'cause D&D never raped mythology.
Oh noes!!! They did it all wrong!
'cause D&D never raped mythology.
Oh noes!!! They did it all wrong!
If those myths didn't want it, they wouldn't dress that way.
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Actually, literature IS subjective, unless you're an archivist and you are simply listing period, provenance, and other material and historical facts for cataloging.
I agree that commercial success shouldn't be the sole measure of a work of art's worth, but success-over-time (as in "classics") is just commercial success on a longer time scale.
We should be asking, what in this work speaks to the zeitgeist? Or if not, why not?
I tried, so very hard, to read Hunchback. So I honestly have to ask the title of this thread, regarding Hunchback: "WHAT cool parts?"
…now what Disney did to The Three Musketeers…that was criminal.
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You're just jealous that I had a girl on my arm at the con while you were going solo.Sounds like someone has issues...I'd disagree. It still gives the message that you have to be the handsome prince to get the girl. Oh sure, if you're heroic people will admire you. Still, you look like ten miles of bad road, so you're going to have to get used to a celibacy as well as celebrity.
And yet, if you watch the movie, it's a great story.Is it identical to the original novel? Nope.
Is it great on its own? Yep.
We all move outta our momma's basement at some time. :P
…now what Disney did to The Three Musketeers…that was criminal.
Agreed on that one!
Adaptations can be works of art in their own merit. Look at Michael Mann's "Last of the Mohicans" -- same basic storyline as the JF Cooper novel, but it cuts out the hokey stuff and extraneous characters, and emerges a masterpiece of cinema. The novel is a classic based on its depiction of that time in history, far more than on any literary merit. I love it, I've read it twice, and I can honestly say it's nowhere near a par, artistically, with Mann's film.
At some point, though, an "adaptation" becomes so dissimilar that a new title is really in order. Case in point: "The Bourne Identity." Ludlum's novel was incredible. I've also read it twice; my wife read it on my recommendation and immediately bought copies for everyone she knew. The Matt Damon movie of the same title is a lot of hyperkinetic fun. But it bears only the most superficial resemblance to the book, and really should have been called something else, in my opinion.
We all move outta our momma's basement at some time. :PYou're just jealous that I had a girl on my arm at the con while you were going solo.Sounds like someone has issues...I'd disagree. It still gives the message that you have to be the handsome prince to get the girl. Oh sure, if you're heroic people will admire you. Still, you look like ten miles of bad road, so you're going to have to get used to a celibacy as well as celebrity.
And yet, if you watch the movie, it's a great story.Is it identical to the original novel? Nope.
Is it great on its own? Yep.
You'd think so, but I know at least a couple people that are still there...
you know, over hear in Europe, we get some phenominally DARK kids TV and films, that would never work in the US. I remember one programme I watched as a child where two young boys wanted to scare someone, so painted themselves in dayglo paint
and, although they sucseeded in whatever they wanted to do THEY BOTH DIED OF RADIATION POISONING from the paint - kids TV!
another one I also remember was a time travel story, where one of the children (a victorian boy) dies of TB - you saw him coughing up blood, and at the end, another character finds his grave
a lot of the objections in childrens programmes come from parents who half watch, and the children themselves LIKE a bit of darkness, a bit of gore and an occasional sad ending - a great quote once was "robbing children of dark stories stops them appreciating the light"
And gives them a very false sense of what life CAN be like.
I understand that kids souldn't be scared outta their little wits but presenting the classics as politically correct angels gives kids a false sense of what life is like.I look at it this way before disney sanitised the classic grimm tales generation upon generation were exposed to them and loved them. It was only since the 50's that kids were IMO "dumbed down" in their literature choices.
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I understand that kids souldn't be scared outta their little wits but presenting the classics as politically correct angels gives kids a false sense of what life is like.
I look at it this way before disney sanitised the classic grimm tales generation upon generation were exposed to them and loved them. It was only since the 50's that kids were IMO "dumbed down" in their literature choices.
[thread necromancy!]
Lets look at the ontology of your statement: the classics you are talking about were themselves Napoleonic Age collections of more ancient stories, mostly told by illiterate men and women (esp. from the Black Forest area of Germany). The Grimm brothers selected, edited and even revised the stories from how they'd been told them in order to make them more marketable, and in later editions of their work they revised further to make the stories more "Germanic."Any version of these folk tales has a filter - whether the teller, the literary compiler, the editor, or the film director.
