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Author
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Comment
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(4/29/04 9:24 am)
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Article for Thought
metromix.chicagotribune.c...ovies_heds
Funny, isn't it, how they blame the viewers for not flocking to
see their versions of fairy tales? Judging from SurLaLune's traffic
alone, Cinderella is not going out of style. And I contend Ella
Enchanted would have done much better at the box office if it
had remotely resembled the book. The book is too well known and
loved among a significant portion of the movie's target audience.
Almost every tween that reads has read it in my experience. Delaying
its release almost a year got even more word-of-mouth out about
how much the script was changed. Tweens have been complaining to
me for months about how stupid the movie was going to be. Sparkles
and ninjas were not going to bring in an audience even if Anne Hathaway
was included in the mix. But movie producers always, always think
girls require an arch enemy villain in their movies. Silly, silly
movie producers...
HAH
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aka
Greensleeves
(4/29/04 10:04 am)
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Re: Article for Thought
At the risk of sounding much less sophisticated in my review than
Heidi, I'm going to go ahead and say that the simple reason all
those movies failed was that their previews made them look incredibly
stupid--and has little to do with the continuing appeal of
Cinderella. Granted, I'm not a 'tween (heck, I'm not even GenX),
but I think when you mix incompatible elements like Julia Stiles
and a soft Cinderella story, where's your audience for that? We
love and want Stiles in films like "Ten Things I Hate About
You," (which, I will remind the Tribune, was a retelling
of "The Taming of the Shrew"). And as for "Ella--"
well, I confess I haven't read the book, but when I saw the previews,
I said to myself, "THAT'S what that book's about?? I'm glad
I didn't waste my time!" I take that all back now, of course--but
you see what happens? It might even have been a good movie, but
you certainly couldn't tell it from how it was marketed.
Now, "Mean Girls--" *that* actually looks like a good
movie. But I'm sure some preview-writer out there could manage to
mangle it, if h/she tried hard enough.
And another point (or perhaps my only point )--judging from the
readership of current hot novels AND this board--I think it's fair
to say that 'tween fairy tale fans demand depth and quality
in their adaptations.
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(4/29/04 1:17 pm)
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Re: Article for Thought
My daughters, who are the target ages and loved the book, responsed to the Ella movie with: "Why did they have that stupid narrator?" ; "Where'd the evil uncle come from?" ; and "They made the ending just like Shrek." They much preferred Peter Pan that came out around Christmas that somehow managed to capture the essence of Barrie's story.
I'd say they agree with you Heidi.
Alice
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wrightales
Registered User
(4/30/04 6:58 am)
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Re: Article for Thought
I was greatly disappointed in the movie, too. I reread Ella Enchanted after seeing it to see if the book was as good as I remembered. It was. The movie makers took a really good, original book, removed most of the originality and inserted cliches in their place. Alice's teens voiced my sentiments exactly. The problem seems to be that the movie industry never bothers to find out what it was that people loved about a book before they make a movie of it. It is as if they cannot bear to do something original. Trying to make a movie just like another (in this case Shrek) only ticks people off. I could (and do) go on railing against the movie industry for hours.
wrightales
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Erica
Carlson
Registered User
(4/30/04 10:53 am)
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Re: Article for Thought
Seems strange to hear anyone say that the "Cinderella Story" is "risky territory" for movies. What movie about a female underdog who makes good in the end ISN'T classified as a cinderella story? (Pretty Woman, Maid in Manhattan, Working Girl, etc., etc, etc) Couldn't Hoosiers be classified as a Cinderell story according to Hollywood?
Erica
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