The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 1

I've never had a huge attraction to things Disney. That's not to say that I don't have my movies: Robin Hood and The Fox and the Hound are still two of my all time favorites. But Disney was never a thing for me. That may have been due to the butchered versions of The Black Cauldron and The Secret of Nimh they released when I was a kid. It's hard to hold any special fondness for the butchers of two of your favorite books.

But that didn't stop me from wanting to go to EPCOT Center when it opened in 1982. I had absolutely no desire to go to Disney World, but I desperately wanted to go to Epcot. That never happened. In 1987, Star Tours opened, and I wanted, even more, to go to that! I mean, it was Star Wars. But, in 2010, they shut Star Tours down to re-design it. I was bummed about that. I'll never get to experience the original Star Tours  attraction. But I still had hope to go to the new Star Tours. That's the only reason I've ever wanted to go to Disneyland. That and the exclusive Star Wars action figures the Star Wars store there has.

Several years ago, the kids' grandmother took them to Disneyland, and they brought me one of these:

It's awesome! But it made me want to go even more (and get all of the figure series).

Earlier this year, my oldest son got to go to Disneyland to perform with his choir (where they received a gold medal ranking), and he got to go on the new Star Tours and brought this back:

I just have to say that I love all the collector's editions of the Potato Heads. I have, well, probably, more than I should. Spuda Fett filled me with a renewed desire to go to Disneyland just so that I could buy the whole Star Tours collection of them. My wife did not find it amusing.

I still had no real interest in Disneyland in general, though. I figured it was overpriced and overrated. Besides, I've been to Six Flags. I mean, I grew up within driving distance of the real Six Flags, which has a lot of attractions and Texas color and isn't all about the rides. Why would I need to "waste" money on a trip to Disneyland? You know, other than Star Tours. And the Indiana Jones ride, but that wasn't as big a deal.

Earlier this year, the grandparents (my father-in-law and his wife) decided to take the kids to Disneyland this summer. During the ensuing conversation, I mentioned that I'd never been to Disneyland. It was an innocent comment, especially so since their grandmother (not the grandmother that took them the previous time (that had been my wife's mom)) had asked me a question that I couldn't answer because I'd never been. It never occurred to me what kind of an uproar it would cause. As it turns out, I was the only one in the family that had never been to Disneyland, a fact my wife knew but neither of us thought particularly important as my wife had not much care for Disneyland, either, a fact that just reinforced my attitude toward the place since she had been there before.

At any rate, a whole new plan was conceived. A plan that involved the entire family going to Disney. People were excited. Well, honestly, 6 of 7 of us were excited. Even my wife got excited. I was looking forward to finally getting to go on Star Tours and going to the Star Wars store, but, really, I didn't have any particular care about the rest of the trip. It was a necessary evil to accomplishing my Star Tours goal.

That trip was last week.

I can't say how wrong I was. Sure, Disneyland is a big commercial enterprise, and they really do a good job of enticing people into spending money. I mean it's a massive money suck, but, oh! it's so much more. But you'll have to wait for Part 2 for the rest...

Oh! And I got this:

I wasn't able to get all of them, but I got the most important one!

Frisby vs Brisby

It was a real struggle to get my daughter into reading. She's a very active kid, and, for a long time, making her sit down to read was virtually the same as the Chinese water torture. And not just for her. Over the last several months, though, she "got" it. Whatever it is that opens the eyes to books. That thing that so many people don't get.

So I've been suggesting books to her, and she's been reading them. The last one was Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. I was a little older than her when I first read it, but I loved the book. It was one of my favorites when I was a kid. When Disney said they were making a movie of it, I was very excited. Just like I would later be excited that they were making an adaptation of The Black Cauldron. My hopes, in both cases, were smashed and stomped on.

Anyway, my daughter read Mrs. Frisby in a few days. A very quick read for her considering she's 8, and the book is nearly 250 pages. She loved it. Currently, it's her favorite book.

I don't remember how she found out, but she did find out that there is a movie adaptation: The Secret of Nimh. Maybe it was my fault. I can't remember if I mentioned it or if she found out some other way. At any rate, she demanded to see the movie as soon as she found out there was one and reminded me everyday for weeks that I was supposed to get it for her.