There is a story in my copy of the "Complete Grimms Fairy Tales" called "The Jew Among Thorns." I bet without reading it you can figure out what happens to the Jew. I can appreciate it on a cultural and perhaps aesthetic level, but certainly not on an emotional or personal level, since it is a direct affront to who I am and what I believe in. I sure as heck don't love it! So when you say "political correctness" is somehow ruining the "classics" I'm afraid I don't always see how.
Disney didn't edit out all og the darkness from some of the classic tales.
Both sleeping beauty and snow white had their entire families die on them. It was only touched on breifly and neither princess mourned for them either.
Bambi's mother and father where killed when he was a kid.
Old yeller still died at the end of the movie.
Disney didn't edit out all og the darkness from some of the classic tales.
Both sleeping beauty and snow white had their entire families die on them. It was only touched on breifly and neither princess mourned for them either.
Bambi's mother and father where killed when he was a kid.
Old yeller still died at the end of the movie.
Those are the old classic Disney though. And of course Simba's father dies in The Lion King, but it's an exception amongst the newer Disney films.
I understand that kids souldn't be scared outta their little wits but presenting the classics as politically correct angels gives kids a false sense of what life is like.
I look at it this way before disney sanitised the classic grimm tales generation upon generation were exposed to them and loved them. It was only since the 50's that kids were IMO "dumbed down" in their literature choices.[thread necromancy!]
Lets look at the ontology of your statement: the classics you are talking about were themselves Napoleonic Age collections of more ancient stories, mostly told by illiterate men and women (esp. from the Black Forest area of Germany). The Grimm brothers selected, edited and even revised the stories from how they'd been told them in order to make them more marketable, and in later editions of their work they revised further to make the stories more "Germanic."
Any version of these folk tales has a filter - whether the teller, the literary compiler, the editor, or the film director.
There is a story in my copy of the "Complete Grimms Fairy Tales" called "The Jew Among Thorns." I bet without reading it you can figure out what happens to the Jew. I can appreciate it on a cultural and perhaps aesthetic level, but certainly not on an emotional or personal level, since it is a direct affront to who I am and what I believe in. I sure as heck don't love it! So when you say "political correctness" is somehow ruining the "classics" I'm afraid I don't always see how.
I can see your point in that instance. I had never heard of "The jew and the thorns" I suppose it didn't end well for the jew.
I was trying to make the point of fairy tales being changed so much that their cultural refrences are being lost. The grimm fairy tales certanly arn't the only ones out there but IMO they are the ones undergoing the most change and political correction. as I said it's just MY opinon for what it's worth.I have always appreciated the greek myths more than any others because the heroes made mistakes and the gods were not perfect. However justice was always served even to these paragons of heroism, such as hercules being forced to live as a woman as punishment for his pride and huberis. He had to dress and act as a woman while the lady of the house wore his lion skin from the nemidian lion he killed as part of his 12 labors.
Even belpheron was destroyed by zeus after all his heroic deeds because his head got too big and he tried to ride pegasus up to mt. olympus to take his "rightful" place amoungst the gods. It would be intresting to see how disney handled these myths. LOL. I guess I can sum up my position by saying that I believe that kids should be presented with stories that entertain and can be used as teaching tools to help them develop into responsible adults not just be entertained and go into a fantasy mode where the hero always wins and never gets hurt and there are no real consequenses for failure.
Singing in the RainGood movie.
I hate musicals.
how things should have been
I salute you, sir, and fully support your message.
+1
I hate musicals.Singing in the RainGood movie.
You're either making a joke, or have no idea what you're saying. Assuming the latter, A Clockwork Orange is not a musical, it is a classic piece of dystopian cinema history. I highly recommend you give it a look.
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Steven, have you read the Robert Graves' collection of the Greek myths? I bought my own copy because his work is excellent (though his acceptance of Frazer's "unifying" myth of Goddess worship is a bit far out IMO, to be universally applied to the Greek source myths - especially Bellerophon, which I personally think has a Sea People's origin due to the inclusion of the Rejection scene between Bellerophon & Antea/Stheneboea, which I think is Egyptian in origin because it aligns so well with the Joseph & Potiphar's Wife myth in the Bible).
...I have a bit of an obsession with that particular story at the moment, as it has to do with the Balkans and Asia Minor, and the sources of Linear B, even more than many other Greek myths...Flying horses are more Mesopotamian than Greek, AFICS.
