#movie versus book

[tsukinoakume]

RW&RB MovieAlex vrs BookAlex: A Rant

I'm late to the party on Red, White, and Royal Blue for a dumb reason and now I'm obsessed with it. OMG I WAS SO WRONG.

I love the book. I love the movie. I also love the difference between them that I find myself obsessing over: the lack of June.

I love June. I'm also not mad that they removed her from the movie, because I honestly don't think they had the time to do her justice. The important thing is that when they removed her, they split her personality and scenes between Nora and Alex. And the result is fascinating.

Combining June with Alex gives us a calmer, more emotionally mature, competent version of Alex. He is definitely not the hot mess that BookAlex is. (Don't get me wrong here: BookAlex is my favorite character.) But now it's implied that MovieAlex is better at keeping his temper, handles his shit without being micromanaged, advocates for himself more, and I'm pretty sure the speech he gives is his own. Probably with help, but still. Also not having divorced parents means MovieAlex doesn't have BookAlex's abandonment issues. It's never said that his parents' relationship is perfect, but it's implied that he's had a stable family background. MovieAlex still has flaws and he's not Nora Levels of Competency, but he's definitely a lot more balanced. And this actually changes his relationship with Henry, just a little.

Namely in reference to my two favorite scenes:

1) Storming the Castle.

BookAlex is a ball of rage in this scene, and it's GLORIOUS. Yelling at the windows, aggressively dripping everywhere trying to ruin the rugs, making rude comments about Henry's ancestors. He is defiant. He yells, Henry yells back. It ends in tears, but there's a lot of anger.

MovieAlex by contrast is quieter, more hurt. He hardly yells at all. (I rewatched this scene like 20 times for Repeat to be sure.) He's determined, and he doesn't back down, but you get to see that split second of fear in his eyes that Henry is asking him to leave. There's a lot more emotion and tears in this version. It's ... sweeter isn't the right word. Bittersweet, maybe.

Downside: The lack of transition in the morning from the book. I miss Alex expecting to be dumped, and Henry realizing he doesn't want Phillip's life before deliberately making the choice to be with Alex. Also the comment on Alex's hair, which made me giggle.

2) The Museum Scene

I know a lot of people are disappointed with this scene, and I feel the need to argue about why it's brilliant the way it is.

In the book, they go to the museum because Henry has made his choice, and now he's showing one of his favorite places to Alex. He's the one who brings up the music. He chooses to fulfill his fantasy with Alex there, and he chooses to play a song that embodies the romanticism of their situation, about being in love and not being able to let anyone else know. Your Song.

In the movie, they go to the museum when Henry's still trying to decide if this is something he can have, and he's sharing a part of himself with Alex when he talks about his fantasy. Alex is the one who chooses to fufill it, so of course he chooses a different song. For him, it's a song about how easy it is to love Henry. I Can't Help Falling In Love With You.

I also love that they changed Henry giving the ring to Alex to Alex giving Henry his key in return. I love the symbolism of Alex keeping Henry's ring safe for him, of their two homes side by side. But I also love the idea of exchanging parts of themselves. I love that they have those pieces of each other when they're separated and the emails are exposed.

The book tells the story better overall because it has the time to, and the bickering and friendship between the boys is everything. The movie makes me melt over the flirting and affection between them. I can't pick one over the other because both versions of this story are wonderful.

But emotionally mature MovieAlex and how soft he is with Henry, making sure Henry's taken care of? I am WEAK for that.

[noonemonitorsmyscreentime]

What I think is kind of interesting is that if Dean Casca Highbottom, seeing exactly how good of a student Young Coriolanus Snow was, had taken the boy under his wing instead of despising him and trying to get revenge on a boy that never knew his father (and who only had of his father the words of others about the great man that he was), he might have had a good helping hand in stopping the games he so deeply despised.

It would have been, at the same time, quite a revenge on Crassus Snow to use his son to dismantle the Games the man helped implement. Not only that, but it would have offered young Coryo a person to depend on during his most formative years where he had to grow up under the immense pressure of keeping up appearances, taking care of an ailing grandmother and fighting everyday to keep himself and his family fed.

What Casca failed to realise during the 10th Games was that there weren't 24 tributes, but 25. Snow was fighting for survival just as much as the rest; of course, with the caveat that Snow was never in danger of losing his life. But, for a boy who had for all his life to survive instead of to live, those two might have been the same thing. In saving himself, Coryo would also save Tigris and his grandmother, while all the other tributes were saving mosty themselves since they would be going home with nothing to show for winning the games other than their lives and some (crippling in some cases) trauma.

