Another Movie From A Fantasy Book: Ella Enchanted

[HLGStrider]

Another Movie from a Fantasy Book: Ella Enchanted
I adored the Book Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. Let me just start off by saying that. Now there is a movie of it starring Anne Hathaway and I think the guy was Hugh Darcy. . .or Darby, something like that. What sort of a name is Hugh anyway?
"Who are you?"
"I am Hugh!"
"You are me?"
"No, I am Hugh!"
"Stop saying that. . .would you make him stop saying that?"

Where was I?

It was an ok movie. Basically entertaining. It kept a lot of the book's elements, and the true love story was nice. . .but it had huge changes. It was spiced up and modernized. Pop music, costumes that were unbelieveable for the time period, a couple other things about the characters weren't real. .. the whole story was odd.

They added a huge element, I don't know why, probably to give the story what they considered a moral edge, involving segregation of fairy tale species. They made the ogres good, who knows why. The took away the prince's nice parents in favor of one evil uncle. . .I guess because there is no real tangible villian in the book, just the typical evil step sister and the curse and the step sister doesn't try to kill anyone.

Have you seen it?

[Mrs. Maggott]

I haven't read the book, but I have read reviews from kids who know the book and have seen the film and they were pretty much in agreement with your comments. On the whole, they liked the film, but they could not understand why all the changes and what they intended to do for the story. In some instances, of course, changes must be made to original stories especially if they are older simply because the modern audience might not understand certain references in the book that were common at the time. Or they may involve knowledge that was not available to the author at the time that the book was written. One of these latter instances would include C. S. Lewis' "space trilogy", "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra" and "That Hideous Strength". The first two books take place on Mars and Venus respectively and would be laughed to scorn in these days of Hubbel and space probes. The last book might "play", but as it is the culmination of the story begun in the first two, well.... it would doubtless lose something in the telling. However, a good script writer might be able to make the story stand on its own.

I don't know, really, why sometimes the film people believe it is necessary to make all kinds of crazy changes affecting the story and its meaning. Perhaps, like Mr. Jackson, they think they can tell the story better. Or they might believe that the story lacks certain elements essential for the screen. You mention "making a villain" since one isn't available in the story itself. Jackson did the same thing with Saruman because he said that Sauron wasn't really "visible enough" to be a successful villain! Did it work? It might have if Jackson had stayed true to his original plan and "finished up" the Saruman character, but he left him high and dry in the last film, so who knows just how "successful" a villain he created!

The problem with making these changes is that once you have made a change, you have to follow through all through the story. You can't revert back to the original and forget what has gone before. It is very much like that old adage, "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!" which, as you know, means once you have started telling lies, you simply can't stop! You have to tell a second lie to cover the first and then a third to cover the first two - and so forth. Well, the same thing can be said about changes made in films of their original stories. Once you start to change, you are off and running and there's no turning back. Sometimes - if the film people are careful and know what they're doing - it works. Other times, they get hoist by their own petard, so to speak.

[Eledhwen]

What sort of a name is Hugh? It's from the Danish for mind, spirit or soul and is also the first name of my uncle (though we call him Mike!). Ella was the name of my maternal grandmother. Clearly I am supposed to read this book. I will see if it's available in the UK.

I do not think film makers should update the story based on known cosmology. Tolkien himself discovered, after seeking criticism, that his flat earth origins were the preferred mythology of his readers, not because it made modern cosmological sense, but because it was great myth. However, I am commenting in ignorance of CS Lewis' space travel stories. I'll add another quote to Mrs Maggott's "A lie just grows and grows until it is as plain as the nose on your face." And the bignose effect can ruin a good story when it's turned into film.

I had to look up 'petard'; an excellent saying!

[33Peregrin]

You know it's weird. Before I saw LOTR and read the books, I thought that 'I didn't like fantasy.' I hardly really read The Hobbit, but I thought I didn't like it. But when I look back, a lot of my all time favorite books were fantasy! I have two copies of Ella Enchanted, because my first one fell apart from reading it over and over. I have read it at least ten times.
But when I saw the preview, I thought "They ruined it!!!!!" Also, my cousin (who is one of my best friends) has read and enjoyed the book, but refuses to see the movie. No one else I know is interested at all in seeing with it, so I sided with her, and decided (somewhat) not to see it.
But here I can ask. Do they ruin it? If you know why I loved the book, will that story be ruined for me? I know there are some major changes, but do they completely destroy it? If it's still a good movie, and you think I would enjoy it, please tell me, so I can decide to go, cousin or no.

[Mrs. Maggott]

You know it's weird. Before I saw LOTR and read the books, I thought that 'I didn't like fantasy.' I hardly really read The Hobbit, but I thought I didn't like it. But when I look back, a lot of my all time favorite books were fantasy! I have two copies of Ella Enchanted, because my first one fell apart from reading it over and over. I have read it at least ten times.
But when I saw the preview, I thought "They ruined it!!!!!" Also, my cousin (who is one of my best friends) has read and enjoyed the book, but refuses to see the movie. No one else I know is interested at all in seeing with it, so I sided with her, and decided (somewhat) not to see it.
But here I can ask. Do they ruin it? If you know why I loved the book, will that story be ruined for me? I know there are some major changes, but do they completely destroy it? If it's still a good movie, and you think I would enjoy it, please tell me, so I can decide to go, cousin or no.

The film will not ruin the book for you, but the opposite can happen. I do not enjoy the LOTR films at all even though I went to FOTR with the intention of enjoying it whatever difference there might be between book and film. Unfortunately, by the time Jackson was finished, I could work up absolutely no enthusiasm for any of the films. Now, they just annoy me and I cannot imagine watching any of them voluntarily - although I may try to sit through the EE of ROTK just to get the whole thing out of my system. However, my appreciation of the book has not wavered nor been adversely affected by the films.

So you can go and see the movie (at least you are saving money in that you only have to see one film) and if you can enjoy it despite the changes, all well and good. If you don't like it, then you can simply mark it as the waste of some time and money. But no matter how you feel about the film, it won't "ruin the story" for you because the book remains and nothing can touch that.

[HLGStrider]

The premesis is too good to be ruined completely. . .at least that's how I feel about it. . .but you may end up explaining how the book was better, how that idiotic character wasn't really in the book at all, and just other huh things.

I don't think it has the ability to stand alone as a movie, but it is good enough to investigate. Wait for it to come out on video is my advice.

[Eledhwen]

But no matter how you feel about the film, it won't "ruin the story" for you because the book remains and nothing can touch that.A good job it's only one book! I had to begin reading The Return of the King with the story returning to Gandalf and Pippin, whilst all the time I had the cliffhanger at the end of The Two Towers, with Sam and Frodo's predicament, playing on my mind.

For this reason alone, I would always advise people to read LotR before seeing the films; though there are many other excellent reasons to go with it.

[HLGStrider]

One good thing about it, I had never seen a copy of this book for sale in a bookstore and today I ran into one in a local Fred Meyer (Sort of a department/grocery store for those of you outside of the Northwest US). It had a cover from the movie of course, just a cheap paper back, but Levine is a good author, and I like to think that this will make her a bit more available.