MovieChat Forums > A Wrinkle in Time (2004) Discussion > Why make this movie if you're going to r...

Why make this movie if you're going to ruin the story?

posted 15 years ago by Asteri-Atypical
3 replies | jump to latest

I have to sincerely wonder about that.

This is not the kind of book which was known to a mass market and had a broad appeal to the Average Joe. It's also not a simple story with banal characters which could be adapted to a fairy tale.

So why pull a cult classic Sci-Fi book like this out from relative obscurity, introduce it to the general population, only to muck it up such that neither the Average Joes who never heard of it nor the long-time fans could appreciate it?

I really don't understand this approach. If you don't love this novel and don't care about being respectful to the original story, then why make a movie from this? There are myriad brain-dead novels and screenplays floating around if you want to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

_______
The American CEO is analogous to the Appendix...

[–] velvetwynter_2 14 years ago

Agreed...I know this book by heart and was greatly disappointed in the movie...leave it to Disney to ruin it.

[–] DarcyBrandon 13 years ago

I read the book back when I was in the fourth grade and against all advise I saw this movie. OH MY GOD! It was so awful, there are no other words to describe it. The OP's title says it all, why did they make this movie? Or better yet, why couldn't they make their own movie since they deviated so much from the book?

[–] kceight 11 years ago

I agree. I think the book has so much potential to be a great movie, but this was a huge disappointment. I'm not surprised about the reports that Madeleine L'Engle thought it was bad. The Black Thing and the forces of evil (in this case, mediocrity) took over the story and turned it into a twisted mess.

I am a fan of the book and series, and thought it would be no problem to watch this movie in one sitting. Instead, it took me several days, because I could only watch a little at a time, it was so cringe-worthy. I kept watching, hoping there was some kind of redemption, but there wasn't. Some of the casting and acting was solid and believable, other performances were campy --- and not fun-campy, but overdone-campy, even cheesy. I couldn't wait for some actors to finish their scenes, I could barely watch them. I liked the actors who played Meg and Calvin, but the characterization of Meg was different than the book, and I never really got past it.

I actually hope a remake is done of this movie, and that it does justice to the book, so this particular version may be obliterated from our memories.