Victory Soap v. 2.0

And they should be forbidden to direct movies based on novels until whatever is wrong with their brains is healed, or else until they are all dead and can no longer harm any written work with their misconceived "making the story more cinematic" changes. Case in point: they are now in the process of destroying one of the favorite fantasy series of my childhood: The Dark Is Rising. For one thing, according to the IMDB forums (which I can't believe I registered just so I could read them after having vowed to never register for anything online because I don't frickin' want to), the main character, Will, who in the book is a British child from a large, rural English family, has been changed into an American for no good Goddamn reason that I can figure out. This destroys the entire central theme of the series, which is centered around old British pagan mythology and has fuckall to do with us across the pond. For another thing, far from being the rather sleazy-looking, short, dark-haired and bearded figure with a face like a collapsed beagle like Ian McShane, the character he is set to play, Merriman Lyon (who is actually Merlin), is clearly described several times in all of the books (a fairly decent compilation and summation can be found here) as being tall, gaunt, and white-haired. And last but not least, far from being a member of a band of immortal "warriors" kind of like the ones in Highlander, Will is an "Old One," who is rather more than a mere warrior, instead being more a cross between a wizard and a Celtic god. I have the feeling many explosions and drooling, slavering monsters will be added as well. Dismaying all around.

(I was going to write further on Ursula K. Le Guin and why, even though I mocked her on her reasons for disliking the tv adaptation of her Earthsea trilogy she was still at base right, as I promised Charles here. Think of this as a preface to the upcoming post.)