Well. I'm a huge fan of the book and while I know that movie adaptations can't be exactly like their source material I at least expect them to be somewhat similar. The only things the movie had in common with the book--the only things--were Sophie's curse, Calcifer and Howl's contract, and Howl's hair incident. Which, incidentally, was completely out of character in the movie as they characterized him as an utter gentleman both before and after it happened. Not to mention they never even bothered giving a proper reason for it, again, unlike the book.

I admit that I'm a little biased against Miyazaki Hayao simply because of how colossally overrated he is--I mean, really, yes, his animation is gorgeous and he does have one or two original and interesting storylines but when you keep rehashing the same plot devices and tropes over and over I stop being interested in any of your subsequent projects. Put in a meaningless war alongside messages about the environment and how much humanity and technology suck and you've got the basis for quite a few of his movies. What really bugs me about his version of Howl's Moving Castle is that the original plot was actually something that fit quite well into his repertoire--juxtaposing magic with technology and the realistic with the fantastic. But instead of actually making a faithful adaptation, in which case nobody would have been any the wiser, he ripped it apart and replaced it with his own, recycled creation, which, to be honest, sucked.

I would have been a lot more forgiving of the film had its replacement plot actually made any sense, but it didn't. All plotlines fell apart around halfway through the movie and it devolved into an admittedly gorgeously animated mess. The scarecrow really being a prince, while a reference to the book, came from completely out of nowhere and, unlike the book, served no purpose to the plot whatsoever. The Witch of the Waste was gutted as a villain in order to make way for the pointless war plotline which was unexplained, never concluded and didn't really have any bearing on the story except to make Howl turn into a bird for some reason.

Additionally a lot of the book's themes were lost in translation, but part of that is probably a result of the cultural barrier. The book was a sendup of traditional fairytales, and therefore almost entirely western in concept, but I have no idea what the movie was trying to prove. The romance was also shoehorned in and made much less compelling since the Sophie and Howl of the movie were mere cardboard cutouts of their book selves. Sophie in particular was irritating, as she kind of just cried and told Howl she would save him or something. Any Sophie that doesn't bitch out Howl daily for being a narcissistic dick is no Sophie I will acknowledge. They also cutesified Calcifer and took ten years off of Michael's age and changed his name for god knows why, and YOU JUST DON'T DO THAT TO MY FAVORITE CHARACTER OKAY.

They didn't even go to Wales. Christian Bale is Welsh and he didn't even use his natural accent! There is something wrong with that.

TL;DR I'm a bitter and unpleasable elitist who thinks everything should be exactly how I like it, the end.

Err... Yeah.

Agent: I've only seen the dub of Howl's Moving Castle, so I have nothing to compare it to. My friend said it was originally a book, but I've never read it. I really enjoyed the movie though.

I just watched The Golden Compass with my boyfriend creature. Yeah. It left a lot out from the book, it was really disappointing. >.<;; And in the beginning they showed one of the curtain-like windows into another world, and that wasn't introduced until the second book. Erk. And in the end of the movie? They ended it before the book ended. In the end of the first book Lord Asriel cut Rodger from his daemon in the end (or something equal to that, it's been a long time since I've read the book) and that's what created the path to the world in the lights.

The movie completely leaves that out. And the entire movie seems to take place over the course of a week at the most. It was very rushed. Very disappointing. How could they turn a book like The Golden Compass and turn it into such a shitty movie!? It's a sin against the author. ;~;

Edit: Oh my God Agent, your rant made me laugh so hard. <3 It reminds me of my Harry Potter movie rants. Dementors don't fly, okay? They glide, not fly.

You totally made me want to read the book. I'm going to ask my friend if he has it so I can borrow it. <3

Yeah, I've heard that the Golden Compass film was very lacking. Actually, my friend who read the book watched it and when she came back said she finally understood my blinding rage at Howl's Moving Castle, funnily enough.

