Literature!!!

The only movies that I've seen twice in theaters are the two Narnia movies and Twilight. I saw the Narnia movies twice because I saw them with friends and my mom. I saw Twilight twice because I have a crush on Jacob Black.

i dont understand what the director was thinking with the second Narnia movie. i really dont. i was watching it and at first i thought the movie was right and i just forgot how the book went but then finally i said to myself "woa that definitely NEVER happened" and then i got mad. i dont understand why they did that. the first one was so good and it was mostly because it was able to drag a new audience in and still be faithful to the original story. but the second one was completely different from the book. i was very upset about that considering i freaked out when i saw the trailer for it XD. i hope they never do that again and learn to stay faithful to the rest of the books. especially the last one and the filver chair one...i think that's the second to last one....because those are my second favorites XD.

The only Narnia book that I've read is The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, so I didn't know if the Prince Caspian movie was faithful to the story or not. I loved both movies, but I definitely liked the first one better.

Yeah Prince Caspian definitely wasn't faithful to the book at all. Poor Edmund lost his moment of glory and redemption because the director wanted to make sure everyone understood that Peter is THE High King of Narnia. And there was romance where there actually shouldn't have been any at all.... Oh commercialism, Hahaha!

I've gone to watch a lot of movies more than once - mostly b/c I enjoyed them a lot and b/c I went with two different groups of people. It's normal enough. I remember watched Van Helsing (awesome vampire/werewolf movie) like 5 times, though, with my 3 best friends - cuz we loved it to the point of obsession, and because there wasn't anything else that was interesting to watch at the theatre at that time, and our weekends just weren't complete without a flick :P That was back when I was in grade 10.....

Uruviel wrote:Yeah Prince Caspian definitely wasn't faithful to the book at all. Poor Edmund lost his moment of glory and redemption because the director wanted to make sure everyone understood that Peter is THE High King of Narnia. And there was romance where there actually shouldn't have been any at all.... Oh commercialism, Hahaha!

i know! the romance is what annoyed me. as soon as i saw that i said loudly "that definitely NEVER HAPPENED!" and then i was just mad for the rest of the movie. out of the two characters, i was mad at Susan and not Prince Caspian for some reason so i was like SPOILER " yeah well you get left all alone so you won't be seeing him again b!tch" XD

my dislike for susan was so strong and it became even stronger once i saw that movie....yup....which is why i am so nervous that they will change the last one and give her a happy ending. uhh no. she deserves what she gets. the author did that for a reason.

Well different forms of entertainment usually do that to make it more interesting to others who did not read the book.

They often overshadow parts that should be in it or are crucial. One movie comes to mind Gettysburg. The second day of fighting, only showed Little Round Top with Chamberlain and the 20th Maine. Granted they did an outstanding job that day, they weren't the only ones out there making names for their selves. That's what pissed me off about Gettysburg.

They disregarded crucial battles during the second day such as The Wheatfield, PlumRun, Big Round Top, Devils Den, and more. Instead they focused on the same damned battle that everyone knows because it's crammed into their heads from every media. When the word Gettysburg comes to mind, people associate Little Round Top and maybe just maybe Picketts Charge. They both were brave, but I hate how society only focuses on those.

When a different part is actually shown, people go "That's great, but where's the 20th Maine?" It's irks me too much.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

And yet, that is exactly what we are doing.

I've never seen Gettysburg.

Oh, and I also have a crush on Prince Caspian.

Unfortunately, changing things in movies for the sake of "what fits the bill" to supposedly satisfy movie-watchers removes much of the important and meaningful ideas that those stories originally contain. I agree with Chaucer:

For this ye knowen al so wel as I:
Whoso shall telle a tale after a man,
He moot reherce as ny as ever he can
Everich a word, if it be in his charge,
Al speke he never so rudeliche and large;
Or elles he moot telle his tale untrewe,
Or feyne thing, or finde wordes newe.
He may nat spare, althogh he were his brother;
He moot as wel seye o word as another.

