The Dark is Rising? E-xcellent - NOT!

In case you haven't heard, Walden changed the title of the forthcoming The Dark is Rising movie to The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. I'm not sure what the reason is for the change is, but I hope that it's not because they want to differentiate it so they can make sequels. I just wish they would remove "The Dark is Rising" from the title all together.

Camille at Book Moot has created a great parody movie poster that captures so well everything about this movie that has fans of the book so upset. It's really funny; you have to check it out here.

The poster makes a lot more sense if you've seen Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. If you haven't seen it, you can get a flavor of it in this trailer on YouTube. It's worth watching just to see a young Keano Reeves. (Yes, I know I'm supposed to embed the video here, but I can't bring myself to do it. You'll just have to click through to see it.

E-xcellent!

If you're just coming in and you don't know about the controversy surrounding the Dark is Rising movie, click on "the dark is rising" label below to see my previous posts on the subject, including links to more information and other posts.

Another Dark is Rising Post

I just can't seem to look away from this car wreck. Everything that I've read about The Dark is Rising movie seems to indicate that it's going to be a really bad adaptation. To add fuel to the fire, A Blog of Authors has posted a thorough, highly detailed comparison chart of the differences between the book and the movie, complete with sources for each of the items. If you haven't had enough pain, check it out here.

Yes, it really is as bad as we feared

Last night we went to see the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie. One of the trailers that played before the movie was a preview for The Dark is Rising movie - and from the preview it looks like it's going to be as bad as we feared. I almost wouldn't have recognized it if they hadn't called the boy Will Stanton early in the preview. There was very little there that I recognized, although I admit it has been a few years since I read the books, and I don't have a good memory for details. There was this whole mall/security guard thing going on that made me think, "What the heck?" (And I thought that I read that in the movie Will was an American living in Britain - if so, why do the people in the mall speak with American accents?)

Even worse, the character of Will looks completely different. In the book, it always seemed to me that he had a depth to him even from the very beginning, that made it totally believable that he was an Old One. The Will in the movie trailer seems to be a gee whiz teenager who thinks it's really cool to be able to do magic stuff.

Looking at the trailer objectively, if I didn't know the book I'd think it looked like a pretty cool movie. Which, unfortunately, doesn't bode well. There will probably be enough people who haven't read the book going to see the movie that Fox Walden will feel vindicated.

View the trailer here and judge for yourself

Other The Dark is Rising movie posts:

• The Dark is Rising - say what? (Wands and Worlds)
  
• The Hype Is Rising (Oz and Ends)
  
• Questions about the Dark Is Rising Movie (Oz and Ends)
  
• Dude. What the crap? (Bookshelves of Doom)
  
• Movie: The Dark is Rising (Book Moot)
  
• Positively "hasty" (Book Moot)

Buzz or hype?

A few hours ago, a commenter who identified himself only as "nick" left a comment on my post about The Dark is Rising movie. In my post, I had expressed concern about the changes made to the movie, leaving very little of the original story intact. "nick" expressed his opinion that the movie would be bigger than the book. Fair enough. He's entitled to his opinion, and unfortunately, he could be right.

But then "nick" gushed about a new MTV reality show about the lives of six interns on The Dark is Rising set, including a link to the MTV web page about the show. Something about his post set off alarm bells in my head; my first thought was that it was an attempt on the part of either the movie marketing people, or more likely, MTV, to artificially generate buzz for the movie or the reality show. When I read that J.L.Bell has had similar comments on his The Dark is Rising posts, I felt fairly certain that this is a marketing stunt.

"nick" has since responded to my cynical reply to his comment, expressing his outrage that I doubted him. He claims to be a movie critic, but his poorly written posts and anonymity seem to belie that. But, I could be wrong. He could really be a movie critic, or a teen excited about the new movie and related reality show.

If it is a marketing stunt, though, it's likely to backfire on them. I believe that teens today, having grown up in a marketing-saturated environment, are sophisticated enough to be able to tell the difference between real buzz and marketer-generated hype.

I'm curious: has anyone else had similar comments posted on your blog?

You can read my discussion with "nick" in the comments at this post.

The Dark is Rising - say what?

Others have posted the latest news about the upcoming The Dark is Rising movie, but I feel compelled to comment on it. In case you missed it, Devin Faraci wrote at Chud.com that Walden Media has pretty much changed everything about the book: "The answer seems to be to keep the concepts and ideas from Cooper’s novel and throw much else out..." They've even "...dropped all the Arthurian stuff from the film." Faraci makes no secret of the fact that he didn't like the book and approves of the changes.

Um, excuse me? Didn't they realize when they took on this project that that annoying "Arthurian" stuff is kind of key to the story? It's true that the "Arthurian stuff" isn't as important in this particular book as it is in some of the others in the sequence, but when you take the series as a whole, the Arthurian link is kind of a central concept.

It sounds like Walden has stripped this story of its heart and soul. They've taken a story rich in folklore and turned it into an action movie. Now, I like a good action movie as much as the next person, but that's not what this book is about! It's an exciting book, not a "slog" as Faraci claims, but the excitement doesn't come from Indiana Jones style action sequences.

The Dark is Rising Sequence is one of my favorite series of all time. I'm sad that they've gutted it of any beauty or meaning. I'm often cautious about seeing movies of favorite books, because it makes me upset when the director's vision is different than mine. But it's safe to say that this is one movie I won't be seeing. Susan Cooper, my heart goes out to you. Your masterpiece deserves better.

Devin Faraci's report on Chud.com

Leila's comments on Bookshelves of Doom

Fuse #8's comments