Feeding on Fantasy

TIME ^ | November 24, 2002 | Lev Grossman

[JenB]

Sorry, I didn't mean to insult the SCA, just point out that their members have an obvious bias toward the past. I enjoy watching you guys run around in armor and such at the local RenFest - which I understand is not up to specs but is fun.

[Long Cut]

"One shudders to think what would have happened had this been a typical Hollywood production. "

We already have seen how Hollywood "improves" ideas. One of my greatest cinematic disappointments of the past decade, as a movie buff, was the misbegotten mess known as Godzilla. A movie with enourmous potential and goodwill of fans going in was destroyed by the egos of the imbeciles involved in its production. Oh, and let me not forget the equally-formulaic remake of Gone in Sixty Seconds, which managed to excise everything GOOD about its source material while making a potentially gripping car chase movie flat-out dull.

The list goes on and on. And it purely BLOWS to find that you've shelled out twenty or so of your hard-gotten green to see some rehash of a rehash, or some star's or director's ego project.

The tide, however, may be turning. In the past two years, I've seen several movies that have actually been worth the money. Rings, of course, and Spider-Man come to mind, as does Baz Luhrmann's excellent Moulin Rouge. Fight Club is also on my list of "movie lover's movies", as is Pulp Fiction.

Sad to say, however, these represent the exception that proves the rule. Already, knockoffs of Spider-Man and, you can be sure, Rings, are in production, poised to "Hollywoodize"(that is, rip off and thereby eviscerate) these. Daredevil(starring, of course, Ben Affleck), anyone?

Maybe, just maybe, the success of Rings will prove to the cokewhore Armani-wearers who make the descisions about such things that getting good source material(new, imaginative and innovative material is NOT their forte'), a director with affection and passion for same, and a cast of ACTORS(versus STARS) and then just getting out of the way can yield spectacular results.

I won't hold my breath, though.

[Lil'freeper]

The clarity and simplicity of Middle-earth are comforting, but there's also something worryingly childish, even infantile, about it.

What nonsense. The only thing worryingly childish is the author's inability to deal with "real" literature. Clearly the layers of meaning and nuance, the themes and examination of humanity were too difficult for this aspiring coffee-house snob of a writer to grasp.