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This is a spoiler alert. I mean a serious spoiler alert. It’s a spoiler about the new movie THE SEEKER, which is based on the book, THE DARK IS RISING, by Susan Cooper. So anyone that wants to see the movie and not have major plot points spoiled, stop reading now.
I mean it. I am about to give away major stuff.
Still with me? All right then, you have been warned.
Oh, and for those who have read the book, and think you know all the plot points that will be in the movie, no, you don’t. Sadly, the movie added plot points that aren’t in the book, and just screwed with it.
THE DARK IS RISING is one of my favorite books. It remains in the top twenty favorites for me and has for years, so admittedly I was somewhat invested in the book. I could have even forgiven them if they’d left the book plot behind and simply made a good movie. Sadly, they didn’t manage that either.
About an hour in to the movie Jon, Richard, and I, all decided we were bored, no longer cared, and were beginning to be actively pissed off. What pissed us off?
Well, first of all this book is based on Celtic myth and legend, for the most part. Here comes a spoiler. There is a scene where a bad guy turns into snakes. Snakes are a goddess symbol and are not seen as evil in Celtic myth. I’m particularly miffed about that being Wiccan with a Celtic bent myself. Snakes represent healing, new life, the shedding of the old and the coming of the new, wisdom, and a plethora of positive things. There is no bad snake scene in the book, damnit.
The DP (director of photography) was in love with weird camera angles. The editor seemed in love with them, too. I’m not sure what the director was doing, or who was in charge of the ‘vision’ of the movie. Sadly, the movie was pretty, but pretty doesn’t make it a good or interesting story. Even more sadly, there was a lot of money on the screen, and some really nice acting jobs going on, but the story was slow, and we were all bored.
We were so bored that we all three agreed to leave the theatre without seeing all the movie. I was going to sit it out, but then the scene that made me, and all of us, get up and leave in disgust happened. Not as in disgust as in icky, but in you have got to be kidding me. Will, who is now a fourteen-year-old, not the eleven-year-old of the book (I was okay with them upping the age, but harping on the whole puberty thing got way old.), but the fourteen-year-old Will stands outside in the snow and using his “powers” over the elements starts blowing shit up. I am not joking. I wish I was. Will uses fire to blow up a tree and an old windmill. I mean like major pyrotechnics. It was expensive, and it was flashy, and it had nothing to do with the book. Also, it made me think way less of Will, and wonder why the fire department, or the police weren’t showing up to see what the hell was going on. I mean come on people. And what kind of Goddess centered, Celtic magic using person blows up a helpless, harmless tree?
This movie reminds me, once again, why I don’t have a movie of my books made, yet. Because I live in fear that I will be sitting in the dark at the premiere, and an hour in, I will want to walk out in disgust. God forbid.
A good movie, or a good television show, of my books would be cool, but the lovely piece of shat we saw tonight, makes me despair.