Is JHC No Longer Involved with Alexander?

[scooterfan360]

i'm ticked off that they totally disrepected the origanal story by making the whole family have a bad day i think hbo did a good job with it by taking the origanal story and making it into a animated musical i hope that they don't mess wih lyle the crocodile

 

[D'Snowth]

That's the problem whenever you try to adapt a children's book into a feature-length movie, like Drtooth previously pointed out. On THE CAT IN THE HAT DVD (yes, I have that movie, I actually find it a might entertaining), one of the first things the director confesses on the commentary that one of the biggest challenges for them was how were they going to possibly turn a 200-word book into a 90 minute movie? Many of these movies throw in canon foreigners and come up with all kinds of backstories for different characters, or add extra filler to fill up the entire tire (and because this happened to both Cat in the Hat and Grinch, Dr. Seuss' estate now refuses to have any of his books adapted into live action movies ever again).

I can agree, when you're confined to a little animated special, it's easier to go straight from the book and work with that.

 

[Drtooth]

i'm ticked off that they totally disrepected the origanal story by making the whole family have a bad day i think hbo did a good job with it by taking the origanal story and making it into a animated musical i hope that they don't mess wih lyle the crocodile

There really wasn't much of a story to begin with. It was about a little kid who was having a bad day, some of that admittedly was through his own little boy first world problems, some of it legitimately was going against him. They turned it into something I'd call "Liar Liar with Bad Karma instead of Lies," especially since the kid wish inflicts the bad day on everyone making Alxeander even more of a d-bag than in the original when he was just baby George Costanza. While I didn't like the movie before that reveal, the fact that it's all inflicted via Birthday wish makes it just reprehensible.

On THE CAT IN THE HAT DVD (yes, I have that movie, I actually find it a might entertaining), one of the first things the director confesses on the commentary that one of the biggest challenges for them was how were they going to possibly turn a 200-word book into a 90 minute movie? Many of these movies throw in canon foreigners and come up with all kinds of backstories for different characters, or add extra filler to fill up the entire tire (and because this happened to both Cat in the Hat and Grinch, Dr. Seuss' estate now refuses to have any of his books adapted into live action movies ever again).

While I don't think the Grinch movie improved on the original story, the film worked by taking the mythology and expanding on it with alternate character interpretation. Not a great film, but I do like how the Grinch wanted to destroy Christmas because he felt the Whos were hypocritical, and frankly that's something we can all jive too. Not to mention it was already a half hour special, and that seems to be the source they were using. Said special padded the story out with Chuck Jones animation, though.

Cat in the Hat however... I doubt the producers knew there was a special. It's not fairly well known (mainly because it isn't rebroadcast every year). Angry Beavers sort of referenced it... that's about it. And I might as well go there... something tells me Universal knew this was a terrible film and they made it because they had the license and they wanted to punish Mike Myers for not doing their awful Sprokets movie that thankfully never happened. I mean, there wasn't an SNL skit movie that was a success since Wayne's World, so naturally one based on a lesser known skit that was only relevant in the 80's would have been a massive hit. So when Tim Allen backed down (who would later go on to Last Man Standing, so it MUST'VE been bad for him to have standards) Mike was still under contract and they forced him into that film, and then his career hit hard (though this wasn't the film to end his career).

But yeah... Kid's picture books don't have much story, and they invent one whole cloth. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs took the sweet grandfather tall tale and rationalized it as a well meaning scientist who wants his father to be proud of him that did everything. And while I don't hate the film now, I still don't care much for it. Like I said, they made Shrek once. And that was all luck. And even then, the original pass of the book added some stupid, cliched stuff that thankfully wasn't in the finished product. Shrek was to live with his parents and be a source of embarrassment because he didn't want to be an ogre... no thank you. The 90 minutes of antagonizing Michael Eisner was far more enjoyable.

 

[Luke kun]

There really wasn't much of a story to begin with. It was about a little kid who was having a bad day, some of that admittedly was through his own little boy first world problems, some of it legitimately was going against him. They turned it into something I'd call "Liar Liar with Bad Karma instead of Lies," especially since the kid wish inflicts the bad day on everyone making Alxeander even more of a d-bag than in the original when he was just baby George Costanza. While I didn't like the movie before that reveal, the fact that it's all inflicted via Birthday wish makes it just reprehensible.



