Initially I was content to keep up with movies and/or TV shows, or really any media, but eight years of a Republican Administration totally ruined the economy, and since it takes 2 years for a movie to get made, things are still pretty iffy on the Hollywood side. Even things I was excited about beforehand... now, it's like, "Eugh. I was excited about Tron Legacy? I hope my unborn children never read these."
So things sort of stalled out after Thor, which I suspect will retain a certain limited rewatchability in the coming years (albeit not the first 20 minutes of it)... Kenneth Branagh is not coming back for the sequel, so perhaps we'll have some modest improvement there come 2013. In the meantime, what's a geek left with?
The Avengers is next summer, as is The Dark Knight Rises. Cowboys and Aliens comes out later this month, and the Joss Whedon co-scripted Cabin in the Woods finally landed a release date this October, two years after it finished filming.
But first, a paragraph about Joss Whedon:
A lot of people will rant against his particular oeuvre of work, and as much as that annoys me, I'm starting to realize they're well within their rights. Shows like "CSI" (or indeed, anything with Jerry Bruckheimer's name on it) are designed to appeal to the largest number of people possible, but I daresay those people will never love that thing as much as they love their favorite book, or favorite, say, car. Joss Whedon is happy to say he appeals to a niche audience, and I'm ready to let him. Because he has said, and I've quoted (paraphrased) this here before, "I'd rather make something 3 million people love, than something 30 million people like." Granted, he probably won't apply that to The Avengers, but he's still pretty nerdy.
You know who else is nerdy? Harry Potter fans.
If Star Wars fans are dorks for dressing up like Chewbacca and Slave Leia (hopefully not at the same time), then Harry Potter fans are dorks for dressing up like Hermione and Severus Snape (actually, there's a mash-up that totally works). And their last movie is coming out in a week.
NOT GEEK
I've seen the first Harry Potter movie, then 3-7. As this is the non-geek section, I don't know that I could even include the books here if I HAD read them (I haven't), but a shitload of fantasy-literature has been rushed to the bookshelves because of this series, and I've read a small sampling of it. The movies I've seen were all entertaining, if some felt a bit rushed. Also then you have people behind you as you walk out of the theater, saying, "YOU KNOW, THE REASON HARRY'S FRIEND BEAUREGARD KENSINGTON WAS WEARING A POSEY IN THAT SCENE WAS BECAUSE HIS PARENTS WERE BOTH MURDERED BY DEATH-EATERS ON A TUESDAY, AND AS A RESULT HE CAN NO LONGER DIGEST LACTOSE. IT'S IN THE BOOKS. THE BOOKS ARE SO MUCH BETTER. YOU SHOULD READ THE BOOKS."
If you like the books so much, read the books again. If any book you have ever loved has ever been turned into a movie, it got screwed up. You know it, I know it, the American people know it.
A "niche" market means something is made for a small group of people who love a thing. In movies this is called a "cult" following. A small amount of people love this thing and will fight for it, but Hollywood can't make any money off it. You know what we call that in the publishing industry?
A "book."
There are so many books, that EVERY book is a niche market. Even something like "The Da Vinci Code" still sold less copies than the last Ke$ha album*, and that thing was on the best-seller list for a year. Because if it's in hard-cover, you plunk down $30 one time, and it's your book. You own it. You can lend it to a friend, and re-read it for free as many times as you like.
And somewhere someone in Hollywood is saying, "What a stupid business model."
Movies, on the other hand, are made to appeal to the highest number of people possible, and therefore make the most amount of money possible. This is why a small art film might make $5 million it's entire theatrical run, and your favorite mainstream movie might cap out between $50 to $150 million... and then Transformers 3 made $200 million its first week. Because any brain power is removed, and it's just explosions for no reason. ANYONE can enjoy that.
"But Warren," you might say, "Transformers 3 IS my favorite mainstream movie."
To which I respond, "Get the hell off my blog."
So, anyway, to tie this up: Every movie made from a book is dumbed down not because the director is stupid (though in the case of Harry Potter One and Two, he was), but by design.
You know where shit is less stupid? Other than in books, I mean:
GEEK
In 2001, when the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's and/or Philosopher's Stone came out, that was the only thing that happened to a successful book: You make a movie of it. You hire a director who has directed something else that made money (in this case, Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire), you hire a screenwriter who has written any movie, ever, put out a press release to make people excited about casting, and there you go. Guaranteed income, just because your movie has "Harry Potter" in the title. Who CARES if it's good? IT'S HARRY POTTER. IN MOVIE FORM. OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
(this same unexplainable phenomenon is why Smallville was on TV for ten years).
Now, I'm not hating on Harry Potter. Like my Non-Geek counterpart, I enjoyed movies 3-7 very much, enough to keep going back to the theater for each sequel. They're not all created equal, but they're all still a good time at the movies. The first film made enough money, and the books sold enough copies, that 7 movies (or now 8) were all but guaranteed. Because, again, in 2001, a popular book got made into a movie. The end.
