Stardust the Movie

[Nesacat]

From Sci-Fi.Com ... here is what Neil Gaiman had to say about Stardust the movie.

Stardust Made Uneasy Film Transition

Neil Gaiman, who produced the upcoming big-screen version of his fairy-tale-and-adventure novel Stardust, told SCI FI Wire that the translation from book to movie was anything but easy.

In the film, a mere mortal (Charlie Cox) and a fallen star (Claire Danes) meet and hate each other, at least until they fall in love. And their path to happiness is further complicated by the star's enemies, among them a powerful witch (Michelle Pfeiffer) and several ruthless princes (including Rupert Everett, Adam Buxton and Jason Flemyng).

"The toughest nut to crack for something like Stardust, for example, in changing it into a film… there are a few things," Gaiman said in an interview. "There were the problems that we knew we had going in, because they were the problems that I had in 1998, 1999, when Miramax had the option on it briefly, and I got to do a treatment, and suddenly I came face to face with these things for the first time. The biggest one was if you are completely faithful to the pacing of the book, the hero won't be born for the first 15 or 20 minutes, and he's not going to meet the heroine until almost three-quarters of the way through the movie. That's a problem."

Also, Gaiman said, there are different pleasures to be had from reading a story versus experiencing it in a movie theater. He explained: "Something I did, that I took enormous joy in doing, and that I think is very pleasurable for readers or, if one can say this without sounding patronizing, the right kind of reader, is the way that when we get to the last few chapters the reader has a bird's eye view of the action and knows more about what's going on than any of the characters down at ground level, and there comes a point toward the end of the book where characters are missing each other, things that a character has done earlier wind up dooming them later, and they go past each other, sometimes without any knowledge of quite what's happened. And we get to the final chapter, and we know just how close our hero and heroine came to not surviving the book, but they don't, which is kind of fun."

Gaiman worked with Matthew Vaughn, the film's director and co-screenwriter, and with co-screenwriter Jane Goldman and discussed what to drop, what to move and what to reimagine in order to make Stardust work as a movie.

"If you're sitting there in the audience, having sat through 85 minutes, and now everybody is missing each other, and the witch [Pfeiffer] is too old, and she's doomed herself by these actions back there, and Sextmus [Buxton] winds up trying to kill her and getting killed by her, but never knows who she is and what she's done, it would not be very satisfying in a film," Gaiman says. "So there's this point where you go, 'We need all of them in a room.'"

Gaiman added: "The biggest challenge in the whole thing [was] trying to figure out ways to make something work as a film. Sometimes it's doable, and sometimes I have no idea how you do it." Stardust opens Aug. 10. —Ian Spelling

[ice.monkey]

This is interesting. So we're not going to get a 'true to the book' adaptation, but that's fine by me. It's good to hear Neil talking about what's required to adapt a book to film. Hopefully it'll help the purists understand when the film strays from the book. And hopefully they'll understand why most film adaptations do that.

[Culhwch]

Certainly puts my mind at ease after seeing the trailers and thinking, 'What the...?' Proof is in the watching though.

[Nesacat]

Yes, I am glad that Neil has said this. I've seen the trailers too but I don't think the movies will make it to the cinemas here. I have to hope the pirates bring it in.

[GOLLUM]

I'll probably get this one on DVD....

[Harpo]

some reviews here:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809426615/user

[Rahl Windsong]

By those reviews this movie looks like a must see, but like Gollum I think I will wait for the DVD.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think I'm going to see it tomorrow. If I do, I'll let you all know what I think. (Haven't read the book, so I'll be able to judge it as a movie instead of an adaptation of a favorite story.)

[Nesacat]

Here's another review ... Stardust.

Teresa ... yes please.

I'm waiting for it to come out on DVD. Have read the book and the graphic novel novel so it'll be hard not to compare, though I'll try and keep in mind what Neil had to say about turning this into a movie.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well, I loved it.

The story was charming -- a somewhat predictable fairy tale (but I love fairy tales) with flashes of originality and wit. The humor wasn't so intrusive as to make a joke of the whole story, which I appreciated.

That said, I don't know that I would be in a hurry to see the movie again for the script alone. But then there were the sets, the costumes, and the cinematography, which I thought were stunning. As good as they look in the trailer, they are even more effective in the movie. As far as these things go, the movie was every bit as splendid and detailed (although in a completely different way) as LOTR. The effects were great, but they didn't take over the movie.

Mark Strong (I remember him from "Emma" -- the Kate Beckinsale one, not the Gwyneth Paltrow) was Septimus. This was a role that really could have been over-the-top, but he played it straight, which I thought worked much better. He was intense (and well-dressed) without being flamboyant.

Charlie Cox, who played Tristan ... well, Claire Danes was the one who literally played a star, but I foresee a stellar career for him. Between Cox, Danes, and Michelle Pheiffer, there was almost more personal beauty than one movie could hold.

It's fairly long, and the pace is leisurely. No blood and gore. I don't know if this matches the book or not.

I think I'm going to go see it again in a week or so.

[the_faery_queen]

i really want to see it. as soon as i can, im seeing it. it looks lovely.
and the boys do look pretty

[purple_kathryn]

Why on earth is this not being released in the UK until October

if they really wanted to combat piracy - not doing things like this would really help.

[Nesacat]

Thanks Teresa. Am keeping my fingers crossed that it will somehow make it here. It's got enough big name stars for cinemas here to show an interest even if they have no clue about fantasy movies.

There's not much blood in the book. It's about equal to the movie. There's the witches with the entrails and when King's son dies. No gore otherwise.

[Teresa Edgerton]

You see the entrails, but you don't actually see whose entrails they are ... well, except for the crocodile ... and even then you don't quite see it being killed. Just a grab and a knife, and then a lot of little organs. On the other hand people do die violent deaths here and there, but the only human blood I remember seeing was a pleasing shade of blue.

[the_faery_queen]

i didn't even know there was a book! im looking into that now, that's for sure
and yeah, it is daft that we don't get this until october! *cry*