The other night, I came across the trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman, which can basically be summed up as "Snow White done in the style of Lord of the Rings."
I'd heard about how they intended to remake Snow White with a more overtly-feminist SW who even goes into battle in full armor and I thought that was goofy and heavy-handed. I have no objection to feminism--see my repeated denunciations of complementarianism--but given how most women aren't as physically strong as most men, medieval-style combat in heavy armor is not something they're especially suited for unless we're talking someone like Brienne of Tarth from the A Song of Ice and Fire novels who is unusually big and strong.
However, having watched the trailer, this actually looks kind of cool. Epic battle sequences, the evil queen providing a very strong incentive for the Huntsman to kill Snow White, the much spookier Magic Mirror, a reason for the evil queen to want Snow White's heart specifically, monsters, etc.
My friend Korsgaard warned about Kristen Stewart's acting prowess. I've never seen any of the Twilight films, so I cannot comment intelligently on whether or not she can act. Let's hope she can pull this off.
And now we're onto the Hunger Games trailer...
I haven't been interested in the Hunger Games novels because I figured they were intended for younger people, but then, so is Harry Potter and that didn't stop me from writing two novel-length HP fan-fics.
However, a member of my writing group and my friend Jamie have both gotten really interested in THG, so writing it off as kids' stuff would be rather foolish. Furthermore, in discussions of just what genre Battle for the Wastelands would fit into, someone pointed out that young adult fiction is predicated on the protagonist's age, not the content. THG features teenagers taken as tribute by an evil government and forced to fight to the death, plus YA fiction from my own childhood (Gruel and Unusual Punishment and Weasel) could get pretty disturbing.
Oh well. We'll see what happens when it's done and polished and sent to publishers.
487: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (1997)
20 hours ago
Thanks for the shout out.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, for Snow White and the Huntsman, I'll point out what they did NOT show in the trailer: Snow White. For a movie that has her name in the marqee, that does not bode well for the film, especially since there is some debate as to whether Kristen 'facial expression and vocal change are too much for me' Stewart can handle a role that doesn't involve having millions of fangirls put themsleves into in the first place.
That and we all know how cornball the attempts to, ahem, modernize Alice and Wonderland went... badly.
Hunger Games though looks interesting. I'm always up for a good dystopia.
They do show SW a fair bit, although the trailer seems to mostly focus on the Huntsman. 60-40 or 70-30 maybe?
ReplyDeleteIf they split the story between SW and the Huntsman, that eliminates relying on Stewart to carry the entire film. In the original SW, the Huntsman is only in two scenes and we don't ever find out if the evil queen takes revenge on him for not killing SW, so there's plenty of room to elaborate.
I haven't seen the new "Alice in Wonderland," but based on the Wikipedia article, it seems to have gotten decent reviews and made a lot of money.
If the film itself can keep her out of the film as long as possible, it may stand a chance. Problem is, I would once again compare it to the Alice in Wonderland film, where most of the preivews and such focused on Jonny Depp, wheras in the movie, he was far from the focas point. He was the selling point.
ReplyDeleteAs for Alice in Wonderland, it got mixed reviews, and was basically the same Tim Burton film we've seen six times before. It's box office gross was helped by being the first major post-Avatar 3D film.