rossellini
Release Date: December 13th-14th, 2004
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

King Tygath longs to subdue all of Earthsea and achieve immortality through the Nameless Ones. Two people stand in his way, Ged and Tenar. Yet he knows neither by name. Ged is the wizard prophesied to unite Earthsea in peace while Tenar will guard the labyrinthine prison of the Nameless Ones. Despite never meeting, Ged and Tenar know each other, through visions they have had for years. But their inevitable meeting isn't to happen. Yet. First Ged must leave his small village on the isle of Gont. He feels that he will forever be trapped there, the son of a smith, when he longs to do magic. He uses what little magic he knows from an old woman in the village to save his townspeople from the Kargides who arrive searching for the wizard of the prophecy. Ged dies in the attack. But the wandering magus Ogion arrives and revives Ged, taking him on as his pupil and giving him his true name, Sparrowhawk. But Ogion sees that he isn't the teacher for Ged and sends him to Roke, where he will attend the wizarding school there. Yet Ged doesn't understand why there are limits to magic and in a forbidden duel with a fellow student he releases a Nameless One. This act will haunt Ged and also signals to King Tygath that Ged is the wizard of the prophesy.

Ged is hunted by the Gebbeth, who eventually takes on Ged's form. His battle though will bring him to Atuan and Tenar. Tenar is the prized pupil of the High Priestess Thar. Thar is obstinate against King Tygarth and his desire to release the order's prisoners, the Nameless Ones. The King therefore is plotting with Thar's second in command and his lover, Kossil, to poison Thar and therefore make Kossil the one with the knowledge to release the Nameless Ones. Yet things don't go according to plan when Thar names Tenar as her successor. They therefore plot to tarnish Tenar's perfect image and achieve the immortality they seek. But on her deathbed Thar mutters a warning that what King Tygarth seeks is impossible. Little does she know that it is impossible because of the disgraced Tenar who is now captive in the order's dungeon with Ged. The two of them have been destined to meet. Destined to save Earthsea. But will they be in time to bring peace to the land or will King Tygarth rule forever?   

Here's the thing about this miniseries, if you go in expecting it to be in ANY WAY like the books by Ursula K. Le Guin, you are going to be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you take it at face value, don't over analyze, and yes, that's ironic coming from me, then it's entertaining. It's good for what it is but what it is is not the books you know and love. Driven by the success of the Harry Potter film franchise which in 2004 had adapted the first three books by J.K Rowling and by the success of The Lord of the Rings film franchise, which released it's final film a year prior this series was tailored to be a combination of the two. Therefore the action was predominately split between the wizarding school on Roke and the war on Earthsea led by King Tygarth and his Kargides. While in the books Ged's education is important, it's not such a focal point, as for the raiding Kargides? They're hardly mentioned except in passing. This miniseries was trying so hard to be an amalgam of something that it wasn't that it missed the opportunity to bring Le Guin's groundbreaking books to a great public. So while I did enjoy it I could help thinking what if?

Because what this could have been, what this should have been is an epic fantasy version of Roots. And you can tell looking at the DVD cover, well... Shawn Ashmore, he's, um, he would not be a protagonist in Roots. In fact Danny Glover is about the only thing they got right with regards to the source material, and personally, I felt a little bad for him. Did he sign on knowing the books? Did he think this would have been the epic it should have been? Whitewashing is being talked about more and more in regards to mainstream media. When Le Guin wrote her scathing tirade lambasting this production whitewashing wasn't discussed as readily as it is today. I feel that while the race issue has become more polarized at least audiences are getting more and more savvy, just look to the recent failure of Ghost in the Shell, casting Scarlett Johansson as the lead was an insult and audiences showed their disdain by not going to the film. Then there was the convoluted whitewashing of the Ancient One in Doctor Strange. I say convoluted because they went a step in the right direction by casting a woman in a male's role, but then it was a white woman who then started badmouthing her own casting... Any way you look at it, the lack of diversity on the screen is an insult to Le Guin's vision and I'm surprised she didn't find a way to fully distance herself from the production.

What I felt though really took this miniseries away from Le Guin's vision wasn't just the whitewashing, which is unacceptable, but the refocusing on war and violence. It's rare to have a series of books that celebrate humanity and the search for self. It's even rarer to find that series in fantasy where epic battles the equal of Helm's Deep or The Battle of Hogwarts seem to be the order of the day. Reading the books by Le Guin is a refreshing experience. They have become classics because they aren't like what else is out there. To strip the story of all that and replace it with King Tygath, a power-hungry and violent ruler who is almost irrelevant in The Tombs of Atuan, it's just insulting to the viewers. The reason why I don't like the Marvel film franchise or in fact really any superhero films is it's just action scene after action scene with no character development. So Sci-Fi did to Earthsea what they assumed their viewers wanted... made it epic battles and raids. While their might have been one raid in the first book, it wasn't with an express purpose of war and dominance, it was part of Ged's journey. But now, because of "popular tastes" Ged's journey is just one battle after another not to find himself but to save Earthsea from an evil tyrant. Sigh.

