best served cold
Apr. 8th, 2003 01:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sua_layOh. Rant ahead. Just call me a literary snob, k?
Watched the Count of Monte Cristo. The latest version with Jim Caviezel. Was enormously disappointed.
The movie was actually a good movie. I mean, it was exciting, had good acting. I always enjoy watching Richard Harris perform. Also, am a big fan of Guy Pearce's. The plot was okay, even though I usually cringe at all that God-stuff.
And of course the movie was ridiculously slashy.
But...
Has anyone really read the actual book? The one written by Dumas. The one that isn't about a guy named Edmond Dantes who is wronged by these guys and he revenges and gets his teenage sweetheart in the end.
Crap.
I've seen three different adaptations of the book. The one from the mid 1970's, the mini series with Gerard Depardieu, and now this one. None of them was really about the book. The one with Depardieu came close, but even that one had huge gaps and mistakes.
The book isn't about fighting for what you lost. It isn't about reconciliation. Nor is it a sappy romance where Dantes and his old sweetheart spend minutes gazing into each others' eyes. It's about fighting for memories. Revenge. It's about someone who loses half his life, his love, his family and his faith.
Yes, the book does have a happy ending. Spoiling it here, so hit the road if you wanna read the book unspoiled.
All the movies have Edmond Dantes and Mercedes together in the end. It's as if getting the girl of your past somehow makes it all right again. As if the 20 or so years spent in misery are now washed away. That's not what happens in the book.
Dantes uses a young princess, a daughter of a conquered pasha, as a tool for his revenge against Mercedes' husband. The princess, Haydee, is a chaste figure, Dantes' ward so to speak.
In the end, Dantes gets his revenge. He never actually kills any of the men he sets against. He uses their weaknesses and their family secrets against them. One's past crimes come to claim him. The other will have to face the fact that his wife is poisoning his relatives, and even his children. Mercedes' husband, the evil count Mondego who was once Dantes' friend, shoots himself and Mercedes goes to a convent.
Dantes ends up with Haydee.
He will have his revenge, even though in the end, he helps more people than he gets killed. Most of those people are the next generation, so he wipes out the past and is merciful for the future.
And in the end, he turns his back on his own past as well and stars freshly with Haydee.
I don't understand why every filmmaker choose to make it a sappy romance between two people who used to love each other. It's not what Dumas wrote. It makes the whole thing lose depth somehow. 20 years is a long time. It would change people, and I can't see Dantes and Mercedes put their past behind them. They'd end up being bitter, I think.
Ah well...
Anyhow, sorry about the rant. Just one of my pet peeves. You make a movie out of a book. Fine. Just don't change a really good revenge tale into a damn romance.
Um... Hey, Mr. Jackson! Please change a stupid and sad ending into a tale of two male Hobbits in love. Or four. And keep the 'never has an elf loved a dwarf like this' theme please.
Pretty please!
Watched the Count of Monte Cristo. The latest version with Jim Caviezel. Was enormously disappointed.
The movie was actually a good movie. I mean, it was exciting, had good acting. I always enjoy watching Richard Harris perform. Also, am a big fan of Guy Pearce's. The plot was okay, even though I usually cringe at all that God-stuff.
And of course the movie was ridiculously slashy.
But...
Has anyone really read the actual book? The one written by Dumas. The one that isn't about a guy named Edmond Dantes who is wronged by these guys and he revenges and gets his teenage sweetheart in the end.
Crap.
I've seen three different adaptations of the book. The one from the mid 1970's, the mini series with Gerard Depardieu, and now this one. None of them was really about the book. The one with Depardieu came close, but even that one had huge gaps and mistakes.
The book isn't about fighting for what you lost. It isn't about reconciliation. Nor is it a sappy romance where Dantes and his old sweetheart spend minutes gazing into each others' eyes. It's about fighting for memories. Revenge. It's about someone who loses half his life, his love, his family and his faith.
Yes, the book does have a happy ending. Spoiling it here, so hit the road if you wanna read the book unspoiled.
All the movies have Edmond Dantes and Mercedes together in the end. It's as if getting the girl of your past somehow makes it all right again. As if the 20 or so years spent in misery are now washed away. That's not what happens in the book.
Dantes uses a young princess, a daughter of a conquered pasha, as a tool for his revenge against Mercedes' husband. The princess, Haydee, is a chaste figure, Dantes' ward so to speak.
In the end, Dantes gets his revenge. He never actually kills any of the men he sets against. He uses their weaknesses and their family secrets against them. One's past crimes come to claim him. The other will have to face the fact that his wife is poisoning his relatives, and even his children. Mercedes' husband, the evil count Mondego who was once Dantes' friend, shoots himself and Mercedes goes to a convent.
Dantes ends up with Haydee.
He will have his revenge, even though in the end, he helps more people than he gets killed. Most of those people are the next generation, so he wipes out the past and is merciful for the future.
And in the end, he turns his back on his own past as well and stars freshly with Haydee.
I don't understand why every filmmaker choose to make it a sappy romance between two people who used to love each other. It's not what Dumas wrote. It makes the whole thing lose depth somehow. 20 years is a long time. It would change people, and I can't see Dantes and Mercedes put their past behind them. They'd end up being bitter, I think.
Ah well...
Anyhow, sorry about the rant. Just one of my pet peeves. You make a movie out of a book. Fine. Just don't change a really good revenge tale into a damn romance.
Um... Hey, Mr. Jackson! Please change a stupid and sad ending into a tale of two male Hobbits in love. Or four. And keep the 'never has an elf loved a dwarf like this' theme please.
Pretty please!
