So I'm going to go see The Wolfman later tonight. Yeah, I know I'm like a week late on this one, but I'm pretty sure by now you all know how crazy busy and stressed out I've been these last few weeks, I'm just glad I found some time for fun.Now, on a side note, I've never seen or read anything from the Twilight series, and I never ever ever in a million years ever will unless by some terrible series of events I become a horrible, self-loathing masochist. I have nothing against Twilight fans (the normal, non-rabid variety, anyway), I'm sure it's an awesome movie/book to you and there's plenty of reasons to love it, it's just not for me. I'm a little old school with my taste in horror movies, but that being said I am going to try extra hard not to make this a post about zombies. In my humble opinion, movies with "monsters" in them are supposed to have scary, disgusting-looking, antagonists, and I include both vampires and werewolves (and zombies!) in that list. It's true that I kinda liked Underworld, and also Interview with the Vampire, neither of which apply to this code, but still, they're monsters, not in boy bands, there's a line.
So with that in mind, I think you should read this and tell me what you think.
I once had a neighbor kid tell me, very seriously, that Bram Stoker's Dracula (the movie) was interesting, but "got a lot of things wrong." When I explained to her that the original novel on which it was based was written over a hundred years ago, she was amazed - in all of her loopy fangirl musings, she apparently had no idea that there was a gigantic body of Vampire folklore and fiction that existed whole generations before her.
ReplyDelete@Greg: I hate when people get upset if vampires aren't beautiful, sparkling creatures. I mean, look at Nosferatu, he's like the first vampire in film and he was not all that blessed with good looks.
ReplyDeleteThat letter was amusing, for a couple of reasons. I have a 12 year old sister-in-law so I've been getting to know the Twilight saga whether I like it or not!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, Jacob whats-his-face is not a werewolf, and is in fact a shapeshifter. The shapeshifters are from a tribe who are stuck with the wolf form (and are about the only impressive things in New Moon from what I've seen).
Secondly, that little brat is talking about Universal ripping off the werewolves (which remember that aren't), but she isn't probably aware that Meyer is a fake and a thief herself. She stole a few things from True Blood for instance, which was pretty much most of the first book of the (better) series. I don't want to explain it here in detail incase people havn't got around to seeing True Blood yet (which they of course should!) but the mind reading and shapeshifter thing are both stolen.
It wouldn't all anger me so much if Meyer did what Pullman did, and admit that she "borrowed" alot of lore from other stories in an attempt to make it her own. But she won't, and is delusional and thinks she has actually written the new Wuthering Heights.
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ReplyDeleteAdmit it lol Werewolves are way cooler than vampires XD
ReplyDeletePS: Hey Zephri , you still do painting commisions ?
Personally I like my vampires and werewolves and zombies pretty much as creature features, with lots of blood and gore... as opposed to, say, blinged up pretty boys. But that's my preference.
ReplyDeleteKayla's preference is different. She may be young and UNINFORMED, but reading her email, she seems to me to be EARNESTLY expressing a critique of a werewolf movie, and is getting a LOT of flak for it. OK, so she likes her werewolves pretty. It's her preference. Maybe she's trying to tell the studio that there is an audience out there with her particular preference? If we come down too hard on people for expressing their likes, we encourage a society where no one will dare say anything...
I don't agree with what she says, but I'll defend her right to say it.
@ryu: yeah, that whole freedom of speech thing goes both ways, tho. she has the right to write somewhat silly letters-to-the-editor mails, we have the right to make fun of her for actually protesting that the remake of a 1941 movie rips off a contemporary writer's work. so, yeah.
