Subject: The Fifth Element
Author:
Posted on: 2014-03-09 06:49:00 UTC
It's pretty cut and dry when you think about it. I mean, a "perfect" girl who causes a former spy to come out of retirement so he can protect her, only for her to realize the horror of war (despite the fact that logic would dictate she already learned about genocide, atomic bombs, and assassinations), so that the former spy's love for her can save the universe.
So, I just watched Endless Love.
It's the 2014 remake of a 1981 movie based off a book by Scott Spencer. In the book, the main character, David Axelrod, burns down his girlfriend Jade Butterfield's house because of his obsession with her, which he believes is love.
Now the 2014 movie, for me, is proof that even Suethors can make movies, because all that really remains of the characterisation from the novel is the characters' names. The new characters are infuriatingly flat (except Hugh Butterfield, the dad, who is played by the guy who plays Reboot Captain Pike), the romance shallowly developed yet still touted as true love, and the entire plotline has been completely rewritten so as to make David out to be some guy who's being framed by Jade's rich dad for shit so that the dad has an excuse to keep them apart.
For me, David and Jade in this remake are Suvian and make extremely dumb decisions (Jade freaking gives up a competitive internship to stay with David; I don't know about you but I think that's bull), the only good things about the movie can be counted on one hand (a discussion on consent, music, Pike being completely done with everything), and I am extremely glad I didn't actually spend money to watch this Suefic of a movie. What's really disappointing, though, is that this film was directed and written by a woman, which definitely would cast aspersions on the rest of us aspiring female screenwriters. I don't even want to know how many female directors and writers are going to be denied the chance to make their own ideas into reality because this one decided to pull out every romantic drama cliche starring white heterosexual couples and stick it into one film.
Anyone else ever watch a film and think immediately that it's a Suefic that got turned into a movie? And no, Twilight doesn't count.
I'm not always the best judge of what makes a sueific adaptation but considering how Kristen Stewart's Snow White had NO CHARISMA WHATSOEVER and still managed to win almost everyone she needed to win over to her side.
Seriously I tried to like this movie. The CG was awesome and I kinda liked the portrayal of the evil queen but...Snow White herself has no discernible character, psychological and/or emotional motivation behind her actions. The whole "She represents life and she's part of some sort of prophecy to overthrow the evil queen and save the kingdom" felt really underwhelming and droll because she's such a one-dimensional character.
This isn't even taking into consideration the fact that the best asset Snow White is supposed to have is her physical beauty. That's her greatest weapon against the queen and the driving force behind this whole "prophecy" shtick from the get-go.
My Sue alarms were ringing big time during this film.
The Hugh Jackman movie.
Let us count the ways:
The year is 1887: she's wearing pants and a corset on the outside of her clothing. Check!
Brother gets turned into a werewolf? Check.
Last surviving family member? Check.
Van Helsing AND Dracula both want her? Check.
Dracula is not vulnerable to traditional methods? Check.
Sue takes a licking and keeps on ticking? (Thrown around and beat up by multiple vampire chicks and isn't the slightest bit phased by it) Check!
Saves Van Helsing yet dies in the process? (By being thrown against the first soft thing ever in the movie) Check!
Single tear scene as she ascends into Heaven? Check.
This movie was so bad. I was very much looking foreword to it before it came out, and then cried when I left the theatre. So disappointed.
Turned into a good msting movie though.
~AW~
I'm pretty sure he's a Stu. I haven't seen the movie recently, but what with him being the Best Monster-Hunter Ever, a Mysterious Past, lots of angst and historically dubious gee-whizzery from his pet Faramir monk, getting turned into a badass werewolf so he can defeat the bad guy, being Wolverine, etc. etc....
That said, I love this movie. It's so ridiculous I can't help but enjoy every single over-the-top cornball moment of it. {= )
Hate what they did to Mr. Hyde, though—them and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which had him involved enough to actually anger me. He's not supposed to be the Hulk, goddammit. He's an ugly little monkey-looking creep, and MUCH scarier for it.
~Neshomeh
Helsing as a character is fine. What they did in that movie was... ugh. The movie had a lot of potential, but they tried to do too much with the movie, too much CG effects and the writing was just bad.
Speaking of THAT (LoEG) movie, my beef with that movie and the one thing stopping me from purchasing the DVD (Yes, people still do that still and don't stream everything) is TOM SAWYER!
What. Is. He. Doing. In. That. Movie?!?!
There is nothing extraordinary about him and is such a useless Stu, self insert and ruins the entire movie for me. Hyde I can live with.
The only reason that Tom is in the movie was that the movie people wanted to get an American in the movie for their audience to "relate" to. Ugh.
