"What annoys me is that Spielberg is such an egomaniac these days that it has to be 'Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. No, you puss-bag. It's H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, and it wouldn't kill you to put his fucking name on it." -- Harlan Ellison in a Recent Interview with SCI-FI Wire.
I love Harlan Ellison and his cantankerousness. His books have moved higher up on my "to buy" list (I forget about him from time to time, then run across a quote like this and love him all over again). Well, I'll buy more Ellison once I get through Michael Crichton's wrong, wrong, wrong novelization of why he thinks global warming is a hoax. That one makes my head hurt (in essence he cites papers which are mostly true that are evidence against Global warming, but ignores the mountain of papers next to them that provide evidence for Global Warming). More on this topic later.
Personally, I'm having nothing more to do with Crichton. My personal opinion is that the man hasn't written anything worth reading since "The Lost World." The more closely I look at his work, the more I feel he simply takes one idea (Man cannot be trusted with technology more complex than fire and sharpened sticks) and rewrites it for the tech du jour. I don't find his characterizations compelling anymore. Sort of the same way I don't really find Pat McManus funny anymore. I've just had too much.
ReplyDeleteAs for Spielberg, I think he's just taking a page from Lucas' book. Or, just to be contrarian, what if he's calling it "Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds" because it bears absolutely no resemblance to H. G. Wells' master prank and he knew he'd get flak for it? That's a possibility. Hell, Harlan Ellison probably remembers the original broadcast. And unless Tom Cruise is playing a radio announcer, I think there probably won't be much similarity.
My $0.02
Well, I'm not saying I agree with Ellison 100%. I just think that if I had popular works adapted to movie, I'd be as nitpicky as he is. I think in this particular movie, it's a famous enough work that people know it's from H.G. Wells. And really we all understand that "Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds" means his interpretation of a famous story, not that he's claiming authorship. Like Stanley Kubrick and the Shining. I tend to agree though that the author's name should be somewhat more prominent in the promotional materials. But I don't think there needs to be laws about it, it should just be a common courtesy.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to admit that I'm at Pat McManus saturation too. I'm glad to hear it happens to other people I thought I was alone. The funny has died. (There is hope though, after a prolonged absence from Rancid Crabtree I have found that reading one or two stories on the crapper made me laugh again. As long as it was the early stuff.)
ReplyDeleteOriginal broadcast??? How about original book. The prankster was Orson Wells not H.G.
Coincidentally, I just started reading Angry Candy again. Harlan is the man, and I totally agree with him. Speilberg stands on the shoulders of giants and should give credit where credit is due, like Coppola did for Dracula.
But sadly that marketing device is not targted at us scifi/literary fans. It's to drag the rest of the public in on opening weekend. Spielberg's name has more draw than Wells these days.
I fuckin hate Tom Cruise and precocious Dakota Fanning but I'll see it anyway.
Ach. Good point, KVC. I'm guilty of the old "Same last name = same guy" fallacy. That's what I get for sitting on my own head at work.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I like where the discussion is going, I thought I'd get more commentary on the Crichton issue. Unless it's an unspoken point of agreement that the man's writing is fossilized mucus.
McManus I've just lost interest in. yes, kind of funny, no not compelled to collect all his books. The same thing could be said about terry pratchett I suppose, but I still enjoy his books. I just chalk it up to personal taste. The reason I'm not so keen on Crichton is the same reason I don't read as much Clive Cussler as I used to. Having read better writers since then, I know how uninteresting their prose is, even if they have the occasional interesting idea in their stories. I found a few things about Prey (previous Chrichton book), to be interesting, but the overall plot and scripting was uninspired. and yes, I have the same problem as hazmatt. While I also feel a little uneasy at some of the new technologies we seem to be blindly forging ahead in, Crichton's books seemed designed merely to exploit a similar fear in the public which seems kind of cheap. And while that's certainly a fair thing to, it's not all that brilliant. Exploiting fear is an easy thing to do.
ReplyDeleteEven though I once razed entire forests to feed my need for Grishom, Crighton and Clancy I have realized they are little better than Mary Higgens Clark and Nicholas Sparks, but for boys.
ReplyDeleteEvery summer since law school I read mostly pulp, my new authors are Robert E. Howard (orginal Conan short stories) and Carl Hiaasen, with a little Pratchett thrown in. These authors are made to burned out on. Last summer was Hammet and Chandler, before that the Dragonlance books.