Anywhoo, I totally get your point about not overly simplifying Mythology for kids. I also highly recommend a good translation of the Grimm's collections, preferably annotated, or (even better) if you can read German, a good edition in the original.
I also recommend the Penguin edition of Aesop, if you can't read Greek, because of such delightful stories as "Zeus and Shame" which is about homosexuality, which you certainly won't find in the expurgated Children's versions of Aesop.
Steven, have you read the Robert Graves' collection of the Greek myths? I bought my own copy because his work is excellent (though his acceptance of Frazer's "unifying" myth of Goddess worship is a bit far out IMO, to be universally applied to the Greek source myths - especially Bellerophon, which I personally think has a Sea People's origin due to the inclusion of the Rejection scene between Bellerophon & Antea/Stheneboea, which I think is Egyptian in origin because it aligns so well with the Joseph & Potiphar's Wife myth in the Bible).
...I have a bit of an obsession with that particular story at the moment, as it has to do with the Balkans and Asia Minor, and the sources of Linear B, even more than many other Greek myths...Flying horses are more Mesopotamian than Greek, AFICS.
Anywhoo, I totally get your point about not overly simplifying Mythology for kids. I also highly recommend a good translation of the Grimm's collections, preferably annotated, or (even better) if you can read German, a good edition in the original.
I also recommend the Penguin edition of Aesop, if you can't read Greek, because of such delightful stories as "Zeus and Shame" which is about homosexuality, which you certainly won't find in the expurgated Children's versions of Aesop.
No I haven't but I can assure you I will. Thank you for the excellent refrences. I am looking forward to soem great reading.
You're either making a joke, or have no idea what you're saying. Assuming the latter, A Clockwork Orange is not a musical, it is a classic piece of dystopian cinema history. I highly recommend you give it a look.I hate musicals.Singing in the RainGood movie.
Nope just random statement.
Clockwork Orange is a decent movie but I still hate musicals.
You're either making a joke, or have no idea what you're saying. Assuming the latter, A Clockwork Orange is not a musical, it is a classic piece of dystopian cinema history. I highly recommend you give it a look.I hate musicals.Singing in the RainGood movie.Nope just random statement.
Clockwork Orange is a decent movie but I still hate musicals.
Even The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Clockwork Orange is a decent movie but I still hate musicals.Even The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Even "Attack of the Killer Tomotoes"? Say it ain't so!
the Robert Graves' collection of the Greek mythsNo I haven't but I can assure you I will. Thank you for the excellent refrences. I am looking forward to soem great reading.
If you're going to get a copy, I recommend going to Half Price Books. It seems that there are a lot of the two volume hardcover in the slipbox that people bought from the Folio Society and then sold. (I've seen multiple copies at multiple stores.) That's the nicest edition, and you'll likely get it for a good deal.
(Begins countdown for Urizen to show up.)
I had a dream last night in which the Earth was doomed, and we had to build these big ships to get the population off planet. Then it segued into scences from The Black Hole - one of the creepiest Disney movies of all time.
Oh really, You havn't seen "child of glass" have you. It scared the crap outta my little 7yr old butt. This ghost of a creol girl iis haunting this boy when he and his family move into her old house. He has to solve the mystery of why she can't move on and lay her to rest or she will haunt him forever. Naturally it's revealed she was murdered by her uncle and her body thrown in a well so know one would find her. Plus the speacil effects were very spooky, now it's funny but to a kid it's scary as crap.
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I had a dream last night in which the Earth was doomed, and we had to build these big ships to get the population off planet. Then it segued into scences from The Black Hole - one of the creepiest Disney movies of all time.Oh really, You havn't seen "child of glass" have you. It scared the crap outta my little 7yr old butt. This ghost of a creol girl iis haunting this boy when he and his family move into her old house. He has to solve the mystery of why she can't move on and lay her to rest or she will haunt him forever. Naturally it's revealed she was murdered by her uncle and her body thrown in a well so know one would find her. Plus the speacil effects were very spooky, now it's funny but to a kid it's scary as crap.
Damn, now that you mention it, your description does evoke some images in my brain. Ghost chick kept appearing in some kind of hazy blueness?
kicks open a dust-covered door in the maze of his childhood memories
Hmmm, what's in here....
AAAAIIIIIEEEEEE........!!!!!!
told ya so AZ disney is horrific to children.