Translated to modern english:

For this you know as well as I, that whoever tells a tale that another has told, he must repeat every word, as nearly as he can, although he may speak ever so rudely and freely. Otherwise, he must tell his tale falsely, or pretend, or find new words. He may not spare any, even if it were his own brother; he is bound to say one word as well as the next.

And unfortunately, many people don't do that. But they do have their disclaimers which say "based on" or "loosely based on" blah blah blah's book/story/a true story. So I guess it's ok for them to change occurances in adaptations of books and stuff, since they're reinterpreting the story and making it their own?

(So, I guess I've got mixed opinions about this now.... haha!)
I found that the Wicked Musical was VERY different from the book....... like, whole characters were missing, or had been merged into one (e.g. Elphaba's lover and the rich guy), and there was a love triangle where previously there wasn't anything, and the ending was happy and hopeful...... it was still a lot of fun, but even so, a lot of the political aspects of the story were seriously downplayed, as well as all the turmoil and confusion Elphaba goes through, and all the family issues - so like that, important issues and ideas disappear from stories when people cut so many things out to make their adaptions... The story becomes oversimplified (so i'm back to my original point).

I guess it's really difference of what each reader sees as important in their interpretation of a story.... and that translates into a movie/play.......

I've never seen Gettysburg.

It's a great film, but it's not very accurate, it takes too many crucial parts of the three days fighting out.

Unfortunately, changing things in movies for the sake of "what fits the bill" to supposedly satisfy movie-watchers removes much of the important and meaningful ideas that those stories originally contain. I agree with Chaucer:

That's sort of what I said, though it's not just with books, it's with anything. The United States Infantry during the Civil War was so far removed from the public eye during the war that they were soon forgotten from the mass numbers of volunteers. With less numbers, supplies, strict discipline, and expected to do what others could not do at times, they managed to do perform effectively and maintain a steadfastness during every battle of the war.

You can find information on them, but only if you dig really far and hard. I've found books which had mention of them in only one sentence or two, while other regiments would have whole pages dedicated to them.

I'm pleased with the information I have of them and everything in the Civil War in general, but I still need to find out more. Once I have all this information, I plan on making a animation from all of it I collected, if I can obtain my degree.

Uruviel wrote:

And unfortunately, many people don't do that. But they do have their disclaimers which say "based on" or "loosely based on" blah blah blah's book/story/a true story. So I guess it's ok for them to change occurances in adaptations of books and stuff, since they're reinterpreting the story and making it their own?

(So, I guess I've got mixed opinions about this now.... haha!)
I found that the Wicked Musical was VERY different from the book....... like, whole characters were missing, or had been merged into one (e.g. Elphaba's lover and the rich guy), and there was a love triangle where previously there wasn't anything, and the ending was happy and hopeful...... it was still a lot of fun, but even so, a lot of the political aspects of the story were seriously downplayed, as well as all the turmoil and confusion Elphaba goes through, and all the family issues - so like that, important issues and ideas disappear from stories when people cut so many things out to make their adaptions... The story becomes oversimplified (so i'm back to my original point).

I guess it's really difference of what each reader sees as important in their interpretation of a story.... and that translates into a movie/play.......

see, but i dont think all adaptations are bad which is why i was mad at Prince Caspian. you can change the story and keep the meaning of the book and still make it into a good movie. Take Cuckoo's Nest for instance. I finished writing an essay on how the movie conveys the original intention of the novel but it presents those ideas in a different way. so it isn't all the time that the movies ruin the books. the books are almost always better but the movies can be just as enjoyable. the second Narnia didn't even take what the book had to offer and sort of hid C.S. Lewis' original intentions with useless plot additions. it would have been different if the plot changes added to the meaning of the original work but instead it just messed it up.

and Wicked is honestly a different issue. i like the musical more because the musical is more considerate to what Wicked is based off of: Wizard of Oz. which is what was annoying about the Wicked book, it took away the innocence of Oz. and L. Frank Baum has political issues in his original book too and it was still kid friendly. And Wicked the musical did take a good portion of the themes and put it into a more kid friendly environment just as Oz is. so yeah that's my whole story aside from the fact that Wicked the novel killed off my favorite character once again and no it was not Elphy. <_<

It was her boyfriend!!! I was mad that he died.... (for some reason I can't remember his name..............)

