Jules Verne Forum

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The Mysterious Island

From: Craig Weatherhill <craig~at~agantavas.org>
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 11:55:33 +0000
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

I think the secret of filming the book would be to cast off any ideas
of making it a spectacular, and to concentrate on the growing mystery.

The book has its exciting moments: the escape from Richmond and the
deflating balloon in the storm; the orang-utan raid (as long as
they're looked after a whole lot better than the two who played Clyde
in the Clint Eastwood films, who were shamefully mistreated); Tabor
Island; the pirates and the shooting of Herbert Brown; and of course,
the eruption of Mount Franklin.

But the important theme of the story is how a group of men dumped on
an unknown island with nothing but the shirts on their backs come to
tame it through ingenuity and teamwork; and the ongoing mystery of who/
what is helping them along. So, it has the potential of being a very
atmospheric film, with spectacular high points.

So many stories have been utterly ruined by film-makers because they
departed so much from the original books and it's been shown that if
they remain faithful to the book, something very special can emerge.
I recently watched the first 2 Narnia films and applauded from my
armchair at the end of both because they had stuck to the book, had a
production team with vision and sensitivity, and produced something
very special.

Recent film adaptations of Verne's 20K have been so unspeakably awful
that I now refuse to watch repeats of them. Disney's 1954 film
remains by far the best and closest to the book (and it's amazing how
many of its effects were so much better than the more recent
attempts). But it still wasn;t the book - a far better (and more
spectacular) ending would be the Maelstrom and the doubts that would
keep a departing audience guessing: did Nemo and the Nautilus survive?

Craig
Received on Fri 06 Jan 2012 - 13:55:41 IST

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