Mr. Clooney is too good-looking, but he certainly has the acting chops. I seem to be one of the few who cannot look at Mr. Crowe without wanting to slap him. I can’t explain it. Maybe what other people take for broodiness I take for poutyness. I can say that Hamster and Commander didn’t help matters.
Good gravy. I honestly did not know that when I tried to come up with the worst possible cast I could think of.
Typo, whoosh or Bitter Truth?
Bit of a digression, but was anyone else a little disappointed by the original book? Verne seems to have written it in a bit of a hurry, and there are a lot of things in there that don’t hang together. Plus there’s a good deal of padding – long lists of fish and mollusks, clearly just copied out of some zoology text.
I haven’t seen any of the movie versions, but in the book, Nemo is a bit of a psychopath, who goes on several murderous rampages. I’m guessing that’s Disneyed out of the movie, no?
No, I have to give Disney credit for that. Nemo is a dark, morally ambiguous character, who does terrible things with the best ideals, so that Arronax at once admires him and is appalled. As I remember it, that came across fairly well. Actually, the story works well either for youngsters – a lot of adventure – and older readers or viewers, who’ll see more complexity in the characters.
I’d like to see a version that’s really faithful to the book, with the Nautilus properly depicted, and including the passage where they sail all the way to the South Pole. (Geographers don’t like it? Fuck 'em.)
I’d love to see more of the book in a movie remake, although they can skip most of the science. Not dumb it down, just show more-tell less. And yes, I know the Harper Goff Nautilus is nothing like the book description, but it has so much coolness.
The South Pole sequence is one of my favorites, but you’d have to totally ignore the fact that we now know it is a continent, not just ice.
What struck me about the book is that Arronax’s admiration for Ned Land comes across as kinda . . . gay. (Intentional on Verne’s part or not, I wonder?)
I always like the Disney version-of course, it didn’t show the voyage to the South Pole. ned Land is held up (by Arronax) as a classical hero-despite his crude language and lack of educationm, Verne admires him as an honest and trustful soul. My question: are there better (newer0 translations of 20,000 LUTS? I’m told that the older english translations aren’t so accurate.
And 9by the way0 Disney’s explanation of the "Nautilus’) power source was cool-except you don’t open a nuclear reactor to take a peek!
The U.S. Naval Institute Press edition, a new translation by Walter James Miller and Frederick Paul Walter, is unabridged and annotated.
I think the Marinas Trench is about that deep. I wonder if anyone’s been there?
There is another version of 20,000 Leagues, which adds considerably to the story, and goes for about 16 hours (in 39 25-minute episodes): Fushigi no umi no Nadia (released in English as Nadia: the Secret of Blue Water. I haven’t read the Jules Verne original, so I’m not sure how much of Nadia comes from there, but I found Nadia worth watching. There’s also a normal-movie-length sequel.
Sixteen hours? Good grief! One could travel 20,000 leagues in that amount of time!
Not in a submarine – not even in Nemo’s submarine. I believe they cut the series short, because they ran out of money, so that’s why it’s only 16 hours. But you don’t have to watch it in one sitting.
There were silent-film versions made in 1907 and 1916. See also the 1929 version of Mysterious Island.
Well, you see a lot of that in 19th century writing, both fiction and correspondence – that is, strong, even tender admiration between heterosexual men. I think it was because men and women lived more separately then; there was a man’s world of military endeavors, business and science, and I think a lot of men formed their most meaningful relationships with other men in those areas that weren’t (in general) shared by women. Anyway, that’s my hypothesis.
Yep. Take a look at this.
Ned Land: George Clooney
Nemo: Ben Kingsley (or if you want younger, The Rock)
Arronax: John Cleese
Conseil: Bob Hoskins (I wonder if Danny Devito can do accents?)
Though a better idea might be to go for a young Nemo prequel starring Max Minghella as a Eurasian young man who “reinvents” himself as a nobleman and then as an admiral and attempts to harness technology to punish the evil and found a Utopia, only to be driven under the sea as a technophilic/technophobic misanthrope. With Verne Troyer as a wacky drunken imaginary sidekick with a penchant for elaborate costumes.
Conseil is a young, physically active Frenchman, totally devoted to Prof. Arronax. Why he was played by Peter Lorre is beyond me.
What’s also fun is Nemo’s description of the food that they’re eating for dinner while onboard. Doesn’t sound so awful in these days of sushi and international cuisine.
I wonder what the poor bastard sailor did to pull the duty of milking the sperm whale? “Hey! Dimiti, the Cap’n wants milk on the table tonight, get suited up!” “Oh God, not again.”