What can we expect from the upcoming "Artemis Fowl" movie?
This is something I'm currently incredibly torn on. For several reasons. I shall address the main three below. But first, some background. The Artemis Fowl series is a series of books by Irish bestselling author Eoin (pronounced Owen) Colfer. There are a total of eight books in the now completed set. To give you an idea of the premise, the first book follows Artemis, a criminal mastermind, as he kidnaps a faerie in order to steal gold from The People to fund the search for his missing father. He's twelve years old. The books also follow Captain Holly Short, an elf in LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police, Reconnaissance division) and the secondary protagonist of the series. Correction, she's the first and only female captain in the otherwise male orientated world of lower elements law enforcement. She's sarcastic and clever and resourceful, kind of a badass, as well as being in my top three favourite female characters of all time list (next to Katara and Hermione). There are also such characters as Butler, Artemis' loyal bodyguard, Commander Root the beetroot faced head of the LEP, Foaly the paranoid centaur genius and Mulch Diggums the kleptomaniac dwarf. The world created is thoroughly engaging, the characters all well rounded and interesting, the situations inventive, the dialogue witty. Basically, these books are awesome. You should read them. Right now. Seriously, I'll wait, go read them.
With so many amazing things that I love about this series, you can imagine that I had some mixed feelings when it was finally announced that the Artemis Fowl movie, which was sold to Marimax in 2001 and has sat on a shelf somewhere since, was finally going ahead. Harvey Weinstein, the man who helped put the LOTR films into production, is on board to produce in conjunction with Disney. The screenplay is being written by Michael Goldenberg, screenwriter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Robert de Niro is one of the executive producers. When I heard this, one part of me was fangirling out, like; "OMGWANTWANTWANT,IT'SGONNABEAWESOME,CAN'TWAIT,CAN'TWAIT,CAN'TWAIT!"
and the more newly formed part of me that actually thinks about movies critically and was considering past failures with other beloved books of mine, bringing us to point number one.
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| Ahem, ahem |
1. I've been hurt before...
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| I'm not saying it's not ripping off HP even a little... |
Ok, so in the recent years (and by that I mean in my recent memory) there have been three incidents of desecrating my childhood through a shitty movie adaptation. The most recent is Percy Jackson. I couldn't watch all of this movie. It's so bad, even as a standalone move, but knowing the source material made watching it so much harder (hence my inability to endure all of it). The books, while by no means masterpieces, have a completely different tone to the movie. Yes, there is a certain amount of "harry potter with greek gods" about it but the premise is still clever and the situations are inventive, especially if you're familiar with the original Greek myths. The books were written with love and wit, the movie was made to cling to the coat tails of the HP franchise and cash in on that. Ugh, and they mangled the characters, they drained any fun in favour of the dark tone of the later HP movies, completely defeating the point of a lot of the sentiment in the books. And, oh my god, the casting was so wrong. People, why do we keep putting Logan Lerman in action roles? The only thing I've seen him in where he was right for the part was in "Perks of Being a Wallflower". Why? Because he always looks sad! His face... it's just a depressed face, his eyes are the most washed out I've ever seen. He just looks like he doesn't want to be there, and that worked for Perks because that's the character. In anything else? No. Just... no.
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| He looks like he's either high, just been arrested or sleep deprived. Or all three! |
So there's that, another betrayal was the film version of Eragon. Again, Eragon is a taaad cash-in-on-LOTR-y but, like PJ it did so with love and brought some great new stuff to the table. But the movie was so bad. Like, they kind of got the tone but it felt super rushed and they castrated Arya's character, making her little more than a damsel in distress and they just chucked a load of Galbatorix in there (you don't see him for like the entire book series and that works really well. In the film it's like, heeeere's Galbatorix!) Ugh, I don't even...
Thirdly, I'll touch upon a movie that many felt was a betrayal (which it kinda was, in many ways) but I still enjoyed. The movie adaptation of "A Series of Unfortunate Events". Why didn't I hate this movie as much as I could have? Jim Fucking Carrey. He is perfect in this film, I couldn't picture anyone more suited to the role than this man. But that's pretty much where the movie's good features end. They did sorta get the tone but the pacing was terrible, the characters felt incredibly flat (aside from Carrey's Olaf, Connolly and Streep's casting were also decent) and the entire thing feels confused. And they added a scenario with a car and a train where it was totally unnecessary. What, were there not enough scenes to choose from in the other thirteen books?! Also, by squashing the first three books together, so much time is lost for Snicket's witty word definitions and anecdotes. The heart is gone in the movie. If you want a good version, read the books. I'll give it some credit for the tone and some semblance of effort.
But the other two suck. And I've heard terrible things about the "Avatar: The Last Airbender" film. I haven't mustered up the courage to see that. I've been hurt too much by shitty adaptations of things I love. I don't even want to go into my opinions on the film adaptations of Inkheart, The Spiderwick Chronicles or the Vampire's Assistant. *Shudder*. Be gentle, Artemis Fowl, I don't know if I can take much more disappointment.
2. It's Irish
I don't know if I've mentioned this much but I'm Irish. I live in Dublin (none of that "I'm Irish-American" stuff here, I've lived here since I was four. My accent is rather confused though). For a country with a population of 6 million, we have an extremely prominent presence in film and literature. And that's not counting Irish-Americans (of which there are more than actual Irish people. Seriously like 15 mil) We have a reputation to uphold here! Because of late, there haven't been many good films set in Ireland. "The Guard" (which I have yet to see) was our last success, Grabbers did alright review wise but I haven't heard anyone yelling about how amazing it is. And, um, did you see Leap Year?
