Subject: Re: Tell you what would be awesome.
Author:
Posted on: 2013-02-18 19:16:00 UTC
I find some of the social implications of the idealisation of the antebellum South rather disturbing. Perhaps your idea of exploring other conflicts that are less politically charged today would be helpful.
So apparently, 'Beautiful Creatures' is being touted as "Twilight meets the Hunger Games."
...That is not a good thing, movie-makers. So my question is this - we all know it's going to be bad. How bad do YOU think it's going to be?
Having neither read the book nor seen the movie, I can't offer an informed opinion of my own, BUT: the Agony Booth can!
http://www.agonybooth.com/movies/BeautifulCreatures2013.aspx
From what I've seen, though, it looks like dreck.
All the ads for it look like ads for Twilight - some of the posters I've seen show the couple clutching each other in a very Bella/Edward pose, she looks like Bella (at least from what I've seen - pale, black haired, stick thin, haunted eyes), and it's a paranormal romance with those traits. Not sure where they're getting Hunger Games, though. Heavy social commentary doesn't mix well with teen paranormal romance.
I tried to read Beautiful Creatures - I made it about fifty pages in before I chucked it away. In my (admittedly not very experienced) opinion, it's every cliched black and white idea of good and evil and formulaic teen paranormal romance story combined. But since I'm not a fan of romance novels, who am I to complain?
I would actually like to see "Twilight meets the Hunger Games". Watching Katniss using sparkly, wangsty, Suvian vampires as target practice would make my week.
I started reading the book, but stopped rather quickly. My basic assessment:
Guy sees girl. She's weird and everyone thinks she's creepy. They proceed to fall in love. It's kind of cheesy. Girl has weird family of magic-using-people. She's freaking out and kind of angsting over if she's going to become good or became all evil on her birthday or something. Plus a good sprinkling of flashbacks to the civil war involving their ancestors, and since their in the South, being very biased and bashing the North. (I live in PA so that bothered me.)
I never finished it, so I guess I can't get too harsh. But I can be harsh on the movie.
If I even bother to go and see it.
Plus a good sprinkling of flashbacks to the civil war involving their ancestors, and since their in the South, being very biased and bashing the North.
How about someone with ancestral flashbacks to a war where their ancestors were on a losing side that absolutely no-one thinks should have won - and still spinning it this war? So their ancestors were with the Vikings under Harald Hardrada, say, or... er... huh. It's actually hard to think of deep-historical battles that people don't have opinions on. I can hardly say 'the Carthaginians under Hannibal', for instance, because with the way people still sometimes feel about the Roman Empire...
Wait! Their ancestors were with the Vikings under Hardrada, or the Persians during the attempted conquest of Sparta... and they spend their flashbacks being incredibly pro-Viking-or-whatever.
That would be awesome.
hS
I find some of the social implications of the idealisation of the antebellum South rather disturbing. Perhaps your idea of exploring other conflicts that are less politically charged today would be helpful.
If you ask me, only the Twilight part makes an applicable sense and unless the major character pulled a Bella in-book or the movie is absurdly bad, I'd say it SHOULD be passable.
The book is fairly good. I doubt the movie's just going to try and ruin it, it's too new for that.
...but I do know that people kill each other in the Hunger Games.
With any luck, the movie is about an ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny between several two sides trying to settle the age-old question: vampires or werewolves?
*Looks it up on Google*
Okay, I stopped reading the summary after "star-crossed lovers."
Wait, do I actually want to know what this is about? "Star-crossed lovers" is making me think that I don't. I'll take the showdown of destiny, thanks.
~DF
...and get away with it.
So in you opinion, werewolves or vampires? I'd bet on a traditional werewolf: it would be able to fight anywhere, in any condition. Sunlight, various religious items, and bulbous plants won't stop it for nothing!
Hm...I think you may have a point with the werewolves. Actually, I'd probably bet on any type of werewolf (within reason). I mean, does anything besides silver actually stop them? Traditionally speaking, that is.
Although, without moonlight...the werewolf becomes human. Usually. (See Once Upon a Time, and occasionally fanon Potterverse). So the fight would have to take place during the full moon...
Although I still think I'd bet on the werewolf. Actually, scratch that, I'd bet on the dragon :D
(What dragon? That dragon! Up there in the sky! See how it doesn't sparkle like diamonds? That's because diamond-sparkles make for terrible camoflage, which is far from useful if you're a predator)
(Seriously, what's up with the Sparklepires? I mean, I get the whole eye-color-changing, speed, strength, attractiveness, not sleeping, not eating human food--all of that. But why would they sparkle in the sunlight, beyond illustrating that their skin is hard? What purpose could it possibly serve? I mean, what normal human--let's go with the witch-burning period--is going to look at someone sparkling and not run away screaming "Witch! Witch! It sparkles! It is unholy! Burn the witch!" [feel free to imagine the spelling corresponds with that of Agnes Nutter's in Good Omens if you like]? And even now, they're most likely to be freaked out. Because, yes, sparkling is pretty, but it's also very, very strange, and likely to put people off.