Well, I guess changes are to be expected in any play or movie or whatever..... There are good ones, and there are some that just ruin the original story. E.g. the LOTR movies were awesome. And there's no way Peter Jackson could have included everything from the books, unless he wanted to make like 7 separate movies with little action.....

Actually, I'm now thinking about other plays that I went to watch recently, which turned out to be kinda dissappointing in the end. E.g., I went to watch Romeo and Juliet in a park this summer - the company who played it usually only do shakespearean comedies, and this was their first tragedy. I was really psyched for it, cuz they're really good. But in the end, maybe because I had analyzed RxJ in one of my classes the previous semester, the play turned out to be a disappointment. From my perspective, they concentrated too much on the comedic bits, and even made Mercutio's death kinda funny, and Juliet was just this silly teenage bimbo, and the final scene where they kill themselves was too rushed and had no gravity at all.

And then, just last month, I went to watch A Midsummer Night's Dream at the National Arts Centre, which I was also very excited for. It's supposedly this world class, highly acclaimed and innovative interpretation of the play, acted out by a company of street and professional actors from India, director from the UK. The play is half in english, and half in about 5 other indian languages. I thought that was a pretty cool idea at first - cuz I thought each character would have parts of his/her lines in english and other parts in an Indian language, and enough would be in english for non indian-language speakers to follow the plot. Not so. In truth, only 3 characters had all of their lines in english. 1 character had a small number of lined in english, and the rest in bengali. And everyone else spoke in some other indian languages like tamil and telugu and punjabi and hindi. I only understand hindi, myself. The play is already confusing to begin with, but the way they translated most of it into other languages made it even more confusing, even if they kept completely true to the plot. And the last few scenes after the interval were really messy, I think, in terms of co-ordination and stage effects. So I really didn't like it. I don't know what they could have done to make it better, but still innovative, but I just didn't like the whole mixing of languages thingy.......

I know this isn't literature, but I wanted to share this.

http://www.echoesofgettysburg.com/id27.html

This link is to the Wheatfield, it's an interesting story if you care to read it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqOJc_2dflM

Also here is a clip of what the Wheatfield looks like. Wheat glistened gold in the sun during the battle, though over the time, not a single piece of wheat was standing either by being trampled on or by being shredded by bullets. The whole field was literally blood soaked. Take in note that the forest surrounding the area was not as dense as today, and the attack began actually 4PM-7PM until night break almost.

Neither side was able to secure the Wheatfield, it was later deemed No Mans Land. Though for they could not allow the Confederates to capture it, cause if they did, they would have a clean shot towards Little Round Top. Chamberlains victory would be in vain if not for the help of the Fifth Corps. But yet that is never mentioned in any history book. I know if I fought and died on this land, I would want some recognition.

http://www.echoesofgettysburg.com/id1.html

Above is a link to the 20th Maine, Chamberlains regiment. It's their deeds from Little Round Top. Watch the clip above to get an idea of what they were defending.

Now I ask, what area would you rather defend? I don't know about you guys, but I think it takes as much courage if not more to stand out in an open field of an opposing force three times your size.

Uruviel wrote:It was her boyfriend!!! I was mad that he died.... (for some reason I can't remember his name..............)

Fiyero? No, I didn't like him in the book. Only in the musical =P

I liked him in both. The guy who played him in the musical when I went to watch it at the end of the summer was the understudy, since the actual guy injured himself somehow. But he was really good - he sang really well and he was damn hawt! Hahaha! But in the book he becomes a bit of a detective, and somehow the dark skin with the blue tattooes just makes me think of him as somewhat mysterious and exotic... I can actually imagine one of my african friends/crushes from home being like him, in fact..... I'm curious about what their son does in the next book, actually.... for some reason I can't remember his name either...... must be because all the stuff I crammed for tomorrow's Religion exam is floating around in my head right now..... But I think I'm gonna read Son of a Witch this winter, plus the third book that he wrote for the Elphaba story... I'm not imagining that there's a third book, right? (meh, my brain is really screwed over right now **sigh**)