Now, I did warn her that I had been very disappointed with the movie when I was a kid and that it's not really much like the book. She didn't care. She wanted to see it.
Today was that day. ["Today" actually being a day last week.]

I understand that kids aren't supposed to care how close to a book a movie sticks. They're not supposed to care. But I cared. Evidently, my daughter also cares. Before the half hour mark of the movie, my daughter said to me, "This isn't much like the book at all." By the hour mark, she had asserted, "I don't like this very much." When it was over: "Dad, why did they change it?" I have no good answer for her as it's a question I have often asked myself about movie adaptations.

Why did they change it?

For instance, since I've been talking about it recently, why decide to adapt the book Oil! into a movie but, then, only use the first 1/3 of the book. What you're left with is not a story at all, as I've said about the movie There Will Be Blood (you can read the review here).

I suppose this is what I'm saying:
If you think a book is good enough to adapt into a movie, why screw around with it?

Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for some changes. For example, The Hunt for Red October. This is a great book and just screams to be made into a movie. Which they did. But the book, especially the climax, is quite complex. You can't get all of that into a two hour movie. This necessitates some changes. However, the core of the story was left intact. If you watch the movie and, then, go read the book, as I did, you get the same story, the same plot; the book just has more... depth? Richness? More complexities. However, when they went on to do Patriot Games, they changed the whole thrust of that book from being a story about the political statement of a terrorist group into a story about revenge. The action is somewhat consistent, but the motivations are completely changed, lessening the story.

The same thing holds true for movie re-makes. Here, I'll point to True Grit and The Day the Earth Stood Still. The re-make of True Grit is excellent and, probably, superior to the original. This is because they held to the story of the original movie. I mean, they held to the story almost shot for shot. They layered in levels of grittiness and language, though, that weren't common when the original film was made which gave the re-make a much more realistic feel. And Jeff bridges was much more convincing as a drunkard than John Wayne, but, again, that was more due to the sensibilities of the time period than anything else. With The Day the Earth Stood Still, though (a movie I love and own (the original, that is)), they kept little more than the title, the fact that the character is an alien, and a giant robot. There is nothing else that is similar between  the two movies. What, then, is the point? Oh, wait, the guy(s) that did the re-make wanted to use the title.

I'm not a legalist with adaptations, no matter what it sounds like. I like the movie version of Coraline better than the book. Some of that is because of the changes. But the story is the same. It's just that, in many ways, the movie is the richer version of the two of these. And Gaiman was involved in the changes and helped keep the story itself intact.

All of this still leaves me with the question:
If you want to adapt a book, why change the story, the plot, you are adapting?

I couldn't answer my daughter's question. I don't understand the issue. If it's a different story you want to tell, just write a new story. Don't stomp all over my daughter's dreams by ruining a story she loves. Not that it ruined the book for her, but she was really troubled by the fact that the movie she saw was not the same as the book she read.

Anyway...
This isn't a question I have any kind of answer for. I get that Hollywood is just trying to make money, and they'll do that by exploiting, well, by exploiting anything they can get their hands on. But it seems to me that when you look at adaptations, the most successful ones are the ones that held most closely to the source material. Lord of the Rings, anyone? Harry Potter? You'd think with these kinds of examples, Hollywood would do a better job of trying to stick to the story from the book.

Yes, I do realize that The Secret of Nimh is 30 years old, so, maybe, it is getting better. Oh, wait, then there's There Will Be Blood. So maybe not.

Going back to the question, though...
As a writer, it may just be that I'm more sensitive to story integrity than most people. Of course, most people (as we've talked about before) don't read, so they don't really know the difference anyway. Maybe that means none of this matters. Is it my job to be upset if some other writer sells his/her story to some studio to get butchered? But, then, I have my daughter saying to me, "Why did they change it?" and it does matter to me. And I can't make it not matter even though I tell myself it shouldn't.

And I'm rambling, now, so I'm just gonna stop. It's not an easy question to deal with, though, and I, as I said, I just don't get why you'd want to adapt a story and, then, make the story unrecognizable.
Maybe that's just me...