Book butchering

I think I'm mentally worn out by my philosophical musings of yesterday hehe. I did actually feel rough this morning, though I sincerely doubt it's related, and so stayed off work again. I emailed my boss too to explain, gently I hope, and politely the beef I had with him because tomorrow is my last day for two weeks and we're having a work party so I figured there might not be much time. He does still want to talk to me about it but I think he understands how upset I was with him so that's good. Also it means that I didn't rant at him and so probably won't tomorrow either! So we'll see how that goes.

48 hours till I'm home! And I haven't packed :S I'm *so* bad at packing it's untrue. But I did get off my arse and do another load of laundry so at least when I *do* pack (two hours before I leave) I'll have lots of clean clothes! I'm glad that I bought most Christmas presents online and sent them home or guaranteed I would have left them here. I should make sure I pack the other stockings and my writing pad, maybe I'll go do that as soon as I'm done writing! It'd be awful to not have those with me!

I was talking with some friends, discussing the New Moon movie. It will be the sequel to Twilight. I haven't seen it yet and apparently to people who haven't read the books it's godawful, to discerning fans it's not up to scratch and to screaming fangirls it OMG has Rob Pattinson OMG he's so drool worthy me, bite me Edward, I love you so much Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Or something. Considering myself a discerning fan of the books, as in they're great to read but don't really expect depth and do expect some mormon undertones. Some of which aren't bad in some ways but some could, and have been, misinterpreted.

I have one specific response to a scene from the movie that has caused a lot of outcry it seems. Apparently just after Bella is almost attacked (and rescued by said vampire hunk Edward) her dad gives her a bottle of pepper spray and she rolls her eyes as if to say "I have a hunky hardcore man, what do I need to be able to defend myself for?" I would not be at all surprised if that's what happened and how it looked. Unfortunately in the book, in the scene where she's about to be attacked she's actually running through the limited self-defence she *does* know and lamenting the fact that her pepper spray is in a bag at home. So I think the movie scene was a nod to that but managed to mess it up and completely switch the meaning around.

Movie adaptations these days are so hit and miss. Especially Twilight I think, I think there was definitely a "jump on the money-making bandwagon" edge to the producers when they bought the rights. I'm sure it was a similar plan with Harry Potter but luckily they got directors and/or screenwriters that wanted to keep true to the books. I'm not dissing Catherine Hardwicke but it seems to me that what little depth there was to the books was wiped out. This left behind a controlling boyfriend and ummm that's it?

Oh! That was another scene that someone mentioned, the fact that he disconnects her battery or something. Now her father did that in one of the books to stop her from sneaking out and yes, Edward did it once too. Edward did it in the second book but I believe the scene was brought forward, as were the werewolves. (Which is downright stupid as far as I'm concerned) And so Edward disconnected her battery so that she wouldn't go see her friend, a very young werewolf who he believes would have issues with his temper and could become a werewolf any second and severely injure her. Also, surprisingly?, vampires and werewolves don't get on in the books. So he was trying to stop her from going to the enemy camp where she could get hurt. I don't know how much of this carried over to the movie, not enough obviously. Sure it was a bit controlling of him, but in that annoying "best interests at heart" way. Rather than wanker-tastic.

Anyway for the next movie they have hire Chris Weitz. Who quite frankly I will diss. He is the guy who made Golden Compass. As far as a movie story goes it's fine as an adaption goes it's an abomination. They screwed up the Harry Potter movies in little ways, cut out bits that fans think should be left in but we could still go see them for the fun of a dramatisation of our beloved books. But they butchered Northern Lights. The books are beautiful, beautifully meaningful and beautifully written. They deserve to become Penguin Classics much more than Dracula which is kinda boring if I'm honest. They're so deep, fantastic, a wonderful concept and amazingly researched. Amazing. And the movie was a travesty. All of that depth was sucked out till it really was just a kid's story. Not a story that can be enjoyed on so many levels. Plus they screwed up the ending. They ended it with Lyra and Roger flying off into the sky instead of going to see her father and accidentally allowing Roger to be killed for her father's own ends and her following him into the new world (literally). So thus far we have an alive Roger. Will they hide his death - one quick flashback so we don't scare the kiddies - will they start the movie with it? Or will they just get rid of it? Keep him alive and safe? I hope against hope that it's not the latter, otherwise why would they go to the world of the dead? How would they meet the dead people and set them free and if they don't go to the world of the dead then maybe the movies will have a happy ending. Which kinda defies the point... it still makes me cry, the ending does.

So goodness knows what will happen when they let him loose on New Moon. I suppose it could go two ways. Either he can butcher New Moon like Northern Lights. Or, because New Moon is so much *less* deep, will it be less butcherable? Who knows, but we've come up with a fun drinking game to get us through it if it's awful. So that's good. Every cloud...

Another big unexpected talk. Sorry if there were any spoilers in there but Northern Lights came out years ago and I fully believe you should have read them by now. Everyone should, in the world! Only I think they'll probably be on a fair few banned lists *sigh*

Seven sleeps till Christmas!! Hehehehehe