Books...and flist
Dec. 12th, 2004 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSpent some time last night and this morning scrolling back through my flist - made it as far as Dec 6th. Pretty good. And methinks my friendlist might be too long for me to keep track of. Probably doesn't help that I added ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coffeeandink last night to it, because I find her/his insights on books and culture and writing fascinating.
matiocala 's insights on story fetishing over book fetishing, I saved to memories. It's under "Story Fetishing" in my memories, if you are interested. It perfectly states how I feel about books and stories. As my Offline pal Wales has told me repeatedly in the past, I'm hard on books. They get stains on their pages, bent pages (although I swear I use a book mark), wet pages, and I tend to prefer paperback to hardback. I love them to death.
And I prefer books I can fit into the pocket of a jacket or my bag - so I can read them on the subway or waiting in lines. Susannah Clark's huge Jonathan and Mr. Norrel - isn't getting read because I can't lug it with me. It is regulated to the night table for now.
I adore stories. In any form. Plays, video, film, paintings, comic books,
novels - I'm not picky. I'm also not picky about genre - there is no genre or non-genre that I haven't read or looked at it. All I require is an interesting character and a good tale that pulls at my emotions in some way. Don't care about voice, pov, literary, non-literary, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, children's, young adult, adult, mystery, non-fiction/fiction - if it tells me a good tale - I'm there. I obsess over, collect, adore, and love stories.
I do not really care what form they come in - well not much. Books tends to be the most intimate and most accessible for me, also the most transportable.
So I do tend to prefer books over most forms if given the choice. You can take a book anywhere afterall.
londonkds rant on Sci-fi Channel's upcoming Earthsea mini-series, led me to Ursula Le Quinn's comments on the series, which have in turn motivated me to not watch it now. I had intended on giving the series a chance. But now, I feel the need to boycott it. Let me explain: I'd read some criticism on the casting of the tale (it stares the new hunky doctor on ER and Lana from Smallville apparently, which I already knew just from the previews), but didn't realize how much it alterred the original story. Now, the last time I read the series was approximately in 1979, so I honestly don't remember it very well - outside of hazy bits and pieces. So - I doubt I'll notice the changes. But - I would rather re-read the original novels which my mother still has, then muddying their memory with an interpretation that from what I'd read on Le Quinn's sight, I would find offensive and in fact offends the author of the work. Granted - you sell the rights, you take the consequences.
Also we all do have own interpretations of what we read - interpretations that may vary greatly from the writer's/author's original intent (just visit a fanboard sometime then read or watch Whedon commentaries to see how greatly our interpretaion or perception of what we've seen/read can vary from what is in the creator's head. Scarey, isn't it?), but does that give one the right to
take that interpretation and present it, as if it were the original writers?
Isn't that why we use disclaimers - "based on the work" or "loosely based" but
"without cooperation of"? Hopefully Sci-Fi Channel will use these disclaimers.
I won't know, since I won't be watching. If they don't? I suppose Le Quinn could sue them if she so desires.
This brings up an interesting topic, actually, the relationship between an original work and a derivative work or a work based on it. When I was much younger, in the early 80s, I remember reading novelizations of Return of The Jedi and Empire Strikes Back, that were officially authorized by Lucas, prior to the films release. In the case of Jedi, I prefered the novelization to the film. Odd. Considering the film was for all intents and purposes the original.
We do the same thing with fanfic - take a tv show and write our own interpretations of it. Some interpretations bear a close resemblance to the original, some none at all.
So, I wonder, is what Sci-Fi Channel is doing with the Wizard of Earthsea Triology all that different than what we do when we write fanfic? Well, they are making money off of it. They are also advertising it as "based on" LE Quinn's novels and a close adaptation of those novels, misleading anyone who hasn't read the novels or has forgotten them (like myself). At least when we write fanfic, we make it clear this is "our own interpretation" of the characters and stories and *not* the original authors. That we do not know the original author's intent and can only guess at it, since we aren't them.
Reminds me why Whedon made it clear to Fox when they asked him to do BTVS the series - that they could own the rights, but he would have *CREATIVE*
control and they could not change his intent nor credit things to him that he did not intend. Be curious to see how that was worded in his contract with Fox.
What was most important to Whedon is that his *creative* vision come out as clearly as possible - he'd already seen it muddied twice (BTVS the film and Alien Resurrection), he wanted to prevent a third go-around. Which is why he
directs things he writes from no on. Same thing happened on Farscape - Brian Henson, Rockne O'Bannion and Steve Kemper - kept a tight reign on the rights and creative direction of their show, they did not let Sci-Fi (which is under the same corporate umbrella as Universal and NBC by the way) get control.
