What the fu... They change the story

[Vater Araignee]

Fierce Critter's topic Queen of the Damned The movie, not the book. Got me thinking about changing stories when changing formats and my brain started to burn.

I'll start off by saying SHAME ON RICE she had the integrity to not allow her books to be changed after I W V but she let Hollywood bend it over sodomize it and call it a two bit whore. Some artistic integrity.

Now lets look at what the money moguls did to me "The Little Guy" that gives them his money.

They took one of my iconic figures and moved him to the big screen "who is it fan boy?" you may ask.

SPIDER-MAAAAAAAN oh my gods oh my gods their making SPIIIIIIIIDERRRRRRR-MAAAAAAN

Now throw in the worlds greatest director.

SAM RAIMI is directing?!?! oh oh oh oh oh YESSSS!

now tell him his favorite actor is getting a bit role.

* trembles * BRUCE!!! WOOO DDEADHOOO BRUCE freakin CAMPBELL * stagers * please please don't tell me any more these pants will end up stuck to me and they are dry clean only. Don't tell me any more I want to see it fresh.

I sit and watch 121 minutes in agony. That's not my spider-man. Ya could not have screwed it up more unless you let Bat Mans murderer "Tim Burton" get a hold of it. Why Sam? From one Spider-Fan to another why? My heart... on the floor in shreds. I had been reading Spider-Man since 1977!!! And organic web shooters? They make sense? Spiders webbing come from the ass Sam not the legs. If I meet you again I'm gonna shoot something organic out of my ass at you. Et tu Marvel? Now Spidy mirrors the movie... I stuck with you basterds during the great comic book crash of the 90's and you do this? * sigh *

ok calm down the get the point enough of the fanaticism.

well all you really learned is that I'm a raging lunatic... well you already knew that but you know how I feel.

You know they fraged the hell out of something you love.

So sound off and let the healing begin.

gage a comic book is just like a movie story board just pick one up and you have a movie script in hand.

I gotta go extinguish my hair.

[Fierce Critter]

I've heard bits and pieces of story that Anne Rice went through some medical & personal issues in recent years that had her doing things such as hermeting, selling off lifelong collections of dolls and other items, etc. I forget whether it was due to illness of either physical or mental variety.

Perhaps she can be forgiven if, during a period of personal strife, she wasn't quite up to defending her personal works while they were butchered by the film industry.

That said, I'm not sure what kind of controls were written into the contracts she signed when selling the rights to the first three books. I seem to recall she was pretty actively involved in the making of IWTV, which would lead me to believe she retained some creative control over the process.

If the same people had the rights to the final 2 books as IWTV, and the same contract encompassed all three, you'd think she'd have the same creative control she did over IWTV. Otherwise, there must have been more than one contract.

I really don't know the details. And I'm not necessarily trying to defend her - just trying to look at reasons why she might have been less involved with the 2nd film than the 1st.

Anyway, I met and talked with William Kienzle, who wrote the Rosary Murders books, which take place in and around Detroit. I asked him what he thought of the film they'd made of his first book, and what advice he'd give to an aspiring novelist when/if it comes time to discuss a film of the book. His short answer: don't do it. His long answer, if you care about your work, fight for as much creative control as you can, and expect the project to be dropped if you push too hard for a hand in the process. His main beef with the film version of his book was casting - he thought Donald Sutherland awfully mumbly. :laughing:

By the way, one of those crappy TV Entertainment magazine-like shows is going to have footage of Stan Lee on, and it sounds like he's going to be bitching about what they did with his characters on fim. Might be tonight, I didn't pay much attention to the commercial.

[Ginevra]

Along the same lines, I've been waiting for what seems like eons to see a Dragonrider of Pern movie (story written by Anne McCaffrey). She's helped release one PC game based and NO ONE was happy with it including hard core, lifelong fans. She's been dragging her feet for years because no one's ideas for the movie meet her vision of what she wants.

[Hermine]

The one that I expect will piss me off is Constantine. I'm a huge Hellblazer fan, and there is NO WAY that Reeves can play Constantine.

I mean, if you are going for look you might want, oh I don't know, just to pick a name out of the air, maybe just maybe STING. I mean, if you wanted to do one of the earlier ones, fine, use a younger actor, but someone who looked remotely like the character might just be a little bit better than someone who looks nothing like him and also really can't play the role.

Reeves can't do a credible British accent either and, frankly, Constantine is a tortured, complicated, very intelligent character and Reeves really doesn't have the range. "Whoah" is just not going to cut it here.

It's not that I necessarily dislike Reeves but I have never heard of anyone being so miscast. I hate the fact that the intelligent, subtle, creepy, harrowing, starkly beautiful stories that I love are almost certainly going to be turned into another dumb action movie.

[Vater Araignee]

speaking of who should play who..

Tom Cruse should never have been considered

#1 The fame of the actor should never over shadow that of the character. A proven nobody should be used

I submit to you Julian Sands

#2 How does a short stocky muscle play a tall gaunt man?

So I submit to you Julian Sands

Just my opinion

[Fierce Critter]

speaking of who should play who..

Tom Cruse should never have been considered

#1 The fame of the actor should never over shadow that of  the character. A proven nobody should be used

I submit to you Julian Sands

#2 How does a short stocky muscle play a tall gaunt man?

So I submit to you Julian Sands

Just my opinion

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

First off, the Stan Lee interview was on 60 Minutes. I came in late, but I guess he was mostly talking about how he had to take Marvel to court to get $$ out of the films they made of his creations.