(Unless--brainwave--what if that's the Sparklepire version of an aversion to sunlight? That they have to avoid the sunlight, not because it burns, but because it makes them, er, sparkle, and that's a nod to traditional vampires?
(...it's still weird and pointless, though.)
Garlic doesn't stop Buffyverse vampires, right? If so, I want to see the episode where Xander wards off Angelus with a handful of garlic. Seriously, I can see it--Xander would be very nervous at first, and then he'd realize that it was working, and he'd...probably start taunting Angelus, actually. Ah, IC Xander, how I love thee. (But not in a particularly Lust Object way. Just in a 'you are a wonderful canon character and I love it when you're actually in character and not in a badfic, because you have a tendency to be awesome and hilarious).
...that's one of the strangest clarifications I've ever made, from an everyday-life perspective. On the other hand, within the PPC...pretty ordinary.
I hate Buffy badfic. Especially when it consists of Buffy being indecisive about her two secret daughters (one by Angel, one by Spike), and thinking that Spike would make a great father (I mean, he would, but he also really wouldn't, not without making a LOT of adjustments), and Xander and Willow (and Dawn) being pretty two-dimensional, and not witty at all, and--and--ugh.
Yup. That's the one I've been dealing with most recently. I don't like it. I may claim it.
And both daughters have curly hair and look like their respective fathers. Oh, and they've both been activated as Slayers, even though one is four and the other is...two, I think. There's no way that's canonical. I mean, from what I know, the Potentials were young--but not *that* young. Then again, I'm only now watching season 7, and I'm not at the Potentials yet. (Me watching Buffy is an...interesting story. I do it out of order, and avoided season 7 for quite a while. Then, I found out that Felicia Day played a Potential, so I got curious and started watching it. It'll probably end up being the only season that I've watched from beginning to end in order).
Wait, I've gone very far off topic, haven't I? We were talking about vampires vs werewolves...
I think that, even in Buffyverse, I'd still bet on the werewolf. Unless we're talking a Master vampire (an IC one, anyway). Someone like Angel/Angelus, Spike, or Darla (not sure about Drusilla) could probably take a werewolf. But if we're talking run-of-the-mill vampire versus run-of-the-mill werewolf...probably the werewolf.
We hope you have enjoyed this rambling post, courtesy of DawnFire's Brain Inc. Thank you for reading, and have a nice day.
~DF
Don't really know what Beautiful Creatures is (other than a book or book series), and honestly I don't really pay attention to movies until I've watched them. And even then, I find more joy in making fun of it's flaws and praising what it did right than in complaining that it might be a mix of two adaptations I didn't care for. -shrugs-
Have fun Hollywood, I need a new MST and would like to do a movie-based one this time!
Because my MST I have on right now?
Yeah. That won't be finished anytime soon.
*is bricked for too many MLP references*
This is going to be awful, totally and truly awful. How do I know it's going to be awful? Casting, with some storyline problems to boot. Savanna Snow and her dad, the mayor of this small town in South Carolina, are black. Now, I'm not racist, but this small town is. They are a proud center of the Ladies of the Confederacy, Amma has to live outside of town, and there are no other black folks to be seen. So why on earth is the ELECTED MAYOR of this small racist town black? Why is his daughter, who is described in the book as your blonde southern popular girl, who would like to see Lena burned at the stake, black? This alone shows that the movie is going to be bad: because while I'm not racist, the town and the region is, and that is simply the culture of the area that was being presented. The book is completely accurate with its portrayal of small southern town society, and they look over one of the easiest details in the darn casting, simply so people don't call the film makers racist. Add in the apparent storyline included with the trailers that we have seen, and we get one bad, bad film adaptation. I'm sorry, I am not looking forward to this. AT ALL.
My father gave a more in-depth review of the film based off the little he has seen as for why it will be gosh darned terable. I'll see if I can post that later.
Although I can't say that I've ever heard of 'Beautiful Creatures' before, much less know what it's about.
Although, if it's Twilight meets the Hunger Games, I'm guessing...sparkling vampires with awesome archery skills have to compete in a fight to survive, while two of them have a sappy and not particularly healthy romantic relationship that eventually saves their lives. Oh, and it's all run by shapeshifters who think they're werewolves. And there's a mockingjay in there somewhere. And Jennifer Lawrence joins Robert Pattinson in the 'Why did I ever agree to do this movie?' club.
How did I do?
~DF