Did anybody actually go see The Movie Formerly Known As The Dark Is Rising?
I’m noticing all these posts about The Golden Compass, various people and blogs discussing what they thought of the movie, and I don’t recall seeing one about The Seeker. Which rather suggests to me that nobody I know went to see it.
This probably isn’t so, but at the very least it doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention. Can anybody who saw it tell me what they thought? How bad was it, really?
Well, given that it was only out for a week most places…
I’ve seen neither, but I note that Golden Compass is currently holding 51 at MetaCritic, with Dark is Rising at 38.
I saw The Seeker.
Not a bad movie. Not a particularly memorable one either, though, which is unfortunate as it had a lot of potential.
Have you read the book? There’s a difference between a mediocre adaptation, and a mediocre movie that’s a bad adaptation. I’m likely to hate it if it’s the latter.
I picked up the books, but I have not had a chance to read them though. A friend of mine recommended them highly, so I snagged a boxed set of them.
Finally finished Doppleganger and started Warrior and Witch last night, and I have to say I’m really enjoying them.
Now I just have to wait for you to send out invitations for the anthology set in your world . . . I have a few hunter stories I’d love to tell *grin*.
I ended up disliking Miyazaki’s film of Howl’s Moving Castle because I knew and loved the book too well, and he took a screeching detour off the path about halfway through. (Right at Wizard Suliman, who should have been a man, and dead.) I suspect the same would be true of The Seeker, turning a mediocre movie into a bad one.
Glad you’re enjoying my books, though! I can’t say I have an anthology planned. <g> Maybe someday, when I’m a Big Name Author . . . .
I understand. I love the movies “Where Eagles Dare” and “The Great Escape”. But they’re so different from the books, I just separate them in my mind. It’s easier to enjoy them if I don’t try to compare them.
I was teasing (a bit) about the anthology, but I was definitely trying to complement you. As both a writer and a historian, I’ve enjoyed the work you put into building the world you put your characters in and I hope you wind up setting other stories in that world in the future. There’s a lot of the tapestry we haven’t seen yet.
I would have done better with HMC if it had been radically different from the start. But the first half was too similar for me to separate the two, and the second half was too different for me to be okay with it.
I’m glad the world has that realism for you. From where I’m standing, it isn’t one of my best efforts — but that’s a good thing, really. If I’d blown my wad when I was nineteen, that would be pretty sad. ^_^
I just pretend that the two are entirely unrelated stories.
The one I’m terrified of is this one.
LeGuin is pretty sacred to me, and my soul already died a little from the Filthy Blasphemy known as “Legend of Earthsea” (the film rights of which are the reason that the Ghibli film has not yet been released here).
I couldn’t go see “The Seeker”. I would have hurt someone.
Bad adaptation. I was very, very disappointed.
Here because of your writing as work article (which was awesome, btw).
I boycotted the movie. The trailers looked appalling, and my husband heard an interview with Susan Cooper on NPR saying how disappointed she was in the adaptation. And that was enough for me. I love the books with a love unending, and I don’t want that tainted.
I’m not sure I could even say I boycotted it, since that seems to imply I had a desire to see it and made a choice not to. I was excited when I first heard about it, but the trailer instantaneously killed that feeling. I barely even noticed when it came out, and didn’t miss it when it was gone.
Glad you liked the article!