This is worth keeping in mind if you are a writer. Unless of course you want to take Tom Wolf and Alan Moore's approach, which is basically - I don't want to see hear or think about the film, just make it, give me lots of money. Thanks a bunch.
coffeeandink last night to it, because I find her/his insights on books and culture and writing fascinating.matiocala 's insights on story fetishing over book fetishing, I saved to memories. It's under "Story Fetishing" in my memories, if you are interested. It perfectly states how I feel about books and stories. As my Offline pal Wales has told me repeatedly in the past, I'm hard on books. They get stains on their pages, bent pages (although I swear I use a book mark), wet pages, and I tend to prefer paperback to hardback. I love them to death.And I prefer books I can fit into the pocket of a jacket or my bag - so I can read them on the subway or waiting in lines. Susannah Clark's huge Jonathan and Mr. Norrel - isn't getting read because I can't lug it with me. It is regulated to the night table for now.
I adore stories. In any form. Plays, video, film, paintings, comic books,
novels - I'm not picky. I'm also not picky about genre - there is no genre or non-genre that I haven't read or looked at it. All I require is an interesting character and a good tale that pulls at my emotions in some way. Don't care about voice, pov, literary, non-literary, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, children's, young adult, adult, mystery, non-fiction/fiction - if it tells me a good tale - I'm there. I obsess over, collect, adore, and love stories.
I do not really care what form they come in - well not much. Books tends to be the most intimate and most accessible for me, also the most transportable.
So I do tend to prefer books over most forms if given the choice. You can take a book anywhere afterall.
londonkds rant on Sci-fi Channel's upcoming Earthsea mini-series, led me to Ursula Le Quinn's comments on the series, which have in turn motivated me to not watch it now. I had intended on giving the series a chance. But now, I feel the need to boycott it. Let me explain: I'd read some criticism on the casting of the tale (it stares the new hunky doctor on ER and Lana from Smallville apparently, which I already knew just from the previews), but didn't realize how much it alterred the original story. Now, the last time I read the series was approximately in 1979, so I honestly don't remember it very well - outside of hazy bits and pieces. So - I doubt I'll notice the changes. But - I would rather re-read the original novels which my mother still has, then muddying their memory with an interpretation that from what I'd read on Le Quinn's sight, I would find offensive and in fact offends the author of the work. Granted - you sell the rights, you take the consequences.Also we all do have own interpretations of what we read - interpretations that may vary greatly from the writer's/author's original intent (just visit a fanboard sometime then read or watch Whedon commentaries to see how greatly our interpretaion or perception of what we've seen/read can vary from what is in the creator's head. Scarey, isn't it?), but does that give one the right to
take that interpretation and present it, as if it were the original writers?
Isn't that why we use disclaimers - "based on the work" or "loosely based" but
"without cooperation of"? Hopefully Sci-Fi Channel will use these disclaimers.
I won't know, since I won't be watching. If they don't? I suppose Le Quinn could sue them if she so desires.
This brings up an interesting topic, actually, the relationship between an original work and a derivative work or a work based on it. When I was much younger, in the early 80s, I remember reading novelizations of Return of The Jedi and Empire Strikes Back, that were officially authorized by Lucas, prior to the films release. In the case of Jedi, I prefered the novelization to the film. Odd. Considering the film was for all intents and purposes the original.
We do the same thing with fanfic - take a tv show and write our own interpretations of it. Some interpretations bear a close resemblance to the original, some none at all.
So, I wonder, is what Sci-Fi Channel is doing with the Wizard of Earthsea Triology all that different than what we do when we write fanfic? Well, they are making money off of it. They are also advertising it as "based on" LE Quinn's novels and a close adaptation of those novels, misleading anyone who hasn't read the novels or has forgotten them (like myself). At least when we write fanfic, we make it clear this is "our own interpretation" of the characters and stories and *not* the original authors. That we do not know the original author's intent and can only guess at it, since we aren't them.
Reminds me why Whedon made it clear to Fox when they asked him to do BTVS the series - that they could own the rights, but he would have *CREATIVE*
control and they could not change his intent nor credit things to him that he did not intend. Be curious to see how that was worded in his contract with Fox.
What was most important to Whedon is that his *creative* vision come out as clearly as possible - he'd already seen it muddied twice (BTVS the film and Alien Resurrection), he wanted to prevent a third go-around. Which is why he
directs things he writes from no on. Same thing happened on Farscape - Brian Henson, Rockne O'Bannion and Steve Kemper - kept a tight reign on the rights and creative direction of their show, they did not let Sci-Fi (which is under the same corporate umbrella as Universal and NBC by the way) get control.