As Hyde goes, the movie was based off of the comic series and as far as I know, they made him look like huge ape-man in the comics. While canonically, yes, he is supposed to be ugly in soul because no one can put their finger on why he looks distorted, this is based off of comic books where nothing is set in stone for appearances. The thought was most likely "Make him look badass."
So they did and then made a movie out of said comic books.
~AW~
Madoka Magica The Movie Rebellion. Just... no.
Those who follow my mission blog or IrregularS already know how I feel about that thing. (Desdendelle and Firemagic in particular - sorry for my extremely long rants on Skype)
Why is that movie so bad? Well, let's start with the minor offences. For example, the fan pandering. They tried to cram in everything that was popular with he fandom - and did it wrong in 90% of the cases. For example, the character of Nagisa... who got a total of five minutes of screentime and basically did nothing relevant to the plot. Or the Mami fanservice - we know she's popular because she's busty, no need to put her in a towel in a rather pointless scene just to show her assets some more (Oh, and she's 15, by the way)
Then, the inconsistencies with the original series. A good chunk of the plot could happen only if you retconned several rules of the continuum, so I assume they did.
For example, the Incubators trying to interfere with Madoka's Wish - it can't happen because doing that would prevent the Wish itself from being "granted" and so invalidate the Contract.
Then, the character derailment. OK, some characters had an excuse for being OOC (having altered memories can do that to you), but you know stuff is bad when the screenwriter says that the OOCness is "character growth" when you barely find an ounce of it in the whole movie.
Then... that ending. Just that ending. Aside from how it could have happened (it COULDN'T and don't try to prove me wrong. It won't end well.), it's the cheapest of all the "reopen the door after you just closed it" endings.
Not to mention that it managed to shed a ton of negative light on my favourite character needlessly (as it was basically they only way the managed to come up with to keep a finished story going).
The fun thing is, though, that the movie somewhat touches a lot of the themes I was going to touch in Blank Sprite too, and that despite the fact that I came up with its plot way before the trailers for the movie came out...
Hopefully I'll do better.
Should Kyuubey have been aware that he made a contract with a girl who (according to his words) never existed in the past and had no possibility of existing in the future?
Is it that he couldn't or wouldn't? Should he be physically incapable of interfering with a wish of that he wasn't aware in order to bring back witches which he previously didn't think exist?
I may have missed something, but I didn't find anything to suggest that Kyuubey had any memory of granting Madoka's wish when he talked with Homura in the latter part of the final episode or in the movie.
"OK, some characters had an excuse for being OOC (having altered memories can do that to you)"
That statement is illogical. If the altered memories are an excuse for the changes in behaviour, how is it out of character?
The issue is that the characters who were OOC had figured out their memories were altered and had remembered the truth. Therefore after that point their OOC behavior is inexcused. And their behavior in the ending wouldn't even make sense with the altered memories because it's so at odds with every other facet of the character, and the altered memories wouldn't have caused that kind of outcome.
Do you mean that after finding out that their memories were altered, they didn't act the way they would? That would be OOC if that was the case. I was saying that as long they reacted plausibly when they treated their altered memories as if they were their true memories (before realizing they weren't true), then it wasn't OOC.
I'm interested in seeing specific examples on the conflicting differences between the versions of the characters, because I don't see them.
Princess Bride.
The lead character is the Gariest of Gary Stus.
It's really not that funny.
I am going to Nerd Hell for this, aren't I...
Actually, that's exactly why I love the Princess Bride. William Goldstein wrote it as a satire of all the Stu-meets-Sue stories that were flying around and for some reason, people started taking it seriously. At least my dad (who is a huge fan, knows that.
Besides, my favorite characters in PB are Inigo and Fezzik, and I couldn't really care that much about Buttercup and Wesley.
...watching Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (On Stranger Tides) left me feeling like I was watching a rather boring fanfic. Seriously, it had everything: Captain Jack Sparrow, 'references' (ie, rehashes) of scenes from the earlier movies, notably the first and second ones, a rather weak plot, and--well, let's just say that I gave up watching about halfway through, and haven't continued it since. It was ridiculous, and, like you (Lily) with Endless Love, I'm glad I didn't pay any money for it. (Funnily enough, when it first came out, I didn't really want to see it...even though I like PotC.)
I'm told it got a bit better in the second half, but that our dear Captain didn't seem to really need to be there. As fun as it was to see him running around again, I found it very disappointing that he was basically just rehashing his scenes from previous movies...and so I think I agree.
This is the movie that made me understand what a PPC agent must feel like in a mission. That's not a good thing.*
And, of course, out of all the possible results of this movie...I had to find the Suefic where the author confused the mermaids--who I never saw onscreen--with Sirens. And made the Sue Syrena's daughter...by which I mean, Syrena's daughter with Poseidon, beloved of all the Greek gods. Sorry, did I forget to mention it's a crossover? It's a crossover. Of course, this isn't the thread to rant about actual Suefics in, so I'll stop, but I thought it bore bringing up.