The book of HMC is very good, it's definitely worth a read. I'm glad my rant got you interested! And don't worry, I'm not trying to knock you for liking the movie or anything; ranting is just a way from preventing me from getting too worked up about things. :)

ETA: Oof, I am cold and hungry and it is 1:30 in the morning. Bedtime for me! Goodnight, Saelia, Cricket.

"TL;DR" means "too long; didn't read," right? Well I did read it all, but as for what you said there, I know how you feel. I wish there could be at least ONE movie that was EXACTLY like the book down to the last word. Just one perfect based-on-a-book movie. That would make me happy. I wouldn't care if it was 5 hours long; if it was based on a book I loved and it was the exact same thing in visual and audio form, then I would see it. But alas, something tells me that'll never happen, lol.
I haven't seen HMC, so I can't empathize with everything you said, but I am sorry you feel that way about it. :sweat:

Edit: Goodnight Agent! Thanks for coming back and chatting with me! *waves goodbye* ^_^

Night Agent!

Saelia: Yeah, it means 'too long, didn't read' or in that case I think it was meant as 'too long, don't read'. I am at a loss for what ETA means though. ^^;;

I don't think the perfect book-movie will ever exist. If it does, I hope it's a newer, absolutely perfect version of The Golden Compass, because that was one of my best childhood memories. The movie butchered the book. Hell, I think the movie butchered the book worse than the third Harry Potter movie trashed the third book. >.<;;

Hahah, I asked AJ about ETA and s/he said it means Edited To Add. :yes: And for the TL;DR in this instance: "it's basically saying 'here's a summary of what I just wrote'" - AJ in our AIM conversation.

I remember reading the Golden Compass when I was in Junior High, and I really liked that book. I was in love with the idea of an animal companion who represented the inner you. I always wanted to know what sort of animal my daemon would end up being. I never saw the movie, however, and apparently it's good that I didn't. xD
As for Harry Potter 3? Yeah, that was pretty different. I just have to laugh at the Randomly Appearing Bridge of Doom that Lupin and Harry walk on, but something that pissed me off what when Hermione looks at her past-self from the back and is all, *valley-girl tone* "Is my hair really that bushy in the back??" The real Hermione NEVER would have said that.

What pissed me off the most about the Sorcerer's Stone, though, was the fact that they left out the sending-off of Norbert the Dragon. Completely. :angry: :-x

They didn't leave Norbert out... o.O They had him hatch and he sneezed a fireball into Hagrid's beard.

Sorry, I meant the part where they haul him up to the Astronomy Tower in a crate, and Bill (I think it was Bill?) Weasly and his dragon-keeper friends meet with them on broomsticks, and fly away with Norbert. That part was never in the movie. I just made me angry because Norbert was actually a pretty big part of the first book, but we only saw him for like, one scene in the movie. They just cut him (and everything else too, really) out of the movie way too much.

Eh, he was important but he wasn't. I was royally pissed with how much they left out of the Harry Potter movies, but the first two were a little more understandable... The first two movies were okay, but after that it was just book murdering.

I heard from someone that the next movie is actually going to be broken up into two different movies. I think that's bullshit. If they do end up doing that, it'll probably suck even more. And it's just a way to get even more money out of everyone. >.<;;

You're right about it, they are going to split the 7th book. I had hoped it would allow them to stay truer to the story and not cut out everything, but yeah, I'm not getting my hopes up too high now. Who knows what'll happen?
But it will get more money out of everyone, I'm fairly certain of that, lol.

I thought the next movie coming out was the sixth... Not the seventh...

Hell, I couldn't even bring myself to finish reading the seventh book. I read most of the way through it, and then I just got so disgusted I stopped reading. I read the epilogue and wanted to claw my eyes out. Why the fuck couldn't they have just killed Harry off and leave it at that? >.<;;

Just like I couldn't finish reading The Amber Spyglass. His Dark Materials was a good concept, but after The Golden Compass came The Subtle Knife, which was much more stiff than the first book. When you came to the somewhat boring parts, it wasn't as easy to read as the first one. The Amber Spyglass was much worse in my opinion. I gave up in the middle of it. I just kept asking myself, "When will it be over? This sucks ass." It wasn't over soon enough, so I just quit, I couldn't take it anymore.

