Post 91: Back to School

Twenty days, it has been twenty days since the last time I have posted something. That is kind of ridiculous. I think that is the longest I have gone without posting anything since 'Post 1'. You can relax (if you were worried), I haven't run out of things to say. I was merely at the crossroad between being overwhelmingly busy and dangerously carefree (aka finals week followed by the short break between semesters). I got so much (nothing important) done. I visited family, which is important but not really an accomplished task. It is more of an activity. I bought shoes (boots - more pairs than I need).

I didn't think about school at all (a total lie). To be honest, I spent a lot of time thinking about school.  There are two classes I am really looking forward to this term. I'm not going to say what they are, in case any of my Profs stumble across here. (Though, I suspect they will know which is which. I mean, one I am super excited about and have been looking forward to since April and I didn't even know I was going to be in the class at the time. Plus, I love the subject. Obviously, so.)

I've also been thinking about what things I need to go back: notebooks, pens, highlighters, post-its, etc.

Most of these things aren't pretty exciting, so it certainly hasn't inspired me to write much of anything. I have thought of some story ideas, but nothing to blog about.

I'm still not finished getting ready. I have textbooks to buy, notebooks to organize, and training for Career Peers, so I'm going to cut this short for now.

When I've got less to do or more to say I will post more.

Avalon High (2010)

There is a moment when I find out a book I love is going to be made into a movie where I feel a powerful and strange mixture of utter joy and complete misery. There are really two ways a book based on a movie can go, absolutely fabulous or painfully despicable.

The Help was very well done.

Avalon High, not so much.

Three main things that bugged me:

1. They changed the main character.
2. They changed the main character.
3. They changed the main character.

My listing it three times is more than just me being dramatic. It actually reflects to the three main issues that came up when they changed the main character. This isn't a movie I really recommend, 90% on bias and 10% because I found it cheesy.

So, I am going to give away spoilers. That was your spoiler alert.

The main premise of the book is that every generation has an Arthur (as in King, Excalibur, Knights of the Round Table, etc.). And with every generation the forces of evil grow stronger. In this generation, a young girl (high school) moves to a town where the events are already being set in motion. There is a boy named Will who is the high school, football star, who is Arthur. His girlfriend Gwen and his best friend Lance, who are having an affair (get the reference - even the names Gwen/Guinevere, Lance/Lancelot).

The main character comes to town and she doesn't know all this. She befriends "Merlin". As things go on she finds out about the prophecy and she wants to help. But everyone tells her not to get involved. They assume she is a minor character because of her name. But, she insists anyway. In the end, she saves Arthur, because she is actually the Lady of the Lake. A character who never appeared before, so no one expected her.

In the movie, it isn't an 'every' generation thing.  In the movie, Gwen and Lance are having an affair, but the main character is now Arthur. It is still a she, they just made the football star obsolete and made her Arthur instead of Lady of the Lake.

They also changed the bad guys a little bit, but it didn't effect the plot nearly as much as what they did to her.

First of all, the whole Lance and Gwen thing no longer has a point. The whole point was that history was repeating itself in them. But, now that Arthur is a girl and not even a friend to either Gwen or Lance, having them be together really only served as misdirection and a point of frustration. Also she has no connection to them, so how do they even remain part of the story? The only time it even affects the plot at all is when Will finds out and throws a fit. Of course, he has been flirting and going googly-eyed for the main character pretty much the entire movie, so it seems a little hypocritical. Then, he forgives Lance not ten minutes later. Further making it pointless.

Second, it kills some of her characters moxie because no one is telling her to sit back and not get involved. It was one of the reasons she was so likable to me, because she didn't care if the prophecy said she wasn't involved, she wasn't going to sit back and watch her friends suffer. They totally took that out of the plot.  The character everyone thought she was in the book isn't mentioned in the movie. And she is encouraged to help Arthur, so she isn't taking initiative she is just following along since it isn't even really her idea.

Third, and what annoys me the most, some of the people who were commenting on the movie said that this was better because it gave her more power making her king. I'm sorry, but how does downgrading her from a powerful, mystic being who was the Ruler of Avalon, the woman who raised Lancelot and who gave Arthur the sword that lead to his gaining power in the first place down to just a King an act of empowerment? Or is it all because they made what everyone thought would be a male character a female character?

The presence of the Lady of the Lake was the whole reason in the book that evil was finally defeated once and for all and would not rise again.

But they cut that all out. Which also meant that the main character's love interest was suddenly a nobody who was somehow connected, but not actually involved in the prophecy. He was just there like a tag-along.

The book was better and she was better in it.  Disney, please leave my favorite books alone (or do them right). I don't even want to go into what you did to the Princess Diaries series.

Still, I say - if I hadn't read the book it would have been okay. But I am far too attached to the book to look the other way, personally. So, for me I say not recommended. But will tag it 'with conditions' as well.