But the thing is, what this miniseries wants to be is the equal of The Lords of the Rings or Harry Potter, yet those are movies with IMMENSE budgets... this was a miniseries shot in Vancouver. Therefore your CGI looks a little or in this case A LOT like a bad video game and the special effects look like something Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell cooked up. At first I thought that the miniseries HAD to have been made a lot longer ago then just thirteen years because it's literally that bad, but the more practical effects had a kind of cheesy charm. It is my belief that CGI doesn't age well at all but practical effects, even if they look cheesy, they will hold up better over time. Because while technology might have improved, at least it's a physical thing that's there and not some greenscreened snake. Seriously, stop doing CGI snakes, they NEVER look right. So I kind of went to a weird place and started wondering, what if they had upped the cheese factor on the effects. Gone all in on The Evil Dead vibe. I personally think that could have really worked, made it shine a little, or at least made it amusingly memorable. It never had a chance to be a cinematic masterpiece, so why not go the other way?

Though for me the biggest insult of the miniseries which I kind of had to keep telling myself to ignore and just accept for what it is is how they treated the storyline from The Tombs of Atuan. I mean, it's just... nope. Nope, nope, nope. I seriously loved that book so much and aside from the insult of having Kristin Kreuk be Tenar, they just didn't get it. I mean, watching this miniseries it's pretty obvious they just didn't get anything about the source material, but what bothered me most about the story in Atuan was that it stripped the women of power, giving it all to the King, but more importantly, it made them servants of good. In the book they worship the Nameless Ones. Worship, as in revere and idolize. Here they're trying to keep the Nameless Ones locked away from the world. What!?! I mean, seriously what? That the good Tenar could come out of this bad situation, that she could find herself when she was raised for evil? That's a true journey of discovery. Here she's just a lame handmaiden waiting for the guy to come along and figure everything out and give her the heroic kiss as the world is set to right. NO NO NO! Ged is to be at her mercy and it is her with the upper hand. Just no. I'm really starting to second guess why I liked this miniseries. I guess for one rare instance I was able to separate what it was, what it could have been, and what it became into separate categories and somehow I was OK with that. Still don't quite know how.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Bruce Campbell, CGI, Danny Glover, Earthsea, Ged, Harry Potter, It's a Kind of Magic, Lord of the Rings, Miniseries, Roots, Shawn Ashmore, Tenar, The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Whitewashing

Festival of Death by Jonathan Morris
Published by: BBC Books
Publication Date: September 4th, 2000
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

The Doctor has arrived at the G-Lock, a space station that is the result of a massive pile up two hundred years ago. The G-Lock has become a place of pilgrimage for those wishing to experience The Beautiful Death. The attraction doesn't just simulate what death and the veil beyond is like, but it quite literally kills you and then a short time later brings you back, that's if you're wanting to come back. Though the most recent death has gone horribly wrong turning almost all 218 participates into zombies controlled by some unknown force.

The Doctor and Romana arrive in the aftermath to find that everyone knows them and are heralding The Doctor as their saviour. Problem is, The Doctor's never been here before. Which means only one answer remains, in his future, the G-Lock's past, he comes here and saves everyone. Romana warns The Doctor that crossing their own time streams is very dangerous and they have to be careful not to change anything. If they are fated to die, well, they must face this fact, they can not mess about with time, something a time lord should know. Yet each journey into their past proves that they are inextricably linked to the G-Lock, and it's more then a little frustrating trying to find a time when they were unknown. If they are careful, then the G-Lock will be saved, but their own fates, well, that's another thing.

I'm sure every one of you has had a book that you just can't be bothered to pick up. You know that you just need to bite the bullet and power through, but somehow, you just can't. The longer you avoid the book, the easier it is to accept that you will never finish it. If you are like me, and reading is an integral part of you life, this one book then throws everything in your life out of whack. My moods and emotions are usually keyed into what I'm reading at the moment, if I like the book, life seems easier, if I don't... well, I'm a bit of a grump. This inability to finish yet unwillingness to pick up anything else is the worst situation a reader can face. It doesn't happen to me often. The worst case I suffered was back in August of 2008, the book was Breaking Dawn. While I'm not going to comment on this book by Stephenie Meyer here, that would require far more time and energy then I'm willing to spend on this book review, I will say that it took me an entire month to get through that book. Think of all the other books I could have been reading? While I never allowed Festival of Death that hold on my time, I will say that I begrudge it everything else I could have been reading and will forever hold it against it. Though, in the final analysis, this was the least of this books sins.

My issues with this book started on page one. I am never one to skip the intro, even if it might contain spoilers. I have attempted in recent years to read the intro after the books conclusion, but, well, the majority of these new Doctor Who intros are, how shall I put it, just reveling in the fact that their book was chosen. The first three books had something to offer, a little bit about their love of The Doctor and in particular, why they loved THIS Doctor... not so with Jonathan Morris. Jonathan Morris's intro seems more along the lines of us mere mortals should be privileged to read this glorious book he has written. While until this book he was a humble Eraser fan running the fan club (seriously, dude you really think this is an accomplishment?) then this glorious piece of writing was birthed by him, and, while he won't take all the credit for bringing the wibbly wobbly timey wimey to the Whoverse... oh, who am I kidding, he will take all the credit. He will view the complex time lines and the ability to loop back on your own life as his own amazing creation, forgetting, oh, almost a centuries worth of work that came before him. That Red Dwarf episode, "Future Echoes," the one from 1988, more then a decade before this book, well, forget that, this book totally didn't just rip it off, because, well, Jonathan Morris CREATED timey wimey! In fact, if we take his introduction to heart, using his own timey wimey, he must have created Doctor Who himself and every other time travelling show, literature, what have you, ever. Quantum Leap, totally his. Gaw, this author is so full of himself.