Whoops. See, there you go, I lost track! xD But yeah, it must be the 6th, I just wasn't thinking.

Why the fuck couldn't they have just killed Harry off and leave it at that? >.<;;

That made be laugh. xD I have a friend who loathes the character of Harry, she thinks he's a whiny little emo-bitch boy. She wanted him dead so badly.
Ah, the epilogue. I was spoiled: I read the epilogue before reading the real book. It gives me a "Meh" feeling to the way it all worked out. The Battle Royale between Harry and Voldemort (and Neville) was good writing. But the epilogue was, I guess, the "happily ever after" that we never wanted to come. *shrug* And the Harry and Draco thing at the end was dumb IMO.

And I've only read The Golden Compass out of that series. I want to read His Dark Materials, though, a classmate of mine did a review on it and it sounded interesting. But yeah, I don't know what you're talking about with the other books. I just know that it's unfortunate and disappointing when a book isn't interesting enough to make you keep reading. Sad, really. Eh, but what can you do? Cricket, you should write your own book. :yes: I loved your description of your crazy world.

XD

Cricket writes, actually. ;;>.>... But alas, Cricket's favorite project turned out to be shit and Cricket is working on revising it. ^^;;

His Dark Materials was amazing in the beginning, it's more sad when a series makes you lose interest than a single book. When you love the first book so much, but the rest just makes you want to scream and rip your hair out. Yeah, that was a heart breaker for me.

And Cricket will be vanishing to take a shower in a little while. -Nod-

Alrighty. I need to vanish and go to bed too. Question though: Do you have any idea at all when Round 5 of the game will be starting? Do you think it will be before or after January 5th?

The round will begin as soon as Winter Nights ends. Why?

Oh, okay. I was just wondering. But school does start back up again for me on the 5th, so that just means less free time to be spent on the computer. ^^; I'm still antsy about posting 10 times EVERY day. I can post 10 times on a day when I have the chance to be online, but I'm just worried about days when I can't do that, or don't have enough time or whatever. Can you go into more detail about the consequences again? Can the post count spill over into unvisited days and make up for them?

Well, if you notify everyone ahead of time and post a lot more when you're online, if you're not gone for too long, you should be fine. =S

Really, that's something more to be discussed while Simmy's around, as she's the host for round five. Sorry, but she and I host a little differently.

Now - BATH TIME! And time to shave my legs so the boyfriend creature will stop bitching about them being fuzzy.
.__.

xDDD Alrighty then. I'm probably worried over nothing, anyway. Goodnight Cricket!

Morn..ing...Anyone around?

Ah, hey Hazelle. ^^ I'm in a half-asleep mode, just cruising randomly through Menewsha using the Topic Spy. My brain is pretty dead; it's nearly 4 in the morning for me... geez, is it really?? X_x I have junk to do tomorrow, I need to sleep pretty soon... Buuuut I haven't left YET so I'll talk to you. xD; Howz it goin'?

It's been okay. It's 7am here and I'm already at work. I wish I could have taken today off but I need the money for this semester in college and to make sure I have enough to go to a convention over the summer. I'm really tired as well. I tossed and turned all night wasn't able to get into my R.E.M. cycles.

Aw, that's too bad. You may have said this to someone else before, but what sort of job do you have while you're in college? A JOB job, or like, being employed by / working in the college?
And what are R.E.M. cycles, again? xD; I just know that has to do with sleep.

I work for a government contractor, in DC. I dont think I've mentioned it before. R.E.M cycles are the different levels of sleep you go through at night. It all has to do with the concious level of the brain and the activity it produces. I believ there's 4-5 levels. They teach it in psych 101 classes. It's very interesting. You can probly find something on it on wikipedia I'f you want to know more.

Your job description flew right over my head. Haa, I'm just about falling asleep right now. :lol: That all does sound interesting, though. I shall have to remember to look it up later.
Sorry if I'm a bit of a dud right now. xD :sleep:

Intern is what I am to the company lol. Go to bed, the internet will be here when you wake up I promise ;p