While I don't think the Grinch movie improved on the original story, the film worked by taking the mythology and expanding on it with alternate character interpretation. Not a great film, but I do like how the Grinch wanted to destroy Christmas because he felt the Whos were hypocritical, and frankly that's something we can all jive too. Not to mention it was already a half hour special, and that seems to be the source they were using. Said special padded the story out with Chuck Jones animation, though.

Cat in the Hat however... I doubt the producers knew there was a special. It's not fairly well known (mainly because it isn't rebroadcast every year). Angry Beavers sort of referenced it... that's about it. And I might as well go there... something tells me Universal knew this was a terrible film and they made it because they had the license and they wanted to punish Mike Myers for not doing their awful Sprokets movie that thankfully never happened. I mean, there wasn't an SNL skit movie that was a success since Wayne's World, so naturally one based on a lesser known skit that was only relevant in the 80's would have been a massive hit. So when Tim Allen backed down (who would later go on to Last Man Standing, so it MUST'VE been bad for him to have standards) Mike was still under contract and they forced him into that film, and then his career hit hard (though this wasn't the film to end his career).

But yeah... Kid's picture books don't have much story, and they invent one whole cloth. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs took the sweet grandfather tall tale and rationalized it as a well meaning scientist who wants his father to be proud of him that did everything. And while I don't hate the film now, I still don't care much for it. Like I said, they made Shrek once. And that was all luck. And even then, the original pass of the book added some stupid, cliched stuff that thankfully wasn't in the finished product. Shrek was to live with his parents and be a source of embarrassment because he didn't want to be an ogre... no thank you. The 90 minutes of antagonizing Michael Eisner was far more enjoyable.

Shrek was a book first?

 

[Dominicboo1]

Would you guys believe there's an AD right under the comments on my AOL for this movie? LOL!

 

[KremlingWhatnot]

Would you guys believe there's an AD right under the comments on my AOL for this movie? LOL!

People still use AOL?

 

[Dominicboo1]

People still use AOL?

Yeah, my dad likes me using it for parental controls so I don't have to worry about viruses. He's overprotective, but better that than not interested I suppose.

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, I saw the movie today, and indeed saw a credit referring to it as a Jim Henson Company production (feels weird seeing a "Jim Henson Company production" credit... usually The Jim Henson Company might get a "The Jim Henson Company presents..." credit, and back in the Jim Henson Productions days some production credits read "...from Jim Henson Productions"... Can't remember off-hand what the Jim Henson Pictures credit was like).

I'd say that the movie was decent. When the rest of the family starts having their bad day, it seems like it's already a lot worse than Alexander's bad day at the beginning of the film.

And it seems there are times when it looks like things are looking up for the family, only to get worse again. Maybe not a big issue, but seems to happen a bit too much, and seems like they start looking up over the situation a bit too early.

It also seems like Alexander is hardly in the movie once the family begins being cured with a bad day. There's a lot more focus on the others during the middle of the film.

Some things seem to go nowhere. Alexander suddenly has to bring the school guniea pig home, which he doesn't seem to want to do, and yet nothing bad involving the guniea pig happens. When the kid who's throwing his party on the same day as Alexander's party has to cancel, he points out to is dream girl that she can now go to his party, and she seems uninterested for some reason (bad acting, perhaps?), and then we don't see her again until she shows up at the party. Could there have been some deleted scenes concerning this?

Minor spoiler here: When the father gets invited to a job interview meeting at a restaurant, things seem to go well for him, the people from the company seem impressed, but then he gets set on hire, and he thinks he blew the interview because of that? I think it should have been clear to them that it was an accident, and being accidentally set on fire at a business meeting shouldn't be a reason to not get hired. Some bad writing there.

 

[Drtooth]

Minor spoiler here: When the father gets invited to a job interview meeting at a restaurant, things seem to go well for him, the people from the company seem impressed, but then he gets set on hire, and he thinks he blew the interview because of that? I think it should have been clear to them that it was an accident, and being accidentally set on fire at a business meeting shouldn't be a reason to not get hired. Some bad writing there.

"Some bad writing there?"

"I'd say some bad writing everywhere!"