And here is the real snag in the book. Ego aside, the book is just a pastiche of all these other shows and books, that couldn't possibly be as original as Festival of Death because the author says so. I can't tell if it's his naivete as a new writer, or his immense ego that let's him just rip off other writers without a care in the world. These are not nods, these are blatant rip offs. The "reference" to Douglas Adams, ie, the depressed computer ERIC, well, let's just call him MARVIN and move on. I mean, seriously dude, this isn't cool. If you watch Doctor Who, you've read Adams at some point, and well, readers aren't going to let this slide. Adams was a genius, YOU ARE A HACK. The reason I mentioned Red Dwarf above, well, it's because one scene was almost lifted fully from that previously mentioned episode. A good author is able to incorporate other ideas and references into a solid narrative that is original while yet being referential... Jonathan Morris, the author I shall never read again, doesn't do this. The book isn't a cohesive whole, just a bunch of jokes and scenes lifted from other sources and precariously strung together. Here's all the "references" I was able to ferret out, and I'm sure it's by no means exhaustive: The Shining, Alien, Titanic, Lord of the Rings (in particular Gollum), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (and yes, I did check release dates so that I am not wrong), and in the end, Being John Malkovich, in the weirdest "nod" yet. Seriously, couldn't the author try anything original? All he did was point out how bad his book was by "referencing" books/movies/whatever that I enjoyed far far more.

In the few rare instances that he tries to show some originality, it comes across as bad jokes or goes against the cannon of the show. The alien races that he encounters, I'm not talking about those little lizard people who are obviously out of the canon of Adams, but the Arboretans... could you think of a lamer name? I'm sorry, but plant based life that is kind of Fern Gully meets Doctor Who and you named them Arboretans? Do they live in the Arboretum near my house? Could you try to think of a non cringe worthy name? Like you're deja vu jokes that made me groan. Preja vu? The stupid running joke about The Doctor not having passed his test to fly the TARDIS. Or the fact that you actually killed The Doctor for thirty minutes and therefore destroyed some of the cannon, because, if he died, he would have regenerated, and well... HE DIDN'T! That is one of the glaring problems of this book. Because we know The Doctor saves the G-Lock, but in doing so he supposedly dies... well, we know he can't die, neither can Romana, because, well, that's not what happens to them, so there is no peril, no impetus to keep reading because we know what happens. I can say I finished the book, but I will never read this author again, I would rather have my brains smashed out by a slice of lemon, wrapped 'round a large gold brick.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alien, Being John Malkovich, Doctor Who, Doctor Who Book Challenge, Douglas Adams, Gollum, Harry Potter, Jonathan Morris, K-9, Lord of the Rings, Red Dwarf, Romana, Stephenie Meyer, The 4th Doctor, The Shining

"Steampunk is not a whim, girl, it's a way of life. It is a vast wardrobe commitment!" Those words from this past season of The Guild could not be truer. This past November when I went to my first Steampunk convention, I knew I would have to bring it, sartorially speaking. I at least knew that much of the genre and didn't show up in a t-shirt and jeans, or some half-assed, ill conceived costume, because I knew that that wouldn't fly. Just google Steapmunk and you will see what I mean about the fashion commitment people bring to this genre. I knew what Steampunk expected of me and I knew that I needed to deliver. Personally, I relished the idea! I really have a williness and tendancy to dress up for any occasion. I am the girl who, come December, will be dusting off my cloak and applying my elf ears for The Hobbit. I did it for the past three Lord of the Rings movies, and I will do it again! I dressed up for the Harry Potter book releases, and I'm not saying, just a house scarf, I'm saying, I made myself a full school uniform! Prefect badge and all!

My first Steampunk convention was just the natural progression of my love of dressing up and my crafty nature. As in crafts, knitting, sewing, not in the evil villian sense... though, now that you mention it... ok, let's just say I can be both, but this is only applying to the hands on work at this stage with needles and threads. Each Sunday for the duration of Steampunk Summer, I am going to recount how I came to my first Steampunk costume of choice and how I sourced or made everything, following which I will go into my new costume, or perhaps costumes for this years convention, we'll see how much time I have between now and Novemeber... I will be graduating school in December, so everything needs to be done sooner rather than later. I would also love for you to share your stories about Steampunk costumes and how you went about making them, so lets get the discussion going! Sartorial Sundays are now open for business!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Harry Potter, Knitting, Lord of the Rings, Sartorial Sunders, Steampunk Summer, The Guild, The Hobbit