On top of this, when it comes to children's/YA fiction, Irish authors know what's what. Three series in particular come to my mind, all explicitly set in Dublin's fair city: our friend Artemis Fowl, Skullduggery Pleasant, a series by Derek Landy a kind of supernatural detective story with a wisecracking skeleton and The Rover Adventures by Roddy Doyle, a three book series featuring creatures called gigglers who give people their comeuppance by strategically placing dog poo in their paths, a character called Mister Mack (Mister being his first name), snails plotting world domination and talking cactuses. All three series are fantastically written, never talking down to their generally younger audience. Also, in the Rover Adventures there are fourth wall jokes. I like fourth wall jokes. 
All this begs the question: Why have no movies been made of these works? Ireland has a decent film industry and the aforementioned series are all fairly successful, you'd think someone would try it. The Skullduggery books were actually being adapted into a film with Warner Brothers but Landy stopped it, on account of the script being "dreadful". I can see why someone would be apprehensive about adapting these specific books to film: they're all fantasy and would take a fair bit of either CGI or lots of prosthetics. But even then, the books are successful. If you make a movie you will have an audience. Even if they end up hating it for forever tainting their childhood, they will still see it. That's at least some motivation to spend some money. That said, I don't know if I should be encouraging this too much. The rule of crappy movie adaptations still exists.
Speaking of, let's take a look at a similar project that went terribly; the Saga of Darren Shan series by Irish author Darren Shan. I know I said I wouldn't above but it's relevant, I'm allowed to be inconsistent. Now, I really liked these books, there are twelve of them, all fairly short, you can go through one or two in a couple of nights. They had an original take on vampires and vampire society, the characters were interesting and creative and the story was well paced over the course of the twelve short installations. The story follows Darren Shan, a twelve year old boy with a spider obsession who becomes a Vampire's apprentice to save his best friend's life after he inadvertently put him in the hospital . He fakes his own death, becomes a half vampire and travels around with his master, eventually becoming entangled in the politics of Vampire society. The books explored some heavy enough topics of death, responsibility, free will and loyalty all the while being aimed at children and adolescents. They were very well done and I'd definitely recommend them.
In 2009, a film was made, "based" (I use that in the lightest way possible) on the first book in the series. I hated it. They made terrible decisions with the story, changed half the cannon, stuck stuff in that didn't happen until the tenth book and somehow managed to drain all character from the protagonist. I don't know if it was the acting (it was pretty abysmal on Darren's part) or just the script but oh dear god was it bad. They also made Darren sixteen and added an arbitrary love interest. This added nothing to the story except a shoehorned in "believe in yourself" side message. Allow me to illustrate. In the book and movie, Darren has issues with drinking human blood because he doesn't want to be a monster. Now, in this universe, vampires can survive on only small amounts of human blood but Darren still resists. In the books, the first time he drinks blood is when his friend has been mortally injured and drinking from him will preserve part of his personality and memories in Darren. It's a very touching moment in the books, it's well built up and the preservation idea is a poignant concept. To contrast this, in the movie the first time Darren drinks is from arbitrary love interest (who is a monkey girl for some reason) because he needs strength for this battle that goes nowhere and resolves nothing. The message is: It's consensual so it's ok. Seriously movie? You have a touching, emotional scenario right there in the books and you discard it for what? A cheap action scene and obligatory romance? I- it's not even worth it. This is a prime example of the adapters not understanding the source material and is generally a huge problem with adaptation. I hope to fuck they do better with Artemis Fowl.
3. Feminism and stuff
We need a Holly Short out there, you guys. Holly is awesome. She's a female cop in a man's world (um, male faeries' world?) She has real emotions and ambitions, she's a little irresponsible and rash at times but she makes up for it in her resourcefulness and drive. She's not afraid to stand up to her superiors for better or worse when she feels she can save someone or prevent catastrophe. She's not always right, either, but she'll be damned if she doesn't work to cover for her past failings. She can fight, but she's not totally out of touch with her compassionate side. And she's not a love interest. Did I mention she gets some really awesome one liners?
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| A small extract from the graphic novel. If de Niro doesn't cast himself as Commander "Beetroot" Root, I will hurt somebody |
Basically, she's fifty times more human and real than the likes of Bella Swan and Anastasia Steele, despite being neither human nor real (at least in our world). We need strong role models like Holly for girls growing up in this post Harry Potter world, especially those who aren't into typical girly stuff. We have Katniss Everdeen, I guess, but her situation is so far removed from our world that it can be difficult to relate to her at times, given how much she's been through. Who else do we really have in popular modern fiction? I mentioned Katara and Hermione but their time in the public eye is pretty much over now, so their influence is more restricted. The Skullduggery Pleasant series also has a well developed, badass female character in Stephanie Edgly (AKA Valkyrie Cain) the main protagonist, as well as in Tanith Low and China Sorrows, supporting characters who are equally as engaging and well rounded. Depending on how the Artemis Fowl movie goes, Skullduggery may be given a much deserved chance on the silver screen. Please don't fail, Artemis Fowl movie. I beg this of you.
So yeah, I'm really, reeeeally hoping that they do a good job on this. The team they've got working on it have worked on proficient book to film adaptations in the past, that should be a good sign. And given the great dialogue contained in the books, they can't go too far wrong with that, right? Thems some famous last words right there. I'm gonna shut up now, lest I jinx it.
Go check out the books I've mentioned if you're into this sort of thing (or if you're not, might open your world up a little, never know) I can guarantee you won't be disappointed.
Embrace the Madness
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