~DF
--
*There's also a wonderful little video of legolas by laura that made me feel like PPC agents were hiding just out of sight in it, but that's a different story, and that was awesome. This? Not so much.
I think I actually found it through the Board, but yes, of course I can. Let me find the link...aha! I'm pretty sure that this is it. Enjoy!
~DF
That was so funny! They looked like they had a lot of fun making that, and it was really well done on the costuming and video quality, I thought.
(And yeah, there were definitely some agents lurking in the background.)
-Aila
Just... Just Percy Jackson. I'm too tired to rage right now, so I'll let somebody else do it for me. I'll just say, when you turn the Cursed Blade from a symbol of hope and love and loyalty and all that jazz into a magic Titan-killing sword of +1 bullcrap, you know you have a problem.
...but certainly there was no respect for canon. There's so much wrong, including:
-Grover as black stereotype (I wouldn't have cared if they race-lifted him, but they could have kept his personality the same. Also, there's some uncomfortable implications in the fact that the only character who was racelifted is one who's part animal.)
-Annabeth as excessively warlike action girl (aka let's take away her entire characterization and replace it with a sexualized version of Clarisse)
-Persephone being in the Underworld in the summer (Basic Greek mythology guys. *sherlock voice* Do your research!)
-Percy using the winged shoes
-Annabeth's hair color (they couldn't even bother to get that right until the second movie)
-Actors too old for the part
-Hades as villain (the books are good about staying true to his mythological characterization)
-the side quests with the pearls
-the Parthenon bit
-lack of Annabeth's knife and invisibility cap
-Percabeth in the first movie
-Silena Beauregard already working for Luke
-whatever the Hades happened with Kronos at the end of the second movie
-and probably more things I'm forgetting
I just really hope people don't get discouraged from reading the books because the movies sucked.
Because Chris Columbus, the director of Percy Jackson, also directed the first two Harry Potter films, which stayed fairly faithful to the books.
I once started to make a list of everything the movies messed up, but I gave it up as a lost cause when I hit number 500.
And then the second movie came out, and from what I saw in the previews, I thought that it might not be as bad as the first.
I 'WTF-ed' through the whole movie. Seriously, what was up with Kronos at the amusement park?!
With the second film, I think they had three very difficult tasks:
1/ To try and fix the continuity problems with the first book. So they had to introduce the Kronos motif, bring Luke back, explain the increased ages (by changing the prophecy... it jarred, but it was better than ignoring it).
2/ To try and stay true to the book, as far as possible, while still fitting it into a film. I was actually surprised they did as well at this as they did - those books are complex.
3/ To try and make a standalone film. That's the reason for Kronos, for what it's worth. Most of the time, films based on a series of books assume the whole series will get made. But Lightning Thief was such a terrible flop that Sea of Monsters almost didn't. If you were making it, would you bank on making the rest of the series?
So they needed a resolution - an actual fight with the Big Bad. And I think it worked... pretty well, actually. It's not what happened in the book, but in the book, Luke never got his hands on the Fleece. What was his plan if he had? Presumably it didn't involve sacrificing a bunch of demigods and turning into Kronos himself - because that's what he ended up doing.
No, I can see it as 'the Fleece will put Kronos back together directly', and what happened in the amusement park as a valid AU scenario. And then they had to work out an ending that could lead into the rest of the series, on the offchance of them being made.
It's not a task I envy. Though I wish they hadn't changed the Prophecy (other than the word 'sixteen').
hS
The next logical step would be making the prophecy refer to the fight with Gaea. But that rips a gigantic hole in Heroes of Olympus continuity. Jason proved himself in battle against the other Titans, and we don't know whether they were involved in this. Would Jason count as another potential child of the prophecy, or does "eldest gods" refer to the earliest versions of the gods (Greek, in this universe)? Without the whole Atlas thing (it was directly tied into Kronos's rise) what happens to Nico and Bianca? Does Bianca live? What about Thalia? Without the Hunters she would be the child of the prophecy - unless the shifted age means she's less likely? With the original prophecy referring to the fight with Gaea, how do they know that there are seven demigods? How does Hazel get out of Asphodel, if Nico's time line is impacted?
Bottom line, they should just forget it and in twenty years, remake it properly.
The end of PJ: Sea of Monsters wasn't the final defeat of Kronos - it was a defeat of him in his own body. As Wikipedia states:
"The last scene shows the sarcophagus with Kronos' remains in it glowing, presumably showing that Kronos is still alive somehow."
This attempt was defeated, so Luke has to fall back on the absolutely terrible backup plan: give up his own body for Kronos' sake. In other words - back to the books.