I've actually never read the original Wizard of Oz......... is it good? lol. I tend to stay away from older american literature, cuz the style is usually rather long-winded and over-Romantic (e.g. Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the dude who wrote The Last of the Mohicans, among other writers)

^ if there's a third book, then i never knew about it.

the original Wizard of Oz is .....interesting......i mean there's a lot more groups of people in it....

that "interesting" sounded very hesistant...... lol.
Maybe i'll add that title to my evergrowing still-to-read-books pile. Currently, there are 37 books in this pile. Those are just the ones that I had already put in my room. There are still about 10 more in my sister's and cousin's rooms each, not to mention the few books my fellow bookworm/best friend is going to be lending me too! I'm going to have a very literature-filled winter semester now - thank god I'm going to be working instead of going to classes, I'll have time to read everthing! Yay!

i hesitated on interesting because i dont know if that's the right word to describe it. i mean, i can't think of any word to describe it. it's just a simple little fantasy story for children with hidden meanings about the government. it's heavily plot based.

oh ok - i get it -- i'll definitely check it out then, thanks!

I've been recommended the Nightworld series by L. J. Smith. Apparently it's really really amazing, and it's kinda like Twilight, except that it was written long before Twilight was.... like in 1994..... and it's got stories about all kinds of Night Creatures, not just vampires and werewolves......

i love twilight . its a really good book series . i dont know if its been mentioned but i couldnt read 9 pages lol. i love how each charcter gets littlwe slow development like how it is in real life.

Anima wrote:i love twilight . its a really good book series . i dont know if its been mentioned but i couldnt read 9 pages lol. i love how each charcter gets littlwe slow development like how it is in real life.

trust me, it has. often. borderlining on almost daily.

Twilight gets on my nerves. Probably cause of the over the top fans who need to calm down and realize their not the only ones around.

I was listening to the radio one day to school. It was a song station and talk station mix, it would alternate. The talk show people due to Valentines wanted people to call up and tell them what their favorite REALISTIC romance entertainment media was. Like examples would be TV show, movie, books ect. Though apparently some couldn't get it through their thick heads and kept calling up about Twilight.

it's realistic in the sense of the protagonist. but that all goes down the drain in the last book.

then again, im sure the people who mentioned it on the radio werent thinking that.

anyway, let's move on. the new people aka the people who rushed through the first book within two days just to see the midnight showing are starting to annoy me >_>.

Because they are faster readers then you?

^ no because they read it at the last minute and dont even understand what they read because they rushed through it. the people that ive talked to that hated the movie were the people that read it at the last minute and all the things they said that weren't in the book were in the book. they just didnt take the time to read between the lines because they were worried about finishing it before the movie came out. ive also read a person's review on the book who read it in a few days and almost everything they said in the review was wrong.

for example, they said in the book Bella is the most beautiful girl in school. which is NOT true at all. the whole purpose of the book is to have Bella as a normal looking teenager to demonstrate to girls that they dont have to look like supermodels to have a happily ever after which is what society tells us through media. there were other things but that one i think annoyed me the most considering that's one of the main messages of the book.

that's why i got annoyed. i dont mind if new people read it and understand it. i also dont mind if the new people are young so they wont understand it as well. not only that, but they ruin the book for themselves if they rush through it. like with any book. i dont understand why people try to read the book as quickly as possible. i usually just take my time and soak it all in. it's a better read that way ^_^ and if a movie comes out and i want to read the book, i take my time and try not to rush through it. usually, i end up reading the book way after the movie came out. i want to read Coraline because my friend said it's very strange. ive already seen the movie but i want to read it anyway.

now im reading Alice in Wonderland for the second time. im at the tea party. it's very insane.

^ But didn't you do the same thing when the final Harry Potter book came out? You read it non-stop and finished it within a few days. All because you didn't want to be spoiled from any sources. Remember? Way back during Fan-fiction?