But now it's 2011, and something has changed over the last decade. Sure, we all had 500 channels in 2001 as well, but so have we seen the advent of actual long-form literature get turned into something other than a TV movie (yes, that happened once too, but even that capped out at 4 hours or so, unless you were "Roots"). The book "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" was turned into a 13-episode first season of "Dexter." The book "Dead Until Dark" was turned into the first season of "True Blood." And so on. Game of Thrones. Even "Flash Forward." Serialized television has become the next big thing, because even though shows like "CSI" and "Law & Order" remain popular, there is a growing interest in televison shows where you can actually see character development, rather than just wait 60 minutes until someone says, "The character named (blah) killed the victim by (insert ridiculously complicated, scientifically impossible explanation here)." Snoozeville. Pass the remote.
Another book series that (sort of**) got turned into a TV show was the "Dresden Files" series by Jim Butcher, a story about a licensed private investigator in modern-day Chicago, who also happens to be a wizard. In fact, he's the only person listed in the phone book under "wizard," and thus his client base can be pretty eclectic. The first book in the series was the authors first novel (the same can be said for J.K. Rowling), but while Harry Potter was designed to stop at book 7, "The Dresden Files" releases its 13th full novel this summer, amongst short stories and novellas published in other compendiums. The style is similar to Harry Potter in only one way:
These stories cannot be contained in a two hour film (and also magic... okay, two ways. But that's it).
In a movie, you have 3 acts... 5 acts if you can keep your audience interested. Person A received a goal, they spend the middle of the movie chasing said goal, there is a showdown at the end of the movie. Sometimes it's circuitous, like in Bridesmaids, where there was no set goal, only a list of shenanigans until the stated goal was eventually reached (the wedding). But while some books are designed to take place in two hours (say, for example, any heist novel), some books are episodic and work better as such.
The Sookie Stackhouse novels are one example (now "True Blood").
"Harry Potter" is another.
So is the Lord of the Rings, but Peter Jackson has a stranglehold on that, so let's bring this back to Harry Potter:
I'm watching Deathly Hallows Part I, and they get to the bit where Harry, Hermione and Ron have to infiltrate the such-and-such bureau of magic (yes, I KNOW it's called the whatever, HUSH). You know, the joint with the horizontal elevator. In the movie this entire sequence takes maybe 10 minutes, 15 tops, and I was told it's much longer in the book.
Unfortunately, the first movie came out in 2001. Had the book been optioned in 2011, Harry Potter would be a 13-episode series on Showtime or HBO.
And the sequence in the bureau of magic would have been an ENTIRE EPISODE. Take the actors playing the kids, give them the week off, and their human-disguises walk in before the opening credits on their undercover gig. At any second they could be found out, they have time to nearly be caught in so many more situations, and rather than a quick "OMG!" in the middle of the movie, you have the climax of 58 minutes of cable TV ending with Harry standing up and saying, "YOU SHOULD NOT TELL LIES!" ... then they run. They dash for the exit, with Voldemort's cronies fast on their heels. They reach the exit just as the bad guy dives for them..... BOOM. Closing credits. See you next week for another exciting episode.
That's the way it should be, because while 8 Harry Potter movies take up maybe 16-17 hours of entertainment, a 7-season TV series means (1) each book is now one 13-hour movie, and 13x7 = 91, and (2) All that shit you're so pissed off that they left out, but forgave them cuz you understood it had to be movie-length? All that's back in. Then a three-month summer vacation. Then back next fall for Book Two.
Because Making a movie from a book is SO last century.
A fleshed out story with characters you love can now exist on television, and not just in the form of Lucy getting into another wacky adventure every week. They change over time, and "Mad Men" winning a best-drama Emmy for 3 seasons running is a good indicator of that... as were the 3-in-a-row best comedy wins for "30 Rock." Sure, it's wacky and often low-brow (not that there's anything wrong with that), but the characters changed over time, in both shows. You're rewarded for watching each week. Back in the 80's, the only time a character changed on Who's the Boss or Miami Vice was when somebody had a baby, or got shot, or was having a contract dispute behind the scenes. Nobody is going to buy 8 seasons of "Who's the Boss" on DVD. At least I hope not. What a disturbing thought.
Anyway, my entire point here is: This is why I didn't blog out X-Men: First Class. Though technically the source material was not one book, it was many, that entire movie felt like it was one 13-hour first season of a TV show, hacked up and crammed down into a 2-hour movie. And that actually made me mad. Because what was left over was STILL that good.
I'm gonna find me something non-movie related to bitch about.
But have fun at Harry Potter 7.5, and if we're real lucky and eat all our vegetables and say our prayers, maybe we'll get a 7-season TV show remake in 2025, after Rowling's next book bombs, and TV-special effects catch up to what "Avatar" had to offer.
Because, I mean, seriously. Do you REMEMBER the special effects in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? What a bunch of crap.
xoxo
WGH
p.s.
*Yes, I'm sure if you googled the numbers, Ke$ha didn't outsell the Da Vinci Code, because no one is buying books or CDs anymore. No one buys Ke$ha CD's in France, for example, while TDVC sold 40 million copies worldwide. But even with such a big seller, people who loved that book FREAKING loved it. I worked at a bookstore the entire 2 years it was on the best-seller list. Nobody ever came in and said, "Stop what you're doing, I HAVE to find Season 3 of 'House' on DVD."
**"The Dresden Files" TV show in no way resembles the books. The lead character has the same name, both are wizards, both are set in Chicago, both had their parents die in mysterious circumstances, and both have a female cop friend with the last name 'Murphy.' That's it. Everything else has been changed, and for the worse, which I guess is a given when you're a TV show executive-produced by Nicolas Cage.
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