Jules Verne Forum

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Re: Journey and Journey 2

From: Raymond Macon <maconr~at~speakeasy.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:05:04 -0700
To: "'Jules Verne Forum'" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

Hello Art et al,

 

Hollywood knows that more than one hundred years after his death the name
Jules Verne still strikes a chord with contemporary moviegoers. That is why
they shamelessly produce inferior drivel and ripoff films that only have
their titles in common with Verne's original works. This latest incarnation
of The Mysterious Island is a case in point. The movie has done moderately
well in American theaters and as long as this is the case we will continue
to see Verne's name shamelessly exploited.

 

But Jules Verne isn't the only classical writer to be so abused. H.G. Wells
has suffered the same mistreatment as has Edgar Rice Burroughs. Lately,
only J.R.R. Tolkien has fared well at the hands of his movie interpreters.
Tolkien had the advantage of a readership that could still remember his life
and times and had actually read his work. So the filmmakers knew they would
be held to a high standard and if they tampered too much with the original
books the wrath of Tolkien fandom would be too much to bear. So they stayed
fairly close to the Tolkien text and made a fortune to boot.

 

Verne, Wells and Burroughs do not have that kind of a following. Their
readers are people like us who, while no less devoted than Tolkien's
readers, are somewhat fewer in number. Furthermore, these authors have
faded from living memory, Burroughs' death being the latest and that was in
1950. So moviemakers have taken considerable liberties with their novels
and characters feeling-rightly-that most of the people who have heard their
names have not bothered to read the books. So they will cite Verne or Wells
in the movies' titles or promotions knowing that the viewers only want to
see some kind of fantastic adventure that these names will invoke and not a
visual re-telling of the original story.

 

Every great writer's work has undergone this. If the filmmaker is truly
concerned with creating great art, then he or she will pay due respect to
the original vision. If, on the other hand, the goal is simply to make
money, then vision will be damned. A counterfeit is produced with the
expectation that the movie-going public is as unconcerned with
verisimilitude and integrity as the filmmaker. Time and experience have
shown that cynicism to be realistic, more's the pity.

 

I understand that a Journey 3 is being contemplated "based" on Verne's From
the Earth to the Moon. Seeing how well the first film did and the second is
doing at the box office, this should come as no real surprise. Since
Verne's works are now in the public domain, nobody can stand in the way of
such productions. But just because there are those in the entertainment
industry who have no respect for Verne's canon, that does not mean all is
lost. This Forum is but one of many organs in existence to keep the flame
of Verne scholarship and readership alive and which have worked tirelessly
to acquaint a new generation with the rewarding experience of reading him.
We should take great comfort and pride in that. For it seems to me that
long after the memory of some of these ripoff movies has faded from the
public consciousness, the books of Jules Verne will live on, and for that we
can take pride in the part we have played to make it so.

 

Raymond

 

From: owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il [mailto:owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il] On Behalf Of
wbutcher
Sent: Monday, 20 February, 2012 17:55
To: 'Jules Verne Forum'
Subject: Re: Journey and Journey 2

 

Dear Art,

 

Yet another Hollywood film, then, where the book is travestied. Is it just
me, or are they getting worse? Can't the descendants sue given that their
moral rights have been trampled on?

 

The idea that the Voyages are real was first introduced in Hatteras and
Journey, via the citing of the title of the book within the novel. In both
cases the idea is absent from the original manuscript; for Journey, it
appears in the margin, and so may have been influenced, if not more, by
Hetzel's reading of the manuscript. As you say so pertinently, yet another
irony...

 

Best wishes

 

Bill

 

From: owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il [mailto:owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il] On Behalf Of
aevans2 tds.net
Sent: 20 February 2012 23:11
To: Jules Verne Forum
Subject: Journey and Journey 2

 

Dear Vernian friends,

This weekend I went to see the film Journey 2: The Mysterious Island with
Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson and the young actor named Josh Hutcherson who
appeared in Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D with Brendan Fraser.
It was mildly entertaining but, of course, has nothing to do with Verne
(although the volcano spitting out gold reminded me of The Golden Volcano).

One important feature shared by both films, however, is the notion that the
events in Verne's novels *really happened* and were not just fiction. This
is the supposed secret shared by most "Vernians" around the world. So the
films' protagonists (ironically) follow in the footsteps of Lidenbrock,
Axel, Cyrus Smith, Nemo et al. and, during the course of their many
adventures, confirm the real existence of these original Vernian characters.


In one way, this notion is a useful gimmick to avoid direct comparisons
between the films and Verne's novels (which would be very unflattering to
the films). But I also found it fascinating as a verisimilitude-building
device. And I remember Verne doing exactly the same thing in _Le Sphinx des
glaces_ (The Ice Sphinx). In this novel Edgar Allan Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym
is treated as a *real* person whose adventures at the South Pole *really
happened* according to Captain Len Guy. Yet another irony.

Best,
Art
Received on Tue 21 Feb 2012 - 04:05:25 IST

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