Best & “Worst” in SF&F
Take a look at this brief sampling of movies NovaQuest feels succeed and fail, along with singing you two bars on the reasons why. If you’ve read these books and/or seen the movie treatments, then do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Please note that being awarded the Lemon prize does not mean “completely awful,” since completely awful is not even worth the mention. Rather, a Lemon indicates a tragedy of sorts: a movie which should have succeeded and has many strong points in its favor yet fails by fault of one or more critical shortcomings and/or miscalculations. Over on Zee Formula page we summarize our perspective -as reflected by these rankings- together with divulging our super-secret recipe for making movie magic.
Winners
Lemons
Star Wars Episode IV
Star Wars Episode V
Avatar
Starship Troopers
The original Star Wars movies are particularly adroit at balancing mythic profundity with engaging personal stories and the action of epic battles with vignettes of comedic and/or romantic moments set in exotic locales. Starship Troopers and Avatar miss the mark, entirely, in these regards; without “Yes” album artist Roger Dean’s beautiful uncredited art concept for the universe of Avatar -and some decent acting- there is basically nothing of merit to the hackneyed film. Similarly, while the famous author credit for Starship Troopers is a plus, this movie is just a bunch of CGI action pandering to the lowest common denominator. Troopers is a travesty of a rendering; Heinlein fans were appalled, and rightly so.
Princess Bride
The 10th Kingdom
Kindness and authenticity triumph over cruelty and cynicism in one of these treatments. By contrast, these qualities are the object of jeering and harsh ridicule in the other. Both are pitched to children and adults alike, yet only Princess Bride succeeds in taking the high road -and wins by doing so. A feel-good film versus a downer.
Ever After
Jupiter Ascending
Both have great locales, wonderful acting, excellent dialogue, and adequate production values for the effects desired & achieved. Both are Cinderella stories –but one is modest and succeeds while the other is grandiose and suffers from “too much marzipan” syndrome. We can accept one magical premise without suspension of disbelief collapsing -maybe even two bits of bending the rules, if handled carefully- but in Jupiter Ascending there is an endless onslaught of magical marzipan pelting the viewer, one unlikely piece after another, very quickly. Then it is all blown up, over and over, in loudly superfluous chase and explosion sequences which become tedious and annoying to endure.
Pan's Labyrinth
Hansel & Gretel - Witch Hunters
“Dark” fits with both these movies, and both have many wonderful attributes, but one takes the high road and succeeds as art of merit while the other trips, badly, and pitches headlong into an ignominious and utterly regrettable faceplant. Pan’s Labyrinth is scary and deep while Hansel und Gretel - Witch Hunters is simply vulgar.
Groundhog Day
12:01PM
Richard Lupoff is a personal acquaintance and old mentor of NovaQuest; he created this original concept. In a competing-studios intrigue and ripoff ala Bugs Life versus Antz, Groundhog Day was done and rushed onto screens by a rival moviehouse before 12:01PM was released. Thanks to a wonderful screen treatment the imitator, Groundhog Day, is excellent, while the original, 12:01PM, limped and was quickly forgotten. Groundhog succeeds so well in large part because of the humorous handling of the material, whereas 12:01PM was so heavy that it came across as morbid and depressing.
Lord of the Rings
Gormenghast
Peter Jackson had several strokes of genius in translating LOTR to live action. He invited members of The Tolkien Society (the hardcore purist LOTR fandom) to guide and critique his efforts in selecting what to keep or omit and how to handle the flavor of the various treatment styles. The end credit roll is astonishingly long because the names of every single member of The Tolkien Society are listed –on each of the three movies! Peter Jackson is the opposite extreme from James Cameron as regards frankly and graciously acknowledging credit to others where it is due. In consequence Jackson had enormous enthusiastic grassroots support & buzz, better polished product, and funding adequate unto the task (versus Cameron’s plagiarism lawsuits and ugly reputation). Jackson did not attempt to cram the entire epic saga into one film, which would have resulted in the same flaming disaster that past attempts at LOTR had encountered, but rather kept the trilogy as a trilogy. By contrast, even though Gormenghast had every chance for success it was made as a mini-series which dragged out far too long, was undercapitalized relative to the scope and vision, and lacked the fine polish which graced LOTR.
Cloud Atlas
Slipstream
Even the author of Cloud Atlas was amazed at this brilliant translation of a very complex book into a spectacular high concept movie, made against all the odds and now blessed with a growing cult following. The author, director, star, and musical composer of Slipstream, the talented Anthony Hopkins, had every conceivable advantage and a completely free hand with Slipstream yet the movie is dismal. Some complex stories, while very convoluted and intricate, can be made gripping and will sustain riveted attention for a very long time. Others, not so much.
Admired for Various Strengths:
Big
Last Kingdom
A Room With A View
Ghostbusters
The Martian
Vikings
How To Train Your Dragon
Flight
Sixth Sense
Alien
Flawed Treatments:
Alien II, Alien vs Predator, & Prometheus
Face/Off
Battlefield Earth
The Avengers (1998)
Fantastic Four, Hulk, Transformers, etc
The Nut Job
9
...everything by M. Night Shyamalan except Sixth Sense
...everything by James Cameron except Alien (…the plagiarism lawsuit was successful on Alien, unlike on Avatar –a miscarriage of justice if ever there was one). In particular, Titanic’s amazing story could have been handled so very much better than it was, despite the wonderful sets and acting, if only the storyline and dialogue had been crafted by more competent hands.
We summarize our perspective -as reflected by these rankings- together with our secret recipe for making movie magic over on Zee Formula page.