Seeker - Dark is Rising Susan Cooper words/ SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE SPOILERS

[marion11111]

> 
> Eustace_Scrubb:
> Not sure what to think about this.  My first impression was like
> Alla's, that if one had no knowledge of the books and came to The
> Seeker without preconceptions that it might be OK.
> 

marion11111:
One of my 7th graders went on friday for his birthday.  It's all he could talk about before, 
yet when I asked him today what he thought, he clammed right up.  "I dunno, OK, I guess.  
They changed a lot."  I asked him if someone hadn't read the books, did he think they 
might like the movie and he thought for a looooong time and then said "yeah."  I assume 
this means he didn't care for the movie but didn't want to sound negative.  I work with 
shockingly well-mannered teens.

> Eustace_Scrubb:
> Except that when the rooks all started landing outside the houses in
> the village, my son and I couldn't help laughing because they reminded
> us of the owls outside the Dursleys' house in the HPSS movie.  

marion11111:
That's true - they did.  I thought of Hitchcock's The Birds when I saw that.

> Eustace_Scrubb:
> Now, the showing I attended had a number of technical difficulties,
> one of which was that just after Will and Tom enter the Stanton house
> to meet the rest of the family, the screen went blank.  Was that it? 
> Were there credits?  We didn't see them.
> 
> 

marion11111:
I honestly don't remember what happened when they got home, but I know there were 
credits.  I do recall thinking that if my brother showed up with a look-alike I would 
certainly not leap joyously up to welcome him.  I'd think I was either going crazy or that 
somone was playing a joke.  They really did react as if the two boys had just been away on 
a short vacation and not at all like a huge family secret had just been resolved.  I cant 
imagine why they added that plot development.  Couldn't they say that a baby had died?  
Did they think with all the other half-baked storylines going on, we needed one more?  


> Eustace_Scrubb:
> The accents were poorly done overall.  On the school bus at the start,
> everyone seemed to have an American accent.  I thought maybe they were
> starting the story before the Stantons left for the UK.  But no...
> 
> Maggie Barnes didn't have an English accent as far as I could tell. 
> Was she an exchange witch?
> 
> It was also weird that the mall guards in the trailer spoke with
> American accents, but in the actual film they speak the exact same
> lines with British accents (although they do say he "nicked" something
> and have to explain that means "stole").

marion11111:
You're right.  I got the impression from the trailers that the girl-on-the-bus scene and the 
mall-scene were in America before they moved and was surprised to see them set in 
England.

> 
> Eustace_Scrubb:
> This was very strange.  I knew I'd seen interviews with Jonathan
> Jackson about filming the Walker role.  Actually there were more than
> one, but there's one at http://www.superheroflix.com/news/97/23197.php
> My only theory is that the extensive change to this character might
> have been one of the things Cooper protested in her letter and they
> actually listened.  The "guy" in the hoodie was apparently Maggie.

marion11111:
LOL!  No, not *that* hoodie.  The one on the poster and on the doggone website.  
Honestly, he's there you can see his face.  I think they filmed a bunch of stuff with him.  I 
was originally fed up when I read about the character changes, but I'd rather those 
changes than have the character dropped entirey.  He's a decent actor, it's a great 
character (changed or not), important to the scope of the Old Ones' purpose, and he 
seems to be - along with Eccleston - just about the only person connected with this fiasco 
who not only read the book, but liked it!

In the trailer he reaches for Will (or gives him the sign) and in another scene, kisses 
Maggie.  I can't imagine that Susan Cooper objected anymore to this than any thing else 
they did and I have a hard time believing that anyone on this project cared what she 
thought anyway.  I agree with Alla that they must have done some advance screening with 
pretty young kids and were told that the Walker was boring.  That must have required 
them to totally change how Will gets at least one sign, who Maggie leads into betrayal and,  
according to one interview how Will gets out of the flood.  The actor playing this part 
seemed to think he had a pretty big role so I wonder how much they had to rewrite.