Walden Media must die*
Seriously. The Seeker – wtf? Why would you go to the trouble of getting the rights to a series of books when all you really want to do is use the characters’ names and make up your own story?
For those of you who haven’t read Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence (Over Sea Under Stone, The Dark Is Rising (Newbery Honour), Greenwitch, The Grey King (Newbery Award), and Silver on the Tree), you may have no idea what my problem is. And, hey, that’s cool. If you think you might like the movie on its own merit and do not wish to have it spoiled, read no further.
If you haven’t read the books, and you still want to know what I’m on about, consider this: The Seeker is to The Dark is Rising as the Harry Potter movies would be to the Harry Potter books if they changed Harry to an twenty-something NYPD rookie, made Ron a troubled inner-city rapper, and got Lindsey Lohan to play Hermione. Oh, and if, instead of using magic, Harry was a ninja, and Voldemort was actually a demon from hell bent on world domination, and Harry’s parents were alive and secretly a team of space-rangers from the future.
Now, I realize I am being the biggest hypocrite in the world for hating on a movie I haven’t yet seen. But, to be fair, that’s the whole idea of trailers, right? When a studio makes a trailer for a movie, they’re saying “Hey! You! Judge a movie you haven’t seen by the bits I’m about to show you! I hope you’ll want to buy a ticket!” In any case, I’m not saying only bad or stupid people will like The Seeker. I’m just saying it looks like a huge, huge disappointment compared to the books.
Not that I think a movie has to stick to the books completely, either – I loved the changes Walden made to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And, hey, with a background in theatre, believe me, I understand that sometimes you can make a work of art by throwing the author’s intentions out the window. But I resent changes to someone else’s story made not to express something thoughtful or exciting or beautiful, but to make it conform to the perceived expectation of the market. The masses are not too stupid to appreciate something different. And, if you wanted something so alien to the original, then why didn’t you just write it yourself**?
Seriously, did they keep anything? There is a boy named Will Stanton who is part of a large family. He discovers he is also part of a magical order. He has to find six signs to defeat a nasty guy who rides a horse and represents “the Dark”. The grown-up who teaches Will how to do this is an old man called Merriman. So far, so good.
But, where The Dark is Rising is thoughtful, atmospheric, Arthurian, and, above all, BRITISH, The Seeker appears to be nothing more than a conglomeration of the worst American blockbuster clichés. Any explanation of what the Light and Dark are outside the familiar framework of Christianity’s Good and Evil? Gone. Any reflection on what it actually would mean to be an eleven-year-old with more power and wisdom than the adults around you and have to keep it a secret? Gone. Any suggestion that, you know, there are subtler forms of fighting for good and evil than blowing things up with fancy-dancy spells? Going, going… gone.
Why, oh why did they make Will’s family American? I mean, on one level, I understand it: the director has said he thought having an eleven-year-old British boy who finds out he has special powers would make people think, Harry Potter rip-off. But… The Seeker is arguably far more like the Harry Potter series than the original story was. Instead of being, “okay, there’s the British boy who learns he has powers but the rest of the story is completely unlike Harry Potter in its focus, themes, mood, characterization, setting, plot, etc.”, they’ve made “omg u guyz, this movie has liek good and evil and magic spellz and its liek HARRY POTTER!!one!! so come and see it if you liek HARRY POTTER!!!eleven!!! but hes not Harry Potter b/c hes AMERICAN!!! USA!!!” Dude. And, apparently, the only important motivation anyone can have is… WUV.
For goodness’ sake, they actually changed Will’s age from eleven to fourteen just so he could feel hormones. It’s like filmmakers are not willing to recognize that relationships can be emotional and/or dramatically interesting if they don’t stem directly from the groin. In the book, Will’s family is loving, yes, and Will teases his older brother, Max, about having a crush on Maggie Barnes, who works at a nearby farm. That’s it. That’s why, if you check out the DiR fanfiction on fanfiction.net, more than half the romances involving Will are slash. Because, seriously, the strongest lust/sexual/crush feelings of any sort that you can find for him in this book are the homoerotic undercurrents that happen in our culture whenever you portray two male characters in an intimate friendship. That’s not to say Will feels no emotion: he loves his siblings and parents pretty damn hard. He idolizes Stephen, his oldest brother. He’s agonized when his new insights disturb his relationship with his introspective brother, Paul (who, btw, along with his twin, has movie!metamorphed into a Weasley-wannabe). The most important thing to him is getting to celebrate a traditional Christmas with his family, and, when the Rider intrudes, he loses his temper for the only time in the series.
But the thing that bugs me most isn’t the random Harry-Potter-ization of the plot, or the portrayal of randy!American!Will, or even the let’s-pretend-the-pagan-influences-on-Christianity-never-happened. I could have dealt with all that. However, I strongly resent the whitewashing of the most important and intriguing theme in the whole series: the idea that doing the right thing by its very nature means causing and ignoring the pain of innocent human beings. Let’s face it, when was the last time a mainstream fantasy movie dealt with that? Sure, Edmund Pevensie and Severus Snape show us how doing the “wrong” thing can lead to unintended harm, but there’s no collateral damage for the “good guys” in Narnia or at Hogwarts. People who choose not to fight aren’t part of the battle, plain and simple. Civilian deaths and property loss don’t exist. And, as even the most cursory study of real-life war and revolution will tell you, that just ain’t so. Dresden, anyone? Hiroshima?
In the books, though there’s a “great black pit” at the heart of the Dark, at the centre of the Light burns a corresponding “cold white flame”. For those who’ve read The Grey King, I have one word: Cafall. For those who haven’t, what happened to Hawkin, the ordinary guy destroyed by the Light’s machinations? What happened to Will’s coming to terms with the fact that his dedication to the Light may force him to sacrifice the welfare of his loved ones? What happened to the depth that won this series the Newbery, damn it?
Susan Cooper, who has worked in film and theatre, has been quoted as understanding that one must “do violence” to a book in order to make a movie. She’s right – they’re different media, with different needs. But, as she goes on to say, Walden has taken that too far. There’s a different between “doing violence” to a book and beating it within an inch of its life.
You’ve gotta press apples to make apple cider. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere. Just keep looking. (Thanks for the pic, Juliana!)
* Except let’s let them finish Prince Caspian first, because I really want to see it.
** Methinks there something to be said here about different kinds of fanfiction, but that’s another story, and shall be told another time. (Word, Michael Ende.)