Jules Verne Forum

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Re: Journey and Journey 2

From: Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd <garmtdevries~at~gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2012 08:22:47 +0100
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

And don't forget Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, whose works have
been, and continue to be, made into films that follow the source
material very closely indeed.

Garmt.

On 21 February 2012 03:31, wbutcher <wbutcher~at~netvigator.com> wrote:
> 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 - 09:23:00 IST

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