ReplyDeletei realise that it's pointless to argue about the fine details of imaginary creatures - although, as a gamer i spend lots of time doing that - in the end it comes down to taste.
personally, i prefer vampires and werewolves to be gruesome, à la 30 days of night or nosferatu: das phantom der nacht. i aso like movies with actors who have a range of more than two facial expressions. only exception is christopher lambert, for whom i knda have s a soft spot.^^
as to the movie, i rally liked it and i was surprised how explicit the violence was, something you normally don't see often in german cinemas. the actors were great, the visuals were spot on and there was no happy-end frolicking on a sunlit meadow. i really wonder if the home counties don't actually have magenta in their colour wheel, though.^^
There was someone like this posting on Escapist, too, thinking that classic monsters like vamps and werewolves should be all cute and sparkly. Honestly, whoever thought up the current trend is cashing in on the endless cash reserves of people like Kayla (and by extension, her parents, really) and deserves to be boiled in their own gravy. What really depresses me is that Kayla is plainly not being exposed to classic authors like Mary Shelley or Bram Stoker in school (or elsewhere), otherwise she'd know the difference and have an appreciation of the original material from which her beloved teen dramas derive (and pervert) their material. For that matter she probably didn't know that the Big Bad Wolf wanted to EAT the Three Piggies, not just cuss them out for erasing his TiVo.
ReplyDeleteAt least there are movies like Wolfman and the slightly more cerebral Shadow of a Vampire (Dafoe at his best, as Nosferatu). for us to clean our eyes and brains out with Monsters as They Should Be.
I think it's safe to say that the Twilight series is the exception that proves the rule about not burning books.
ReplyDeleteConsidering how much we assume about werewolves comes from the original Wolfman (silver bullets, full moon, wolfsbane blooming, pentacle hands,) it's pretty sad that this poor girl has no clue.
On the whole, we need more Dog Soldiers and Being Human, less over-stylized guff like Twilight, Blade and Underworld. Hmm. Odd that the two examples I picked were British...
You should read the fourth one, it's probably one of the worst books ever written in terms of content and style.
ReplyDeleteI got through it by listing all sources I could see ripped off (read it so I knew what was happening for when Im eventually dragged to sit through the film...)
@Soundwave: I agree, and also would like to reinforce that everyone should watch True Blood, it's a great show.
ReplyDelete@whitewolfmxc: I'd rather be a werewolf than a vampire for sure, werewolves are awesome. Yeah I still do commissions, I'm just a little busy lately so if you want to email me I can work things out.
@Ryu: I was thinking about it, and I realized the beginning of her email begins more or less rationally and with the best intentions, I'm sure there's a valid argument somewhere in there, but then it just descends into essentially a temper tantrum, at which point her argument pretty much became invalid.
@TheMighty: I was really surprised about the amount of gore in The Wolfman. I mean, I love bloody slasher films and even I was a little grossed out at some parts.
@2501: In general, it's sad how little kids these days are being exposed to literature in school at all. But that's an argument for another day. Read a book!
@Xaeromancer: More like we need to gather all the Twilight books and launch them into the sun.
@Psycho: The only time I ever foresee myself reading those books is to with the purpose of laughing at how horrible it is.
@The Mighty War Hamster
ReplyDelete&
@Zephri:
I concur. Really, I don't have a problem with people setting her to rights on whether or not Wolfman is a rip-off of Twilight - it's a matter of historical fact, not opinion. However, I see certain commentators over there outright calling her "stupid" and other highly denigrating remarks. This is what I meant by "coming down too hard on people"... Descending to name-calling and personal attacks, I feel, makes a mockery of the Freedom of Speech and contributes nothing to the discussion of any topic. It's not really wrong to do so, but I personally wouldn't say such things based only on an email not even sent to myself...
To be honest, I would be prepared to wager good English money that that was a troll, from someone who sends emails like that hoping to see them published in "this is so stupid" blogs and websites. It's something you see more and more these days. It's getting hard to tell - the trolls are getting subtler - but I find it easier to believe it was a sly joke rather than a message from someone who genuinely believes that Stephanie Meyer came up with the idea of werewolves.
ReplyDeleteSaw the Wolfman myself last night. Hopkins phones in his performance, but isn't actually bad. Del Toro seemed out of place. The effects were decent, and the whole thing was a pretty respectable homage to the original.
My main issue is, who thought that the Wolfman really needed a remake? It wasn't in itself a visionary film; ground-breaking at the time because it was one of the first films about werewolves and FX were pretty much unknown at the time, but neither an especially complex plot nor a particularly challenging concept. The story is basically, "there's this guy; he's a werewolf."
I get the feeling the studio wanted a werewolf license to cash in on the paranormal drama craze, rather than the director feeling that the story really needed to be retold.