skygiants | (no subject)

In other news I have gotten quite behind on my December meme posts! I was supposed to do most and least favorite adaptations of books for

thady on the twelfth, but this whole weekend got eaten by holiday parties, so we'll just pretend that's today.

It's a hard question to answer though! Can I cheat and count Much Ado About Nothing as a book, even though it's a play? Because the Kenneth Branagh/Emma Thompson Much Ado is so near and dear to my heart, and so VERY MUCH my formative Much Ado, that it's really difficult for me to accept any other adaptations -- even though it has flaws! So many flaws! Kenneth Branagh cut out all of Hero's best bits of dialogue, I know, it's an awful thing, and yet! THE WORLD MUST BE PEOPLED.

Also the Christopher Eccleston Revenger's Tragedy, which if we're talking about INCREDIBLY BIZARRE adaptations of early modern theater is my favorite hands down. One of these days I'm going to picspam this DW mercilessly with screenshots from that film, and then maybe you'll all understand. MAYBE.

Oh, OK, one more thing: I haven't actually seen this yet, so it's definitely cheating, but just the fact that there EXISTS an anime adaptation of A Little Princess that's a space opera about Sarah piloting a giant mecha is ... how can I put this? The knowledge of its existence is a balm to my soul.

As for least favorites ... can we also count books adapted into other books? Because ye gods, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. YE GODS. YOU WERE SO TERRIBLE, AND YOU UNLEASHED SO MANY HORRORS.

This is a fun topic, though. I encourage everyone to come rant about least favorite adaptations, should you feel so inclined!

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/399533.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aberration

mecha!A Little Princess is on hulu, but the TV-MA warning is potential-childhood-killer terrifying to me.

From:

skygiants

I've dreamed of it for so long that I kind of don't want to watch it, because it can't possibly be as amazing as it is in my head!

From:

rachelmanija

I don't know if this will be the best thing ever, or disappointing compared to the universe-destroying awesomeness that is the premise.

From:

kaberett

THE BEST MUCH ADO (I also imprinted on it). (And I CANNOT EVEN with the Whedon.)

From:

skygiants

I never even watched the Whedon, because I knew that I would spend the entire time resenting it for not being the Branagh. WHAT'S EVEN THE POINT.

From:

sapote

I found that their strengths were very much perfectly orthogonal to each other - I don't care much for Michael Keaton's Dogberry, and Fillon's was great, and I liked the Whedon Don John a little better, but Branagh wins for Beatrice and Benedick.

IMO, the less said about the Tennant/Tate version, the better, but I know those are fighting words on the internet. I'm willing to believe that Tennant is a credible Hamlet! Buuut it is rough going from Emma Thompson's Beatrice to Catherine Tate's. They are. Very different.

From:

skygiants

Awww, I've never seen the Tennant/Tate version, but the imaginary version of it in my head was great! (I don't know why, I don't actually much care for Tennant at all, but I do have a real fondness for Catherine Tate.)

From:

sapote

Oh man, if you like Catherine Tate Catherine Tate-ing then I convert my antirec to a rec. It is very Catherine Tate-y! And Benedick is in particularly ridiculous form in it.

From:

skygiants

Well, OK, specifically I like Catherine Tate being Donna Noble-y. I haven't really seen super much of her being non-Donna-Noble-Catherine-Tate-y....but I really like her being DOnna Noble-y!

From:

jinian

Yes, I really liked Whedon's despite being devoted to the Branagh version. Going to have to check out Catherine Tate sometime as well.

From:

kaberett

FURIOUS RANTING ABOUT IT AFTERWARDS TO PEOPLE WHO LIKE ALL OF THEM

(Beatrice/Benedick is the least. interesting. pairing. in the Whedon version it is ASTONISHING)

From:

lnhammer

That movie schooled me. I was convinced, going in, that a performance stands on the chemistry of Beatrice and Benedick. Everything else about it was good enough to at least partly overcome thig, to my astonishment. A Dogberry and Co. I like! A Don John and Co. I love! A convincing demonstration that everything happens because everyone spends the whole play drunk!

