This is based on a YA novel of the same name by Philip Reeve. In my opinion, it’s one of the very best YA science fiction novels out there. In fact, I would put it equal to Harry Potter in character development, plot, and humor, and above Harry Potter is moral complexity and intelligence. I was very excited to learn that it would become a major movie produced by Peter Jackson, and directed by Christopher Rivers, who apparently did storyboarding and special effects with Jackson in the Lord of the Rings movies.
So first thoughts: great trailer. The biggest danger with a steampunk-type movie is that they’ll go overboard trying to make everything dark and gritty, but in this trailer everything has bright colors and occurs in broad daylight. The idea of a huge city rolling across the landscape is hard to pull off but I’d say London looks pretty good. Glad to see that they have St. Paul’s Cathedral mounted at the top of London, which is a detail mentioned in the book.
One thing that will be interesting to see is how they portray Hester Shaw. The book says that she’s hideously ugly because of a huge scar across her face. Of course, Hollywood rarely approves big-budget movies with an ugly woman in the leading role. Here they’ve solved the problem by having a scarf over her face, but one assumes they can’t escape the dilemma for the entire movie that way.
Never heard of the novels but that looks quite interesting. Don’t hold your breath for an ugly female main character, Hermione was supposed to be ugly too.
I hadn’t realized that about Hermione. But yes, you generally shouldn’t expect to see ugly or even average looking people in leading roles no matter how the character was written. Staying in the area of kidlit, Bridge to Terabithia is one that immediately comes to mind. The moment that the two main characters meet in the book goes like this:
But this is who was cast as Leslie Burke in the movie, who would–it seems to me–not be subject to gender ambiguity.
I was wondering what the heck this was when I saw the trailer (before Star Wars). I had figured that they were just trying to cash in on Mad Max-- I didn’t realize that it was already a Young Adult book.
I presume that the book gives a good explanation for why an entire major city would be driving around in a wasteland and consuming all in its path?
It is actually seven books–four of them in the main series that the movie is nominally based on and three prequels (the prequels are what I was referring to when I mention preferring the Fever Crumb books.)
The books take place thousands of years after a civilization-ending war that took place at some time considerably more technologically advanced than ours. The new civilization that grew out of the ruins is a hodge-podge of technologies less advanced than those in the real hear-and-now, steam-punky tech, and technology far beyond what we have now that has been scrounged from the ruins of their past/our future collapsed civilization. The four novel main series takes place in a stage of that civilization where all population centers are mobile, and big cities chase down and consume smaller ones, using their raw materials for maintenance and expansion and integrating the populations. The three prequel novels cover how the first “traction cities” became a thing.
Yeah, I thought that trailer was great. And “There’ll Always be an England” is excellent - apparently it’s the British parallel to “I’m proud to be an American” ?
They’ll probably go the Watchmen route - the Comedian’s horribly disfiguring facial scar from the comics turned into a barely noticeable line on his cheek in the movie.
I’m about half-way through the book and have avoided all images from the movie so I can form my own vision of the thing.
It’s pretty good, not amazing. I’m definitely interested in the story, but it is not pulling me in like some series. I’m not sure if I’ll go past the first one, but I am interested in seeing the movie.
I finished the first book, so I watched the two full trailers.
You know what? It…actually looks really good. I think they captured the feel/look pretty well. I support a reduced scar for Hester, much as I did for Tyrion on Song of Ice and Fire.
As I mentioned in post #2 (and clarified in post #7) I liked the prequels better, so be sure to give those a try.
A passing curosity–are you reading the Shrike or the Grike editions? In the original UK releases, the deadly killer android is named Grike. In the US editions they changed hus name to Grike to avoid confusion with the deadly killer android Shrike in the Hyperion Cantos (Dan Simmons, not John Keats.) I had originally read the first few books in the UK editions, and when I started the next in the US edition, I thought that there had been a universal spellcheck correction error until I googled up that it had been intentional.
I just finished the fourth one now. I have to say. I think the first book is great, but the second-fourth one were only OK. Some powerful stuff at the end of the fourth one, but I honestly found most of the story for parts 2-4 to be only OK.
Clear that Philip Reeve did not intend to go past the first book. Everything in the sequels felt added on.
I hated Pennyroyal so much, and not in the way the author intended. I hated that he survived the second book and then hated every appearance he made after that. I would have killed him in the first book he appeared. I did not find him funny or fun to read about.
An OK series, but nothing amazing. I do recommend the first one, though.
I read the first four when I found out there was going to be a movie, but missed the prequels so I’ll have to go back and pick them up now. Thanks for pointing them out.