Roald Dahl needs to get over himself

so why is being so pissy about it?

Agreed. As much as I love Dahl's books, he seemed to be pretty full of himself. He made the same kind of pompous stink when the original Willy Wonka came out. Who cares if the adaptation isn't word-for-word what you've written? People say Tim Burton's remake is the more faithful adaptation but guess what, it still sucks compared to the original version. The Witches is a great movie and I have absolutely no problem with the ending. If it's true that Dahl stood outside of theaters with a megaphone, shouting at people not to see the film, then he was truly one grouchy old fart.

Does not really matter much now that he is dead.

It's that man again!!

I can certainly understand both points of view but I guess if I was clever enough to write a novel that I was proud of, I wouldn't want too much changed in the movie version. True that it doesn't have to be word for word by maybe coming to a compromise about the level of changes is the correct way to go :) but this film rocks and the ending was perfect so then again maybe a big change is beneficial sometimes :)

i have to say I thought the ending of the book was horrible, and i am glad it was changed for the film. I cannot think why dahl gave the story such an ending in the first place.

Why are you talking about him in the present tense? He died the same *beep* year "The Witches" came out (according to the imdb release date at least). I'm pretty sure he's "over himself" since he is now six feet under and fully decayed by now. Why are you getting so wound up about the opinions of an author who died 26 years ago over something so relatively trivial? The way you are acting you would think he had said he liked to kick puppies after breakfast or something. You are the one getting pissy here.

Roald Dahl's books are amazing. There is no need to be comparing him to any other author, as taste is very much individual...I find Tolkein's books incredibly boring and long winded.

And who exactly says a dark ending wouldn't work? Dark endings are brilliant, and all too rare. I love this film as is but if they do decide to do a newer version I would love to see the ending that the books had or something similarly dark.

The altered ending of the film - the happy ending - doesn't work, and just feels like something that's been shoehorned into it simply because in Hollywood the law is that the ending of a children's film cannot be a downer (even though it was more bittersweet or strange). Do we really buy the idea that Miss Irvine has the powers to reverse the spells of the Grand High Witch herself? Oh - and look, she even found Luke's two pet mice and gives them back to him. Everything's rosy and sunny as can be, and sweet smiley giggly Miss Irvine shows us that witches are not necessarily evil demons who hate children after all. And perhaps children don't even smell of dogs' droppings to her either, like they do to literally all the other witches? No, it just doesn't feel right.

Thank you!

He is pretty good but he really is a diva!