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A Vaguely Shimmering Review Of STARDUST!

Cool by mrfan	Jun 18th, 2007 05:03:00 AM
double cool
Very interested in this!! by Col. Tigh-Fighter	Jun 18th, 2007 05:40:41 AM
Yay.
Great Book... by onusbone	Jun 18th, 2007 06:43:42 AM
But according to this review, they should have brought in someone to add a cunning twist to the story. I hear that some guy named M. Night is pretty good at that... God forbid a movie just tells a pleasing story.
Hmmm, a predictable fairytale. by McBane	Jun 18th, 2007 06:47:59 AM
Isn't that kinda the point of a fairytale?
I agree with McBane. by The Central Scrutinizer	Jun 18th, 2007 07:22:42 AM
Fairy tales are supposed to be nice comforting morality plays. Of course you have good wins over evil and love triumphant. That's the point.
I simply can't imagine this not being good. by Jakes Nel	Jun 18th, 2007 07:43:48 AM
And I agree, Gaiman's kind of stories (and fairy tales in general) aren't really about keeping us guessing. The charm is in the way it's told. Can't wait.
hallowscorp you suck as a critic by pipergates	Jun 18th, 2007 08:44:00 AM
pessimistic negative boring & biased ¡this movie looks fantastic!
Man, what a sneery review by Samson_K	Jun 18th, 2007 09:17:42 AM
Seriously - it was almost as though you liked the film but couldn't fully admit to it in case someone found out you liked a fairy tale and kicked your arse to a bloody pulp! I am looking forward to this and cannot think of one film that would not benefit from the inclusion of a Unicorn! With perhaps the exception of Leprechaun 5: Leprechaun in Space because a unicorn in that would just be stupid!
DeNiro's character by Samson_K	Jun 18th, 2007 09:18:56 AM
It has been a very long time since I read this book and I cannot remember a Sky Pirate being in it! Is this a movie version invention or am I prematurely senile?
(Spoiler) Sky Pirate... by arctic monkey	Jun 18th, 2007 10:31:17 AM
...that's not the only type of pirate he turns out to be...
Samson_K by Bloo	Jun 18th, 2007 10:50:52 AM
I just read the book and while there is a Sky Ship in the book, I don't think, or it didn't strike me as a being a pirate ship. And also it wasn't a very big part maybe a chapter. he got information from the gnome hairy thing about Tristian and the star and was looking for them, rescued them and took them a whole lot closer to Wall. There is a comment that says something like "those weeks on the sky ship, Tristian would later recall, were the happiest times of his trip" or something to that effect. I'm guessing they really expanded the part because I remember reading it and being like "DeNiro took THIS part, it's so...tiny"
Thanks Bloo by Samson_K	Jun 18th, 2007 11:36:17 AM
I thought that perhaps it wasn't in the book - however my book is in the hands of the most vicious of all creatures. The ex-girlfriend and I fear that and my Mike Nesmith CD's are lost to me!
Can't wait... by TheSharp	Jun 18th, 2007 11:52:21 AM
Me testicles are tingly
Oh brother, that's all we need: an ass kicking unicorn by PoweredUpPacman	Jun 18th, 2007 12:54:25 PM
All my hopes for this movie shattered into a kazillion tiny little bits...
i heard that... by Magnethead	Jun 18th, 2007 01:24:13 PM
Yoda has a lightsaber duel in this movie. HOW FRIGGIN REDICULOUS DOES THAT SOUND? ...oh wait, sorry wrong movie.
At least this fairytale is family-friendly! by eraser_x	Jun 18th, 2007 03:55:22 PM
I just saw the decent but cliched and ham-fisted Pan's Labrynth this past weeked. I couldn't understand why the silly director insisted on putting gore in Pan's Labrynth. The gore added almost nothing to the extremely simple-minded movie, but the gore was enough to preclude watching by younger kids--i.e., young kids who might especially appreciate the simple and hackneyed plot elements. Actually, I think the Stardust story (from the cartoon books) actually offers far more to adults than did the Pan's Labrynth movie.
so sorry for those that didnt get Pan's Labyrinth by pipergates	Jun 18th, 2007 10:20:38 PM
you could try lobotomy
um, yeah by oisin5199	Jun 18th, 2007 11:46:25 PM
I hate to call anyone an idiot, but that is just the dumbest assessment of Pan's Labyrinth I've ever read. Talk about missing the point...