So what else will they need to fix? We've had no mention of Pan yet, but honestly, he's a sidequest anyway. The Hunters don't show up until Titan's Curse anyway. Ehm... did Clarisse get her prophecy in SoM, or not? Because the 'every quest needs a prophecy' thing is fairly important in Titan's Curse.
And, of course, there's the Great Prophecy itself, which in film canon runs:
... this half-blood of the eldest gods
Will reach twenty against all odds
And see the world in endless sleep
The evil soul, cursed blade shall reap
A single choice will end his days
Olympus to preserve or raze
And that's raze as in destroy
I checked.
Wait, sorry, scratch the last two lines. (They were funny, though)
I... well, 'twenty' is because of the actors, of course. But I worry about that 'evil'. They needed it to make 'hey I can totes kill Kronny' a viable conclusion - despite the fact that Percy wasn't old enough yet, big hint, dude - but it'll mess with Last Olympian (yay Hestia!).
My suspicion is that we'll slap a happy ending on - Luke gets possessed, Percy stabs him with Riptide and kills the Kronos part of him, letting Luke come back. Feh.
You can also drop Rachel Elizabeth Dare entirely from the plot - she exists solely to say 'You are not the hero', and now there's no mention of a hero in there. There's also no ambiguity - the only available reference for 'his' is 'this half-blood of the eldest gods'. 'The evil soul' doesn't work.
So hey! New climax! Percy stabs Luke!Kronos, Luke gets better, and Percy dies of a broken heart when Annabeth immediately gets back together with Luke. Sounds good to me! Then we can start the new series: Heroes of Olympus 1: Wait, Weren't You Evil?.
hS
If bloomin' only. Apparently, there is some debate as to whether Persephone was in Hades for winter, when everything was dead - or the height of summer, when everything was scorched and dead. It seems the Greeks understood it both ways. The only constant is that she was down there for the dead season, and with Demeter for the growing season.
Which, in the US, I guess means Hades in winter... depending on how well she's naturalised.
hS
Excuse me while I channel my rage through the ancient art of greentexting.
>Be me, circa 2009
>Decide to check out the Eragon movie
>"It can't be that bad! The books are already terrible. How can they mess it up even further?"
>Get my hands on a copy of the movie
>Don't even bother to check the ratings online
>A terrible move, in hindsight
>The movie starts
>None of the characters match their in-book descriptions
>The motives and backgrounds of certain characters are completely changed
>A dragon grows to full size in ten seconds flat with 20% less cool
>All of my what
>"Did the movie writers even read the book?" I say
>nope.avi
>Some characters don't appear at all
>Severe spatial compressions as entire important locales are ignored in favour of "plot"
>The King wants Eragon and his dragon dead in the movie, as opposed to alive in the books (in order to use Eragon's female dragon as a means of resuscitating the virtually-extinct dragon race)
>The King's face is shown
>ENTIRE KEY PLOT EVENTS RETCONNED EVERY FIVE MINUTES
>Arya the elf princess is an obvious expy of Arwen
>She's essentially a Warrior!Diplomat!Sue
>Oh good, the writers didn't change her character at all
>Tronjheim, the dwarfen city-in-a-hollowed-mountain, is not actually carved out of the stone, it's made of wood
>The writers broke everything that made this series somewhat palatable
>But I can't stop watching
>I'm too entrenched in this, I gotta see it to the end
>where doing it man
>WHERE MAKING THIS HAPEN
>Final battle ensues
>This doesn't look like the siege of Minas Tirith at all
>They got Durza wrong
>What is he flying on? Is he supposed to be a Ringwraith now?
>Eragon kills him without having his back opened like a can of tuna
>This, along with the rest of the screw-ups in the film, actually prevents the events of the second book from happening
>Film ends
>All of my rage
Final verdict:
It's pretty cut and dry when you think about it. I mean, a "perfect" girl who causes a former spy to come out of retirement so he can protect her, only for her to realize the horror of war (despite the fact that logic would dictate she already learned about genocide, atomic bombs, and assassinations), so that the former spy's love for her can save the universe.
Er... where would she have learnt that? As I recall the film, after being genetically reconstructed, she has pretty much one area of knowledge: a specific language. She doesn't exactly spend her time doing research, so I'm curious where you got that from.
hS
In the movie, it makes a point to show that she is learning the Earth's language alphabetically. As such, when she gets to the words that start wih W, she finds out about war and is horrrified. However, if she was actually learning the language in alphabetical order, she would have seen a ton of other horrible words before she reached W.
Makes me wonder what the first horrifying word would be... 'abattoir', maybe?
hS
While the fic series is just Twilight with badly-researched BDSM (and even worse smut), I was still thinking along the lines of already-released Suefic films.