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Re: Journey and Journey 2

From: Rick Walter <rick1walter~at~comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:58:17 -0700
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

Friends,

Saw Journey 2 early this afternoon surrounded by a pre-teen audience, it being President's Day in the USA. The kids were only moderately thrilled, and I found it lame myself -- clunky dialogue, ho-hum effects, Caine, Guzman & Johnson often powerless to save things.

But I think it's a basic mistake to take Journey 2 as any sort of treatment of MI (as its predecessor was of JCE, by paraphrasing Verne's original structure). Naw, Journey 2 is simply a generic follow-up, a band-wagon sequel trading on Verne's name ... like, say, Monteleone's THE SECRET SEA, or Farmer's SECRET LOG, or NEMO & THE UNDERWATER CITY ... or, elsewhere, the interminable parade of print & film sequels to Doyle's Holmes tales.

So, on balance, Journey 2 performs the modest service of keeping our man in the public eye. Hopefully, some of those kids will crack open a full-length Verne one of these days.


All the best,

Rick

Frederick Paul Walter
Albuquerque, New Mexico

   
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: wbutcher
  To: 'Jules Verne Forum'
  Sent: Monday, February 20, 2012 7:31 PM
  Subject: Re: Journey and Journey 2


  Bonjour,

   

  To Tolkien, I would add CS Lewis, where the adaptations have been relatively respectful. You're right that the age of the books may have something to do with the disgraceful treatment. But it may not be social pressure as much as financial and legal reality, in the sense that being still in copyright must restrain to a certain extent film-makers who want to purloin only the title and the novelist's reputation.

   

  Bill

   

  From: owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il [mailto:owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il] On Behalf Of Raymond Macon
  Sent: 21 February 2012 10:05
  To: 'Jules Verne Forum'
  Subject: Re: Journey and Journey 2

   

  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 - 05:58:25 IST

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