Pan's Labyrinth was not bad, but it is NOT that special by eraser_x	Jun 19th, 2007 01:58:32 AM
Just go to the public library and check out some illustrated "children's" books from the folktale section. Some of those stories are so beautiful and fantastic and scary that they will make you cry. And kids can tolerate them. Pan's Labyrinth the movie, as actually executed, is far away qualitywise from the high end of those books. In fact, it is highly derivative of those books without adding all that much. Look at "Spirited Away"--that shit is imagination and is scary and beautiful, and happens not to use gore. Gore is fine. Clive Barker's gore is awesome because it is essential to the story. But Pan's Labyrinth, as executed, is like a very smart high-school kid's imitation of Clive Barker or Neil Gaiman. The story of Pan's Labyrinth itself fails to rise to great heights. Pan's Labyrinth has some ideas that sound good if you describe them in words, but the actual execution was by-the-numbers and clumsy. Less wooden and clumsy than the Lemony Snicket movie, and not bad, but still not highly memorable. For example, the final test at the end was TRITE! Why didn't they just ask a bunch of kids to each grow a plant from a secretly dead seed, and then have the chief girl be the only one who confessed failure? Such fake tests (e.g., "dead sead") really are just too hackneyed and predictable for adults by now, but they'd still be just fine for kids. To correct one point I made, Pan's Labyrinth is not extremely simple minded. But it had many simple-minded elements (e.g., lame "final test", lazy storytelling that didn't "sell" or make the viewer feel the superhuman difficulty of resisting eating the grape, yet another lost princess angle and without significant new insight, yet another stepfather angle and without significant new insight, etc.). These highly derivative simple-minded elements clearly are deficiencies if a movie is intended only for adults. So, I say, if a movie isn't too great as an adult's movie, and it has so many elements suitable for kids, then why not just unzoom the few (gratuitously) gory scenes (e.g., stitching the face, chomping the fairies) and just let the kids in on the movie. Anyhow, I can certainly see why someone would like Pan's Labyrinth, and I like it too, but it's so far away from being genius and perfection that I certainly can also see how non-"idiots" might not be overly impressed. Let's don't resort to name calling, fellow movie lovers.
Pan's is a drama about a civil war, not a kids fantasy by pipergates	Jun 19th, 2007 06:56:38 AM
And its not certainly not cliched or hamfisted, my friend. A matter of mistaken expectation if you wanted to bring your little children to see it. In my book and to most people i know it worked as a subtle drama and as a beautiful and creepy fantasy for adults/adolescents at the same time. I didnt know Del Toro had such sensibilities in him. A bit too gory for some, but that is a matter of taste. It does however make me wonder if Del Toro would be the right choice for something like the Hobbit, where any gore at all would be out of place. Jackson also made the mistake of not keeping the gore entirely out of Lotr.
where was the gore? by oisin5199	Jun 19th, 2007 11:14:44 AM
The only thing I can think of was the slash on the general's face (and maybe a little impalement). I can't even begin to go through the ways eraser_x completely missed the point and misinterpreted Pan's Labyrinth - it's just not worth my time. I think he's just confused because a child is the lead. As has been stated, it's about the Spanish Civil war and the banality of evil and its effect on a child (and the spirit of the land, the countryside, the peasant, even the storytelling tradition itself) - it's using fairy tale tropes to tell a very adult story. It's inevitable that the child will 'fail' the test, and inevitable that she will be sacrificed. This is not a story for children, period. Just because a child is a main character, doesn't mean it's for kids. Simple-minded elements and lazy storytelling, my ass. It's not a fantasy film. It's a brilliant drama with fantasy elements. Simple-minded elements and lazy storytelling, my ass. Stardust, on the other hand, is a full-on, romantic fantasy. Can't wait to see it. Even though that makes me a sound a little less straight.
straight as a fairy, you mean? by pipergates	Jun 19th, 2007 12:03:05 PM
I'm very heterosexually looking forward to it too. Hope it helps broaden the horizon of the fantasy films, and books. They don't all have to be about orks and hobbits. so many failed cheap tolkien-lites out there.