And a B&B that are utter dishrags with each other, for all they click with others.

---L.

From:

skygiants

...I read what you're saying, in theory, but in practice I'm just like "what do you MEAN you can have a good production without a good B&B? NOT POSSIBLE."

From:

lnhammer

It took seeing to imagine it possible.

---L.

From:

elsane

Gen and I saw the Whedon together! I thought that specific individual scenes were successful but it had absolutely zero sense of overall shape and pacing and did not hang together well at all, and the directing tics were lazy.

Also I imprinted on the Branagh. Though I was shocked to read the play afterward and realize exactly how much dialogue had been cut and how differently that shaped some of the characters! But Thompson is My Beatrice always and forever amen.

From:

elsane

Also I vote for revenger's tragedy picspam please and thank you.

From:

skygiants

Ha, I forgot that happened! I would have probably had fun seeing it with you guys...I don't know if you guys would also have had fun seeing it with me, given how visibly judgy I would probably have inevitably been, BUT IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU WERE JUDGY TOO. :D?

From:

elsane

I was trying not to be super judgey but it kept being not in focus somehow. So, yes, I think we could have happily watched it with you -- though I was trying to be fair minded! (Well, I shouldn't answer for Gen, who knows, maybe she would have been Horribly Perturbed.)

In balance I guess I felt like the Branagh production did a much better job of establishing/implying a shared world and history for the characters, giving coherent foundation and context for the script. The Whedon script feels like it happens in vacuum somehow; it doesn't have flow, and it can't have deeply felt consequences.

From:

pedanther

One of the things I love about the anime adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo is that the duel between Albert and the Count gets changed from "pistols at dawn" to "honking great sword-wielding mecha at dawn".

On a related topic, I recently discovered that apparently someone's written The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo. It's got pretty terrible reviews, but I wouldn't have read it anyway because it seems redundant. People already think the Count is a vampire in the original; what's to be gained by actually making him one?

From:

skygiants

Oh man, Gankutsuou. I loved it so much for the first 2/3 before I realized they were cutting out the lesbians!

To be fair Gankutsuou did kind of make him a vampire also, but it was also doing ... so many other things ...

From:

pedanther

Yes, cutting out the lesbians, very much not one of the things I love about Gankutsuou.

The thing I like about what Gankutsuou does with the Count is that it spins out of something the Count says in the original novel. If memory serves, it's in the scene where he realises he can't kill Albert in the duel because of what it would do to Mercedes, and he complains that it's very difficult to do a proper Revenge when a man can't just replace his heart with a chunk of ice before he sets out, or something along those lines. And one of the key moments in Gankutsuou is when you realise that because this time it's science fiction, a man can.

From:

coyotegoth

Oh, that is a wonderful thing.

From:

skygiants

IS IT NOT JUST.

From:

rachelmanija

Except for literally the last frame, Revenger's Tragedy is BRILLIANT. Christopher Eccleston totally insane and making out with his dead girlfriend's skull! Eddie Izzard being awesome! Supervacuo!

From:

skygiants

Wait, I'm trying to remember -- is the last frame the inexplicable nuclear bomb?

From:

rachelmanija

Yep.

From:

bookblather

No one has ever delivered the "invisible baldric" line quite like Kenneth Branagh. All other deliveries pale in comparison.

AND OH THANK GOD someone else dislikes Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and the trend it started. I FELT SO ALONE.

From:

jinian

I just assumed everyone else hated them too! Do not feel alone!

From:

thady

Oh god, Much Ado About Nothing changed so much in my fannish and off-line life!

Thanks for taking your time to answer! :)

From:

skygiants

I IMPRINTED ON IT SO HARD. Thanks for a cool question! :)

From:

lodessa

Revenger's Tragedy is certainly one of the weirdest adaptations I have ever seen. I just kept being like "is this really a thing that is happening on the screen in front of my face?"

From:

skygiants

IT'S SO AMAZINGLY STRANGE. My favorite is how every so often they will randomly lapse out of Jacobean and into contemporary English, for ... reasons? Because why not?