Maybe things would have played out differently, maybe not, but we have seen time and time again through all four of the Hunger Games books, the power of a kind gesture: Peeta with the bread, Rue healing Katniss, Katniss singing to Rue, Mags sacrificing herself, Boggs treating Katniss like a young traumatised girl when no one else did. Who knows if Snow (and, in turn, the rest of Panem) wouldn't have benefited from it?

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Gonna sweat my leftover tits off in the heat tomorrow, but I'll be doing it while watching Red, White, and Royal Blue.

So.

Also, I tripped onto a "30 things different from the book to the movie" list, and honestly, it made me more excited. I love the book. But I also love when movies from books don't try to recreate every last detail.

So, having spoiled myself for all those changes, I'm very excited. I've got a 300-page book with shenanigans, and now I'm gonna have a 2-hour movie with DIFFERENT shenanigans.

All starring the same dumbasses.

That's rad.

[peterlorrefanpage]

WHAT THE WHAT

Peter Lorre + Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" = This is amazing

I could only find the first one unwatermarked, but his expression is super clear despite that, so I can live with that. If this is some weirdly specific Photoshopped series, fine, but all I know is, the book first came out in 1936, so Peter could well have read at some point after (he himself looks like this is around 1940, 1941).

[norakitkat]

Okay everybody shut up this is the only thing i'll be thinking about now

I'm experiencing childlike wonder

[manichewitz]

Frodo in the first book: omg who is this creature following us…i keep seeing his small glowing eyes peeping out of the shadows…so weird…guess we’ll never know what that’s about

Frodo in the first movie: Gandalf i think something’s following us

Gandalf: yeah that’d be Gollum. lol

[neiled-it]

the most inaccurate thing disney has ever done is portray Zeus as a loyal husband and loving father

[zzoguri]

what the fuck do you mean jacksepticeye didn’t like the fnaf movie

[moonwomanrising]

Movie Aragorn: Um, yeah maybe? Okay sure, if I must?

Book Aragorn: I have been ready for this since the day I was born and every day thereafter. Also, can I show you my cool sword again?

[oddcne]

* SPOILERS: i am simply thinking about Odd in the Green Moon Mall massacre. that in the midst of all this chaos, in forcing himself to push passed his gun phobia to stop those responsible, looking to the icecream shop Stormy worked with its front shattered, he didn’t see her. but on some level he knew what had happened. that this is when his mind immediate tricks him into an episode of madness, the next time he sees her he has convinced himself, for a time, that when she appears to him, she is still alive. He never saw her body, and hope took over completely:

Trembling, sweating, wiping tears from my eyes with the backs of my hands, half sick with an expectation of unbearable loss, I started toward Burke & Bailey’s. People had risen to their feet from the ruination in the ice-cream shop. Some began to make their way cautiously across the broken glass, returning to the promenade. I didn’t see Stormy among them.

[filmcourage]

Writing Heroes And Villains - Donald F. Glut via FilmCourage.com.

[phantasieandmirare]

Just wanna say that my newfound belief about movie and show adaptations of books being inherently good regardless of changes or faults as long as the people behind it clearly cared and tried and did their absolute best versus adaptations made purely for the money and by people who didn’t care and took steps that actively harmed production (*cough*firingyourTolkienscholar*cough*) is the perfect way to look at the current situation of a certain show which I’m not gonna say here but you all know what show I’m talking about especially when comparing it to any other adaptation ever.

[disneyversusbattles-blog]

Scar, the villainous ruler of the Pride Lands versus Shere Khan, the vicious lord of the jungle.  In this video I will analyze both combatants weapons/ combat skills, comparing Scar and Shere Khan's abilities side by side to determine who would win in a hypothetical battle.

[shapecrow]

so i found an article that mentions all the things that were supposedly left out of ends and were included in the novelization that would have probably made it a bit better received, minus like two things i’m glad they kept out

but it’s here for anyone who wants to read it (tw for suicide)

it’s kind of nice that my headcanon about the ‘infection’ is more or less confirmed in the book, with the way that michael ‘infected’ his cellmate and the little girl in the hunters’ shack

i also like that the book gives an actual explanation for michael’s disappearance from haddonfield, not a motive but just tells where the fuck he’s been

[persnicketypansy]

Anyway the How To Train Your Dragon movies are great, they’re swell, good animation and good storytelling I’m not mad at anyone who enjoys them etc etc etc

But I will never ever forgive them for taking those books and changing the message from “sometimes you don’t fit in with society and you end up severely handicapped by their standards and you must use your different mindset and unique perspectives to overcome constant opposition while never really properly being accepted”

Because “man and nature can work together and treating something with kindness is better than treating it with hatred and the mistakes of your fathers can be undone and what makes you different also makes you incredible” is a viable message

It’s just. One of these messages has been done before and it’s the one that repeats the plot of every horse movie ever.

[landhinlove]

Harry’s answers for DWD and My Policeman don’t even compare