Hey, Oisin, let's don't throw a temper tantrum here. by eraser_x	Jun 19th, 2007 02:29:46 PM
Let's be more like Gates, who is now having a more kind-hearted, self-secure type of discussion. [Sorry for the length of this, but I think I make decent, serious points. Anyhow, they're sincere.] Let's don't get hung up on the kids/adults label. I didn't want to take my kid to it. I wanted it to actually be a "subtle drama" and "a beautiful and creepy fantasy for adults/adolescents". The result simply was not very subtle or creepy, in my OPINION. A truely beautiful fantasy SHOULD have left me with a feeling of, "goddamned, at least several of the fantasy elements of that story came from the freaking id; I couldn't come up with that shit in 50 years unless I were on drugs, hadn't slept for 10 days, or I were a genius, or if I were still a kid in tune with his dream/fantasy self". In contrast, what I thought after Pan's Labyrinth was, "hey, that was a thoughtful, beautiful idea and premise for a movie; it's as if they handed off this beautiful premise, suitable for someone like Gaiman, and then handed it off to a competent, by-the-numbers, writer/director to fill in the details by cutting-and-pasting elements from well-known myths and folktales and by taking two-dimensional stock-characters from the vast archive of of war movies. I loved the idea and the ambition of the movie--e.g., to explore once again what happens to innocence and femininity and original nature and magic when it meets, as it always does, the steel ceiling that is the cold, macho machinery and culture of war; and to explore it using a girl, on the verge of losing her feminine/innocent nature, who fights/retreats using magic or fantasy in the form of her real or imagined alternate identity as a fairy princess. And the movie, in its non-fantasy side, wants to explore the effect of this ancient battle on people (e.g., girl, maid, mom, stepdad, and more minorly the brother fighter and the doctor) who are different based on age, sex, class, responsibilities, calling, etc. (baby vs. girl vs. maiden vs. aspiring father vs. mother vs. son-in-shadow-of-renowned-fath er) (daughter and wife of tailor vs. peasant vs. military elite, etc.). By the way, the cliche "banality of evil" is recited by oisin in his post above, and of course all war movies can be said to address the cliche of the banality to some degree, but this movie addresses the banality certainly less than others--e.g., certainly less than did "Life is Beautiful" (see the riddle-scene). Anyhow, there was great ambition in this movie, and a great premise/conceit, but the elements are purely a cut-and-paste job. For example, let's take the retreating into dreams from, e.g., Gaiman's boy in the basement, e.g., let's take the fairy princess from Gaiman's Barbie, e.g., let's take the big toad from Lewis Carroll, e.g., let's take the "dont eat that" from the "don't look back" from Greek mythology, e.g., let's take the "you passed the trick test" from, e.g., the "dead seeds" folktale. Let's take the chalk doors from, e.g., "Hellraiser". I'm sure most of the sources I'm citing also got these elements from earlier sources--however, the works of Gaiman and Barker and others that I cite also had other, novel elements--Pan's Labyrinth has essentially NO novel fantasy element. Big, hairless eyeless creatures are not novel; and removable eyeballs are not novel; and "sleeping" monsters are not novel, either; even eyes on hands seem vaguely not novel or at least not extremely "far out". The lack of novelty and imagination in the fantasy aspects is extremely "off" in Pan's Labyrinth because a girl's fantasy life, whether imagined or "real", really should have something from the Id that we cannot just obtain via cut-and-paste. True, such stories are the things that the girl might have read in her books, and that's why she might have used them in her own pastiched fantasies, but she would still add crazy shit, but she didn't in the movie. The only part of the movie that was very satisfying to me was when the doctor was made to be unavailable at the exact time that the general needed him.
well i mostly loved it by pipergates	Jun 19th, 2007 06:43:47 PM
never thought del Toro was that sensible. i loved the girl, loved the insect/fairy, loved the slashed mouth (how did they do that?), loved the blend of harsh reality and scary fantasy, the faun, the ruins. didnt like the toad at all. and i guess you have some valid freudian arguments but i have to go eat fore my dinner gets cold.
cloudworld by andymccorm	Jun 25th, 2007 05:30:49 AM
has anyone noticed that the airship bits of the stardust movie trailer (especially the crashing on the water bit) are really similar to a fantasy novel called cloudworld that came out last year in England? is there so much airship stuff in the original book??

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