All the children's classics, come to life

[moonwise]

It's not too often I get very excited about the prospect of movies coming out, but some of the movies in production have got me bouncing in my chair.

1. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

I was very excited to see that this movie is in production after poking around IMDB thanks fo the upcoming movie "The Prestige." On the surface, the plot of the upcoming movie "The Prestige" sounds a lot like Susanna Clarke's groundbreaking (and very very long) novel - two Victorian-era magicians in a rivalry trying to best one another. However, in Clarke's book, the magicians use magic rather than legerdemain. Wonderful metaphors to work with (the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, the unnamed slave, the raven king, and all of it dripping with Victorian intrigue and cobwebs) and in fact this book will probably benefit in the same way as Two Towers from being shortened.

2. His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass

The only problem with this trilogy being made is that it's going to break my heart at the end, the same way the books did. I'm going to cop out here and say that the summary on IMDB says it all.

3. The Dark is Rising

No word on how far along this is, or whether it's being made, but these were probably my favorite books growing up along with Robin McKinley's Damar books. There's been some inevitable grumbling on the website that the movie would start with Will Stanton's story and wouldn't cover the Drews' discovery of the grail, but to be frank, I never read "Over Sea, Under Stone" and never felt I lost anything out of the series. Oddly, the thing I'm most hoping to see is that someone like the Noble Collection will license props like Will's belt of the Signs of Light, and if they release the crystal sword Eirias, I think I will die of joy.

Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait. :D

Comments

[arafel.livejournal.com]

...Hmm. I wonder if a longstanding puzzlement is related to these books.

In short: someone funny at Planet-F1 writes the Very Sekret Diaries of Michael Schumacher. One recurring gag is Schumi's quest to become 50% funnier, and so sometimes his "diary" would end with a joke. This was one such joke:

Anyway, back to my quest at being 50% funnier

Here's a good one: Why do Elephants have big ears?
Shall I tell you why?
Because noddy wouldn't pay the ransom money.

Yes, I didn't understand it either, but Ross laughed.

(Ross Brawn is British, if you didn't know already.)

I noticed that Noddy is one of Enid Blyton's heroes, so maybe that has something to do with it?

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Big Ears was the name of Noddy's friend in the books, so it makes sense to a Brit XD Though of course, like 'eats shoots and leaves', it's a joke that only works orally because written down you have to capitalise Big Ears to refer to the character and then it doesn't work for the elephants and....