To ruin a childhood hero.
Nov. 17th, 2003 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reynardoHave you ever had a book that spoke to you when you were young? Has a character echoed your thoughts, and been your hero or heroine?
When I was young, I read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engel. The heroine, Meg, is bright, wears braces and spectacles, doesn't fit in at school, is flawed, and has self-doubts. She ends up winning against the evil and saving her father without having to lose the braces, glasses and flaws, unlike so many of the movie geek girls who seem to have to go through a makeover to beat the bad guys. While Cinderella stories are all well and good, not all of us have fairy godmothers and want to have our faces slathered with makeup to be the best we can.
So, I watched the television movie of "A Wrinkle in Time" with quite a lot of apprehension. The ads had seemed - dubious. Meg, although not a model type, was a lot older than she was in the book. Calvin the school student had been changed to a college-aged kid and the parents were good looking in the way that television parents often are (like those impossibly-goodlooking mothers in baby ads) rather than looking like scientists.
And then the whole thing went pear-shaped when they brought in Government secret-service guys and the father disappearing in a flash of light, and left out so much of the family loyalty when Meg has to defend her mother's attitudes to the village gossip. The story was cutesied up by the addition of CGI-ed fantasy animals, and the mental effects of IT were turned into visual effects (although I'll give you that it is difficult to represent mental effects on a visual medium).
I'll also allow that the Misses Who, Which and Whatsit were accurately realised, and Charles Wallace was well played too.
But my heart is broken.
When I was young, I read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engel. The heroine, Meg, is bright, wears braces and spectacles, doesn't fit in at school, is flawed, and has self-doubts. She ends up winning against the evil and saving her father without having to lose the braces, glasses and flaws, unlike so many of the movie geek girls who seem to have to go through a makeover to beat the bad guys. While Cinderella stories are all well and good, not all of us have fairy godmothers and want to have our faces slathered with makeup to be the best we can.
So, I watched the television movie of "A Wrinkle in Time" with quite a lot of apprehension. The ads had seemed - dubious. Meg, although not a model type, was a lot older than she was in the book. Calvin the school student had been changed to a college-aged kid and the parents were good looking in the way that television parents often are (like those impossibly-goodlooking mothers in baby ads) rather than looking like scientists.
And then the whole thing went pear-shaped when they brought in Government secret-service guys and the father disappearing in a flash of light, and left out so much of the family loyalty when Meg has to defend her mother's attitudes to the village gossip. The story was cutesied up by the addition of CGI-ed fantasy animals, and the mental effects of IT were turned into visual effects (although I'll give you that it is difficult to represent mental effects on a visual medium).
I'll also allow that the Misses Who, Which and Whatsit were accurately realised, and Charles Wallace was well played too.
But my heart is broken.
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More good reasons our TV is only for the DVD player.
Date: 2003-11-17 02:55 am (UTC)At any rate, my brother owned (and probably still does) the entire series, signed by Madeleine L'Engel who visited his school for somesuch event.
After seeing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe ill-represented in one particular rendition I have had little hope for other (dare say, better) fantasy children's books. Madeleine L'Engel was timeless in paper, so cherish the paper version in which your imagination can concieve of that world and dear Meg in any form you desire. Consider it only a momentary aberration in film.
Re: More good reasons our TV is only for the DVD player.
Date: 2003-11-17 06:56 am (UTC)Madeleine signed one of them for me on a school field trip to NYC... I don't remember the details, aside from the fact that we visited one of the cathedrals (St. Paul's?), and then went to the book signing that was just across the way right after that. The signing was in some sort of institutional building, something old and stone.
Maybe during my semester break I will reacquire copies and read them. (Or see if the iTunes book store has them as eBooks.)
I also remember that there was a previous filmed attempt at A Wrinkle in Time, probably about circa 1983 if my recollection is accurate. Anyone else remember this? It seemed more faithful to Ms. L'Engel''s intent.
Re: More good reasons our TV is only for the DVD player.
Date: 2003-11-17 07:03 am (UTC)I also remember YTV featuring a televised version so very long ago. Long enough that I can't remember how bad it might have been.
I also remember an animated "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe", but it's been too long since I've seen that (too long to pass judgment on it, I mean).
Re: More good reasons our TV is only for the DVD player.
Date: 2003-11-17 03:22 pm (UTC)Tom Baker was good in "The Silver Chair" though.