This is worth keeping in mind if you are a writer. Unless of course you want to take Tom Wolf and Alan Moore's approach, which is basically - I don't want to see hear or think about the film, just make it, give me lots of money. Thanks a bunch.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 08:47 am (UTC)Same thing happened on Farscape - Brian Henson, Rockne O'Bannion and Steve Kemper - kept a tight reign on the rights and creative direction of their show, they did not let Sci-Fi (which is under the same corporate umbrella as Universal and NBC by the way) get control.
And this really showed. They got away with quite a lot on Farscape. I was just thinking about this the other day: how, for example, in Prayer, they actually show the Scarran aborting the alien captive's baby. You actually see the fetus shake and die. Of course, we learn later that this is a simulation put on for Aeryn's benefit so she'll feel sympathy for the other woman, who is actually a spy, but the fact that they were able to depict this at all was really quite amazing. As you said in an earlier post on the show, sometimes it helps to have a show that goes under most peoples' radar. Had a popular show tried to pull this, the religious groups would have been up in arms practically before it was filmed!
no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 09:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 02:31 pm (UTC)The new version of the Lathe of Heaven - which didn't have her cooperation and the Earthsea miniseries are examples. But she's not crying foul nearly as loudly - because hey, she did get paid for the rights way back when. Also the films promote her books to new readers. But so does fanfic, just differently. Fanfic can often increase readership.
Whedon realized it - regarding BTVS and ATS. I'm not sure some of these professional writers do.
Fanfic - I guess is harder for writers like Le Quinn to stomach or understand - because there is no money involved, most of the writers are amateurs (ie. they aren't making money off of their writing yet, not that they are not good. There are a quite a few unpublished writers out there who outshine the professional published ones. Being published has zip to do with talent or ability, and lots to do with whether someone out there thinks your concept is marketable or happens to like it. The publishing business is a subjective one and a "business". Just because you happen to get paid for your craft doesn't necessarily make you a better writer, just a luckier one.) That said, what Le Quinn and many other pro's forget is there are professional writers out there writing fanfic or who got their start writing fanfic.
I'm not sure Le Quinn understands fanfic or the practice of it. I've spoken to quite a few people who don't actually - and without question, most haven't read much of it. It's easy to be critical of something you've never read or seen. And yes, admittedly there's quite a bit of poor fanfic out there, but there is equally quite a bit of poor professional writing out there - which has been published, and (sigh) made oodles of money.
I read a friend's book this summer, not published yet, but hopefully soon - the best compliment I could give her is it inspired me to write scenes in my head between her two characters. I was that gripped by the characters and situations she created.
If a book inspires someone to create a derivative work, to want to interact with the characters on that level, without monetary gain - then the writer has done their job and should be happy. Not scornful.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 02:36 pm (UTC)Which was why I was expecting them to do a better job with Earthsea. Their rendering of Dune was pretty close to the original version. Oh purists may disagree, but it entertained me and felt like it at least captured some of the inner political gamemanship and spirituality without being hokey.
From what I've read, Earthsea doesn't accomplish what the miniseries Dune did. IF anything it is worse. So, am really hesistant to wast time on it.
Also the previews of it - that I've seen? Not encouraging. Shawn Asmore really appears to be miscast as does Kristin Kreuk. Shame, since we do have Isabella Rosselini and Danny Glover - both of whom I adore.
LeGuin, Pullman and Alan Moore
Date: 2004-12-13 07:19 am (UTC)BTW, just heard that Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass is about to be turned into a movie with all references to God and Catholicism EXCISED/altered due to the possible backlash from religious protesters here in the United States. I'd call this a travesty, except it seems have gotten a thumbs up from Pullman himself.
From His Dark Materials.org:
"THE Hollywood adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials, in which two children do battle with an evil, all-powerful church, is being rewritten to remove anti-religious overtones. Chris Weitz, the director, has horrified fans by announcing that references to the church are likely to be banished in his film. Meanwhile the “Authority”, the weak God figure, will become “any arbitrary establishment that curtails the freedom of the individual”. The studio wants alterations because of fears of a backlash from the Christian Right in the United States. The changes are being made with the support of Pullman, who told The Times last year that he received “a large amount” for the rights."
SO is Pullman a sell-out? Has he allowed his message to be compromised by the sweet, sweet greenbacks of Hollywood?
Perhaps a writer would be best to follow Alan Moore's example. The original work is the original work, and everything else, including movie adaptations, is...something else. Moore doesn't get involved in the process and just whistles down to the bank and deposits his fat check...