As for what you just said there, VA, am I reading right that you think Julian Sands would have made a good Lestat?

If so, bravo - I agree. I LOVE Julian Sands. I can watch Warlock every time it's run on TV, and managed to snag a free copy of the VHS which I'm keeping.

Damn if it's not a given you're gonna see his naked booty in just about every film he makes, too. :

[Hermine]

Are you talking about Interview? I actually thought Cruise did a lot better than expected in Interview. I thought he couldn't do it; I was one of the fans bitching about it when the movie was coming out, but he really came through. You have to remember, he has actually done fantasy before (Remember Legend? That's him--not that I'm pointless trivia girl or anything) He was certainly better than that idiot in Queen of the Damned.

OTOH, Julian Sands----that would have been pretty damned cool.

[gothicmom]

I think Jullian Sands would have been a better Lestat.

Tommy did do a pretty good job. But Lestat was gay, or Bi-sexual. Tom wouldn't even consider playing homosexual tendensies and that was a big part of who Lestat was....

[fallennon]

I was upset that they cut out the relationship between Lestat and Louis in the movie. It was a big part of the story and explained why Louis was so hateful of Armand and why Louis and Claudia had trouble with Lestat...fucking Hollyweird...

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I've pretty much , long ago given up hope of hollywood ever giving the original works a fair shake. Even when they do a resonably not-so-horrible job, you still feel a bit irritated , becasue even if they make some semblance of an attempt to take a litterary work to the screen, they just dont have the time. Impossible to flesh out chars in 2 hours that have page upon page of space devoted to them in a different medium, so to make "a good flick" (and keep their jobs) they just try to make something they think will put asses in movie seats.

With Interview i remember thinking "hell, even if they just swaped Cruse into louis and Pitt to Lestat..."

Alternate "big name" (at the time) choice for lestat... " Val Kilmer ?

Hellblazer: hrmm hell even mickey rouke would be better than kianu , david bowe? bit to old now probably. Liam Neeson? Maybe dig up the guy that played Hicks in Aliens and give him some work. Kianu pfft wtf.

[Vater Araignee]

I hear they are going to do The Chronicles of Narnia.

How much you wanna bet I'll be beating in my forhead?

well unless the think if people are will to watch 4 hours of crap ie pearl harbor then we can stay true to Lewis and atemp to create a work of art.

They wont thoe so maby I should start with the beating now.

[Marblez]

alternate "big name" (at the time) choice for lestat... Val Kilmer ?

That's exactly who I had in mind at the time too, Troy. No doubt about it.

Hel, Val would have been a better Armand as well. I could see zero of what I expected in lestat in Tom Cruise, zero.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I hear they are going to do The Chronicles of Narnia.

How much you wanna bet I'll be beating in my forhead?

well unless the think if people are will to watch 4 hours of crap ie pearl harbor then we can stay true to Lewis and atemp to create a work of art.

They wont thoe so maby I should start with the beating now.

....grrrr. Dont have the energy to research it, please tell me they arent turning it into a The Olsen Twins Go To Narnia type thing. bleh

Only way i can see "great works" getting fair shake would be in a PBS Mini-Series type deal, maybe HBO or some such. Trying to shove these epic-scale type creations through the hollywood cheeze grater, .... bleh.

[The_Dark]

Yeah, cause look what Holliwood did to the Lord of the Rings.

[Hermine]

Only way i can see "great works" getting fair shake would be in a PBS Mini-Series type deal

BTW, speaking of Chronicles of Narnia and PBS miniseries, anyone ever see the PBS (or possibly recycled BBC) miniseries version of the Chronicles of Narnia? What did people think? All I remember is it had Tom Baker in it and I was a hardcore Whovian at the time, so I was happy. (Not that I'm in any way a complete and total dork or anything)

As for Lestat; the elimination of the homoeroticism in general pissed me off, as did the fact that they skipped The Vampire Lestat entirely.

Cruise might not have been the best option; I never said he was, but everyone expected him to be horrible and, for my money, he wasn't bad. He wasn't the best possible guy to play Lestat (Julian Sands would definitely have rocked), but he definitely surprised me. And while there wasn't the homoeroticism, Cruise still managed to capture some of Lestat's sensuality; even, in places, to hint at his sensuality in his interaction with Louis.

And the Lestat in Queen of the Damned was an infinitely worse casting choice.

And while we're talking about cinematic outrages, how about I Robot. I normally like Will Smith; he generally picks fun sci-fi flicks and I like the way he picks his roles. But I can't believe he picked this movie. I wouldn't even watch it. I refuse to see that done to Asimov.

[Vater Araignee]

BTW, speaking of Chronicles of Narnia and PBS miniseries, anyone ever see the PBS (or possibly recycled BBC) miniseries version of the Chronicles of Narnia? What did people think? All I remember is it had Tom Baker in it and I was a hardcore Whovian at the time, so I was happy. (Not that I'm in any way a complete and total dork or anything)

Yep I saw some pure drivel and the costumes? Smoochy looked better.

And while we're talking about cinematic outrages, how about I Robot. I normally like Will Smith; he generally picks fun sci-fi flicks and I like the way he picks his roles. But I can't believe he picked this movie. I wouldn't even watch it. I refuse to see that done to Asimov.

I think next to bicentenial man it is the closest holyboner ever came to staying true. not that it was a play by play but the heart of it was captured